Too Hot Four Hula: 4 (The Tiki Goddess Mystery Series)

by Jill Marie Landis

  “You know I can’t sit on the beach,” Lillian whined. “I can’t take the sun.”

  “We are not going to the beach,” Kiki said. “We’re going to La Mariana Sailing Club. It’s a restaurant at a marina. I guess it’s near Sand Island.”

  “Great. I’m starvin’,” Flora spoke up between sips of “special” water.

  Trish called out from the way-back, “This says Sand Island used to be called Quarantine Island. They used it to quarantine ships carrying contagious passengers.”

  “Good idea,” Pat said. “Somebody should make all the mainland planes stop there.”

  “During World War II they used it for internment camps for Japanese Americans, Italian and German expatriates living in Hawaii.”

  Lillian clapped her hands over her ears and started singing la la las.

  “What’s she doing?” Flora asked Precious.

  “She does that when something makes her sad and she doesn’t want to hear it,” Precious said.

  “So where are we going exactly, Trish?” Kiki shouted. “We need to get moving.”

  “Take Nimitz Highway to Sand Island Parkway,” Trish said.

  “We’re not far,” Kiki told them.

  “Why are we even going there?” Lillian asked. “I don’t want to see old internment camps where they locked up Americans.”

  “We’re going there to search for Bautista. I’m pretty sure he killed Em’s ex to steal Louie’s Booze Bible from him.”

  “How do you know that?” Flora crossed her arms and rested them on her stomach. “I saw everythng you did in that garbage dump. I didn’t see one single clue.”

  “That’s because it was all one big clue.” Kiki lowered the visor and checked her makeup in the mirror. “Is there an address for the La Mariana, Trish?”

  Trish was silent for a few seconds then said, “It’s not on Sand Island. It’s on Pier Street right before you cross over to the island.” She gave Kiki the address, and Kiki punched it into the GPS.

  “Whew.” Lillian was smiling again. “No camps.”

  “So what did you see that convinced you this guy has Uncle Louie’s Booze Bible?” Trish asked.

  “He’s a hoarder, but he’s selective. He doesn’t hoard just anything. The place is full of Hawaiian memorabilia from the forties, fifties, and sixties. When I literally fell into a box full of old retro recipe books, I realized that if Bautista even laid eyes on the Booze Bible, it was the kind of thing he’d covet. Louie started writing back in the sixties when he opened the Goddess. All those old legends he made up, all the drink recipes, the doodles in the margins, why that notebook would be like a platter of poopoo to a fly for a guy like Bautista.”

  “Do you think he wanted it enough to kill Em’s ex to get it?” Precious clutched the armrest as Pat made a sharp left in front of a city bus. Lillian squealed and covered her eyes.

  Kiki went on unfazed. “I think he may have gone to Phillip’s because he was still mad about losing a parking space. Maybe Phillip asked him to step inside, or maybe Bautista strong-armed his way in, saw the notebook, and things got out of hand.”

  Pat added, “Em said Phillip had a gun. Maybe Bautista somehow wrestled it away, shot Phillip, and wiped off the prints.”

  “Then he saw the notebook and couldn’t resist taking it. Unfortunately, that was a big mistake. A big one. If he has the Booze Bible, that will connect him to the apartment and the murder,” Kiki said.

  “That and the fact that he disappeared the day of the murder,” Trish reminded her.

  The lady inside the GPS said, “You have reached your destination.”

  Kiki turned to look out the window as Pat pulled up in front of La Mariana Sailing Club.

  “Oh my gosh,” Precious said.

  “Wow.” Trish started snapping photos.

  “Look at all that bamboo,” Lillian marveled. “And those tiki torches.”

  “I haven’t seen a place this classically tiki since Eisenhower was alive. Talk about truly tacky tiki.” Kiki smiled at the sight even as she blinked back tears. “Ladies, stick to the classics. Don’t think of ordering anything but a Mai Tai, a Tropical Itch, or a Blue Hawaii once we’re inside, or it just won’t be right. We’re gonna party like it’s 1955, and we’re gonna catch a murderer while we’re at it.”

