Diagnosis Murder: The Death Merchant (6 page)

"On his way in from Princeville," Kealoha said. "But we got everything we need to know from the shark lady."

"Which is?" Steve asked.

"Da bruddah was grind by a shark," Kealoha said with a grin.

'There's a bit more to it than that," Veronica said, almost reluctantly turning toward the body. "I'm going to lift the sheet now. I want you to be prepared."

She seemed to be saying it more for herself than for the others. When she didn't hear any objections, she took a deep breath and slowly drew the sheet back to expose the corpse.

Danny's legs were missing below the knees, and both his arms were gone. His torso was also ravaged, large chunks of flesh ripped from his sides.

"As you can see, the wounds are all broad and curvilinear," she said, swallowing hard.

"
Curvilinear
." Kealoha looked at Steve. "Funny, that was just what I was about to say."

"It means a rough semicircle," she said, a touch of irritation slipping into her voice. "Very rough. The flesh was torn by the shaking of the shark after it bit down."

Mark glanced at Steve and gave him a subtle nod. Steve gave an almost imperceptible nod back.

"How do you know the bite was from a shark?" Steve asked Veronica.

"You mean aside from the fact a hundred people saw the shark grab the guy and pull him under?" Kealoha said.

"I know the wound is from an animal rather than an implement because a knife would make a clean cut; a hatchet or meat cleaver would show multiple chops, as well as nicks and cuts into the bone." Veronica pointed to the edge of one of the wounds. "You can tell it wasn't a bear or a wolf, for example, because those animals have a muzzle, which would create a narrow, longer bite."

"Plus bears and wolves don't attack people in the ocean thirty yards offshore," Kealoha said. "At least not in Hawaii. Does it happen often in California?"

Veronica ignored Kealoha and pointed to the edge of the wound. She was enjoying Steve's attention and the opportunity to show off what she knew. "If you look at the curvature of these bites, the outline of the teeth can actually be seen in the flesh."

Mark found a box of rubber gloves, slipped on a pair, then took a scalpel from a nearby tray. No one seemed to notice as he carefully examined the wounds with the tip of his scalpel.

"Can you tell us anything about the shark?" Steve asked.

"I can tell you a lot," Veronica said. "There are about eight species of shark likely to have ventured so close to shore, but only two that could have done this much damage."

The more Veronica talked, the calmer she became. Her breathing slowed and her hands stopped shaking. Danny Royal was becoming a subject instead of a corpse, something she could detach herself from. What she didn't know was that was one of the reasons Steve started asking her so many questions. He knew if he could distract her from the horror and shift her attention to the facts, to her expertise, her discomfort would evaporate.

He also knew it would give his father a chance to examine the body without interruption or too much attention from Kealoha or Veronica, which was what Mark asked for with his nod to Steve.

"This was done by a tiger shark," she said. "From my measurements of the bite radius, I estimate it's about twelve feet long."

"How do you know it was a tiger shark?" Steve asked.

"The location of the attack, witness photographs of the dorsal fin, the shape of the wounds, and one more thing." She took a baggie out of her pocket. It contained a shark tooth. "I found this stuck in the victim's pelvic bone."

"And you took it?" Kealoha asked, snatching the bag from her. "That's evidence. I said you could look at the body, not touch it. That's the medical examiner's job."

"What difference does it make?" she said. "We know what killed this man."

"We do?" Mark asked.

Kealoha looked at Mark as if he'd forgotten he was there, which, in fact, he had.

"You saw the shark get him. A hundred other people saw it, too," Kealoha said. "And if that wasn't enough, take a look at what's left of him. You could bury him in a shoe box."

"I have no doubt that Danny Royal was attacked by a shark," Mark said.

"Then what's your problem?" Kealoha asked.

"My problem," Mark said, "is that it happened after Danny Royal was murdered."

Steve groaned. His vacation was over and his father's had just begun.

Once again, Wyatt's thoroughness paid off in unexpected ways. He'd always planned to stay in Kauai for a few days after he'd killed Danny Royal, but he hadn't intended to follow the two men he'd seen at the restaurant.

Something about the long conversation they had with Royal at dinner bugged him. Why was Royal so friendly with them? Who were they? And how much did they know?

