O'ahu Lonesome Tonight? (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series #5) (21 page)

“Not really,” I
said.

“Well, we need
confirmation on that. We need to prove that the sewage caused your brother’s
death. That’s the nut of the story.”

“Not for me,” I
said.

She looked
skeptical. “What else is there?”

“We both know
Stu died from a bacterial infection. The doctor said the infection was probably
triggered by exposure to ‘fecal matter.’ So I think it’s safe to assume he got
sick from the crap they dumped in the canal.
So, the
‘precipitating event’, as you like to call it, wasn’t the sewage in the canal.
It was who or what caused Stuart Wilkerson to be in the
Ala
Wai
Canal in the first place.”

“But if there
hadn’t been sewage in there he wouldn’t have gotten the infection,” she said.

“Yeah, but if
he hadn’t been pushed in, it wouldn’t matter what was floating in that water.
And according to my brother
Moko
, Stu couldn’t swim.
He could’ve drowned.”

“But he didn’t
drown. He died from fecal contamination. Look,
Pali
,
I think we need to agree to disagree,” she said. “The police are treating this
as an accident. The report says your brother had been drinking and he came out
of the bar and fell in the water.”

“I don’t
believe it.”

“Believe what
you want. You’re not going to convince them otherwise unless you find evidence
to the contrary.”

“Okay. But
let’s agree on one thing.” I paused to check for her buy-in. She nodded. “We
won’t hold anything back. Whichever way this goes, we’ll help each other. I’ll
help you poke your finger in the eye of City Hall and you help me find whoever
it was who pushed my brother into that canal.”

“Fine,” she
said. “This feels like a ‘buddy promise’ from grade school. Say, you want to
pick and scab and become blood sisters or something?”

“Nah,” I said.
“
There’s
already too much flesh-eating bacteria
floating around this city.”

She gave me a
hard stare as if contemplating whether I’d just dissed her. I told her I’d be
in touch and I got up and left.

***

Natalie finally
showed up late Sunday afternoon. Yvonne called me and whispered that when
Natalie came in she’d try to ask her where she’d been but Natalie told her to
mind her own business. Natalie didn’t tell her that Stu had died and she gave
Yvonne no hint of where she’d been for the past twelve hours.

“But that’s how
it is with my sister and me. She keeps me in the dark and I do the same with
her.”

“Does she know
you speak English?”

“No. She talks
to me in Cantonese. It’s fine with me because it helps me keep up my skills.
But I can hardly wait to get out of here. I’ve only got six more months to go.”

“That was the
deal when you came over here?”

“Yeah, she
sponsored me; even paid my airfare and everything. Then she goes off and
marries your brother.”

“Was that a
problem?”

“I probably
could’ve talked Natalie into letting me go out on my own a little earlier. I
hoped maybe she’d even help me with trade school—you know, like paralegal or
court reporting. But Stuart was hard-core. He demanded I stick to the original
commitment.”

“Or what?”

“He threatened
to make things hard for me. He actually said, ‘I’ll make sure you never find
honest work in this town’ or something crazy like that.”

“Why would he
do that?”

“I guess I was
someone he could control. Since his father died things haven’t gone so well for
Stuart. He’s got to maintain appearances, you know.”

I wondered how
much Yvonne chaffed at being at her big sister’s beck and call. Was it enough
to try to get rid of the one person who stood between her and freedom?

Before I could
say anything more, there was a small commotion on her end of the line. Yvonne
said, “
Joigin
,” and hung up. Seems I’d just
learned how to say ‘good bye’ in Chinese.

***

After so much
gloom and doom all day I was happy to see Farrah’s name pop up on my cell phone
later that night.

“Hey,” she
said. “How are you doing? I heard about your brother on the news. I’m so sorry.
I wish I could come over there and give you a hug, but I’d have to swim.”

“
Mahalo
for thinking of me, but I’m fine.
How about you?”

“I’m totally
good. I’m psyched about getting started on the wedding planning.”

