Big Island Blues

by Terry Ambrose

  Alexander bit his upper lip as he watched his sister. My heart broke for these two lost children trying to find their way back to each other with neither knowing how to take the first step on the journey. I smacked Alexander’s arm. “Go, you big oaf. And don’t blow it or I’ll—I’ll—tell Kimu to haunt you for the rest of your life.”

  They both stared at me for a moment. Alexander said, “He already got a project—you.”

  “If you two don’t work this out, he may decide you’re worse off than me. Now talk!”

  Benni had a smile, faint though it was, on her lips. “You know, McKenna, you are one crazy haole. Okay, Snoopy, I’m listening.”

  The breeze filtering through the open slider brought welcome relief from the heat building in the apartment. They had to work this out—they had to. I couldn’t bear the idea of us all being losers.

  Alexander sat on the couch next to Benni. “Sis, I should’a been here a long time ago. Dad was wrong the way he treated you. So was I. All these years—you didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”

  Benni’s eyes glistened, but she was watching a plant in the corner, not Alexander—and that concerned me. I said, “He’s trying to tell you how much he regrets not being more supportive.”

  “Shut up, McKenna,” said Benni, half laughing. “He’s doing fine. Go on, Snoopy.”

  Leaning forward, Alexander said, “McKenna’s right, I got a lotta regrets. Mostly, I regret not being there for my sis when she needed me most.” He gazed at her. “I don’t blame you fo’ hating me, but I wanna try making it up to you.”

  She slipped to her knees in front of Alexander and threw her arms around him. A moment later, she pulled back so she could kneel before him and clasp his hands in hers. “Oh, Snoopy, I don’t hate you.” Tears flowed down her cheeks; admiration shone in her eyes. “I always felt you did so much better than me. I’m ashamed of the way I’ve treated you since you got here. I think I always resented that you were able to stay. You were the one who took care of Mom and Dad. I could never measure up to how good you were—so I ran. Even now, with Andi, I don’t think you’d have driven her away like I have. I don’t hate you, you’re my hero.”

  Alexander gaped at her, the waterworks trickling away. Even I felt the tug on the old heartstrings. The jazz playing in the background was definitely the wrong genre. We needed that magic movie moment song that would take us from weepy to crying out in joy that the long-separated brother and sister were reunited. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time for that sentimental crap. We needed to get back to finding Andi. “I hate to break up this tender moment you two, but Andi is still missing. Does she have a boyfriend?”

  “Pfft.” Benni waved a hand in front of her face. “No way.”

  “Before we got here, Alexander told me he’ll protect you at any cost.”

  Alexander raised his right hand. “I won’t sacrifice Andi to save you, but I swear I won’t expose you to danger either. Your secrets are safe with me.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  After a moment’s thought, Benni said, “I would never let something happen to Andi, no matter what the cost to me. I just never thought that night was part of this. Maybe it is.”

  What night, I thought? The night of the murder Burroughs talked about?

  Benni took a deep breath. “You already know why I left Oahu.”

  “Some haole. I never got his name,” Alexander said.

  “Shaw Hardy.”

  “I knew it!” They both shot me a glance that made me feel stupid for not containing myself. “Go on.” I’d been right; Sam had been telling the truth.

  “He was the love of my life,” said Benni. “Maybe the best guitar player I’ve ever heard. At least, that’s what I thought. Mom and Dad kept us so insulated from the world that it only took one man to sweep me off my feet.”

  Alexander glanced at me. “They was much mo’ strict with Benni than us boys. What kinda name is Shaw?”

  “It’s a nickname,” Benni said. “His mother was half Portuguese and he was named after his grandfather, who was a sailor—a vicious man, from what Shaw said. Anyway, we met, fell in love, and wanted to get away from both of the families. He knew a couple of people here, so that’s why we moved.”

  The words had been flowing out of Benni with as much urgency as she’d shown resistance since we’d arrived, but all of a sudden she stopped and thought for a moment. “That’s how I wound up here. The night you’re asking about I was working at a bar that closed down ten years ago.”

