Lana'i of the Tiger (The Islands of Aloha Mystery Series) (11 page)

“He was here earlier. I’m not
sure where he is right now.”

“May we come in and look
around?”

“Sure.” I knew I could demand a
search warrant if I wanted to be pissy, but I was pretty sure Darryl would want
me to cooperate with the police.

The cops went through the great
room, back into the kitchen and then into each of the guest rooms. I could see
flashlight beams outside so I was pretty sure there were other cops searching
the yard and the greenhouse, but it seemed Tyler had slipped by them.

“Which room is Benson staying
in?” said the first cop. I looked at the name badge on his chest. It read,
“Dado.”

“Well, Officer Dado—” I said.

“It’s Dado, long ‘a’,” he said.
I’d said it like ‘dad-oh.’

“Oh sorry. Well, Officer Dado,
he was staying back here in the Hala-kahiki Room. In the daytime it has a nice
view of the garden.”

Officer Dado and his partner
glared at me as if I’d said something rude.

“And your name is?” said Officer
Dado.

“I’m uh, Penny Morton.” I really
hated lying to the cops. But I figured if I got caught, Detective Wong would
run interference for me. After all, he’d chosen the stupid name, not me.

“When did Mr. Benson leave this evening?”

“Uh, well, I’m not exactly sure.
You see, I usually spend my time out here in the great room. The guests are
free to come and go through either the front or the back door.”

“Then when did you last see
him?”

Okay, this was getting tricky. I
opted for as much truth as I could muster. “We drove down to Kaumalapau Harbor
to watch the sunset. He hadn’t been there before and he wanted to see it.”

“And then?”

“Well, then we came back here.”
I said, kind of dragging it out as if I was recreating the timeline in my mind.

“And then did he leave again?”

“Like I said, I can’t be sure.”

“Where do you think he is now?”

I shrugged.

“Are you saying you have no idea
where he is?”

“That’s what I’m saying. It’s nearly
midnight, officer. I was sleeping when you came banging on my door. I don’t do
bed check on our guests. As I said, they’re free to come and go as they
please.”

They both scowled at me as if
they were terribly disappointed with my attitude.

“We’ll be sealing off Mr.
Benson’s room. You’re not to go in there until the investigator’s had a chance
to look around.”

I knew I should probably ask for
a search warrant before letting people rifle through Tyler’s stuff. But I
wasn’t about to call Darryl and Ewa in the middle of the night to see what they
wanted me to do.

“When will the investigator get
here?”

“Probably not until the first
ferry docks around seven. We’ve got to bring in a detective from Maui.”

Oh great. If Wong showed up,
there went my spending the day with Ono. I should’ve told those clowns Tyler
Benson checked out two days ago. 

***

I went back to bed but only
slept fitfully until daybreak. I got up and grabbed a yogurt before heading out
for my morning run. Instead of running on the roads that lead out of town, I
took a right and went toward Dole Park. Nothing that happens in Lana’i City
gets by the regulars in Dole Park.

It was Wednesday, so the
tai
chi
class was assembling. I took a place in the back row, next to a tiny
ancient woman with shiny eyes and a quick smile. She looked like a good candidate
for instant friendship.

“
Aloha
, welcome to our
class. I see you here before?” she said.

“Yes, auntie, I came one time
before. But I’ve been busy. I work at the White Orchid Bed and Breakfast over
on Kua’aina Street.”

“Oh, yeah, I hear about that.
Ewa has her new baby boy now, eh? I think they named him Ekana.”

“Yes, that’s right. It’s ‘Ethan’
in English.”

She shot me a look that said
he’d always be Ekana to her.

“And so you must be Penny, the
little widow from Honolulu. I so sorry to hear of your loss.”

Like I said, the park regulars
know
everything
that’s going on in Lana’i City.

“Did you hear about what
happened up at the Lodge last night?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, everybody hear about
it. Looks like they got big trouble up there. Two people dead. Not good. The
police are coming from Maui. Maybe even some from Honolulu.”

I nodded as if this was old
information, but my brain was screaming,
two
people are dead? I had to
play it cool, though.

“Yeah, auntie, I heard about the
young woman. How sad.”

