Fire Prayer (23 page)

***

Jerry Sanchez wasn't home, and Poele didn't want to leave a message. He thought for a moment, then dialed the police station. Jerry picked up.

“I told you not to call me here,” Jerry whispered.

“Talk normal. You're going to attract attention.”

“Hello, Maui Police Department, Island of Moloka‘i,” Jerry intoned.

“Cut the crap, Jerry. I have one quick question, you answer yes or no.”

“If you weren't my cousin, I wouldn't do this,” Jerry whispered again.

Poele paused. “Not even because I'm a nice guy?”

Jerry made a gagging noise. “Get to the point, Lambert.”

“Now it's going to be two questions.”

“Shit.”

“Have the police identified the weapon that killed Jenny Williams?”

“No.”

“Have they found parts of it in her skull?”

“Yes.” Jerry spoke very quietly and drew the word out.

Poele waited.

“How'd you—”

“It's not shaped like an ordinary tool, is it?”

“That's three. Where'd you get this information?”

“Tell Aunty Bea I'm going to miss dinner Friday night. I gotta get my truck fixed.” Poele hung up.

Chapter Thirty-six

“Ready?” asked Keone, who was watching out the window of the truck.

“Let's roll,” Storm said. “I'm itching to ride.”

A horse nickered in response and Keone grinned. “You get one more stop.”

It was nearly ten when they got to the cut-off past Kamalo, and both Aunt Maile and Uncle Keone remarked what a lovely site the Richards brothers had chosen for their business. A van with the Hawai‘i EcoTours logo painted on the side was parked outside the converted house. Its doors stood open as if someone were busy loading it.

“I won't be long,” Storm promised.

“It's shady, there's a breeze, and we've got the Sunday paper,” Aunt Maile said.

Skelly Richards swiveled his office chair toward the screened front door before Storm had a chance to knock. He was big, over six feet tall, and had the body of an aging linebacker. His mat of dark, curly hair made him loom even larger. Dark glasses perched on top of his head, nestled in the thick hair.

“Finally, the great Storm Kayama,” he said with a sardonic smile.

“Uh oh,” Storm said, and opened the door. She stuck out her hand. “Which greatness am I known for this time? Hope it's my great jokes, not my great forgetfulness or some other mistake.”

Skelly shook her hand and raised an eyebrow. “Tanner speaks highly of you.”

“It's been a while, but he helped me a lot in our high school days.”

“He's a brilliant man.” He pointed at a chair. “Have a seat.”

Storm perched on the edge of the chair. “I always thought so, too.”

“What brings you out this direction? You interested in a tour?” Skelly let his eyes move around her face, but avoided the full body scan his brother had given her. Storm had the feeling he‘d done it, but was slicker than Connor. He'd most likely given her the up and down before she got to the front door.

“I wondered if you knew where Tanner was.”

“It's been a real bad weekend for him. He took my people out Saturday morning, but we made sure we relieved him yesterday afternoon. I presume he's at his cabin.”

“Is Connor with your tourists?”

Skelly's eyes flared. “That's right, you met my brother. Yeah, he's had a rough time, too, but he's coming around.” He dropped the pretense of the smile. “I'm one of those guys who believe in second chances, you know? People screw up, they shouldn't have their lives ruined.” His hands formed fists as he spoke these words.

“We all screw up, don't we?” Storm said, trying to quell what looked like a brewing storm. “Do you know how to get to Tanner's cabin? I'd like to see him, and check on the boy.”

Skelly frowned. “Connor and I helped him get the generator back there, but we swore not to tell anyone.” His dark eyes met Storm's. “Tanner does some special work at his place. He's doing research for a big pharmaceutical company, and he doesn't want anyone going out there, messing with his equipment.”

When Tanner had called her at the office last week, he'd told her he had inquiries from natural supplement manufacturers for his seaweed extracts. Skelly was exaggerating, but probably out of pride for his friend. Storm decided she could be charitable about that point.

“You may know he called me to look after Luke. That's all I'm going to do.”

“Luke should be with him by now. My brother saw him hitchhiking yesterday.”

“But he had a long walk after he reached the bay. Do we know if he made it?”

