Livin' Lahaina Loca

by JoAnn Bassett

  “Clean girls get sucked into the life, too, you know. Like all those Hollywood celebrities who’ve OD’d or graced the cover of Us magazine doing the perp walk after getting caught with cocaine at an after-hours club.”

  “True, but it still feels like something’s not right.” I picked up a Payday candy bar from the counter display, but when I saw the buck-and-a-half price sticker I put it back down.

  “Take it,” said Farrah. “It’s not like I’m gonna make my best hoa aloha—who I hardly ever get to see anymore—pay for a lousy candy bar.”

  “Mahalo,” I said. “I’m starving.” I tore off the wrapper.

  “Oh yeah, and speaking of hardly seeing you anymore,” Farrah said over the sound of my munching, “guess what happened next door?”

  I shook my head rather than throw out guesses since I was juggling a mouthful of peanuts and caramel.

  “Seems they’ve run into a snag.”

  I swallowed. “Bad wiring? Rotten wood? What?”

  “Well, it all started on Wednesday. I heard yelling and doors slamming and then all kinds of people started traipsing in and out. And not just construction people. There were other people I’d never seen before. The parade kept up all day Thursday. And then this morning, it was quiet—real quiet. Finally, one of the head Mo’olele guys—I think his name is Tomo or Bobo or something—”

  “Bono?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Anyway, he comes in around nine to fill his coffee thermos and he gives me an earful.” She smiled, apparently enjoying the tale. “Seems they found some wild stuff down in the crawlspace.”

  “What kind of stuff—like asbestos?”

  “Nope, better’n that.”

  I waited. I’ve never been a fan of twenty questions but Farrah refused to stop trying to get me to play.

  “They found some iwi—some bones. From the looks of things they’re human—leg bones or arm bones or something. Bono said when they first found them the construction workers shot outta there so fast you’d have thought the place was burning down all over again.”

  “Did you see them—the bones?” I said.

  “Yeah. Bono took me over there and pointed them out. They’re right under the floor where they’d torn up some burned-out boards. There are stones there, too—piled up. Everyone agrees it looks like an ancient Hawaiian heiau.”

  “Wow. Like a sacrificial altar or maybe a royal burial spot? Do you think your folks had any idea that was down there when they ran the store?”

  “Probably not. But anyway, for now work has stopped—totally pau hana. Personally, I think it’s pretty funny the historical society got shut down by an inconvenient historical discovery.”

  “But what about you?” I said. “How do you feel about having ancestor bones right next door?”

  “I’m fine with it. Remember, I had a kahuna come and bless the store before I opened it back up after the fire. And I’m not afraid of ghosts. Over the years I’ve bumped into a few ghosts and so far I’ve gotten along with every one of them. The dead are big on aloha.”

  A smile spread across her face and she went on. “So hey, ol’ Bessie Yokamura and her hupo Maui Mo’olelo Society thought they could boot you out of your shop and kick you to the curb—no worries. But now they got worries. They can’t put a visitor center over sacred ground, and nobody else will want it once they hear about those bones down there. You wait, your phone’s gonna start ringing and ol’ Bessie’s gonna be all happy talking you about how she’s changed her mind and she’d love to have you as a tenant.”

  “And I’d love to be back here,” I said. “I hate driving to the West Side every day and then trying to get rid of the restaurant smells before my clients show up. If she calls, I’m gonna jump at it, bones or no.”

  “No, girl. Don’t be too quick. Slippa’s on the other foot now. Doesn’t take a psychic to see if you play your cards right you be paying some dirt cheap rent over there.”

  We hugged good-bye and I went out to my car feeling pretty good. I could get a kahuna to bless my shop and leave the bones to rest in peace. I’d get to work in Pa’ia again, and, if Farrah was right, pay less rent than I had before. Everything was looking pretty good after all.

  CHAPTER 19

  I’d like to say Beni Kanekoa cleaned up well, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. His hair was a little less greasy, and he smelled a tad more like soap than scum, but he still resembled something you’d find three-feet down in a Dumpster.

