by CindySample
Rafe smiled wide, exhibiting a large gap where both front teeth seem to have disappeared. “Yes, missy, I look out for you. I will not let no big shark make lunch from you.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. I hoped any sharks hovering near the Sea Jinx were on a low-fat no-protein diet.
I eased down the rungs far less gracefully than Liz. My vision is so bad that if I didn’t wear my contacts, I wouldn’t even recognize an octopus until it had wrapped all eight tentacles around me. I de-fogged the mask before I secured it and hoped no saltwater would intrude.
The ocean looked dark, deep and scary from my masked perspective, but I hated feeling like a wimp. Plus I was surrounded by other snorkelers. What could go wrong? I secured my snorkel and placed my face down in the water where I discovered an incredible new world.
The schools of brilliantly colored fish stunned me. Tiny yellow fish darted here and there, checking out the chubby mermaid who disturbed their play. Larger fish ogled me and I ogled them back.
I continued swimming away from the boat and a huge rock formation floated up on my right. The rocks slowly moved apart and I found myself face to face with a giant turtle. Then something tugged at my left foot. Was a shark about to turn me into an antipasto platter?
I tried swimming away, but the creature refused to let go. I thrashed my legs in a scissor-like movement disturbing the tiny schools of fish. Within seconds, they disappeared from sight.
My foot finally pulled free and I surfaced. My sigh of relief lasted less than a second before a dark shadow hovered next to me. I squinted at the large mammal, which did not possess a long snout and, oddly enough, wore swim trunks more iridescent than the fish I’d admired moments before.
I straightened and treaded water while I removed my mouth guard to scold my visitor. “Stan, why did you grab me?”
With his head above the waves, Stan fumbled with his own equipment before taking out the piece of rubber stuffed between his thin lips. “Sorry. I was afraid if I didn’t latch on to your foot, I’d never be able to stop you. You need to come back to the Sea Jinx.”
“Is it my mother? Is she okay?”
“Your mother is fine. For now.”
“What do you mean?” The heart palpitations I’d felt earlier when I thought I was about to turn into shark bait returned in full force.
“Dave was able to identify the body they found on the rocks.”
I put my hand over my heart. “Oh no. Who is it?”
“It’s Keiki.”
“Omigod. Do they know what happened to her?”
“I don’t know the details, but it gets even worse.”
“How on earth could it get any worse?”
“They’ve taken your brother in for questioning.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The weather mirrored the group’s dour mood on our ride back to the Kailua pier. Dark storm clouds shifted ominously in the sky as we shifted nervously on the boat. Amanda did her best to entertain the passengers by sharing the mating secrets of humpback whales. The subject seemed to enthrall the young woman, but I wasn’t in the mood to think about dating or mating, on land or at sea.
The fifty-minute ride felt like fifty hours, although Steve had the engines on full throttle. We found out the police had not officially arrested Dave, but after meeting with him at the restaurant, they’d “invited” him down to the station for further questioning.
I had plenty of my own questions for my brother, especially after Regan’s inference the previous evening that something was going on between him and the now deceased dancer. I phoned my sister-in-law, but her cell rang and rang. After landing in her voicemail for the third time, I left a message asking Regan to call back. A matter of life and death.
Once we’d arrived at the Kailua Pier, our small group debated our next move. Neither Steve nor Brian thought barging into the Kona police station was an option. For all we knew, Dave might be gone by now. There wasn’t much we could do until we heard from my brother, so we said good-bye to Steve and drove down Alii Drive in search of a place to eat lunch.
As we neared Daiquiri Dave’s, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic. Several official-looking cars with blue lights on their roofs were parked in front of the restaurant. I imagined it would have been filled with police cars earlier this morning. A few tourists wandered along the street, gawking and snapping photographs of a setting one rarely sees in the tropics––yellow and red hibiscus bushes covered with crime scene tape.
A young couple dressed in sweat-stained T-shirts, jogging shorts and running shoes, darted across the street in front of our car. Brian slowed the vehicle to a crawl to avoid adding any more victims to the local casualty list.
I tapped Brian on the shoulder. “Can we stop for a minute? Let’s see what we can find out.”
“C’mon, honey, pull over,” Liz said. “It’s the least we can do. Maybe they’ll tell us if Dave is still at the police station.”
“Okay.” Brian maneuvered the sedan into a grassy patch further up the road. “They might respond to an assistant D.A., even one visiting from California.”
I threw the passenger door open before he could yank his keys out of the ignition. Brian might have more official status than me, but Dave was my brother, and his welfare was my top priority. My thin-soled flip-flops skidded on the parking lot’s gravel surface as I rushed toward the restaurant. I reached the open door of the building and halted. Although no crime scene tape barred my entry, I was uncertain what kind of reception my appearance would garner.
No one stopped me from entering Daiquiri Dave’s, so I walked inside. Off to the left, in a casual setting, tables and chairs rested on a sandy floor in front of a low lava rock wall, the only barrier between the cliff-side restaurant and the pounding surf twenty feet below. Two men stood in the more formal dining room located to the right of the stage.
