Prospect for Murder (Natalie Seachrist Hawaiian Cozy Mystery 1)

by Burrows-Johnson, Jeanne; June, Yasamine;

  Soon the luggage that departed with Bill only a few weeks earlier arrives at the door of our condo. It is the duffle bag that is most upsetting. Everything is so neatly folded. One piece lies on top of the next, with nothing gaping over the edge. Each layer reveals the attention to detail with which Bill had lived every day of his short life.

  That bag will remain at the back of the bedroom closet in the condo that becomes a shrine to a sparkling lifestyle that will never be experienced. I never live in the condo fully after my return from Hong Kong. I merely store the remains of my last days and nights with Bill. Then one afternoon when I have gone shopping with Sandy, Nathan removes the last of my husband’s belongings, saying they will be waiting for me when I am ready for them.

  With mixed feelings, I watch myself type up the notes of my first assignment as a journalist. Despite the deep grief that will accompany me for a couple of years, the result will be a lively article that woos the reader into contemplating a journey to the exciting port of Hong Kong.

  * * * * *

  I awoke from my dreams of Bill warmly remembering what I loved about him. He had been the perfect companion for the short-lived marriage of my youth. It has been a long time since I felt committed to him, but I never thought of remarrying.

  Part of the reason for my continuing single status was my hectic schedule. I bought my current two-bedroom condo in the mid-1980s. But being an international journalist meant that I did not reside there regularly. Living overseas for months or even a year at a time, made it difficult to maintain a long-distance relationship with even a special person. Eventually I realized that most men of my generation wanted their significant other to commit to a full-time relationship. My career precluded that.

  There was also the issue of my independence. To be honest, I have appreciated being on my own most of the time. Even with the love and companionship provided by my brother and his family, I liked my life as a transient writer. In fact, assignments in the leisure industry provided a wonderful means for interacting with family and friends who enjoyed journeying to exotic locales to share in my adventures. Luckily, none of my loved ones were ever endangered by the few times when circumstances on the news front forced me to shift into emergency coverage of events during my travels around the world.

  In short, between my love of work and desire to maintain my free lifestyle, I had only one long-term boyfriend after Bill’s death. But despite Gary’s waiting patiently for me to settle down, after nine years it became too much for him. And even though I had felt committed to our relationship, the breakup was not upsetting to me.

  After so many years on the road, I am settled and enjoying life in Honolulu. But recently, I have felt restless on the romantic front. That’s why my dinner with Keoni was fruitful in more than one way. Professionally, we are a balanced team. Personally, I really enjoy his companionship. Beyond that, he is good looking, has a resonant voice, and a keen mind. Our goodnight kiss was definitely a sensual promise. I am looking forward to pursuing our relationship, despite the sorrow that has brought us closer. The next trip to the condo, or round of shopping, will have to include a recharge of lingerie and perfume.

  CHAPTER 14

  The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting…

  Pierre Abelard [1079-1142]

  When I finally emerged from my night of dreaming, it was later than I had intended to awaken. I rushed to start a pot of coffee and laid out a portion of Miss Una’s morning favorite, canned duck.

  “Thanks for letting me sleep in for once,” I told her, sneaking in a few pets while she daintily picked through morsels of her breakfast. “Unfortunately, you chose the wrong day to be so generous.”

  While the coffee brewed, I hurried to complete a few chores before leaving for the Medical Examiner’s office. As usual, the mundane housework settled my nerves and focused my thinking. I poured some almond milk and agave syrup into my coffee and sat down to reflect on the rollercoaster ride of emotions I was feeling after my evening with Keoni.

  My elation over my developing relationship with Keoni was severely undercut by the devastation I felt from listening to Al Cooper’s revelations about his feelings toward Ariel! Did his words point toward sinister action? Maybe I was approaching resolution of the question of what, or perhaps who, had caused her demise.

