A Walk Through the Fire

by Marcia Muller

  Even though I did feel that way every time I thought about his defection.

  “Yes, there is something,” I told Mick. “Hold on.” I set the receiver down and went to the bedroom, rummaged in the bureau drawer where I’d stowed the squatters’ leavings. Both pieces of paper were gone.

  “I don’t believe this,” I whispered. Someone had entered the house in our absence, searched it without leaving any sign, and taken my potential leads. I closed my eyes, trying to recall either the number or the address. Gave up and went back to the phone.

  “I’ve misplaced the information,” I told Mick.

  “Well, I’ll get on to Santa Fe vital stats, then.”

  “Wait, there is something else, although Wellbright takes priority. Glenna Stanleigh.”

  “You want me to run a check on our client?”

  “Only when you’ve exhausted every possible method of looking for Elson Wellbright.”

  “But why Glenna? I thought you guys were friends.”

  “So did I. All I want is a standard background workup.”

  “Well, you’re the boss.”

  “And don’t you forget it. Keep yourself available today in case I need anything else, okay?”

  “Sure. Available as a roofless house in hurricane season.”

  God help me! Now he was picking up Charlotte Keim’s Texasisms.

  9:17 A.M.

  Glenna and Peter weren’t at La’i Cottage and his Volvo was gone, but a note to him in her handwriting was taped to the door. I hesitated before reading it, then thought, What the hell? If she hadn’t folded or enveloped it, there wasn’t anything in it that she didn’t want others to see.

  “P—I’ve borrowed your car to drive to the airport. Will fly to Honolulu and return the camera to the rental house. Don’t know when I’ll be back.—G.”

  Curt, and it seemed presumptuous of her to take the car without asking. Maybe after I went outside last night they’d picked up on the argument they’d been having when they got to Malihini House.

  No matter what was going on with them personally, I needed to talk with Glenna. As soon as I’d hung up on my call to Mick, I’d begun to regret asking him to check her out, and now I badly wanted to give her the chance to explain herself. Last night I’d told her we had to talk. Perhaps she’d gone to Oahu to avoid a confrontation.

  The sound of the chopper alerted me to Tanner’s arrival. I took the path through the papaya trees and watched the big red bird settle onto the grass. Russ waved through the bubble, shut it down, and got out. As he came toward me I saw a tentativeness in his usually confident step. His dark glasses were in place, and his expression seemed purposely polite and remote—a good charter pilot picking up a client who, if well treated, might tip generously.

  He’s afraid, I thought. Last night he overstepped a boundary line we’d tacitly drawn between us, and now he’s afraid he’s ruined everything and we can’t even be friends.

  I thought of the things I’d read about Tanner in Elson Wellbright’s journal. This was a man who’d overcome a fatherless childhood in a tin-roofed shack. Who as a boy had been foisted off at every opportunity on his wealthy relatives by an overly ambitious mother. Who had endured indignities from most of those relatives and from society at large. Who had put himself through community college, earned his pilot’s license and helicopter rating, and emerged into adulthood with pride in himself and his roots. A good man.

  Like Hy.

  When he first spoke, Tanner’s voice was as tentative as his step. “Morning. You okay?”

  “Yes. You?”

  “Uh-huh. Want to go get that car now?”

  “Not yet. Come on up to the house, have a cup of coffee first.”

  “Well, I’ll take a soda, if you’ve got one.”

  We walked up the slope, keeping a careful distance from each other. He sat down at the table on the lanai while I went inside and returned with two soft drinks.

  “So,” he said.

  I sat down next to him. “You got Ripinsky to Lihue in time for his flight?”

  He nodded.

  “He say anything to you? About… the situation, I mean?”

  “Only that we all need time to sort things out. That nobody’s to blame for what’s happened. And he asked me to go easy.”

  “Go easy?”

  “Give you as much space as you need.”

  “Nice of him to watch out for me,” I said sarcastically.

  “Look, he wasn’t being condescending. The man really loves you, and I can sure understand that.”

