by Toby Neal
“Stop fussing, damn it.” But Pono was pale under his tan, gritting his teeth as shock set in.
Lei looked around hurriedly. She spotted a roll of paper towels inside the toolshed. She ran over and grabbed it, pulling off a wadded handful. Her quick visual sweep of the shed’s interior revealed bags of chicken and dog food and assorted tools. Returning to her downed partner, she pried Pono’s fingers off his wound, packing the paper towels against it.
“I’m okay,” Pono repeated, but his voice was weak. “Let me up. We need to get that guy.”
“I called it in. They’ll get him. And I’m not okay. My partner’s just been shot.” Lei’s voice wobbled. Pono’s Oakleys had fallen off, and that more than anything brought a wave of tears to her eyes. She tried not to think about what it would be like to have him die—it was too horrible to contemplate. She kept pressure on his arm, reaching out to retrieve the sunglasses and sliding them awkwardly onto his forehead. “Tiare’s going to kick my ass for letting something happen to you.”
They heard the wail of approaching sirens. “Don’t worry about that.” Pono gestured with his chin toward the house. “Do the search. Get the guy.”
“Not until I know you’re going to be okay.” Lei knelt beside her best friend, the man she thought of as the brother she’d never had. Her hands pressed on his wound, and she thanked God silently for another lucky escape.
The ambulance arrived, disgorging a team with a gurney as their backup arrived. Lei surrendered her partner to the EMTs’ expertise as they shouldered her out of the way, kneeling beside him. She stood, wiping Pono’s blood off her hands on another paper towel with a sick feeling.
One of the backup officers approached. “You all right, Sergeant?”
“Yeah, thanks.” He handed her a packet of germicidal wipes, and she cleaned up as best she could, turning to look around the nearby toolshed. She gestured to cases of cold remedies behind the chicken feed. “Looks like meth production going on here.” She had a phone call to make before she took another officer to search the house. “I’ll be right with you. Can you get started searching?” The officer nodded, and Lei held down a speed dial number on her phone.
“Hey, Lei.” Tiare’s voice was brisk and no-nonsense. Pono’s wife was a busy nurse and wedding planner, and Lei must have caught her in the middle of something. “What’s up?”
“Tiare, Pono’s been shot. Just an arm wound. But they’re taking him to the hospital.” She glanced over at the EMTs, who were loading the big Hawaiian onto a gurney. “I have to keep working our case, but I wanted you to know right away.”
A pause. “How bad?” Tiare asked. Her matter-of-fact tone hadn’t changed. “I’m on shift at the hospital, so I can go meet the ambulance.”
“Not bad. But it’s a gunshot and looks painful.” Lei pinched the bridge of her nose with her forefinger and thumb. “He needs to get thoroughly checked out. I’m sorry.”
“You better be. You both can tell me how it happened later.” Tiare punched off.
Lei exhaled a long breath and accompanied the gurney to the ambulance.
“I don’t need all this,” Pono was protesting to the medical personnel. “I can walk, for God’s sake.”
“Protocol,” the EMT said.
Lei laid a hand on his good arm. “I called Tiare. She’s already at the hospital, working, so she said she’d meet you.”
Pono groaned. “I’m going to be in so much trouble.” His rich brown complexion was ashy with shock, and beads of sweat shone on his forehead.
“Not you. Me. I let you get shot.”
“Hell, no. I shouldn’t have just run out like that. Getting sloppy in my old age,” Pono grumbled as they slid the gurney into the ambulance. “When do I get some pain meds?” he asked plaintively.
“I’ll see you later, bro,” Lei called after him as the metal doors shut. She watched the ambulance go, hands on her hips, then sighed out a breath. Her knees trembled with adrenaline overload. She turned toward the back door of the house, raising the radio to her lips as she gestured to the uniformed officers who’d arrived in response to her earlier call for backup.
“Dispatch. Any luck catching the suspect on the four-wheeler?” she said into the mouthpiece.
“Negative, Sergeant,” Dispatch replied. “Responders found the vehicle ditched a few blocks over.”
