Lana'i of the Tiger (The Islands of Aloha Mystery Series) (8 page)

I picked up the lamp and checked
the shade. Nothing broken, but I placed it behind the computer desk to make it
appear I was concerned for the boys’ safety.

I asked what time the boys went
to bed so I could bring them graham crackers and milk,  but Sarah told me the
boys kept their own schedule.

“We don’t want to crush their
spirit with arbitrary rules,” she said. “Ross and I are raising the boys
according to the Archway Method. Have you heard of it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have
children.”

“Well, when you do, you’ll want
to look into Archway,” she said. “It’s the only technique out there that
guarantees strong, self-confident children who will grow into mentally and
emotionally capable adults. We don’t use words like ‘no’ or ‘you must’ or ‘you
should’ with the boys. This allows them to rely on their own inner voice to
make good decisions. Gordon Arch—he’s the psychologist who came up with the
Archway Method—is a genius. He says children raised according to his program will
grow up free of self-doubt. And that’s important, because self-doubt is the
root cause of depression, drug use and rebellion.”

Maybe so, but at that moment the
boys were demonstrating their lack of self-doubt by shimmying up the woven
bamboo draperies in the great room. Each boy had taken a panel and was trying
to beat the other in a race to the top.

Bam!
A drapery panel
separated from the rod holding it, and one of the boys crashed onto the
hardwood floor below.

He started crying. The second boy,
still gripping his own drapery panel, began cat-calling his brother. “Crybaby,
Morrie. Crybaby, crybaby!”

“Oh, my sweet boy,” Sarah cooed
as she ran over to pick up the wailing Morrie. Meanwhile, the drapery rod
supporting Miles had pulled away from the wall and he was beginning to lose his
grip. He slipped and landed with a
thump
.

“Mama Sarah,” he screamed. “What
about me? I fell too!”

But Sarah’s attention was fully
focused on Morrie. She gently prodded his knee. “Does that hurt, honey?” He
shrieked and slapped his mother’s hand away.

“You know,” she said, shooting
me a look that would freeze alcohol, “this establishment is unsafe for
children. You shouldn’t advertise this place as ‘family-friendly’ if you
haven’t childproofed everything. Your website should be labeled, ‘adults
only’.”

She’d get no argument from me.

The boys calmed down and I
guided the family back to the large quad guest room to settle in. The room included
bunk beds and immediately the boys began squabbling over who got the top bunk.

“Well, I’ll leave you to work
things out,” I said as I inched toward the door. “Let me know if you need
anything.”
Like a rolled-up newspaper to swat some ‘self-doubt’ into those
little monsters.

The Bowman family left for
dinner soon afterward. I nuked myself a frozen burrito and went to bed early.
No use trying to salvage an unsalvageable day.

CHAPTER 9

I woke up early on Tuesday and
hustled out to the kitchen to make breakfast for the Bowmans. I wasn’t sure
what the boys would eat. Would Sarah insist on organic steel-cut oatmeal, or
would the boys prevail and clamor for Fruit Loops? I split the difference and
made a breakfast sausage, egg and cheese casserole—one of Darryl’s simpler
recipes. Then I toasted a pile of both wheat and white bread. Alongside the
toast I set out an assortment of jams—mango, guava, apricot-pineapple and good
old strawberry. I also added a little dish of peanut butter and a bowl of fresh
fruit I’d peeled and chopped into a fair approximation of fruit cocktail.

The Bowman clan was more subdued
in the morning than they’d been at check-in. The boys nudged and bickered with
each other at the table, but when Ross asked if they’d like to trade seats and have
Mama Sarah and Daddy Ross sit between them, they both bellowed, “No!”

At about ten o’clock Sarah came
to the great room to check out. Ross was outside on his cell phone. I didn’t
know where the kids were, and I didn’t care. The magic words,
checking out
,
had put a smile on my face even the Bowman boys couldn’t wipe off.

“I’m sorry, but I must lodge a
complaint,” Sarah said as she pulled a credit card from her wallet. “I’m afraid
this wasn’t our most enjoyable time in Hawaii. There’s nothing for the boys to
do here and your bed and breakfast really leaves a lot to be desired in terms
of basic amenities. I mean, no TV in the room? Is that even legal in the hotel
industry?”

