She was also exhausted. By the time she got home, her feet were dragging, and she was having a hard time holding onto the motivation to put effort into anything, let alone cooking, which was unfamiliar to her these days. In hopes of getting a second wind, Sadie read through the recipe and put the coconut milk in a strainer over a bowl to get it ready to make into syrup.
However, the second wind she’d hoped for didn’t materialize, and when Pete called, she was relieved to be able to sit on the futon with her cell phone and tell him all about Officer Wington, Mr. Olie, and her hair. He was relieved with her progress, and though he didn’t say it out loud, she felt that he was okay with her not calling the police. It would be a few weeks before she’d know what he thought about her hair.
“Good work,” Pete said. “You had a very productive day.”
“I did,” Sadie said, unable to hide her own smile of satisfaction. “And even though it was kind of scary, it was really good. Thank you for your help. I couldn’t have done it without a cheering section and you finding Mr. Olie for me.”
“I’m glad I could help from so far away,” he said. “I’m jealous that it’s Gayle coming out and not me.”
“Oh,” Sadie said, touched, but slightly horrified by the thought. “You’re not ready for me. I still have some work to do.”
Pete chuckled. “I’ll have you any way I can get you.”
Sadie felt her cheeks heat up. Pete must have caught the unintended implication too because he cleared his throat and changed the subject. “What next?” he asked.
“Well,” Sadie said, happy to follow his lead, “I think I want to talk to the employee who loaned Noelani the car that night. She also attended a church in Kalaheo, so maybe I could talk to her minister after my appointment with Dr. McKay tomorrow.”
“Sounds like another full day, then.”
“Yes,” Sadie agreed. “Brimming. In a good way, I hope.”
“You sound tired.”
“I’m exhausted,” Sadie admitted. “At least I earned my exhaustion today, though.”
“I’m proud of you,” Pete said. “You did some good today.”
“Thanks,” Sadie said, letting the compliment wash over her.
“I’ll let you get some rest, okay?”
He must have forgotten it was only four thirty in the afternoon in Hawai’i. She needed to be on a normal sleep schedule before Gayle arrived, so she was determined to stay up until at least nine o’clock.
“But we’ll talk again tomorrow, and if you need me for any reason, don’t hesitate to call, okay?”
“Okay.”
They said their gooey-sweet good-byes, and Sadie put the phone on the end table before deciding to rest her eyes for a minute. Okay, ten minutes. Maybe twenty.
The sound of someone knocking at the door caused her to bolt upright. What time is it? She hurried to the door, pulling it open before she had time to think about being anxious about a visitor.
Mr. Olie filled the porch, and Sadie stopped in silent surprise. “Mr. Olie,” she said once she remembered her manners. “Um, hi.”
He nodded his head in response, but didn’t offer anything more.
“Would you like to come in?” Sadie asked. She still didn’t know what time it was but the shadows outside were growing dark as they prepared for sunset. Seven o’clock? Maybe eight?
He shook his head and let out a breath, his large hands shoved into the front pockets of his Bermuda shorts that still showed some grease stains from his fish tacos at lunch. “I dropped in on Charlie’s foster home.”
“Was he there?” Sadie said eagerly.
Mr. Olie nodded. “He was at school, but came home while I was there.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Sadie said, letting out a breath. Charlie was home. He was safe.
Mr. Olie continued. “I told his foster mom that someone thought they’d seen him somewhere on Tuesday, and she said he had come home after the memorial service and had stayed home the rest of the day.”
Sadie felt heat well up in her chest. Did Mr. Olie think she was lying about Charlie having come to Puhi? “He was here,” she defended. “Right here. I fed him some shoyu chicken and he left his list.”
“His foster mother was lying to me,” Mr. Olie said. “It was a normal visit until I mentioned that afternoon, and then she was nervous and fidgety. When Charlie came home, she hurried me out the door. I’ve done this a long time; I know when I’m being lied to. CeeCee has never been dishonest with me before.”
CeeCee, Sadie noted in her mind. She was Charlie’s foster mother, the one the police had been talking to when Charlie had overheard Sadie’s name.
Sadie remembered that Mr. Olie had referred to Charlie’s foster home as one of his best homes. She thought about the two other cases he’d told her about, how discouraging they’d been. How hopeless he’d felt.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said, unsure of what else she could say.
“I have an idea,” Mr. Olie said.
“Oh?”
“Why don’t you talk to her?”
“Oh, uh . . .” Sadie glanced around as though she might see an excuse why she couldn’t do that. It was an automatic response she’d honed well over the months she’d made up reasons why she couldn’t go out with Konnie and the Blue Muumuus. But she caught herself this time. She’d wanted to answer Charlie’s questions, and it was silly to assume the pursuit of those answers wouldn’t raise a few more questions along the way. “Why me?”
