Aloha Betrayed (19 page)

“Then what was he upset about?”

“You never know with Charlie. He’s got a temper. Man, has he got a temper.”

“Did Charlie Reed tell you to try to injure Mrs. Fletcher?”

Barlow shook his head. “No, nothing like that, only I knew he was upset with her, so I figured that maybe I’d help him out. He said that she—meaning that lady next door—that she should leave Maui and go home to wherever it is she lives.” He looked at the mirror again and shrugged. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“Go on, Mr. Barlow,” Tahaki said.

“Charlie, he’s always threatening to can me, so I figured that if I put a scare into the lady here he’d get off my case. All I meant to do was give her a little scare.”

“You did a lot more than that, Mr. Barlow. You almost killed her.”

He hung his head and slowly shook it. “It was a dumb thing I did, and I know it. Sometimes I do dumb things.”

“Thinking that you could go up to Haleakala with a dozen people, run Mrs. Fletcher off the road, and walk away without anybody being able to identify you was one of those dumb things, Barlow,” Tahaki said.

Silence filled the room.

“I really am sorry, ma’am,” Barlow said softly; then he shouted at the mirror. “I swear I’m sorry, and I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Barlow,” I said, although I knew he couldn’t hear me.

“So what’s going to happen to me?”

“That’s up to Mrs. Fletcher,” Detective Tahaki said, standing. “I’ll go ask her.”

“I need to think about it,” I said when Tahaki opened the door of the room where Mike and I had observed the questioning.

“Fair enough, Mrs. Fletcher. We’ll hold Mr. Barlow while you decide whether or not to press charges.”

“Good job, Henry,” Mike said to his colleague, swatting him on the shoulder.

“Hey, brah, I learned from the best.”

Mike and I left the room and went outside.

“He’s a jerk,” Mike said.

“And, as he admits, a dumb one,” I said.

“What I don’t get is how he knew you were going to be on that trip.”

“I wondered about that myself. There was a jewelry and craft show in the lobby of the hotel when I made my reservation. There were a lot of people milling around, but now that I think about it, I remember a heavyset man who was hiding his face behind a newspaper.”

“He must have been following you. So now what are you going to do about him?”

“If Charlie Reed had instructed him to accost me, I’d feel differently. I’d press charges against both of them. But you know what, Mike? I really don’t see anything to be gained by bringing charges against Mr. Barlow. Hopefully this experience will be enough to make him think twice about what he does with his life.”

“I wouldn’t count on it, Jessica.”

“Call it positive thinking,” I said. “I need a good dose of positive thinking.”

Maika‘i
No Au
—I Am Fine

“C
an I drop you anywhere?” Mike asked as we stood outside police headquarters.

I looked from the parking lot up the road to the hospital where I’d been treated, and where Bob Lowell was a patient following his shoulder surgery.

“As long as I’m here,” I said, “I might as well stop in and see someone I’ve met since coming to Maui.”

“Who’s that?”

I explained having met the Lowells at the luau, and Bob’s mishap while biking down from Haleakala. “He’s a bit of a character,” I said, “but a decent sort. I’m sure he’d enjoy a visit.”

“Lani asked me to invite you to dinner. Are you available?”

“Oh, please thank her, Mike, but I think I’ll have a bite at my hotel and make it an early night.”

“Just give a yell if you need anything,” Mike said.

“Count on it. Thanks for everything you’ve done.”

“It’s been my pleasure. Glad you were able to ID the guy. Now we just have to get you to press charges.”

“I’ll have to give that some serious thought.”

“You do that.” He wished me a restful evening, got in his car, and drove away.

Bob Lowell was in a private room on the top floor of the hospital. After receiving a visitor’s pass from the lobby desk, I rode the elevator to his floor and checked room numbers, eventually coming across his wife as she came out of his room.

“Hello, Elaine,” I said. “How’s Bob?”

“Oh, Jessica! How good of you to stop by. He’s doing fine.”

“Just wanted to check up on the patient. After all, we share a common adventure, falling off our bikes.”

