CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“Okay,” Shanelle says. “You got to run this whole thing past me one more time.”
“I need to hear it again, too,” Trixie says.
My mother is silent. But you could see the confusion in her eyes from Molokai.
We’re in the room Shanelle and I share. Trixie is splayed on the floor by my bed, my mom is in the desk chair, Shanelle is perched on her bed, and I’m standing in front of the French doors that open to the balcony. The room still smells of papaya shrimp and chicken satay because we just finished the room-service lunch I popped for. I insisted that no one order a tiki tiki drink, not to save money but because we all need clear heads. People with nothing on their minds but fun are nine floors below frolicking in the pool. It’s a little irritating that we can hear them so clearly, but oh well. When we finish our assignment, and only when we finish it, may we join them.
“What we’re going to do,” I say, “is write an email to Tony Postagino as if it were coming from Rex Rexford.”
“And we have to write it in code,” Shanelle says.
“Yes. Rex explained the code to me this morning.” I pace as if I were on the stage of a lecture hall. “Obviously, since he and Postagino were planning a murder, they couldn’t communicate with one another in straightforward language because that would leave a trail of evidence. So they devised a code.”
Trixie shakes her head. She appears awestruck. “I never would have thought Rex had such a big brain. So big that he could write in code.”
“Well, it’s not a very complicated code,” I say, “which is good for us.”
“Didn’t the cops find it suspicious that they were in touch at all?” Shanelle asks. “I mean, I had a pageant consultant in the past and Lamar barely knew his name.”
“But it is plausible,” I say, “that a contestant’s husband and a consultant would know one another, and strategize together. Some husbands get very involved in their wives’ pageant careers.”
“Like Colleen Novotny’s husband,” Trixie offers.
“That one from Vermont?” Shanelle asks. “You’re right. Her husband’s always butting into her business.”
“Anyway,” I say, “Rex and Postagino were careful to establish a pattern of email traffic between them long before Tiffany came to Oahu. They traded emails about all sorts of Ms. America-related business. And they created an email account for Tiffany so that it would look like she was involved in the communication, too.”
“Because it would seem extremely weird if she weren’t,” Trixie points out.
“Exactly,” I say. “They cc’ed her and they wrote responses as if they were her. But she never even knew that account existed.”
“Slimeballs,” Shanelle says, as if that were the worst thing they did.
“Perverts,” my mother adds.
“Moving right along. They had a system for signaling whether an email was a normal communication or in code.”
“That’s where the commas and dashes come in,” my mother says.
“Precisely.” I am glad my mom is taking this seriously. She groused at first, but once she saw Shanelle and Trixie were enthusiastic, she got into it. Anything that has to do with beauty queens—she’s in. “For a normal communication, in the greeting line they’d type the person’s name and follow it with a comma. Tony, comma. Rex, comma. But if it were in code—”
“They’d follow the name with a dash!” Trixie yelps.
“Yes. And to understand the coded message, they would read only the first letter of each word.” I hold up a sheet of the nightstand memo paper. “Here’s an example I came up with so everybody would understand. On the surface it reads:
Try helping each contestant out. Perhaps she’ll
… blah blah blah. But what,” I ask my three charges, “is the coded message?”
I watch them all squint at the words and move their lips.
Shanelle gets it first. “The cops!” she shouts.
“Correct, Ms. Walker. So our mission—”
“If we choose to accept it—” Trixie interrupts, and giggles.
“—is to craft a coded message to Tony Postagino in the hope that he will respond in such a way that he incriminates himself. If that happens, Momoa will have a basis for arresting him.”
“Because at this point in time, Momoa’s got nothin’,” Shanelle says.
“Exactly right. He lacks sufficient evidence to bring him in.”
“It doesn’t count,” Trixie says, “that Rex told you Tiffany’s husband was as involved as he was?”
“That wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. It’s hearsay.”
Trixie’s eyes widen. “You sound like a lawyer, Happy.”
I have no ambition in that direction. But this investigating thing, at least when it works, and when you’re not about to get killed, is fun.
“And tell us again,” Shanelle says, “what Momoa’s agreed to do?”
“He has agreed that his guys from the police department will send the email to Postagino so that it looks like it came from Rex’s email account.”
“That’s called spoofing,” Shanelle says.
“He also agreed that, for the time being, Oahu PD will not make public two pieces of information. That Rex Rexford was arrested for Tiffany Amber’s murder—”
“Or for the attempt on you,” Trixie says, then she winces. “Sorry, Mrs. P. I know you hate when anybody brings that up.”
My mother does assume a sickly expression when that matter is raised, it’s true. “And,” I continue, “they will not release any information about why Sebastian Cantwell is being held.”
“Because,” Trixie says, “everybody thinks it’s because he’s the murderer.”
“Which is crucial to our plan. Because we want Tony Postagino, in particular, to think he and Rex are off the hook.”
“We know better, though,” Shanelle says. “In particular,
you
know better, when it comes to Sebastian Cantwell. Am I right, Ms. Pennington?”
“I am not at liberty to say,” I respond primly.
“She’s on the inside now,” Trixie declares.
Of course, Trixie and Shanelle and my mom think that my source for Sebastian Cantwell information is Detective Momoa. Only I know it’s Mario Suave. Because, I think with some gratification, only
I
know
his
secret.
“Okay, ladies.” I begin handing out sheets of memo paper. “These are the four coded messages.”
My mother frowns at hers. “ ‘
I’m worried the cops are onto us
,’ this says.”
“ ‘
We had a bad plan
,’ ” says Trixie.
I made sure to give myself a long one. I read it aloud. “ ‘
I should have known we’d never get away with killing Tiffany
.’ ”
“Yours is too long for me, girl,” Shanelle says, then reads hers aloud. “ ‘
Now I’m sick to death we’ll both get caught
.’ ”
“Yours is bad enough,” Trixie informs Shanelle.
Shanelle lets fly an exaggerated sigh, then flops onto her stomach on the bed. “Girls, prepare yourselves. We gonna be here allllllllll night.”
Actually, we’re sprung by the cocktail hour. I proudly call our coded message in to Momoa.
Now we sit and wait.