I
looked around her dimly lit living room. Beni was nowhere in sight.
“Did
your new roommate take off?” I said.
“I
wish. He’s holed up in the john again.”
“So,
what’s going on?”
She
gestured toward her lumpy sofa. “Sit. You need to hear this sitting down.”
As
soon as I sat,’ Farrah’s Jack Russell terrier, Sir Lipton, jumped in my lap.
The dog had been named before her gender had been correctly determined, so her
name should’ve been Lady Lipton, but Farrah refused to acknowledge the error.
“Lipton’s
such a good boy. He always knows when to lend support,” she said.
“Okay,
spill,” I said. “The suspense is killing me.”
“Oh,
Pali. I know you’ve been really concerned about that bridesmaid. You know,
Crystal Wilson.”
She
paused. I waited. That kind of phony tee-up from Farrah almost always signaled
disaster.
“I’m
afraid the news isn’t good. A little while ago Beni told me those druggies he’s
hiding from killed her.”
My
thinking slowed way down. I couldn’t even form a complete sentence. “What?
Why?”
“I
guess when they sent Keith the ransom note and he just took off, they went
nuts. They blamed Beni and made him watch while they killed her.”
“Beni’s
not the most reliable source of information, you know.”
“Yeah,
but I believe him. He was there—he saw stuff. I called you down here to break
the bad news myself, before he goes to the cops.”
“As
if the cops give a damn,” I said.
“So,
what now?”
“I
don’t know. Give me a minute.”
The
anger that erupted in me came as a surprise. Farrah snatched Lipton from my lap
just in time to avoid the poor dog getting dumped on the floor.
“Those
bastards!”
I
felt something rattling around the back of my mind but I couldn’t put my finger
on it. I started pacing.
“I’m
so sorry, Pali. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this. You and I aren’t
strangers to heartbreak, that’s for sure.” Farrah and I had both been orphaned
when we were young, and she’d recently had to deal with the death of a newfound
love interest.
“I
can’t even imagine how horrible this was for her,” I said. “All alone, so young
and far from home. Being held by a bunch of drug-crazed assholes who chopped
off her hair and ripped off her fingernails. She must have been terrified.”
“If
it’s any consolation, Beni said she was incredibly brave, right up to the end.”
“Sorry,
but that’s no consolation. In fact, it makes me even more pissed off.” I
slammed my fist into my palm. “Would you get Beni out here? I need to talk to
him.”
“He
probably won’t come out. He’s afraid. He said his cousin Doug told him you
could kick his ass from here to Hana, and he’s scared you’re gonna do it.”
“I’d
like nothing better, but I promise to maintain control. Please go get him.”
Beni
hung his head as Farrah led him into the room. “Sorry, man,” he said.
“Sorry?
You let them kill a defenseless woman in cold blood and you think you can wipe
it away with a ‘sorry’? How screwed up are you? I tried to help you. I even
worried about you.” By now I was in full shriek mode.
“No,
man. Listen. I didn’t do nothin’. They said they’d send their guys after me if
I didn’t show. So I go up there. They were way deep up in there, man. They give
me a
da kine
shovel and say dig a big hole. I figured they were messing
with me but then I get they’re serious. It takes me a long time to dig the
hole, and when I get done I go down to where they were in this blue tent. I see
that girl—with the hair chopped off. Next thing I know they drag her out. They
push her, like down on her knees.”
He
hung his head.
“And
then what, Beni?”
“I
didn’t wanna look. She didn’t scream or beg or nothin’. And then Slam pulls a
gun and there were two shots—
bam! bam!
”
“You
didn’t try to stop him? You just let him murder this poor girl right in front
of you?”
“I
didn’t know. I didn’t…” He put his hands over his face.
“So
then what’d you do?”
“Whaddaya
think? I took off runnin’.”
“Did
you think he’d shoot you too?”
“Hell,
yeah. Those dudes don’t want no witness. And that hole I dug was plenty big for
two.”
It
was hard for me to feel sorry for Beni, but I did. How did the sweet little
fifth-grader I’d met ten years earlier at Sifu Doug’s manage to grow up to be
such a degenerate
‘okole
?
At
that moment I recalled what had been rattling around the back of my mind:
Hatch’s fiancée. She’d been murdered the same way—executed by drug dealers.
Hatch went into a steep nosedive after witnessing her murder. And now it’d
happened again. I was used to watching nightly reports on the Honolulu news
detailing crimes committed by O’ahu drug lords. But Honolulu was a big city;
drugs and crime came with the territory. Over there it was expected, but here
on Maui it was a disgrace.
“Beni,
I know a sure-fire way to get the police to offer you protection,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“First
light tomorrow, you and I are going to retrace your trip up to ‘Iao Valley.
We’re going to find that hole you dug and take some pictures. The Maui cops
will have to take us seriously or we’ll let them know we’ll go over their
heads.”
“But
what if Slam and those other dudes are still up there?”
“What’re
the chances of that?” I didn’t wait for him to answer before saying. “Zero. Why
would those scum bags hang around a murder scene out in the middle of nowhere?”
He
shrugged.
“I
know it’s a little scary, but it’s the only way. We’ll go up there and get
evidence. The police will have to act. You with me on this?”
He
gave me a nearly imperceptible nod.
“Good.
I’ll pick you up around six. The sun will be coming up by then but the park
won’t be open yet.”
I
gave Farrah a hug and went back down to my car.
On
my way home in the dark, the boogey man began whispering in my ear. Why had
Crystal’s disappearance gone unnoticed? Why had there been no news reports of
her kidnapping, or requests for the public to keep an eye out for her? There’d
apparently been no calls from family or friends inquiring about her
whereabouts—or if there had been, they’d been ignored. Could the Maui Visitor’s
Bureau have so much clout they could squelch news that cast our idyllic island
in a bad light? Or was Beni correct in accusing the police of collusion?
