I sighed, but I dutifully climbed up on the torture machine and started after her.
“Besides,” she confided, slowing down so I could catch up. “No one will notice us like this. In a car, he’d be more likely to pay attention to who was passing by.”
That made some sense, so I held back the whining. We made a right turn at the highway and then we were buzzing alongside fifteen wheelers and the like and I was scared out of my pants. But we made another turn, and then we were on a side road, cruising through an industrial area with the storage units just off to the side.
“This way,” she said, turning on a dirt road that curved around behind the structure. A line of eucalyptus trees bordered the storage area and we were practically incognito, looking in but not obvious to anyone looking out.
The trouble was, there was nothing much to see. A man was emptying his pickup truck filled with gardening equipment into one unit and a woman was rolling racks of dresses into storage down another alleyway. We stood there, holding our bikes and watching, and finally Bebe said, “Oh well. It was just a long shot and I guess I missed.”
I shrugged. “It was a possibility. I’m glad we followed up on it, anyway. Are there any other storage units near here?”
She shook her head. “Most are down by the beach.”
“Okay, so where else might he have been going with his loot?”
Bebe gave me a look. “We don’t know for certain that he was taking things that aren’t his.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure we do. Come on. We don’t have to believe he’s innocent if we don’t want to. We’re not a government entity.”
She laughed. “Good. Because I’m pretty darn sure he’s guilty as hell.”
I searched her face. “Of murder?” I asked softly.
She hesitated, then shrugged again. “I don’t know. I guess it’s not fair to suspect him of everything bad just because he’s such a jerk. But I do.”
I could certainly understand that. We turned our bikes to head back to the house, but something caught my eye and I said with soft urgency, “Wait!”, motioning toward the far side of the lot. Sure enough, there was Adrian’s bright blue car, pulling out from behind a set of units at the far back. It was a little hard to see it clearly from this distance, but it sure looked as though he’d emptied out the things he’d been carrying. We watched him drive out onto the road, then exchanged a knowing glance.
“See what I mean?” Bebe said. “Guilty!”
I nodded and we looked at each other for a long moment.
“So what do we do about it?” I asked her. “Shouldn’t we tell Detective McKnight?”
She hesitated, shaking her head. “Not yet,” she said. “Michael is coming by a little later but I want to go back up and see if I can catch Caroline,” she added, looking at me a bit warily. “Do you want to come too?”
I let my shoulders sag pathetically. “Not if it involves more bike riding,” I said. “I think I’ve had about all I can take of that for the day.”
Was it my imagination, or did she look relieved?
A bell sounded over in the warehouse area and three young women came out, got into cars, and drove off.
“Wow, they worked late today,” Bebe said, checking her watch. “That was Sherry and her flower girls. At least that’s what I call them. They put together the flower arrangements we sell and usually start before sunrise.”
Sherry—Jill had mentioned her. I wished I’d paid more attention but I wasn’t sure which one she’d been.
“Listen, I’ve got an idea,” Bebe said. “Let’s stop by the office. If my foreman Hank is around, I’m sure he’d be happy to give you a quick tour of the farm operations. Then when I get back…”
So that was what we did. Hank wasn’t exactly thrilled to give up an hour of his afternoon providing tour guide service, but he dropped what he was doing and nodded at me politely and did what Bebe asked him to do without snarking. And that surprised me, because he came across as the type that would rather snark than comply.
“We’re going to need transportation,” he noted. “We’re going to be covering some ground here.”
I groaned. “No more biking. Please!”
He grinned. “No problem. I usually use my brave little golf cart here.” He patted a beat-up looking vehicle and offered me the passenger’s seat. “I call her ‘the little cart that could’.”
And soon we were gliding out down the road, heading for the flower fields. It felt comfortable and personal to be traveling in the golf cart. I liked it. As we approached the main fields, I noticed a tall statue guarding the entrance. We pulled up closer and I realized it was a copy of the King Kamehameha statue, so famous in Hawaii.
I laughed out loud and waved at him, huge and imposing as he was. “Where on earth did that come from?” I asked Hank.
He grinned. “Jimmy had it made for Bebe one year on her birthday. To remind her of her island home.”
“It’s so big!”
“Not quite life size, but big enough for here. In fact, we’re going to have to move it soon. The ground underneath it is being undermined by irrigation run-off.”
“Where will you move it to?”
“Just a bit up the side of the hill. It’ll still be here to do its job.”
Its job of keeping Bebe from getting homesick. That made me smile, and I loved Jimmy even more than I’d done before. Bebe hadn’t had him long, but she’d had him, and she was lucky to have found a man like that.
We passed under the benign dignity and approval of the most important Hawaiian king and headed into the fields.
It was a wonderful trip. The various varieties of blooming plants were spread out across this part of the valley like a beautiful patchwork quilt all stitched together in yellows and reds and blues and purples. Hank kept up a running commentary, explaining the life cycles of the plants and how they were rotated and all the other secrets of successful growers.
