“So you’re right back where you started.”
“But now I know my intuition was right.”
“Thanks to your tutu you may be psychic.”
He glanced at his watch. “I’ll catch up to you later. Right now I want to check in with Kawika’s doctor again before the program starts.”
“Are you going on tonight?” She could almost smell the coconut oil.
“I’m closing the evening after the final entries are all pau. It’ll give me the opportunity to hang out behind the scenes without tipping anyone off that we’re on to them.”
“We meaning more than just you and I, I hope.”
He nodded. “We’ve got undercover patrols here as well as the two uniformed officers.”
Condensation was running down the sides of the smoothie cup in her hand. “I’ve got to get this to Kiki.”
He lifted his hand. For a second she thought he was going to touch her cheek. But his hand kept moving. He smoothed a lock of his hair off his forehead.
“Be careful, Em.” He wasn’t smiling. “We’re not going on hunches anymore. This is serious business now.”
“Don’t eat any beans,” she said as he walked away.
33
Sophie’s Pep Talk
Sophie walked into the Maidens’ dressing area and into complete chaos. Trish, always the professional photographer, was trying to line the Maidens up for a pre-performance shot but no one would stand still. Pat Boggs had lost control and was pacing back and forth a three foot space mumbling to herself and checking her watch.
“Thirty minutes and fifteen seconds, Laydeez,” Pat barked.
Suzi refused to wear her hair up, and Kiki had her backed into a corner.
“Kupuna should always have their hair up for dancing. I don’t care what you do with it at home,” Kiki told her.
Suzi stuck out her chin. “Who says?”
“It’s an unwritten rule,” Kiki shot back.
“I’ll put my hair up when they write it down.”
Wally was suffering from the shakes.
Sophie worked her way to his side through the mess on the floor. “Are you all right?”
“No. No I am not. I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Not that any of these she devils gives a damn.” He was trying to pin Flora’s hair in a French twist, but it was thick and heavy and kept sliding out.
“Here, let me do that,” Sophie offered. He handed her pins and a brush, staggered over to a cooler and sank down on it.
Lillian went to his aid. “Have some bottled water, you poor thing. I’d hold your hand, but I can’t sit in this dress.”
Sophie somehow managed to get Flora’s hair to stay put. She seated the lei on Flora’s head and stood back.
“Looking good, Flora.”
“Mahalo.” Flora smiled up at her. “You missed my solo last night.”
“I heard about it from Em.”
“I was great.”
“You were naked,” Kiki reminded her.
“How’d I look?” Flora struck a pose with her hand on her hip.
“Fat, and you almost drowned a security guard.”
Pat Boggs yelled, “Listen up, Laydeez! It’s time. Line up. We’re goin’ backstage.”
Sophie’s stomach dropped to her toes. She glanced over at Kiki. “Is it really time?”
“This is it, I’m afraid.” Kiki started lining them up in the order they were to go on stage. Even though it would only take a few minutes to walk around to the backstage area, she and Sophie had decided the sooner they were in place the better.
Finally, blissfully, the Maidens fell silent. They were scared speechless, staring straight ahead as Kiki and Sophie tweaked their haku leis and snail shell necklaces.
“Do not touch your haku. If it falls in your eyes, or heaven forbid, breaks and falls off, just keep dancing. If anyone near you flubs up, keep dancing. If anyone falls off the stage or passes out, what do you do?”
“Keep dancing!” Pat was the only one who answered but she had enough gusto for all of them.
“Remember, aka’aka. Keep smiling.”
“Do we have time to run through the dance one more time?” Lillian looked at Sophie. “Just once?”
Pat held up her hand. “Let me get this,” she said.
“Be gentle,” Sophie whispered.
Pat marched up to Lillian then eyed each dancer. “If you don’t know the friggin’ dance by now, you’re all dumber than a herd of simpleminded Billy goats.”
