03 - Three Odd Balls (16 page)

“Who’s that?” Vega eyed the phone. “Your son? Answer it.”

Wilson put the phone back in his pocket and waited for it to stop ringing. “I don’t take orders from you.”

Vega turned his attention back to me. “And what about you?” he asked.

“I’m afraid Jessie doesn’t take orders very well either,” Mother answered for me.

Vega closed his eyes, perhaps praying for strength. “I meant,” he said as he opened them again, “why did you tell my dispatcher it wasn’t your fault?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your 911 call. You point blank said ‘It’s not our fault.’” Vega made air quotes. “Who were you trying to protect?”

I looked out into the gathering gloom of the evening and considered my answer. “I wasn’t trying to protect anyone. I was simply stating a fact.” I gestured to Wilson and my mother. “Here we were, trying to help poor Makaila. And what was Ki Okolo doing? Making ugly faces and acting like it was all our fault.” I shrugged. “My comment was directed at him, not your dispatcher.”

Vega studied me with unadulterated disdain. “You people might think there’s strength in numbers,” he said eventually. “But I’m warning you, I will get to the bottom of this. And when I do, why do I know your precious Christopher Rye will be there?”

“Because you’re an idiot,” Wilson answered, and Vega practically levitated out of his seat.

Once again my mother tried to diffuse the tension. “Jessie has a theory that may help catch the real killer,” she interjected.

“Mother!” I cringed.

“Jessie thinks there was a witness,” she continued. “Go ahead, Honeybunch.” She gave me a nudge. “Tell Captain Vega your idea.”

I took a deep breath, ignored Vega’s less than encouraging snarl, and suggested Bee Bee might have heard something important that night. I waved at my mother. “We think it may explain why he’s disappeared. We think the killer’s kidnapped him.”

“Let me get this straight,” Vega said. “Davy Atwell’s dead, and you’re worrying about the bird?”

“You bet your boots we’re worried about the bird!” That was Louise.

We looked up to see her and Buster rushing over from the direction of the parking lot.

“Where have you been?” I asked, but Louise wasn’t paying any attention to me.

She grabbed a stack of papers out of Buster’s arms and handed them to a rather startled Captain Vega.

“I am so glad you’re here!” she told him. “So, so, soooo glad!” She pointed down to the fliers she had given him, and I caught a glimpse of a full-color photograph of Bee Bee with the caption “Missing Parrot! Reward! Reward! Reward!” printed beneath.

“You need to get your people on this right away,” Louise was instructing Vega. “We need those fliers put up everywhere. Bee’s Bee is lost!”

Vega stood up and shoved the fliers back at Louise. “Find your own damn bird. I’m looking for Christopher Rye.”

He flashed Wilson one last snarl, grabbed the bag with the knife, and probably had every intention of making a dramatic exit. But instead he tripped over Buster’s kneeling form and fell flat onto the patio.

Buster the ever-vigilant was down there weeding. He looked over from his handful of leaves and shoots and caught sight of the knife Vega had dropped. “You found it?” he asked.

Wilson’s phone rang again, and this time he answered it. He stood up, stepped over Buster and Vega, and started up the hill towards Paradise. “You found it?” he asked.

***

“Found what?” I asked as I tried catching up with him. “Who are you talking to?”

Wilson made it to our porch before turning around. He told whoever was on the line to hang on a minute and glanced past me down the hill, presumably to check if we were out of earshot. “Why don’t you walk your mother over to the luau?” he suggested.

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re up to?”

“I will.” He tapped at his phone. “But first I need to find out, myself.”

I squinted at the phone as he assured me he’d meet me at the luau in a jiffy.

“A jiffy? Those shirts you’re wearing are starting to affect your brain, Captain Rye.” I pointed to the altogether ridiculous specimen he had chosen for the evening—this one boasting some sort of insect theme in purples, greens, and golds.

He twirled his free index finger as if to turn me around. I mumbled something about my ever-cooperative nature, turned, and called out to my mother and Louise to wait up.

Indeed, everyone was dispersing from the patio as I retraced my steps. Buster dropped his handful of weeds, reminded Vega about the Wakilulani dinner crowd, and scurried toward The Big House. Vega grabbed the murder-weapon baggie and also stood up. He glanced after Buster for the briefest of moments, warned us he’d be back—Arnold-Schwarzenegger style—and headed toward the parking lot.

