Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  Everything about Maui seemed expansive and filled with light—until she came across its hidden and secret grottoes. Lei smiled at her fanciful thoughts and waved to Henry as she passed him holding the last gate and got on the steep, winding road back down the mountain toward Wailuku.

  She turned on her phone with one hand, ignoring the flashing light of multiple messages. She called Stevens’s speed dial, hoping to leave a message. But her heart went into overdrive when he actually picked up.

  “I just needed to hear your voice,” she said when he answered.

  “Jesus, Lei.” His voice sounded strangled. “Might have known you’d pull something like this. Got a lot of people upset with you. We’re all boozing it up and eating the reception food at the vacation rental.”

  “It’s okay. The case is so hot right now, I just had to push it back. Twenty-four hours. That’s all I get, Captain says. We’re on for same time tomorrow. I promise.”

  A long staticky silence filled her ear, then a sigh. “You better show up tomorrow,” Stevens said, and Lei’s breath whooshed out. It was the job. He understood that. Thank God.

  “I miss you so much,” Lei said. Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t wait to marry you tomorrow.”

  “I love you,” he whispered. She could tell his hand was cupping the receiver. She heard the rumble of voices in the background.

  “I love you, too.” She bit her lips on all she wanted to tell him about the case: how she’d been shot at and where it had led. But it would just freak him out more. Time for all that later. “I miss you. I’m so sorry about the hassle.”

  “I know. You always are.” He clicked off.

  She set the phone on the seat and turned in to the nice Wailuku Heights neighborhood where Jacobsen lived, feeling the steel band of fear squeezing her heart loosen.

  She knew Stevens wouldn’t like her going to the house alone—but what could be wrong with that? No one was going to be there.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lei pulled her truck into the short concrete driveway before the closed garage door. She wasn’t sure whether the house would be locked; if it was, she was going to need to get the landlord’s help unlocking it, and all that could take more time—time she didn’t have.

  Lei checked her weapon, tightened down the Kevlar vest she still wore from hiking on the mountain, and snapped on gloves. Checking that she had plenty of evidence bags in her back pocket, she walked up to the front door. Knocked. Called out, “Police business! Open up!”

  She thought she heard something inside, but it was too faint to be sure. Maybe Jacobsen had a cat or something. She knocked again, called again. No sounds this time. She tried the handle. The door was locked.

  This was usually where things went wrong with her investigation process, Lei considered. Knowing Jacobsen was dead and she was fully within her rights to search it for evidence related to his murder felt reassuring—but waiting for someone to come help her unlock it was another delay. She wondered if the side window she’d kicked in was still open.

  Instead of giving in to that impulse, she went back to the truck and got on the radio to Dispatch. Got who owned the address and called the landlady. While the woman was on her way to unlock the house, Lei called Dispatch again for backup in searching the house. They told her a patrol officer in her area was on his way. Lei waited, feeling impatience coil in her belly. Her eyes wandered to the window above the yard. She could see it was closed.

  The landlady arrived, pulling up in a lime-green Prius. “What is this about?” the woman asked, tight-mouthed, straightening a sacklike woven dress and winding dreadlocks into a pile on top of her head. She stabbed the mound of hair with a chopstick.

  “Police business.” Lei held up her badge.

  “Is something illegal going on in there? Mark has always been a good tenant.”

  “We’re concerned about Jacobsen,” Lei said. “Have you seen him, or anyone else around the house?”

  “Come to think of it, I haven’t. But rent isn’t due until next week, so…I have the keys. Shall I unlock it for you?”

  Lei took a breath, looking down the road. No cruiser in sight. “I’m waiting for another officer. He’ll be along shortly. Why don’t you just unlock the door for me and stay outside.”

  “I’ll let you in and then go back to my car and wait. I was meditating when you called me.” She sniffed.

  “Well, I’d like for this driveway to stay open. Can you move your car?” Lei wanted to make sure the squad car would have room to come up close to the house.

  The woman frowned but complied, getting into her Prius and backing it out onto the street. Lei found the silence of the vehicle’s engine unnerving.

