by Toby Neal
Even as Stevens and Brandon elbowed their way through the crowd, flashing their badges, they heard the booming bullhorn of the Coast Guard as their vessel arrived. “This is a restricted area. All nonessential personnel are to clear out of the harbor immediately!”
The strident announcement, coupled with the serious demeanor of the uniformed men bristling with weapons as they lined the railing of a large, rigid-hulled Coast Guard inflatable, quickly dispersed the crowds.
Stevens greeted the uniformed officers and signed the crime scene log, Mahoe close behind him. He was glad he was wearing rubber-soled athletic shoes as he clambered carefully down steep boulders from the top of the breakwater and approached the body. Mahoe panted a bit behind him, carrying their heavy crime scene backpack.
Stevens squatted on a flat stone, assessing the corpse as it washed gently against the rocks: mixed-race male, approximately 5 foot 10 and 180 pounds, black hair, wearing a blue polo shirt and tan chinos with boat shoes, one missing.
Mahoe took the department’s camera out of the backpack, photographing the body and the surrounding area.
“The vic’s clothing seems like it could be a shipboard uniform,” Stevens said. “I think I see an emblem on the sleeve.”
“You’re right, LT. Looks like one to me.”
“Can you find me a rescue hook, Mahoe?” Stevens asked, as his partner finished the photographing.
“Got one right here.” The call came from above. Aina Thomas, Lei’s Coast Guard contact, scrambled down the rocks towards them carrying a hook on a long pole.
Thomas worked the large, blunt metal hook underneath the floating body. From his vantage point, Stevens could see what the first responders had reported as an indication of a homicide: a bloodless, gaping wound, so long that it wrapped around the part of the man’s neck that wasn’t underwater.
His belly, empty but for that morning’s cup of coffee, tightened; a humpback whale tattoo, a distinctive piece of tribal art, was inked into the notch between the man’s neck and shoulder. The humpback whale was the Kaihale family’s aumakua, or ancestral guardian spirit. He’d seen that tattoo before, when Chaz was alive and laughing.
Stevens glanced up and around, making sure the spectators were gone. The steep boulder-strewn harbor edge was lined with concerned faces, but they were all in uniform. Hopefully no random tourists had got close enough to get a picture of Chaz’s body to post online. It would be terrible for Pono to hear the news that way.
Stevens turned to Thomas and Mahoe. “This is Pono’s cousin, Chaz Kaihale. I recognize his tattoo.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. Pono seemed pretty broken up when we went out to the wreck yesterday,” Thomas said. “Can you help me get him up out of the water?”
“On it.” Mahoe maneuvered in beside Thomas and caught the back of Chaz’s shirt, pulling the body the rest of the way out of the water onto a low, flat rock.
“Pono is going to take it hard.” Stevens rubbed a hand across his face. The weariness he had struggled with on and off since his stint in South America dragged at his bones, and the beginning of one of his chronic headaches began behind his eyes, a distant but approaching drumbeat.
“At least, now we know Kaihale wasn’t involved with whatever went down with the Sea Cloud,” Thomas said.
“Small comfort,” Stevens murmured.
Above them, a disturbance. “Make way! Coming through.” Dr. Phil Gregory’s distinctive, cheerful voice parted the crowd. “That you down there, Mike?”
Stevens turned to wave at Maui’s portly Medical Examiner, gesturing for the ME to join them. “Always a pleasure to see you, Dr. G, but I hate the circumstances.”
Dr. Gregory was wearing one of his distinctive aloha shirts, this one covered with bright parrots. A ball cap covered his balding pate, and he was already gloved up. His wife and assistant, Dr. Tanaka, wearing scrubs, stared down from the breakwall, her hands on the transport gurney and a worried frown on her face as Dr. Gregory clumsily navigated the sloping rocks.
Dr. G sighed in exaggerated relief as he reached the boulder where they’d pulled Chaz’s body out of the water. “Whew. Made it down without adding to the body count.”
“I have an ID,” Stevens said. “This is Chaz Kaihale, Pono’s cousin. He was captaining the Sea Cloud when it went down.”
