The Musubi Murder

by Frankie Bow

  “Dr. Barda,” she asked, “what kind of car do you drive?”

  “Well, I drive an older car—”

  “Professor Barda gotta T-Bird.” Davison unfolded his arms and leaned forward, grinning. “A fifty-nine.”

  “Um, that’s correct,” I said. “Davison, you’re very observant.”

  “Three hundred horsepower V-8,” Davison continued. “Cherry, that thing.”

  “Yes, thank you. Let’s not get too far off topic. The point is that consumers are driven by the need to preserve and enhance their self-image. Now go ahead and turn to the next paper in the handout. Same principle, but the participants are from Taiwan, and the researchers are looking at consumption of energy drinks as a means of masculine self-completion.”

  As I was packing up to leave, I saw Honey Akiona take a pair of sunglasses out of her bag, ready to put them on when she stepped out of the classroom. The rain had cleared and the sun glared from the wet metal rooftops. The sunglasses were the black, bug-eyed kind that a lot of the girls were wearing. But that wasn’t the only reason they looked familiar to me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I intercepted Honey Akiona as she was about to exit the classroom.

  “Eh, Miss,” she said. “Good class.”

  “Thanks. Listen, I read your revised paper.”

  We moved to a corner of the room, out of the way of the stampede of exiting students.

  “Looks good?” she said.

  “Yes. It was very good. You covered the topic thoroughly, and I think you gave the reader a real insight into your own moral reasoning.”

  She folded her arms and looked down.

  “I could understand why, for example, a student, or a group of students, would protest someone like Jimmy Tanaka being on campus.”

  She jerked her head up to look at me. “I don’t know nothing about that.”

  “Listen,” I said. “I’m sure that the demonstrators, whoever they were, intended to make their point without hurting anyone. The problem is that—” I stopped myself. Jimmy Tanaka’s murder wasn’t public knowledge yet. “The problem is that the . . . prop, the skull, might turn out to be important for another investigation.”

  “What other investigation?” she asked.

  “Well, I don’t know all the details,” I said, “but it’s very serious. And right now the police seem to believe that the skull came from Dr. Park’s prop room.”

  “But it did! I mean,” she added quickly, “where else could it of come from? Eh, how come you’re asking me all this?”

  “Well, I’m concerned about Stephen Park, of course.”

  “Oh yah, he’s your ex!”

  “Stephen—is a friend. And there’s something else. Another skull, a plastic one, turned up in the rubbish can in this classroom. Do you know anything about that?”

  Honey tossed her highlighted hair out of her face. “Nah. No worries, but. If someone was trying to scare you, they woulda hung it from the ceiling or something. If they put it in the rubbish, it’s cause they was trying to get rid of it probably.”

  “You’re in Stephen Park’s class, right?” I asked. “Have you ever seen anything strange in the prop room?”

  “Dunno about strange. It’s all kapakahi, that’s for sure. Thousands a dollars’ worth of stuffs in there, all jumbled up. An’ he never remembers to lock up. I told him he should have some kinda system, like a spreadsheet . . . eh Miss, you okay? Your face getting all pink.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m fine. Yes, some kind of spreadsheet to keep track of the inventory would have been a marvelous idea. So, it sounds like it’s common knowledge that the prop room doesn’t get locked up?”

  “Anyone looking for one human skull or any kine prop coulda just gone in whenever. Just guessing what coulda happened,” she smiled. “ ’Cause I don’t know nothing about it.”

  “Of course you don’t,” I said. “But thanks for the useful . . . speculation.”

  She hoisted up her bag, a pricey designer number covered with a monogram pattern.

  “Okay, Miss. Eh, I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  So the demonstrators supposedly got their skull from Stephen’s prop room. Unless they were guilty of more than a harmless prank, a possibility I didn’t even want to consider. One thing I couldn’t understand was how Jimmy Tanaka managed to go out to dinner with Bill Vogel on Thursday night, and then turn up as a bleached skull on Friday morning.

  Margaret Adams had been waiting patiently by the classroom door. I invited her to walk back up to my office with me.

