Torch Ginger (3 page)

“I’m a developer. Island Cleaning had the contract to do all my construction cleans after a house was finished, and periodic cleans while they were on the market. I noticed the same thing my mother did—the work wasn’t being kept up, they missed appointments, and so on. I called Lisa one day to tell her to get her crew to shape up; she seemed really upset, crying, like she was in trouble. She seemed to want to tell me something, but she wouldn’t.”

“Probably thought she could get somewhere with you by playing the damsel in distress.”

“Hmm. So you admit some women might find me interesting.”

“No. She just knew a sucker when she saw one.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. He smiled. The charm of it lit his face like lightning.

“You’re not that into me, are you?”

“That would be a yes. Or is it no? Now you’re trying to trip me up.” She smiled, because she couldn’t help it.

“You have a dimple.” He touched a finger to her cheek. “Right here.”

“Hey.” She jerked her face away and turned the key. The truck roared into life.

He grew serious and spoke quickly. “I mean it. I’m worried about Lisa. I think she might be in danger, being forced to be involved with these break-ins somehow.”

“Who do you think is behind it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe her boyfriend, Darrell Hines. He’s an icehead time-share salesman, got her into using.”

“Right now all I’m working on is the burglaries. You’d do better to call Detective Furukawa—he’s in charge of drug investigations—with this ‘tip,’ but I’ll pass it on.” Lei felt the frustration of the limitations put on her. Furukawa, aka, “Fury,” wanted any and all information on the drug trade routed through him.

“You left your card with my mother, right? I might want to call you.” Alika’s golden-brown gaze was intent.

“Okay. Bye then.”

Lei cut her eyes away and kept her voice cool. She pulled out and drove sedately down the road, flicking a glance to the rearview mirror. He was still standing there, watching her, jingling something in his pocket like a man making a decision. She glanced at her phone on the seat as if it might ring, caught herself, and turned up the radio to blast her thoughts away. She headed for the nearby noodle house for lunch, speed-dialing Jenkins to join her.

The Noodle Shack was another old plantation house, unrestored this time but surrounded by lush plumeria trees. The worn, pockmarked floor, sagging screens, and battered wooden counter belied the delicious Asian noodles the place specialized in. Lei climbed up onto one of the worn vinyl stools at the long counter and ordered a saimin, Jenkins joining her.

She scooped the fragrant noodles out of the deep plastic bowl with her chopsticks and spoon. Jenkins gave up on the chopsticks, never having mastered them in his short year in Hawaii, and wrestled the noodles into a squared-off traditional spoon with a fork. When they’d both made some progress, Lei settled back a bit, wiped her mouth.

“So interesting about the missing guy. I found his stuff. All his stuff.” She filled Jenkins in on her discovery. “And the real estate owner ID’d the number on the back of the card as the old code for the vacation rentals that were hit.”

“So he was involved. Foul play or suicide?”

“Don’t know. I’m going to read through the journal and letters, see what I can pick up about his state of mind. Weirdest thing about this was the shoe with the stones the girlfriend brought in. Can’t help thinking it was some sort of message, and I want to check the missing persons database when we get back to the station, see if there have been any other disappearances. How’s the alarm company on the burglary case?” Lei took a sip of Diet Coke.

“Small-time outfit.” Jenkins chased a strip of egg around with his spoon, gave up and slurped the broth by picking up the bowl. He set it down. “They say they changed the codes on all the houses for Paradise Realty, and nothing’s happened since they did. The security systems were turned off by someone who had the codes at the time of the burglaries.”

“Yeah. Lehua Wolcott at the realty company suspects Island Cleaning, who took care of the homes. She believes Lisa Nakamoto, the owner, has a drug problem. Alika Wolcott, her son, was worried about her too, said he can’t get ahold of her.” Lei pushed her notebook over to Jenkins as she took her last bite. “Now we have to see if there’s some sort of connection between Island Cleaning, Lisa Nakamoto, and Jay Bennett.”

Jenkins perused her notes. “Hm. I wonder if the ‘ice’ investigation the Lihue detectives are working on is going to end up overlapping with this one. They’ve been saying there’s enough traffic to show we’ve got a major producer somewhere on island.”

“Well, let’s drop in on Island Cleaning and see whether or not they’re really clean.”

