"Were there any witnesses?" she asked.
"Not to the murder itself, but just about as important. A doctor not only tripped over the victim, but thinks he may have come face to face with the killer."
"Oh..." Leila gazed at the detective.
"Yeah. He was jogging when he nearly ran into a guy, who apparently couldn't get away from here fast enough."
The notion that they might finally have a solid description of a killer who may have been responsible for several murders on Maui excited Leila.
"Where is he...?"
"Over there waiting patiently. Name's Evan Locklear."
She looked beyond the crime scene and saw a tall, gray-haired man. He was talking on a cell phone. It occurred to her that there were times that the actual killer pretended to be a witness to the crime as part of his or her perverse gratification. Could this be one of those times?
Walking over to him, Leila watched as he hastily ended his call.
"Mr. Locklear—" she began, giving him the benefit of the doubt.
"Yes," he said evenly.
She detected a Southern accent. "I'm Detective Sergeant Kahana of the Maui Police Department. I understand that you called 911 after discovering the body in the sand."
He smoothed a thick brow. "That's right."
"And you're a doctor?"
"Yes."
Right, I've heard that before. Just what have you been up to, Doc? Leila thought sardonically. She asked the man: "What type of doctor are you?"
"I'm a cardiovascular surgeon."
She was impressed. "So when you discovered the body, there were no signs of life?"
"I'm afraid not." He grimaced. "I wish I could've saved her."
That would have been nice, she thought. But her killer had seen to it that she wouldn't live to identify him.
"Are you visiting the island, Dr. Locklear?"
"Yes. My wife and I decided to get out of Charleston, South Carolina for some fun in the sun." He frowned. "But I certainly never expected anything like this."
"I'm sorry it ruined your vacation," Leila said sincerely. "Tell me about the man you saw."
He sighed. "Well, I didn't get a very good look at him. He was just there all of a sudden. I only caught a glimpse of his face before he took off running."
She considered that the man may have been running for some reason other than having just murdered a woman. After all, that was what the good doctor claimed he was doing.
"Was he tall? Short? What about his race?"
"He was about my height," Locklear admitted. "Maybe a bit heavier. Had short hair. Not sure what color."
"Was he Caucasian? Asian? African-American? Something else...?"
"He wasn't African-American," Locklear said. "I can't be sure about any other race or ethnicity."
"How old was he?"
"I'd say early to mid-thirties."
That was a start, Leila mused, though hardly definitive. "Do you think you could provide a description of him to a sketch artist?" That would be her.
He hesitated. "Like I said, I barely saw the guy."
She peered at him. "But you did see him, which is all we've got right now for the possible suspect to a murder. Any help you could provide could lead us to the killer—"
"Sure," he said, running a hand across his chin. "I'll do the best I can."
"Mahalo," Leila said, figuring he would get the gist that it meant thank you. "If you could drop by the police department sometime this morning that would be great. It's in Wailuku. Or I could have someone pick you up—"
"I'll be there."
She nodded, willing to give him some time to see his wife and recall the person he saw leaving the area.
Making her way back to Chung, who was chatting with someone from the medical examiner's office, Leila diverted his attention.
"Dr. Locklear will be coming in to provide a description of our possible killer."
"Good. Maybe we can turn the corner on this serial killer—if, in fact, we're dealing with the same killer..."
Leila looked around. She didn't spot any surveillance cameras—as if there would be any right on the beach. But the hotels and condominiums lining it were a different story. "We need to have all these properties pull up their security camera footage for the last few hours—see if we can make out anyone coming or going that may have a taste for murder."
"I'm on it," Chung said.
"Even if we do get lucky with the composite and matching video footage, since we don't know if the killer is a local or a frequent visitor, we still have our work cut out for us nailing him," Leila said.
"Yeah, tell me something I don't know." Chung ran his hand through his short, choppy black hair. "I guess that's why they pay us the big bucks."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right."
Leila thought about the victim, Joyce Yashiro. Had she been targeted? Was her death truly another notch on the Zip Line Killer's belt?
Or could this be a copycat killer with his own agenda?
CHAPTER TWO
Renee Bradley woke up in a daze when she heard her cell phone buzzing. She grabbed it off the nightstand and saw that it was eight a.m. The caller was one of her sources at the police department, a cop she used to date. She gathered herself and answered.
"I just thought you'd like to know the body of a female was found this morning on Kaanapali Beach," the caller said. "It looks like she was strangled. Do what you want with the information. Bye."
Renee disconnected. So the Zip Line Killer had struck again, breaking his eerie silence of two months. As a journalist, she had been following this scary story from the start. Meaning, she needed to get any detailed information she could from quotable sources, such as the detective in charge of the investigation, Leila Kahana.
Dragging herself out of bed, Renee brushed her long blonde hair from her face and gazed down at the dark-haired man she'd had several tequila shots with at a local bar before they ended up at her place in Kapalua, a resort area just north of Kaanapali. She and Franco Romalotti were friends with benefits. Neither of them wanted anything serious, content to have sex whenever it suited their fancy while otherwise living their own lives without having to answer to the other.
