Livin' Lahaina Loca

by JoAnn Bassett

  “I don’t know. Sounded pretty serious when I called your house that time and you were making him breakfast.”

  “Okay, then I’ll cop to us being friends with benefits. But that weekend you called was almost a month ago. Anyway, the new guy’s name is Ono Kingston. He’s the captain of the catamaran we’re taking out for Keith and Nicole’s wedding.”

  “Yeah, speaking of that—it kind of steamed me they didn’t want me to perform their ceremony. I’ll bet your ‘Captain Ono’ doesn’t even have a nice spiritual script like mine.”

  “Or a lavender caftan,” I said. I pictured Farrah in her billowing wedding garb. With her frizzy waist-length hair and ample bosom, she looked like a forest fairy on steroids. “Well, don’t stress over it. I don’t think the bride and groom and their forty friends will be listening very closely to the ceremony—spiritual or not. With them it’s all about the photo op and the party afterward.”

  “Yeah, well fine. So, tell me more about this Ono guy.”

  “There’s not that much to tell. He’s from the mainland. His wife died of cancer and he came over here to get over it. He seems like a really nice guy.”

  “And he owns a big-ass fancy boat,” said Farrah.

  “Actually, no. He’s the captain. It’s owned by a person in Honolulu.”

  “Okay, remember me—your psychic pal? It doesn’t take a psychic to know when you hedge around and say ‘a person’ you actually mean ‘a woman.’ So, what’s with that?”

  I shrugged.

  “He’s skippering his girlfriend’s boat? It’s not like you to be checking out guys who are already taken. Kind of goes counter to being in the wedding business, don’t you think?”

  “You’re the one who’s always nagging me about living like a nun. I thought you’d congratulate me on noticing a good-looking guy.”

  “Yeah well, it sounds to me like he’s already been noticed. So cut your line and throw ‘em back.”

  Farrah and I stood there, in the back of the store, staring each other down until the phone on the back wall started to ring. Farrah waved it off, but it kept on—five, six, seven, rings.

  “Okay, okay,” she said as she made her way over to pick it up. “Probably some tourist wants to know if I carry the LA Times. I love to say ‘yeah sure’ and then listen to the dead air when I tell ‘em it’s always yesterday’s edition.”

  She picked up the receiver. “Aloha, Gadda da Vida Grocery.” She stared at the ceiling as she listened. “Uh-huh. Yeah. Hang on.” She handed me the handset. “It’s your live-in honey buns.”

  “I’m glad I found you,” said Steve after I’d said ‘hello’.’“Glen Wong’s here and he says he’s not leaving until he talks to you.”

  “Okay, put him on.”

  “He wants to talk to you in person. He’s been here a while. When are you coming home?”

  “I’m sure you’ve enjoyed playing the charming host to Detective Wong.” I winked at Farrah. I was treading on shaky ground since Steve had told me in strictest confidence he’d had a little crush on Glen Wong ever since they’d first met. “Do you want me to take my time?”

  My indiscretion was greeted with an echoing silence.

  “Okay, sorry. Tell Wong I’ll be up there in ten minutes.” I considered making another teasing remark, but let it go. I needed Steve to do the photo shoot for Nicole and Keith, and besides, he’d never once blabbed about my many embarrassing foibles. Anyway, not that I was aware of.

  I hung up and turned to Farrah.

  “Sounds like you’ve gotta go,” she said. “But before you leave, tell me what the police said when you filed the missing person report.”

  I briefly described my trip to the police station and how Wong had shrugged Crystal’s disappearance off as a prank.

  “And now Wong’s up at your house? Maybe he’s changed his mind.” She opened her cash drawer and started sorting the coins in the till. “If you need back-up for your story, I’d be happy to give him the four-one-one on that dude’s creepy aura.”

  “Mahalo. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  As I turned right on Hali’imaile Road I saw a Maui Police Department blue and white Crown Vic parked on the street in front of my house. I could feel the beady eyes of my neighbors hidden behind drawn drapes or lowered bamboo shades. No doubt they’d been keeping a constant vigil ever since the police car pulled up.

