Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  “Well, you got your wish,” Stevens said from behind her. He’d already stripped the yellow mask off. “I know everyone wants off this plane, but Anela Chang brought us here for a reason. We need to get our weapons and be ready.”

  He’d scooped up Anela’s Glock somewhere along the way, and now he shot the magazine, checking the cartridges. “Got fourteen rounds here.” He rammed it back in. “Can you go check with the pilots on where they stowed our weapons? I’m going to suss out the exit and look for the radio jammer.”

  “On it.” Lei dropped her seat belt and hurried up to the cockpit. “We’re worried about follow-up from this hijacker and her crew,” Lei told them, with a thumb back at Anela, still slumped in the seat. “Where did you put our weapons?”

  The second pilot spoke for the first time. “They’re in a locker under the nose. Tell your husband thanks for taking out the hijacker. Crap, that was close.” He wore a nametag that read Ben. He swiped sweat off his forehead with a trembling arm.

  “Well, you guys did great, too, bringing the plane down safely. Hopefully, some rescue vehicles will see us and come check us out,” Lei said. “In the meantime, we need to locate the radio jammer that’s disrupting our cell phones and your communication.”

  “Absolutely. We’ll look.” Both the pilots unbuckled themselves. “Can we let the family off the plane?”

  All of them looked at the traumatized family. The father was comforting his wife as the toddler wailed non-stop. The rooster added to the cacophony.

  Lei looked back at Stevens, crouched by the exit door. “I think we should deplane,” Stevens said. “But I’m going out first, getting the weapons. We’ll see what happens when I drop the door.” He turned the handle and opened the door, stuck his head and shoulders out, looking around. “All clear.”

  Stevens pushed a lever, and stairs folded out to hit the road. He clambered down and disappeared.

  Lei held up a hand to the others. “Just want to see what we’re getting into before everyone gets off.” She went to the door opening, squatting to take a look outside.

  The little Cessna was parked in the middle of the road, and on one side stretched miles of pristine beach, the ocean wave-tossed cobalt and turquoise, palms bent by the breeze marking the edge of the sand. On the other side of the road, an arid, scrubby plain rose to hills scored by the chisel of erosion and anchored by hardy pines. It was stark, barren, and gorgeous. Lei could hear nothing but the wind in the palm trees. She wondered what it would be like to live somewhere this remote.

  “Nothing moving out here,” Lei said to the pilots. “Any luck finding the jammer?”

  “Nothing up in the cockpit,” one of the pilots said.

  “Maybe the hijacker will tell us when she comes around,” the other piped up.

  Lei looked over at Anela, and the woman’s head was bobbing. She was awake. Lei went back up the aisle and grabbed Anela’s short hair and pulled it, hard, lifting her head up against the seat. “Where’s the jammer?” she asked.

  Anela shook her head and turned her face away.

  Stevens called from the doorway, “Looks like it’s safe out here, folks. Why don’t you all get out, and we’ll look around inside for the device that’s jamming our phones?”

  Lei squeezed out of the way into one of the seats as the pilots brushed between her and Anela and followed the Micronesian family off the plane.

  Once they were all off, Stevens came forward and handed Lei the small backpack she used to hold her weapons in their plastic cases. He was still holding the Glock he’d taken from Anela. “Listen, Chang. We know you had something in mind here. What was it? Talk to us.”

  Anela hawked and spat, and Stevens didn’t get out of the way in time. He wiped his cheek, and Lei saw banked fury in his eyes.

  “Biggest mistake I made, not killing you both the minute we were in the air,” Anela said. “I’m not telling you anything.” She closed her mouth, tightening her jaw. A bruise on the side of her face was already purpling, swelling spreading down the side of her head.

  Lei had realized something was amiss right after the pilot had announced their change of landing. She’d pretended to be asleep, waiting for the right moment to make some kind of move, not sure what to do or how to do it unarmed. And then Stevens had moved past her, graceful and sneaky, carrying the canister—and the action had happened so fast, she hadn’t had time to react or even be afraid for him.

  She’d felt a primordial triumph seeing him stand over the crumpled body in the aisle, still holding the oxygen canister. He’d acted quickly and effectively with the means at hand, and while she wanted to bring up their argument and ask how it was fair for him to do a cowboy stunt like that without even warning her, she was too relieved it had worked.