“I didn’t paint her into a corner or confront her with what you’ve told me, but I think you can get her to tell you the truth. Will you do it?”
Sadie wanted to say no. But she also wanted to help Charlie, and Mr. Olie was asking her to help him do that. Be brave. “Can I have a few minutes to put together something to eat? All I had was cereal this morning, and I’m starving.” And she needed a little time to absorb the unexpected request.
Mr. Olie’s face lit up, showing the most animation Sadie had ever seen from him before. It startled her, and she found herself reflexively closing the door a little as though to protect her from something she didn’t understand. “Any chance you have enough to share?”
Sadie relaxed and felt another link to the Sadie she had once been fall into place. Feeding people, sharing what she had with someone else, was something familiar.
“I certainly do,” she said, standing to the side of the door and pulling it wide open. “And I’d love the company.”
Chapter 16
Mr. Olie had left his shoes at the door, an island tradition Sadie had forgotten about since she had so few visitors and was a visitor to other people’s homes even less. Like, never. Once he’d taken a seat at the kitchen table, Sadie offered him a Pop Tart for the sake of time. His face fell. “That’s what you meant when you said you were going to make something?”
“Well, no, I was going to make macadamia nut pancakes with coconut syrup, but I didn’t know if there was time.”
His expression brightened immediately and he nodded quickly. “There’s time. Charlie isn’t going anywhere.”
“It’ll take me about fifteen minutes,” Sadie warned, glancing at the clock to see what time it was: 7:02.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Home-cooked food is worth waiting for.”
Sadie began assembling the ingredients she needed. Tanya had a pancake recipe, but Sadie was partial to her own so she made it instead, adding the vanilla extract and the nuts.
“I eat out a lot,” he said out of the blue.
Sadie gave him a sympathetic smile, wondering if part of the reason for his gruff personality was because he was lonely. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, and he didn’t talk like someone with a lot of close connections. That was too bad. At the same time, if he weren’t so prickly, maybe he’d have a wife or a girlfriend who’d cook for him. Life was funny that way.
He looked at his large hands clasped together on the tabletop. “Could I look at Charlie’s list?”
�
�Sure,” Sadie said, wiping her hands on her muumuu and heading toward her bag to retrieve it. He looked over the list and asked Sadie about Charlie’s visit, which she relayed to him in detail as she mixed the batter in a bowl and brought the syrup to a boil on the stove. It was a relief to tell someone. Not that Pete and Gayle didn’t count, but to tell someone who knew Charlie was different. She worried Mr. Olie would question why she didn’t go after Charlie when he left the first time, but he didn’t ask. Just listened.
When she finished, she asked about his visit with Charlie’s foster mother, CeeCee, hoping Mr. Olie would be as open with her as she’d been with him.
He paused and then said that he’d driven straight to the foster home after dropping her off in Puhi earlier in the day. That meant the foster home was south of Puhi. She wondered if it was in Kalaheo, where Noelani had lived and worked.
“CeeCee asked me about permanent placement again.”
“Again?” Sadie asked. The first pancakes were cooking on the griddle, but she was out of practice arranging the order of what she cooked, and the syrup wasn’t ready yet. It was a novice mistake that annoyed her.
“CeeCee and her husband, Yogi, have fostered boys for almost twenty years; they’ve also adopted four of the boys they fostered. Yogi passed away six years ago. CeeCee continues to foster and does a wonderful job—always in compliance, very loving, and yet strong enough to properly guide the children in her home. All four of her boys are grown and doing well—two are married with children of their own, another one is in the military. She’s as good as they come, and Charlie’s been a good fit with her. She told me a few months ago that if things didn’t work out with Noelani, she wanted to look into adopting Charlie.” He paused, watching hungrily as Sadie flipped the pancakes. They smelled absolutely wonderful.
After a few seconds, she looked at him with an expectant expression, and he shook himself out of his scent-induced stupor. Sadie took pride in having created it, but she still wanted to hear the rest of what he had to say.
“When the family court gave Noelani ninety days, I told CeeCee about it in person because I knew it would be hard for her. She was supportive of reunification, which she knows is the first priority of DHS, but now Noelani’s gone, and she’s apparently still interested in pursuing the possibility of adoption.”
“Which is probably why she lied to you about him being gone. She didn’t want to endanger her chances.” Sadie hoped that CeeCee wanting to adopt Charlie hadn’t played some part in Noelani’s death. It was a horrible thought.
She stirred the syrup, relieved that it was thickening up nicely. Thank goodness she’d drained the coconut milk before lying on the couch.
