Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery (15 page)

I sensed a hint of regret in his voice, and
wondered if that had been the problem in his marriage. It must be
hard to keep a relationship going when you can't be together much.
And yet, they had stuck it out a long time. I had to admire
that—me, whose only long-term relationship has been living with my
dog for ten years.

He poured two glasses of white wine, and we
took them out to the deck which circled the house on three sides.
The Wailua Valley stretched out before us. Acres of ranch land lay
all around. Cattle, horses, and goats grazed in neatly fenced
pastures. I couldn’t remember ever seeing this much green in my
life. Like most tourists, I'd had no idea that Hawaii didn't
consist entirely of lava cliffs, sandy beaches, and palm trees.

The sky was clear and a light warm breeze
swept over us. I thought of the chill April winds we'd had at home
for the past month. This felt like heaven.

The wine coursed through my body, and I began
to feel completely relaxed for the first time in days. No matter
how much I'd tried to convince myself that I was on vacation, and
Mack's problems were not mine, anytime I'm on a case, I begin to
take it personally. It's just me.

Drake reached out and stroked my cheek with
the back of his index finger.

"You needed an afternoon off," he said.

The sun was setting behind the extinct
crater, as we cooked a couple of steaks on the hibachi. I watched
in silence as he expertly blended ingredients for a Caesar
salad.

"Just because a guy lives alone doesn't mean
he has to subsist on fast food," he said, catching my fascinated
stare.

I didn't want to admit to him that I'm
basically a microwave person myself. It's just so much easier when
cooking for one.

He spread a cloth out on his small table, and
lit a candle for the middle. A romantic man of many talents. I had
never met anyone quite like him.

After dinner, he put on soft music and we
talked a lot, stopping to dance together in the living room
whenever a good song came on. When he offered the use of a spare
toothbrush if I'd stay the night, I accepted.

Chapter 11

I awakened to a gentle nudging.

"Come on," Drake murmured into my neck. "This
is my last morning off this week, and we're going to use it to good
advantage."

After last night's marathon, I marveled at
the man's stamina, but it turned out he had something else in mind.
By the time I'd finished a revitalizing five minutes under the hot
shower, and slipped back into my jeans and t-shirt, I could hear
him rummaging around outside. I went to investigate. He was digging
through a crowded storage room at the back of the house.

"I've got an extra helmet in here somewhere,"
he muttered, poking his head up over a dusty cardboard box. A quick
movement on the doorjamb caught my attention, and I jumped back,
drawing in a sharp breath that was just short of a shriek.

"Only a gecko," Drake assured me.

The small brown lizard-thing slithered up the
side of the house, away from me. I took a couple of quick breaths,
and faked a smile, not wanting to be too much of a sissy. Drake was
back up to his elbows in a cardboard box, paying no attention to
the pounding sound my heart was making.

I didn't offer to help him. I knew the small,
crowded, dusty place was harboring a wealth of bugs, lizards, and
other creepy unmentionables. It took a couple of minutes for my
pulse to settle down.

In the meantime, Drake emerged with two
helmets in hand.

I looked past the store room, and saw a
gleaming black Honda motorcycle parked beside the house. It was one
of those big touring bikes built for two. Would the many facets of
this man never cease to amaze me?

"I even dusted off the cobwebs for you," he
said, extending the helmet.

I took the headgear from him and
surreptitiously peeked inside. All clear. I tried it on for size.
Pretty close.

"You've been so busy spending your vacation
helping my friend," he said, "that I want to treat you to a morning
away from it all."

"I thought that's what last night was for," I
told him.

"Umm, so it was. Well, you need to get a look
at some of the island, too."

He started the bike, and let it warm up while
he went back to lock the front door.

"Climb on," he invited, once he was seated.
Each of the helmets was rigged with a small microphone, so we could
converse over the noise of the engine.