The fact that their time in bed always took place at her condominium didn't bother her. After all, he was living with his grandmother while going to school and they both agreed that it wasn't the ideal scenario for getting naked and giving one another orgasms. Still, Renee couldn't help but wonder if this was headed anywhere. Or was it only destined to run its course when one of them got tired of the other?
"Hey," Franco muttered, opening his eyes.
"Hey," she said, feeling a tad embarrassed as he stared at her nudity. Never mind that he was also stark naked and very good looking from head to toe and everything in between.
"Where you going?"
"There's been another murder by the Zip Line Killer." She had yet to confirm this, but her source had never led her astray. "I have to stay on top of the story."
He frowned. "Well I hope they catch the son of a bitch, but can't you hold off for a little morning fun?"
She smiled, turned on by his words and expression that told her he wanted her in the worst way. While tempting, she chose to suppress her feelings. "Sorry, but I can't. If the police have the bead on this killer, I need to know. My career could depend on it." She knew that was a little over the top, but the fact that she had been covering the story for the Aloha News meant that if the case was close to being solved, she needed to be the one who broke the story.
Franco sat up, leaning on his elbow, frowning. "Do you want to get together later?"
"We'll see. I'll call you." Her head was killing her. She had obviously had too much to drink last night. "I'm going to hop in the shower. You can show yourself out."
She knew his eyes were studying her firm ass, as she made her way to the bathroom and closed the door.
By the time she opened it again, feeling refreshed, he was gone, as expected
. She was already missing him, but had to stay focused on getting to the police department and learning everything she could about the latest murder.
* * *
Leila sat at her desk with pencil in hand as she prepared to sketch what she hoped would be a reasonable facsimile of a serial killer. Or, at the very least, a killer who had set his sights on Joyce Yashiro.
Across from her sat the witness, Doctor Evan Locklear from Charleston. She gave him a brief smile meant to relax him, before asking with more than curiosity: "So how long will you be on Maui?"
He seemed to ponder it. "We have a week left."
"Have you ever been here before?" She thought about the other murders that had occurred over the past year.
Locklear met her eyes. "Only in my dreams." He paused as she peered at him and then said: "This is our first time in Hawaii."
Leila accepted that, knowing it should be easy enough to verify, assuming he had used his own name. She sighed. "Okay, why don't we start with the hair? You mentioned it was short."
"Yes."
"Like really short in a buzz cut kind of way?" she pressed. "Was it tight on the sides? Tapered? Curly?"
"It was pretty dark out there, so I can't be very specific on the style of his haircut."
"Try anyway." Leila had a knack for getting people to remember things they thought they could not. "I know there wasn't much light and you hardly saw him, but even a glimpse can usually be retained. Take a breath and focus..."
She watched as he did just that. "I think it was short and a little messed up," he said. "Kind of like a business casual look."
Leila couldn't help but think that he had described his own hairstyle. Was that a Freudian slip? Or was it more endemic of today's look for many men?
She began to scribble on the pad. "Okay. Was it dark hair? Blonde? Gray?"
"It was dark—maybe brown."
"How about his face?" she asked. "Was it roundish? Narrow? Square? Wide-jawed? Long?"
Locklear sighed. "He had a square type face with a long forehead."
Leila drew this. "Did he have a long nose? Short? Thick? Crooked?"
"It looked long," he said.
"How about his mouth?"
"Crooked, but probably because he was scowling as though angry."
"Maybe he was angry that you saw him," Leila suggested.
"Could be." Locklear leaned back in the chair. "Except that I hardly saw enough of him to pose a threat. At least I probably wouldn't have thought that were I in his shoes."
Maybe you were, she mused, and a perfect fit at that.
"Did he have any facial hair?"
"Maybe a day's growth on his chin and neck."
Leila noted that the doctor was clean-shaven. Was he trying to steer them in a different direction? "Did his ears stick out? Were they large? Small?"
Locklear wrinkled his nose. "I honestly couldn't tell you that."
Was he really being honest? Leila continued sketching in using his description. While doing so, she asked for a better mental picture of the suspect to see if she might trip him up. "How tall was he? Shorter or taller than you?" She recalled him saying earlier that they were around the same height.
"Close to my height," he answered calmly. "And a little on the heavy side."
"And his race?" she asked again. "White? Hawaiian? Black? What...?"
Locklear chewed on his lower lip. "I think he was white. But I guess he could have been Hawaiian..."
Leila met his eyes. Had she just implanted Hawaiian in his head, giving him a perfect means for misdirection? In her mind, there was no comparison, physically speaking, between a white man and a Hawaiian man. But since it was dark and he only had a moment to glimpse the suspect, she supposed such uncertainty was possible.
"What was he wearing?" she asked, for the record.
"I think maybe a tee shirt and shorts."
Made sense, she thought. That would make it easy to move around on a beach, while fitting in at the same time.
"Could he have been wearing long-sleeved clothing?" she asked, in case the memory of the witness needed to be shaken up a bit.
"No, I don't think so."
