Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  The drizzle evaporated and the clouds blew away. Only off to the west, along the mountains, could Cobb see any clouds. On the beach to the south Kimiko would be unpacking the picnic. The Koenigs and the Takamuras were on an outing today. They had planned this outing for some time now. Victor Linz had interfered. On the south side the weather was perfect for a picnic.

  Cobb shrugged as the ambulance team put down their litter. “This the stiff?” the driver asked. He was unfolding the stretcher beside the body. Cobb didn’t answer. There were no other bodies visible.

  “Tell us when you’re ready.” The two paramedics walked away, leaving Cobb alone with the body, the stretcher, and the broken coconut.

  From the amount of blood on the ground beneath the body Cobb thought Linz was alive when he sat down here. He’d been sitting under this tree for some time before he died. But die he did, however long he’d waited.

  Sergeant Handel came back. “The ambulance is here,” he said.

  “Yes,” Cobb said softly.

  Handel noticed the stretcher. “Oh.”

  A large man got out of the second car on the highway and walked, or waddled rather, up the lane of trees to the small group. He wore an amazingly ugly Hawaiian shirt outside his trousers and had chewed vigorously on a toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth. He looked impassively down at the body for a time.

  “Hi, boss,” he said finally.

  “Good morning, Sammy,” Cobb said. “And stop calling me boss. I’m not your boss any longer. You’re my boss now. You know Sergeant Handel I’m sure.”

  Sammy nodded pleasantly, holding his toothpick with thick blunt fingers.

  “Sure. Congratulations on the promotion.”

  Sergeant Handel nodded. “Thanks,” he murmured. Sammy Akeakamai had been his predecessor as Takamura’s partner and he knew they were friends. He knew that he and Takamura were not friends. He was afraid they never would be friends. He was probably wrong about that.

  “So how are things in county government?” Cobb asked.

  “Oh, the excitement never stops,” Sammy grinned. “We’ve decided to spend money to buy some kind of new radio for Civil Defense. So they can listen in on air traffic and talk to people in the sky when it falls in.”

  “It is going to fall in,” Sergeant Handel said. “Some satellite. I saw it on TV.”

  “Then Civil Defense better get that radio soon,” Cobb said.

  Sammy grunted. He gestured at the body with his toothpick. “Victor Linz,” he said. “Kapuna Shores. Haole from San Diego. Has a suite in the hotel back there.” He gestured over his shoulder without looking. “He’s part owner. Here with his girl friend. She’s in hysterics in the manager’s office. Thought you’d like to know. I’m only in finance these days, but I was passing through.”

  Cobb smiled. “What do you think of that coconut?” he said.

  “Came from that tree there, two rows in. Somebody opened it. Didn’t like coconut, threw it away. Bashed it on that decorative edge rock over there by the driveway. Yesterday morning, around ten.”

  “You’re kidding,” Sergeant Handel said.

  “Nope. Well, maybe about the time. Can’t say it was really ten, but it was in the morning yesterday. Could have been nine-thirty. Or ten-thirty. No later, though. Look at the fibers by the break.”

  Sergeant Handel looked at the fibers. He squatted down and touched them with his fingers. Cobb watched him struggle with the question. Would he ask Sammy what he was looking for?

  No. Sergeant Handel said, “I see,” and stood up. Cobb was disappointed. Sammy would have asked.

  “A tourist,” Cobb said. “Probably a kid. Adults seldom finish cracking open coconuts. Kids always want to. The job is clumsy, unprofessional. Not a little kid, though. I’d guess around twelve, thirteen. If you look at the rock you can see fragments of husk. The meat has dried some. The fibers are curled. Sammy is Hawaiian, Sergeant. He knows his nuts.”

  “Now, boss,” Sammy chided.

  “You used to call him ‘The Kukui Nut’,” Sergeant Handel was smiling.

  “Where would you hear such a thing?” Sammy asked.

  Handel caught himself. “Oh,” he said. “Around. You know.”