I'd forgotten how much fun it is to get out
on the road like this. My motorcycle days had been confined to a
few weeks back in high school when I dated a wild guy with a
Harley. It had been right after my parents died, and I guess I did
some pretty crazy things. Looking back, it's probably amazing I
made it through that time alive.

Drake rode with the caution that naturally
comes with middle age, although he fully enjoyed the power of the
machine and its closeness to the road. His expert handling of the
bike through traffic soon reassured me.

We headed north, toward Hanalei. High clouds
dotted the sky in puffs, none threatening. Today, the ocean was a
deep gray-blue, the surf higher than I'd seen before. The same
local boys on their boogie boards dotted the water around Wailua,
but apparently it was too rough for the tourists to handle. All the
vehicles along the small beach were local trucks or rusted out
island cars—no rentals.

Traffic was a heavy slow-moving stream as we
approached Kapaa. There was no alternative but to get in line, and
adjust to the leisurely pace.

We passed little strip shopping centers
filled with small touristy clothing shops. I wondered how many of
them could survive. There was a McDonalds on our left, then a
Safeway—little familiarities in an atmosphere that was otherwise
exotic to me.

Occasionally, a driver in the endless line
would pause, waving through some poor soul who wanted to join us
from a side street. This driver courtesy was one more foreign idea
to me. I commented on it to Drake.

“Hey, this
is
life in the fast lane
here,” he replied.

There was a certain appeal to the unhurried
pace, the idea that life could exist without blaring horns and the
one-finger salute from other drivers. Whether I could really ever
settle into it, I wasn’t sure.

We passed most of the commercial buildings,
and within a few minutes, left the thickest of the populated area
behind.

On the open road, I breathed deeply of the
fishy sea air. Soon, the road curved inland enough that we only had
occasional glimpses of the water. We cruised past small housing
developments, with tiny yards where people had set up stands to
sell flower leis, and the bananas, papayas, and coconuts which grew
beside the houses. When we weren't talking on the intercom, FM
radio played.

Drake pointed out historic sites along the
way, dating back to the mid-eighteen hundreds when the missionaries
came. At Princeville, a modern resort community, he stopped at a
small market. We bought sandwiches and sodas for a picnic lunch. He
tucked the bag inside his light jacket, and we headed north once
more.

The highway became narrow, as it wound down
into the Hanalei Valley. A brilliant green patchwork of taro fields
covered the valley floor, and we crossed several one-lane bridges
before passing through Hanalei.

"Lumahai Beach is one of our better known,"
Drake told me, "the one where the movie
South Pacific
was
filmed."

I remembered it from the helicopter tour.
Drake guided the Honda off to the side, and parked under the trees
to have our sandwiches. The water was turquoise in the protected
bay, darkening beyond the reef to a rich, deep blue. The sand was
choppy with footprints, although we saw no one.

"I feel guilty, taking time off for
sightseeing when Mack is still under suspicion," I told Drake.

He lifted the tab on his soda can. It fizzed
briefly, releasing pressure. "Look, you're on vacation here. You
are already doing Mack a huge favor, putting in this much time on
the case. You can afford one morning to relax."

"I know, but I tend to get restless when
something's unsolved. I feel like I need to be working."

"What do you have so far? Who are your
suspects?"

"I guess Catherine Page tops my list. She
admitted to me the other day that she hated Gil with a passion.
I've seen women like her before, Drake. They live with an abusive
man for years, letting themselves get pushed around and pushed
around. Then, something gives. They just can't take it anymore.
Usually, they'll just divorce the guy, leaving him wondering what
went wrong. Because the woman hasn't been allowed to voice a
complaint for years, and because the men are absolutely blind to
their own behavior, the husband usually has no idea why she
left."

"So, why wouldn't Catherine have simply left
Gil?"

"Hard to say, but I'd guess the reason had to
do with her son, and money. She might not have been forceful enough
to push for her rights under California's community property laws,
and she felt that she'd never get a fair shake. It's a pretty sure
bet that Gil could and would have hired the toughest attorney he
could find.

