While my back was turned the Harveys took the opportunity to hide behind the nearest banyan tree. Roger poked his machete out so we could see it. “Don’t try anything funny!” he said, and Chris and I melted into another fit of laughter.
Wendy waited until we were quite finished to pop her head out from the other side of the tree. She announced she had just called the police, and they were on their way to come arrest us.
She waved her cell phone where we could see it. “I got reception!” she bragged and scurried away into the brush.
Roger swished his machete one last time. “Do not try to follow us,” he warned.
“As if,” Chris mumbled, and I laughed some more.
***
“You think she really got through to 911?” Chris asked after the Harveys had disappeared.
“Oh, absolutely,” I lied. I limped my way over to the nearest boulder and plopped down. “And I for one am not moving another inch until help arrives.” I glanced down the road. “Hopefully in a limousine equipped with running water and a shower.”
Chris told me a limo was about as likely as Alexis Wynsome’s white stallion, but he argued no further, set Bee Bee on a nearby branch, and sat down beside me.
Lo and behold, about ten minutes later the cops actually did arrive. We leapt for joy as two cars with flashing blue lights rolled up the road. Two police cars! They weren’t limos, and in fact were funny-looking things likely suited for off-roading on places like Kekipi Crater. But this was no time to quibble.
We waved enthusiastic greetings, but once again we seemed far happier to see others than they were to see us.
Two uniformed cops, one from each car, strutted over and surveyed us from head to toe. From the frowns on their faces, I gathered we weren’t all that pleasant a sight to behold.
“Names?” the female cop demanded, and we gave them our names.
“And this is Bee Bee.” I gestured toward Bee Bee who was perched back on Chris’s wrist.
“They fit the descriptions,” the male cop said to the female cop. “Except for her hair.”
My hair?
I turned to Chris, and he informed me I had a very bright, very large patch of purple hair on the top of my head. “From, umm, you know.” He tilted his head toward Bee Bee.
I closed my eyes and prayed for strength.
***
And strength I needed. Because the cops, Officers Higashi and Oskeen, seemed even less impressed with our plight than the Harveys had been.
They weren’t interested in our theory about Davy Atwell’s killer either. We had barely begun explaining Buster’s motives when Officer Oskeen the female cop interrupted. “What have you done with the Harveys?” she demanded.
I waved a dismissive hand. “They deserted us hours ago.”
“It was more like minutes ago,” Chris said quietly and pointed toward the brush. “They went that-a-way.”
Officer Oskeen frowned in said direction, and when she told us they were taking us down to the station, we bounded for her car.
“No!” Officer Higashi the male cop yanked Chris out just as he started climbing in behind me and pointed him toward the other car. “You come with me.”
“Wait a minute!” Chris and I protested in unison as I climbed back out.
“We’ve been through hell together,” I informed the cops. “Chris rides with me.”
“No.” Higashi none-too-gently shoved Chris toward the other car. “We don’t want you working on your story together.”
Our story?
Bee Bee must not have liked the ominous implications of that. The poor thing panicked and flew off into the bushes. And meanwhile the stupid cops continued pushing and shoving us into their cars, apparently under the impression we would desert the bird.
“Nooooo!” Chris and I shouted in unison. We struggled against the closing car doors and wrestled our ways out of the respective vehicles.
We stumbled back to each other and together stood our ground. “We don’t leave without Bee Bee,” I said.
“Never.” Chris spoke with as much authority as a bare-chested, severely dehydrated twenty-two-year-old could muster.
“So you’re resisting arrest?” Ms. Oskeen asked.
“Arrest!” we shouted.
“Arrest!” Bee Bee screeched and flew back to Chris.
Chris faced Officer Higashi and ordered him to back off. “I’ll get him into the car.” He tilted his head toward Bee Bee. “But it may take a minute. He’s kind of scared.”
Bee Bee finally allowed Chris to lower him into the back seat, and the three of them drove off without further ado.
I turned to Officer Oskeen. “Are we really under arrest?” I asked wearily.
