Lana'i of the Tiger (The Islands of Aloha Mystery Series) (16 page)

“Will you be joining me for
tai
chi
this morning?” Auntie Cora sang out as she shuffled into the kitchen to
put on the tea kettle. I gave her a quizzical look before I remembered it was
Friday, a
tai chi
in the park day. But more importantly, Darryl and Ewa
were coming home that morning.

“
Mahalo
, auntie, but I
better lay low. I’ve got some things I need to do before the rest of the world
starts moving around.”

“You think al Qaeda sleeps in?”
she said.

“No, I’m sure they don’t. But I
need to get up to the Lodge before the tourists start waking up.”

“What do you need up at the
Lodge? You think terrorists can afford a place like that?

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just need
to go up there and see if anything jumps out at me.”

“Ha! Seems
everything
jumps
out at you, girl. You be careful, we don’t want no more dead bodies on our
island.” She smiled, but when I didn’t smile back, she traded it for a look of
concern.

She put a hand on my shoulder.
“If you want to stay safe,” she said, “I know how to make you invisible.”

“Like a magic trick?” I smiled,
thinking she was joking.

“Something like that. Come with
me.” She led me into her bathroom and told me to sit on the closed toilet seat.
Then she rummaged around in the cabinet and pulled out a tall white can. She
twisted the lid of the can and began sprinkling powder from the can onto my
hair.

“That smells good,” I said.
“What is that?”

“Baby powder,” Auntie Cora said.
“Now sit still, I’m almost finished.”

She fluffed the powder through
my hair and then pulled my hair back into a short ponytail at the nape of my
neck. She secured it with a rubber band and wound the tail into a tiny bun.

“Almost done,” she said
sprinkling a bit more powder on top. “Stay right there for one more minute.”

She came back carrying a flat
straw hat with a three-inch brim and artificial flowers circling the crown. A
long pastel-print scarf was draped across her arm.

“You want to see?” she said. She
held up a hand mirror and I couldn’t believe it.

“I look like a
tutu
,” I
said, admiring my slicked-back hair that looked almost gray from the powder.

I sat back down and she fitted
the hat snug on my head and wrapped the scarf around my neck and tied it in a loose
bow.

“Now,” she said. “You need to
walk like this.” She demonstrated a stooped posture and a slow side-to-side
gait. “You do that and you’ll see what it’s like to be invisible.”

By seven o’clock that morning, I’d
hobbled up to the Hotel Lana’i and was waiting for the shuttle bus. I kept my
head down. Darryl and Ewa were due home on the eight-thirty flight which meant
they’d be back by nine. I needed to get up and back from the Lodge as quickly
as possible.

The shuttle ride was uneventful.
Cora was right. With women of a certain age, no one takes notice, and no one
tries to engage them in conversation. We pulled to a stop at the entrance to
the Lodge at Koele and I waited onboard while the other riders got off.

I was wearing the same clothes
I’d had on the day before. But with the addition of Auntie Cora’s hat and scarf
and an old pair of her black Chinese cloth shoes I was pretty sure I looked
nothing like the BOLO—the be-on-the-look-out—description Wong would have issued
with the police department.

I tottered into the enormous lobby
of the Lodge and turned and headed down the hall to the housekeeping office. I
slipped off the hat and scarf and stood up straight before knocking on the
door.

“
Aloha
, come in,” sang a
familiar voice on the other side.

Kate was sitting behind her
desk. Everything looked exactly as it had when I’d been there before. Same worn
guest chair, same employment posters on the wall and the same messy pile of
manila file folders strewn across her desk.

She stood. “Can I help you?” She
peered at me and lines formed across her forehead.

“Oh,
aloha
! You’re Penny
Morton, isn’t that right? I didn’t recognize you. You look, uh,
different
.”
She extended her hand for a shake.

It’d been two weeks since I’d
interviewed with Kate, so I wasn’t sure if she’d remember me. I didn’t know if
I should be pleased or concerned that my slicked-back powdered hair had only
caused her a momentary pause. 

I shook her hand. “
Aloha
,
Kate. It’s good to see you again. Yes, I’m having a ‘bad hair day’ so I pulled it
back.”  

