Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  “If there is a crime?” Handel asked drily.

  “Certainly,” Cobb agreed. “If there is a crime.” He rubbed his hands together, as if to rub away some roughness, some irritation. “Now, what about Chazz?”

  “He’ll be here within the hour.” Handel found himself looking out the window at the hot, empty streets.

  “Excellent.” Cobb sat down and leaned back in his chair. The afternoon sun was streaming into his office, touching everything with tropical cheer. Even the faded ink lettering on the brittle, curled masking tape attached to his IN and OUT baskets held a honey-golden glow. Both baskets were empty. “Look at that,” Cobb said. “Nothing IN, and nothing OUT. Very unusual. Almost a perfect day. Except it will be hot, and there are seven bodies in the morgue, and my wife’s in the hospital.”

  Handel recognized the signs in his boss. The anger had been worry. “She’ll be fine, Lieutenant,” he said softly.

  “Certainly,” Cobb answered. “But she was very brave, and very foolish, to have boarded that ship and examined it so carefully. Now she suffers from an emotional reaction, and if there was poison or infection aboard that vessel…”

  “What would you have done, Lieutenant?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Under the circumstances. What would you have done? I need to know. It’s part of my education to learn from you.”

  “Yes. I would have done the same, of course,”

  Handel started to say something. Perhaps he was going to say, “There you go,” or “You see,” or something along those lines. But he said nothing. Takamura’s relationship with his wife was a puzzle to Scott Handel. Mrs. Takamura made her husband a bento lunch almost every day. The lieutenant would sit at his desk and open up the small wooden box. He would examine the artfully arranged and very lovely morsels of sushi and rice cake with care. Then he would remove the chopsticks and eat with relish, sighing loudly from time to time. Mrs. Takamura seemed dutiful and subservient and fragile. On the other hand, Mrs. Takamura seemed to tell Lieutenant Takamura what to do almost every day. And Lieutenant Takamura seemed to take her advice seriously, and follow her orders.

  It was very confusing. Scott Handel had somewhat stereotypical ideas about the proper relationship between a Japanese man and his wife. It was a relationship very different from that of an American man and his wife. He knew, of course, that neither Cobb Takamura nor Kimiko Takamura was born in Japan. They were as American as pizza. That is, they were Americans of Japanese Ancestry, or AJAs. Handel even knew that Cobb Takamura was a Sansei, since his grandfather had immigrated to Hawaii in the late nineteenth century, while Kimiko was a generation closer to Japan.

  Scott Handel recognized Cobb was worried about his wife. “She’ll be fine,” he repeated.

  Cobb smiled at him. “Of course. But something killed all those people. It didn’t look like murder. There were no signs of foul play, as they say on television, but you never know. Something killed them.” His voice trailed off into a thoughtful, distant look, out the window again at the declining sun and the dazzling emerald green flanks of Waialeale. Silence fell on the office. Yet small sounds grew loud: the squeak of a chair, a sharp inhalation of breath, a soft mutter from Scott Handel’s stomach. If there had been an old wind-up clock in the room, they might have listened to the ticking, but there was no wind-up clock.

  Handel had his feet propped against the filing cabinet, his head back against the wall, and Cobb was leaning back in his chair looking out the window when the door banged open and Chazz Koenig rumbled in. He was large and gray and bristling. The abruptness brought Handel’s chair down hard.

  “This had better be good,” Chazz said. He dropped into the only other chair in the room with a heavy sigh. The chair creaked under his bulk.

  Cobb turned mildly. “Oh, I think perhaps it is,” he said. “You look moderately fit. Fatherhood agrees with you?” This had the intonation of a ritual question, often repeated.

  Chazz scratched at his beard. “Orli is pretty cute. Sometimes she even sleeps through the night. Patria is grouchy about sixty-five percent of the time. She’s cranky about her research, wants to investigate Polynesian family structure and can’t because she has to nurse, an activity I suspect she secretly enjoys, though she would never let on. Why did you bring me back here?”

