Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

She felt movement in front of her and hurled herself forward, her chin tucked in, head-butting. She hit a glancing blow to something, and heard the whoosh of exhaled breath, but kept flying forward and landed on the ground, solidly on her face. She didn’t have time to recover before her whole body convulsed, twitching, a thousand tiny stars lighting up behind her closed eyes as consciousness winked out.

  She woke up in steps, her brain responding to thumping pain signals. She opened eyes gummy with dried tears. The light was dim. The blue tarp overhead flapped a little. She couldn’t hear anything but the tinkling of the nearby stream.

  An icy calm settled over her. He’s going to kill me. I’ll just have to kill him first.

  She was inside a cheap nylon sleeping bag, naked. Her hands were cuffed in front. Her feet were loose, but she felt the pinch of something on her ankle. She reached down to feel another handcuff, this one clipped around her ankle, attached to a steel tie-out cable threaded through the zipper of the sleeping bag, trailing out into the bushes.

  She lay in the same dilapidated shelter she’d helped clear out. The crime techs had left it there, the landowner’s problem to deal with. Instead of pockmarked dirt, he’d covered the ground with a large musty-smelling carpet fragment. An ice chest was nearby and a battery-operated lantern hung from the supporting pole in the middle. Late afternoon sun slanted through the trees.

  She’d been unconscious all day.

  She sat up and took inventory of her injuries, feeling the welts where the Taser had hit her in the neck and back, her bruised face. Worst was the wrist, throbbing a protest with each beat of her heart.

  She had to pee, and crawled out of the sleeping bag and relieved herself behind a bush. There was another welt on her thigh—probably an injection site. No other reason she would’ve been out all day.

  Lei then explored the length of the cable tie-out. It ended looped around the sturdy trunk of a christmasberry bush. It was too short for her to move beyond the screening growth. Branches within her reach had been trimmed back with a machete so there were no dangling or handy branches, and the big pile of potentially useful trash was gone, removed in the search for evidence. There weren’t even any handy rocks. The site was isolated, an empty acreage at the end of a cul-de-sac on a large, undeveloped tract of land. It was pretty smart of him to use it again, no one would anticipate that.

  Her clothes were folded next to the ice chest. There was no way to get her pants back on with the cable attached to her foot, and with hands cuffed she couldn’t put her bra or shirt back on either. He’s done this before, she thought. He knows he has to take the clothes off before putting restraints on or he can’t get them off later. The thought of Mary’s ordeal chilled her, somehow made worse by this final confirmation that her stalker was the killer they’d been searching for.

  Lei flipped up the lid, looking for something to use as a weapon. Inside was a bag of ice and a six-pack of water bottles. She was parched, her throat scratchy from the gag. She picked up one of the water bottles, inspecting it. It had a tiny puncture mark in the neck. She looked at the rest of them. They all did. Maybe this was how he administered the Rohypnol.

  He didn’t seem interested in fighting her, more in keeping her subdued.

  A plan began forming. She took two of the water bottles and emptied the water out near a plant where it wouldn’t show. The bag of ice was closed with a large, crimped steel staple. She had to use both hands to pull it open—difficult with her broken wrist. The thick staple wire, unfolded, could make a weapon.

  Lei popped several ice cubes into her mouth, crunching them—the coolness soothing on her raw throat—and unzipped the sleeping bag off the tie-out cable to increase her mobility. She rearranged the sleeping bag the way it had been, only now with the cable pulled tighter so it looked like it went into the bottom of the bag as before, but now it came in through the top, forming a loop. She got in and set the empty water bottles beside her and chewed ice until her thirst was quenched.

  She’d fallen asleep, a fitful stupor, when the growl of an engine startled her awake. The black tracery of branches against a glowing grey sky heralded nightfall. Showtime.

  Lei put her cuffed hands above her head and closed her eyes, a picture of unconscious submission, the staple wire concealed between her fingers. She waited as she heard the muffled thump of the car door slam, the swish and crunch of his approaching footsteps. They slowed as he approached her.

