Ukulele Deadly

by Leslie Langtry

  "I don't know what to tell you, Detective. I saw what everyone else saw."

  "And she was with us in the parking lot!" Andy insists. "We were there when she got out of her car. We can vouch that she didn't kill that man."

  Ray scratches his head and stares into space. "Maybe during that altercation before the ceremony, you slipped the serpent into his shirt without him knowing it."

  "Without anyone else seeing me?" I ask. "I'm afraid I don't have enough talent for that."

  He shrugs. "You could've transported the reptile in the hole in your ukulele."

  "How would I manage to get my hands on a poisonous snake in a place where there aren't any?" I ask. "Or blowfish poison? I didn't even know there was such a thing!"

  "About that…how did you know about the poison, and did you leak it to the papers?"

  I shake my head so vigorously my hair hurts. "Terry Flynn told me about it. I had no idea. And he didn't say where he'd heard it."

  Ray frowns. "I must have a leak in my office."

  Did he mean a mole or a physical leak? I'm starting to wonder if he had a leak in his head.

  I remember something. "Besides, Allison couldn't have died from blowfish poison! It takes time to work. It isn't instantaneous!" I grin like a snake that ate the bird of paradise in a fragile ecosystem.

  "So, you know a lot about blowfish poison for someone who claims they didn't know it was a thing." He narrows his eyes.

  He thinks he's got me. I am never, ever going to get through to this guy.

  I stand. "Are you going to charge me? Or can I go home?"

  "You can go. But like I said before, don't leave the island." The detective goes to the door, and once it closes behind him, he says, "Hey, Dr. Troy. I'm thinking the second murder wasn't blowfish poison."

  I'm too tired to say that was my idea. And it's only noon. This whole mess makes me so tired. I'm slipping into one exhausting depression after another. Do I go home? Do I run screaming into the jungle? Maybe it's time to start researching Greenland.

  "What do you want to do?" Binny asks.

  I look around. Pastor Dan has fled. Andy and Binny are the only ones here for me.

  "Sneak onto a plane bound for Mongolia?" I suggest.

  "I wish Ed was here," Andy mumbles. "He'd see that what your detective is doing isn't right."

  "Where is Ed?" I ask. "We haven't seen him much lately."

  "He's visiting the Na Aina Kai Botanical Gardens."

  Binny frowns. "And the other times he's been missing?"

  Andy shrugs. "He's gone hiking at Na Pali, taken surf lessons at the resort…the guy has been hitting the sights pretty hard. I rarely see him."

  "I wish Nick was here. We should find him." I pull out my cell and dial.

  "Na…ni…I…call…" Nick answers, his voice breaking up into syllables. And it's loud. Very loud.

  The call ends, but I immediately get a text. Arriving back from Hilo. Have some interesting news. Can we meet?

  That's a relief. Someone is getting somewhere on this case. I text back that we will meet him at his house. I don't want to go home. Being surrounded by my German heritage doesn't cheer me up. Besides, I'd love for Binny and Andy to see my boyfriend's house.

  "Hey!" I turn to my cousin. "What about your investigation yesterday with Nick?"

  "Let's talk about it later," Binny says.

  Two men walk by, each holding snakes. My friend jumps out of the way. I guess hearing that some of these are poisonous has made her wary now. I text Nick about meeting up at his house, and he agrees.

  I lead my friend and cousin out to my car. "I'll bring you guys back after. We're going to Nick's."

  Binny squeals with excitement. "I've only seen the outside of that house! Mama will be insanely jealous."

  Andy shrugs. "It's just a farmhouse, right?"

  I shake my head and smile for the first time today. "No. It's not just a farmhouse."

  We arrive before Nick. I call out, but his mother, Vera, isn't answering. The door is unlocked, so I give my friends a tour of the first floor.

  The Woodfield mansion is nothing short of magical. There are no other ways to describe it. About ten miles out of town, it sits on a lonely gravel road. A two-story box home with wraparound porches on both levels, it reminds me a little of houses in New Orleans.

