Paradise Crime Mysteries
Page 154
Stevens gave a nod to Ferreira to go find the fire investigator. They’d be relying heavily on the fire department’s assessment of the evidence found at the burn site. He squatted beside Dr. Gregory as the man uncovered the body further. Bits of clothing and skin clung to the sheet. “I wish they wouldn’t have covered the body with this,” the ME fussed. “Contaminating the trace here.”
“So this is what human barbecue looks like,” Stevens said. “Not pretty.” He’d seen burn victims before, but not since he’d moved to Hawaii five years ago.
“Not pretty at all. Check out the feet.”
Stevens looked. The toes were burned, the feet curled as tendons retracted. “No shoes?”
“Exactly. I wonder if that’s significant.”
Stevens looked around the corpse. He didn’t see anything beside the body, nor marks on the ground. “Guess he collapsed here from the smoke and then the fire got him.”
“I think he was running and was on fire,” Gregory said. “His feet are more burned than his hands, and the back of his clothing is completely gone.”
Stevens tried not to imagine the man’s terrible death, instead focusing on his next steps. “Did you check for ID in his pockets?”
“I need to go over the whole body at the lab,” Gregory said. “The cloth that’s left is burned right onto his skin. Anything still on him will be degrees of melted. I need to keep it all clean and preserved. Anything else you need here? Because I’d like to bag him.”
“Are the fire investigators done?”
“We should check.” Gregory radioed, and a young man moving with athletic grace in spite of heavy fire-retardant gear broke away from a knot of firefighters and came their way.
“Tim Owen. Fire investigator for the County of Maui.” He introduced himself, and Stevens shook his gauntleted hand.
“Lieutenant Stevens. You already know Dr. Gregory.”
“Yes.”
“I want to bag the body, Tim,” Gregory said. “Need anything more?”
“No. I’m still determining the point of origin, though directionality of the char pattern makes me think it started somewhere on the cane-haul road. This guy was somewhere in this field when it went up. Maybe a homeless guy, sleeping in the cane. No shoes makes me think so.”
“So what did the body tell you?” Dr. Gregory asked. Stevens thought he might be testing the fire investigator’s assessment.
“Wasn’t trapped in the flames for an extended period—see, the arms are in fairly good shape.” Owen pointed out the folded, crabbed arms. “His face is even recognizable. The feet are worked over, but they were exposed. Maybe he ran across some burning area with bare feet. Beneath the body, he’s got fabric intact. So my take is the fire woke him up, but he was probably dazed from smoke. These cane fires burn fast, and he wasn’t moving quickly enough. He collapsed here, and the fire flashed over him. Burned a while in this spot, enough to cook his feet pretty good.”
Gregory nodded. “That was my initial take, too.”
“We don’t get many vagrants or homeless sleeping in the cane,” Stevens said. “Lots of spiders in there.” The cane spiders were famous in Hawaii. Hairy and brown, with long, slender legs, they grew to be six to eight inches in diameter and dominated their home in the sugarcane. “The cane is sharp and dense. Not much squatting happens in there between the spiders and the leaves being sharp enough to cut you.”
“Seems like that’s a good thing. I’m new here. I’m just getting the ‘lay of the land,’ so to speak, but I’m already concerned about all these arson fires. Makes me think someone’s targeting the sugarcane company.”
“Could be,” Stevens said. “Do you have any interviews set up with them?”
“Matter of fact, I do. Tomorrow morning, talking with upper management at the Puunene Mill, to see if they have any idea about who might have it in for them.” Owen wiped his sweaty face with a bandanna, and Stevens could see how young he was. New to the island, he might not get that far talking to the locals without support.
“Well, now that this is a homicide case, how about Ferreira and I tag along?”
“That would be great.” Stevens didn’t think he was imagining the note of relief in the young man’s voice. “Can’t understand the pidgin when people get going.”
Ferreira stepped up and stuck out his hand. “Know a lot of people at the company. I can help.”
“Excellent.”
