Stolen in Paradise (A Lei Crime Companion Novel)

by Neal, Toby

  “Ask away.”

  Marcella set the phone on the coffee table and activated Record. “What kind of relationship did you have with your aunt?”

  “We…” For the first time, the girl bit her lower lip. “We fought a lot.”

  “What about?”

  “The usual. She wanted me to make something of myself.” Natalie made quotation marks with her fingers. “She was always on my case.”

  “So what is it that you do?”

  “I’m an artist.”

  “I don’t see any art.” Marcella gestured to the bare, dingy walls.

  “I don’t keep it out here.” A long pause, then: “I have a day job. I work at Hot Topic, the clothing store.”

  “So where were you two nights ago?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Do you use drugs? Is that why?”

  The girl stood abruptly. “You know what? I don’t need this shit right now. You haven’t even told me why you’re here—I’m assuming there’s been foul play, since it’s the FBI telling me my aunt’s dead and interrogating me.” Natalie’s lips trembled, and she pressed a hand against her mouth. Yellow paint marked bitten nails, lending credence to her claim to be an artist.

  “My partner gets a little direct, sorry,” Rogers said. “And, yes. Your aunt was murdered.”

  Natalie sat down, this time abruptly—as if her legs couldn’t hold her anymore. The hand was still pressed against her mouth.

  “We do need to know where you were. Just routine. We’re asking everyone who was close to Dr. Pettigrew.” Rogers was gentle, leaning toward the girl, with his elbows propped on his knees and big hands cupped. His posture seemed entreating—a practiced ease and sincerity to it. Marcella still admired his interviewing skills.

  “All right. Well.” Natalie leaned forward, picked up the glass of juice from the coffee table, took a sip. “I was with someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m seeing someone, so I have an alibi. But I’m not saying who it is unless I have to.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  That reminded Marcella of another evasion she’d heard that day. She made a mental note before asking, “Do you own a handgun?”

  “No. Hate those things. So…she was shot?” Again a little vibration in the voice, a hum like the sound of rain moving in.

  “Yes. She was.”

  “So she…Did she suffer?”

  “It was quick. She couldn’t have felt a thing,” Rogers said. Marcella was silent, picturing the openmouthed expression of surprise frozen on Dr. Pettigrew’s face. She’d felt something all right—she’d been betrayed. Marcella was willing to bet money on it.

  “I think we’re going to need that alibi,” Marcella said.

  “I’m—not making the right impression.” Natalie’s eyes filled, but she widened them, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay—and the blue of them was definitely purple, Marcella decided. “I loved my aunt. We just didn’t—get each other. She wanted me to…I guess, be living another kind of life. But I can’t. I want to show you something.”

  She got up, and the two agents followed her down a tattily carpeted hallway to a bedroom, flicked on the light. Color assaulted them from huge artworks lining the walls to the ceiling. The backing material appeared to be plywood, and the girl’s abstract style filled the room with a vibrating energy that left an impression—Marcella knew because she closed her eyes for a second, still seeing the vivid triptych of slashing contrasts on the wall across from her.

  “These are good,” she said. “You have a distinctive style.”

  “Thanks. But this isn’t what sells in Hawaii. This is.” Natalie reached behind a stack of paintings and held up an innocuous illustration of a turtle sunning itself on the beach.

  “That’s a nice one,” Rogers said, admiring.

  Both women gave him a glare, and he raised his hands. “Hey. I’m no art critic.”

  “Thanks for showing us these,” Marcella said. “Mind if I take a photo?”

  “If you must.”

  Marcella photographed the room, ending with a shot of Natalie Pettigrew holding the turtle painting. “Appreciate that.”

  “No problem. Since I didn’t do it, I have nothing to hide.” Natalie led them back into the living room.

  “Did you know of anyone who would wish your aunt harm?”

  “No. Those students of hers have—had—her on a pedestal. But I think she was working on something pretty high-powered. Maybe whoever shot her was after that. Are we done?”

  “For now.” Marcella handed Natalie her card. “We are still going to need your alibi.”