  Inside, the worn-to-a-shine teak-wood floors and staircase demand respect. Vera always has the house filled with giant vases full of fresh flowers, and the walls are adorned with photos from generations of Woodfields all the way back to the Hawaiian princess and her Caucasian missionary husband.

  I feel a sense of pride as my best friend and cousin wander the house in silence, stroking the banister that has been smoothed by generations of Woodfields. Someday our kids will add their fingerprints to it…

  There I go again! What's with me? I'm not going to push Nick into marriage. We're still young. So what's with me getting nostalgic for weddings and children? Must be a madness side effect of being accused of three murders.

  Three murders.

  "Alright," I say to Andy. "Spill it. You were tailing Terry Flynn yesterday, and now he's dead. You had to have seen something."

  "He was at the paper for most of the time. But then Nick and I tailed him to this new strip mall next to the resort."

  Binny and I exchange looks. "We were there too. We didn't see you or him."

  Andy's mouth drops open. "You were there? When?"

  I fill my cousin in on our adventures, with Binny and I producing our keys at the end of the story.

  "It was later when we saw him," Andy muses. "After dinner at least. The whole place was dark."

  "Which office did he go into?" I ask. Then we'd just have to break into one place instead of three.

  "He ran around back." Andy shakes his head. "We didn't want to park in the lot and risk being seen, so we pulled further down the highway and ran through the jungle. By the time we got to the back of the building, there wasn't any sign of him. And the lights were still off."

  "So we're no closer to what's going on at the strip mall." I sigh.

  Binny pats me on the back. "Not necessarily. If you hadn't followed Titus there, we wouldn't have known about the place."

  "That's true," I admit. "And now we know something is definitely going on there. We just don't know how it fits into the murders. Don't you guys think it's weird that none of the victims appear to be connected to each other?"

  "It is strange," Binny muses. "The only connection they have is to you."

  "But there isn't really any connection. I've just always been in the wrong spot at the wrong time. I'm only guilty of being geographically close to the dead people."

  "You said you knew Allison," Andy says. Binny gives him a look, but I wave it off. He's just trying to think this through.

  "Yes, but not really. We'd worked together for a short time. We never got to know each other."

  "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!" I scream and jump up and down like a toddler having a tantrum. "I can't stand it! If the killer's trying to make me insane"—I look at the ceiling and shout—"it's working!"

  "What's working?" Nick says as he walks into the house, carrying bags from the Loco Moco.

  "Food!" Andy runs for the bags.

  My boyfriend laughs and leads us into his kitchen. Which is also ridiculously impressive. And you wouldn't believe how amazing the garden of a botanist is.

  "Is that the hedge maze?" Binny stares out the window.

  "The hedge maze?" Andy joins her. "Wow! Kind of like our cornfield mazes back home."

  "Mom was stuck in the middle of that maze," I say. It's mean, but maybe it makes up for her telling everyone I'd gotten lost in a cornfield.

  Andy turns to me very slowly—like you see in a movie. "Say that again?"

  "Let's take this outside to the lanai," Nick says as he puts the food on a large tray.

  We tell Andy about a time when we bested a bad guy. When we're done, he shakes his head.


  "And I thought Wichita was dangerous."

  We all laugh at that. Even though I doubt neither Nick nor Binny had ever been to Kansas.

  Nick nods. "We hadn't had a murder in decades. Then Nani shows up and all hell breaks loose."

  "It's been very murder-y this year," I agree. "But I've only been blamed for the first few and these. I can't claim the ones in between."

  Andy has a faraway look in his eyes. I wonder if he's missing home. He has only a few more days left in Kauai.

  Binny unnervingly reads my mind. "Have you been to see the waterfalls yet? Or the rainbow trees? Guess what. I'm taking you on a tour of my island tomorrow."

  "Okay." Andy blushes. "I'm in."

  "Why do I feel like I missed something today?" Nick asks, his eyes on mine.

  "Well," Andy says, "you missed one hell of a snake wedding."

  My boyfriend sits straight up. "Snakes? Real snakes? The slithering kind? They're illegal here!"

  "Now he tells us," I grumble as I reach for the shrimp.

