Lana'i of the Tiger (The Islands of Aloha Mystery Series) (4 page)

“What? Have you had this guy
stay here before? Is he a difficult customer?”

“No, he’s never been a guest
with us. And from what I’ve gathered from talking to his assistant on the
phone, he’s a nice guy.”

“Then, what?”

“Okay, Penny, let me explain
something. Have you ever been to Maui? You know, have you ever gone over there
for a vacation or anything like that?”

I nodded, afraid to even guess
where this was heading.

“Well, this isn’t Maui. We don’t
have a zillion tourists, and we don’t have restaurants where they pin pictures
of celebrities who ate there up on the walls. It’s part of the charm of Lana’i.
We’re immune to fame.”

I kept nodding.

“The guy who’s checking in is
from the mainland. From Hollywood. He’s coming over here to chill. To get away
from the celebrity grind.”

“He’s a movie star?”

“Not exactly. I think he’s done
some acting, but it’s always been in his own movies.”

I stopped nodding and shot her a
confused look.

“The guy’s a producer. He’s the
one who does the ‘Stony Jackson’ movies. I think he’s made like seven of them.
His movies are really popular with inner-city audiences, and overseas. According
to his assistant, they call him the male Oprah. Very rich, very connected, but
very private.”

I started back up with the
nodding.

“Anyway, the guy’s coming over
here to get away from it all. He doesn’t want to stay up at the Four Seasons
Lodge, and he doesn’t want to hang out at the beach at Manele Bay. He wants
peace and quiet and total anonymity. He wants us to pretend we don’t have a
clue who he is or what he does for a living.”

“Got it.”

“I promised his assistant her boss
could absolutely count on us to respect his wishes. I haven’t even told Darryl
who he is, only that he’s coming from Hollywood and he wants time to relax”

She gasped and stood up. Her
hands clutched the edge of the table as her mouth flew open as if she’d been
zapped with a Taser. A puddle of clear fluid began to bloom on the hardwood
floor between her feet.

CHAPTER
4

At exactly three o’clock my
expected guest, Mr. Tyler Benson, came to the door. He’d arrived a couple of
hours after Ewa and Darryl had left for the airport. I guessed his in-coming
flight was probably the turnaround flight of the one they’d gone out on.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Benson,” I
chirped as I opened the screen to let him in. “My name’s Penny Morton. We’re so
pleased to have you as our guest at the White Orchid.”

“Please call me Tyler.” He was
tall, at least six-four. He had caramel-colored skin, with chiseled features that
made him look more Denzel Washington than Will Smith. He wore a sage-green polo
shirt that sported a discreet Pebble Beach logo above the pocket. As he looked
around the shabby chic great room I was half-expecting him to say ‘never mind’
and head back out, but he didn’t.

“This is perfect,” he said. “Is Ewa
around?”

“I’m afraid Ewa and Darryl have
been called away to O’ahu.”

Tyler looked stricken, as if I’d
said I’d chopped them up and stuffed their body parts in the freezer.

“No, actually it’s good news,” I
said. “Their baby is coming and our little hospital here on Lana’i doesn’t do
obstetrics so they went to Honolulu to have the baby.”

“She didn’t mention that when I
called.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s been kind
of hectic around here. The baby was due last week and she’s been so busy
getting ready for her hospital stay and—”

He cut me off. “It’s okay. I
don’t mean to sound like a jerk. It’s just that my assistant said she seemed
really nice. I was looking forward to meeting her.”

“She is really nice. Both of
them are.”

“You like working here?”

“I do. It’s the best job I’ve
ever had on Lana’i.”

“Did Ewa tell you what’s going
on with me?” he said.

“Uh, well, kinda. She said
you’re looking for peace and quiet. And that you have a stressful job back on
the mainland. And not to ask you about it.”

“That’s exactly right. I know
people are interested in the kind of work I do, but frankly, I need to recharge
my batteries. I don’t mean to be rude, but if you don’t mind, I’d like us to
remain simply innkeeper and traveler.”

“Absolutely. No problem.”

