The Fire Thief Page 3

  “More likely, someone living out of their van.”

  It was Kali’s turn to sigh. “Okay. Probably. But what if the boy stumbled through here while some big meth deal was going down? That would be motive. And we know those guys from Kahului have been up here near Hana, operating in this area.”

  The rain began to fall in earnest, its big drops spattering the ground. For a minute, neither Kali nor Walter moved, enjoying the cooler air that followed the arrival of the rain. A soft breeze carried the scent of rich, damp earth and the hypnotic fragrance of a thousand tropical flowers.

  “We’ve still got to talk to his friends,” said Walter, half to himself.

  “I’m going to go from here to the girlfriend’s house. Maybe one of these kids can share something useful,” Kali responded, her voice far from hopeful.

  “Happens,” agreed Walter. “Get in touch with the high school principal and see if you can set something up for the morning. We’ll go there and talk to the kids. It’s a familiar place, and will be a less intimidating setting for them.”

  He stood up, then brushed off the seat and legs of his trousers. The spot beneath the trees was protected to a degree by the thick weave of branches, but he and Kali would be drenched by the time they made it back to the car.

  They hurried along the path, and climbed into the waiting Jeep. The rain drummed against the canvas roof.

  “Any initial thoughts?” Walter asked.

  Kali shook her head. A loose surfboard. A nice local boy with a shark’s tooth buried in his head. She didn’t have a clue.

  CHAPTER 5

  Kekipi’s girlfriend was watching from the front window of her home. Kali could see her waiting, her young shoulders slumped. She opened the door before Kali had a chance to knock.

  “Aloha,” said Kali. She waited politely. “You’re Alyssa, aren’t you?”

  The girl looked at her. Her face was puffy; her eyes were red and slightly swollen.

  “Lys,” she said. “That’s what Kekipi called me. Lys.”

  She turned away and stepped aside so that Kali could walk into the small kitchen. An older woman was standing by the sink. She smiled at Kali.

  “Aloha. You’re the policewoman who called?”

  “Yes. Detective Kali Mhoe.” Kali held out her badge for the woman to see. “Are you Lys’s mother?”

  The woman nodded, then moved closer to Lys.

  “Ronda,” she said.

  “Would you like to sit with us while I ask your daughter a few questions?”

  “I’ll be right here. You can sit at the table. I’ve just made some pineapple tea. I’ll get some ice and bring you a glass.” She put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and pulled her close, then kissed her lightly on her cheek.

  Lys said nothing but went to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. Her back was to the light coming in through the windows behind the table. Kali sat across from her, overcome with the sense that the girl had become transparent. She shifted her chair, bringing the girl’s face into focus.

  She leaned forward slightly, her gesture meant to be reassuring. “I know this is very difficult for you,” she said. “But if I could ask you a few questions, it might help us figure out what happened on the beach.”

  “What do you mean, what happened? He drowned.” She looked questioningly at Kali. “Didn’t he?”

  “We’re simply trying to piece together the way things played out,” Kali said, her voice gentle. From the other side of the kitchen, Lys’s mother listened. “One of the things I’ve been wondering about was why he set out to go surfing so late in the day.”

  Lys shrugged. “He went all the time. In the morning before school, after school, in the moonlight. Everyone does.”

  “So whether or not the waves were good was the only factor?”

  “Pretty much.” The girl looked around the room. “Except, you know, if the weather was really bad. Kekipi wasn’t stupid. He knew how dangerous that could be.”

  Kali waited. Ronda brought the iced tea to the table and set glasses in front of Lys and Kali.

  “Mahalo for the tea,” said Kali. She sipped slowly, aware that the other woman wanted to say something.

  “None of these kids are . . . were . . . are reckless.” Ronda stumbled over her words. “All of them are responsible. They grew up here, next to the water. They know to respect it.”

  Kali nodded. She knew that it was true, but that even the most responsible person was subject to accidents, and even more so to the deliberate mayhem planned by other human beings. “Was he careful in the water with his board? Did he use a surf leash?”

  Lys shook her head. “Always. He had a new surfboard. Well, not brand new, but new to him. It was his birthday present last year, but he helped pay for it himself. He was really worried about losing it.” She hesitated. “I gave him a new surf leash to go with it. I earned the money myself. Did it . . . come loose? Is that why this happened?”

  Kali watched the girl’s face. It was important that Lys understand that none of this was her fault. She felt the weight of her own private collection of guilt pull and stir.

  “No, that’s not why this happened. The leash is in perfect condition. It was something else, Lys. That’s why I’m here. Can you tell me if Kekipi ever mentioned that he was worried about anything? Anything at all? Do you know if he’d met anyone new in the area?”

  Lys frowned. “No. He always hung out with the same people. Mostly me. A couple of people we go to school with. He knew how much I was going to miss him when he went away to college on O‘ahu. He told me . . .” Her voice broke. She looked down at the table, and Kali knew from the small movements of her shoulders that she was crying. She reached out and placed her hand gently on the girl’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Lys,” she said. “It’s okay. I lost my boyfriend, too, a few years ago. I understand how it feels.”

