Murder on Kaanapali Beach

by R. Barri Flowers

  Leila was happy to hear that as she stroked the dog's head. He would obviously need a new and safe home now. At least until it was sorted out who was responsible for this reprehensible act.

  * * *

  Renee was still thinking about the hot morning sex with Franco as she walked up to the spacious Mediterranean home that was almost indistinguishable from Joyce Yashiro's house, save for the address in front and a different arrangement of palm trees. She rang the bell and watched as a middle-aged, red-haired woman opened the door.

  Here goes, Renee told herself, knowing not all people were receptive to the media, especially when it involved crime and neighbors. She gave a friendly smile and said: "Hi. My name is Renee Bradley. I'm a writer for the Aloha News, Crime Beat. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about Joyce Yashiro and her family..."

  The woman studied her warily, before saying: "Come in."

  Renee entered a spacious Great Room with wicker furniture. "You have a lovely home," she said as she glanced about.

  "Thank you. I'm Sally Oldham, by the way. Would you like some tea?"

  Renee smiled. "That would be great."

  "Sugar?"

  "No, just plain."

  Sally nodded and said: "Have a seat."

  Renee sat on a chair and thought about what she wanted to ask, while turning on her iPad.

  Sally returned with two cups of tea, handing her one, then sitting. "I was so sad to hear about Joyce's death."

  "Were you close to her?" asked Renee, sipping the tea.

  "We didn't spend a great deal of time together, but yes, I felt we were friends."

  "Were you also friends with her husband Verlin?" Renee wondered.

  Sally sighed. "Not really. He was moody, abusive, rude, and not a good fit for someone as sweet and kindhearted as Joyce. When she separated from him, I thought it was the best thing she could do in trying to move on."

  Renee peered at her. "Do you think he could have killed her?"

  Sally tasted the tea thoughtfully. "Yes, I think he had it in him to murder Joyce, if only to keep her from being happy with anyone else."

  "Was she seeing someone else?" Renee asked.

  "She dated a few men, but I'm not sure she had settled in on anyone."

  Or maybe one of those men turned out to be a killer, Renee mused. "Do you know Joyce's son, Ayato?"

  "Yes, I know him, though I haven't seen him very much."

  "What can you tell me about him?"

  "He used to be a nice young man until he got involved with drugs." She furrowed her brow. "That's when Joyce asked him to leave home. Without Verlin there, Ayato was out of control."

  "Could he have murdered her?" Renee asked straightforwardly.

  "He could have," Sally asserted, "especially if he was high on something. Joyce was afraid of him. She wanted Ayato to get help, but he didn't seem interested in that."

  Renee pondered the ugliness of drug addiction. She'd had friends who got themselves in trouble with drugs or alcohol or both—costing them big time. But none of them had killed someone, much less a family member. Had Ayato Yashiro actually followed his mother to the beach and suffocated her? Could he have hated her that much? Or maybe he was encouraged to commit a homicidal act by someone else—perhaps his father.

  The idea that the murder was all in the family intrigued Renee, even if it wasn't quite the splash headline of Joyce Yashiro's death coming at the hands of a vicious serial killer such as the Zip Line Killer.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In the interrogation room, Leila sat across the table from Verlin Yashiro. On the surface, he seemed mild mannered enough and not the type who would murder his wife. But appearances could always be deceiving, especially when it came down to murdering the ones we were supposed to love.

  "Thanks for coming in," she told him.

  "Whatever it takes to help you with your investigation," he said.

  Leila decided not to pull any punches, even as she wondered how many punches he had thrown at Joyce Yashiro. "We've discovered some troubling things lately, Mr. Yashiro, that have me wondering if you killed your wife..."

  He cocked a brow. "What things?"

  "Well, for one, she had a $500,000 life insurance policy naming you the beneficiary of half of it in the event of her death."

  "Actually, we were both insured for the same amount with each being the beneficiary of half, with the other half going to our son," Yashiro said calmly. "I run a successful business and am not hurting for money. Even if I were, I would never kill Joyce for something I would likely never collect or get to spend."