Lei paused to swear. “Put out a priority BOLO on T. J. Costa. Circulate his photo everywhere.” She rattled off the address, though as she replaced the handheld, she realized she didn’t know if the suspect, unrecognizable under a ball cap and in the heat of the moment, really was Costa.
She gestured to the officers. “Follow me. We’re looking for evidence related to the scuba homicide.”
Chapter Thirteen
The back door of Costa’s residence fed directly into the filthy kitchen. Dishes piled in the sink buzzed with flies, and bags of smelly garbage lined a wall. Lei stalked through the room, weapon drawn, tripping a little on the peeling linoleum.
“Maui Police Department!” she called, for the benefit of any remaining inhabitants. She was pretty sure the house was empty, but it never paid to make assumptions. “Step out with your hands on your head.”
No answer or reply. Lei peeked around the doorway of the kitchen into the living room, gesturing to one of the officers to check the nearby hallway.
In a few moments they swept through the house, making sure it was clear. Lei then went through each room for a closer look. In one of the bedrooms, large white plastic oil barrels were filled with darting ocean fish. The room was kept cool with a wheezing air conditioner.
The bedroom next to it contained long tables set with Crock-Pots crusted with the remnants of meth cooking.
It took hours to clear the place of all the evidence she wanted collected, and she ended up having to call in their evidence processing tech after handing off the meth-related part of the retrieval to a couple of the narcotics detectives.
“Kevin, how should we deal with these fish?” she asked the pimply-faced intern, standing over one of the open barrels. Inside, bright yellow tangs, darting Moorish idols, and a couple of spiny puffer fish paddled around a central bubbler.
“I’ll photograph them. Then we should call the DLNR and have them take the fish back and let them go,” Kevin said. “They’ll have the right transport vehicles and should be able to make sure the fish don’t die of shock getting reintroduced to the ocean.”
“Good idea.”
Lei got on the phone to Mark Nunes, the agent they’d interviewed about Danielle’s involvement with the agency.
“Mark, hi. It’s Sergeant Texeira. I’ve found some barrels of reef fish during our investigation at a private residence. No way to tell at this point where they came from, but they need to be returned to the ocean. Can you deal with them?”
“Absolutely. I’ll bring transport. On my way.”
Lei hung up after giving him the address, liking the man’s prompt response and still a little curious about his relationship with Danielle. This was another chance to see him in action. She continued her search, working her way to the garage, a lean-to stuffed to the brim with Costa’s packrat collection of odds and ends. There, under a pile of wetsuits in decent shape, she discovered a Mares speargun of the right size.
She bagged it, along with a wetsuit that was still damp. She found more dive gear out by the small Zodiac with an eight-horse Honda that she was pretty sure could set a speed record out to Molokini. She photographed it thoroughly.
T. J. Costa was shaping up to be her prime suspect. She still flushed with rage thinking of him shooting Pono. Impatient, she picked up her radio and called Dispatch again. “Anything on our suspect?”
“Negative, Sergeant. We’ll let you know. It’s a top priority.”
She had to be content with that for the moment. She busied herself by collecting fingerprints off the door of the storage shed. Hopefully Costa, or whoever the shooter was, already had prints in the system.
&n
bsp; Nunes drove up in a heavy duty white county truck with another male agent in the front seat. His jaw was stubbled and his eyes looked heavy, his uniform creased. The two agents lowered a hydraulic gate off the back of the truck loaded with a large dolly, and Nunes wheeled it toward Lei. “Which way to the fish barrels?”
“Follow me.” Lei flipped down a wooden ramp that covered the stairs leading into the house. “This must be the way he gets the barrels in and out.”
“What a sty.” Nunes wrinkled his nose as he followed her to the back bedroom.
“He was cooking meth, too. Didn’t leave much time for housekeeping. Here we are.” Lei pointed to the row of huge barrels. The room was cool, thanks to the window AC unit, and smelled salty and fresher than the rest of the house. “I know this is a long shot, but we’re still looking for some way to connect this with Danielle’s murder. Anything you can tell me about these fish or this perp that puts them together?”
