“Probably the one Ari is planning to build. But how could she make money from something like that?”
She kissed Danny’s head and took his hand in hers. “Commissions. Suppose Ari offered her the chance to work in his sales office. She could make a lot of money, legally, and still have some flexible time to surf.”
I couldn’t put it together, so I kept thinking out loud, as we started to walk again. “But how could that lead to her getting killed?”
Terri shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense to me. But you’re the detective.”
“So they say.” Malia and Ailina came running up then, and we had to shelve all talk of murder for the drive back to the beach, and the rest of the afternoon.
My family began to pack up around five. I was helping Haoa load the barbecue equipment back into his panel van when I noticed a familiar car pull up-Brad’s gold Toyota Camry with its rainbow bumper stickers and a broken antenna.
“Uh-oh,” I said, as Brad screeched to a halt next to the van. “I’m not getting a good feeling about this.”
“You know him?” Haoa asked.
“In the biblical sense,” I said. “You know, not Adam and Eve, but Adam and Steve.”
“Let me guess,” Haoa said, as Brad jumped out of his car and slammed the door behind him. “You cheated on him.”
“Well, not cheated, really. I mean, it’s not like we were married.”
“Yeah, that excuse works,” he said.
“Boy, you sure get around,” Brad said, stalking up to us. “Where’d you meet this one?”
“At the hospital, when I was born,” I said dryly. “Brad Jacobson, my brother, Haoa Kanapa’aka.”
He looked from me to my big brother. Although Haoa is my height, six-one, he’s broader in the shoulders and the waist, and he looks more like the Hawaiian side of our family, with less of the haole than seems to have landed in me. Still, if you look closely, you can see the resemblance. Brad saw it.
“You still slept with George and Larry, didn’t you, though? Those guys are my friends, Kimo. You didn’t think that was a little cheap and sleazy?”
“I don’t think I want to hear the rest of this conversation,” Haoa said, backing away. Although he’s come around, he was the member of my family who had the most problem with my homosexuality, and I could see we were stretching the limits of his tolerance.
Lui came up then, his newsman’s knack for following the story. “Who’s this?” Brad demanded.
“My oldest brother, Lui,” I said. “Brad and I had some fun earlier last week, and I didn’t realize I would be hurting his feelings to um…”
“Sleep with anything with a penis?” Brad finished for me.
“You could say that,” I said, frowning. “I certainly didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Yeah, tell me another one.”
I saw my father approaching, trailed by a couple of his grandchildren. “Brad, this isn’t really the time.” I took his arm and steered him toward his car. “Why don’t I come over later and we can talk about it, okay?”
“Why don’t you stick your dick up your ass and fuck yourself to death,” Brad said, shaking off my arm and stalking back to his car.
“I don’t think that’s anatomically possible,” I said, as my brothers snickered behind me.
Brad sprayed gravel making a fishtail turn, then sped out of the parking lot.
“Oh, to be single again,” Lui said. “Not.”
“Yeah, I take back what I said about envying you the studly life,” Haoa said. “I’m remembering what a pain in the ass it was.” Suddenly he held up his hands toward me. “Don’t take that literally. And don’t give me any details.”
There was a lot of kissing and hugging as everyone got ready to leave, and my mother even got a little teary. “You can come home any time you want,” she said, hugging me.
“I know, Mom.” I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Really, I’m fine. I’m relaxing, I’m surfing, I’m meeting people. I’m going to come home sometime, but there’s stuff I have to work out up here first.”
I choked up, watching the cars all back out and head down toward Honolulu, wanting so badly to be able to get into my truck and follow them, to reclaim the life I had left behind. But like I told my mother, there was stuff I had to do on the North Shore first.
There was still some daylight left, so I went back to my truck and pulled out my notes on the case. I wrote up my discussion with Rik, along with a reminder to talk to Ari again. He might know more than he had let on at our first meeting.
I wrote up Terri’s observations about Lucie’s character, wondering if her Catholic upbringing really had caught up with her. And I made a note to email Harry the names and addresses of all three victims. I didn’t want to think too hard about what kind of computer mischief he’d get up to, but I needed all the information I could find.
By the time I was finished it was dark, and I started to feel bad about Brad, thinking of him brooding in his apartment. I had hurt him, and I needed to apologize. I drove over there, but his car wasn’t in the parking lot.
I didn’t want to go back to Hibiscus House, but then again, I didn’t want Brad to think I’d turned into some kind of stalker, that I was chasing him around Hale’iwa. So I decided to go back to the Drainpipe, where I’d been looking for Frank, the bartender, the night before. I still had a couple of questions for him about Lucie.
And if I drowned my sorrows in a beer or two, well, that wouldn’t be all that bad either.
Back to the Drainpipe
The Drainpipe was not nearly as busy on Sunday evening as it had been on Saturday night, and I saw Frank behind the bar as I came in. I picked a stool, and when he came over I ordered a Kona Pacific Golden Ale. Even though it’s brewed on the mainland, it’s about as local a beer as you can get these days.
It took a little while before Frank had a free moment to come over and chat with me, and I busied myself with enjoying my beer and checking out the rest of the patrons. A few surfers, a few tourists, a few locals. George and Larry were nowhere in sight, which I found a relief. I’d had enough wild sex to last me for at least a few days, though I wasn’t sure I’d be able to resist temptation, if it was placed before me.
“How’s it going, dude?” Frank said, coming over to stand in front of me. He wore a San Francisco 49ers ball cap and a Budweiser T-shirt, and still had that annoying little goatee.
“Just chilling. If you’ve got a minute, though, I wanted to ask you more about Lucie.”
“I’m taking a break in about ten,” he said, looking at the clock.
“Cool.” The time passed quickly, and he came out from behind the bar, bringing me a fresh beer, and led me to a table at the far side of the room, where it was quieter.
“You’re the guy that used to be the cop, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Word gets around.”
“You gonna find out what happened to Lucie?”
“I’m going to try. That’s why I had some questions for you.”
“Fire away.”
“I know she was dealing ice,” I said. “I’ve talked to somebody who used to buy from her. And I know she used to hang out here to meet up with customers. I’m not trying to jam you or anybody else up over that. What I’m trying to trace back is where she got the stuff from.”
“She was always real cagey about that,” Frank said. He pulled a pack of sugar out of the dispenser and swung it back and forth between his fingers. “But I think she had a contact at the place she used to work, The Next Wave. Even after she quit working there, she’d be stopping by, at weird hours like after closing or first thing in the morning.”
“She ever mention any names? Even a first name or a nickname?”
He shook his head. “Like I said, she was pretty secretive about it. It was like she was embarrassed, you know? Her mom was this real sweet lady, hard-working, totally honest. A maid at this hotel in Waikiki. Lucie’d tell me stories all the time about stuff her mom found, that she’d turn in to the hotel, because it was the right thing to do. Her mom would’ve died to know Lucie was selling drugs.”