Torch Ginger (31 page)

“Detective Stevens, you can watch from the peanut gallery with Captain Fernandez if you wish.”

Stevens gave Lei a final kiss, a stamp of intent, and let himself out.

The “brief statement” turned into a long interview. Lei felt completely wrung out when they were done, folding their notebooks, video camera, and tape recorder into Dr. LaSota’s square briefcase. Arizumi followed them out, demanding to be kept informed of developments.

The captain entered. Lei had her head down on folded arms by then.

“Lei, you’re on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation. I need your badge.”

“I gave it to Becky with everything else.” Lei blinked gritty eyes. She wasn’t crying. She was tired.

“Just a technicality—you know it’s procedure. You earned a few days off,” Captain Fernandez said, giving her a comforting pat. “You did good.”

“I’ll take her home,” said Stevens, meeting them in the hall. “She’s been telling me she loves me all afternoon.”

Lei hid her head in Stevens’s shoulder as wolf whistles chased them out of the building.

Chapter 39

Making love all night after killing a man did strange things to you.

Lei drove the truck toward Esther’s house, trying to stay in her body. Her skin felt too thin, every tiny hair like antennae. She could almost hear the roar of blood through the chambers of her heart. Colors were too bright, and she was sensitive and sore in unexpected places.

She was headed out for mandatory post-shooting counseling, and the captain had cleared Esther as a native Hawaiian healer in lieu of traditional therapy. Starting with a new counselor had seemed impossible after all that had gone down, though the sharp-eyed psychologist Dr. LaSota had volunteered to do her debrief.

Lei wasn’t that much of a sucker.

She tapped the steering wheel with the fingers of one hand, and even that motion vibrated through her whole body. Her eyes fell on her empty ring finger for the first time in a long time. Surely Stevens wouldn’t wreck things by bringing up marriage again.

They’d both been called early that morning—her call had been Fury letting her know both Jenkins and Bennett were going to be okay and that the KPD had raided the papaya farm and busted everyone including Tiger. Stevens’s call had been the FBI summoning him to organize a search of the valleys Chalcedony “Cal” Haddock frequented.

“Totally anticlimactic,” Lei told Esther a half hour later in the teaching room. “I shoot the guy who did it, but I don’t get to be around for any of the proving it. Stevens said he heard the evidence in the cave seemed to be supporting my story and it’s looking like a good shoot, but it’ll be at least a week until I’m cleared to be back on duty.”

Esther sat facing Lei, her legs crossed under a long purple muumuu. She was weaving a lauhala basket, her brown fingers darting sparrows among the strips. Lei sorted the pile of dried material from the hala tree, using a paring knife to peel off the strip of thorns that lined either side of the long swordlike leaves.

“I think you stay in the right place, right now.”

A thorn stabbed Lei, and she bit back a curse. “I don’t think I’m the type to be good at this.”

“You’re a Hawaiian woman; you’re the right kind,” Esther said. “You never learned much about our culture. Shame, that.”

“My aunty, she tried,” Lei said. “I’m only part Hawaiian, but she told me the legends at bedtime. She taught me how to cook Hawaiian style. For all the good it did.”

“Well, now you have a man. You can cook for him.”

Lei ducked her head to hide the flame of her blush. Damn the woman. She could see right into her head. “I won’t ask how you knew that.”

“I’m sad it never worked out with Alika, but you already loved someone else.”

“You could have saved me a lot of trouble and told me that back when I asked you about it.” Lei ripped a long strip of thorns off with unnecessary force.

“You wouldn’t have believed me then. And all I knew was that you had something to learn from each of them.”

“I still don’t know what that is.”

“Think about it. Close your eyes and see each face and tell me.”

Lei put the knife and the leaves down. Closed her eyes, breathed in the sweet, musty scent of the dried hala and the richness of coconut oil, and let her mind’s eye wander to Alika’s face—eyes alight with excitement to show her the helicopter. Golden with passion as he tugged her down beside him on that fateful carpet. She smiled at the same time as tears pricked.

“Alika taught me to take a few risks, enjoy life.”

“They cleared him, you know,” Esther said. Lei’s eyes snapped open to see the
kahu
picking up a fresh strip of hala, working it into the section in her lap that was ending. “All charges dropped. Even the insurance thing. Only thing he was guilty of was giving Lisa Nakamoto a gold bracelet.”

