Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  Cobb parked at the edge of the highway and they climbed over a mound of shattered concrete and across the thick mud of the field to the buildings visible behind a scraggly patch of brush. On the way they discovered the new blacktop of the complex’s driveway.

  “Not quite done,” Chazz observed.

  “No. But it looks like people are using it anyway.” Chazz pointed to the completed complex. Two vehicles were parked in front of one building, a medium-sized white Ford sedan and a gray four-wheel-drive Bronco.

  “Caretakers?”

  Chazz shrugged. “Probably. Patria would be down by the creek at the site of the old village.” They passed the completed buildings, skirting the empty swimming pool. The sun had grown hot, and in the absence of the trees so abundant on the scale model in the office, the heat was intense. Only by the stream was there any significant shade.

  Patria was seated on a lava outcropping, staring moodily at the faint line of a wall covered with the twisted vines, broad leaves, and tangled stems of exuberant vegetation.

  She moved her hand in a slight wave. Even at a distance Chazz could see she was angry.

  “Bad, huh?” he said as they sat beside her.

  “The worst. The son of a bitch was going to plow under one of the most extensive archaeological sites I’ve even heard about in the state. This wasn’t just someone’s home before the haoles came, this was a major village. A chief’s house probably sat over there, a row of small houses along the stream there, taro pounding, salt drying, weaving and everything. I think Linz was downplaying the extent of this place. Even an amateur archaeologist could see how big it is.”

  “But no one’s dug here. No one has tried to make this an official site of any kind.”

  “Ha! That’s because this is a lousy place for development. No beach to speak of, terrain all wrong. And all that plowed land back there was well preserved by having sugar grown on it. Nobody thought there was a rush to dig here, but he had plans to move major amounts of earth around.”

  Kimiko and the two kids appeared around a shallow bend in the stream, carrying armloads of kukui nuts and the long slender leaves of the ti plant. She sat down and wiped her forehead with an indigo cotton furoshiki. “We’re gonna make candles,” Kenji said as he spilled his pockets onto another square of cloth. “An’ Kiki found something up the stream a little. Show them, Kiki.”

  The girl held out a piece of lava hollowed into a small bowl. Patria took it in her hands and turned it over, inspecting it closely. “This is the real thing,” she said. “Can you show me where you found it, Kiki?”

  “Sure.” The two of them moved upstream. Patria had out a small stenographer’s notebook half-filled with notes.

  Chazz, Cobb, Kimiko, and Kenji sat for a while, looking at the reddish-brown water flowing sluggishly toward the ocean a hundred meters away. Kimiko took her husband’s arm and laid her head against his shoulder.

  “You are troubled, Mr. Takamura,” she said.

  He nodded. “Yes, Mrs. Takamura. I am.”

  She spoke to him softly in Japanese: “Fugu-jiru ku baka, kuwanu baka.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Takamura,” he said. “That is it precisely. He who eats globefish is indeed a fool. The globefish is poisonous but so delicious anyone who does not eat it is also a fool. Did Victor Linz eat Fugu-jiru? Or did I? It is enough to make one philosophical, nē? What is the connection between the satellite and Victor Linz?”

  “How about that paper Sammy gave you?” Chazz Koenig asked.

  Cobb nodded. “There is that, of course. Would a pharmaceutical company manufacture a toxin that would find its way onto a satellite?”

  “He owned a lobbying organization in Washington as well.”

  Again Cobb nodded. “And Elliot Propter, journalist, was from Washington, on the trail of someone named Wakefield. Is Wakefield in Kaua’i and was he acquainted with Victor Linz? And what is the tape he mentioned? ‘Many questions, few answers’.”

  “Charlie Chan?” Chazz asked. It was a ritual question by now, so he was surprised by the answer.

  “No.” Cobb smiled and stood up. “Mrs. Takamura. Speaking to the children, whose questions are without limit.”