  And this was neither the place nor the time for any of those recriminations.

  He’d needed to do what he did, and every minute since, Lei saw how stopping the hijacker was restoring his confidence. Maybe he’d forgive her now that he’d had a hand in dealing with their enemy, too.

  “Why don’t you organize the passengers and we’ll all search,” Lei said. “I’ll guard her.”

  Stevens nodded and exited down the hallway, and as soon he was out of sight, Lei reached over and squeezed Anela’s broken arm. “I got nothing to lose,” she hissed at the other woman. “Tell me where the jammer is.”

  Anela’s face had gone so white Lei thought she was going to faint. “Screw you,” Anela whispered.

  Lei squeezed again, her face close to the other woman’s. “You may think you want me and my family dead, but you have no idea how far I’m prepared to go to stop you and your brother. Tell me now and the pain stops. Tell me now, and we’ll be good little cops and give you the fair trial you don’t deserve.”

  Anela whimpered as Lei bore down on the broken arm, and finally the woman said, “What does it matter? It’s too late for you anyway. It’s in the fire extinguisher.”

  Lei instantly let go of the arm, wondering what Anela meant, and reached up into the bulkhead, where a bright red mini extinguisher was held into a recessed area with a clamp. She unhooked the steel band, and there was the jammer, a small black device the size of a pack of cigarettes, with a short antenna. She dropped it on the ground in the aisle and stomped on it just as Stevens and the pilots reappeared.

  “Got the jammer,” she said. Anela had shut her eyes. She didn’t say anything.

  “Well, good thing, because it looks like we’ve got company,” Stevens said. “Got a Jeep coming down the road.”

  “What do you want to do?” Lei moved away from Anela into the seat behind her and took out her ankle rig from the duffel. She strapped it on.

  “I think we should have the civilians hide. If it’s locals, they can help us. If they’re not friendlies, we can stay in the plane and use Anela as leverage.”

  “So you think we should run and hide?” The dark-haired pilot named Ben asked. “Not much cover here.” The Jeep was fast approaching, red dust purling up in its wake, and the Micronesian family, complete with rooster, had gone over to sit under the scanty shade of one of the palms.

  “Let’s hope they’re friendlies,” Stevens said.

  The pilots and Stevens got out of the plane, and Lei stayed inside, pointing her weapon at Anela and calling 911.

  The connection seemed to take forever to go through. She wondered if they’d even have a signal out here on Ni`ihau—but they must have a tower, or be able to boost the signal from Barking Sands, Kaua`i’s nearby military base, because eventually she connected with Kaua`i’s 911 operator. Outside the plane, she heard the Jeep pull up and a local, pidgin-accented voice. “You folks need some help?”

  Lei let her breath out in a whoosh of relief—the Jeep’s drivers were friendly, thank God.

  Lei told the operator her badge number and the situation on Ni`ihau. “We need transportation off the island and somewhere to hold the hijacker. Oh, and medical assistance,” she explained as she overheard
Stevens, the pilots, and the new arrivals talking, their voices animated.

  She wrapped up the call after assurances that a police helicopter was on the way.

  Coming out of the plane, weapon holstered and guard down, Lei wasn’t prepared for a blow to the head. She was unconscious before she hit the ground at the bottom of the steps.

  Stevens saw his wife pitch forward off the short flight of steps. He spun away from the man he was talking to, trying to catch her, but he was barely able to break her fall as she landed hard, face down in the dirt. He thought she’d stumbled until he turned her over and saw the slack whiteness of her face and felt a warm ooze of blood on the hand cupping the back of her head.

  He lifted her into his arms, his heart hammering. They’d been told she shouldn’t take any more blows to the head after her past injuries, and his mouth went dry at the severity of this one.

  He turned and looked up into the black bore of a pistol in the hands of one of the pilots. Jim, his name badge read, and he’d been the chattier of the two, a good-looking blond guy in aviator glasses.

  The other pilot, Ben, had his hands in the air and shock on his face. “What the hell are you doing, Jim?” the other pilot burst out. “What’s going on here?”

