Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  “I appreciate it, really, but this is crazy. You can’t come over every night.”

  He ignored her, slipping past and going to the rear entrance where he unlocked the dog door. The big Rottweiler careened in, her toenails scrabbling. She barreled toward Pono, sitting at the last second, gazing at him in naked adoration. He squatted and patted her chest.

  “Now this is a good dog,” he said. “Eat anyone today, girl?” Keiki moaned in ecstasy, rolling on her back so he could rub her tummy. Lei went to the fridge. It was still empty.

  “Damn. I forgot to get some food.”

  “No worries,” Pono said. “Tiare sent some ono grinds.” He went back out the front door and returned with tattooed arms wrapped around two bulging paper bags. He was unpacking various items as her cell phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Lei? It’s Roland.”

  Mary’s boyfriend? He never called her. Lei stuck her finger in her ear to block the sound of crunching foil as Pono unwrapped steaming laulau. The savory smell of the seasoned pork wrapped in taro leaves filled the air, distracting her. She went into the living room.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Do you know where Mary is?”

  “No. Thought she’d be with you,” Lei said. “She wasn’t at class tonight.”

  “I’m looking for her. I don’t know where she could be. She always calls me after class and she didn’t. I went to her place and she wasn’t there—no note or nothing.”

  “Was anything disturbed?”

  “No. Nothing. The door was locked.”

  “Well like I said she wasn’t at class. So something must have come up before then.”

  “Her captain—he told me call all her friends and family,” Roland said. She heard the rough edge of terror in his voice. “I know it’s too early to report her missing but I wanted to see if she was called in or something, and she wasn’t.”

  “She’s probably hanging out with a friend.”

  “She doesn’t have that many friends, and her family don’t know where she is. That’s not like Mary.”

  “Then, you should call back and report her missing,” Lei said. “Have them put out a “Be On Look Out” over the radio. They can’t post it until she’s gone twenty-four hours, but I bet she’ll turn up, hung over and sorry.”

  “I hope you’re right,” he said, and clicked off.

  Lei went back into the kitchen, buying time to collect her thoughts. Her heart had picked up speed and her stomach knotted. She’d known it wasn’t like Mary to miss class and not call. She went to the cabinet and scooped dog chow into Keiki’s bowl from the big Tupperware bin, grinding open the can of wet dog food and smashing it in. Keiki dove into the bowl of food as Lei sat down.

  Pono had dished up, adding scoops of white rice and lomi lomi salmon with tomatoes to their Hawaiian feast. He cracked open a couple of the Miller Lites and pushed her plate toward her.

  “What’s up?”

  “You know Mary Gomes?”

  “Yeah, went school with her.”

  “She stay missing.”

  “She used to be a party girl in high school.” Pono stirred the lau lau into the rice, scooped it up with his chopsticks. “She probably wen’ spend the night somewhere.” He sat back, took a swig of beer, rubbed his lip with his finger.

  “Her boyfriend Roland says no. They are practically living together. He says she always calls, and she didn’t. She wasn’t at class tonight either.”

  “Twenty-four hours haven’t passed.”

  “I just have a bad feeling.” Lei pushed her plate away without taking a bite. She got up and paced the kitchen, opening cupboards.

  “What you looking for?”

  “Mary had a favorite club. She was always trying to get me to go there. I have their matchbook around here somewhere.” She rummaged through her junk drawer, held it up, a black square with bold red letters spelling out PAHOA MUSIC CLUB. “Feel like going out for a drink?”

  “Only if you finish your dinner,” Pono said severely. “Tiare, she going be piss off if you no eat her food.”

  “Okay,” Lei said, making herself take a bite. The lau lau were delicious, the lomi salmon salad tangy and tart, but her stomach hurt at the thought of Mary missing. What if the hair in the stalker note was hers? She tried to remember if the timeline could be right.

  Someone knocked at the front door and Pono went to answer it, checking through the peephole before taking off the chain and deadbolt. Stevens came in, dropping his duffel beside the door.

