Paradise Crime Mysteries

by Toby Neal

  “His mom can have those back,” Pippa said. “But I’d like this one.” She set her hand on a white T-shirt with a MauiBuilt logo on it. “I gave it to him.” Her eyes filled again.

  “So it seems like you two were close,” Lei said.

  “Yes. Um—we didn’t tell you the whole situation the first time when you talked to us. I was in shock. I couldn’t think how to explain it to you.” Pippa picked up the T-shirt and crossed her arms over her chest, hugging it to her. “Makoa and I were seeing each other.”

  “But I thought Shayla was his girlfriend,” Lei said, frowning as if this were news.

  “We were both his girlfriends.” Pippa’s cheeks reddened as she looked at Lei defiantly. “We both loved him. And he loved us.”

  “Wow. That’s unusual. Did everyone agree to this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me how it got started.”

  Pippa looked down. “He was going out with Shayla. But as time went on, I realized I was falling in love with him, and he had feelings for me, too. He was going to break up with Shayla, but when we sat down and talked, Shayla said it was okay. She loves us both, and why couldn’t we all stay together?” Pippa sniffed and rubbed her eye with the heel of a hand. “So we did.”

  Lei reached into the box and took out the little paper evidence bag, shook the black velvet box out onto the table. “I found this in the pocket of Makoa’s dress slacks.” She popped the ring box open and the diamond sparkled, large and fiery, in the overhead lights. “I only see one ring here. Who was he going to ask to marry him?”

  Pippa turned white, her eyes rolled back, and she tilted to the side, slumping off the chair in a dead faint. Kamuela managed to catch her before she hit the floor. “Get a pillow or something! We have to elevate her feet!”

  Lei opened the door and hollered into the hall for assistance. Pippa came around a few minutes later. They’d covered her with the beach towel and elevated her feet on a thick phone book.

  “Oh my God. This is so embarrassing,” she murmured. The tan of her skin lay like yellow paint over her pale cheeks.

  “Are you pregnant?” Lei whispered, prompted by intuition.

  Pippa shut her eyes. “Yes.” Fat tears leaked out from beneath her lids. “I haven’t told anyone but Makoa.”

  “Did he ask you to marry him?”

  The girl shook her head. “No.”

  “So you don’t know if that ring was meant for you.”

  The tears flowed faster. “He said the situation had to change, after I told him. He said he’d known for a while it had to change. But he didn’t say he was going home this weekend to break up with Shayla. She’d be devastated if he broke up with her because I got pregnant.”

  “So you don’t think…” Lei let her voice trail off, hoping the girl would say something more definitive.

  “I think he wanted us all to talk about it, decide what to do. I told him no matter what, I was going to have this baby.” She crossed her hands over her flat abdomen in a protective gesture Lei recognized with a pulse of remembered pain.

  “How long ago was this conversation?”

  “Last week. Thursday. He was going home to Maui Friday. I was going back to Maui Saturday. I had a shoot. I knew I had to get in as much work as I could before I started showing.” She stared at the ceiling. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do without him.” The tears brimming in her eyes spilled.

  “Did he say he was going to tell Shayla? Had you told her?” Lei asked

  “He said not to tell her, that he would do it. That it was his responsibility. She’s going to hate it.” Lei saw Pippa’s throat muscles move as the girl swallowed.

  “Was he happy about the baby?”

  More tears trickled down Pippa’s cheeks. “He was surprised at first, but then really seemed to get happy about it. He was so sweet to me.”

  “A witness saw you two talking outside the team house in the early morning before he left for Maui. What day would that have been?”

  “That was Friday morning. I told him the night before. We had an incredible night together; then he said he had to go to Maui and tell Shayla. We were arguing because I wanted to tell her. I knew she was going to feel betrayed if he was the one who told her and not me.”

  Lei frowned. “That doesn’t make sense to me. He was the father of the baby. He was sleeping with both of you.”

  “Yes, but Shayla’s my best friend.” Pippa turned her blue eyes to Lei. “We tell each other everything.”

  Lei suspected this was not at all true. “Still. The witness said it seemed like you were arguing.”

