by Toby Neal
“No. I’m still determining the point of origin, though the directionality of the char pattern makes me think it started somewhere on the cane haul road. This guy was somewhere in this field when it went up. Maybe a homeless guy, sleeping in the cane. No shoes makes me think so.”
“So what did the body tell you?” Dr. Gregory, the ME, asked. Stevens thought he might be testing the fire investigator’s assessment.
“Wasn’t trapped in the flames for an extended period—see, the arms are in fairly good shape.” Owen pointed out the folded, crabbed arms. “His face is even recognizable. The feet are worked over, but they were exposed, maybe he ran across some burning area with bare feet. Beneath the body, he’s got fabric intact. So my take is, the fire woke him up but he was probably dazed from smoke. These cane fires move fast, and he wasn’t moving fast enough. He collapsed, here, and the fire flashed over him. Burned awhile in this spot, enough to cook his feet pretty good.”
Gregory nodded. “Good.”
“We don’t get many vagrants or homeless sleeping in the cane.” Stevens said. “Lots of spiders in there.” The cane spiders were famous in Hawaii. Hairy and brown, with long slender legs, they grew six to eight inches in diameter and dominated their home in the sugarcane. “The cane is sharp. Not much camping in there between the spiders and leaves sharp enough to cut you.”
“Seems like that’s a good thing. I’m new here, so just getting the ‘lay of the land’ so to speak, but I’m already concerned with so many of these arson burns happening. Makes me think someone’s targeting the sugarcane company,” Owen said.
“Could be,” Stevens said. “Do you have any inspections or interviews set up with them?”
“Matter of fact, I do. Tomorrow morning, talking with upper management at the Puunene Mill, seeing if they have any idea about who might have it in for them.” Owen wiped his sweating face with a bandanna, and Stevens could see how young he was, and new to the island, he might not get that far talking to the locals without support.
“Well, now that this is a homicide case, how about Ferreira and I tag along?”
“That would be great.” Stevens didn’t think he was imagining the note of relief in the young man’s voice. “Can’t understand the pidgin when people get going.”
Ferreira stepped up, stuck out his hand. “Joshua Ferreira. Know a lot of people at the company. I can help.”
“Excellent.”
They exchanged details for the next morning’s meeting while Dr. Gregory and Tanaka, his assistant, got the body bagged with the help of the EMTs who had come out on the call. Stevens was relieved when the body, still reeking even in the bag, was on the way to the morgue.
Human barbeque wasn’t something he ever wanted to see again. A bad feeling clung to him, along with the smell.
Lei Texeira drove up the winding two-lane road through rural Haiku on Maui’s north shore. Tall eucalyptus trees, giant tree ferns, wandering vines, and bright sprays of ginger and heliconia bordered the road. It was a mellow thirty-minute drive from her workplace, Maui Police Station in downtown Kahului, to the home she and Stevens had bought in the countryside area. Her flagging energy lifted as she turned up the graveled driveway. Coming home always did that for her, especially now that her father, Wayne, had moved to Maui and was taking care of baby Kiet during the day.
Their new house was set back from the road behind an automatic gate. She hit the buttons and retracted it. The fence around the property was ten feet high, made of cedar, and provided both protection and privacy. Keiki, her battle-scarred Rottweiler, greeted the truck with happy barks and ran alongside as she drew up to the house.
“New” wasn’t actually the right word for the house. It was forty years old, surrounded by fruit-bearing trees, and built in the sprawling plantation-style she and Stevens loved. It had been added onto so the original square had multiplied. Still, the size and acreage would have made it an impossible investment for a young couple just starting out if Lei’s Aunty Rosario hadn’t left Lei her bungalow in California as an inheritance. Wayne had helped them sell it after Aunty’s recent death to buy the house, and now they carried a small, manageable mortgage. The property even had a small “ohana” cottage, where Wayne lived.
She pulled into the open garage, beeped the truck locked, and went up the steps to the security door. “Hey Dad,” she called, unlocking the steel-grilled door. Even out here in the country, they weren’t safe. An unknown enemy they’d taken to calling the ‘shroud killer’ was still at large, and until he was found, they needed to take every precaution.
“Hey, Sweets,” her dad called from the kitchen. “He’s excited to see you.” Lei heard the baby yell, “Ba-ba-ba!”
“I’m coming!” Lei exclaimed, slipping her shoes off onto the rack beside the front door. “Let me just drop off my weapon.” She padded quickly to the bedroom, draped the shoulder holster over the headboard of the king-sized bed, emptying her badge and accouterments into a basket on the side table. She and Stevens were going to have to start locking up their weapons soon, but they had a few months more until Kiet began crawling around and getting into everything.
Lei was eager to get a shower, but Kiet was waiting. She hurried across the polished wood floor of the living room to the kitchen, and broke into a smile at the sight of her stepson in his chair seat on the table, waving his hands, one tooth shining like a pearl in the big grin he gave her.
