Mai Tai One On

by Jill Marie Landis

  “No.”

  “You speak Hawaiian?”

  “Some.”

  She was impressed.

  “My grandma was Hawaiian, actually. Tutu only spoke Hawaiian to me. Made me learn. His brow crinkled. “You sure they didn’t say amuku?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, nothing has just one translation, but it can mean to cut off.”

  She glanced toward Harold’s side of the property for a second, pictured the bone.

  “Cut off?”

  He nodded.

  She mulled a minute.

  “I’m pretty sure it was koi punda. But I might have misheard. Or Fernando did.”

  He shrugged. “Anything else?”

  “For some reason fish bones were the reason Fernando felt compelled to break ground right away.”

  Roland stared up at the ceiling covered in tattered tapa cloth and then studied the ceiling fan. Em looked up and noticed the blades were coated with a half inch of dust. She made a mental note to have Kimo dust them. At least Roland wasn’t still staring at her cleavage.

  “That’s all you wanted to tell me?” He asked.

  “That and that Wally had a motive,” she added.

  “He inherited everything,” Roland folded his notebook shut.

  “I guess that was easy enough to find out.”

  “Yep. He told me himself.”

  She dabbed at the wet rings on the table beneath her lemonade glass and shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  “Wow. Next thing, you’ll be after my job.”

  “I believe you really are trying to be funny, Detective Sharpe.” She wondered what might have happened if they’d just been two people who had met on the beach, if she wasn’t still hurting and he wasn’t the detective on a murder case that, for the most part, centered on the Goddess and its staff.

  She thought he was about to smile until the radio on his belt beeped. He listened to the call, then turned down the volume and stood up.

  “Thanks again for the lemonade,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And Ms. Johnson?”

  “Yes?”

  “Try to stay outta trouble, okay?”

  20

  Em’s Close Call

  Try to stay outta of trouble.

  Easier said than done. Worried somebody might notice the burlap bag stashed under the hedge, Em headed for the parking lot as soon as Roland’s car was out of sight.

  She swept up the cuttings lying around the base of the mock orange bushes. Once she had a fairly sizable pile near the bundled up bone, she knelt down and stuck her arm beneath the thick bush.

  Her fingers had barely grazed the rough sack when she heard a soft rustle behind her. Before she could look back over her shoulder, something slammed into her head and everything went black. The next thing she knew she was lying face down on the hot parking lot gravel like road kill and Sophie was kneeling beside her.

  Her head was throbbing. Em winced when she touched a tender spot near her crown. Not only was her nose killing her, but it was dripping blood.

  “What happened?” She looked around the empty lot.

  Sophie took her hand and helped her sit up. Em closed her eyes but her head wouldn’t stop spinning. When she finally opened her eyes, she gingerly touched her nose. It was definitely bleeding and hurt like hell. She pulled up the hem of her tank top and pressed it against her nose.

  “Whoa.” Nausea hit her hard. She swallowed bile.

  “Maybe you’d better lie down again,” Sophie suggested.

  “I’m okay,” Em lied.

  “I walked out on the lanai to tell you that Wally Williams called, and I saw you lying out here. What happened? Did you fall?”

  “No, I didn’t fall. That’s for sure.” She remembered being on her hands and knees, reaching for the coffee sack and wondered it if was still under the bush. How long had she been out? She didn’t dare look for the bone with Sophie there if Uncle Louie was somehow involved.

  “Somebody knocked me out,” Em said.

  Sophie’s eyes went wide. She was furiously clicking her tongue stud.

  “You sure? Did you see who it was?”

  “No, but I didn’t fall and I certainly didn’t knock myself on the head.” Em’s hands were shaking. There was definitely a lump on the side of her head now. Blood was slowly dripping onto her tank top. “Somebody hit me from behind and I blacked out and fell on my nose.” She looked around. “Where’s Uncle Louie?”

  “He went to the post office about twenty minutes ago.”

  She checked out their parking spaces by the house. Sure enough, his pick-up was gone.

  The murderer usually finds the vic. So said Detective Sharpe.

  Had Sophie just found her?

  What if Sophie snuck up on me first and hit me in the head? Em wondered. The girl had absolutely no reason to harm her.

  If she meant to kill me, she certainly could have finished the job.

  Unless a car had suddenly come down the highway or someone started to pull into the parking lot and scared Sophie—or whoever her assailant was—away.

  Em stubbornly refused to believe either Sophie or Louie was capable of murder.

  If the bone was still there then she had to get the burlap bag out from under the bush and safely hidden somewhere. Hindsight told her that maybe she should have told Roland about it earlier and damned the consequences.

  She looked up at Sophie and winced. She didn’t have to fake her pain.

  “Would you please run and get me some ice?” She asked. “My head is killing me.”

  “Sure.” Sophie jumped to her feet.

  “I’ll meet you in the office,” Em told her.

  “Okay. Will you be all right out here alone?”

  “I’m just going to sit here a sec longer.”

  Sophie took off at a jog. Em waited a moment and then when she was sure the coast was clear, grabbed the bag, slid it under an armful of cuttings and slowly got to her feet. She carried the cuttings and bag toward the back door of the Goddess. The lot was, thankfully, empty for once. She opened the rubbish can, quickly dumped in the cuttings and went through the back door with the burlap bundle tucked beneath her arm.

