Maui Widow Waltz (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series) (12 page)

CHAPTER 15

I
interrupted
Steve before he could answer. “Where’d they find the body?” It was lousy of me
to steal Steve’s thunder but I wanted to avoid a lengthy tee-up.

“You already heard? Wow, word gets
around fast. Hatch just called five minutes ago.”

“I didn’t hear anything. But I’ve
been expecting it, I guess. I needed only two more days. Seems I just can’t get
a break.”

“You want details?”

“Can you give me the short version?
I just paid my cell bill and I’d rather not blow minutes on bad news.”

“Okay, a couple of beach walkers
spotted a man’s body on Little Beach this morning. He was in shallow water,
right at the water’s edge.”

“And they’re sure it’s Brad
Sanders?”

“No positive ID yet, but according
to Hatch, he’s the only guy reported missing in the past few weeks. They flew
the remains to Honolulu ‘cuz I guess there’s no medical examiner over here.”

“It’s amazing there was much left
of him after all this time in the water,” I said. “Ugh, I can’t imagine he
looked even remotely human.”

“Yeah, hard to believe. I suppose
this means no wedding.”

“I guess. I’ll go down to Olu’olu
and break the news to Lisa Marie. I don’t want her hearing it on TV, and I
really don’t want her to hear it from Marv. The guy’s got a sick sense of
humor.”

“Sorry, Pali. It’s a bummer.”

“Raging bummer.” I signed off and
picked up my purse and keys.

The ride to Olu’olu went by in a
blur of images and snatches of conversation from the past week. I wondered how
Lisa Marie would take it—hearing that Brad was now, without a sliver of doubt,
dead.

I planned to corner Marv and press
him about paying the vendors’ bills. As tacky as it felt bringing up money to
man whose almost-a-son-in-law lay bloated and chilling in the Honolulu morgue,
I knew I’d feel even worse if I stiffed my friends and colleagues. I wouldn’t
ask for my fifteen percent—after all, I hadn’t completed delivery—but people
like Akiko, Keahou, and the printer had all finished what I’d asked them to do
so they needed to get paid.

I pulled into the driveway and was
surprised to see the gate standing open. Two police cruisers were parked
directly in front of the door. Looked like I’d be spared from breaking the bad
news after all.

I parked far down the driveway, the
best spot for a quick getaway. If history held true, Lisa Marie would blame me
for Brad’s body showing up at this inopportune time. I’d stick around just long
enough for Marv to write a check.

Josie answered the door. This time
she wasn’t smiling.

“Is Lisa Marie at home?”

“She not seeing anyone. Policeman
are here.”

“I understand. Could I perhaps see
Mr. Prescott? I need a few minutes of his time.”

“He is on the phone. And then he
talk to policeman.”

“May I wait?”

“Of course. I will tell him you are
here.”

She crossed the foyer and went down
a hallway to the left. I watched as she put her ear to a closed set of double
doors near the end of the hall. She opened one of the doors a few inches and
peeked in. Then she came back to where I was standing.

“He’s not in there. Must be
finished with his call. The policeman is in the sunroom. Come with me.”

She led me down the hallway and
gestured for me to enter the room she’d checked. It appeared to be an office or
a den. The side walls were paneled halfway up in a dark wood—maybe
mahogany—with the upper section papered in a deep green tropical print. The
only light came from a narrow clerestory window near the top of the outside
wall. A massive dark wood desk faced the double doors. It was bare except for a
telephone set and a fancy leather blotter. Behind the desk sat a swivel chair
and behind that were floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with matching leather-bound
books all with gilt-embossed spines. A glass six foot tall display case was
along the left wall. The glass shelves held a dozen or so odd
knickknacks—including two slender white tusks carved in the image of an Asian
man and woman.
Josie motioned for me to take a seat in
one of two chairs facing the desk. One was modern black leather, the other—made
of intricately carved wood—looked like an antique. I went with modern. The
smooth leather felt cool against my bare arms.

“I tell Mr. Prescott you are waiting.”
She bobbed her head in a shallow bow and closed the door.

A light on the multi-line telephone
blinked in the semi-dark room. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes to
rehearse my ‘please pay up’ speech to Marv.

“I’m back,” boomed Marv and I
jumped. I turned, but the doors were still closed. The voice was coming from
the speaker on the desk phone. “Got the damn Bluetooth thingy working after
all. I’m outside now; I got cops crawling up my ass in there.”

I stood up and peered over the desk
at the phone set.

“So,” Marv went on, “what have you
got for me?”