  “No,” Sammy said shortly. “My people have lived on this island for over a thousand years. It’s only the last couple hundred we had to put up with Puritan missionaries from Massachusetts and English and Russians and Germans and Chinese, and Portuguese working as lunas bossing everyone else around, not to mention these Japanese taking over everything, and of course the Filipinos and the Koreans. And the tourists. And the haole developers. So the fact is, we may have lost everything to all these foreigners, but we do know our nuts.”

  “What’s her name?” Takamura asked, ignoring the outburst.

  Handel started to ask whom he was talking about, but Sammy answered.

  “Angela Franklin. Thirty-seven years old, from San Diego. Here with Linz. She owns some kind of upscale shop on the waterfront in San Diego, a gallery or boutique. One of those people who inhales the aroma of money and follows it forever.”

  Cobb nodded. “ ‘Long experience whispers not to strain fates too far. Their smile might fade’.”

  He waved to the paramedics lounging beside the ambulance, and once again they ambled up the lane. “You can take him in. Tell Dr. Shih to prepare a report. I don’t think there’s much doubt what killed him, but I’d like to know about things like general health, special problems, anything she can come up with about personal habits and so on.”

  “OK.”

  “If I were you I’d ask Dr. Shih to check the body’s toes, too,” Sammy suggested.

  “Why is that?” Sergeant Handel asked.

  Sammy nodded toward the body. “Somebody kicked that coconut over here. Maybe it was him.”

  “He moved,” Cobb said. “He was running, got shot, and moved into the grove. Why would he do that?”

  “Someone helped him?” Sergeant Handel suggested. “To get him out of sight.”

  “Or he didn’t know where he was going. Thought he was going for help.” Sammy nudged the coconut with his toe. “He kicked it. Check his toes.”

  As the paramedics stooped to load the body, Cobb gestured to his partner. “Let’s go,” he said. Then, to Sammy he added, “Want to tag along?”

  Sammy grinned again. “No, boss. Budgets call me. I was here conferring with the hotel manager on a small boundary dispute they have going with the shopping mall. That’s how come I met Angela. She’s real upset.”

  Cobb nodded. As he and Handel started toward the hotel he put his sunglasses on again. The sun was almost overhead, and the glasses threw narrow dark shadows on his cheekbones.

  At the edge of the grove he crossed the barrier of yellow ribbon. A small group of guests milled around, asking questions of the officer on duty.

  Angela Franklin surprised him. She was tall, at least his own height, five-ten or -eleven, and she was quite beautiful, with rich red hair (not, Cobb concluded, her natural color, but an expensive one nonetheless), smooth, well-tended skin, and fine bones. She was lightly but evenly tanned everywhere there was skin exposed, and as always on the island’s tourist perimeter there was plenty exposed. The tan was surprising since she had the kind of skin that would burn rather than tan.

  She had a slightly glassy stare Cobb temporarily assigned to shock, but she was no longer either hysterical or weeping. Her eyes were swollen to be sure, but dry.

  “I know this has been a shock, Ms. Franklin, but you must try to help us out. Someone shot Mr. Linz, you know. We would like to find out who it was.”

  She nodded.

  The hotel was cool, cooler than necessary, and dark, muted, tasteful. Even the manager’s office was tasteful, with wood paneling, framed prints of nineteenth-century sugar mill scenes, a small wet bar beside a window looking out on the surf curling onto the beach. Someone had poured Angela a drink, and she sat on a dark leather sofa, her long legs crossed, the heavy g
lass in her hands nearly empty.

  Cobb examined the lenses of his sunglasses intently as he polished them with a cocktail napkin he’d snatched on his way through the hotel bar.

  “Apparently he was out jogging,” Cobb went on, dropping the glasses. They hung on a black cord around his neck. “Did he do that every day?”

  “He kept saying he should exercise more.” Her voice was low and throaty. Takamura felt it reflected a deep insincerity, well disguised.

  “But he went running every morning at the same time?”

  “Yes, he did.” Her voice had some sharpness now, and her eyes flashed. Did he dare doubt her word?

  “This morning was like all days, then? He went jogging. But he failed to return, is that right?”