  Leila credited him with having a response that made sense, especially if money wasn't the issue, which would still need to be determined. She wondered how he would react to her next line of questioning. "You've come after your wife more than once with your fists, haven't you?"

  "It's all a big misunderstanding."

  "I don't think so." She removed a sheet with his criminal record and placed it before him. "According to this, you've been arrested two times for felony domestic violence-related charges—including domestic battery and domestic assault, inflicting injury upon a spouse, and making criminal threats. You've also been arrested for domestic violence misdemeanors. Obviously, you've got quite a temper and have directed it toward your late and estranged wife."

  "None of those charges resulted in a conviction," he pointed out smugly. "Because they never happened. As I told you before, it was always my wife who initiated physical contact and turned it into violence. I sought only to defend myself. But the police chose to believe Joyce over me."

  "So you're claiming innocence for each time you were charged with domestic violence offenses?" she asked, batting her lashes. "Sorry, but I don't buy it." Leila was aware that women could also be the aggressors in domestic violence. However, the criminal justice system had become more understanding of this in recent years and weren't as apt to let female offenders off the hook. Joyce Yashiro had no criminal record. This, in and of itself, didn't prove she had not abused her husband, but it certainly gave him less of a leg to stand on where it concerned credibility. And yet each time the charges against him were dropped or he was acquitted. Did that make him any less capable of killing his wife, in spite of the fact that the bruises on her body were consistent with being forced down onto the sand rather than an aggressive assault?

  "I did not kill my wife!" Yashiro stated firmly.

  "So you say..." Leila pulled out another sheet that came from the vet, based on the examination of Joyce Yashiro's dog. She handed it to him.

  "What's this?" he asked, merely giving it a cursory look.

  "It's a medical report on your wife's dog, Seiji."

  He looked at her. "He was sick?"

  "The dog was fed rat poisoning."

  Yashiro frowned. "And you think I did it?"

  "I think you could have done it," she said bluntly. "Security video taken from your wife's house showed that you were there the day before she died. This would have given you the opportunity to poison the dog, all but ensuring he would not accompany Joyce for her morning run—leaving her vulnerable to an attack."

  "I would never hurt Seiji. I only came to the house to discuss with Joyce how she wanted to proceed with our lives—whether she wanted a divorce or to give it another try. She didn't know what she wanted, so I decided not to press the issue. I left and never saw her again."

  Leila glanced at her notes. "Right, you claim you were in bed at the time Joyce was murdered."

  "That's right."

  "So from five to six that morning you were in bed?" she reiterated.

  "Yes," he voiced tersely.

  She gazed at him. "Were you alone?"

  "No, I was with someone."

  "I'll need to verify it with them," she made clear.

  "That's not a problem, other than I was hoping not to involve her in this."

  Leila frowned. "We're talking about your wife's murder and possibly removing you from th
e list of suspects. I would think that would trump trying to keep your lover out of it when she's very much in it, if she's truly your alibi..."

  Yashiro swallowed, before saying evenly: "You're right. She can clear this up so you can focus your efforts on someone else."

  After getting the contact information from him, Leila regarded him and moved on to her next suspect close to home. "Your son, Ayato, also showed up on the security footage the day before your wife's murder. Not to mention he was at the house that same morning when we showed up to notify the next of kin. He's currently being held on drug-related charges. I'd like to know if you think he could have poisoned the dog and then killed his own mother."

  Yashiro sucked in a deep breath. "Ayato has had an ongoing problem with drugs and has tried to deal with it. In spite of this, he loved his mother and Seiji and would never have harmed either one of them."

  Leila narrowed her eyes. "You're sure about that? Drug addiction can do strange things to people."

  "I know," he acknowledged. "But Ayato could not have done such a terrible thing as poison a dog or murder his mother. He had no reason to want Joyce dead."

  "I can think of $250,000 reasons," Leila said, in reference to the insurance policy.

