Maui Widow Waltz (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series) (17 page)

Okay, it was good he remembered me;
not so good that anyone overhearing him probably thought I was a madam at a
dominatrix brothel.   

“Yep, I’m still doing weddings.” I
leaned in close to make myself heard. “Say, I’m looking for someone. A fireman
named Hatch Decker. He’s on crutches—broken leg.”

Pako nodded, his massive neck
pumping like a piston. “Yeah, I know who you mean. Came in with some guys but
he left about ten minutes ago with a fine-lookin’ redhead.” He paused for a
beat. “Sorry.”

“A red-haired
woman
?” I
said.

“Well, duh. Weren’t no Irish
setter.” In the hand-stamp black light his grin glowed white hot.

CHAPTER 21

V
alentine’s
Day dawned sunny with calm winds—perfect weather for a beach wedding. I’d slept
on the downstairs sofa in lieu of joining the stinky huddle upstairs. My back
was killing me, which seemed only right since this was the day I’d been
dreading for more than a week.

I gimped into the kitchen to put on
the coffee. The smell of hot water seeping through Kona coffee beans never
failed to lure Steve out of bed, and as the pot filled, I heard his feet hit
the floor upstairs. I was eager to hear what he’d learned from Glen Wong. Last
night I’d scuttled home after hearing about Hatch taking off with the redhead.
As much as I wanted a free beer, I’d lost the urge to gossip. When I got home,
I stretched out in the living room and fell so dead asleep I didn’t even wake
up when the guys came in.

 Steve came through the
swinging door. The coffee maker hissed and burbled as I took four coffee cups
from the cupboard.   

“Thanks for putting on the joe,” he
said. “Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Yeah, you too. So, what’d you hear
last night?”

“Glen’s not giving out much,” he
said. “Fill me in on what you already know.”

“Okay, I know Kevin died from a
blow to the head, not from drowning. I know Wong and another cop went to
Olu’olu and questioned Lisa Marie. I know Kevin’s the second guy from DigiSystems
to meet an untimely end in Maui in the past couple of weeks. And, I know Farrah
told Noni Konomanu that Kevin was buying the Gadda-da-Vida building out from
under Tank Sherman—”

“Whoa,” he said. “That’s news to
me.” He poured me a cup of black coffee and then poured one for himself.

“She told me yesterday. I don’t
think the cops have made a connection between Tank and Kevin, but don’t count
on me to say anything. I figure if Tank’s willing to whack someone over a
failed real estate deal, there’s no way I’m giving him a reason to point his
fat finger at me.” 

“Well, don’t worry about it. Seems
the cops are pretty much focused on Lisa Marie anyway.”

“Why is that? I can’t for the life
of me figure out why they think she killed him. Don’t they know he was helping
her pull off her fake wedding?”

“I said that, but Glen said the
snitch works at the Ma’alaea Harbor Marina and he’s pretty sure he saw Lisa
Marie and Kevin having an argument out there the night of the murder.”

“So?”

“Glen thinks maybe Kevin was trying
to back out and Lisa Marie didn’t take kindly to getting dumped twice.”

“Brad didn’t dump her. He
died
.”

“Whatever. It still gives the cops
a motive. They think she flipped out and killed him.”

I held up my hand and listened for sounds
of Farrah. I didn’t want her to overhear Steve and me idly discussing her
lover’s murder.

I lowered my voice. “But Kevin was
twice Lisa Marie’s size.” 

“He was bashed in the head,
remember? An oar, a fish hook, or even a good-sized rock could pretty much even
the odds. And you said yourself that Lisa Marie can get pretty nasty when you
cross her.”

“Yeah, but she’s a trash talker,
not a killer. Now, Marv on the other hand…” I shuddered.

“Well, Glen didn’t tell me much
more than we already know, but he did say if what the Ma’alaea guy has is
solid, it probably won’t take them long to pull together a case against Lisa
Marie. He said their goal is to solve a murder within forty-eight hours. After
that, it gets tougher.”

“Not much time,” I said.

“Nope. So, by Saturday we should
have a good idea what happened.”

 I’d heard enough murder talk.
“Is Hatch still sleeping?”

“I guess. His buddies at Cisco’s
told me he found a ride home. I figured he left with you.”

“No, I never even saw him.” I
didn’t mention the redhead. I needed another cup of coffee before listening to
Steve chide me about losing out to the competition. 

“You want me to see if he’s up?” he
said.