  Like the first days following her death, I was not hungry, but knew I needed to have my wits about me if I was to absorb what the coroner and police had to tell us about Ariel’s case. What a shame that my meals did not come packaged neatly in a small pouch or can. With my nervousness, the most I could swallow was a breakfast bar. But since I did not know what lay ahead, I dropped a couple of my apple and nut interpretations of military Meals-Ready-to-Eat into my handbag.

  Shortly after I had showered and dressed, Keoni called.

  “Good morning, Natalie. I hope you slept well.” he said.

  “Beautifully, thank you. How was your trip home?” I asked him.

  “It seemed like it took longer to get down the stairs and to my truck than it did to drive home to Mānoa.”

  “I’ve noticed the stairs have that effect myself,” I laughed.

  “Are you ready for today?” asked Keoni on a more serious note.

  “As much as can be expected. It’s a complicated issue. I have to go if I want to learn what happened to Ariel. But I don’t know if I’m prepared for what I’m going to be told.”

  It was not a conversation either of us wanted to prolong. After confirming his arrival time, we said goodbye. I combed my hair and added a few items of jewelry before checking that I had locked the patio door and left enough food for Miss Una. Picking up my handbag, I looked around the living room of the apartment Ariel had never had the opportunity to enjoy. Even with my furnishings, it felt bereft of life, like the first time I had seen it.

  In a thoughtful mood, I walked down to the parking lot that was nearly empty at this mid-morning time. I had a couple of minutes until Keoni was due so I looked in my mailbox, in case the carrier had been early. No, there was nothing addressed to me, or even “occupant.”

  Keoni pulled up right on time. Before he could get out to open the passenger’s door, I popped the latch and hopped into the cab.

  “My, it’s certainly more spacious without piles of boxes and a cat,” I observed.

  “It’s even roomier if I fold down the back seat,” he noted, with a sidelong glance at me.

  Not knowing what lay ahead today, I had foregone trying to look svelte and lovely. Instead I had opted for a loose shorty mu`umu`u and my comfortable red gel sandals. I was now rethinking that choice.

  “I won’t insult you by asking how you’re feeling,” said Keoni. “I’m here to support you and Nathan in any way I can, without interfering with the official proceedings. If you need me to help clarify something that Marty or JD are telling you, or asking of you, just give me a sign.”

  “Keoni, I’m grateful for your help and friendship…on lots of levels,” I replied.

  He took his right hand off the steering wheel for a moment and gently squeezed my knee. Was this a neutral gesture of reassurance, or something more? No verbal response came to mind. Except to confirm the protocol to be followed, we did not converse much on the trip to the ME’s office.

  Timely as always, Nathan was waiting for us by the building’s entrance. The men shook hands and Nathan and I hugged. I tried not to stare, but my graying twin looked unkempt in his rumpled aloha shirt and shorts. Slumped like he was, he looked shorter than his Viking height of six foot two inches. It had been only a couple of weeks since Ariel’s death, but he looked like he had been on a starvation diet. What could I say? The main reason I kept stoking my inner fires was my cat’s need to eat on a regular schedule.

  Keoni sized up the situation and took charge. He opened the door and moved us toward the reception counter. Recognizing him, the clerk addressed him
by name and greeted all of us warmly. The man invited us to be seated and asked if any of us would like coffee or water. Both Keoni and I declined any beverage. With a healthy dose of cream and sugar, coffee appeared to be the perfect means for enlivening my brother.

  I reflected on my relationship with Nathan while we sat listening to the click of the clerk’s keyboard and occasional phone calls. Keoni had been right about Nathan’s uncanny ability to see into the heart of many matters. In our family, he sometimes provided solutions to problems before we had a chance to introduce the topic to him.

  How does he do this? Beyond his personal gift of kenning, I sometimes learn he has shared a dream of mine. Throughout my career as a travel reporter and sometimes travelogue presenter my dreams have been filled with idyllic scenes from a mountain-top Shangri-La or the deck of an elegant cruise ship sailing on undulating ocean waves. In contrast, until his retirement, Nathan’s work in family services has produced dreams filled with intense images I would prefer not to have seen. I think this explains why he has withdrawn from me in many ways.