Mr. Olie nodded, but he was watching Sadie carefully as she moved the pancakes from the griddle onto two plates. She topped both of them with the hot, white syrup and slid one plate in front of Mr. Olie and the other in front of the seat across from him.
“Mahalo,” he said as he cut a bite from his pancake. He put the first syrup-dripping bite into his mouth and chewed it slowly, as if savoring every moment.
Sadie sat down and smiled as she cut a bite of her own. It felt good to see someone enjoy her food again. It had been a long time, not counting Charlie. The food she’d served him had consisted of brownies from a mix and the chicken and rice Konnie had cooked—nothing that inspired a lot of pride.
Sadie got up to put a new batch of pancakes on the griddle, and then they both ate in silence for a few minutes. She got up to turn the pancakes and then again to remove them from the griddle. She put the syrup on a trivet on the table and the extra pancakes on a plate in the center. Mr. Olie put three more pancakes on his plate as soon as he finished his first serving.
Sadie waited until he started slowing down before talking again. The old Sadie would never interrupt someone’s moment of joyful eating. When he asked for a glass of milk, however, she was embarrassed not to have thought of it first. She got the milk from the fridge and filled a glass, which he drained half of in a single swallow. She topped off his glass and poured herself one of her own before putting the milk back in the fridge.
“What makes you think Charlie’s foster mom will tell me the truth?” she asked.
“You’re a woman. You’re not government. You’re safe.”
“I’m malihini. I’m haole. I’m . . . anxious.”
“It’s our best bet,” he said, resting his fork and knife on the edges of his plate. “Look, if Charlie ran and CeeCee didn’t report it, she knows she’s in big trouble, and so is Charlie. She could lose her certification. Charlie will go to detention if that happens, probably on O’ahu, and the hard things he’s dealing with will get a whole lot worse. Right now there’s still a good chance she’ll be able to adopt Charlie.”
“Except that she lied to the social worker who would be a key person in recommending the adoption take place, right?”
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Mr. Olie said. “The letter of the law isn’t always the right choice, but she won’t take the chance of trusting me not to follow the rules because I have the power to stop the adoption completely.”
“So, if I get the information from her, you won’t write her up or whatever you would do?”
“That depends on what happened, and why she lied. I need to understand her motives . . . without also putting myself at risk of being taken off her case.”
“For not reporting what you know.”
“What she would know I know,” he clarified. “By not confiding in me, she doesn’t know I’m aware of what’s going on, and I don’t worry about her going around me.”
“To your superiors,” Sadie said, filling in the blanks.
Mr. Olie nodded.
She held his eyes for a minute. “Why trust me? You don’t even know me.”
“You didn’t call the police about Charlie, and you came to Lihue to talk to me. I think our goals are aligned. We both want to know Charlie’s safe and ensure that he stays that way. I need to know why CeeCee lied to me in order to properly assess the situation, but I can’t ask her myself.”
Sadie nodded, but found it difficult to swallow her bite of pancake. She’d talked to a lot of different types of people over the last year and a half as she pieced together different mysteries. She knew how to do it, and she had rarely been nervous in the past, surely she could do it again. She took a deep breath and lifted her head, determined to appear confident and capable, even if internally she questioned both of those things.
“Can I ask one more question?”
Though he didn’t nod, he didn’t tell her no either.
“What were the special circumstances that brought Noelani and Charlie to Kaua’i?”
He looked down at his plate and took a bite before he answered. “You already know Charlie was removed from his mother’s care two years ago when she was arrested. Her brother was the only local relative DHS felt was capable of caring for him, so Charlie went to live with him while she served her time. Six months into the placement, a few weeks before Noelani was going to be released, the brother was arrested for child abuse.”
“Against Charlie?” Sadie said, a lump in her throat.
“Some,” he said. “Mostly his own boy, but Charlie got a fair amount as well. A neighbor had called the caseworker months earlier, but she didn’t follow up the way she should have. She had almost twice the cases she should have been carrying at the time. Charlie was put in foster care after his uncle’s arrest. Due to the circumstances of Noelani’s arrest and parole, Charlie couldn’t be returned to her custody immediately upon her release. She was determined to get her son back, however, and the state made some accommodations because of what had happened with her brother. We had a very specific set of guidelines and timelines that would put her and Charlie back together again—including rehab, parenting classes, gainful employment, and community involvement. The state felt that having her and Charlie both come to Kaua’i and work with a new caseworker—me—and a new judge would
create a better environment for her to meet the goals we set before her.”
Sadie tried to hide her surprise at the flood of information. It felt like wonderful progress in regard to their relationship. “Are those circumstances part of why you’re giving CeeCee the benefit of the doubt and working so hard to figure out what happened?”
Banana Split Page 11