  “Yes, a little. Because I wanted to tell her and he insisted he would. He said he needed to deal with her.”

  “Deal with her. An interesting phrase. Is that exactly what he said?”

  “Yes.” Pippa looked at Lei again. “Do you think he told her? She hasn’t said a word to me, or acted any different. I can’t bear to tell her now that he’s gone. She’s going to hate me.”

  “I don’t know if he told her. But I’m going to ask her. Now, one last time. I need to know who that ring was for. Dig deep, Pippa, and tell me. I promise it won’t get back to Shayla, whatever you say.”

  Pippa gazed at Lei for a long moment, and her eyes were perfectly dry when she finally said, “Me. He loved me more. And with the baby coming, I think he would have asked me to marry him.”

  And then she shut her eyes, opened her mouth, and wailed, a terrible cry of grief and loss that shuddered through and around Lei and filled the room with the agony of a broken heart.

  Lei froze, unable to move, feeling the sound batter at her own fragile reserves. Marcus Kamuela was the one to draw the young woman up against his shoulder and pat her back soothingly, shushing her like a child as Lei withdrew out into the hall.

  Lei walked into the women’s room and splashed water on her face. She took some relaxation breaths: in through her nose, out through her mouth. Tried to imagine finding out she was pregnant and dealing with it alone, with Stevens murdered.

  Her mind shied away from a horror too great to bear.

  She bought a little more time by changing out of her still-damp suit and cover-up into clothing from the backpack she’d made sure was packed from the vacation rental. Back in jeans and a button-down shirt, her badge and gun in place, she felt better able to face Shayla.

  Lei pushed rioting curls back from her face and bundled them into a rubber band. With her hair pulled back and the weight she’d lost since her miscarriage, the face that looked back at her from the mirror seemed all eyes and mouth, the cheekbones high and stark, freckles standing out across her nose.

  She put a little lipstick and mascara on, hoping that would help balance things.

  It didn’t.

  Finally, done stalling, she tightened her shoulder holster, washed her hands, and strode out.

  Lei brought a glass of water in to Shayla, who was sitting at the table, playing with her phone. “Sorry for the wait.”

  “Who was that screaming?” Shayla’s golden tan looked jaundiced under the harsh lighting. “It sounded serious.”

  “Nothing to worry about.” Lei sat herself across from Shayla. “Detective Kamuela will be along in a moment with some items we’d like you to identify from Makoa’s things at the Torque team house.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did you come over here often? Spend much time at the house?”

  “Not really. I’d come over for big contests, to give support. But no. Usually he visited me at my house, when he came home.” Shayla clearly considered Maui not just her home, but Makoa’s.

  “Would you consider yourself and Makoa close?”

  “Definitely.” Shayla folded her arms across her shapely bosom.

  “What kind of relationship would you say you had?” Lei kept her voice neutral, but Shayla drew her brows together.

  “What’s this about?”

  “We’ve heard rumors that you weren’t Makoa’s only girlfr
iend.”

  “You’ve heard about Pippa, then,” Shayla stated. “I guess I should have told you when you came to the house with the sketch artist, but we were so upset, I didn’t think of it. Besides, how is it relevant to the investigation?”

  A long beat went by as they eyed each other, and finally Lei asked gently, “Do you want me to spell it out?”

  Shayla dropped her eyes and covered her face with her hands. Lei had the feeling she was seeing a deliberate shift in behavior, and sure enough, the shoulders that had been thrown defiantly back hunched inward, and she trembled as if with a sob.

  “It’s all been too much,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands. “I know the situation we had going was weird to people, but it worked for us.”

  “Shayla, I’d really like to understand it from your perspective. Just tell me how it came about. Help me understand how it worked for you.” Feeding back the witnesses’ own words to them helped create a connection, a sense of being understood, and sure enough, Shayla lowered her hands. Her big brown eyes were glossy with tears, and her full lips trembled.

  “I had Makoa first. He was my boyfriend. But then Pippa, who works on Oahu a lot more than me, began hanging around with him. Just friends, I thought—but it had become something more. I love Pippa and I love Makoa. I didn’t want to lose them both, especially to each other. So I said, why don’t we just share?” She blinked, and fat tears rolled out of her eyes. “So we did. It worked for us.” The phrase had begun to sound like a mantra.