  A few minutes later they stood in front of the door. Lei nodded, and the woman unlocked the door, turning to trot back down the steps. Lei pulled her weapon, turned the handle, and pushed it with all the weight of her hundred and twenty pounds. The door flew inward, banging the rubber stop against the wall. But before Lei had a chance to go in, a Maui Police Department squad car pulled into the driveway. A young officer got out and walked up the three cement steps to join her. He was a handsome young Filipino man she’d seen around the station.

  “Lieutenant Texeira.” He extended a hand and she shook it briefly, knowing hers was clammy with stress. “I’m Ben Cantorna.”

  “You’re here for backup while I search the house,” Lei said. “The occupant’s body was just found. Stay behind me. Keep your weapon ready until we verify the house is empty.” She crouched, weapon extended, and moved into the simple living space, rendered dim by closed drapes. Cantorna followed, imitating her, and she wondered how many times he’d ever broken into a house with possible hostiles inside.

  Lei didn’t have time to consider further, because she heard the clang of the gate on the outside of the house thumping shut. She realized that, with them breaching the front door, someone had taken the opportunity to run for it out the back door.

  “Go through the house to the back. I’m going to try to head him off!” Lei yelled, directing Cantorna through the house to the backyard as she spun, retracing their steps. She burst out the front door and leaped down the three cement steps, chasing a man in a ball cap. The man was picking up speed through the yard and down the driveway.

  “Halt! Police!” Lei cried, and was startled by the silent Prius suddenly pulling out in front of the fleeing man. The car didn’t quite hit him, but the man’s momentum caused him to crash into the vehicle. He bounced off the hood with a cry and landed on the asphalt.

  Lei ran up and rolled the suspect onto his stomach, pulling his arms behind him to cuff him. When he was subdued and restrained with a knee to his back, she looked up with a grin and thumbs-up to the intrepid landlady getting out of the car. “Quick thinking!”

  The woman raised her hand in a victory sign. Cantorna ran around the side of the house to join them.

  “It’s not Mark,” the landlady said, looking down at the suspect, whose face was obscured by the ball cap.

  Lei tweaked the hat off. Edward Kingston glared up at them. “She hit me with her car!” he complained. “That’s illegal!”

  “She just blocked you from fleeing,” Lei said. “And kudos to her for aiding in the capture of a foreign national in violation of his visa, at the very least. I’m taking you in for questioning.”

  Cantorna put the truculent Kingston in the back of the squad car. “You were supposed to get on that plane!” the young officer snapped, slamming the door on Kingston’s complaints and requests for his lawyer, Shimoda. The landlady drove off, excitedly talking on her cell phone.

  “So you took this man to the airport to be deported to Canada?” Lei asked Cantorna.

  The young man turned red. “I saw him all the way to the waiting area at the gate,” the young officer said. “It seemed like a waste of time. I thought he’d get on the plane. He’d been cooperative, said how much he was looking forward to getting home.”

  “C
ustodial duty of a deportee means making sure he gets on the plane,” Lei said.

  “I understand that now.” Cantorna rubbed the back of his neck, stained with the flush of mortification.

  Lei and Cantorna left Kingston in the locked back of the squad car, the windows down for air circulation. “You’re getting a crash course in searching,” Lei said. “Glove up and stick with me.” She was on the phone to Pono and the captain, updating them, as she and Cantorna tore through the modest space, bagging anything that looked out of place or like Kingston might have touched it.

  In the oven’s bottom drawer, they found what Kingston must have returned for—a laptop. Lei held it up for Cantorna to see. “Not your typical hiding place for a personal computer, so I’m hoping this is the reason Kingston returned to the house. We didn’t search thoroughly before, which is why I wanted to get back here ASAP when we found Jacobsen’s body and knew there had been foul play. Don’t dismiss any hiding place when you search.”

  “Yes, sir.” Cantorna’s excitement was evident in the perspiration rings under his arms as he followed her.

  “I would still like to find something that clearly ties Kingston to the victim and the poacher shootings. Hopefully, we’ve got something. Go put up the crime scene tape, will you?”

  Cantorna nodded and trotted off.

