Kiki was fed up with all them. She stepped off the curb and looked up and down the street. Luckily there was no sign of Tom or anyone else, but time was wasting.
“I can’t stand on my foot,” Big Estelle was crying now, big tears rolling down her flat cheeks. “Really. It burns something fierce. I need to go to the hospital. The venom is pulsing through my veins. I can feel it. I’m going numb all over.”
“You,” Kiki said, “are hysterical. What you are going to do is go sit on that lanai behind us. There is no one home, so sit there and watch the street.”
Big Estelle leaned over Kiki. They didn’t call her Big Estelle for nothing.
“I am not. I am going to hobble back to the van and put my foot up. We have a first aid kit. At the very least I need first aid. You are on your own, Kiki Godwin. I’ve done enough this morning.”
“You can’t just walk away.”
“No, but I can hop. Just watch me.” Big Estelle took a step in the direction of the golf course but buckled as soon as she put weight on her injured foot. She moaned. She grabbed her head. “I can’t even hop! I can’t get back on my own.”
“I’ll go with you,” Suzi volunteered. She slipped under Big Estelle’s arm and turned to Kiki. “She can’t walk.”
“I see that.” Kiki looked at the diminutive Asian nearly hidden beneath Big Estelle’s frame. “If she topples over, she’ll kill you.”
“I’ll go with them.” Trish stepped up beside Big Estelle. “One for all, and all for one.”
“What about me?” Kiki said. “What about the photos? I need to find some proof that Tom Benton is guilty of something, and I need photos of the proof.”
“I’m dying here!” Big Estelle hollered. “Look at my foot.”
There was no denying it had swollen to twice its size already.
“This sneaking into Marilyn’s is a really bad idea,” Suzi said. “Maybe this is a sign we should call it off.”
“I’m going in with or without any of you,” Kiki said.
Big Estelle clicked on her two-way.
“Emergency!” she yelled into the device. “Centipede attack. Pick me up on the corner of Emmalani Drive and Victoria Loop.”
Kiki grabbed the two-way. “Abort! Abort! Stay in position. Stay in position. Over.”
Pat’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Roger that. We stay.”
“How am I going to get back to the van?” Big Estelle sobbed. “How?”
“Take Trish and Suzi and go back the way we came across the golf course. It’s the shortest route to Sunrise Loop. I don’t need your help. I’m going in alone.”
The three of them were staring at her as if she had lost her mind. She was pretty sure she was on the verge.
“Promise you won’t do anything foolish, Kiki.” Trish looked so torn that Kiki thought the photographer might change her mind and stay with her. Instead, Trish handed over her camera. “Be careful with this. It’s my bread and butter.”
“I will. Promise.” Kiki turned the camera over and over in her hands. “How do you work it?”
“It’s set to automatic. Just point and shoot.” She touched the button on top.
Then Trish wrapped her arm around Big Estelle’s waist, and the three women turned to leave. Before they could even get started, a golf cart bearing the Princeville Security shield turned the corner and rolled over to where they were standing at the curb. The local security guard hung out at the Goddess. He recognized them, waved, and pulled over.
“Hey, Kiki. Whazup? You folks shooting a segment?”
Kiki took a deep breath and forced a smile.
“Hi, Binky. No, we’re just looking for some kukui nut leaves. Adornments. You know. Dancing at the Day Care center today.”
“Plenty kukui trees on the golf course. Go back a few yards.” He looked at Big Estelle. “You okay?”
“Centipede bite,” Kiki said. “But she’s fine.”
“I am not,” Big Estelle sniffed.
“Yikes. Bettah get that taken care of.”
Big Estelle looked at Kiki. “I’m trying.”
“Nice pants,” the guard said. Before he put the cart in gear and headed back toward the course, he winked. “Good luck with the belly dance.”
42
Kiki Goes In Alone
“You can do this.” Kiki realized she was mumbling to herself and swatted a mosquito away from her face as she knelt in the topical grotto near Marilyn’s front door.
Two houses down, a yappy dog kept up a constant bark that started when she had walked by its house. The mutt hadn’t let up yet. She was debating whether or not to call off the mission when a jogger came thudding down the middle of the street. Once he was well out of sight, the dog stopped barking, and Kiki breathed a sigh of relief.
She admired the water feature splashing merrily away near Marilyn’s front door. It was a nice touch. Real classy. When she got home she was going to mention to Kimo that she wanted a fountain too. And maybe even some big shiny brass initials, K&KG.
She waited five more minutes, and there was still no sign of life in the house so she hit the transmit button on the two way, held it close to her mouth, and whispered into it.
“CCC, this is Kiki one. Kiki one here. I’m going in. Do not call me. Repeat. Do not call me until I call you. Copy?”
Pat’s voice crackled over the line. “Copy that. No calls until you call us.”
Kiki made sure Trish’s camera was secure on the strap hanging around her neck. She crept along the narrow sidewalk between Marilyn’s house and the one to the north of it, peering into windows as she passed. The place looked as cool and put together as Marilyn herself. The décor was slick and perfect. There wasn’t a knick-knack or a keepsake that identified the owner. Every accessory matched the beige color scheme.
