As Em turned into the Goddess parking lot headed for her private parking place behind the beach house, she saw Lillian walking up the steps to the Goddess lanai. Lillian minus her bandages.
She waved, but Lillian didn’t wave back, which Em thought odd until she saw not one but three more Lillians seated at tables on the lanai. They all had the same pink hair, curled into perms and backcombed into cotton candy bouffant dos, frilly white blouses, and hot pink pedal pushers.
When Em spotted a Holoholo Holiday tour van parked in the lot she remembered that Lillian’s fan club had rushed in from Iowa to help cheer their idol. If she’d seen a bus load of clones of women impersonating her, she would have run screaming into the hills.
She parked and ran back to the bar, which was full of even more Lillians. They were seated at tables around the room, some with husbands or traveling companions. All of them had the same hairdo and black rhinestone-encrusted frames on their retro glasses. Buzzy was busy delivering prefix hamburger and fries lunches to a table for six. Trish and Suzi were hurrying out of the kitchen carrying orders.
Sophie shot her a where-have-you-been look as Em hurried to help. She grabbed an apron from a hook near the kitchen door and tied it on.
“Sorry I’m late,” she told Sophie. “I forgot about the Lillians.”
“Me too. That sure took a while. Hope it was fun.” Sophie didn’t look pissed, just swamped and more than a little curious.
“I met up with Roland. Then I went to Foodland and ran an errand.”
“Playing with the detective, not detecting, right?”
Em wasn’t about to admit she had been doing just that by trying to get the truth out of Orville Orion, so she changed the subject.
“What’s this?” Em picked up a tray Sophie had filled with pink cocktails.
“Something I made up for the occasion. They’re called Pink Lillies. Pink lemonade and lime flavored Caribbean Rum.”
“Pink Lillies. Cute,” Em said.
“I asked Louie to come up with something, but he said he was too busy.”
“Busy watching infomercials, I’m afraid. Good thing the Maidens are here.”
“They are going to back Lillian up while she does a couple of dances for her fans. For The Official Lillian Smith Fan Club, that is. As opposed to the unofficial one, I guess.” Sophie shrugged.
“Where is the real Lillian?” Em didn’t have time to study each and every Lillian in the room. Seeing them all together was like double vision magnified. It was making her lightheaded.
“She’s in the restroom getting ready to go on as the featured dancer.”
“That’s big of Kiki. Is Lil’s arm all right?”
“Miraculous healing. Her bandage came off just in time for her to appear before her adoring fans.”
Kimo started hammering on the ship’s bell he kept in the kitchen. Em ran in and came back out with three more hamburger specials. She set them down and then asked the table of Lils and their mates if they needed anything else.
One of the Lillians lifted off the top bun, stared at the hamburger, then poked it with a fork.
“That’s not fish, is it?” She wrinkled her nose.
“No. It’s a hamburger.”
“They tried to give us fish at the hotel last night. I hate fish. There’s fish all over the place.”
“We’re surrounded by water,” Em said.
“Fish, fish, fish,” another Lillian agreed. “I only like fish sticks.”
“There is no actual fish shaped like a popsicle.” Em never, ever considered fish sticks fish.
“We’re from Iowa. We don’t like fish.” The first Lillian’s husband wrinkled his nose.
“Too far from the ocean.” The second Lillian nodded.
“Catfish.” The first Lillian said, “I kind of like catfish.”
Em was on her way back across the room when she noticed Big Estelle hovering by the bathroom door.
“Where’s Little Estelle?” Em asked her. “I don’t see her anywhere.”
“She stayed home. The perfect match she met on the dating site hadn’t shown up yet. She’s really bummed. She wasn’t in the mood to come along. I usually don’t leave her home alone. Not after what happened last time.”
“Last time?”
“She put on her bathrobe and flashed the gardener from her upstairs window.”
“I can see why you wouldn’t want her home alone.”