Jenkins rolled his eyes, but they hurried to settle the bill and get on the road. Lei, used to working with her older, more sedate partner, Pono, on the Big Island, was still sometimes surprised by Jenkins’s willingness to jump in with whatever her latest idea was. It gave her pause to realize she was the more seasoned of the two of them.

They pulled their cars up twenty minutes later at a shabby false-fronted storefront on a side street of Kapa`a, in the area that hadn’t been face-lifted for tourist foot traffic. Lei got out of the truck and went to look in the locked glass door, but couldn’t see through the peeling, mirrored windows. The Island Cleaning sign above the building, of the plastic illuminated variety, was turned off.

Jenkins knocked once, twice, three times, while Lei walked to the side of the building and looked down the narrow alley. Three aluminum trash cans sat on the cracked asphalt outside of what must have been the back entrance. She gestured, and he hurried after her. Weeds pushed up through the cracked cement around their feet as they listened for several long moments at the rusting metal back door.

Jenkins shook his head. “No one here.”

One of the old-fashioned galvanized lids had blown off. Several empty Sudafed boxes had her gesturing Jenkins over to where sealed black plastic bags bulged with bulky garbage. Lei ripped a bag open; it was filled with empty muriatic acid and yellow HEET gas-line antifreeze bottles. What would they need gas antifreeze for in Hawaii?

Only one reason.

She looked at Jenkins wordlessly, and they opened the rest of the trash cans. More empty blister packs and bottles of ammonia cleaning agent filled the other bags.

Lei speed-dialed Fury Furukawa while Jenkins went to the opening of the alley to keep a lookout.

“Island Cleaning in Kapa’a,” she said when Fury answered. “Possible meth lab. We have discarded production supplies. Come over and check it out.”

She and her partner drove around the block to park where they could keep the building under surveillance until Furukawa and the senior detectives arrived. It didn’t take long. Fury drove a tricked-out GTO, black with a silver flake and a lightning bolt down the roof. Kenzo and Henriques came together in something only slightly less flashy, a yellow Camaro.

Real subtle and low key
, Jenkins observed sourly via text message. The Lihue detectives had been hazing Jenkins for months before Lei got to Kaua`i; now the rivalry continued as the more experienced detectives blocked them from interesting cases.

The radio crackled into life. “Come in Ginger 4 and 5, this is Hilltop 2.” Fury’s call sign.

“Ginger 4 here,” Lei answered.

“Looks empty,” Fury said.

“Check trash cans in alley—contents consistent with meth production.”

“Copy that.”

Arizumi, aka Flea, a very tall Japanese and Fury’s partner, got out of the Mustang and sauntered into the alley. He looked into the first can, prodded about. Looked back to the cars and nodded.

The radio crackled again. “We’re going to surveil this building and put in for a warrant on the Drug Enforcement Agency fast track.” Fury referred to the quick warrant procedure used for suspected drug production. “I’m gonna leave the boys here, hope one of the iceheads comes back. Let’s debrief at the station.”

“Copy that.” She hung up the radio and drove by the other vehicles, giving a little finger wave. It felt damn good to beat the arrogant veteran detectives to a major break, and it looked like she was going to get to work a real case. Finally.

“Thanks, Jay Bennett,” she whispered. “I’m gonna find you no matter what.”

Chapter 4

Jenkins stole a stale doughnut from the pink box on the conference table as short, muscular Detective Sergeant “Fury” Furukawa folded his arms and gave Lei a good stare out of hard brown eyes. Flea, his sidekick, collapsed his angular length into one of the chairs around the Formica table. The industrial-gray walls were lined with whiteboards on one side, citations on another, and inspirational posters touting connections and teamwork in between. Lei wasn’t feeling either from Furukawa.

“I told you to bump any and all information relating to narcotics to me and my team.”

“Obviously we didn’t know we were going to find a meth lab, Sergeant. We’re working our burglary case and went there to look for Lisa Nakamoto, the owner of the company.” Lei filled in the content of the interview with Alika and Lehua Wolcott. “They seemed to think the cleaning company was responsible and that Lisa is in the thick of it. Seems like we should find her, bring her in for an interview at least.”

“Okay. We’ll take it from here.”

“What about finding and interviewing Lisa?”

“I said we’ll take it from here.”