“Tanner would have radioed if he hadn't. We would have gone in to help.”

“He has a two-way?”

“Sure, we use 'em all the time. You have to be ready to get a visitor out of the wilderness quickly. For example, if an allergic person got a bee sting.”

Or if you wanted to track someone who threatened you or your friends, Storm thought. “I see what you mean.”

Skelly was smart, he planned ahead, and he was not going to reveal how to get to Tanner's cabin. Storm changed tactics. “I'm also looking into the death of Brock Liu for his father.”

“Yeah, I heard the son-of-a-bitch wants to sue me.” Skelly's mouth twisted into a bitter sneer.

“Hey, I'm just doing my job.” Storm held up a hand. “Being straight will help your position.”

“It wasn't an accident, and it didn't happen because of our negligence.” Skelly bit off his words, angry but in control.

Storm kept her voice low and calm. “I agree, but I need to collect information about what did occur. Otherwise, you
could
get blamed. He apparently rented one of your kayaks.”

“He did, and he was supposed to pick it up here. Wanted to check some family land near Kalaeloa Lighthouse.” Skelly put extra emphasis on the words
family land
. “I waited around most of the morning, but he never showed.” He slapped the desk to emphasize his frustration. “That guy's a pain in the ass. Or he was. Sorry if I seem harsh, but it's the truth. Ask anyone.”

“That helps,” Storm said. “I can take that back to the lawyer representing Devon Liu.”

“That's not you?” Skelly flexed his hands and leaned back in his chair.

“No, I told you. I'm not legal counsel for anyone in this case. I'm an independent consultant, I'd guess you'd say.”

“An investigator?”

“Not even that,” said Storm.

“Glad to hear it,” Skelly said, and gave her what looked like the first genuine smile of the interview.

“I've got a couple of questions to satisfy my own curiosity. I've known and admired both Tanner and Dusty since my teens. I wasn't having an easy time of it back then, either, so these guys were important to me.”

Skelly grinned at this news, and Storm took a deep breath. “Did Tanner get worse after the fire?”

Skelly turned his chair to look out the window toward the ocean, and Storm could see the muscles bunching along his jaw line. She poised herself to dash for the door when he exhaled explosively, then dropped his head into his hands. “Yeah,” he said in a muffled voice.

“You have any idea why?” Storm's voice was gentle.

“Those were bad times.” Skelly raised his head and Storm could see that his eyes were red, though there was no evidence of tears, and his face was a mask of control. She waited.

“No one was supposed to get hurt in that fire. We thought Alika was a prick—some of us more than others—but you've got to believe me.” His head turned to her and she was reminded of a bull, docile for the moment but unpredictable.

“What happened?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “It's over. We've all paid, especially Tanner.”

“I'm not blaming.” Storm leaned toward him. “But I don't think it's over. Do you?”

“You mean Tanner's mental health?”

“That's one way. How about Connor?”

“My brother is a fuckup, but he's a follower. And he's finally getting his act together.” His eyes flashed a warning.

“I'm glad to hear it,” Storm said. “You happen to know if he passed my message to call along to Tanner? I asked him when I dropped by yesterday.”

Skelly's shoulders dropped a notch. “How 'bout I radio him later?”

“That's okay. He may have told him. I heard Tanner has a hard time calling people.”

“That's true.” Skelly looked at his knuckles, and Storm noticed for the first time that some of them were swollen, and the back of his right hand had a long scratch. He looked up at Storm and held her gaze. “Some of us have had our problems, like I said. It's better if the outside world lets us work them out.”

“The world's a small place these days.”

“In case you haven't noticed, since you're from Honolulu, it's different here.” A tiny muscle twitched under his left eye, though his face was impassive. “A few of us have been dogged by suspicion, even here, for ten years. Every now and then someone has the courage to ask a question about the past, but usually not. And that's worse, because they don't meet my eye, and then they talk behind my back.” He clenched his fists. “And I'm not alone.”

“I'm sorry.” She didn't have to remind him that when she said it wasn't over, that's what she meant. Others lived with it, too, and at what cost? It was time for her to go.

“Hey, thanks for your time.” She held out her hand. “Good luck.”

