Rip Tides (20 page)

They spent hours looking, working their way from one end of the encampments to the other. Many knew Adele; a few had spotted Ellen. The pattern of Adele’s food stamp fraud was well established by the time they hit a more solid tip.

“Hey there. We’re looking for a woman we’re concerned about.” Brandon showed the photo of Ellen Stevens. Stevens, watching, felt his stomach clench. The photo he’d given them to use was an older one, in which Ellen was smiling, her face fuller, her hair a glossy fall to her shoulders. It was a fifteen-year-old photo, but the only one he had.

“Yeah, I’ve seen her. Doesn’t look like that anymore, though,” the homeless man said, sucking his lips where his front teeth should be.

“Where was she?” Brandon asked, lifting his head to look around.

“I think she’s still here. Made herself a little squat.” The man pointed toward the edge of the cluster of dwellings.

Stevens’s heart rate picked up as the informant haggled with Mahoe for payment. He turned toward where the man pointed and strode rapidly in that direction.

He found his mother lying in the lee of a pile of flattened cardboard boxes. He recognized her instantly—the long shape of her skull, the flutter of her blonde hair protruding from the mouth of a filthy nylon sleeping bag. An empty bottle of Scotch lay on the ground next to her.

Looking down at her, Stevens felt that familiar dark shame rising to swamp him. This had been him just a day ago.

Stevens squatted down beside Ellen, smoothed the greasy hair back off her brow. She was either deeply asleep or passed out, because she didn’t move. Her eyelids fluttered, though, and her thin chest rose and fell. She was alive.

“Mom?” he called softly. “It’s Michael. I’m here to take you home.”

Chapter 19

S
eated in the conference room with Captain Omura and several other higher-ups, Lei finished with her account of what had happened in the interview room.

“Let’s watch the video.” Captain Omura hit a remote to play the recorded footage on a flatscreen across from the table. Lei winced as she watched the mistakes she’d made play out across the grainy feed.

She hadn’t cuffed Eli Tadeo and he’d attacked Shayla.

He’d been able to fight Lei off, and he’d almost killed the woman.

“What’s missing from this video? Besides proper procedure, which is going to give Shayla Cummings a huge hole to appeal her charges?” Omura said, her crimson nails tapping each other.

“A confession,” Pono said. “He never directly says he killed Makoa. It’s only implied. And then he attacks Shayla when she says she hates him.”

“Right.”

They replayed the video. Lei stood up and paced, her fists balled. “He did it, though. He practically admits it. And his behavior shows how unbalanced he is.”

“This case has to be made on a confession because we already know there’s no trace that we can use connecting to any of the players. Let’s watch this again.”

They watched the video again. This time Omura paused it at the frame where Eric Tadeo, his face congested, yelled for his lawyer.

“Sergeant Tadeo is going to be a problem.”

“I know,” Lei said. “But did you hear the part where Eli talks about how Eric slept with Shayla, too?”

“How was your interview with Eric Tadeo?”

“Not good. After he talked to his lawyer, he barely answered any questions. One word-answers. Admitted nothing. At this point I’m happy to be able to charge Eli and Shayla.”

Omura tapped her nails again. Lei realized she hated the sound.

“I don’t think this whole thing, compelling as it is in terms of drama, is going to hold up in court. We need something harder. We need one of them to admit to killing Makoa.”

“They’d be crazy to do that,” Lei said.

Omura smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “I see a whole lot of crazy people in this video. You can make this happen, Texeira. I think you should reach out to Tadeo’s wife. You talked with her early on. I don’t think she’s going to take this kind of betrayal lying down.”

“At least we’ve cleared Pippa and Oulaki,” Lei said. “I feel a little better about this case after that interview.”

“Talk to Rachel Tadeo. See what she says about her husband’s affair. I bet she comes up with something that helps us put one of them in the surf with Makoa.” Omura flicked those nails in dismissal.

* * *

Lei and Pono knocked on the pretty door of the neat house in Kuau where Eric Tadeo and his family lived. Lei looked over at Eli’s tidy little cottage, feeling a twinge at the sight of the welcome mat empty of his shoes and the surfboard by the door.

“What do you want?” Rachel Tadeo didn’t pretend to be polite as she opened the door, the toddler on her hip.

“We want to speak to you,” Lei said, feeling her stomach tighten a bit. She was about to ruin this woman’s world. “About the murder of Makoa Simmons.”

“I have no idea what I could say about that,” she said, but she stood aside and they entered.

Rachel ignored them as she took her two young children into a playroom filled with toys and a television and got them settled in front of a video with sippy cups and a snack. Finally, she gestured for them to follow her into the living room.

Rachel’s face was a stoic mask as she seated herself on a chair across from the couch Lei and Pono perched on. “I’m sick of this witch hunt,” she said. “You’re going to be facing charges yourselves, for harassing our family.”

“A man has died. A man who deserved to live. A man who had a bright future ahead of him and was going to be a father.” Lei leaned forward, making sincere eye contact. “Your brother-in-law practically admitted he did it, and then he tried to kill Shayla Cummings right in front of me. I don’t know why you’re protecting him.”

