Swimsuit (8 page)

Right then I was aching to hear my sweetie’s voice, and she didn’t disappoint, answering the phone on the third ring. After
some verbal high fives, and at my request, she told me about her day at Intermezzo.

“It was Groundhog Day, Benjy. Rémy fired Rocco, again,” Amanda said, going into a French accent now. ‘What I have to say to
you to make you think like chef? This confit. It looks like pigeon
poop.
’ He put about twelve
ooohs
in
poop.
”

She laughed, said, “Hired him back ten minutes later. As usual. And then I scorched the crème brûlée. ‘
Merde, Ahmandah, mon Dieu.
You are making me
craaaaa-zy
.’ ” She laughed again. “And you, Benjy? Are you getting your story?”

“I met with the missing girl’s folks. They’re talking to me.”

“Oh, boy. How grim was that?”

I caught Mandy up on the interview with Barbara, told her how much I liked the McDanielses and that they had two other kids,
both boys adopted from Russian orphanages.

“Their oldest son was almost catatonic from neglect when the police in Saint Petersburg found him. The younger boy has fetal
alcohol syndrome. Kim decided to become a pediatrician because of her brothers.”

“Ben, honey?”

“ Uh-huh. Am I breaking up?”

“No, I can hear you. Can you hear me?”

“Totally.”

“Then listen. Be careful, will you?”

I felt a slight burr of irritation. Amanda was uncommonly intuitive, but I was in no danger.

“Careful of what?”

“Remember when you left your briefcase with all of your notes on the Donato story in a diner?”

“You’re going to bring up the bus again, aren’t you?”

“Since you mention it.”

“I was under your spell, goofball. I was looking at you when I stepped off the curb. If you were
here
now, it could happen again —”

“What I’m saying is, you sound the same way
now
as you did then.”

“I do, huh?”

“Yeah, you kinda do. So watch out, okay? Pay attention. Look both ways.”

Ten feet away, a couple clinked glasses, held hands across a small table. Honeymooners, I thought.

“I miss you,” I said.

“I miss you, too. I’m keeping the bed warm for you, so come home soon.”

I sent a wireless kiss to my girl in L.A. and said good night.

AT SEVEN FIFTEEN Monday morning, Levon watched the driver pull the black sedan up to the entrance of the Wailea Princess.
Levon got into the front passenger seat as Hawkins and Barb got into the back, and when all the doors had slammed shut, Levon
told Marco to please take them to the police station in Kihei.

During the ride, Levon half listened as Hawkins talked, telling him how to handle the police, saying to be
helpful,
to make the cops your friends and not to be belligerent because that would work against them.

Levon had nodded, grunted “uh-huh” a few times, but he was inside his head, wouldn’t have been able to describe the route
between the hotel and the police station, his mind fully focused on the upcoming meeting with Lieutenant James Jackson.

Levon came back to the present as Marco was parking at the mini–strip mall, and he jumped out before the car had fully stopped.
He walked straight up to the shoebox-sized substation, a storefront wedged between a tattoo parlor and a pizzeria.

The glass door was locked, and so Levon jabbed the intercom button and spoke his name, saying to the female voice that he
had an appointment at eight with Lieutenant Jackson. There was a buzz and the door opened and they were in.

The station looked to Levon like a small-town DMV. The walls were bureaucrat green; the floor, a buffed linoleum; the long
hallway-width room lined with facing rows of plastic chairs.

At the end of the narrow room was a reception window, its metal shutter rolled down, and beside it was a closed door. Levon
sat down next to Barbara, and Hawkins sat across from them with his notebook sticking out of his breast pocket, and they waited.

At a few minutes past eight, the shuttered window opened and people trickled in to pay parking tickets, register their cars,
God knows what else. Guys with Rasta hair; girls with complicated tattoos; young moms with small, bawling kids.

Levon felt a stabbing pain behind his eyes, and he thought about Kim, wanting to know where she could be right now and if
she was in any pain and why this had happened.

After a while, he stood up and paced along the gallery of Wanted posters, looked into the staring eyes of murderers and armed
robbers, and then there were the missing-children posters, some of them digitally altered to age the kids to how they might
look now, having disappeared so many years ago.

Behind him, Barbara said to Hawkins, “Can you believe it? We’ve been here two hours. Don’t you just want to scream?”