  Pat let them all out and drove off to park. Kiki and the others passed beneath the Kon Tiki Room sign as she entered the open restaurant space full of tables covered with tapa-print tablecloths and surrounded by high-backed peacock wicker chairs.

  The walls were lined with woven lauhala and bamboo. Lights made of glass fishing floats hung from a ceiling dotted with strands of mini twinkle lights. There were shell chandeliers and booths book-ended by carved tikis.

  “Wow. It’s like the Goddess,” Lillian said.

  “On steroids.” Kiki checked out the room. A hostess greeted them and said she’d put some tables together for them.

  In no time at all they were comfortably seated and sipping on the restaurant’s world famous Mai Tais out of official La Mariana tiki mugs.

  “What now?” Pat asked Kiki.

  “Now we eat lunch and ask about Bautista.”

  They ordered either the ahi poke or burgers. While they waited for their lunches and congratulated each other on their flawless street performance in front of the Lokelani, Kiki picked up her drink and slipped away to chat up the bartender.

  “Aloha!” she greeted him with a smile as she slid onto a bar stool.

  The tall, dark-haired local gentleman wearing a red and white aloha shirt flashed a smile. She guessed he was in his early sixties, not much younger than she. His nametag said Joe.

  “What can I do for you?” he said.

  “I’m from Kauai. I just wanted to tell you this Mai Tai is wonderful.”

  “Lucky you live Kauai, eh? Just visiting?”

  “My friends and I are here for almost a week. I just love this place. There were so many tiki bars around years ago. It’s a shame to see them all disappear. I hope this one lasts.”

  “We’re holding on. The old crowd is dying off, though.”

  “I hear you.” Kiki allowed a sympathetic note to creep into her tone. She waited a minute before she asked, “Is Damian Bautista working today? He’s an old friend.”

  “Really?” He looked doubtful.

  “Yes. Does that surprise you?”

  “Damian hardly says two words to anyone.” He reached beneath the back of the bar and pulled out a damp towel and proceeded to wipe down the bar top. “Comes in, does his job, and goes home.”

  Kiki shifted around on the stool and leaned closer. “Where’s home?”

  He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Like I said, he doesn’t say much.”

  Kiki handed him her empty tiki mug. “I’d love a refill, Joe.”

  “Sure.” He started mixing ingredients. “I hate to tell you this, but the police are looking for Damian, too.”

  Kiki made her eyes wide. “They are? Why?”

  “He’s wanted in connection with a murder.”

  “No way.”

  The bartender nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Gosh, then I really feel sorry for him. Like you said, he’s always seemed like a nice, quiet sort.” Kiki was flying by the seat of her granny panties and she knew it, but she pressed on. “You don’t have employee home information that you could give me, do you? I’d really like to try and touch base. At least leave a note at his place.”

  When she was young she never would have believed being a senior would have advantages, but no one suspected a harmless little old lady could be up to anything shifty.

  He hesitated a minute, then topped off her Mai Tai with dark rum, shoved in a straw, and pushed the tiki mug back across
the bar.

  “Hang on a minute. I’ll see what I can find.” He glanced around the room. It was still early yet, and the lunch crowd was light. He left the bar and was back in two minutes with a sticky note in his hand.

  Before he handed it to Kiki, he made sure no one was watching.

  “Here you go. I took this off Damian’s emergency card.”

  Kiki looked at the address in Honolulu.

  “That’s somewhere in Chinatown,” the bartender said. “Don’t go wandering around down there at night, okay?”

  “Of course not. Thank you so much. I do appreciate it.”

  “I’d rather you find him before the police do. If he’s innocent, he must be scared to death. See if you can talk him into turning himself in.”

  “If he’s innocent?” Kiki lowered her voice. “Do you think he did it?”

  Joe shrugged. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”

  “He certainly doesn’t need to be scared of a little old lady like me,” Kiki said. “I sure hope he didn’t do it.”