  Lei took her hand off the Glock in her shoulder holster. She wore it all all the time now, and hadn’t even realized she had been touching the pebbled black stock. She kept eating, struggling to hide the fizzing emotions she felt: frustration at Stevens’ presumption, relief that he was there.

  “Hey bruddah,” Pono said, slapping him on the back. Stevens lurched forward. “You still in time for some grinds.”

  “Nice,” Stevens said, sniffing the air. “Tiare send something?”

  “She trying for fatten her up,” Pono said, indicating Lei with his head. He took a plate out of the cupboard and loaded it up for Stevens, set it down in front of him.

  “Hey, Lei,” Stevens said, sitting down. She ignored him.

  “Stubborn, you.” Pono said. “You should be saying thanks to us.”

  “Tell Tiare thanks,” Lei replied. “You guys are exaggerating this thing. I can take care of myself.” Stevens put his head down and addressed his food, but Pono got back up and piled the dishes in the sink.

  “You never know when for quit,” he grumbled. “Just shut up a’ready and let us look out for you.”

  Lei leaned back, flipping the matchbook back and forth between her fingers.

  “So, Stevens. Want to get a drink after this?” she asked.

  “Not particularly,” he said. “And I told you not to call me that.”

  “My friend Mary’s missing. She’s a patrol officer with Pahoa PD. Her boyfriend called earlier. He’s really worried. I thought we’d go look for her at her favorite bar in Pahoa, ask around.”

  Stevens went into cop mode, asking about Roland, how long Mary had been missing, did she have any enemies. Pono packed up the rest of the food and put it into the fridge.

  “I’m outta here,” he said. “Gotta get home to my girls now that Stevens can take you to Pahoa. See you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks so much, Pono,” Lei said, getting up and giving him a hug, realizing she’d never hugged him before. He squeezed her tight, lifting her off the ground, and gave her wayward curls a tug.

  “You like one sister to me,” he said. “Watch your back out there in Pahoa and let me know what’s happening.”

  “I will.” She relocked the door, turning back to Stevens. “Okay. You done yet?”

  “Chill,” he said, forking up another mouthful. His chopsticks were abandoned beside the plate. She picked them up, twiddling them between her fingers.

  “You’ll never be a local until you get the hang of these.”

  “Fine by me,” he said, finishing his dinner and taking a long drink from his water glass. She was struck by the powerful line of his throat, the light gilding the hairs on the back of his hand, the dark fan of lashes closed over those blue, blue eyes.

  “What?” he asked, frowning at her. She started, dropping the chopsticks on the floor, and leaned over to pick them up, hoping to hide her blush.

  “We need to get going. Hurry up.”

  They got in Stevens’s unmarked police Bronco and rolled out of her neighborhood. He pointed to Tom Watanabe’s house on the corner. The black truck was parked in the driveway and the lights were on, blinds down.

  “That Watanabe’s house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Seen him around anymore?”

  “No, but when I do he’s either working in his yard or washing one of his cars,” she said. “He’s a total neat freak.”

  “He’s one to watch. He’s close enough
to be the stalker without much effort.”

  “I know.” Lei flipped down the visor. Her hair, always difficult, was particularly crazy as it had been a long day without any gel. She twisted it back behind her head and anchored it with a rubber band in a frizzy wad. She saw his grin out of the corner of her eye.

  “What?”

  “Your hair. It’s like...I don’t know. It’s like a pet or something.”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “So frickin’ true,” she said. “But a gentleman wouldn’t say so.”

  “Who said I was a gentleman?” he said with a wink. Lei looked out the window, a little rattled. They were on the road going out of town. Banks of high pili grass waved in the moonlight. It reminded her of the car chase after class. I hope I see him again, she thought, when I’m driving my truck.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Pahoa was a rough town thirty minutes outside Hilo, near where the flows from Kilauea met the ocean. The town’s economy had been depressed ever since the lava had taken out entire subdivisions in the area in the 1990s. Built like a western town, false-fronted old wooden buildings faced a single main street.

