Aloha, Candy Hearts (34 page)

“That’s why she picked Walter Angel to leave it to in her will.

She trusted him to keep the secret.”

“When she found out she was dying, she pretty much had to concede that it was he, as new head archivist, who should take on the responsibility of deciding the future of the material.

Unfortunately, Walter in turn trusted the wrong person. He told Cenyk about the map, and that he was going to Victoria to retrieve it. Cenyk knew his only chance of getting his hands on it would be as soon as Angel stepped off that plane in Saskatoon. After that, Angel could hide the map and Cenyk would be no further ahead than he was when Helen was alive.”

“How much money is this stuff really worth? In terms of blackmail cash, I mean.”

Kirsch shrugged and handed back my nearly empty coffee cup. “Dunno. Cenyk suspected a lot. He suspected Helen was already blackmailing Durhuaghe—he didn’t know about the baby—but he did know that Sherry Klingskill was Sherry Fisher.

He thought that was how Helen could afford to retire early and live the good life on Vancouver Island. When she died, he decided it was his time for a slice of the pie.”

“He was wrong about that, you know.”

Kirsch nodded. “Still, he had to be furious when he found out that instead of him, Angel was now getting a chance at plucking the golden goose. He couldn’t take it. That’s when he decided to get the map no matter what, even if meant killing Angel in the process.

”But then along comes everyone’s favourite snoop, always managing to get himself stuck in the middle of whatever mess is going down. Angel probably saw Cenyk at the airport. Maybe Helen Crawford left him a note, or her sister talked to him, I don’t know, but he must have already begun to suspect Cenyk could be up to no good. He realized he needed to keep the map safe. So you DD6AA2AB8

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end up with it. Maybe Cenyk spotted the two of you together at the airport. When he finds the map isn’t in Angel’s possession, he somehow decides he has to go after you.”

I let out a nervous cough, and said, “There might have been a business card of mine in Angel’s pocket.”

“There ya go,” Kirsch said, as if he expected nothing less. “In the meantime, even without the journal and letters in hand, Cenyk can’t wait for a payday. He knows what’s in the journal, so he decides to try an opening gambit with Durhuaghe to see what he can get.”

“When he finds out I’ve solved the treasure map and found the journal…”

“At first he backs off, thinking the game is over, his chances gone…”

“…then I turn up at the archives to ask questions…”

“Yup, he knows it’s only a matter of time before even someone with your limited abilities figures out a connection. Russell Quant has got to die.”

“There’s only one thing I can’t understand.”

“Whazzat?”

“Why did Molly have to die?”

Kirsch frowned and gave me a quizzical look. “Molly? Who the hell is Molly?”

I looked down at my feet. “I loved that car.”

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

It took some practice to get the pebbles to hit the third floor window.

Tap.

A silhouette appeared. I knew it wasn’t Damien. I had seen him leave the wedding reception early. His working Sunday mornings was a bit of luck I intended to use to my benefit.

By the time things were wrapped up at the police station and I drove back out to Ash House, the party was long over. It was the DD6AA2AB8

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Anthony Bidulka

middle of the night. The clouds that had caused such havoc earlier in the evening had evaporated, leaving behind a peaceful, star-speckled sky. For the next couple of hours I toiled. And now I was ready.

I was standing in the middle of the backyard, near the pool. I raised my right arm and gave the dark shape in the window a jaunty wave.

At first there was no movement from the lone figure. Then his right hand rose and began to move in a hesitant wave back. He had a right to be cautious, suspicious.

I stepped on a button on a control panel at my feet, never taking my eyes off Ethan in the window. At the extreme far end of the yard the smallest of Sereena’s electric candy hearts lit up. “You’re Sweet,” it read.

Then another, bigger heart, lit up. “Hug Me.”

And another. And another.

On and on hearts lit up behind me, until all twenty-four of them, spread throughout the yard, were blazing, with me in the middle of them.

Another toe tap on the controls.

