Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  “You did not know him personally, you mean.”

  Lee nodded vigorously, rubbing his hands up and down on the apron. His palms left damp trails. “Right. Not know him personally. But everyone know Mr. Linz. He owns Kapuna Shores Development maybe. New golf course, right?”

  “Why would the manager want to shoot Mr. Linz, Lee?”

  Lee shrugged. He looked at Cobb Takamura directly and smiled a broad, thick-toothed, innocent smile devoid of malice. “Don’t know,” he said. “He don’t like him, maybe.”

  Cobb nodded. “OK, Lee. Thanks.”

  Lee smiled again. “No problem.” He moved down the line of garbage cans in a cloud of tiny flies and carefully pressed each lid down. The flies buzzed and swirled around him, but they never seemed to touch him. Cobb watched a moment. Then he brushed the flies off his cheek and shirt and went inside.

  The kitchen was huge and clean and brightly lit. The stainless-steel pans reflected complicated patterns of crockery and utensils, ovens and people. Cobb imagined the large woman by the walk-in freezer was the sous-chef for breakfast meats, while that skinny older man was in charge of decaf and tea. All these people had been in here yesterday while Victor Linz was getting himself shot in the coconut grove. None of them knew a thing.

  He nodded to them as he passed through the kitchen and through the swinging doors into the dining room.

  There was something odd about a dining room in the middle of the morning when no one was there. Tables covered with maroon cloth stretched away to the mirrored back wall. Fake tapa hangings with black and white chevron designs were draped against black lava masonry along one side; the other opened onto the pool, now noisy and bright with bodies.

  Cobb walked slowly down an aisle between tables toward the entrance. He paused at the hostess’s station and looked at the map of the room taped to the sloping surface. The map was covered with transparent plastic on which she could mark with a grease pencil. A table near the door was marked “Mgr. Reserved, VL.”

  Sergeant Handel was leaning over the reception desk apparently trying to look down the loose front of the day clerk’s Hawaiian blouse. They were deep in conversation, which ceased as Cobb approached. Handel straightened up, but the desk clerk, a pretty young Filipino with her dark hair in a braid, was still smiling.

  “If I were you, ma’am,” Cobb told her, “I’d watch the sweet talk from Sergeant Handel. He’s notorious in certain quarters.”

  “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I’ve known Scottie since high school.”

  Cobb lifted an eyebrow. “I see. Come on, Scottie. Leave the lady to do her work and you can do yours.”

  “Where to?” he asked when they were outside.

  “Where would you suggest?” Cobb asked, standing on the steps looking down at his vehicle. Someone had bent the aerial forward and it lay flat along the fender.

  “I’d look through Linz’s luggage, the stuff in his room. See if there’s anything to suggest he might be a target.”

  “Good idea. We’ll do that now, since we’re here. Lead on.”

  Cobb watched Scott Handel move methodically through the room. The assistant manager stood in the doorway and watched Cobb.

  The suite was a mess. Angela’s clothes were strewn about, and half-empty glasses littered the bar. The assistant manager assured them that housekeeping would be here soon to put things right. Cobb waved him away.

  There was little of interest until the sergeant looked in the closet. Four large leather-sided suitcases with gold initials sat on the floor next to two metal Halliburton cases. “VPL,” Scott murmured. “These would be Linz’s cases.”

  The four suitcases were empty. One of the Halliburtons contained a Nikon, all the parts neatly packed in special foam holders. The other metal case contained nothing but shredded foam. “I wonder what he carried in this? We should ask Ms. Franklin.”

  “She won’t know,” Cobb assured him. “You’ve done a good job here. Where would you suggest we go next?”

  “Why, I suppose we ought to talk to people who knew the deceased.”

  Cobb nodded soberly. “Any ideas?”

  “Business associate.”

  “Besides Angela, I assume?”

  “I’d say Kapuna Shores Development Corporation would be a good place to start.”

  Cobb nodded again. “OK. Let’s go.”

  In the car Handel stared out the window at the mountains for a while. Finally he broke the silence. “About this satellite. The one that crashed last night. It’s out there somewhere.”