"Also, I got the distinct impression that she
and Joe Esposito know each other. Catherine wouldn't have had the
nerve to deliver the fatal blow personally, but she could have paid
someone to do it. Someone with a hot temper."

"But, Joe?"

"How well do you know him, Drake? Maybe I'm
wrong."

"I guess I really don't know him that well,"
he admitted. "When I started working for Mack three years ago, Joe
was already his mechanic. He keeps pretty much to himself. Most of
the Portuguese here do. They hang around together, but don't mix
much with others. I think he likes the cock fights on Saturday
nights—I've heard him mention that a couple of times. Heck, I don't
even know whether he has a family."

"Well, I don't know. I'm still looking for
some evidence. At this point, all I have are suspicions."

A flicker of a thought crossed my
mind—something Mack had said yesterday.

"Drake, remember when Mack said he left the
hangar after the argument with Page?"

"Yeah."

"He said Joe's truck wasn't in the parking
lot. He said his car and Gil's were the only two out there. If Gil
was killed at the hangar, then what happened to his car?"

My mind tried to reconstruct the rest of the
conversation, to find some kind of thread I could grasp.

"Mack looked pretty distraught yesterday,"
Drake said. "Maybe he's got things mixed up. I like Mack, and I
sure want to think he's innocent."

"But, you have some doubt?"

He carefully folded the plastic wrap from his
sandwich into a tiny square and stared at it, squeezing it between
his fingers before answering.

"Drake?"

"Remember the morning I took the first flight
for Mack? The morning after he'd been arrested?"

I nodded, and waited to see what he was
getting at.

"When I entered my flight time in the
aircraft logbook, I rechecked the math back over the previous week.
It's force of habit with me, since the maintenance schedule is
based on the number of hours flown. I've always made it a habit to
recheck the hours every week or two."

Something about this was making him
uncomfortable, but I let him take his time.

"Anyway, the figures Mack had written in for
Friday looked to me like they might have been changed. A number
that had been written in as a three, had been changed to a two." He
paused, and I watched him wrestle with the problem.

"What does that mean, Drake?"

"Well it could be innocent, Charlie. I mean,
we all have done it, where we write something down wrong, and then
scratch in the correct figure over it."

"But, this just
happened
to be Friday
night, right?"

"Right."

"And, what would it mean if the two was
really supposed to be a three?"

"It would mean that the aircraft was flown an
hour longer than the record shows it was. An hour would have easily
been enough time to fly to the Hanakapiai and back."

Chapter 12

I felt badly for Drake, having to voice
suspicions against his friend. I thought of the financial
statements I'd seen on Mack's desk the day before. It worried me,
too, that I might eventually have to present evidence against Mack.
That kind of situation had never happened to me before, and I
wasn't sure how I'd handle it.

The matter of the argument at the maintenance
hangar bothered me still. Mack had lied by omission, when he hadn't
told me about it until I questioned him. Then, when he did finally
admit it, his version and Joe's were so different.

Who was lying, and why?

I stared out at the water, and rubbed my
aching temples. I was supposed to be on Mack's side. I hated
doubting him.

Drake moved around behind me, and began to
massage my shoulders. It felt good, a reassurance that someone had
confidence in me.

"Come on," he said, patting my behind. "Let's
ride the rest of the way to the end of the road."

We remounted the motorcycle, and he plugged
my headphone into the intercom system once again. We passed a few
scattered businesses along the road, mostly unimposing little real
estate offices and boogie board rental shops, but one caught my
eye. Boat rentals. Their sign announced that they had daily and
weekly rates.

"Drake?" I interrupted an instrumental
rendition of "Can't Buy Me Love."

"How far are we from the Hanakapiai
Valley?"

"When we get to the end of the road, it's not
far at all. I can show you."

Ten or fifteen minutes later, we were there.
The end of the road spread out to form a small parking lot. Perhaps
two dozen cars, all rentals, were parked on both sides of the last
stretch of pavement. There weren't many people in evidence,
though.