I’d hoisted, with great effort and near misfortune, the electron-ic message board into a tree. Because of the parking lot incident, my arm was in considerable pain, but I was determined. Nothing was going to stop me. I’d attached it to the side of the tree house Ethan had built for his daughter. It had taken me forever to figure the thing out, then forevermore to choose just the right words I needed Ethan to read that night.

SORRY 2 WAKE U, it began.

I KNOW MY TIMING SUCKS.

IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

YOUR NEW HOUSE IS IN SHAMBLES.

YOUR BACKYARD IS A MESS.

YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND.

I HAVE A FIANCÉ. Then came a lot of ellipses

……………………………………………followed by: BUT I AM IN

CRAZY LOVE WITH YOU ETHAN.

Another tap. The hearts began to flash on and off like some DD6AA2AB8

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wild valentine kaleidoscope. The light show was to give him a few seconds to digest what I’d just told him.

As I stood there, the absolute silence of the country night seemed impossibly inapt. With so much going on: the lights, the message board, the declaration of love, I would have expected the sound of blaring trumpets and crackling fireworks. But there was nothing. Just me in the dark, looking up at a man in a window, hoping.

I saw the figure move. My breath caught.

I watched as Ethan shifted from one side of the window to the next, almost as if he was pacing, uncertain of what to do. Can’t imagine why.

Another foot tap.

I EXPECT NOTHING FROM U.

I JUST WANTED U TO KNOW.

Another tap. The lights stopped flashing.

I APOLOGIZE TO U AND DAMIEN.

FOR BEING SUCH A JERK.

DOING THIS BEHIND HIS BACK.

IF U LOVE HIM.

I PROMISE TO LET THIS GO.

IF YOU DON’T…

Ellipses indicate the omission of words needed to make sense.

Perfect. Life, I’d come to realize, doesn’t always make sense.

Happy ever after isn’t always what you thought it would be.

Tap. The lights began a riotous dance, wildly flashing on and off to some rowdy, unheard rhythm, filling the yard with candy heart colours. And then I did what only the bravest of men have done before. In that shrivellingly cold night, I slooooowly stripped naked.

When I was done, I stood there, straight and proud, hands at my side. I gave the control board one last tap.

ETHAN…

WILL YOU TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH…

AND GO OUT WITH ME?

And with that, I performed a near perfect backflip into the icy pool behind me.

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Anthony Bidulka

Honolulu in late August is hot. Thirty degrees Celsius hot. That sounds even hotter when converted to eighty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. But I love the heat, so it didn’t bother me much.

Not surprisingly, Alex had sounded a bit taken aback by my request to meet on the island again so soon. I had to see him. I knew it wasn’t easy for him to get away. He could only commit to one night, then he’d have to catch a plane back to Australia.

I chose a spot we knew well. It was a picnic table just off the beach, in the Fort DeRussy park area between the Waikiki Shore Condo building and the Hale Koa military hotel. I told him I’d be there at seven p.m. sharp, long after the sunset watchers would have headed back inland for dinner. That way I knew we’d have some privacy.

At five-thirty p.m, as Alex’s plane landed, I was headed for the Daiei grocery store on Kaheka Street. I wanted to pick up a few supplies for our picnic, including some of his favourite marinated, fresh, raw fish poke.

With my nose pressed against the fish man’s glass display case, focused on deciding between the shoyu, kimchee or just plain ahi, I heard a loud crash behind me. I straightened myself and turned around to find that another shopper ’s cart had collided into mine.

“Sorry,” the man said, a big grin on his face.

“No problem,” I said distractedly. I was about to turn back to my selection process when I recognized the guy. “Hey, you did that on purpose.”

Kimo’s smile widened. His teeth were big and strong and daz-zlingly white. “Maybe. Who’s gonna prove it?”

“I’m a private detective,” I told him. “Sounds like a job right up my alley.”

“I’m a cop,” he shot back. “I could take you in for illegal parking of a shopping cart in the middle of a grocery store aisle.”