Chapter 26
Disapproving cop-eyes followed my every move as Officer Oskeen escorted me through the Halo Beach Police Station and toward what I assumed was the closed door of Captain Vega’s office.
She rapped once, opened the door, and shoved me in. “Good luck,” she said. “You’ll need it.”
I stumbled into a rather crowded office. Chris and Bee Bee were already there. And an even nicer surprise, so was Wilson. Bee Bee offered me a welcoming bob-bow from his spot on top of Vega’s desk, and Vega snarled unpleasantly from his seat behind the desk. But Rye Senior was too busy hugging his son to notice me.
I smiled at Chris, especially when I saw the silly Hawaiian shirt decorated in bikinis that someone—Wilson?—had seen fit to loan him. Chris freed one arm and flapped it in my direction. “Hey, Jessie.”
Wilson spun around and caught me in his arms. Eventually he let go and held me up by my shoulders. It was hard not to notice the frown—make that, the grimace.
“I have had a very rough day,” I mumbled.
“What happened to your hair?”
Luckily, Vega saved me from answering. He ordered us to sit, and he and Wilson immediately dived into a heated argument about “what the hell was going on.”
I had no idea, so I stayed out of it and concentrated on Bee Bee. I might have descended into a zombie-like stupor, but Bee Bee still had some spunk. He rustled around in the papers on Vega’s desk making quite a mess of things. For some reason I found this most gratifying.
“I took one look at your laptop, still open and sitting out on our porch, and I knew Tessie was right to be worried.” Wilson was looking at me. Evidently he was speaking to me.
“Huh?” I said.
“Tessie,” he repeated and explained, perhaps for the second or third time, that my mother had been the first to realize Chris and I were missing. And by the time Wilson and Louise returned from their hike, she was in a panic.
“I left Louise with Tessie and came down here to report the latest. I’ve been arguing with this idiot ever since.” Wilson waved an irritated hand, and I glanced at Vega.
“At least he hasn’t arrested you,” I said, and it occurred to me Chris and I hadn’t been put in shackles either. I was gearing up to feel a bit relieved when Vega spoke.
“One of you is guilty,” he snapped and pointed back and forth between Rye One and Rye Two. “I can feel it in my bones, whether or not I understand how this supposed kidnapping fits into your plans.”
“Well then, your bones are as stupid as you are,” Wilson said. He grabbed my mother’s clipboard, which he had stashed underneath his chair, and jabbed at something for Vega’s edification. “I keep telling you, it was Ki Okolo. You know Ki, Vega? The guy who does all your IT work? Your good buddy and pal?”
“You found my notes?” I asked stupidly.
“Densmore’s getting a raise the minute I get home.” Wilson spoke to me but kept his eyes firmly planted on Captain Vega.
But Vega refused to discuss his buddy the IT expert and reminded us once again what his bones were telling him.
Thinking we might set everyone straight, I glanced over at Chris. But the poor guy was in no shape to argue with anyone. In fact, he seemed to be in some sort of trance. I sat up and forced myse
lf to emerge from my own stupor.
“We need water,” I said firmly and tilted my head toward Chris. “We are seriously dehydrated.”
Wilson took one look at his son and sprang toward the door. “Water!” he shouted. “We need water in here! Now, people!”
Captain Vega reminded us he was the one in charge. But nevertheless, two uniformed cops scurried in with two gloriously large glasses of ice water. Wilson took the glasses and handed them to us, and Chris shuffled into a more upright position.
Wilson turned to the cops. “Two more of the same, please. And keep it coming.” They nodded and left, but he thought of something else and poked his head out the door again. “If there’s any food in this place, bring that, too.”
“I’m in charge here,” Vega repeated testily, but no one was interested except Bee Bee.
He looked up from the pile of paperwork he was destroying. “I’m in charge here,” he let us know, and promptly pooped.
Vega sputtered out a long string of expletives and sprang up to gather the offensive paperwork. Bee Bee obligingly repeated the expletives, waddled over to the edge of the desk, and watched as the soiled papers hit the wastebasket.
Wilson was watching also. He blinked twice at the garbage, and then at the bird, and then at my head. “Don’t tell me,” he said.
