It was impossible to imagine any one of her old friends getting involved in smuggling a middle-aged murder suspect around in the back of a pickup, chatting up pig hunters, or going on covert assignments to help a fire dancing detective.
Em relaxed and found herself smiling and humming to the strains of her uncle’s eclectic midcentury cocktail party tunes. The miles whizzed by, and she made it back to the North Shore in record time. Avoiding the lights in the Princeville library parking lot, she let Suzi and Trish out and pulled away before they spotted the lump that was Kiki in the back.
She drove down the road, crossed the single lane Hanalei Bridge, and continued on around the coast line to Haena. There were very few cars in the Goddess parking lot, so she drove on through and pulled into the beach house driveway, which was not well lit.
Climbing down out of the pickup, Em made certain no one was around before she reached out and shook the lump. There was no response.
“Kiki? We’re here.”
Kiki groaned.
“Are you all right?”
“Help me.” Kiki sounded so weak Em could barely hear her.
Em looked to see if Uncle Louie might be standing near one of the windows in the back of the beach house, but it was all clear. She uncovered Kiki and found her curled into a fetal position around her backpack.
“I can’t feel my legs,” Kiki croaked. “I’ll never dance again. I’m dying.”
“Try to uncurl them very slowly,” Em encouraged. She rubbed Kiki’s lower legs and then gripped her arm and tried to help her sit up.
“I feel like I’ve been bouncing around in an aluminum blender. I’m going to be black and blue all over.”
After much moaning and groaning on Kiki’s part and much shushing on Em’s, Kiki was finally able to sit up. Once more, Em found herself mentally cursing Tom Benton.
Five minutes passed before Kiki could crawl out of the truck bed, butt first. Em had to hold on to Kiki to keep her upright. She took a few wobbly steps and then with Em’s help, she hobbled over to Kimo’s truck.
Once Kiki was tucked inside, slouched over out of sight, Em headed back to the house. She paused outside, pulled her cell out of her pocket, and punched in Roland’s number. When his voicemail picked up she left a brief message.
“I’m back from Kokee and all is well. Call me when you can.” She shoved her phone back into her pocket and went into the house.
Uncle Louie was sound asleep on the sofa. On the muted television, an actor in a white lab coat was busy rubbing a miraculous wrinkle remover on a model without a line on her face.
Across the room, David Letterman lay passed out on the bottom of his cage. Empty shot glasses were lined up on the tiki bar surrounded by sticky spillage and what appeared to be a quarter-sized burn mark on the bar top.
Em wiped excess alcohol off the bar and carried the shot glasses into the kitchen thinking, all in all, it had been a pretty darned good day. Kiki had been found, talked out of hiding, brought down the mountain and safely hidden in Kimo’s truck. Uncle Louie’s depression was lifting; apparently the Flaming Inferno had been perfected. The recipe had definitely passed the David Letterman test.
She covered the bird cage, turned off the television and lamp, and left Uncle Louie snoring on the sofa. Heading back to the bar to help Sophie close up and warn Kimo that Kiki was back and hiding in his truck, Em started humming, “Just Another Day in Paradise.”
36
Pleading Kiki’s Case
When Em still hadn’t heard from Roland by nine the next morning, she figured he had worked late at a luau gig. She didn’t look forward to trying to convince him to let people believe Kiki was still in hiding. At least Em could report that the cabin break-ins were over.
The more Em thought about Tom Benton and how he’d zeroed in on Kiki, the more she thought that she should personally ask him to back off. Not that she would have much influence on him, but maybe it would be worth a try.
She was at the Goddess that morning waiting for Kimo to wrap up a couple of orders of wontons she’d called in from the house. She didn’t dare tell him they were for Tom. While Em was looking over some receipts in the cash register drawer, Tiko Scott walked in.
Like Em, Tiko was in her early thirties, but with coffee-colored skin. She was petite and very thin with long black hair that hung past her waist and was as dark as her ebony eyes.
“I can’t thank you enough for hiring me part time,” she told Em.
“I’m just happy you were available and hope you can add as many hours as you can spare.”
“This will give me a chance to see firsthand how my smoothies are received in a real restaurant. Maybe it’ll help me come up with other ideas.”
Kimo walked out with a foil covered take-out container of pork wonton that smelled great.
“Here you go, Em.”
Em’s mouth watered. “Perfect. Mahalo.” She gave him a meaningful look. “Is everything all right at home?”
“Good as it can be,” he said. “Thanks.”
“I hope somebody finds Kiki soon,” Sophie said.
Em was embarrassed and wished she could tell Sophie the truth, but she had given Kiki her word.
“I’ve got to deliver these.” Em held up the wontons. “I should be right back.”
“I didn’t know you delivered take-out,” Tiko said.
“We don’t.” Sophie seemed to be waiting for Em to explain.
“I’ll be back ASAP.” Em hurried out the door before she had to tell Sophie what was up.