  37

  LOUIE CALLED TO let Em know his demonstration was set for eleven a.m. in the Coral Ballroom, so she showered, slipped into the sundress she’d worn to lunch with Phillip, and left for the conference center.

  The minute she walked in, she was approached by Lamar dePesto. Outwardly Em smiled. Inwardly she groaned. He was just as smarmy as she remembered. His participant’s badge dangled from a lanyard around his neck with eight miniature gold swizzle sticks clipped to his nametag. Everyone who didn’t know already would have no doubt he’d won the Western Regionals every year.

  “Ms. Johnson.” DePesto was decked out in an aloha shirt and a straw Fedora with a seashell hatband. “I just heard you’re a ‘person of interest’ in your ex-husband’s murder investigation. I can’t say I’m surprised after catching you red-handed in my suite.”

  She tried to hide her shock. She hadn’t seen a paper or the morning news. The HPD must really consider her a prime suspect if they were officially announcing she was a “person of interest.”

  What next? An arrest?

  She half expected a SWAT team to descend on her any minute now.

  “I was all set to apologize to you, Lamar, but since you didn’t catch me doing anything but looking around your room, I’ve changed my mind. The only thing I regret at this point is that my impulsiveness might have jeopardized my uncle’s chances of winning your contest.”

  “Are you accusing me of rigging the contest? That’s as insulting as your accusation of my involvement in theft and extortion. Besides all this slander, we’ve never had so many problems at this contest. Never. The hotel is all over me because your uncle lost a stupid monkey. The Shriners are up in arms because one of their members desperately wants that monkey back. They’re demanding I do something about it. Those old hula dancers of your uncle’s are not only a constant nuisance, but there’s now an Internet petition circulating around demanding they be allowed to perform whenever and wherever they want, a petition that also asserts this hotel is down on locals. You can imagine how that’s going over with management.”

  Apparently, dePesto wasn’t finished. “Thanks to your uncle and his entourage, once word gets out, the contest committee will be lucky if we can even contract with any hotel in Waikiki next year.”

  The lights flickered. It was time to find a seat for the next demonstration.

  “You’ll have to excuse me, Lamar,” Em said. “I’m here to support my uncle.”

  She turned on her heel and walked away. There was one empty seat at the end of the first row of chairs. Em slipped into it, pulled out her cell, and set it on vibrate. She shoved the phone into her pocket and set her purse on the floor beneath her chair.

  The stage lights were off, and the room lights dimmed. Four hotel workers carried in two potted palms and set them beside either end of the bar, adding a touch of tropical ambiance. She knew that had to be Louie’s doing and part of his presentation. They had no sooner exited when a couple of seconds later, the exotic strains of Martin Denny’s “Swamp Fire,” complete with monkey howls, ululations, and bongo beats accompanying a vibraphone, drifted through the ballroom.

  The crowd hushed at the first note. A tall, buxom woman with flowing black hair dressed in a leopard-print sarong stepped out of the wings carrying a flaming torch. She walked to the bar and touched the flame to the wick of a short tiki torch standing in a bucket of sand. As soon as the tiki torch caught fire and blazed steadily, the woman sexily strolled to the other end of the bar and lit a second torch before slinking off stage. No sooner was she out of sight than a muscular bongo drummer with a low-slung malo tied around his hips strode in. He sat cross-legged on the floor beside one of the potted palms.

  The crowd applauded in appreciation. If their reaction was any indication, Uncle Louie would definitely garner extra points for his “delivery” portion of the competition. An entertaining and confident delivery coupled with confidence, knowledge, and hygienic preparation were vital elements toward a final score.

  Louie waited in the wings long enough for the applause to die down, and then he appeared on stage wearing his signature baggy white linen pants, an original silky—a vibrant red and yellow vintage aloha shirt from the 1940s—a black kukui nut lei, and his white Panama hat.

  He paused dramatically near one of the burning torches. His voice boomed out of the clip microphone attached to his shirt collar.

  “A-looo-ha!” he called out.

  “A-looo-ha!” the audience echoed.