I set down my empty glass. “I have had A Very Rough Day,” I said with a haughty toss of my purple head.
“Jessie may look like crap,” Chris added ever so kindly. “But it’s thanks to her Bee Bee even made it here. You should have seen her, Dad.”
“No, it’s thanks to Chris,” I argued. “Bee Bee trusted him through thick and thin out there. Your son carried him practically the whole way.”
“Believe it or not, I really don’t care how this stupid bird got here,” Vega muttered. While he and Bee Bee resumed cursing at each other, Chris and I were served more water and a couple of those little cellophane packets of peanut butter crackers. We ate and drank ravenously, making sure to toss Bee Bee a cracker or two.
Wilson studied us with growing dismay. “Why am I thinking your jungle adventures were even weirder than Delta Toupee’s?”
“Touchette,” I corrected.
Vega looked up from the mess of crumbs Bee Bee was spreading all over everything. “Excuse me?” he asked.
“My mother,” I said and washed down my last cracker with some more water. The nourishment must have revived my mental acuity, and I was starting to think straight. “I need to call her.”
“You can call your mommy later.”
“No. Now.” Wilson handed me his cell phone.
“She must be worried sick,” I said as I punched in her number.
“Hello?” Mother answered after only half a ring, and when I said hello back, she started to cry.
Oh, good Lord. Mother crying always makes me cry. And after the day I had endured? Let’s just say it took a few minutes to assure her I was okay. As was Chris. As was Bee Bee.
“Where are you?” I asked and was pleased to hear she was alone in her bungalow.
“Bless her heart, Louise is up at the tiki bar, trying to get some new information from Ki,” she said. “But I simply couldn’t face the world this evening. Not with you and Chris missing and in who knows what kind of danger. Oh, but I should go tell her you’re okay—”
“No!” I said in no uncertain terms. “Please wait,” I suggested in a softer voice.
With Wilson, Chris, and Bee Bee listening patiently, and with Vega looking like he was about to pop an artery, I gave Tessie a brief summary of what had happened and where I had been all day.
“In the jungle?” Mother was incredulous. “Are you alright, Jessie?”
I took stock of my bruised and bug-bitten appendages. “Sort of,” I lied.
“And you say you’re at the police station? I’ll drive right down, Honeybunch. I’ll be there in a jiffy. Aren’t we glad I didn’t return my rental car? Even after you and Wilson kept insist—”
“Wait!” I interrupted again, and she stopped. “By all means, go get Louise and come on down. But do so discreetly, okay? Do not tell anyone where you’re going. Make something up.”
She thought about what I was saying. “The culprit’s here,” she whispered. “At the Wakilulani.”
“Exactly. So other than Louise, don’t tell anyone we’ve been found. Anyone,” I repeated firmly.
“You know who the killer is, don’t you, Jessie?”
“It was Buster. Chris convinced me.”
“I knew it! I’ve been thinking about it all day.”
I frowned at the growing darkness outside Vega’s window. “Mother?” I asked.
“Yes, Jessie?”
“Drive safely.”
I handed Wilson back his phone. “Tessie and Louise are on their way.”
“Did you just say, Buster?” he asked me.
“Did she just say her mother is joining us?” Vega asked Bee Bee.
***
I was rather looking forward to returning to a zombie-like stupor until my mother arrived, but Wilson had other plans.
“Buster Okolo?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Give me motive, means, and opportunity.” He looked back and forth between Chris and me. “Convince me it was Buster.”
“It was Buster,” Bee Bee said.
“Why?” Wilson and Vega asked in unison.
“Means is easy,” I began. “Clearly Buster knows The Big House and all the grounds at the Wakilulani Gardens like the back of his hand. He knew where to find the biggest knife, where to hide it, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Opportunity is pretty easy, too, Dad. Like Jessie says, if anyone knows where everyone is at every moment around that place, it’s Buster.”
“It’s Buster!” Bee Bee again.