I assured her most of our guests
prefer no outside distractions.

“And no telephone! Ross had to
use hours and hours of his cell phone minutes because he has to keep in touch
with his office. That’s hardly fair for what you’re charging for the room.”

“We’re the most affordable
accommodations on Lana’i. And in our listing on the Internet we clearly state
that the rooms don’t have private phones, TV, or Internet.”

“Well, we didn’t book this place
on the Internet,” she huffed. “We heard about the White Orchid from someone on
Maui. So how could we possibly know you offered such Spartan conditions?”

I stared her down. There was no
way I was going to give them a discount after all the havoc her boys had
wreaked.

“It’ll be one-thirty-nine, plus
tax,” I said in my most business-like voice.

“I don’t think we should have to
pay over ninety-nine dollars,” she shot back, “
including
the tax.”

“Okay, how about this?” I said.
“I’ll charge you ninety-nine dollars for the room, and then a hundred dollars
for the damage to the draperies. That’s only fair since it will cost at least
twice that to get them repaired.”

“Why should we pay for your
sub-standard draperies? They were unsafe.”

We locked eyes. I’d stared down
guys twice her size in
kung fu
matches. This cranky, spineless excuse
for a parent didn’t realize who she was up against.

“Very well,” she finally said.
“I’ll agree to pay the one-thirty-nine. But you better not charge me a penny
more. My husband’s an attorney.”

By ten-thirty, I had the place
all to myself again.

I went out to the greenhouse and
asked Mr. Ho if he knew where Darryl kept his hand tools—hammer, screwdriver,
things like that.

“He has some tools out back,”
Mr. Ho said. He led me around to the far side of the greenhouse. There was a
little shack, weathered gray, with a carpet of rotting pine needles covering
the roof. He opened the door and we went inside. Darryl had attached white pegboard
to three walls and he’d hung a tidy array of hand tools on the pegboard. I took
down a ball peen hammer and noticed Darryl had used a magic marker to outline the
hammer on the pegboard. It looked like the chalk outline of the dead body at a
crime scene.

“Wow, he’s a pretty fastidious
guy,” I said.

Mr. Ho glared at me. “No, he not
tricky bad. He clean.”

I figured ‘fastidious’ probably
wasn’t in Mr. Ho’s English vocabulary, so I hurried to clear up the
misunderstanding. “Yes, it looks like he keeps things very clean. Very tidy.”

“You need hammer?” He looked at
the ball peen I was holding. “This one more bigger, eh?” He reached over and
pulled down an enormous rubber mallet.

“Thanks, but this one will do.”

Mr. Ho, who seemed to take
offense at my unwillingness to go along with his suggestion of the huge mallet,
grunted and left me alone in the shed.

I searched through the minuscule
drawers of a cabinet that held nails, screws, bolts and washers until I got the
parts needed to re-hang the bamboo drapes. Then I found some crusty, but still
usable, wall spackle. I gathered everything up and went inside to begin making
repairs.

***

It was almost four o’clock when
I finally had the White Orchid back to its pre-Bowman family condition. I was
on a step-stool putting the final touches on the spackle when the phone rang. I
climbed down and wiped my hands, but by the time I picked up, the call had
already gone to voicemail.

I quickly retrieved the message.
It was Tyler Benson. His voice sounded like he was being strangled. “Hey,
Penny. I need to talk to you. The sooner, the better. Call me at this number
when you get a chance.”

I’d punched the CID key to
redial Tyler’s number when he suddenly burst through the front door. His cell
phone began to ring in his pocket. The ringtone was a tinny rendition of
Who
Let the Dogs Out
?

“That’s probably me calling you
back,” I said, pointing to his pocket.

“I hope so,” he said. He looked
like what my Auntie Mana used to call ‘ten miles of bad road.’  He was unshaven
and there were deep furrows under his bloodshot eyes. He reached into his
pocket and pulled out the phone. He looked at the caller ID screen, then tossed
the phone on the polished wood coffee table. It skittered across the smooth
surface and fell on the floor. He didn’t make a move to retrieve it.

“Whoa,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“Not by a long shot,” he said.
“Mind if I lock the door?”

