“It’s an emergency. I don’t know where I am.” She thought her phone had GPS. She jumped off the chair and ran around to the front of the house. Tiko was yelling at Charlotte who was already behind the wheel of the Mustang. Em read the numbers on the house into the phone. “I’m up above Kapa’a somewhere. Somebody’s been poisoned.”
A woman across the street stepped out onto her porch to see what was going on.
“What’s the name of this street?” Em yelled to her.
The woman said something that sounded like Popopokia or Polopokia. Em said both into the phone as she watched Tiko try to open the driver’s side door on the Mustang. Charlotte started the car, and as she pulled out of the driveway, Tiko was forced to let go and jump back.
When Tiko turned around and saw Em standing there, she hesitated for a split second.
“We’ve got to stop her,” Tiko started running for her van.
“Roland is on the way.”
Tiko started crying. “Call him. Call Detective Sharpe again and tell him to hurry.”
Em dialed Roland again.
“Are you all right?” They were the first words out of his mouth. Em nodded as if he could see.
“Em?”
“I’m good. Charlotte. It’s Charlotte who poisoned Kawika. She just gave Jackie Loo Tong something toxic. Tiko tried to stop her but she drove off.”
“Charlotte or Tiko?”
“Charlotte. Charlotte is in a red Mustang convertible. She’s up here somewhere around Kawaihau.”
“She won’t get off the island.”
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get more cruisers up here. Did you call 911?”
“Yes.”
“Sit tight with Jackie. We’ll take it from here.”
“Red Mustang. Convertible,” she reminded him.
“Got it. Stay put.”
She hung up and ran to tell Tiko. “He’s on the way and he’s got patrol cars coming. He said to stay with Jackie.”
Tiko was already at her van. “I’ll try to follow her. I want to be there when they catch her.”
“What about Jackie? You know better than I do what he needs right now.”
“I need to find out what she gave him. It’s crucial. You stay with him. Keep giving him water even if he can’t keep it down.” She ran down the sidewalk toward her van. Em jogged along beside her.
“Tiko, I’m sorry. Really. I’m so sorry I suspected you. I didn’t want to believe it . . .”
Tiko stopped with her hand on her car door. “You were almost right.”
Em ran back to Jackie’s, expecting to find him heaving into the kitchen sink. He wasn’t there.
“Jackie? Where are you? It’s Em Johnson.” She walked down a narrow hallway calling his name until she heard a moan and then loud gagging.
“Bathroom.”
She followed the sound to a closed door and tried the door handle. It was locked.
“Don’t come in!”
“I can’t get in.”
From the variety of sounds he was making, rushing in to help wasn’t high on her list of choices anyway.
“Tiko said you should be drinking water.” She had to yell over the sound of the flushing toilet.
“Awe,” he moaned. “I’m dying.”
“You aren’t going to die.” Then she mumbled, “At least I hope not.” The blissful sound of sirens shrilled in the distance. “Hang on, okay? The EMTs are almost here.”
She ran through the house and out the front door to flag them down. A fire truck, an EMT ambulance and a police cruiser pulled up. Six hunks in navy blue uniforms swarmed after her into the house asking questions.
She told them Jackie had swallowed something toxic but she had no idea what it was. They had the bathroom door open in less time than it took Louie to shake a cocktail.
Em got a glimpse of Jackie Loo Tong as they rushed in to help him. The gambling, playboy kumu was on the floor hugging the toilet, with his pants down to his knees. With the crowd of men in the bathroom, she figured Jackie was in good hands. When she returned to the living room, a KPD officer in uniform was waiting for her.
“Are you Ms. Johnson?”
“Em. Em Johnson.” Now that the EMTs were here, Em realized she was shaking.
“Detective Sharpe says to stay put until he calls you.”
“Did he catch Charlotte Anara?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
A fireman came down the hall. “Do you know what he ingested?”
“Is he all right?” She wished she knew more.
“He’s suffering from violent vomiting and diarrhea, but he hasn’t lost consciousness. Do you know what he had or how much?”
She showed him the Starbucks bottle and the glass on the table.
“I don’t know if it was a full bottle when he got it. He poured it over ice.”
There was still a quarter of a bottle of latte left. Condensation had puddled beneath the glass and the latte that was left had been watered down with melted ice.
“Hopefully he didn’t drink that much,” she stared at the bottle. Charlotte must have twisted off the cap, tampered with the latte and put the cap back on.
A premeditated crime of passion.
Two more firemen came out of the bathroom and down the hall. Em waited with the silent police officer. The firemen came back with two ambulance drivers and a gurney. They loaded Jackie up and wheeled him out, eyes closed but moaning.
His neighbors and some of his dancers had gathered out front. Cars were being turned away from the crowded dead end street by another patrol officer on the corner.
“Kumu, kumu!” Two young girls ran alongside the gurney as the attendants rolled it to the back of the ambulance. A half dozen more young men and women, most of them with waist length black hair, crowded around Jackie, crying.