“Are you kidding me?” I complained in mock outrage. “I’m parked well to the side. There’s plenty of room for others to pass by. I think it’s you who should be charged for pushing a cart like it’s his first day behind the wheel.”

We stared at one another, each kind of dumbfounded at seeing one another again, and how happy we were that it happened.

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“I’m surprised to see you back on the island so soon,” Kimo said. “Don’t tell me it’s your honeymoon already.”

“Nah, nothing like that.” I made a show of peeking into his cart. All beer. No food. “You know they sell beer at the ABC store.

No need to pretend you’re shopping for bread and milk when all you’re doing is picking up party supplies.”

He laughed. “Visiting a buddy who lives near here. I don’t shop here usually.”

“Boyfriend kind of buddy?”

Kimo made a noise that sounded kind of animalistic. And sexy.

Then he asked, “Do you wanna get a drink or something?”

“I thought you were going visiting.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. How long you in Honolulu for?”

“I leave tomorrow, Mr. Kapachakalakawei.”

“Back to Saskachakalakawei?”

“You got it. Everything turn out okay with Huei?” That was the guy I’d helped Kimo and his partner take down at the airport.

“He’s taken up residence in a nice cell with a view.”

“You know what they say, no use staying in Hawaii without a view.”

“You’re different this time,” he said out of the blue, studying my face like he was seeing something there he hadn’t seen before.

“How do you mean?”

“You know, last time, when we met at the airport, and you told me you were getting married and all that? I doubted you, brah. But now, I got ya, I can see it.”

“See what?”

“You’re bad in love, brah. Baaaaad.”

“Yeah,” I told him. “I really am.”

Kimo gave me a wink and began to move away. “Too bad for me then. I’ll see you around, Russell. Aloha, my friend.”

“Aloha.”

I poured the last of the POG and vodka from the Thermos into my plastic cup at about ten o’clock. At first the passion-orange-guava concoction tasted fresh and tangy, now it was warm and sickly DD6AA2AB8

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sweet. The outside temperature had settled into a comfortable mid-seventies.

I sipped my drink and gazed at the water, even though with the sky so dark I could barely make out where sand met ocean. The beach and sidewalk had grown busy again with diners returning to their beachside hotels and lovers taking romantic strolls along the crashing surf. Everybody had somebody.

Except me.

I was alone. My sad little picnic sat uneaten. I’d been stood up.

Alex Canyon never showed up. Somehow he’d figured it out.

Somehow he’d known this impromptu get-together I’d arranged was for me to give him back his engagement ring. To end our relationship. Maybe he’d called Sereena, or Anthony, and they’d said something by mistake. Or on purpose? It didn’t matter now.

I fought back tears and wondered if I’d made the right decision, asking him to come all this way, only to tell him it was over?

Now here I was, sitting on my own, looking like a loser, feeling like stink. Feeling…heartbroken. Did I even have the right to feel heartbroken? I’d come to Hawaii to break up with him, yet I was feeling like he broke my heart? Alberta might say this was karma taking a nice big bite out of my ass.

Despite it all, I knew I’d done the right thing. I’d done the best I could in a bad situation. This wasn’t something to be done over the telephone or with a pithy email. I owed Alex that much. I owed telling him face to face that I loved him. Just not enough.

In planning this, I never thought beyond saying those words to him. I thought about it now. Would we sit and have a good cry together? Probably not. Would he yell and scream at me for being such an asshole? Not his style. Would he take the ring and toss it into the ocean, a dramatic gesture symbolizing how I was throwing away our relationship? Nah. He would have simply gotten up, kissed me once on the cheek, wished me well, and walked off into the sunset. I’d never see him again. And I would cry.

But none of that had happened. Instead, there I sat. All alone on my picnic bench. A bit unsteady from too much vodka and POG. A tropical breeze played with my hair and filled my nose with smells of the sea. I watched people passing by, hand in hand, DD6AA2AB8

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arm in arm, in love. People who weren’t me.

And suddenly I realized something surprising.

I was happy.

I was unafraid.