“Please sit down.” She gestured
for me to sit in the guest chair as she sat back down behind her desk.

“Do you have your fingerprint
card for me?” she said. “Because I can put you on the schedule today if you’d
like. We’re really short-handed right now. I’m pretty sure I could get them to
grant you that twenty-five cent raise right away.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t bring the
card with me.”

Her face fell. I winced. I hated
manipulating people’s emotions like that. I tried for a partial save. “But I’ll
see what I can do about getting it back to you soon.”

“Well, the sooner the better. I’ve
lost three housekeepers this past week. Just like that—” She snapped her
fingers. “You’ve probably heard we had some trouble up here…” She steepled her
hands in front of her mouth. She looked like she was praying I’d tell her I’d heard
all about it. I’m sure the last thing Kate wanted to do was utter the word
‘murder’ within the four walls of a Four Seasons hotel. The corporate-types had
probably already sent out a stern ‘hear no evil, speak no evil’ memo.

“Yes, I did. I was sorry to hear
about it.”

I avoided eye contact while I
fished around in my mind for a polite way to begin the interrogation.

“In fact, I’m here because I
wanted to ask you a few questions if you’re at liberty to talk,” I said. “I
know it may appear I’m only trying to dig up gossip, but the man who’s been accused
of this is a friend of mine.”

She placed her elbows on the desk
and dropped her head in her hands. She kept her eyes down and said nothing. If
I were a betting woman, I would’ve bet she might start crying at any moment.

“It was horrible,” she said in a
whispery voice. “It completely traumatized two of my girls. They haven’t been
back to work since. Can you imagine seeing something like that?”

I kept quiet. After a few
moments, Kate went on. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I have no one else
to talk to. And it looks like I’ll be losing my job anyway.”

“I’m sure it was terrible, but
why would you lose your job?” I said. “You didn’t have anything to do with it,
did you?”

“No, of course not.” She snapped
her head up and looked at me as if she was about to ask me to get the hell out
of her office.

I stared down at the
tutu
hat in my lap. And waited.

Once again, Kate’s voice came
out as a whisper. “Oh, Penny. I can’t even pretend to know how gruesome it must
have been. Those poor girls coming in on that situation.”

“They saw the victim?” I was
whispering now too.

“Yes, it must have been right
after it happened.”

“Did they see who did it?” My heartbeat
was thumping in my ears. So the housekeepers must’ve been the ones who pulled
the fire alarm. Did the police know this? But I kept quiet.

“I talked briefly to my lead
girl, Stella, on Wednesday and she told me she went in to do the turn-down
service for Miss Diamonte,” she said. “There were two housekeepers assigned to
the room because Stella was training a new girl. Miss Diamonte didn’t answer
when they knocked, but when guests are out we’ve instructed the girls to just
go ahead and enter. They tidied up a little and then when they went into the
bedroom they saw the victim. The other girl told Stella she may have seen a man,
but I’m not sure she was thinking straight. Neither of them has reported for
work since it happened.”

I nodded.

“Normally, I wouldn’t excuse
employees who fail to show up for their assigned shifts, but in this case… It’s
just horrible, don’t you think?”

Again, I nodded. “Did they talk
to the police?”

She pressed her lips into a
tight line and locked eyes on mine.

“Kate? What’s wrong?”

“Penny, one of the reasons I need
you to start work here as soon as possible is I’m expecting some trouble from
this.”

“I’m not following you.”

 “The girls who witnessed the
scene were sort of ‘shadow’ employees, if you understand what I’m saying. Stella’s
worked here for years. She’s well-known in the community, so no one ever questioned
her status. But the other girl is new. No one knows her and her English is
non-existent. And she’s the one who claimed she may have seen a man.”

“Okay, let me see if I’ve got
this straight. The police want to know who found the victims, but you don’t
want to tell them because the housekeepers are illegal immigrants and they’ll
get deported?”

“Or even put in jail. That’s why
they pulled the fire alarm instead of reporting it to our security staff.”

“But how will all this get
you
fired?”

“The Four Seasons Corporation is
more aware of how hotels work than the police are. One of the first things
they’ll ask me is who was working the floor that night. And if I refuse to tell
them…well, that will be that. The Four Seasons security executives are on their
way over here right now.”

