Mystery of the Lei Palaoa Page 5

  It was my turn to make a call. I dialed directory assistance and got the number for the ABC Store down the street from the Book & a Latte. I hoped it was the store where Anny worked. The stores were mini-tourist traps and it sometimes felt like we had an ABC Store on almost every street corner here in Waikīkī. When Anny answered the phone, I hung up immediately. “Let’s go.”

  Cedrick started to speak, but his mother cut him off with another shush. She confiscated his cell phone, his other electronic devices, and planted him at the kitchen table. When he complained, she said, “If you killed that man, Cedrick, this the best you gonna see for a long time. No whining. I don’t want your father hearing all this. He got enough problems.”

  With that, we left the Rinehart’s behind. Chance thought I’d gone off my rocker, but went along based on my hunch that Anny held the key to this puzzle.

  The Honolulu traffic was already heating up, so we arrived at the ABC Store about thirty minutes later. Cars and buses crawled along Kūhiō. Pedestrians crowded the sidewalks, too. A drunk slept in the shade against one side of the store, slumped over like a fallen tree. The usual something-for-everyone conglomeration—tropical apparel, beach equipment, souvenirs, and snacks filled the store.

  Anny stood at the register handing a credit card back to a customer. Her smile lit up the room, but when she saw me, she did a double take and her smile immediately faded.

  She dispatched the customer. The smile returned, but this time, it appeared pasted on. “What can I help you with?”

  “We have questions about Mandy’s relationship with Ricky Coyne,” I said.

  No emotions crossed her face. Was she acting? Was that the game these kids had been playing? Commit murder and see if you could act your way past the truth? I leaned in close. “I’ve had enough of the lies. The truth. Now.”

  Anny’s eyes widened and she put her hand on her chest. She swallowed hard before letting out a soft moan. “I warned her. I warned her so many times.”

  She told one of the other clerks she needed to take her break and we followed her outside. All around us, the traffic belched fumes and noise into the otherwise pristine island air. The drunk still listed to one side. How long would it be before a cop rousted him? Down on the main tourist drag, it would have happened already. Anny seemed not to notice the chaos and began talking immediately.

  “Mandy’s very goal oriented. She’s an awesome artist and wanted her own art show in LA before she was twenty-one. We always had this, like, rivalry. She beat me out for the lead in South Pacific this year. It’s like, our biggest play of the year. She’s always the best at everything she does. I wanted to do better than her…just once.”

  “I’ll bet you hate her,” Chance said.

  “Nooo.” Anny slumped down into herself with a cross between a laugh and a sigh. “She’s my best friend. I love her. I just don’t like her all the time. She can be cold. She was hanging out with Ricky because he said he was a big shot in Hollywood. Mandy was always bragging how he had lots of connections, even in the top LA galleries. She said he was going to introduce her all around. You know, help her get her big break.”

  “And did he?” asked Chance.

  Anny shook her head. “At first, Mandy was like, it’s just casual. But, she started acting weird. You know, she got all serious. Moody.”

  “Moody?” Chance asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “She could be that way. But, I could tell it was different this time.”

  Now there were different shades of moody? “Was that why she was so upset with him in the coffee shop?”

  “He broke up with her that morning. He called her and said she’d been fun, but he was going back to LA. She was, like, totally messed up all day.”

  “So it was because he broke up with her,” I said.

  Anny stared at me. “Are you like, clueless? Mandy’s pregnant and the guy who did it to her was gonna bail.”

  Chance didn’t seem terribly surprised, but…pregnant…holy cow. No, not cow, kitten. “Oh, my God. She almost handed me the answer.”

  “You really are one crazy dude, McKenna,” said Chance. “What are you talking about?”

  No way was I revealing the kitten story. No. Way. In. Hell. I’d completely missed Kimu’s message. The ceremony, the sham of a Hollywood production, and even Mandy innocently handing out drinks as chaos rained around her. And the kitten—nice touch, Kimu.

  “Anny, this is important. Does Cedrick know Mandy is pregnant?”

  “He didn’t know. She didn’t want anyone to find out. I was with her when she did the test. She swore me to secrecy. I think she was planning to get even with Ricky for ruining her life.”

