by Lee Goldberg
Guidebooks were a waste of time. They sent you on a well-traveled path with nothing left to learn or explore. Visiting landmarks, historical spots, and so-called natural wonders wouldn't tell you squat about a place or its people. You might as well go to Disneyland.
Wyatt believed if you wanted to really know a place, you had to seduce someone who lived there. Get inside them and then into their world. Sleep in their bed. Stay in their home. Go where they go. Eat what they eat. Shop where they shop. See what they see. Until you have their smell on your body, their taste on your lips, their clothes on your back, and it feels comfortable. Then leave.
That's how you visit a new place. That's how you get to know it, if you really care. Try finding that for sale in an airport gift shop on your way out of town.
But the two strangers didn't do what Wyatt expected. They didn't go to a luau. They didn't go look at Waimea Canyon. They didn't cruise the Na Pali coast. They didn't see the Spouting Horn.
They went to visit the police.
Perhaps it was a coincidence. Perhaps they'd had their wallets picked or their rooms burgled.
But Wyatt didn't believe in coincidences. It was one reason he was still alive.
Something wasn't right about this. And if he hadn't stayed an extra day or two after the fact, he never would have known.
Thoroughness. That's what being successful in his work was all about.
A few minutes after the two men entered the station, Wyatt got out of his car and strode up the sidewalk to break into their rental car. It wouldn't be difficult. The crappy fleet cars rarely had alarms, and even if they did, they were ridiculously easy to disable within seconds. That wasn't an issue with their car. Wyatt picked the lock and was sitting in the passenger's seat in eight seconds.
He opened the glove box, took out their rental agreement, and photographed it with a miniature digital camera. Then he put the brochure back, locked the doors, and returned to his own vehicle.
The task took less than two minutes to accomplish and reaped enormous benefits.
Now he had a name, a home address, and a credit card number to go on.
That was all he needed. In a few hours, he'd know every thing worth knowing about Mark Sloan.
CHAPTER SIX
"I'm not a medical examiner, but I know sharks," Veronica Klein said, motioning with a nod to Danny Royal's savaged torso. "All this was definitely caused by a shark. Not by a knife, a gun, or some boat propeller."
"I agree, and I'm sure the medical examiner would as well," Mark said. "But the fact remains: Danny Royal was already dead when the shark attacked him."
Mark pointed at a wound with his scalpel. "I don't see any evidence of bleeding into the surrounding tissues. That means his heart had already stopped pumping and blood was no longer circulating through his body when these catastrophic wounds were inflicted."
"Wait a minute," Kealoha said. "You saw him swimming—everybody did." He turned to Steve. "Didn't you?"
Steve nodded. "Yeah, I did."
"Are you certain it was Danny Royal you saw in the water?" Kealoha asked him.
"Yes, I'm sure." Steve said.
"There you go." Kealoha turned back to Mark. "You trust your own son, don't you?"
"I do," Mark said. "And so did the killer."
"Are you saying your son was an accomplice?" Kealoha asked incredulously, an amused smile on his face. He really seemed to be enjoying himself. Steve couldn't blame him; there probably wasn't much excitement for a homicide cop in Lihue.
"In a sense, we all were, every one of us on the beach," Mark said. "We all said we saw a man killed by a shark."
"If that wasn't what you saw," Veronica asked, "what did you see?"
"A show, pure and simple, designed to disguise a murder," Mark said. "And the killer might have gotten away with it, too, if I hadn't found this."
Mark took out the baggie containing the leaf that he dipped in the splatter on the inner tube and handed it to Kealoha.
The detective held the baggie up to the light. "A leaf covered with blood?"
"Sure looks like it, doesn't it?" Mark said. "Yesterday, Steve rescued a boy in an inner tube who was floating near Danny Royal when the attack occurred. This morning, I found the inner tube on the beach, covered with that stuff and swarming with ants. They were attracted to the splatter, which I'm certain is corn syrup mixed with red dye. Also known as movie blood."
"We saw a shark fin, we saw a struggle, and we saw blood, but we never saw a shark," Steve said, the whole deadly scenario clear to him now. "Our imaginations took over from there."
