Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  Okapa just fixed him with a belligerent stare. “I know every rock in this place.”

  Stevens took out his smartphone and shot a picture of the hole. “How big was it?”

  “Big enough to need two people to carry it.”

  Stevens made a note on his spiral pad. His eyes roamed the area, and he spotted a gleam of something in the grass. He squatted, found a beer can. Using the tips of his gloved hands, he picked it up by the rim and put it in an evidence bag. “Mahoe, get the camera and shoot the area. Follow a grid pattern—remember your training.” Mahoe hurried to follow directions.

  “You think they wen’ drink the beer here?” Okapa said, his bushy brows drawing together. “Drinking beer while they stealing our sacred carvings! I like kill ’em! Pro’lly was one stupid haole with no respect. No Hawaiian would do this!”

  Stevens looked up at Okapa. He could feel the other man’s rage, and he stood deliberately, uncoiling to his own full height, without breaking eye contact. “You want to be careful about what you say, Mr. Okapa. It’s just a beer can. We don’t know anything about it.”

  Okapa whirled and stomped off through the underbrush toward the road.

  Mahoe rejoined Stevens. “I took off everything I could find.” The young man had packed up the crime kit too. Stevens glanced at the carefully stowed evidence collected. “Good job. What can you tell me about our volatile friend here?”

  A flush stained Mahoe’s neck. “He one kupuna—an elder. He...”

  Stevens could see the struggle the young man had in disclosing anything negative about a respected man in his culture. He remembered something from Pono’s cultural tips and looked away from Mahoe, turning to align his body with the officer’s, standing side by side. He addressed his remarks out over the heiau. “I’m worried about Mr. Okapa. I don’t think some half-cocked vigilante justice is going to help the situation. I don’t like the idea of Okapa having a gun.”

  “I know.” Mahoe blew out a breath, and Stevens could sense his relief that a superior officer wasn’t suspecting the respected kupuna. “I’m worried about him, too. He has a reputation for anger—that’s why his wife left—but this heiau is his life. I think he’ll cool down. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Good.” Stevens moved out toward the narrow, overgrown path. “As terrible as this is, the last thing we need is some kind of violent racially-motivated outburst when we haven’t even identified a suspect.” He paused. “Speaking of—what is this scene telling you? I want to hear what you’ve been able to assess from it.”

  Mahoe swiveled, hands on hips, imitating Stevens’s stance. “I think there were at least two in the crew. They had proper tools, came prepared. They knew exactly what they wanted, from what I can tell, and they worked fast, according to Mr. Okapa, which means they probably came ahead of time during the day to case where the artifacts were.”

  “Very good.” Stevens clapped the young man on the shoulder and set off down the narrow, overgrown path with Mahoe following. “Further, I think they were professionals in removal technique. I could see very little waste or fracture on the rock faces, and believe it or not, those hand jacks are hard to operate. So my sense is that these are pros procuring something for a buyer, which means they’re probably connected with the Oahu desecrations.”

  “We have to stop this,” Mahoe muttered. “Whatever it takes.”

  They emerged beside the cruiser and the Bronco. Okapa had already crossed the now-busy highway, and Stevens could see him glowering at them from a chair on the front porch of his weathered, tin-roofed cottage.

  “Why don’t you go take his official statement?” Stevens said. “Give him a chance to tell the tale and cool down.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mahoe looked both ways and trotted across the road, already taking out his notebook.

  Stevens beeped open the Bronco and stowed the crime kit and evidence bags in the back. Getting into the SUV, he looked over at the tableau across the street. Mahoe was seated beside Okapa, one hand on the older man’s shoulder, head down, listening, as the older man gesticulated.

  Turning the key, Stevens hoped this was the last he was going to see of Okapa.

  Haiku Station was a small, former dry-goods store across a potholed parking lot from a large Quonset-style former pineapple-packing plant that had been converted into a shopping center. Stevens had a small crew under his command—one other detective, four patrol officers, and Mahoe, a new recruit.