Rachel dropped her eyes, plucking at a loose thread on her shorts. “I don’t know what you need to talk to me about.”

“We need to know everything we can about Eli and Eric’s relationship with Shayla Cummings.”

Rachel looked up, frowned. “Eric? He didn’t have a relationship with that bitch.”

“Oh, but I’m afraid he did.” Lei told Rachel the gist of what had come out in the interview room. “Your husband was, at least sometimes, sleeping with Shayla. Impersonating his brother. They shared her.”

The color drained out of Rachel’s face, and her eyes flew to the door of the playroom, where the children watched television. She got up and walked silently across the room, shutting the playroom door and going quickly upstairs. Lei looked at Pono, and they jumped up and hurried after her.

They found her in an upstairs office furnished with a desk. A shelf filled with trophies and commendations took up one wall, a lounger and flatscreen TV the other. Rachel was behind the desk, unlocking it, pulling out a drawer. As they watched, she reached inside and took out a small metal box.

She set it on the desk and looked up at them. “He keeps something in here. Something he didn’t want me to see.”

“Do we have your permission to open the box?”

“Please.” She gestured.

Lei came around the desk, took a paper clip out of the drawer, and opened it. She inserted the paper clip into the lock, excitement surging up at the same time as regret for the pain she was causing. Rachel covered her face, beginning to cry.

“I knew something was going on. I knew something wasn’t right,” she muttered.

Lei got the lid unlocked. Inside was a box filled with authentic-looking soul patch beard sections on clear plastic.

Rachel leaped to her feet. “Oh, God!”

She grabbed handfuls of hair, pulling it, her face contorted with anguish. Lei reached over to both hug and restrain her.

“Don’t hurt yourself. He was the one who did wrong,” she soothed.

“No, no, no!” Rachel sobbed. “I had a feeling. He would be gone nights on training exercises. Something in me knew!” Her hysteria was increasing as she wailed. Just then they heard the rumble of the big truck Eric drove pulling into the driveway. Lei wrapped her arms around the other woman, pinioning her, as they heard the front door crash open.

“Rachel!” Eric bellowed. “Don’t listen to them! Rachel!”

The woman in Lei’s arms thrust a hard elbow back into Lei’s stomach, winding her, then stomped on Lei’s foot with her athletic shoe so hard Lei felt the crack of bone.

Lei staggered back with a cry. Rachel scrabbled in the drawer of the desk and pulled out a black gun case.

Pono, who’d been watching in bemusement, leaped forward to stop her, but Rachel already had the Glock out. Pono fell back, his hands in the air.

Lei leaned on the wall, shame that she’d been disabled by this cop’s wife with her weekend self-defense training combined with horror as the scene went from bad to worse. Eric Tadeo appeared in the doorway of the office. His wild-eyed wife pointed the gun at him.

“You scum!” she screamed. “You cheated on me with that bitch!”

“Put the gun down.” Eric spoke in a quiet voice, his hands in the air. “Please, honey. Please, Rachel. Let me explain. We can work this out.”

“There’s no explanation you can give that would make this right,” Rachel screamed, throwing the metal box at Eric. It caught him in the midsection. The fake soul patches scattered across the carpet.

“I’m sorry, Rachel,” Eric said. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t think anyone would get hurt.”

“You’re getting hurt!” Rachel pulled the trigger. The report was deafening in the enclosed space.

The round caught Eric in the shoulder, and he crumpled in the doorway. Rachel stared at his fallen body, the gun wobbling, and Pono wrestled it out of her hands. He slammed her onto the floor and cuffed her.

Lei heard the piping sound of the older daughter’s voice approaching up the steps. “Mommy? Daddy?”

Rachel twisted her head on the carpet and yelled, “Go back downstairs! Everything is fine!”

Lei hobbled to Eric, tugged him inside the room by his feet, and shut the door so that the children wouldn’t see what was happening inside the room as Pono called for an ambulance.

Eric’s mouth opened and closed as he struggled to breathe. Lei grabbed a magazine off the desk and set it over the wound, pressing down hard. She leaned over Eric, alarmed by the blood pool spreading beneath him.

“Did you kill Makoa?” she asked.

Eric’s chest heaved in a valiant effort to bring in oxygen. His face was turning blue. Frantic eyes, filled with terror and determination, fastened on her face, and he nodded.

“I did it for my brother,” he gasped.

Blood filled Eric’s mouth. He heaved upward, splattering Lei with the viscous fluid. Then he fell back into the sodden carpet, and his eyes rolled back, his mouth slack.

So much blood.
It seemed to be everywhere. Lei stood, momentarily forgetting about her broken foot, then staggered to sit on the office chair.

“Holy crap,” Pono said. Rachel keened beside his feet, her sobs a monotonous backdrop as the emergency response personnel arrived and went to work on Eric.

The children were still downstairs, with no one watching them.

Lei got up and hobbled to the couple’s bathroom. She stripped off her shirt, noticing a red patch on her sternum. Rachel’s elbow, layered on top of the blow she’d received earlier in the interview room. Worse than that was Eric’s blood, splashed in a vomit pattern down the front of her shirt. On her face. On her arms.

