Mele Kalikimaka Murder

by Aimee Gilchrist

  I closed my eyes tight and pressed my face against his chest, hoping that somehow the images burned behind my eyelids would disappear as easily as the night around us did. I could feel him turn his head. "Ikaika, can you please call Detective Ray and get Silas?"

  Though he kept his voice calm and even, the mention of the police sent another unpleasant shock through my limp body. Mallory was only twenty-two. She had a whole life ahead of her. Her mother knew mine. How would I tell her? How would I explain broken Mallory, dead when her adult life had barely started? In a move so unprofessional it made me ill, I burst into tears. Alex stroked my hair, a gesture that would have enraged me at any other moment than this one, and made comforting noises.

  It took me almost a minute to stop the hysterical sobbing and pull myself together. I decided to pretend it had never happened. If I wanted people to respect me, I had to remain responsible and professional all the time. No matter what happened. Even if a dead body of someone who had not deserved to die this way landed at my feet. I pushed out of Alex's arms, and I wondered if I was imagining his reluctance to let go. Well, if he thought I couldn't handle it, he was wrong. This was why managers should never break down.

  He moved to stand between me and an easy view of Mallory, which I had to admit I appreciated. The urge to look again was overwhelming. I hurriedly wiped my face and composed my expression, squaring my shoulders. I could do this. I owed it to Mallory and to the corporate office. I wished Jimmy were here. The real head of security would have come in handy instead of Silas, who was too old to move quickly and not a paragon of security practices. When Silas arrived, I directed him to cordon off the area, because all he was doing was standing there staring at the body, not that I had done much more. I appreciated Alex's efforts to protect me, but I had pulled it together. It was time to get things done.

  I stepped around him, staring for a long second at Stanley, who was off the crane and kneeling down next to Mallory, pointlessly trying to find a pulse. I had never seen a body before, but even I could see it was far too late for any attempts at preserving Mallory's life.

  "Why would she have gotten inside of the waterfall?"

  I didn't even realize I'd spoken the words out loud until I saw Alex shift uncomfortably. "Charlie…I don't think she did."

  I gestured in the direction of the waterfall. "Well, of course she did. You saw her come out of it, same as I did. How else would she…"

  The words trailed off as it finally occurred to me that this was probably not an accident. That brought in a whole new dimension that I had never considered, and I had to work hard to control my breathing. Mallory might have been murdered. My assistant. My hotel. My responsibility. How would I tell her mother?

  Once again, for the second time in just a few moments, Alex came to my rescue when I was on the verge of losing it, though this time perhaps inadvertently. "What do we do now, Boss? We have to keep the other guests from coming out here."

  I snapped out of my fugue of horror and guilt. Of course. It was nearly time for the presentation to start. The band was likely already waiting just inside the performer's door for a cue from one of us. Within the next couple of minutes, guests were going to start wandering outside to enjoy the beginnings of another sweetly scented Hawaiian evening. That couldn't happen.

  I pointed at Alex. "Please go inside and corral the guests. Find another activity to keep them still for a bit while we figure out something else for them to do tonight. The band will need to reposition themselves to perform in the grand ballroom. We need all hands on deck. Every single employee. I'll stay here and deal with the police and…" I swallowed hard. "And the coroner."

  Alex rubbed a hand over his mouth, stilling for a second before finally speaking. "I think it might be better if we traded. You go inside and take care of the guests. I'll let everyone know we have an emergency on the radio, and stay here with…Mallory."

  He was not making that choice because he wanted to be here. He was making it so that I didn't have to be. It was the first time I could recall that I was truly thankful to have Alex Cho as my second in command. For a moment, I wanted to throw my arms around him and hug him again. I pulled myself together.

  "Thanks."

  He nodded solemnly, all traces of the usually flippant man gone. "If you have no specific requests for who needs to do what, I'll just assign people to pick up the pieces. Call me with the new plan when you have it figured out."

