The Flaming Luau of Death (11 page)

Now, that was something I hadn’t thought of. Keniki worked at the Four Heavens, of course. Maybe once in a while, they borrowed a free room to take advantage of her work breaks. Could Kelly have been waiting for Keniki yesterday afternoon?

“Well, if you have any other questions, you just let me know,” he said, handing me his business card. Earl Maffini, North Coast Real Estate.

“Thanks,” I said. “Actually, there is one more thing. I’m trying to find out where Kelly worked.”

“You don’t know where he worked?”

Okay, I could read his mind here. If I was such a close friend of Kelly’s that I would show up and put forward his master bamboo-conquers-the-world scheme before the board of the HBA, how was it I didn’t even know where he worked?

I shook my head. When stepping through such a narrow maze as the one I’d built, I always stick to the strict truth. Well, as close as was possible. “I’ve been thinking about what I might do to help Keniki, and I thought I could gather up his personal things at work—just to save her the sorrow. Only, she was pretty upset this morning, as you can imagine. I didn’t want to trouble her for the address.”

“Well, you were just talking to Kelly’s boss. I’m surprised you didn’t just ask Claudia.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sure. Kelly worked for Claudia for the last year or so.”

“I wonder why she didn’t mention it to me.”

“Well, now,” Earl said, smiling again, “it was on the QT. But it wasn’t like they were very good at hiding the secret. They thought their project was pretty hush-hush.”

“Did it have something to do with bamboo, Earl?”

“Hell, no. Nothing as cool as bamboo, Miss Bean.”

I smiled at that.

“But they were growing something there down the coast. Everything grows best in our volcanic soil, you know. From what I could gather, they thought they would get rich from it.”

Had Kelly come up with another brilliant idea, a second cash crop to make a fortune in Hawaii? Was he growing something illegal? Marijuana, maybe? And if he was mixed up in drugs, there could be a lot of reasons Claudia wouldn’t want to talk to me about it. “You know where their office is located?”

“No office that I know of,” he said. “Just a field.”

“Where?”

“Near the water. Right down the coast aways. Not far from where they found his body, poor guy.”

So Kelly had been working on some secret project with Claudia Modlin, which my active imagination was now convinced had to be cultivating the Big Island version of Maui Wowie, and I, great genius at discretion that I am, just told the woman that I was suspicious of his death.

Nice one.

T
he difference between Wes and me is that Wes truly enjoys turning off his brain once in a while, and I have a hard time finding that switch. I stopped back at my room at the Four Heavens, hoping to find Wes, but it looked like he hadn’t come back. Apparently he’d been gobbled up in a marathon day of beauty, and the lure of free treatments had turned his head completely. I needed to see him, though. Preferably now. We needed to sort through the layers of information.

I noticed as I stopped into the room that the message light on the desk phone was glowing. Maybe it was from Wes.

I dialed the message center and heard a pleasant automated female voice state we had four messages.

The first one was from the front desk of the resort. The man at the business center was calling to say they had received a package addressed to Wes and me. Hm. I would go pick it up in a few minutes. The second message was from Liz.

“Hey, Wes and Maddie. I’m over at the North Shore Medical Center, but I’m grabbing a cab back to the Four Heavens. Don’t worry, I’m fine. They did tests. They took my temperature. Nothing wrong with me at all.

“Holly came out here to the emergency room with me, but I told her not to wait around. I’m sure she’ll turn up back at the resort. Okay…” There was the sound of Liz huffing and puffing. “I’m out by the parking lot now. I’m walking…I’m looking…” More sounds of heavy breathing. “Nope. I don’t see her rent-a-car in the hospital lot. So I guess I’ll see you back at the ranch. And I just wanted to say, well, sorry about all the fainting. This is so unlike me. I’m usually really, really strong. I never get all flustery. I mean, I’m an
accountant.
I am used to scary things—you know, like arithmetic. Anyway, later.”

Liz was fine. That was certainly good news. I slid back into party-planner mode and checked off one more mental concern. All party guests were required to have fun if at all possible.

But something else didn’t seem exactly right. Why had Holly left Liz all alone at the ER? I bet Liz insisted Holly go, not wanting to completely spoil the bride-to-be’s weekend. Friendships are so complex. And between Liz’s fainter’s guilt and Holly’s caretaker’s instincts, who can say what feeling would win out when you had only a few more hours of daylight on an island holiday?

The third message was from Keniki Hicks.