  After a few minutes of small talk, Steve, Beni and I ate the rest of our dinner in silence. Steve pushed back from the table and announced he was sorry but he couldn’t help with dishes since he’d offered to give a guy a ride somewhere. It was my turn anyway. He didn’t need to come up with phony excuses.

  After Steve left, I snatched Beni’s nearly full plate and scraped it into the garbage. He’d eaten only a few bites, but the alfredo sauce was starting to congeal and I didn’t hold out much hope of him suddenly digging in.

  “You know, I got the cops after me, too,” he said, totally out of the blue. “Seems I got both cops and robbers on my tail.”

  “Beni, hopefully I can help you with the trouble you’re in. But first, you’re going to have to come clean with me on what you know about Crystal Wilson—you know, the red-haired girl.”

  “Oh man, that’s a freakin’ mess. She gets pinched by those guys and then... Hey, I told ‘em it was stupid. By the time they figured out I was right, it was a done deal.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” I said. “What’re you saying? They didn’t mean to kidnap her? How do you mistakenly kidnap a person? Doesn’t something like that take a lot of planning?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t tell me nothin’. I was only s’posed to make sure that haole dude knew they had her. That’s all. But then he takes off and it all got fu—uh, I mean, messed up, eh.”

  “So, why do you think they’re coming after you?”

  “They gotta blame somebody. They finger me for the local dumb-ass so I’ll take the fall.”

  “Okay, let’s start at the top. These guys grabbed the red-haired girl when? The day before Halloween?”

  “Yeah, the night before. I guess she was at a party at Moose McGillicuddy’s down in Lahaina. She left down the back stairs, alone.”

  “And they abducted her. And then they cut off her hair.”

  “Yeah, like that.”

  “And then they told you to make sure Keith Lewis knew about it.”

  “They called him a different name. But it was the guy you were doing the wedding for,” he said.

  “The police hinted he’d given me a phony name. Do you remember the name your friends called him?”

  “Hey, they’re not my friends, eh? They’re just some bad-ass dudes I owed a bunch of money.”

  “Okay, fine. But what name did they call him?” I said.

  “Johnson, Jackson, Jock-itch—some stupid haole name like that.”

  “So you’re the one who put the hair in my car. Why in my car?”

  “Because those guys tol’ me to put it where that haole guy would find it. But he was staying up at the Ritz. Not like a dude like me can go hangin’ around there and not get caught on a camera. I followed him for a while and figured out you were doing his wedding. I remembered you from my cousin’s kung fu place. On Halloween I follow you to Lahaina and when you park your car I stick it in there. I knew you’d tell him. Smart, eh?”

  I chose not to weigh in on his intellectual prowess.

  “So, did you also key my car door?”

  “Huh? No way, man. The door was open.”

  Good thing I hadn’t perjured myself by agreeing he was intelligent.

  “And then when nothing happened after I found the hair,” I said, “the kidnappers peeled off her fingernails.”

  “I s’pose. They don’ tell me much.”

  “So you were the one who hung the bag of fingernails on my doorknob.”

  “Yeah. I would’ve put ‘em in yo
ur car again but I couldn’t get in.”

  “And how about the ransom note?”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about that. After I hung that thing on your door they start accusing me of messing up. They made me point you out. I took ‘em by your house and then down to your place in Lahaina. After that, I was pretty out of it.” He squirmed in his chair. “Look, we done here? I’m feelin’ kind of sick.” He belched as if to add authenticity.

  “We’re done for now. Get some sleep and we’ll talk some more in the morning.”

  “There’s nothin’ more to say. I did what they told me to do. There’s no way this was my idea—no way. Now you gotta help me. I tell ya, if they find me they’ll kill me too.”

  I squinted at him.

  He shook his head. “No, I mean it. These dudes have done the deed lots of times—to friends of mine. They squash guys like me like bugs, eh.”