And Levon did want to scream.
Where was his daughter?
He leaned down and spoke to the female officer behind the window. “Does Lieutenant Jackson know we’re here?”

“Yes, sir, he sure does.”

Levon sat down next to Barb, pinched the place between his eyes, wondered why Jackson was taking so long. And he thought about
Hawkins, how he’d gotten in very tight with Barb. Levon trusted Barb’s judgment, but, like a lot of women, she made friends
fast. Sometimes too fast.

Levon watched Hawkins writing in his notebook and then some teenage girls joined the line at the front desk, talking in high-pitched
chatter that just about took off the top of his head.

By ten fifteen, Levon’s agitation was like the rumbling of the volcanoes that had raised this island out of the prehistoric
sea. He felt ready to explode.

I WAS SITTING in a hard plastic chair next to Barbara McDaniels when I heard the door open at the end of the long, narrow
room. Levon leapt up from his seat and was practically in the cop’s face before the door swung closed.

The cop was big, midthirties, with thick black hair and mocha-toned skin. He looked part Jimmy Smits, part Ben Affleck, and
part island surfer god. Wore a jacket and tie, had a shield hooked into the waistband of his chinos, a gold one, which meant
he was a detective.

Barbara and I joined Levon, who introduced us to Lieutenant Jackson. Jackson asked me, “What’s your relationship to the McDanielses?”

“Friend of the family,” Barbara said at the same time that I said, “I’m with the
L.A. Times.
”

Jackson snorted a laugh, scrutinized me, then asked, “Do you know Kim?”

No.

“Have any information as to her whereabouts?”

No.

“Do you know these people? Or did you meet them, say, yesterday?”

“We just met.”

“Interesting,” Jackson said, smirking now. He said to the McDanielses. “You understand this man’s job is to sell newspapers?”

“We know that,” Levon said.

“Good. Just so you’re clear, anything you say to Mr. Hawkins is going directly from your mouths to the front page of the
L.A. Times.
Speaking for myself,” Jackson went on, “I don’t want him here. Mr. Hawkins, have a seat, and if I need you, I’ll call you.”

Barbara spoke up. “Lieutenant, my husband and I talked it over last night, and it comes down to this. We trust Ben, and he
has the power of the
L.A. Times
behind him. He might be able to do more for us than we can do alone.”

Jackson exhaled his exasperation but seemed to concede the point. He said to me, “Anything out of
my
mouth has to be okayed by me before you run with it, understand?”

I said I did.

Jackson’s office took up a corner at the back of the building, had one window and a noisy air conditioner; numbers were written
on the blue plasterboard walls near the phone.

Jackson indicated chairs for the McDanielses, and I leaned against the doorframe as he flapped open a notepad, took down basic
information.

Then he got down to business, working, I thought, off a notion that Kim was a party girl, questioning her late-night habits
and asking about men in her life and drug use.

Barbara told Jackson that Kim was a straight-A student. That she had sponsored a Christian Children’s Fund baby in Ecuador.
That she was responsible to a fault and the fact that she hadn’t returned their call was
way
out of character.

Jackson listened with a mostly bored look on his face before saying, “Yeah, I’m sure she’s an angel. I’m waiting for the day
someone comes in, says their kid is a meth head or a slut.”

Levon sprang to his feet, and Jackson stood up a beat after that, but by then Levon had the advantage. He shoved his palms
into Jackson’s beefy shoulders, sending him backward into the wall, which shook with a loud crack. Plaques and photos crashed
to the floor, which is what you’d expect when 180 pounds or so was used as a wrecking ball.

Jackson was the bigger and younger man, but Levon was mainlining adrenaline. Without pause, he reached down and grabbed Jackson
up by his lapels and threw him against the wall again. There was another terrible crashing sound as Jackson’s head bounced
off the plasterboard. I watched him grab for the arm of his chair, which toppled, and sent him down a third time.

It was an ugly scene even
before
Levon crowned the moment.

He stared down at Jackson, and said, “Damn, that felt good. You son of a bitch.”

A HEAVYSET FEMALE OFFICER BARRELED toward the doorway as I stood there like a stump, trying to absorb that Levon had assaulted
a
cop,
shoved him, thrown him down, cursed at him, and said it felt
good.