“Madeline, you were so very very sweet to come by and see me this morning. My goodness, you are on your vacation, after all, and you still took the time to drive all the way out here to Hawi. I am really grateful for that, and thank you so much for dropping by the check, and, well, for everything. Also…I wanted to apologize to you for getting so…well, so upset. I am never like that. Never. It’s just been…Well, Cynthia says we’re all in shock.”

I heard her sister’s voice in the background, giving some gentle reminders.

“Oh,” Keniki’s voice continued, “and I also wanted you to know that some friends are putting on a small luau in honor of Kelly tonight. Everyone wanted to get together and we thought…well, we thought Kelly would like the idea of a luau. I know you are probably busy, but we would love to see you there. It’s being held at a friend’s house, over on the other side of the island. Near Hilo. And my cousin, Roddy, is helping out. He owns a helicopter tour company, and his heliport is pretty close to the Four Heavens. Roddy and his pilots are going to ferry all our friends over to Hilo and back. So you can see our beautiful island from above. That is, if you can make it. Starting at eight tonight and going on probably all night. Just go to Pele Helicopter Tours. You’ve probably seen their sign. They are right there off the highway just south of the resort, you know, toward Kona.”

Poor Keniki. She had an awful lot to deal with, but she sounded like she was on her way to managing. What else can anyone do?

The last message was from Jennifer Sizemore, newly appointed president of the Four Heavens Resorts Division and, although we’d yet to see her, our hostess for the weekend. Oh, good. I’d left her a message yesterday, letting her know about the trouble Holly had checking into her room.

“Well, kiddo, hi.” Jenn’s voice sounded cheerful, and very much as I remembered it from our days together in Chef Louis’s class on grilling techniques. Funny how well we recall the voices from our past. “I’m in my office in New York and I’ve got to say, I was surprised to hear from you. Look, I don’t know anything about your trip to Hawaii. You are staying at one of our top properties, so I do hope you enjoy it, sweetie. But I was confused by your message. I never invited you or your friends to stay
there. Is this your way of hinting I should have? Call me sometime soon and let’s talk.”

Not her guests? What the hell was that about? I redialed her office number in New York but only got weekend phone mail and left her another message.

I was annoyed, my typical Jennifer Sizemore reaction. Wait until Wes heard we were going to end up paying for all the rooms. How had this misunderstanding happened? I left our room and walked quickly over to the main resort building, the one that held the reception desk. I had dealt with billing issues a million times in my events business, and it wasn’t unheard of for the costs that were projected before a party to suddenly balloon up after it was too late to change things.

“Hello,” I said to the lady behind the front desk. “Can I please speak with Mr. Jasper Berger?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Berger is gone for the weekend. Might I be of assistance?”

“Yes. There may be a misunderstanding. Would you be able to look up my room and see to whom the bill is being charged?”

“Didn’t you leave a credit card imprint when you checked in with us?” she asked kindly.

“No. I did not. I was under the impression we’d been invited to be guests of the hotel.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Yes. And when I spoke with Mr. Berger yesterday, he concurred. Could you please look it up?”

“Of course. Your name?”

I told her and waited as she hit a few keys on her computer.

“Your party has four rooms for two nights, is that correct?”

“Right.”

“Yes, Miss Bean. It’s fine. Your room charges are being taken care of.”

EPub Edition © APRIL 2010 ISBN: 9780062013897

“By the Four Heavens, you mean?” I asked. “By Jennifer Sizemore?” I tried to remember Jenn’s married name. “I mean, Jennifer Handley?”

“No,” she said, her manner still most helpful and charming. “That’s not what I have listed on your record.”

“Then who is paying for us?”

She scrolled down the screen, her eyes darting back and forth as she read. “We are instructed to accept all charges made to those four rooms. It is noted that we received a cash deposit in advance, so you needn’t worry at all, Ms. Bean.”

But yes, in fact, I did.

“Cash? Who paid for us?”

“That I do not know. But the deposit was ten thousand dollars in advance, which should be quite enough to cover all your costs this weekend. So have no fear.”

“Please,” I asked, my concern mounting by the minute, “can you ask any of the others working here if they know who paid for us?”

“I’m afraid that information would only be held in the accounting office of the resort. And they do not work on the weekend. Perhaps you could inquire on Monday?”

“Thank you.”

Someone had made sure we came to the Big Island of Hawaii this weekend and stayed at this resort. And if it hadn’t been my old nemesis from culinary school, Jennifer Sizemore, who the hell had brought us here?

I was so lost in this new and disturbing thought that I almost forgot to inquire about my package. But just as I was leaving the lobby, I noticed another desk tucked into a corner which offered business center services to the resort’s guests.

“I believe there’s a package for Madeline Bean.”