“He’ll be delighted to see you.”

Lowell was sitting up in his hospital bed when I entered the room.

“Look who came to see you, Bob,” Elaine said.

“Hey, what a great surprise,” he said. “Came to check on whether I died?”

“No, I came to see how your shoulder was.”

“Pretty darn good. Hurts, but the little green-and-yellow pills take the edge off the pain send me into la-la land. I kind of like it there.”

I heard a soft “Oh, Bob” behind me.

“How are
your
war wounds?” he asked.

“Healing nicely,” I said, and took a bedside chair.

“Seen any of the others from the luau?” he asked.

“Yes, I have. You?”

“No. That professor and his wife and girlfriend were a strange couple of ducks, weren’t they? Or should I say trio of ducks?”

“Girlfriend?”

“Yeah, the cute blonde. What was her name?”

“Grace,” his wife supplied.

“She’s Professor Luzon’s graduate assistant,” I added.

He laughed, then winced at a spasm of pain it generated. “They didn’t fool me, Jessica. Graduate assistant my—oops, got to watch my language with two pretty ladies in the room.”

“You said that they were strange,” I said. “In what way?”

“Oh, I don’t know, the way he and his wife didn’t get along.” He struggled to sit up straighter and became conspiratorial. “You know what I think?” He looked at the door as if he expected someone to be eavesdropping.

“What?”

“I think the professor and his cute blonde are having one torrid affair. Heck, that’s why his wife is such a sourpuss. She knows what’s going on. Why do you think she wasn’t with her darling hubby when we had drinks?”

“You had drinks with Professor Luzon?”

“Sure did. Elaine, she hit the sack the minute we got back from the luau, but I wasn’t ready to call it a night. I watched a little TV, then went into the hotel bar, and there they were, the professor and— What’s her name?”

“Grace,” Elaine said.

“Right, Grace. When I walked in, there they were, real cuddly-like. They didn’t seem pleased to see me, but heck, I didn’t let that bother me. I sat right down with them, offered to buy them a drink. He’s the snooty type, the professor. Of course, I could see that his wife wasn’t with him, so I asked about her, kind of give him a subtle reminder about his marriage vows.”

“What did he say?” I asked, amused, thinking that nothing about Bob Lowell was subtle.

“He says she wasn’t feeling well, the usual excuse. They didn’t stay long once I arrived. After I had my drink, I went out back to the patio that overlooks where the luau took place. It was late.”

“What time was it?” I asked.

“Had to be after one. The place was already cleaned up, tables and chairs hauled away. Anyway, I saw ’em standing under a palm tree.” He became conspiratorial again. “They were playing kissy-face.”

Elaine said, “You can’t be sure of that.”

“Of course I can. I may be getting older, but the eyes work just fine.”

“How long will you have to be in the hospital?” I asked.

“He’s getting out tomorrow,” said Elaine. “We’re flying home the day after.”

“I’m sure you’ll be glad to be leaving.”

“Not me,” Bob said. “I like it here, all those cute little hula-dancing girls.”

“Oh, Bob,” said Elaine.

It was my cue to leave.

I found a taxi waiting at the curb and got in, gave the driver the name of my hotel, and sat back and relaxed. We’d gone only a few miles when the smell of smoke wafted through the cab’s open windows.

“There must be a fire,” I said.

“Those are the sugarcane fields,” the driver said. “They’re starting to burn them.”

“They burn the fields?” I said.

“Yes, ma’am, every two years. The stalks get too high and produce less sugar, so they burn the field to the ground and start a new crop. Usually the wind blows north to south and the smoke goes to where the sugar refinery workers live, but the wind has shifted today. We’ll be out of it in a few minutes.”

I closed my window and my mind wandered in many directions, including the conversation Mike and I had had with one refinery worker, Mr. Mohink, Koko’s father. While I still hadn’t had an opportunity to talk with the boy again, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew something about Mala’s death and was perhaps afraid to reveal what it was.