“He was likely planning this for a while,” I continued as my intuition began kicking in. “But he needed to have some guests staying at the resort before he did the deed—to complicate things and throw suspicion elsewhere.” I nodded to Vega. “We tourists were his decoys.”
“Jessie’s right,” Chris said. “Miss Tessie and I played right into his hand when we called in our last-minute drink order that night. I bet he was especially happy when I went up to The Big House to retrieve it.”
“That was his best opportunity,” I said.
“His best opportunity to make me look guilty,” Chris mumbled, and Wilson and Vega exchanged a meaningful look. They didn’t dispute us, but they weren’t wholeheartedly agreeing with us either.
“Buster also had the means to kidnap us,” Chris said. “He has that big old jeep, and he knows Kekipi Crater. He grew up here, right?”
“Right,” Bee Bee said.
“But Ki also knows the volcano,” Wilson argued.
“Ki Okolo?” Vega let out a snort. “Ki’s about as outdoorsy as your girlfriend.” Wilson raised an eyebrow, and Vega glanced up from where he was gathering the cracker crumbs on his desk into a nice, tidy circle. “Umm, maybe Ki and me are friends,” he admitted as Bee Bee waddled over to again scatter the crumbs.
Wilson made sure to frown and then returned to Chris. “What was Buster’s motive?”
“Jealousy,” Chris answered and proceeded to explain the Buster-Davy-Samantha Dimmery love triangle.
I reached over and tapped the clipboard on Wilson’s lap.
He nodded and spoke to Vega. “Rachel Tate and Samantha Dimmery are one and the same person, if you’re interested.”
I reminded Wilson of that raise Russell Densmore had earned, and Vega reminded him Buster’s supposed motive was pretty darn flimsy. And—there’s a first time for everything—Wilson agreed with Vega. They were arguing against the flimsy jealousy motive when the door opened behind us. Everyone jumped up as my mother and Louise rushed in.
“It was Buster,” Mother said as we all stood up.
She tossed a jumbo bottle of Advil to Wilson, walked directly toward me, and gave me what was perhaps the most maternal hug
of my life.
***
“Good heavens, Jessie,” Mother said when she finally let go of me. “What happened to your hair?” Luckily she didn’t wait for an answer but stepped away to hug the dickens out of Chris.
Louise also greeted us with her own brand of enthusiasm, and while Wilson divvied up the Advil to anyone in need, Captain Vega attempted to get everyone to sit down. His office had reached its maximum capacity, but we made do. Wilson gave his chair to Tessie, and found a spot at the windowsill to lean on. And Chris offered his chair to Louise, but she was happy to sit on the edge of Vega’s desk and play with Bee Bee.
“It was Buster,” Mother repeated when everyone was more or less settled.
“Buster!” Bee Bee wholeheartedly agreed.
“We just saw him,” Louise said. “He was busy with the early dinner arrivals, but I made sure to let him know we were off in search of you two.” She pointed to Chris and me.
“Wasn’t that clever of Louise?” Mother asked. “She has Buster thinking we’re driving all over Kingdom Come looking for you.” She nodded stoutly. “It was him alright.”
“Why?” Vega and Wilson asked.
“Well now, Buster was jealous of Davy wasn’t he? Over the cute desk clerk that Bethany wasn’t very fond of.”
“I love, love, love the love-triangles theories,” Louise told Bee Bee, but as usual, Wilson was not so keen on jealousy theme.
“Sorry, Tessie,” he said. “But it’s not enough.”
Mother sighed. “I suppose not. But when Jessie came up missing this morning, I put my thinking cap on.” She tapped her temple. “And I’ve decided Buster’s problems with Davy went a bit deeper. This was about the proprietorship of the Wakilulani Gardens, wasn’t it?”
“Was it?” several of us asked.
“Buster is trying so hard to give the place a fresh start, isn’t he? And poor Davy Atwell was the very last remnant of the old staff under Pono Okolo.” She stopped and glanced at me, as if this explanation had clarified everything.
I blinked twice. “Okay, soooo Buster wanted everything new…”
“That’s right, Honeybunch. New beds, new décor.”
“New pool table.”
Three Odd Balls Page 20
