4 Toby Neal- Broken ferns

by Neal, Toby

  “Seriously?” Lei felt a flush of embarrassed anger burn her face. “Not funny.” She got off the bike. “Thanks for the invite, Sophie.”

  “Lei—I’m sorry. I was just teasing.” Marcella followed her as Lei strode toward the door.

  “See you at work,” Lei tossed over her shoulder. She beeped the truck open and hopped in, slamming the door.

  The truck revved satisfyingly as she pulled out, but it wasn’t until she was back on the highway that she felt the prickle of tears behind her eyes. She liked to think she wasn’t usually so touchy, but the combination of Alika, their history, and the sheer physical beauty of Ang and Marcella had her on the proverbial ropes. She felt like a pale shadow of herself.

  Lei missed Stevens and Keiki with a sudden stabbing pain, so acute she grasped the steering wheel, swallowing back a sob. Maybe it was just a stomachache and what she needed was food.

  She pulled into the same Burger King drive-through and ordered a Whopper meal. What the hell—fat and carbs might settle her churning stomach. She chomped down the burger in a few bites, and it rested, an uneasy brick, in her belly.

  Lei drove back toward her neighborhood, but the thought of the empty, depressing apartment was too much to bear. Passing her building, she kept driving, this time heading down into Waikiki. Her route took her past Kwon’s apartment.

  That crime could be her undoing—somehow she had to find out who’d shot him. Getting Kwon’s shooter behind bars was the only way she’d be totally safe. But how could she investigate without stirring up Kamuela’s interest? She rolled her windows down to take in the sight of tourists clogging Kalakaua Avenue as she munched the comforting greasy saltiness of fries.

  Her cell rang and she checked it—Marcella. She let it go to voice mail. She wasn’t ready to talk about anything yet, and she knew her friend would want to. One more person she’d failed—she wasn’t much of a friend to Marcella, either.

  She spotted a young man in a hoodie, attitude palpable as he shouldered his way purposefully through the wandering crowds. Something about him reminded her of the Smiley Bandit—youth, angst, and attitude now airborne. What was this unsub up to? Was he really some kind of modern-day flying Robin Hood? If so, she couldn’t help liking him even more.

  Her cell rang again—this time her father, Wayne Texeira, in California. They talked only every few weeks, so she put the Bluetooth resting in the brake well into her ear and answered it.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, Lei-girl. How’s Honolulu treating you this week?”

  “Okay.” Lei thought of all she couldn’t say to her ex-con father about her cases, her broken heart, her chickenshit moment at the gym—it would fill a book. “How’s Aunty Rosario and the restaurant?”

  “Same old, same old. We’re planning a trip over, though, for Christmas.”

  “Sounds great!” It really did sound great—though she’d have to get some furniture for her apartment if they followed through and showed up in a couple of months. “Hey, Dad, it’s a good thing you called. Remember the Charlie Kwon shooting?”

  Her father was silent a moment, probably taken aback by the abrupt change of subject.

  “’Course.” His voice was clipped. He obviously still remembered her phone call to ask if he’d done it, too.

  “Well, it’s never been solved, and I’m starting to think I’d better work on it somehow. I visited him the day he was shot, you know, and I’m still worried it will come back on me.”

  “You told me then that you didn’t do it. You have to let the facts be enough. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “I know, and you’re right about that. But maybe there’s some way I can point the investigation to the right answer or something—get some more insurance for myself. So I was wondering if you knew of anyone who might have been involved. Had motive, you know. Some of the Hilo people, maybe?” It was a long shot, but worth taking—and she’d never asked him since their abruptly ended conversation a year ago.

  She waited the long moment he took to answer, driving through the stop-and-go traffic into the cool green of Kapiolani Park.

  “Any number of people wanted Kwon dead,” Wayne said. “But there’s one I think you might want to get to know anyway. Your grandfather.”

  “What?” Lei pulled into the park’s nearby lot. This surprise was going to take her full attention. She brought the truck up under a spreading monkeypod tree in the generous parking area. “You mean the Matsumotos?” Wayne and Rosario’s parents were gone, so it had to be her Matsumoto grandfather. She hadn’t seen them since she was a baby.