“Who’s my handsome boy?” She smiled into Kiet’s jade-dark, smoky green eyes. His shock of black hair always stood on end, and it quivered like a rooster’s tail as she unstrapped him from the bouncy chair. The baby immediately grabbed her curls with both hands, giggling as she lifted him, blowing on his tummy. He kicked his legs and giggled some more, and she hugged him close, turning to her father. “He’s in a good mood, Dad.”
Wayne was checking something on the stove. By the smell, she guessed it was teriyaki chicken. “He’s had a great day. Now that tooth is out, he’s back to being our happy boy.”
Lei put the baby on her hip, and took one of his chubby hands in hers and pretended to waltz around the kitchen. Kiet yelled with excitement.
“Don’t get him too riled up before dinner, or he’ll throw the food. Remember what happened last time,” Wayne said.
“Oh yeah.” Lei snuggled her face into Kiet’s neck and blew, and he giggled again. “He’ll calm down. I have to go shower anyway, in a minute.”
“He’s not going to want to let you out of his sight.”
“Is that so?” Lei swung Kiet around in front of her, and he laughed again.
“I’ll give him his bath in the sink. That’ll distract him,” Wayne turned on the water.
“Until Daddy gets home,” Lei said. Stevens had a different way with Kiet than she did, but the baby seemed to enjoy being with his dad just as much.
Wayne ran the sink full of warm water and Lei undressed the baby, stripping off his onesie and diaper. Wayne, his smile indulgent, checked the water temperature with his wrist, and gestured for Lei to bring him over.
“Come on in, the water’s fine, little man,” he said, taking his grandchild, but the minute Kiet’s feet touched the water, the baby drew them up against his body, squinching his face. “Oh, not warm enough?” Wayne added more hot water, holding the baby close.
Lei left them sorting that out and went back to the bathroom off the master bedroom. She showered, and as she did these days, checked in with the changes in her body. Her breasts were a size larger and tender, and her belly had a fullness to it that had tightened the waistband of her jeans. Another thing no one had told her about pregnancy—how taut her uterus was, like she was growing a coconut in there. Other than occasional nausea and an acute reaction to smells, Lei felt great.
It was a strange feeling that her body knew what to do all on its own. She still felt surprised that this was the direction her life had gone—marriage, motherhood, living in a house with her dad as the ‘manny’—but she couldn’t imagine
another life, now. The grief that she wasn’t sharing this with her beloved aunt still came over her in waves, and this time she shut her eyes and turned her face into the flow of water from the shower, letting the sorrow move through her.
She was out of the shower and playing with Kiet out on the porch when Stevens drove up in his Bronco. Sitting in the old porch rocking chair, she turned Kiet outward as Stevens got out of the truck. The baby flexed his legs, hopping and reaching toward his father. “Ba-ba-ba!”
“Hey, little man.” Stevens came up on the porch, leaning down to kiss the baby. Lei drew back, sniffing, before he could kiss her.
“Yuck. Shower first. Been near a fire?”
“Yeah. You saw the smoke earlier?”
“Sure did. Another cane fire. It was out by the time I passed it.”
“Fire caught a body this time. I’ll tell you when I’m out of the shower and you’ll let me kiss you.” He winked as he went inside. Kiet bounced and strained after his father as Stevens disappeared into the house.
Lei spun the baby around. “He’ll be back. In the meantime, you’ll have to make do with me.”
Kiet grinned, grabbing a handful of her hair and putting it in his mouth. She was still detaching it as she made her way back to the kitchen. “Can I help you with anything, Dad?”
“Nope. Tell that husband of yours dinner’s ready in fifteen minutes.” Wayne was tossing a salad. He’d learned kitchen skills in prison, and been on kitchen duty for a year, he’d told her one day. He prepared healthy meals for the family five nights a week, kept the house picked up, and took care of the baby during the day. Lei insisted on paying him a small salary and he had his own cottage. So far, the arrangement seemed to be working out. As far as Lei was concerned, it was close to perfect, and the busyness seemed to be helping Wayne stay distracted from the loss of his sister.
“I’ll go tell Stevens,” Lei said. She tried to put the baby in his bouncy seat, but he grunted and writhed and arched his back, so she toted him back into the bathroom, opening the shower to say to Stevens, “Dinner in fifteen. Is your brother still coming?”
“Said he was,” Stevens said, not turning around, and she took a minute to enjoy the view of his long, muscular back as he rinsed his hair under the flow of water. Then Kiet pulled her hair again, and Lei sighed as she turned away. Chances to join Stevens in that oversized shower were few and far between nowadays, with the baby to keep entertained and her father always around.
She heard the beep-beep-beep on the control panel by the front door that told her someone had punched in the code and activated the gate—probably Jared. Only a handful of friends had the code. Lei felt her spirits lift—she enjoyed Jared’s company, and his presence at their family dinners livened things up.