“But this relates to our burglaries. Let us look for her today.”

“She’s now a suspect in a meth production lab. Don’t you think that’s bigger than a burglary job she probably pulled to get cash for her operation? Like I said, we’ll take it from here. Find another case to work on, and we’ll let you know when we bring Nakamoto in. I’ll let you question her.”

Jenkins must have seen the fire in Lei’s eyes because he put his hand on her arm, squeezed.

“You got it, Sergeant. We’re just glad we had a good lead.” He hustled Lei out and back to their cubicle. Lei flung herself into her office chair and did a few spins.

“I can’t stand his attitude. I’m burnt on this whole thing. Just when a case gets interesting. . .”

“Wasn’t it you who said we were paying dues?” Jenkins asked. “We just have to keep showing up and doing good work. They’ll trust us eventually.”

“Yeah, well, at least we get to keep working the Jay Bennett thing, even if the case crosseswith Fury’s. I think I’ll get started reviewing Bennett’s journal and letters.”

“Want some company?”

“No, thanks. I need to clear my head. I’m going to take them back to the evidence room and work on them there. Can you do some searches for missing persons? Maybe go back five years or so?”

“Why? What’re you thinking?”

“I don’t know. Just something my gut is telling me. I mean, Bennett could be a suicide or someone related to this burglary grabbed him, or it could be something else. I’ll do it if you don’t want to.”

“Okay, Sweets, since you asked nice.”

“Just Lei. Please.” She poked him in the shoulder. “And thanks for helping me keep quiet in there. I feel like Fury’s looking for an excuse to make trouble for me.”

“He’s an ass. Besides, what are partners for?”

Lei handed each item from Jay Bennett’s backpack over to Clarice, the evidence clerk. Clarice Okamoto took her job seriously, squinting through rhinestone cat’s-eye glasses at her computer screen as she listed the items Lei described on the inventory sheet and signed them in. Lei loaded everything but the journal, folded letters, stones, and slipper into the box Jenkins had started and carried it back into the climate-controlled little room.

She put the box away on one of the shelves and switched on the overhead light to study the remaining items at the little steel table. She looked into the depths of the room stacked high with the debris of crime, and a sudden wave of claustrophobia had her putting her hand into her pocket, touching the smooth black stone and taking a deep breath in through her nose, out through her mouth, as she had learned in therapy. She still needed to use those tools, though the intensity of her posttraumatic stress symptoms had abated a good deal since the Big Island.

Still, sometimes Lei really missed her shrink.

She’d done therapy for a year with the unconventional Dr. Wilson, a psychologist who worked with the Big Island PD after the case she’d worked on activated suppressed memories from her childhood. Lei hadn’t had the time or the motivation to find anyone new on Kaua`i.

It wasn’t protocol, but it couldn’t hurt to study the items somewhere comfortable. She shoved them into a plastic ziplock and pushed her way out of the close space.

“Working at my desk,” she said to Clarice, and painstakingly signed out the items in question. She hustled out of the building and headed for home.

Evening was turning Hanalei golden as Lei drove around the narrow curve of road descending into the valley. She never failed to catch her breath over the postcard-worthy view: a rugged green triptych of mountains bisected by waterfalls rising steeply above a lush green patchwork quilt of taro fields, the shiny dark snake of Hanalei River winding through it.

Keiki, her big police-trained Rottweiler, greeted Lei ecstatically with much happy butt waggling and greeting woofs as she pulled up at the little cottage on the river toward the back of the valley. Lei unlatched the gate and climbed the sagging steps onto the painted porch of the square, tin-roofed cottage, a relic of a time when such cottages housed entire families. She patted the dog, giving her a chest rub.

“Glad I’ve got you keeping an eye on things, girl.” Keiki pressed her broad forehead against Lei’s leg in reply. Lei jiggled the key in the lock. The cottage was so old it was difficult to secure. She’d put sturdy hasps on all the windows and double locks on the doors. Still, it was frighteningly easy to break into—the wood splintery and aged.

Above all, Lei needed to feel safe in her home. Though isolated on the long one-lane road, the landlady’s family lived in an adjacent house and anyone trying to stake out her place would be obvious. The cottage had what she needed: a wire-fenced yard that went all the way around the house, so no one could approach without Keiki sounding the alarm.