Skelly took her hand briefly and let it drop. Storm could feel his eyes on her as she left. The screen door made a sighing noise when its springs eased it closed.

Skelly sat without moving until the truck and horse trailer made its careful U-turn in his wide lot and turned onto the highway. Then he picked up the phone and hit speed-dial.

“She's leaving here now.” He listened to the reply.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Storm was quiet on the drive to Halawa Bay. She could tell that Aunt Maile and Uncle Keone noticed her reticence, but she didn't want to explain her thoughts right then, and they apparently understood. Though her eyes flicked past the pristine, aquamarine shoreline, she didn't see the white sand beaches and black lava rock, often next to each other in extraordinary contrast. At any other time, she'd have been fascinated at another chance to examine the calm, clear, manmade coves of igneous rock, fishponds in the ancient Hawaiian tradition. Moloka‘i was the only place where large fishponds, constructed as they were a thousand years ago, dotted twenty-some miles of prime coastal real estate. On most of the world's inhabited islands, oceanfront land was too expensive to lie open and unencumbered. This was what Moloka‘i people wanted so desperately to preserve, Storm thought. These open expanses of fine white sand and sparkling reef, uneroded by private sea walls, and accessible to whoever ambled along to relax, hunt shells, or cast a fishing line. No one would think to come up and say, “Move along, you can't do this. It's private property.” This was what Poele and his friends fought for.

An hour passed before Aunt Maile said, “Maybe it would help to think out loud.”

“I'm spinning my wheels.”

“It has to do with the fire sorcerer?” Uncle Keone asked.

“Maybe.” Storm frowned. “It all goes back to the fire, whether it was started by a sorcerer or not.”

“If you knew who started it, would you know who killed Brock Liu and Jenny Williams?” he asked. “And is it the same person?”

“It would help. From the information Hamlin got from the ME, their deaths appear to have been caused by the same weapon. And I think it's Poele's sculpture.” She thought for a moment. “But I don't know if the killer is the same person who started the fire.”

“The sculpture was in Poele's hands, right?” Uncle Keone asked.

“Not necessarily.” Storm explained how Skelly and Connor had possession of the sculpture, too.

“Maybe it broke when he clobbered Brock Liu,” Uncle Keone said. “Then he gave it to the Richards brothers for an alibi.”

“Then why did one of the Richards brothers, or both of them, for that matter, kill Jenny Williams?” Storm said, though as she said the words, she recalled the letter Jenny mailed to Alyssa Bennet. She told her aunt and uncle about it, which plunged the trio into minutes of quiet thought.

Aunt Maile broke the silence. “It could be any of the three.”

“If Poele killed Liu, would he use a gift from his lover? Which could be easily traced to him? The guy sits alone up there and reads. He's not stupid,” Storm said.

“Let's go back to whoever started the fire,” Aunt Maile said.

“The fire sorcerer connection is tempting, but it points to Makani, and of all the people I've talked to, he's been the most cooperative,” Storm said. “Not so much about the fire itself, but about the people involved and their relationships to each other. For example, he told me Tanner had his breakdown after the fire. And that fits with when Jenny quit doing her sculpture and got a job at the hospital. This made her angry and bitter.”

“You think Tanner killed Jenny?” Uncle Keone asked.

“I don't want to, but it's a possibility.”

Aunt Maile said, “That makes four possibilities. Five, if you think Makani started the fire.”

Storm chewed a hangnail on her thumb. “It bothers me that Skelly seems closer to Tanner than his own brother.”

“You get that impression from Makani or from the visit you just made to Skelly?” Keone asked.

“They're childhood friends, aren't they? Connor's a couple years younger,” Aunt Maile added.

“Both,” Storm said in response to Keone's question, then included Aunt Maile's comment in her next thought. “I think Skelly gave Connor his black eye. Plus, Makani and Poele both alluded to Skelly's and Connor's estrangement.” She reflected a moment. “But something is eating Poele. He had a relationship with Jenny, and though he's a bit of a flirt, I think he truly cared about her.” She related his distress over the broken sculpture.

“Maybe that's from guilt, not sadness. Can you tell the difference?” Uncle Keone asked.

“Good question.” Storm shook her head. “I've just come full circle, haven't I?”