  Lys looked up, her eyes wide and still innocent. “Does it ever stop hurting?”

  “Not for a long time,” she said, knowing it would be unfair to say anything but the truth. “But it changes.”

  The girl waited.

  “What was it that Kekipi told you?”

  Lys’s voice was no more than a whisper. “He told me that he loved me.”

  Kali felt her heart wrench. The light grew brighter behind the girl, the sun streaking in between the flowered curtains that framed the windows. The girl sat sobbing quietly, and Kali thought of all the love that had been stopped in its tracks, and wondered if it was still out there somewhere, in a different shape or form, moving through the universe, simply waiting to burst forth again.

  CHAPTER 6

  The phone rang, the harsh jangle startling Walter, disrupting his nap. He raised his head from the surface of the desk and rubbed at the now-sore muscle at the spot where his neck and shoulder met. He pushed the speaker button on the phone.

  The brusque, no-nonsense voice of the coroner filled the room.

  “Wake you up, Walter?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He tried to hide the sound of his yawn. Outside his office window, Hara was diligently applying wax to the patrol car, the shirtsleeves of his uniform rolled up to the elbows.

  “I’ve got a preliminary report here on Kekipi Smith, which, incidentally, does not contain details of how you failed to wait until I arrived at the scene and instead dug around in his head with a penknife.”

  “It wasn’t a penknife,” he said, his voice unconvincing, even to his own ears. “And we didn’t realize that it was anything more than a surfing accident.”

  “You mean a suspicious death, which is handled here, not at your rebel outpost in Hana.”

  Walter bit his lip, determined not to engage in an argument he would never, in a million lifetimes, stand a chance of winning. Stitches continued speaking, equally aware of this truth.

  “Still. It looks as though we have much more than an accident to deal with.”

  Walter sat up straight, his drowsiness i
mmediately evaporating.

  “Death was caused by a blow to the back of the head, which shattered the skull and created the significant cavity you noted. The body was placed in the water after death, and there is absolutely no possibility that death resulted from drowning. Not a drop of water in the lungs. There’s some discoloration and swelling around one knee, which means he probably twisted it sometime shortly before he was struck.”

  Walter scowled as he considered this bit of information. The knee injury must have occurred fairly soon before he was hit, or he would never have made the steep hike or even planned on going surfing.

  “What about the chance he hit his head on a rock, died, then rolled into the ocean?” he asked.

  “You mean, hit his head on a rock that had a shark’s tooth protruding from it?”

  “Okay. Had to ask, though.”

  “Of course you did. The force of the blow and resultant bone damage to the skull more or less rules out a fall, unless he fell from a considerable height. Perhaps you’re suggesting he was sitting at the top of a coconut tree with his surfboard, waiting for the right set of waves, and accidentally toppled onto an upright tooth embedded in the ground below?”

  Walter used all his willpower to refrain from commenting. “Looks like we got ourselves a homicide, then,” he finally said.

  “No, it looks like you’ve got a homicide. I’m on my way to a dinner party. I have a few more tests to run, and we’ll keep the body here until you come up with something. Call the family, will you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered, dreading the prospect of telling Anna Smith that there would be no service, no closure for her grief—at least not right away. Far, far worse would be explaining that it appeared that her son’s life had been taken deliberately—and that he didn’t have the faintest idea why.

  He picked up his hat and walked out to the car. Hara looked up from the far side, where he was bent over, inspecting the cleanliness of the running board. His forehead was damp with perspiration.

  “That’s enough, Hara. We’ve got work to do. We just got confirmation that the Smith death was no surfing accident.”

  Hara tossed the polishing cloth he’d been using into a bucket beside the car and began to roll down his sleeves. “But did he drown?”

  “Appears not. Coroner just called. I’ll fill you in on the ride. Get through to Kali and let her know we’ll meet her over at the school. She’s there doing the interviews.”

  As Hara prepared to open the car door, Walter shook his head, frowning. He ran his eyes meaningfully over the car’s now-gleaming surface.

  “Always use circular motions with wax, Hara. Especially the final coat. Always. Otherwise, you get streaks.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Across the scratched Formica surface of the long cafeteria table, Jamie Tagert shifted in his seat. His eyes flicked across Kali’s face, then looked away. She was used to that reaction and knew there could be a thousand reasons why a face-to-face with a police officer might cause someone being interviewed to be uncomfortable. She tried not to communicate her discouragement. This boy was the last interview of the day, and so far not a single useful bit of information had been gleaned.

  Stiffly, Jamie acknowledged that he almost always surfed in Kekipi’s company, and that the spot they usually frequented was the beach at the base of the cliff path where Kekipi had been found.

  She did her best to put the boy at ease, but he fidgeted and continued to look away when she addressed him.

  “You and Kekipi were pretty tight, from what I’ve heard today,” she said, watching as he twisted his hands together and shoved them beneath the table, out of sight.

  “Yeah, sure. We been at school together, like, our whole lives, you know?”

  “And you surfed together a lot? Down at the foot of the park path?”

  He nodded, still not looking directly at her. “I already said. Best spot, right?”

