Torch Ginger (9 page)

“Uh-huh. I’m pulling up background on Haddock now.” Jenkins’s fingers flew over the keys, absorbed. The gelled spikes of his blond hair seemed to vibrate with excitement.

Lei headed down the shiny hall lined with corkboards papered in memos and alerts toward the front door of the station. She pressed down the button on her phone that had the number worn off from use—but hadn’t been called in six months.

Chapter 10

“Stevens.” His brusque answer in her ear felt instantly reassuring. Her breath blew out in a whoosh as the pneumatic doors of the station slid open.

“Michael. It’s Lei.” She strode over to sit on the break table under the plumeria tree at the side of the building.

“You’re not the only one with caller ID. What do you want?” His tone was cold, a bracing slap. She gathered her thoughts.

“I’m sorry to call you, but I need to talk about a case. It’s huge.” Her voice trembled and she tried to firm it. “I need some advice.”

“So I’m good for advice, huh? Glad I can be there for you when you need something.” A long pause. She knew his cop curiosity would overcome the bitterness, and sure enough, after another long moment he said, “What’s going on?”

“It’s a serial. I’ve stumbled on a pattern of missing people going back at least five years. I told my captain about it on Friday, but he’s not moving on it besides letting me work the recent missing guy . . . There have been so many victims, and it has gone on so long with no one doing anything. This is big.”

“Tell me everything,” he said. And she did.

A long silence followed. The wind tumbled her hair, and a plumeria spiraled down, a creamy pinwheel. The ocean gleamed in the distance, the horizon a blurred blue line as the phone crackled with static and all that couldn’t be said.

“You need to go to your captain. He should bring in the FBI,” Stevens said.

“No. This is my case. I know I need help though, maybe a task force . . .”

“Go and talk to the captain again. If there are as many as you’ve said, the FBI should get involved and, frankly, you want them involved. This is too big for little old Kaua`i; it involves vics from all over, and when it breaks it’s going to be huge.”

“I know.”

She took the black stone out of her pocket, rubbed its silky surface. “Thanks for listening. I know J-Boy and I are in too deep with this thing, but I don’t want to let it go. We’ve had such crap since we got here, and this is finally something real, something big.”

“Too big. Sometimes being a good cop is knowing when to say when.”

“I guess. It’s good to hear your voice.” Like a low, vibrating chord that struck deep within her, just listening to him made her feel safe.

“Likewise. Keep me posted. I might volunteer for that task force if you don’t go FBI.”

“I can handle this. I just needed . . . a second opinion.”

“You need more than that for a case this size. But useful—that’s me. Bye now.”

He hung up abruptly, and she closed her phone. The dragging, bruised sensation in her chest—she didn’t want to identify it even as tears prickled the backs of her eyes. A broken heart actually did ache. Damn, she missed him.

Her feet felt like lead as she walked back into the station. She flopped into her chair, gave it a spin. “We need to get a plan. I’m not sure what we should do next.”

Jenkins turned toward her. “The health food store guy has a record.”

“I know; he told me.
Pakalolo
?”

“Yeah. Possession and intent to distribute eight years ago. He ended up with fines, community service, and probation. Only had a few ounces on him when he was pulled over.”

“He hates Captain Fernandez.”

“Well. Nothing since.”

Lei flipped through her spiral notebook, and the small square of tapa cloth Lehua Wolcott had given her fluttered out to land on the desk. She picked it up thoughtfully.

“Let me make one more call. Lehua Wolcott gave me this lead—I’m not sure what it’s about, but I can fish around. Then we should go out for one more round of canvassing, maybe end up at the papaya farm, see if we can find Jim Jones. We were supposed to go follow up on the complaint out there anyway. I’d also like to see if we can get a meeting with the captain to get more eyes on this thing. I’m starting to think it’s a little big for the two of us.”

“Glad to hear you say that. I mean, ten missing people. Shit.”

“Exactly.” Lei pulled the phone over, punched in Esther Ka`awai’s number.

“Coffee break.” Jenkins disappeared.

Lei looked down at the little square of tapa cloth. She wasn’t even sure why she was calling.

“Hello?” An older woman’s voice.

“Hello, this is Detective Texeira with the Kaua`i Police Department. How are you today?”