A gray-haired man wearing a tan print shirt and khakis snapped photos from various angles. The younger, uniformed officer examined the thick ropes securing one post to another, which kept patrons from inadvertently falling over the wall. I recalled that the top rope barely reached my hips. I tapped the younger officer on his navy blue shoulder. He jumped to his feet and glared.
“What are you doing here? Did you not see the crime scene tape?” he asked in slightly accented English. “No one is allowed inside this establishment.”
“The tape didn’t extend to the entrance so I thought it would be okay.”
He stretched his arm and pointed to the doorway. “Please. Leave now.”
The older man turned toward me. “Do you have a question, ma’am?”
Ma’am? I turned around to see if my mother had sneaked up behind me. I was decades too young to be ma’amed.
“My brother, Dave Bingham, owns this restaurant. My family just heard the news about Keiki’s death and I was curious…”
The detective’s dark eyes shifted their gaze from my face to the rocks below. I couldn’t help but follow his glance. My heart flopped down to my flip-flops when I realized the beautiful dancer must have fallen over the wall on the opposite side of the restaurant, plummeting to her death.
I stared at the massive lava rocks rising out of the ocean churning below. Last night, a full moon had been shining on the huge waves crashing over their dark surface. The scene epitomized the magic of the tropics. Now the lava formations appeared sinister and threatening.
I rested my hand on a column for support. The officer gently removed it and asked me to step away from the wall. “We don’t need any more fingerprints in this area. There’s already way too many to sort through.”
“Of course, fingerprints are everywhere,” I replied. “My best friend held her wedding reception here yesterday. Our group partied until well after midnight.”
The two men exchanged glances. The older, informally dressed man guided me to a seat at one of the tables. I collapsed into the chair, my mind swirling with questions. He reached into his pants pocket and grabbed one of
those dog-eared notepads all police officers seem to carry.
“My name is Detective Lee, with the Criminal Investigation Section of Hawaii P.D. Since you were here last night, you may be able to help with our inquiry. First, what is your name and how do you know the deceased?”
“I’m Laurel McKay.” I explained that Keiki performed with the dancers and helped wait on tables the previous evening. He asked me how long she’d worked at Daiquiri Dave’s and what time she left the restaurant last night. I didn’t know the answer to either question.
He did not ask me if she was sleeping with my brother, which was fortunate because I definitely did not know the answer to that question. But given Keiki’s fate, I sure would like to find out.
A loud male voice interrupted our conversation. At the entrance, Brian, with our entire party in his wake, argued with a female officer attempting to bar their entry. Even though this section of the restaurant wasn’t officially roped off, Detective Lee had indicated they didn’t want people traipsing around and leaving additional footprints in the smooth white sand.
But could the police accurately cast footprints from the shifting grains of sand?
The right pocket of my jeans shorts shrieked, startling me as well as the officers. I jumped up, dug into my pocket to retrieve my cell and looked at the display.
Regan. Finally. I breathed a sigh of relief as I hit the green answer button.
“Laurel, what’s wrong? Why did you––” The rest of her query was lost when an enormous wave crashed below. I moved away from the wall, attempted to increase the volume on my phone and accidentally hit the speaker button
“I’m at the Lounge. Did you hear the news about Keiki?”
The surf chose that moment to recede, leaving behind a silence as deafening as Regan’s next statement.
“I don’t want to hear another word about that conniving slut. She’s history to me!”
CHAPTER SIX
Sometimes technology sucks.
I slammed my thumb on the speaker button before Regan could convey additional uncensored remarks. The curious expression on Detective Lee’s face indicated he’d overheard more than enough.
I plastered my cell to my ear. Regan continued to mutter remarks about Keiki, so I finally raised my voice. “Stop and listen a minute. Where are you?”
“I’m at Koffee Land. That girl has always been a troublemaker. I told Dave we never should have hired her, but Walea pleaded with us to give her a job and––”
I finally shouted into the phone, “Keiki’s dead.”
If I’d expected Regan to be startled by my announcement, I was wrong. Dead wrong. The silence lasted for a few seconds before she finally responded. “What happened?”
“The police haven’t shared the details, but I think she fell over the wall and landed on the rocks below your restaurant.”
More silence. Was she paying attention to this phone call or multi-tasking at work while we talked?
“Regan, are you still there?”
“Do they know how she fell?” Regan asked.
I shrugged before I realized she couldn’t see my movements over the phone. “I don’t know anything about it other than the police interviewed Dave at the Kona police station.”
My comment finally provoked a reaction from my sister-in-law. “Why did they question Dave?”
“I presume because he owns the restaurant.”
The detective tapped my shoulder and asked if he could speak with Regan. I handed over my cell.
“Mrs. Bingham, this is Detective Lee.” He moved away from the table making it impossible for me to eavesdrop.
My mother suddenly appeared at my side with the rest of the gang not far behind. The police must have relented and let everyone in. I wrapped my arm around my mother’s waist and pointed toward the rocks below.
“Oh, my!” She gasped as she looked at the steep drop. “That poor young woman. Do you think she stayed late to clean up and got too close to the ropes? Dave will be horrified if this accident had anything to do with poor workmanship.”
