We took a couple of cars over to the park because of the need for so many car seats. I checked with the elderly Chinese woman who took our money and found that Rik, one of the nature guides, was somewhere in the gardens; unfortunately, she couldn’t be more specific. We all took the electric tram up to the falls, but instead of swimming we elected to walk around through the gardens. The four of us concentrated on showing the kids the flowers and the exotic birds, stopping at the country store to buy them candy.
It was as we were coming out of the store that we ran into Rik. It couldn’t have appeared more innocent, yet Rik was immediately suspicious. Fortunately, just as I said hello, Malia tugged on my pant leg and announced, “Uncle Kimo, I have to go bathroom.”
“Why don’t we all take a bathroom break,” Terri announced. She picked up Malia and took Ailina’s hand, while Arleen scooped up Brandon.
Harry, carrying Danny, said, “I saw the bathrooms over there. Kimo, you can wait here, we’ll all be right back.”
“So you had to miss dinner Friday night,” I said to Rik, as the entourage began its trek to the bathrooms.
“Yeah, we had a big party here, and a couple of us had to stay late to close up.” He looked around nervously. “I really should get back to work.”
“Why don’t I walk with you, and it’ll look like you’re showing me the park.” I put my hand on his shoulder and gently steered him toward one of the paths. He was painfully skinny, and I felt like there was almost no flesh between my hand and the bones of his shoulder.
“Look,” I said when we were out of earshot of the country store. “I know you used to buy your drugs from Lucie, and I’m not looking to jam you up. I just want to find out who killed her.”
Rik relaxed noticeably. “I want to help you.”
“Do you know where she got her supply?”
He shook his head. “I think she was afraid if I knew, I’d go direct.”
“Did she ever say anything to you about Mexico, about going to the Mexpipe competition, about maybe some of the crystal meth coming back with her?”
“I know she went,” he said. “And the drugs were really good down there. She told me I should go with her next year, that she could make it worth my while.”
“Was she having any supply problems that you know of? Anybody want her territory, anything like that?”
He shook his head. “We used to talk all the time. If she was having problems like that, she would have told me. As a matter of fact, things were going really well for her. She was on the verge of making a big deal, she said, and everything was going to be sweet after that.”
“A big drug deal?”
“I don’t think so. I think it was about real estate.”
That was a stumper to me. “Real estate?”
“She had her license, you know. I think it might have had something to do with that big project of Ari’s.”
I remembered talking about real estate with Ari at breakfast. “He said something about zoning problems on some big property. You think that was it?”
He shrugged. “I just remember worrying that if she went legit I wouldn’t be able to score from her. That’s what I was concerned about. You should talk to Ari about her.”
I stopped and took hold of his arm. “Look, I told you before that I’m not interested in jamming you up, and I’m not, but I’ve got to know one thing. Who took over Lucie’s customers?”
Rik’s body went rigid. His arm was so skinny I could feel the bone. He looked like he was ready to cry. I didn’t say anything more, though; I waited for him to speak. Finally, he said, “I cop in Honolulu, all right? Through my cousin. After Lucie died I didn’t know anybody else up here to buy from and I didn’t want to risk getting caught. I swear, that’s all I know.”
I believed him, and I let go of his arm. We started walking again, neither of us saying anything. He had steered us in a big circle, and we came back to the country store just as the rest of the party was exiting the rest rooms. “Great to see you,” he said, when my attention was distracted. “Gotta go. Bye!” And then he was off, down another of the winding paths.
“Hear anything interesting?” Terri asked as she approached me. The kids surrounded Harry and Arleen, who looked like they were practicing for having a large family of their own.
“He didn’t know where she got her drugs. But he said she was mixed up in some big real estate deal, that she thought it was going to make her big money.”
“There’s a lot of money to be made in real estate,” Terri said. We started to stroll slowly down toward the car, Harry and Arleen following us with all the kids. “Especially up here, where there are so many restrictions on building. That jacks the price up a lot.”
“Since when did you become a real estate mogul?”
“My family has some property up here.” We stepped into the shade, and she pushed her sunglasses up to her head. She was a very pretty woman, in an all-American kind of way, dark brown hair in a bob just above her shoulders, fine features, smooth skin. I saw those bags under her eyes again, though, and remembered all she had been through since her husband had been killed.
“You doing okay?” I asked, taking her hand.
“Today’s a good day.” She smiled. “I’m having fun, and I’m glad to see Danny enjoying himself too. I haven’t been up to the North Shore in ages, though I know I’m going to have to come up again soon, for this real estate thing.”
As one of the wealthiest in the islands, there isn’t much Terri’s family isn’t involved with. Her father sits on the boards of many of the island’s biggest corporations, and her family trust is one of the biggest donors to island charities. All the money comes from the Clark’s chain of department stores, a rival of Liberty House for the home-grown market. “Clark’s planning to put a store up here?”
She shook her head. “Not commercial land. Just some property that’s been passed down in the family, by Kawailoa Beach. My grandparents used to have a summer house up there, and my Uncle Bishop lives there now.”
I remembered that Ari had mentioned a project in Kawailoa Beach and wondered if it was the one Bishop was involved in. My attention wandered, trying to think, and by the time I came back to the conversation Terri had moved on. “Uncle Bishop was supposed to take over the stores, but he wasn’t interested in working, so my dad had to step up. Now Uncle Bishop has run through his inheritance, and all he’s got is this property he lives on, just north of here.” I’d met Terri’s uncle, and knew his relations with the rest of the family were strained, at best. “He wants to sell the property to developers and cash out. That’s why I’ve been learning about all the development restrictions.”
We stopped at a lookout point where we could look down on the gardens. “Surely they can’t restrict you from building on property your family has owned for generations.”
“Surely they can.” She waved her hand around. “Most of the North Shore is reserved for agriculture and open space. They’re only letting new housing go up in what they call the infill areas, around existing neighborhoods. And even if they do let you build, you have to reserve a certain number of spaces for what they call ‘affordable’ housing.”
“Wow. I had no idea. This place was always so sleepy.”
“When they put the highway through, it made commuting down to Honolulu a lot easier, and more people decided either to move up here, or to keep weekend houses. Even the most run-down old shack is selling for six figures now. The rental market is getting tighter all the time-if you can rent your house out for two hundred bucks a night during surf season, you can afford to leave it empty the rest of the year, and you don’t have to worry about poor tenants tearing the place up.”
Danny came running up, and she picked him up. “Of course, that doesn’t help the surfers who are making ends meet by working at minimum-wage jobs. Lucie was probably talking about some new gated community with million-dollar homes.”