The Musubi Murder

by Frankie Bow

  “Yeah, look at that.” Emma’s tone was curiously icy. “Have you ever seen anything like that, Molly?”

  “Yes, I have,” I said, smiling at Donnie. “Davison brought some in to share with our department. I tried a little bit. It was very good.”

  “Here, let’s get you some. Before everyone else comes and eats it up.” Donnie started loading up a plate.

  Emma made wide eyes at me.

  “What?” I said. “You should try some.”

  “You shouldn’t be eating before the guests get here,” she said. “The hostess is supposed to go last.”

  “I’ll have some too then,” Donnie said, and helped himself to a few pieces.

  Donnie and I ate. I ignored Emma’s scowl.

  “It’s delicious,” I said to Donnie. Then to Emma, “You’re missing out.”

  “Eh Donnie,” Emma said, “You heard about Isaiah Pung?”

  “Oh, that’s right!” I said. “That was so sad.”

  “Terrible,” he said. “This has been really tough on Davison.”

  “At least the bad news hasn’t spoiled anyone’s appetite,” Emma said pointedly.

  “Time for a refill,” I said. “Who needs more wine?”

  More guests started to arrive. Dan Watanabe and his wife were among the first, with a beautiful antipasto salad. Rodge Cowper showed up with a bag of potato chips and asked where the dancing girls were, guffawing at his own wit. Mercedes Yamashiro brought a key lime pie, which happened to coordinate perfectly with her chartreuse and white muumuu.

  I made sure everyone had a drink, and set out the various plates on the table. I was decanting Rodge’s potato chips into a serving bowl when Emma grabbed my elbow. She yanked me into the tiny nook adjacent to the living room that I use as my home office.

  “Molly,” she hissed, “did you hear how calm Donnie was when we brought up Isaiah?”

  “What was he supposed to do? Have you ever seen him be anything but calm?”

  “He was unnaturally calm! Death doesn’t faze him!”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said.

  “You’re being ridiculous! Ridiculously blinded by lust!”

  “Now wait a—”

  “What were you thinking, eating that meat?”

  “That wasn’t lust,” I said. “That was gluttony. Besides, there’s plenty left.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me.

  “What? Oh, come on, Emma! You think Donnie’s trying to, what, poison us or something? What possible motivation would he have to do that?”

  “Oh! Poison! I hadn’t thought of that. No, Molly.” Now Emma was overenunciating as if she were talking to a child. “The meat. The muscle fibers in it are very fine.”

  “Ew! Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because listen. Either that meat came from a very young, very small pig, or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  “Where do you keep your plastic bags? I’m going to take a sample.”

  “A sample of what? What are you talking about?”

  She let go of my arm and stuck her hand in front of my face to count on her fingers.

  “I’m going to spell it out for you. One: Jimmy Tanaka was going to ruin Donnie Gonsalves. Two—”

  “That’s counting, not spelling.”

  “Two: Jimmy Tanaka was murdered. Three: Jimmy’s head was found.”

  “So?”

  “So no one knows what happened to the rest of him. Where is the rest of Jimmy Tanaka?”

  “I don’t know, where?”

  Emma stared at me. I glared back at her.

  “No way,” I said. “That’s ridiculous. It sounds like the plot of one of your schlocky slasher movies.”

  “What did you say?”

  Saying “schlocky slasher” is hard, I realized, especially after a glass or two of wine.

  “You think Donnie brought a plate of Jimmy Tanaka to my potluck?” I asked.

  “It’s a perfect way to dispose of the evidence.”

  “Okay, I know Jimmy Tanaka wasn’t very big, but how could he fit into that little tray?”

  “That’s not all of him, you dummy! Donnie Gonsalves probably made a bunch of it, and he’s giving it away to neighbors and stuff, and letting his kid bring some in to school to bribe the teacher.”

  “Why would Davison tell me that whole story about how he hunted the pig, then?”

  “ ’Cause that kid’s a lying suckup, is why.”