  “Can’t say that I really know. I don’t do much surfing myself, but I enjoy watching it.”

  He glanced at her briefly. “Aren’t you a kahuna or something?”

  She nodded. “Or something.”

  “And you’re a cop?” he said, shaking his head. “Weird, you know?”

  “Is it? I mean, aren’t most people more than one thing? You, for instance. You’re a surfer, a son, a friend, a student.”

  “Yeah, but that’s different.”

  She waited, giving him time. She could see he was trying to reconcile what he’d so far told her with what he hadn’t.

  He leaned forward. “Kekipi, he was a good guy. Straight-up brah. He—” Jamie stopped.

  “He what?”

  Jamie leaned back and looked toward the door of the cafeteria where several students were waiting and watching. A cluster of mingled parents and teachers stood with them.

  “Nothing.” Jamie pushed the chair away from the table. “Nothing. I can go now, yeah?”

  “Sure.” She took a card from a stack on the table and pushed it toward him, doing her best to end the brief conversation on a friendly note, urging him to get in touch if he recalled anything that might be useful. “I’d really be grateful for your help, Jamie. You know, if you remember anything. Anything at all.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  She watched as he made his way to the cafeteria door. As he passed the group of students clustered in the opening, a tall boy with sandy hair reached out and shoved him lightly; the gesture was one of familiarity, and not unfriendly. There was a slightly older man standing next to him, peering curiously into the room. Kali recognized him and scowled. It was Chad Caesar, a local B-list actor who’d become a thorn in the side of the Maui police with his sensationalist podcasts and blog.

  Kali saw him hold up his phone and speak to Jamie. She watched as Jamie shook his head and said something, but she couldn’t make out his response. She rose from the table and made her way to the door.

  “Didn’t realize you were old enough to have kids in high school, Chad,” she said.

  He grinned, his lopsided mouth showing a few teeth that were too even and too white. “Miss Detective. I must say, you’re looking particularly well today.”

  “What are you doing here? This is an official investigation, and unless you give me a good reason not to, I’m going to have you dragged out of here.”

  “In front of my fans? Cold, Detective. Very cold.” He waved his phone briefly. “Just a quick note that I’m recording. And for your information, I’m here in an official capacity as a journalist.”

  She reached forward and took his phone, then shut it off. He spluttered and grasped for it, and she dropped it into her bag.

  “You played a journalist on a really awful television show. That doesn’t actually make you a journalist, you know. ”

  “Doesn’t it?” He grinned again. “For your information, I’m the most popular blogcaster in the islands. People depend on me to get the real scoop on things.”

  Kali snorted. “Mind telling me what you’re doing here? From where I stand, it looks like a thirtysomething male is hanging out in a high school cafeteria, leering at the girls. Possibly leering at the boys, as well.”

  Chad threw back his head and laughed. “I hear you found a body. And as a citizen and taxpayer, I have a right to know what you’re doing about it. And a responsibility to share what’s up with my listeners and readers. Why don’t you come on the show and fill us in on the details?”

  “Tracking us with your police scanner, Chad?”

  He shrugged. “Someone has to do the difficult work of keeping the public informed of the truth.” He leered. “In case you haven’t heard, I’m Chad Caesar, and I rule the news.”

  She pushed past him. She could feel his eyes following her but refrained from further comment. There was no telling how he would twist anything she said. And he was right: his podcast and blog were wildly popular, regardless of whether or not he traded in the truth. She pulled his phone out and dropped it into a pile of lunc
h debris that had been left behind on a table.

  * * *

  She was glad to get home. The day had been difficult, and the interviews with Kekipi’s friends and teachers had been emotional. She had learned that his surfing friends were planning a tribute for him, and had listened with compassion as one of them explained how they planned to paddle out just before sunrise and form a circle with their surfboards past the point where the waves were visible. They would drag an empty board behind them, symbolizing that one of their own was missing, then would turn and ride back in together as the sun peeked above the edge of the horizon.

  The image of the empty surfboard stuck with her as she stood beneath a stream of hot water, then stepped carefully from the shower onto the worn wooden-plank flooring of the small bathroom. The room had been built without a window, and the long hot shower had filled the tiny space with clouds of swirling steam. Her reflection gazed back at her from the full-length mirror on the wall, the edges of her body slipping in and out of view with the movement of the thick mist. She stood perfectly still, watching as the tattoo on her hip appeared, then disappeared.

  She and Mike had spent months deciding on designs and had finally settled on the symbol of a turtle sketched from an ancient petroglyph along the Kona coast for Mike, as a tribute to Kali’s Hawaiian heritage, and the Japanese characters for eternity for her, her gesture to Mike’s Japanese blood. She reached down now, and her finger gently traced the outline of the black ink. She stopped suddenly, startled at a small movement in the mirror, just behind her. For the smallest fraction of a heartbeat, she thought she glimpsed a tall, familiar figure standing just over her shoulder, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. She closed her eyes, reaching for the edge of the sink, then grasping the cold porcelain.

  In the next room, there was a whimper, then a persistent rattling as Hilo did his best to open the door. A thick enough mist could trick anyone into seeing anything, she told herself reproachfully.