Sophie sidestepped Pat. She couldn’t let the girls go out on such a low note.
“Ladies, you do know your dance. You’ve been working on it nonstop for almost three weeks. You all look lovely.” She glanced over at the cooler in the corner. “Thanks to Wally.”
Her compliment fell on deaf ears. His eyes had rolled up in his head, and his legs were spread-eagled.
“You are going to redeem yourselves from last time,” Sophie said, “but most of all what you are going to do is go out there and have fun. Once the music starts, let yourself get carried away. Don’t think about the judges or the audience or your nerves. Just listen to the music and let yourself go.”
“Yeah. Do what she says. Now follow me.” Pat’s key chain rattled as she led them out of the dressing area.
Kiki would be the last one on stage. She brought up the rear and stopped beside Sophie.
“No matter what happens out there, thanks for all your help. I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“No worries.” Sophie put her hand on Kiki’s shoulder. “Now, break a leg.”
Kiki sighed. “Hey, at my age that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
34
The Hunch
Smoothie in hand, Em hurried through the craft fair toward the dressing area thinking about watching Charlotte use the marking pen to write on the smoothie cup and then suddenly remembered Tiko making “special” smoothies for both Jackie and Kawika. She had Charlotte deliver them—and shortly afterward, Kawika had collapsed.
I wrote Kawika’s name and drew stars on his. He hates chocolate, so I put coffee bean chips in his. Please don’t get them mixed up.
Em stopped in her tracks. Coffee bean or castor beans?
She passed a trash can and tossed in the kava smoothie.
Would ground castor beans look like coffee beans?
She wished she knew more about ricin poisoning but it was crazy to think Tiko capable of something so sinister. Tiko had danced with Mitchell’s halau members and knew them all personally. It was easier to imagine Marilyn chopping castor beans to poison Kawika than Tiko. Marilyn would be doing it for Jackie. But Tiko had been a loyal member of Mitchell’s troupe. Besides, Tiko was into promoting health. Her grandmother was a healer.
“Em!”
She turned at the sound of her name and saw the Maidens filing out of the spa doors in a single file line led by Pat and Sophie. She waved and hurried over to join them. None of the Maidens, not even Kiki, acknowledged her. Their gazes were focused straight ahead.
The felt taro leaves on their fitted turquoise gowns fluttered. Each of them wore two strands of apple snail shell and kukui nut leis. They clanked against each other with every step.
They passed the hotel security guard, who let them into the backstage area. Their bare feet didn’t make a sound as they walked along the cold linoleum floor in the narrow hallway. Bare florescent light bulbs shone down on them as they moved without talking down the corridor. The clank, clank, clank sounded like rattling chains.
Em leaned close to Sophie. “Why do I feel like we’re reenacting a scene from Dead Man Walking?”
“They could be walking to their doom,” Sophie whispered back. “The Japanese are performin
g right before us, and we have to wait in the wings. They’re always so precise. I wish we didn’t have to watch.”
The Maidens trailed Em and Sophie up a short flight of stairs and waited in the wings stage left. Huge black draperies hid them from the audience, but from their vantage point they had a full view of the Japanese halau on stage. When the Japanese finished they were to exit on the opposite side, and the Maidens were to file on behind them. The group after the Maidens would line up and wait to go on.
The seniors from Tokyo were performing a traditional ancient kahiko hula, chanting and moving in unison to the beat of an ipu heke, a gourd drum fashioned in the shape of an hour glass. Each woman wore a skirt hand crafted of ti leaves. Each long green leaf had been picked, washed, deboned and then tied to a ti band. Sophie told Em that each dancer had to have picked one hundred leaves.
They had more than likely been up all night long, but not one of them showed any sign of fatigue. They were all in step, moving side to side, up and down, forward and back, as one.
“Oh boy,” Sophie sighed.
“They’re great.” Em hated to admit it. She glanced over at Kiki, whose expression was one of resignation.
