Lana'i of the Tiger (The Islands of Aloha Mystery Series) (24 page)

“I’ve always wanted to do a
flash mob,” Steve said. “These guys have been rehearsing for
weeks
.”

“Are they friends of yours from
the B and C?” I said. The Ball and Chain was Steve’s favorite hang-out. It’s a gay
bar in Kehei that tolerates straight folks but definitely caters to a more
rainbow-hued clientele.

 “Some of them. And some are just
way-cute guys I recruited down at the beach,” he said. “I’m always looking for
a good conversation starter. And believe me, asking a guy if he’d like to join
a flash mob to welcome home my roommate from federal witness protection was
definitely
a first rate ice breaker.” 

“You’re the best,” I said. I
hugged him again and the guys in the group let out a collective, “Ahh.”

I thanked everyone for coming
and for their beautiful singing. As the singers began dispersing, I looked
across the street. Wong was still there, arms folded across his chest. No way
would he admit it, but he probably knew many, if not all, of the singers. But
unlike Steve, Wong’s gender preference remained a tightly-guarded secret. It
was like the recipe for Coca-Cola. Everyone, even Detective Glen Wong, knows
that someday the recipe for Coke will be posted on the Internet. But until
then, it will stay secret.

We crossed the street and Steve
spoke first. “Hey Glen, how’s it hanging?”

“I can’t complain,” said Wong.

“Mind if I take your former charge
back home with me to Hali’imaile?”

“It’s okay with me,” said Wong.
“The department will have any belongings she may have left behind sent over in
a day or two.”

“
Mahalo
, Detective,” I
said. “I appreciate that.”

Detective Wong gave me a
two-finger salute and turned and swiftly walked away, as if he was needed
elsewhere.

Steve put an arm around my
shoulders and we took our time making our way to his car.

“Are you worried about blowback
from the druggies?” he said as we walked up Dickenson Street.

“A little. But I think with
every day that passes my chances get better. Most of those guys have smart
phones, and word will get out that the reward’s been rescinded.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “But I hope
they don’t use the word ‘rescinded’ ‘cause those cranked-up losers wouldn’t
have a clue what that means.”

“True.”

We walked along in silence and
then Steve said, “Aren’t you gonna ask me about it?”

“Maybe we should wait until we
get home,” I said. “I’ve already used up my quota of crying in public today.”

***

The ride up the Honoap’ilani
Highway was magical, which was kind of ironic, since I’d driven that same route
the day before. But on Saturday I’d been totally focused on driving, not
wanting to look at anything but the car ahead of me. I’d needed to talk to
Marta, and then we’d gone right back to the ferry, so there was no time for nostalgia.
And besides, with Kate in the car the last thing I needed was to blow my cover by
giving in to homesickness.

But this time I was going
home
.
Everything looked the same as it had when I’d left, but it all looked
different, too. The sugar cane fields along the Kuihelani Highway had been
brown and stubbly when I’d left. Now the canes were green and growing. The
traffic was as clogged as ever on Dairy Road, but everyone was smiling and
letting other cars in ahead of them. The whole atmosphere of Kahului was,
you
better not shout, you better not pout
. After all, Santa was coming in only
two days and he’d be checking who’d been naughty and who’d been nice.

“So, what do you know about the
situation?” I finally asked Steve.

“You’re talking about Hatch and
Farrah, right?”

“Of course I’m talking about
them. What else would I be talking about?” Uh-oh, sounded like I was slipping
into the
naughty
category.

“I just wanted to make sure we
were on the same page,” he said.

“Ono came over to Lana’i last
week and told me they’ve been living together.”

“I’m glad you know that much at
least. I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news on your first day back.
You’ve been known to threaten the messenger over smaller stuff than this.”

“So what’s the deal?” I said.

“Who knows? About a week after
you left I guess some druggie supposedly showed up at Farrah’s apartment. Her
dog scared ‘em off, but next thing you know, she’s moved in with Hatch. They’ve
been kind of an item around town ever since.”

“What’s that mean, ‘kind of an
item’?”

“Means you never see one without
the other. At the store, at the movies, out to dinner, you name it.”

“But Hatch is still working at
the fire department?”