She walked out onto the porch as Jared drove up in the lifted tan Tacoma he drove, pipe racks on the truck stacked with his ‘toys’—a couple of surfboards, a stand-up paddleboard, and a single-man canoe.
“Hey bro,” Lei called as he got out of the vehicle. She held up Kiet’s hand and waved it at him. Jared grinned, walking toward her with the swift grace he shared with Stevens. He had similar height and blue eyes, but more regular and chiseled features, a leanness that looked whipcord strong, and as a firefighter he spent time working out that Stevens didn’t put in. When he wasn’t at the station he was out enjoying the ocean sports of Maui. All of that added up to spectacular.
“Hey sis. Hope you weren’t the one cooking,” Jared said, with that wicked grin that Lei knew had kicked a lot of hearts into overdrive. She pretended to punch him in the rock-hard midsection and he folded comically, making Kiet laugh.
“You know better than that,” Lei said. “Take your nephew, please. He’s eating my hair again.”
“He has good taste,” Jared said. “Hey, buddy.” He pried Kiet’s hands out of Lei’s hair and lifted him up. “How’s my favorite future firefighter?”
“He’s going into something safe. Like accounting,” Stevens called from inside the house. “Stop that evil talk.”
Jared grinned again, heading into the house with the baby, and Lei racked her brain for who she could set him up with. Sophie Ang? Her friend was still single, though it had seemed like there might have been some sparks with Alika Wolcott, Ang’s MMA fighting coach… Lei tried to imagine her serious tech-agent friend with daredevil, fun-loving Jared. They were so different, it just might work.
She followed Jared into the house and helped set the table while Jared and Stevens discussed the fire and the “human chicken wing” found on the side of the road. “What do you think of the new fire investigator? Tim Owen?” Stevens asked.
“Seems to know his stuff. I’ve taken him out stand-up paddling. Since we’re both new to the island, we’ve been getting out on the ocean together.”
“I envy your schedule,” Stevens said. It wasn’t the first time he’d said that, Lei thought. Maybe the time had come for the two of them to just work the hours they were supposed to—but she doubted they would be able to stick with those kinds of resolutions the next time a big case came along.
“Thanks for making dinner, Dad,” Lei said, kissing her father’s leathery cheek quickly as she took a large casserole dish swimming with teriyaki chicken from him. “This looks so good.”
“Easy stuff,” Wayne said. “Hard to go wrong with good ingredients.”
“Hey, Mr. Texeira, this looks great!” Jared said. He’d handed Kiet off to Stevens and took a pot of rice from Wayne. “Thanks so much for having me.”
“Always room and food for family,” Wayne said. “It’s past time you started calling me Wayne, already. Hope you brought that dessert you promised me last week.”
“Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me. I left it in the truck.”
Jared took off, and Lei quirked a brow at her father. “What’s he bringing?”
“Surprise. Let’s go to the table while the food’s hot.”
They sat down around the picnic table on the covered back deck, mercifully screened from mosquitoes, and Stevens was able to get Kiet into his bouncy seat. The baby still needed too much support to sit in the high chair, so he was positioned on the seat on the bench.
“My turn to feed you, tonight,” Stevens said to Kiet, tying on the boy’s bib. Lei loved how they traded everything off with the baby.
“His rice cereal’s in the microwave,” Wayne said, carrying a big wooden bowl of salad past Lei to set on the table as she fetched the baby’s bowl of cereal. Jared returned, with something in a brown paper bag that he stowed in the freezer.
They ate, sharing snippets about the day. Jared told them about the rash of arson cane fires. “There’ve been four of these, as you guys must have seen in the news. But now that there’s been a homicide, it takes things up a notch. With you guys working with Tim, hopefully we’ll get the arsonist sooner rather than later.”
Wayne shook his silver-shot, curly head. “Homeless guy had to be pretty desperate, sleeping in a cane field.”
“Just what I said,” Stevens replied. “It’ll be interesting to see if there’s more to it than that.” Lei watched him feed Kiet a mouthful of rice cereal with the soft plastic baby spoon. Kiet smacked his thighs in excitement, then tried to grab the spoon. “Catch it with your mouth, little man,” Stevens said, smiling as he got another bite into the baby.
Lei put her hand on Stevens’s thigh, kneading the muscles there. His patience and tenderness with Kiet made her love him in new ways. But happy scenes like this always reminded her of Anchara, Kiet’s murdered mother, Stevens’s ex-wife. The baby’s presence with them was wholly due to tragedy. Her killer had been caught, but Lei still thought there was more to the picture than the man had ever confessed.
But, maybe he had been the shroud killer. After he was taken into custody, things had gone quiet. In four months, there had been nothing further after an escalating series of events. Lei took a bite of salad, wondering if she could get away to her computer after dinner. She had a secr
et she was working on, and there would be hell to pay if Stevens found out about it.
To Be Continued, Fall 2014.
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Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Acknowledgments:
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