“Yeah, and now that we’ve found him, there are only seven more missing,” Thomas sketched in the basic facts that they knew so far for Dr. Gregory’s benefit.
“Aw, crap.” Dr. Gregory shook his head. “I liked Chaz. I met him at one of your barbecues.”
Stevens stood to his full height. “Now that you’re here to investigate the body, I have to make some calls. Mahoe, can you document the scene and work with Dr. Gregory?”
“You got it, LT.” Mahoe squatted beside Dr. Gregory. “How can I help?”
Stevens moved up and away. As he climbed up the rocks, his headache increased in intensity. The young patrol officer, a recruit named Ching, held the logbook as he signed out. Ching pointed to his vehicle. “I’ve got some donuts and coffee in there, LT. You look like you could use a little caffeine and sugar.”
“Sure could.” Stevens walked over and opened the door of the MPD cruiser. He grinned at the sight of a pink box on the front seat holding malasadas from famous Komoda Bakery in upcountry Makawao. “Whoa! You’ve got the good stuff here.”
“And there’s a container of Starbucks coffee in the back,” Ching said. “I was on my way to bring all that in for a departmental meeting, when we got the call.”
Stevens sat for a moment in the driver’s seat, loading up a napkin with several of the fragrant, sugarcoated rounds of Portuguese pastry made daily by a dedicated family business. He poured himself a still-hot cup of coffee into one of the paper cups, then waved thanks to Ching as he walked back to Mahoe’s truck. The vehicle was locked, so he walked a little further, deep under the huge, spreading branches of the famous Lahaina banyan tree.
His bad news call to Pono could wait for a minute, long enough for him to down some of the malasadas and a few sips of coffee. Seated on one of the worn benches, Stevens’s gaze followed the graceful, massive arms of the banyan. The branches spread from a central hub of trunk, but were thick enough to be separate trees. Periodically, roots had grown down to support the massive, heavy lengths, which reminded him of an octopus’s legs.
The cool, dappled shade and gentle breeze seemed to be pushing the headache back, as was the hit of sugar and carbs. He finished the last of the delicious treats and his coffee.
“Time for the moment of truth.” He took his phone out and gazed at it. Would Pono, who’d been a friend for years, rather hear the news from him, or from his partner, Lei?
He would ask Omura how to handle it. He had to call her first, anyway.
Stevens pressed and held down the button to her speed dial, and moments later the Steel Butterfly picked up. “Lieutenant Stevens. What have you got?”
“Homicide victim, not a drowning. I have a positive ID.” Stevens blew out a breath. “It’s Pono’s cousin Chaz Kaihale. His throat was cut.”
“Oh, no.” Captain Omura said. Stevens pictured C.J. pressing her red lacquered fingertips against her temples, but she would never disturb her makeup by touching her face. “Pono is not going to take it well. I’ll have to reassign him, and he won’t like that, either.”
Stevens was Omura’s second in command at Kahului Station, and over the years of work together, he and C.J. had become close. Stevens tugged at his hair, the sting somehow decreasing the pain of his headache. “I know. I’m wondering how I should break the news to him. Call him direct, or ask Lei to tell him. What do you think?”
“I will call Pono. It’s my job to notify him of the death, and to reassign him.” C.J. Omura never shrank from the difficult tasks of leadership, one of the things he respected about her. “I’ll also offer him some bereavement time off. Perhaps his wife can convince him to take it.”
“I’ll call Tia
re and handle that part. Ask her to persuade him to stay out of the office for a while,” Stevens said. “We can tag team it. But that will leave Lei without a partner, and she’s primary on this case.”
“She’s not without a partner. You and Mahoe are her partners, now that you pulled Chaz’s body.”
“True.” Stevens felt energy coming back—maybe it was the donuts and coffee, maybe it was the idea of working a case with Lei. In all their years at the same station, they’d never been primary together on a homicide. “I’ll get ahold of her next. We got this, Captain.”
