Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series) (10 page)

“
A little good luck for you both,” Omura said, referring to the Japanese custom of giving origami cranes at weddings. “I couldn’t do a thousand, but there are a hundred to get you started.”

“
Captain, I don’t know what to say.” Lei watched the graceful little birds move in the draft coming down the hall. She set the mobile carefully on her desk and embraced Omura, smelling a hint of the other woman’s delicate perfume, feeling a tightness in her throat as she thought of the captain folding each tiny bird. “We’ll treasure it.”

“
That’s more than enough. So glad you came to join my team.”

“I’ve decided Maui’s home. Thank you for bringing me home.”

“
Well, then, since you’re home”—Omura gave Lei’s shoulder a pat—“keep me updated on the case more closely next time.”

It didn’t take long for Lei to work her way through calls to the five agencies that did conservation work on Maui—but she didn’t get anything of interest until talking to Jud Snelling at Hawaiian Bird Conservatory.

“
Our team had already been discussing who the camper could be and whether we had any ideas about volunteers and interns. We had a Canadian grad student, Edward Kingston, about three months ago who was kind of paranoid—was working on his own side research project, which he had trouble letting go of. He had some behaviors that concerned his field supervisor,” Dr. Snelling said.

“
Can I get the supervisor’s name?” Lei hastily jotted down the name “Edward Kingston.”

“
Dr. Lana Biswandi. She’s with University of Hawaii, but we coordinate our location with some of their biology programs. She was concerned about his outlook, but he completed his internship successfully, as far as I know.” He rattled off the professor’s phone number.

“
Did Kingston go back to Canada?”

“
We assumed so, but maybe Dr. Biswandi will know.”

Lei
dialed the professor’s number.

“
Dr. Biswandi here.” The professor had a low alto voice and an Indian accent.

Lei identified herself and described what they were looking for
and why.

“
Yes, Kingston was under my supervision on a field project involving habit patterns of the native birds—do you need to know what we were studying?”

“
No, just the behaviors that concerned you about Kingston.”

“
Well, then. He was secretive. Always making notes in a little journal, hiding samples from the field, et cetera. I confronted him, and he admitted he had his own research project going. I forbade him to work on it at the same time as our formal project, and he seemed to comply—at least, I never caught him working on it again.”

“
What was he like personality wise?” Lei leaned back in her office chair, forgetting about her ribs and almost groaning aloud as pain lanced across her sternum.

“
He was a loner. Quiet.”

“
Okay. And where did he go after his internship ended? Back to Canada?”

“
I don’t know.”

Lei
’s pen stopped as she waited. She blew a curl out of her eye. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“
I mean, I assumed he went back to Canada. We had a goodbye lunch with all the interns. But it’s possible he stayed on Maui in violation of his visa. He did say he had his own project he was working on. It makes sense that he might be your unknown camper because he was good at survival camping. We learned from him in the field—to make fire, other skills.”

“
That sounds like the man we’re looking for. This person knows how to live out in the wilderness and leave little trace.”

“
What are you investigating him for, exactly?”

Lei considered her options, decided that Dr. Biswandi might be
helpful in this too. “We want to question him regarding the murder of an unidentified Asian man who was capturing native birds.”

A long pause
.

“
Interesting,” was all Dr. Biswandi said. Lei was disappointed. “I’ll call our other interns and ask if anyone knows where he is.”

“
It would be great if they didn’t know why we’re looking for him.”

“
Of course.” Dr. Biswandi cut the connection with crisp decisiveness.

Lei put the phone handset down slowly. It looked
like she’d found a strong candidate for the mysterious camper—but catching him was another thing entirely.

Dawn crested Haleakala in a blaze of salmon-pink glory, filling the chilly, shadowed eucalyptus grove they’d parked in with powdery golden light reflected off nearby clouds. Lei and Pono got out of the purple truck as the SUV with the K-9 unit pulled up and parked next to them for the manhunt. Takama, his lips a line and hands on his hips, frowned at them in front of the gate into the preserve. Jacobsen, beside him, looked no less worried about what the search would do to the delicate forest.

“
You sure this is necessary?” Takama said, indicating the dog, a flop-eared hound called Blue, with a flick of his fingers. Blue’s handler, a young, fit officer named Freddie Lee, was still unloading and prepping the dog.

“
Yes. We need to capture and interview this man,” Lei said. “Our captain spoke to Dr. Snelling; everyone’s on board. We’ll try not to damage the plants.”

“
The understory,” Takama corrected.

“
Right.”

Lei had spent the rest of yesterday tracking Kingston. She discovered that he
’d never used his passport to leave the island, and his classmates from the research project hadn’t seen or heard from him since the goodbye luncheon. Dr. Snelling had been able to bring an abandoned ball cap Kingston had worn down to the station.

Lei
restrained herself from going over to pet Blue’s sleek head—the dog was in “work mode,” but it was hard for her to resist any dog. Pono handed Lei her Kevlar vest. “Mandatory.”

“
I can’t handle the Velcro with my ribs the way they are.”

“
Guess I have to leave you here, then.” Pono put his hands on his hips and eyed her until she put the vest on, leaving it loose.

“
I’ve always hated these things,” she muttered.

“
I know. You’ve also seen what a compound bow and arrow can do—and the perp might be otherwise armed.”