Now Jackson was on his feet, and Levon was still panting. The woman cop yelled,
“Hey, what’s going on?”

Jackson said, “We’re fine here, Millie. Lost my balance. Gonna need a new chair.” And he waved her off. Then he turned back
to Levon, who was shouting at him, “Don’t you
get
it? I told you last
night.
We got a fricking
phone call
in Michigan. The man said he took my daughter, and you’re trying to say Kim’s a tramp?”

Jackson straightened his jacket, his tie, righted his chair. His face was red and he was scowling. He jerked the chair around,
then shouted back at Levon, “You’re
crazy,
McDaniels.

You realize what you just did, you stupid
fuck?
You want to be locked up?
Do you?
You think you’re a tough guy? You want to find out just how tough
I am?
I could arrest your ass and have you put away for this, don’t you know that?”

“Yeah, throw me in jail, damn you. Do that, because I want to tell the world how you treated us. What a yahoo you are.”

“Levon, Levon,” Barbara was up, begging her husband, pulling at his arm. “Stop, Levon. Control yourself. Apologize to the
lieutenant, please.”

Jackson sat down, rolled his chair up to his desk, said, “McDaniels, don’t ever put a hand on me again. Due to the fact that
you’re out of your fucking mind, I’ll minimize what just happened in my report. Now sit down before I change my mind and arrest
you.”

Levon was still blowing hard, but Jackson gestured to the chairs, and Levon and Barbara sat down.

Jackson touched the back of his head, rubbed his elbow, then said, “Half the time, a kid goes missing, one of the parents
knows what happened. Sometimes both of them. I had to see where you were coming from.”

Levon and Barbara stared. And we all got it. Jackson had provoked them to see how they’d react.

It had been a test. They’d passed. In a manner of speaking.

“We’ve been investigating this case since yesterday morning. Like I told you when I called,” Jackson said, glaring at Levon.
“We’ve met with the
Sporting Life
people, also the desk and bar staff at the Princess. So far, we got nothing from that.”

Jackson opened his desk drawer, took out a cell phone, one of those thin, half-human devices that takes pictures, sends mail,
and tells you when you’re low on oil.

“This is Kim’s phone,” Jackson said. “We found it on the beach behind the Princess. We’ve dumped the data and found a number
of phone calls to Kim from a man named Doug Cahill.”

“Cahill?” Levon said. “Doug Cahill used to date Kim. He lives in Chicago.”

Jackson shook his head. “He was calling Kim from
Maui.
Called her every hour until her mailbox filled up and stopped taking incoming calls.”

“You’re saying Doug is
here?
” Barbara asked. “He’s in Maui now?”

“We located Cahill in Makena, worked on him for two hours last night before he lawyered up. He said he hadn’t seen Kim. That
she wouldn’t talk to him. And we couldn’t hold him, because we have nothing on him,” Jackson said, putting Kim’s cell phone
back in the drawer.

“McDaniels, here’s what we’ve got. You got a phone call saying Kim was in bad hands. And we have Kim’s cell phone. We don’t
even know if a crime has been committed. If Cahill gets on a plane, there’s nothing we can do to stop him from leaving.”

I saw Barbara start, shock coming over her face again.

“Doug’s not your guy,” Levon said.

Jackson’s eyebrows shot up. “Why do you say that?”

“I know Doug’s voice. The man who called us wasn’t Doug.”

WE WERE BACK in the black sedan. This time I was in front, beside the driver. Marco adjusted his rearview mirror, and we exchanged
nods, but there was nothing to say. It was all going on in the backseat between Barbara and Levon.

Levon was explaining to his wife, “Barb. I didn’t tell you what that bastard said
verbatim
because there was nothing to be gained from it. I’m sorry.”

“I’m your wife. You had no right to hold back what he said.”

“ ‘She’s fallen into bad hands,’ okay? That’s the only thing I didn’t tell you, and I still wouldn’t tell you, but I had to
tell Jackson. I tried to spare you, sweetheart, I wanted to spare you.”

Barb cried, “Spare me? You lied to me, Levon. You lied.” And then Levon was crying too, and I realized that this was what
had been binding Levon up, why he’d been so glassy-eyed and removed. A man had said that he was going to hurt his daughter
and Levon hadn’t told his wife. And now he couldn’t pretend anymore that it wasn’t true.