03 - Three Odd Balls (8 page)

“Chris knows that,” I tried reassuring her. “Remember he said this part of the beach has the calmest waves?” I cringed as a rather un-calm wave crashed before us. “Something about an offshore coral reef,” I added weakly.

Louise took a deep breath. “Whatever happens, promise me a bucketful of pink drinks afterwards?”

I reminded her the pink drinks were Davy’s secret recipe. “We may never see another Pele’s Melee.”

“What!? After learning how to swim and surf? All in one day?” Louise snorted and started walking. “Trust me, Babe, there are pink drinks in my future. I’ll make them myself if need be.”

“Merry Christmas!” Chris called out as we approached. I do believe he was actually smiling.

And of course, my mother was positively aglow. She gestured toward the boards. “Chris rented these for the whole week. Isn’t that a thoughtful gift, girls?”

“Thoughtful,” Louise and I mumbled in unison.

Chris pointed down the beach. “The lady at Folly Rentals couldn’t believe it when I told her how old you guys are. But I said we’d have some fun anyway.”

“Fun.” Louise and I blinked at the surfboards looming before us.

“She couldn’t believe where we’re staying, either,” he continued.

I tore my eyes from the surfboards. “She heard about the murder?”

“She says it’s gonna hurt Buster and Ki more than all the other stuff combined.”

“What other stuff?”

“How should I know?” he said impatiently. “Something about a Rachel Somebody.”

“Rachel Somebody Who?” I persisted, but Wilson came over and put his arm around me.

“Leave it, please,” he whispered. He pointed to Chris’s board and spoke up. “Why’s yours smaller than the rest?” he asked. “Shouldn’t Tessie’s be the smallest?”

“These are long boards,” my mother the would-be surfing expert stepped forward to explain. “They’re what we beginners are supposed to use. Isn’t that right, Chris?” She gave one of the boards an affectionate tap. “Can I have this one? It’s so shiny.”

I grimaced at Tessie’s shiny surfboard and bit my tongue. The woman was a broken bone waiting to happen, but who was I to deny my eighty-two-year-old mother any joy, thrill, or adventure she wanted to try?

Chris assigned the rest of us our boards. We were then instructed to lay them in the sand, and to lie ourselves, stomach-sides down, onto said boards.

“And here I thought surfing involved water and waves and such,” Louise whispered to me as we got into position. “This isn’t so bad after all.”

It got bad soon enough, however, when our lesson involved repetitious attempts to move from the lying-on-our-stomachs position, to the squatting-on-our-toes position. We were supposed to accomplish this feat all in one fell and graceful swoop. No, really.

“Do a push-up and quick pull your feet up underneath your hips. Like this.” Chris demonstrated the maneuver several times. Mother smiled, Wilson looked mildly interested, and Louise and I frowned. Then we all lay back down and tried again.

Wilson got the hang of it pretty quickly, which I chalked up to upper body strength. But Louise, who is a little plump and not exactly the epitome of physical fitness, was also up and squatting soon afterwards. No offense to Louise, but that was altogether aggravating. Here I keep myself slim and trim, and do hours of yoga every week for strength and balance, and I was the one struggling alongside my very elderly mother?

For better or worse, Chris was a patient teacher. He had us two less-adept pupils stand up and watch again, and this time Wilson and Louise joined him in the demonstration. Indeed, the synchronized surfboard dancing was a rather entertaining spectacle. Mother and I tried again, and finally, finally, we sort of, kind of, got the hang of it.

Speaking of spectacles, Chris announced it was time to catch some waves. He tossed Louise a life jacket. “This will give you confidence,” he told her. “And salt water is really easy to stay afloat in.”

“And remember we have that nice coral reef to keep us safe,” Mother added.

“Fantastical,” Louise said. She donned her jacket, picked up her board, and stalwartly headed out to sea.

“You’re next, Jessie.” Chris waved toward the ocean in case I had forgotten where it was. I smiled wanly and took the plunge.

The first wave crashed over me, taking with it all the sunscreen I had so carefully been applying all day. But no, not all the sunscreen. A goodly portion of it ended up in my eyes. Semi-blinded, I reminded myself I had always enjoyed frolicking in the ocean. But then another wave landed on top of me, and my head hit my surfboard. Or maybe my surfboard hit my head. Frolicking, I reminded myself as I desperately tried to get the stupid thing underneath me.