  Throughout his career in social work, he demonstrated an uncanny ability to know when to separate members of a family in distress. This prompted his bosses to load his in-box with cases that demanded the wisdom and patience of Solomon. Sometimes when he has faced the worst of scenarios, a short ethereal video might would slip across the night skies and into my unconscious mind. But while sharing a dream with his big sister might serve as the perfect catalyst for determining an appropriate path to judicial prudence, the resulting stress I experienced was overwhelming.

  Looking around the reception area of the coroner’s office, I suddenly wondered if Nathan had been partaking of my recent dreams—let alone the visions I had had about Ariel. I hoped not. But if he had seen some of what I had in my visions, it would explain his current appearance and demeanor. Shortly, I was relieved of my disquieting thoughts by the appearance of a man of medium height and build who introduced himself as Dr. Martin Soli.

  “I’m sorry to be late” he said gently, offering his hand to each of us. “Please follow me,” the whitish-blond man said, gesturing down a long hallway. Beyond the lobby, the lighting was dim and the air reminiscent of a hospital. Except for the squishing sound our hard soled shoes made on the green rubber flooring, we walked in silence. After passing several security glass fronted doors, we halted in front of a solid wood door without signage. As he waved us in, Dr. Soli’s white lab coat opened and revealed an aloha shirt with reverse printing of blue Hawaiian quilt squares. The pattern matched the red shirt Ariel and Brianna had given Nathan last Christmas.

  We entered a clean but cluttered office and arranged ourselves on standard government chairs of thinly upholstered metal tubing. The doctor sat down behind a massive metal desk that looked like it had been in service since World War II. He then deftly shifted two stacks of file folders to the top of a refrigerator crammed in the middle of a row of cabinets behind him. We stared at the single remaining file in the center of the desk.

  “Natalie, Nathan, I’m so sorry to be seeing you under these circumstances. Although this is an official meeting, please call me Marty.”

  He looked at Keoni and then my brother. “I think we’ve actually met before, Nathan. It happened during the case of a Marine corporal who’d gone over the edge and murdered his wife after learning she’d taken a lover while he was overseas.”

  Hearing his name, my brother came out of his reverie. “Yes, I remember that case. We’d had difficulty in placing all three of the children in a single foster home. I was grateful for your tip about that new shelter for multiple siblings.”

  Marty nodded and turned to open the door of the refrigerator. “May I offer any of you some water?” I was glad there were no odd sights or smells when he opened the hotel-sized appliance and answered “yes” for all of us. As he passed out the well-chilled bottles, I noted a box of tissues at the ready. The man was not new to making these personal reports and must have dealt with a variety of responses through the years.

  Keoni and I opened the bottles we were handed and took generous sips. My brother held his in his lap. The air was heavy with the dread we all felt: Nathan and me for the gruesome details we would have to receive about Ariel’s death; Marty for having to impart such news; and Keoni for having to help each of us steer our way through the proceedings.

  Clearing his throat, Marty said, “This is a summary of my initial findings in Ariel’s case.” He opened the file and leaned forward to extend it to Nathan. Nathan demurred and Marty passed the papers to me.

  Taking them from his hand, I looked down at a multi-paged form with enumerated block-printed sections. Keoni slid his arm along the back of my chair, without obtrusively moving into my space. I set the file down, pulled my reading glasses from their case and unconsciously rubbed them on my dress. Then I set them on the edge of my nose, far enough from my eyes to blink away the tears that were already forming.

  My hands shook while I tried to analyze the formulaic pages before me. I returned to the beginning. Only fragments of the words registered in my conscious mind. Seeing Ariel reduced to this brief description was enormously painful.