“Far as I know,” Steve said.

“And Farrah’s still running the
Gadda da Vida Store?”

“She’s got Beatrice holding down
the fort most of the time, but when Farrah does show up, Hatch is always there too.”

By then we’d almost made it to
the turn onto Hali’imaile Road. Steve seemed agitated, but I chalked it up to
talking to me about my best friend and my boyfriend getting it on while I was
holed up on an unfamiliar island trying to avoid getting shot in the head.

“I need to park over here,”
Steve said taking a turn on a street that paralleled our street.

 “Why?”

“They’re re-tarring our road or
something. They put flyers on everyone’s cars. Said the street would be closed
for a couple of days.”

“Oh great. I finally make it
home and I have to come in through the alley. It figures. First my best friend
screws my boyfriend and now I’m relegated to the back door.”
Naughty,
naughty, naughty
. Santa was going to need to make a major stop at a coal
mine before coming to my house.

We got out and I choked back
tears of gratitude when I saw the back of my little white house.

“You happy to be home?” Steve
said.

“For sure. I’m over-the-moon
happy. Not only am I glad to be here, but I didn’t have to go to the mainland, or
lie for Tyler Benson—”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Steve
said, interrupting me. “Are you talking about
the
Tyler Benson? The guy
who makes the ‘Stony Jackson’ flicks?”

“One and the same.”

“Okay, girl, let’s get inside.
We’ve got a
bunch
of catching up to do.”

CHAPTER
31

I should have known my friends
wouldn’t let me come home to an empty house. My first clue was the music
thumping through the thin clapboard walls. It abruptly stopped when Steve and I
came through the back gate. My next clue was the weird look on Steve’s face
when he insisted I go in first, even though he was about four steps ahead of
me.

“Surprise!” The cheer rocked me
back with its exuberance. Everyone sort of held their collective breath as I
passed through the kitchen and out to the front room. It seemed as if everybody
I’d known since high school was crammed into my tiny house. How had Steve
pulled this off?

Nearly everyone greeted me the
same way,
Were you surprised?

“Yes, I was totally surprised.”
I must have said it fifty times. I was hugged and kissed and draped in leis for
half an hour. But as thrilled as I was by the amazing turnout, there were only
two people I really wanted to see.

They were standing in the far
corner of the living room, off to the side. Farrah looked radiant in a white
caftan. Her long brown curls had been tamed into a knot at the top of her head
with tendrils falling around her beautiful, olive-skin face. She wore way more
make-up than usual. It looked as if she’d shed her freshly-scrubbed flower
child look for a more sultry appearance. Hatch stood next to her looking
heart-breakingly handsome in his Maui Fire Department station uniform. The blue
shirt made his eyes appear electric. He’d allowed his dark hair to grow a
little longer and there were tiny curls forming behind his ears. Since he was
in uniform, I figured he must’ve been working and he’d asked someone to come in
for him while he attended my little shindig.

Farrah came forward first, her
arms outstretched. I didn’t know what to do. Everyone was watching. I assumed
everyone knew what had transpired while I was gone and there were probably more
than a few folks who were itching to see a cat-fight. I vowed to not give them
the satisfaction.

“
Ku’uipo
,” Farrah said,
using the Hawaiian term for ‘my sweetheart’ or ‘darling.’ I wanted to snap that
she should save her endearments for her new boyfriend, but I stuck to my vow
and simply smiled.

“You look great, Farrah.” I
leaned in to give her a quick shoulder hug but she grabbed me and pulled me in
tight. Her pillowy bosom felt more welcome than I’d imagined and it was all I
could do to not burst into tears and demand an explanation, there and then.
When I stepped back, I saw her wince. Probably hugging me was last thing she
wanted to do, but she felt she had to keep up appearances.

“Hey, babe,” said Hatch coming
up behind Farrah. He looked about as uncomfortable as the shortest boy at a
junior high school dance, but he soldiered on, draping a long arm around my
shoulders and planting a peck on my cheek.

I checked Farrah for her
reaction. She just stood there, smiling, which made the whole charade just that
much tougher to stomach.