Nunes shook his head regretfully, hands on his hips. “I wish. No, these are just typical Maui reef fish. No telling where they were captured. But Barker and I will take them off your hands, get them back into the ocean.”
Barker, a hatchet-faced redhead with a sun-blasted freckled complexion, gave her a brief salute with two fingers before wrestling the barrel onto the dolly with Nunes’s help. There was controlled fury in Nunes’s movements as he heaved the barrel onto a dolly, preparing to follow Barker down the hall, his muscular back straining. His dishevelment and agitation were related to Danielle’s death. Lei put an arm on his, stopping him.
“Listen. I need a DNA sample from you.”
“Why?” He looked up, bloodshot eyes defensively flaring wide.
“We collected a lot of trace off the UH Zodiac,” Lei fudged. “You were out on it a few times with Danielle, right?”
He nodded.
“We need to rule you out.”
She helped him with the barrel, steadying it down the ramp, and as he and Barker rode the Tommy lift up onto the back of the county truck, she retrieved a cheek swab from her crime kit.
“Thanks.” Lei avoided Barker’s interested gaze as she swabbed Nunes’s cheek and stowed the sample. She looked at the other man. “Were you ever on the University of Hawaii Zodiac with Danielle Phillips?”
“I never knew her, but I was sorry to hear she’s gone.” Barker frowned in puzzlement.
“I’ll take a sample anyway.” Lei did so for form’s sake, and patted her kit where she stowed the samples, giving the men a reassuring smile. “Thanks so much.”
Nunes ducked his head briefly and headed back into the house with Barker to retrieve the rest of the barrels. Lei left a couple of patrol officers on duty and got into her truck. She had to remember to make a brief stop at the morgue after going to the hospital to check on Pono.
Captain Omura had already heard the news about Pono when Lei reached her by phone.
“Damn sloppy,” Omura said. “Am I going to have to put you two through a remedial course on house approach and suspect apprehension?”
“It went down fast, Captain. In hindsight, we should have assumed Costa was armed. I did find enough possible evidence at the residence to tie him to our vic.” She listed the scuba items she’d recovered as well as the confiscated fish. “I’m going to have Kevin go over the scuba items with a fine-tooth comb and check that Mares gun right away.”
“Doubtful you will find anything going back to Danielle’s body,” Omura said. “But if you can match that murder weapon, it would be a good start.”
“On it, Captain.” Lei hung up.
She didn’t mention her stop into Dr. Gregory’s lab. Time enough to report on that if anything came of it.
Chapter Fourteen
Pono was sitting on the edge of the emergency room table, his arm wrapped and in a sling, when Lei pulled the curtain on its dangling rings aside. Tiare, statuesque in bright purple scrubs, her thick black hair in a waist-length braid, looked up at Lei’s arrival.
“I’ll have a word with you later.” She narrowed wide brown eyes at Lei, but Lei could tell it was for show. Pono flapped his good hand at his wife’s attempt at assisting him off the table.
“Let me get down, woman. I’m fine. It’s just a flesh wound. I’ve always wanted to be able to say that.”
“You don’t look fine.” Lei’s partner’s color was still off and beads of sweat pearled in his buzz-cut hairline. “You’re going home. Omura’s orders. And I bet you need to take a couple of days off.”
“That’s right,” Tiare said. “I have the Workers’ Comp form started already. You’re off for four days minimum.”
Pono looked at Lei, an apologetic smile pulling up one side of his mouth. “I’m sorry to leave you holding the bag.”
Lei shrugged, striding alongside Pono as he leaned on his wife, walking slowly down the hall. “I’ll make do. Omura will just assign me someone else. Of course, no one else will have Stanley and the purple truck.”
“Yeah. You just have a thing for my skull.” They exchanged a smile. “What did you find inside the house?”
Lei told him the results of the search. “Got Narco involved for the meth cooking, and Mark Nunes with DLNR and his partner took the fish we found back to the ocean. Soon as I get back to the station I’m checking the speargun and all the prints I collected. It occurred to me that we don’t know for sure that your shooter was Costa.”
“I thought of that already, before the Vicodin addled my brain,” Pono said. “Could be a partner or a cousin. Did you get a good look at the guy?”
