23
Frothy Fang
At six p.m. Em’s phone rang right on time. She left the noisy bar and walked outside. The sun wouldn’t set for another hour, but it was riding low in the sky as she headed out toward the sand. She didn’t know she’d be so relieved when she heard Tom Benton’s voice at last.
“Em? It’s me. What’s up? I couldn’t get a hold of Aunt Marilyn. Is she all right?” Strains of East Indian music pounded in the background.
“I can hardly hear you. Are you in still in India?”
He laughed, and the music went down a few decibels. “Bollywood.”
“Where’s that?”
“Not where, that’s a kind of music. From Indian musicals.”
“Oh, right.” Bollywood. Megawatt smiles, vibrant rainbow colors, lots of jumping around.
“I’m back in California. Just got in. How was the wedding? Where’s my aunt? Are she and Louie on a honeymoon?”
Em took a deep breath and decided not to beat around the banana tree.
“I’m sorry, Tom, but Marilyn was in a terrible wreck. She died Saturday night.”
“What? When did you say? She died? Saturday? The night before the wedding?” He made a choking sound. “Is Louie all right?”
“Louie is fine. He wasn’t with her. It was the night of the rehearsal dinner. She was driving home to Princeville alone after a rehearsal dinner party, and her car went off the road.”
He mumbled a curse and then she heard him say, “No.”
“There’s more.”
“That’s not enough?”
“It wasn’t an accident, Tom. The police discovered that someone tampered with the brakes on her car.”
By now Tom Benton was cursing a blue streak. “I told her not to move to f-ing Kauai. I told her she’d be over there all alone.”
“She wasn’t exactly alone, and what does that have to do with anything?”
“She didn’t have family there. No one to watch over her. I’m her only family now that my mom is gone. Now someone has killed my Aunt Marilyn? Why?”
“They don’t know yet.”
“I’ll hire a private investigator if I have to. I’ll get to the truth. One way or another I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Listen, Tom, the KPD is working the case. I know the lead detective personally.”
“Right. Don’t forget you’re on an island, Em. In the middle of nowhere. It’s practically a third world country. The police are probably a bunch of hicks at best. Good old boys. My aunt was an old, rich haloe lady. They’re not going to prosecute one of their own to avenge her death. Mark my words.” His anger pulsed across the air waves.
“Listen, Tom, I know you’re upset . . .”
“What do they know so far? Or is anyone saying?”
“They did an autopsy. Her blood alcohol was in legal limits. She went into the ocean and died on impact. The brake line was cut.”
Suddenly he made a choking sound, and his anger dissolved into despair. “She was so happy. She said she’d found someone who could make her so happy. Of course, she always said that before one of her marriages. I can’t believe she’s gone.”
“My uncle is broken-hearted. I’ve never seen him so down.”
“Where . . . where is she now?”
“In the office. Locked in a file drawer.”
“What?”
“We couldn’t get a hold of you, and a decision had to be made. We had her cremated. I have the ashes here. We were waiting for you to decide on the style of memorial you think would be fitting. Do you know what she wanted?”
“I can’t think at all right now. I really can’t think about that right now. We’ll talk about it when I get there. I’ll be on the first flight that I can get.”
“You’re welcome to stay with us,” she offered.
“’I have a key to my aunt’s house. I’ll stay there.”
“Call as soon as you’re settled.”
“Don’t worry, I will. Rest assured I’m not going to let anyone get away with murder.”
EM WORKED alongside Sophie until closing that night. When Sophie asked how Louie had responded to the article about the cocktail shake off, Em admitted that with everything else that was going on, she’d forgotten to show it to him.
Exhausted, she went back to the house wanting nothing more than to take a quick shower and drop into bed, but a few yards from the back door, the sound of Arthur Lyman singing “Puka Shells” accompanied by the sound of vibraphone music came floating toward her in the dark.
Apparently Louie was still up and hopefully making some progress toward recovery. She called out hello as she walked inside, but he didn’t answer. The TV was still on, but the sound was muted. There was a vinyl LP record playing on an old turntable in a teak cabinet. Louie refused to get rid of the stereo system because he owned a huge collection of vintage Hawaiian and exotica albums that were not available in CD or MP3 formats and probably never would be.
“Oo ,oo, oo. Ah, ah, ah.”
Arthur Lyman was making howler monkey sounds on the recording. Not for the first time, Em was glad the popularity of the exotica music genre had been confined to a limited audience.
Louie came walking out of the back of the house in an Aloha shirt in a traditional tapa cloth pattern of brown and black. He also had on long, purple flannel pajama pants.
“I brought you some garlic shrimp and mashed sweet potatoes.” She held out the take-out box for him. “I figured you hadn’t eaten.”
“Tonight’s special? Yum.” He took the box and shuffled over to the kitchen, slid open the drawer, and pulled out a fork. He walked back to the bar and set down the box.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Long.” She realized she hadn’t even come over after she returned home from town earlier. “I’m so sorry I didn’t come over when I got back, but we were slammed. I was hung up waiting tables and helping out all night.”