The morning was postcard perfect, and the sky appeared to have been hand-tinted a bright blue. White clouds scudded by on the trade winds. Em turned left into the entrance of Princeville where all was perfectly quiet. The emerald golf course was rimmed with generously sized houses. The yards were pristine, the hedges all trimmed to homeowner regulation height and not an inch higher or lower. It was the stuff of travel brochures.
Pausing to let a pair of golf carts cross the road, Em thought, Cue the golfers.
She wound around the various loops and drives and circles and somehow found Marilyn’s former home. She wondered if and when Tom planned to sell it. There was no sign of a car in the driveway, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. She parked and walked up the stone path through an entry garden of various lush tropical flowers with red and yellow blooms.
Calling his name, she knocked and peered through the beveled glass sidelights that bordered the front door. She didn’t see him inside, so she knocked louder and called his name again. When he still didn’t appear, she decided to leave him a note with the wontons. She tried the knob and found the door unlocked.
She stepped inside and left the door open as she moved deeper into the interior, calling Tom’s name as she went, thinking perhaps he was out on the back lanai.
Though it was customary to go into friends’ homes to drop things off, Em still wasn’t comfortable with wandering through someone’s house if they weren’t there. It was especially creepy to be walking around inside without Marilyn there.
On her way into the kitchen, she noticed an open laptop where Tom must have been working before he left. Beside it lay an uneven pile of what appeared to be pages of credit ratings on the glass dining table. Along with the credit rating pages there was a scattered pile of at least ten credit cards: Visas, MasterCards, American Express.
Curiosity got the better of her, and Em veered close to the table on her way into the kitchen. Expecting to see Tom’s name on the cards, when she saw they belonged to others, she looked closer.
The name imprinted on one of the cards was Dewey Smithson. The minute she saw it the name rang a bell, and she remembered that Smithson was the tourist who had occupied the room where Esther Villaviejos’ body had been found.
What was the birdwatcher�
��s credit card doing there?
Em glanced over her shoulder, but there was still no sign of Tom anywhere. She picked up the card. As far as she knew, no one had seen Smithson since he checked out of the Haena Beach Resort. She set down the wonton box but then had to make a grab for it as it almost fell off the table.
She came to the conclusion that Tom’s private detective had arrived on island and they had made more headway locating Smithson than the KPD. But how did they get the man’s credit card? And why?
She fanned out the cards on the table with one hand. There were a good ten cards there, all with different names imprinted on them. Smithson’s was only one of many.
Unless Dewey Smithson’s accounts were part of a random credit check that Tom was working on for his company, then something was up.
A chill ran down Em’s spine. She heard Roland’s voice in her head as clear as a bell.
“Don’t be stupid, Em.”
She quickly pulled her cell phone out of her shorts pocket, left the credit cards fanned out and took a photo of them, then a photo of the credit rating slips and one of the computer screen, which she realized showed lists of Social Security numbers.
She was about to take one more shot of the cards when she heard men’s voices coming from the direction of the backyard.
“Thanks for inviting me, Tom, but I’m not sure I can make it tonight.” It was Orville Orion.
“I know it’s last minute. I’m just having a few of the neighbors over. No need to let me know. You’re welcome to stop by if you can.”
Em quickly gathered the cards back into a stack, grabbed the wonton box, ran through the living room, and closed the front door behind her without a sound. She paused on the front steps to look up and down the street. Thankfully there wasn’t a soul in sight. Not even a gardener. She heard Tom’s footsteps inside now.
“Don’t be stupid.”
Em whipped around, faced the front door again, knocked, and called out Tom’s name.
“Tom? It’s Em Johnson.”
There was a moment of hesitation before he answered.
“Just a minute, Em.” Then she heard him moving around inside and saw through the sidelight that he was straightening his things on the dining table. He touched the laptop keyboard before he headed toward the front door.
When it opened, he ran his hand through his hair and smiled.
“Hi, Em. I hope you haven’t been waiting long. I was out back talking to Orville.”
“No, not at all.” She handed him the carton of wontons. “I thought you might like these.”
“Why, thanks.” He seemed taken aback by the gesture. “Come on in.”
He led her through the house to the kitchen. As they passed the dining table, she noticed the papers that had been all over the table must have disappeared into a manila folder that was there. The screen saver displayed a photo of the Taj Mahal.
Em started to smile, but then her heart almost stopped when she glanced down at the carpet and realized that when she’d juggled the take-out box, a wonton had slipped out. It was lying on the floor beneath the table. If Tom saw it, he’d surely wonder how it got there.
“You should probably put those in the refrigerator,” she suggested. “If you’re not going to have some right away.”
Keep walking. Please, keep walking into the kitchen.
“Nice surprise.” Focused on the wonton container, his back was to her as he headed into the kitchen.
Em did a quick squat and grab and then straightened and fell into step behind him.
She opened her palm. “This one slipped out. Sorry.” She looked around for a trash can.
“Over there.” Tom nodded toward a long thin cabinet that slid out to reveal a trash can.
She tossed the wonton and brushed her hands together.
“How’s your uncle?” he asked.
“Doing all right. Thanks for asking.”