“Me too.
I wish I could come home right now,” I said. “But
I’ve got to stay for the funeral, and then I’ve got to tie up a few loose
ends.”

I wanted to
tell her I’d vowed to track down the truth about what had happened to my
brother but she’d probably insist we consult her Ouija board. No way
I was
willing to go down that path.

“Well, just so
you know, I’m eye-balling the bridal magazines here in the store,” she said.
“So when you get back we can blast off like a rocket.”

“Sounds good.”

“I miss you,
Pali
.”

“I miss you,
too. I’ll be home as quick as I can.”

The clock was
ticking. I had only five more days in the apartment. By Friday, I needed to
come up with something. If I didn’t know any more by then what had happened to
Stu, I’d be forced to let it go. No way
I’d
disappoint
my best friend of twenty-five years chasing down ghosts for a dead half-brother
I’d only known for a week.

CHAPTER 29

Moko’s
wife,
Kepola
, kept her
promise to handle all the arrangements for Stu’s funeral. Everyone kept
referring to it as a ‘memorial service’ and I think Stu would’ve liked that. It
sounded more upscale. From what I could gather, it promised to be a blow-out
event. I hadn’t known my dad when he died, but I guess the family had put on
quite the big show. Seems the
Wilkersons
prefer to
bury their dead like pharaohs.

With the
funeral plans underway, I had time to track down the people I wanted to talk
to. I went to the yacht club and asked for Jason but they said he didn’t come
in until six.

“He called in
sick yesterday,” said the bartender. “You may have heard about the guy who fell
into the canal? Stu Wilkerson? He was Jason’s best friend.”

I didn’t let on
he was my brother. The less said the better. I didn’t want the guy tipping off
Jason that I was looking for him. Jason was front and center on my radar. After
all, I was pretty sure he was the last person to see Stu before he got fished
out of the canal. And Jason had been strangely absent from the ICU waiting room
during Stu’s last days.

From the yacht
club I took the Farrington Highway down to the Barbers Point boat yard. It
wasn’t the easiest place to find. It was at the end of a long road that wound
through an industrial area bristling with warehouses and trucking companies.
When I got to the boat yard I could see why Natalie was underwhelmed with the
whole operation. It was basically a smattering of corrugated steel buildings,
one or two stories high, hemmed in by an eight-foot chain link fence topped
with razor wire. Inside the yard, boats were lined up like cars at a used car
lot. Most of them looked like they’d been there awhile and were waiting to be
hauled off to a scrap yard. Even the signs at the entrance to the property
looked cheap and worn. “No Trespassing” and “Video Surveillance Cameras in
Use,” things like that. The only sign that looked somewhat encouraging was a
large wooden sign with ‘Barbers Point Boat Yard’ deeply carved in its surface.
The sign hung to the right of the front door of the largest building on the
property. Beneath it, a smaller sign warned ‘All visitors must check in at main
office.’

I drove in and
parked. No one seemed to be around. I wandered around looking for someone to
talk to, but all I found of interest was a giant steel crane straddling a
wooden dock where the land met the sea. The crane looked like it’d seen better
days. It had once been painted blue but now most of the paint was faded and
chipped and in more than a handful of places the crane had gaping holes where
either saltwater or rust had eaten away the metal.

I made my way
back to the main building. When I tried the door it was locked. I knocked. A
few seconds went by and then a female voice said, “Leave it at the door. I’m on
the phone.”

I waited
another minute and knocked again. A voice called, “Okay, okay. I’m coming.”

A very ‘large
statured’ woman with shoulder-length bleached hair that could’ve used an entire
bottle of conditioner pulled the door open with a grunt.

“What is it?”
she said. She looked me up and down as if deciding if she should shut the door
in my face, then said, “Who sent you?”

“No one.
I’m here to talk to Barry Salazar.”

“He’s not
here.”

“When do you
expect him back?”

She laughed.
“You tell me,
sista
. Payday came and went last Friday
and no sign of him. No paycheck either.”

 “Is that
why no one’s out here working?” I said. I glanced back over my shoulder to see
if maybe someone had shown up in the past couple of minutes, but the place was
still deserted.