  “Yes. A matter for public health, I should think, or the defense department. Not our business, Sergeant.”

  Handel nodded, still staring out at the green hillsides.

  Kapuna Shores Development had offices on the second floor of a new office building just north of town. A scale model of a section of the Kaua’i coast filled half the foyer. A young Asian woman sat behind a teak desk polishing her nails. She paused with her file hovering above a deep maroon nail, then slowly allowed it to land on the completely empty surface of her desk. “Yes?” she said. It was almost a question.

  Cobb flipped open his wallet to display his badge. She glanced at it, glanced at him, glanced at Sergeant Handel. Then, very deliberately, she picked up her nail file once more.

  “Mr. Kano. Is he available?” Cobb asked. He brushed his finger across the acrylic case that covered the model and examined the faint trace of dust clinging to it.

  “Meeting,” she said. The thumb occupied her interest. “Important investors, from out of town.”

  “Is he likely to finish soon?” The tiny golf course stretched along the frozen plaster seaside. A beach, which Cobb knew did not exist in the real world, gleamed whitely at the foot of a series of terraced gardens. Windsurfers dotted the sea, their tiny sails bellied out with a brisk trade wind. Luxury condominiums scattered in the palm and plumeria gardens had hot tubs and car ports. Each group of five accessed its own freeform swimming pool. Prices, a discreet and handsomely printed legend informed him, started at $850,000.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. A police lieutenant was not a serious contender for Mr. Kano’s time. “He told me they were not to be disturbed. He said it was important.”

  “I see,” Cobb said softly. “Important.” He strolled around the room, examining the cluster of lavender sofas around a broad teak coffee table scattered with architectural magazines.

  “Yeah. We had a loss.”

  “I can understand that,” Cobb said. He paused in front of her desk. “With the units beginning at eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars it must be difficult to find purchasers.”

  She looked at him blankly, her thumb momentarily forgotten. “No,” she said. She spoke slowly, pronouncing every consonant carefully. She had some trouble with the letter “R,” but concealed it skillfully. “We didn’t have that kind of a loss. Not money. One of the general partners.”

  “I see. That would be Victor Linz.” He spoke over his shoulder as he went back to look into the model case again. The tennis courts were on the highway side of the development, strung out behind a tiny cardboard hedge, presumably to screen traffic noise and provide first-class seclusion.

  “Yes,” she said. “Mr. Linz passed away.”

  “Passed away, did he? Just like that? Heart attack?”

  “You’re the policeman. You tell me.” She moved her file to the next already-perfect nail.

  “Sergeant Handel, have you ever heard the expression, as stated by that great detective Charlie Chan, to the effect: ‘Good dose of land only effective medicine’.”

  “No, Lieutenant. I haven’t heard that.” Handel stood at a slight angle, as if the floor were listing in heavy seas.

  “Apparently it didn’t work in Mr. Linz’s case.”

  “No, sir. Apparently not.” His body swayed back to vertical, then continued a few degrees in the opposite direction.

  “Someone shot him, I believe, Miss Chang.” Cobb took her name from the
small wooden plaque attached to the front of her desk with four small brass screws.

  “I heard,” she said. She was no longer working on her nails. “To tell you the truth, that’s why they’re meeting in there, Mr. Kano and the gentlemen from Japan.”

  “There’s some problem with financing? With building permits?”

  She shrugged her slender shoulders, which lifted thick pads inside her coral silk blouse. “I don’t know. I just answer the telephone.”

  “What telephone?” Sergeant Handel asked. Her desk was a desert of oiled wood. The credenza behind her held, slightly to the left of center, a small vase with a bird of paradise flower, a spray of almost garish blue, orange, red, and green against the dove-gray wall. Otherwise it was as empty as the desk.

  She smiled at him sweetly and pulled open a drawer in the desk. A multiline telephone nestled there, the same dove-gray as the walls. The trim was a cool lavender, which matched the thin line around the ceiling molding.

  “Oh.” The swells under Sergeant Handel lifted him upright once more, then to starboard.

