Dead On Arrival (A Malia Fern Mystery)

by Kym Roberts

He understood the meaning of Ohana. No matter what, loyalty to family came first.

  Just like that, he dropped Joe who crumpled to the ground in a fit of laughter. I winced at the sound of his elbow striking the pavement. He was going be seriously sore in the morning.

  “Where’s my Kona Big Wave, Sissy?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was referring to me being Joe’s sister or the strength of my spine. It took a serious lip-bite to hold my tongue when all I wanted to do was grab the baton my dad had given me for my twenty-first birthday from my car and beat the ever-living shit out of the intensely narrow-minded, uncompromising dick-head in front of me.

  The little rant in my head brought my anger back in check as I reached through my car window, past my baton, and grabbed my purse from the rear seat. I pulled out some bills and handed Mad Dog the money. He looked down at the cash in his hand and extended his palm out for more.

  I wanted to slam the extra twenty I pulled out of my purse down his throat, but resisted the temptation and placed it in his hand without touching him.

  “Can you help me put him in my car?”

  “He’s not my Ohana, Sissy.” He turned and headed for the store.

  “Dick-head,” escaped my lips as I bent down and grabbed Joe under the arms. I struggled to pull the guard I was supposed to be watching, to a sitting position and Joe decided to pick up on my bad language.

  “Diiiii…eddd…Diiii…eddd,” Luckily for me, if you put it all together, it sounded more like a drawn out ‘deeaad’ than a ‘dick-head’.

  Mad Dog looked back at us, his expression one of a warring debate between coming back to kick our asses or going to get his beer. I shook my head and smiled, and Mad Dog resumed his quest for The Big Wave.

  Thank goodness for small favors.

  I tried to prop Joe against my car, his upper body sprawled against the side rear window. I quickly opened the passenger door while keeping my foot against his backside, prohibiting him from slinking down to the ground. Then I put his arm around my shoulder. Huffing and puffing, I grabbed his waist and dragged him to the passenger seat. Joe plopped down, grabbed hold of me, and pushed my butt to the floorboard as he fell backward across the front seats. His laughter bounced off the interior of my car as I struggled to get out of the cramped space.

  Scrunched in the floorboard, with a drunk lying across my two front seats laughing like there was no tomorrow, I pulled on the dash in an ineffectual attempt to dislodge myself. I looked up to see Pai smiling down at me.

  “Baby Doll, I find you in the most interesting places.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I couldn’t help but smile. He does that to me. He turns my predicaments into humorous stories to tell my kids, not the embarrassingly inadequate attempts of me trying to be an adult.

  He reached down, grabbed my extended hand, dislodged me from the vise clamp squishing my body and pulled me up against his large frame. My breath caught, my smile disappeared. I stood looking up at the man with a twinkle in his eyes while his arms wrapped around my waist. I felt safe. He felt nice. Too nice.

  I knew I was in trouble when his head started to descend. His lips hovering above mine, our breath mixing. There was a moment, right before our lips touched, that I needed to stop him, but I didn’t. I welcomed his possessive claim on my body and soul and melted in his arms.

  He was my fairytale, the one I’d dreamt about as a little girl. I saw us married with children running circles around us, laughing while the youngest sat on Pai’s shoulders as his tongue swept through my mouth. It was the life my parents wanted for me.

  I froze. Reality showered me like a hose spraying two dogs apart. I pushed Pai away with every ounce of strength I had.

  Holy shit. I was not ready for kids.

  “Baby Doll, it was only a kiss. Not a proposal.”

  “How do you do that?” I asked as I smoothed down the front of my clothes.

  “What?” Pai wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was looking past me.

  “You always seem to know my thoughts.”

  “It’s easy. You wear your feelings on the outside.” He continued to avoid eye contact.

  “No one else reads me like that,” I insisted. Finally, his eyes returned to mine.

  “No one else is looking at you the way I do.” His voice sounded intimate.

  My body tingled in response. He had a point. No one looked at me…or rather, in me the way he did. He wanted to know me. The good, the bad, and the disgustingly ugly parts of me. He didn’t care.