Another halau wearing tasteful indigo velvet muumuus moved into place behind the Maidens blocking the exit. There was no turning back. Participants were lined up like four o’clock traffic through Kapa’a. Em was sizing up the stage and saw Tiko slip behind the curtains into the wings directly across the stage to join Raymond Leahe. Raymond, who was suddenly front and center in Mitchell’s halau, was talking to Tiko, the one who just might have put him there.
Em’s first instinct was to call Roland and run it by him. She hadn’t seen him in the backstage area anywhere. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen any KPD officers around, just the hotel security guard they passed entering the backstage area.
“Can I get around to the other side of the stage from here?” She whispered to Sophie.
Sophie nodded. “Behind the main curtain. Cut that way.” She pointed behind them. “Where are you going? Is this about, you know, that thing Roland needed help with?”
“I just want to talk to Tiko a minute.” Em smiled, hoping to reassure Sophie.
“You’re a terrible liar. What’s going on?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Em slipped past Pat Boggs, who was pacing the Maiden line up, and ducked behind a series of curtains, ropes and pulleys. She went behind the main curtain and felt the pulse of ten Japanese dancers all moving in time to the beat of the ipu heke.
She made it to the other side, intending to step out from behind the curtain to talk to Tiko.
She paused when she heard Tiko say, “You should be proud to be the leader of the halau, Raymond. You’re finally getting the recognition you deserve.”
Raymond mumbled something Em couldn’t hear. Tiko’s reaction was perfectly clear; “That’s ridiculous. It’s not your fault the others are dead,” she said.
“Kawika isn’t dead.” Raymond’s voice registered shock.
“He’s dying. You’ll be made kumu now.”
Em found the spot where the edges of two curtains met. She separated them by a fraction of an inch, just enough to peek through.
“I don’t want to be kumu. Not ever, and especially not this way.”
“The number one halau on Kauai needs you.” Tiko grabbed his arm, tried to make him turn and look at her.
“I never wanted to be a kumu,” he repeated.
On stage, the drums grew louder and more frantic. Em had to strain to hear.
“This is your time, Raymond. Step up and take the lead.”
Raymond shook her off, started to turn away, and then he stopped and stared at Tiko.
She grabbed his hand. “Listen to me, Raymond. Maybe I am crazy. I’m crazy in love with you . . . but you’ve never seen it. You’ve never seen me. That’s the real reason I left the halau. I couldn’t bear to be ignored by you, to see you date other dancers. I couldn’t stand it anymore than I could bear to watch Mitchell elevate the others before you.”
Em reached for her cell to text Roland. As much as she hated to admit it, she’d been wrong about Tiko. She should have called him when she first put two and two together.
“Listen,” Raymond was saying, “Mitchell came to me. He did want to move me up, but I refused his offer. I told him just like I’m telling you now, I like being part of the whole. I don’t want to be the leader. It’s just not in me. Can’t you see how nervous I am on the mic? I love to dance, Tiko. Just dance, that’s all.” He grabbed her by the shoulders.
Tiko didn’t respond. For a long moment she could only stare up into his eyes, and then a dark shadow crossed her face. She looked torn and confused.
“Tiko?” Em stepped out from behind the curtain. “Did you put something in that smoothie you sent backstage to Kawika yesterday?”
Raymond’s eyes widened. “I saw Charlotte hand it to him and heard her tell him it was especially for him.”
Tiko was looking around frantically. Em stepped toward her, afraid she would bolt.
“Did you do it, Tiko? Did you poison Kawika and the others?”
Tiko shook her head and started backing away from Em. “No. Of course not. No!”
Her shout was drowned out by thunderous applause. The Japanese halau was finished. They would be coming on to this side of the wings.
Tiko tried to shove past Em.
Em tried to grab her, but Tiko struck her hands away and knocked Em’s cell to the floor. It slid across the bare wooden floor. On stage the Japanese dancers were taking their bows, and their heads bobbed up and down like hens hunting centipedes.