  I sighed. “I really love him, too.”

  “I know that. So why is this other thing happening with us? In my case, it’s pretty straightforward, but in yours…”

  “I wish I knew. Last night I considered that I might be having a midlife crisis.”

  “And?”

  “Too simple an explanation. Besides, if you’re having one of those, aren’t you supposed to chuck everything, dye your hair, buy a Porsche?”

  He smiled faintly. “I think that’s only one variation on the theme.”

  “Well, I don’t believe in them, anyway.”

  “Oh, no?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, if you don’t believe in them, obviously they don’t exist.”

  “You value my opinion that highly, do you?”

  “I value everything about you.”

  We fell silent, suddenly embarrassed. It was a moment before Tanner asked, “So what did you do last night?”

  “Tried to get drunk. I was well on my way when I remembered a horrible hangover I had one time. So I stopped.”

  “You’ve only had one hangover?”

  “God, no. But this was the granddaddy of them all. Whenever I feel like really tying one on, the memory helps me apply the brakes. What did you do after you got back from Lihue?”

  “Flew past here twice and used up all my willpower telling myself I shouldn’t stop. I would’ve liked to get drunk, but I had an early-morning charter. Eight hours, bottle to throttle.”

  We were silent again. On the lawn a rooster set up a hideous screeching, and another answered him in kind from somewhere near La’i Cottage.

  “Russ,” I finally said, “there’s something I need your input on.”

  “Sure, what?”

  “I think Tommy Kaohi’s dead.” I described the scene I’d witnessed at the heiau near the sugar mill.

  Tanner listened, eyes narrowing. When I finished he said, “You had me take you out to Rob and Sunny’s, knowing their kid was dead?”

  “I didn’t know anything for sure. I was hoping he’d be there or that they’d’ve seen him since Friday night. But either way, I needed to know.”

  “Still, it was kind of a cold thing to do.”

  “No, it would’ve been cold to alarm them unnecessarily. But now this body’s washed up at Salt Pond Beach. The HPD has it and they’ll do a facial reconstruction, circulate artists’ sketches. But if the Kaohis can provide dental or medical records, it’ll speed up the identification.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police right after this happened?”

  “Because I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me. It’s a bizarre story, you’ve got to admit.”

  “Yeah, it is. So are you going to talk to them now?”

  “I’d rather avoid that, if possible. Technically I’m able to investigate here because I’m under Hy’s firm’s umbrella, but I should’ve cleared it with the KPD first.”

  “And why didn’t you?”

  “Peter and Glenna wanted to keep the production company’s problems under wraps.”

  “So because of them and their stupid film, you let the scumbags who killed Tommy get away?”

  “Look, they were already long gone.”

  “You had a name—Amy Laurentz. You got another name—Buzzy Malakaua.”

  Oh, God, he was right about everything! Not going to the police had been stupid, illegal, and uncaring. Not telling the Kaohis what I s
uspected had been cold. And now I was in an untenable position.

  I couldn’t stand to see the reproach in Tanner’s eyes. I shaded mine with my hand and stared at the distant palis. “I really screwed up, didn’t I?”

  “Everybody does sometimes. Your business isn’t an easy one, and you’re operating in unfamiliar territory.” He took my hand away from my eyes, held it. “Didn’t mean to jump all over you.”

  “You only stated the truth. Russ, how am I going to make this right?”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “No, I should—”

  “Leave it to me. I’ve been cleaning up other people’s messes my whole life. Leave it to the expert.”

  “I guess you are an expert.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “After I decided not to get drunk last night, I stayed up reading Elson Wellbright’s journal.”

  “Didn’t know he kept one.”

  “Well, he did, and he said quite a few things about you. Implied quite a few others. Much of it was cryptic, but I’ve got a pretty good sense of what it was you promised him.”

  His fingers tightened on my hand. “If you do, you know it’s best to let it be.”

  I watched him for a moment. This wasn’t the time to press him, especially in light of his offer to fix the Tommy Kaohi situation. Instead I kept silent and twined my fingers through his.