  It was strangely alluring, yet it scared the shit out of me.

  “What? He gets the entertainment and I get the beer?” Mad Dog was back with his two six packs and some change in his pocket.

  Pai turned in time to see Mad Dog look me up and down, and before I knew what he was doing, it was Mad Dog’s turn to have his feet dangling in the air like a wet noodle. Part of me wanted to lean back against the car, cross my arms and say, ‘Who’s the sissy now, punk?’

  But that unleashed anger of Pai’s was barely contained as he got in Mad Dog’s face and reduced him to a cowering puppy. I was witnessing a side of Pai I’d only imagined existed, and would never want directed at me. Even Makaio hadn’t brought this out in him, and it again made me wonder if I really knew the man at all.

  Mad Dog didn’t deserve protection, but he also didn’t deserve a pummeling.

  I placed my hand on Pai’s shoulder, praying the man I knew him to be, would come back. And something, from someplace I couldn’t begin to identify, told me Pai would recognize my touch. My breasts rubbed against his flexed bicep as I pulled myself closer to him. He had to feel our bond.

  Pai glanced back at me. The feral look — gone.

  “Baby Doll, your timing is impeccable. I just wish your reasoning for that special wake-up call was a little different.”

  See, he knew me. He understood my motive for brushing up against him was to distract, not seduce. He knew me on the deepest level possible yet he still wanted me.

  “I think you owe the woman an apology,” Pai ground out as he returned his gaze to the man still dangling more than a foot off the ground. As big as Mad Dog was, I was totally impressed with the ease Pai held him. His arms were taut. His muscles bulged, but he stood holding the little-kid-of-a-man as if he would never tire.

  “I’m sorry,” whispered Mad Dog.

  “I can’t hear you, and I’m pretty sure the lady can’t hear you either.”

  “I’m sorry,” with a glance at Pai, Mad Dog finished, “Miss.”

  Pai set Mad Dog down and he slinked away with his beer still intact and his tail between his legs. Good riddance.

  “Can you repeat that distraction move one more time?” Pai asked.

  I laughed and got lost in his happy eyes. No one made my spirit soar the way he did. Unfortunately, Joe moaned behind me and reminded me of the job at hand.

  “So what’s his story?” Pai asked as he reached past me and sat up the drunk in my passenger seat.

  “Apparently, he likes to drink when he gets to work. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary until he was paying for his coffee. Then it was obvious that he was drunk. He was staggering and giddy. It was weird.”

  “He hasn’t been drinking.” Pai replied in confident, matter of fact tone.

  “What are you talking about? He’s drunk as a skunk.”

  “Nope. Not alcohol. Maybe something else, but there’s no alcohol in his system. Smell him.” Pai stepped back and allowed me to get closer to Joe.

  I leaned down and breathed in — waiting for my senses to be overwhelmed with alcohol. The only thing I could smell were remnants of the coffee he’d spilt. Pai was right. Joe hadn’t been drinking, but he was definitely under the influence of something.

  Like the mainland, Kaua’i had paid a huge price with the introduction of the meth. It ravaged our people and turned many into creatures of lore with no recognition of pride or ohana. They rejected everything and everyone they loved except
for the ice they wanted to run through their veins. I wondered if that’s why they called it ice. It turned its victims into cold-blooded animals without a care in the world for anything or anyone, but their next fix.

  “His file says he’s married. Do you want to call his wife and see if she wants to pick him up?”

  Joe leaned over and nearly fell out of my car before Pai steadied him.

  “Go ahead. I’ll hold him while you call her. Ask her if we can search the car, and tell her I’m going to need Joe to take a drug test just to be sure.”

  I nodded and grabbed my cell phone. I dialed the number in my file and waited. It rang until voicemail picked up.

  “There’s no one there.”

  “Jade’s werkhing…” Joe mumbled.

  I looked down at the file, found his wife’s cell phone number, and dialed it. When a female answered, I identified myself.

  “Malia Fern?” She asked.

  “Yes, I work for Lincoln Security—”

  “Mal, it’s Jade.”