“No. Five ten or eleven, stocky build, dark hair and eyes, wearing a ball cap,” Lei recited. “Could describe half the men on this island, and that’s Costa’s description, too. But we sealed the house with scene tape and left a couple of uniforms. If Costa comes back, he’s going to get a surprise. I figured out how he could have shot Danielle. He might have been out catching fish, spotted her taking pictures of him, killed her, gone back in his Zodiac. Easy peasy.”
They’d reached the exit, and Tiare turned aside for a moment to check Pono out at the clerk’s desk.
Pono slumped into a chair. “Those pain meds are really making me feel out of it,” he murmured.
“I’m sorry, talking your ear off with all of this,” Lei said.
“No, it’s all good. Keeps my mind off it. But something’s bugging me about the poacher motive. Why would Costa commit murder over catching illegal fish, which only carries a fine? He was cooking meth at home, too, and that’s a much more serious offense.”
“Meth makes you paranoid.” Lei shrugged. “He might have overreacted to seeing Danielle with her camera. Or maybe he didn’t want the attention of any authorities for any reason.”
“I guess.” Pono shook his head with an uncoordinated movement. Tiare left the checkout booth with a sheaf of paperwork.
“Say goodbye to your partner,” she said sternly. “No more work for at least a couple of days.”
Pono stood, gave Lei a big hug. Lei clung to his sturdy form a little longer than necessary, blinking tears out of her eyes at the thought of losing him.
“Don’t worry. I’m fine.” He detached gently.
Tiare rolled her eyes and took Pono’s good arm. “You’re going to be, if I have anything to say about it.”
She steered her husband out the door. Lei trailed them, feeling at loose ends. She watched Tiare help Pono into their big family four-door truck, waving as cheerfully as she could as they pulled out.
Watching them go, Lei missed Stevens with a bone-deep ache. Six months is way too long. She was in danger of feeling sorry for herself. She unsnapped the deep cargo pocket on the side of her pants and took out the satellite phone, checking it for the hundredth time.
No message.
She was really getting concerned now, a potent cocktail of frustration and worry bubbling under her sternum as she worked the phone with her thumbs.
Michael. I need to know you’re okay. Please text me at
least. I love you.
She slid the phone back into her pocket, snapped the button shut, and went to her truck, where she retrieved a package from her crime kit. She headed into the hospital, going down a floor to the basement where the morgue was located. Dr. Gregory was just shutting the refrigerator shelf on a body when Lei pushed the main door open.
“Lei! To what do I owe the pleasure?” He peeled off gloves and dropped them into a nearby biohazard bin. “Our conference at the station wasn’t too long ago.”
She held up Nunes’s DNA sample swab, still in its wrapper. “I have another contributor for you to rule out as the father of Danielle Phillips’s child.”
Lei called Wayne from the office to make sure Kiet was okay. Her father said brusquely, “You need to come home. Boy’s not doing well with both of you gone.”
Urgency immediately speeded Lei as she headed home after making sure the evidence collected at Costa’s house was being processed by Kevin and that everything had been logged in. Captain Omura had gone for the day, leaving a message on Lei’s voice mail: “Debriefing in my office first thing tomorrow morning.”
The light was going purple and orange across the ocean on the drive home, but Lei was too anxious to get to Kiet to enjoy the sight of a few surfers still pumping the small waves at Ho`okipa as she passed the well-known sport area.
She had time for one more case-related phone call. She fished the Phillipses’ financial planner’s number out of her backpack and dialed it, putting in her Bluetooth. Truman Ching had already left the office, but she set up a meeting with him for the following day through the receptionist. There was truly nothing more she could do on the case at the moment, and her son needed her.
Kiet ran down the steps the minute her truck came through the automatic gate, the dogs flanking him. Lei frowned at the sight of tear tracks on the little boy’s cheeks as he ran around to pull her door open.
“Mama! Where were you?”
“Oh my goodness, little man!” She pushed the door open wider and swung her legs out, reaching out her arms. He leaped into them, wrapping his arms and legs around her like a monkey and burying his face in her neck. “What’s got you so upset?”