“No kidding. The guy quit. Naturally the word got out. I can’t find a gardener to save my life. Oh, Kiki said to tell you we’re ready,” Big Estelle remembered. “Since we’re dancing to the boom box we need someone to MC and then push the start button. Louie still won’t come out of the house.”
“What are you dancing?”
“Just two numbers. Keep Your Eyes on The Hands first, then we’re teaching the Lillians Going to a Hukilau. Trish and Suzi are going to waitress.”
“You got it,” Em said. Then Kimo started ringing the bell like crazy. “Give me two minutes.” She ran after three more orders. Once they were delivered, Em stepped up to the mic and tapped it.
“Testing.” She turned up the mic. Kiki popped out of the restroom, waved at Em, and cued up the boom box. Then she gave Em the high sign and scurried out of sight.
“Welcome to the Tiki Goddess.” Em decided to keep it short but sweet. “You all know the Hula Maidens from the reality show Trouble in Paradise, and now you’ll see them in action.” Em nodded at Kiki.
Kiki whispered back, “Tell them it’s me, Flora, and Big Estelle, and we’re spotlighting Lillian. When we get on stage, push the start button.”
As the women filed on stage, Em leaned toward the mic again.
“Maidens Flora and Big Estelle, along with their leader, Kiki, will be dancing behind your favorite Hula Maiden, Iowa’s own Lillian Smith!”
Lillian stepped out of the bathroom into the bar, and the room went wild. All the Lillians started screaming and jumped to their feet. The husbands who had been brave enough to come along rolled their eyes at each other.
When Lillian walked onto the stage and stood front and center with the other dancers behind her, a hush fell over the room. The Lillians from Iowa had come three thousand miles to witness what they’d only seen on TV. Their hometown idol was about to perform.
Em pushed the start button, and the boom box blared, “Whenever you’re watching the hula girls dance . . .”
Having done her part, Em walked back to the bar.
Sophie said, “I can’t watch.”
Em couldn’t look away. The three back-up Maidens went right. Lil went left. There was a definite rhythm running through the melody. Lillian was oblivious to it.
But the crowd went crazy. Not once did the real Lillian do anything resembling the performance going on behind her. Kiki, Flora, and Big Estelle kept right on smiling and dancing until the song ended.
The faux Lillians remained on their feet, screaming the entire time.
When it was over, tears of joy streamed down the real Lillian’s face. Kiki turned off the boom box and took the mic.
When the crowd heard that they too were now going to learn a hula, their enthusiasm knew no bounds. Even the women who hated fishing didn’t seem to mind that they were learning a song about fishing the old Hawaiian way. They joined in, swaying to and fro while they mimed tossing out fish nets and pulling them in.
If any of them noticed their idol was completely hula-challenged, they didn’t let on.
Em was weaving her way through the crowded room to clear tables when she recognized Tom Benton. He was standing in the open doorway, surveying the room.
She waved, and he threaded his way through and took the only empty seat at the end of the bar. Em walked over and gave him a hug.
“Oh, Tom,
I’m so sorry.” She had to shout to be heard over the ruckus.
He frowned and shook his head. “It’s your loss too, Em. I’ll go over and pay my respects to Louie, but I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Did you just get here?”
“I haven’t even been to Marilyn’s yet.”
“Would you like lunch?”
He shook his head no. “I’d love a beer though.”
Em drew him a draft beer. There was no sense in trying to carry on a meaningful conversation yet, but Lillian’s clones were slowly calming down. As the frenzy subsided, they dropped into their chairs. Their tour leader, a woman far younger than the real Lillian but proudly sporting a poufy pink wig, blew a whistle to get their attention.
The room fell almost silent. The tour leader proceeded to read off the rest of the day’s activities. Much to everyone’s joy and amazement, the real Lillian had agreed to accompany them as they toured the North Shore. Afterward they would return to their hotel for a cocktail party and a “We Love Lillian” banquet.