  It was not the worst thing I could do on a sunny morning in paradise.

  2:13 P.M.

  I pulled the Datsun to the side of the road where a tangle of palms and ironwoods screened a beach, and I stepped out into their shade. A warm breeze rustled the brittle fronds and swayed the drooping branches. I moved through them to the narrow strip of sand.

  A white-haired couple sat on a blanket a few yards away, sharing a bottle of wine and looking at the water. They smiled as I passed, and I smiled back, envying them. There was an ease in the way their shoulders touched, a peaceful closeness in the way his hand rested on her knee. A settledness that I’d never known with any man. Perhaps in time Hy and I might have achieved that, but now our relationship was derailed, possibly would never get back on track again. And as for Tanner…

  No way I could envision a future for us. Too many impossibilities inherent in the situation. And in the past few hours I’d created a complication that wasn’t going to be resolved easily, if at all.

  After he’d flown me to Waipuna, I retrieved the Datsun from in front of Crystal Blue Inspiration and drove south to Lihue, where I did some simple research at the county clerk’s office and the public library. What I found strengthened my suspicions about Tanner’s promise to Elson Wellbright. But in order to verify them, I’d have to tell Russ what I’d done.

  I walked to the end of the beach, sat down on a smooth shelf of lava rock. The sea here was a turquoise I’d previously thought existed only in travel brochures. Aside from the white-haired couple and a few surfers beyond the reef, there wasn’t a soul in sight. A good place to think undisturbed, only my thoughts wouldn’t proceed logically. Images from the past twenty-four hours kept intruding.

  I pictured Hy’s face, pained and drawn in the candlelight on the lanai at Malihini House last night. I felt the phantom touch of Tanner’s fingers as they twined through mine on the same lanai this morning.

  He’d warned me to let the subject of his bargain with Elson Wellbright be, but I wasn’t one to ignore such a thing, not when it might be essential to my investigation. Still, at the clerk’s office and at the library I’d felt like a burglar breaking into a very private part of Russ’s life. Soon I’d have to admit my intrusion, and that could end it between us.

  Well, good. I’d wrap up this investigation, go back home, get on with my life. Repair my fractured relationship with Hy. We’d forget all this had happened, buy our new airplane, build our house. And someday we’d sit on the bluff above Bootleggers Cove looking at the sea as peacefully as the couple down the beach.

  And if Russ took it into his head to hate me for prying, let him.

  So why don’t you get your butt off this rock and go talk with him?

  Give me a few minutes, okay?

  Do it now. Hustle!

  This island isn’t conductive to hustling.

  No, what it’s conductive to is impulsive behavior and warped judgment.

  So my judgment’s a little bent. I’m working on straightening it.

  Face it, McCone, the only thing you’re working on is a method for justifying having sex with a handsome hapahaole helicopter pilot.

  Didn’t I wish my feelings were that uncomplicated!

  By the time I did get my butt off the rock and back to Waipuna, Tanner was out on a charter and not expected back for a couple of hours. Rather than wait around, I drove toward Malihini House and into yet another Wellbright family contretemps.

  Peter and Matthew stood in the road at the foot of Pali House’s driveway, toe-to-toe in argument. If anyone had come along at excess speed, there was an odds-even chance that the surviving family members would be holding a triple funeral this week. Both men’s faces were red and contorted, and when I slowed down beside them, they glared at me as if I were a meddling tourist.

  Matthew snapped, “Drive on! This is none of your business.”

  Peter said, “Don’t you dare speak to her that way!”

  I asked, “What the hell’s the matter, that you can’t talk about it off the pavement?”

  Matthew growled, Peter opened his mouth to reply, and a red convertible full of teenagers roared around the curve from the west and nearly took them both out.

  I said, “Get in the car. Now!”

  They complied, looking sheepish.

  I drove to Malihini House, parked by the garage, and told them, “Out.”

