Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series) (26 page)

“
Speaking of important. There’s something I want to get your opinion on.” Wayne hoisted himself out of the recliner with the aid of a lever on the side of it. He rummaged in a nearby closet and came back carrying a plain brown cardboard box, the top opened. “This came in the mail. Fortunately, I intercepted it before your aunt saw it.”

He set the box on the coffee table in front of Lei, opened the flaps. As soon as Lei saw the white linen
fabric inside, she gave a cry—and wished she had her crime kit. “
Auwe
! Don’t take it out! There might be explosives or something!”

“
Too late,” Wayne said. “I opened it without realizing and took out these big pieces of material. There’s nothing else in the box but a note.” He took the fabric out and set two folded, fat squares of the linen on the coffee table.

“
Here’s the note. It was at the bottom. I’d already taken the fabric out by then, shaken it out to see what it was. I still wasn’t sure until I went and Googled ‘long white linen fabric’ and it came back with ‘shroud’ as the most likely answer.” He handed Lei the note. She took it, holding it by the edge with a piece of tissue.

It was a creamy white card stock square, hand lettered with black block lettering:
plenty of these to go around
.

Lei
suppressed a shudder of revulsion and anxiety as she held the card by the edge. “I know where these shrouds came from—a place on Maui. We got a brochure and the receipt for them boxed and given to us with our wedding presents. I was wondering what happened to the actual shrouds. We’ll take this package home and have everything checked out.”

“
What do you think this is about?” Her dad’s craggy features were chiseled with worry, his brows drawn together.

“
Someone’s threatening our family. Packaged the receipt, gift wrapped it, and gave it to Michael and me in an attempt to ruin our honeymoon, which we didn’t allow it to—and then the bastard mailed the shrouds to you guys to scare you. It’s kind of a sick twofer.”

“
Twofer?”

“
Two for the price of one.”

“
Who do you think is doing this?”

“
Most likely our new enemy, Terence Chang the Third.” She filled her dad in on the case last year that had ended Healani Chang’s life.

Stevens returned, arms loaded with groceries, and his eyes went straight to the box on the coffee table between Lei and her father. His gaze sharpened and brows drew down. “The shrouds?”

“You got it.”

He dropped the bags of groceries on the table and rummaged under the sink, returning with a large plastic garbage bag. “Dad’s fingerprints are all over the box and he handled the shrouds,” Lei said.

“Not a problem. We have your prints, right, Wayne?” And Lei couldn’t believe it when Stevens winked, man-to-man, at her father.

Wayne laughed. “You sure as hell do. Not everyone gets to add a convicted felon to the family cop tree.”

“We’ll just eliminate your prints.” Using the edge of the bag, he guided the box inside and tied it shut. “Not a problem.”

“Don’t you want to see the shrouds?” Lei asked.

“No,” Stevens said, and carried the bag into the back bedroom. Lei knew he was compartmentalizing the threat, like he was so good at doing with his police work. He returned. “Time I got home. Lei’s staying a little longer.”

Lei had spent the morning with Rosario at the restaurant. Her aunt’s best hours seemed to be in the morning, and when she felt good, she insisted on going in to work. In the kitchen, swathed in her plumeria-print apron, working alongside Momi, Rosario seemed almost her old self. Lei saw the affectionate gestures that passed between the women and the one time that Momi actually kissed her aunt on the top of her head.

That day as they drove home at lunch, Lei
tackled a situation she’d suspected for a long time.

“
Aunty. You and Momi—you love each other, don’t you?”

Her aunt turned from gazing o
ut the window to frown at Lei. “Of course I do. She’s my best friend in the world and my business partner.”

“
I mean love, love. Romantic love.”

“
There are all kinds of love.” Rosario looked away. “We don’t need to put words on what we have.”

“
Don’t you think, now, with your health the way it is…you might want to come out of the closet?”

“
Stay out of my business, girl!” Rosario snapped. “You don’t know a thing about it.”

Lei felt her cheeks flush. Her aunt barked at her so seldom it hurt as if she
’d been physically slapped. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“
Your father would never understand, and she’s married,” Rosario finally said, her voice a whisper. “Not that we have ever been like that, you know. Physical. But I would like to have her by my side at the end.”

“
And you will,” Lei said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Her aunt
’s hand stole over and clasped Lei’s. “Thank you. I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“
I just love you and want you to be happy. I’m sorry if I had the wrong idea.” They were both in tears as they pulled into the driveway, and Lei supported her aunt into the house and back to bed for a nap.

Lei took her phone and went outside. The street was deserted during the middle of a workday, and she had a lot of calls to mak
e. First she called Stevens. He’d just landed on Maui.

“It’s windy here,” he said. “I wish you were with me.”

“I know. I’ll be home when the captain says I’ll be cleared to come back on the job, but I need to be with Aunty as much as I can.”

“I love you. There. You’ve had your daily dose of love.”

“I wish I’d had my other kind of daily dose of love,” Lei said, smiling at the sidewalk. In all the turmoil, they hadn’t made love since Yosemite.

“God, I know. I won’t wish you
’d come home sooner. That wouldn’t be right. Just know I’ll be missing you.”

“
Love you too.” Lei cut the connection, hardly able to speak. She walked rapidly back and forth on the sidewalk, breathing and getting her emotions under control. She called Pono and asked him about the interview with Rinker.

“
I can send you the recording if you want,” Pono offered again.

“
I don’t want you to get in trouble. Just gimme the lowdown.”