They set off at
a good clip down the dirt track into the forest. Lei breathed shallowly to ease her ribs. The dog was silent, trotting beside his handler. They made good time all the way to the boardwalk. Finally, under the cathedral of arching koa and ohia branches, with birdsong sweet in the air, Lee gave Kingston’s hat to Blue to sniff.

Almost immediately
, the dog began casting about in the ferns. Takama’s lips were tight as the animal nosed the ground, making tiny whining sounds. Suddenly, the hound lifted its head and charged into the understory. Freddie Lee followed at a run, Lei and Pono bringing up the rear. The ferns took a beating as the dog bolted through the brush, the rest of them close behind.

Lei
, slowed by her injury, jogged up just as the dog leaped on a bundled shape in a camouflage sleeping bag. The man gave a cry of surprise. Lee restrained the dog, and Kingston sat up, the sleeping bag still around his waist.

Lei recognized him from his passport photo, though he
was bearded, with the bushy hair of months outdoors.

“
I hope you’ve come to get the poacher,” Kingston said, dark eyes worried as he looked around at the ring of faces gazing down at him. “He has a gun.”

“
Someone got him, all right,” Pono said, hauling the biologist up by the arm. “And we want to talk with you about it.”

“
I know about the man who was shot with a bow. There’s another Asian guy out here,” Kingston said. Kingston asked to call his lawyer on a satellite cell phone the biologist produced from his waterproof backpack.

“
Doesn’t look good, you calling him when we haven’t asked a single question.” Lei gave Kingston her best intimidating stare. The biologist pushed his hair out of his eyes and stared back calmly.

“
I know my rights in the United States,” he said.

“
Getting deported is one of them,” she said, but Kingston just pushed a speed-dial number and held the phone to his ear.

Back at th
e station, Lei swallowed an Advil with coffee. She and Pono had left Kingston in the interview room while they waited for his lawyer to arrive, and they’d just come from informing the captain that they had their person of interest in custody. Lei was weary from the early morning, the vigorous hike both ways, and the hour-long drive up and down Haleakala.

“
Do you think Kingston was bullshitting us about another poacher?” Lei felt the tightness of anxiety drawing her brows together.

“
Don’t know. But without finding a bow in his camping gear, it doesn’t look good for us to hold him any length of time.”

“
I want to wait to call Immigration and Naturalization Service about his visa violation until after we question him. It might give us a carrot to get him to talk if we offer to let him stay long enough to finish his research project.”

“
Good idea,” Pono said. The partners gazed at Edward Kingston through the mirrored wall of the interview room. The biologist had settled down in a corner, folded his legs into lotus position, set hands with finger and thumb together on his knees, and shut his eyes. He looked utterly peaceful. “So much for leaving him to sweat—he seems pretty mellow.”

K
ingston’s lawyer arrived, a man with the bullet head and the thick neck of a pugilist.

“
Shawn Shimoda,” he said, handing Lei a card. He and Pono had already exchanged a chin lift of acknowledgment. “What are you holding my man on?”

“
We’re not ‘holding’ him on anything. We just want to question him as a possible witness on the homicide of an unknown man up in Waikamoi Preserve,” Lei said. “Don’t know why he needed you called before we even got started.”

“And I’d like to know how a Canadian national who ditched his research group and violated his visa has ended up having one of the best lawyers on Maui already on retainer,” Pono said, with narrowed eyes. “Makes me wonder if he didn’t know he was going to need one.”

“Where’s my client?”
Shimoda’s face was carefully blank.

Lei led them
to the interrogation room.

“
I’d like a moment alone with him,” Shimoda said. Lei and Pono exited and watched through the safety glass of the door as Kingston scrambled up from his yoga pose and shook hands with Shimoda. Their heads were close as they whispered, but there was a constraint between them that spoke of unfamiliarity.

“
I don’t think Shimoda’s met him before,” Lei said. “Wish I could read lips.”

“
Shimoda’s not cheap. Kingston must have called him some time ago and put him on retainer—he only works with a down payment against services before they’re needed.” Pono always seemed to know the backstory on people they interacted with.

Shimoda looked up and gestured for them to come in
. Both of the men sat down on molded plastic chairs across the table from Lei and Pono. Lei turned on the recording equipment with a switch on the wall and addressed Kingston, who, in spite of his meditation and counsel present, looked pale.

“
We aren’t charging you with anything at this time. We just want to interview you, to see if you know anything about the death of a man shot in Waikamoi Preserve.”

“
I know there was a dead man. I smelled something bad, and the odor led me to check it out. I thought it was a deer or something. I was surprised to see it was a human body.”

“
So you didn’t think it was appropriate to report an obvious murder?” Pono asked, frowning.

“
I didn’t want to get involved.” Kingston looked down at his hands. “I thought this might happen—this right here. I didn’t need the interruption to my research project.”

“
Research you were conducting illegally,” Lei said. “Were you aware the murdered man had native birds on his body in a canvas bag? Birds that ended up dying of dehydration?”

Kingston winced visibly and kept his ey
es down. “No, I was not aware.”

They let a pause go by to see if Kingston would volunteer any
thing more. He didn’t.

“
So, when we picked you up in Waikamoi this morning, you said you hoped we were there for the poacher. What did you mean by that?”

Kingston looked up, and this time there was some animation in his
pale, bewhiskered face. “I want to help with this investigation. I just don’t want you suspecting me. There’s another poacher up there now, catching birds like the first one was.”