  “I can’t tell you right now.” The girl set her mouth in a stubborn line. “I will when I have to, but not a minute before. People could be hurt.”

  “Oh please.” Marcella did a tiny eye roll. “Wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that. I’ll find out anyway; you can bet on it. In any case, call if you hear or remember anything that could help with the investigation.”

  The girl gave a brief nod, looking down at the card, and the sun-blistered door closed firmly behind them. They heard the light patter of Natalie’s feet running away to the back of the apartment.

  “She’s going to her bedroom to cry,” Marcella said as they clunked down the stairs. “And she’s got a bladder infection. Probably from boffing whoever’s name she won’t give up.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Cranberry juice.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Rogers said as he beeped open the Acura. “You’re scary.”

  Chapter 3

  Marcella locked the door of her apartment with a couple of dead bolts and a heavy brass chain and turned back into her apartment, tossing the stack of reports onto a sleek glass coffee table already buried in background reading from other cases. She shed the light jacket she always put on in the Bureau office, taking time to put it on a hanger and put it away in the bedroom closet, unbuckling her weapon harness with a sigh and a scratch, yanking the now-dingy white shirt out of the gray trousers.

  She leaned in close to a round clear glass bowl of water beside her bed, tapped on the glass.

  “Hey, Loverboy.” The purple-blue betta fish flashed his fins at her, made a little charge at the glass. “I’m happy to see you too.”

  Marcella stripped on her way to the bathroom, tossing soiled clothes into a wicker basket and getting into the shower. She let the massaging shower head work on her shoulders for a while, but she still couldn’t uncoil inside. She stepped out of the shower, toweling long brown hair. The red light on her old-fashioned answering machine was flashing. She punched On and listened.

  “Marcella, hey. It’s Lei. Call me back when you can.”

  Lei Texeira, the detective friend she’d recruited for the Bureau, was currently at the Academy. Lei was a local Hawaii girl with a dark past, an attitude, and great instincts as an investigator. She hooked the phone out of its cradle, called Lei’s phone back, but it went to voice mail.

  “Hope you’re doing all right, girl. Let’s catch up soon. Try my cell.”

  Marcella hung up, looked at the report pile. Ugh.

  What she needed was to get laid—she advocated for recreational, no-strings sex as a right. Yet here she sat, single, lonely, and in the mood. Not even a decent booty call on the speed dial. She scrolled through her contacts to make sure, pausing over Detective Kamuela’s number and moving on. Maybe it was time to try out the Club—but she didn’t feel up to it.

  Nope. Guess it was going to be another night in, with Loverboy the betta fish to talk to and battery-operated company in bed.

  Chapter 4

  Marcella sipped her first extra-strength cup of black coffee of the day at four a.m., dressed in a black bra and panties, her elbows on her knees as she hunched forward off the couch. Insomnia had plagued her, and she’d finally started reading the reports to pass the time. She glanced up at the vista of sparkling light
s her tenth-floor apartment yielded, the ocean a black smudge somewhere out there she’d paid extra to glimpse. This early, morning hadn’t even begun to lighten the Honolulu sky.

  The field office background techs had worked up preliminary reports on each of Dr. Pettigrew’s grad students yesterday, and Marcella scanned the manila folder filled with printouts on Cindy Moku. The oldest of four in a Hawaiian family, Cindy had attended Kamehameha schools and graduated with honors. She’d done her undergrad in biotechnology at UH and gone straight into a PhD program under Dr. Pettigrew. Several of her family had police records, mostly related to drug use and trafficking, but Cindy appeared to be a shining example of someone with focus and drive maximizing her opportunities.

  Marcella went on to Jarod Fernandez, the tall, young man who’d greeted them at the door the day before. Somehow he’d managed to avoid looking into the camera in his state ID photo, his eyes cast to the side, long hair obscuring what could have been a good-looking face. No driver’s license. He was the son of a doctor and a pharmacist and had gone to Punahou, another exclusive private school, and was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome. No criminal record, though according to his school records, he was implicated in several suspicious fire-setting incidents.

