Banana Split (16 page)

“You’re a woman. You’re not government. You’re safe.”

“I’m malihini. I’m haole. I’m . . . anxious.”

“It’s our best bet,” he said, resting his fork and knife on the edges of his plate. “Look, if Charlie ran and CeeCee didn’t report it, she knows she’s in big trouble, and so is Charlie. She could lose her certification. Charlie will go to detention if that happens, probably on O’ahu, and the hard things he’s dealing with will get a whole lot worse. Right now there’s still a good chance she’ll be able to adopt Charlie.”

“Except that she lied to the social worker who would be a key person in recommending the adoption take place, right?”

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Mr. Olie said. “The letter of the law isn’t always the right choice, but she won’t take the chance of trusting me
not
to follow the rules because I have the power to stop the adoption completely.”

“So, if I get the information from her, you won’t write her up or whatever you would do?”

“That depends on what happened, and why she lied. I need to understand her motives . . . without also putting myself at risk of being taken off her case.”

“For not reporting what you know.”

“What she would
know
I know,” he clarified. “By not confiding in me, she doesn’t know I’m aware of what’s going on, and I don’t worry about her going around me.”

“To your superiors,” Sadie said, filling in the blanks.

Mr. Olie nodded.

She held his eyes for a minute. “Why trust me? You don’t even know me.”

“You didn’t call the police about Charlie, and you came to Lihue to talk to me. I think our goals are aligned. We both want to know Charlie’s safe and ensure that he stays that way. I need to know why CeeCee lied to me in order to properly assess the situation, but I can’t ask her myself.”

Sadie nodded, but found it difficult to swallow her bite of pancake. She’d talked to a lot of different types of people over the last year and a half as she pieced together different mysteries. She knew how to do it, and she had rarely been nervous in the past, surely she could do it again. She took a deep breath and lifted her head, determined to appear confident and capable, even if internally she questioned both of those things.

“Can I ask one more question?”

Though he didn’t nod, he didn’t tell her no either.

“What were the special circumstances that brought Noelani and Charlie to Kaua’i?”

He looked down at his plate and took a bite before he answered. “You already know Charlie was removed from his mother’s care two years ago when she was arrested. Her brother was the only local relative DHS felt was capable of caring for him, so Charlie went to live with him while she served her time. Six months into the placement, a few weeks before Noelani was going to be released, the brother was arrested for child abuse.”

“Against Charlie?” Sadie said, a lump in her throat.

“Some,” he said. “Mostly his own boy, but Charlie got a fair amount as well. A neighbor had called the caseworker months earlier, but she didn’t follow up the way she should have. She had almost twice the cases she should have been carrying at the time. Charlie was put in foster care after his uncle’s arrest. Due to the circumstances of Noelani’s arrest and parole, Charlie couldn’t be returned to her custody immediately upon her release. She was determined to get her son back, however, and the state made some accommodations because of what had happened with her brother. We had a very specific set of guidelines and timelines that would put her and Charlie back together again—including rehab, parenting classes, gainful employment, and community involvement. The state felt that having her and Charlie both come to Kaua’i and work with a new caseworker—me—and a new judge would create a better environment for her to meet the goals we set before her.”

Sadie tried to hide her surprise at the flood of information. It felt like wonderful progress in regard to their relationship. “Are those circumstances part of why you’re giving CeeCee the benefit of the doubt and working so hard to figure out what happened?”

Mr. Olie nodded. “It doesn’t happen very often,” he said. “But in this situation, the state of Hawai’i really hurt Charlie and, in the process, Noelani too. I worked hard to try to rebuild that trust, and now Charlie’s the only one left to make things up to.”

“Officer Wington, the officer I talked to this morning, said something about having met Noelani before all this happened. Do you know what that was about?”

Mr. Olie bobbed his head. “A few months after she finished rehab, a guy she’d gone through the program with was picked up for distribution. He tried to finger some of the other people from the rehab as his accomplices. Noelani was one of them, and, because of her history, she was considered a person of interest for awhile. In the end, the guy recanted and admitted he’d named those people he’d had conflicts with. I guess Noelani had turned him in for stashing beer in his room during treatment. She had nothing to do with the drug deals.”

“I see,” Sadie said. “Was she upset they questioned her?”

“Very. She wasn’t very trusting of police, or anyone in authority really, and that certainly didn’t help. I hope the officer you spoke to didn’t imply she had some involvement in that.”

“No,” Sadie said. “He just mentioned he knew her before is all. I wondered why.”

They were both quiet for a few seconds, then Sadie pulled her confidence together, took a deep breath and offered a smile as Mr. Olie leaned back in his chair and fully enjoyed his final bite.

“I’m ready when you are,” she said.

