I sighed. “Lieutenant Sampson-he’s my new boss. He was worried that if Lui got wind of my assignment, he’d find some way to get it on TV. So I had to promise to tell everyone that I had given up the job and was coming up here just to surf.”
“I don’t know that I’d trust Lui either,” Terri said, wiping her fingers on a napkin. “Sorry, I know he’s your brother, but look what he did to you, Kimo. If he ran that story about you being gay without telling you-or your parents-I don’t think he has any ethics at all.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. But I guess I agreed with Sampson, because I said I’d do it his way.”
“So your parents don’t know you’re still working?” Harry asked. “Your mother must be having a cow.”
“A herd,” I said. “New cows popping out daily.”
The three of us ate in silence for a few minutes. “Are you making any progress?” Terri finally asked.
“I’ve been learning a lot, but without a partner to bounce it off I’m feeling swamped.”
“We can help,” Harry said. “I provide the logic, Terri provides the heart. Together we’re a full person.”
“Arleen thinks you have a heart,” Terri said.
“You know what I mean. You’ve always been better at the touchy-feely stuff, I’ve always been better at the logic. Kimo’s always been the one who just bulls through and gets things done. We’ve been like this since high school and we’re not likely to change.”
When we were at Punahou, Harry and I were mad to surf, sneaking off every available moment to drag our boards into the water, ignoring homework. He was the only reason I’d made passing grades, though somehow he’d scored straight As and gone off to MIT for undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science. He’d come back to the islands just a few months before, teaching a little at UH, fiddling with some inventions and managing the money he’d made on the mainland.
Terri had been the good girl, president of the honor society, homecoming queen, a straight A student herself. She had made sure we knew when our tests were and dragged us to extracurricular activities. It was good to be together with them both again.
I outlined the facts. “That poor girl,” Terri said, shaking her head.
“Hey, there’s two dead guys, too,” Harry said.
“I know, but I keep thinking that this Lucie is at the center of things,” Terri said. “I’m getting a clear picture of her from the details. She sounds determined to succeed, but it’s not just a lack of money that’s standing in her way, it’s her attitude toward money.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting forward on the picnic bench.
“You said she loved labels-name brand clothes. Usually people wear those clothes because they want to fit in, to be like people they see as better, and they want everyone to see that they’re worthwhile, too.”
Harry and I must have both been looking skeptical, because she continued. “It’s like that saying, dress for the job you want, not the job you have.”
That was a saying I’d heard.
“Lucie was dressing like the person she wanted to be-successful and rich-the person she wanted people to think she was. Combine that with her drive to succeed as a surfer, and you have somebody who’s willing to do almost anything to achieve her goals.”
“Okay, I get it,” I said. “So then what do you think got her killed? Somebody who perceived her drive as a threat?”
“It’s possible. But you also said she was Filipina, right?”
I nodded.
“And the Philippines is almost completely Catholic.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that she probably had a strong moral upbringing, but her desires overwhelmed her morals. Then maybe something happened that changed the balance again.”
I was starting to see where she was going. “Mike Pratt was killed,” I said. “You think maybe either she knew who killed Mike, or suspected, and her morals were resurfacing, maybe making her a threat to the killer.”
“I think it’s a possibility,” Terri said. “Plus you said that Mike had gotten involved with a Christian surfing group in Mexico, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“And you think maybe he was involved in smuggling some drugs back from there. It’s possible those Christian surfers got him thinking that what he was doing was wrong, and he tried to back out, go to the authorities.”
“This is very interesting,” I said. “So let me see if I can construct a scenario. Lucie’s this very determined girl who needs a lot of money to feed her habits-surfing and shopping foremost. She overcomes her Catholic upbringing to become a low-level drug dealer. She plans to go to Mexpipe, and makes arrangements to bring some crystal meth back-some of which I found in her apartment.”
“Makes sense so far,” Harry said.
“She knows Mike Pratt and knows he needs money, so she recruits him to help her. They come up with a scheme to smuggle the crystal back to the US in their surfboards.”
I stood up and started walking around. “But while they’re in Mexico, Mike hooks up with the Christian surfers, who make him see that what he’s doing is wrong. By the time he gets back to the States, he’s really upset-both on moral grounds, and because the board he loved is ruined.”
“Where does the Chinese guy fit in?” Harry asked. “Don’t forget the Chinese guy.”
“Ronnie was Lucie’s friend, right?” Terri asked. “Maybe she recruited him, too.”
“Okay, the three of them bring the crystal back from Mexico and turn at least some of it over to Lucie’s supplier. I found the rest behind her medicine cabinet.”
“Then there ought to be a money trail,” Harry said. “These guys weren’t sophisticated enough to cover their tracks. Maybe the supplier, but not Lucie, Mike or Ronnie. You could subpoena their bank records.”
I shook my head. “Not without some probable cause. Judges don’t sign subpoenas based on speculation.”
“I could check it out for you,” Harry said. “I already know how to get into your bank.”
“I’m still a cop, Harry, as you have already figured out. I can’t ask you to do that-and I can’t use anything you find in court.”
“Email me their names, addresses, anything you have,” Harry said. “That’s all you need to know. But you still haven’t established why the Chinese guy got killed. Just the haole and the Filipina.”
“Ronnie disappeared the same day Lucie was shot,” Terri said. “Maybe she confided in him. He was a smart computer guy, right? Maybe she was trying to atone for her sins by finding out who killed Mike, and she recruited Ronnie to help.”
“That’s as good a scenario as I can get for now,” I said. “Though there isn’t much I can do to prove any of it.”
“You need to find the supplier,” Harry said. “That’s the guy who has the motive. But I hope you’re not going to tell me you plan to buy some ice yourself. Because you’re not officially a cop up here and you could get yourself into a whole heap of trouble.”
“The idea did cross my mind,” I admitted. “But I met a guy who bought from Lucie. He must be buying somewhere else now that she’s dead.”
“That’s the guy who was supposed to meet you for dinner but cancelled?” Terri asked.
“Yeah. His name is Rik. He’s hard to get hold of because he works at Waimea Falls Park and he’s always having to cover for other guys’ shifts.”
“Or he’s dodging you,” Harry said. “Is he working today?”
I nodded. “I see a plan forming. You think we could take the kids over there this afternoon?”
“It’s a good diversion,” Terri said. “That way you kind of stumble on him. We can keep the kids busy while you talk to him.”
We agreed to head to the park after lunch, just as we were inundated by a flood of my nieces and nephews, and we gave up on the idea of talking any more then.
A Walk in the Park
It was almost two before we could break away a group of kids to head to Waimea Falls Park. Ashley and Jeffrey wanted to keep surfing, and Alec and Keoni wanted to stay in the water on their boogie boards. We left my parents, Lui and Liliha, and Haoa and Tatiana in a pleasant after-lunch stupor to look after them.