  I turned to leave and found a few guests were already coming, drawn by the noise and chaos near the waterfalls, especially when the sounds of sirens rent the air. I used all the no-nonsense command I could muster to herd them back inside. Heading immediately for the stage in the ballroom, I drew on my inner core, secretly some sort of take-charge general in a tweed skirt, and pulled everyone's eyes my way with loud, calm words.

  "Excuse me. Could I have every eye up here? Yes, you guys by the door as well, thank you. We've had an accident, and we won't be able to move the festivities outside tonight as they're usually done. However, we do have the band on hand and the holiday vibe inside. If you'll just be patient for one more moment, we'll get started celebrating a very merry Christmas, island style."

  I plastered on a smile and was super thankful when young Jillian, the day concierge who already should have gone home, appeared at the side of the stage, clipboard in one hand, radio in the other. "Alex said I'm supposed to keep the guests busy with some games while the others move out all the tables."

  "Bless you, Jillian," I said, scrambling down the steps and ushering her up. There was the sound of confusion and dismay in the crowd, and that was a sound no resort manager ever wanted to hear.

  Blessedly, Jillian used the interpersonal skills that had won her promotion to head concierge and was immediately able to charm the disgruntled crowd and had them singing the traditional Hawaiian Christmas song, "Kani Kani Pele," within seconds. Smiles started to reappear by the time I joined the waitstaff and all the free employees to move forty tables into the grand ballroom. There were smaller rooms, but they wouldn't fit this crowd. The only option for keeping them inside and happy was to set this place up. A few guests tried to stop me and ask for more info, but I brushed them off politely.

  While the tables moved with efficiency, I could hear Alex's voice over the radio, of course not following protocol. I could forgive it though, since he was on top of every single detail that I couldn't cover from my place inside.

  Together, we had the entire event moved inside within fifteen minutes, and I relieved an exhausted Jillian and left Ginger, a girl from the accounting department, who was Alex's sometimes assistant, inside to run the events for the moment, starting with a speech from the local Aloha Lagoon mayor, Haulani Kalama. By the time I went back outside, I left behind a bar serving piña coladas, the band playing "Mele Kalikimaka," and smiles all around. As much as I might disdain their laid-back attitudes, when it was all on the wire, this staff had come through like champs.

  I hurried back outside to join the two police cars behind the hotel, probably every single car on the force. There were also two ambulances and a red car with an insignia that I assumed that belonged to the coroner, though I could have been wrong about that. I hadn't made a point of making friends, because that wasn't the reason I was here, and I was on my way out anyway at the first available opportunity. However, I did recognize Detective Ray Kahoalani and an officer milling in the crowd. By this time, Mallory's body was thankfully no longer in the open but moved on to an ambulance cart and covered with a sheet. I made a point of not looking in that direction, even though a part of me desperately wanted to.

  Now that the emergency of getting the guests set up on a new course was over, the horror of the situation was starting to creep back in. Alex crossed to my side as soon as he saw me. I didn't want to address the fact I'd been weak and relied on him for a moment, so I went right to business. "Thanks for helping pull that together. The staff did a great job. Jillian was a great choice to send in."r />
  He nodded. "Charlie, Ray wants to see you."

  Detective Ray wanted to talk to me. The cops wanted to talk to me, which was not outside the realm of the expected. I shored up my shoulders and crossed the few feet between us and the police.

  Detective Ray was a nice enough guy, middle aged, a bit sloppy, perpetually dressed in Hawaiian shirts and shorts. He seemed fair and honest, as much as I knew. Hopefully, this was just routine, and we could immediately get to the part where he found out who had done this. Ray looked me over without a word, then took a moment to glance at a woman in a coroner's jacket, who was busy filling out paperwork near the county van.

  He offered his hand, which I shook without thinking. He came to the resort upon occasion, especially with Jimmy Toki. He'd never offered his hand before. I rubbed my hands together, freezing, despite the sweet yet tangy island breeze blowing off the shore just a couple hundred feet away.