Dave would be even more horrified if he ended up arrested for murder.
Our group spent the next fifteen minutes sharing everything we knew with the two officers. Our knowledge ranged from zero to zilch. None of us had met Keiki before last night, but she was alive and well when we returned to our hotel. At least I assumed she was alive. Somewhere around my fourth daiquiri, temporary amnesia set in. With my brother and mother as chaperones, I hadn’t worried about letting my curly mop down for a change.
When the officers finished with their questions, it was finally my turn. “Where is my brother? Is he under arrest?”
My mother morphed from a tranquil tourist into her normal intimidating real estate broker persona. “Do we need to hire an attorney? You realize my son is a well-known business owner with a restaurant to run. Not only must he find a replacement for Keiki, but yellow crime scene tape strewn all over isn’t going to help his business.”
I flinched at her less than sympathetic comments, but even at sixty-two, my mother was prepared to defend her forty-something chicks. I glanced in the direction of Alii Drive, trying to assess the financial impact Keiki’s death might have on the restaurant. Based on the substantial number of gawkers wandering up and down the street taking photos with their phones, business might increase out of morbid curiosity.
Stan chose that moment to jump into the conversation and insert his sand-covered flip-flop in his mouth. “Yeah, just because Dave and Keiki were making whoopee––” Stan abruptly stopped talking as six pairs of eyes zeroed in on him.
“Making what?” Detective Lee’s heavy black brows merged into one dark suspicious furrow.
Stan’s cheeks turned redder than his sunburned forehead. “Um, they were making whoopee pies, um, I mean poi.”
“What the heck is whoopee poi?” Liz asked.
Stan sank lower in his chair and mumbled, “You know, when they mash the taro roots, they yell out, um, whoopee?”
If I had a poi pounder right now, I’d be using it on Stan’s head. His sunburn must have turned his brain into mush.
The officers abruptly stood, walked away and conversed. Stan slumped in his chair looking wilted as Liz and I glared at him. My mother appeared baffled by the “whoopee” conversation, and I saw no point in enlightening her.
The officers returned to our table and announced we were free to leave. They also informed us they’d finished questioning Dave before we arrived. Before we departed, I needed to get one crucial issue resolved. I asked the detective to follow me over to the bar so I could prevent anyone listening in, especially big mouth Stan.
“You still haven’t confirmed if Keiki’s death was an accident or murder,” I said.
“That is correct.” Lee’s comment as well as his blank expression revealed nothing.
“What do you think?”
I sensed a glimmer of a smile forming on Lee’s otherwise stoic façade, but it was probably a reflection of the sun on his Ray Bans.
“I think you and your family should try to enjoy the rest of your vacation. It may be a day or two before the restaurant can reopen. Do you have any upcoming excursions planned?”
Was the officer attempting to be sociable, or did he want our whereabouts in case anything suspicious turned up? Either way, there was no reason to hide the group activities Liz had mapped out.
“We’re planning on driving to the volcano tomorrow then visiting Koffee Land. My brother’s wife works there so she’s going to give us the grand tour.”
“That should be very enjoyable although your sister-in-law may not be available tomorrow. When is your group scheduled to fly home?”
“Sunday. Is that a problem?”
He reached into his pocket and handed me a business card. “Just make sure you contact me before you leave. And Miss McKay––,” Lee paused to remove his sunglasses then leaned close. A hint of lime aftershave made me crave a piece of key lime pie. His next state
ment made me crave something more potent.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Don’t let our island’s beauty and serenity lull you into a false sense of security. Sometimes the emotions seething below a person’s calm surface can create far more damage than a volcanic eruption.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Less than five minutes later, our group was seat-belted and motoring down Alii Drive. Every time I thought of Officer Lee’s warning, goose bumps shimmied up and down my arms. It made me suspect that they suspected Keiki didn’t accidentally fall to her death.
It was almost two in the afternoon, so we continued south, discovering a restaurant next to Magic Sands Beach. In winter, I’d been told, you could lie on the beautiful sandy beach one afternoon then, after a storm-filled night, discover it magically gone the next day.
We had no problem finding a choice table with an ocean view. The lava rock barrier protecting this restaurant from the pounding surf appeared higher and more secure than Daiquiri Dave’s exterior wall. Something my brother would undoubtedly regret for the rest of his life.
The server had just taken our lunch orders when my cell rang. I glanced at the name revealed on the screen and hit the accept button. “Dave, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s been a long…” his voice broke and I remained silent while he regained his composure. “Sorry about that. What are you guys up to now?”
I shared our current location then paused when Liz waved a half-eaten wedge of pineapple in my face, mouthing something unrecognizable. “Hold on a minute.”
“Are he and Regan still coming to the luau tonight?” Liz asked.
I shook my head at my friend. Liz probably thought a pig roast would be the perfect way to cheer up my brother. Although she might be right. Our company could prove a good distraction for him.
Dave said he needed to track down Regan and check on her plans. I was surprised they still hadn’t communicated, but perhaps she was unable to connect with Dave while he was with the police.