“And that man. You know, that
big
ali’i
-size man. Some people think he was the boyfriend of the dead
woman.”

I was getting lost, but the
tai
chi
instructor was barking at us that practice was starting. It was all I
could do to not grab the little woman by her baggy tunic and beg her to join me
for breakfast and blow off exercising for the day.

I slow-motioned my way through
the excruciatingly boring practice. As soon as we did our final bow to the
instructor, I turned to the little auntie and asked her name.

“Oh, I sorry. I forgot to tell
you. I’m Cora Escuello. Everybody calls me ‘Auntie Cora’. I live here on Lana’i
all my life. My place is right over there.” She pointed to a yellow plantation
house that bordered the park. “My husband was a field foreman for Dole. He’s
gone now.”

“Sorry to hear that. But I’m
happy to meet you. Can I offer you a cup of tea? Or maybe you’re hungry? I’d
love to have your company while I make breakfast.”

“Do you have guests staying at
the White Orchid this morning?” she said.

“No, not today. But Darryl likes
me to stay there in case anyone shows up. I’d love to ‘talk story’ with you, unless
you’re too busy.”

“No, I’m not so busy this
morning. I can come by your place for a few minutes.”

While I whipped up tea and a
pile of Hawaiian sweet bread toast, Auntie Cora talked. Her recall of people
and events was amazing. She regaled me with stories of plantation days from
fifty years ago that were as detailed and vivid as if they’d happened
yesterday. I felt convinced that whatever she had to say about what went down
at the Lodge at Koele the night before was probably accurate, or at least
thorough.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s bad what
happened up there, you know? First they find that young woman, and then that
man. The manager up there, you know, Mr. Lyons, he’s so worried. He think
nobody will come to his hotel now they got murders going on up there.”

“Did you hear the names of the
two people who were killed?”

“Lemme see. The lady named
Deedee Diamond—something like that. Isn’t that a silly name? Sounds like a bad
woman, don’t you think?”

“Her last name’s actually
‘Diamonte’,” I said.

“Oh, you know this woman?”

“I met her briefly,” I said.
“How about the man? Do you know his name?”

“His name was—let me think here—his
name is George Romano. The girls at
tai chi
said it sounds Italian. But
I don’t know any Italians. You think it’s Italian?”

“You’re sure that’s his name?”

“Pretty sure.”

“It wasn’t Tyler Benson?”

“No, that’s not the name of the
man who died. That’s the name of the man who did it.”

***

Auntie Cora drank her tea,
munched a couple of pieces of toast and left soon after. Ono showed up at ten, just
like he said he would. I started to tell him about Deedee getting stabbed, but
he’d already heard the whole story at breakfast from his golf group staying at
the Lodge. He said the whole place was humming with a sort of covert buzz.
Meanwhile, the staff was feverishly trying to cover it all up and pretend
everything was business as usual.

“You ever hear of this Benson
character?” he said.

“Actually, yes. I guess he’s a
big shot from Hollywood. Word around town is he’s been on the island for the
past week.”  I didn’t want Ono to know I knew Tyler as well as I did. I wanted
to hear the unvarnished truth of what was being said. If he knew Tyler and I were
friends he’d probably give me the PG-13 version.

“Well, he’s up to his ass in
alligators now. Seems he was on the run when the cops caught up with him at the
airport this morning. He was yelling at his private pilot to file the flight
plan and get him the hell out of here. But the guys working at the airport went
all ‘island time’ on him. They’d heard he was wanted by the police, so they
shuffled papers until the cops showed up.”

“Okay, I know I shouldn’t get
involved in this, but I—”

“No, no, no. Stop right there,”
Ono said. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to let you even
think
of
getting messed up in this thing. Have you forgotten what got you stuck over here
for the past month?”

“Hardly,” I said. “Oh, and
speaking of that, I don’t think we’re going to be able to hang out together
today. I’m expecting our mutual buddy, Detective Wong, to show up here sometime
this morning.”

“He’s been assigned to the
case?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s likely.”

“Then I better get going,” he
said. “If he sees my ugly mug, he’ll go nutcase.”