Wyatt didn't think they were a threat, but he was still curious. So after handling the Danny Royal situation and all the necessary cleanup, he'd decided to watch them, more as a way to kill time and remain sharp than anything else.

He expected them to grab their camcorders and take him on a guidebook tour of the island, to all the usual prepackaged, preheated, predigested attractions, restaurants, beaches, and stores, to have the usual prepackaged, preheated, predigested experiences. He didn't see the point of it all. Every airport gift shop sold "vacation videos" that had the same shots of the same places from the same angles as every home movie every tourist made. Didn't that tell anyone anything?

Guidebooks were a waste of time. They sent you on a well-traveled path with nothing left to learn or explore. Visiting landmarks, historical spots, and so-called natural wonders wouldn't tell you squat about a place or its people. You might as well go to Disneyland.

Wyatt believed if you wanted to really know a place, you had to seduce someone who lived there. Get inside them and then into their world. Sleep in their bed. Stay in their home. Go where they go. Eat what they eat. Shop where they shop. See what they see. Until you have their smell on your body, their taste on your lips, their clothes on your back, and it feels comfortable. Then leave.

That's how you visit a new place. That's how you get to know it, if you really care. Try finding that for sale in an airport gift shop on your way out of town.

But the two strangers didn't do what Wyatt expected. They didn't go to a luau. They didn't go look at Waimea Canyon. They didn't cruise the Na Pali coast. They didn't see the Spouting Horn.

They went to visit the police.

Perhaps it was a coincidence. Perhaps they'd had their wallets picked or their rooms burgled.

But Wyatt didn't believe in coincidences. It was one reason he was still alive.

Something wasn't right about this. And if he hadn't stayed an extra day or two after the fact, he never would have known.

Thoroughness. That's what being successful in his work was all about.

A few minutes after the two men entered the station, Wyatt got out of his car and strode up the sidewalk to break into their rental car. It wouldn't be difficult. The crappy fleet cars rarely had alarms, and even if they did, they were ridiculously easy to disable within seconds. That wasn't an issue with their car. Wyatt picked the lock and was sitting in the passenger's seat in eight seconds.

He opened the glove box, took out their rental agreement, and photographed it with a miniature digital camera. Then he put the brochure back, locked the doors, and returned to his own vehicle.

The task took less than two minutes to accomplish and reaped enormous benefits.

Now he had a name, a home address, and a credit card number to go on.

That was all he needed. In a few hours, he'd know every thing worth knowing about Mark Sloan.

CHAPTER SIX

"I'm not a medical examiner, but I know sharks," Veronica Klein said, motioning with a nod to Danny Royal's savaged torso. "All this was definitely caused by a shark. Not by a knife, a gun, or some boat propeller."

"I agree, and I'm sure the medical examiner would as well," Mark said. "But the fact remains: Danny Royal was already dead when the shark attacked him."

Mark pointed at a wound with his scalpel. "I don't see any evidence of bleeding into the surrounding tissues. That means his heart had already stopped pumping and blood was no longer circulating through his body when these catastrophic wounds were inflicted."

"Wait a minute," Kealoha said. "You saw him swimming—everybody did." He turned to Steve. "Didn't you?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah, I did."

"Are you certain it was Danny Royal you saw in the water?" Kealoha asked him.

"Yes, I'm sure." Steve said.

"There you go." Kealoha turned back to Mark. "You trust your own son, don't you?"

"I do," Mark said. "And so did the killer."

"Are you saying your son was an accomplice?" Kealoha asked incredulously, an amused smile on his face. He really seemed to be enjoying himself. Steve couldn't blame him; there probably wasn't much excitement for a homicide cop in Lihue.

"In a sense, we all were, every one of us on the beach," Mark said. "We all said we saw a man killed by a shark."

"If that wasn't what you saw," Veronica asked, "what did you see?"

"A show, pure and simple, designed to disguise a murder," Mark said. "And the killer might have gotten away with it, too, if I hadn't found this."

Mark took out the baggie containing the leaf that he dipped in the splatter on the inner tube and handed it to Kealoha.

The detective held the baggie up to the light. "A leaf covered with blood?"