At one point we came to a stop on the top of a rise that set us up to stare right up at the Madronna Winery. In the contorted way these property lines seemed to work, this part of Miyaki Farms came right up into the heart of the Madronna Vineyards, less than a volleyball field away from the center of operations. A line of eucalyptus marked the boundary, but you could see the house through their silvery leaves and there was a particularly good view of the swimming pool complex, looking like a Roman Spa.
“That place looks so much like a medieval castle,” I mentioned, still a bit in awe.
He glanced up at it and scowled. “Yeah, old Kyle wanted it all, just like some corrupt king of old. He tried to buy up the Miyaki land a few times, especially this area. He would have liked to run this like his own private fiefdom. But luckily, that was not to be. Poor sap.”
“Did you know him well?” I asked, for no real reason.
But he reacted as though I was accusing him of something.
“What do you mean? I hardly knew him at all. I didn’t have much to do with the man. I do flowers, he did grapes.”
“Sorry,” I said, feeling that some comment was needed. “I just couldn’t help wondering what you knew about him. I mean, the murder makes you curious….”
“Can we change the subject?” he growled. “Let’s head back to the greenhouses. I’ll show you how the bundlers work to get the flowers ready for market.”
We started back, and suddenly Ginny Genera was coming around the corner, running as though a mountain lion were after her.
“Ginny,” I called. “Hi!”
“Hi!” she called back.
Hank stopped the golf cart and Ginny ran in place beside us.
“So you’re taking it all in, are you?” she said with a smile. “This is such a beautiful valley. I hope you’re enjoying yourself.”
“Oh, I am,” I told her. “And Hank here is doing a great job as tour guide.”
She glanced at him but didn’t greet him, and he was staring off into space. I got the distinct impression that they weren’t friends, but I
had no idea why.
“Well, we are off,” I said, just to cover the awkward silence. “Good luck in your workout.”
“Thanks,” Ginny responded, waving cheerfully. “See you when I see you.”
Hank growled as we drove off. “Damn woman is always on the roads,” he muttered, but I got the impression he was talking to himself, not to me.
Hank didn’t say anything more about Ginny, but he did show me the warehouse-like building with long tables set up for the bundling. All the women who worked there had already gone home for the day. Still, I got the idea of how it worked from looking at the tables and the bins of supplies, as well as the pictures on bulletin boards all around the room.
“And Miyaki Farms sells most of these flowers at supermarkets?”
He nodded. “That and farmers markets in the area. We have quite a few longstanding contracts.” He grimaced. “We could have a few more if…”
His voice faded and he looked like he shouldn’t have said that.
“If what?” I pushed him. “What were you about to say?”
He let out a breath of pure impatience. “Oh what the hell. If your damn aunt would only get off the stick and begin okaying some of my ideas. That’s what.” He grimaced again. “Now I’m sorry I said that. That’s out of line and I know it. And you can go run to tell your tales to her and she can bawl me out and…”
“The only thing Bebe has ever said to me about you is what a good foreman you are,” I said, wondering about all this suppressed rage.
“Oh, well…” He began to turn the cart toward where he would be letting me off.
I glanced at the cluster of little clapboard houses along the lane. “Can you tell me which one is the one Aunty Jane lives in?” I asked him.
“Aunty Jane?” He shook his head and looked blank. “I don’t know any Jane who lives there. And I know just about everybody who does.”
“Oh.” That startled me a bit. “You’ve never seen her? An older Hawaiian lady in a muumuu and a straw hat?”
He shook his head again and shrugged.
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Well, thanks for the tour. I enjoyed it.”
“Sure. Any time.” And he was on his way back to work.
I got back on the bicycle very gingerly. My bottom was not going to forgive me soon for all this torture. But it was just a short distance to the end of the block and I turned right in front of Bebe’s house.
Her friend Michael was there, waiting out front, and Bebe herself came cruising into the yard on her bike just as I limped across the finish line.
“Hey!” she called out to us both. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were shining. Was that just from the physical exercise, or had she done something to feel triumphant about? Impossible to tell—but one thing I did know—I was going to have to cut out the constant analysis of every move everyone around me made. They couldn’t all have killed Kyle—even if he might have deserved it.
It was good to meet Michael at last. His excessive hunk status was every bit as high as Jill had told me it was. How come we never had biology teachers that looked like this in my high school? And he appeared to be a nice guy—just like Bebe had claimed. It turned out she’d invited him over for dinner, so we had a drink to relax and Bebe threw together some Chicken Hekka—another dish to remind me of my childhood—while Michael and I sat at the kitchen counter and watched her, chatting about this and that. When it was ready, I took one bite and declared it “So ono!” --and we were set for a good meal with good conversation.
And there was some of that. But there was mostly speculation about the murder. How could it be any other way? The funny thing was, though I could tell Bebe and Michael were pretty close and getting closer, she didn’t tell him about any of the things we had discovered—like Adrian hiding the art work from the winery or what we’d heard him say at the police station. And I was perfectly happy to play along the same way.
But then things sort of went off track. We had a visit from Sherry Jones and that threw a spanner into any old theories we might have had.
“Is that where he was?” she asked me when I opened the door to her knock. She was pointing to where traces of the bloodstain still lingered.