The ambulance attendants stood by impatiently as the dancers cried over their kumu. When one of the women started to chant, they all joined in. The attendants quickly loaded Jackie into the ambulance and closed the doors then drove off. The dancers were chanting in the street as the ambulance disappeared around the corner.
45
Bad News Travels Fast
Kiki hurried up the lanai stairs at the Goddess and was breathless by the time she walked into the bar.
She leaned on a table for support and asked Sophie, “Where’s Louie?”
“I’m right here.” He came walking in from the office.
“What’s wrong?” Sophie filled a glass with water and set it next to Kiki’s elbow.
Kiki stared at it. “I don’t drink water,” she said.
“Take a sip. You look like you’re going to have a stroke. Pretty soon you won’t be able to talk again.”
Kiki downed half the glass.
“Have you heard?” She looked at Sophie and then Louie.
“Heard what?” Louie sat on the barstool next to Kiki.
“Jackie Loo Tong has been poisoned.”
“No kidding?” Sophie clicked her tongue stud.
“Where did you hear that?” Louie looked skeptical.
“Vickie Tamaguchi has a police scanner, and she was parked at the fruit stand when her husband called and said he heard it broadcast. She was standing out there telling everyone in the Big Save parking lot when two seconds later the news hit Facebook. Some of Jackie’s halau was outside his house crying and chanting and taking videos and photos and posting them.”
“Was it Tiko? Did she do it?” Sophie waved at a couple having lunch in the corner. “I’ll be right there,” she told them.
“I guess. The big news is Em was there at Jackie’s house up by Kawaihau. I saw her in the crowd in one of the Facebo
ok posts.”
“Was she all right?” Louie was patting himself down, searching for his phone in his baggy linen pants pockets.
“She looked okay.”
“What was she doing up there?” Sophie wondered. “She said she was only going into town to run a few errands.” Sophie paused a minute.
Louie looked befuddled. “You don’t think she did it, do you?”
“Of course not!” Kiki scoffed. “The story is all mixed up, and folks are a bit confused. Some say Tiko poisoned him. Others say it was her cousin or both of them together. There was a police chase through the back roads and they probably wouldn’t have caught them except that feral pig ran out in front of the car. Wrecked it up pretty bad too and killed the pig.”
“Anybody pick up the pig?” Kimo had wandered in from the kitchen to listen. “I could use for the luau.”
The customers at the back table got up and walked out.
“What’s with them?” Kimo shook his head.
“Impatient haoles.” Sophie waved it off. “Either that or it was the luau road kill idea. Whatevah.”
“Hey, dis ain’t the mainland,” Kimo grumbled as he walked back into the kitchen.
“I’m calling Em,” Louie said.
Kiki glanced at herself in the mirror behind the line of liquor bottles. Her cheeks were flushed. Sophie might be right about the stroke. She finished the glass of water. It wouldn’t do to start speaking in tongues with so much gossip flying.
“Em? Are you all right?” Louie yelled into the cell. Kiki hung on every word. “Good. Good. Where are you?” He looked at Kiki and Sophie and said, “She’s at the police station in Lihue.”
He was speaking to Em again. “Don’t worry about my truck. We can pick it up. You will? Okay, if it’s no trouble. Take your time and call when you’re on the way home, okay? What? Oh, Nat? Okay, I’ll tell him.” Louie hung up.
“What’s going on? Why is she at the police station?”
“They’re going to take her statement. She’s a witness.”
“To what? What was she doing at Jackie Loo Tong’s in the first place?” Kiki couldn’t stand not knowing all the details.
“She said she’d tell us everything when she gets back.”
“Well, I can’t wait that long.” Kiki was starting to itch all over.
“It could be hours,” Sophie said.
Louie nodded. “She said I should go over to Nat’s and let him know she can’t go out to dinner with him tonight.”
“She was going out with him? Tonight?” Kiki hated being this far out of the loop.
“Yeah. She left my truck at Jackie’s. Roland will drive her by to get it once she’s through at the KPD.” Louie absently fingered his phone. “I should have known something was up. She should have been home a couple of hours ago.”
Kiki’s cell rang. “Hi, Suzi. Thanks for calling back. I need you to start an emergency phone chain. Let the girls know Jackie Loo Tong has been poisoned.” Kiki held the phone away from her ear until Suzi stopped screaming. “No, I don’t know if he’s dead or alive yet. I haven’t checked Facebook for a few minutes.” She signaled for Sophie to make her a martini and held up two fingers.
“Does that mean you want a double or two olives?” Sophie reached for the vodka.
“A double and three olives.” She went back to the conversation with Suzi. “Whoever can go should meet at the Princeville Library parking lot in twenty minutes. We’ll carpool to town and be there when Em walks out of the station so we can get the story first hand. Right. Yes. Like we did when Sophie was arrested and we were there in the parking lot to show Hula Maiden solidarity when she was released. We’ll have to hurry, though.”
Kiki listened as Suzi tried to reorganize the plan. “Okay, okay. Tell everyone twenty-five minutes then, but no later. I’ll grab the boom box.”
Sophie set a martini with three olives threaded on a green plastic sword sticking out of it in front of Kiki.
“I’m not so sure this is a good idea, Kiki,” Sophie said.