  “Yes. Your grandfather Soga Matsumoto contacted me last year. He’s been following your career from a distance and he lost track of you after you moved to Maui. He tracked me down, wanted your address, and said his wife died.” Wayne sighed, a long, shuddering loss of breath. “I was pretty angry. They hadn’t done anything to help you when your mom died and you almost went into foster care…I thought he didn’t deserve that chance, and I told him off. I told him about Kwon, too, to make him feel bad.”

  “Wow.” Lei felt the familiar tightness of anxiety and loss in her chest. Her family life had never been simple. She found her hand sliding into her pocket to retrieve the white-gold disc. She flipped it between her fingers. A ray of sunlight passed through the windshield, glancing off the embedded diamonds and casting sparkles onto the felted interior of the truck’s roof.

  “Yeah, I was angry. I wanted him to suffer, to feel bad for being such a bad grandfather. I have his address. I felt the Lord telling me my attitude was wrong later, so I called him back and apologized, but he wouldn’t answer my call.”

  “And did you give him my address?”

  “Yes. But I guess he never contacted you?”

  “No. No, he didn’t.” And now her grandmother was dead and she’d never know her. Lei leaned her forehead against the steering wheel, closing her eyes. Somehow the unexplored possibility had been a little something she’d cherished.

  “Well, maybe you could find him. If you felt like it.” Wayne’s voice had gone tentative. “I’m sorry, sweets. I should have contacted you when he got in touch with me, but I was worrying I’d mucked it up—and I’ve already mucked up so much in your life. I pray for you every day, you know.”

  “Thanks, Dad. It’s okay. It wouldn’t have made a difference, and I’m sure some rigid old Japanese man didn’t have anything to do with Kwon’s death. He’d never get his hands dirty like that.”

  “Your grandpa was a Korean War vet—decorated and everything. Maylene liked to talk about how hard he fought in the war, how he never accepted the military’s bias against Nisei, Japanese. He’s got a lot of the samurai in him.” Wayne’s voice was colored with respect. “I’ve always thought Yumi was the one behind them cutting us off. Maylene used to say she never did anything right for her mother and finally gave up trying.”

  “But it’s a long stretch in any case.”

  “I agree. But you live in Honolulu now. He does, too, and he’s a lonely old man. It’s an opportunity; that’s all I’m saying. That’s what the Lord’s put on my heart to tell you, anyway.”

  “You talk about God like he tells you what to do.” Lei was never sure how to take her father’s prison conversion—it seemed sincere because her aunt confirmed Wayne’s involvement with his local church, his prayer habits and clean living.

  “He does. It’s a relationship, not a religion—for me.”

  “I do pray, but God doesn’t answer.” Lei closed her eyes, rubbed the disc.

  “Maybe He answers, but you aren’t listening. Scripture says it’s simple: if you believe in your heart, and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.”

  “Dad, I don’t need saving.” Lei pushed up off the steering wheel. “If God loves me, why am I so miserable? I gave up everything for this job, and I’m finding—it’s not enough. I’m not even sure I want to stay with the FBI. Stevens got married while I was in the Academy. And h
e’s got my dog.”

  “Oh, honey.” Her father’s voice sank. “I’m so sorry. I know you loved him. I thought you guys were together even after you left for the Academy.”

  “No. He told me he was tired of waiting because I wouldn’t get married. So he married that Thai girl we rescued, of all people. And I liked her, too!” Lei felt her throat closing on the betrayal and coughed, clenching her fist around the disc until it dug painfully into her fingers. “I know it’s not fair to feel this way—he never lied to me or led me on—but I guess I just didn’t believe he’d find someone else. What we had was—special.” Such an inadequate word to describe the passion, the camaraderie, the thousand shared moments that had healed her—and she’d thrown them away.

  “God must have someone better for you.”

  “Not interested.” She shook her head. “I need another man like a hole in the head. Give me my grandfather’s phone number and address. I’ll think about looking him up.”

  Wayne read it off to her, and she jotted it down in her spiral notebook. “You know, you could ask for Keiki back, Lei.”