“I’m sorry. I misjudged him.” Lei swallowed. “I hope you’ll tell him.”

“You tell him yourself.”

“Ha. Okay. What other bombs you got for me? You way too well informed for a civilian.”

“They still consulting with me, now that Alika is cleared. Captain Fernandez, he called me himself to tell me that drug dealer who killed Lisa finally got clean enough to talk. Darrell Hines, he was working with that hippie Tiger to make the meth. They got the cult people working the lab, then Darrell’s people at Island Cleaning doing the selling.”

“Yeah, Marcella and I saw it firsthand.” Lei absorbed this. “Fucking Marcella—I actually liked her, but she just used me.”

“Language! This the house of the Lord.”

“Sorry. Okay. So why did they tell you all this?”

“Captain wanted my opinion on the cult. Had me talk to that guy Jazz Haddock yesterday, hear all about what the cult believes. Wanted to see how that might relate to the killer. I tol’ the captain the cult was just the starting point for what that
pupu`le
crazy man did.”

“Poor Jazz. I wonder how he’s taking it that his brother is the Cult Killer.”

“Not well, I think.” Esther reached for another strip of lauhala and the spine of palm frond that formed the ribs of the basket. “His full name’s Jasper. He one sad and tormented man. Especially with the way his sister and mother went
make
.”

“Who died?”

“His little sister. Her name Opal. She died when she only twenty, the mother too. Their house burned down and they never made it out.”

“Opal must be the third stone. Cal always left three stones at the place where he took a victim: a chalcedony, a jasper, and an opal.” Lei mulled this over. “I think Jazz knew more than he let himself, or he couldn’t have come up with the binder.”

Lei focused on slitting the leaf she was working on into long strips. Having something useful to do with her hands felt good, keeping her grounded as she sorted through all this new information.

“Your Ni`ihau necklace is missing.”

“I had to turn it in. It had trace on it.” She wondered if the blood would come off the tiny precious shells. She couldn’t wait to get the necklace back; she felt naked without it.

“Mac—he’s going be one strong
kumu
someday—if he can forgive himself for having Cal on his land.”

“I think so too. I better get going. I want to go visit Jenkins and Bennett in the hospital now that they’re stable.” Lei put away the prepared strips of basket material on the shelf against the tapa-covered wall. “Thank you for everything.”

“I just doing what God called me to do.”

Lei sat next to Jenkins. He was awake, but his color was bad. He had an oxygen tank beside the bed and a cannula in his nose, but he was breathing on his own—something the doctor she’d met in the hall said was “very promising.”

“How’re you feeling?” she asked. He rolled his eyes. “Stupid question, sorry.”

Lei rubbed the smooth black stone in her pocket—her hands had become sweaty almost the minute she got into the room. She still hated hospitals.

“I brought you something.” She gestured to the bouquet of folded palm-frond roses Esther had made.

“Nice,” he croaked. “Manly.”

She snorted a laugh. “I didn’t make them.”

“No surprise.”

“I know, right? Esther made them. She sends love.”

He closed his eyes as if tired. “Tell me everything.”

“Well, they must have interviewed you, right?”

He shook his head.

“Oh crap,” Lei said, looking up to see Agent Marcella Scott with her new sidekick, Dr. LaSota, in the doorway. “The FBI’s here now. I knew they’d be talking to you, but the timing sucks. I’ll have to come back later.”

His hand groped across the covers, found hers. “Stay.”

“I’m sorry. Detective Texeira’s part of the investigation and can’t be privy to your interview,” Marcella said. Lei had expected as much but still narrowed her eyes at the agent. Marcella was back in FBI gray, glossy curls tamed into a French twist. Only gold snakeskin sandals peeking out from under the slacks gave away her unique style.

“I’ll go, but I’d like have a word with you, Agent Scott.” Lei patted Jenkins’s shoulder. “I’ll be back.”

She led Marcella out into the hall and turned to face the other woman, hands on her hips.

“You could have thrown me a bone the other day. Told me you were going to the mesa
heiau
at least. You took my intel and went to make my case without me.”

