Banana Split (32 page)

“Do you think something happened to Noelani that night?” Kiki asked Sadie, point-blank. “Do you think someone hurt her?”

Sadie thought about the question. “I don’t know,” she said, barely above a whisper. “She told her pastor she was worried about staying clean and that she wondered if Charlie was better off in foster care. . . . But she was working so hard. As I started asking people questions about her, they started hedging. People with nothing to hide don’t play games like that. Someone locked me in the storage closet, and someone trashed my room. In my mind that means someone knows something they don’t want me to find.”

“Noelani
was
doing everything right. The more I’ve thought about it, the more convinced I am that she didn’t overdose like everyone says. I think it was something else.”

She stopped talking and leaned back in her chair, her dark eyes intent on Sadie’s face.

Sadie let Kiki’s words wash over her, then looked back at the notebook. “Okay,” she said, knowing she was jumping right back in with both feet. How could she not? “Let’s start with the night Noelani disappeared. Had you seen her that day, before you came in to cover for her?”

Kiki took a breath. “Angela was out of town; her cousin was getting married on the Mainland and she’d flown out for it. That left Court, Noelani, and me to run the desk. I worked from six in the morning to two in the afternoon that day and was exhausted by the time Noelani brought my car back from her visit with Charlie.”

“What time did she get back?”

“She got to my apartment around six that evening,” Kiki said. “I drove her back to the motel and dropped her off. That would have been about 6:15, I guess.”

“How did she seem?”

“Distracted,” Kiki said. “Worried.”

“Did she say why?”

“No, and I didn’t really ask. I was on the phone with my sister most of the drive back. When we got there, Noelani thanked me for the car and headed for her room. She worked at ten but said she had some sheets to fold that she hadn’t finished that morning.”

“I understand her visit with Charlie that day was a last-minute thing,” Sadie said, reflecting on what Jim had said about accommodating it.

“She usually got her time with Charlie on Wednesdays,” Kiki explained. “But on Friday, her caseworker had told her she could increase to six hours of unsupervised visitation, split up between two days. Noelani jumped all over it, and she set up a time for Saturday, then had to scramble to figure out how to make it work. Typically we work eight-hour shifts at the front desk—six to two, two to ten, ten to six. The three of us had all worked five days in a row, we were all tired, and Noelani had housekeeping in the morning and then the two-to-ten shift Saturday afternoon. She wanted to trade shifts with Court—Court works graves because of her kids—but she still had housekeeping the next morning and the front desk at two o’clock on Sunday.” She shook her head. “It was crazy; she’d get no sleep. I told her to put off the visitation, but then Jim approved switching the shifts so long as Noelani could come in at nine. Noelani was determined to make it all fit. She didn’t want to miss her chance at the extra visitation.”

“What time did she call you about covering for her that night?”

“Ten thirty,” Kiki said. “I was scheduled to work at six Sunday morning so I was just getting to bed when she asked me to come in and work her shift for a few hours. I told her I couldn’t. She said it was really important.”

Sadie was falling into her groove. The knot in her stomach was barely noticeable, and she knew that, at least in part, her ability to continue was due to Gayle’s silent support from the chair next to her. “Did she say what
it
was?”

Kiki shook her head. “No, all she said was that it was important and had something to do with Charlie.”

“Did something happen at the visit, I wonder?” Sadie mused, writing down the question. Kiki had said Noelani had seemed distracted and worried when she had returned her car.

“She didn’t say anything about that, but she sounded really worried. Really . . . intense. When I got there around eleven, she promised me it would only be an hour—two hours max. She’d done most of the side work and said she’d pick up coffee while she was out. She’d given me money for the gas she’d used earlier that day for the visit with Charlie, but I hadn’t taken time to fill up my car ’cause I had enough to get to work and back the next day. She said she’d fill it up for me.”

“Did she use your car a lot?”

“Not too often,” Kiki said. “Just for visits with Charlie. She walked or took the bus everywhere else.”

“Do you know what they did on their visit?”

Kiki nodded. “Movie and ice cream, I think. At least that was her plan when she picked up my car. They didn’t ever do fancy things. Noelani was saving up for an apartment. She was looking forward to it so much. She lived for those visits.”

“What did you think when she didn’t come back?”

“I was mad,” she said, adjusting her position in the chair. “I hadn’t worked a graveyard in months. Since getting pregnant, I’m lucky to get through the day without a nap. I started calling her cell phone at twelve thirty to find out when she was coming back. I bet I called it a hundred times. Jim came in Sunday morning; I was so tired I felt like I was going to throw up. He was so mad.” She tightened her jaw again and smoothed her sundress over her legs.

“He told me he wrote you up for it.”

“Jerk,” Gayle said under her breath before taking a drink of her water.

Kiki nodded. “He runs a tight ship, that’s how he says it—‘I run a tight ship. Toe the line or walk the plank.’” She lowered her voice as though mimicking his tone.

“Harsh,” Sadie said, writing
walk the plank
in her notebook. It was an aggressive term and supported Sadie’s opinion that Jim was a ruthless employer.

Kiki continued. “Court was able to take the rest of the morning shift so I could sleep, but then Jim called me when Noelani didn’t show up for her afternoon shift.”

“Were you worried about her?”

