by Toby Neal
“Do you think Kingston was bullshitting us about another poacher?” Lei felt the tightness of anxiety drawing her brows together.
“Don’t know. But without finding a bow in his camping gear, it doesn’t look good for us to hold him any length of time.”
“I want to wait to call Immigration and Naturalization Service about his visa violation until after we question him. It might give us a carrot to get him to talk if we offer to let him stay long enough to finish his research project.”
“Good idea,” Pono said. The partners gazed at Edward Kingston through the mirrored wall of the interview room. The biologist had settled down in a corner, folded his legs into lotus position, set hands with finger and thumb together on his knees, and shut his eyes. He looked utterly peaceful. “So much for leaving him to sweat—he seems pretty mellow.”
Kingston’s lawyer arrived, a man with the bullet head and the thick neck of a pugilist.
“Shawn Shimoda,” he said, handing Lei a card. He and Pono had already exchanged a chin lift of acknowledgment. “What are you holding my man on?”
“We’re not ‘holding’ him on anything. We just want to question him as a possible witness on the homicide of an unknown man up in Waikamoi Preserve,” Lei said. “Don’t know why he needed you called before we even got started.”
“And I’d like to know how a Canadian national who ditched his research group and violated his visa has ended up having one of the best lawyers on Maui already on retainer,” Pono said, with narrowed eyes. “Makes me wonder if he didn’t know he was going to need one.”
“Where’s my client?” Shimoda’s face was carefully blank.
Lei led them to the interrogation room.
“I’d like a moment alone with him,” Shimoda said. Lei and Pono exited and watched through the safety glass of the door as Kingston scrambled up from his yoga pose and shook hands with Shimoda. Their heads were close as they whispered, but there was a constraint between them that spoke of unfamiliarity.
“I don’t think Shimoda’s met him before,” Lei said. “Wish I could read lips.”
“Shimoda’s not cheap. Kingston must have called him some time ago and put him on retainer—he only works with a down payment against services before they’re needed.” Pono always seemed to know the backstory on people they interacted with.
Shimoda looked up and gestured for them to come in. Both of the men sat down on molded plastic chairs across the table from Lei and Pono. Lei turned on the recording equipment with a switch on the wall and addressed Kingston, who, in spite of his meditation and counsel present, looked pale.
“We aren’t charging you with anything at this time. We just want to interview you, to see if you know anything about the death of a man shot in Waikamoi Preserve.”
“I know there was a dead man. I smelled something bad, and the odor led me to check it out. I thought it was a deer or something. I was surprised to see it was a human body.”
“So you didn’t think it was appropriate to report an obvious murder?” Pono asked, frowning.
“I didn’t want to get involved.” Kingston looked down at his hands. “I thought this might happen—this right here. I didn’t need the interruption to my research project.”
“Research you were conducting illegally,” Lei said. “Were you aware the murdered man had native birds on his body in a canvas bag? Birds that ended up dying of dehydration?”
Kingston winced visibly and kept his eyes down. “No, I was not aware.”
They let a pause go by to see if Kingston would volunteer anything more. He didn’t.
“So, when we picked you up in Waikamoi this morning, you said you hoped we were there for the poacher. What did you mean by that?”
Kingston looked up, and this time there was some animation in his pale, bewhiskered face. “I want to help with this investigation. I just don’t want you suspecting me. There’s another poacher up there now, catching birds like the first one was.”
“Tell us more,” Pono said.
“I was watching the birds, you know—for my project.” Kingston swallowed. “I’m up there for a research project—an important one.”
“We know you’re trespassing illegally in violation of your visa,” Lei said.
“That is not for you to determine,” Shimoda snapped. “If you want my client’s cooperation, I suggest you refrain from prejudicial comments.” Shimoda’s first contribution was a heavy one.
Lei folded her lips together, and Kingston continued. “I have some places where I watch the birds, and I saw this other man in camouflage gear using a mist net to catch them.”
“Where and when?” Pono asked.
“I can’t tell you exactly where. I have GPS coordinates of my watch stations, though, and I could retrieve that information for you. Anyway, I use binoculars to watch the birds’ behaviors, and I could see this man had a handgun in a holster on his belt.”
“What did he look like?” Lei asked.
“Asian. Not sure of age. Sturdy build, medium height. Knew how to handle birds and equipment. At the time I spotted him, I was most worried he’d realize I was there and either turn me in or shoot me.”
“These observation spots, are they the blinds the rangers and Hawaiian Bird Conservatory staff showed us?”
Red spots appeared on Kingston’s cheeks above the luxuriant growth of beard masking his face. He opened his mouth to answer, but Shimoda cut him off.
“Please confine your questions to the information that’s useful in apprehending someone you suspect for the murder or in catching this poacher,” he said. Shimoda was good—he was protecting his client from admitting to anything that could be later used to support criminal charges, Lei realized.
“All right. How many times did you observe the bird hunter?” Pono asked.
“Just once, yesterday. It appears that with the other hunter gone, they’ve sent someone else.”
“They?” Lei pounced. “Who is they?”
“I don’t know. Whoever is wanting to catch the birds,” Kingston said. His eyes had begun blinking rapidly.