Whatever the reason, it seemed pretty clear if we didn’t make some noise,
Crystal Wilson’s murder would disappear—like footprints swept away by the tide.
Not
on my watch. If Glen Wong wanted to throw me in jail for doing the job he
refused to do, then so be it. He could argue that Crystal’s death was simply a
bad end for a mainland party girl who’d gotten herself tangled up with local
dope peddlers, but I didn’t buy it. A young woman—a human being—had been
executed, supposedly collateral damage in a beef between a couple of lowlife
drug dealers. She’d been buried in the loamy soil of the rain forest
where the daily downpours and warm temperatures would quickly reclaim her body
to the earth. We had to find her. Her soul deserved to rest in peace knowing
the lowlifes who’d brutally ended her short life had been brought to justice.
Game
on, scumbags.
CHAPTER 24
When
I got back home I was in no mood to eat the dinner waiting for me in the oven.
I scraped it into the garbage and was rinsing my plate when Steve came into the
kitchen.
“Everything
okay?” he said.
“Not
by a long shot.”
He
waited while I stuck the plate in the dishwasher and slammed the door shut.
“Got
it. You’re mad. What’s the deal? Beni come up with yet one more way to piss you
off?”
I
couldn’t help it—I started to cry.
“Hey,
hey,” he said. “The guy’s a dipshit. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”
“No,
it’s not about Beni,” I said. “Well, it’s kind of about him, but not totally.”
Steve
squinted his eyes in confusion and then reached into his pocket for a freshly
pressed hankerchief. He’s the only guy I’ve ever met who still carries cotton
handkerchiefs. He handed it to me and I wiped my nose.
“Sorry
for the waterworks,” I said.
“Hey,
you’ve had a lousy week.”
“Not
as lousy as some people. I gotta sit down,” I said. I sat at the kitchen table
and Steve took the chair across from me. “Beni says those drug dealers killed
Crystal Wilson.” I filled Steve in on the few facts I’d gleaned from Beni—that
he’d been ordered to dig a hole up in ‘Iao Valley; that he’d seen Slam shoot
Crystal in the head; and that after the shooting he’d run away.
“Wow.
Do you believe him? You’ve got to call Glen Wong with this.”
“Yes,
I believe him, and no, I’m not calling Wong.”
Steve
sat tight, staring me into continuing.
“I
believe Beni witnessed the murder,” I said. “That’s why he’s so freaked about those
guys coming after him. And the reason I’m not calling Wong is because when I
gave him the ransom note he made me promise I’d leave it all up to them.”
“I
doubt he ever imagined you’d be hanging out with an eyewitness to murder,”
Steve said. “Things have changed.”
“No,
you don’t understand. He was adamant about keeping this a police matter. He
made it quite clear he wanted me to butt out.”
“Well,
how about
I
call Glen? I could tell him I overheard something. He knows
how much the guys at the bar blab after a couple of martoonies.” Steve and Glen
Wong traveled in the same social circle—although Steve was way out of the
closet while Detective Glen Wong was back in there so far you couldn’t have
found him with a flashlight.
I
didn’t want to tell Steve about Beni’s assertion that the police were dirty,
and maybe even complicit. First, because Beni’d been on the wrong side of the
law for so long he wasn’t the best judge of character, and second, because Wong
was a friend of Steve’s and I didn’t want to throw Steve into a moral dilemma
about whether or not he should tip off Wong.
“I
don’t know,” I said. “These drug dealers are dangerous. If word ever got out
you were the snitch, they’d probably come gunning for you. And then I’d have to
break in a new roommate, and remember to take fresh flowers up to your grave
every week, and—”
“Okay,
okay. So, what’re you gonna do?”
“I’m
going to go up there and find some convincing evidence. The only way Wong’s
going to take me seriously is if I bring him something he can’t sweep under the
rug, like he did with the hair and the ransom note. Think about it—I go to him
with some tale I heard from a convicted meth dealer? I mean, really, if I were
Wong, I probably wouldn’t believe any of this either.”
“But
you
do—believe Beni, that is.”
“I’m
afraid so,” I said.
“So
how’re you going to get this so-called ‘convincing evidence’?”
“I’m
going up to ‘Iao Valley tomorrow morning and find the campsite where Beni dug
Crystal’s grave.”
“You’re
gonna just tromp right into a drug nest up in the wilds of ‘Iao Valley? Wait a
sec, let me look up the number for the suicide hotline. I’m sure they’d like to
weigh in on this. And besides, there’s like a zillion acres of rain forest up
there. How’ll you even know where to start?”
“I
didn’t say I was going by myself.”
***
When
Farrah opened the door to her apartment the next morning, she informed me that
Beni was once again holed up in the bathroom.
“I
yelled at him that you were on your way up, but he didn’t come out,” she said.
I
went to the bathroom and rapped on the door. “Get out here, Beni. It’s time for
our ‘Iao Valley field trip.”
No
response.
“Or,
if you’d rather, we could take a short drive over to the Wailuku Police Station
and tour that instead.”
Again,
no sound.
“You
know I’m not above breaking down this door.”
Not
so much as a whimper.
“You
have a key for this?” I asked Farrah.
“No,
but look at it. It’s just a crummy
puka
lock,” she said. “I’ll bet I can
get it open with a bobby pin.” She rummaged around in her nightstand and came
up with a pin. She dug around in the lock for about ten seconds and then the
bolt clicked as it cleared the latch.
Farrah’s
bathroom was so tiny it didn’t take long to figure out it was unoccupied. In
fact, the only evidence that Beni’d been hanging out in there for hours on end
was a lingering malodorous tang in the air.