  “I think I need to sit down.”

  Emma and I emerged into the living room, where Dan Watanabe was trying to get everyone’s attention by tapping a plastic knife against his plastic cup. That trick works a lot better with metal and glass, but eventually most of the guests turned to listen.

  “I have some great news,” Dan said, in a tone of voice that sounded like he was about to announce the discovery of a smallpox outbreak. “I just found out today that our own Roger Cowper has advanced to the position of finalist for the campus-wide teaching award.”

  Larry Schneider shot me an “I told you so” look from across the room. The awards committee, Dan went on to say, was especially impressed by Rodge’s community involvement, particularly his idea for Mo’oinanea, a guardian spirit of Mauna Kea, to incorporate so that she might have standing in the telescope hearings. Rodge’s idea, Dan explained, would provide the basis of the preservationists’ legal strategy going forward, and wasn’t this terrific publicity for the College of Commerce?

  Rodge placed his hands in a Namaste prayer position and bowed his head in what was apparently intended to be a display of humility. I saw that Larry Schneider was helping himself to a refill from the box of Cabernet on the kitchen counter. Hanson Harrison, in a rare show of cooperation, was helping Larry tip the box to get at the last of the wine. I glared at Emma, but she was deliberately looking elsewhere.

  I made my way over to the kitchen counter and hiked myself up onto a barstool. I was exhausted from greeting guests and arguing with Emma, and I wanted to sit and recharge for a few minutes. Hanson Harrison had found an unopened wine box in my pantry, and Larry Schneider was helping him set it up. A good hostess would have anticipated this and brought out the second box already, rather than letting her guests fend for themselves.

  Hanson filled his cup and lifted it. “To justice,” he intoned and touched his cup to Larry’s. Larry said something I didn’t hear, and quaffed his wine in a single gulp. Hanson and Larry looked like they were actually getting along. Maybe this party was a success after all. Out of the corner of my eye I even saw Emma chatting amiably with Rodge. Then I heard her voice: “Rodge, have you tried this smoked meat? You should have some. Molly says it’s delicious!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “Hey,” Donnie said. Then, “Molly, are you okay?”

  “Oh! Sorry. You kind of startled me.” How long had Donnie been standing next to me? I rebalanced myself on the barstool and smoothed my hair back out of my face.

  “You look lost in thought,” he said, taking the seat next to mine.

  “That’s a good way to put it,” I said. My head felt like a kicked beehive. Emma’s theory about the potluck dish was ridiculous, of course. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  “You must feel bad about Isaiah,” Donnie said.

  “I do, actually. That poor kid. Donnie, have you ever thought about starting a new life?”

  “A new life? What do you mean?”

  “Before they found Isaiah, we all, I mean, I wondered if he’d taken a new identity and left town. Maybe bought a fake ID, hitchhiked across the island, and got onto one of the cruise ships. Think about it. You could leave behind all of your responsibilities, all of your mistakes. You could transcend whatever had been holding you back.” I swallowed the last of my wine. “Haven’t you ever wondered how it would feel to slip out of your skin and step into another life?”

  “Not really.” Donnie leaned toward me. “I have a good life, and I’ve worked hard for it.” He touched my
hand briefly. “I wouldn’t want to walk away from everything I have. What about you? You’ve invested a lot in your business degree.”

  “Ha! I don’t have a business degree.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Nope. My Ph. D. is in Literature and Creative Writing. Although when it comes to creative, I think Emma takes the cake.”

  “Uh-huh. So how did you end up at the College of Commerce with a literature degree?”

  “They needed someone to teach business communication, and I needed a job. Turns out shooting for a tenure-track job in English is an even worse bet than trying to become a famous celebrity restaurateur like you.”

  “Not quite a celebrity.” He laughed. “Are you glad you came here? To Mahina?”

  “Oh, yeah! It’s so much better than where I went to grad school. I mean, we have our differences, but at least the faculty in the College of Commerce don’t actually go around trying to poison each other.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ask. There’s a reason they say hell has two English departments. Oh!”