Kiki scanned the backyard before she went around the corner of the house. There was no sign of anyone there, no one seated at the table on the lanai. A six foot hedge surrounded the yard. There was an opening cut through to the house behind Marilyn’s. Kiki couldn’t see anything but a pool beyond the space in the hedge.
The slider was locked. At first she was bummed. It wouldn’t be easy going back around to the side of the house and loosening a screen so that she could climb inside. If she’d have made Suzi stay, she could have hoisted her up, but too late for regrets now. She was willing to do what she had to.
Before she gave up and went to the side of the house, she lifted the welcome mat beneath the slider and sure enough, there was a spare key. She opened the door, stepped inside the kitchen and replaced the key before she closed the glass door and flipped the lock on the handle.
More than likely Tom would enter through the garage door at the side of the house, and she’d hear him coming in. Plenty of time to bolt out the front or the back.
She kept one hand on Trish’s camera. The kitchen counters were clear. She opened the freezer, the perfect hiding place for cash, but there was only an icemaker full of ice. The bottom of the huge refrigerator was bare except for an open box of baking soda and the light bulb.
She wandered around in the living/dining room. There was no sign anyone had been there recently, and she found herself hoping that she wasn’t too late. Maybe Tom had already left for the mainland. She hated to think he was going to get away.
There was nothing of interest in the master bedroom except Marilyn’s wedding dress, which was carefully draped over a chair. She crept down the hall to the guest room and pulled up short when she saw a navy blue duffle bag open on the queen bed.
She was reaching for the bag when she heard what sounded like a cough down the hall and froze. Her heart started racing, her face flushed with heat.
Keep it together, Kiki.
She held her breath and waited. The only sounds she
heard were birds singing in the garden and the far away hum of a weed blower. Kiki stepped up to the bed and fingered the zipper on the duffle, opening it wide enough to look inside.
“Bingo,” she whispered. She wasn’t quite sure what she was actually looking at, but taken as a whole, it was a lot of very weird stuff. Too weird to be normal. She started pulling things out as fast as she could
There was a long, gray, fake ponytail attached to a ball cap, a nondescript brown uniform shirt without any logos on it, the kind she’d seen on sale at the Humane Society Thrift Shop. She pulled out a Birds of Hawaii book with photos and descriptions of island birds. There were bits of paper in it, so she shook the book. Receipts sifted out and fell on the bed—credit card receipts with the name Dewey Smithson on them from the Haena Beach Resort.
She reached in and fished around and came up with a stack of credit cards held together with a rubber band. None of them had been issued to Tom Benton. A roll of masking tape was there along with some heavier items in the bottom of the bag that clinked together. She felt around and came up with wire cutters and an ice pick.
“Gotcha, sucker.”
Kiki laid them on the bed beside all the other items, found the button Trish had shown her, and quickly snapped off some photos. If only she was better with tech stuff she could use a phone camera and email the photos directly to Roland at the KPD.
She stuffed everything back into the bag and was headed out of the room when she heard a toilet flush down the hall. She had to hurry if she wanted to escape through the front door. She tiptoed down the hall, and the closer she got to the bathroom, the more certain she was that someone was inside. He had flushed the toilet, and that someone was headed for the door.
Kiki opened the louvered door directly across from the bathroom door only to discover it was a hall closet stuffed with cardboard file boxes that were labeled and contained various party and event supplies. She threw herself against the boxes and tugged the door closed. Sharp cardboard corners were piercing her ribs as she smashed herself up against the boxes.
The bathroom door opened. She could see out through the louvers. Tom Benton was directly across from her, so close she could hear him breathing.
He stood there for so long she thought he must have known she was there, but then he turned and headed down the hall toward the guest room.
No, she thought. No, no, no.
She cracked the door open and peered through a slit. When he disappeared into the guest room, she opened the closet door and slipped out. The carpet muffled her steps as she hurried back down the hall toward the living/dining room. Hopefully she could get out of the house before he came looking for her. At the very least, she needed to find a bigger closet to hide in.
She had almost made it through the dining room when she heard a click, and then Tom said, “Going somewhere, Kiki?”
She slowly turned, saw the gun in his hand, and raised her hands.
“Home?” she shrugged.
“I could shoot you right now and get away with it. You’ve broken in, obviously with the intent to harm me.”
“I used a key. You’re the one with a gun. I’m only armed with a camera.” She lifted it to show him.
“You entered without permission. The way I’ll tell it, you were here to harm me, steal from me, or both.”
“Steal what? Your stack of stolen credit cards? Or the ice pick you used on Marilyn’s brake line? Or your phony disguises? How very convenient of you to keep all the evidence in one place.”
“You must be hallucinating.”
“Your bag of tricks.”
“No such bag exists.”
“I saw it.” She didn’t have to tell him she had photographed it. He glanced down at the camera around her neck, and she could tell he knew.
“I was just about to get rid of that whole duffle bag. Now I’ll have to find a way to get rid of two old bags at the same time.”
She thought about making a run for it, but turtles ran faster than she did.