  “I owe Chang money,” Jim told Ben. “Didn’t want to get involved, but I had to.”

  The “friendlies” weren’t so friendly after all. The two beefy local guys who’d been the picture of concern a moment ago in their tank shirts and combat fatigues picked up hunting rifles and stepped out of the Jeep. Puffs of red dust rose under their boots as they came to stand on either side of Stevens.

  “Go get Anela,” one of them said to Jim. “You. Over here,” he directed the other pilot. Ben hurried to stand beside Stevens as Jim went back into the plane. Stevens looked over at the palm tree where the Micronesian family had been resting and saw they were gone.

  Good for them.

  Stevens brushed the curls off of Lei’s face, alarmed by her paleness, the freckles like paint flecks on her skin and her black eye’s coloration a travesty. He felt the pulse in her neck—it was slow but regular. Her body was slack and unresponsive.

  “Got anything for her head?” He held up his bloody hand, the sight making his chest constrict. His voice had gone raspy again, and he felt short of breath. Nothing would be gained by letting stress get the better of him—he had to figure a way out of this situation for both of them.

  One of the local guys went back to the Jeep, reached under the dash, and tossed him a beach towel. It was bright yellow with a rainbow and aloha printed on it, and he keenly felt the irony as he wadded the towel under Lei’s head to sop up the blood.

  Head wounds bled a lot, he told himself. Lei was out, but her pulse was good. She hadn’t hit the ground too hard. He’d been in time to deflect some of her fall.

  Anela appeared in the doorway of the aircraft, and the dark scowl on her face as she looked at them made him tighten his arms around Lei. “Where are the Micronesians?” she barked.

  “Who?” the local guy said. “Didn’t see anyone.”

  “A whole family. They have to be here someplace.” Anela gestured at the beach, the open landscape.

  “Seems like they got away. We don’t have much time now. I heard the woman call for a police helicopter,” Jim the traitor said. “Let’s go.”

  “Get in the Jeep,” Anela said. “We’re out of here.”

  Anela climbed into the front passenger seat, her injured arm tucked against her chest, and one of the locals got in the driver’s seat, setting his rifle beside him. The other Ni`ihau native poked Stevens in the back with his weapon. “Get in. Unless you want us to shoot you right here.”

  Stevens got to his feet with Lei in his arms. The local guy removed both of Stevens’s weapons and Lei’s pistol. Stevens’s pulse picked up with a beat of hope when the man failed to check either of their pant legs—both he and Lei still had their ankle rigs on.

  There was a roll bar and a bench on either side of the open-backed Jeep. Cradling Lei, he waited until Jim and the other pilot had climbed in, sitting to the front, leaving him on one bench near the back and the local guy on the seat across from him, rifle at the ready.

  Stevens tucked Lei’s head against his shoulder and held her there with the towel padding her head, silently praying she was going to be okay.

  He caught the local guy’s eye across from him. “We’re cops,” Stevens said. “You do this and they’re never going to stop hunting you.”

  “Shut up!” Anela screamed from the front seat as the Jeep started with a roar. “Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you, permanently!”

  The local guy’s face was flat and inscrutable. “Listen to the boss lady,” he said. But Stevens thought he saw a flicker of doubt in the man’s eyes.

  The Jeep lurched forward and tore off up the road. Stevens looked back for any sign of the Micronesian family—there was none. Hopefully, they’d come out when the police helicopter arrived and tell what they’d seen.

  The Jeep hooked a sharp right turn off the main road and bounced up a four-wheel-drive track, heading into the mountainous area. Another time, Stevens would have enjoyed the views of rolling, grassy hills slanting upward into cloud cover, the open vista unobscured by any human hand, the ocean a wind-flecked cerulean vastness behind them.

  But not today. Today he braced his feet on the channeled floor of the Jeep and pushed his back against the raised side to hold himself and Lei steady on the bench, one hand around the roll bar and the other clasping her close across his lap, trying to keep his wife from being jounced as they crawled through ruts and over rocks. The bleeding from Lei’s head had stopped, so Stevens spread the stained towel over her to keep her warm in case of shock.