“The martini?”
“That and going to meet Em at police headquarters.”
“You loved it when we were there for you, didn’t you?”
Sophie didn’t respond for a second but then she said, “Em hasn’t been arrested. She’s just a witness.”
“But she’ll have the whole scoop. I’ll bet she was working undercover for Roland.”
Louie stopped staring at his phone. “Em’s been working undercover? If it comes out that she’s a secret agent for the KPD think of the press we’ll get.”
Sophie held up her hand to stop him. “She’s no secret agent. She was just helping Roland out at the Kukui Nut Festival.”
“No one tells me anything,” Louie put his phone in his pocket.
Kiki was upset to think she was getting minimal information herself. She tossed back half of her martini and slid an olive off the little sword.
“That’s because you’re so close to the Defector.” She popped the olive in her mouth. “We can’t tell you anything secret and have you tell her.”
Sophie turned to Louie. “Kiki and I didn’t know anything about the undercover thing until the festival was almost over.”
Kiki speculated, “I thought they’d lock Tiko up, and if not her, then Marilyn. Now Jackie’s been poisoned. Pretty soon there won’t be a live kumu left on Kauai.”
She polished off her drink. “I’d better get going. You want to go with us to the station, Louie?”
“No, I’ll leave the festivities to you girls. Tell Em I love her and I’ll see her later.”
Sophie picked up Kiki’s empty martini glass. “I think you should reconsider, Kiki. Why not be here to welcome Em home when she drives in?”
Kiki chewed up the remaining olives and smacked her lips.
“I’ve already started the Hula Maiden emergency phone chain. Once that pig is in the imu there’s no pulling it back out.”
46
Confession is Good for the Soul
Em was ushered into a small room at KPD headquarters where she gave her witness statement to an investigative services officer. She’d yet to see Roland, and she’d been there an hour and a half already.
Her statement was clear and concise; she’d seen Charlotte Anara racing along the highway and followed her to Tiko’s where she watched her load a carry on and some tote bags that appeared to be full into the trunk of her Mustang convertible. She thought Charlotte might be helping Tiko leave the island. She called Detective Sharpe and left him a voicemail. From Tiko’s she followed Charlotte inland to somewhere near Kawaihau where she turned into a small street and recognized Jackie Loo Tong’s truck in the driveway.
She was embarrassed to admit she’d donned her uncle’s baseball cap and snuck around the property of an empty house to listen in on Charlotte and Jackie’s conversation. She heard the two argue about Jackie not wanting to make any romantic commitments. Charlotte was furious. During the conversation Charlotte offered him a Starbucks latte, which he accepted. Then Tiko showed up and wanted to talk to Charlotte alone. Charlotte refused. Then Jackie got ill and sat down. Charlotte ran out of the house. Em said she called 911 and Roland again.
When she was finished Em thought it all sounded perfectly logical, and it was definitely factual. She signed her statement and was told to wait. Detective Sharpe would be in soon.
Fifteen minutes later, Roland opened the door and walked straight to where she was sitting. He put his hand under her chin and tipped her head up. He searched her face with his eyes.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Em was shocked to find she was suddenly all teary eyed.
“I will be when you stop looking at me that way.”
“What way?”
; “All worried. It’s not like you at all,” she said.
He sort of smiled.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“We’re booking Charlotte for the murders of Shari Kaui and Mitchell Chambers and the attempted murders of Kawika Palikekua and Jackie Loo Tong, though she swears she only wanted to make Jackie suffer a bit, not kill him.”
“How is he?”
“He’ll be fine. He’s at Wilcox right now, but he’s listed in good condition.”
“She confessed? To all of it? Shari and Mitchell, too?”
Roland pulled out a chair and sat down.
“She moved back right before Shari died. It took a while but with Tiko’s help, we finally convinced her things would go easier for her if she made a full confession, especially since Kawika came out of his coma this morning. I was at the hospital interviewing him when you kept calling me. He said that on Friday night at the festival he didn’t have time for dinner. He drank the smoothie Tiko sent an hour or so before he collapsed.”
“But why target Mitchell’s halau?”
“For Jackie. They met in Las Vegas and had an affair that lasted over a year and a half. He hooked up with her every time he flew over to gamble. She decided to move back here to be with him and was determined to make Jackie the top kumu on Kauai. Unfortunately, Mitchell and his halau were in the way.”
“So Charlotte decided to get rid of his competition,” Em said. “Did Tiko know?”
“Not until the night you confronted her backstage and questioned her about the smoothies she’d given all the kumu that night. When you asked if she had poisoned Kawika, she was terrified that it might have been Charlotte who did it and was desperate to find out before she accused her cousin.
“As soon as we took Tiko in, Charlotte disappeared. Tiko finally tracked her down at Jackie’s. You know the rest, thanks to your talent for getting yourself caught up in the middle of things you should leave to the experts.”
“You got me into this,” she reminded him.
“I asked you to keep your eyes and ears open at the competition, not start a brawl trying to apprehend a suspect, or go snooping around on private property.”
Two To Mango Page 26