Have I mentioned upper body strength? While I struggled solo to catch a wave, Chris and Wilson made valiant efforts to move my mother, Louise, and their surfboards out to the breakwater point. Eventually we were all out far enough to really injure ourselves.

We puttered about to no avail whatsoever as Chris demonstrated various positions and techniques. At least Wilson caught on to a few basic maneuvers. He had even managed the squatting position a few times when Louise screamed how tired she was getting. I turned and searched for my mother.

Bless her heart, Tessie was trying her hardest, but clearly the woman was tuckered out. I motioned to Wilson, he got his son’s attention, and while the two of them worked to get her safely into shore, I helped Louise. The going got much easier once I mentioned a bucketful of Pele’s Melees. We practically raced each other toward dry sand.

Chapter 8

I might have been exhausted from the late afternoon surfing lesson, but the Hawaiian shirt Wilson donned after our showers woke me right up.

“We need to go back to Shynomore and get more of these,” he told my reflection as I stepped out of the bathtub. He pointed proudly to his chest, where a plethora of red, orange, and pink bicycles paraded about. “I can’t believe I only bought two last night.” He gave himself another admiring glance in the mirror. “What was I thinking?”

“Perhaps you weren’t,” I suggested.

I was slipping into my own evening attire, a sundress, which I do believe was the epitome of understatement, when my cell phone rang. A blast from real life, it was Karen Sembler, calling from North Carolina. Another of my neighbors, Karen had back-up duty in the cat care project.

“Girlfriend!” she greeted me. “How’s Hawaii?”

“Beautiful except for the dead guy.” I stretched out on top of the bed. “And if I have to endure another surfing lesson, I may end up joining him.”

“Did you just say, dead guy?”

“Don’t ask,” I said and calculated the time difference.“How are the cats, Karen? Where’s Candy? Is Snowflake okay?”

Karen reported that Candy was working late. “Be thankful you’re not here, Jess. Tate’s is having their annual blow-out bra sale. Kiddo bought me this hideous red and green thing last night and threatened to bring home the matching panties tonight.”

“And the cats?” I asked. “Is everyone okay?”

“No one’s dead yet,” was Karen’s less than reassuring answer. Then she filled me in on the details—Snowflake and Bernice had been hissing at each other since we left. “The little black cat isn’t too worried,” she said, “but it’s starting to get to Kiddo and me. Any ideas what we should do?”

“I thought Candy was going to keep Bernice and Wally down at her place if need be?”

“She did that last night. But you and Wilson are gonna be together forever, right? So these cats have to get used to each other, right?”

I scowled at my beau, who was now standing at the closet admiring his small but alarming collection of Hawaiian shirts.

“Maybe,” I said quietly.

“So what’s the son like, Jess? He ready for a new mom?”

“He likes me about as much as Snowflake likes Bernice.”

“Oh boy.”

I got back to the topic at hand and mentioned how Snowflake and Bernice both enjoy snuggling and cuddling. “Maybe if one of you slept at my place, the cats would all end up on the bed together. Maybe even happily.”

“I’ll run downstairs and get my jammies after we hang up.”

Dear Karen. I thanked her for her efforts, apologized for the inconvenience, and told her where to find fresh sheets. “It could backfire,” I warned. “They could keep you up all night.”

“We’ll be fine,” she insisted. “But Snowflake sure misses you.”

I pictured my feline muse and smiled. “What’s she doing?”

“When she’s not hissing at the fat cat, she sits on your desk and stares at your empty chair.”

“Tell her
My South Pacific Paramour
is coming along quite nicely.”

“Huh?”

“Tell Snowflake not to fret—Urquit Snodgrass will not get the better of Delta Touchette.”

“Huh?”

“Snowflake,” I repeated. “Tell her not to let Bernice get the better of her.”

“And vice-versa,” Wilson mumbled.

***

“Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You want pink drinks.” The person manning the tiki bar looked up from the tattered index card he was studying and frowned. “And you have no idea how Davy made them, and you have no idea why he died in your mother’s bungalow. Am I right?”

More or less. Wilson and I ignored the frown, flinched only slightly as the new bartender slammed his notes onto the bar, and plopped ourselves onto two barstools.

It seemed unnecessary, but we introduced ourselves anyway, and Wilson held out his hand. “You must be Buster’s brother?”

“Ki Okolo. You guys want some Pele’s Melees or not?”

We nodded, and Mr. Congeniality grinned ominously. “Guinea pigs,” he said and started pouring ingredients willy-nilly into the blender. “Those are all the instructions my damn brother could find in the damn files.” He jerked his head at the card, and I noticed the list of ingredients—no measurements whatsoever.