Tom put the take-out box in the refrigerator. When he turned and smiled at her, Em hoped she’d recovered her composure. Her heart was beating faster than a Tahitian drummer on Red Bull.
“I’m really sorry about the way I acted at the bar the other day. It’s just so frustrating to think that there’s a killer on the loose. If it is Kiki Godwin, then she needs to be brought to justice. That’s all I was saying. Is she still missing?”
“No one has seen her.” Pretty much the truth. “Actually, Kiki is the reason I came by to see you.” She saw his expression tighten and quickly added, “She’s almost seventy, Tom. Your groundless accusations are taking a physical toll on her.”
“They aren’t groundless, and there is no age limit on killers,” he said.
“The police questioned her and found no reason to hold her.” Em couldn’t stop thinking about the credit card on the dining table with Dewey Smithson’s name on it.
The only thing she really knew about Tom Benton was that he was successfully employed at some kind of credit agency.
He certainly looked harmless enough.
“How was India?” she asked.
“What?” Confused by her abrupt change of subject, he blinked a couple of times. “India. Oh, it was great. The Taj is incredible.”
“So I hear.”
Was he watching her too closely? Her imagination was running wild, her gut screaming at her to get out.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Has your private detective arrived on Kauai?” She leaned against the butcher block island in the center of the kitchen hoping she looked nonchalant.
“I’d rather not say.”
Her mind careened down a wave of possibilities after that comment. Did he have someone out trying to solve the murders, or merely to frame Kiki?
Tom’s glance strayed to the dining table, giving him away before he focused on her again. He shrugged. “You can understand my reticence to say anything, given your friendship with Kiki.”
He was staring at her as if trying to figure out why the line of questioning.
“I understand where you’re coming from, Em.” Suddenly, his tone softened. “It’s because of your friendship with Kiki and her husband that your perspective on this is so clouded. From everything my aunt told me about their rivalry, I think there’s a very real chance the woman is guilty. Don’t let your emotions get in the way of the truth.”
Em forced a smile and pushed away from the kitchen island. This was not an argument she was going to win.
“You’re right. I should be more open-minded, but so should you.”
Tom suddenly paused in the opening between the kitchen and dining room, effectively blocking her way to the front door.
Em pulled her phone out of her pocket and glanced at it. “Look at the time. I told everyone at the Goddess that I’d be right back.”
Tom smiled, as cordial as could be and stepped aside. “I’ll walk you out.”
Em told herself she was going nuts. Tom was no threat. Roland was right. Maybe spending so much time around the Hula Maidens was making her as crazy as they were. He reached around her to open the front door, and Em stepped outside. Tom followed, and together they paused on the top step. The soothing sound of the water feature by the door did its job, and Em felt her pulse rate slow.
“Thanks for hearing me out,” she said.
“No problem. Thanks for the wontons.”
ONCE SHE WAS in the car, Em couldn’t get away fast enough. Tom was still on the front step, so she waved as she pulled out of the driveway and onto the street. She drove back down the hill from Princeville, crossed the Hanalei River Bridge, and when she reached the parking area in front of the Dolphin restaurant, she pulled over.
She tried to call Roland, but her call went straight to voicemail, so she sent him a text and emailed the photos, then she got bac
k on the road and headed north.
When Em walked into the Goddess, Sophie took one look at her and said, “What’s wrong?”
Em reached up and smoothed down her hair. Was the fact that Tom rattled her really so apparent?
She walked over to the bar and lowered her voice. “I can’t say yet.”
“Okay.” Sophie watched her closely, and then she looked at the front door. “Should I be worried? Is anyone else dead? Is trouble about to walk in?”
“Not yet. Not that I know of anyway.”
Em’s cell went off. She mouthed the word “Roland” to Sophie, then she headed into Louie’s office and closed the door.
“Where did you get those photos you emailed me?” he asked.
“I took them a few minutes ago at Marilyn Lockhart’s house.” She explained what she’d been doing there, how she’d found Kiki and talked her down off the mountain, and how Kiki was hiding at home.
“But please don’t tell anyone Kiki’s back, Roland. No one needs to know yet. The cabin owners have nothing to complain about now. Kiki doesn’t want anyone to know she’s around yet, especially Tom Benton’s detective.”
“So what were you doing at Marilyn’s, taking photos of Smithson’s credit card? Where did it come from?”
“I went to ask Tom to consider backing off Kiki. He wasn’t there, but the door was open so I went inside.”
“And?”
“There was stuff all over the dining room table. Credit card statements and credit cards and a laptop. At first I didn’t think anything about it because the company Tom works for deals with credit ratings or something like that. But then when I saw Dewey Smithson’s name on one of the cards, bells went off. I remembered that was the name of the missing birdwatcher at HBR. Maybe Tom found him, or his detective found him. Tom won’t tell me if the detective is on island or not. All they had to do was ask at the resort about the room where the maid was killed to find out who’d been there. But I thought you’d like to see what he has.”
Three to Get Lei'd Page 22