  “Not exactly.” She seemed to relax slightly as she took a final sip of her drink and set the glass down. “That is, I knew he had a meeting. At seven. I didn’t think anything of it when he didn’t come back. I assumed he’d gone on to the breakfast.” She looked around as if expecting someone to mix her another drink. Cobb nodded at Handel who picked up the glass and looked at her questioningly. “Scotch,” she said and looked directly into Cobb’s eyes.

  “You thought he went to a breakfast meeting in his jogging clothes? Clothes he had been running in?”

  She shrugged. “Certainly. Why not? This is Hawaii, after all.”

  “All right,” Cobb said. He sat on the edge of the manager’s desk, exposing a couple of inches of black nylon sock. Angela seemed to notice and looked away. “The breakfast meeting, was it to be on the terrace of the hotel?”

  Sergeant Handel handed her the drink, very dark, with ice. She nodded absently and took it. “How should I know? Victor didn’t tell me much about his business. We… traveled here together, he’d disappear for his meetings and such, and we’d be together.”

  “What is your relationship with Mr. Linz?”

  “I’m not sure that’s any of your business.” She glared at him defiantly and took a deep swallow of her drink. Quickly she put it down. “Jesus,” she said, glaring at Sergeant Handel.

  “Is there something wrong?” he asked.

  She lost interest. “No,” she said shortly.

  “Ms. Franklin, Mr. Linz—Victor—is dead. He was found by a newlywed, a young bride, eighteen years old, from the town of Ames, in Iowa, who was out for a walk by herself, at eleven forty-six this morning. He was seated beneath a coconut tree in the middle of the grove outside this hotel with a small-caliber bullet hole in his abdomen. We have the bullet but no expended cartridge. Mr. Linz was dead. The fact of his death unfortunately makes everything about him my business, including your relationship with him.”

  “All right. We were business associates.”

  “I see.” Cobb said nothing for a while. He looked out the window at the surf. People were playing in it. He should be playing in it, he and Kimiko and Kiki and Kenji and Chazz and Patria. They should all be swimming and eating and talking about children. Instead he was in here, talking to a dead man’s “business associate.”

  She must have realized what she’d said, because she amplified. “He was part owner of my shop in San Diego. Gourmet kitchenware. Cutlery, skillets, table settings. We were partners.”

  “Yes,” Cobb said blandly. The waves rolled smoothly, curled slowly, turned white at their peaks, and fell soundlessly to the sand. He could not see the sand, just the white curl.

  “We were going to be married,” she said after a pause. “He had some problems with his ex-wife. When he cleared them up…” She shrugged again.

  “Did he have any enemies, anyone who might want to do this?”

  She finished her drink, staring at a print of Hawaiians offering food to Captain Cook. She put the empty glass down. “I suppose he did,” she said softly. “He’s a powerful man. Rich, and powerful. Powerful men always have enemies.”

  “Of course,” Cobb said. “Any suggestions?”

  She shrugged again, lifting her smooth shoulders and turning her palms up. Her halter top exposed a generous cleavage, the kind a powerful man might consider part of his territory. “He developed some property on this side of the island. Some people opposed it.”

  “How about his ex-wife?”

  “She lives in Palm Springs.”

  “That’s in California?”

  Angela nodded impatiently. “She drinks,” she said, not looking at the glass she had recently set aside. With elaborate care she removed a cigarette from her pack and waited for someone to light it for her.

  “Yes,” Cobb continued without reacting to the cigarette. “Any other relatives, people we should notify?”

  “He has a son in Utah. Peter Linz. Someone’s told him. I’m sure he’ll show up soon to take care of things. He always seems to show up.” Her carefully neutral voice did not quite conceal her irritation.

  “I see.” Cobb slid off the edge of the desk and stood. “I think we needn’t trouble you further this morning. What are your plans?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to stay here until this is settled.” She did not seem inclined to rush back to the mainland.

  “We’d appreciate it,” Cobb said. “Do you need anything? A doctor?”

  “No. I feel better now, thanks.” She took up a book of matches and pulled impatiently at one.

  Despite the clarity of her speech, Cobb thought she must be a little drunk. The glassy look was back. “OK, then,” he said. As they left he heard the small flare of her match.

