Three to Get Lei'd

by Jill Marie Landis

  Aloha, Kiki xoxoxo

  Suzi didn’t have to wait long for a reaction.

  “Who the heck is this Meno’ok Lodfort she went to help?” Flora wanted to know. “I don’t know anybody by that name.”

  “You might not know everybody Kiki knows,” Pat said.

  Suzi nodded. “We do.”

  Pat wasn’t convinced. “If she bothered to leave a note then she’s probably right where she said she would be. If ya’ll got me over here for nothing, I’m gonna be madder than a wet sittin’ hen.”

  Flora leaned over and whispered to Trish, “What does that mean?”

  “I have no idea,” the photographer shrugged.

  Precious didn’t look any happier than Pat. “I ran out of the salon and left a woman sitting with dye on her hair.”

  “Uh, oh,” Flora said. Then she burped.

  “I told my receptionist to finish up. Hopefully she’s not going to fry the woman’s scalp.”

  “Then why are you here?” Pat asked her.

  “I was afraid if I missed this, you would all think I wasn’t committed to being a Hula Maiden.”

  Suzi stared at the note in her hands. “I think Kiki is trying to throw us off her trail. I don’t remember ever making chicken hekka for the Slug Festival.” She looked at the women gathered around the table. “Do you?”

  They all shook their heads no.

  “Who was she going to see?” Pat wanted to know.

  “Meno’ok Lodfort.”

  “What the heck kind of a name is that?” Pat scratched her head. “Sounds like it’s one of those Eye-ran-yuns.”

  Trish stared at Pat. “One of those what?”

  “You know, somebody from Eye-ran.”

  Trish sighed.

  “Maybe that’s code for something. Give me that thang.” Pat held out her hand. Suzi slapped the note in it. Pat pulled a pen out of her shirt pocket, grabbed a handful of napkins out of the basket in the center of the table, and started writing.

  “Where could she be?” Trish frowned. “She has to be somewhere on the island.”

  “Unless she flew away.” Flora was clutching a Gatorade bottle.

  Em said, “She’d never leave Kauai with Kimo out on bail. He wouldn’t be able to follow her.”

  The sound of a motor revving drew their attention to the front door. Little Estelle rolled in followed by Big Estelle. Trailing behind them was a huge blond Viking with curly hair, ice blue eyes, and muscles bulging out of bigger muscles. He was oiled to a high shine, and his miniscule red shorts and tight white T-shirt left nothing to the imagination.

  Little Estelle idled near the table and snapped her fingers. The giant moved one of the chairs away so she could park beside Precious. Big Estelle sat as far away from her mother as possible without staying out on the lanai. The giant folded his arms and stood behind Little Estelle.

  Everyone else exchanged questioning looks. Little Estelle barked out a laugh. “This is Lars, everyone. He’s my soul mate. We found each other on iLoveCougars.com. He’s eye candy, and he’s mine. So you can look, but you can’t touch.” She reached over and squeezed Lars’ butt cheek. He leaned down and patted her on the head.

  “Eye candy?” Trish whispered to Em. “Is that anything like an Eye-raniun?”

  “I heard that, missy.” Pat didn’t look up from where she was hunched over open paper napkins that took up most of the table top in front of her.

  “Lars is from Norway. He doesn’t speak English,” Little Estelle said. “You can say anything you want in front of him.” She gazed around the table at the assembly. “Any of you have any questions for me? Wondering what sex is like between a Cougar and a thirty-year-old?”

  “Mother!” Big Estelle yelled.

  Pat finally looked up. “This meeting’s not about you, Little Estelle, though I’ll have to admit I got a lotta questions. This is about Kiki. She’s gone missing. At least we think she’s gone missing.”

  “She’ll be back,” Little Estelle assured them. “That woman can’t stay away from here.”

  “She will if she’s afraid.”

  Little Estelle sniffed. “She’s not afraid of anything.”

  Em glanced out the window and saw Kimo’s truck drive past.

  “Kimo just drove in,” she said. No one was paying attention.