They exchanged details for the next morning’s meeting while Dr. Gregory and Tanaka, his assistant, got the body bagged with the help of the EMTs who had come out on the call. Stevens was relieved when the body, still reeking even in the bag, was on the way to the morgue.
Human barbecue wasn’t something he ever wanted to see again. A bad feeling clung to him, along with the smell.
Chapter Two
Lei Texeira drove up the winding two-lane road through rural Haiku on Maui’s north shore. Tall eucalyptus trees, giant tree ferns, wandering vines, and bright sprays of ginger and heliconia bordered the road. It was a mellow thirty-minute drive from her workplace, Maui Police Station in downtown Kahului, to the home she and Stevens had bought in the countryside. Her flagging afternoon energy, another pregnancy symptom, lifted as she turned up the gravel driveway. Coming home always did that for her, especially now that her father, Wayne, had moved to Maui and was taking care of baby Kiet during the day.
Their new house was set back from the road behind an automatic gate. She hit the buttons and retracted it. The fence around the property was ten feet high, made of cedar, and it provided both protection and privacy. Keiki, her battle-scarred Rottweiler, greeted the truck with happy barks and ran alongside as she drew up to the house.
“New” wasn’t actually the right word for the house. It was fifty years old, surrounded by fruit-bearing trees and built in the sprawling plantation-style she and Stevens loved. It had been added on to so that the original footage had multiplied. Still, the size and acreage would have made it an impossible investment for a young couple just starting out if Lei’s Aunty Rosario hadn’t left them her bungalow in California as an inheritance. Wayne had helped them sell it after Aunty’s recent death in order to buy the house, and now they carried a small, manageable mortgage. The property even had a small ohana cottage, where Wayne lived.
Lei pulled into the open garage, beeped the truck locked, and went up the steps to the security door. “Hey, Dad,” she called, unlocking the steel-grilled door. Even out here in the country, they weren’t safe. An unknown enemy they’d taken to calling the ‘shroud killer’ was still at large, continuing to threaten them through the mail after leaving lengths of linen at the deaths of Lei’s aunt and Stevens’s ex-wife, Anchara. Until he was found, they needed to take every precaution.
“Hey, Sweets,” her dad called from the kitchen. “He’s excited to see you.” Lei heard baby Kiet yell, “Ba-ba-ba!”
“I’m coming!” Lei exclaimed, slipping her shoes off onto the rack beside the front door. “Let me just drop off my weapon.” She padded quickly to the bedroom, draped the shoulder holster over the headboard of the king-sized bed, emptying her badge and accoutrements into a basket on the side table. She and Stevens were going to have to start locking up their weapons soon, but they had a few months more until Kiet began crawling around and getting into everything—and soon they’d have a second baby to manage as well.
Lei was eager to take a shower, but Kiet was waiting. She hurried across the polished wood floor of the living room to the kitchen and broke into a smile at the sight of her stepson in his baby carrier on the table, waving his hands, one tooth shining like a pearl in the big grin he gave her.
“Who’s my handsome boy?” She smiled into Kiet’s jade-dark, smoky green eyes. His shock of black hair always stood on end, and it quivered like a rooster’s tail as she unstrapped him. The baby immediately grabbed her curls with both hands, giggling as she lifted him and blew on his tummy. He kicked his legs and giggled some more, and she hugged
him close, turning to her father. “He’s in a good mood, Dad.”
Wayne was checking something on the stove. By the smell, she guessed it was teriyaki chicken. “He’s had a great day. Now that the tooth is out, he’s back to being our happy boy.”
Lei put the baby on her hip and took one of his chubby hands in hers, then pretended to waltz around the kitchen. Kiet squawked with excitement.
“Don’t get him too riled up before dinner, or he’ll spit up. Remember what happened last time,” Wayne said.
“Oh yeah.” Lei snuggled her face into Kiet’s delicious neck and blew, and he giggled again. “I’ll calm down. I have to go shower anyway, in a minute.”
“He’s not going to want to let you out of his sight.”
“Is that so?” Lei swung Kiet around in front of her, and he laughed again.
“I’ll give him his bath in the sink. That’ll distract him.” Wayne turned on the water.