“Well, thank you for your concern about that, and we will alert the Park Service and Hawaiian Bird Conservatory staff that there’s someone up there catching birds, but for all you know, this guy could have been a biologist on a legitimate project,” Lei said.
Kingston shook his head. “No. When I was trained, I learned protocols that protect the birds, and biologists up there work in teams. Besides, why would a biologist be carrying a handgun?”
“This is all speculation,” Shimoda said. “If you have no further questions, I insist you release my client.”
“We do. Tell us more about how and when you saw the body and your rationale for not reporting it,” Lei said. Kingston provided a time two days before they’d gone to the boardwalk as when he’d seen the body. Lei felt sick at the waste—the birds on the poacher’s belt might have been saved if the body had been found sooner.
They eventually let Kingston go, in the company of his lawyer, with the understanding that they wouldn’t report his visa violation in the next week in case they needed him for more questioning. “But Hawaiian Bird Conservatory may want to bring charges against you for trespassing and destruction of property,” Lei said. “And we may want to charge you at another date.”
“Don’t bother my client with idle threats,” Shimoda said, following Kingston out of the interview room. “You have no physical evidence linking Mr. Kingston to the murder. Let me know if you find any.”
“Where is an address where we can reach you?” Pono asked Kingston.
“I’m staying at a vacation rental cottage in Haiku,” Kingston said. “I’ve been coming down from the mountain every so often to resupply and work on the computer.” He gave them the address and left with Shimoda.
Lei watched them leave, then got up and snapped off the recording equipment. “Now what?”
“We have to go over the trace again and see what we’ve come up w
ith from Kingston’s campsite. We need to find a link to the body if we’re going to charge Kingston with anything. For now he’s just a witness to another poacher being in the preserve.”
Lei worked the phones while Pono went back down to the evidence room to process the items they’d confiscated from Kingston’s campsite.
She called Takama first. “Just wanted to let you and Jacobsen know that Kingston confirmed there’s another bird catcher up there. Could it be anyone legitimately up there, capturing birds for a project?”
“Working alone? No. We always work in teams.” A long silence. Finally Takama said, “I’d be in favor of taking the dog back up and looking for the other poacher.”
Lei knew how much it cost the taciturn Park Service veteran to concede that, and she sighed. “I can ask the captain, but the time and expense of using the K-9 unit to hunt a trespasser who has no connection to our current murder investigation is not likely to get approved.”
“I didn’t think much of bringing the dog to track, but compared to us randomly trampling through the preserve, it was effective,” Takama said. “Please let me know if you do get that approved. And you said the man is armed. That can’t be good for public safety in a place like the cloud forest.”
Lei laughed. “You should have been a lawyer! I’ll see what I can do. Hey, I do have some bad news. The victim had birds in a bag on his belt. They were alive when he was shot, but they eventually died of dehydration because it took so long for us to find the body. Sad, huh?”
A long pause, and when Takama replied, his voice was slow and heavy. “I’m so sorry to hear that—what a shame. I’ll get in touch with some trackers, see if we can chase this poacher out of the preserve ourselves.”
“Be careful. Remember he’s armed,” Lei cautioned.
“We’ll be armed too,” Takama said, and hung up with a decisive click.
Chapter Eleven
A week went by. Sitting at her desk one morning, a list of to-dos and a cooling cup of coffee at her elbow, Lei found herself rubbing the white-gold medallion on a chain around her neck. Her ribs were better, but she’d traded that ache for a roiling in her belly that never really went away. She was getting increasingly stressed as the wedding approached and there were no new breaks. She’d wanted to have this case wrapped up before they left on the honeymoon.
Kingston’s gear had yielded no clues, Omura had nixed using the K-9 unit in Waikamoi to hunt the alleged new poacher, and her period still hadn’t come.
Last night after work, Lei had felt tense, her skin too tight, ever since she’d taken the pregnancy test out of her purse and hidden it in the bathroom cabinet. That small, brown-paper-wrapped package seemed to be sending out sonar pings, unnerving her. What if Stevens found it? What would it tell them? She felt claustrophobic.
She’d met him on the porch outside her house when he arrived for their usual dinner together. “I think we should take a break before the wedding,” she said.
“Relax. It’s just me.” He reached out to hug her. She’d wriggled out of his arms. He’d taken her face in his hands, kissing her soft and full. His mouth on hers was gentle and persuasive. Lei’s lashes fluttered shut. She tried to get into the kiss.
Her childhood rapist, Charlie Kwon, had possessed eyes so deep a brown, the pupils barely showed. Those eyes swam up from hell, filling her mind, haunting her.
Those eyes turned her love to fear, her hunger for Stevens to sickness, her confidence to ash. She was “Damaged Goods,” his special name for her—and always would be. A fraud, a fake, a whore in disguise. Not a victim of abuse, a participant.
“I’ll make you like it,” Kwon had said.
Lei had never liked it. But she’d endured it, because there was no choice and because he said she was special to him. At nine years old, she’d been so starved for attention that even his abuse had been better than nothing.
She was sick, beyond saving.
She’d be a horrible mother.