  Em smiled and relaxed back into her chair. Her uncle had the audience, and hopefully the judges, in the palm of his hand—and he hadn’t even started mixing a drink yet.

  He turned around. From the end of the bar, he picked up a pith helmet Em hadn’t noticed before. Louie removed his Panama hat, set it on the bar, and donned the pith helmet.

  “I’m Louie Marshall,” he said. His voice easily carried to the back row. “I’m the owner of the Tiki Goddess Bar and Restaurant on the North Shore of Kauai, a northern island in our beautiful island chain. I’ve been creating cocktails for our patrons’ pleasure for sixty years. It’s my great honor to be here mixing it up for you today.”

  As Louie walked behind the bar, the crowd applauded again. Once he was in position, he began lining up martini glasses. The bongo drummer started a slow, rhythmic beat.

  “There is a legend behind each and every cocktail I create,” Louie began. “These legends are essential additions to our menu at the Tiki Goddess. Not only do our guests love reading them, but the stories make it easier for them to remember the names of their favorite drinks.”

  Louie pulled out a bottle of Kahlua and held it up. He said, “Kahlua—rum based, coffee flavored with a hint of vanilla—inspired by the jungles of Mexico. Whenever I see one of these tall brown bottles, I’m reminded of a harrowing trip to Brazil, to the Amazon rainforest to be exact. There, I was part of an expedition in search of a centuries-old relic, an amethyst skull known as the Manic Monkey.”

  He set the bottle down, reached below the bar again, pulled out a pear-shaped bottle of amber liquid.

  “This is Trader Vic’s Macadamia Nut Liqueur. You probably all know mac nuts grow in Hawaii, but they also grow in Brazil and other tropical climes.”

  He set the bottle on the bar and then pulled out another. “This is Bacardi 151 proof rum. No mixologist should be without it. It’s not just Bacardi rum. 151 proof is an essential ingredient if you’re going to flame a cocktail, which is what I’ll be demonstrating today, although the Manic Monkey can either be flamed or shaken. That’s between you and your customer.” He winked at the audience.

  He held up his index finger and said, “Ah! I almost forgot one more ingredient.”

  There was a wooden calabash on the bar. He picked up the bowl and tipped it so that
the audience could see the silver foil wrapped objects inside.

  “These are chocolate kisses. Everybody needs a kiss now and then. One kiss is essential for each drink.”

  Louie had already unwrapped a dozen kisses and had them ready and waiting on a small monkeypod tray beneath the bar. He pulled it out and set it alongside the liquor bottles.

  “Now we’re really ready to begin.” He flexed his fingers and picked up a teaspoon and a shot glass. “You’ll also need these. The flame will be the only garnish you’ll need for the flaming version. I have a few ideas for rimming the glass for the shaken version, which I’ll clue you into later.”

  “I’ll start by placing one chocolate kiss in the bottom of each martini glass.”

  Louie launched into a tale of his trip up the Amazon with explorers from the Museum of Natural History in search of the Manic Monkey, a monkey skull carved of pure amethyst not seen since it was reported stolen from a jungle temple in Paraguay in the 1800s.

  As he continued to spin the tale, he measured, poured, and drizzled the liqueurs into the martini glass over the chocolate kiss. Then he carefully topped them off with an ounce float of 151 rum and picked up the wand lighter.

  “So, I was asleep on deck of the riverboat one night when the earsplitting screams of Capuchin monkeys shattered the silence. Not to mention our nerves. I bolted out of my hammock and staggered to the rail. Through the dense jungle growth, I saw the flickering light of torches bobbing along, parallel to the shore. We could barely make out the silhouettes of the fierce Yanomami, the indigenous people of the rainforest. They were not only carrying the torches, but a raised platform.

  “Upon that raised platform was a shrine that held the skull of the Manic Monkey. Its mouth was open wide, as if forever locked in a scream. The skull’s eyes were lit by an eerie interior glow. We watched in silence as the Yanomami and the skull slowly disappeared into the depths of the forest. Then to a man, with no discussion, we voted to turn back.”