She accepted that and finished the composite, showing him. "Does the man you saw look something like this?"
Locklear held the pad, studying it closely. "Yeah, it looks like him—or at least what I remember of him with only a moment to see his face."
"Then that will have to be good enough," she said, taking the sketch back. "We'll put it out there and see if we can find him."
"Wish I could do more," Locklear said.
Leila believed him. "Yeah, don't we all," she said humorlessly. "I hope you and your wife can make the most of the time you have left on the island."
Locklear smiled. "Me too."
She suddenly found herself wondering what type of marriage he had. Was this vacation meant to fortify something good or to salvage something bad?
Leila couldn't help but think about her ex-lover, Blake Seymour, now a lieutenant and the one she answered to. He had gone back to his wife and mother of their little girl, deciding he was no longer interested in having an affair with his partner. Leila had taken it hard initially, before realizing they weren't meant to be together. Meaning she had to forget about him and wait for someone more suitable to come along.
She walked with Evan Locklear away from her desk, hoping that his description of the suspect would lead to an arrest. The doctor might be called upon to make a house call if they needed more from him.
* * *
Renee found the one she was looking for. Detective Kahana had been talking to a gray-haired man when she shook his hand and said Aloha. Then the detective headed back toward her desk.
Now was the time to pounce on her, thought Renee.
"Detective Kahana," she said, getting her attention. "Can I have a word with you?"
Leila eyed her with a frown. "All updates on cases go through our spokesperson."
Renee was not deterred. "I know, but I'd just like a brief statement from the lead detective on the case involving the dead woman found on Kaanapali Beach."
Leila frowned. "You don't know when to quit, do you?"
"Do you?" Renee challenged her. "I'm just doing my job, like you are. With a serial killer on the loose and another woman strangled, the public deserves to be kept up to date."
Leila peered at her. "No one said anything about a person being strangled. Where did you get that information?"
Oops, Renee chided herself. She hadn't meant to let that detail slip, having been given a head's up by her source. She had to think fast.
"You just confirmed it, more or less," she said smartly. "I took a wild—or maybe not so wild—guess, considering the victim was a female and the circumstances eerily similar to the other victims of the so-called Zip Line Killer." She paused. "So am I right?"
Leila pursed her lips thoughtfully. "All right, yes, the victim does appear to have been strangled, though it will be up to the medical examiner to determine the exact cause of death."
Renee took mental notes. "What can you tell me about the victim?"
"Not much," Leila responded evasively, "other than it looks like she was on the beach for an early morning run when she was accosted by her attacker."
"Were there any witnesses?"
Leila hesitated. "Yes. Someone saw what could be the killer fleeing the scene."
Renee wondered if the witness was the man who just left. "Can you describe the possible killer?"
"We'll be releasing a sketch of the suspect shortly. That's all I can say for the time being."
Renee furrowed her brow. "Can you at least tell me if the victim has been identified?"
"Yes," Leila told her. "However, there has not been a positive identification, per se. Pending notification of the next of kin, the victim's identity will remain off limits to the press. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."
"Of course." Renee decided she better quit while she was ah
ead. "Mahalo for your time."
"Have a nice day," Leila said stiffly and walked away.
Renee watched her for a moment, before heading in the opposite direction. She wondered if she might be able to get more information from the witness. Who was he? She knew just who to ask to find out.
* * *
Leila went back to her desk, wishing they could keep the press at bay while working on cases. Realistically, she knew that in the Internet and cell phone age, it was hard, if not impossible to keep crimes bottled up until they were solved—especially when murder was involved with a serial killer on the prowl. Still, reporters such as Renee Bradley could be a pain in the ass, even if she was just doing her job.
"Hey," Leila heard as she sat at her desk.
She looked up into the slightly tanned, handsome face of her former partner Blake Seymour. He had short gray hair, was over six feet tall, and fit. He had been promoted to lieutenant six months ago following the retirement of Paul Ortega, which had made things a bit weird between them initially, partly due to the fact that they were no longer sleeping together. But as time went by, the more normal things became and she learned to accept things as they were.
"Hey," she said, straightening some papers on her desk, as though they needed it.
"Did you get a good composite of the suspect in the beach murder?"
"The witness seemed to believe so." Leila handed him the sketch.
Seymour gazed at it. "Hmm... So this could be the Zip Line Killer?"
"If not, he's certainly a person of interest in the murder of Joyce Yashiro," she told him.
"Chung said you knew her from a seminar."
"Yes, she gave a lecture on Hawaiian history. Guess I wanted to brush up on my knowledge and add to it."
"Has her family been notified?"
"Not yet. We'll be heading over to her house shortly." For Leila, this was perhaps the most painful part of dealing with homicides.
Seymour nodded. "Well, once we get the composite sketch out there, maybe someone will recognize him."
"That's the hope," Leila said, trying hard not to let their history dictate their relationship today. "Maybe we'll get lucky and someone matching the description will show up on the Kaanapali Beach hotel and condo security cameras that we've gained access to."
Murder on Kaanapali Beach Page 2