  It dawned on me that when Donnie asked me that, he wasn’t trying to find out about my working conditions. He was wondering if I planned to stay in Mahina, or if I was going to move on after a couple of years as do so many people from the mainland.

  “I’m very happy here,” I declared. “I’m not planning on going anywhere. I mean, I bought this house!”

  “Her grad school friends think she sold out for the money.”

  “Emma!” I turned to see her standing next to me. “Where did you come from?”

  “I’ve been saying goodbye to your guests while you’ve been sitting here on your okole,” she said.

  The crowd had thinned out a bit. Hanson and Larry were sitting on my couch, arguing about something. Larry was furiously sketching out some kind of diagram for Hanson, no doubt leaving pen dents on my coffee table.

  “Emma,” I asked, “could you put a magazine under whatever Larry is doing? Would you mind?”

  Emma rolled her eyes, but complied.

  “Did you?” Donnie said.

  “Sorry, did I what?”

  “Did you sell out for the money?”

  “Of course I did! Why else would you sell out? It’s called ‘selling out’ because you do it for the money.”

  My transition from an English department to a business school hadn’t been quite as effortless as I’d made it sound, but I didn’t think Donnie would be interested in hearing about the year I’d spent after grad school looking for employment, or about all the hours I’d had to pore over the undergraduate business textbooks before I felt competent to stand in front of a class of commerce majors. Also, anyone who complains about business jargon should spend some time in my former department. Sure, I’m not crazy about tired metaphors like “touching bases” and “heavy hitters,” and if I never hear “outside the box” again, it’ll be too soon, but at least I don’t have to listen to Melanie Polewski blathering on about Phallic Discourse.

  “What?” Donnie exclaimed.

  “What?” I repeated. Had I been saying all that out loud?

  Donnie rubbed my back in a way that was both friendly and a little possessive.

  “Good thing you’re not driving,” he said.

  “That’s right! I’m not driving, am I?”

  I pushed my plastic wine cup toward him.

  “Would you mind getting me a refill?”

  When the party wound down, Emma made sure to stay behind. She didn’t want me to be left alone in the house with Donnie. After we’d said our goodbyes to Donnie (who confirmed Emma’s suspicions by being the last guest to leave), she made one last sweep of my house to make sure I was free of leftover guests. Then she reached into her purse and drew out a clear plastic bag containing four pieces of meat.

  “It’ll take a couple of days to get results,” she said as she dangled the bag. “We’ll have something by Monday. Come on, get up. You need to get ready for bed.”

  She offered her arm for support.

  “You’re not planning to test it for human . . . humanity or something? Test if it’s human, I mean?”

  “Better than that. When Pat brought Jimmy Tanaka’s suitcase down to the police station? He kept the toothbrush. Just in case.”

  “The toothbrush?”

  “Toothbrushes have enough DNA on them to ID someone. There was a case where they caught a guy who tried to skip out on his hotel bill. From the DNA on his toothbrush.”

  I leaned on the wall for support.

  “The meat was so delicious!” I slid down to the floor and landed cross-legged with my back still against the wall. It was surprisingly comfortable there.

  “Molly, get up! If you pass out in the hallway I’m not gonna be able to move you.” She grabbed my wrists and pulled upward.

  “Emma! You’re so strong!”

  “Come on, you’re not even helping.”

  “Emma! I see now that what we have here is a paradox. A very deep, philosophical paradox.”

  She let go and I landed back on the floor with a bump.

  “What are you talking about, Molly?”

  I repeated “philosophical paradox” several times. I thought Emma was being deliberately obtuse, but I realize now that I may not have formed the syllables precisely, nor deployed them in exactly the right order.

  Finally, I said, “We’re allowed to eat animals, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But! We’re not allowed to marry them. We’re allowed to marry people. But! We’re not allowed to eat them.”

  Emma squatted down, wrapped her arms under mine, and hoisted me to my feet.