“So finish up!” the tour leader shouted. “We Lillians have to get moving.”
Em let Tom wind down with his beer and started clearing tables. The Lillians were up and out of the bar in ten minutes. She left Suzi and Trish and Sophie finishing up and joined Tom at the bar again.
“Want another?” she asked him.
“Why not?”
Em filled another glass and handed it to him then went back to clearing the tables.
When she joined him again he was staring into his second empty beer glass.
“I still can’t believe it,” he said.
“I know. This has really shaken up my uncle. I’m worried about him.”
“I’m sure he wants Marilyn’s murderer found as much as I do. But don’t you worry.” He looked around the room, and his gaze stopped on the stage where Kiki was still dancing a solo to the boom box music even though no one was paying any attention. “I’ll get to the bottom of this one way or another. I’ll bring in experts the likes of which this island has never seen.”
Em studied him for a moment. He was truly hurting, and his hurt had turned into anger.
“Let me give you a little tip, Tom.”
“Sure.”
“You might want to ease into this. If you start pissing off the wrong people with a kick-butt-take-no-prisoners mainland attitude, you’re not going to get anywhere. Neither will your experts. I hate to see you waste your time and money when the local police can handle it.”
She watched the muscle in his jaw twitch.
“Point taken,” he said. “But Aunt Marilyn was the only family I had. I want her killer brought to justice.”
She could sympathize. Louie was all the family she had since the divorce.
“Is this place always this crowded?” He watched a carload of tourists walk in as the last straggling Lillians walked out.
“Since the Trouble in Paradise pilot aired, we’ve been slammed.”
“For such a tired dump this place is quite the little moneymaker.”
Em bristled and tried to excuse his rude remark, which only proved he and Marilyn shared DNA.
“I sat next to a really chatty old guy from Kauai on the flight from Honolulu,” he said.
“Everyone likes to wala’au. Especially the kupuna.”
He stared at her. “I have no idea what you just said.”
“Everyone likes to talk story. Especially the old folks.”
“Yeah, well, he valla-howed all right.”
She didn’t try to correct him.
“I said I was coming over because my aunt had been killed in a car crash, and he’d heard all about the recent murders and said they were big news over here. He went on to tell me some really disturbing things.”
“There was a murder, yes but . . .”
“Murders, Em. Not murder. Not just Aunt Marilyn. When I called, you failed to mention there had been two other recent murders here.”
“Technically, only one of them was connected to the Goddess. A maid was killed out at Haena Beach Resort the same week, but the police haven’t actually found anything to tie it to Marilyn’s or Bobby the cameraman’s murders.”
He looked pained. “Would you like to explain?”
Every stool at the bar was full. She lowered her voice. “One of the cameramen working on the show was stabbed in our kitchen a few days before your aunt died. So far there’s only been one arrest, our chef Kimo Godwin, but he’s innocent. He was released on bail.”
“Out on bail? He’s still a suspect?”
“But he has no real motive. Oh, we all knew the cameramen were both driving him crazy but certainly not enough to kill one of them.”
“The old man on the plane heard there was some kind of a cat fight in here the night my aunt died. Said Aunt Marilyn was terrified of some crazy woman.”
The power and swiftness of the coconut wireless never ceased to amaze Em.
“There was an argument, but I saw your aunt afterward, and she certainly wasn’t terrified. She and Kiki argued all the time.”
“Kiki? Kiki Godwin?”
Sorry she’d mentioned Kiki’s name, Em could only nod.
“I had a feeling it was that crazy woman. Aunt Marilyn was always complaining about her. If her husband is a suspected killer, what makes you think this Kiki is so innocent? They may have been in it together.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Do the police have a better theory?”
She’d promised Roland she wouldn’t tell anyone about the phone calls between Marilyn and Orville Orion. After talking to Orion earlier, she was convinced he hadn’t killed her, still, dropping Orion’s name might take the heat off of Kiki for a while.