  “Not a bad idea. Only, then I’d have to talk to him.”

  “For Keiki, you’d guts up and do it. That dog really is something special.”

  “I know. Thanks, Dad. And thanks for the prayers, too.” She hung up. She’d never shared so much with him, and in spite of sticky moments in the conversation, she felt better.

  Someone loved her. Three someones, if she counted her dad, her aunty, and if her grandfather really had been following her career at a distance, maybe he loved her a little bit. Enough to kill her molester? It was worth checking out, even if it was a long shot.

  She was finally ready to go back to her claustrophobic apartment.

  Chapter 10

  “Hello?” Her grandfather’s voice had a dry quality, like rubbing sticks together.

  “Hello. Is this Soga Matsumoto?” Lei put police in her crisp tone as she sat on her couch, the white-gold disc on the coffee table in front of her.

  “It is. What is this about?”

  “This is Lei. Leilani Rosario Matsumoto Texeira. Your granddaughter.” It felt important to say her full name, though her tongue tripped across its unfamiliarity.

  “Lei.” He seemed to be gathering his thoughts, adjusting. “I am happy to hear from you.”

  “Oh really?” She let the pause spin out, waiting to see what he would say next.

  “Yes. You must have gotten my number from Wayne.”

  “I did. He says you live in Honolulu.”

  “Yes, out by Punchbowl.” The extinct crater, site of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, was an easy, striking landmark in Honolulu. “I have a house. The same one your mother grew up in.”

  “Okay.”

  “I have been following your career. Congratulations on the FBI.”

  “Oh. Well. Thanks.” Lei felt her throat close on all the questions—why hadn’t they ever contacted her, found her when she was a child, when their daughter, Maylene, was descending into the darkness of her addiction? Why had they let her go to her aunt (though that had been the right place) without even a word or a card in all those years?

  “I bet you wonder where we were all those years,” he said, seemingly reading her mind.

  “Kind of, yes.”

  “Your mother, Maylene, she was a great disappointment to us. To your grandmother Yumi, particularly. Yumi, she never did see eye to eye with Maylene, and she didn’t want to seem like…” His voice trailed off.

  “Like she approved of her choices.”

  “Right, as you say. And we lost track of Maylene after Wayne went to prison. I didn’t even know what was happening until we had a call from the police department that she’d died, that you’d gone into foster care with your aunt. And Yumi, she said Maylene had made her choices.”

  Lei closed her eyes, reached forward to pick up the disc, rubbed it. She realized in that moment that at some point in the last few years, handling something when stressed had gone from a coping technique she needed to a habit. She set the disc down.

  This conversation was way harder than she’d imagined. She wondered what the hell her father was thinking, bullying her into calling.

  “But I never—I never agreed with it. I always wanted to find you.” Soga’s voice had a vibration in it—age or grief? It was hard to tell.

  “Why didn’t you?” Lei burst out, feeling the sting of tears at the back of her eyes, thinking of those early years with Rosario in California, a Hawaii girl getting used to a new school, teased for her unique, multiethnic looks. Even a birthday card, one of those sparkle-covered puppy ones, would have meant so much to her back then.

  “Yumi, she had her ways.” Suppressed emotion colored his formal tone with the richness of regret. “I should have contacted you anyway. I’m so glad you called, because I can say I’m sorry.”

  Lei imagined how hard it was for him to say those words. To a first-generation Japanese man of his age, such admissions were a sign of weakness—and proof she mattered to him.

  “It’s okay. It was what it was.” A variation on the phrase her therapist Dr. Wilson had often used to help her accept the unacceptable.

  “I imagine Wayne told you—your grandmother is gone now.”

  “Yes. And I’m sorry I never knew her.” Lei cleared her throat around the tightness there. “Even if she never wanted to know me.”

  “It’s not that.” He sighed, a long, sad sound. “Yumi, she was proud.”

  “Well, I do have something to ask you. Something kind of hard.” Lei straightened up a bit. Maybe he’d confide in her if she just came out with it, if she was vulnerable first. “Wayne told you I was abused by a man named Charlie Kwon?”