“Until Daddy gets home,” Lei said. Stevens had a different way with Kiet than she did, but the baby seemed to enjoy being with his dad just as much.
Wayne ran the sink full of warm water, and Lei undressed the baby, stripping off his onesie and diaper. Wayne, his smile indulgent, checked the water temperature with his wrist and gestured for Lei to bring him over.
“Come on in. The water’s fine, little man,” he said, taking his grandchild, but the minute Kiet’s feet touched the water, the baby drew them up against his body, squinching his face. “Oh, not warm enough?” Wayne added more hot water, holding the baby close.
Lei left them sorting that out and went back to the bathroom off the master bedroom. She showered, and as she did these days, checked in with the changes in her body. Her breasts were a size larger and tender, and her belly had a fullness to it that had tightened the waistband of her jeans. Another thing no one had told her about pregnancy—how taut her uterus would be, like she was growing a coconut in there. Other than occasional nausea and an acute reaction to smells, Lei felt great.
It was a strange feeling that her body knew what to do all on its own. She still felt surprised that this was the direction her life had gone—marriage, motherhood, living in a house with her dad as the “manny”—but she couldn’t imagine another life now. The grief that she wasn’t sharing this with her beloved aunt still came over her in waves, and this time she shut her eyes and turned her face into the flow of water from the shower, letting the sorrow move through her.
She was out of the shower and playing with Kiet out on the porch when Stevens drove up in his brown Bronco. Sitting in the old porch rocking chair, she turned Kiet outward as Stevens got out of the truck. The baby flexed his legs, hopping and leaning toward his father.
“Hey, little man.” Stevens came up on the porch, leaning down to kiss the baby. Lei drew back, sniffing, before he could kiss her.
“Yuck. Shower first. Been near a fire?”
“Yeah. You saw the smoke earlier?”
“Sure did. Another cane fire. It was out by the time I passed it.”
“Fire caught a body this time. I’ll tell you when I’m out of the shower and you’ll let me kiss you.” He winked as he went inside. Kiet bounced and strained after his father as Stevens disappeared into the house.
Lei spun the baby around. “He’ll be back. In the meantime, you’ll have to make do with me.”
Kiet grinned, grabbing a handful of her hair and putting it in his mouth. She was still detaching it as she made her way back to the kitchen. “Can I help you with anything, Dad?”
“Nope. Tell that husband of yours dinner’s ready in fifteen minutes.” Wayne was tossing a salad. He’d learned kitchen skills in prison, where he’d been on kitchen duty for years. He prepared healthy meals for the family five nights a week, kept the house picked up, and took care of the baby during the day. Lei insisted on paying him a small salary, and he had his own cottage. So far the arrangement seemed to be working out. As far as Lei was concerned, it was close to perfect, and keeping busy with the baby seemed to be helping Wayne stay distracted from the loss of his sister.
“I’ll go tell Stevens,” Lei said. She tried to put the baby in his bouncy seat, but he grunted and writhed and arched his back, so she toted him back into the bathroom, opening the shower to say to Stevens, “Dinner in fifteen. Is your brother still coming?”
“Said he was,” Stevens said, not turning around. She took a minute to enjoy the view of his long, muscular back as he rinsed his hair under the flow of water. Then Kiet pulled her hair again, and Lei sighed as she turned away. Chances to join Stevens in their oversized shower were few and far between nowadays, with the baby to keep entertained and her father always around.
She heard the beep-beep-beep on the control panel by the front door that told her someone had punched in the code and activated the gate—probably Jared. Only a handful of friends had the code. Lei felt her spirits lift—she enjoyed Jared’s company, and his presence at their family dinners livened things up.
She walked out onto the porch as Jared drove up in the lifted tan Tacoma he drove, the pipe racks on the truck stacked with his “toys”—a couple of surfboards, a stand-up paddleboard, and a single-man canoe.