  She felt him staring down at her. She kept her breath slow and even. He prodded her with his foot. She remained limp. She felt him pick up the water bottle from beside her, heard the swish of remaining droplets as he shook it.

  “Stupid bitch,” he said, in that almost-familiar voice. “You were too easy. I don’t know what he sees in you.”

  Light glowed against her eyelids as he turned on the lantern. She heard more rustling, what sounded like a paper bag. She cracked her eyes but in the dim light of the lantern she could only make out his silhouette: not too tall. He took out a sandwich and put it in the cooler. Through the screen of her lashes she watched him get a camera out of his backpack. She closed her eyes as he loomed over her, unzipping the sleeping bag, the camera clicking periodically.

  It seemed like forever before she heard the rustle of his clothing coming off, the thud of his shoes as they hit the ground. Her heart beat like a drum—hollow, frantic. She controlled her breathing with difficulty, then suddenly felt herself slipping away to that other place, rising above her body to somewhere in the top of the shelter looking down. She saw the pale, muscular length of his body as he knelt beside her. His head was dark, and she realized he was wearing a ski mask.

  His fingers, warm and rough at the same time, moved softly over her breast. She continued to breathe deeply, slowly as her hand palmed the wire between her fingers, curling as if in slumber.

  He gently pried her legs apart. He’ll see the cable, she thought, but he didn’t appear to notice the shadow of the cable running beside and underneath her.

  From her mental vantage point above, she watched the exploration of her body. He stroked her thighs, licking the bowl of her navel, the feathery touch of his fingers making her nipples perk involuntarily. He made a low growling noise, moving up her, tonguing and sucking, spreading her legs further apart with his knee. Every now and then, he would stop, pick up the camera and take a picture.

  He leaned over, setting the camera down above her shoulder.

  Now!

  Arching upward she struck, aiming the wire into his eye. There was a strange popping sound as she sunk it deep, followed by her thumb. He screamed, high and thin, and she tossed the loop of cable around his neck. He tried to rear back but she pulled him in to her breast, pulling the crossed cable tighter and tighter as far as her cuffed hands could go, kicking downward on the other end attached to her ankle.

  He coughed, fighting for air, and punched at her face and body. She scissored her legs around his waist, pulling him further down so he couldn’t get leverage, redoubling her efforts to pull on the cable. He flailed, rearing back, and then head-butted her in the chin. Her mouth filled with blood.

  He thrust forward, gaining a breath as he sank his teeth into her collarbone. Lei screamed but didn’t let go. He threw himself to the side and rolled, trying to lose her, but now she was on top. She heaved backward on the cable, pulling in the slack from his movement. She pulled and kicked with the leg clipped to the cable: pulled and kicked, pulled and kicked, her hands becoming slippery.

  His fingers clawed at his neck, scrabbling for a hold. He bucked and heaved, but she hung on with all she had, hearing a fierce low growling that came from her own throat.

  His face was hidden behind the knit of the mask but for the wire rising out of the weeping, ruined eye. His heels drummed on the ground, his chest slippery with their shared blood. He bucked feebly. She felt the deep shudders of his dying body between her thighs.

  He’d stopped moving for some time when she finally let go.

/>   She collapsed next to him, breath heaving, body trembling and bathed in sweat. When she’d mustered enough strength, she rose on her elbow to look down into the black knit covering his face. Her wrist throbbed like a bass drum but she persisted, rolling the mask up and off his purpling, congested face. It was Jeremy Ito.

  She crawled over to his backpack. His cell phone was in the side pocket and she watched herself, still floating above her body, punch in the number she had memorized.

  “Jeremy, what’s up?”

  “This isn’t Jeremy,” she said. “It’s Lei.”

  “Lei. Why are you on Jeremy’s phone?”

  “It’s him,” she said. “He did it.” Her teeth began to chatter.

  “Lei! What the hell’s going on? You’re scaring me!”

  “I killed him,” she said. “Come get me, please.” Shivers racked her body, and her teeth clattered like castanets. “I’m at the Mohuli`i crime scene.”

