She laughed. “Hey, you got me into this one. If I wasn’t here right now I’d be at the Goddess, and the only thing I’d have to worry about is running out of rum.”
“When Kawika collapsed I thought about the conversation you overheard. We haven’t located Loo Tong anywhere. He’s not in his room, and he’s not with his halau.”
“Or with his solo dancer,” she added. “He wasn’t in the ballroom when Kawika passed out either. I looked all over and didn’t see him there anywhere.”
“His car isn’t in the parking lot. As soon as one of the patrol cars spots it, I’ll get a call.”
“It can’t be hard to miss.” She recalled the low slung, souped up classic truck covered with window decals. “You can’t arrest him just on suspicion, can you?” Em hoped she hadn’t jumped to conclusions, but she was certain she’d heard the exchange between kumu correctly.
“You did hear him threaten Kawika.”
“I know. But maybe someone else wanted Kawika, Shari and Mitchell out of the way.”
“Like who?” He sat back in the chair and propped his ankle on his opposite knee, leaned back and waited.
“Raymond. The dancer who took over as M.C.”
“The nervous guy?”
“Right. He’s in Mitchell’s halau.”
Roland nodded for her to go on.
“According to Tiko, he’s a great dancer, but Mitchell always overlooked him when it came to grooming the next kumu. Shari was close to Mitchell and running halau business. Kawika was next in line for kumu. Tiko thinks Raymond deserved to be elevated, but he was always in the background.”
“But did he want it bad enough to get rid of the others? Was he jealous of Kawika?”
Em quickly shook her head. “Tiko just mentioned she felt bad for him. He wasn’t treated fairly.”
Roland tapped out a Tahitian drum rhythm with his fingers against the edge of the table. Em could see that he was deep in thought. She wondered if his toe was talking to him.
“The guy looked nervous on stage,” he said.
“Very.”
Just then his cell phone beeped. He answered, gave a few curt replies and ended the call.
“They found Jackie at the Lelani Motel in Lihue. He checked in with one of the dancers from Oahu earlier this evening. Seems they were having a little practice session, and it didn’t involve hula.”
“So he has an alibi.” Em was disappointed. She so wanted the lead suspect not to be Marilyn.
“That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have given Kawika something before he left. Something that wouldn’t kick in until he was long gone,” Roland speculated. “When the officers told him what happened to Kawika, Tong was in shock. He admitted he hated Mitchell’s success, but he’d never hurt him or Kawika—other than to spread gossip.”
“So what is your toe telling you now?”
“My toe is silent. But I’m thinking that until we find out what’s wrong with Kawika we might just be barking up the wrong coconut tree.” He paused to study her for a moment then leaned closer. “Right now, seeing you in the torchlight is tempting me to think about something other than murder.”
“What is it about you and fire?”
“Some like it hot.”
“I’ll bet you say that to all your volunteer P.I.s.”
Suddenly a shout echoed from the faux cavern and waterfall area. The surf behind them and the roaring waterfall made it hard to distinguish the words. They both jumped at once to see what was happening.
“Stay behind me,” Roland advised.
As they neared the cave at the pools, Em tried to see around him. “Oh, no,” she groaned.
“What?” He held her back.
“That sounds like Pat Boggs.”
“Who?”
“Someone Sophie brought in to help with the Maidens.”
Just then strains of “Blue Hawaii” came pouring out of the cavern accompanied by a beeping horn.
“Let me guess,” Roland shook his head and let go of Em’s arm.
“Little Estelle.”
They ran around the edge of the larger of three pools and into the cavern where the wall of water fell twenty-four-seven. Little Estelle was parked at the edge of the smallest pool facing the falls. Her Gad-About headlight illuminated the center of the cascade.
On a ledge behind the falling water, a fleshy hulk swayed back and forth. At the edge of the pool, Pat Boggs took off the heavy key chain dangling from her hip pocket and slipped off her worn black cowboy boots. She was still dressed when she dropped into the waist-deep water and waded across the kiddie pool.
“Oh, good grief.” Em slapped her forehead and squinted at the falls.
“That’s Flora dancing on the ledge behind the falls, and she’s stark naked.”
Not far from Em at the edge of the pool, Little Estelle honked out a four count beat on the scooter horn. The Maidens’ boom box was balanced on the steering bar and “Blue Hawaii” was still blaring, Elvis’s voice carried loud and clear over the water.
Em reached over and tried to hit the stop button and said, “Stop the music, Little Estelle. Please.”
“No, she can’t dance without it.”
“We’ve got to get her down off that ledge.” Em tried to turn off the boom box again.
Little Estelle whipped the Gad-About sideways to shield the box from Em’s reach. Elvis crooned louder, “The night is heavenly . . .”
“Flora! Get your sorry ass down off that ledge!” Pat yelled. “Don’t make me come up there and drag you down or you’ll live to regret it. You hear me?”
Roland stepped to the edge of the pool and called out to Pat. “Stop right there. I’ll get hotel security to handle this.”
“She’s butt nekked,” Pat yelled back. “It’s my job to take care of these old women.”