  His mouth drops open. "You didn't know that?"

  I shake my head.

  "Oh wow. I wish I'd been there. I've only seen them on TV."

  To make him feel better, we fill him in on what will probably be known as the wedding of the century.

  "I hope Dan's going to be okay. They might go easy on tourists, but they won't go easy on someone who's lived here for a while."

  "You can't be serious. What about the amnesty program the detective talked about?"

  Nick shrugs. "That's only if you turn snakes in or report them to the right authorities. No jail time, no fines, nothing."

  Binny chews her lip worriedly. "Maybe we'd better call an attorney. He might need representation too."

  I love Pastor Dan. I really do. But he's been driving me nuts lately. He shouldn't have asked me to run after Mary Lou, and when he saw the blowfish décor, he should've refused. That man is going to have to work hard to get back into my good graces.

  "I'll call my guy on Oahu," Nick adds.

  "Hey!" I shout. "I just remembered! You said you were just in Hilo!"

  "I'm surprised you didn't bring that up earlier," Nick teases. "Yes. I was in Hilo." He turns to Andy. "A friend of mine has a local helicopter service, and he had a free day."

  "Well?" Binny asks.

  "Well." Nick takes a drink from his beer bottle. "I found out a little about Allison."

  We stare at him.

  "You can't keep us waiting like this," I say as I lightly punch him in the arm. "I'm likely to kill someone else if you don't tell us what's going on."

  Nick holds up his hands defensively. "Okay, okay! I did find out something. Turns out that Allison wasn't single. She had a husband or boyfriend or something like that. A guy who uncannily fits the description of Fake Ed."

  "No!" I shout. "Really?"

  He nods. "Really. They were from the mainland. Kansas City, Kansas, in fact. They'd only been on the Big Island a week or so before coming here. The resort was sorry to lose her so quickly."

  The group is silent for a while as we digest this new information.

  "That connects Fake Ed and Allison. It also connects them to Kansas. Not Felix specifically, but it's close enough," I say.

  "So what is Fake Ed's real name?" Andy asks.

  Nick frowns. "My contact wasn't sure. He'd seen him a few times but never met him."

  "Who's your contact in Hilo?" I wonder.

  "He's the head of activities for a resort. All of which shall remain anonymous. This guy broke some serious rules just getting me that info."

  "That's fair," Andy says. The rest of us agree.

  "So what's their connection to Terry Flynn? And why did they steal Real Ed's ID? And who killed them? And why frame me?" I can't help but ask.

  "Seems like even though we know some answers, we have new questions," Binny says.

  "He could've taken the ID because of the resemblance," Andy thinks out loud.

  "That's a good theory!" Binny rewards him with a grin. Wow. I think she likes him way more than she told me.

  "Maybe we should call Ed and include him. He might have some fresh insights into the case."

  Andy pulls out his phone and texts. A second later, his cell beeps.

  "He's in Princeville. Says he's at a club with some new friends."

  "Ed is really taking in the sights here," I say.

  My cousin shrugs. "He's in Hawaii. Who knows if he'll ever be here again?"

  "So why aren't you doing all this stuff with him?" Nick asks.

  Andy blushes a deep crimson, and just for a second his eyes turn to Binny. Ah. That's why.

  I change the subject. "Andy told us about you following Terry yesterday."

  Nick shakes his head. "Not much to go on."

  Binny tells him about us casing the strip mall. When she mentions the keys, Nick looks worried.

  "I don't think you two should check it out. Andy and I can do that."

  My eyes narrow. "Why, exactly?"

  Nick looks as if he's going to say something then changes his mind.

  "Why don't we all go?" Binny asks. "Andy and I can check out Aloha Lagoon Insurance, and you and Nick can break into Island Insurance."

  "Okay. We should probably go tonight." Now why did I say that? Even though we thought it was fine to take the keys, breaking in seemed very dangerous.

  "Sounds good." Nick nods. "But we should wait until later. When no one is likely to be on the road."

  "In the meantime, the only thing I have in common with Allison and Fake Ed is Kansas. Except for Terry. We should look him up!" I jump to my feet and dash inside, returning with Nick's iPad.