  “Kimiko stopped off at Kalalono Bay last evening. She says she likes to take a swim. In fact, I believe she sits under a tree. A large ship floated into the bay. There were seven dead persons aboard, and no live ones.”

  Chazz nodded, sucking on his lower lip. “I see. I presume they were not attacked by pirates boarding to steal a thousand pounds of Colombian cocaine, leaving them riddled with bullet holes. You would not have called me back here for something so simple. All dead, you say?”

  Cobb nodded “Mrs. Takamura is at the hospital for observation. They are concerned about some infectious disease.”

  “Or a poison of some kind?”

  “A possibility, yes. No signs of it, though.”

  “What is this ship?”

  “Ocean Mother, registered out of Vancouver. Belongs to an environmental group employed to protest dolphin slaughter, whaling, that sort of thing. According to the log she had been most recently in French Polynesia.”

  “French Polynesia? What for, besides a vacation in the exotic South Seas.”

  Cobb reached over without moving his body and lifted a mainland newspaper from his desk “Page four,” he said.

  Chazz riffled through the pages and read for a few moments. He lifted an eyebrow. “Atomic testing?”

  “Island of Moruroa, in the Tuomotus. Various groups and governments— like New Zealand— still protest from time to time. Apparently the Ocean Mother was involved in such a protest last month.”

  “You suspect something? Wasn’t there an attack on a Greenpeace boat a few years ago by French secret agents?”

  Cobb nodded solemnly. “Not that there is any evidence of anything like that here. Merely seven bodies on a fairly large ocean-going vessel drifting off our coast.”

  “Autopsy?”

  “Of course. Dr. Shih in charge. No word as yet. Seven is a sizable job for her. Fortunately, they are not local citizens. Not even, perhaps, tourists or visitors. We don’t know that for sure as yet, but we are checking the hotels, boat charter agencies, tourism people, state health, and so on. Perhaps the Ocean Mother berthed somewhere in the islands and took these people aboard. We have to make sure they didn’t catch something here. But so far there is no sign they have ever landed in Hawaii.”

  “You want me to keep an eye on things? There might be some biological component. Or a radioactive one.”

  “We have worked together before. You can give me an angle on things that others, more professionally involved, cannot. You work with radioactive materials, also.”

  “And you’re worried about Kimiko.” It was a statement, not a question. Chazz rose to his feet, a movement surprisingly graceful for one of his bulk. “I was diving near the Kilauea eruption. It’s a vision from hell down there. Swift streaks of red heat, quickly hidden. Chaos, torment, noise, steam. A small biological or radiological problem will be positively peaceful in comparison. And I’m sure Kimiko will be fine. There would have been signs by now if she were contaminated with something.”

  Cobb nodded and rose. He took down from the top of his battered filing cabinet a hideous blue-and-yellow porkpie hat, which he seated precisely horizontally on his head. He lifted his dark glasses, which hung from a cord around his neck, and placed them over his eyes. “Sergeant,” he said softly. “Perhaps you would drive us to the hospital?”

  Kimiko was sitting in bed reading Hegel. When Chazz, Cobb, and Handel entered, she lowered the book. “At last,” she said.

  Cobb removed his dark glasses so he could question her with his eyebrows.

  “I always read Hegel when I’m bored. Then any interruption will be a blessing. It works almost like magic, you see. I get bored. I wait a
s long as I can stand it, then I read Hegel. Someone always interrupts very soon.”

  Cobb turned to Chazz. “Kimiko was a philosophy major at the University of Hawaii.”

  “Who’s Hegel?” Scott Handel asked. No one answered.

  “You no doubt want me to relate my death-defying experiences of last evening,” she said to Chazz. “But I don’t think I will until Patria is here.”

  “She won’t be here until the five-thirty flight,” Cobb told her.

  “In that case, I will wait.” She picked up Hegel again and pretended to read, a small furrow of philosophical concentration appearing between her brows.

  The silence lasted a minute or so. Then she put the book down. “Okay,” she said. “I will tell you everything.” She paused a moment. “You know, they gave me a sedative. It made me very drowsy.”