  Lei did a slow turn in the living room, her gaze coming to rest on the brackets in a row down the wall showing where Jacobsen’s bows had hung. There must be some connection between Jacobsen and Kingston; perhaps Jacobsen had been helping Kingston with his research all along and they’d had a parting of the ways?

  They drove back to the station and put Kingston in one of the interrogation rooms as he continued to refuse to say anything without his lawyer, whom Lei had called once he was booked. Shimoda was taking his time arriving, so Pono and Lei met in the conference room with Captain Omura.

  “So what’s going on here?” Omura asked. “I hear you found another body in the forest.”

  “Yes. It was Jacobsen, shot with an arrow,” Pono said. “I went over the truck while Rambo here was catching Kingston, and the blood pool there was consistent with a serious injury. Did you find any evidence he was shot at the house?” he asked Lei.

  “No. I think he was shot somewhere else. I’m now wondering if it was even Jacobsen who shot at me at the house originally. It seems more likely it was Kingston, that he’d shot Jacobsen and had his body stashed in the back of his truck when I got there. Then he took him out to the Maile Trail and buried him, ditching the weapon he shot him with in the gulch,” Lei said, glancing at the clock. Her twenty-four hours were melting away before her eyes—but at least she’d nailed the murderer—with the help of a lime-green Prius. She felt a smile tug her mouth at the memory of the landlady, dreadlocks aquiver, shooting a victory sign.

  “So why would Kingston be back in Jacobsen’s house after the fact?” Omura asked. “And why did he murder Jacobsen?”

  “Those are the questions we need answers for. But I think it’s because of the laptop.” Lei told them about the hidden computer she’d found. “I dropped it off at Tech. I imagine it’s password protected.”

  “Hopefully, Shimoda will get here soon and we can get this interview going,” Pono said.

  Just then Cantorna rapped on the door and stuck his head in. “Kingston’s attorney is here.”

  Omura narrowed her eyes at the young man. “You were supposed to see that Kingston left us for Canada, Officer Cantorna.”

  “I know, sir. It won’t happen again.” Sweat popped out on Cantorna’s forehead, and his cheeks flushed a mottled red. He dropped his eyes, suffering a long moment under Omura’s stare.

  Finally, Omura said, “I’m making a note in your file, Cantorna.” She stood. “Texeira and Kaihale, I’m going to be observing.”

  “Yes, sir.” They followed the young officer down the hall to the interrogation room. Lei knocked and looked through the little wire-lined port into the room. Shimoda, bent toward his client, looked up and gestured for them to enter.

  Lei turned on the recording equipment and recited the date, time, and people present.

  Shimoda opened. “My client would like to make a deal. Delay deportation to allow him to finish his project and immunity in return for his testimony.”

  “Testimony for what?” Pono led off. “We’re charging him for the murder of Mark Jacobsen, whose body was recovered in conservation lands today.”

  Shimoda didn’t bat an eye. “You do care about getting the real killer, don’t you? Not only of Jacobsen, but of the Chinese poacher.”

  “Of course. But we have to know something of what he’s going to be providing before we can authorize any sort of get-out-of-jail-free card,” Pono said.

  “I ditched your deportation efforts because my project is so important,” Kingston said, dark eyes earnest. His beard was bushier than ever. “I’m studying blood lipids in birds who develop an immunity to malaria and factors that aid in that. I’m within months of being able to roll out a gene therapy that could save these birds—starting with our most critically endangered ones.”

  “That’s all very nice,” Lei said, with the baring of teeth she liked to employ during interviews, even as her interest piqued to hear more about his research. “But what we’re here to do is catch a killer—and from where I sit, we’ve got one.”

  “Hey!” Kingston started defensively, but Shimoda cut him off with a hand gesture.

  “My client knows who committed these killings and why. He’s prepared to testify. But he is not a party to the crimes that have been committed, and he wants a deal.”

  Lei and Pono looked at each other, and Lei frowned. She’d been so sure Kingston was the killer—it all fit together so neatly. “We have to check with the district attorney,” Lei said.