“Not good news, Boss. I know you’ve
got that wedding coming up quick and all, but…” It was a man’s voice I didn’t
recognize. He had a nasal twang I’d peg as Chicago or maybe New Jersey. I’d
done my air marshal training in New Jersey, but I have a tough time placing
mainland accents so the guy could have been from anywhere.

“Cut to it, will ya? I told you, I
got cops snooping around, every minute they’re breathing more of my air and
eyeing my things.”

“Okay, well, ‘no dice’ from the
judge here in town. I called a guy out in Montana who owes us for a mining
deal, but he says he needs to see the paperwork.”

“We’re totally legit here. I’ll
have paperwork; you make sure he remembers he owes me. Hell, I shouldn’t even
have to call in a chit on this thing. What’s his problem?”

“I dunno, Boss. Seems stupid to me
too. Do you know when you’re coming back?”

“I got a golf game at Pebble on
Saturday and then I’ll be back in the office on Monday. I want this guy softened
up and ready to sign whatever we put in front of him. You got that?”

“Got it, Boss.”

“Mr. Prescott?” It was Josie’s
faint voice in the background. “The policeman say they need to talk to you
now.”

“Fine, fine. Tell them I’ll be
right there,” he said. Then to the caller, “Look, I gotta go. Like I said, I
want this nice and clean. Shouldn’t be that hard. Like anybody’s gonna object,
right?” He laughed. “And, don’t worry. I’ll get the paperwork. This place is
‘moron central.’ They’re so busy picking the tourist’s pockets they can’t find
their asses with both hands.”

There was a chuckle on the other
end of the line and then they said their good-byes. There was a click and the
line hummed the disconnect sound for a couple of seconds.

I hurried back to my seat. I
settled in, crossed my legs, and assumed the posture of a bored minion
patiently waiting to be called before the Great One.

A half-minute later I heard a
commotion outside in the hallway.  

“What the hell were you thinking?”
It was Marv at full volume.

“I…I…didn’t,” Josie’s voice cowered
in reply.

“Didn’t what? Didn’t think? I was
told you slant-eye people were smart. Are you the only dumb-ass Chinaman in all
of Hawaii?”

“I’m not Chinese. I’m—”

“I don’t give a damn what you are. The
fact is, you’re an idiot. Now get that goddamn woman out of my private office.”
I heard footfalls stomp down the tiled hallway.

The den door opened about a foot
and Josie peeked in, her eyes narrowed in anxiety as if she was expecting me to
continue the barrage of insults.

“Miss Moon?” she said.

“Yes, Josie. I’m here.” I stood and
walked over to the door.

“I’m so sorry for making a
problem,” she said, her eyes welling up, her mouth a tight line. She seemed to
be struggling to maintain her composure.

“No need to apologize. I’m the one
who’s sorry. He has no right to talk to you like that.” I wanted to tell her I
had the name and phone number of a guy I’d gone to high school with who now
worked in the state civil rights office. But I figured it was one of those
Biblical ‘time to reap, time to sow’ situations. I’d hold back on getting
self-righteous until I had a check—with Marv Prescott’s signature on it—in
hand. But I wouldn’t forget.

Josie silently ushered me back to
the foyer. “The policeman are still in the sunroom. Is it okay for you to wait
here?”

“No problem.”

About ten minutes later, Josie
silently escorted the police past me and out the door. She closed the door and
bobbed her head toward me in a weary bow. “Sorry for the waiting. Please follow
me.”

In the sunroom Marv lounged on the
sunny yellow sofa. He sipped his coffee and gazed out at the view.

“Hello Ms. Moon,” he said after I’d
stood and waited to be acknowledged for the obligatory minute. He patted the
sofa. “Have a seat.”

It took some deep kung fu breathing
to convince my body to place itself within six feet of the guy, but I managed
to perch on the edge of the cushion.

“I guess today’s the big
rehearsal.” His voice was full of fatherly pride. “I didn’t expect to see you
until this later afternoon.”

Okay
, I said to myself.
What’s
going on? The police just left. They found Brad’s body on the beach this
morning. Had the cops failed to deliver the news?

Marv fixed his eyes on me and I
responded in kind. I’d certainly faced more intimidating opponents than this
bandy-legged, racist jerk. If I’d been hooked up to a lie-detector and asked if
I’d overheard anything, I’d could’ve pumped out a flat line, no problem.

“Well, Marv, I don’t know if we’re
going to have a rehearsal or not. It seems something’s come up.”