“Not yet. We are still missing seven people.” Stevens could hear the tip-tapping of her glossy fingernails on her keyboard. “What do you think of Petty Officer Aina Thomas? He’s the Coast Guard’s primary crime investigator.”
“Seems competent. Had already started clearing the harbor of rubberneckers when we arrived, a huge help. And he came down to the body with a retrieval hook. He seems on top of things.”
“Did he say if their divers had found anything near the wreck?”
Stevens nudged a curious dog away as it dragged an elderly lady in a muumuu and lauhala hat over to his spot under the banyan tree. “He said no.”
The Captain’s keyboard paused, and she sighed again. “I just don’t think this is the only body that’s going to be washing up on our shores.”
“Unfortunately, I agree.” Stevens was going to have to catch up with Lei on all of this. And weren’t three teenaged girls on board the Sea Cloud?
He didn’t want to see how they’d appear after another day or two if they were in the ocean.
Chapter Ten
Lei went down to the crime lab to retrieve her backpack. Nunez, her wedge-shaped, magenta-streaked hair canted forward to screen her face, sat on a stool hunched over a microscope. She glanced up at Lei’s arrival, squinting through thick glasses Lei had never seen before. “What can I do for you, Sergeant?”
“Looking for my bag. You said it was drying out down here?”
Nunez slid off her stool, showing a length of shapely leg clad in fishnet stockings and a chain-covered pair of ankle boots beneath her lab coat. “Right this way.”
Lei followed the tech as Nunez led her to a secondary storage room. Lei’s familiar nylon backpack hung from a wall hook. Her personal items, including weapon, cuffs, radio, cell phone, a sealed bag of Kiet’s favorite snack, Goldfish, one of Rosie’s binkies, her wallet, a lipstick and comb, and the sodden evidence bags, were all laid out with surgical precision on a snow-white towel. A whirring floor fan was pointed at the area. “I did the best I could.”
“And your best is always better than most.” Lei’s eyes stung at the homely lineup of her possessions—it reminded her way too much of an array of evidence collected at a scene. If she’d died . . .
“But you didn’t die. You’re fine.” She hadn’t realized she spoke aloud until a small warm hand touched Lei’s arm, bringing her back to the present moment. Nunez smiled at Lei.
Lei smiled back, a painful effort. “You’re right. It’s just a little spooky, all laid out like that.”
Nunez grabbed one end of the towel. She plucked Lei’s service Glock out of the lineup of items, handing it to her, and then rolled the towel up like a burrito, handing the whole thing to Lei. “Take it home and sort it out later. Don’t obsess. Kiss your babies, and count your blessings.”
Lei laughed. “When did you get to be so wise? What are you, Becca? Twenty-two?”
“Twenty-four. But I grew up in the barrio in Los Angeles. I’d seen more bodies by the time I was a teenager than Maui sees in a decade.” She took off her glasses, sliding them into the pocket of her lab coat. “We’re always one breath away from dead. We just try to forget it for as long as we can.”
Back at her cubicle, Lei took out the scrap of paper the Captain had given her and drew the department’s desk phone over. She punched in the number, and after a moment of refined chiming, she identified herself to Peterson’s lawyer’s receptionist, then waited to be connected to Frederick Samuelson, Esq.
The man made her wait long enough that she’d begun to unroll the wrapped towel, blotting any excess moisture she found as she sorted her personal items back into her bag. “Maui Police Department. This is an unusual call. May I get your name and badge number?” Samuelson had a voice like warm chocolate.
Lei recited the information. “I’m calling because your client, Patrick Peterson, is missing. His rented yacht, upon which he set out with his family, has sunk off the coast of Lana`i, and there were signs of foul play on board.”
“Dear God!” Frederick’s voice shot into an upper register. “You must be joking! Patrick and his family are drowned?”
“We don’t know that. They are considered endangered missing, at this point.” Lei flipped open the case file. “We got your number off of Dream Vacations Luxury Yachts’ emergency contact form for the family. What can you tell me about Peterson? Was there anyone who might have wished him harm?”