  "A reporter would have an online presence, right? Don't they want their work out there?" I ask as I type in the name of the dead man.

  "Whoa," Binny says over my shoulder as everyone crowds around me. "There are a lot of Flynns."

  "And about two hundred named Terry." This is going to be more work than I thought.

  Nick runs in and brings out his laptop. We form little teams, Binny and me on the tablet and the boys on the laptop. We look for anything on anyone with the keywords reporter and Terry Flynn.

  After an hour and a half, I shove the tablet away and rub my eyes.

  "I think we should call it."

  The others nod. No one came up with one single collection for the annoying reporter. Nick suggests going to the Aloha Sun for answers, but we don't want the staff at the paper to wonder what we're doing.

  The four of us spend the next few hours relaxing on Nick's lanai. Binny and Andy check out the hedge maze, and I have to say there was a fair amount of giggling coming from that greenery.

  Finally we clean up and get ready to head out. Nick produces flashlights, and we all cram into my car for the drive to the strip mall. We arrive around midnight but park the car at the resort, deciding to sneak through the jungle in order to avoid being seen.

  To say that I'm nervous would be the understatement of the year. Sure, we could've gone to the police. We could've waited for Ed. But this whole mess is taking too long, and I want it over. Besides, I don't think I can talk my friends out of it.

  The foliage is dense and dark, but it's not quiet. I didn't realize how noisy animals were at night. It's slowgoing. We don't want to use our flashlights much, fearing that bright, bouncing specks of light will be seen.

  Nick and Binny creep through the trees without making any noise, while Andy and I sound like charging bulls. I'm sure they're used to walking through the jungle. Andy trips over a tree root, but Nick catches him before he hits the ground.

  I'm once again questioning our plan. In the car on the way over, we'd decided to split up once we get in the back door. But now I realize that the keys we have might only be for the offices or the back door. It would be a long shot to think they'd open both.

  Nick stops abruptly at the tree line, and we all crash into his back.

  "What do you think?" he asks.

 
; The parking lot is lit by two tall streetlights. There isn't a car in sight.

  "Are there any surveillance cameras?" I ask as I struggle to get to the front.

  Binny shakes her head. "I don't see any."

  "We should skirt the tree line until we are in back," Andy suggests. "Just in case."

  So, we keep to the trees. There's a little more light here, so there's less tripping over stuff, for which I'm very grateful. When I get home, I'm going to have several bruises to deal with. In minutes we are facing the single back door to the building.

  "Cameras?" I ask again.

  "We should've worn hoodies," Nick muses. "But I don't see any."

  The light from the parking lot doesn't quite reach back here, which is good. We decide that Nick will approach the door alone, trying both keys in the locks. If an alarm goes off, we will hightail it back to the resort, but only one of us is in danger of being discovered.

  Nick keeps his head down as he darts to the door. The first key works, and he carefully pushes the door open. We wait to hear an alarm that doesn't go off. The rest of us join him in slipping through the back door. Nick hands us each a pair of latex gloves. How clever of him!

  It's dark inside, but our flashlights provide enough illumination. It's eerily quiet, except for my thumping heart. Nick hands Andy one key, and he and Binny head for the door of Aloha Lagoon Insurance while Nick and I step over to Island Insurance.

  Both keys work, and we look across at each other curiously.

  "One key works for the locks of both doors?" I whisper. "How idiotic is that?"

  Nick doesn't answer—he just shoves me into the back room and closes the door behind him. I flip on a light switch, and we are temporarily blinded.

  "I can't believe that worked," I say softly.

  "Me neither," Nick says. "We have to hurry. I didn't see an alarm unit on the doors, but who knows?"

  We split the room up with Nick on the right and me on the left. To my shock, the files are expertly organized in alpha order. And there are many. Smoot has a lot of clients. That's a surprise.

  "Any luck?" Nick calls over his shoulder.

  I shake my head. "Nothing but insurance files. I don't see anything else."

  "Me neither," Nick says as he goes back to sorting through papers.