Rip Tides (14 page)

Chapter 14

T
hat morning Pono had e-mailed Lei the press release MPD had issued, citing “suspicious circumstances” in Makoa Simmons’s death. Knowing exactly what the public knew was helpful as Lei waited for Shayla and Pippa on the beach. She listened to the swirl of conversation among the knots of people, and much of the conversation centered on who the punk was that had dropped in on Makoa and caused his death.

“I like pound that punk wen’ stuff Makoa in the barrel on Maui,” one burly local growled.

Lei frowned, watching the girls slowly paddle in, talking to each other and to the people surrounding them. Maybe it was a stretch that one of these clearly grief-stricken girls was involved in Makoa’s death, but her gut was telling her otherwise.

Shayla and Pippa spotted Lei and Kamuela before they got to shore, but they had to pay attention to the surf to make it in past the shore break without getting ragdolled up the beach.

They both handled themselves well in the water, and Lei smiled warmly as they came up from the surf, carrying their boards. “Shayla! Pippa! Just the women we need to see. Can you spare a few minutes to talk with Detective Kamuela and me? Some new information has come to light in Makoa’s case.”

They glanced at each other. “Does it have to be right now? There’s a party in Makoa’s honor happening at the Torque team house,” Shayla said. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but otherwise there was no sign she’d been crying. Her sleek dark hair clung to her perfect figure like skeins of wet silk. Pippa, on the other hand, was red-nosed and puffy-eyed, wearing no makeup. Her body was stunning even in the plain black tank suit she wore.

“I’m sorry for the timing. We’ll try to be as quick as possible. Can you come with us?”

The girls made a few quick phone calls, wrapped up in towels, and the four of them climbed into Kamuela’s extended cab truck.

“Where are we going?” Shayla asked. Lei remembered Nanaio had described her as the “alpha” of the two.

“We have some items to show you that we found among Makoa’s personal things,” Lei said. “They’re stored at the Kahuku Police Station.” She didn’t want to give them any idea that they were anything but witnesses.

The girls put their heads together, and Lei pretended not to hear them whispering as Kamuela drove along the winding, picturesque road, ending at the barracks-like police station.

Lei waited with them as Kamuela, with his Oahu connections, went into the station to request use of two interview rooms. Once he came to the door and nodded, Lei gestured to the girls. “I’ll need to speak with each of you privately,” she said gently. “I hope you don’t mind.” Shayla frowned as she went into the battered-looking interview room with its bolted-down metal table and dirty plastic chairs.

“I have to wait in here?” She put her hands on her hips.

“Just for a few minutes,” Lei said, and closed the door behind her firmly.

She led Pippa to the other room while Kamuela retrieved the box of Makoa’s clothing with the ring in it.

Following her gut, she decided to interview Pippa first, as she looked the most vulnerable. She sat down with Pippa in the second interview room, no nicer than the first. The young woman had put on a caftan-like cover-up in lurid tie-dye colors, and once again Lei had the impression she was downplaying her looks.

“How are you holding up?” Lei asked.

“Okay.” Pippa plucked at a fraying braided cord around her wrist, rubbing it back and forth. Following a hunch, Lei asked, “Is that a friendship bracelet?”

“Yes.” Pippa glanced up, her blue eyes filling. “Makoa gave it to me.”

As if on cue, Kamuela came into the room carrying a box. “We have some things that were packed up from Makoa’s room at the Torque house. We were wondering if you could help us identify who they go to,” Lei said. She and Kamuela had decided on this tack ahead of time. She opened the flaps of the box and withdrew a stack of neatly folded shirts.

“His mom can have those back,” Pippa said. “But I’d like this one.” She set her hand on a white T-shirt with a
MauiBuilt
logo on it. “I gave it to him.” Her eyes filled again.

“So it seems like you two were close,” Lei said.

“Yes. Um—we didn’t tell you the whole situation the first time when you talked to us. I was in shock. I couldn’t think how to explain it to you.” Pippa picked up the T-shirt and crossed her arms over her chest, hugging it to her. “Makoa and I were seeing each other.”

“But I thought Shayla was his girlfriend,” Lei said, frowning as if this were news.

“We were both his girlfriends.” Pippa’s cheeks reddened as she looked at Lei defiantly. “We both loved him. And he loved us.”

“Wow. That’s unusual. Did everyone agree to this?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me how it got started.”

Pippa looked down. “He was going out with Shayla. But as time went on, I realized I was falling in love with him, and he had feelings for me, too. He was going to break up with Shayla, but when we sat down and talked, Shayla said it was okay. She loves us both, and why couldn’t we all stay together?” Pippa sniffed and rubbed her eye with the heel of a hand. “So we did.”