  "Tell me what happened," Detective Ray said, in his grizzly voice.

  Alex moved closer, and I actually appreciated his support, which more than anything told me I was losing my mind today. "I saw Mallory around eleven, when the lights were out on the big palm. Then I left the resort and went into town to check on some details for tonight but mostly for the luau. I called her on the drive back multiple times, but she never answered."

  "Then when I got back, I was annoyed I couldn't find her. She wasn't answering her radio either, and her dune buggy was still in its place. I called Alex on the radio and told him I couldn't find Mallory. We were going to look, but we had to open the festivities, so we did that instead. Then we got a call from Ikaika that the waterfall wasn't working. That situation was more emergent than finding Mallory because we needed the waterfall for the events, and we thought she was just slacking or something. We didn't know she was…she…"

  I couldn't finish the sentence. We all knew what she'd done. She'd died. I wasn't even entirely sure how. There hadn't been blood, that I could see. Aside from being very clearly dead, there wasn't a lot that looked wrong with her. My stomach turned at the train of thought, and I took a deep, steadying breath. I felt Alex's hand on the small of my back, and some of the tension drained out of me. It was an odd dichotomy. He amped up my stress levels 99 percent of the time, yet in these potentially the worst moments of my life, his solid presence was a comfort.

  "Do you know how she died?" Ray spoke and moved slowly. Not like an overweight person or a lazy one, but like a lot of people did when they were living on island time. Too bad island time made me crazy.

  I wasn't sure what the deal was with that particular question. Did he know already? "No. I don't…I'm not sure." I could only hope it was painless. She had looked peaceful. Maybe she didn't even know it was coming. I pressed my eyes closed and pulled in a shaky breath. Detective Ray let me alone for a long moment, and by the time he spoke again, I had at least marginally gotten control of myself.

  "Do you know who Mallory spent her free time with? We should ask around and see if anyone can tell us where she's been this morning."

  I thought hard about Ray's question. The bitter reality was, I worked Mallory pretty hard. The reason Mallory and I existed was to fix resorts with problems. That meant we had a paradigm to follow to leave everything in shipshape in as little time as possible. In most places, we were in and out in weeks. Nearly seven months here at Aloha Lagoon was the longest single place I'd been in three years as a traveling manager.

  The longest before that was seven months at a Freemont new acquisition that was beyond a hot mess. I couldn't exactly figure out why I was still in AL. Though I wasn't keen on the way they did things, they got the job done. They could have easily hired another manager by now. However, as long as I was here, I was going to make sure standard operating procedures were implemented. Whether the staff elected to follow those procedures or not once I was gone wasn't my problem. I could about bet that the staff here would nary crack the spine of that SOP manual. However, just changing those things was a full-time job. Mallory wasn't given a ton of time to socialize, though she'd been clearly seeking the time. I just didn't know who she'd been seeking it with.

  "She didn't have a lot of free time, Detective. I kept her pretty busy. Although lately, she'd been expressing some interest in surfing. I don't believe she was taking lessons with Brad or anything that concrete, but I once saw her on the beach talking to a number of people, strangers to me, but they looked like locals. And she checked out a couple of books on water patterns and the like from the library. We weren't really friends, so much. She was my employee, and I discourage intimate relationships of any kind between employees and management. I don't know who she knew well."

  I was pretty sure she hadn't known anyone that well. Except me. Unless she'd been sneaking out of her room at night to meet people. I supposed that was a possibility, even though we had rooms next to one another on the fifth floor. As long as she maintained radio contact if I tried to call her, I never sought her out after I left the offices at around eight. She always walked with me to my room, and if there was an emergency, she always showed promptly. Beyond that, I couldn't say.

  Detective Ray cocked his head. "So you're the only person you're aware she really knew very well on the island?"