Lei hastily splashed her face and arms, wiped with a towel, and pulled on a shirt from the nearby laundry hamper. It must have been Eric’s, because it came to mid-thigh.

Good, that would cover Eric’s blood on the front of her pants.

She hobbled past the emergency techs intubating Eric, Rachel’s prostrate, desolate form, and Pono on the phone updating the captain. Holding on to the railing, she hopped downstairs and into the playroom.

“Hey, girls.” The older daughter had turned the TV up and was close beside the toddler, who was seated in a wheeled chair. Both children had their attention fixed on
Sesame Street
. “What’s Cookie Monster up to now?”

“He’s trying to steal Big Bird’s cookie,” the little girl said. She glanced at Lei, her dark eyes wary. “Where’s Mommy?”

“She has a meeting upstairs. Do you have a
tutu
or an auntie I can call? Mommy needs to go out for a while.”

“What’s your name?” the girl asked. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

“Lei. I’m a police officer.”

“My daddy is a police officer. My name is Anuhea.” Anuhea got up and went to the sideboard, where a cordless phone sat on a charger. “Our grandma is number three. I can call her if you want.”

“No, thanks. I’ll do it. Do you need any more snacks?” Lei hobbled to take the phone from the little girl.

“No, thank you,” Anuhea said, with careful good manners.

Looking down into the child’s dark eyes, Lei saw the knowledge that something was deeply wrong, but the child gave no other sign. She went to sit close beside the walker, where the toddler was playing with beads and watching the television.

Lei limped out into the hall. Turning these children over to Social Services would be even more traumatic than what they were bound to go through in the days to come. She pressed and held down the number “three,” formulating words that would shatter a parent’s world forever.

Chapter 20

S
tevens picked Lei up at the emergency room after her foot was examined and casted. “Greenstick fracture,” the doctor’d pronounced. “Stay off it.”

“Easier said than done,” she’d replied. Now she crutched her way across the lobby toward the entrance.

Stevens strode through the pneumatic doors, his tall form radiating tension as he looked for her, spotted her, homed in on her. “Sweets. How many times have I had to pick you up here?”

“Dunno, but this isn’t likely to be the last time,” she said. “I need a kiss. A hug, too.” Right there in public, she reached for him and let go of the crutches. He tightened his arms around her and lowered his head, his mouth meeting hers.

His eyes were a little hazy, hands sliding over her lightly when he raised his head.

“Any other damage besides the foot?”

“Took some blows to the midsection. And my pride,” Lei said.

He picked up the crutches, handed them to her, and they made their way out the doors. Once in his Bronco, the crutches settled in back, he turned to her. “What happened?”

“I wanted to stir things up. And I did.” Lei felt her eyes fill, thinking of the little Tadeo girls, meekly leaving the house with their distraught grandmother. Follow-up interviews with other responding officers, the debrief with the captain, and all that time her foot was swelling bigger and bigger until Pono almost had to carry her to his truck to get to the hospital. “I wish I’d gone slower. Been safer. I should have restrained Eli Tadeo, interviewed Rachel Tadeo at the station. I had no idea the situation was as complicated and explosive as it was.”

“You get all the crazy ones these days,” Stevens said. “I spent my day training Brandon Mahoe and looking for Mom. The good thing is, I found her. And she’s in the Aloha House acute unit now.”

“Really? That’s great news!”

“I got to her in time. She was passed out in a cardboard box next to a Dumpster. Totally dehydrated. Looks like she might have some kidney damage, not to mention liver damage from this latest binge. They took her in an ambulance and stabilized her at the ER. When Jared showed up at the hospital, we pulled out all the stops to get her to agree to go to treatment. Emphasized how it could have been her in the canal. She agreed, but it remains to be seen if she’ll stay.”

“But that’s a start. What did she say about that blonde woman wearing her clothes?”

Stevens shrugged, his mouth tight. “Like we supposed. She traded her clothes for the bottle.”

“So what was she wearing?”

“Underwear. A filthy shirt. But she was in a sleeping bag, so she wasn’t lying around naked, at least.”

“God, Michael. I’m so sorry.” Lei stroked the corded muscles of his arm, and he took her hand.

“It will be okay if she stays in recovery. But I’m not holding my breath.”

“So…what do you think about the Changs, the shroud killer? Think they had anything to do with Adele’s drowning?”

“I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be a connection.”

“Thank God for that. I’ll check in with Terence Chang when I go to the Big Island for Solomon’s trial,” Lei said. They navigated the two-lane Hana Highway out of town. Lei glanced at the glitter of sunset glow on the ocean off Ho`okipa Beach, where this case had first begun. She thought of Pippa and Bryan Oulaki. Maybe something would happen there, maybe not. At least he’d shown a prerequisite for real love—willingness to sacrifice for another. None of the other people in the tangled relationships they’d uncovered in this case had known that secret.

“I can’t wait to get home,” she said. “We’re sleeping with Kiet in the new house, right?”

“Right.” Stevens smiled at her, his dark hair lit by golden sunset rays through the truck’s window. “Can’t wait to get into that cold shower again.”