“I saw all the cars in the lot.”
“Kimo did a great job on the shrimp. It’s excellent. Try it.” She’d given up trying to force feed him. “You look like you’re losing weight.”
“Did you . . . you know?”
“I picked up the box at the mortuary. It’s locked in the file cabinet.” Thinking of Marilyn reminded her of Tom Benton. “Tom called,” she said.
“How did he take it?” Louie stared down at the recycled paper take-out box but didn’t open it.
“He was upset, of course. He’ll be on the first flight he can get.”
“From India?”
“From California.”
“That’s good. Marilyn would be happy to know he’ll be here to take care of things. She would have wanted that.”
Em didn’t want to bring him down any lower by telling him about Marilyn’s middle of the night phone call to Orville Orion and was wondering what she could possibly say to cheer him. Then she remembered the article.
“Pour me a drink,” she told him. “I’ll be right back.”
“What would you like?” He sounded listless and less than enthused, but he was headed for the tiki bar.
“Surprise me.”
She went into her room, dug through her dirty clothes basket, and found the shorts she had worn when Sophie gave her the article. Luckily she was behind on the laundry. She pulled it out, shoved it into her back pocket, and returned to the living room.
Her uncle was putting the lid on a cocktail shaker when she walked back over to the bar and sat down on one of the swivel stools. As Louie shook the shaker and the ice rattled against chrome, David Letterman started running back and forth on his perch bobbing his head.
“Shake. Shake. Shake.” The parrot was so excited that Louie was back in action, he was screaming
at the top of his lungs. “Shake your boobie. Shake your boobie.”
“I thought it was ‘shake your bootie,’” Em said.
Louie shrugged. “He’s getting hard of hearing.”
He poured the contents of the shaker into a low glass and handed it to her. She took a sip, closed her eyes, and said, “Ahhh.”
“Like it? It’s an old favorite, a Frothy Fang.” He held up his left hand and showed her the missing digit on his little finger. “Commemorates the time I was bit by a loose pit bull. It attacked me when I was out hiking up the Okolehau Trail behind Hanalei.”
“I thought you told me you lost the tip of your finger snorkeling.”
He shrugged. “Did I?” He stared at his left hand. “Hmm. Maybe it was the time I stuck my hand between two rocks, and an eel bit it off.”
Em took another sip, savoring the refreshing mint flavor. She pulled the article out of her back pocket. She smoothed it out and turned it around so that Louie could read it.
“What’s this?” He barely glanced at the page.
“An article Soph tore out of the Hawaiian Airlines magazine. There’s going to be a national contest for the best tropical drink cocktail in the country. The first state round will be held in Honolulu, then the winner will go on to Long Beach for the western regionals.” She pointed at the text. Louie was staring at the photo.
“You’ll win the state round hands down,” she added.
“That looks like my ‘Blood on the Beach.’” He pointed to a photo of a drink that resembled his version of a Bloody Mary. Louie leaned closer and read the caption aloud.
“The ‘Tropic of Tomato’ is a heady blend of vodka, tomato puree, and rosemary oil with the slightest essence of lime. What?” He scanned the page and frowned. “What the heck’s that supposed to mean? It sounds more like soup or spaghetti sauce than a drink.”
“It means you can win this thing. I read the whole article. Some of these guys couldn’t tell a classic tropical cocktail from a can of gasoline.”
He stared at the page, scratched his head, and then looked at Dave. “What do you think, buddy? Do we have it in us?”
Afraid to get prematurely excited over his reaction, Em said, “You should seriously think about it. You could enter one of your old favorites off the menu or come up with something new.”
He reached beneath the bar and pulled out a thick, tattered binder labeled Uncle Louie’s Booze Bible. He tapped the cover.
“You realize this is worth a small fortune?”
She nodded. No doubt it was to someone. The binder contained every tropical drink her uncle had ever come up with, each accompanied by its own outrageous legend that told the origin for his inspiration.
“If I croak before I find a publisher, it’s yours. You have my permission to publish it posthumorously.”
“You mean posthumously.”
“Right. After I’m gone.”
She watched him stroke the cover of the binder and thought about the day she’d arrived on Kauai. Her shattering divorce had left her not only broken but broke. When a letter from Kiki had arrived, she’d used the one way ticket the Maidens pitched in to buy and mailed to her. They had begged her to answer their emergency plea. With nothing to lose, she headed for Kauai under the impression her uncle was feeble-minded.
What she discovered was that the bar accounts were in the red because Louie was running the Goddess into the ground by loaning money to the locals and offering too many “on the house” rounds. What Kiki had really feared was that Louie would fall so far into debt that he would lose the Goddess before he lost his mind.
Most of the time Louie Marshall was as sane as the rest of them.
“You’re not going anywhere, Uncle Louie,” Em said.
“That’s what Marilyn thought on her way home Saturday.” He shook his head. “You never know, Em. You just never know.”
24
Roland Calls with the 411
“ARE YOU BUSY?”
Em smiled when she heard Roland’s voice on the Goddess line.
