Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series) (2 page)

“
Damn. Is there room for two?” The area where Jacobsen was sitting looked hemmed in by a circle of branches.

“
Sure. Once you get up here, there’s plenty of room,” Jacobsen said.

Lei reached up and grasped the trunk, setting her foot on the first knob. She haule
d herself upward using arms she worked hard to keep strong, hair catching in the branches again. It was only a few minutes until she sat beside Jacobsen on a smooth branch that had been bent over and nailed down as a seat.

“
So what do you think this spot is used for?” Lei’s voice instinctively lowered to match the soughing of a tiny wind in the branches, punctuated by birdsong. The forest was not a place that invited loud voices, and once again Lei wished she’d taken the time to visit earlier.

“
This is an observation station. Probably birds. This area is the habitat of some of the rarest birds in the world. One of them, the Maui Parrotbill or
Kiwikiu
, lives in koa trees and feeds on the bark and insects.”

Lei squinted
at the knobbed, silvery bark of the koa tree as Pono’s buzz-cut head rose to join them. Once again her partner surprised her with the smooth, silent way he moved, settling his muscular bulk easily beside her on the branch seat. He pointed, and she sighted down the brown expanse of his arm.

“
See? I think this is where the shot came from. Note the downward angle into the body.”

From where they sat
, Lei could clearly see the body, the arrow still protruding, as Gregory covered the man’s hands and the assistants arranged a black bag beside the corpse so they could roll the body into it.

“
Seems like a significant distance to get the arrow so deep into the body.” Lei squinted, imitating an imaginary bowshot.

“
Compound hunting bow, I imagine. More power and accuracy.”

“
Glad I have you on this case,” Lei said. “This is foreign territory for me.”

“
Oh yeah? I’ll have to take you out hunting some weekend.” Pono grinned, a flash of teeth. “You and Stevens can get your first blood.”

“
Thanks. I’ll pass. What I can tell is that there’s a lot more going on up here than anyone knew about.”

“That’s true
.” Jacobsen’s warm brown eyes were concerned, his brows drawn together. “The Park Service certainly wasn’t aware of these activities, and I don’t think the Hawaiian Bird Conservatory, who manages the preserve area, was aware of this hunting blind either. Takama and I work closely with them, and we’d have heard about it.”

Lei frowned as she studied the forest
floor, dressed in lush understory vegetation. “Do you think the shooter was hunting the bird catcher? Or was he just sitting up here and the vic passed by? Was it accidental, or intentional?”

Pono glanced at her. “When we answer those questions, we’
ll solve the case.”

Lei hung the loaded backpack of evidence collected at the scene on the back of her old rolling chair at Kahului Police Department, the big urban-ugly central police station. She and Pono, as higher-ranking detectives, had a slightly larger cubicle in the corner. Other than that and some more personnel monitoring and training, her new rank as lieutenant had yielded little change in the job—to her relief.

She sat down,
booted up her computer, and generated a case number for the murder. Pono’s bass voice boomed as he made his way across the office, “talking story” and greeting the other officers. He’d been a big part of making Lei’s transition back to Maui work, smoothing the ruffled feathers of other detectives as Lei returned to take a plum job in the department after having left to become an FBI agent. Pono’s laid-back but determined style got results in a workplace riddled with hidden agendas, and he’d asked to be her partner when she returned.

Captain Omura, the engineer of Lei
’s return to Maui, stood in the doorway of their cubicle. One manicured hand rested on her tightly clad, uniformed hip. “Report.”

“
Captain Omura, I’d like to process the evidence and photograph it and have a moment to organize the field notes with Pono.” Lei had learned to be as clear, concise, and assertive as possible with the Steel Butterfly, a nickname the captain had earned for her shoe habits and management style.

“
Half an hour.” Omura turned and tap-tapped away down the hall. Pono arrived just as the captain disappeared into her office.

“
We have thirty minutes to get ready to meet with Omura on the case. Let’s be brief and amazing.”

“
We can do that.”

“
You start the case file and begin our report. I’ll take the evidence down and catalog it.” Lei lifted her backpack, chock-full of evidence bags, and hoisted it onto her shoulder, hurrying down the hall and thinking about next steps. The twenty-four-hour rule of homicide investigation dictated that they gather as much evidence as possible related to the case within that time to get traction on it.

Once she reached
the evidence room, she took out a fresh cardboard box and labeled it with a Sharpie:
john doe murder waikamoi, maui,
adding the case number the computer had spit out. She unpacked the items recovered at the scene, spreading them on the workspace counter with her gloved hands in the presence of Clarice Dagdag, the wizened Filipino evidence clerk. Clarice was really fast with her data entry and inventoried each item as Lei photographed it, including a receipt from the Maui Beach Hotel. Lei mentally filed that as the victim’s likely lodging and the next place to follow up. The Park Service had identified a rental car that likely had belonged to the victim due to four days of tickets collecting on its windshield; it was already being towed to the impound yard.

They moved quickly
until they got to the cloth bag.

Lei very gently upended the bag, and five tiny bird corpses fell out onto the counter. Clarice gasped
, stepping back with her hand to her mouth. “Where these poor babies came from? So shame, this!” The usually stoic clerk was shocked into pidgin English.

“
Up the mountain. We think the vic was a bird catcher, maybe a poacher.” Lei spread the birds out on the counter to photograph them individually, handling the bodies carefully with her gloved hands.