“Not at first,” Kiki said, though she seemed to feel bad about admitting it. “Then they found my car out of gas up by Wailua. I had to pay almost $150 to get it out of the impound lot, and although I was still really mad, I was worried about Noelani by that time. She was always real grateful for using my car, ya know, and to leave it on the side of the road like that just felt off.”

“Did you think she’d gone on a binge?” Sadie asked.

Kiki hesitated, then nodded. “It was the only theory anyone had, and I thought we were good enough friends that she’d have contacted me if it was anything else. She was so anti-drug, anti-2450; she didn’t even drink anymore. She made me promise I’d never smoke another joint as long as I lived. She said you’d never know when you’d reach the point of no return. That’s what she called it—the point of no return.”

“That meant addiction?”

“Yeah,” Kiki said. “She told me how when she started it was just partying and stuff, ya know—kid’s stuff. And then she said it was like one day she partied, same as usual, and the next morning she woke up and had meth for breakfast. After that, she couldn’t start her day without it. She got into stripping ’cause that was the only job she could get that would pay for the drugs, and that led to more drugs. And now she was trying to clean up the mess she’d made for Charlie.” Kiki looked at her hands and paused before continuing. “But then the police found the pot in her stuff.”

“Her room was unattended for a little while, though, right? A day or two before it was packed up?” Sadie said.

“You think someone might have planted the marijuana?” Gayle asked, interjecting herself into the conversation.

Sadie shrugged. “Maybe. The chain of custody wouldn’t have started until the police had hold of the evidence, and since Jim moved Noelani’s things
before
he gave everything to the police, it’s possible someone could have tampered with it along the way.”

“Chain of what?” Gayle asked.

“Chain of custody. It’s a log of who handles evidence and why, where, and for how long. It ensures that if needed in court, the police can prove where the evidence has been and why so as not to interfere with the probative value.”

Both Kiki and Gayle looked at her with surprise. Sadie blushed. “I watch a lot of crime TV, or at least I used to.”

“Uh-huh,” Gayle said, giving Sadie a doubtful look. “And you’re hot and heavy with a police detective that probably sweet talks the lingo in your ear for fun.”

“What?” Kiki asked, looking concerned.

“The police detective lives in Colorado,” Sadie hurried to clarify. “Not here, and he has nothing to do with this.” She gave Gayle a hard look. She was messing with Sadie’s groove, which was just beginning to feel comfortable again. She cleared her throat and got her thoughts back on track.

“Did Jim get along with Noelani?”

Kiki shrugged. “He didn’t
not
get along with her. He treated her like he treats the rest of us.”

“Controlling and rude?” Gayle interjected.

“Well, yeah,” Kiki said. “That’s just how he is, but he wasn’t different with Noelani.”

“What about Bets?” Sadie said. “Jim’s different with her.”

Kiki immediately looked down at her fingers in her lap.

“There’s something between them, isn’t there?”

“I don’t know,” Kiki said, but she didn’t meet Sadie’s eyes. “They talk a lot.”

“Alone in his office?” Sadie asked. “Like this morning?”

Kiki nodded. “Sometimes she comes over to use the pool, and he’ll talk to her outside, but when she’s not around, he acts like he’s annoyed with her.”

“What do you mean?”

“He talks about how she’s always interrupting him or that she’s pathetic.”

“Pathetic?” Gayle repeated. “That’s a strong word.”

Kiki shrugged. “It’s weird ’cause when she’s there, he acts like they’re friends, but when she’s not there, he acts like he can’t stand her.”

“Have you ever thought they were having an affair?” Sadie asked, though it sounded like a strange question to ask after what Kiki had just said. “Maybe he was pretending to dislike her around people in order to hide it.”

Kiki looked uncomfortable. “I’ve never, you know, caught them together or anything.”

“But she could come and go from his apartment without you knowing it.”

“And maybe swipe a master key card as well,” Gayle added, raising an eyebrow.

She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling a little too much for Sadie’s taste. It was important to stay neutral and not jump to conclusions, and yet Sadie had been working off of a theory the whole time.

“What if Noelani saw them together and left that night to confront Bets about it, or to tell Pastor Darryl?” Gayle asked.

Kiki looked a little taken aback. Sadie frowned and directed her question to Gayle. “Why would she borrow Kiki’s car to drive half a block away?”

“And there’s a back way between the motel and the church,” Kiki added. “Plus, what would that have to do with Charlie?”

“What did she say about Charlie?” Sadie asked. “Do you remember the
exact
words she used?”

Kiki looked at the floor, her brow wrinkled in concentration. “When I explained to her that I had to work in the morning and couldn’t come in for her, she said ‘If it weren’t for Charlie, I wouldn’t ask you to do this.’”

“‘If it weren’t for Charlie, I wouldn’t ask you to do this,’” Sadie repeated, writing it down in her notes.

“I asked her what was going on, and she said she didn’t want to say anything, just in case she was wrong.”

Sadie wrote that down too. “So she was checking up on something she didn’t know was true or not,” Sadie summarized.

“I guess,” Kiki said.

“What about Noelani and Pastor Darryl?” Sadie asked, figuring she might as well lay all the cards on the table. “Jim seems to think
they
were having an affair.”

“I don’t know about that either,” Kiki said, but she shifted in a way that bespoke a new tension.

Chapter 35