Steve came out of the kitchen
bearing an overflowing champagne bottle and a plastic cup. “Everyone grab a
glass. I’m sorry they’re plastic, but our girl here has too many friends for me
to break out the Waterford crystal. Now get ready, ‘cause I’m going to make a
toast.”

People scurried to the kitchen
to grab cups and champagne bottles. When everyone was holding a cup of
champagne, Steve signaled for quiet.

“Well, first of all,” he said,
“I want to say I’m so glad to have Pali back because it’s been pretty lonely
around here. After the first couple of weeks I started talking to the walls,
and I swear, last week they actually started to talk back.” There were a few
courtesy chuckles, but I sucked in a quick gasp. How was it he’d come up with
the same lame phrase I’d used on Wong only three weeks earlier? Had Steve and I
become so much alike after living together we’d started channeling each other’s
bad jokes?

“But seriously,” Steve went on.
“We’re all glad to have our Pali back safe and sound because we all love her,
and we all need her, and we were all stunned when she got whisked away from us last
month. Hopefully, she got paid a boat-load of dough for her work on that Las
Vegas wedding. And hopefully, she didn’t gamble it all away.” He raised his
glass. “Let’s hear it for Pali.” Everyone cheered and knocked back a gulp of
champagne.

It took me a couple of beats to
catch up with the storyline. Oh yeah, these people didn’t know about Mexican
drug cartels and hit men and the witness protection program. These people thought
I’d been working my butt off on a ridiculously-expensive wedding in Nevada.

“Speech, speech,” the crowd
chanted.

After everyone quieted down, I
said, “It was a really hard job, but now that it’s over, I realize how blessed
I am to live on this beautiful island with
ohana
like you. I’ll bet most
of you had planned to spend this afternoon speed-walking through Queen
Ka’ahumanu Mall buying last-minute stocking stuffers. But you came to welcome me
home instead. Big
mahalos
for that. I love you all.” I blew a kiss.

Everyone cheered and the serious
drinking got underway.

***

Everyone left soon after it started
to get dark, but Farrah stayed behind. “Hatch and I wanted to talk to you
together,” she said. “But he had to go back to work. Hatch got Moses to fill in
so he could come to your party, but Moses had to be home by eight.”

It galled me that she already
knew the names of the guys who worked with Hatch. And it completely galled me
that she and Hatch had planned to double-team me when they owned up to their
betrayal. Farrah had been my best friend since grade school, but I felt like I
was staring into the face of a stranger.

“That’s fine. I’d rather talk to
you alone anyway,” I said.

“I know there have been rumors,”
she said. “Island people got four necessities: food, sleep, sex and rumors.”
She smiled as if she dared think I’d find it amusing that she’d managed to slip
‘sex and rumors’ into her little speech. And if she expected me to agree with
her, forget it.

“I’ve been away,” I said in the
chilliest voice I’ve ever used with Farrah. “I haven’t heard a thing.”

“Oh well, I guess that’s good.
But you will—hear things, I mean. And here’s the truth: when you got tangled up
in that drug mess, the police took you away somewhere safe. But I was left
here. The bad guys figured I knew stuff because we were friends and I’d helped
you out. At first, it was just scary phone calls. Then one night a guy came to
my door. He said he had a message for me from you.”

She blinked her eyes a couple of
times and took a deep breath. I noticed she was unable to maintain eye contact
with me—a true sign of lying or guilt, or maybe both. “Anyway, I let him in. I
shouldn’t have. But I was worried about you.”

I was starting to feel a tiny
bit guilty, so I visualized her and Hatch going at it between the sheets and
the feeling passed.

“Anyhow, Lipton got really upset
and he bit the guy. The guy pulled out a gun and shot at Lipton. One of the bullets
actually nicked him.”

I visualized Farrah’s little
Jack Russell terrier coming to her defense. It was a touching scene, but it
didn’t budge my opinion of her.

“What’s wrong with you?” she
said. “You look totally spaced-out. I’m telling you about how some guy almost
killed
Sir Lipton.”

“Look Farrah, I’ll bet you’ve
told your little sob story a million times. It may have worked on other people,
but frankly, I’m not buying it. You and Hatch were making goo-goo eyes at each
other long before I got shipped off.”