  “That was so interesting, that study!” Margaret said. “Now I’m thinking about what everyone drives. I think Dr. Rodge has a motorcycle. What do you think that means?”

  “I really couldn’t say.”

  She clasped her white hands in an apologetic gesture. “Sorry to be bugging you so much, Professor Barda. I wanted to ask you about something else, but I was afraid you’d think it was kind of weird. I mean, I wasn’t going to say anything about it, but then you started talking about SUVs in class, so it was like the universe wanted me to ask you.”

  We started up the concrete stairs to the second floor.

  “You should always feel free to ask,” I said. “Regardless of what the universe says.”

  “Do you believe in a spiritual world?” she asked.

  “Sure. I’m Catholic.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Barda must be Italian.”

  “No, not Italian. My ancestry is Albanian.”

  “One of my high school friends had a bunch of Albanian guinea pigs! I mean they started with two, you know. They thought they had two boys, but one was a girl. They just kept having babies. They were so cute, with that tufted fur.”

  “I’ve never heard of Albanian guinea pigs,” I said. “There are Abyssinian guinea pigs. Is that what you’re thinking of?”

  “Wait. Oh, no, you’re right. Oh, sorry, Dr. Barda! I didn’t mean to compare you to a guinea pig.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “What did you want to ask me about?”

  “So that night? That Jimmy Tanaka checked in? Nate told me something really weird. You remember Nate Parsons?”

  “Sure. We saw him when we were down at the Cloudforest.”

  “Nate was working that night, cleaning up in the kitchen. He told me that around ten o’clock he heard a voice. Not Mercedes. A man’s voice.”

  “Did the voice sound angry?” I asked. “Could there have been a fight?”

  I imagined Bill Vogel engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Jimmy Tanaka. Vogel would have the size advantage, but Tanaka wouldn’t be afraid to fight dirty. I pictured Vogel’s slender fingers grasping Tanaka’s throat as Tanaka snatched Vogel’s gleaming pompadour and waved it aloft like a scalp. But why? What could they have been fighting about? And none of this explained how Jimmy Tanaka’s head ended up in Stephen’s prop room.

  “Nate said it sounded like the voice was summoning Jimmy Tanaka,” Margaret said. “He thought it was calling his name. Mr. Tanaka. Mr. Tanaka.”

  Despite the sun glaring from the wet concrete and a temperature in the high eighties, I shivered. Would I hear that voice when it was my time and Death came to claim me? How would it summon me?

  “Dr. Barda? Dr. Barda! Oh, sorry, did I startle you?”

  “No! No, I was just thinking. So how can I help?” I asked.

  “I just wanted to get your opinion. You usually have a rational explanation for everything.”

  She wanted a level-headed adult to reassure her.

  “I don’t know what to say about that,” I said. “Maybe Nate should call the police?”

  Down the hallway I saw Dan Watanabe, lurking outside my office door. I stopped walking.

  “Nate doesn’t want to call the police,” Margaret said. “He thinks they won’t believe him. Also, there’s something else.”

  “Something else?”

  Hanohano, Schmanohano. If you’re looking for a haunted hotel, apparently the C
loudforest Bed and Breakfast is where it’s at.

  “This is the part with the SUV,” Margaret said. “Nate says he remembers earlier that night, he saw an SUV. But after he heard that voice, he went to get a flashlight and then walked back to the cabins to take a look, and where it was parked before, there wasn’t anything there. It had disappeared.”

  “Margaret, I’d say the same thing. If Nate is really sure that he saw something, then he should call the police and tell them. Anyway . . .” I gestured down the hall toward my department chair. Dan spotted me and started walking toward us.

  “But what would cause all of that?” she asked. “The voice and the disappearing car and everything?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure there’s some nonsupernatural explanation that makes sense. Listen, I have to go.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. “I went to talk to the dean, like you told me to.”

  “You what?”

  “Right before class. Oh, hi, Dr. Watanabe! Anyway, thanks, Dr. Barda. See you guys later!”

  And she left.

  “Dan, you wanted to see me? I was just on my way back to my office. Uh-oh. This seems serious.”

  “Uh-oh is right,” Dan said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I turned the key and pushed open my office door.

