Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

by Hughes, Chip

  What did Makawao’s character say about Maya? Was this North Shore surfer girl also a cowgirl or a hippie? An artsy type? A vegetarian? I aimed to find out.

  Near the corner of Makawao and Baldwin Avenues, I stepped into a New Age bookshop called “Om,” where the musty smell of incense hit me like a wall. Besides herbal essences, bath oils, and scented candles, there were also a few books and tapes and CDs, most of the occult, astrological, and inspirational variety. Airy space music, from a CD by a group called “Cosmic Tofu,” wafted through the haze. Tommy Woo would cringe.

  A wispy brunette, gold ring dangling from her nose, greeted me with penetrating cobalt-blue eyes that made me feel naked.

  “How are you today?” she asked, sounding like she actually wanted to hear my answer.

  “I have a favor to ask.”

  Her blue eyes didn’t blink.

  “I’m looking for someone named Maya—tall, red hair, maybe from around here. I don’t have her picture, but I do have her boyfriend’s.” I showed her Corky’s youthful face.

  “Too bad he’s taken.” She studied the photo intently. “And you say his partner’s name is Maya?”

  “Right.”

  “You don’t have a last name?

  I shrugged. “I know it’s a long shot . . . .”

  She shook her head. “I really wish I could help.” She sounded sincerely sorry.

  “Where else would somebody who lives around here shop?”

  “Paniolo Trading Company. And the natural foods stores—there are two—one on Makawao, one on Baldwin.”

  “She would need groceries, that’s for sure. Thanks.” I turned and left her behind in the incense haze floating among the spacey music and fragrant knickknacks.

  Whole Earth Foods was just next door. But no one there had heard of Maya or recognized Corky. At Ambrosia, the second health food store on Baldwin Avenue, I did no better. Next I tried an antique shop and an adjacent real estate office. Same drill. Same response.

  Trying not to lose hope, I stepped across Baldwin Avenue onto the plank boardwalk fronting the Paniolo Trading Company, whose rippled tin awning offered welcome shade as the scorching sun pierced thin mountain air. The old-fashioned general store smelled of roasting turkey and saddle leather and motor oil. This place had everything someone in a small cowboy town might need, from Band-Aids to videos to fresh ahi. Even an ATM machine. And, of course, Jim Beam. But no one I talked to knew of Maya or had seen a mug like Corky’s—except in the Honolulu papers.

  Bummahs. By now it was well after noon and everybody in Makawao was eating lunch except me. I found a yuppie deli tucked between some artsy shops in a courtyard shaded by a hau tree. I ordered a seared ahi croissant (the closest they had to a sandwich) and a Coke, hoping the caffeine and sugar might stimulate some new thought on the case.

  Sitting under the hau’s spreading bows, I scanned the surrounding shops and wondered if Maya might patronize any of them: a seascape gallery, a second-hand boutique selling granny dresses and da kine, a jeweler specializing in sterling silver, and a glass blower.

  I doubted if Maya had ongoing use for a glass blower, but it looked like the most interesting of the shops. I finished my ahi and wandered inside. The blower was hard at work. A molten orange blob at the end of his long tube glowed like fiery lava. As he turned it round and round, the orange glow became a perfect crystal sphere—evidently a paperweight, as the nearby shelves displayed. Brilliant orbs, they glinted with vibrant colors—turquoise, pumpkin, scarlet, saffron, peach.

  I lifted up one in apple green, the size of a baseball. Sticker shock! It cost as much as the tab for this whole trip.

  “That’s one of our most popular crystals,” said a woman with frosted hair who had crept up behind me. “Lovely, isn’t it?”

  “I might have to hock my car to buy it,” I joked.

  “We have a layaway plan,” she said with a straight face. “The smaller weights are less.”

  In spite of myself, I checked one in ocean blue the size of an Easter egg. Inside the crystal were delicate turquoise-tinted swirls like undulating waves. It was beautiful. And only half the price of the larger green one. I wondered if Leimomi would like it.