My instincts in such things have held me in pretty good stead over the years, although they’ve also led me astray at times. My frustration comes when I’m unable to confirm whether they are valid or not. Hopefully that wouldn’t be the case when I packed my bags and headed home to Cabot Cove from Maui.

Uahi!
—Smoke!

I
’d just stepped out of the shower the next morning when the phone rang. I debated whether to wrap myself in a towel and answer or to let the hotel’s automatic answering service take it. I would have opted for the latter except that the phone kept ringing. Whoever was calling evidently had asked the hotel operator to keep putting the call through and not to activate the answering system.

“Hello?” I said, struggling to keep the towel in place.

“Jessica, it’s Mike Kane.”

“Hello, Mike.”

“Catching you at a bad time?”

“That’s all right. What’s up?”

“I’ll keep this short. You know the Mohink kid, Kona or Koko or whatever his name is? He’s missing.”

“Oh, no! His family must be frantic.”

“His father reported it to headquarters. A search party is being assembled. I’ve volunteered to coordinate it with the police.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m heading for the college campus. That’s where the search effort is being staged: law enforcement, fire department, volunteers from the community. I won’t have time to pick you up.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll find a way to get there.”

“No need for you to come. I’m sure the kid will show up soon.”

“I’ll see you at the college,” I said. As he started to hang up, I added, “Oh, Mike, remember what his father told us, that his son likes to hide in the sugarcane fields.”

“Gotcha, Jessica. See you later.”

As I rushed through my morning ablutions to get ready to leave, I kept thinking about that little boy with the big glasses. I had been convinced that he knew something that would help us get to the bottom of Mala’s death, and I had wanted to see if I could coax that information from him. But whether he could help resolve my questions was irrelevant now. We had to find him. We had to return him safely to his family. His well-being was my only concern.

I skipped breakfast and went directly to the lobby, where I asked that a taxi be called. The cab that pulled up less than five minutes later was driven by Mala’s cousin Elijah.

He greeted me as I climbed into the backseat. “Hello, Mrs. Fletcher.”

“Hello, Elijah. I’m going to the college campus.”

“On a beautiful day like today, I thought you might be using a bicycle.”

“I need to get there as quickly as possible.”

“Sure thing. Is there a problem?”

“A boy is missing.”

“Oh, yes. I heard about that. It came through our dispatcher, and it was on TV. They say they’ll be running a picture of him soon.”

“I know the child,” I said. “My colleague Mike Kane is coordinating the search for him. Do you still have those granola bars, Elijah? I didn’t have time for breakfast.”

I chose one from the cardboard container he handed me and started fishing in my purse for money.

“Oh, no. My treat. Mala would be angry with me if I took money from her famous friend.”

“Famous?”

“I heard. Everyone says you are a very important writer.”

“Let’s just say that I write and manage to make a living at it. But thank you.”

As we approached the campus, wisps of smoke were visible in the sky just to its south.

“Is that a sugarcane field being burned?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am. A necessary evil to be sure that the next crop will be a good one. No need to worry. The wind will carry the smoke away from the college.”

My concerns weren’t about being impacted by the smoke. I thought of Koko and his pleasure in exploring the cane fields, and I hoped that he hadn’t decided to play hide-and-seek in the one that was going up in flames.

Surely Mike was right. Koko would be found quickly and returned to the safety of his father’s arms. But that was my optimistic side talking. I remembered what Mohink had said about the boy’s mother having died, and that his grandmother was helping to raise him. Judging from the father’s age, his wife must have been a relatively young woman when she passed away. Had it happened recently enough that Koko missed his mother, or had she died when he was just an infant? Either way, the loss of a wife and mother was tragic, and having a child that young to bring up was no easy task for his father.

The campus was bustling with people as we pulled up in front of the administration building. I paid Elijah—I wouldn’t hear of not paying the fare—and walked swiftly to where the center of the action seemed to be. I spotted Mike Kane issuing orders to small groups of people, some in uniform, most in civilian clothing, who broke away once they’d received their instructions. He’d been joined by Detective Henry Tahaki. Mike motioned for me to join them.

“Plenty of help to find the boy,” I said.