  Stevens felt good about how Mahoe was coming along. The benefits of nurturing talent had been drummed into him by his first commanding officer in Los Angeles, along with the fact that all the training in the world couldn’t make up for a recruit without the “gut instinct” for police work.

  Stevens lifted a hand briefly to the watch officer on duty as he passed through the open room where his team’s desks were situated, heading for the back room where his office was located. He hadn’t seen his wife since yesterday—Lei was at a daylong training in a wilderness area, learning ordnance retrieval, and he missed her.

  He supposed that was the word to apply to a feeling like a limb had been amputated, like something vital was gone. He wondered how he was going to deal with it when she left for California in a few weeks for a two-week multi-agency intensive training on explosive devices.

  He logged into his email and frowned at one from his ex-wife, Anchara. He hadn’t seen her since the day she left him. They kept in touch via email, but she didn’t communicate often.

  Dear Michael, I have something I need to tell you. Something I should have told you a long time ago. Can we meet in the next week or so? It’s better done in person. In friendship, Anchara.

  She always ended her emails that way—“in friendship.” Anchara had always been unknowable to him, walled off, even when he’d tried his best to break down her emotional and physical barriers. When they’d started out, he’d been determined to really make it work, determined to get over Lei once and for all, and they’d been attracted to each other. In bed she had a feral quality, wide brown eyes opaque, her body flexible and tireless. Still, no matter what he tried, his best efforts failed to bring her satisfaction.

  Not that she’d ever let on. Still, he knew, and it ate at him. He’d felt the weight of his mistake in marrying her like an anvil on his chest every time they had sex. They’d talked about it once, afterward.

  “Why can’t you come?” he’d finally asked, playing with one of the black satin ribbons of her hair, the sweat of their effort drying in the light Maui breeze.

  “I did.” She widened those huge eyes, batted them at him. “I’m sure the neighbors agree.”

  “You pretended to.”

  That shadow that was always there, separating them, appeared again. It contained both her past as a sex slave on a cruise ship and Lei, who’d always hold his heart.

  “I want to,” she whispered. “But I don’t know if I can. With anyone.”

  Stevens had been trying hard to keep his mind off Lei and give the marriage a real shot, but Anchara had moved ahead with the divorce without his knowledge the minute her green card for United States residency was imminent.

  Stevens decided not to respond to her email today. Whatever it was could wait. He had no great eagerness to see her again—Lei was the woman he missed.

  He phoned Lei even as he twirled the dial on the evidence locker in the corner of his office.

  “Hey.” Her slightly husky voice conjured her instantly before him—tilted brown eyes sleepy, curls disordered, that slender body he was always hungry for, warm in their bed. “You woke me up—I just got home and we were up most of the night.”

  “Wish I was there waking you up some other way.” He stacked the bag with the beer can and the labeled plastic boxes holding the gel tape on the shelf and picked up the clipboard dangling from a string to log in the items.

  “Me too.” He heard Lei yawn, pictured her olive-skinned, toned arms stretching, her small round breasts distending the thin sleep tee as her bod
y arched. He felt himself respond to the rustle of her tiny movements in a way that wasn’t appropriate for work, and he gritted his teeth. “So when are you going to be home?” she asked.

  “Usual time. Got called out early—a heiau desecration.” He sketched a few details—as a fellow officer, she often helped with his cases, and he hers.

  “That sucks so bad.” Lei yawned again. “I’m too fuzzy to make sense. I’m going to turn the phone off and try to get some sleep.”

  “I’ll see you later. I love you,” he said. He’d said it to her every day since their wedding a month ago.

  “I love you, too. Come home soon. I’ll keep the bed warm.” She clicked off.

  Lei Texeira. Smart, intuitive, neurotic as hell. Scary brave—and as necessary to him as breathing.

  Stevens set the phone down, trying not to think of her under the silky sheets in that skimpy tank top, or that he was doing his best to get her pregnant. Trying not to think about the spooky threat that had come against them on their honeymoon, always somewhere on his mind. Well, she’d have the alarm on, and their Rottweiler, Keiki, on the bed with her...