"Sure looks like it, doesn't it?" Mark said. "Yesterday, Steve rescued a boy in an inner tube who was floating near Danny Royal when the attack occurred. This morning, I found the inner tube on the beach, covered with that stuff and swarming with ants. They were attracted to the splatter, which I'm certain is corn syrup mixed with red dye. Also known as movie blood."

"We saw a shark fin, we saw a struggle, and we saw blood, but we never saw a shark," Steve said, the whole deadly scenario clear to him now. "Our imaginations took over from there."

"So how was he killed?" Veronica asked, fascinated.

"Are you familiar with the legend of Kamaikaahui?" Mark asked.

"The monster who killed travelers and blamed their deaths on sharks," she said. "Turned out he was a man with a shark's mouth on his back."

"Metaphorically speaking, I think that's what we're dealing with here. I'm guessing Danny Royal was pulled under by a scuba diver, who then tore open a bag of movie blood while Danny struggled and drowned," Mark said. "Then the killer probably took the body by boat someplace where he knew sharks congregated, like the harbor or the mouth of a stream, and dumped it."

"Stuff like this doesn't happen here," Kealoha said, shaking his head. "Except on
Hawaii Five-O
."

"It does now," Steve said.

"I always wanted to be Steve McGarrett," Kealoha said with a grin. "K'den, guess I better start investigating. I'm going to send this red goop off to be tested, then visit Danny Royal's house." He glanced at Steve. "Wanna come along, brah, and show me the cool stuff they teach you at the LAPD?"

"Sure," Steve said.

"I'd like to stick around and observe the autopsy," Mark said to Kealoha. "If you and the medical examiner don't mind."

"Be my guest. I'll call ahead to Dr. Aki and let him know." Kealoha turned to Veronica. "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep this to yourself for a while. No sense alerting the killer that we're on to his sorry ass."

"Sure," Veronica said, a little stunned herself by the revelations. "This is just so incredible. Will you let me know what happens?"

"How about over dinner some time?" Steve asked.

"I'd like that." Veronica smiled, handed Steve her card, and walked out.

"Wait," Kealoha said. "Don't I get one?"

She didn't bother to turn around. Steve glanced at the card, turning it over in his hand.

"What do you know," Steve said with a grin, "It is printed on both sides."

Wyatt had his laptop plugged into his cell phone and was downloading all of Mark Sloan's credit card purchases for the last six months when Ben Kealoha and Steve Sloan emerged from the police station. He logged off, shut down the laptop, and started the car.

The two cops got into a Ford Taurus and headed toward

Poipu on the Kaumaulii Highway. Wyatt followed four cars behind, wondering just how much the men knew.

He reviewed every move he'd made in the preparation and execution of his job and couldn't see his mistake. But he knew that in his business, you rarely did until you had to kill it or it killed you.

Maybe it wasn't a mistake, just bad luck. A practical joke of cosmic proportions that put an LAPD homicide detective and his father, some kind of deductive genius, in the same orbit as Danny Royal a day before he was murdered.

Or it wasn't, and they were there by design, to get Danny Royal or flush out his pursuer.

Either way, it didn't matter now.

Wyatt's job wasn't finished yet, and he had to know whether he'd be looking over his shoulder for Dr. Mark Sloan while he completed it.

From what he'd already learned skimming through online newspaper archives, he knew the doctor was not to be taken lightly. Mark Sloan solved the Silent Partner killings, the Sweeney family bombings, and the mystery behind the crash of Pac Atlantic Flight 224. Any one of those cases would have been career-capping achievements for an ordinary cop or Federal agent. But those were just a few of the many high-profile cases Mark Sloan had solved over the years, and he didn't even have a badge.

If Mark Sloan was on to him, the doctor wouldn't give up or be distracted easily. That didn't worry or frighten Wyatt. He respected competence, especially in an adversary. It only reaffirmed his own skills and forced him to rise to a new level of proficiency. Wyatt was already several steps ahead of Mark Sloan and intended to remain that way.

The detectives drove through Old Koloa Town, a row of authentic frontier-style storefronts dating back to the 1800s, capped on one end of the street by a 1970s-era supermarket and a Chevron station on the other. The cops turned the corner onto Poipu Road, and Wyatt followed them past the dreary tourist trap to the resorts and the elegant homes that hugged the shore.