  I parked in back and went in through the kitchen door as usual. I heard Glen Wong and Steve in the living room. They were laughing. No loud guffaws or snorts, just the kind of polite laugh people do when they’re talking story while cooling their heels, waiting.

  “Honey, I’m home,” I sang as I pushed through the swinging door separating the kitchen from the living room.

  Steve shot me a doleful look. I’d really worn the edge off that greeting, and he seemed especially mortified I didn’t have the good sense to stifle myself when we had official company.

  “So you are,” he said. “But it’s been way more than ten minutes.”

  I considered throwing him a shaka sign with the ‘Maui time’ excuse, but figured he’d had my back on this one. No use pushing my luck.

  “Sorry, I got held up at Farrah’s store.”

  Glen frowned. ‘Held up’ probably isn’t the best phrase to use with a cop. He rose to greet me, extending his hand. I shook it and he sat back down on the sofa. I took the chair opposite.

  “Ms. Moon, I felt it necessary to come by and let you know how we’re proceeding with the report you filed yesterday.”

  Steve took the cue. “You guys want anything to drink?”

  In unison, Wong and I said, mahalo, but no.

  “Well, I’ve got some paperwork to catch up on. I’ll see you guys later.” Steve nodded to Wong and then went upstairs to his bedroom.

  Wong leaned in toward me. I expected him to start firing questions, but he remained silent.

  I waited.

  He cleared his throat. If I didn’t know better, I might have taken the guy for shy. It seemed he was working his way around to saying something embarrassing.

  Finally he spoke. “I reviewed this with my chief and we’re in agreement that this is most probably a hoax. Simply a Halloween prank.”

  “You think a severed ponytail from a woman who’s been missing for almost three days now is simply a prank?”

  “Well, the hair you brought in has yet to be positively identified as to ownership. And, when we called the people you said were the woman’s friends they gave a logical explanation for her whereabouts. But I need to complete my report to close the file. You know, whenever a citizen contacts us we need to investigate the concern. We can’t just ignore it.”

  Seemed to me that was exactly what he was doing, but I kept my mouth shut.

  He pulled a little notebook out of his shirt pocket and flipped through the pages before settling on the one he wanted.

  “The hair was cut, not pulled from the scalp, so most likely the person wasn’t harmed. Also, because we have no follicle from the hair it’s unlikely we’d be able to gather much DNA. But we wouldn’t order such a test anyway, because it’s expensive and time-consuming and we have no reason to suspect a chargeable crime has been committed.”

  He stopped and looked over at me as if expecting a rebuttal. I stayed silent.

  “Anyway, the people you named as acquaintances of the woman, a Keith Lewis and a Nicole Johnson, each gave plausible reasons for the woman to have left the island. Apparently, she’d changed her mind about being in the wedding party. Ms. Johnson said there were issues about the bridesmaid dress. Wrong color or something.”

  He shot me a half-smile.

  “She’s missing,” I said, not giving him any time to start up again. “No one’s seen her in three days now, and she’s contacted no one. Doesn’t that sound suspicious?”

  “Not really. As you know, Ms. Moon, visitors come and go with every plane in and out of Kahului.”

  “I know that,” I said. �
�But have you checked with the airlines to see if Crystal Wilson was aboard any of those outbound flights?”

  “If I thought there was any reason to check, I’d do it. But so far I’m not convinced there’s a problem. We appreciate your concern, but we think it’s unfounded. Mahalo for your time.” He snapped his notebook closed. “If you think of anything I ought to know, please feel free to get in touch.” He handed me yet another of his basic black and white business cards.

  “If you really want to hear what I think, here it is: I’m stunned you’re taking this so lightly. I’ve got a bad feeling that something horrible has happened to this girl. When her family and friends from the mainland start calling and asking questions, I’ll bet you’re going to be hard-pressed to convince them her disappearance was just a case of her not wanting to wear an ugly dress.”

  “You’re entitled to your opinion, Ms. Moon. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. You seem to revel in imagining various intrigues involving visitors. But this one’s a non-starter. I’m advising you to heed the request of your wedding clients and let this thing go. Get back to fussing over dresses and flowers and leave the investigating to us.” He stood. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get going. I’ll let myself out.”