“You talkin’ about that body they
picked up on the beach?” He said it as if corpses washed ashore every day.
“Yeah, I heard about it. As you may have noticed, the police just left.”

“That sort of puts a crimp in
things, don’t you think?”

“It’s unfortunate that some poor
soul drowned a day before my daughter’s wedding, but I don’t see why that
should keep us from moving forward.”

It was an Oscar-winning
performance. He knew damn well whose body had washed ashore that morning.

Point was, he didn’t care.

CHAPTER 16

A
wise person would’ve hit the road, but I stuck around. After all, I had
promises to keep.

“Marv, sorry to bother you with
this, but I’ve got some wedding vendors who need to get paid.”

“So pay them.”

“Well, I would, but I’m
experiencing a bit of a cash crunch.”

“Isn’t it customary to hit up the
father of the bride
after
the ceremony?”

“Yes, it is. But frankly, I’m
pretty sure they’ll identify the body they found this morning as Brad Sanders.”

“And your point is…”

“My point is that if it’s Brad,
then I’m also sure the proxy wedding tomorrow would be invalid, not to mention
in extremely poor taste.”

“Sweetheart, what’s in poor taste
is you asking me to pay for my daughter’s wedding before it’s even scheduled. I
don’t see how waiting one more day constitutes a hardship for you or your
so-called ‘vendors.’ Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some business calls to
make and I have a long list of things I need to attend to before tonight’s
events. The maid will show you out.”

I hated leaving empty-handed, but I
pride myself on recognizing when ‘no’ means ‘no.’ Besides, my mental kryptonite
protecting me against Marv Prescott’s vulgarity was losing its potency. I
feared if I stuck around much longer I might feel duty-bound to take him to
task for the Josie incident. That could lead to my losing my temper, and that
could result in me kicking his ass and kissing off any prayer of getting paid.

Josie met me in the foyer and gave
me a quick, tentative smile.

“Would you mind if I used the
bathroom before I leave?” I said. “It’s a long ride back to Pa’ia.”

“Follow me, please.”

She trotted down the hallway and I
kept close behind. She stopped outside the doorway to what a real estate agent
would refer to as a ‘powder room.’ I heard banging pans and sharp voices coming
from further down the hall and figured the kitchen must be down there.

“
Mahalo,
” I said. “You go
ahead with your work. I’ll just let myself out when I’m finished.”

 She hesitated. I’m sure it
was tough for her to decide if Marv would place a higher value on her getting
back to her chores or making sure I departed promptly.

“I have work in the kitchen.” She
gave me a guarded look as if silently requesting a pinky swear I wouldn’t pull
a stunt that might get her into even deeper doo-doo.

“Really—I’ll just be a few
minutes.” I said. I slipped into the tiny half-bath and flicked on the light.
The room glittered like an open jewelry box. Against deep carmine walls gleamed
a gaudy gilt-framed mirror that would have done Marie Antoinette proud. A black
pedestal sink sported oversized gold fixtures. Even the magazine rack tucked in
next to the toilet looked gold plated. I considered ripping off a magazine to
read later but then shuddered as I flipped through the selection:
Guns and
Ammo
,
Hustler
, and
Soldier of Fortune
. Obviously, this was
Marv’s domain. I lost any urge to sit down on the jet black toilet.

I counted twenty seconds using the
one-thousand
one, one-thousand-two
method and then flushed. I thoroughly scrubbed my
hands in the sink and then poked my head out the door.  Seeing the coast
was clear, I retraced my steps toward the front door. As much as I wanted to
get the hell out of there I felt obligated to check on Lisa Marie and see how
she was holding up. I took a left at the foyer and sneaked down the hallway
that extended in the opposite direction of the sunroom. The sprawling house had
no second floor so I figured I’d located the bedroom wing.

I crept along the hall, listening
for signs of life. The first doorway was on my left. The door was open so I
stepped inside and scanned the room. It appeared to be a guest room, with a
massive mahogany canopy bed elegantly draped with about a hundred yards of
milky white netting. The walls were papered in natural grass cloth. A thick
area rug woven in a deep green and yellow banana-leaf design covered most of
the cream-colored tile floor. A ceiling fan the size of an airplane propeller
slowly rotated overhead.

The next doorway was to my right.
The double doors were closed. I leaned in close but heard nothing. I’d check
out the remaining rooms before risking opening a closed door.

The next room was on the left. I
spotted a half-inch gap between the door and the jamb. 

I listened. Through the gap I made
out a faint mewling sound coming from inside. It sounded a lot like Lipton’s
puppies back at my house.  