  Yashiro flashed a dismissive look. "I doubt he even knew about the insurance policy. Apart from that, he has a trust fund that is more than enough to keep him comfortable."

  So maybe he didn't kill her for money, Leila mused. But that didn't eliminate him as a suspect, or the elder Yashiro for that matter.

  She met his eyes. "Do you know anyone else who might have wanted your wife dead?"

  "Not specifically," he said. "I do know she was dating several different men. She never talked much about them and I didn't ask much, since we were both moving in different directions..."

  Leila wanted to talk to these men, if they existed. She hoped the analysis of information from her computer would point them in the right direction.

  She stood up, finished with the victim's husband. For now. "You're free to go," she told him, and then added: "If you need to leave the island for any reason, please let us know."

  * * *

  Chung could tell, as he watched the shifting eyes of Ayato Yashiro, that the suspect was nervous as hell. Did he have good reason to be—like being guilty of murdering his own mother? Or was it because he feared that the drug charges would put him away for a while?

  Either way, he wasn't about to go easy on Joyce Yashiro's son, who just may have sent her to an early grave.

  After taking a measured breath, Chung leaned forward and said: "You're in a hell of a lot of trouble." He hoped the kid didn't ask for a lawyer—at least not till he could get something useful out of him. "Did you poison the dog?"

  "What—?" Ayato's eyes widened.

  "That's right, the reason he was sick was because someone put rat poison in his meatballs. Since your mother obviously didn't want to keep her companion from accompanying her on her morning run, someone else did. That leaves you and your father—both of whom showed up on the home's security video on the two days leading up to Joyce Yashiro's murder. My bet is on you as someone who had the greatest access to the dog." He didn't bother to tell him that the video footage showed that another as yet unidentified adult male had visited the house the day before the murder occurred.

  "I had nothing to do with poisoning Seiji," Ayato claimed, his voice unsteady.

  "So are you saying your old man did the dirty deed?"

  "No, he wouldn't have."

  "Then who...?"

  Ayato sucked in a deep breath. "Maybe it was an accident. The dog gets into things, including the cabinet where the rat poison is kept. He could have—"

  Chung cut him off. "This was no accident. The dog was deliberately fed rat poisoning. And I think the culprit was your mother's killer."

  "It wasn't me," he insisted. "I loved her."

  "Some people have a bizarre way of showing that," Chung said. "You couldn't have been too happy that she kicked you out of the house when you let substance abuse take over your life. What better way for you to get back at her than by killing her and reclaiming the house as your own, with no dad around looking over your shoulder. Just admit it and ease your conscience."

  "No, I didn't kill my mother!" Ayato practically jumped out of the chair. "And I didn't poison my dog." He paused, looking at Chung. "Yeah, he was mine—I've had him since he was a puppy. When I moved out, I had to leave him there because there was no room for a dog at my new apartment."

  Sing me a lullaby, Chung thought unaffectedly. He wasn't convinced of Ayato's innocence regarding the dog or his mother's murder, especially if he had acted impulsively while under the influence of meth. He asked the suspect about his whereabouts during the time of Joyce Yashiro's murder.

  "I was at my place sleeping," he said.

  "Right. Is there anyone who can verify that?"

  "No, I was alone," Ayato told him. "I didn't know I needed a witness to be asleep in the early morning hours."

  "Well now you know," Chung said, wrinkling his nose. "Not having anyone to back up your story means you remain a chief suspect in your mother's murder. Chew on that..."

  Ayato glared at him. "You can't pin something on me I'm innocent of. I would never hurt my mother physically in any way and I definitely wouldn't take her life like that."

  Tell it to the judge, Chung thought humorlessly, knowing full well that all they had at the moment on him pertaining to the murder of Joyce Yashiro were his fingerprints and the security video that placed him at the house the day before the murder and the day of it. Neither were enough for a conviction, or even going to trial. Then there was the fact that no witnesses had placed him at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder.