  Handel followed him out. On the front steps of the hotel Cobb stopped to look at the coconut grove. “What do you think?”

  Handel frowned, putting a slight groove into his smooth forehead. “Well. He came out here a little before six. Ran that way, loosening up. Sometime after it got light somebody shot him.”

  Cobb nodded. “Something like that. And Angela?”

  Handel grinned. “After his money?” he asked.

  “Likely,” Cobb said. “But not a shooter, I’d say.”

  “Handgun,” Handel said.

  Cobb looked at him, his sunglasses halfway to his eyes.

  “On TV,” Handel said defensively. “Women always use handguns on TV. They don’t use rifles. He was shot with a rifle.”

  Cobb put his glasses on. Handel was young. He learned about detecting from television.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE PREVIOUS DAY A CESSNA Skylane droned along Victor15 from Honolulu to Lihu’e at six thousand five hundred feet.

  The two men in the backseat stared out their respective windows at the dark empty blue of the sea, the pale empty blue of the sky, or the occasional small cumulus clouds that floated two thousand feet below. They both wore dark suits, white shirts, black knit ties, and dark glasses, and had said absolutely nothing. They and the older man in the front right seat were Japanese. The pilot had flown light observation aircraft in Vietnam for two years and found this kind of charter work almost unbearably boring. As a result he glanced frequently at the passenger to his right. He saw a heavyset, balding man in an obviously expensive suit who sat precisely and calmly with his leather-covered briefcase resting on his lap. The man’s eyes were nearly hidden in pouches of flesh, but the pilot had the feeling those eyes saw everything.

  “How long?” The man suddenly broke the silence. He spoke the two words precisely, careful of pronunciation, without any change of expression or direction of gaze. The pilot could not tell whether the man spoke fluent English and simply didn’t say much, or whether he did not in fact know English at all and had memorized a few phrases. These were the sixth and seventh words he’d said since the trip began. At the beginning of the flight he’d told the pilot where they were going, something the pilot already knew.

  He glanced at the DME. This was not really necessary since the island was clearly visible in the distance. “Twenty minutes,” he said. “More or less.” His passenger grunted, still staring ahead into the bright hazy distance at Kaua’i.

  The island gre
w larger, more distinct. Soon landmarks formed: the distinct outline of Hoary Head southwest of Nawiliwili, the peaks of Wai’ale’ale above a ruff of clouds, the beaches and hotels along the coast.

  Instead of heading straight in to Lihu’e, the pilot banked left and flew in a broad curve around Makahu’ena Point and along the south coast. The two passengers on the right side of the plane watched the half-moon beaches of Poipu slide past. Bright green sugar fields stretched to the mountains. Traffic flowed along the highway.

  Minutes later he was turning east onto his final approach to the Port Allen airport as the gear locked into place with a reassuring thump. The Japanese man watched the shadow of the plane slide out ahead of them across the water and then onto the paved runway rising to meet them. The grass to either side of the runway was very green against the red soil. No one spoke.

  The plane touched down smoothly and rolled to a stop. To their right a tour helicopter lifted off.

  A man waited near a white station wagon beside the cyclone fence. The pilot taxied toward him and cut the engine. The passenger opened the door and turned to the pilot.

  “Very nice,” he said. These were words eight and nine. Then he climbed down. The pilot had to pull the seat forward to let the two in back make their own way out. Neither of them looked at the pilot as they hauled three small Samsonite travel cases from behind the backseat. He had to unfasten his seat belt and reach across the passenger seat to close the door. By the time he had the engine started again they were already speeding down the dusty road toward Hanapepe.

  The older man, seated in the front seat of the station wagon, gestured broadly as he spoke, suddenly loquacious, to the driver. The driver, an older white man whose thin wrists extended from the unfashionably short sleeves of his pale blue silk sports jacket, nodded vigorously as the older Japanese spoke. From time to time he said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Ueda.”

  Ueda spoke fluent English without a trace of accent, although with a bit more formality than a native. “We have come a long way,” he was saying. “We have important interests at stake here, interests of more than one kind.”