  “You can almost see the ocean inside, can’t you?” the woman purred.

  You could. On an extravagant whim, I replied: “I’ll take this one for my girlfriend.”

  “She’ll love it.”

  Then I pulled out Corky’s photo. “I’m looking for an old friend named Maya who may be with this man. I can give you his name if that would help.”

  “I don’t need his name,” she said proudly. “He looks different without his beard, of course, but I would recognize that boyish face and those green eyes anywhere. That’s Charles, Maya’s husband.”

  “Yes . . .” I tried not to betray myself.

  “They were in last week. Maya bought a crystal vase for their cottage. I think they’re renting. Just moved in about a month ago.”

  “Is it near town?”

  “You can’t miss it—the yellow one about a mile down the road . . .”

  I thanked her, paid for the crystal orb, and headed to my waiting Mercury. She was right. The yellow cottage wasn’t hard to find. Beyond the weathered tombstones of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, it sat just outside of town among velvet green horse pastures. I pulled into a gravel drive and walked up to the tin-roofed cottage. The place looked deserted.

  “Hello, anybody home?” I said through a screen door.

  No one answered.

  “Hello?”

  No response.

  I peeked in the mailbox and I found a phone bill addressed to “Maya Livengood,“ and a letter forwarded from Ke Nui Road—also in her name. There was a third forwarded letter addressed to “Charles McDahl“ that was postmarked January third—nearly a month ago—in Lewiston, Idaho, but just forwarded a few days past. The handwriting looked feminine and shaky. And the sender’s last name was the same as Corky’s. Maybe his mother?

  Tampering with U.S. Mail was a Federal offense, punishable by serious jail time. A P.I. could lose his license. Absolutely nothing to mess with. I stuffed the letter in my pocket and climbed back into the car. I put the Grand Marquis in gear and headed for Kahului Airport.

  Twelve

  Until my Honolulu-bound jetliner was wheels up and climbing, I resisted opening the envelope I had borrowed from Maya’s mailbox.

  Written in the same feminine shaky hand as the envelope, the letter said:

  Dear Charles,

  Son, thank God you are alive! The story of your surfing accident at Waimea Bay was carried on all the TV networks and CNN, on the radio, and even the Lewiston paper. They all believed you were dead. But I prayed to God that you survived. My prayers have been answered.

  It’s a shame you have to hide from those bad men and can’t even let your wife know you are alive. I fully understand and will keep your secret.

  Please send me your new address.

  Love,

  Mom

  Corky was more of a fool than I had imagined. If you are planning to disappear, the last person on earth you want to tell is your own mother. Any halfway decent insurance investigator would start with her. If Mr. Gold had not, he wasn’t doing his job. But, then, if he had, maybe this mother who wasn’t bright enough leave her fleeing son’s name off envelopes was bright enough to fool an insurance investigator.

  I returned to Maunakea Street late that afternoon, letter in hand—my only piece of hard evidence that Corky McDahl was apparently very much alive.

  Mr. Gold had good reason to be suspicious. But I wasn’t working for Mr. Gold. I was working for Summer, who was now more mysterious to me than ever. Was she totally in the dark, as the letter suggested? Or was she working with Corky? And perhaps Maya? And who were these “bad men”—the same men with Summer in the black Mercedes? Or were the “bad men” just some excuse Corky had given his mother to justify his running out on his pregnant wife and taking up with
another woman?

  The red light on my answering machine reminded me that Summer had never returned my call. I pressed Play and heard Tommy Woo’s voice.

  “Hey, Kai, did you hear the one about the Chinese, Filipino, and Hawaiian astronauts . . .” After a punch line that would get Tommy himself punched in some circles, he added “My client got hung out to dry by the Sun organization. He took the wrap for that ice he sold. Thought you’d like to know.”

  Why did Tommy think I would like to know? Because the same thing had happened to Leimomi’s father, who was still cooling his heels in prison? Her dad could have plea-bargained for a lighter sentence, and been out by now on parole, had he testified against the kingpin. But that meant harassment, bodily harm, or death.