  Why hadn’t Anela killed them already? It was obvious she hated them as much as Ray Solomon did. Perhaps the answer was in the two shovels he spotted stowed behind the seats—if there is no body, there is no crime. Stevens decided not to worry about that, instead mentally rehearsing different escape scenarios.

  He felt Lei wake up, a trembling tension reentering her body. He didn’t think the others could tell, and he prayed one last time that she was up to the challenges ahead. He put his mouth down close to her ear and whispered into it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Stevens’s voice in her ear was rough. “Pretend you’re still out. They’re taking us into the hills. Pretty sure we’re going to be digging our own graves, so when we stop...” He whispered what he wanted her to do.

  She kept herself limp but managed a tiny nod, even with her head pounding like a taiko drum. Her face was turned sideways, one ear against his chest, and she could hear the elevated but steady beat of his heart. She felt the lurching, bouncing movement of the Jeep, heard the growl of its engine as it tackled the slope of the hill. Stevens’s body flexed around and beneath her to hold them steady on the bench, his arm pressing her close.

  Lei savored a ridiculous but persistent sensation of joy in spite of the pain and danger they were in. She was in her special spot against his heart, where she belonged. Whatever happened next, no one could take that from them.

  The Jeep crested a rise and started downhill. Lei kept her eyes closed and body relaxed, but her mind rehearsed what he’d told her to do over and over.

  The Jeep stopped. Lei tensed without moving and heard him whisper, “Now!”

  Using her abs, she tightened her body hard to sit up even as she reached down with her right hand to the ankle holster, pulling the little six-shot revolver and flicking off the safety as Stevens dumped her onto her feet. She tossed off the towel and spun into a shooting stance. Anela was turning to face her, weapon in hand, when Lei shot her. Lei simultaneously heard the reports of Stevens’s gun as he shot the man directly across from them and the traitor pilot sitting beside him.

  Anela dropped backward out of sight as Lei turned to shoot the driver in the shoulder as he was turning, reaching for his gun, his mouth open in surp
rise. He keeled over, falling backward out of the open driver’s side door.

  Ben, sitting beside Lei and Stevens, raised his hands in the air. His eyes were huge.

  Lei grabbed the roll bar as dizziness sagged her knees. She used the bar to hold herself up as she turned her weapon on the guy across from them whom Stevens had shot. He was holding his shoulder, his mouth opening and closing, but he’d dropped the rifle.

  Stevens kicked the pilot’s pistol and the Ni`ihau man’s hunting rifle out of the back of the Jeep. “We have to find something to tie them up with.”

  As if to punctuate that, the driver had staggered to his feet and was making for the bushes. Lei was in no shape to chase him, so she held her weapon on the two remaining men on the bench. Stevens leaped out the back of the Jeep, running.

  He hit the driver from behind, knocking him to the ground. He kept him down with a knee in his back and shouted to Lei, “I need some restraints!”

  Lei looked around the Jeep and rifled the men’s pockets. She found a pocketknife in the Ni`ihau man’s pocket and gave it to Ben.

  “Tear up this towel.” She handed Ben the bloodstained towel. The young man jumped to help, cutting the tough edging so that he could rip the towel into long strips.

  Anela was no longer a threat; nor was she going anywhere. Lei looked away from her body and back at the two she had to keep an eye on.

  Things went better after that.

  Lei and Ben tied their prisoners, and Stevens secured his. All were moved to lie wedged together in the back of the Jeep, moaning from their injuries but not in danger of dying. Ben and Stevens did some rudimentary first aid as Lei gathered their cell phones and found her own, calling the 911 operator on Kaua`i again.

  Once again she identified herself with her badge number.

  “Did your team find the downed plane on Ni`ihau?” Lei asked.

  “We did. They didn’t find anyone there but a family who’d escaped from the hijackers.”

  “Well, Lieutenant Stevens and I are safe along with Ben, one of the pilots. We have the hijackers and their colleagues in custody, but we have a fatality—Anela Chang, who was hijacking the plane with the help of one of the pilots.” Lei looked around at the steep, rocky four-wheel-drive trail and the surrounding wind-scrubbed, brushy area. It looked tough to land a helicopter here. “We can drive to a better location to rendezvous, but we don’t want to leave the body—we want to leave it just where it fell for the investigation.”