But Em couldn’t do it.
“I can’t say,” she said.
Tom was staring at the stage. “That’s her, isn’t it? That’s Kiki Godwin.”
“Yes, but . . .”
Suddenly he was on his feet, advancing on the stage.
“Tom, wait.” Em went after him. He didn’t turn around.
The song on the boom box ended, and the only sounds in the room were the laughter and conversation of patrons. Flora and Big Estelle walked out of the restroom. They’d taken off their muumuus and stuffed them into the big straw bags they now carried. They joined Kiki just as Tom reached them.
“Tom.” Em kept her voice low. “Please.”
Kiki was still in her white muumuu covered in huge red hibiscus flowers. She noticed Tom, and her smile lit up.
“A-loha. I’m Kiki. Can I help you?”
Kiki always turned on the charm when she was pitching a prospective Kiki’s Kreative Events client.
“Only if you confess to murder,” Tom shot back.
Kiki’s smiled dissolved.
“What?” She turned to Em.
“Kiki, this is Tom Benton, Marilyn’s nephew.”
“If you think you’re going to get away with murder, Ms. Godwin, think again,” he said.
Giving new meaning to someone tossing her weight around, Flora stepped up to Tom and got right in his face.
“Hey, haole boy. Who you think you are, being all rude like that?”
He shrugged her off. “Don’t haole boy me. You will all know I mean business soon enough.” He ignored everyone else and focused on Kiki. “I know you had it out for my aunt. She used to tell me all about you, and how you hated her for leaving your little dance troupe of misfits. She knew you were trying to talk Louie out of marrying her.”
“Mmfuupp.” Kiki tried to speak. Her mouth was open, her eyes bugging out of her head.
Em tried to grab Tom’s shoulder. “Tom, please don’t. She could have a stroke. When she gets really upset,
she loses the ability to talk.”
He shook her off.
“She doesn’t have to talk to me. All she has to do is listen. Here’s what I think.” He stepped closer and pointed at Kiki. “I think that cameraman was killed as part of a scheme to throw the police off your trail before you killed my aunt. You and your husband were in on this together. She was getting too close to the one thing you love most in the world. This place. So you plotted to kill Aunt Marilyn on the night before her wedding. First your husband killed the cameraman, and then one or both of you caused Aunt Marilyn’s wreck. Now the police are running around in circles, just the way you planned.”
“Want me to call 911, Em?” Behind the bar, Sophie had the phone in her hand.
Kimo walked out of the kitchen wielding a meat cleaver.
“Step away from my wife,” he said.
A tourist at a table near the stage hoisted his drink and said, “This is great, isn’t it, hon? I wonder when this episode will air?”
“This is no show,” Flora told them. “This is the real thing. For sure.”
Tom noticed the cleaver and stepped away from Kiki.
“Take it back,” Kimo said. “Take it all back.”
Tom may have backed up, but he didn’t back down.
“I’m not taking anything back because it’s the truth. The world will know it too, just as soon as the private detective gets here.”
He turned around, and without a word to anyone, not even Em, he stalked out of the bar.
People seated at nearby tables burst into applause.
27
Kiki’s Big Plan
Kiki’s legs were shaking so violently Kimo handed the meat cleaver to Big Estelle. He grabbed Kiki by the arm and led her away from the applauding crowd and into Louie’s office. Em, Flora, and Big Estelle followed close behind, and once they were all inside, Kimo closed the door.
She opened her mouth to voice her outrage. “Muffluffer.”
Kimo led her over to Louie’s office chair behind the desk and helped her sit.
“Close your eyes. Remember what the doctor said after the last time this happened. Close your eyes and take long, deep breaths,” he said.
“In and out.” Flora started taking long deep breaths. Inhaling and exhaling through her teeth. She sounded like a runaway steam engine.
Three to Get Lei'd Page 16