It took me a minute to mull over
what I’d just learned. “Tell you what, Kate. I have a crazy idea, but it just
might work. I need to leave because I promised I’d meet some people who are
coming in from Honolulu. But I’ll explain more when I get back. Until then, I’d
like a chance to meet with Stella. Do you think she’ll talk to us?”

“She’s really scared. And she’s
trying to protect the other girl as well.”

“I realize that. But if my idea
works out, everybody could be off the hook.”

“The Four Seasons executives are
coming from the mainland so it will take them a few hours to get here. Whatever
you’re thinking of doing will have to be done pretty fast.”

“I know. I’ll try to be back in
an hour and I’ll explain everything. In the meantime, can you arrange for us to
meet with Stella?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” She didn’t
sound too hopeful that whatever I’d dreamed up was going to save the day. I got
up and we shook hands.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” I
said.

Out in the hall I put on the
tutu
hat and the scarf. I trotted down the hallway, but as soon as someone came into
view I stooped over and went back to my gimpy walk.

The bellman at the lobby door
told me the shuttle had just left for town. That meant it wouldn’t be back for
at least another thirty minutes. I started down the entrance road, using my
tutu
walk until I was safely out of sight. Then I started jogging.

I cut across Dole Park and, even
though I had to resort to the old lady posture when I was on the main road, I
made it back to the White Orchid in twenty minutes. I went in through the back
gate and peered around the greenhouse to see if Wong’s car was out front. It
wasn’t.

I used my key to go through the
back door and stood in the hallway listening for sounds of Darryl, Ewa or baby
Ekana. Nothing.

I let out the breath I’d been
holding for who knows how long. I stripped off the hat and scarf and went up front
to check for phone messages. There were five. Two were from prospective guests
and three were from Detective Wong. I erased the ones from Wong.

I grabbed a dust rag and ran it
around the window sills and the coffee table, but I was in no mood to clean. I
was itching to talk to the two housekeepers from the Lodge. What had they seen,
and when? Was it actually possible that one of them had seen a man in the room?
And what would I do if they described the guy as ‘about thirty-five, tall,
good-looking and African-American’?

I paced while I fretted.
Luckily, ten minutes later a dirty beige minivan with a blown-out muffler
pulled up outside. I peeked out the window just as everyone started piling out
of the van. Darryl and Ewa had masses of leis draped around their shoulders. Darryl
gave the male driver a ‘man-hug’ while Ewa and two other women attempted to
wrestle a baby carrier from the back. Darryl stepped in and finished the job.
He carefully placed the carrier on the sidewalk and went back to saying his
alohas
.
Ewa walked from person to person, hugging and kissing them like she’d just been
sprung from a long prison sentence. I’d have enjoyed watching the tender
homecoming scene a lot more if I wasn’t sweating Wong showing up with hand-cuffs
and a one-way ticket to the mainland.

I sucked in a breath, plastered
a smile on my face and opened the door. “Ewa, Darryl! Let me see the little
dude.”

“Penny? Is that you?” said Ewa
as I came down the walkway. “What happened to your hair?”

“Bad hair day,” I said.

I peered down into the baby
carrier. I was surprised to see two shiny ebony eyes giving me the once over.
Little Ekana appeared wise beyond his days. And the way he was glaring at me,
it looked as if he could hardly wait to learn to use a telephone so he could
rat me out to Detective Wong.

 “Wow, he’s so cute,” I said
covering up the creepy vibe the kid was sending out. “So, are you calling him
‘Ethan’ or ‘Ekana’?”

“I think the Hawaiian way won
out,” said Darryl. “You and me’ll be the only ones with
haole
names
around here, I guess.” It took me a beat to remember he knew me as ‘Penny’.

“Yeah, well Ekana’s a great
name. And he’s an adorable little guy.” The kid was still shooting me major
stink
eye
but I refused to acknowledge it.

“So how’d it go?” said Darryl.
“Did that Hollywood guy get to relax like he wanted?” I couldn’t believe he hadn’t
put two and two together and realized the guy on the news who’d been accused of
the Koele murders was the same guy who’d come to the White Orchid to escape the
Hollywood grind.