“Nothing like a kid in jeopardy to bring out the best in people,” Tahaki said.

We looked up at a helicopter passing overhead.

“Air One,” Mike said. “We’ve got two of them involved in the search.”

I stood silently by as Mike dispatched another group of people to where they should look for Koko. During a brief lull, I asked Mike, “When did he disappear?”

“The father reported it at five this morning. From what I’m told, he’d driven to work and his mother called to say the boy was gone. He thinks Koko might have been hiding in the backseat of his car—he found the child’s glasses under a blanket—and ran off into the sugar field when Mohink went indoors to work.”

“And so many people have already volunteered?”

“Word gets out fast. The media was immediately informed, along with every other means of communication.”

“Is there any chance that he was abducted?” I asked, hoping for a negative answer.

“We have to keep that possibility in mind,” Mike said.

“Where is his father?” I asked.

“Around here someplace.”

The large cane field now ablaze was directly to the south of the campus. One of the helicopters hovered over it, the downdraft from its rotors sending the smoke in angry swirls that looked like a special effect from a computer-generated motion picture.

Mike was approached by two doctors who’d arrived in a mobile field hospital. They were accompanied by EMTs.

“Anything new, Detective?” one of the doctors asked.

“No, but we’re pulling out all the stops,” Mike said.

“We talked with the father,” the second physician said. “He says the boy has asthma.” He looked in the direction of the burning cane field and added, “Hope he doesn’t get a nose full of that smoke.”

The thought of Koko being trapped in that smoke sent a chill up my spine. But surely he wouldn’t remain if he knew that a field had been set on fire. Unless he was disoriented or injured or . . .

Again my thoughts turned to the possibility that he had been forcibly taken from his home. I admit to having trouble believing that anyone would harm a child, but unfortunately there are people in the world who are capable of all manner of evil deeds.

Warren Mohink approached Mike and me, accompanied by a uniformed officer. Two reporters followed. I recognized Joe Luckey, the young man with whom I’d spoken at Cale Witherspoon’s press conference. Mohink nodded at me and shook Mike’s hand.

“Look. I can’t just stand around doing nothing,” Mohink said, his jaw working. He swiped a hand across his mouth. “Anything new?”

“Not yet,” Mike replied. “We’ve established a search grid and have dispatched teams to those areas. We’ve already searched along the Wailea Coastal Walk and are double-checking again. Have you been in touch with the plant where you work?”

“Yeah,” Mohink said.

“I assume your cane fields are among those being burned.”

“Sure.”

“Some of the search teams are covering the closest fields, but they’ll have trouble because of the fires and smoke,” Mike said. “We haven’t sent a team yet to the one over there.” He pointed south. “You mentioned that your son likes to play in the fields. Any special areas within them that he’s been known to visit?”

He sighed and shook his head. “You think you know your kid and then this happens. I have no idea where he goes when he’s playing in the fields. I just give him a yell and he usually comes running back. But sometimes—”

“Did anything happen recently that might have set him off, like an argument at home or a fight with a friend?”

Mohink shook his head. “I can’t think of anything. We were here at the college yesterday. There was a puppet show put on by the horticulture school about plants and flowers, kind of a silly thing, but Koko really wanted to see it. He’d learned about it from a friend and begged me to take him. I even took the day off just so we could come here.”

Mohink was interrupted by a volunteer who pulled Mike away to answer a question.

“A puppet show?” I said to Koko’s father. “Did anything take place during the show that might have scared him? Children that age are so easily frightened by things they see or hear that don’t even register with adults.”

“Koko is—well, I think I told you before. He’s got a vivid imagination. He freaked out right after the show.”

“Freaked out? In what way?”

“What about the kid’s mother?” Joe Luckey interjected.

Mohink glared at him. “His mother’s dead,” he growled.

“Sorry,” Luckey said. “I didn’t know.”

“Has he run away before?” the other reporter asked.

I held up a hand and said, “Gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse us. Mr. Mohink needs his privacy right now.” I led him away from the reporters and spoke in a low voice so they couldn’t overhear. “What do you think caused Koko to ‘freak out,’ as you say? What set him off?”