  Peter headed for the house, mumbling something about a drink. Matthew remained by the car, kicking at pebbles like a kid in a school yard. I went as far as the lanai, glanced back, and said, “You’ll be more comfortable up here.”

  He shot me a venomous look but eventually followed.

  Peter came out of the house with the makings for gin and tonics. I shook my head, remembering the night before, and went inside for a soft drink. When I came back I said, “Now, will one of you please tell me what’s going on?”

  Matthew snatched a glass from his brother’s hand and drank, ignoring me. To Peter he said, “You’ll regret this.”

  “I’m beginning to regret everything, including being born.”

  I tapped my fingers on the tabletop, the little patience I had left almost gone.

  Peter said, “It’s Jill. According to my brother, she’s gone missing again. Truth is, she’s been out of his sight for less than four hours. She’s probably shopping or at the movies or visiting a friend.”

  “She didn’t take her car,” Matthew said, “so she can’t be shopping or at a movie. And she doesn’t have any friends.”

  “Because you won’t permit her to.”

  “I can’t have her gallivanting around God-knows-where. She’s mentally unstable.”

  “Emotionally fragile.”

  “She needs watching over, and I’m going to do that if it means putting her under house arrest.”

  Peter said to me, “House arrest, because she likes to take walks by herself.”

  “Jill wanders all over the north shore. It’s dangerous.”

  “She’s lived here her whole life. She knows every inch of the territory.”

  “Still, there’re hazards. Cliffs. And the surf is treacherous.”

  “She doesn’t go up on the cliffs or swim in the ocean.”

  “How d’you know? Besides, there’re drifters. Drug addicts. Wild dogs—”

  “Feral chickens, too.”

  “You know, Peter, you always were a wiseass.”

  “And you always were a pain in the ass.”

  “Well, fuck you!”

  “Ditto.”

  I said, “If I may interrupt this high-toned debate—”
>
  “Fuck you too!” Matthew slammed his glass onto the table and headed for the steps, muttering to himself. Peter and I watched as he strode along the driveway, arms pumping jerkily, like a cartoon soldier.

  He said, “If you ask me, Matt’s the one who’s unstable.”

  “Does he mean that literally, about locking Jill up?”

  “God knows what he’ll do, given the state he’s worked himself into. I walked down to Pali House earlier to see how the arrangements for Mother’s service are coming—it’s supposed to be tomorrow—and he popped out of the bushes by the road, which he’d apparently been scouring for Jill. When I suggested he might want to take it easy, he started ranting at me.”

  “You don’t suppose Jill really might be a danger to herself?”

  “No. It’s true she hasn’t been too well wrapped since she lost the baby, but it’s nothing a competent psychiatrist couldn’t help her work through. Matt’s discouraged that. He claims people should be able to handle their own problems. And Jill goes along with whatever he says.”

  “Well, if she gets any worse, maybe you can talk some sense into him. By the way, I saw Glenna’s note to you on the cottage door. I take it she’s not back from Oahu yet?”

  “No. I suspect she’s decided to stay over. We had an argument last night about my father’s journal. I haven’t read it—I’ve got a thing about other people’s privacy—and she thinks I should. Thinks I should try to get it published as a companion book to the one on the legends. But she tells me it’s pretty painful personal stuff, and there’s no way I’m going to allow that.”

  “Things aren’t going well for the two of you, are they?”

  “Let’s just say that I’ve used her as a buffer between my family and me, and it hasn’t been fair to either of us.”

  8:02 P.M.

  The day’s light was fading as I scrambled across the lava field toward the ruins of Elson Wellbright’s forest. Matthew had stopped by Malihini House fifteen minutes ago to apologize for his earlier behavior and to ask that I join in the search for Jillian, whose long absence was now being taken seriously by everyone. I was feeling edgy and out of sorts and, since I hadn’t been able to reach Tanner, I readily agreed and set off toward the deadfall. It was the one place Matthew insisted Jillian would never go. Given the understanding of his wife that he demonstrated, it seemed likely she might be there.