  Suzi was saying, “Kiki’s convinced she’s going to be arrested for Marilyn’s murder. The Black Widow’s nephew hired a private detective to find her killer.”

  “A private dick?” Little Estelle smiled up at Lars.

  Pat’s arm shot up. “Stop it, y’all! This is no joke. Kiki is missing.”

  “Kiki ran off, she’s not missing,” Flora said.

  Just then Kimo walked in. He said, “Either way, she’s out there somewhere all by herself. She hates to be alone. She needs people. She needs her friends.”

  “She needs an audience,” Little Estelle said.

  “I’ve got it!” Pat jumped to her feet and waved the napkin around. “It is code.”

  Her chair clattered backward. Kimo righted it. He looked at the napkin in Pat’s hand.

  “What kind of code? What are you talking about?”

  Pat tapped the center of the paper napkin so hard she poked her finger through it. “If you unscramble the letters of Meno’ok Lodfort, they spell Don’t Look For Me! Don’t look for me, get it? Kiki is warning us not to look for her.”

  Kimo sank into a chair at the table behind them. “I should never have fallen for that note. She tried to get me to run off with her, but I refused. She was talking crazy after Tom Benton came in the bar. Said we should head off into the jungle like Ko’olau the leper and his wife Pi’ilani.”

  “Like who?” Em worried she’d stumbled into the middle of an old Twilight Zone episode. Either that, or she was having a nightmare. Any minute now she’d wake up, and it would be time to start the day with a walk on the beach.

  “Ko’olau the leper,” Flora said.

  “More code?” Pat reached for more napkins.

  Suzi said to Flora, “Let me explain.” She turned to Pat. “Ko’olau the leper and his wife Pi’ilani ran from the Hawaiian government back when they exiled people with Hanson’s Disease to the island of Moloka’i. The couple hid in Kalalau Valley, and when the law came to get them, Ko’olau shot and killed the sheriff. Ko’olau eventually died hiding somewhere up in one of the valleys.”

  Flora shook her head. “If Kiki’s up in Kalalau, we can’t follow her. We’d never make it.”

  “Do you think she took a gun?” Little Estelle wondered.

  “No kidding,” Pat said. “Even if we could get a boat to drop us off, I hear that trail is steep, eleven miles long and less than three feet wide in some spots.”

  “No toilets,” Em said.

  “No bars,” Flora added.

  “No hula,” Little Estelle said.

  Suzi nodded. “Good points. So Kiki’s probably not there. My guess is that she’s somewhere comfortable. I just hope she’s safe and not the murderer’s latest victim.”

  “Me too.” Kimo looked defeated until he finally noticed Lars, who was still standing behind Little Estelle’s Gadabout. “Who the heck is this?”

  Little Estelle pinched Lars’ butt again, winked at Kimo, and said, “Call me Cougar!”

  31

  Hiding Out in Style

  The rain hadn’t let up for three days in the Kokee forest area of Kauai. Thirty-six hundred feet above sea level, the air was thinner, the pine trees thicker, and the temperatures cooler. As Kiki sat under a shelter in the park area, fashioning a rain poncho out of an extra large, black plastic trash bag, she found herself wishing she’d packed flannel pajamas.

  After she wrote her note to Kimo, she’d left the North S
hore and headed for the west side of the island. Stopping in Waimea, she ran into Ishihara Market, bought a Styrofoam cooler, and stocked up on deli items and plenty of sushi rolls before she drove up the winding mountain road into Kokee.

  She ditched her car on an unpaved road, having driven on gravel as far as she could make it before she turned onto a spur road open to hunters. She left the car and the bulk of her supplies and hiked out. The cold and rain forced her to return to the car to sleep in it her first night on the mountain.

  The second morning, she made a pack of essentials. It wasn’t all that exciting to have to use nature as a toilet, but she hadn’t earned every Girl Scout camping badge way back when for nothing.

  “Kiki Godwin, you are a high achiever,” she told herself as she slipped the trash bag over her head. “You play to win and don’t ever forget it.”