  As if on cue, Kamuela came in with the same cardboard box of Makoa’s things that they’d shown Pippa. He set the box on the table. “Here are some of Makoa’s things that Pete at the Torque house packed up,” Lei said, taking out the stack of T-shirts.

  Shayla scooped up a blue one, pressed it to her face. “Can I keep this?” she asked.

  “Sure. We were taking the rest back to Maui, to his parents. But there was one more thing we found.” Lei reached into the box and took out the small, black velvet box.

  Shayla’s mouth opened, and she reached over and took the ring box, flipping it open. She covered her mouth with her hand, and tears filled her eyes as she looked at the sparkling diamond. “Oh my God. He was going to ask me to marry him.”

  Lei blinked, glanced at Kamuela. The scene with Pippa was so fresh it was hard to process Shayla’s confident statement. “So…he hadn’t talked to you about this?”

  “No. But I’m sure he was just waiting for the right time to ask me. He told me the morning he was killed that he had something important to talk to me about.” Shayla took the ring out, slid it onto her finger as her eyes welled, and Lei couldn’t help contrasting Pippa’s raw grief to Shayla’s pretty tears. Which display of emotion could be hiding a murderer?

  “What about Pippa?” Lei couldn’t help asking.

  Shayla wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, still gazing at the ring. “We’d have worked something out.”

  “Come on.” Lei snorted. “I would sooner gut another woman than share my husband. You’re telling me you’d let him keep Pippa? Because from the reports we heard, you were the one getting edged out and that ring was for her.”

  Shayla’s dark eyes flared wide, and Lei glimpsed the steely will that gave the girl her dominating personality.

  “No way,” she said confidently. “Okay, you’re right. I wouldn’t be willing to share Makoa once we were married. “

  “Did Makoa ask you to marry him? Tell you anything important this weekend, before he was killed?”

  “No, but he told me we had something important to discuss. He was taking me to dinner the night he was killed.” She swiveled her hand back and forth, watching the light play on the diamonds. “Can I keep this?”

  “Take it off. It’s evidence,” Kamuela growled from his side of the table. Lei could tell he didn’t like Shayla’s cavalier attitude.

  Shayla removed the ring and put it back in the box. Lei could tell it was hard for her to part with it, as the young woman slowly shut the lid. Lei leaned forward, her eyes hard on the other woman’s face, feeling like a matador baiting a bull as she said, “Makoa was going to tell you something important before he was killed. Pippa is pregnant.”

  Shayla recoiled as if slapped. “Pippa wouldn’t try to steal him from me with the oldest trick in the book! Where is that bitch?” Shayla shot to her feet, knocking the chair over behind her.

  “Sit down!” Kamuela grabbed her arm and bent it, and Shayla sat, glaring, but now Lei drilled into her.

  “That bitch, huh? For all we know, you’re lying and Makoa told you Pippa was pregnant, that he was breaking up with you. So you called your ex Eli Tadeo to help you out with a problem.”

  “No!” Shayla exclaimed, jumping up again. “Pippa was just a convenience. Someone for him to bang on Oahu. I figured it was better the friend you know than the enemy you don’t, so I went along with it. But he didn’t love her, not like he loved me.” Lei and Kamuela glanced at each other, but there was no stopping Shayla now that she’d gotten started. “Pippa had it bad for him, though. She would do anything to be with him, including this ploy to try to nab a ring, now that he’s gone. I bet she said he was going to ask her to marry him because she was pregnant.”

  “That was one possibility we were exploring, yes,” Lei said. “But it’s easy enough to check out her story. We’ll just ask her to take a pregnancy test.”

  “Even if she is pregnant, it’s because she trapped him,” Shayla said. “That ring is mine. He was mine.”

  “So much for an arrangement that works for everyone,” Lei said dryly. “It’s amazing you were able to keep this going for as long as you did. And now I don’t believe either of you.” Lei took the ring box, put it back in the box of clothing. “We’ll talk again. Do you and Pippa need a ride back to the party at the team house?”