Macadamia Nut Pancakes with Coconut Syrup

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups buttermilk or sour milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup macadamia nuts, chopped

Coconut Syrup

1 (14-ounce) can of coconut milk

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Heat griddle or frying pan to medium-high heat. Combine all dry ingredients in one bowl, whisk together. Add wet ingredients and stir together to form a batter, adding more flour or water to get the right consistency. Add nuts, and mix to combine. Spray heated griddle or frying pan with nonstick spray, or lightly brush with butter or vegetable oil. Drop batter by one-third cup portions onto hot, greased pan. Cook 2 to 3 minutes or until edges of pancakes are dry. Turn pancakes and cook 1 to 2 additional minutes, or until cooked through. Remove to a plate and butter immediately.

To make syrup, strain coconut solids from the coconut milk. Save 1/2 cup of the resulting coconut water and combine with sugar in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil. Simmer about 5 minutes, or until mixture begins to thicken. Add coconut solids and simmer another 2 to 3 minutes, until mixture is combined and smooth. Add sea salt and vanilla. Stir to combine flavors. Serve over hot, buttered pancakes. (You can also use traditional maple syrup with macadamia nut pancakes.)

Serves 6.

Note: For a thicker syrup, make a slurry from 1 teaspoon cornstarch and 1 tablespoon coconut water, add with solids.

Note: Add 1 ripe mashed banana to batter for Banana Macadamia Nut Pancakes.

Chapter 17

Kalaheo was bigger than Puhi, but not close to a larger town like Lihue was, thus a bit more self-sustaining. Where was the motel where Noelani lived and worked? Did she and Charlie see each other often? Was being able to be in the same town part of the special conditions of their situation with DHS?

Mr. Olie dropped Sadie off at a street corner and pointed to a café where they’d meet when she finished. She looked at the two-story cement apartment building on the right, painted bright blue. The white railing on the stairs and the balcony was pockmarked with rust. Power lines hung heavily across the street, connecting to a ramshackle hut across from the apartments that was surrounded by a weathered wooden fence. A couple of chickens pecked at the dirt, and Sadie reviewed the instructions Mr. Olie had given her when he dropped her off a block away.
First yellow house on the right after the two-story blue apartments.

It took another minute to reach the foster home, and Sadie inhaled the heavy scent in the air—sweet, fruity, but yeasty too. She couldn’t be certain it was coming from Charlie’s foster home, but in case it was, she wished she was coming on behalf of a more social visit. It smelled delicious.

Sadie walked up the somewhat overgrown flagstone path. It was a nice plantation-style home painted bright yellow with green trim. Two rocking chairs sat on a large wraparound wooden deck. A hedge skirted the property, and hibiscus bushes lined the front of the house while Mount Wai’ale’ale rose behind it. Yellow flowers with red centers, called Hula Girls, were scattered here and there around the yard and matched the house, further emphasizing the cheery look of the home.

A tiny rooster came around the corner of the house, one of the thousands of feral animals on the island. Without natural predators, chickens, goats, wild pigs, and cat populations were out of control. Tanya had a trapping company that took care of the cats around the condos—spaying or neutering them before rereleasing them—and Sadie hadn’t had any run-ins with the pigs or goats since she stayed away from the mountains. She didn’t mind the chickens, though; they were kind of cute. This one had a rust-colored head, black body, and a cream-colored tail that arched nearly to the ground. Classy . . . for poultry, anyway.

Sadie walked up the concrete steps. A twelve-inch plastic butterfly was mounted on the front door beside a nameplate that read “Kahuali.” Sadie knocked on the door before taking a step back. She took a deep breath, planning how she was going to go about this, anticipating the reaction of Charlie’s foster mother, and praying for a little help in knowing exactly how to move forward. Her goal was simple—find out why CeeCee Kahuali had lied to the social worker who considered her one of his best foster homes. No problem, right?

All her words stuck in her throat, however, when the door opened and none other than Charlie himself looked up at her, his wide eyes going even wider as Sadie blinked at him. They stared at each other for a few seconds until Sadie found her voice.

“Charlie?” she breathed. “Uh, how—”

“Who is it, Charlie?”

The woman’s voice pulled Sadie’s attention away from Charlie, and she looked up as a top-heavy woman wearing an apron over a tank top and casual knee-length skirt approached from behind him. She was older than Sadie had expected, possibly older than Sadie herself, and was drying her hands on a dish towel as she approached them. When she arrived at the door, she placed one hand on Charlie’s shoulder like any mother would. She was an over-tanned Caucasian with somewhat frizzy bottle-blonde hair, mostly covered by a turquoise bandana that matched her skirt. She had green eyes and pronounced crow’s feet when she smiled, revealing a gap between her two front teeth that was very Lauren Bacall, island-style.

“Aloha,” she said, inclining her head slightly.

“Aloha,” Sadie replied automatically.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh,” Sadie hedged, trying to remember why she was there. “I, uh, wondered if I could talk to you for a few minutes.” She tried to ignore Charlie’s expression of fear. Her heart tightened. Was her coming here going to get him in trouble? What if she did or said something that made everything worse? Then again, maybe he needed to get in trouble. Just not too much. Her discomfort seemed to pull her anxiety out of hiding. She didn’t know how to move forward; it all felt so awkward.