  Ruin? Or end? Was there a difference in Mandy’s mind? “One last thing,” I said. “Does Mandy own any weapons?”

  Anny laughed. “Her dad is like this big collector of ancient Hawaiian stuff. He’s got old knives and some totally gruesome axes.”

  The clerk who had taken over the counter for Anny poked his head out the door. “Boss says break’s over.”

  Anny waved in acknowledgment, then darted back into the store just as a heavyset brunette wearing platform sandals and reeking of coconut oil came out.

  “Mandy’s at the center of this, Chance. I think she killed Ricky with one of her dad’s weapons.”

  “My money is still on Cedrick, McKenna. He has the strength to overcome someone Ricky’s size. Mandy’s not big at all. He could have disarmed her easily.”

  “If he saw her coming.”

  “The wound was in his chest. He had to see her.”

  The drunk hadn’t moved, nor had the cops shown up. I put my fingers on my temples and rubbed. Of course, if Ricky had been unconscious, anyone could have stabbed him. “Unless he couldn’t,” I said. “He could have just been sprawled right there in the planter. Mandy could have walked up and stabbed him.”

  “You’re totally reaching, McKenna. How could that happen?”

  “Cedrick knows.”

  The return trip to the Rinehart home took a half hour. Mrs. Rinehart greeted us at the door, but her face was pale. “Cedrick got something to tell you.”

  She turned away and walked to the kitchen, where Cedrick still sat in the chair where his mother had put him. The tendons in his neck stood out and he blinked rapidly.

  I could smell his fear. “Your mother said you have something to tell us. It’s time for the real story, Cedrick.”

  “What? What do you mean?” He reached up and put his shaking hands behind his neck to stretch, but his mother smacked him on the arm.

  “Sit up straight. Tell him what you told me.”

  He hesitated. Once again, we were going nowhere fast. “Did you meet up with Ricky after the incident at the Book & a Latte?”

  The boy’s eyelids closed, then fluttered. He gulped. “Yes.”

  “Did you hit him?”

  He jumped up, but Mrs. Rinehart grabbed his shirtsleeve before he could do anything. “Sit down!”

  A croak of anguish escaped his lips. His breath fell into a wheezing punctuated by gentle whimpers. Finally, he said, “I didn’t kill him.” He fell back into the chair and buried his face in his hands. A minute later, he straightened up. “Me and Mandy went to find him. I lied before. She wanted me to teach him a lesson for wearing the lei palaoa and for hurting Mr. McTaggert. We caught up to him outside his apartment building. He ran to the other side of the street when he saw me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I chased him, but he was faster. When he got across the street, he pulled a knife out of his pocket. He started walking backwards…taunting me…daring me to come after him. He called me ‘fat boy’—and worse. Then he tripped and fell on the sidewalk. I hauled him up and hit him. Hard. He stumbled back into the planter. Mandy wanted me to—I don’t know, she never really said—but, the guy was unconscious.”

  My breath caught. Another piece of the dream puzzle fell into place. Ricky had been immobilized by the feathered men.
They tossed away his gold necklace. “Did you take the lei palaoa from Ricky?”

  He shook his head. “Mandy grabbed it. She was going to destroy it.” He looked at his mother. “You were right about her, Mom. It was the first time I saw how vicious she could be. It made me sick. She would’ve done it.”

  “Done what?” I asked.

  Cedrick sucked in a breath and wiped his cheek. He shook his head. “I grabbed the lei palaoa from her and ran away. Ricky was out cold in the planter when I left.”

  Chance stepped forward. “Where was the knife?”

  “I dunno. I guess it was on the sidewalk. I never looked back.”

  “Did Mandy stab him?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. McKenna. Maybe.”

  I nodded at Chance. “Now it’s time to call the cops.”

  Through her tears, Mrs. Rinehart agreed. She knew I was right. It was time for her son to become a man and face the consequences of his actions.

  The following day, the police arrested Mandy Spry for the murder of Ricky Coyne. Her parents chose to stand by their daughter, but how could they be anything other than appalled by what she’d done?