Lei reached into the box and took out the little paper evidence bag, shook the black velvet box out onto the table. “I found this in the pocket of Makoa’s dress slacks.” She popped the ring box open and the diamond sparkled, large and fiery, in the overhead lights. “I only see one ring here. Who was he going to ask to marry him?”

Pippa turned white, her eyes rolled back, and she tilted to the side, slumping off the chair in a dead faint. Kamuela managed to catch her before she hit the floor. “Get a pillow or something! We have to elevate her feet!”

Lei opened the door and hollered into the hall for assistance. Pippa came around a few minutes later. They’d covered her with the beach towel and elevated her feet on a thick phone book.

“Oh my God. This is so embarrassing,” she murmured. The tan of her skin lay like yellow paint over her pale cheeks.

“Are you pregnant?” Lei whispered, prompted by intuition.

Pippa shut her eyes. “Yes.” Fat tears leaked out from beneath her lids. “I haven’t told anyone but Makoa.”

“Did he ask you to marry him?”

The girl shook her head. “No.”

“So you don’t know if that ring was meant for you.”

The tears flowed faster. “He said the situation had to change, after I told him. He said he’d known for a while it had to change. But he didn’t say he was going home this weekend to break up with Shayla. She’d be devastated if he broke up with her because I got pregnant.”

“So you don’t think…” Lei let her voice trail off, hoping the girl would say something more definitive.

“I think he wanted us all to talk about it, decide what to do. I told him no matter what, I was going to have this baby.” She crossed her hands over her flat abdomen in a protective gesture Lei recognized with a pulse of remembered pain.

“How long ago was this conversation?”

“Last week. Thursday. He was going home to Maui Friday. I was going back to Maui Saturday. I had a shoot. I knew I had to get in as much work as I could before I started showing.” She stared at the ceiling. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do without him.” The tears brimming in her eyes spilled.

“Did he say he was going to tell Shayla? Had you told her?” Lei asked

“He said not to tell her, that he would do it. That it was his responsibility. She’s going to hate it.” Lei saw Pippa’s throat muscles move as the girl swallowed.

“Was he happy about the baby?”

More tears trickled down Pippa’s cheeks. “He was surprised at first, but then really seemed to get happy about it. He was so sweet to me.”

“A witness saw you two talking outside the team house in the early morning before he left for Maui. What day would that have been?”

“That was Friday morning. I told him the night before. We had an incredible night together; then he said he had to go to Maui and tell Shayla. We were arguing because I wanted to tell her. I knew she was going to feel betrayed if he was the one who told her and not me.”

Lei frowned. “That doesn’t make sense to me. He was the father of the baby. He was sleeping with both of you.”

“Yes, but Shayla’s my best friend.” Pippa turned her blue eyes to Lei. “We tell each other everything.”

Lei suspected this was not at all true. “Still. The witness said it seemed like you were arguing.”

“Yes, a little. Because I wanted to tell her and he insisted he would. He said he needed to deal with her.”

“Deal with her. An interesting phrase. Is that exactly what he said?”

“Yes.” Pippa looked at Lei again. “Do you think he told her? She hasn’t said a word to me, or acted any different. I can’t bear to tell her now that he’s gone. She’s going to hate me.”

“I don’t know if he told her. But I’m going to ask her. Now, one last time. I need to know who that ring was for. Dig deep, Pippa, and tell me. I promise it won’t get back to Shayla, whatever you say.”

Pippa gazed at Lei for a long moment, and her eyes were perfectly dry when she finally said, “Me. He loved me more. And with the baby coming, I think he would have asked me to marry him.”

And then she shut her eyes, opened her mouth, and wailed, a terrible cry of grief and loss that shuddered through and around Lei and filled the room with the agony of a broken heart.

Lei froze, unable to move, feeling the sound batter at her own fragile reserves. Marcus Kamuela was the one to draw the young woman up against his shoulder and pat her back soothingly, shushing her like a child as Lei withdrew out into the hall.

Lei walked into the women’s room and splashed water on her face. She took some relaxation breaths: in through her nose, out through her mouth. Tried to imagine finding out she was pregnant and dealing with it alone, with Stevens murdered.

Her mind shied away from a horror too great to bear.

She bought a little more time by changing out of her still-damp suit and cover-up into clothing from the backpack she’d made sure was packed from the vacation rental. Back in jeans and a button-down shirt, her badge and gun in place, she felt better able to face Shayla.