I showed him to his room and
pointed out a few of the more esoteric amenities, like the hand-crank for the
skylight window. Darryl’s list said to bring everything to the guest’s
attention—the shower, the bed, the extra towels in the armoire—but it felt
insulting to show a man like Tyler Benson how to operate a shower. Instead, I
used the opportunity to point out what the room
didn’t
have—a
television, a phone, or an Internet connection.

“Of course if you need any of
those things, we have them in the owner’s quarters and you’re more than welcome
to use them,” I said. “But if it’s peace and quiet you want, this is the best
place to be. No connection whatsoever to the outside world.”

“I love it. Thanks.”

I’d agreed to sleep at the B and
B when there were guests checked in since Darryl and Ewa promised 24/7 service.
I mentioned this to Tyler and explained that I’d usually be found either in the
kitchen or the great room during the day, and I’d be in the far guest room
after about ten in the evening.

“Sounds great. And thanks for
understanding my situation. I hate being the ‘special case’ guy, you know. I
really love people and I love hearing about their lives, but for the next few
days I need to focus on my own life.”

“It’s very understandable. And
anyway, my life’s pretty boring, so you’re not missing much.”

I turned and went back out
front. Tyler Benson closed the door to his room with a soft
click
.

***

The next morning, I made Tyler
oatmeal. I was embarrassed to serve it to him. I was afraid he might give me a
WTF look and demand eggs Benedict or something, but he surprised me.

“Wow, this is great. I haven’t
had oatmeal in a month of Sundays,” he said. “My momma used to make it for us
every morning before school. She said it would ‘stick to your ribs.’ Dang, I
miss that woman. She really was somethin’.”

He slowly shook his head as if
taking a slow mosey down memory lane.

“Well, to tell you the truth,
I’m not the cook Darryl is,” I said. “He whips up omelets, homemade muffins,
the whole nine yards. But I’m better with two-ingredient items, like oatmeal
with cream, or toast and jam.”

“You won’t get any complaints
from me. I eat fancy food way too often, and it shows.” He patted what looked
to me like rock-hard abs. “Every now and then it’s great to just dive into a
big ol’ bowl of Frosted Flakes or Wheaties, you know?”

“Yep. That’s how I roll, too.
But this is a bed and
breakfast
, so if you want something a little more
upscale, just let me know. Darryl has some pretty awesome recipes I wouldn’t
mind trying.”

I left him alone in the breakfast
room while I went back to the kitchen to clean up. A few minutes later Tyler
was standing in the doorway.

“Can I help you?” I said.

“It’s kind of hard going cold
turkey like this, you know?” he said.

I was confused. “Is something
wrong?”

“No, sorry. I was just thinking
out loud. It’s so weird not to be watching two morning shows while thumbing
through
Variety
and the
LA Times
. I’ve got a publicist who calls
me every morning to give me the overnight news, and an assistant who goes over
my schedule for the day. She tells me every call I’ve gotta make and where I’ve
got to be every minute of every hour. Just sitting here eating oatmeal feels
like I’m playing hooky or something.”

“Would you like to get in touch
with home?”

“Heck, no. I’m not complaining.
It’s just surreal.” He handed me his empty bowl. “So tell me, what do
you
do all day?”

“Are you sure you want to ask me
that?  It kind of breaches the ‘innkeeper/traveler’ relationship, don’t you
think?”

“Ah, forgive me for the BS
yesterday,” he said. “I was just being ornery. It was a long flight over and my
pilot put the jet down a little hard. I’m not really into the Greta Garbo
routine as much as I led you to believe.”

I wasn’t following him. I
must’ve looked confused because he went on.

“You know, the silent movie
actress who said, ‘
I vant to be alone
.’ Word around tinsel town is she
was a real pain in the ass. Made a pile of money from her fans, then told them
to get lost and leave her be.”

“Well, I respect your desire to
keep to yourself,” I said. “And, as I mentioned yesterday, my life wouldn’t
make a very good movie script. Small-town girl working in a B and B on a tiny
island in Hawaii. That pretty much sums up my existence.”

“Well, Penny Morton, I find such
an existence fascinating. Tell me everything.”

I had to walk a fine line
between honesty and safety, so I focused on my childhood. I told him I’d been
born on Kauai to hippie parents who lived in the trees.

“Like monkeys?”