“No one’s
working because we got no work. And, besides, one of the owners died this
weekend. You see on the news about that guy who fell into the
Ala
Wai
? He was one of the
owners.”

“I know. He was
my brother.”

Her face
softened a bit and she stepped back. “Oh, wow. I’m sorry. I didn’t know Mr.
Wilkerson had a sister. I only knew his brother
Moko
.
He used to work here.”

I caught the
‘used to’ but decided this wasn’t the time to pursue it.

“Come in,” she
said. “I didn’t mean to keep you standing out there. I thought you were a bill
collector. That’s pretty much the only people who come out here anymore.”

She held the
door open and I went inside. It’s always tricky to negotiate around a
‘full-figured’ woman but I managed to pass by her without touching things that
were better left untouched.

“Why do you
want to talk to Mr. Salazar?” she said.

“I’m looking
into what happened to my brother. I understand he was here at work when he had
to be rushed back to the hospital.”

“Yeah.
It was so strange. He came in that morning looking a
little rough around the edges. You
know,
a bandage on
his head and
limpin
’ a little. Mr. Salazar hadn’t
come in yet and Mr. Wilkerson asked me to let him in his office.”

“Stu didn’t
have keys to his own office?”

“No, not to let
him in
his
office; he wanted me to let him in Mr. Salazar’s office.”

“Did you?”

“Well, yeah. I
mean, why not? They were working on some kind of big thing. They’d told us that
if they could make this thing happen the boat yard could get up and
runnin
’ again. We’ve been struggling ever since Mr. Wilkerson’s
father died.”

She squinted as
if her brain was working overtime. “So was old man Wilkerson your father too?
Or are you just from the mother’s side?”

“No, Phil
Wilkerson was my father.”

“Oh, sorry about that, too.
I guess this hasn’t been a very
good year for you.”

“No.”

“Anyway, Mr.
Wilkerson goes into Mr. Salazar’s office and he’s in there digging around and I
say, ‘You need me to help you find something?’ and he says, ‘Where does he keep
his legal files?’ I thought it was real weird of him to ask that.”

“Why?”

“Because both of them have the same files.
Everything the
lawyer sends over he sends in duplicate. There’d be no reason for Mr. Wilkerson
to think Mr. Salazar had something he didn’t have. The files are identical.”

“Unless they aren’t,”
I said. “Did you give my
brother
Salazar’s files?”

“Didn’t have time.
I was unlocking the file cabinet when Mr.
Wilkerson started yelling that his leg had started hurting like ‘
a son of a… you know
.’ He actually said the whole thing but
I try to keep the cussing to a minimum. This place has got way too much rough
language
flyin
’ around. You know what I mean?”

I nodded and
stared at her to encourage her to get back on track.

“Anyhow, Mr.
Wilkerson sat down fast and pulled his pants leg up. He ripped off the bandage
on his head and I could see he had a bad wound. It was all swollen and really
red. I told him I’ll call 9-1-1. He said, ‘Please do’.”

She stopped and
took a deep breath.

“You know, that
was the last thing Mr. Wilkerson ever said to me, ‘Please do.’ Your brother was
a gentleman, you know?
Polite ‘til the very end.”

She seemed to
be fighting back tears.

“Would you mind
pulling the legal files for me?” I said.
“Both of them.
Stu’s and Barry’s.”
I hoped her fond memories of Stu
would extend to me and she’d cut me some slack.

“Why?”

“Because there might be something in there.
Barry’s file was
the last thing my brother wanted to see. The police are calling his death
‘accidental’ but I’m not convinced it was.”

“You don’t
think Mr. Salazar had anything…” She covered her mouth with her dimpled hand
but her eyes betrayed her morbid curiosity.

“I’m not
accusing anybody of anything. I’d just like to re-trace my brother’s final
steps and see what I find.”

“I used to read
Nancy Drew books,” she said. “They were my mom’s. They were old but I still
liked them. You ever read any of them? They were all mysteries.”