“Who said it was your case? I seem to remember your captain calling in ViCAP to solve it. But if I’d known you would go off half-cocked like that, I’d have kept a much closer eye on you. As it is, you killed the guy. Now we have to go back and try to figure out why he was murdering people instead of just asking him.”

“You should have kept me in the loop. We could have worked together and things might have ended differently.”

“You’re a loose cannon. I suspected as much; now I know beyond the shadow of a doubt.” Brown eyes clashed with brown and neither blinked.

“Fuck you and the white horse you rode in on.”

“Right back atcha. You wouldn’t be a bad investigator if you could be a team player.”

Lei had no answer to this. Shooting Cal had ended the investigation but left a lot of unanswered questions—ten of them, to be exact. She sucked some relaxation breaths and got a grip on her temper.

“I should have tried harder to get through to someone.”

“Damn straight.”

“But if I had, Bennett would be dead. As it was, we barely got him down in time, and I don’t even want to think about what Cal was going to do to him.”

“That’s not your responsibility. This was an FBI case, and we involved senior detectives from the local PD, which didn’t include you. Keeping you in the dark was nothing personal, and it wasn’t my call. I don’t owe you shit.”

Lei bit back the words—
I liked you. I thought you could be a friend
. She looked away.

Marcella seemed to read her mind. She tossed that lush, dark head, gave a little toe tap, and the dimple appeared for a second.

“But like I said, if I’d known you better, I’d never have left you out. You’d just come barreling back in, guns blazing.” It was as close to an apology as Lei was going to get, and this time they both smiled.

“Okay then. What’s it looking like with my shoot?”

“Can’t say officially yet,” Marcella said. “But it’s looking like a good shoot. In fact, I’ve been talking to the Honolulu field office about you. We think you should apply for the Bureau. You’d be great as a field agent out here, being multiethnic and all.”

Lei snorted a laugh in reply.

“Seriously. It’s competitive, but I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“Weren’t you just calling me a loose cannon? Saying I needed to learn to be a team player?”

“Well, you are and you do. But you’ve got good instincts, know how to take initiative, and you’re a woman who’d shave her head to go undercover. I think you’ve got what it takes to be a Federal cop.”

“I’m just getting used to being a detective. Just getting used to Kaua`i.”

“Don’t get too used to it,” Marcella said with a wink. “I’ll be in touch.”

Chapter 40

Lei stuck her head into Jay Bennett’s room a few doors down. He was sitting up with Kelly wedged into bed beside him. His face looked much better without the plum-dark of congested blood.

“Hi.”

“Detective!” Kelly pried herself up, her face flushed. “Oh my God! You did it. You saved Jay!” She ran around and embraced Lei in a welter of bouncing curls and abundant breasts. “I can’t thank you enough.”

The girl squeezed and wouldn’t let go.

Lei found herself hugging her back, blinking hard. “I’m so glad it all worked out.”

“You’re telling me.” Jay’s voice sounded rusty. “I thought I was gone; then next thing I know, I’m on a helicopter.”

Kelly detached at last, pulled up a chair beside the bed, gesturing to another.

Lei sat. “How are you feeling?”

“Alive. Glad to be.”

Kelly grasped Jay’s hand. “He was in there for almost two weeks. In the dark, tied up.” Her eyes brimmed. “A nightmare.”

“A nightmare—that’s what it was. I’m just going to think of it that way.” His blue eyes were sunken, skin pale and chapped, marked with red rash from the tape. Lei could see gouges around the neckline of the hospital gown where he’d tried to loosen the collar they’d found on the floor of the cave.

“One loose end I’m wondering about. The access code from the mansions was on the back of a Paradise Realty business card in your wallet. Were you involved with those robberies?” Lei gave him her best cop stare.

“No. The hippie group were trying to get me involved with the whole papaya farm meth thing, and wanted me to help with the robbery—several of them were on the Island Cleaning crew to earn cash. Darrell Hines gave me that card—and that’s when I took off on my own.”

“Jay, you should have told me that!” Kelly frowned.

“I didn’t want you to worry. But I think when I bailed Cal decided to grab me. He was involved with the papaya farm thing. I had a lot of time to think about it, and I must have been a loose end as well as a—I don’t know what. I always knew he was going to kill me in the end, I just didn’t know why or how.”