03 - Three Odd Balls (17 page)

Mother said that would be lovely, but insisted she was in no hurry to eat, and resumed watching the show.

Most disconcertingly, it had gotten to that inevitable part where the dancers were swarming down the stage steps and enlisting hapless audience members to join them onstage. Of course my mother jumped up to volunteer. And I ask you, what performer could resist the adorable, enthusiastic, and far too-energetic-for-her-age Tessie Hewitt?

“I’ve never done the hula dance before!” she told the handsome Hawaiian who swept her away toward the stage. Before I knew it, Wilson was whisked off by an equally attractive hula girl. Oh, good Lord, and then one of the dancers zeroed in on yours truly.

I closed my eyes and prayed for strength, but that only meant that I was being dragged blindly onto the stage. I decided I’d better open my eyes and warned my young partner the only dancing I’m any good at is rocking to The Beatles. But apparently my hula tutor didn’t know who The Beatles were. He smiled broadly and assured me I would “do fine.”

Yeah, right.

***

Luckily the stage was incredibly crowded. I was elbowing my way to the back of the assembled amateurs when the Hoochie Coochie Brothers spotted me. By the excited looks on their faces I deduced that I was about to be embarrassed.

Needless to say, I was correct. Hal, or maybe it was Cal, stopped the music.

“What a treat!” he exclaimed into the microphone. “Our neighbors from the Wakilulani Gardens have joined us.” He pointed us out—Tessie, Wilson and me—and the crowd cheered. Clearly these people had never seen me dance.

Encouraged by the Hoochie Coochie Brothers, the pros on stage worked on parting the rest of the amateurs so that the three of us were up front and center. The music resumed, and before you could say aloha, we were hula-ing.

Some of us were hula-ing better than others, of course. Wilson, for instance, seemed a master at the skill. Perhaps that ludicrous shirt he was wearing inspired him. And my mother? Cute as hell, let me tell you. At one more or less frenzied point Tessie performed a rather remarkable hula-pirouette thingy, and my beau the ham executed some sort of Hawaiian-looking jig around her. The crowd went wild.

As for my performance? About the best I can say is at least I wasn’t wearing a coconut bra.

And eventually I was released from the embarrassment. Louise was there to catch me as I staggered off the stage. “You were fantastical,” she insisted, but I noticed the complete lack of exclamation point at the end of that sentence.

While I gathered the remains of my dignity, Wilson took a triumphant bow and hopped off the stage to join us. Emi and Chris came back with dinner for my mother, who somehow managed to pull away from an adoring throng of fans to reclaim her seat.

“You did great,” Emi told Tessie as she set the plate before her. “It’s like you belonged in Hula Club your whole life.”

“But you’re worse at dancing than you are at surfing,” Chris the ever-charming was quick to inform me.

Wilson tapped me on the shoulder. “Mai Tai?” he suggested.

I nodded curtly and headed toward the bar. Pink or otherwise, I needed a drink.

***

Pink or otherwise, those first Mai Tais disappeared rather quickly. Wilson had left in search of refills when a woman about my age approached me. “Jessie, right?” she asked. “You’re one of the people Chris Rye is teaching to surf?”

“One of the geezers,” I clarified and held out my hand. “Jessie Hewitt.”

“Gail Fazio,” she said, and we shook hands. “I own Folly Rentals. Chris pointed you out to me when you were up there.” She tilted her head towards the stage, where things had settled down considerably. The Hoochie Coochie Brothers had the entire expanse to themselves and were regaling the crowd with a medley of what I assumed were luau classics.

I turned back to Ms. Fazio and thanked her for renting us such nice surfboards. “Although I’m afraid I’m not much better at surfing than I am at hula-ing,” I added.

“But you are a good sport.”

“Did Chris say that?” I asked doubtfully.

She again gestured toward the stage. “I could see that for myself.”

I told Gail I wasn’t too concerned about hula-ing ever again. “But unfortunately Chris isn’t going to give up on me so easily.” I grimaced. “He actually expects me to hang ten.”

Gail patted my hand and was giving me a few tips for the surfing-challenged older woman when Wilson returned. He handed me my drink, and I introduced him to my new friend.

“May I get you one?” he asked and held up a Mai Tai.

“I better not. I have to work tomorrow. But I can understand why you guys need a few of those.” She pointed to Wilson’s drink.