  “We had one until you brought us out here,” Shayla said sullenly, following Lei to the door and out in the hall. She spotted Pippa sitting in a waiting area near the front door and darted past Lei, launching herself at the other woman.

  “You bitch!” The sound of Shayla slapping Pippa’s face rang through the small station. Lei got ahold of Shayla by the shoulders and hauled her back, twisting an arm up behind the girl in a restraint hold. Pippa jumped up off the bench and went for Shayla.

  “You’re the bitch and always were! I should never have gone along with your sick ideas!”

  Kamuela, who had been stowing the box in the evidence room, reached Pippa just as she slugged Shayla, knocking the other girl back into Lei’s arms.

  They got handcuffs on both women and escorted them to Kamuela’s truck, where he put Shayla in the back of the pickup and Pippa inside. Leaden silence filled the vehicle as they drove back to the Torque team house.

  “Are you two calmed down enough to go to the memorial party?” Lei asked after they arrived at the crowded beach house. “Or do we need to book you both into jail for a cooling-off period?”

  Shayla straightened up in the bed of the truck. Even with wind-whipped hair and handcuffs on, she managed to look like she was ready to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. “I’m done. Done speaking to that lying whore.” She narrowed her eyes at Pippa.

  In reply, Pippa, who had been looking green as Lei helped her out of the back of the truck, bent over and vomited in front of Shayla. Some of the warm, acrid-smelling vomit splashed on Shayla’s feet, and the other woman squealed, leaping back in repulsion.

  Kamuela hauled Shayla farther up the driveway before uncuffing her, while Lei helped Pippa sit down on the grass. She took off the handcuffs. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t ever want to see her again,” Pippa said. “I just want to go home. But I live with her.”

  “Well, we have another stop to make, but I’m going back to Maui. You could get a ride with us to the airport, or find another way there,” Lei found herself offering.

  “I’d like that. If I get home before Shayla, I can get my stuff o
ut of the house.”

  “Okay. Let me ask Detective Kamuela.” Lei left Pippa rubbing her wrists by the truck and rejoined Kamuela, walking back from the house. “So much for no catfights or drama,” she said. “Can we give Pippa a ride back to the airport? I don’t want to leave them both here, and she wants to get her stuff out of the apartment they share.”

  “Sure. Thought you had another stop.”

  “Yeah. I want to go by the store where the ring was purchased and find out when Makoa bought it.”

  They walked back to the truck to see Pippa talking to Bryan Oulaki. The young man had a hand against the truck beside the girl and their heads were close together. Lei went on high alert and felt Kamuela stiffen beside her as well. Pippa looked up at their approach, and her eyes were streaming.

  “Bryan said he would take me to the airport.”

  “Okay,” Lei said, keeping her voice soft and sympathetic, though this evidence that Pippa knew Bryan, their strongest suspect, bore close attention. “Have you known each other long?”

  Bryan straightened up defensively. “Since Makoa introduced us. I just want to help out. Pippa’s been through a lot.”

  “Okay. You sure, Pippa? It would be easy for us to take you.” Lei didn’t know why exactly she was reluctant to leave Pippa with the young man. Maybe it didn’t mean anything that they knew each other, that he wanted to take her to the airport.

  But maybe it was important.

  Pippa wiped her eyes. “I don’t want to get in your way. I appreciate Bryan offering.”

  Lei and Kamuela left the couple and got into Kamuela’s truck.

  “Interesting,” said Kamuela.

  “Yeah. Want to hear my favorite theory?”

  “I do.”

  Lei clicked her seat belt into place as they backed out of the crowded driveway. “Here’s what I think happened. Makoa got to Maui and told Shayla right away. She pretended to be okay with it, the way she’s pretended to be okay with it all along. But she called her ex, Tadeo, and he came out to the break where Makoa was surfing and did the deed. Tadeo matches the description of the guy the surfers who rescued Makoa said they saw. I no longer believe anything Shayla says. She denies that it was Tadeo; but she’s the one who provided the description and claims to have seen the guy when the whole story about the van could have been to throw us off, a red herring. That sketch turned out to be so generic it could be half the guys on the North Shore.”