They rode along in silence for a while, then Storm spoke again. “Makani made me think that no one really knows who lit the fire.”

“And what about Dusty's daughter?” Aunt Maile contemplated out loud. “Is her disappearance tied to the fire?”

“I think it is,” Storm said.

“That devastated him,” Uncle Keone added.

“So did the fact that she was having Alika Liu's baby.”

“Really?” Keone asked.

“Really what?” Aunt Maile asked. “The fact that she was pregnant or that it was Alika's?”

Keone chewed on the side of his cheek. “He never told me it was Alika's.”

“I hope he didn't take it out on Tia,” Aunt Maile said. “She didn't do anything he hadn't done a couple hundred times.”

“Yeah, well. Women pay a higher price.” Uncle Keone's eyes flicked sideways to see if his wife might hit the roof of the cab.

She glowered. “Makes me spit fire, though it's true.”

“Watch out.” Storm's hand shot up to point out a blind curve, where a large white van was rounding the corner. The road had been growing progressively narrower over the last few miles, and there wasn't room for the two large vehicles to pass each other. The driver of the white van waved and pulled off onto the shoulder.

As they pulled abreast, Uncle Keone had to creep onto the shoulder himself just to keep the side-view mirrors from scraping. He gripped the steering wheel in his effort to hold the vehicle steady while he judged the inch of space between the trucks.

Storm peered over at the driver of the van. “Thanks, Connor,” she shouted. “Wait a sec.”

Uncle Keone pulled ahead a few feet and looked with surprise at his niece. “Another stop?”

“If you don't mind,” Storm said, and opened the passenger door, nearly banging it against a boulder. She crab-walked part of the way and climbed over several rocks to get to the back of the trailer, where the van had stopped.

Connor had his door open, and was talking to the people inside, who looked out curiously. “Hi, Storm.”

One of the kids in the back seat levered his window open. “We're making him go slow so he doesn't hit another rock.”

Storm caught the flush that rose from Connor's neck. His black eye was less swollen, but also more green and purple than it had been yesterday. The split lip wasn't nearly as noticeable.

“That how you got that shiner?” she asked Connor, but she could tell from his brief and wordless nod he knew that she knew how he got it.

“You going riding?” he asked.

“We thought we'd go to Halawa Stream and back in the valley a ways. How you doing? Did you see Tanner?”

“Sure, I took over from him yesterday afternoon. We had a great time.” With that, he looked toward the van, as if for confirmation. The people all looked satisfied. And curious.

Storm took a step toward the front of the van, where they'd have a bit more privacy. His eyes looked more alert and his skin was clearer. A good sign he was weaning himself off the steroids.

“You know if Luke got there?” Storm asked.

“No, but Tanner left in a hurry. He was worried.”

“Connor, how do we get to the cabin?”

“I don't know. I've only been there once, and I'm not that good at directions.” He shoved a rock around with the toe of his shoe.

“I'm not going to bother Tanner. I just want to see if he and Luke need help. Luke could be really sick.”

“He cut his hand badly, too. There was a lot of blood.” Connor let the air hiss through his teeth as he seemed to reach a decision, then he heaved a sigh. “From the bay, there's one path leading into the valley. A couple of miles in, you'll get to a fork. Go right. The path is going to get narrower, until it's just a game trail. Hunters use it—and Tanner, but he makes sure it stays overgrown.” He met her eyes. “It's going to be tough going at that point on horseback. You may have to tie them up and go on foot.” He kicked the rock hard. “Storm, you can't tell anyone I told you this. Not ever.”

“I won't,” Storm said. “I promise.”

Connor's eyes bored into hers. “Try to keep in mind where the ocean is and head east. There are tiny little notches cut in some of the tree trunks, but you've got to be looking for them.”

“You're not bad with directions, are you?”

“No.”

“Hey, Connor?”

He looked at her with sad eyes, full of doubt.

“Whose idea was it for those guys to all get tattoos?”

“My brother's.” Connor's voice was so low she could barely hear him.

“You don't have one, do you?”

“No,” he said, and turned away. He got back in the van without looking at her, but his hand rose in the open window as he drove off. The tourists waved with more enthusiasm.