 “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

He left and I heard him knock on
Hatch’s door. There was a pause, another knock, and then a squeaky hinge.

He came back into the kitchen.
“Bed’s made,” he said, “and I highly doubt he’s gone out for a run.” His face
wore an ‘I told you so’ smirk I found really annoying.

Time to take my lumps and bring up
the redhead.

“The bouncer at Cisco’s said he
left with a woman right before I got there,” I said.

“Oh.” Steve seemed to mull over
what to say next. “Maybe his leg was hurting him.”

He got up and washed out his coffee
cup. “I gotta go,” he said. “That high school girl you promised I’d make look
like Selma Hayek is coming in for her re-do’s this morning.”

“Oh, wow, I’d forgotten all about
that.” I cringed. Another load of work I’d foisted on a friend thanks to Lisa
Marie’s fake wedding. “Sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it. You owe me. I just
hope she’s not some ‘bow wow’ who hated her first pictures because she thinks
‘Nikon’ is Japanese for ‘extreme makeover’.”

“Her mom’s nice looking,” I said.
Under different circumstances, I’d have taken him to task for the ‘bow wow’
remark. But, as he’d pointed out, I owed him—along with a half-dozen other
people I was worried about paying. 

“Well, let’s hope nature trumps
nurture and she’s not into lip piercings or weird facial tattoos,” he said.
“I’ll let you know how it goes.”

The swinging door flapped once and
then settled shut. For a house bursting at the seams, it sure was quiet.

I went upstairs to see if I could
talk Farrah into getting up. When I opened the door, I found her already
dressed in a red and yellow
mu’u mu’u
. She’d pushed the fold-out bed
back into the sofa and was sitting at one end with a gossip magazine in her
lap. The room smelled doggy, but either I was getting used to it or the breeze
from the half-open window had toned it down a bit.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she
whispered, as if offering condolences.

“Yeah, back at ya. You feel like
going down to the store today?”

“I’ve got to. Last night Beatrice
said she’d open the store for me, but then this morning when the flower
delivery came she called all freaked out. Says there’s no way she can handle
all those orders by herself.”

“You need some help?”

“That’d be great, especially around
lunchtime. You mind driving me down there? I’ll bet Bea’s blood pressure’s
already in the red zone.”

“No problem. Just let me take a shower.
I’ll help you for a while and then I need to start packing up my shop.”

“Don’t you think it’ll be at least
a month before Tank can actually buy the building and kick us out?” she said.

“Yeah. But in the meantime, I’m
closing the shop. I’m not going to drum up new business for ‘Let’s Get Maui’d’
and then shuffle off brides to Noni and Tank.”

“I wish I could just close down,
but the store’s got to stay open. People depend on it.”

“And working might help you take
your mind off things. How are you doing?”

“I’m actually doing pretty
good—considering,” she said. “It’s like when my folks died. At first I just
wanted to die too, but I kept breathing in and out—taking it one day at a time
and all that. And now I’ve got Lipton and his pups. They’re all counting on
me.”

I nodded, because I knew all about
handling hurt by just breathing in and out. It sucks to lose your
parents—especially when you’re a kid. I’ve never met a child orphan who wasn’t
convinced somehow it was their fault.

“Well, if misery loves company—it
looks like at least we’ll both be spending Valentine’s Day alone,” I said.

“What about Hatch? I thought he’d
come through for you.”

“Hardly. He picked up some woman at
Cisco’s last night. In fact, he’s still not home.”

“The guy scored with his leg in a
cast?” She smiled. “I’d love to be a fly on
that
wall.”

“I wouldn’t.” I said.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like
that.” She frowned and I felt bad I’d snatched away her smile.

I took a quick shower and was still
dripping wet when the phone rang. It was Steve.

“Just got a call from Mitch, the
bartender at the B and C,” he said. “Apparently the snitch wasn’t an eye
witness after all.”

No surprise there. The guy looked
like a derelict sniffing around for some reward money.

“It’s even better. The dude’s got a
surveillance tape of the marina, and on it, Lisa Marie’s pitching a fit at
Kevin.”

“How does Mitch know this?”

“You kidding? Bartenders know
everything.”

 “What was she saying ? And
did they go out in a boat or just walk around the dock?”

 “Don’t know. Mitch said the
camera pans a one-eighty of the entire dock every couple of minutes. They’re
only on the tape for a really short time and there’s no sound, just picture.”
 

“Huh.”