  Chung conceded that Ayato probably wasn't their strongest suspect at the moment, but it still didn't mean his hands were totally clean. He narrowed his eyes at Ayato, deciding to turn up the heat. "Someone suffocated your mother and then strangled her. Who does such a thing and thinks he'll get away with it? I'll tell you who: someone who is overconfident and stupid. Someone who had a beef against her and made damned sure she paid the ultimate price with her life. If it wasn't you, it had to be your father—the guy who didn't mind beating the hell out of her whenever it suited his fancy, and also knew her routine. Don't you agree?"

  Ayato sighed, lowering his head. "My father and mother had a difficult relationship. They fought a lot. But killing her, I don't think so. It has to be someone else."

  Chung frowned. Clearly, he wasn't going to get a confession out of this one or get his help implicating his father for the murder. Still lacking hard evidence to put the screws to either one of them, he had no choice but to simply keep Ayato Yashiro on the list as a person of interest in the death of his mother.

  But he was hardly off the hook altogether, as they had him on charges of possession and manufacturing crystal meth. Chung strongly suspected that he was also guilty of dealing meth. If so, he likely had partners in crime. Chung liked the notion of getting a piece of the pie for himself. Maybe he would investigate this further when he could do so without his boss, Lieutenant Seymour, observing the interrogation from the other side of the window. For now, it was all about solving a murder and getting justice for Joyce Yashiro.

  On that note, he looked at the laptop before him and pulled up the still shot of someone Joyce Yashiro's security camera had recorded as he came on to her lanai. Maybe the kid knew who he was.

  Chung turned the laptop around and pushed it toward Ayato. "Do you recognize this man?"

  He studied the image. "No. Should I?"

  "Look again," pressed Chung. "He visited your mother's house the day before her death."

  Ayato peered at the screen. "I've never seen him before." He looked at the detective. "Did he kill her?"

  "Your guess is as good as mine at this point," Chung admitted, which was not to say that he or his father were off the radar. He looked at the drug-using son and
said: "We're through for now. Hope you've got a good lawyer—you're going to need one. Manufacturing meth is a serious crime in this state and you crossed the line."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  After work, Leila went to a favorite cop hangout in Kahului on Dairy Road called Drinks. Present were Chung, Blake Seymour, and other detectives from the homicide squad. Though she didn't spend a great deal of time socializing with her colleagues, Leila basically considered them family. With Seymour, in particular, she'd gotten past the romantic vibes that once had them more than friends and was now at ease being around him with others outside the job.

  For an hour, they talked about their current cases, the ups and downs of the investigations, the tipping point of solving the crimes, and the inevitable twist or turn that would provide the breakthrough needed to solve the case.

  "My money's on the son murdering Joyce Yashiro," Chung said over his mug of beer.

  Detective Rachel Lancaster disagreed. "From what I've heard, it's just as likely, if not more so, that her estranged husband did it."

  Seymour looked at Leila and said: "Would you like to break the tie?"

  Feeling put on the spot but unwilling to commit to one suspect or the other, knowing how easily the evidence could point elsewhere—such as the mysterious man who was seen on Joyce's security video a day before she was murdered—Leila couched her words carefully. "Let's just say I'm keeping all my options on the table, at least until the evidence is more conclusive."

  Detective Trent Ferguson frowned. "That's not fair, Kahana."

  "Look who's talking," she said, cleverly shifting to his case. "Are you prepared to name a single suspect for Parker Breslin's murder?"

  He laughed, tasting his drink. "Good point. Ask me later when I'm too wasted to give a damn about what I say." Turning to his partner, Rachel, he asked: "Care to weigh in...?"

  She sipped a nonalcoholic drink and responded: "My gut instincts tell me that his ex-wife is up to her neck in his murder. I can't prove it yet, but she stood to gain the most—full custody of their daughter."

  "Maybe uttering a simple pretty please to Breslin in family court would have done the trick," Chung said, with a laugh. "Especially since, if she turns out to be behind the murder, she loses custody as well, leaving neither parent a winner."