“I’m glad to hear from you. I was hoping you’d call.”

“Really? I got your number from a woman named Lehua Wolcott. Did she tell you I’d call?”

“She’s my daughter. And no. I just knew you needed to contact me. So I’m not surprised you did.”

Lei took a couple of relaxation breaths as the silence stretched out. This was more than surprising. It was bizarre.

“Well, I don’t know what I’m calling for or why Lehua wanted me to call you. Maybe you can help me with that.”

“No. I don’t know either.” The other woman seemed perfectly calm.

Lei looked down at the tapa square for the woman’s name again.

“Well, Mrs. Ka`awai, I guess I’d better go then. I thought you might be of some help with my investigation.”

“Call me Esther,” the woman said. “And I will call you Lei.”

“I don’t remember telling you my name. How did you know my name?”

“Sometimes I just know things.”

“Really.” Was the woman psychic? “Do you know anything about people disappearing on the North Shore?” The words popped out before she had time to think about them.

“I’ve heard something. Perhaps I can help.”

“Well. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ll have to get clearance to consult with you.”

“I’m an expert on cultural practices, a spiritual leader in the Hawaiian community. In case that could be useful to your investigation.”

“I don’t know yet. But it may be.”

“Well, I’m here to help you with what you’re going through right now.”

Lei pinched the bridge of her nose. This conversation felt like falling down a rabbit hole.

“Okay. As it happens, something big is going on.” Lei let her breath out, looking down at
Celebrations in May and October
in her notes. “And I might be able to use a consultant in Hawaiian culture—I don’t know. But I need to have total confidentiality. Can I get that from you?”

“Of course. I am a
kahu
, a minister of the Word.”

“Well, I’d like to meet you face-to-face, and I need to clear this with my captain. When can we get together?”

They set a date and time, then the
kahu
said, “When you wonder what to do, trust your heart.”

“I can’t trust my heart. It’s unreliable.”

“How do you know? Maybe you’re right to have done what you did. There is more for you to experience, more to help with your healing, before you settle down.”

“Who are you referring to? I thought you didn’t know what was going on with me.” She looked down at her empty ring finger.

“I don’t know, but you do. Your heart knows.” She hung up.

“It does not,” Lei said aloud to the dial tone. “My heart doesn’t know shit.”

She closed her eyes, seeing both Stevens and Alika side by side. Though it was too soon to say what it was that Alika elicited in her, she knew she loved Stevens as much as she ever had anyone, as much as she was capable of—and yet being with him terrified her.

No, her heart didn’t have a clue what was going on.

Jenkins came back in with a Styrofoam cup of black break room brew. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” She scooped the photos of the missing into a file, then stuffed it, her notebook, and the Nikon into her backpack. “Let’s hit the road.”

They drove back out to windswept Polihale, and this time even the tents of the park dwellers were gone. Partway back to Kapa`a, at Lydgate Park, they approached a young couple sitting in beach chairs outside a faded tent.

“I’ve seen this guy.” The man, tanned and wearing threadbare board shorts, tapped the artist’s rendering they’d worked up on Jim Jones. “His people came through yesterday.”

“His people? You say that like he’s got followers or something.” Lei kept her voice even.

“He does,” Board Shorts agreed. “They’re all part of that TruthWay group. They invited Jennie and me to their thing up at the papaya farm, but we don’t swing that way.”

TruthWay . . . and the papaya farm, popping up again.

“I’ve heard of TruthWay.” Lei decided to try a common interview tactic—acknowledge a witness’s comment, repeat it back as a statement, and see if they elaborate. “So you aren’t into that kind of swinging.”

It worked.

“Yeah. You know, firewalking, swapping partners . . . not our thing. Right, Jennie?” Jennie peeked up through tangled hair, and the gleam in her eye said she might not be opposed to a little “swapping.”

“Know where the group meets?”

“Not really.” Board Shorts got shifty. “It’s a papaya farm somewhere on the North Shore. They got their own place, do their celebrations there.”

“Well, thanks so much.” Lei handed him a twenty. “Sure you can’t remember?”

“Maybe.”

She gave him another twenty.

“It’s outside Kilauea. They call it the Jones family farm.”