“Oh, but here’s something else:
Mitch said the snitch called Lisa Marie ‘that little blond gal.’ So, she had
her hair when they were at Ma’alaea. The shave job must’ve come later.”

I chewed on that for a few seconds.

“Gotta go,” he said. “My high
school do-over just pulled up. She’s getting out…she’s coming this way…and the
verdict is…”

I didn’t want to hear his verdict.
In Steve’s world, a perfect ten would be Victoria Beckham with a penis.

“She’s pretty cute,” he said. “This
won’t be that tough. Let’s talk later.”

I drove to Farrah’s store and spent
the morning doling out Valentine’s Day flowers. By one o’clock the stream of
sweethearts had dwindled to a final few procrastinators. We’d sold off Lisa
Marie’s wedding flowers and were completely out of roses, orchids, and even the
prehistoric-looking protea flowers Farrah had special ordered for Valentine’s.
Nothing short of a magic trick was going to make flowers appear for the
eleventh-hour Romeos who’d be racing in on their way home from work.

At one-thirty I went next door to
my shop.

As I’d expected, my message light was
blinking. I wasn’t up for another catastrophe, but I was curious, especially
about Hatch’s whereabouts.

You have three messages
,
said the disembodied voice.

The first was a reminder from my
dentist about a cleaning appointment.  The message ended with a request to
call if I’d be unable to keep the appointment. I blew out a quick breath. I’d
have no problem
keeping
the appointment, but
paying
for it was
another story. I jotted down the dentist’s number. I’d reschedule when I got a
job with benefits.

Call received Wednesday, seven
twelve p.m
., said the voice. As the second message began, I recognized the
distinctly brusque voice of Todd Barker, DigiSystems’ Chief Financial Officer.

“What the hell’s going on over
there?” he snarled. “First Brad and now Kevin? Call me.” He left various
numbers, including office, cell, and home.

I called his cell, and when he
didn’t answer, I left a message saying I was returning his call. I wasn’t about
to track him down on the other numbers—I figured my obligation ended with one
call.

 The third message was from
Sifu Doug, announcing Palace of Pain had been cleared by the health department
and was open for business. It was good to hear at least someone’s life had
returned to normal. As I listened to his voice, I remembered that one of Doug’s
many brothers managed a big
luau
in Lahaina. I’d have a good shot at a
job if I came armed with a reference.

The weather was gorgeous so I
walked the half-mile down to PoP. Doug’s car was parked out back. As much as I
loathed groveling for a job that would pretty much involve non-stop groveling,
I hated the idea of shopping with food stamps more.

“You’re a trooper,” Doug said. “I
just called a half hour ago, and here you are, rarin’ to go.”

“Well, not exactly rarin’,” I said.
“I need to talk to you about something.”

“Is it about that bald girl who
knifed her boyfriend? Weren’t you doing her wedding to another guy—that dude
that got thrown overboard?”

Leave it to the island grapevine to
scramble the facts.

 “Where’d you hear that?”

 “Well, last night this girl’s
dad calls my brother James—you know, the lawyer I told you about? Anyhow, he
says his daughter was supposed to get married but her fiancé got eaten by
sharks.  I remembered you told me you were doing her wedding when we
scrubbed down this place. He said now the police are all up in her face about
killing the new boyfriend.”

I just nodded and he went on. “
Da
kine
, now her dad wants my brother to be her lawyer. James told me she’s
bald-headed, and he’s thinking it’s ‘cuz she’s so stressed up her hair is
falling out. That happened to my brother when he went away to school on the
mainland—he got the stress and all his hair fell out.”

“Are you saying the police think
she killed
both
guys? But the Coast Guard called the first guy’s
disappearance an accident.”

“Yeah, well now the cops are
thinking different. James said they’re gonna arrest her any time now.”

I let this new information roll
around for a minute and find a place to settle. “How come you know all this,
Sifu? Isn’t lawyer-client stuff supposed to be confidential?”

“C’mon, Pali. He’s my
brudda
.
We talk.”

In Doug’s hard-core Hawaiian clan,
lawyer-client privilege probably didn’t hold much sway when it came to sharing
a juicy tale with the family.

“So, Lisa Marie hasn’t been
arrested?”

“Not as far as I know. But I hear
they’re leaning tough on her. James told her like a million times to not say
nothin’ to nobody. He told her no matter what, keep her mouth shut.”

Unlike some people.

“Well,
mahalo
for telling
me, but I didn’t come to talk about that,” I said. “I need to ask about your
other brother—the one who manages the No Ka Oi Luau.”