“I take it you know about Davy Atwell?”

“Oh yes. And about Vega. And about your son’s involvement. I’m sorry your vacation is turning out so bad.”

“Chris didn’t do it,” Wilson said firmly.

“I know that. But you folks need to understand—Vega always goes after a tourist.”

“Why is that?” I asked indignantly. “It seems like everyone around here hates tourists.”

“Not everyone, Jessie. Some of us know who’s buttering our bread. Which reminds me.” She waved at the buffet table. “Have you guys eaten?”

We hadn’t, so Gail guided us to the buffet line where the main attraction was the kalua pig—a pig baked underground, as she explained. “It’s standard luau fare,” she told us, but she suggested we try the other dishes also. Thus the three of us filled our plates with pork, grilled pineapple, mango salsa, tomato couscous, sweet and sour cabbage, roasted breadfruit, the works. Then we found seats as far from the stage and as separated from the crowd as possible.

Before sitting down, I scanned the luau for my mother. She and Louise were doing fine, talking to some strangers and missing me not at all. Chris and Emi were nowhere in sight.

I took my seat and tuned in to Gail and Wilson’s conversation as they continued the discussion of tourists versus locals. Not too surprisingly, Ki Okolo’s name came up.

“He really hates tourists,” Gail said. “It all goes back to the accident. You guys know about that?”

Wilson summarized what we knew about how and why Ki and Buster had ended up living with their grandfather. “But what did tourists have to do with it?”

“A carload of them ran the Okolos off the road at Ka Pua Cliffs.” Gail shook her head. “It’s a really treacherous stretch of road.” She speared a piece of mahi-mahi. “Ki was driving.”

“What!?” Wilson and I shouted in unison, and the poor woman dropped her fork.

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” she asked.

“It explains why he hates the Wakilulani Gardens,” I suggested.

“You got it, Jessie. Tourists killed the kid’s parents, and then he and his brother had to move into a tourist trap. It didn’t help that Ki had to change high schools his senior year, or that he had to leave cute little Iwatanii Town behind and move to a whole different island.”

“I take it this Iwatanii place isn’t a tourist trap?” Wilson asked.

“No,” she said. “It’s way off the beaten path. But it’s a charming place if you ever get over to The Big Island.”

“Iwatanii Town,” I repeated. Where had I heard that name before?

But I would have to think about it some other time since Gail Fazio was still discussing the Okolos. Apparently Folly Rentals had been a fixture on Halo Beach almost as long as the Wakilulani Gardens, and Gail had been friends with Pono Okolo for decades. And she had known Ki and Buster ever since they came to live at Halo Beach.

“It sounds silly, but I’m beginning to think those guys are jinxed,” she said. “Buster’s never been the smartest coconut in the grove, but even so, no one deserves his bad luck.”

We discussed the recent troubles at the Wakilulani, namely Davy Atwell’s murder. But she didn’t seem to know anything more than we did. We moved on to the Rachel Tate mystery, and Gail agreed we were probably on a wild goose chase.

“I understand Buster was rather smitten with Rachel,” I said.

“Smitten?” Gail asked. “I guess so. He had a crush on her, and she had a crush on Davy. What a mess.”

“And she and Davy were together, right?” Wilson said. “At least for a while?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. Whatever her work ethic, Rachel was darn cute.”

“What do you know about Bethany Iverson?” he asked.

“A great work ethic there. The Okolo brothers did something right for a change by hiring her.”

“You have any idea how she got hold of Davy Atwell’s pink drink recipe?”

Gail’s face dropped, and Wilson nodded.

“Yep,” he said. “The Pele’s Melees are once again flowing at the Wacky Gardens. Thanks to Bethany.”

Gail considered this news. “She must have had sex with him.” She shook her head. “But no,” she argued with herself. “Bethany’s way too smart for that.” She sat back and scowled, perhaps pondering Bethany’s intelligence.

“What about Derrick Crowe?” I asked. “He’s also a mystery, correct?”

“You got it, Jessie. The guy’s fallen off the face of the earth.”

“Crowe’s been located,” Wilson said, and Gail and I both jumped.

“Wilson!” I scolded. “What have you been up to?”

He might have answered me, but the luau people had other plans. As the party began to wrap up, grass-skirted men and women got busy removing the dining tables. They literally took ours out from under us as a conga line started weaving around the luau arena.