Lei pushed rioting curls back from her face and bundled them into a rubber band. With her hair pulled back and the weight she’d lost since her miscarriage, the face that looked back at her from the mirror seemed all eyes and mouth, the cheekbones high and stark, freckles standing out across her nose.

She put a little lipstick and mascara on, hoping that would help balance things.

It didn’t.

Finally, done stalling, she tightened her shoulder holster, washed her hands, and strode out.

* * *

Lei brought a glass of water in to Shayla, who was sitting at the table, playing with her phone. “Sorry for the wait.”

“Who was that screaming?” Shayla’s golden tan looked jaundiced under the harsh lighting. “It sounded serious.”

“Nothing to worry about.” Lei sat herself across from Shayla. “Detective Kamuela will be along in a moment with some items we’d like you to identify from Makoa’s things at the Torque team house.”

“Okay.”

“Did you come over here often? Spend much time at the house?”

“Not really. I’d come over for big contests, to give support. But no. Usually he visited me at my house, when he came home.” Shayla clearly considered Maui not just her home, but Makoa’s.

“Would you consider yourself and Makoa close?”

“Definitely.” Shayla folded her arms across her shapely bosom.

“What kind of relationship would you say you had?” Lei kept her voice neutral, but Shayla drew her brows together.

“What’s this about?”

“We’ve heard rumors that you weren’t Makoa’s only girlfriend.”

“You’ve heard about Pippa, then,” Shayla stated. “I guess I should have told you when you came to the house with the sketch artist, but we were so upset, I didn’t think of it. Besides, how is it relevant to the investigation?”

A long beat went by as they eyed each other, and finally Lei asked gently, “Do you want me to spell it out?”

Shayla dropped her eyes and covered her face with her hands. Lei had the feeling she was seeing a deliberate shift in behavior, and sure enough, the shoulders that had been thrown defiantly back hunched inward, and she trembled as if with a sob.

“It’s all been too much,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands. “I know the situation we had going was weird to people, but it worked for us.”

“Shayla, I’d really like to understand it from your perspective. Just tell me how it came about. Help me understand how it worked for you.” Feeding back the witnesses’ own words to them helped create a connection, a sense of being understood, and sure enough, Shayla lowered her hands. Her big brown eyes were glossy with tears, and her full lips trembled.

“I had Makoa first. He was my boyfriend. But then Pippa, who works on Oahu a lot more than me, began hanging around with him. Just friends, I thought—but it had become something more. I love Pippa and I love Makoa. I didn’t want to lose them both, especially to each other. So I said, why don’t we just share?” She blinked, and fat tears rolled out of her eyes. “So we did. It worked for us.” The phrase had begun to sound like a mantra.

As if on cue, Kamuela came in with the same cardboard box of Makoa’s things that they’d shown Pippa. He set the box on the table. “Here are some of Makoa’s things that Pete at the Torque house packed up,” Lei said, taking out the stack of T-shirts.

Shayla scooped up a blue one, pressed it to her face. “Can I keep this?” she asked.

“Sure. We were taking the rest back to Maui, to his parents. But there was one more thing we found.” Lei reached into the box and took out the small, black velvet box.

Shayla’s mouth opened, and she reached over and took the ring box, flipping it open. She covered her mouth with her hand, and tears filled her eyes as she looked at the sparkling diamond. “Oh my God. He was going to ask me to marry him.”

Lei blinked, glanced at Kamuela. The scene with Pippa was so fresh it was hard to process Shayla’s confident statement. “So…he hadn’t talked to you about this?”

“No. But I’m sure he was just waiting for the right time to ask me. He told me the morning he was killed that he had something important to talk to me about.” Shayla took the ring out, slid it onto her finger as her eyes welled, and Lei couldn’t help contrasting Pippa’s raw grief to Shayla’s pretty tears. Which display of emotion could be hiding a murderer?

“What about Pippa?” Lei couldn’t help asking.

Shayla wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, still gazing at the ring. “We’d have worked something out.”

“Come on.” Lei snorted. “I would sooner gut another woman than share my husband. You’re telling me you’d let him keep Pippa? Because from the reports we heard, you were the one getting edged out and that ring was for her.”

Shayla’s dark eyes flared wide, and Lei glimpsed the steely will that gave the girl her dominating personality.

“No way,” she said confidently. “Okay, you’re right. I wouldn’t be willing to share Makoa once we were married. “

“Did Makoa ask you to marry him? Tell you anything important this weekend, before he was killed?”

“No, but he told me we had something important to discuss. He was taking me to dinner the night he was killed.” She swiveled her hand back and forth, watching the light play on the diamonds. “Can I keep this?”