  Anny took over Mandy’s job at the Book & a Latte, which helped Chance and I to keep tabs on the case. We returned to the Book & a Latte nearly every day for the next couple of weeks. Everything was my treat and it took us a grand total of eleven days to use up the rest of my gift card.

  At one point, Anny told us the cops had charged Cedrick with assault. She also said Mr. Rinehart suffered a setback after the arrest, but that he was home and recovering.

  On “rent day” the following month, I opened the envelope containing Chance’s check. In it was another Book & a Latte gift card along with a thank you note. Quite honestly, more money to spend at that place was the last thing I wanted.

  That night, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, I said, “Kimu? Please, tell me how to get rid of this damn gift card.”

  THANK YOU FOR READING

  Do you like McKenna? Want to know why he became a crack amateur sleuth?

  Read “Photo Finish,” where McKenna discovers how trouble in paradise would be easier to resist if she didn’t have such great legs.

  PHOTO FINISH

  Chapter 1

  Harris Galvin gave me what the Hawaiians call “chicken skin” the moment I met her. The goosebumps this new girl in paradise brought on were seriously scary. Harris might be drop-dead gorgeous, but she had an aura about her—something as old as the islands themselves. Put the emphasis on the drop-dead part and make that aura what the locals call malu make, which is pronounced mah-loo mah-kay, and roughly translates to “shadow of death,” and you had Harris, an irresistible package that said, “big trouble coming—soon.”

  My name is McKenna. I don’t usually act this way. Spooky music, getting all weird on people—that’s more wacko than me. I’m just—hell—I’m just sitting on my lanai half-drunk and muttering Hawaiian death phrases about a woman I barely know because she and my best friend are missing.

  Death phrases or not, nobody was going to lock me away unless I started ranting down on Waikiki in front of the big hotels. That wasn’t likely since I had no overpowering urge to give up my job managing the Honolulu Sunsetter, a sweet little apartment manager’s deal that gets me free rent and a great view. So no matter how crazy this whole Harris thing made me, I had to plug along. Fact is, I’m a work in progress. Maybe progress isn’t exactly the right word, I’d gone from hotshot bank skip tracer to grumpy landlord faster than you could say, “The rent’s due.”

  Anyway, while the owners of this little moneymaker did their rich-people things, my job entailed judging Harris’s suitability as a tenant, which I’d done. Despite her little black-cloud aura, Harris seemed to have her life together. She’d passed all my usual sophisticated landlord checks like not bitching about the money and not being stoned. She even had twenty-five grand in the bank and called me “Honey.” My other research, a couple of quick database checks, had turned up nothing. So I figured, “What the hell?” When she moved in, I got two months’ rent and a deposit. And a hug that was two inches too close and lasted three seconds too long to be considered just friendly.

  At five-foot six, Harris was lithe and stood just a few inches shorter than me despite my tendency to slouch. Her voice sounded proud as she handed me a letter from National Geographic and said, “I’m a photographer and have a job lined up.”

  Her blue eyes reminded me of the early-morning sea—mine were more like the brown of a Malibu mud slide. She struck me as more Cosmo model than nature photographer, but what did I know?

  My brain must have still been working on that hug when I’d opened my big mouth. “Hmmpf. Didn’t realize that there were any unphotographed parts left on Oahu.”

  “Honey, I’m gonna do it like it’s never been done before. My article’s gonna be called Spectacular Island Waterfall Day Trips. It’ll cover waterfalls throughout the islands. Perspectives nobody’s seen before. The tricky one’s going to be Sacred Falls.”

  “Tricky? More like impossible.”

  “I know, the rock slide in ‘99. Killed eight hikers, yada, yada.”

  “Yada, yada? You can’t get in there. Not legally, anyway.”

  “My employer has a lot of pull. I’ve already talked to State Parks. Got the email approval yesterday. Now that I have an address, the letter should arrive any day.”

  So, yeah, she’d impressed me. Hot. Organized. I might have proposed on the spot if she hadn’t kept jabbering about fame and fortune, her path to the big time. Talk about yada, yada. Sheesh, give it a rest. Given her business plan—act dangerously, get paid handsomely—I probably should’ve gotten three months’ rent. Who in their right mind went off on a damned-fool photo safari in the mountains and expected to get paid for it? Probably somebody who didn’t know you couldn’t make a living that way. Count me out, I’m too smart for that.