  “Wait.” I held up my hand. “How long were you with this Shaw?”

  “A few months.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t long before we both realized it was the escape we’d wanted more than anything. We split up, but it was too late to go back.”

  In the back of my mind, a little calculator was running. It was trying to factor in dates, places, and people. Add in Benni’s momentary pause and I could only conclude Benni had left out part of the story—again. “I keep getting my dates screwed up. When did you move here? What year?”

  “It was ’89. Why?”

  “Sis, you got that wrong. You left Oahu in August 1990. I know ‘cause that was two months after you turned eighteen.”

  Benni waved off Alexander. “I guess. This whole thing’s got me so stressed. Anyway, if you talked to Sam, he probably told you about the supposed murder.”

  My mental calculator might be on overload, but in a few days, it would be June 2013. Andi was twenty-two. She’d been born on July 7 according to her Facebook profile. Simple math put the year of her birth as 1991. What I didn’t get was why Alexander was so clueless about his sister forgetting the date she ran off with her first love—or the date her only child was born. The chances of her forgetting either of those dates were somewhere in the range of zero to nonexistent. “Benni,” I said, “I don’t mean to get too personal, but were you cheating on Shaw?”

  “No! What the hell are you implying, McKenna?”

  Alexander gave me a black look. “You bettah apologize right now.”

  Good job, moron, you just alienated your best friend, his sister, and once the Coconut Wireless gets hold of this, probably half of Oahu. Once word got around, Alexander’s relatives would vote me off the island. I swallowed hard. “I apologize for the insult, but there’s something wrong here. What is it you know that you’re not telling your brother? You were so pissed at Warren for lying to you. Why would you do the same to your brother? Given what Alexander is willing to do for you, I think you owe him the whole truth. If you want me to leave, I will.”

  Benni stared at me for a moment, then blinked several times. She seemed to be trying to regain her composure, but wasn’t making a lot of progress. I expected to see hatred, but there was a different emotion I couldn’t identify. Now I was the one who was clueless. “Damn,” she said, “I need a drink.”

  “It’s only four,” Alexander said.

  There was no response from Benni as she walked to her pantry. She opened the door, pulled out a bottle of tequila, and shook her head as she gazed at Alexander. “Snoopy, I love you dearly, but you don’t know me at all.” She held up the bottle. “McKenna, you want some? Brand new bottle, just got it last week. Before all this.”

  “Is Alexander joining us?”

  I glanced at my friend for an answer, but Benni spoke for him. “Yes.”

  “I don’t drink much,” Alexander protested.

  “Even better,” said Benni. “Yours is mandatory. You’re going to want this, believe me. This is the blue agave kind. McKenna, you okay with that?”

  I knew I liked this woman for a reason, she even picked good booze. I smiled. “Count me in.”

  Benni pulled a half lime from the refrigerator along with a shaker of salt. “Snoopy, you ever done this before?”

  He shook his head, his eyes giving away his innocence. Benni poured three shots into glasses. “Lick your hand. Like this.” When he started to protest, she said, “Shush. Just do it.” Benni and I both demonst
rated. This time, he did as he was told.

  Benni and I each put a pinch of salt on the wet spot. Alexander did the same.

  “Lick it off,” she instructed.

  I tried not to fixate on Benni’s tongue as it flicked over the webbing between her thumb and index finger, but damn that was erotic. “Gimme that.” I grabbed a glass and chugged, then bit on my slice of lime. My eyeballs felt like they might explode.

  Benni winked at me, then did the same. When Alexander raised his glass, Benni barked, “All at once.”

  Alexander sheepishly licked off the salt and gulped down the golden liquid. The boy turned the brightest shade of red I’d ever seen.

  Benni was breathing hard. She stood straight and looked Alexander in the eye. She said, “Warren is not Andi’s real father.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I’m not exactly sure which it was, the tequila or Benni’s revelation, but my head was spinning. “Say what?”