"So how was he killed?" Veronica asked, fascinated.
"Are you familiar with the legend of Kamaikaahui?" Mark asked.
"The monster who killed travelers and blamed their deaths on sharks," she said. "Turned out he was a man with a shark's mouth on his back."
"Metaphorically speaking, I think that's what we're dealing with here. I'm guessing Danny Royal was pulled under by a scuba diver, who then tore open a bag of movie blood while Danny struggled and drowned," Mark said. "Then the killer probably took the body by boat someplace where he knew sharks congregated, like the harbor or the mouth of a stream, and dumped it."
"Stuff like this doesn't happen here," Kealoha said, shaking his head. "Except on Hawaii Five-O."
"It does now," Steve said.
"I always wanted to be Steve McGarrett," Kealoha said with a grin. "K'den, guess I better start investigating. I'm going to send this red goop off to be tested, then visit Danny Royal's house." He glanced at Steve. "Wanna come along, brah, and show me the cool stuff they teach you at the LAPD?"
"Sure," Steve said.
"I'd like to stick around and observe the autopsy," Mark said to Kealoha. "If you and the medical examiner don't mind."
"Be my guest. I'll call ahead to Dr. Aki and let him know." Kealoha turned to Veronica. "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep this to yourself for a while. No sense alerting the killer that we're on to his sorry ass."
"Sure," Veronica said, a little stunned herself by the revelations. "This is just so incredible. Will you let me know what happens?"
"How about over dinner some time?" Steve asked.
"I'd like that." Veronica smiled, handed Steve her card, and walked out.
"Wait," Kealoha said. "Don't I get one?"
She didn't bother to turn around. Steve glanced at the card, turning it over in his hand.
"What do you know," Steve said with a grin, "It is printed on both sides."
Wyatt had his laptop plugged into his cell phone and was downloading all of Mark Sloan's credit card purchases for the last six months when Ben Kealoha and Steve Sloan emerged from the police station. He logged off, shut down the laptop, and started the car.
The two cops got into a Ford Taurus and headed toward
Poipu on the Kaumaulii Highway. Wyatt followed four cars behind, wondering just how much the men knew.
He reviewed every move he'd made in the preparation and execution of his job and couldn't see his mistake. But he knew that in his business, you rarely did until you had to kill it or it killed you.
Maybe it wasn't a mistake, just bad luck. A practical joke of cosmic proportions that put an LAPD homicide detective and his father, some kind of deductive genius, in the same orbit as Danny Royal a day before he was murdered.
Or it wasn't, and they were there by design, to get Danny Royal or flush out his pursuer.
Either way, it didn't matter now.
Wyatt's job wasn't finished yet, and he had to know whether he'd be looking over his shoulder for Dr. Mark Sloan while he completed it.
From what he'd already learned skimming through online newspaper archives, he knew the doctor was not to be taken lightly. Mark Sloan solved the Silent Partner killings, the Sweeney family bombings, and the mystery behind the crash of Pac Atlantic Flight 224. Any one of those cases would have been career-capping achievements for an ordinary cop or Federal agent. But those were just a few of the
many high-profile cases Mark Sloan had solved over the years, and he didn't even have a badge.
If Mark Sloan was on to him, the doctor wouldn't give up or be distracted easily. That didn't worry or frighten Wyatt. He respected competence, especially in an adversary. It only reaffirmed his own skills and forced him to rise to a new level of proficiency. Wyatt was already several steps ahead of Mark Sloan and intended to remain that way.
The detectives drove through Old Koloa Town, a row of authentic frontier-style storefronts dating back to the 1800s, capped on one end of the street by a 1970s-era supermarket and a Chevron station on the other. The cops turned the corner onto Poipu Road, and Wyatt followed them past the dreary tourist trap to the resorts and the elegant homes that hugged the shore.
It was obvious where they were leading him, so Wyatt fell farther back, allowing his quarry to reach Danny Royal's house and get settled in. No sense risking detection when it was unnecessary. He pulled into the parking lot of the Kiahuna Poipu Shores and found a spot that afforded him a clear view of the house.