I screwed up my face as if his
paranoid request had me a little concerned about his grip on reality.

“It’s not even dinnertime,
Tyler. I think the bogey man comes out after dark.”

“Well, that shows how much
you
know.”

Right then, I heard something
crash through the bushes outside the house. A head popped up in the window by
the reception desk and I jumped back in surprise.

“Those sons of—” Tyler put his
hands over his face and turned away from the window. 

I leapt up and pulled the shade
down.

“Who was that?’ I said.

“Can we go back in the kitchen
and talk?” Tyler said, picking up his phone.

“Sure.”

When we got inside the kitchen I
pulled over a couple of stools so we could sit at the prep table. Tyler glanced
around, taking in the set-up. The kitchen had three interior walls, and the one
outside wall had only a narrow clerestory window high above the cabinets.

“What’s up?” I said. “I’m
assuming that guy was some kind of media-type.”

“Yeah, the Hollywood paparazzi.
One of many who’ve shown up.”

“Why are they here? I mean, no
disrespect or anything, but you’re no Brad Pitt or Denzel Washington. Not that
you’re not a handsome man, mind you, but you’re—”

“Yeah, yeah. Here’s the deal.
For the past couple of years there’s been all kinds of Hollywood speculation
about me. I’ve been called gay. I’ve been accused of being a selfish asshole
who gets what he wants from women and then kicks them to the curb. I’ve been
branded a workaholic with no private life, yada, yada and more yada. Now
someone’s blabbed to the tabloid press about Deedee and me getting married, so
I’m back in the news.” He shot me a look that begged for a response.

“You think it was me? No way.
First of all, I wouldn’t dream of gossiping about you, and second, even if I
were prone to gossip, I don’t have any idea who I’d call.” I could’ve added a
third reason, which was that I was in a witness protection program and there
was no way I’d draw attention to myself by encouraging a bunch of snoopy
reporters and photographers to descend on Lana’i. But I kept that to myself.

“Well, somebody tipped them
off.  And Deedee’s gonna be royally pissed when she finds out.”

“She doesn’t know?”

“No. She flew over to Honolulu
this morning to do some shopping and she’s not due back until four-thirty. I
came down here as soon as I recognized a few of the vultures checking in at the
Lodge. What am I going to do? They’ve seen me, both at the Lodge and now here.”

“I had a
sifu
—that’s a
martial arts teacher—who used to say,
You know what you need to do, but you
don’t want to do it
. You think that might apply here?” I watched him take
it in.

“I don’t know what that means.
Are you telling me I shouldn’t marry Deedee?”

“I’m not telling you anything.
Don’t listen to other people, listen to your heart.” 

“No disrespect or anything,
Penny, but if I want to hear bullshit like that, I’ll call Oprah.”

***

Tyler stayed another fifteen
minutes before heading out to the airport.

“I hate to go out there,” he
said as he peered through the front window. “But I’ve got to pick up Deedee.”

“Good luck. Are you going to come
back down here tonight?”

“No, I think I’ll stay up at the
Lodge with Deedee. She’s uncomfortable enough in LA when these guys start shoving
and yelling. I’m pretty sure she’s really going to go ballistic when she finds
out the bottom feeders have tracked us down in the middle of nowhere.”

“Well, let me know if there’s
anything I can do. Most folks around here are pretty good about leaving celebrities
alone. Famous people come here all the time. And besides, we don’t have a first-run
movie theater here on Lana’i so movie people aren’t that big a deal.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that. I
think.” He got up and went outside. The sun was getting lower in the sky but it
would be at least four more hours before it got dark. As Tyler made his way
back to his Jeep I saw cameras flash and I heard urgent voices yelling stupid questions
like,
Are you getting married because people think you’re gay?
or,
Is
your main squeeze sporting a baby bump
?

I silently wished Tyler well. He
was a nice guy. He’d chosen his life, and he was well-rewarded for it. He had a
private jet, a gorgeous home in Los Angeles and piles of money. But even
considering all the BS I was putting up with in witness protection, I wouldn’t
have traded places with him. Not for a month, a week, or even a day.

It was a good thing I didn’t
covet Tyler Benson’s life. Because his life was about to start skidding
downhill. Fast.