  “On my way,” Stevens said. “Hold on.”

  “Okay,” she said, in a small voice. The phone went silent, and she closed it. The snapping sound sucked her back into her body.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The dog licking her face brought her up out of a deep well of medication-induced sleep. My girl’s okay, she thought. She put her arms around Keiki’s big, solid body, burrowing her face into her fur, savoring the warmth and safety of her bed. Even the doggy smell was heavenly. Keiki had been found trapped in the steel gardening shed. She’d been Tased but seemed no worse for it.

  “I hate to interrupt this love fest.” Stevens’s voice. She opened her eyes. He was at the foot of the bed on the futon, sitting up with the covers around his waist. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Glad to be alive,” she said huskily. “Love the pain meds.”

  “You should’ve stayed in the hospital.”

  “I hate those places. Nothing so wrong with me that a little first aid and some sleep won’t cure.”

  “Yeah. That’s what you said last night.” He jumped up with lithe grace. “I’ll go make some coffee.”

  She stroked Keiki with her good hand, staring at the ceiling. The previous night was blurry except for a few moments—Stevens and several squad cars arriving. Stevens wrapping her in a clean blanket, taking off her restraints. The flash of crime scene photos being taken even as she was helped to the ambulance. Lying on the gurney, Stevens beside her, holding her hand.

  “You should be at the crime scene,” she remembered saying.

  “I am,” he’d replied.

  The cast on her arm felt stiff and hard. Her wrist had indeed been broken. Pain throbs echoed the struggle from various points on her body. She tried not to remember it, thinking instead about giving her statement to Stevens and the other detectives.

  Thank God this whole thing was finally over. She closed her eyes again, feeling tears well up. She didn’t know why she was crying.

  “Sit up,” Stevens said, his voice brisk. He was carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. She scooched herself upright, whacking her pillow into shape behind her with her good hand. He handed her the coffee and sat in the folding chair he’d set in the space beside her outsized bed. She took a sip.

  “Mmm. Strong.”

  “You’re gonna need it,” he said, reaching over to stretch a curl out, watching it spring back into the matted mass around her face. “The Lieutenant wants us to do a press conference at 11:00 AM.”

  “Oh my God. I can’t,” Lei said. Keiki stiffened and growled at the terror in her voice.

  “You won’t have to say much, just stand there in your dress uniform with a sling on your arm, look heroic. I’ll be making a statement too.”

  His voice was grim, and she reached out to touch his arm. “I’m so sorry, Michael. He was your partner, your friend.”

  “Obviously not.” He looked down. One of his hands sported bruised, scratched knuckles. “I had to punch the wall because I couldn’t do it to his face. I just keep kicking myself—there were clues if you knew to see them. The photo we found on Reynolds’s hard drive, the ring. He planted both, and if I hadn’t been so eager to close the case, I would have remembered that not only was he computer savvy, his hobby was photography. All along he was trying to point the investigation towards Reynolds.”

  She rubbed his arm, little circles. He looked down, traced the bruise on her wrist from the cuffs with the tip of his finger.

  “You okay?” he asked softly.

  “I don’t know.” The tears she’d been holding back welled, dropped on the cast she held over her stomach. “I’ve never killed anyone before.” She sniffed loudly, wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I’m alive, and that’s what counts. Alive, and not raped.”

  “Yeah.” He put his arm around her, pulled her over in a rough hug. His voice was harsh with emotion. “I’m glad you did what you had to do. I just wish I could have done it for you. I figured you were missing when I called and your phone kept going to voicemail. I went to the house and found it in the driveway. I knew he’d just outwaited us then. I was going crazy.”

  She shuddered, a flash of memory making her shut her eyes. “God—I hope that was the last time I ever have to kill someone. And it’s not like I got to shoot him. It was gross, so up close and personal, both of us naked . . I didn’t have time or room to think about my plan not working, but it almost didn’t work.”