“No, like tree houses. It was
illegal to camp on the beach, so the folks up in Taylor Camp—that’s the name of
the place—built these elaborate structures in the trees so they could live at the
beach and not get run off by the authorities.”

“Taylor Camp?” he said. “Like
Elizabeth Taylor?”

“You got it. The land belonged
to her brother, Howard Taylor. The county wouldn’t allow him to build a
permanent house there, but they taxed him for the property. He got so fed up he
bailed some ‘flower children’ out of jail for vagrancy and invited them to come
and hang out on his property. This was in the nineteen-seventies. That’s where
my mom and dad met.”

“And you said your life wouldn’t
make a movie script. I love it.”

“Well, I guess it was fun while
it lasted. My dad took off pretty soon after I was born. I have a half-brother
who has a different father. We haven’t been in touch for a while. Our mom died
when we were young and we were raised by her best friend, a wonderful woman we
called Auntie Mana. She’s gone now too.”

“So you were raised here on
Lana’i?”

“No, I’m from O’ahu. I’m a
recent war widow. I came over here for a little change of scenery.”

“Your husband was killed in
combat?”

“Yeah, in Afghanistan.”

“Whoa, real sorry to hear that. My
hat’s off to you, and to him. Our military families have really suffered these
past few years.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Well, anyway,
that’s pretty much my story.”

“I’d hardly call that a boring
life. I have a feeling there’s more to it, but I’ll let you off easy. For now,
anyway. You can tell me more later.” He gave me a wink. I couldn’t remember the
last time a guy winked at me.

“It seems kind of one-sided,” I
said.

“How so?”

“Well, I literally gave you my
life story, but I’m not supposed to ask you anything about your life.”

“Ah, like I said, I was being a
jerk. You probably know most of it already anyway. There’s not much the gossip
rags haven’t splashed all over their front pages.”

I thought it might hurt his
feelings if I told him I’d never heard of him. “Uh, well, I suppose, but we
don’t get much of that kind of stuff over here. Most of the time the only paper
we see is the
Lana’i Times
. Every now and then a copy of the
Honolulu
Advertiser
or
The Maui News
will show up if a guest brings it to the
breakfast room.”

“I’m liking this place more and
more.”

“Yeah, well one thing about
small town Hawaii—we know everything about each other  but we don’t care much
about what goes on in the outside world.”

He smiled and waved as he left
me alone to finish up the dishes. When I went back out to the great room, I
could hear him in his room talking on his cell phone. So much for going cold
turkey.

CHAPTER
5

At about ten o’clock that morning
Tyler left in his rented Jeep. He didn’t say where he was going, and I didn’t
ask. Actually, I was relieved he hadn’t asked me for directions or suggestions
on what to do on Lana’i. I could tell he was a smart guy. It wouldn’t take much
of my hemming and hawing for him to figure out I didn’t have a clue.

I used Tyler’s absence as an
opportunity to run by my house and check on things. When I got there,
everything looked fine. I watered the two plants on the screened-in front porch
and dug through the refrigerator sniffing the milk and tossing out lettuce that
had gone from solid to liquid. Before I left, I picked up the land-line phone,
half-expecting to hear someone on the line, but it was just dial tone.

I sprinted back to the White
Orchid and was dismayed to see Tyler’s Jeep parked in front. I’d been gone less
than an hour.

“Hey,” I said, as I came inside
and saw him sitting in an armchair reading on an electronic tablet. “Is
everything okay? You need anything?”

He looked up. “No, I’m fine. I
don’t need babysitting, you know.”

I felt a flush rising in my
cheeks.

“Hey, sorry,” he said. “I
realize you’re simply doing your job. But what I’m really enjoying here is the
sound of the wind in the trees and no ringing phones. I promise to let you know
if I need anything. And if for some reason you’re not around, I’ll leave you a
note on the refrigerator.”

The refrigerator in the kitchen
had about thirty magnets stuck to it, from all over the world. It appeared
either Ewa and Darryl were well-traveled, or former guests had sent mementos
from back home.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“By the way, I’ll be driving up
to the airport later this afternoon,” he said. “You need me to pick up
anything? At the grocery store or what-not? I see you don’t have a car.”