Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  Cobb looked over the sheets briefly and handed them back. “You understand this investigation is unofficial, unapproved, and unannounced? That is, I am assigned to the Linz murder, not the unlikely possibility that we have a dangerous satellite out near the volcano.”

  Chazz nodded. “No reason not to do the search, though. Part of my eclectic interests in exotic plants and so on. And what of the lady at State Health?”

  “Sammy talked to her this morning. Very discreetly, of course. He is no longer with the police department since his injury, so he found some purchasing excuse to talk to her. She certainly did get a call yesterday, but there have been no reports of health problems, so there seems no need for immediate panic. I am, however, a great believer in ‘just in case.’ But in this instance, ‘I am hard to explain, like black eye’.”

  “Mmm. No further phone calls?”

  “None I know of as yet.”

  “Anyone gone up to the crater to look around, see what fell? I’d think the feds would be interested.”

  Cobb laughed. “Of course. They’re buzzing around like hornets at a picnic. Word is some team from Washington arrived a couple of days ago, just in case. A man named Wakefield. They started up this morning, I hear. But it’s a hell of a trip, and cloudy as hell in there. The crater gets over four hundred inches of rain a year and they have to drive through that. The trails are vicious even for four-wheel drive. It’ll take them hours, and then they have to find the crash site. If there’s anything left it’s liable to be scattered all over the place, hidden in the trees. It’s dense rain forest in there.” He shook his head. “Sammy says a helicopter will go in as soon as the clouds lift and try to find signs of the crash, then radio the jeep with the location. It couldn’t land. I say good luck. You could practically lose a seven-forty-seven in there, and a satellite, especially after it’s been burning up, is not likely to make much of a mark. Small to start with, I should think.”

  “I should think,” Chazz agreed. “I suppose all we can do is wait.” The computer emitted a boinging sound then, and Chazz turned back to click OK again. “End of search,” he said. The computer spat out a few more sheets. “Let’s go eat.”

  They drove into Koloa. Traffic on the road was normal.

  The sun was shining. This, too, was normal. “This is a nice place to live,” Chazz said as he steered around a slow-moving truck. “Quiet, temperate, benign. We sign our lease this afternoon. A house up in Kalaheo. Very quiet, very far from the beach, very reasonable.”

  “What makes it so reasonable?”

  “No electricity.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re putting it in. I’ll be high-tech in no time.” He pulled into the center of town and parked along the street. “Uh-oh,” he said.

  “What’s that?” Cobb asked.

  Chazz pointed. The patrol car was double-parked; the driver’s door was open. The phone booth in front of the swimwear boutique was occupied by Sergeant Handel. He appeared to be shouting. “Yes, I see what you mean. He is supposed to be enjoying a leisurely lunch in Lihu’e. He is supposed to then go to the planning commission offices and get a list of the principals of Kapuna Shores Development. Then he is supposed to meet me in my office to go over the names and make a list of suspects, motives, and methods. Then we were going to call up Dr. Shih to get the Medical Examiner’s report. So what’s he doing here?”

  “Why don’t we ask him?”

  “You astound me, sir.” Cobb climbed out and sauntered over to the phone booth. He knocked on the glass and Sergeant Handel dropped the receiver and pushed the door open. It stuck against Cobb’s shoe; then, when he tried to close it, it wedged part way open on the sole of his own shoe. Finally he gave up and carefully replaced the receiver, opened the door, and stepped out.

  “They’re trying to get hold of you,” he said. “We called on your radio, but you didn’t answer, so then I thought maybe you were with Dr. Koenig, but they said he was gone, so I thought maybe you were coming here for lunch, so I drove over here at top speed, and you weren’t here, so I tried calling you again, and here you are.” He was out of breath when he finished.

  Cobb took off his sunglasses and polished them with the tail of his shirt. “Has there been another murder, or perhaps someone came in and volunteered a confession?”

  Handel stared at him, his mouth slightly open. Then he shook his head. “Oh, no sir. Nothing like that. Sorry, Lieutenant, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the Linz case. It’s Sergeant Akeakamai, sir. He called you to say there was another call from Bea. He said you’d know what it was about, and that it was Code Blue.”