  “That’s right, Molly, we’re not allowed to eat people.”

  “That’s what I just said.”

  “You need some water.” She disappeared around the corner into the kitchen as I braced myself against the wall.

  “Emma,” I called out, “how you can do that with the meat? Don’t you need to send it to a special lab or something?”

  “We have the equipment on campus. Even students are doing this stuff now. Don’t you remember that disaster with the Balusteros brothers?”

  “Ohhh. I do remember that.”

  Emma had used a grant from the Student Retention Office to order DNA fingerprinting kits for one of her classes. Great idea, right? “I guess the SRO is good for something,” Emma had remarked at the time. “This is going to be a terrific experience for my students.”

  Thanks to Emma’s test kits, Boyboy and Baron Balusteros, brothers enrolled in the same section of Emma’s class, discovered that there was a 99.9 percent probability that they did not share the same father. This revelation apparently caused some strain in the Balusteros household. Emma has her students run their tests on yeast now.

  She returned with a full glass of water and made me drink the whole thing.

  “Deadbolt your door,” she said when she had steered me into my bedroom. “Sleep with your cell phone next to you.”

  “I always do that.”

  “Well, call me if there’s any trouble.”

  “Not nine-one-one?”

  “Fine, nine-one-one. Keep drinking that water. And let me know if anything unusual happens.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Donnie woke me up by phoning close to noon, too late for me to make even the last Mass at St. Damien’s. I had been asleep on top of the still-made bed, wearing my clothes from last night. Donnie asked how I was doing, and mentioned I’d looked a little green around the gills at the party. I told him I wasn’t feeling well (true) and was in no condition to leave the house (also true). I added that I didn’t want him to catch anything (technically true though not strictly relevant).

  I spent the rest of my Sunday doing research online. I hoped to debunk Emma’s theory and reassure myself that I had not actually consumed morsels of Jimmy Tanaka the previous night. I wanted to confirm that no one could get away with trying to sneak in human flesh as a substitute
for pork. Not that I believed Emma’s far-fetched theory, but I wanted to be sure.

  What I found was far from comforting. Cannibals the world over seem to agree that if you want to pass off human flesh as something else, pork is just the thing. I read about Karl Denke, who sold jars of pickled human at the local market, claiming it was pork. Fritz Haarmann augmented his income in postwar Germany by selling the canned remains of murdered transients labeled as pork. In the Marquesas, human flesh was euphemistically referred to as pua oa, or long pig. Armin Meiwes, the “Hannibal of Hesse,” described his victim as tasting like pork (“It tastes quite good,” he said). When my searching brought up instructions for butchering a human carcass, I decided that I (and my browser history) had seen enough.

  I spent the rest of the day reformatting my computer and reinstalling all of my software. When that was done, I washed my hands thoroughly, and then I had a strictly vegetarian dinner of potato chips and Mercedes’s leftover key lime pie. Then I went back to bed.

  Emma had told me she’d have a result by around ten o clock Monday morning. I arrived at her building half an hour before that. Her lab had the same cinderblock walls as my classroom building, but the paint was a pallid yellow instead of the College of Commerce’s steel gray.

  Emma sat at a computer monitor examining a wall of G’s, A’s, C’s, and T’s on a white background.

  “Hey, Molly,” she said, without looking up. “Almost done.”

  I glanced around her lab, which was stocked with gleaming stainless steel and white enameled appliances that looked like space-age refrigerators and bread makers and dishwashers. The general impression was of a commercial kitchen with microscopes.

  “So this is your lab,” I said. “It’s not what I pictured.”

  “Your idea of what a lab is supposed to look like comes from movies and stock photos that are staged by people who don’t know what one looks like either,” Emma said without looking up from her screen.

  “I’ll try that again,” I said, “Good morning, your lab looks very nice.”

  “Sorry, Molly. I go through this every time the Marketing Office sends a photographer over. They expect us to have bubbling colored liquid in open containers with smoke pouring out the top.”