  “They were worried about your reaction,” Cobb said, taking her hand. “You were very brave, you did just the right thing. But it is not your line of work. I would have been very upset, if it had been me.”

  Kimiko smiled at him indulgently. “Certainly you would.” The sentence was so empty of inflection that it clanged with irony. She knew better. But she went through in detail what happened from the moment she looked up and saw the ship to the time she called her husband at his office. “The children are staying with cousins in Kekaha, so I had a little free time.”

  “You are an amazing observer,” Chazz said. “The shoe. I wouldn’t have noticed that.”

  “I don’t know why it came off, though. I would like to know that. It was strange, perhaps the strangest thing about it. That shoe scared me, more than anything else. They were all dead. That’s all right, I understand that. Something killed them. I thought, poison gas of some kind, caught up with all of them in turn as it rolled over the ship. But the shoe bothered me.”

  “You said the log showed they had been to Polynesia,” Chazz said, “Who found the log?”

  Scott Handel cleared his throat. “All the paramedics wore masks and gloves. They loaned me some, so I took a look around. The lieutenant thought the police ought to be represented, even though this did not look like a police matter.”

  “You brought the log back to headquarters?” Chazz asked.

  “Well…”

  “What the Sergeant is trying to say is that he felt it incumbent upon him to call in the Coast Guard. Now under ordinary circumstances the Coast Guard would be just the right agency to oversee this matter. But unfortunately the sergeant did not wait quite long enough in his enthusiasm. He called before Commander Shafton, a man you will no doubt soon meet, went on leave. It was fortunate indeed that the sergeant had the foresight to get the log for us before calling.”

  Chazz laughed. “So it is still unclear whether this is even a police matter or not. I understand.”

  “There is something of a gray jurisdictional area here, yes,” Cobb agreed. “But under the circumstances it seemed best to take no chances.”

  A doctor entered briskly. “Well, well, Mrs. Takamura,” he said. “And how are we feeling?”

  “I don’t know how you’re feeling, Dr. Standish, but I am feeling as fine as I could feel after reading Hegel.”

  Dr. Standish rubbed his palms together with a whispering sound. “Splendid. I think I can spare you any further Hegel. The tests were all negative. You appear to be quite healthy.”

  “Good.” Kimiko opened a huge cloth bag and stuffed the Hegel inside.

  “We’ll just step outside while you change,” Chazz said, gesturing to Sergeant Handel. Cobb followed them out after a moment.

  They stood at the end of the hall, looking through dusty windows at the ocean to the east. Small puffs of clouds drifted over the water, casting dark oblong shadows on the surface. Inside the shadows, whitecaps winked on and off, warning of dangers invisible to the human eye.

  The sea was vast and mysterious, of course. But now it seemed to hold something new, something subtle and secret and evil.

  “It’s strange. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen in real life, does it?” Handel asked. There was something wistful, even plaintive, about his tone.

  “On the contrary,” Chazz said. “Inexplicable things happen all the time. They could all have eaten something bad: it could be salmonella. It’s the sort of thing that happens at church picnics all the time.”

  “But it isn’t salmonella poisoning,” a voice said behind them. They turned as a group.

  “So, Dr. Shih,” Cobb said.

  The small woman dipped her head with a quirky smile. Her white coat displayed a few strategic dabs of what could only have been blood, a badge of her office as medical examiner. Her eyes, behind rimless glasses, were bright and quizzical. “Nice to see you again, Dr. Koenig.”

  “They did not die of salmonella?”

  “No indeed. They died of something else entirely.”

  “And what is that?” Takamura asked.

  “Respiratory failure. They suffocated.”

  FOUR

  JURISDICTION

  Commander Shafton left the Nawiliwili office at three-fifteen, allowing more than enough time to get to Lieutenant Takamura’s office for his three-thirty appointment. The day was fine although too hot, but Shafton paid no attention. He drove with his eyes straight ahead and his hands holding both sides of the wheel in a firm, steady grip. His mouth, too, was firm and steady. His subordinates would have recognized suppressed anger.