  Not exactly the note I wanted to end on, but Beni was shaking and sweating like a hosed-down Chihuahua, so I halted my interrogation and helped him get back upstairs to bed.

  ***

  I felt lousy about the way I’d left things with Hatch. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep if I didn’t try to straighten things out, so I called him.

  “I sure hope you’re not calling me from jail,” he said as he picked up.

  “Very funny. No, I’m here at the house, but I’ve been feeling bad about how we left things today.”

  “Bad about being a drug mule, or bad about me finding out about it?”

  “Stop it. You know I’m no drug mule. Can I come over and talk?” I didn’t want to invite him over to my house and risk having Beni stumble into view.

  “I guess. You bringing a peace offering?”

  “Sure. You want wine, mac nuts, cookies, what?”

  “All of the above, babe. You got some serious making up to do.”

  I packed a little picnic basket and drove down to Sprecklesville. After my conversation with Beni it felt good to get away from the house for a while. I cranked the driver’s side window down and let the trade winds blow my hair around.

  I pulled in to Hatch’s driveway and slowly approached the house with my headlights off. I was kidding myself if I thought I could sneak up on Wahine, though. Her yapping started when I was still ten yards away, and it changed to a high-pitched whine when I got out of my car. Hatch must have patched the hole in the screen door because she was inside, throwing herself against it in a rather impressive display of righteous indignation.

  “Hey, babe,” Hatch said as he opened the screen. Wahine shot through the door and off the porch like she’d been launched from a cannon.

  “Hey, girl,” I leaned down to pet her, but after a quick sniff-assessment of my hand she went for the picnic basket, ignoring my offer of an ear scratching.

  “Heen, what have I told you about begging?” said Hatch.

  “She probably smells the doggie rawhide I put in there,” I said.

  “Oh yeah, try and butter up the old man by spoiling his kid.” He smiled.

  “Seems to be working.”

  “Not so fast. What’ve you got in there for me?”

  I pulled out a quart of pineapple/mac nut ice cream, some shortbread cookies, and a bottle of white wine.

  “Wine and ice cream?” he said.

  “Food of the gods.”

  We sat outside eating ice cream and sipping our wine while Wahine licked and chewed her rawhide. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have guessed everything was rosy. A charming little family of three enjoying a night on the lanai while the wind rustled the palms and plumeria blossoms scented the air.

  Hatch put his bowl down and Wahine immediately dashed over to lick it clean.

  “That’s kind of disgusting, you know,” I said.

  “No, what’s disgusting is you getting mixed up with a bunch of scumbag drug dealers.”

  “That’s what I came over to talk about. I—”

  “Look, I don’t want to hear your excuses. I don’t want to hear how all you’re doing is trying to find that missing tourist. Fact is, this is quicksand, pure and simple. You watch somebody getting sucked under and you go in to help and the next thing you know, it’s you.”

  I blew out a breath.

  “Oh yeah, tell me I don’t understand. Call me a hard-ass, or a worry-wart. Thing is—I’m neither. I totally understand. And not being a hard-ass nearly killed me.”

  I waited. There was nothing to say, no question or comment that would make any difference.

  “Remember when I told you I left the force over on O’ahu to become a firefighter because I was tired of being a cop—sick of being the dude nobody wanted to see coming? I thought playing fireman would be different. We show up and everybody cheers.”

  He went on. “Well, come to find out, there’s lots of times people want to see cops. Like when I got hit by that jerk while I was working that wreck out on the highway last winter. Nobody cheered louder than me when that cop collared the moron who ran me down.”

  He paused as if reliving the two months it had taken him to heal from a badly fractured leg and shoulder. And the three months of physical therapy were probably still pretty fresh in his mind as well.

  “Anyway, I didn’t leave O’ahu willingly—didn’t stop being a cop willingly. I left under duress. Under huge freakin’ duress.”

  Wahine lifted her head as if she’d heard a faraway whistle. Then she moved in closer to Hatch and laid her snout on his bare foot. He scratched her head and they both sighed.