  Jade. I looked down at the file in my hand. Joe Beckwith was married to Jade Beckwith.

  “Jade?”

  “Jade Tanaka Beckwith,” she responded.

  “From Kaua’i High?” I asked.

  She laughed, “Go, Red Raiders. How did you get my number? Wait, you said Lincoln Security. Are you and Joe working together?”

  “Uhhh…” This was the reason I didn’t want this job in the first place. Delivering bad news was not my thing. Especially to the woman who was there for me when my friendship with Windy fell apart. I looked to Pai for help, but he had his hands full holding Joe in my car.

  “Oh, my God. He’s okay, isn’t he?” Jade asked.

  “He’s fine, but he’s…he’s under the influence of something, and he can’t work.”

  “Where is he?” She sounded more worried than angry. Which was a good sign, right?

  “We’re at LeLe’s Quik Stop on LeLe Road, just down the street from his job.” I paused before I delivered the blow that would turn her world upside down. “Is it okay for our boss to search his vehicle for the cause of his condition?”

  “Of course he can. Joe doesn’t drink or do drugs and he…he just left the house less than an hour ago. He was completely sober.”

  “Jade, it’s not alcohol. I don’t know what it is, but right now, he’s passed out in the front seat of my car. Does he have any medical conditions?”

  “None. He’s totally healthy.”

  “You’re sure it’s okay to search the van?” I asked again, hoping she’d say no.

  “Yes, I know my Joe. He wouldn’t intentionally ingest anything bad. I’ll call a cab and come drive him home.”

  “If you’d like, I can drive your van and our boss can drive Joe.” Now the hard part. “I need to pick up a drug test at the pharmacy so we know what he’s taking.”

  Jade cleared her throat, her voice gaining strength as she faced the situation head on. “That’s fine. I’m a pharmacist at Menehune Pharmacy. Joe dropped me off before he went to work. I’ll pick out the best test and meet you out front. And thank you, Malia.”

  “I’m sorry, Jade. I wish it wasn’t like this.” I meant it. I felt sick to my stomach with the pain I brought her. Deep down, I knew I wasn’t responsible, Joe was, but it didn’t make it any easier.

  “Me too,” she whispered.

  I hung up and began searching the van. Joe still mumbled incoherently in my front seat, and Pai pitched in with the vehicle search while I filled him in on Joe and Jade.

  I’d watched Joe walk from the van to the shack and back, so there was no way the dope was outside the car, and after a thorough search of the interior, we came up empty-handed. Not a cigarette, not a Tylenol, nor a syringe in sight. The van was spotless, including the car seat in the back.

  Thinking of Jade married with a kid, made me feel like I was beyond immature. She was settled in a job, already a wife and mother. I can’t even keep my car clean…and I don’t have kids.

  I gave Pai directions to Jade’s house, and hoped he could find his way around the island as well as his tongue found its way around my mouth. I got into the van and headed for Lihue with him following me. Looking in the rearview mirror, I noticed how much room Pai occupied in my car, and wondered about the drive back to pick up his Jeep. My toes tingled for the umpteenth time in the last couple days.

  How the hell did I end up with two incredibly sexy men in my life, when I’d gone so long without any?

  Chapter Fifteen

  I pulled into the Menehune Pharmacy parking lot and found Jade waiting in front of the store. Of Japanese descent, and a couple years older than me, Jade still didn’t look old enough to buy a beer, let alone dispense prescriptions. Her white lab coat was rolled under her arm and her purse was slung over her shoulder. A white bag, no doubt containing the drug test I asked about, dangled down to her side. Her smile was delicate but warm, the kind people saved for their closest friends and relatives. She met me at the driver’s door, and despite me being the deliverer of bad news, Jade gave me a big hug.

  “Aloha, Mal.” I really expected things to have changed in the last few minutes after she’d had time to think about what I was doing, but her greeting was genuine.

  “Jade, I’m so sorry—”

  “No, worries. This isn’t the first time.” Jade took over the driver’s seat and I rounded the van to take the passenger side.

  This wasn’t the first time. Hua.

