I went over to The Next Wave, and the parking lot was nearly empty, which was very unusual. I walked in, and the place was dead. Dario heard the door ring and came over immediately, looking disappointed that I wasn’t an actual customer. He was wearing a polo shirt with the store’s logo on it and a pair of khaki shorts. It was the first time I had seen him wearing a name tag.
“Two of my staff quit this morning.” He waved his arm to encompass the empty aisles of clothing, the fact that no one was looking at surfboards or trying on sunglasses. “Look at this place. My business is going down the toilet.”
“It’s just a momentary panic. A couple of days will pass, and people will start filtering back up here.”
“Yeah, a couple of days like this and I won’t be able to pay my bills.” He stalked away toward his office, and I headed over to the café, where I settled down with my laptop. There were only about half a dozen other people in the entire building, most of them employees, so it was unnaturally quiet, the sound of Keola Beamer and his slack key guitar echoing off the surfboard displays.
I logged on to the Advertiser’s web site, and read their follow-up story on the shootings, which agreed with what I’d seen—that people were scared and leaving the North Shore.
The media reports, as usual, distorted things; Brad became a surfer, too, though I knew he’d never stepped on a board. Tommy became a budding champion, though he’d never actually entered a competition, much less won one.
I was getting ready to leave when Dario came over and sat down in the armchair catty-cornered to mine. We were the only people in the lounge area, besides the barista, who was across the room cleaning the cappuccino machine. “Listen, I was out of line yesterday,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s okay.”
“I guess I always had a little crush on you, you know?” He crossed his legs and his khaki shorts rode up on his thighs. His legs were strong, slim and tanned. He’d put some muscle on in the last ten years, but not much fat. If it wasn’t for the worried look in his eyes or the bags underneath them, he’d be considered pretty handsome.
“I didn’t know, but I’m flattered.”
“Since that time, I’ve thought about what happened between us, at the beach. I think what I was trying to do was pull you out of the closet so that we could be together.” He shrugged. “It had the opposite effect. I pushed you even farther in, and you left, and I lost any chance of a relationship with you.”
Dario was starting to creep me out. Back when we were surfing, I always just considered him a friend. I knew he was gay, because he didn’t try and hide it, but I wasn’t attracted to him. I had no idea he had such feelings about me.
“Anyway, seeing you here again, I just went a little crazy. I hope you can forgive me. I really want us to be friends.”
I sat up a bit in my chair, pulling my legs in. “Sure, Dario. Friends are good. I’ve decided, I’m going to be celibate for a while, you know? Just try and keep my zipper closed and stay out of any more trouble.”
Until I solved these murders, I almost said, but I held back.
“I’ll have to see if I can change your mind,” he said, leaning forward a bit. “Gently, though. No more full frontal attacks.”
“Okay.”
The front door bell rang, and like one of Pavlov’s dogs, Dario jumped up, hoping it was a customer. I used that opportunity to leave The Next Wave.
I must still be giving off some kind of closeted vibe, I thought. Some lost gay boy thing that attracted first Dario, then Brad, then George and Larry. I’ve always thought of myself as ordinary, not movie-star handsome or anything. Nothing that would attract all these guys who seemed to find me irresistible. I’ve been lucky enough to get the best features of my gene pool, starting with a tall, lean physique that I keep in shape with surfing, roller blading, swimming, and any other kind of exercise that strikes my fancy.
I have just enough of an Asiatic look to my eyes to make me exotic, skin just a shade darker than average, so I always look like I have a really good tan, and glossy black hair that I keep cut short. I think I give off a masculine vibe, which gay men seem to find attractive.
Whatever it was, I had never had trouble arousing sexual interest, either in girls, back when I was pretending to be straight, or now with guys. Sometimes it was more of a pain than it was worth. Like now, with Dario.
I drove around Hale’iwa for a while, stopping wherever I saw people gathered, trying to make conversation, but I didn’t learn anything new, just that these last murders, and the publicity that connected them to the first three, had people running scared.
I picked up some groceries and a six-pack of Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale at Fujioka’s and retreated to my house in the hills. I popped the first of the Pipeline tapes Lui had brought into the VCR and settled back to watch some surfing.
They were good quality, and the surfers were excellent. I saw Mike Pratt catch a couple of great waves, and a roving reporter interviewed Lucie Zamora. She was pretty and charming and both her skimpy bikini and the camera emphasized her physical attributes. Seeing both of them there was kind of spooky, knowing that they had been so alive and happy once.
I went out to the small back yard and fired up the gleaming stainless barbecue, a huge, free-standing model I’d seen advertised for close to a thousand dollars. When the coals were glowing red, I put a steak on, along with some sliced peppers and a big Idaho potato I’d pre-baked in the microwave.