  He quietly pulled the front door closed behind him. I started counting. Sure enough, I’d only gotten to eight when Steve bounded down the stairs.

  “Glen left so soon. Is everything okay?”

  I shook my head no but didn’t say anything.

  Steve crossed the room and pulled the bamboo window shade aside a few inches. He peered down the street.

  Finally I spoke. “Your pal Glen Wong thinks I’m paranoid, or a meddler, or maybe both. In any case, he advised me the police aren’t going to be looking into Crystal Wilson’s disappearance—now or ever.”

  “Really? I’m surprised. He seemed pretty agitated when he first showed up.”

  “Probably just the pitter-patter of his heart when he saw you here all alone.”

  “Don’t start.”

  “Okay, sorry,” I said. “I’m just kind of stunned he blew me off like that. He hasn’t asked around at all. He’s completely convinced the chopped-off hair was just a Halloween prank, and Crystal Wilson left Maui because she didn’t want to wear the pukey-pink bridesmaid dress.”

  “And you think he’s wrong?” He let the window shade drop and turned to face me.

  “Of course I think he’s wrong. I know something bad happened to that girl. And I believe whoever left that hair in my car is one dangerous guy.”

  “Or gal,” he said.

  I squinted at him.

  He lifted his chin. “Hey, Ms. ‘Politically Correct’ Moon—crime’s an equal opportunity employer, wouldn’t you say?”

  CHAPTER 8

  I was boring Steve by rattling off everything I could remember about Crystal Wilson when the phone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” he said. He banged through the swinging door to the kitchen, leaving me wondering if maybe Wong was right and I was simply seeing bogeymen around every corner. There was no denying fuchsia was an unflattering color for a redhead like Crystal.

  A few seconds later Steve pushed the door open about six-inches and said, “It’s for you.”

  “Is it a guy?”

  “I think,” he said in a low voice. “But that Samoan woman who bakes your wedding cakes has a voice like a guy so I can never be sure.”

  When I picked up the phone, a deep rumbling voice said, “Aloha, Pali.” It was definitely not Keahou up in Kula.

  “Oh hi, Ono. How’re you doing?”

  We went through the usual pleasantries for half-a-minute before he got down to business. “I have a favor to ask.”

  “Okay, shoot.” I thought that sounded a little tough, so I attempted to crank up the femininity a tad. “I’d be happy to help in any way I can.”

  “Great. Here’s my problem: I’m headed over to Honolulu this weekend to do a sailing party for the owner and my cabin girl is sick. Well, not actually sick—she got a nasty infection from a dirty needle at a tat shop. Her back’s so puffed up she looks like a beached turtle.”

  I didn’t say anything. Not that I didn’t feel bad for the poor girl, but I was contemplating what I suspected was coming.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “I need a hostess to help serve drinks and food at a sailing party I’m doing over there. My first mate can mix drinks and help me at the dock, but I need a pretty face to make sure everyone has a good time.”

  Again, I was silent. The pretty face comment was working its way through my BS detector.

  “We’ll only be gone a couple of days. Well, actually, three. We’ll go over early tomorrow, then stay Sunday for the party, and then we’ll head back at oh-dark-thirty on Monday morning. I know you’ve got this big wedding coming up, so if it’s too much to ask, just say so. But you seemed so cheerful when you came out to the dock yesterday I thought you might get a kick out of it. Oh, and it pays a couple hundred bucks—not that you probably need the money—but just in case you were wondering.”

  Ha! Little did he know how much I’d welcome an unexpected two hundred dollars.

  “You’re not saying anything,” he said. “Have I insulted you? Am I way out of line here?”

  “No, not at all. It’s just that I’ll need to check my calendar. Can you give me an hour or so and I’ll call you back?”

  “Of course. No worries. I just thought you might enjoy it. I stay at the owner’s high rise when I’m over there and she’s the consummate hostess. First class all the way. The first mate’s got some old high school buddies he hangs out with, but Tomika always insists I stay with her.”