  Marcella sat back thoughtfully, took a long draft of the cooling coffee. The faintest hint of rose lightening the sky drew her out onto the minuscule balcony, barely big enough for a sun-bleached aluminum table and chairs. She leaned on the railing, looked out at the promise of ocean, navy with new dawn. Sighed. Took another sip of coffee.

  The photo of Fernandez’s parents in the file, resplendent in white coats, made her stomach clench. That early love, her first year in college—so desperate and so twisted—had left her more jaded than she liked to admit.

  She only had relationships she could control now. She’d heard about the Club from a friend and joined a few months after moving to Honolulu, but had never actually gone. The Club touted itself as a no-strings, safe alternative to random pickups in bars: “Ideal for the Busy Professional Who Doesn’t Have Time for Games” was the slogan on their website. That described her. She was a busy professional with no time for games—games that could lead to heartbreak, to vulnerability, to losing focus.

  With the Club, if she used anyone, it was going to be mutual. You chose possible partners online, met to see if there was a fit, and if you were so inclined, rooms were available at the back. No one would get hurt, and she’d be in charge. She turned away, striding back to the coffeepot for a refill. It was time to try it out—another night of insomnia with work to liven it up didn’t appeal.

  The smell of coffee, the taste of it, was tied to home and family—Marcella thought she remembered tasting her first milky, sugary sip of what would become her favorite beverage while sitting on her papa’s lap. It was great to be so loved, to be the apple of her parents’ eye—and it was smothering too. She had her ways of rebelling—joining the FBI after graduation from college was her main one, instead of following her father into the shoe business or marrying a nice Catholic boy and having babies.

  Joining the FBI—and the Club. Those choices were Marcella’s defiant nature in action—but sometimes she wondered if Trevor wasn’t responsible for it all. She shut down that thought—it would be giving that abusive asshole too much credit.

  She still had several more bios to get through before the day really got started. Marcella sat back down and opened the file on Dr. Ron Truman, second in command of the project. Nice résumé and list of colleges, but apparently he’d washed out of Stanford med school, taken a step down to researcher, and finished his PhD at the University of Hawaii.

  Those bold green eyes stared up at her from his driver’s license photo. Six foot two. One hundred ninety pounds. Address in Kahala, the ritzy suburb of Honolulu. Married to Dr. Julie Truman, formerly Beecham, for three years. No children.

  At least there were no children, since he was likely having an affair.

  The photo of Julie Beecham Truman showed a preppy-looking brunette, smiling big. Marcella didn’t let herself feel sorry for Dr. Julie Truman with her orthodontic smile and shining bob. People chose a road and paid the toll. Maybe it was growing up in New Jersey that taught her that—Hawaii didn’t have toll roads.

  She stuck a Post-it on Dr. Truman’s picture so it would hang out the side of the file, made a note in her bold block writing: ALIBI? WHO'S THE WOMAN HE WAS WITH?

  She opened the file on Zosar Abed. Born in Calcutta, the only child of a wealthy family, Zosar appeared to have had a passion for science and agrobiology from early on. According to his entrance visa essay, he “wanted to be a part of bringing solutions to the world that would help his country’s people.” He made annual trips home to India to visit his mother. Father was deceased.

  Zosar’s over-the-top grief could fit with his attachment to his mother. Marcella studied the big chocolate eyes and waifish build of the Indian intern with a frown.

  India had a huge need for something like BioGreen, and Zosar might have financial or other pressures on him pushing him to steal the formula. His explosion of weeping at the news of Dr. Pettigrew’s demise could also be a discharge of tension and stress as much as his mommy issues. Marcella wrote WORK UP CONNECTIONS: INDIA AND FINANCIALS on another Post-it, stuck it on his photo.

  She opened the last folder, on Peter Kim. Glanced at the open sliding door, where a cool breath of wind had stolen inside, brushing goose bumps across her skin.

  Trevor used to touch her that way: at first with a feather, then with a wet Japanese sumi paintbrush, and later with the edge of a razor. Gently, so lightly, raising a line of “chicken skin” as they called it in the islands.