I nudged the door open and looked
in. A human form was stretched out on the bed in a tangle of sheets. I couldn’t
tell whether the person was male or female in the dusk of the shuttered room.

I tiptoed inside and was startled
when the figure emitted a sharp animal noise—something between a grunt and a
bark—and turned toward me.

It was a tiny bald man wearing a
white tank top and bright print boxer shorts. His face was smooth and he had
matchstick-thin arms and legs. The guy looked like drawings I’d seen of space
aliens. The eyes weren’t big and buggy and the ears weren’t exactly pointy, but
the combination of dim room, weird noises and skinny bald dude all added up to
a close encounter of the kind I prefer to avoid.

 “Excuse me,” I said. I waved
a Martian greeting and hastily backtracked to the door.

“Pali?” said the alien.

“Lisa Marie?” I whispered. 

I peered harder into the gloom.
 

“I’m glad it’s you and not Daddy,”
she said. “He’s been bugging me about getting up and eating something.”

As my eyes grew accustomed to the
low light, I could make out her face. Without hair, she looked years
younger—no, maybe older—I couldn’t decide. In any case, she looked bizarre.
Even her eyebrows were missing.

“What happened?” I said.

She propped herself up on one
elbow. “Oh, this?” She rubbed a hand across her scalp. “I shaved it off.”

“Why?”

“I figured it worked for Britney
Spears. Remember when everything was going wrong for her and they took her
little boys away?”

I didn’t keep up with Hollywood
gossip, and I wondered if Lisa Marie had her facts straight.

“Uh, I don’t recall that. Remind me
about it.”

“Everyone was calling Britney crazy
and a bad mother and all that. The paparazzi followed her everywhere, yelling
and shooting pictures of her without her make-up. Her life was a mess. So one
night she got her hair shaved off.” She smiled. I couldn’t recall the last time
I’d seen Lisa Marie smile.

 “Anyway, I know exactly how
she felt. Everybody’s been bossing me around and treating me like crap. When I
told my dad about Kevin screwing that hippie he laughed. He said I should turn
the other cheekbone. That I should be grateful to Kevin no matter who he
screws.”

Hard as it was, I had to side with
Marv on that one.

“Look, Lisa Marie, I’m sorry you
got so upset over that. I know Farrah didn’t—“

“Shut up! Don’t you ever mention
that name around me again. That bitch owes me an apology. A huge one.”

“Okay, well I think you need to
rest. I’m—”

“No!” said Lisa Marie. “You don’t
have a single clue what I need. I needed a designer dress and you wouldn’t get
me one; then I needed tuberoses and that ‘ho’ lied and said she couldn’t get
them. Then I needed you to get me a stupid crane picture and so far, no
picture. Working with you has been like pulling teeth uphill the whole way.”

No point weighing in on that. I
turned to leave.

“My wedding to Brad was supposed to
be my A-list debut. Like Kate Middleton marrying that prince. But you’ve
wrecked everything. And Kevin—don’t even get me started on him. He said I was
the best ever and then he heaves me over for some gypsy with hairy legs? I hate
him—I hate you all!”

My abuse-o-meter was glowing
orange. I crossed the room and had my hand on the doorknob when she lobbed a
final volley.

“But guess what?” she said. “You’re
all going to look pretty damn stupid when Brad shows up tomorrow.”

I mentally cursed Marv for not
telling her about the body.

She went on, “Yeah, getting rid of
my hair got my brain working better. I’ve finally figured out how to get Brad
to come back.”

 “I need to go now, Lisa
Marie.”

“So go. But you better be back here
tomorrow, ‘cuz even with everything you’ve tried to do to wreck my wedding, I
will
be getting married. Mark my words, missy. Brad’s coming back and when he does,
we’ll be all over the news. I can see it now: ‘Mrs. Lisa Marie Sanders—The
Bride Who Never Lost Hope.’ By this time on Friday I’ll be more famous than the
Kardashians.”

 I quietly closed the door
behind me. It wouldn’t be long before she’d learn about Brad’s fate. I’d come
back later to offer my condolences—and hopefully pick up Marv’s check. Right
then, my goal was to hot-foot it back to the shop and cancel the rehearsal dinner.
I’d still be on the hook for the food and paying the servers’ their minimum
wage, but at least I could avoid the bar set-up charges and mileage fees.
 

I’d come to Olu’olu with two goals:
to break the bad news to Lisa Marie, and to pry a few bucks out of Marv. I’d
struck out on both counts. Not a good start to the day, but it wasn’t over yet.