  “So Dan, what is this about?” I asked. “Did you change your mind about me being the next department chair?”

  “Oh, no. That hasn’t changed.”

  “Do you want to come in?” I held the door open.

  “No, that’s okay. This will be short. Look. Bill doesn’t want you sending your students to him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A student of yours approached Bill Vogel earlier today, to file a complaint about cheating among her classmates.”

  “Ah,” I said. Margaret Adams. I stepped back into the hallway and let my office door close.

  “Look, Dan, Bill Vogel—”

  I stopped talking as Vogel’s secretary Serena walked by. The three of us nodded greeting. I continued when she was out of sight, around the corner.

  “Bill Vogel told me not to report the cheaters,” I continued. “Remember? He said if I did report them to the Office of Student Conduct, he wouldn’t support me.”

  “True.”

  “Dan, they all talk. It’s not like there are any secrets around here. The honest students don’t like it when the cheaters get away with it.”

  “I know.”

  “So if I catch people plagiarizing, Vogel doesn’t want to be bothered with that. He wants me to let the cheaters redo their assignments.”

  “Right,” Dan said.

  “But when I do what Vogel tells me to, and I let the plagiarists get away with it, then the honest students want to complain, but Vogel doesn’t want to be bothered with that either.”

  Dan nodded. “I knew you’d understand. You’re going to make a great department chair!”

  He clapped me on the shoulder, turned, and went back down the hallway. I let myself into my office and yanked the door shut behind me. I pushed past the suitcase, balanced myself on the yoga ball, and turned on my computer. I set up a cup of coffee and logged into Island Confidential.

  What I saw didn’t help me calm down. Far from it. I grabbed the receiver and furiously punched in Pat’s phone number.

  “Flanagan.”

  “Pat, tell me this is a joke.”

  “Oh, hi, Molly. No, it’s true. The County Courier finally ran the story about Jimmy Tanaka’s murder, so no more embargo. I was able to—”

  “Embargo? Oh, yeah. No, that’s not what I’m calling about.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No,” I said. “And I think you know what this is about.”

  “What do you mean? Oh, yeah.” He laughed. “Yeah, I thought you’d like that.”

  I was bouncing on my ball, but it wasn’t sufficient to dissipate my nervous energy. I looked around for something to doodle on. The latest copy of the Student Retention Office ’zine sat atop my stack of unread mail. It’s not really a ’zine. It’s actually a glossy, four-color magazine, with the letters SRO on the cover in a ransom note font, Sex Pistols style. It would do. It’s not like I was planning to read it.

  “Pat,” I said, “I’m looking at the Island Confidential website. It says a ‘source’ in the College of Commerce advised the guardian spirit of Mauna Kea to incorporate.” I paused. “A source. Like no one could possibly guess who that might be.”

  “The judge initially ruled that Mo’oinanea lacks standing because she’s not a person as defined by law,” Pat said. “Your solution was ingenious. Corporate personhood.”

  I pulled a pen out of my desk drawer and paged through the ’zine. I stopped at a full-page photo of Bill Vogel. It was from a few years ago, but his insincere smile and dead, soulless eyes were the same.

  “That was not my solution!” I took a ballpoint pen and outlined two small, curved horns on Vogel’s head.

  “Molly,” Pat said, “I heard you say it! Your exact words were—”

  “That was supposed to be a joke! Pat, someone’s going to figure out that I was the one who said it! Have you thought about that?”

  “Well, some people were kind of offended at the idea. I guess it could seem a little flippant.”

  I examined Vogel’s photo and decided that the light was coming from the upper right. I started shading in the horns accordingly.

  “Some people were offended? Great. Which people? People who are going to be voting on my tenure application?”

  I drew flames rising behind Vogel, which added another light source. I sketched in some shadow in the front of the horns and on Vogel’s face, to make it look more realistic.

  “Oh, come on, Molly. You should be proud. It was a stroke of genius.”

  “Yeah? I’m having a stroke right now. Oh, hey Emma. Pat, Emma’s here. I’m done yelling at you now.” I slammed the receiver down without saying goodbye.