  “Where is he?” Cobb snapped.

  “He said to meet him at Wilcox Hospital.”

  Cobb turned to Chazz, who was waiting by the car. “I have a feeling you’d better come along on this. Leave your car here and Handel can give us one of his exciting high-speed rides.”

  “Right,” Handel said, leaping into his patrol car and starting the engine and the siren at the same time. The engine coughed once and failed. Meantime Chazz got in the back and Cobb slid in front. The car started this time and he backed violently, then swerved onto the Maluhia Road. By the time they were up to speed he had the red and blue lights working on top and the siren going full blast. Traffic scattered before them, and in moments they were rushing through the cool dimness of the eucalyptus tunnel. “The hospital, right?” Handel shouted over the sound of the siren.

  Cobb held onto the passenger grip above the door. “Right,” he shouted.

  Handel took the turn onto the Kaumuali’i Highway on two wheels. An oncoming red Samurai bounced off the road as they passed and swerved back on behind them. “He was speeding,” Handel shouted.

  He did over eighty to the turn at the edge of town, slowed down to fifty-five to take the turn, then accelerated again. With all the noise of the siren, Chazz felt oddly serene. They pulled up to the emergency room in a cloud of foul burnt-rubber smoke and dust.

  “Very nice, Sergeant,” Cobb said. “You have just set a new record, I would think.”

  Handel, unaware of any irony, bobbed his head in pleasure. Cobb and Chazz went into the emergency room.

  Sammy, toothpick at a slightly more acute angle than usual from the corner of his heavy mouth, straightened as they entered, breaking off an intense conversation with a small, birdlike Asian woman and a larger white woman with severe black hair tied firmly back.

  “You know Dr. Shih, Chazz,” Cobb said. Chazz nodded. “And you must be Bea Hunter, of the State Health Department.” They all shook hands. “Sergeant, you might as well join us although this has, as you so rightly said, nothing to do with the Linz case.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dr. Shih peered up at Cobb. “Listen to her first. Then we have something to show you.”

  He nodded and turned to the woman from the health department. “So you had another call?”

  Bea Hunter nodded. She kept her hands clasped very firmly together in front of her stomach, as if afraid if she let go she might lose one of them. Her black synthetic silk dress bloomed with a profusion of large orange and red poppies. She hugged a large black leather purse to her side. “He said people were going to get sick. He said there was nothing anyone could do, it was in the air, in the water. From that satellite.”

  “That’s it? He didn’t suggest what it was, or why the satellite could cause something like that?”

  “Well, I did try asking him questions, you know. It’s a public health matter, and he was calling. But he hung up.”

  “This was the same man?”

  She nodded. “A foreigner.”

  “Any idea what kind of accent?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know much about things like that. I’ve lived here all my life. I hear lots of accents— mostly Asians, of course. I didn’t recognize it.”

  Dr. Shih had taken Chazz to one side while this conversation took place. “It might be related to what s
he’s heard,” she told him. “We have a patient I thought you should know about. You might be able to help us.”

  “OK,” Cobb said to the group. “Let’s see what this is all about. By the way, doctor, do you have the Linz autopsy report?”

  Dr. Shih nodded. “A simple case. You can pick it up any time.”

  They took the elevator to the third floor. “The general ICU,” she said. “We have him in isolation.”

  A glass window gave them a view into an intensive care unit. The room was effectively sealed off. The patient lay in a plastic tent. He was as completely intubated as any Chazz had seen. EKG, pulse, IV flow rate, and other monitors stood around the bed on stands, winking slow red lights. A ceiling-mounted television camera relayed to a monitor at the nurse’s station a view of his head and chest.

  “I thought you ought to know about this, what with the call and everything.” Sammy leaned against the window and peered in. “Could be nothing, of course. But the circumstances were peculiar.”

  “How did you find out about him?” Cobb took off his hat and smoothed the brim.