  He was a stocky man with firm, steady ways. His eyes, spaced far apart as though to cast his hazel gaze in more than one direction at once, looked out from beneath graying hair that fell in a neatly waved arc over his brows, which were level and black. All in all, he felt he had a commanding presence and was not personally aware that Lieutenant Takamura considered his feet too small.

  He parked precisely on Rice Street and walked the half block to police headquarters.

  Takamura was not in, but was expected to return soon. Commander Shafton went upstairs and found the second floor lounge, where he helped himself to a plastic cup full of coffee and the telephone.

  He spoke for several minutes in quiet tones, glancing from time to time at his watch. He was just hanging up when Takamura appeared at the head of the stairs, followed by Sergeant Handel and another man Commander Shafton did not know.

  “As I told you,” Shafton said before Cobb could speak, “The Ocean Mother is being towed to Nawiliwili. There’s a storm out there, and Kalalono is no place for a ship that size in bad weather.”

  Cobb raised an eyebrow. “‘Heavy disappointment causes my heart to sag.’ Your tow will cause problems for any ongoing investigation. It would have been better to leave the vessel alone; there may be evidence on board.”

  If Commander Shafton recognized the quote from Charlie Chan he gave no sign. He was singularly immune to sarcasm. Irony belonged to a different universe entirely. “There was no sign of crime— unless you know something I don’t.” Commander Shafton was so smoothly shaven that he appeared almost sexless. Cobb knew that in fact Shafton shaved twice a day and just now exuded the faint but unmistakable aroma of English Leather. The smoothness of his skin was matched by the smoothness of his tone.

  “In fact, all seven victims died of asphyxiation. They stopped breathing. I do not believe these could be called natural deaths.” Cobb opened his office door and ushered the others inside.

  “Now Commander, we must find an accommodation with one another. We probably have a crime on our hands. It is within our territorial limits, since it was discovered on a ship grounded on Kauai soil. The ship, however, may be declared derelict, although we could not say it was exactly abandoned by its captain and crew.”

  “That may be a debatable point,” Commander Shafton agreed softly. “But they are all dead. There is no more formal abandonment than that. We are not concerned at the moment with rights of salvage, though, but with safety of shipping in coastal waters. That is my responsibility. Precedent suggests the Coast Guard should be conducting t
he investigation prior to a determination of criminal activity. Lieutenant, you overstepped your bounds when you authorized the removal of the bodies off that ship.”

  “Commander, those bodies were past rigor mortis. These are the subtropics, and decomposition was imminent. There was some urgency.”

  “I will allow it to pass. But we will take charge from now on. I am willing to allow your department to observe pending proof of crime.”

  “Very well. When do you expect the ship to arrive at the harbor?”

  “It shouldn’t take more than four hours. Say around eight this evening.”

  “Very good I assume my men and myself will have free access to the ship for investigative purposes?”

  Commander Shafton nodded reluctantly. “You may not know this, Lieutenant, but I was due to go on leave today. I have a flight to Paris. But if this is a medical matter, then the public health threat would prevent me from going. Personally, I hope you find evidence of a crime.”

  Cobb said nothing for a few moments. Then he leaned forward. “Have your people taken Geiger counters aboard?”

  Shafton was surprised. “Why would they do that?”

  “It appears this ship has recently participated in an excursion to protest the latest French bomb test in the South Pacific. If they wandered inside the security zone for the test, perhaps the ship was contaminated. It is only a suggestion, of course.”

  Shafton stood up and pressed his hands down on the edge of Takamura’s desk. “Why didn’t someone mention this before?”

  Cobb shrugged. “We didn’t know until… recently. It’s the responsibility of the Navy or Coast Guard to keep track of vessels and their travels, I believe. I am just a policeman.”

  Shafton’s face flushed. He released the edge of the desk with an effort and took a step back. “Very well. I’ll take charge of this matter personally. That ship could be contaminating our waters by itself, not to mention whatever was aboard her that caused all those deaths. I’ll expect to see you at the harbor this evening. And I’d like to know whatever you find out about the cause of these deaths.”