“Well, he’s not here yet.” I
said, sitting down on the sofa and patting the seat next to me. “Until he gets
here, why don’t you indulge my morbid curiosity in this very juicy murder by
telling me what you heard at breakfast this morning. All of it.”

CHAPTER
14

Ono seemed eager to relay the
sordid details. “Yeah, seems this Hollywood dude and his girlfriend had a big noisy
fight over her calling in the tabloids to cover their wedding up at Koele. She
told the wedding planner she’d been offered half a million bucks and the cover
of People magazine. I thought it was weird, since I’ve never heard of either one
of them.”

“What I’ve heard around town is
he’s a big-time producer,” I said. “He does the ‘Stony Jackson’ movies. And his
fiancée was trying to build a lingerie empire on Home Shopping Network. I guess
their wedding was newsworthy because they’re pretty secretive. The Stony
Jackson movies are big box office so getting a scoop on the wedding of the guy
who makes them was a big deal.”

Ono looked annoyed I’d broken
in, interrupting his flow.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” he
went on. “People think maybe the dude barged in on his fiancée messing around with
the reporter guy. He probably got pissed and tossed the guy off the balcony.
Then he did in the girlfriend. Rumor has it she was stabbed with a room service
knife.”

“You’d have to be pretty strong
to kill someone with the measly knives they give you with room service,” I
said.

“Yeah, but I heard this Benson’s
in pretty good shape. And, he must’ve been totally furious.”

“Tell me about the other guy. The
dead reporter.”

“No one knows much about him.
They said he was huge, like three hundred pounds huge. He worked basically
free-lance—it’s called being a ‘stringer.’ He sold stuff to the big national
rags, but he hadn’t had a major story since he got an exclusive from Michael
Jackson’s chauffeur right after MJ died.”

“Wow, that’s quite a dry spell,”
I said.

“Yeah, but those guys get paid
six figures for an exclusive. It only takes one or two hits a year to make a
decent living.”

“Huh.”

“Oh, and here’s something
strange. No one knows who first found the body. They think it might have been
the maid, because a maid cart was parked right outside the suite. But no one
reported to the front desk, or to security. Instead, someone pulled the fire
alarm.”

“A fire alarm? Was there a
fire?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Why would someone pull a fire
alarm to report a murder?”

“Beats me. That’s pretty much
all I know,” he said. He squinted at me. “I’m not liking that look on your
face, Pali. What’re you thinking?”

“I’m not thinking anything. Oh,
and over here my name isn’t Pali, it’s Penny. Penny Morton.”

Ono’s face looked like he’d been
gut-shot.

“What’s wrong?” I said. Then I
remembered. “Oh my gosh, Ono, I forgot. I didn’t pick the name. Wong came up
with it when he brought me over here. They needed a ‘P’ name. You see, my
initials are still ‘PM’.”

My feeble explanation didn’t
seem to lessen the sting.

“That was my wife’s name,” Ono
said. “How could you forget? Why’d you let them call you that?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t have a
choice.”

Ono got up and walked to the
window. He stood there for a minute, staring out at the garden. “It’s funny,
you know? I just can’t seem to shake losing her. Just when I think I’m
completely past it, something like this comes up.”

I got up and put my arms around
his waist. “If it’s any consolation, I’m only going to have this name for a
couple more days. Then I’ll be back to Pali.”

He turned and took my face in
his hands. “You know, you kind of remind me of her. She would’ve been a few
years older than you are now, but the two of you are alike in so many ways.”

“That’s a good thing?” I said.

“For me, it’s the highest
compliment I could give a woman.”

I wasn’t thrilled at the notion
of being compared to his perfect, although deceased, wife,  but I suppose it
was better than the alternative.

“Do you know where Tyler Benson
is now?” I said.

“I heard after they caught up
with him at the airport they took him into custody and flew him over to the
Wailuku jail on Maui. The little jail here on Lana’i is pretty sad. It’s
essentially an outbuilding with a chain-link box out back—like a dog run. But
why do you care where he is? I hope you aren’t thinking of getting on the visitor
list.” He grinned as if it was the craziest notion in the world.

“No, of course not,” I said. “I
was just wondering.”