  The questions felt dangerous, though it was certainly reasonable. "I'm the only person I'm aware of, yes. However, as I said, I don't pay special attention to the social life of my employees. Mallory was my assistant, but she wasn't my friend. She was a very social girl. I'm sure she must have known people—I just don't know who they are. I'm sorry. I wish I knew more."

  Regret clawed at me. I really did wish I had listened better, noticed more. Mallory talked a lot. All the time. If I had bothered to listen to her, even some of that time, maybe I would have had something to tell Detective Ray. Maybe I could have even seen this coming and acted on it. Maybe it really was my fault. She'd just talked so much, and she'd never seemed interested in getting any particular response. After a while it became like the hum of the radio, ever present and meaningless.

  "How long have you been here exactly?" Ray asked.

  That one I could answer without thinking. "Six months, twenty days, and thirteen hours." Not that I was counting or anything.

  Next to me I could feel Alex's eyes boring into me. I shifted uncomfortably and diverted my eyes when Mallory's stretcher was wheeled into the coroner's van. I patted my bun, trying to make sure it was all still in place. I needed to go back inside and face the guests, and they could not know that someone had just been murdered outside. Just like in the midst of every horrible moment in my life, presentation was everything.

  "Oh, one last question. Who is Seth Peterson?"

  It took me a second to formulate an answer. Seth Peterson meant nothing to me for a long moment. "He's…he's one of the night watchmen. In his twenties, prior military, I think. Buzz cut, that sort of thing. Why?"

  Pulling a baggie from his satchel, Detective Ray held it out but pulled back slightly when I tried to touch it. "Does this mean anything to you?"

  It did. I wasn't exactly sure what it had to do with anything though. "Yes, they're the cards that each employee keeps to hand to guests who ask for their names or want to report them for something especially good or, heaven forbid, bad. That one belongs, of course, to Seth Peterson. Where did you find this?"

  Detective Ray closed his notebook and slipped it into the pocket of his shorts. "It was in Mallory's hand." With that shocking piece of news, he nodded. "Call me if you think of anything, and I will be back to ask you more questions at a later time."

  It sounded almost like a threat, though it was likely paranoia on my part. He had no legitimate reason to suspect me. I had no doubt that he would most certainly be back. "Can I call Mallory's parents? They're old friends of my family. I hate for them to find out from a stranger."

  Actually, maybe I would see if my parents wanted to call them. I didn't know them well, and my mother especially was the most likely to be a
source of comfort in a time like this. Detective Ray cocked his head and evaluated me for a long second. "Yes, you can do that. But please be sure they understand that the department will be reaching out to speak with them soon."

  Poor Mallory. Who could have done this to her? I could only hope that Alex's take on the situation wasn't the real one, and Detective Ray had no interest in me outside of a good source of information. Though I couldn't help but be aware that if he was looking for a good suspect just in terms of opportunity, he had an excellent option in me. But an even better one in Seth.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The rest of the night went fairly well, considering the restrictions we were under. The whole outside area needed to be kept under wraps, or someone was going to see the coterie of cops and spotlights on the waterfall. Every guest had to be redirected to the beach, the longer route to any other part of the hotel, like the pools, restaurants, or Ramada Pier for the nightly fire-eater show. I had to be honest. I was super impressed with my staff for coming through in this kind of situation. I had viewed them as so low-key they were nearly falling under the classification of lazy, but it seemed they had merely adapted to the slow pace of the island and were capable of coming through in a pinch. I was proud of them. Like a mom at an elementary school science fair.

  When everyone started dispersing to their rooms or huts for the night, I took a chance of glancing at my phone. Someone had been calling all night, and I hadn't noticed my phone was on silent, not vibrate like I'd thought. When I scrolled through the calls, I saw that all fifteen of them were from my mother. That was not a good sign. Normally, I would assume that many calls meant another divorce for her and my father, who had married and divorced one another many times, but this time I suspected something worse. Detective Ray had said he would give me time to call Mallory's family and that he would call them later. I hadn't realized he'd meant later tonight. Shoot. I dialed Mom's cell phone, fingers shaking.