I watched dubiously as a generous portion of vodka got dumped into the mix. “I understand Davy was quite secretive about his recipe,” I said. “Did you know him well?”

“Duh.”

“For how long?” Wilson asked.

Ki reached for the rum. “Since I was in high school. Everyone knew Davy.”

“High school?” Wilson squinted. “Didn’t you and Buster just buy this place?”

“Inherited.”

“From your parents?”

“Duh. From my grandfather Pono.”

“Pono-Pono, Pono-Pono.” Bee Bee swooped in and landed at the edge of the bar.

Ki snarled. “We inherited him, too. Stupid bird’s gonna outlive us all.” He flipped the “On” switch. Bee Bee squawked in surprise, but recovered quickly, and proceeded to imitate the blender.

It was a surprisingly entertaining racket. When Ki realized he wasn’t annoying us nearly as much as he might have hoped, he turned off the machine. Bee Bee shut up also and waddled over to the index card.

“Don’t you dare!” Ki yanked the card from under the bird’s beak and jammed it into the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. Then he poured out two glasses of pinkish stuff, shoved the glasses in our direction, and waited until we hazarded tentative sips.

I coughed hardly at all, wiped the tears from under my eyes, and waved a hand at the surrounding gardens. “This is quite an inheritance,” I said once I had sufficiently recovered my voice. “It’s lovely.”

“It’s a pain in the butt.” Ki brandished the bitters bottle and dumped some in the blender. “I wanted to sell the place, but my stupid brother’s convinced he’s some great entrepreneur. ‘Owning the Wakilulani Gardens will be perfect,’ he says to me. ‘I’ll do all the work,’ he says to me. ‘You can be the silent partner. Stay with Carmen and rake in the cash.’” Ki stopped and glared. “You can see how well that worked.”

“Who’s Carmen?” Wilson beat me to the question.

“My girlfriend,” Ki answered. “Where I’d be right now if I wasn’t enjoying your company so much.” He pointed to our beverages. “You guys aren’t drinking.”

Wilson frowned at his glass. “It’s,” he hesitated, “interesting.”

Ki looked at me.

“Umm,” I said. “I don’t think you got the proportions exactly right.”

He slammed his palms on the bar. “Well, gee thanks, lady. I’ll be sure to put pink drinks on my list of problems to solve, shall I? Right before Derrick Crowe and right after people getting killed.” He grabbed the rum bottle and was about to splash more into his blender, but Wilson leaned over the bar and stopped him.

“People?” he asked. “Who else got killed?” Apparently my beau the cop had forgotten all about our plan to leave things to Vega.

Ki told Wilson not to get excited. “We only have one murder on our hands. You happy now, Sherlock?” He added the extra rum and turned the blender back on.

I leaned over and switched it off.

“Do you, or do you not, want me to get this right, lady?”

“Who’s Derrick Crowe?” I asked.

“Duh! Like, maybe the chef?” Ki shook his head at my obtuseness. “He’s disappeared off the face of the earth.” He resumed blending, much to Bee Bee’s delight. “Luckily I found Bethany,” he shouted over the noise.

“Bethany?” I asked as the noise subsided. “Did she replace Mr. Crowe?”

“Nooo.” Ki continued shaking his head in disgust.

“Makaila Isiano’s the new chef,” Wilson, who never forgets a name, reminded me. “Bethany was our waitress last night.”

Ki topped off our glasses. “Bethany found us Makaila. The girl’s a gem.”

“Girl’s a gem, girl’s a gem, girl’s a g—”

“As is your new chef,” I interrupted Bee Bee. “Our first dinner here was terrific.”

Ki smirked. “Gee thanks. I’ll sleep better just knowing you’re satisfied.”

Why was I even trying to be pleasant to this obnoxious jerk? I leaned forward, gearing up to tell Ki exactly what I thought of him and his supposed Pele’s Melees, but Wilson stopped me.

He laid a gentle but firm hand on my knee. “Speaking of sleep,” he said to Ki. “Where were you last night?”

“What? Are you a cop now?”

“Yep.”

“A little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you, Sherlock?”

“Yep. Where were you?”

Ki blinked at Bee Bee, but the bird failed to produce an answer.

“I live with Carmen on the other side of the island,” Ki finally informed us. “You know? Over in Nettles Corner? Where no damn tourist dares to tread?”