  A knock at the doorjamb. He looked up, irritated. “Yes?”

  Mahoe came in and shut the door. “I gotta tell you something, sir.”

  Chapter Two

  Lei turned the phone off and set it on the bedside table. Keiki, monitoring the whole exchange, set her big square head back on her paws, brown eyes on her mistress.

  “It’s okay, girl.” Lei patted the bed beside her. “I know you don’t like it when we aren’t both here.”

  Keiki crawled up beside her, and Lei scratched behind the dog’s silky triangle ears, her fingertips playing with the brown eyebrow patches above the Rottweiler’s expressive eyes.

  She shut her eyes as she tried to fall back asleep, but memories played, of the improvised explosive device detection exercises she and her partner, Abe Torufu, had participated in at the back of a remote valley.

  They’d been going full bore for twenty-four hours, tracking mock explosive devices hidden in various sections of the wilderness area, learning to spot mines, pipe bombs, even the crude gas-fueled Molotov-cocktail-style explosive threats they were likely to encounter on the job. The one-day intensive had been put together with Homeland Security, the fire department, army reservists, and police officers as part of a joint task force training with personnel from all over the islands. The trainers had turned them loose in teams with their detection and disarming equipment, and the team who found and disabled the most devices won.

  She and Torufu hadn’t won.

  Lei frowned, remembering the moment the imitation IED they’d discovered, a crude pipe bomb rigged with nails, had “exploded,” a click that activated pulsing red beacons on the chest badges they wore. It had been both humiliating and scary to even be “virtually” blown to bits. She decided the less Stevens knew about her new duties, the better.

  Stevens. She draped an arm over her eyes, smiling a little at their conversation, at the timbre of his voice, which told her how much he wanted her. He’d said he’d tell her he loved her every day after they were married, and he had. Her body woke up a little, remembering his touch, wishing he was with her.

  Lei wondered how long their passion would last now that they’d married. Their relationship was already more deep and layered than she had ever known could exist, intensified by the fact that they’d decided to start a family. That decision seemed to have added poignancy to their lovemaking.

  Why had she been so afraid of getting married? She couldn’t remember now. Maybe that’s how it would be when she was a mother—her fears would be drowned in the actual experience, something it was impossible to anticipate.

  But how would this affect her bomb squad training? She was pretty sure, if she did get pregnant, she’d be suspended from duties. She was afraid to ask her commanding officer, Captain Omura.

  It was better not to think about all that right now. She rolled over and put her pillow over her head.

  Lei eventually woke in the afternoon to Keiki’s persistent licking of her protruding foot. She sat up and groaned at the pain from a million tiny bruises and muscle exertions caused by the last twenty-four hours spent climbing and crawling through brush. “Okay, girl, I’ll let you out.”

  She got up and walked through the modest little house, yawning. She scooped frizzing curls off of her forehead, combing them into place with her fingers as she deactivated the alarm and unlocked the dog door that led into the backyard. Keiki trotted out to do her business.

  Lei went into the kitchen and over to the coffeemaker. She spotted a note protruding from under the unit. Just push the button. It’s all tanked up for you. In case I don’t see you today—I love you. Stevens had signed the bold, block-printed note with a smiley face.

  Lei folded the note into a little triangle, an old habit, and slid it into her pocket, smiling. She pushed the coffeemaker button, and the unit gurgled to life.

  Time for her daily call to her Aunty Rosario, ill with pancreatic cancer. Lei went back to the bedroom, picked up the cell phone, and pressed a speed-dial button worn from use.

  “Hey, Sweets.” Her aunt’s voice was rough. “How’s your day going?”

  “Hi, Aunty. It’s just starting. I was catching up on some sleep from a training exercise. How about you?”

  Her aunty had refused treatment for the cancer. She’d gone downhill slower than the doctors had predicted, but some days she was weak and in pain and spent the day in bed. When Rosario was feeling better, she went to work as usual at the Hawaiian Food Place, her restaurant in San Rafael, California.