“They’re on to you, you know. It’s just a matter of time,” she said.
“On to me? The poor bereaved nephew?”
“Em knows all about your credit card racket. By now she’s told her detective boyfriend. You might as well turn yourself in. You’ll never get off the island.”
“Tom Benton might not, but I have plenty of other identities. With my dear departed aunt’s money I can go anywhere in the world from here. I’ll be in Honolulu in a few hours and then who knows? The world is my oyster.” He closed the distance between them. “Too bad you had to do this to yourself, Kiki. I was all set to go, and they’d eventually have cleared you. Now I’ll have to add you to my growing list of People Who Got In My Way, like that cameraman who opened the pantry at the Goddess and found me hiding there. I had to stab him to keep him quiet.”
“What were you doing in the pantry?” She was shocked to realize Kimo might have been Tom’s first victim.
“I went disguised as a produce deliveryman to check the place out, see if there was anywhere convenient to kill Aunt Marilyn. I had ducked back in kitchen just as the cameraman was walking in. So I hid, thinking he’d leave, but he found me. Kind of hard to explain to anyone what I was doing in there in a black wig holding a sashimi knife.”
“You are disgusting.”
He shrugged. “I’m a victim of circumstance, just like the maid at the Haena Beach Resort. She thought the room was vacant, walked in, and caught me coming out of the bathroom without my Dewey Smithson birdwatcher disguise. She couldn’t have been more apologetic.”
“You killed her anyway.”
He smiled. “Hit her in the head with a lamp. Had to. Didn’t want her to identify me later. Didn’t want anyone to know I was in Haena, not India where I was supposed to be.”
“You’re a cool customer, killing three innocent people.” Fighting to stay cool and calm herself, Kiki took a small step backward.
“Hey, I didn’t want to kill two of them. I had to. Now I’ll have to deal with you, a busybody, hula-wanna-be who can’t keep her nose out where it belongs.”
Busybody? She could live with that. Hula-wanna-be? That set her teeth on edge.
“How dare you?” She forgot herself and got in his face. “I didn’t come up here alone,” she said.
“Right. I’m not falling for that.” He shoved the gun in her gut. “Hands up.”
When Kiki raised her hands, he noticed the two-way radio hanging from her waistband and jerked it off.
“What’s this?”
“I told you. I’m not alone. Hula Maidens are hidden all over your neighborhood.”
For a split second she thought he was going to hit her. Instead, he marched her back to the bedroom.
“Sit,” he commanded.
Kiki sat on the end of the bed while Benton paced back and forth thinking.
Suddenly he stopped, then reached down and yanked the camera strap from around her neck.
“Please, be careful with that. I borrowed it.”
With one hand holding his gun, he awkwardly fiddled with a couple of buttons on Trish’s camera then waited a second or two.
“There. No more photos on the card.” He tossed the camera in the duffle. Then he picked up the two-way.
“Here’s what we are going to do. You’re going to get rid of your little friends. All of them. Say whatever you have to. Just get them to go home without you.”
“What should I say?”
“That this was a stupid idea and you called a cab. I don’t care. Just get them out of here. Fast.”
“Or?”
“Or you’ll make the People Who Got in My Way list right here, right now.”
Kiki swallowed and stared at the gun in his hand.
“It would be a shame to mess up al
l this beige,” she said.
“Ready?” he asked.
She shook her head no. “Give me another minute.”
She closed her eyes and thought about what to say. Then she looked up at him and nodded.
“Okay. Push the button.”
The radio crackled. Kiki leaned forward.
“CCC, this is Kiki. All clear here. Go ahead and take off. Do you copy?”
There was another crackle and then Pat yelled, “Copy that. What about you?”
“Get Big Estelle to the doctor. I’ll call Kimo and meet you all at the Goddess later. Don’t forget pele h’me. Copy.”
“Pele h’me?”
“Right. The new song.”
“Got it. See you later. Roger that.”
Tom pushed the off button.
“Pele h’me?”
“A new dance. They’re supposed to learn the words. I wanted them to play the CD on the way back to Haena. I’ve been nagging them about that.”
“Nice touch. You’re a better actress than you are a dancer.”
Tempted to lunge at him and bite him in his puffy stomach, she looked away.
“Whatever.”
43
Pele H’me
At nine thirty that morning, Em and Sophie were setting up when Louie walked into the bar sipping a tall Blood on the Beach.
“Hey, Uncle,” Em said. “Good morning.” When she’d left earlier, he was still in bed.
“Wow. It’s great to see you here, Louie.” Sophie walked around the bar to give him a hug.
“Thought it was about time I got my head out of the sand and walked over to see what kind of damage you girls have done in my absence.” He pretended to be studying the room. “Everything looks okay though.”
“Everything is almost back to normal. Kimo’s in the kitchen prepping for the calamari lunch special,” Em said. “The drizzle is letting up, and it looks like the sun is going to shine later. Should be good snorkeling weather. There will be a lot of traffic up to Tunnels.”
Louie stirred his drink with the tall celery stick garnish, took a swig, and smacked his lips.
Three to Get Lei'd Page 25