  As I erased Tommy’s message, there was a gentle Tap . . . Tap . . . Tap at my door. I reached for the knob and found Leimomi standing there, still wearing her lei stringing clothes—white Bermudas and a pink T-shirt that said “Fujiyama’s Flower Lei’s” and carried the ambrosial scent of ginger and pikake. I glanced involuntarily at her tummy, wondering if it had already started to bulge like Summer’s.

  “I’m worried, Kai.”

  I took her warm hand and walked her to my client’s chair. “Sit down and tell me what’s happening.”

  “Nothing’s changed,” she said looking distracted. “Nothing at all has changed.”

  “Tomorrow’s Friday.” I tried to cheer her up. “Let’s go out to dinner and have a relaxing evening together. It might do you good. Pick you up at seven?”

  “A nice dinner won’t change anything. It will be the same problem tomorrow.”

  “Wait and see. Here . . . ” I pulled a twenty from my wallet. “Why don’t you buy one of those test kits and then you’ll know for sure.”

  “What if I don’t want to know?”

  “Leimomi . . .” The next hour was spent talking in circles, with Leimomi crying, me consoling, and nothing getting resolved. After she left, I realized I had completely forgotten about the ocean blue crystal egg I had bought for her. Auwe!

  When I tried calling Summer later, I was surprised when she actually answered.

  “What evidence have you found?” she asked matter-of-factly. There was a coolness and distance I hadn’t heard before.

  “I’ve found evidence, but not that Corky died.”

  “What do you mean?” She sounded curious, but not ecstatic.

  “If you are not sitting down, Summer, I suggest you do.”

  “I’m already sitting. What is it?“

  “Corky may be alive.”

  Silence.

  “I’ve just come from upcountry Maui where he is most likely staying with a friend.”

  “What friend? He doesn’t have any friends there.”

  “I’m not sure,” I lied. She didn’t need to be told just yet that not only had her husband faked his own death and skipped out on her, but also was living with another woman. Or maybe it was Summer who should be telling me these things.

  “I want to see you,” she said suddenly. “I want to see this evidence.”

  “OK. But let’s meet in my office. The evidence is confidential and I don’t want to carry it out of here.”

  “Alright.” She agreed. “When?”

  It was nearly four. “Can you get over here by 4:30?”

  There was a long pause, as if she were consulting someone. “Yes. How do I get there?”

  I gave her directions, then hung up the phone. I tilted back in my swivel chair, feet up on the desk, and puzzled over my client and her husband and his redhead girlfriend. Love triangle? Co-conspirators? At this point, the jury was still out.

  Suddenly I got “chicken skin”— goose bumps—as if surfing in wintry conditions without a wetsuit. I took my feet off the desk and opened its wide center drawer.

  Way in back under a tablet of yellow legal paper lay my Smith & Wesson. The blue-black .357 Magnum felt cold and heavy in my hands. It was loaded with six rounds. I put it on one corner of my desktop, artfully covered with a loose arrangement of bills and receipts I had neglected to file.

  I put the letter from Corky’s mother under the plastic liner in my wastebasket. If Summer decided to bring company, I didn’t want anybody to walk off with it.

  The longer I thought about my client’s visit, the more uneasy I felt. On impulse I called Tommy.

  Thirteen

  “Hey, Kai,” Tommy answered on the second ring, “Did you hear the one about the curvy local girl who went door-to-door as a handy-man?”

  “Can the jokes, Tommy,” I cut him off. “I’ve got a quick favor to ask.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Somebody’s coming to my office at four thirty and I’m a little concerned—not about her—but about who she might bring along.”

  “The pregnant blonde? The wife of the dead California surfer?”

  “He’s not dead. He’s living in upcountry Maui with his new girlfriend.”

  “So he skipped out after all.” Tommy didn’t sound surprised.

  “Looks like it, but there may be another angle. I’m wondering if the wife is caught up in something much larger.”

  “Yeah? Well, what can I do for you, Kai?”