  Lucky for you, I thought, but I’ll be hard pressed to find a last-minute hotel room in Honolulu that won’t cost me most of the two hundred bucks.

  “Well, it sounds like fun,” I said. “Can I get back to you by noon?”

  I hung up the phone wondering why I hadn’t simply declined right away. Was I some kind of masochist? Maybe I was way nosier than I admitted. Or was it that slipping out to sea, sailing past Moloka’i, and over to O’ahu with a gorgeous boat captain at my elbow and the wind in my hair made me think of that king of the world thing?

  Spending three days with charming Ono, even though it meant coming face-to-face with his love interest, was probably worth it. And besides, meeting his wealthy, sophisticated girlfriend would most assuredly snap me out of my reverie and make me focus on the task at hand: figuring out where I stood with fireman Hatch Decker.

  ***

  I made the rest of my callbacks and soon it was almost noon. I went through my to-do list for Keith and Nicole’s wedding and found only one item that still required my attention—selecting the limo cars and drivers. I’d heard that on the mainland wedding planners simply sign up with a reputable limo company and they’re assured of clean, well-appointed cars that arrive at the right place at the right time. The cars would be gleaming, inside and out, and the drivers would be in freshly-pressed uniforms. Moreover, they’d be gracious and accommodating—knowing such behavior would earn them a good tip.

  On Maui, it wasn’t that simple. I’d once used a limo company that had given me good cars and drivers for months and then—without warning—disaster. Later, I found out the owner had grown tired of the business and had handed it over to his teen-aged nephew as a high school graduation gift. The next time I used them, clueless nephew showed up half-an-hour late wearing a tee-shirt splattered with plate lunch. Then, he tried to bum twenty bucks off my client for gas. He had the radio blaring rap songs with lyrics that would have been bleeped out on TV. The limo interior was littered with beer bottles, fast-food wrappers and a girlie magazine. When my enraged client called me on his cell phone, I contacted the limo service to demand another car and driver. They said ‘Take it or leave it’ as it was prom night at Lahainaluna High School and every car for hire on Maui was already spoken for.

  Now I personally inspect all limos and
interview the drivers the week before the wedding. It takes about an hour, so I figured I’d schedule it for Tuesday—Wednesday at the latest.

  I called Ono at five to twelve. “I’m in. Tell me what I need to do.”

  ***

  It’s odd that I’ve lived my entire life surrounded by water but I rarely go near the water. For me, the ocean is like the sky—it’s just there. When I was an air marshal and we’d take off from Honolulu and spend hours upon hours streaking over the flat, blue-black Pacific I thought of it merely as space and time. It wasn’t wet, or cold, or alive with creatures, it was simply something to cross—a wide gap between Point A and Point B.

  Standing on the deck of the Maui Happy Returns as it slid out of Lahaina Harbor at five a.m. on Saturday morning was an experience I won’t soon forget. The motion of the boat felt odd, as if I was half-asleep and my perception was slipping in and out of reality. The trade winds were blowing pretty strong, and as we cleared the harbor area, Ono motioned to Chico, the first mate, to raise the sail.

  Chico hopped up on the roof of the cabin and cranked the winch on the main mast, releasing a huge expanse of white sail. It fluttered and caught the wind like a colossal cupped hand, and before long we were flashing across the waves, slipping down into choppy troughs and popping back up at a dizzying speed.

  I stood near the back of the boat, one hand shielding my eyes from the rising sun and the other hand gripping the rail. Watching the glowing white sail bulge and then relax against the wind was hypnotic.

  “Pretty nice, huh?” Ono yelled to me from his place at the stern.

  “Fantastic,” I said. I went up the four stairs to stand by him at the wheel.

  “You get out on the water much?”

  “Never.”

  “Yeah, it seems like that to me too, sometimes. I can never get enough of it.”

  “No, I mean, I can’t remember the last time I was out on a boat, or even in the water. Maybe back in high school.”

  He touched my shoulder and I turned. His face looked stricken, like I’d told him my dog had been hit by a bus.