  At 9 p.m., when most of the rest of the island was shut up tight for the evening, Pahoa was just warming up. The doors of the bars and restaurants were open to the streets, light and music spilling out, knots of people clustered smoking outside.

  Stevens pulled the SUV into one of the side streets and parked on the shoulder. Lei got out and slammed the door, straightening her jean jacket and unobtrusively checking the Glock in its holster. Stevens waited at the bumper as she bent to touch up her wide mouth with sparkly gloss in the side mirror of the Bronco, running the wand over her lips. She pretended not to notice him watching, feeling his eyes on her like a touch. She straightened abruptly, snapped the wand into the tube and slid it into the pocket of her jacket.

  “Pahoa Music Club was Mary’s sort of home away from home,” she said. “She liked to eat there between her shift and class. I hope they’ll know something.” They strode down the street, through the groups of people. Electric guitars wailed from inside the bar.

  Stevens pushed one of the old-fashioned swinging half doors open and held it as Lei followed him in. The smell of sweat and beer hit her along with a wall of sound as a mediocre rock band banged out tunes from the battered stage. The postage stamp dance floor was crowded with people. Lei elbowed her way next to Stevens at the bar, hopped up on a stool. Stevens got the bartender’s attention, ordered two beers, yelled above the din of the band.

  “Have you seen Mary? Mary Gomes?”

  The bartender flipped the tops off, pushed two green bottles of Heineken toward them.

  “Yeah. Who wants to know?”

  “We’re friends of hers from the police department.” Stevens showed his badge.

  “She came in yesterday afternoon, ordered her usual. She must’ve got a call from someone and been picked up. She left her car in the alley.” The bartender wiped the counter as he talked.

  “Has that happened before?” Stevens asked.

  “Sure. Not a lot but at least a couple other times I know of,” the bartender said, polishing a glass. He moved off to wait on another customer. Stevens turned to Lei.

  “Let’s go check it out.” She nodded, scooping up her beer. They went back out the front of the bar and around the corner of the building.

  The Mustang gleamed in the dim light of the alley. They walked around the car, tried the handles. Locked. Guitar music leaked out of a door in the wall next to it.

  “Mary would never just leave the Mustang here if she could help it.” Lei pointed to the alley door. “Wonder where this goes?” She gave the handle a turn—it was unlocked.

  They went into a run-down hallway. Clearly this was the back way into the Pahoa Music Club. Loud voices identified the kitchen on the left, and they could see the women’s and men’s bathrooms on the right. Lei stuck her head into the restrooms but there was nothing to see but the well-used facilities.

  “So what do you think?” Stevens leaned against the wall, took a sip of his beer.

  “Don’t know. We should call her station, see if there were any emergency calls she might have had, though Roland said he checked on that. I think it’s really weird she left the Mustang here. That car was her pride and joy.”

  “Yeah. But she could be meeting someone, someone she didn’t want Roland to know about.”

  “That’s what Pono thought too. But I know she would be careful to be back before Roland noticed. Now he’s worried and upset. That’s only going to draw attention, embarrass her. No, something must have happened. She might have been nabbed in the alley.”

  “Not too likely.” Stevens said. “But if she doesn’t turn up to claim the car, it looks like she’s missing for sure.”

  “Do you think the hair the stalker sent me could be hers?” Lei put her fear into words. “I don’t know how long she’s been missing, I mean for sure yesterday, but I got the note the night before.”

  Stevens shrugged. She could tell he was trying to be casual but his mouth had drawn into a hard line and black brows lowered so she could hardly see his eyes in the dim light of the tired bulb.

  “Let’s find out,” he said. They pushed off from the wall and went back outside. It wasn’t long before they were on the road again.

  “I’m starting to wonder if this is all connected somehow. The girls, the investigation, my stalker, Mary’s disappearance…” Lei leaned her forehead on the cool glass of the window.

  “How? What’s the connection?” Stevens sounded serious.

  “I don’t know. I think Mary would have told me if someone was stalking her, and she never said anything. I don’t know, I just feel it.”