  A swift intake of breath. Her grandfather hadn’t expected that. “Yes.”

  “Well, you must also know his murder is unsolved. I have to tell you something.” Lei steeled herself, picking up and squeezing the white-gold disc so tightly that the embedded diamonds dug into the pads of her fingers. “I visited him the day he died. To tell him off. Someone must have seen me—even though I was disguised—because they want to question a woman matching my description. I didn’t do it, but if I’m questioned and my visit to him comes out, it will probably ruin my career.”

  A long silence ticked out between them. Lei realized she didn’t know what he looked like. She tried to imagine a seamed, stern face that went with the voice, but nothing came into focus. She could hardly remember her mother’s face either, and as always, she felt that mixture of sad and angry that thoughts of her mother brought back to her.

  “I am sorry. I don’t know what you think I could do about this,” Soga said. The dry formality was back in his voice. “This situation is difficult for you, but I am sure you will be able to handle it. You’ve handled much worse.”

  “Yes, I have.” She blew out a breath. “Yeah, I can handle it. Some crazy thing—I don’t know—I wondered if you knew anything about his death.”

  “I knew that he died and that he deserved to die.” There was steel in her grandfather’s voice, and Lei remembered what her father had said: “There’s a lot of the samurai in him.”

  “Okay. Forget I asked. I’m just stressed out. Maybe we can have lunch sometime.”

  “Yes. I have a favorite noodle house—I think you would like it.” He gave an address, and she heard the relief at the change of subject. She gave a tentative time the next week, when she hoped the investigation would have simmered down to a manageable level, and said goodbye.

  The jarring buzz of Lei’s phone vibrating on the edge of the bathroom sink after her shower had her reaching for it even as she wrapped a towel around herself. “Hello?” She forgot to answer with her title, and winced.

  “Lei.” Marcella’s voice breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thanks for picking up. Listen, I was an ass. Let me make it up to you.”

  “I don’t think I’m up for going out tonight.” Lei thought of the disco
s and neon-hip bars Marcella liked, how uncomfortable they made her feel. “How about you come over? I’ll order some Chinese if you’re hungry, and we’ll have those Coronas we never got to.”

  “Good. Because I’m outside your door.” Thumping penetrated as far as the bathroom. “Come on. Let me in.”

  Lei checked through the peephole before undoing all her security measures and letting Marcella in. Her friend looked freshly showered, cheeks flushed from the gym and long brown hair brushed back.

  “Medicinal purposes.” Marcella held up a bottle of white wine and a pint of Häagen-Dasz Vanilla Swiss Almond, Lei’s favorite. “Anything else we eat is optional.”

  “Thanks.” Lei took the items. “Now you get to see what a hole this place is. I was trying to put that off—like forever.”

  “It’s not bad,” Marcella said, looking around at the yard-sale futon and coffee table that were the extent of Lei’s furnishings. “Needs a homey touch or two, that’s all.”

  “C’mon. You saw my other place—the one that burned. I had a nice leather couch, paintings…” Lei’s voice caught, and she turned away, tightening her towel. “There are some menus by the phone—why don’t you call for Chinese? I don’t need much. I had a burger after the gym.”

  Lei went into her bedroom and shut the door. She didn’t want Marcella to see the bareness of her room. She dressed quickly, realizing as she did so that part of her reluctance to buy anything was that she’d never really mourned what she’d lost in the fire on Maui—all the furniture she and Stevens had purchased together, the king-sized bed she’d hauled to three islands, the paintings she’d chosen with such care.

  It was time to get over all that, but this pathetic apartment just wasn’t the place. She wanted her dog back, and to get Keiki, she needed to make some changes.

  She came out, scrunching Curl Tamer into her damp, wayward locks. Marcella sat in the corner of the couch. Two plastic glasses of wine waited on the coffee table. “Chinese is on the way. I haven’t eaten since the gym, so there’s going to be a lot.”

  “That’s fine.” Lei sat next to her friend, poked her in the biceps. “You could have warned me about Alika—it wasn’t a fun surprise for either of us. I still feel bad for all that went down on Kaua`i with him.”