  Sammy shifted his bulk to a more comfortable leaning position, hitching his baggy trousers and stuffing his hands down into his pockets. “Well, you see our friend Darrell kind of monitors all the radio frequencies. Part of his civil defense duties, he tells me. And since Bea had called him yesterday he’s been in kind of a sweat about this thing. So when he heard an emergency call go out to the fire department he perked up.”

  “Fire department?” Chazz asked. “Why would someone call the fire department?”

  “Rescue. Someone called in, about ten-thirty this morning. Said this guy was collapsed by his car, real sick. So the fire department sent out a rescue unit. They found him.”

  “Where?”

  Sammy nodded slowly. “That’s the interesting part,” he said.

  Cobb looked at the ceiling. “The Kukui Nut,” he said softly, with a wink at Chazz. “I know that’s the interesting part, Sammy. You wouldn’t have had Sergeant Handel here come chasing after me if where he was found weren’t interesting. Medical problems are not police business; there had to be another dimension. So, Samuel Akeakamai, where was this person found?”

  “There’s a dirt road heading up toward Wai’ale’ale. His car was a little over a mile in from where the road goes off the cane road. Collapsed by his car. Real sick, as you can see.”

  “Indeed. That is interesting. Who called it in?”

  Sammy shrugged. “Someone. No name. I called over to the dispatcher and got a listen to the recording. An old favor for a former police officer.” He smiled.

  “And?”

  “Not much there. Excited voice, male, baritone.” He anticipated Cobb’s next question. “No accent. Said a man had collapsed by his car, up the road, hung up. Dial tone. Could have been a hunter, sugar company worker, anyone. They have to go in to maintain the flumes for irrigation up there— the Wailua River gets diverted a couple of places at the head of the road, at the foot of the mountain where it makes that kind of amphitheater where the helicopter tours always go.”

  Sergeant Handel was frowning. It gave his face a solemn, slightly pinched look. “So someone reported a sick person. How does that connect with this satellite?”

  “The satellite may have some kind of toxin or gas or something on it,” Cobb said. “Or it could be nothing. Can we afford to take a chance? If this guy had been driving up the jeep trail last night, he could be contaminated.”

  Handel nodded. “Oh. Maybe he had a heart attack or something. He’s alive, isn’t he?”

  Cobb looked at Dr. Shih. Again she tilted her head to one side, a sign she was about to speak. Her small hands were stuck into the pockets of her white medical coat. A white gauze mask hung around her neck. Her small eyes, nested in an intricate network of very fine lines, looked intently at Cobb.

  “The patient was comatose when found, and has not recovered consciousness. He’d suffered from vomiting, diarrhea, and gastrointestinal bleeding. We also see skin lesions, which is the strangest part of the medical picture. From the way he had fallen, I would presume dizziness a well. Bumped his head on the fender of his car. Nothing serious there, except that the bruise hemorrhaged far more than an injury of that sort would warrant, and has developed into a small lesion as well. His clothes were wet, indicating he had been in the rain, not surprising considering where he was found, and we may conclude some exposure here, although a night would not be sufficient to cause serious problems to a healthy man. After all, even though it was raining, the temperature is quite benign here.”

  “Why are you looking at this patient? Aren’t you the ME for the county?” Chazz wanted to know.

  “Certainly I am the ME. I am also the resident pathologist and general consultant to anyone who wants me. Anyway, I got all this from the paramedic report.”

  “I see. How can we be sure he was out there only one night?” he wondered. “Without evidence we don’t know for sure. He could have been out there several days, couldn’t he? Maybe this is all exposure?”

  Cobb looked at Sammy. “Well?”

  “Oh, boss, have you no faith? I checked the vehicle, of course. It was rented day before yesterday. It came back in yesterday because one of the tires was low and the customer was worried about it. So he couldn’t have been up there before noon yesterday. Mileage indicated that he did not drive directly there, though.”

  “That must mean we have some idea who he is?” Chazz persisted.

  Sammy nodded. “Credit card registered in the name of R and L Publications Group. Name signed: Elliot Propter. Said he was a tourist.”