  “Hatch, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, let me finish. I haven’t told you any of this before because I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. Now I know I do.”

  I gave a small nod, but in the gathering dark I’m not sure he saw it.

  “I did the unthinkable—I fell for my female partner. Not supposed to, not encouraged by the department, that’s for sure. But we were both single and we understood each other like no one else did. You got someone’s back day in and day out and pretty soon you don’t have a choice. It’s like they become a part of you. In this case, she became the better part of me. It wasn’t about looks, or sex, or physical chemistry, or any of that. It was about loyalty, and commitment, and not knowing where one of you ends and the other begins.”

  I felt a tightness grip my sternum. Did I really want to hear his shaggy dog story about his one true love? Hardly.

  “Anyway, they tapped her for undercover. She was pretty enough for vice, so I thought they’d be dolling her up and sending her out to Waikiki to nab johns on vacation who chase their mai tais with little blue pills. She couldn’t tell me what she was working on, but every night she’d come back a little more tense and a lot more paranoid.”

  “Finally, I’d had enough,” he went on. “On my night off, I tailed her. She didn’t go to one of the regular hooker traps, though. She went to a house up in Manoa Valley—way back in there, off the beaten path.”

  He covered his eyes and then dropped his face into his hands as if watching the memory unspool before him like a movie.

  “It turned out to be a drug house—a meth lab. Right after I got there I saw a guy dragging her outside—her arm twisted up behind her back. I panicked, sure her cover had been blown and he’d made her for a cop. I jumped out and as soon as the guy saw me, it was all over. He pulled the biggest damn pistol I’ve ever seen and blew a huge hole right through her neck. Just like that. I popped him and got her into my car but she bled out before I even hit a paved road.”

  By now Hatch’s voice was a husky whisper. “I didn’t go to the memorial service. I didn’t even eat for days ‘cuz all I wanted to eat was my gun.”

  Wahine let out a long doggie sigh and nuzzled her snout into the arch of his foot.

  “It was my captain’s idea for me to switch to the fire service. He had a brother-in-law over here, said he’d let me take the test.”

  He stopped. Something skittered under the porch but Wahine stayed put.

&nb
sp; I had nothing to say—nothing to ask. I laid a hand on Hatch’s shoulder.

  “Pali,” he said. “I’m begging you. Don’t get involved in this. Let it go—please.”

  ***

  It was getting late. On the ride back home I weighed my options but they all came down to one simple truth: I’m not a quitter. I sleep better when I’m not second-guessing myself. Maybe Wong and Hatch were okay with leaving Crystal at the mercy of a bunch of drug-fueled kidnappers, but it wasn’t something I could live with.

  I came into the house and went upstairs to Beni’s room and knocked.

  Silence.

  “Open the door.”

  Silence.

  “Open this door or I’ll break it down.”

  The sofa bed creaked.

  While I waited, I silently counted. When I got to eight, I decided ten was more than he deserved. I took a couple of steps back and heaved my shoulder against the door, but it didn’t budge.

  Steve jerked his door open at the other end of the hall. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I need to talk to Beni.”

  “It’s after eleven. Let the guy sleep. Besides, he’s not going anywhere. You can talk in the morning.”

  I preferred the visual of crashing through Beni’s door and shaking him until his teeth rattled, but common sense won out. After all, I’d be the one paying to fix the door.

  I went downstairs and fell on my bed, not even bothering to take off my clothes.

  CHAPTER 20

  I’m a light sleeper. I think it comes from being an orphan—I’ve never felt there was anyone looking out for me but me. So when I sensed someone in my room, I jolted upright. Looking back, I’m pretty sure I smelled him before I actually saw him. This turned out to be a good thing since recognizing his odor was the only thing that kept me from jabbing a knuckle into the larynx of the guy looming over me.

  “You awake?” said Beni.

  “I am now. What’re you doing here?”

  “It’s not safe up there. I gotta be down here.”