I nodded. “Pretty much.”
She stared at the place for a long moment, then looked up and noticed that she didn’t know me.
“Uh…where’s Bebe?” she asked.
“Come on in, Sherry,” Bebe called from the kitchen. “We’re in here. We’ve got plenty of Chicken Hekka left if you’re hungry.”
“I’m Mele Keahi,” I told her, offering my hand. “Bebe’s my aunt.”
She looked startled, then nodded and smiled a bit tremulously. Still, she readily shook my hand. “Nice to meet you, Mele. Bebe’s spoken of you before. I’m Sherry Jones, Flower Arrangement Supervisor here at the farm. I manage the flower bundlers.”
So this was the sexpot Jill had warned me about. She was tall, blond and alarmingly proportioned, just as Jill had implied. But I had a feeling I would probably have liked her just fine if we’d met under kinder circumstances. She’d obviously just suffered some sort of psychic trauma and she’d come to Bebe for healing. As if that was going to happen.
And that impression deepened once she was in and sitting at the kitchen counter with us, scarfing down a plate full of chicken and pouring her woes out before us at the same time.
“They think I did it,” she wailed. “I just came from the police station. They had a few more questions. Detective McKnight with his questions! They think I did it and I’m sure they’re going to charge me tomorrow and throw me into a cell and….”
“Whoa, slow down,” Michael said. “Why do they think you did it?”
She hesitated, tears filling her eyes despite the fact that her mouth was full of hekka. “Because I wanted to do it,” she admitted, reaching for a napkin. “That man deserved a good killing.”
I glanced at Bebe. She looked strangely pale and silent. But Michael was picking up the slack, putting an arm around Sherry and comforting her.
“He led me on,” she was blubbering. “He made me think he was in love with me. He said he’d never felt that way for anyone else before and that he was ready to change his life for me. He was going to divorce his wife and we were going to run away to Rio de Janeiro.” She looked into my face and grimaced. “You’d think I was old enough to know what a line that was, wouldn’t you? I mean, I’ve heard it before. You’d think I would know better. But for some reason, I bought it.”
Yeah, I thought, rather cynically. Sure you bought it. You’d probably never heard it from someone quite that rich and powerful before. He was the prince and you wanted to be the princess. It would take a tough, smart cookie to stay away from that daydream once it was dangled in front of her.
“I thought we had something special, something for the ages, you know?” She groaned at her own naiveté. “And once he got what he wanted, all of a sudden, he wasn’t taking my calls and when I showed up at his house, he got all tough and mean. He sneered at me. He said awful things.” She took a sobbing breath and her face crumpled. “And that’s why I did what I did.”
Michael was quiet, smooth, careful. “What was it that you did, Sherry?” he said quietly, stroking her hair back from her face.
She turned and began to cling to him. “I couldn’t help it,” she said. “My heart was broken. You understand, don’t you? He’d said things and promised things that made me think…well, I was a broken woman when he began to turn me away. I didn’t want to live. I just wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt me.”
“Of course. That’s very human. But you didn’t actually do anything to him…. did you?”
He was watching her sharply, as though he thought her answer might reveal something he needed to know.
She hesitated and her eyes took on a shifty look. “Well, kind of.”
Michael froze. “What happened?”
“I uh…” She sniffed pitifully. “I got into his house and b
rought along a tire iron.”
“Oh God.”
“I went into that room he has with all the artifacts and jewelry and…and I began to bash the display cases. Glass was flying everywhere.”
Bebe and I exchanged a quick glance. So that was why the cases looked as though they’d been recently remade.
“Did you hurt anyone?”
She nodded miserably. “I hurt myself. He wasn’t even there, but I smashed a bunch of the cases and then I noticed I was bleeding.” She held up her arm and they could see a fairly fresh scar, a jagged cut in purple and bright red, about nine inches long, still healing. “He never even saw it. It was all so humiliating.”
Michael looked compassionate, but stern. “Who did see it, Sherry?”
“That housekeeper woman. And…and Caroline.” She sobbed again. “I feel so bad that I did that in front of her. It wasn’t her fault. And here I was, trying to take her husband away. I felt like such a fool.” Another sob. “She’s the one who called the paramedics to come take care of me and stop the bleeding. That whole day was a nightmare.”
“And you told all this to the police?”
She nodded. “They already knew most of it. Is there any more chicken hekka?”
Bebe filled her plate with what was left, then looked at me with her huge, tragic dark eyes. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking but I knew she was in some sort of emotional turmoil herself.
We talked for awhile more, then Michael made a command decision. He looked at Bebe.
“I’m going to take Sherry home. Are you going to be okay?”
She nodded, but as far as I could tell, she didn’t meet his gaze. He frowned, but put a hand in the small of Sherry’s back and steered her for the door. They left.
Chapter Nine
I waited for Bebe to tell me what she was feeling—because I could tell there was a lot of internal chaos going on there. We began cleaning up the kitchen and stacking the dishes, and still she didn’t say a word. She washed and I dried, trying to think of a way to broach the subject, but she started a different one before I could think of anything.
A Ghost for Christmas (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 1) Page 5