Pretty soon I had a great meal—just no one to share it with. I popped open another beer and went back to the TV. I watched the rest of the tapes, nearly four hours worth. I thought I saw Ronald Chang in the background a couple of times, but I couldn’t be sure. But having seen the tapes, I wasn’t sure what I’d hoped to learn from them. At least I had definite proof that both Mike and Lucie had been at Mexpipe, and I felt more connected to both of them after seeing them on tape.
I turned on my laptop and sent an email to Sampson, filling him on what I’d learned from the tapes as well as my interview with Ruiz and Kawamoto. “Can you let me know when ballistics comes in?” I wrote. “Obviously I want to know if there’s a match to the gun used in the other cases. If it doesn’t match I’m sure they’re going to waste a lot more time looking at me.”
I’d just finished sending the email when my cell phone rang, a call from Terri. “I’m coming up to the North Shore tomorrow,” she said. “Will you have some time for me?”
“You’ll be heading the wrong direction. Everybody up here is leaving town. Freaked out by the murders.”
“I won’t get on a board,” she said dryly. “I’m sure I’ll be safe, especially if I’m with you.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. Look what happened to Brad.”
“Brad was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said. “That’s what the newspapers and the TV say. That is, when they don’t say he was a surfer.”
“My time is your time,” I said. “I’ve just got surfing and investigating five murders on my agenda.”
“I won’t be up there til noon. Want to meet me for lunch?”
We agreed to meet at Rosie’s Cantina at noon, and hung up. I was pretty beat, but I had trouble getting to sleep. I kept thinking of Brad, wondering if it would have made a difference if I’d tracked him down at Sugar’s. I must have dozed off eventually, because I woke to find a few rosy fingers of light coming in through the bedroom window. I got up, checked for bruises, and took a quick shower before heading down to Pipeline.
In the fifteen or more years I had been surfing there, I had never seen it so empty when the waves were high. It was almost spooky, sharing such a great beach with only a half dozen other surfers. The police had taken away the yellow cones around the hollow where the bodies had been, and I couldn’t even identify that patch of sand again.
Maybe that was why my heart felt lighter; maybe it was that I thought I was making progress on the case. In any event, I was able to surf for a coupl
e of hours. I was just dragging my board up the beach when I saw Kawamoto’s blue Taurus on Ke Nui Road.
They were both out of the car, talking to a female surfer, though they finished up with her as soon as I got there.
“Morning, detectives.” I thought it was still morning, though noon was fast approaching.
“Need to speak to you, Kimo,” Ruiz said. He was in full Miami Vice mode: beige sports jacket over navy shirt, knife-pressed black slacks, those spit-polished loafers again, all topped with mirrored sunglasses. “Come on, get in the car.”
“I’m wet,” I said. “And I’ve got a lunch date. What do you need?”
He motioned me with his head, and I followed him down the road a hundred feet. “Why are you so interested in Lucie Zamora?”
“Brad had this idea,” I said. “He and Lucie were friends, and he had introduced her to most of his friends, too. He thought you guys weren’t doing enough to find out who killed her.”
I held up my hand to silence his immediate objection. “I know, I told him that a lot of police work goes on behind the scenes, that you guys might be just about to arrest somebody. But he had this idea that since I had some investigative skills, maybe I could nose around and find some things out that might help you.”
He looked down his nose at me, over the mirrored sunglasses. “We don’t need the help.”
“I know. Listen, I know how hard your job is. Remember, I used to do it, up til a couple weeks ago. Just to make Brad happy, I said I’d talk to each of his friends and see what they knew. If I found anything out I was going to bring it to whoever was in charge of the case.”
Behind him, I saw Kawamoto, looking rumpled as ever, fiddling in his pocket and pulling out a crumpled pack of Marlboros. “Did you find anything?”
I shrugged. “Probably nothing you didn’t already know. Lucie Zamora was dealing crystal meth, but nobody knew where she got the stuff. All three of the dead surfers had been to the Mexpipe surfing championships in Mexico in August.”
Ruiz pulled a notepad out of his pocket and started to write. “How do you know that?”
“Brad told me Lucie had gone to Mexico, so I checked the competition listings on the Internet. That’s when I saw all three of them were there.”
“Why didn’t you tell us all this yesterday?”
I tried my best to look casual. “You didn’t ask.”
Ruiz angled his jaw and the sunlight flashed off those mirrored lenses.
“Look, what was I supposed to say? Hey, Lucie’s friends don’t think you’re doing a good job finding the person who killed her, so they asked me to help out. That’s not something I wanted to volunteer. But you see, I’m happy to share anything I found out with you.”
“Obviously, you’ve got some insight that we don’t have,” Ruiz said, putting away his pad. “I want to know everything you’ve discovered.”
“Like I said, I’ve got a lunch date,” I said. “After that I can write it up for you. Give me your card again, I’ll email something down to you by the end of the day.”