Each bird was hunched in on itself, eyes closed, tiny
claws drawn up as if trying to stay warm. Lei wasn’t a birder and didn’t know much about them, but she was struck by the vivid coloration of two red birds, bright as the scarlet of a chief’s feather cape. One had a long, curved red beak and the other, a short black one. There was a tiny green bird with a black beak and a larger bird that was a mottled black-and-white with a crest, and finally, a medium-sized green bird with a hooked bill and a yellow band across the eyes.

Lei felt
sick at the waste, wishing again she knew more about the jewel-like creatures. She was sure that by the end of the case she would. She took several photos of each and then put them into individual paper bags. “Can I store these in the freezer?”

“
Of course.”

Lei and Clarice stashed the birds
, labeled with brief descriptions, in the big Sub-Zero used for evidence that would degrade.

“
For shame,” Clarice muttered again. She returned to her computer and hit Print on the photos of the items, including the birds.

“Can you forward these photos to Dr. Gregory, the ME? He said he wanted to see any bird evidence, and he might want to speculate on what killed them.”

“
No problem.” Clarice constructed an e-mail and hit Send.

Lei met Pono, each of them holding a stack of paperwork, right outside Omura
’s office within the thirty minutes they’d been allotted. Lei realized she hadn’t had time to pee after the hike and the long drive down the hill. The interview with the captain was sure to make her bladder explode.

“
I have to go to the bathroom. Take these in. I’ll be right there.”

Lei hotfooted it down the hall and barely made it into the unisex stall in time. Sitting on those hard plastic chairs in front of Omura had gotten easier after her trial-by-fire work for the FBI and her former boss,
exacting and critical Special Agent in Charge Waxman—but not that much easier.

In the privacy of the bathroom stall, Lei
shut her eyes, feeling a little dizzy. She probably needed to eat something, and remembered she hadn’t eaten yet that day. She gazed at the ring on her finger and wiggled it to see the sparkle, picturing the ruggedly handsome face of her fiancé, Michael Stevens. He was the commanding officer of Haiku Station here on Maui, and three months ago she’d made the agonizing choice to leave the FBI to be with the only man she’d ever loved.

Lei
still missed her FBI partner, Ken Yamada, working with her best friend, Marcella Scott, and certain aspects of her brief career in the FBI—but seeing Stevens every day more than made up for that. She also served as a liaison for the FBI on Maui, a role that kept her in close touch with her friends from the federal agency.

At the sink, Lei
used a little water to tame wayward curls away from her face. The sunshine outdoors had brought freckles and color to her olive-skinned face. She washed her hands and hurried out, sliding into a chair next to Pono.

Pono
had already submitted the case paperwork to Omura, and his face was tiki-god blank as the captain leafed through and reviewed it, red nails tapping each page as she scanned. Omura’s dark brown eyes looked up at Lei over tortoiseshell reading glasses perched on her perfect nose. “You’re late.”

“
Hadn’t been to the bathroom since we got the call to check out the body,” Lei said.

Omura
looked back down at the paperwork. “So the likely scenario is that this man was hunting or capturing native endangered birds. Any guesses as to motive for his killing? Or was this an accident?”

Lei looked at Pono
, and he led off. “Doesn’t seem accidental to me. It was a perfect kill shot with a bow from a location with excellent visibility. The blind the vic was shot from was unknown and, of course, unsanctioned by the Park Service and the Hawaiian Bird Conservatory, the agency that manages the land where the shooting took place.”

“
Speculation?” The captain sat back in her chair, taking off her glasses. This was Omura’s invitation for them to take their best guess about the case, and this time Pono looked at Lei.

“
I think someone was hunting pig and deer in the blind. Someone who’s a conservationist at heart,” Lei said. “Hunting’s allowed to keep the invasive species from wrecking the habitat up there. So this person is up there and sees this guy catching the native birds, putting them in a bag, and shoots him on impulse.”

Pono rubbed his lip under his bristling mustache, an old habit.
“Another scenario is that someone is hunting and sees a movement out of the corner of his eye. The vic was in full camo gear. He shoots him on accident.”

“Or the vic was being hunted intentionally by someone who either didn’t like him personally or didn’t like what he was doing. He’s a John Doe. That doesn’t make establishing motive as easy,” Lei finished. “Those are the three scenarios we’ve come up with so far.”

Omura looked through the papers again. “I see a lead here. A bar receipt from the Maui Beach Hotel. I also notice the evidence items have Chinese writing on them. Have you notified Interpol?”

“
Not yet. Not until we get the prints. Gregory should have that covered.” Both of them glanced at the clock—it was 4:45 p.m. “Do you want us to go over to the morgue and get the prints tonight?” Pono asked. “With the state of the body’s decomp, I don’t know if the doc has been able to process them.”

Omura shut the folder
and slid it back to Lei. “Tomorrow is soon enough for that. Give the ME time to process the body. Nothing looks too hot on this one but the possible citizenship issue if he’s not American—but I want you to nail down the Maui Beach Hotel lead, grab anything he may have left in his room before it disappears, and maybe you’ll find identification there. You also have a car being pulled into impound to process.”

“We’ll check in again tomorrow.” Lei picked the folder up.

“Keep me apprised.” Omura dismissed them with a flick of her red nails.

Lei and Pono took separate vehicles to the Maui Beach Hotel since they planned to go home afterward, and on her way Lei put in her Bluetooth and called Stevens. They usually had dinner together after work at either her house or his—but there was no point in that tonight, as she’d be home so late.

“Sweets. I was just thinking about you.” Steven
s’s voice, warm with a smile and a promise, still made her stomach tighten and her body hum into awareness.

“Can’t see you tonight.
Gonna be really late —we caught a body on Haleakala.” Lei sketched him in on the details.