“Who the heck knows? He’s such a crazy kid. One minute he was happy as a clam. He loved the puppet show and we were on our way to get him an ice cream cone. When we got near the stand, he looks at the people in line, grabs my leg, and starts whimpering.”

“Was there someone in line he knew, that
you
knew?”

He pressed his lips together in exasperation. “I wasn’t looking. He said he wanted to go home, so that’s what we did.”

“What about after you’d returned home?” I asked.

Mohink ran one hand through his hair. I saw that his fingers were trembling. “He went in his room, and I did some work in my home office. He wouldn’t talk much at dinner. He can be moody at times. He’s a sensitive kid,
too
sensitive for his own good. Afterward he went back into his room and stayed there playing with his toys until bedtime.”

Mike rejoined us with a stack of photocopies of the picture Mohink had provided of Koko. “These are ready for distribution. The local TV channels are running them, and I have people driving around the area handing them out to stores.”

“What can I do?” Mohink asked.

Mike handed him a pile of pictures. “Why don’t you see if anybody here needs one?”

Mohink went off to help pass out the copies, with Joe Luckey and the other reporter following, pads and pens at the ready.

I informed Mike about the father-and-son outing the previous day.

“What would upset him so much that he’d go from being a happy little kid at a puppet show to grabbing his father’s leg and begging to go home?”

“He must have seen someone or something that frightened him.”

“I’d love to know who was in that ice cream line,” Mike said.

“Maybe if—no, make that
when
—he’s found, we can try to get him to tell us.”

The morning wore on as search parties came back to check in following the scouring of their coverage areas, only to be sent out again with maps of new areas to explore. The helicopters continued to circle overhead and an array of fire department vehicles and police cars were parked haphazardly throughout the staging area. Two trucks selling ice cream and pretzels had learned of the gathering crowd and arrived to feed those in need of snacks and drinks.

As I looked for familiar faces, I saw Cale Witherspoon cross the parking lot. With him were six other men, including Charlie Reed, owner of the
Maui Ocean Star
, and Mala Kapule’s former boyfriend Carson Nihipali. For someone who’d only recently arrived on Maui, I already knew a surprising number of people. I thought of the morning I’d met Mala and her comment that Maui was a small island and that everyone knew everyone else. I was starting to become a believer.

“Hello, Mr. Reed,” I called out.

He stopped, peered at me as though trying to force recognition, smiled, and approached.

“You’re here to help find the boy?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than a youngster in danger.”

“I certainly agree,” I said. “Hello, Carson.”

“Mrs. Fletcher,” he said.

“Cale Witherspoon has brought some of his employees to aid in the search,” Reed said. “He’s also got some heavy equipment in case it’s needed.”

“That’s good of you, Mr. Witherspoon,” I said.

“It’s the least I can do,” he proclaimed. “Any word on the boy?”

“Not that I know of.”

I wondered whether Witherspoon was aware of Mala’s financial arrangement with his Oregon competitor, Douglas Fir Engineering. If I had to guess, I’d say it wasn’t likely. Surely he would have pointed to it publicly, charging her with a conflict of interest. It was clear to me as I stood talking to the two men that they were closely aligned in their campaign to override the objections of Mala and her group. She’d been up against some heavy hitters.

Reed looked in the direction of the burning sugarcane field. “The wind’s shifting. Looks like it could end up coming in this direction.”

“Who’s in charge?” Witherspoon demanded.

“Detective Kane,” I said.

“Who’s he?”

“A retired cop,” Reed said dismissively. “Over there. The big guy at the mike.”

Someone from the college had supplied a microphone and amplifier for Mike to use.

“Listen up,” he said. “We need volunteers to work with the fire department to go into that burning cane field just to the south of us. About a third of it isn’t on fire yet, but it’ll be hot and smoky.”

Carson Nihipali joined a group of men who’d gathered around Mike, including a half dozen uniformed firefighters. “What are we standing around for?” Carson yelled. “Let’s go find the kid.”