  “Like their father in that way,” Kimiko said. She also stood. “I think I will take Kenji back upstream to where Kiki found the bowl, which is to be the holder for our kukui-nut candles. Unless it is a valuable archaeological artifact, in which case we will turn it over to the historical society. But there are many of these things lying around, I think.” She made her way up the center of the stream, the smooth dark water flowing easily around her ankles.

  “Come,” Cobb said. “We have work to do, don’t we? We need to inquire of Angela Franklin concerning the way she’s handling her recent bereavement. There is Elliot Propter’s room at the motel, where we may find a tape of some sort. There is Mr. Propter’s sister to contact. Motor vehicles and traffic department about the mysterious panel truck. Busy, busy. We’ll have a bite to eat at the hotel, talk to Angela Franklin, and then go to Propter’s motel.”

  Chazz suggested he drop him off at his van when they got back to Lihu’e. “I want to pull my little experiment and look into the pharmaceutical database again. I’ve got an idea.”

  Neither Chazz nor Cobb noticed the Bronco following them out of the development. They ate in the hotel coffee shop, nearly deserted even at noon. The effect was eerie, although service was excellent. Apparently the natives were more attached to their jobs than they were afraid of an increasingly mythical poison in the air.

  Angela Franklin was alone on the beach. From her drowsing body arose an intense aroma of coconut oil. The even light tan of her generously exposed limbs glistened with highlights so brilliant Cobb had to adjust his sunglasses. He and Chazz stood for a moment to gaze at her. Finally Cobb moved toward the water and allowed his shadow to fall across her. She opened her eyes sleepily and looked up at his outline against the sun, now well over halfway to its zenith. She reached out with a languid hand and touched Cobb’s thigh, perhaps unaware as yet who was standing there.

  Then she noticed Chazz, standing on her left. She took her hand away as if Cobb’s dark blue slacks were white-hot and sat up. As she did, the flesh of her breasts swelled to overflow what there was of her bikini top. The movement was apparently unconscious, but Chazz looked away with a smile.

  “Good morning, Ms. Franklin,” Cobb said.

  She nodded. Her red hair was very fine, and floated hypnotically with the motion. “Good morning, ah, Lieutenant, isn’t it?”

  “You appear to be recovering well from the shock.”

  “Yes, thank you. Of course, I will miss Vic very much. He was such a sweet man. Warm and generous.”

  “Of course,” Cobb observed.

  The irony was nearly an illusion and she did not notice. “Any progress on who could have done it?”

  Cobb made a small gesture of dismissal. “Oh, some progress, I’d say.” He ignored Chazz’s look of surprised inquiry. “It must be very strange staying here with most of the other visitors gone.”

  She pushed her sunglasses up to smile at him with her eyes. “Frankly, Lieutenant, I find it extremely pleasant. I get better service with each passing hour as the other guests leave. What can I do for you?”

  “I thought I might look in and ask what business you had with Mr. Kano of the Kapuna Shores Development Corporation.”

  She looked startled for only a moment. “My goodness,” she said huskily. “News certainly does travel fast.”

  Cobb made a dismissive gesture. “This is a small island, Ms. Franklin. Now that the visitors are leaving in such numbers, it is growing smaller.”

  “Please. Call me Angela. Kaoru— Mr. Kano— was a close business associate of Vic’s. Vic had made me a principal of the corporation, so we had things to discuss. That’s all.”

  “And Vic’s son, Peter. What is your relationship with him?”

  “I hardly know him. He lives in Utah. Do you think he did it?�
�

  “Anything is possible. Is there some reason you might think that?”

  She shrugged, a gesture almost melodramatically provocative, since it lifted both nipples above the electric blue of her bikini top for a moment. “They didn’t get along.”

  “Have you spoken to him recently?”

  Almost without hesitation she answered. “He arrived the other night, Monday, I think. We spoke then, briefly. The police here had wired him in Utah, he said. You must know about that.”

  “We wired him, yes. And he apparently arrived, as you say, on Monday. Yet we have reason to believe he arrived several days earlier.”

  “The son of a bitch,” she said. “He was here all the time! He shot his father.”

  CHAPTER 23

  WELTER’S HOUSE AT KALAHEO was locked up tight.