Even as these thoughts flickered through her mind, she knew they were old beliefs, old dysfunction. She’d combatted so much with the help of her therapist, Dr. Wilson—but right now it was all too much. Revulsion rose up her throat like bile, and she broke the kiss and stepped back. “I just need a break. Nothing’s wrong. I just need a little space.”
Stevens stayed where he was, one foot on the top step, the other below, hands resting on a black leather belt loaded with sidearm and badge. He wore broken-in jeans, old boots, and a short-sleeved polo shirt she’d given him that brought out his sky-blue eyes.
Those eyes had gone flat and metallic. His dark brows drew down as his mouth thinned out into a hard line. “I’m sick of this, Lei. Really? We’re going to do this again?”
Lei crossed her arms over her thundering heart. “Nothing’s wrong. I want to really look forward to the honeymoon and to being with you. That’s all.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to. You just have to respect what I’m asking.”
He removed his foot from the step. “Prove it to me. Come here. Kiss me and show me you still love me—that this isn’t about Kwon, some last-minute psycho freak-out. I think I deserve that much before I leave.”
Lei wanted to kiss him, but her feet were rooted to the boards of the old porch. She gulped and tasted bile. “I shouldn’t have to prove I love you like that. This is no big deal.”
“I think it is. Now I’m worried you’re going to cut and run.”
“I won’t. I promise.” The feeling in her legs unlocked enough for her to lean forward and give him a peck on the lips. “But even if it is about Kwon, I’m marrying you. I just need a little space before the big day.”
“I’ll leave if you call Dr. Wilson. Call her right now.”
“You’re treating me like a child. Calling this a psycho freak-out. Telling me to get ahold of my shrink.” Lei tried to sound angry. The best defense was a good offense, her mother had always said.
“This is all those things—a childish, psycho freak-out—for which you need professional help. You’ve left me twice, and I’m not at all sure three times won’t be the charm.”
Lei felt the precipice of another breakup yawning before them, a severing more terrible than all her conflicted feelings. Losing Stevens was even scarier than Kwon’s eyes, than the little wand of the pregnancy test.
Lei sat down right where she was, folding up her legs on the porch, and Stevens turned away and sat on the top step. She took her phone out and called Dr. Wilson’s personal cell—she no longer saw the police psychologist regularly, just for “tune-ups” when needed, and she didn’t know if she was relieved or terrified when the psychologist’s phone went to voice mail.
“Hi, Dr. Wilson. It’s Lei on Maui. Listen, our wedding’s going to be in a few days, and I’m wanting some personal space. Stevens thinks something is wrong and wanted me to call you. Please get back to me when you can.” She pressed Off. “There. You satisfied?”
She spoke to the back of his head. His broad shoulders had sagged, and he’d threaded his fingers into coffee-brown hair, ruffling it as he did when upset. Her heart squeezed, and she set her hand on his back.
“I’m sorry. I hate being like this.”
“I hate it too. Makes me wonder what being married to you is going to be like, if we make it that far.” He stood and walked away without looking back at her, leaving Keiki whining, forlorn as he shut the gate behind himself with a bang.
His words had made her run back through the house to throw up. She wasn’t at all sure she was up to either the wedding or being pregnant. Stevens had picked up on that in spite of her excuses.
Lei refocused her eyes on her to-do list, rubbing a dry Bic pen in circles on the paper to get the ink flowing—so vigorously she hit her mug with an elbow. The coffee sloshed, dangerously close to spilling on her workspace, and she caught it, blowing out a breath.
The thought of Stevens leaving her made her belly clench—but she’d ba
sically sent him packing. He was probably as nervous as she was about what would happen on their actual wedding day. Tonight she was supposed to pick up Aunty Rosario and her father, Wayne Texeira, from the airport. There were only three days left until the wedding.
She hated to leave right now. Maybe there was just a little more she could do on the bow hunter case before she left for ten days of honeymoon. She held down a speed-dial button on her phone.
“Did you get the wedding dress?” Marcella asked by way of greeting.
“One last fitting. It’s going to be gorgeous, Marcella. I can’t believe you know me so well. I love what the designer came up with.”
“I knew you would.” They confirmed a few more details, including what time Lei would pick her up from the airport the following day.
“Can you have Ang put a watch or alert out on the Internet for someone looking for native Hawaiian birds? I think we might have a poaching order out for them, possibly originated in China.” She filled Marcella in on the little they knew about the poachers.
“Sure,” her friend said. Just then Lei’s desk phone rang.
“I gotta go. See you when I pick you up tomorrow.” Lei clicked off her cell phone and picked up the handset of the desk unit. “Lieutenant Texeira here.”
“This is Sally Shu at nine-one-one operations. I had an anonymous tip that someone’s dead in Waikamoi Preserve. The caller left your name to contact.”
Lei’s heart lurched and went into overdrive. Another body up there? That couldn’t be good. “Did you send officers to respond?”
“No. Thought it could be a hoax, and since you’re on the murder case up there, I called to see if you could go directly instead.”
“Any other information? Like where the body is located, general description?”
“If I had any more information, I’d certainly give it to you, Lieutenant,” Shu said.