  “She’s coming at four thirty . . . Would you call me at quarter to five? Just to see if I’m still breathing?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.” I checked my desk clock. “She’ll be here any minute. Talk with you later.”

  I hung up and waited. If Summer stayed true to form, she would show up at least ten minutes late. I should have told Tommy to call at five.

  At 4:25 a faint knock sounded at my door. Before I could reach the knob, the solid mahogany swung open to reveal two men in black suits. No Summer.

  One of the men had dark hair and complexion, maybe Middle Eastern or Mediterranean. I recognized him as Summer’s escort. The other had bleached white hair and the washed-out skin of an albino. The whites of his eyes were a mouse-like pink. This odd pair of men stood in my doorway, silently—me looking at them, them looking at me.

  “Mr. Cooke?” The dark man broke the silence. He didn’t look angry or belligerent. He actually cracked a smile—which worried me.

  “Yes, I’m Kai Cooke.”

  He reached into his pocket. I edged toward the Smith & Wesson. If he was pulling out his piece, I wanted mine too.

  “‘Gratulation!” blurted the white-haired one. Then his partner handed me a wad of green bills—Ben Franklins—rolled cylindrically like sushi, with money where the rice and Spam would go, and bound by a rubber band.

  “Mr. Sun say investigation over,” announced the white one.

  “Mr. Sun? But Summer . . .”

  “No, sir,” said the dark one in the accent of an English gentleman. “You are under the employ of Mr. Frank O. Sun. And when Mr. Sun says your investigation is over, Mr. Sun means your investigation is over. Understood, sir?”

  “Sure, I understand.” It appeared there was only one right answer.

  “Thank you, then,” the dark one replied. “We bid you good day, sir.” They headed out the door.

  “Wait”—I tried to stop them—“Summer . . .” The door was shut on my words.

  The roll of hundreds in my hand began to feel heavy. I set it on my desk and slumped into my padded chair. I was gazing at the ceiling when my phone rang.

  “You OK, Kai?” It was Tommy.

  “Yeah, I’m ok. Tell me about Frank O. Sun.”

  “Is that who she brought?”

  “Summer didn’t show. Just two extremely well-dressed gentlemen—malahinis—who dropped several grand into my hands and told me to stop my investigation. They said Mr. Sun wanted me to stop.”

  “Drugs,” Tommy said, “or drug money. Those are the only things that move Frank O. Sun.”

  “But how does Summer fit into this?” I wondered aloud. “She might be in danger.”

  “Or she might be pulling the wool over your eyes,” Tommy smirked. “I’ve alw
ays thought you’re too much of a choir boy to be a private dick.”

  “Help me think here, Tommy. Could Corky be connected to Sun? What would a surfer do for a drug lord?”

  “Who knows? Sun has a big organization . . .” Tommy was silent for a rare moment. “You said your surfer made lots of trips between California and Hawai‘i. Did he ever surf in Mexico? Maybe he’s a small-time supplier, or a dealer, or a mule.”

  “Then what about Summer?”

  “Maybe Sun couldn’t find him and had her hire you to do it for him, which means Sun wants this Corky badly. He probably skipped out with cash or drugs.”

  “And a BMW convertible.”

  “That too. I would guess if they get to him before you do, he’s toast.”

  “Not good.”

  “Why should you care about him?”

  “I don’t. I’m just worried about his pregnant wife if Sun has her. Once he deals with Corky, what value is she?”

  “You really think she’s not involved?”

  “I think she’s innocent.”

  “You might be surprised, my friend.”

  Tommy’s words rang in my ears after he hung up.

  Fourteen

  Removing the rubber band from the green roll on my desk, I peeled off one bill after another. These were not crisp new notes, but well worn, high-mileage currency that had wandered the streets.

  I counted to fifteen and still had more than half the roll left. Then I wrapped the loose bills back into the wad, and slipped it into my desk’s top drawer, by the Smith & Wesson.

  I decided to leave a message for Summer. I made it brief: “Summer, please call me if you need further assistance.”