  “Elliot Propter? Is that for real?”

  “I haven’t had time to pursue it, of course— he got here about an hour ago. But there’s no reason to think it isn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just a hunch. For one thing, his driver’s license was in order.”

  “Do you think he’s a tourist, Sergeant Handel?”

  “No. R and L Publications, wasn’t it? He was probably here on a story. About the satellite, I’d say, considering where he was. Where’s he from?”

  “Washington, D.C.” Behind Sammy, through the window, the telltales on the black boxes surrounding the figure in the bed blinked steadily.

  Chazz Koenig, leaning against the window, stared in at the unconscious form. “I wonder what he has,” he murmured.

  Dr. Shih touched his arm and led him to the nurse’s station. She handed him the chart without a word.

  He read it. “List of signs. He hasn’t spoken to us about his symptoms, I suppose. Some suggested lab tests. You’d like me to examine some slides, is that it? I’m a molecular biologist, not a pathologist, Dr. Shih.”

  “Yes, Dr. Koenig. So I know. I am the pathologist. Yet you could see things perhaps we do not. Slides are from stains on skin, site of the lesions.” She handed him a cardboard box, carefully sealed in plastic. “I would propose that you be very careful with these samples. Whatever it is causes a number of very unpleasant things to happen to a person. I would not want to see you back here in my professional capacity.”

  “You think I should look at this in my professional capacity, then? As a molecular biologist? Mostly, you know, I work with chemicals, not cells.”

  She patted his arm, her head cocked. She smiled. “I know. But you’ll do this for me.”

  “Of course I will,” he smiled. “What about the paramedics who brought him in? Any of them get sick?”

  “No. Apparently they took precautions. Almost an instinct, I’d say. They treated him like a potential AIDS case— gloves, masks, and so on. No infection yet.”

  Cobb, Handel, and Sammy were staring gloomily at the man in the ICU. Cobb shook his head as Chazz came back. “I can’t say I like it much,” he said. “We don’t need another rash of random killings.”

  “One case hardly constitutes a rash, Lieutenant,” Dr. Shih said. “And he isn’t dead. I don’t think he’s likel
y to be, either. It would appear he’s been poisoned, but he won’t die. I’m pretty sure of that.”

  “OK. What about Victor Linz, homicide victim, then?”

  She nodded. “Certainly. He died of blood loss and peritonitis as a result of a gunshot wound. A very simple case, as I said.”

  CHAPTER 9

  COBB TAKAMURA GLARED at the sheet of paper in his hand. The neatly typed words on the paper were an affront.

  Takamura was in his office. On the desk before him he had a wire basket labeled IN. He had another wire basket labeled OUT. The words, IN and OUT, were written with black Sharpie on strips of one-inch masking tape stuck to the wire. The masking tape was old, and had curled, faded, and cracked. Folds in the tape were either pale and smooth where they protruded, or pooled with dust where they were indented. Over the years Cobb had leaned forward more than once to blow the dust away, but it seemed to pool again within minutes, and recently he had gotten out of the habit. The letters of the two words were faded (the sun fell on them for at least two hours every afternoon). He had pulled this sheet of paper from the IN basket and scrutinized it for several minutes.

  The paper contained a list. The list seemed to offend him. Finally he looked up.

  Sammy Akeakamai leaned against the doorjamb, a posture he often adopted, and chewed a toothpick. Cobb could see his wide-spaced teeth when he grimaced around the object from time to time, shifting it with blunt fingers.

  Cobb held out the page. “These?”

  Sammy nodded. “Those.”

  “All of them?”

  Sammy nodded again.

  “These include almost every important or prominent person on the island except those who have come out publicly against the development.”

  Again he nodded.

  “The Mayor, all but one member of the city council, leading business and cultural leaders. Politicians and contractors. Not to mention others from Honolulu.”

  “Yup,” Sammy agreed.

  “This list is useless.” Cobb threw it down on his desk. “Useless. I want suspects, not a Who’s Who in Kaua’i.”