  Once she was in the office, she opened one of the rusty drawers of a lateral file cabinet that contained nothing but stacks of receipts dating back to the ‘60’s. She’d been meaning to help Louie clean them out, but now she was glad she hadn’t had the time. She tossed the wrapped bone inside a half second before Sophie came in with ice wrapped in a dishtowel and a wet cloth.

  Em closed the drawer with her foot and reached for the ice pack.

  Not sure what to ice first, Em thanked Sophie and gently applied the towel to the bump on her head. The bridge of her nose was killing her, too.

  “You look like you were in a car wreck.” Sophie handed her the wet cloth to wipe her face with. “Much as I hate to admit it, maybe you should call Sharpe. Tell him what happened.”

  “I’m not exactly sure what happened.” She waited for Sophie’s response.

  Sophie frowned. “I hope someone didn’t try to kill you.”

  “Did you see anyone out there?”

  “No. But I think we should call the police.”

  “And have Sharpe jump to the conclusion that it was either you or Uncle Louie?” Em was thinking of calling Roland herself. Now she wondered if Sophie had suggested it just to throw her off. Em decided her expression must have given her thoughts away for the clicking going on in Sophie’s mouth stopped abruptly.

  “You don’t think I hit you.”

  “Of course not,” Em tried not to feel guilty. “Would I be sitting here with you if I did?”

  “Louie’s been gone for almost thirty minutes now.”

  “Right. So it wasn’t him,” Em said.

  “Then who?”

  “If I knew that, then I might have the answer to a whole lot of questions.”

  21

>   Leilani Cleans House

  The next morning, Em saw Shark Lady’s Mercedes parked in Harold’s driveway and went over to see what was going on. She found Leilani on the lanai staring at her uncle’s eyesore of a shack.

  “Aloha,” Em called out.

  Leilani visibly started. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came over to see if everything is all right.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Em shrugged.

  Leilani shook her head. “I’m sorry I’m so cranky. There’s just so much to do. This place should have been torn down years ago, but the old man said he had no need to rebuild. He was born in this house and he swore he’d die here.” She sighed. “Looks like he got his wish.”

  “Are you going to sell it?” Em knew the property was worth at least five million without the shack.

  “If I do a little face lifting, replace some of the dry-rot here and there, rebuild the front steps, add a new lanai railing and have the whole place painted dark green with white trim—the colors of the old plantation cottages—I could call it a guest house. The price of the place would go up another half million or more,” Leilani told her and added, “As soon as the police give me a green light, I’ll start repairs.” She looked at her watch. “The contractor who works on my flips is due to meet me here in twenty minutes.”

  She came down off the lanai, ignoring Em as she paced the drive, then crossed the small yard that fronted the highway. After staring at one of Harold’s odd rubbish sculptures for a second, she gave it a hard nudge with the toe of her beaded gold sandal. The pile of welded cans and wires, rusted hubcaps and bedsprings tipped over.

  “I’ll have this trash hauled out of here first thing. Then the For Sale sign is going up. With any luck at all, the place will sell fast. Maybe even before I start renovations.”

  Behind the shack, the rectangular green lawn rolled to the edge of the coral lined beach. Except for the hedge and a few coconut palms, Harold’s landscaping was minimal and made the property appear larger than it was. Trade winds rustled the palm fronds. The lure of the tropics was undeniable. Leilani was right. The place would sell in a heartbeat.

  “Mind if I ask you something?” Em couldn’t let the opportunity pass.

  Leilani glanced at her watch again.

  “As I said, I am expecting my contractor.”

  “This will just take a minute.”

  “What’s up?” Leilani raised her sunglasses, squinted hard at Em. “Do you have two black eyes?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “What happened?”

  There was a hesitation. Leilani waited.

  “I tripped. Fell on my nose.” Em changed the subject back. “I was just wondering if our uncles had any partnerships going.”

  “You must be kidding. They hated each other,” Leilani said.

  “I wouldn’t say my uncle hated Harold.”

  “You wouldn’t? Harold loved Irene forever and they lived right next door to him. I can see why your uncle would want to get rid of him.”

  “Irene’s been dead for years.”

  Leilani pointed to the Goddess. “That place is a shrine to her.”

  “So?”

  “So. It was an in-your-face snub to my uncle. Why would you think he had any business dealings with Louie Marshall?”

  Em tried to evade Leilani’s stare and shrugged. “I was just curious. I thought maybe that’s why Louie was over here the other day. He said he was looking for something of his.”

  “Incriminating evidence, no doubt. He probably came over to clean up after killing my uncle.”

  “He did not. It’s a little late for that anyway.”

  “Then maybe it was your bartender.”

  “Sorry. Nope. I won’t buy that, either.”

  “Then you’re more obtuse than I thought.”

  “Obtuse.”

  “It means thick. Or slow minded,” Leilani said.

  “I know what it means. I’m just surprised you do.”

  Leilani took a deep breath and gave Em an insincere smile. “I’m going to get a restraining order against all of you people. Legally keep you from snooping around over here.”