While he waited, he powered up the laptop and plugged in his cell phone modem. He had more research to do.
Danny Royal's house was like a scaled-down version of his restaurant: elegant and colonial, facing the beach, and gently shaded by tall palms. A wide veranda furnished with cushioned rattan furniture surrounded the white one-story house with a vaulted roof.
Steve Sloan and Ben Kealoha stepped up onto the veranda and followed it around to the back of the house, where floor-to-ceiling windows faced the beach. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. Kealoha knocked once on the French doors, and when no one came, he slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. Steve was surprised, but Kealoha took it in stride.
"Royal went out for a swim. He thought he was coming right back," Kealoha said, handing Steve a pair of gloves from his pocket. "Besides, who carries their keys with them in the ocean?"
"The house is on the beach," Steve said, putting on the gloves. "Anybody could have come in and robbed the place while he was swimming."
"Guess he was a trusting soul," Kealoha said.
They stepped into a spacious living room with a high, open-beam ceiling that was painted white. The house was immaculately clean, every surface gleaming.
"I'm making a mental note to question the cleaning lady," Kealoha said. "And ask her what she charges. Maybe she'd do my place pro bono."
Classical music played softly from hidden speakers, and the rooms were comfortably cool, chilled by the air conditioners that had kept humming through the night.
The furniture was high-end tropical rattan, in keeping with the Hawaiian colonial theme, arranged to offer an optimum view of both the beach and a massive fireplace made of lava rocks.
There were some issues of Gourmet, Architectural Digest, and other glossy magazines decoratively arranged on the glass-topped coffee table. The walls were adorned with expensive maritime art, including intricate models of ships in glass boxes on the koa-wood bookshelves.
To Steve, the books looked as if they'd been picked out by a decorator for their size and color rather than what they contained.
It was like visiting a Tommy Bahama store without the clothing displays, and about as personal.
"Hello?" Kealoha shouted. "Anybody home?"
"You notice anything unusual about this place?" Steve asked.
"It's like visiting a model home," Kealoha said. "One way out of my price range."
"But even model homes have family photos all over the place, to create some warmth and the illusion that someone lives there," Steve said. "Danny didn't even bother with the illusion."
"He lived here," Kealoha said, finding a leather wallet and a set of keys on the counter.
"Maybe he wasn't someone," Steve said.
Kealoha gave him a look. "Huh?"
"Never mind," Steve said, wandering into the master bedroom while Kealoha thumbed through Danny's wallet. Danny Royal lied to Steve and Mark about his past in New Jersey. After seeing this place, Steve wondered just how much of Danny Royal's life was false.
The master bedroom was as immaculate and impersonal as the rest of the house, except for a stack of puzzle magazines on the bedside table. Steve picked a couple of them up. They were all word games—crosswords, anacrostics, mixigrams, crosscounts, word staircases, and a dozen other kinds of puzzles he'd never heard of. He opened the magazines. The puzzles were either completed or nearly completed in pencil by the same hand.
Steve thought Mark probably had subscriptions to the same magazines. He put the magazines back and strayed over to a desktop computer in the corner. The work area was clean, as if the computer was an art object on display instead of a tool to be used.
He turned on the computer and let it boot up while he continued poking around.
Steve was going through the silk jackets and aloha shirts in the massive walk-in closet when Kealoha came in.
"The guy has a driver's license, a credit card, a gasoline card, a social security card, and that's it," Kealoha said. "My wallet is like a filing cabinet. How 'bout yours?"
"Looks like Danny Royal lived lean," Steve said.
"It isn't possible, bruddah." Kealoha stuck the wallet in an evidence bag and shoved it in his pocket. "Nobody lives this lean."
Steve knocked his knuckle on the floor, gauging the sound. The knocks had a slight hollow quality over a certain patch of floor. He took out a car key and pried it between two slats of wood. They popped up. With some room to maneuver his fingers, a dozen other slats pulled easily, revealing a floor safe.