“Miss Bean?” The young man behind the light wood desk looked up. “Oh, yes. Would you please sign on this line?” He pushed across a receiving log, and I signed on the line indicated. “I have it right here,” he said. “It was dropped off personally, by quite a fan of yours.”

“Of mine?”

“Yes. A tall gentleman. Famous on our island.”

“Really?”

The young man reached behind the desk, and I noticed for the first time there was a small refrigerator tucked away down there. He pulled up a lovely fresh flower lei, one made out of the most exotic orchids I’d ever seen.

“Wow.”

“It’s beautiful,” he said, and then came around from behind the desk and said, “May I?”

I smiled like a big island goofball as he put the tricolored garland over my head. The creamy white interior of each orchid petal made a line up the center of the lush string of flowers, while the purply-pink edges of the petals and another outer row of deep burgundy orchids made the masterpiece complete.

“You see,” the young man said, smiling, “this lei is the most special kind. Given only by very special friends to ones they care for.” I think his eyes twinkled at me.

I looked closely at the beautiful lei. “How on earth do they make these?”

“Over seven hundred center petals of the orchid are meticulously sewn in the kui lau style, which is a back-and-forth pattern, creating an elegant flat lei like this one.”

“Who is this gift from again?”

“Ah, the gentleman asked that we withhold his name,” said the young man. “But I’m sure you can think of it.”

I looked blank. I’m bad at guessing games. Wes? He was my special friend, but he was not someone the clerk would describe as famous around the resort. Could it have come from Berger, the manager who was trying to soothe us down yesterday? Um…

The young man took pity. “Maybe you should think of a dessert?”

I turned, barely able to keep the smile off my face, and suddenly memories of last night’s luau came rushing back. Cake. And what had Holly just been saying not long ago. Seize the moment. Run free. I turned to leave.

“Oh, Miss Bean,” the young man called. “Did you want to pick up your friend’s package while you are here?”

“For which friend?”

“For Mr. Westcott.”

“Oh, sure.” The business center clerk flipped a page in his log and showed me where to sign. Then he rummaged around in the cooler, coming back up with a small box, which he handed across the desk.

“It’s to be kept refrigerated,” he explained as I felt the cool package, wrapped in white paper.

“No problem,” I said as I signed Wesley’s name. One of the lovely things about staying at the Four Heavens was that every guest room came with a small refrigerator. Now, these were not your average garden-variety minibars, those awkward, overstuffed units where you have to shove the tiny bottles of Michelob aside just to put in your own small carton of cream. No. At check-in, each guest is presented with a menu of delectable snack-type items from which to order. If we wanted Diet Coke, my own personal addiction, we simply ordered it by the six-pack and were charged the regular retail price. It was amazingly civilized. The six-pack or any other item desired
(Wes had ordered about a case of guava juice) was delivered immediately and set up in one’s refrigerator.

So I left the lobby and took a quick detour back to our room to leave Wesley’s package and my new orchid lei to cool themselves in the elegant privacy of our room refrigerator. The Four Heavens, where even the snack food reclines in luxury.

It was ten minutes past three by the time I made my way back to the Four Heavens Sports Club and Spa. The atmosphere inside was—no big shock—state-of-the-art serene, but luckily, my own heebie-jeebies about being imprisoned in all that well-maintained serenity had disappeared completely since the morning.

I waited at the reception desk, but the woman who works at that counter was nowhere to be seen. I looked around and noticed a few magazines. I checked out the clock. My foot tapped. I thought for a moment about Cake, my Hawaiian Prince Charming. About how hot he looked on the beach the night before. About how romantic it was to receive flowers from a guy. About how I don’t take the wild path in life enough, and maybe I should do it more often. I checked the clock again.

It is hard for me to wait. Very hard. I need to have something to do. In the serene dimness, I had a new thought. Where were all the Nichols girls right now? Were they having manicures or sugar scrubs or what? The master appointment book was sitting, closed, upon the reception desk. It couldn’t really hurt for me to simply look up the appointment times and discover for myself where everyone was currently at, could it? After all, I had come here to talk to Wesley, and if ever a receptionist finally appeared at the desk, I would just have to bother her to look up this information anyway.

I pulled the green leather-bound book toward me and
then, looking back up one more time and peeking around—no one was here, no one was coming—flipped the book open.

Under three o’clock, I saw the following listing:

Ladies’ Treatments:

There was no check mark next to Holly’s name. Where was she? And Liz hadn’t shown up either. She wasn’t back from the hospital yet, I supposed. Or perhaps she’d gone straight to her room, skipping the rest of her spa appointments.