  Cobb squatted to look through plexiglas at the contoured hillsides where the luxury condos took on a more discreet look, their weathered gray wood exterior and mirrored glass windows carefully concealed by effusive planting. Every one had a view of the beach. “The last time I walked along Kapuna…” he began.

  She interrupted with a laugh before he could finish. “Most people don’t notice that. They just look at the model, you know, and the brochure.” She opened another drawer and slid a thick, glossy sales brochure across the faultless desktop. Cobb straightened and walked over to pick it up.

  After leafing through it he handed it back to Miss Chang. “How do they do that?” he wondered. “There’s a photograph of a beach that looks an awful lot like Poipu beach, moved about twenty miles north.”

  She smiled brightly. “It is. They’re going to ship in the sand. Meantime they borrowed Poipu. Some kind of trick photography.”

  Cobb nodded. “ ‘Rich men here live like emperors. Does it bring content?’ I don’t suppose you could cast any light on our dilemma?”

  “How?”

  “Any idea who may have shot your Mr. Linz, general partner in Kapuna Shores Development Corporation and part owner of the Moali’i Hotel?”

  She shrugged again. “Anyone.”

  “Really? Mr. Kano, perhaps?”

  Another shrug, and she grew once more preoccupied with the cuticle on her other thumb. The inner door opened then, and a group of Japanese men came out. Kaoru Kano shook hands with the other three. They all bowed to one another, and the three men, led by a heavy-set man in his early fifties, marched out the door. It sighed shut behind them and closed with a discreet but very substantial click.

  Kano was a small, neat man with salt and pepper hair combed back from his high forehead. He wore glasses with thick black frames, which gave him the look of a prosperous accountant. “Ah,” he said, extending his hand to Cobb. “Lieutenant Takamura. So pleased to see you again, although the circumstances are not so auspicious.” He shook the detective’s hand warmly and turned to Sergeant Handel. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”

  “Handel,” he said, taking Kano’s proffered hand once and dropping it. “Sergeant.”

  “Of course,” Kano smiled warmly. “I read of your promotion in the paper not long ago. You wish to inquire about poor Victor, of course.” He bowed them through the door into the inner office and closed the door.

  It maintained the Spartan high-tech motif of the outer office. His desk also was devoid of either objects or personality. Modest prints of exotic local flowers decorated the walls. A table against one wall supported a stack of blueprints. The window looked out over a broad expanse of cane field, bisected by the airport road and its line of telephone poles. A ribbon of blue sea marked the horizon. It was a surprisingly uneventful view.

  “Please, sit down,” he gestured to the two leather armchairs and the straight-backed chair grouped before his desk. Three more straight-backed chairs waited by the wall next to the table.

  “We are, naturally, exploring Mr. Linz’s life. Who might have shot him yesterday morning? This is a quiet island. We have very few murders here, I am happy to say. Our crime rate is even lower than the rest of Hawaii. Yet here we have a prominent visitor with substantial financial interests in our island shot while jogging in the very early morning and dragged to the center of the coconut grove to die.”

  Mr. Kano spread his hands on the surface of his desk and nodded. His eyes were grave behind his glasses. Behind him the sugar cane waved in the trade winds, bowing its fronds. The movement was small with distance. “I read it in the paper,” he agreed, “although the news had to take something of a backseat to this satellite falling inland.”

  “Yes,” Cobb said without interest. “Who shot him?”

  Kano raised his eyebrows. “Who, indeed? A man in his position must make enemies, I suppose. But as you say, so few people act on dislikes to this extent. Is there a motive?”

  “A good question. The first question a detective must ask himself. If only I could be inside other people’s minds, Mr. Kano. Even the victim, in this instance, might provide some clues. Then again, he might not. One never does know. A motive? What would the motive be, Mr. Kano, do you think?”

  Kano rolled his eyes up to look thoughtfully at the ceiling. “There are those who oppose Kapuna Shores Development,” he suggested.

  Cobb nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose an enraged member of the Kaua’i Historical Society, upset over the destruction of an archaeological site might do such a thing. It is somewhat difficult for this person to imagine it, though.”