  They went out into the hall and turned in to the observation booth, a simple space used for lineup identification and listening in on interviews. Omura was seated at the table and already on the phone. She held up a finger as they entered and said, “Yes, sir.”

  She hung up the phone. “DA’s faxing over the immunity agreement. Good news is, we can still deport or charge him if we think it’s in the state’s best interest. The DA actually has no jurisdiction over Canadian visa rights, so he can agree if he wants, which he said he did, but ultimately INS will decide. We can just spell out the charges we won’t charge him with and find some others. I think it’s important to keep him in custody. He’s a flight risk.”

  “His research really does sound important,” Lei said, thinking of the difference it would make to be able to breed birds against malaria. Just the idea opened up interesting challenges.

  “Be that as it may. This case is a double murder, and we need someone to charge. Go check the fax machine for the agreement.”

  A few minutes later, Lei and Pono returned to the interview room. Lei turned the recording equipment back on, and Shimoda scanned the document before passing it to Kingston for his signature. Pulling the contract back to their side of the table, Lei eyed Kingston.

  “Start talking. How did you come to be in Jacobsen’s house, and what do you know about his death?” Lei asked.

  “Cam told me he shot Jacobsen by accident—just saw movement from one of the blinds and nailed him before he realized what he’d hit.” Kingston ran his fingers nervously through the bushy growth on his chin.

  “Cam? Dr. Cameron Rinker with Hawaiian Bird Conservatory?” Lei’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She resisted looking over at Pono. She tried to recall the sandy-blond scientist’s innocuous face and couldn’t.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, Jacobsen’s body buried in the ginger grove was no accident. What do you know about that?” Lei asked.

  “After I’d dodged the deportation a second time and was back in the woods, Cam called me on the sat phone and said there was an emergency. I hiked down and met him at the Maile Trail. That’s when he told me what happened with Jacobsen. He ha
d the body in the truck bed, and we took Jacobsen out of the truck and up the trail and buried him. Cam’s idea was to ditch the bow he’d shot Jacobsen with. When I got to the house and saw all Jacobsen’s bows had been taken, I realized he might also be framing Jacobsen for shooting the poachers.”

  “So that’s when you knew Rinker had shot the poachers?”

  “He never said he’d done that. I just guessed. All he ever said was that I could use Jacobsen’s house when I needed to get Internet and take a shower, since it was empty and it was going to look like Jacobsen had shot the poachers and fled. He had my research laptop; he took it from my lab when I was out in the field, and he put it in Jacobsen’s house. Said it was to keep it from getting destroyed by the damp. I didn’t believe him, but I had to go to Jacobsen’s house to get it.”

  “So let’s recap. You can basically only testify that Rinker contacted you about accidentally shooting Jacobsen. You’re only speculating he shot the poachers. You suspected Rinker was setting you up when he took your laptop and left it at Jacobsen’s house. Why didn’t you come to us?” Lei asked.

  “I just needed a little more time for my work,” Kingston said pleadingly. “Just another week or two. I needed that laptop. I’m almost ready to publish this research, and I was hoping to be able to finish. I planned to call in Jacobsen’s body and my suspicions as soon as my paper was done. If I did it sooner, you’d arrest or deport me and so much work would be lost. But when I heard Lieutenant Texeira pounding on the door at Jacobsen’s house, I realized Cam had set me up too.”

  A long pause. Lei tried to picture the series of events. It felt wrong, like a smoke screen. Shimoda gazed at her, inscrutable. Lei narrowed her eyes at the agitated scientist.

  “This is all about as clear as mud. Why don’t we back up a minute to the beginning? Tell us how your relationship with Dr. Cameron Rinker began.”

  “It all started with my work with Dr. Biswandi at University of Hawaii. I thought I was onto something, but she wouldn’t let me pursue my hypothesis, so I approached the Hawaiian Bird Conservatory. Dr. Snelling also refused permission to extend my visa and continue with my project, but Dr. Cam Rinker, as the staff biologist, thought I had a good theory and signed my proposal to study the birds and stay on the conservation lands after my internship with University of Hawaii ended. He knew all about me being up there camping out, and he’d come out and help me on the weekends. He provided food and the lab supplies I needed.”