  It had about it that forlorn quality of some houses that, no matter how recently closed up, appear permanently abandoned, as if sheets draped over chairs and sofas, lamps and beds had gathered dust for years in the folds. Scott Handel leaned in toward the living room window, shading the glass with one hand so he could make out the dim furniture within. There were no sheets thrown over it, of course, but the house seemed so solidly empty, so absolutely lifeless, there might as well have been. Where were Ueda and company?

  He had pressed the bell button and listened to the three-note chiming more than once, then thumped and pounded on the front door. He had walked around the outside of the house, shouting his presence and his desire to enter.

  Now he stood in a small bed of ornamental plants and craned his neck to see through the slats of a roll-down reed blind, more screen than shade.

  The room stretched away into darkness. He could make out, very faintly, the outlines of an arch leading to what he deduced was the entry. Windows at the far end were heavily draped. Closer he could make out the edge of an ornamental fireplace, more windows, a table against the wall holding a lamp, a grouping of sofas, more tables, chairs against the opposite wall. The walls themselves were richly paneled with a tan wood. The dark wooden furniture had a heavy colonial look. The sofas could have been leather. A chair against the far wall was tilted onto two legs against a heavy library table.

  He moved along the wall to the French doors. They too were locked and bolted at the bottom. He methodically tried each window, wondering if he would actually enter if he found one open: questions of legality still troubled him. He decided than an unlocked door was an invitation to enter, and did not require a search warrant.

  He shouted once more. “Hello! Anyone here?”

  Since he did not expect an answer he didn’t listen for one, but continued his methodical rounds. Here was the kitchen, a spacious, somewhat old-fashioned room, well lit by the intense sun reflected from a light-colored tile lanai though the broad band of windows over the sink. In the center was an island containing a huge Wolf range. What looked like the door to a walk-in freezer was outlined against the inner wall. Two other doors were left ajar, one dropping a shaft of light across the wall not far from the freezer.

  For a moment he thought it must be an electric light left on in a pantry somewhere. Then he realized it was sunlight falling through what must be a skylight in the next room. He made his way around the corner, trying the windows as he went, and discovered a greenhouse or solarium. The glass walls were brown and highly reflective, a modern addition to the house, designed to screen out ultraviolet light. Inside it was undoubtedly very sunny.

  He tried one more shout, and this time in the brief silence that followed he thought he heard an answer.

  He listened intently this time, but heard nothing more. He concluded it must have been an illusion, a bird call or the rustling of leaves in the trees behind him.

  So far the morning had been a bust. He had stopped at Lianne Billings’s house first. It had been empty as this one, though he’d found the front door unlocked. She was probably at the hospital. He stopped at a pay phone and called to see if she was there. She had not been seen in the intensive care ward today. She had not come to work, and her daughter was not in day care. So she and her kid were hiking in the park up top or somewhere. So he’d stopped for a sandwich.

  Now he stood foolishly in the afternoon sun with his eye pressed to the reflecting glass of the solarium. He could see nothing inside except a brownish haze produced by the tempering of the glass and gave it up. Absently he tried the door as he walked by.

  To his surprise, it opened.

  He put his head inside. The room was a jungle of houseplants, white rattan furniture, small, glass-topped tables, large black and white checkerboard tile on the floor, bright orange light from the curved greenhouse wall and ceiling. The room was warm and very humid. The door to the kitchen was partially open, and a bright shaft of sunlight hit the door and jamb, spilling into the kitchen beyond.

  There was no one in the room. He could hear no sound.

  “Hello,” he shouted again. “Is anyone in here?” He took a partial step through the door when he heard it again. It sounded like someone calling for help, yet the sound was so muffled, so distant and indistinct that he doubted again that he had heard it. The sound drew him through the door, however, and he found himself standing inside the solarium it as the door closed gently behind him. He walked hesitantly across the black and white squares, past the high-backed rattan chair with a small blue cushion on it. The table beside it held a telephone with several buttons and lights.