With the Hoochie Coochies leading the way, people of various ages and levels of sobriety congaed past us. Some carried Mai Tais in their free hands, some carried tiki torches, and some carried each other. The word bacchanal came to mind, despite the fact that everyone was singing a vaguely Hawaiian version of Jingle Bells. Oh yes—and a few people carried sleigh bells.

Chris and Emi danced by without even noticing us, but Mother and Louise did see us. They waved us into formation, and someone handed Wilson a tiki torch. He brandished it aloft as I grabbed onto his hips.

Chapter 18

Everyone in their right mind went home after the Holiday Hula. But Wilson and I are not in our right minds. First of all, we were still on that wild goose chase to track down Rachel Tate. And lest anyone should forget, the Shynomore Shirt Shop is a twenty-four-hour operation.

Louise promised to get Tessie back to the Wakilulani Gardens safely, so we bid them goodnight and headed down the beach.

“What did Russell Densmore find out?” I yawned expansively and stumbled a bit.

Wilson reached out to steady me. “How do you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Know who I’ve been talking to. Intuition, right?”

Actually no. This time I had relied on something much more mundane—simple deductive reasoning. First of all, Wilson had been late to our surfing lesson that afternoon. Why? Because he was busy calling Lieutenant Densmore—giving his right-hand man orders from half-way around the world.

“He called you back while we were talking to Vega,” I continued deducing. “And when you didn’t answer, he called you again. Which can only mean Russell got something good.” I stopped and turned. “He found Derrick Crowe, didn’t he?”

“Yep. Crowe’s working at a culinary school in northern California. Densmore called him.”

“You need to give that man a raise, Wilson.”

“Cops never get raises. But listen to this, Jessie—Crowe swore up, down, and sideways it was Buster who fired him. Not Ki, like Bethany told Chris.”

“So she lied?” I asked.

“That, or she doesn’t know the whole story. But whoever fired him, Crowe wasn’t happy about it. Said he didn’t deserve to be treated like that by an Okolo after all the years he worked for Pono.”

“Did Russell ask about the money he owes people?”

“Crowe denied it. Claims that’s why he left Hawaii—to get away from the rumors.”

“Did Russell believe him?”

“No, but he let it slide. He didn’t want to alienate the guy in case we need to talk to him again.” Wilson stopped and caught my eye. “Which we may.”

“Oh?”

“Derrick Crowe is the father of Carmen Dupree’s oldest child.”

“What!?”

“Densmore’s identified the fathers of all her kids.”

“What?” I said again, increasingly incredulous at the amazing Russell Densmore’s remarkable research skills. “How did he do that?”

“Birth records, hospital records, who knows? Densmore’s way better at the internet than you are.”

“No kidding. But this had to be more than basic research. Did he hack into stuff illegally?”

“You want to hear this or not?”

I took the low road and said I did.

“Crowe’s the father of Carmen’s oldest, and you and Louise were right—Davy Atwell is the father of numbers two and three.”

“And Ki Okolo is the baby’s father.” I looked up at Wilson. “This has got to be significant.”

“I think so. And it gets worse.”

“Do tell.”

“Densmore looked into Carmen’s child-support arrangements with these guys. She’s supposed to get something from Crowe every month, but she doesn’t anymore.”

I frowned. “Because he’s disappeared, correct? Carmen must be one of the people he owes money to.”

“And then there’s Davy Atwell.”

“Crowe owed him money also.”

“No, Jessie. I’m talking about Carmen’s child support. Carmen and Davy duked it out in court about a year ago, haggling over the amount.”

I shook my head. “So let me guess. Russell got into the court records?”

“Yep. Carmen wanted the payments to be based on Davy’s net worth. But Davy and his lawyers argued—successfully—that her child-support should only be based on his current income.”

“From his earnings as a bartender?” I thought about how unfortunate that was for Carmen. “So she was getting very little from him, even though he was rich. Louise saw his house today, by the way. It’s a mansion worthy of a stop on the Beyond the Beach tours.”

“Carmen must love that.”

“We need to take that tour tomorrow,” I insisted. “Whether or not it interferes with our surfing lesson.”

Wilson nodded consent. “According to Densmore, Davy Atwell was worth at least three million. Not including the house.”

“So Davy’s death could mean quite a windfall for Carmen, correct? She, or at least two of her children, may stand to inherit a good bit of his wealth.”