I glanced at my mother and Louise.

“Luau bound!” Mother squealed and wiggled her hips in a hula-esque fashion.

Chapter 17

“Buster and I were getting nowhere!” Louise informed us as we wended our way toward the Holiday Hula. “And you know how impatient I can be, Jessica. But!” She stopped and pointed to the Pacific. “Our latest surfing fiasco must have joggled my brain.”

“You put your thinking cap on?” Mother asked.

“I did! I told Buster we need help. And he asked me who, or how, or what, and it came to me in a flash.” Louise held up her stack of fliers to show us Bee Bee’s picture. “This flier! Buster found the photo in Pono’s old files, and then we drove down to the copier place and put these together.”

She lifted her stack of fliers aloft, and the winds on Halo Beach almost grabbed them away from her. She twirled around to keep control and noticed some other people roaming down the beach. Off she ran, shouting something about the missing bird, and waving one of her fliers.

“I hope she has some luck,” I said to my mother as Louise made yet another detour toward another group of startled beachcombers. “She’ll be heartbroken if, well, you know.”

“Bee Bee is not dead,” Mother said firmly. She stepped forward as Louise returned to us. “Louise, honey,” she said brightly. “Where did you and Buster put your posters?”

“We drove all over, Tessie. Here, there, and everywhere! This island is beyond fantastical. Oh!” Louise stopped again. “Speaking of fantastical—we drove past Davy Atwell’s house.”

“No!” Mother and I said in unison.

“Yes!” she insisted. “Buster made sure to point it out to me. The place is a mansion. Faye was absolutely right this morning. Davy Atwell was rich, rich, rich!”

“And yet he bartended at the Wakilulani Gardens?” I asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“But I think he enjoyed his job, Honeybunch. Davy was a sociable fellow, wasn’t he?”

“Sociable with women.” I looked at Louise. “You didn’t by any chance ask Buster about Carmen Dupree and Davy?”

Louise’s face dropped. “We were so busy talking about Bee Bee, I forgot all about our other mystery.”

Well, darn.

“But!” Louise perked up. “Maybe I did learn something after all! Buster told me Davy’s house is a stop on the Beyond the Beach tour. Supposedly they talk about the architecture of the place. And there’s a lot of architecture to talk about.”

“Oh dear,” Mother said. “Poor Carmen has to give tourists lessons about her old beau’s home?”

“I guess so.”

“Okay, so think, Louise.” I related the murder weapon incident she had missed and emphasized how Captain Vega was becoming more and more convinced of Christopher Rye’s guilt. “Did Buster tell you anything else that might help us?”

Louise pursed her lips, deep in thought, and we actually walked for a few minutes in complete silence.

“Buster and I discussed the new Pele’s Melees,” she finally offered. “I mentioned how pleased we are with Ki’s latest version, and Buster said he hopes he can get his brother to stick around the Wakilulani for a while.”

She sighed dramatically, clearly exasperated with herself. “I’m sorry, Jessica. I simply am not the fantastical sleuth that you are.”

“No one compares with my Jessie,” Mother agreed.

“Thank God.” You guessed it—the ever-charming Christopher Rye had caught up with us.

I waved a greeting to Emi and asked Chris if he had seen Captain Vega recently. “Did he tell you about the knife?”

Emi tilted her head toward her escort. “Why do you think he’s in such a good mood?”

***

“Nice shirt, Dad,” Chris continued the sarcastic flow as Wilson joined us in the Holiday Hula queue.

“This is my favorite so far.” Rye Senior smiled proudly and tapped at one of the colorful bugs on his chest as Louise shoved a flier into his other hand.

“I already know what Bee Bee looks like,” he reminded her. “You should give these to the people who don’t.”

She swept the flier out of Wilson’s hand and ran off to accost some other would-be luau attendees.

Mother turned to Emi. “I’ve never been to a luau before.”

Emi patted her shoulder. “We’ll have fun, Mrs. Hewitt. I think you’ll like it.”

“I’m sure I will,” Mother agreed. “I’m sure we all will. Oh, and that reminds me.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her credit card. “This is my treat,” she announced as Louise re-joined us. “It’s my Christmas present. Let’s have a marvelous time, shall we? We’ll listen to the Coochie Brothers and let our cares just slip away. Don’t they sound good, though?”