“Slow down. Wait a minute. I’m having trouble taking this in.” Samuelson sounded winded. She heard the squeak of springs as he sat heavily in his office chair. “I have some questions for you, first.”
Lei fielded those, mostly the nuts and bolts of how the yacht had been discovered by the Coast Guard, and then the gist of her own discoveries of disturbance on board—though she did not mention the blood trace they’d found—before the craft had sunk. Intuition told her that more information up front would yield the best results with this man. “Do you have any leads on who might have done this?” Samuelson asked.
“You know I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation. And in fact, why don’t you answer that question for me? That’s the one I started with,” she prompted gently.
“I worry about violating attorney-client privilege,” Samuelson said. “Confidentiality still holds, even in the case of death.”
Lei bit her lip to keep from arguing, though her neck had begun to heat. Freakin’ lawyers. They always wanted something for nothing. “How about a hypothetical situation? Your client may still be alive. May need us to find him and his family, rescue them if they’ve been . . . kidnapped.” She dropped the word gently.
Samuelson blew out a noisy breath. “If they have been, no one has contacted me. But hypothetically speaking, they don’t have any money to pay a ransom, anyway.”
Lei blinked. “They must have been rich. Not everyone can charter a private yacht for their family vacation.”
“That was all for appearances. To pump things up before the public offering,” Samuelson said. “I worry that . . . maybe Peterson did this himself?”
Lei grabbed a pen and scribbled on a tablet to get the ink flowing. “Tell me more.”
“Pete—he goes by Pete—was in over his head with the IPO coming up for Enviro Enterprises. Hypothetically speaking, there were some problems with his partner, who’d changed his mind about the stock offering and wanted to break up their partnership and sell off their different parts of the business. Pete was adamantly opposed to this. But maybe he . . . did something and tried to make it look like murder, while he and his family disappeared.”
“Hmm.” This guy really suspected his client of faking his own death?
Her phone toned—a text from Stevens.
Need you at the morgue to meet Pono for the ID of Chaz Kaihale’s body. We found him washed up in the Lahaina Harbor.
A distinctive sensation of sorrow and apprehension hollowed Lei’s belly. She had to get off the phone.
“This is very interesting and helpful, Mr. Samuelson, but I’ve just had an emergency notification that may be related to the case. I’ll call you back if we need anything more from you.”
She hung up on the lawyer’s protestations, and grabbed the keys to her truck.
Poor Pono . . . This was going to be bad.
Chapter Eleven
Lei stood on the concrete sidewalk outside Maui Memorial Medical’s morgue, a utilitarian bay designed for
vehicles to offload bodies. The bay sloped down to a basement entry that led into an automatic door and a sally port, and then the morgue itself.
Her hand slid into her pocket, and she rubbed the bone hook she kept there, a talisman she had once given Stevens for a journey that had gone badly wrong. That talisman was returned to her in a box . . . and she’d worried that his body would come back to her that way, too. But Stevens had returned, and they had healed and rebuilt.
The bone hook remained a symbol of hope, a comforting object to touch and ground herself with.
She needed all the hope and comfort she could get for this particular moment.
She was still adjusting to the devastating news that Chaz’s body had been discovered in Lahaina. Captain Omura had broken the news to Pono, and he’d demanded to see the body right away. Lei had been directed by the Captain to keep a rein on Pono as he headed for the morgue. Lei’d already tried to call her partner, but he wasn’t picking up.
She sighed, rubbing the smooth, carved bit of bone as her gaze flickered over the ornamental areca palms and plumeria trees planted throughout the hospital’s parking lot on little grassy islands. The facility actually had a great view set on a knoll. From where she stood, Lei could see down across the busy, utilitarian town of Kahului to the harbor, gleaming blue in the distance. A white palace of a cruise ship was at anchor; tourists likely roamed the mall nearby. Further out to sea, a squall draped a rainbow across the horizon.
It was good to gaze on these beautiful things in preparation for what she’d see when she went down into her friend Dr. G’s basement domain. She’d never got used to the smells, sights and sounds of his gruesome little kingdom.
