Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series)
Page 23
“You think they wen’ drink em?” Okapa said, his bushy brows drawing together. “Drinking beer while they taking our sacred carvings! I like kill em! Prolly was one stupid haole with no respect, no Hawaiian would do this!”
Stevens looked up at Okapa. He could feel the other man's rage, and he stood deliberately, uncoiling to his own full height, without breaking eye contact. “You want to be careful about what you say, Mr. Okapa. It's just a beer can. We don't know anything about it.”
Okapa whirled and stomped off through the underbrush toward the road.
Kealoha rejoined Stevens. “I took off everything I could find.” The young man had packed up the crime kit too. Stevens glanced at the carefully stowed evidence collected. “Good job. What can you tell me about our volatile friend here?”
A flush stained Kealoha's neck. “He one kupuna—an elder. He…” Stevens could see the struggle the young man had in disclosing anything negative about a respected man in his culture. Stevens remembered something from Pono's cultural tips and looked away from Kealoha, turning to align his body with the officer’s, standing side by side. He addressed his remarks out over the heiau. “I'm worried about Mr. Okapa. I don't think some half-cocked vigilante justice is going to help the situation. I don't like the idea of Okapa having a gun.”
“I know.” Kealoha blew out a breath and Stevens could sense his relief that a superior officer wasn't suspecting the respected kupuna. “I'm worried about him too. He has a reputation for anger, that's why his wife left—but this heiau is his life. I think he'll cool down. I'll talk to him.”
“Good.” Stevens moved out toward the narrow, overgrown path. “As terrible as this is, the last thing we need is some kind of violent racially-motivated outburst when we haven't even identified a suspect.” He paused. “Speaking of—what is this scene telling you? I want to hear what you've been able to assess from it.”
Kealoha swiveled, hands on hips, imitating Stevens’s stance. “I think there were at least two in the crew. They had proper tools, came prepared. They knew exactly what they wanted from what I can tell, and they worked fast according to Mr. Okapa, which means they probably came ahead of time during the day to case where the artifacts were.”
“Very good.” Stevens clapped the young man on the shoulder, and set off down the narrow, overgrown path with Kealoha following. “Further, I think they were professionals in removal technique. I could see very little waste or fracture on the rock faces, and believe it or not, those hand jacks are hard to operate. So, my sense is that these are pros procuring something for a buyer, which means they're probably connected with the Oahu desecrations.”
“We have to stop this,” Kealoha muttered. “Whatever it takes.”
They emerged beside the cruiser and the Bronco. Okapa had already crossed the now-busy highway, and Stevens could see him glowering at them from a chair on the front porch of his battered, tin-roofed cottage.
“Why don't you go take his official statement?” Stevens said. “Give him a chance to tell the tale and cool down.”
“Yes, sir.” Kealoha looked both ways and trotted across the road, already taking out his notebook.
Stevens beeped open the Bronco and stowed the crime kit and evidence bags in the back. Getting into the SUV, he looked over at the tableau across the street. Kealoha was seated beside Okapa, one hand on the older man's shoulder, head down listening as the older man gesticulated.
Turning the key, Stevens hoped this was the last he was going to see of Okapa, but he had a bad feeling about it.
Haiku Station was a small former dry-goods store across a potholed parking lot from a large Quonset-style former pineapple-packing plant that had been converted into a shopping center. He had a small crew under his command—one other detective, four patrol officers and Kealoha, a new recruit.
Stevens felt good about how Kealoha was coming along. The benefits of nurturing talent had been drummed into him by his first commanding officer in Los Angeles, along with the fact that all the training in the world couldn't make up for a recruit without the “gut instinct” for police work.
Stevens lifted a hand briefly to the watch officer on duty as he passed through the open room where his team's desks were situated, heading for the back room where his office was located. He hadn't seen Lei since yesterday—his wife was at a one-day training in a wilderness area learning ordinance retrieval, and he missed her.
He supposed that was the word to apply to a feeling like a limb had been amputated, like something vital was missing. He wondered how he was going to deal with it when she left for a two-week multi-agency intensive training on IEDs in California.
Sitting at his desk, he phoned her on speed dial even as he twirled the dial of the lock on the evidence locker in the corner of his office.
“Hey.” Her slightly husky voice conjured her instantly before him—tilted brown eyes sleepy, curls disordered, that slender body he was always hungry for, warm in their bed. “You woke me up—I just got home and we were up most of the night.”
“Wish I was there waking you up some other way.” He stacked the bag with the beer can and the labeled plastic boxes holding the gel tape on the shelf and picked the clipboard dangling from a string to log in the items.
“Me too.” He heard her yawn, pictured her olive-skinned, toned arms stretching, her small round breasts distending the thin tank top she liked to wear to bed as her body arched. He felt himself respond to the rustle of her tiny movements in a way that wasn’t appropriate for work, and he gritted his teeth. “So, when are you going to be home?” she asked.
“Usual time. Got called out early—a heiau desecration.” He sketched a few details—as a fellow officer, she often helped with his cases, and he hers.
“That sucks so bad.” Lei yawned again. “I’m too fuzzy to make sense. I’m going to turn the phone off and try to get some sleep.”
“I’ll see you later. I love you,” he said. He’d said it to her every day since their marriage a month ago.
“I love you too. Come home soon. I’ll keep the bed warm.” She clicked off.
Lei Texeira. Scary brave. Smart, intuitive, neurotic as hell. As necessary to him as breathing.
Stevens set the phone down, trying not to think of her under the silky sheets in that skimpy tank top, and that he was doing his best to get her pregnant. Trying not to think about the spooky threat that had come against them on their honeymoon, always somewhere on his mind. Well, she’d have the alarm on, and their dog, Keiki, on the bed with her.
A knock at the doorjamb. He looked up, irritated. “Yes?”
Kealoha came in and shut the door. “I gotta tell you something, sir.”
….To Be Continued.
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Watch for these titles:
Acknowledgments
Dark Lava
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