Back at the Subaru, Lei pulled up a tax map and identified the Jones family papaya farm, matching it to the complaint they were supposed to investigate. She glanced at her cell phone.

“Now we really need to make a run out to that papaya farm, but it’s four thirty and I still don’t have a dress.”

“Got a date?”

“Believe it or not, I do.”

“Red letter day! Who’s the victim?”

“Shut up. It’s that developer guy I met at Paradise Realty. He’s nice.”

“Ah, so now we know what it takes to get a date with Sweets—own a pool and a mansion and you’re golden.”

“You’re worse than a little brother.” They were passing through Kapa`a, and Lei spotted a boutique. “Pull over.”

The Subaru had barely drawn to the curb when Lei jumped out and ran in. Ten minutes later she came back out with a bulging pink bag. She paused at the sight of a blown-up photo of Jay Bennett’s face labeled MISSING—marked with Kelly’s contact information—stapled to a nearby telephone pole. She ripped it off and hopped into the Subaru.

“Kelly’s doing her bit to find him.”

Jenkins peered at the poster.

“Good. We need all the help we can get. I can see you put a lot of time and effort into your shopping.”

“Hey, he said ‘dress,’ so I got one.” Lei shoved the bag onto the floor. “Let’s roll; we should have time to swing by the papaya farm before I have to go on my date.”

Chapter 11

Lei drove down the one-lane, unpaved road in her truck, Jenkins following in the Subaru. They’d stopped at the station so she could pick up her vehicle, and now Jay Bennett’s wary blue eyes watched her, flapping a bit from the poster held on to the glove box with a magnet. Head-high buffalo grass brushed the sides of the truck as she bounced through red dirt ruts.

Kilauea was a beautiful area planted in macadamia nut trees, coffee, lychee, banana, and papaya, all farms that had replaced pineapple in the last twenty years. To the north, the ocean shimmered, and some miles away, the rugged, drip-castle mountains that marked Hanalei raked the sky.

Papaya trees stood tall, their slender trunks topped with clusters of palmate leaves in soldier-straight rows, marking the edge of the farm. Six-foot wire mesh fence topped with barbed wire encircled the area, choked with weeds and scrub guava. Lei drove to the gate, a metal barricade secured with a padlock on a heavy chain. Lei got out and yanked on the padlock.

“Crap. Feel like a little trespassing?”

“Sweets, c’mon. We’re detectives on the job. No probable cause here.” Jenkins had pulled up beside her.

“I hear a scream?”

“Down, girl. Get back in the truck. You don’t want to endanger anything we can get on them later, do you? We’ll have to call and tell them we’re coming.”

“Shit. I wanted to get eyeballs on the place now.” Lei looked contemplatively at the gate, but in the distance she could hear the bellowing of a large dog. “Awful lot of security for a papaya farm.”

“We’ll have to try again when they can let us in.”

“I guess.” She got back in the truck and fired it up.

“Have fun on your date,” Jenkins said with a grin as he pulled out. “I want all the details in the morning.”

“Shit,” she muttered. “Almost forgot.”

She drove slowly along the edge of the farm, scanning, but the whole property was securely fenced. There was nothing to see but acres of papaya trees, and nothing to hear but the distant thunder of the barking dog.

Lei pulled under the vast portico of the Princeville Hotel, the door of her Tacoma opened by the valet. As she handed him her keys, she saw his eye run down her toned leg to the new slingback on her foot. She’d needed shoes too, and fortunately the boutique had some in her size.

“Have a nice evening, miss,” the valet said as he got into the truck.

“Thanks. I will.” Lei tugged down the short skirt of the narrow, strapless black dress she’d grabbed so hastily off the rack—a dress that turned out to be shorter and tighter than she’d estimated.

Alika Wolcott reached for her hand as she looked up.

“Wow,” he said. His golden eyes crinkled in a smile. He took a red rose from behind his ear and presented it with a flourish. “You look amazing.”

“Thanks,” she said, the dangling weight of her aunt’s greenish purple Tahitian pearl earrings making her feel regal. She tucked the rose behind her ear and gave a nervous glance at his dazzling height in black trousers and jacket over an open-necked silk shirt. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

He shrugged. “Man outfits. All the same.”

He escorted her with a light touch on her back through the huge doors into the lobby.