  But now, it was 7:08 PM and the sun hung at half mast on the horizon and they hadn’t returned from that photo safari and, damn, I was getting worried. A picture of little Harris parts scattered over the mountainside somewhere on the north end of Oahu flashed in my mind.

  Goose flesh tickled my skin again. I muttered, “Dat wahine, she kine chicken skin.” Kine is what the locals call a placeholder word. Hawaiians use it to mean almost anything. It can mean “a lot,” “a little,” “I don’t know,” “I forgot,” or whatever else the speaker wants it to mean. In this case, it meant that despite her good traits maybe Harris just had really bad karma.

  The Sunsetter apartments border the ocean on Kalakaua Ave. With Diamond Head on the east, Honolulu on the west, and the Pacific smack dab in front. They’re not hard to rent despite the utilitarian white paint and island-standard musty carpets. True, a good carpenter could shoehorn one of these units into the owner’s closet, but with studios and one or two bedrooms to choose from, people who had money and were so inclined could live close to the water. They’re well kept, thanks to yours truly, and this little investment let my bosses go off and sip expensive drinks on about any beach in the world while I sat here and managed their little Honolulu gold mine, a task I performed admirably. I’m definitely a go-getter—after midmorning. And you can’t count my afternoon nap. Or when I might worry about other people’s karma.

  In any case, back to Harris. Talk about energy. And how that girl had oozed confidence. Sheesh.

  “I’ve got the drive. I’ve got the ambition. My photos are better than the others, that’s why I got this gig.”

  “Got your eye on the big prize, huh?”

  “You bet, honey. Just watch me.”

  Well, I could certainly do that. “Maybe you are better, maybe I’m wrong. But there’s a lot of Ansel Adams wannabes out there.”

  “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”

  I remembered thinking that she had a nice chunk of change in the bank, a great apartment, and knew where she wanted to go in life. As long as she paid he
r rent and didn’t get herself killed—ah, hell. If she did, she’d be visiting her kupuna, that’s her ancestors for you mainlanders.

  Under my breath, I whispered, “Don’t let me be right.”

  Deep down I liked this gutsy newcomer. Even without the hugs, her friendliness just made you want to, well, like her. Still, as her landlord, I had to hope she didn’t kick the bucket before I could cash her check. I snickered. Or get a few more of those hugs.

  Black cloud or not, Legs, oops—yeah, that’s how I thought of her, was pretty smart. She’d persuaded me to get her a guide for her little photo safari—not something most people could accomplish, then made me feel good about it by pulling me so close I almost forgot my age. At 62, I’m old enough to be her father, which is a depressing thought that just makes me want to get drunk and listen to Jimmy Buffett all afternoon. Just the same, I’d made a commitment and that meant calling my only friend in the islands, Alexander.

  Alexander’s lived here all his life and he’s like an umbrella drink; lots of Hawaiian, two parts haole, a shot of Chinese and a dash of Japanese. The haole part is pronounced “how-lee” and just means that a couple of the pretty Hawaiian girls who were his grandmothers jumped the racial barrier and married white people, probably sailors from the mainland. A couple of his other kupuna became enamored with Asian members of the opposite sex and so Alexander’s was a very common mix here in the islands. In any case, Alexander knows almost every inch of Oahu, from the mountains to the sea, or mauka to makai, as we say here. He’s got more aunties, uncles, and cousins than I can count, and if you toss in the other people he knows, they could probably fill Aloha Stadium. It was now 7:21 PM and red tinges on the horizon had grown bright and fiery. The ocean was turning pink and gray.

  I took another sip as the last of the sun’s fire dropped below the horizon. This part of the day, the time when the struggle between daytime and night reached its climax, had become my favorite. My ten-by-twelve lanai with its four-seater patio set and chaise lounge gave me an oil-painting view of the sunset.

  An electronic version of Margaritaville began to play on my cell phone, breaking the spell. I checked Caller ID. Shit. Alexander’s wife. Maybe I should switch to tequila. “Hi, Kira.”