  Then not so gently. And he’d made her love it and cry for more. Her hand stole up to touch her breast, threaded with tiny, almost invisible silver scars hidden under black lace. She wished she didn’t have scars on her soul too—it wasn’t just what he’d made her do sexually; it was how he’d tried to get into her head.

  She stood abruptly, walked over and closed the glass slider. Dawn was ruffling high feathery clouds with a blush of vivid salmon, gilding the high-rises across from hers, sparkling diamonds in the windows. It was going to be another glorious Hawaii day—such a departure from the gray skies and gritty streets of New Jersey, and just the change she’d been seeking. When an opening had come up in the Honolulu office, she’d competed fiercely for it. She hadn’t bargained on her parents following her over just six months later, but there was no stopping them once they made up their minds.

  Marcella sat back down, scanned the report. Kim was also in Hawaii on a student visa, from Korea. Now, there was a nation aggressively pursuing various kinds of genetic engineering, and ethics had always been in short supply. Peter Kim was another only child, from a poor family this time, but one that had Korean connections in Honolulu—specifically an aunt married to a local councilman.

  She made the same note as for the Abed file, though it didn’t appear Kim had returned to Korea since he arrived five years ago. That didn’t mean he didn’t have some sort of information pipeline back to a lab there, though the local political connection meant they’d have to be careful how they proceeded.

  She closed the files, stacked them neatly, poured a refill of coffee, and headed to the back bedroom to get dressed. She chose a black poplin button-down with short sleeves this time, a chunky steel diver’s watch, gray striped trousers in the lightest fabric regulations would allow. She strapped on her shoulder holster, loaded up the Glock 19 she preferred to the bulkier police-issue .40. Wound her hair up into the FBI Twist, speared it with a few bobby pins, clipped the shiny Federal badge to her waistband.

  Loverboy charged the glass of his bowl a couple of times to catch her eye.

  “Hey, buddy.” She gave him a few pellets, watched as he attacked them vigorously. “Don’t get into trouble while I’m gone.”

  She slid her feet into a pair of pointy-toed slingbacks and buckled the delicate str
aps around her ankles. Took a quick look at her face in a nearby mirror and decided that, as usual, she looked better without makeup. Anything more than ChapStick tended to make her full lips, wide brown eyes under arched brows, and bold cheekbones look cartoonish.

  The slingbacks had tiny round kitten heels and made a sound like castanets as she went into the kitchen, turned off the coffeemaker, verified there was indeed nothing to eat in the fridge, scooped up the files and slid them into a leather portfolio, and banged out the door, locking it behind her.

  It was already 6:27 a.m.—and she had a lot to do before the meeting with the medical examiner about Pettigrew’s body at eight.

  Marcella pulled on latex gloves and rubbed a bit of Vicks under her nose. She extended the little vial to Rogers, who snorted and made a flicking motion.

  “Don’t know why you need all that,” he said. “You seem okay at the crime scenes.”

  “Gotta smell everything at the scene. Don’t need to do anything but look in the morgue.”

  She followed her partner through the sally port where the vans pulled up into the main autopsy area. Four tables and autopsy stations filled the big room, but only the ME, Dr. Fukushima, was working. She was hunched over Pettigrew’s large, fish-belly white, naked body, sewing up the Y-incision with coarse black thread. Marcella was grateful for the Vicks under her nose as a waft of nastiness blew up from the last of the cavity as it closed. She cut her eyes to Rogers, who’d gone a little paler under his tan.

  “Hey, Doctor. How’s it coming along?” Rogers’s voice had the nasality of someone mouth breathing.

  The doctor looked up. “Fine. Just finishing. I came in early to have preliminary results for you.”

  “And we appreciate it,” Marcella said. “Though cause of death seems pretty obvious.” She pointed to the black hole in the broad white forehead, just above Pettigrew’s mannish brows. The woman’s iron-gray hair straggled off the table, except where the top of the skull had been neatly removed along with the glutinous pile of brains in a steel bowl on the scale.