  Emma sat down in the upholstered chair

  “Did you see Island Confidential?” she asked. “Hey, nice picture of Bill Vogel!”

  “Oh, I better not leave this lying around,” I closed the magazine, rolled it up, and stuffed it into my laptop bag. “Want some coffee?”

  “Well, if you’re offering.” She pulled a mug out of her backpack and handed it to me. “Are you the one who said that thing about the guardian spirit?”

  “What? Why would you think I said it?”

  “It sounds exactly like something you’d say. Anyone who knows you would guess right away. Is that why you were yelling at Pat just now?”

  “Why doesn’t Pat write about some real news? Like Rodge Cowper handing out printouts from Wikipedia in class and trying to pass it off to students as his original work.”

  “Why would Rodge need to use Wikipedia when he possesses all of the knowledge in the universe?” Emma asked.

  “All the knowledge in the universe. Why does that sound so familiar?”

  “Oh, that’s called Baader-Meinhof syndrome,” Emma said. “That’s when—”

  “I know what Baader-Meinhof syndrome is,” I said. “What I meant was, why does that all the knowledge in the universe thing sound familiar?”

  “It’s from those pickup-artist recordings Rodge plays for himself in his office. What do they call them, self-aggrandizing?”

  “I think it’s called self-affirmation, not self-aggrandizing.”

  “Nope. Self-aggrandizing is the right word. Believe me, I’ve heard them enough times. Hey, I have an idea! Let’s pin it on Rodge!”

  “Let’s do what?”

  “Let’s make people think he’s the one who had the idea about Mo’oinanea incorporating.”

  “Shh! You can hear everything through this wall!”

  “Oh, right,” she whispered, glancing at the wall that separated my office from Rodge’s. “Do you think he’s in his office?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered
back. “Rodge isn’t my favorite person, believe me, but that’s going a little far. You don’t want to cause an incident.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’d feel kinda bad if someone blew up his car or something,” she said.

  “Motorcycle,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Rodge has a motorcycle. Not a car.” I filled Emma’s mug with coffee and handed it back to her.

  “Whoa, wait! That tiny little beat-up thing that always parks across two spaces?”

  I nodded.

  “I shoulda known that was him. You get some cream?”

  Emma wasn’t looking at me. She was focused on the wall that separated Rodge Cowper’s office from mine, eyes narrowed, as if she were aiming a gun at a distant target.

  “Here you go,” I said. I set the carton of cream down in front of her. “Emma. Please don’t do anything I’ll regret.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I was already halfway home when I remembered that I had nothing to eat at my house. Going out of my way to buy groceries, bring them home and cook them would take much too long. Donnie’s Drive-Inn, however, was almost right on my way. I figured I could stop there for dinner without looking like I was stalking Donnie. He might not even be there.

  I parked in the small lot, walked up to the window, and ordered a loco moco to go. A mountain of sticky white rice topped with a hamburger patty, a fried egg, and lots of brown gravy sounded just right. As I thought about it, my stomach made a joyful sound that was halfway between a zip and a boing. I hoped the young woman who took my order couldn’t hear it.

  A smiling Donnie appeared at the takeout window and handed me the white paper bag. I’m not sure why seeing him took me by surprise, but it did. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I blurted out that I lived a couple of blocks up the street and why didn’t he stop by for a cup of coffee when he was done here? To my surprise, he agreed. I grabbed a handful of napkins to protect my upholstery from the gravy-stained bag and hurried home.

  As soon as I had finished the loco moco, I cranked open all my windows and turned my ceiling fans up to maximum. I wanted to blow out any lingering Gudang Garam smoke that Stephen might have trailed in with him the last time he came over. Donnie’s first visit to my house didn’t need to be marred by the smell of clove cigarettes. I swept the floor at double speed, emptied the trash cans, and then searched the refrigerator for something I could set out as a snack. I found a carton of heavy whipping cream, a jar of olives, and a ragged tangle that I recognized as the vegetables I had bought from the Farmers’ Market. My freezer contained only vodka and pantyhose. (The cold is supposed to make the pantyhose last longer. I don’t know if that’s true, but I can tell you that putting on a new pair is a bracing experience.)