  None of the contestants on Survivor had anything on her. So what if she was sixty-seven? She could have beaten them all and walked off with a million dollars every season. No way was she going to get railroaded on some trumped up murder charge. No way O.J.

  She left the shelter in Kanaloahuluhulu Meadow where the Hula Maidens performed at the annual Queen Emma Festival every fall and slowly trudged up the road toward Camp Sloggett. Eventually she turned off the road in search of a deserted cabin where she could spend the night. Most of the privately owned or leased cabins were only used on weekends when locals could escape their everyday lives.

  Her feet and knees were killing her from too much hula, but what’s a girl to do? She kept plowing along uphill, stopping now and again when she got winded. Finally she glimpsed a rusting tin roof through the trees and headed up a small driveway that wound its way through the bush. The cabin wasn’t visible from the road, and the driveway was overgrown with weeds, so she doubted anyone had used it in a while.

  As she suspected, the cabin was uninhabited. Once she was inside, the place appeared not to have been used for some time. There was an old sofa that didn’t look like it housed many rats. She picked up a piece of wood on the hearth and beat it on the sofa cushions, and thankfully nothing ran out. Even the rats had deserted the place. She dumped her pack on a rickety table and then sat down and stared at the empty fireplace. No way could she build a fire and chance the smoke being seen.

  She had what she needed in her pack to build a mean martini. She pulled out the martini glass she’d wrapped in her pareau, the bottle of vodka, and a sushi roll.

  When the cocktail was ready, Kiki raised her glass.

  “Here’s to someone getting arrested soon so I can go home.”

  32

  True Confessions

  The Hula Maiden’s “Kiki’s Missing Emergency Meeting” had gone on way longer than it should have.

  As soon as Sophie arrived, she started prepping the tables, refilling ketchup and soy sauce bottles, and setting up the room for the lunch crowd. Kimo, with worry lines marring his usually jovial expression, left the Maidens to their own devices and was soon in the kitchen working on the special of the day, grilled mahi mahi sandwiches with fries on the side.

  At ten o’clock Em started serving the Maidens drinks. By eleven thirty she was ready to pull the plug and free up the tables for folks coming in for lunch. She was behind the bar when she looked up and spotted Tom Benton in the doorway. None of the Maidens had seen him yet. She tried to signal Suzi to stop talking, but the realtor was in high gear and focused on the women staring up at her.

  “So, should we hold a fundraiser ASAP?” Suzi asked. “If so, we need a theme.”

  “Free Kiki!” Flora hoisted her plastic bottled beverage.

  “She’d not in jail yet,” Trish reminded her.

  “Find Kiki!” Big Estelle called out. “Or Where in the World is Kiki? That might be better.”

  “She doesn’t want to be found, remember?” Pat said.

  “Maybe a fundraiser is a bad idea,” Suzi decided.

  Tom walked straight across the room toward Em.

  “What are they talking about?” He stopped at the bar. “Find Kiki? Where’s Kiki? What’s going on?”

  Em finished wiping down the bar and then tossed the towel.

  “Em?”

  “Kiki left a note for Kimo. She took off, and no one has seen her since.”

  Tom Benton focused on what Em said for a second, then his eyes widened, and he smiled.

  “So, she’s on the run. I knew it! I knew that woman was guilty.”

  Little Estelle was the one closest to the bar and had overheard. She put the Gadabout in gear. Followed by Lars, she rolled over to where Tom was standing.

  “Who are you exactly?” Little Estelle blinked behind her wire-framed glasses and stared up at him.

  “I’m Tom Benton. Who are you?”

  “Call me Cougar. Are you the guy with the private dick?”

  “Not if the right woman comes along,” he said.

  Little Estelle pursed her lips in disgust. “Not that one. Are you the guy with the private detective?”

  “That’s me. Marilyn Lockhart’s nephew.”

  All the Maidens were silently staring at him now. He turned and slowly eyed them one at a time.

  “So, Kiki Godwin is on the run.” He had the nerve to look smug about it.