“Busy? I’m always busy. Why?”
“I’m right up the road. I hoped you could meet me for a few minutes,” he said.
She covered the receiver, stuck her head out of the office, and waved at Sophie. “Can you spare me for a while?”
Sophie glanced at the clock behind the bar.
“Sure. Long as you’re back by eleven when that tour van gets here.”
Em ducked back into the office again. “Where are you? I can leave for about an hour and a half.” She’d forgotten a tour company had called to arrange a special group lunch.
“I’m at the kayak rental stand.”
“The one by the river or the one on the highway?”
“Neither. The one by the surfboard rental stand.”
“The one in the park or the one on the beach?”
“Park.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She started to hang up and then said, “Is this an emergency?”
“No. I just wanted to tell you what Orion had to say and thought you might want a slice of pie to help you swallow it.”
“That bad?”
“We’ll talk when you get here.”
Twenty minutes later she spotted Roland on the beach where the Hanalei River emptied into the ocean and watched him cross the sand that had been beaten down as hard as pavement by all the cars and pickups that vied for parking space on the beach between the pier and the river.
“What happened?”
“A couple from Montana has either stolen a kayak, or they’re lost somewhere on the ocean. Honeymooners. Rented a double kayak yesterday afternoon, said they’d only be gone for an hour. They aren’t back yet.”
Em studied the endless horizon. Near the shore the water was as placid as a lake, but outside the bay, the swells were deep and relentless, a challenge to anyone unfamiliar with the ocean.
“Isn’t this a job for the Coast Guard? Or the lifeguards?”
“The manager of the kayak rentals called and reported a theft, not a missing persons report. It got turned over to me.”
“So you have to detect what happened.”
“Until we find an empty kayak somewhere, I do. I doubt they know a thing about the ocean.”
“I can’t believe all you need is a driver’s license and a credit card and away you go.”
“No qualifications needed to launch into some of the most dangerous water in the world.”
“Kind of like getting married or having kids,” she said.
“Kinda.”
“You mentioned pie,” she reminded him.
“Come with me.”
They walked over to his car. He opened the door and took out a brown paper bag, then closed the door and headed for a green picnic table under the shade of an ironwood pine tree in Black Pot Park.
She looked around. Thinking he might not want to be the subject of more gossip than necessary, she sat across the table instead of next to him.
Roland methodically opened the bag, took out two individual mini fruit pies, two bottled waters and two forks then smoothed out the bag. He tore it down two seams and handed her a section to use as a placemat.
“Wow. From the Pie Lady?” Em’s mouth watered.
He nodded. “Mango blueberry.”
She was chewing a forkful before he’d taken his first bite.
“So, you like pie, I take it?” He was actually smiling.
“Luff it,” she mumbled around another bite. Em swallowed, opened her water, and took a sip. “So what did Orville have to say?”
“You realize this is confidential.”
“Of course. I still haven’t told Louie about Marilyn’s one a.m. call. So what did he have to say?”
“He says all he wanted was to wish her luck.”
“At one a.m.?”
“That’s all he’d say. I questioned him for quite a while. His story never changed.”
“Did he seem nervous?”
“Not really. He was cool, calm, and collected. From the looks of his house and his car, the guy doesn’t need to worry about money.”
“Maybe he was jealous.” She stared at the pie for a minute. “Maybe he was so jealous he decided if he couldn’t have her then neither could my uncle.”
“He’s seventy-four, Em.”
“So? Do you think jealously is reserved only for the young?”
He shrugged.
“Maybe I should talk to him,” she said.
“Because you could get the truth out of him?”
“Maybe I can appeal to his emotions. Tell him how broken up Louie is.”
“If he was responsible, he’ll trip up and we’ll get him, but we have to have all our ducks in a row. Don’t go treading in shark infested water, Em.”
She didn’t promise anything. She finished her pie.
“Did you ever hear from the nephew?”
“Last night. He’s flying in as soon as he can and will call me when he gets here. He’s going to stay at Marilyn’s.”
“Did you tell him everything yet?”
“I told him about the brake line being cut. Not about the other murders or the ever growing list of suspects or Orville’s phone calls.” She didn’t dare tell Roland that Tom Benton had very little faith in the KPD. “He’s furious as you can well imagine. He’s even threatening to hire a private detective.”
“If he hires someone on Kauai, he’ll get a retired cop. He brings someone in from the mainland, and no one’s going to talk to the guy.”
AFTER THEY finished their pie, Roland left. Em checked her watch. Since she was already in Hanalei, she had time to run up to Princeville and pick up some flowers for Tom Benton before she had to get back to the Goddess.
Considering herself lucky, she only had to circle the Foodland parking lot twice before one of the miniscule parking slots opened up, and she slid her uncle’s old pickup between two red Mustang rental convertibles. She grabbed a bouquet of tall tropical stalks of red ginger, heliconia, and ti on her way into the store, hurried back to the fruit department and chose some papayas, and then got in the ten-items-or-less line.
Three to Get Lei'd Page 14