  “I did not mean it as a joke, Lieutenant.”

  “Nor I, Mr. Kano. Do you have any other suggestions?”

  Kano looked again at the ceiling. “He was here with a woman,” he said. “Most often, I understand, domestic matters provoke violence. I assure you, however, since it is quite clear you are thinking it, that I did not shoot Victor.” Kano stared openly into Takamura’s eyes. Cobb in return looked quite calmly back.

  The moment held for some time. Finally Sergeant Handel cleared his throat. “Lieutenant, maybe Mr. Kano could suggest some other people to talk to? I mean…” He looked at his hands lying in his lap. The hands twisted together as if engaged in ritual combat.

  Cobb nodded again. “Quite so, Sergeant. An excellent suggestion. Perhaps the gentlemen who left here a few moments ago?”

  “Mr. Ueda is from Japan, Lieutenant. I hardly think…”

  “Nonetheless, Mr. Kano, you might tell us when he arrived on the island, where he is staying, and what his business here might be. Just for our report, you understand. The Chief would want us to ask.”

  “Mr. Ueda is here in a private capacity, representing the family interests of his company president. They are investors in Kapuna Shores. He’s here with his associates to look firsthand at the investment; they’re staying at a private residence we own on the other side of Kalaheo. That’s all.”

  “I see. I find the timing of his visit oddly coincidental. And when did you say he arrived here?”

  “Yesterday, I believe. Perhaps the day before. They came in from Tokyo.” Kano folded his hands together before him. Cobb could see their faint reflection in the polished surface of the desk.

  “Well, we needn’t bother you any more today, Mr. Kano. I’m sure you have much to do.” Cobb and Kano stood up and shook hands again. He ushered them through the outer office. At the door Cobb glanced once more at the scale model and nodded. “Very pretty,” he said. “But expensive.”

  Kano smiled. “Land values,” he murmured. “Kaua’i is undergoing a boom in land values, Lieutenant.”

  “Indeed,” Cobb said drily. “By the way, who does Mr. Ueda work for?”

  “Makeda Corporation. Director of Research.”

  “Ah. I’m not familiar with them. What is it they do?”

  Mr. Kano smiled. “They are quite
diversified, of course. Mainly they make pharmaceuticals, though. Why? Is it important?”

  Cobb shrugged. “Probably not. For the report, you know. Come along, Sergeant.”

  Handel trailed him out, tossing a final glance back at Miss Chang, who was buffing a nail with truly Zen concentration.

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAZZ KOENIG, SEATED AT his desk in the Douglass Research Center, peered intently at the screen of his Macintosh II. A horizontal bar filled smoothly with color as the program searched through the online database. From time to time a name was added to the list below the bar.

  Moments later the message “Search Complete” appeared. He clicked OK with the mouse, then directed the program to call another online database. As the computer dialed he leaned back and stretched. The printer silently spit out four pages of references. As he was picking them out of the tray, the door opened.

  “How’s it going?” Cobb asked.

  “Hey,” Chazz waved a greeting.

  “I sent my Sergeant Handel to lunch, and thought I’d drop by.”

  The Douglass Research Center occupied 140 acres of an old ahupua’a, or land division, a wedge-shaped slice of the circular island with its point in the mountains and its base at the coast. Thus the center included all botanical and microclimate zones from the mountains to the sea, or “from uka to kai.”

  The offices and laboratories occupied the largest forty-acre parcel south of the Koloa Road, and were set in a carefully tended landscape of formal tropical gardens. Lantana in full bloom filled Chazz’s window with riotous color.

  Cobb gazed out the window at them for a moment before asking, “So how does the search go?”

  “Swell. I have two hundred and seventy-three references to possible health-related research projects that coincide with references to satellites. Everything from the effects of microgravity on aspirin to vaccine purification in hard vacuum.”

  “Sounds pretty farfetched.”

  Chazz waved his hand at the screen. “Oh, yes it is. But once I’ve put this thing through the first cut, we can begin to narrow it down. Keyword searches on the text should eliminate most of the references. Here’s the first crop of printout.”