Masochist that I am, I perked up my ears to better hear the uninspired strumming of the Hoochie Coochies as they sang “Camptown Races.” Some people in line behind us already seemed to be having the marvelous time Mother mentioned, doo-da-ing along at the appropriate intervals.

I whimpered only slightly and thanked her for her generosity before whispering to Wilson, “What are we going to do for Christmas gifts? Louise told me the other day, she’s taking the gang on a whale-watching tour Christmas day, Mother’s doing the luau, Chris the surfboards.” I cringed. “What about us?”

“What about us? You mean you don’t have a plan?”

“You mean you do?”

He grinned and told me he’d fill me in later.

“Who was on the phone?” I asked, but before he could answer we were distracted by the woman selling Holiday Hula tickets to my mother. She was wearing a grass skirt and—I swear to God—a bra made from coconut shells.

“Candy Poppe should try selling those at Tate’s,” Wilson said.

“Candy!” I exclaimed, recollecting my neighbor the bra-saleswoman and her temporary charges. “We need to call Candy and find out how the cats are doing.”

Wilson reminded me of the time difference, and I agreed to wait until morning as the luau-lady adorned us with leis. We women also were given flower garland crowns to wear for the evening, and thus we entered the fray.

***

Always one who thrives on the fray, Louise began mingling immediately, distributing her Bee Bee fliers throughout the crowd while the rest of us took a moment to get acclimated.

The scene was everything my mother could have hoped for and more. A section of the beach had been cordoned off with tiki torches and an array of hanging paper lanterns, but no one could miss where the action was—the enormous stage. Some drummers and a guy playing a string instrument I am not familiar with had joined the Hoochie Coochie Brothers. And a group of about twenty young hula-outfitted women took to the stage and started dancing to a tropical-sounding tune.

Wilson found my mother a chair, and she sat down to watch the show as a bare-chested young man literally bounced onto the stage in front of the dancers. He, too, wore a grass skirt, and—what was startling indeed—he carried four huge torches. Apparently unconcerned about the fire hazard, he commenced juggling the torches to the complete delight of my mother.

Dare I say, it really was a mesmerizing spectacle? After emitting a few gasps of my own, I made sure to thank Tessie again for her early Christmas gift. I glanced around at the vast crowd. “It looks like the entire island is here tonight.”

“Everyone comes out for the Holiday Hula at Halo,” Emi said and turned to Chris. “It’s fun being a spectator for a change. I’m usually one of them.” She gestured toward the stage, and Chris’s mouth dropped open.

“Don’t tell me you’re a hula dancer?” he asked and took an appreciative gander at Emi’s figure. Delta Touchette, eat your heart out.

“Pretty much all girls around here learn a little hula,” Emi explained. “I was in Hula Club in high school. Kind of nerdy, huh?”

“No!” Mother objected. “You must be very talented to put on a show like this.” She lifted both arms to the stage, where the women had been joined by a group of men, and all were in the midst of demonstrating the proper technique of a Limbo dance.

“You can do that?” Chris asked, clearly intrigued by all the writhing going on. One by one, the dancers sashayed their way across the stage and beneath the Limbo pole while the juggler did the fire-juggling thing above them.

“Yeah, I can do that.” Emi sighed. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, seeing how you spent the whole day with her, but so can Bethany Iverson. And Makaila. They were in Hula Club, too.”

Okay, now this was intriguing, but Wilson beat me to the questioning. “You girls went to school together, right?” he asked.

“They were two years ahead of me.”

“You’re all friends then?” I asked, wracking my brains as to how a high school hula club connection could have any bearing on Davy’s murder.

“To be honest, I never really liked Makaila,” Emi said. “She’s always been so melodramatic.”

I thought about the fainting spell scene at The Big House. “She did seem quite upset today,” I agreed.

“What about Bethany?” Wilson asked. “Were you friends with her?”

“Everyone liked Bethany. She’s so smart. And she was president of just about everything—Student Body, Hula Club, Kekipi Club—”

“Kekipi?” Chris interrupted, and Emi explained it was the hiking club.

She pointed to Wilson. “But remember your father likes hiking, too. You don’t need to be taking Bethany up the mountain.”

Chris grinned and announced he was starving. He grabbed Emi’s hand, and they set off to join the line for the buffet table. But Emi thought of something and came back to us. “Can we bring you a plate?” she asked my mother.