  “She’s not on the run.” Suzi grabbed the note from Pat Boggs and read it aloud. “See, she said she’d be back when she finished. She’s on an errand of mercy.”

  Tom sneered then said, “Call it whatever you want. You all know and I know that Kiki has disappeared because she is guilty of murdering my aunt. This sudden disappearance of hers might be all the proof I need.”

  Little Estelle revved her motor and threatened to run over his toes. Lars flexed and unflexed his collection of well-oiled muscles.

  “You’ll never find any proof that Kiki killed your aunt.” Suzi folded the note and tucked it beneath the neckline of her blouse and then shoved it in her bra as if that might keep it from being used as discovery in a murder investigation.

  “Nobody really liked Marilyn,” Flora said. “Not on this island. It coulda been any one of us killed her. Maybe I did it.”

  “No way you did it, Flora.” Trish was on her feet. “Maybe it was me. Maybe I killed her.”

  “Think I’da let ya’ll have all the fun?” Pat Boggs slapped her hands on the table top, turned, and took a step in Tom’s direction. “If they did it, I did it.”

  “I helped ’em!” Little Estelle said. “Had Lars hold the wire cutters and hack the brake line. My daughter was in on it too.” She pointed to Big Estelle.

  “Mother! This isn’t funny.” Big Estelle covered her face.

  “I didn’t do it!” Precious was waving her arms over her head. “I was going to be her maid of honor. We were friends.”

  “You were the only friend she had,” Suzi clarified.

  “Okay, okay, that’s it.” Em held up both hands. “Enough of the crazy talk. Either ask for menus and be prepared to order lunch, or pick up your things and go so we can accommodate the lunch crowd. I can’t have you all taking up any more free space here today.”

  A family of tourists in the doorway had witnessed the spontaneous burst of murder confessions. They were about to turn and walk out when Sophie grabbed some menus, turned on her charm, and talked them into taking a table on the lanai.

  Tom promised the Maidens he was going to have Kiki’s head on a platter if it was the last thing he did and stormed out. The women spent ten more minutes arguing about what they should do to help Kiki, then collected their purses and belongings and filed out of the bar.

  Em worked without a break until around two thirty when she headed over to the beach house to check on Uncle Louie and take him a sandwich. When she reached the front steps she heard voices over the sound of the surf and found
her uncle in conversation with Orville Orion.

  Her stomach did a back flip. What now?

  “Hi, Mr. Orion. Uncle Louie.” Uneasy, she glanced over at her uncle and then back to Orion. “Is everything all right?”

  “I was just leaving,” Orville Orion said with a hang dog expression on his face.

  “Mahalo for coming by,” Louie told him.

  “It’s the least I could do under the circumstances. No hard feelings then?”

  “I’ll get over it.” Louie turned to gaze out at the ocean for a moment before Orion offered his hand. Louie shook it, then Orion walked out. Em closed the screen door and handed her uncle the to-go box.

  “Thanks.” His shoulders slumped as he turned around and led the way into the main room.

  “Hard feelings?” Em knew what her uncle was about to say and wished she didn’t.

  “He came clean about his ‘friendship’ with Marilyn. Said he tried to talk her out of marrying me, but she was determined to go through with it. Apparently she led him to believe she didn’t really love me as much as she wanted the Goddess.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re not surprised.” He was watching her so closely she could have squirmed.

  “Well, actually no. I’m not surprised.”

  “He told me that he confessed everything to you already. If you knew about Orville and Marilyn, why didn’t you tell me? I felt like a fool when he broke it to me just now.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the minute I found out.” Seeing his expression, she was truly sorry. Avoiding the truth had hurt him more than the truth itself.

  “Why didn’t you, Em? Why weren’t you honest with me?”

  “I didn’t want you hurt any more than you already were by Marilyn’s death. I didn’t see what difference it would make now that she’s gone.”

  He set the Styrofoam box on the kitchen counter and ignored it.

  “So you were just going to let me be happy living a lie.”

  “You didn’t know it was a lie.”