Em saw Sophie across the stage beside Pat and the Maidens. Em raised her arm and tried to signal Sophie at the same time bobbing and weaving to keep Tiko from getting around her and slipping out the back. Tiko tried to make a run for it. Em lunged for her, grabbed with both hands and hung on.
“Let me go!” Tiko’s voice was drowned out by the thunderous applause of the crowd.
The Japanese halau was still taking bows.
35
If All Else Fails: Go Down Swinging
“We’re sunk. Torpedoed,” Pat Boggs said. “Can we get out the back way before it’s too late?”
Sophie shook her head. “Not funny.”
She thought she’d seen Em waving at her on the other side of the stage. She couldn’t really tell what Em had been doing. The Japanese on stage hadn’t budged. As per instructions they were waiting for the emcee to take the stage and thank them before they walked off.
“What’s the holdup?” Pat asked.
“Why aren’t they getting off the stage?” Kiki leaned around Pat. “Show hogs.”
Sophie saw Em launch herself in a tug of war with Tiko and clamp her arms around her. The women wrestled back and forth for a few seconds, then Sophie saw Raymond try to break them apart.
Em was holding on for dear life. The applause had finally ended, and the halau from Tokyo was still standing awkwardly on stage. Finally their leader barked an order, and they began to file off just as Em and Tiko came reeling out and crashed into three of the dancers. They went down like bowling pins.
The audience gasped.
Sophie told Pat, “Em needs help.”
Pat turned to the Maidens. “Emergency! Charge!”
With Sophie in the lead, they all darted across the stage.
“What are we doing?” Kiki hollered.
By now the Maidens were center stage. The audience started cheering.
“Em’s in trouble!” Sophie yelled.
“Outta my way!” Kiki hiked up her gown with one hand and forearmed one of the visiting dancers who stumbled back and yelled something in Japanese. Outnumbered two to one, the Maiden
s were quickly engulfed.
Sophie had almost reached Em who was entangled with Tiko. Kiki and the others started battling it out. Grunts, squeals and groans accompanied hair pulling and fabric ripping. Ti leaf skirts and lei were torn apart. Leaves and blossoms went flying. Kukui nut and snail shell lei broke and the nuts went rolling. Flora wrestled two of the smaller women to the stage floor and sat on them.
“What are we doing? What are we doing?” Trish grabbed Suzi and shoved her out of harm’s way as a woman charged toward them with teeth bared.
“Em’s in trouble!” Kiki called out.
Trish sidestepped, stuck out her foot and tripped the dancer from Tokyo.
Sophie reached the right side of the stage where Em was rolling on the ground clinging on to Tiko. One of the Japanese started yelling and pounding Em on the back.
Em clung to Tiko like a fisherman wrestling with a record-breaking tuna.
Sophie tried to pull the Japanese dancer away from Em. She looked around for Pat, but she couldn’t find her in the melee. Lillian was in the middle of the crowd. Her face and scalp were crimson, which made her hair glow even pinker. She grabbed a short woman by the shoulders and flung her away then charged toward another.
“Help me!” Sophie called to Raymond Leahe. He was hiding behind the podium.
Suddenly out of nowhere, Roland vaulted up on to the stage followed by two uniformed policeman. The hotel security guards realized the brawl wasn’t part of the show and waded in.
Sophie shoved the Japanese dancer away, and Roland extracted Em. He barked out orders, and one of the policemen grabbed Tiko by the arm.
“Are you okay?” Sophie looked Em over. Other than a swelling mouse on her cheek, she appeared to be all right. “What happened?”
“I think Tiko poisoned Kawika’s smoothie,” Em whispered.
Roland pulled Sophie aside along with Em. “Can you handle the Maidens? I need Em to come with me.” He directed an officer to escort Tiko out back to a squad car.
Two To Mango Page 19