  “Can you tell me if Joe was full of energy or sleepy?” Jade started the van and we drove north toward KaPa’a.

  “Definitely sleepy, he passed out,” I advised.

  The look of shock on her face made me think we should have called an ambulance. Then she began to scrutinize me a little too closely and I began to get nervous. “Are you Menehune?” She asked.

  At first, I thought she was joking, but her expression remained serious. “Excuse me?”

  “Menehune. Are you from Menehune descent?”

  Did everyone have little people on the brain? I hadn’t even thought about the ancient race in years. Sure, I saw the name all over town on this and that, but no one actually talked about them as if they actually existed.

  “Ah…no,” I responded.

  “The reason I ask is because Menehune men…well, they can become intoxicated when they are subjected to certain things.”

  I stared at her, totally speechless, but she chose not to enlighten me about the imaginary disease of the mythical men and got down to reality.

  “I brought a test that identifies 12 different drugs. I think you should be looking for a drug from depressants or the opioids/morphine categories. I can’t guarantee that, since so many people take cocktails of a variety of drugs, but those are the ones I would look for first, if I didn’t know the cause.”

  I looked at the box and saw her logic eliminated amphetamines, methamphetamines, ecstasy, and cocaine, but the drugs left on the list didn’t look any better. I didn’t think we were looking for drugs smoked or injected, since we hadn’t found a hypodermic needle, or any other paraphernalia, nor had we smelled anything in the van. However, that still left every drug in the depressant and opioid/morphine categories which could all be swallowed or snorted.

  Ugh.

  The potential destruction of Jade’s family life was a depressing thought, and added to my resolve to avoid looking for ‘happily ever after.’ I really didn’t want to see the pain in Jade’s deep brown eyes when her husband tested positive. The pain of a lifetime of dreams washing out to sea. The pain of trust betrayed. Yet I knew, if I felt this bad, Jade felt infinitely worse.

  My car was parked in front of Jade’s small yellow house, when she pulled into the single car driveway. Pai came to the door with a sexy smile on his face as we approached the house. On anyone else, I would think it was inappropriate. On Pai, it was comforting.

  Until he saw Jade. Then his face lost all emotion and Jade stopped in her tracks in front of the van
. Something passed between them. Something too familiar for a boss and his employee’s wife.

  I looked from one to the other, then Jade cleared her throat and said, “I’ve never met Joe’s boss before.”

  If that wasn’t the biggest lie, I don’t know what was.

  “Seriously?” I called her out on the obvious. Jade’s eyes darted in my direction before she looked away. I knew that wasn’t the truth. We may not have been close for the last five years, but some things never change.

  Pai held the door open for us and Jade walked in ahead of me.

  “You must be Joe’s boss.”

  Pai’s eyes searched Jade’s, and then he shook her hand. “Alapai Lincoln. My friends call me Pai.”

  “I would have thought they’d call you…Al.” Jade walked into the living room and approached her husband, who was sprawled out on a reclining loveseat.

  Pai looked like he wanted to follow her. He turned instead, and leaned toward me as I passed through the door, effectively creating full contact down the lengths of our bodies. My stuttered step caused the corners of his mouth to quirk. Again, I would have thought this improper on anyone but Pai, especially after what had just transpired between him and Jade.

  He reached out and steadied me off to his side. “He’s starting to come around, but needs something for the nasty headache.”

  Pai closed the front door, and the comfortable living room suddenly seemed way too small for the four of us. Not for lack of space, but the extra baggage that seemed to be flying in the air around us.

  Joe moaned and Jade kissed his forehead. His eyes opened and for the first time, they seemed to focus on something. Jade.

  “Honey, I…”

  “Shhhhh. I know.” Jade kissed her husband and Pai and I turned away.

  I was giving them as much privacy as possible. I think Pai was uncomfortable for a whole different set of reasons. Every fiber in my body wanted to walk out the door and never find out what was really going on. Unsure why I was still there, I turned to say goodbye, and saw Jade smiling weakly at me from the couch. Joe’s head rested on her lap, and she gently combed her fingers through his hair.