"Maybe we'll find some answers in there," Steve said. He got up and glanced back in the bedroom. The computer was showing a password screen. "The computer may tell us even more. How long will it take to get your crew in here to open the safe and hack into the computer?"
Kealoha snortled. "What crew? That's major tech stuff. We don't have anybody does that, 'cept my eleven-year-old nephew. He could probably hack that in five seconds, then use it to break into Bill Gates' home computer."
"So what do you do in situations like this?"
"We never have sits like this," Kealoha said. "I gotta call in the big boys with the big toys from HPD."
"When do you think they'll get here?"
Kealoha shrugged. "Tomorrow afternoon, maybe. My luck, it'll be the moment I sit down to lunch."
As if on cue, Kealoha's stomach growled. "I knew we forgot to do something on the way here," he said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The S-shaped counter in the tiny saimin noodle shack was so low, Steve had trouble fitting his knees underneath it. Perhaps that was why the handwritten sign on the wall implored customers not to stick gum under the counter—so people wouldn't leave with gooey knees.
The ramshackle restaurant in a warehouse section of Lihue had no tables, so Mark, Steve, and Ben Kealoha sat together at the far end of the crowded counter for a late lunch.
"I eat here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner," Kealoha told them.
"Why?" asked Steve, his question nearly smothered by the loud smack of the screen door snapping shut behind another customer.
"Because this stuff makes chicken soup look like tap water, bruddah," Kealoha said. "But mostly because the cheapest burger on this island is about nine bucks and I don't feel like blowing a day's pay on grub."
"Whatever they're cooking smells wonderful," Mark said, glancing at the menu on the wall. "What do you recommend?"
"The extra large special bowl," Kealoha said. "They empty the fridge into it. It's onolicious."
"Sounds good to me," Mark said.
Kealoha motioned to a waitress and held up three fingers.
A few minutes later, the three men were eagerly devouring their huge bowls of steaming saimin, a hearty combination of salty broth, fresh noodles, vegetables, thin slices of pork, cubes of Spam, and hard-boiled egg made by a sour-faced old Japanese woman they could see sitting on a stool in the kitchen.
/> After the first delicious mouthful of the wonderful soup, Mark flashed the cook his most winning smile, the one that had reassured countless patients and had been getting him out of all kinds trouble for more than sixty years. The old lady was unimpressed.
He shrugged and went back to enjoying his saimin, surely one of the best dishes he'd ever had. Mark could see why Ben Kealoha was addicted to it.
The three men didn't speak again until they'd consumed their bowls of saimin and each ordered thick slices of home made liliko'i pie, an impossibly light passionfruit chiffon with a whipped cream topping. Between forkfuls of pie, Steve and Kealoha told Mark what they found, or rather didn't find, at Danny Royal's house. If it wasn't for the puzzle magazines, the house looked as though no one actually lived there.
"What you saw in his house fits with what we discovered in the autopsy," Mark said. "Danny Royal was an illusion. He had extensive plastic surgery, a chiseled nose and chin, implants in his cheeks, major orthodonture—the works. The shape and features of his face were radically altered."
"Maybe he had a bad accident," Kealoha said, "and they had to put his face back together."
Mark shook his head. "There was no evidence of that kind of trauma. This was definitely elective surgery. He gave himself an entirely new face. Based on what you saw at the house, I think he created a new identity to go with it. I seriously doubt anything about Danny Royal is what it seems."
"You don't go to those extremes unless you're running from something," Steve said. "Or someone."
"I'll have his wallet and his place dusted for prints," Kealoha said. "Maybe we'll get a hit."
"I have a feeling it's not going to be that easy," Steve said. "At least it never is for me."
"You're in paradise, brah," Kealoha smiled. "Everything is easy here."
"There's another way to go at this," Mark said. "Dr. Aki and I took detailed notes and photos of Danny's face. With your permission, Ben, I'd like to send them to a forensic anthropologist I know in L.A. It will take some time, but I believe she can use the photos and our data to create a three-D computer model of what Danny Royal's face looked like before his plastic surgery."