  At the far end of the room was another door. He pushed against it and it floated open soundlessly. His uneasiness increased. There were no further sounds from inside the house, no calls for help, no answers. Only questions.

  The hallway he entered next was empty and very dim. Only a window at the far end and the entry windows let in any light, which gave definition to the doors and jambs at the ends, but left the central part of the hall in relative darkness. This appeared to be the bedroom wing. He tried the first door. His steps were silent and cautious, his breathing controlled.

  The first door led to a bedroom, apparently unused. The double bed was made up, the closet was empty, the adjoining bathroom spotless. No toothbrush, no shaving kit. A drawer in the vanity held four bars of Dove soap, still in wrappers. He moved on to the next room.

  Another bedroom. Again, it had no current occupant. The sink in the bathroom showed signs of recent use, though: a scum of shaving soap and black whiskers only partially washed away. The medicine cabinet was empty, the tub and shower were clean and dry, the carpeting on the floor, a deep royal blue, was also dry.

  The sheets on the bed were slightly wrinkled, though clean. Someone had slept in the bed recently, and the sheets had not been changed. The closet here, too, was empty.

  “Sherlock Holmes,” Handel started to say aloud, and, startled by his own voice, dropped it to a whisper, “would be looking for tobacco ash. But nobody smokes anymore.”

  Just as he finished saying this, bingo! he found an ashtray, and in the ashtray, the small stub of an unfiltered cigarette. There was also a small amount of ash. He didn’t know much about the smoking habits of the Japanese, but he suspected it had been smoked by one of Ueda’s group. He went to the bathroom and got a strip of toilet paper, which he used to wrap up the ashtray and its contents. He put the package in his jacket pocket and went on to the next room.

  It contained an array of the most high tech computer equipment he’d ever seen in real life— it reminded him of countless scenes on television. Rosewood cabinetry on the right held a series of computer stations. Rakishly angled keyboards on coiled wire rested on a richly polished desk surface. The small vase of flowers on a table at the far end of the room between the two windows was already wilting. He shook the vase and was rewarded with the most miserly of splashing sounds.

  The left wall held a large screen projection television in front of a group of chairs and sofa, a coffee table, and another office telephone. All the equipment was off, and the room appeared to have been closed up some time be
fore. But Handel opened all doors and examined all the cabinets carefully. A page rolled through a dot-matrix printer at the far end near the windows was closely printed with numbers and Japanese characters in table form. He tore it off, folded it carefully, and put it in his inside jacket pocket.

  He stood near the door and looked down the counter surface. The keyboards were all arranged carefully, aligned with one another. Only the third one of the five in the room was slightly askew. He examined it more closely. What good would fingerprints do him? They knew it was a man named Ueda, from Tokyo. He looked at the CRT, the keyboard, the cables connecting the keyboard to the floor-mounted central processing unit and the monitor. The cables went through small slots in the counter, concealed behind a low wall that at first appeared ornamental. He felt behind it with his fingers, which, when he withdrew them, had a yellow Post-it note stuck to them.

  On the note was a word: Sandstone.

  He pulled out a drawer and found the Post-it pad, three new Pilot fine-point pens, and a paper clip. He closed the drawer.

  Sandstone. That was a kind of rock, wasn’t it? Sedimentary rock, made out of sand under pressure.

  He stuck the yellow square of paper on the sheet of Japanese characters and replaced it in his pocket.

  At the end of the hall was another bedroom, as empty as the rest. Across from that was the master bedroom. The walk-in closet concealed a wall safe. The door stood open. On the shelf inside was a book of matches offering a course in commercial art if the applicant would only copy the picture of a dog on the cover and send it in. The match heads seemed to have deteriorated and he doubted they would work any longer. He left them where they were.

  The closet also contained five lightweight summer suits on hangers, a pair of bright red slacks, a pair of bright green slacks, golf and other shoes, a tennis racket with a broken string, a tan floppy cloth hat, a hook holding five belts, and another rack holding an assortment of thirteen silk ties. None of the ties were of a tastelessness to match the pants.