  “Still kicking,” Rosario said. “Tell me about that training you were going to. It has to be more interesting than hearing about me lying around in bed here and how many ounces of food I was able to keep down.”

  “Well, I can’t tell you much. It’s classified. But I’ve been getting a workout.” Lei looked ruefully down at the scratches on her hands from wires and vegetation; she examined the bruises on her arms and legs, too. “Just another day with Maui Police Department.”

  She was enjoying learning the different kinds of triggers, timers, and explosives. Torufu was patient with her mechanical ineptitude, and his large, mellow presence calmed her in those tense minutes when confronted with whatever unknown apparatus they were working on.

  So far they hadn’t actually worked together on a threat in the field; Torufu went alone on calls for now. He’d volunteered to redo all the training with her so he could “learn to work with a partner,” but she knew it was so that he could see how well she did in the line of duty with so much at stake.

  “How’s my dad?” Lei asked. Rosario’s main caregiver was her brother, Lei’s father, Wayne Texeira.

  “He’s right here. Why don’t you say hi?” Rosario handed the phone to Lei’s father, and his familiar voice brought a smile to her face.

  “Hey, Sweets.”

  “It’s funny how you guys keep calling me that. You know I’m not that sweet.”

  “That’s why we like it.” They both laughed. They’d had that conversation before. Repeating it built little rituals in a relationship that had lost a lot of time due to Wayne’s lengthy incarceration for drug dealing and manslaughter.

  “I’ve been praying for something,” Wayne said. Her father had got his minister’s license just before Lei’s wedding, and he’d been the one to officiate at the beachside ceremony. “Praying I’m going to be a grandpa soon.”

  “Dad,” Lei said in a warning voice. She put her fingers on her forehead, pressed. Her dilemma with the bomb squad lurked at the back of her eyeballs.

  “We don’t have that much time,” Wayne whispered. She could tell he was walking away to where her aunt couldn’t hear him speaking. “She’s taking a bad turn again, honey. That news would do so much for her. I know she’d try to hang on to see the baby.”

  Lei pressed harder on her eyes, her stomach knotting. “I’m not doing any
thing to stop it,” she whispered. “But it hasn’t happened.”

  A long silence. “Well, it’s the working on it that’s the fun part,” her father said with fake cheer.

  “Please, let’s not talk about this,” Lei said. “I’m worried about Aunty enough, and it will seriously mess me up at work. I’ll tell you if there’s any news—but I don’t want to have this conversation again, Dad.” Her words came out more forcefully than she’d meant them to.

  “I’m so rude. I’m sorry,” Wayne said, his voice contrite. “I’ll shut up about it. Now, what’s with this bomb squad thing? Did you volunteer for this? Doesn’t seem like something Stevens would like his new bride doing.”

  “It’s none of his business what job I’m doing,” Lei flared, feeling heat fan the back of her neck. Her dad was pushing all her buttons today. “I was assigned to the squad, but it’s always a voluntary position. I could decline, but I happen to think it’s a challenging and important role.”

  “Of course it is,” Wayne said, the contrition replaced by a hard note. “It’s just that you’re always getting hurt on the job. I can’t imagine...” His voice faltered.

  “You know what, Dad? It’s none of anybody’s business, and the baby thing too. Put Aunty back on, please.”

  Lei rubbed the rough white gold medallion at her throat as her dad silently handed the phone back to Aunty Rosario.

  “Did I hear your father say you’re on the bomb squad now?” Rosario’s voice was thready with alarm, and the knot in Lei’s stomach twisted. She had been keeping that from Aunty, hoping she’d never have to know.

  “Just doing some cross-training so I’m more prepared for any kind of emergency,” Lei fibbed. “Boring stuff. How’s Aunty Momi doing?” She was able to deflect any further questions from her aunt, but she hung up feeling agitated.

  What she needed was a run. She got into running clothes and was on the narrow, winding jungle road with its grassy shoulders, Keiki on a leash beside her, in a matter of minutes.