  Alexander blinked a few times. Perhaps he was still reeling from the sudden infusion of alcohol because when he opened his mouth, only a faint rasp came out.

  “Andi’s real dad is Shaw Hardy. He sent a letter a few months ago, and I sent one back telling him to butt out of our lives. Over the weekend, he called twice. Andi wasn’t around on Saturday because she was volunteering at the veteran’s homeless shelter. Since she wasn’t around, I felt like I didn’t have to hold back. I gave him hell for abandoning us. I told him never to call here again, but I guess he called back on Sunday when I was out. I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him in twenty-two years and all I’ve got is a PO Box in Waimea.”

  “What about a phone number? Didn’t it show on Caller ID?”

  “I tried it. All I got was a stupid message that the caller wasn’t available. I couldn’t even leave a voicemail.”

  “It might have been a burner cell,” I said. “Go on.”

  She took a deep breath. “Twenty-two years ago I was attacked during a robbery. One of the robbers was shot during the attack and died. It was Shaw who fired the gun. Because he took the gun and ran, the cops always wondered if he committed murder. Any questions?” She returned to her chair and fell back into it, her face still flushed, her chest rising and falling as though she’d been holding her breath for the past twenty years. Perhaps she had.

  Alexander stammered, “But, that picture in the paper. You was with Sam and some other guy. Was that . . .”

  Benni continued without waiting for her brother to finish. “It was taken at the Sunset right after Shaw and I started singing there. It was a crappy gig, but I’d never had so much fun in my life. I sent a copy of the newspaper article they did about us to Grandma Alice. She must have shown it to you.”

  “She did. Told me I couldn’t tell no one. But she wanted me to be proud of my big sistah.”

  “I was singing and waiting tables,” said Benni. “Not much to be proud of, but Grandma Alice was. On the nights when he wasn’t singing, Shaw came in to see me. We were there almost every night and that night it was like he wanted to tell me something, but he never did. Anyway, Sam was tending bar. When we closed, Sam and I walked the cash down the block to the bank’s night drop. It was only a few doors down, so it seemed safe. We were almost there when two men came at us. Sam tried to resist, but one had a gun and shot Sam in the leg. The other grabbed the cash. I don’t remember much after the big one backhanded me with the gun. He shoved me to the ground, called me all sorts of names. Awful names. I thought he was going to kill me for sure. That must be when Shaw came to my rescue.”

  “How?” Was Shaw a hero or a villain? Either way, I wanted to know more.

  “He killed the man who was attacking me.” Benni absently stroked her jaw. “It took a long time for the bruises to go away. I was happy when the bar closed. I was tired of being reminded of that night. Funny how a few seconds can last a lifetime.”

  “Sis, that guy was shot. You didn’t have no gun.”

  “I’m telling you, I don’t remember what happened.”

  I caught the sudden subconscious emphasis on one word in her response. “You may not remember, but you know, don’t you?”

  She clutched her arms to her chest as the painful memory surfaced. “All I know for sure is that Shaw pulled the guy off me. After that, there were flashes and smoke and this gun went off over and over. They say Shaw shot him six times in the chest.”

  “Shaw was carrying a weapon?” I asked.

  “No! I mean, I’m not sure. They think he broke the guy’s arm, then picked up the gun. That’s what he used. I’ve never talked about this to anyone, Snoopy. I owe Shaw my life. If he hadn’t been there, I’m convinced that man would have killed me.”

  “You still don’t know where Shaw is?” I asked.

  “Hiding. Somewhere on island. There’s one other thing, Warren told me later he saw what happened. He said it was murder. That could be why Shaw doesn’t want to be found.”

  I held up a hand to stop Benni. Alexander’s mind was definitely in the red zone. I wasn’t far behind. “So, Crazy Warren, your ex, claims to have seen Andi’s real father murder a man who was attacking you? How could he make that kind of claim? Why?”

  “Because he saw the robbery. He saw it all.”