“Not something, everything.” Ruiz pulled out his wallet and handed me a card. “Everything you know. Otherwise we’ll be having a little chat again, and you know my partner doesn’t particularly care for you.”
“That’s okay,” I said, glancing at Kawamoto, smoking and glaring in the background. “You can tell him he’s not my type.”
Bishop Clark
Once in my truck, I dialed Sampson’s office. “I think my cover is in danger of being blown.” I explained that Ruiz and Kawamoto had discovered I’d been asking questions about Lucie, and once I gave them a taste of what I’d discovered, they wanted more. “I can’t withhold evidence. I have to tell them what I’ve found.”
“I agree. What do you think of them?”
“Pretty decent interrogation,” I said. “And they’re doing a good job of digging information up now. Otherwise they wouldn’t know anything about me.”
“I think it may be time to let them in on your purpose up there. But only them. I don’t want your cover compromised to the rest of the world.” I didn’t mention, though perhaps I should have, that Harry and Terri already knew. I didn’t know how kindly Sampson would take to Harry’s cyber-snooping, and I didn’t want to find out.
“You’re going to have to be the one who tells them,” I said. “I’m still a suspect, so they won’t believe anything I say.”
“Of course. Let me check my calendar.” He was off the phone for a minute, then back. “Tomorrow afternoon. I can be in Wahiawa by two.”
“I’ll be there.” I hung up and looked at my watch. I had just enough time to run up to the house, shower and change, to meet Terri for lunch at noon.
Like the rest of the North Shore, Rosie’s was nearly empty. It was as if some kind of disease had swept through, wiping out two-thirds of the population. Terri was right on time, despite the possibility of traffic or accidents on the hour-long trip up from Honolulu. But that was her; I’ve never known her to be late for anything. If you asked, she’d simply say it was the way she was raised; Clarks are not late.
“Thanks for meeting me,” she said, after we’d kissed hello and sat down. She looked, as usual, casually elegant; a gray linen blouse, black slacks, black pumps. The dark circles were still there under her eyes, but she looked a little happier, a little healthier than she had on Sunday. “I want to say right up front I’m hoping I can drag you along to this meeting with my uncle.”
“Why?”
“He’s getting nuttier every year,” she said. The waitress came by and we ordered. “Not that I’m really frightened of him, but he’s walled himself in at this old place, with an electrified fence and a security guard. It sounds creepy.”
“Sure. I was supposed to spend today hanging out, asking people if they knew this last dead surfer, but as you can see, the North Shore has pretty much emptied out, and there’s hardly anybody left to ask.”
“It’s so sad, what happened,” she said. “Were you dating that guy, Brad?”
I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know what you’d call it.” I explained about meeting him, how I’d spent most of the night with him twice, then how he’d come to the park on Sunday to yell at me.
“Well, can you blame him?” she asked, tilting her head toward me. “You shouldn’t have slept with his friends.”
“I guess not. I wasn’t thinking much about him at the time.”
Terri frowned. “No wonder he was upset.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I keep thinking, what if I’d gone to Sugar’s first, to find him. I might have kept him from going off with that kid, and maybe they’d both be alive today.”
Our food arrived, and as soon as the waitress left, Terri said, “You can’t think like that. There are so many what ifs. What’s important is that you do what you can to find out who killed him.”
“I’m trying, but it’s not easy. I can’t find a single connection between Tommy Singer and the other three surfers.”
We talked as we ate, Terri throwing out ideas, almost all of which I’d tried myself. “Tommy never lived up here, so that cuts a lot of possibilities out,” I said. “Of the other three, only Ronald Chang went to UH, and he graduated while Tommy was still in high school. Tommy wasn’t a good enough surfer to enter competitions, or even to hang out with older, better surfers like Mike Pratt or Lucie Zamora.”
“No drugs, right?”
“His parents say no. The autopsy’s today; I should get the report from Sampson sometime later. But I don’t think any drugs will show up. So he couldn’t have known Lucie that way.”
“A computer connection to Ronald Chang?”
I shook my head. “Tommy had a computer, but just for school and email and games. It’s always possible he ran into one of the three on a beach, and somehow they hooked up, but there’s no evidence.”
We finished, and Terri insisted on paying. “I’m on the Foundation dime.” Much of her family’s money had been funneled i
nto The Sandwich Islands Trust, a family foundation that did charitable works around the islands.
“How come? Does this land Bishop lives on actually belong to the Trust?”
“Not yet. The way the documents are written, it’s his for life, and passes to his legitimate heirs. If he dies without children, then the property goes into the Trust.”
“And he wants to change that.”
She nodded. “Come on, I’ll drive. I’ve already told him what kind of car I have, so his guard won’t shoot me.”
I must have looked dubious, because she said, “Don’t doubt it. Apparently the guard has shot at trespassers before, but the police couldn’t prove anything.”
Mahu Surfer Page 20