  The victim is wearing a white sleeveless tennis dress and one Nike sports shoe on the left foot…Undergarments include a white sports bra, white cotton underpants and white tennis socks with the signature green “H” denoting the University of Hawai’i…thejewelry included: one carved silver pierced loop earring with floral design, 1-inch diameter, in right ear; one half-inch wide stainless steel Seiko watch on left wrist.

  I turned the pages slowly, aware that Keoni was reading the text along with me. With his knowledge and experience, it was not the hollow verse of a coroner’s report that he was seeing. Beyond his professional response, he was my friend. I knew he was feeling the edge of the trauma being inflicted on my brother and me.

  The report clarified that in addition to what she was wearing on her body, her second shoe and a silver bracelet had been collected as separate evidence. The report unfolded in standard forensic style without further preamble. The neutral tone of the language employed did not lessen its impact on me.

  The body is that of a twenty-two-year-old, well-developed, well-nourished Caucasian American woman. The woman was pronounced dead at 16:25 with closed eyes, no heart sounds, no pulse and no spontaneous respirations. Height, sixty-seven inches…Weight, one hundred eighteen pounds…red hair, apparently naturally bleached by the sun…Freckles across cheeks, nose and chest…Fingernails, short, manicured with a clear polish…The patient has no surgical scars….

  I shuddered slightly. Keoni patted my shoulder. My mind wandered for a moment. I was reminded that Ariel and Brianna were identical twins. The obvious differences are few. Since Brianna lives in the Northwest and is seldom in the sun, her hair is darker and she has fewer freckles. I looked up for a moment to see that Nathan continued to show no expression; he simply looked down at the water bottle in his lap. Except for the hum of the air conditioner, the room remained silent as I continued reading this document that felt as if it were written about someone I had never met.

  Cause of death is asphyxiation due to spinal shock caused by severe trauma at the fifth cervical vertebra…The fatal injuries are consistent with a fall from a four-storey building… trauma to the head…Bruising on the sternum probably caused by the victim bouncing from the top of one vehicle onto the hood of the same vehicle…hyoid bone broken…Right femoral head fractured at the acetabulum of the hip bone…Fragments of foreign material in the epidural abrasions and contusions across the body…Fragments within the knuckle lacerations of the right hand are consistent with paint from both the building from which she fell and the auto on which she landed…The preliminary toxicology screen indicates no alcohol, prescription or illicit drugs in the deceased’s blood or urine; comprehensive toxicological analysis to follow.

  I understood most of the med
ical terminology, but no matter what words had been used, one thing was clear: Ariel had fractured her neck when she landed on Al Cooper’s car. She would have been a quadriplegic even if she had survived the short fall. She would have been confined to a wheelchair, requiring professional healthcare supervision around the clock for the rest of her life. Something I doubted she could have endured for very long.

  I sighed and looked up into Marty’s pale blue eyes to let him know I had read all that I could. Keoni again squeezed my shoulder as we both looked over at Nathan, who exhibited no curiosity about the final pronouncements on Ariel’s life.

  What should I say? I inhaled deeply and then stated the obvious. “Nathan and I appreciate your taking the time to meet with us personally, Marty. It’s clear from this report that your office has been thorough in its analysis.”

  Marty responded softly, his look encompassing all of us. “We’ve given Ariel’s case our fullest attention. I only wish we could provide you with answers to the question of how Ariel’s death occurred. But I know you’re meeting with Lieutenant Dias shortly, and he’ll be able to put some of our findings into a larger context.”

  Rising, Marty walked to a lockable steel cabinet beside a refrigerator positioned behind his desk. “If you’re up to it, I’d like to go through the belongings that Ariel had with her.”

  He opened the door and reached up to a shelf for a large, brown envelope, and looked questioningly at my twin. Nathan again gestured toward me and Marty handed it to me. I looked at the label and noted Ariel’s full name and a case number. I gingerly opened the envelope. The first thing I pulled out was Ariel’s cocoa-colored, calfskin fanny pack, ideal for her active life of study and sports.