  “Are you sure?” It was one of those questions that sounded logical in my head, but when I heard the words out loud, I felt like an idiot. I wasn’t the only one having trouble processing the news. Alexander’s face had gone from the red I’d seen earlier to crimson plus bulging blue veins. It wouldn’t surprise me if he popped a blood vessel.

  “The short answer is no,” Benni said. “I’m not positive he saw anything. But, that’s what he told me when he proposed. He said he’d seen the robbery and the murder. He had enough details to sound as if he really was there. He said if it was murder, I might be charged as an accessory.”

  “That’s bullshit!” I blurted.

  “He didn’t come to help you?” Alexander stormed across the room. “I gonna kill him!”

  Benni went to Alexander and took his arm. “It was a long time ago. It took me years to realize how stupid his threats were.” Her soft voice seemed to calm Alexander and a minute later, he returned to the couch.

  “He told you this at the time and you still married him?” I asked.

  “I was pregnant and afraid.”

  “You were young and naive and on your own,” I countered. “And he took advantage of you. Bastard.”

  “I didn’t think another man would want anything to do with me.” Benni dropped her gaze to the floor. “At the time, Warren wanted to marry me and that’s all that mattered. I’d have a home for Andi. I never loved him, though I did trust him for far too long.”

  My interactions with Warren so far had made me think of him as nothing more than a lunatic. Was he a coward and a liar as well? “Why’d you two get divorced?”

  “He took us all to dinner on Andi’s sixteenth birthday and hit us with the news he was leaving. Andi was devastated; I was furious.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I laid into him, of course!” She paused. “Just like I did when Andi was six and he gave her that stupid amulet and told her it had magic powers.”

  I recalled the amulet Warren had worn around his neck at The Roasted Bean. Apparently, he believed in all that woo woo stuff—magic, conspiracies, curses—but right now, I didn’t care about Warren. “Kids do like to believe in that stuff.”

  Benni waved away my comment. Her voice was matter-of-fact as she continued, it was like she’d had this same conversation with herself a hundred times and no longer cared. “He told me he was leaving because he couldn’t live with the constant reminder of him being less than a man. I thought he was talking about our sex life.”

  Talk about being sorry you’d asked a question. I wanted to have this discussion as much as I wanted to have my next colonoscopy.

  “Relax, McKenna. You, too, Snoopy. That part of our lives was nonexistent. There are no de
tails for you two schoolboys to get squeamish about. Anyway, he confessed that he married me to ease his conscience over not doing anything during the robbery. Warren’s cowardice has been eating at him since before Andi was born. I guess he finally cracked.”

  One of the consistent things about my friend Alexander is that he has a long fuse. My big worry now was that he’d reached the end of his tolerance for Warren and would want to make him feel the same level of pain Benni had felt for all these years. “We can’t go there,” I said.

  “Where?” asked Benni.

  “To see Warren.” Alexander’s voice was flat. “Why not?”

  “If his guilt has been eating at him for twenty-two years, a sudden intervention won’t turn him around. We’ll only make things worse. To find Andi, we need to follow up on Donny’s lead.”

  To my surprise, Alexander got it right off the bat. “You wanna go see this Boston Pete?”

  Damn right I did. I asked Benni, “Did you know Andi had a meeting with the band after she disappeared?”

  “No.” Her voice broke. “All I know is she’s trying to find him—her dad. And Warren said it’s dangerous. I don’t want to believe him, but what if he’s right for a change?”

  Why would it be dangerous for Andi to find her father? The curse? I was beginning to hate Warren and his paranoia.

  “Where do we find these guys?” I asked.

  Benni shook her head. “I have no idea. They’re probably all out partying. When they don’t have practice, they’ve all got separate gigs and parties to go to. I haven’t kept in touch, so I have no idea how to find them.”

  “Let me try her computer,” I said.

  Benni volunteered to start dinner while I checked out Andi’s contacts. Alexander and I went to Andi’s room, but the laptop wasn’t where it had been before. “Odd,” I said. “Nothing else is different. Benni must have moved the laptop when she was dusting. Would you go ask her where she put it?”