  “At this point we have to follow the evidence, track down every lead we can. Every hour that goes by the trail gets colder. I’m open to anything right now if you can find a link. In the meantime I’m calling this in.” Stevens picked up the handset radio and reported the abandoned car and their conversation with the bartender to the detective on duty at Pahoa PD. Stevens asked if there had been any emergency calls yesterday afternoon that Mary might have gone on. The dispatcher checked and said no, replied that a case was already open for Mary in Missing Persons.

  “Looks like they’re moving on it,” he said, hanging up the handset and glancing at Lei. “I’m sorry.”

  She rolled down the window and stared out, lifting her face to the arc of night sky. A million stars circled far above, visible without the light pollution of Hilo. The cool evening air blew across her face, anchoring her in her body. She didn’t let herself think about the Mohuli`i girls’ drowned faces but they hovered at the edge of her mind, unforgettable.

  He watched her wake up with the dawn, the drugs he’d given her slowly wearing off. They were in the special place he’d prepared, so remote she could scream all she wanted and no one would hear. A trackless jungle of tall ohia trees and gigantic ferns surrounded them. Her hands were cuffed behind her, and a heavy cable attached to the handcuffs fastened her to a nearby tree.

  Terror and rage came into her eyes as Mary realized where she was, and she thrashed against her bonds. He sat on the plastic cooler and watched as she struggled, finally subsiding, sucking air through her nostrils above the gag.

  “I don’t have time for you now,” he said. “I have to go to work.” His voice was muffled by the ski mask he wore, his alter ego. He hadn’t decided if he was going to kill her yet, and it kept his options open.

  She glared at him and he could see her calculating whether or not she could take him.

  Oh, this was good. He wanted it to last.

  The first fingers of light pinkened the sky above the hidden grove where he had set up the shelter. He stood, looking down at her.

  “You’re going to enjoy what I have planned for you. Water’s in the cooler.” He leaned over, pinched her nipple. She writhed and heaved, trying to kick him, and he chuckled as he walked away, crunching through the
dried ferns.

  He smiled to himself, pulling the hot ski mask off his head with a pleasurable sense of anticipation. She was secure, but she would figure out how to get her hands in front because he’d left her cuffs loose enough. Eventually she’d get thirsty enough to drink the water. He was counting on it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lei poured her first coffee of the morning and splashed in some half-and-half from the carton. She looked out the window over the sink at the spreading branches of the plumeria tree, spare graceful branches ending in clusters of creamy yellow-throated flowers, bouquets of tropical fragrance. A cardinal hopped in the branches, an unlikely spot of red.

  Her head felt muzzy but she’d only had the one beer the night before in Pahoa. She looked over at Stevens. He’d put the cushions from the rump-sprung couch on the floor. They’d migrated during the night, leaving him sprawled on the floor, the crocheted afghan tangled around his legs.

  She tried not to notice the contours of his back under the tank-style undershirt, the long ropy muscles of his arms relaxed in sleep. His rumpled dark hair made her hands itch to touch it. Keiki padded over to him and licked his ear, and he woke with a groan.

  “Coffee,” he intoned, sitting up and lurching like a zombie as he headed toward the pot, hoisting up sweatpants. His hair was spiky and eyes a dark, sleepy blue. She laughed, handed him a full mug. He took it, rubbing his lower back.

  “Sleeping on the floor is making me feel like an old man.”

  “Quit whining. Pretty boys like you are such babies.”

  “Pretty boy? Did I detect a compliment in there somewhere?” He blew on the hot surface of the coffee. “Can’t say I remember ever being called that before.” He took a sip. She felt his proximity like a magnetic field, raising the tiny hairs on her arms with awareness.

  “You’re so vain, you just want me to say it again.” Her face flamed. She dug in the utility drawer for Keiki’s leash.

  I’m so bad at this, she thought, but all thought stopped as his arms came around her from behind. He turned her and then, in slow motion, he leaned down, his lips brushing hers as gentle as a moth landing.