“Not on hotel property. Let it go,” Roland’s voice echoed in the cavern. A second later, he was on his phone.
Em found Flora’s muumuu draped over a lounge chair near the pool. She tossed it to Roland. When Little Estelle dropped her guard and glanced over at him, Em quickly slapped the stop button on the boom box and then successfully wrestled it away from Little Estelle.
When Em looked up again, three locals wearing black hotel security T-shirts were running toward them. In their mid to late twenties all three were burly enough to throw some hefty weight around.
“Oh man,” one of them groaned when he saw what was happening. “Brah, you got to be kidding me.”
“I got this one.” The youngest cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Auntie Flora! Wat you ’tink? You going get hurt. Get down.”
Flora’s arms waved in circles over her head, and her heavy breasts started to bang together like pendulums. The cellulite on her hips and thighs wobbled like Jello in plastic sacks.
Pat was still in the water off to one side of the falls. She shouted, “Come out of there Flora ’fore you slip and kill yourself. You’ll screw up the line up tomorrow night if you can’t dance.”
Little Estelle started to chant, “Jump! Jump! Jump!”
The security guard who knew Flora handed his short wave radio and black baseball cap to one of the others. He stripped off his security T-shirt and got into the water in his black jeans.
“Wait.” Roland tossed him the muumuu.
The security guard waded to the falls and in one quick move pulled himself onto the slippery ledge and joined Flora behind the curtain of water.
“Can you hear what he’s saying?” Em asked Roland.
“I hate to guess.”
“You’re not going to the rescue?”
“Things like this are better left in the hands of experts. Hotel security deals with nutcases on a regular basis,” he said.
&
nbsp; “And you don’t?”
“If I went in right now I’d leave a coconut oil slick on the water.”
“Speaking of nuts,” Em pulled out her cell and speed dialed Kiki. “I need you by the pool,” was all she had to say before she ended the call. One thing about the Maidens—they always showed up in an emergency.
The security guard was still negotiating with Flora behind the falls when Kiki, Trish and Suzi came running across the pool deck into the cavern. They were followed by Lillian and MyBob.
“What’s happening?” Kiki squinted across the faux cave lit by wavering tiki torches. “Is that Flora? Is she . . .”
“Naked,” Trish finished.
“Stark naked,” Em nodded.
“Gross,” Suzi said.
“Look, Mom!”
“Oh, no.” Em saw a tourist with twin boys about seven or eight years old. The mother was trying to cover their eyes but didn’t have enough hands. One of them started stripping.
“Timmy! Put your clothes back on.”
Lillian’s Bob was running around on the deck. “Is there a ladder around here? Maybe Flora needs a ladder.”
One of the beefy security guards shrugged. “She got up there. She can get her fat ass down.”
By now both of the twins were naked, and one was already in the pool.
“Mom!” the twin still scrambling to get in the water yelled. “The man said ass! He said ass!”
Em was tempted to disappear into the darkness on the beach. The woman with the twins was yelling at them to get out of the water. MyBob was headed off to find someone from maintenance while Lillian clutched Suzi and started to pray. Trish and Kiki encouraged Pat to duck under the falls and help the security guard. Big Estelle was bearing down on them along a path from the lobby.
“Uh oh. Time to split.” Little Estelle put the Gad-About in gear and shot out the other end of the cave.
Roland walked over to Em.
“They’re still holding Jackie for questioning, and they can’t stall him much longer without charging him. I’ve got to go.”
“Please. Take me with you.”
He shook his head no but smiled a slow smile.
“What? And have you miss all this fun?”
30
A Port in the Storm
At twelve forty-five that night Sophie Chin was going through the ritual of cleaning up behind the bar at the Goddess. She’d been on her feet for hours, toting buckets of ice from the ice machine to the bin beneath the bar, tapping kegs, stocking bottles of beer and wine in the small refrigerator, and was physically drained. At the end of the shift her feet were killing her, and all of the perkiness she had mustered for the long day was gone.
Bartending in a popular watering hole was hard work, but she was happy to have the gig. One day had bled into another and incredibly, she’d been here for nearly a year, longer than she’d ever worked anywhere else.
About an hour ago, rain had started drizzling, and the bar slowly emptied, so when she heard slippers slapping across the front lanai, she turned, about to say they were closing when Em walked through the door.
“I thought you were staying at the hotel,” Sophie said.
They’d booked a room together for the festival and dubbed it Command and Control Central and planned to use it for R and R to escape the Maidens. Em had volunteered to spend tonight, and Sophie would stay tomorrow after the awards were announced.
“Should I drive in now?” It was the last thing she wanted to do at one in the morning in bad weather.
Em shook her head. “It’s too late. You can head back in the morning. I’ll stay and prep the bar for lunch and the evening crowd before I go in. I just had to get out of there.” She looked around the bar. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m sure glad to see this place.”
“That bad, huh? What happened?”
“What didn’t? After you left Kawika collapsed.”
“Are you kidding? Really?”