  “Why? Are you hiding something?” Em had had just about enough of Shark Lady.

  Leilani slipped her cell phone out of her pocket.

  “Go back to your side of the hedge or I’m calling Roland.”

  “You’re tattling to Roland?” Em laughed.

  “Are you jealous?”

  “Yeah. Right. That’s it. I’m way jealous.” Em walked back across the parking lot without another word.

  22

  The Timely Return of Nelg

  Much to Em’s relief, two days later the anthropologist and his squeeze showed up out of the blue. They arrived at the bar looking exhausted, bedraggled, and hungry. Em had them stash their backpacks in the office and treated them to lunch—green salad and island fruit—before she asked Professor Nelson if he would speak with her in private.

  Namaste was happy to sip pineapple juice and chat with Sophie. Thankfully, Louie was in Lihue picking up supplies at Costco with Kimo.

  Once she and the professor entered the office, Em locked the doors.

  Nelg smiled. “Why, Ms. Johnson, I had no idea.” He reached for the zipper fly on his Eddie Bauer hiking shorts. “Always time for a quickie.”

  “Keep your pants on, please. This is a professional consultation,” Em said.

  “Oh.” His smile faded. He sat down in a rattan chair near the desk and studied her closely. “Do you have two black eyes?”

  She thought she’d used enough under-eye concealer, but obviously not.

  “A minor accident. That’s not what I wanted to discuss. I need your professional advice.”

  “Happy to help out.”

  She opened the lateral file drawer, pulled out the burlap sack. “I found this and was wondering if you can tell me what it is and perhaps how old it is.” She unwrapped the bone and set it down on top the burlap spread out on the center of Louie’s desk.

  Nelg adjusted his glasses, leaned over the desk and inspected the object.

  “Old or new?” Em held her breath.

  “Definitely old. Very old, actually.” He picked it up, held it, weighed it in his hands. “You see the rust color? That’s the color of the red dirt on Kauai. It’s full of iron.”

  Em knew all about Kauai’s red dirt. It stained clothing, shoes, whatever it came in contact with. “Red Dirt” tourist tee shirts were dyed with the stuff.

  “Old bones take on the color of the soil they’re buried in.” Nelg sniffed it. “It still has a musty smell, so it wasn’t unearthed that long ago. This is the femur of a very tall person. Hawaiian most likely.”

  “You can tell just by looking at it?”

  “Just a guess.”

  “This isn’t from one of your mysterious Menehune, then.”

  “Definitely not.” He turned it over, studied the ends. “Where did it come from?”

  “I really don’t know for sure.”

  “If it’s from your property, you could be in for some heavy expenses. I can see why you’d want to keep the burial site a secret but--”

  “It’s not from here.” At least she hoped not. “What do you mean heavy expenses?”

  “There are very well defined burial treatment plans for landowners who discover remains on their properties.”

  “Does this happen a lot then? Seems like I just read about some guy who was allowed to build a home over thirty graves.” Em shivered. She couldn’t imaging wanting to desecrate one grave let alone thirty, no matter how old they were.

  “These islands were populated with hundreds of thousands of Polynesians and Hawaiians over the centuries and there is only so much land. There are countless gravesites yet to be discovered and as more and more property is developed, more and more will be unearthed. Especially in sandier soil close to the beach.”

  “So, let’s say I did find a grave
site…”

  “So did you?”

  “No. I found this in someone’s storage area.” She wasn’t about to say whose until she was certain Uncle Louie was in the clear. She felt a little better knowing the bone was old, but that still didn’t clear Louie, or Harold, for that matter. Even if they weren’t guilty of hiding a body, they might have been trying to cover up the discovery of an ancient grave.

  The very idea gave her the creeps. She thought she’d gotten to know her uncle fairly well these past few months—but what did she really know about him or his past?

  Her thoughts drifted back to the professor who was on a roll.

  “Let’s say there’s construction going on. All work ceases once a gravesite is discovered. Buffer zones are set up so bulldozers don’t corrupt the site. The State Historic Preservation Division is called in and so is the Kauai Police Department. An archeologist is brought in at the landowners’ expense to evaluate the site. And let me add, you can’t call in just any archeologist. The state has requirements for experience. Each island has its own Island Burial Council. Specialists in Hawaiian culture are supposed to handle the remains and any other artifacts found on site.”

  Nelg set the bone down carefully and sank into the chair again. “Those hamburgers sure smell great. I’d love to have one.”

  “Have you stopped eating raw?”

  “I only started because Namaste’s so into it.”

  “And you’re into her.”

  “I can’t get into her if I eat meat.”

  “I can sneak a burger and some fries back here for you.” She felt sorry for the man. There were hollows beneath his eyes and his skin was beginning to take on his girlfriend’s orange hue.

  “Namaste would smell the beef on my breath. She says all the toxins come out of our pores.” He sighed. “The things we do for love, eh?”

  Em nodded, thinking of how she might be putting herself in danger for Uncle Louie.

  “So what are you going to do with the femur?” He nodded toward the bone.

  She tried not to appear distressed. “Put it back where I found it, I guess.”