  “You did what you had to do,” he repeated. “And I’m proud of you.” Abruptly he got up, paced back and forth. “Guy was the worst kind of scum, a police officer preying on women. It’s going to take me awhile to stop wishing I could be the one to kill him.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair in that familiar gesture, took a breath. “I’ll be back to pick you up at ten-thirty. Oh, and after the press conference you have an appointment with Dr. Wilson.”

  “That was inevitable, but I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it.”

  “Lieutenant’s orders,” he said, leaning down to give her a kiss on the forehead. “See you soon. Put your game face on.” He hooked his jacket off the chair and closed the door behind him.

  It seemed like only a short time later she was standing in front of the police station behind a lectern, surrounded by bristling microphones, lights shining in her eyes. It wasn’t hard to look pale. She leaned on Pono for support.

  “Officer Texeira was abducted two nights ago,” Lieutenant Ohale started off. “She was able to overpower her assailant and he is now deceased. We then searched his home, and have found proof that he not only killed Haunani Pohakoa and Kelly Andrade, but was responsible for a series of kidnap rapes that began on Oahu and ended here with the recent kidnapping and murder of another police officer from Pahoa. The perpetrator’s name is Jeremy Ito and he was a detective here in Hilo.”

  The crowd of reporters exploded with questions, and he raised his hands and outstretched them, Moses calming the Red Sea.

  “And now if you’ll settle down, Detective Stevens will take questions.”

  Stevens replaced him, taking questions from the crowd. Pono sheltered Lei with his bulk, and then steered her by the elbow through the reporters as the press conference ended. He pushed open the double glass doors of the station and walked her to her cubicle.

  She held court for a while in her creaky office chair with the officers that stopped by. It seemed Jeremy had not been well liked, and she nodded and smiled as different staff came up to tell her “something was off about him,” and how glad they were she had survived. Finally Lieutenant Ohale shooed her visitors away.

  “So of course you know you’re on admin leave until your investigation wraps up. Take it easy, get better. Now it’s time to go see Dr. Wilson. No arguments,” he said as he hoisted her up gently from her chair, giving her an affectionate pat that pushed her down the hall.

  She walked to the office and seemed to fall into Dr. Wilson’s arms as the psychologist opened the door.

  “Thank God you’re alive. Come in here and tell me all about it.” And L
ei did.

  Chapter Forty

  Lei showered, letting the hot water pummel the hurts on her body, careful with the plastic bag that kept her cast dry. Getting out of the shower, she grimaced at the ragged bite on her collarbone, and swallowed one of the antibiotics the doc had sent home with a swish of water. She daubed the oozing wound with ointment and recovered it with a big, square band-aid. It looked like it was going to leave a scar.

  Her lip was puffy and split where she’d bitten it, and bruises peppered her torso where Ito had punched her during the struggle. She stripped off the plastic bag on her arm and slipped on a silky tee shirt that managed to cover all the bruises.

  She wanted to look as nice as she could—Stevens was on his way over for dinner.

  She was checking on a pan of reheated, roast kalua pork from Aunty’s restaurant when the doorbell rang. She glanced at herself in the mirror next to the front door and was not reassured. After checking the peephole, she opened the door, her heart racing.

  “Hi Michael. Thanks for coming.”

  He held up a bottle of wine. “Medicinal purposes.”

  “Thanks.” She took it, laughed. “I’m really going to enjoy this with my Vicodin.”

  “You’ll have a helluva hangover.” He followed her into the kitchen. “Got a present for you.” He set the bulky bundle he had been carrying down on the table. “New gun. Thought you should have a backup.”

  “Michael!” She hugged him, hard. “That’s what I like about you—you bring me alcohol and a gun. I can’t think of anything I want more.”

  “I can,” he said softly, intent. He raised her arms slowly from his waist and put them around his neck, then pulled her in tight, his hands cupped around her bottom as he lowered his head to hers. She hardly noticed her bruised mouth as their lips met, asking and taking.

  She’d wanted him so long, and his touch seemed to erase those other hands that had left invisible prints on her. She pressed into him, her hands filling with the springy texture of his hair, the broad column of his back.