“Hey, bro,” Lei called as he got out of the vehicle. She held up Kiet’s hand and waved it at Jared. Her brother-in-law grinned, walking toward her with the swift grace he shared with Stevens. He had the same height and the same blue eyes, but his features were more regular and chiseled, and he had a leanness that looked whipcord strong. As a firefighter, he spent time working out that Stevens didn’t put in. When he wasn’t at the station, he was out enjoying the ocean sports of Maui. All that added up to spectacular.
“Hey, sis. Hope you weren’t the one cooking,” Jared said with that wicked grin that Lei knew had kicked a lot of hearts into overdrive. She pretended to punch him in the rock-hard midsection, and he folded comically, making Kiet laugh, a burbling sound Lei loved.
“You know better than that,” Lei said. “Take your nephew, please. He’s eating my hair again.”
“He has good taste,” Jared said. “Hey, buddy.” He pried Kiet’s hands out of Lei’s hair and lifted him up. “How’s my favorite future firefighter?”
“He’s going into something safe. Like accounting,” Stevens called from inside the house. “Stop that evil talk.”
Jared grinned again, heading into the house with the baby, and Lei racked her brain for who she could set him up with. Sophie Ang? Her friend was still single, though it had seemed like Sophie had a crush on Alika Wolcott, her MMA fighting coach...Lei tried to imagine her serious FBI tech agent friend with daredevil, fun-loving Jared. They were so different, it just might work.
She followed Jared into the house and helped set the table while Jared and Stevens discussed the fire and the “human chicken wing” found on the side of the road. “What do you think of the new fire investigator? Tim Owen?” Stevens asked.
“Seems to know his fire science. I’ve taken him out stand-up paddling. Since we’re both new to the island, we’ve been getting out on the ocean together.”
“I envy your schedule,” Stevens said. It wasn’t the first time he’d said that, Lei thought. Maybe the time had come for them to just work the hours they were supposed to—but she doubted either of them would be able to stick with those kinds of resolutions the next time a big case came along.
“Thanks, Dad,” Lei said, kissing her father’s leathery cheek quickly as she took a large casserole dish from him. “This looks so good. So what about that fire victim? Any ID?”
“No. A John Doe at this point,” Stevens said.
“Hey, Mr. Texeira, this looks great!” Jared said, eyeing the food. He’d handed Kiet off to Stevens and now he took the pot of rice from Wayne. “Thanks so much for having me.”
“Always room and food for family,” Wayne said. “Hope you brought that dessert you promised me last week.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me. I left it in the truck.”
“Surprise. Let’s sit down while the food’s hot.”
They gathered around the picnic table on the covered back deck, mercifully screened from mosquitoes, and Stevens was able to get Kiet into his seat.
“My turn to feed him tonight,” Stevens said.
“His rice cereal’s in the microwave,” Wayne said, carrying a big wooden bowl of salad past Lei to set on the table as she fetched the baby’s bowl of cereal. Jared returned, with something in a brown paper bag that he stowed in the freezer.
They ate, sharing snippets about the day. Jared told them about the rash of arson cane fires. “There’ve been four of these, as you guys must have seen in the news. But now that there’s been a homicide, it takes things up a notch. With you guys working with Tim, I hope we’ll get the arsonist sooner rather than later.”
Wayne shook his silver-shot, curly head. “Homeless guy had to be pretty desperate, sleeping in a cane field.”
“Yeah, I hate even going in them. Kind of claustrophobic, the way the cane grows so high,” Lei said. “He was out of luck once the fire started.”
“Just what I thought,” Stevens replied. “It’ll be interesting to see if there’s more to it than just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Lei watched him feed Kiet a mouthful of rice cereal with the soft plastic baby spoon. Kiet smacked his thighs in excitement, then flailed his hand in an attempt to catch the spoon. “Catch it with your mouth, little man,” Stevens said, smiling as he got another bite into the baby.
Lei put her hand on Stevens’s thigh, kneading the muscles there. His patience and tenderness with Kiet made her love him in new ways. But happy scenes like this always reminded her of Anchara, Kiet’s mother and Stevens’s ex-wife, who’d been murdered a few months ago. The baby’s presence with them was wholly due to tragedy. Her killer had been caught, but Lei still thought there was more to the picture than the man had ever confessed.