“
Well, he basically corroborated the confession. He agreed to testify against Kingston in return for reduced charges for his role in covering up the body. The DA’s on board with that, and so was Rinker’s lawyer. Captain was pleased.”

“
But why did he agree to cover up Jacobsen’s murder? And what about the poachers?”

“
He claims he doesn’t know anything about the poachers, and he agreed to help dispose of Jacobsen’s body since, quote: ‘He was already dead, and Kingston’s research needed to go forward,’ unquote. Both these guys say they planned to anonymously call in the body dump after the research was published.”

“
Man, they seem to think the research justifies anything! So how’s Kingston doing with his injury?”

“
Slowly improving. Takama’s been charged with attempted murder, you know. Captain told me she was dickering with the DA over charges against you too; they’ve decided on criminal negligence in the care of prisoner, which is a misdemeanor. Captain’s working on a disciplinary plan for you to come home to.”

“
Great,” Lei muttered, rubbing bloodshot eyes. “Thanks, Pono.” A car swished by, putting her back in her body. Well, at least she wasn’t going to jail. She had to focus on the positive.

“
How’s your aunty?”

“
Hanging in there. But something bad has happened.” She told Pono about the package.

“
So that’s where the actual shrouds ended up. Someone’s playing games with your whole family! Pretty theatrical gesture.”

“
I think it’s in keeping with Terence Chang’s personality. In fact, I’ve got to call Sophie Ang about the poaching order on the birds, and I’ll check with her about her impressions of Chang.”

The next
morning, Lei borrowed Aunty’s car while she and Wayne were at work and drove to the Marin Headlands. She set out on a sandy trail through the park, letting a good run sweat out all the worries she was struggling with.

The rolling hills, carpeted in golden dried grasses and punctuated by the dark green of live oaks, surrounded her with a different beauty than the lush green of Hawaii. San Francisco Bay
’s muted, steely blue water glittered far below her, and the sky smoldered with sunshine banked by fog forming on the coast.

Her heart thudded as her feet pounded, and eventually
, that metronome drowned out the buzz of her thoughts, circling endlessly around questions she didn’t have answers for. Finally, she sat on one of the rough wooden benches poised in front of the view, did some stretches, drank some water, and took out her phone.

“
Hey, Lei.” Sophie Ang’s slightly husky voice with its lilt of an accent conjured her riveting friend, almost as if the agent were seated on the bench beside Lei. “How’s married life?”

“
It would be great if we were together, but I’m in California. My aunty Rosario’s got late-stage pancreatic cancer.”

“
Oh no! She seemed so healthy at the wedding!”

“
She puts a good face on.” Lei sighed. “But she’s not getting treatment, and I’m trying to spend as much time as possible with her. Anyway, I called about a couple of things. I wondered if you found out anything about the native bird poaching online.”

“
Oh yes. I didn’t want to bother you on your honeymoon, but I found an order for them, live if possible, from someone in China. Probably a collector or an aviary of some sort. I took the ad down, reported it to Interpol. But it’s always possible they’ll just put up another one, so I’ve got multiple alerts out looking for it.”

“
Oh thanks. Good. The case is wrapping up.” Lei filled Sophie in on Kingston’s confession and apprehension. “Unfortunately, it’s a mess with him getting away and getting shot while in my custody.”

“
I’m so sorry, Lei. For that and for your aunt’s health.”

“
Well, speaking of, there’s this other thing.” Lei told her about the shrouds mailed to her aunt and father and the receipt they’d received in their wedding gifts. “The only person I can imagine who hates me and my family enough for this kind of gesture is Terence Chang. You interacted with him online a lot in our last FBI case together; does this shroud thing seem like something he might do?”

A long pause as Sophie considered this.
“I don’t know. He had a dramatic side, that’s for sure, liked the whole online world of smoke and mirrors. I’d see some sort of Internet-related harassment as more his style—there’s a kind of childish drama about this threat that bothers me. Have you talked to Dr. Wilson about it?”

“
No, but that’s a good idea. Well, at least you found the posting for the birds. Hopefully, we can keep that shut down.” She bid her friend goodbye and got back on the trail. After her cool down at the car, she turned on her aunt’s elderly Honda’s AC, blasting it in her face as she called Dr. Wilson.

“
Lei!” The psychologist’s voice was upbeat. “How was the honeymoon?”

“
You were right when you told me I just needed to follow my head, not my heart this time. It was all amazing. I feel like I passed through a gauntlet.”

Caprice Wilson laughed, her warm voice a familiar comfort to Lei—though just as often the psychologist had pushed Lei outside her comfort zone
and provoked anger and defensiveness. “That’s a wedding, in a nutshell. Only the brave and committed make it through—especially weddings that are postponed a day.”

“
I’m calling you with a question, though. From California.” Lei filled Dr. Wilson in on the honeymoon, her aunt’s illness, and the threats they’d had in the form of the shrouds and their purchase on Maui. “I suspect Terence Chang, the new head of the Chang crime family. Young, creative, and hates me just as much as the rest of his family did. He blames me for his grandmother’s death in that last big case I had with the FBI. So I’m thinking it’s him. What do you think?”

“
I need a lot more information. Can you get me anything from that old case where you discovered each other?”

“
Unfortunately, no. The case where we crossed paths was when I was with the FBI, and I don’t have access to their records anymore. I can write up what I know, though, and you can think about it.”

“
Yes. Happy to help with that under the umbrella of my role as police resource psychologist. Now, you never told me—are you pregnant?”