Em nodded. “He’s in critical condition at Wilcox. There was a lot of chanting and praying, and the show had to go on so a dancer named Raymond Leahe stepped in for Kawika. Kiki ran into Marilyn and started accusing her of making Kawika sick. While the others were watching the festival, Flora got naked and climbed behind the waterfall to perform. Little Estelle commandeered the boom box. It took an hour to get Flora down.”
“Naked? Flora?”
“Naked Flora.” That’s what everyone at the hotel’s calling her now. “Actually they’re calling her Naked Auntie Flora.”
“Of course. I thought Pat was watching them.”
“Have you ever tried to keep an eye on all of them at once?”
Sophie shook her head and wondered why on earth she’d agreed to help them in the first place.
“That’s impossible.” She leaned back against the back of the bar lined with booze bottles. “I dread tomorrow night.”
“This whole thing is my fault.” Em sat down on a bar stool. Elbows on the bar, she rested her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry.”
“I could have opted out,” Sophie said. “If I hadn’t felt so sorry for them I’d have never agreed.”
Em looked around. “Where’s Uncle Louie?”
“He cleared the register and took the money over to the house to put it in the safe. Do you want something to drink?”
“No, thanks. Listen, I need to tell you something while he’s gone.”
“There’s more? I’m not sure I can take it.”
“The reason I pushed Kiki to enter in the first place was because Roland wanted me to infiltrate the competition. He has a feeling someone in Mitchell’s halau got rid of Shari Kaui and then Mitchell. I didn’t want to believe him, but now Kawika has collapsed. After snooping around a little, I’m beginning to think Roland might be right.”
“So that’s it. You’re working with your detective.” Sophie crossed her arms and watched Em blush under scrutiny. “Your sudden interest in the hula competition finally makes sense.”
She grabbed a bar towel and started wiping down the bar. “You’re going to owe me big time for this, Em.”
“How about a week’s vacation?”
“Paid?”
“Maybe, depending on how the rest of this weekend goes. You’ve earned it.”
“Sounds like you have too.”
“All I’ve done is keep my eyes and ears open.”
“Any real suspects? Or can you tell me?”
“If you can keep it to yourself.”
Sophie nodded, glad to have earned Em’s trust. “Of course.”
“Jackie Loo Tong. Their rivalry is well known. And Marilyn was there creeping around.”
“For reals? Marilyn is a suspect?”
“Roland doubts it. Kiki’s certain.”
“Does Kiki know you’re working undercover?”
“No one does but you. Besides, I’m really just helping.”
“Maybe you’re just an undercover lover.”
“Knock it off.”
“You’re blushing. So who else is a suspect?”
“Maybe Raymond, the guy who just stepped in for Kawika. He was way down the pecking order in Mitchell’s halau until now.”
“Maybe they were all sick, and it’s all a coincidence or just bad luck.” Sophie thought for a minute. “Or maybe someone cursed Mitchell’s halau.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?” Em frowned.
Sophie shrugged. “Hawaiian curses go way back to ancient times.” She saw Em start to smile. “My tutu used to know all about that stuff.”
“Roland says his grandmother was psychic. I hate to say it,” Em said, “but if there’s such a thing as a cursed halau, it’s the Maidens.”
Just then Louie walked in the back door. Em gave Sophie a look and they fell silent.
“Hi, Uncle Louie.” Em lifted her cheek for a kiss when her uncle hugged her. “How is it going?”
“I didn’t expect you home tonight.”
“Marilyn’s not here, is she?”
He shook his head. “No. She’s at the festival.”
“I saw her earlier,” Em said.
“How did she look? Who was she with? Has she found someone new?”
Em shook her head. “She was all by herself. She looked fine.”
Louie sighed. “That’s good. Hey,” he perked up. “Want a Two to Mango?”
Sophie could tell Em wanted to refuse but agreed for Louie’s sake. “Sure, I’ll have one.”
“I’ll have one too.” Sophie reached way under the bar for two real champagne glasses and set them on the bar.
“Make that three,” Louie said. “I’ll join you.”
He filled the flutes with his new concoction. Sophie sipped at hers while she cleaned up. Em finished and asked for a refill.
“This is good, Uncle.” Em raised her glass and watched the champagne bubbles. “No wonder it was a hit at the sculpture showing. Fruity but refreshing.”
“I’m having trouble writing the legend, since the engagement is on hold,” he admitted.
“Maybe you should wait a while.” Sophie didn’t want Louie engaged to a murder suspect any more than Em did. She’d been jailed on murder charges herself not long ago, but thanks to Em and the Maidens it wasn’t long before the real killer was behind bars.
Louie finished his drink. “I’d better head back. I was watching television with David Letterman and left it running. Man, that parrot gets testy when there’s no one around to change the channels.”
Louie left, and Sophie cleared up their glasses.
“I’m ready to lock up if you’re ready to go over to the house. If you want to talk I can stay,” she offered Em.
“No thanks,” Em said. “You’ll need to be rested for tomorrow night.”
“I’m going over to the hotel early in the afternoon. Wally will be there to help me gather up the Maidens and get them ready for their performance.”
Two To Mango Page 17
