Bet Your Bones (13 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Claude Ann had booked a hair appointment in Hilo for herself and Marywave and she was raring to be on her way. Dinah had no chance to speak with her alone. Xander had arranged a car for her and glued himself to her side as they walked through a mizzling rain to the Hertz lot.

Dinah poked her head under the umbrella Xander held over Claude Ann’s head. “You can’t drive with your arm in a sling, Claudy. I’ll drive you.”

“The sling’s just ‘cause my shoulder’s sore. See?” She slipped her arm free and moved her arm up and down. “This little cast won’t keep me from steerin’ straight. You go on with Jon.”

Xander said to Dinah, “I’ve assigned Jon the job of transporting the luggage and wedding paraphernalia and, of course, yourself to his place in Volcano. We’ll camp with Jon tonight because Volcano’s closer to the wedding site. You’ll have your own cabin and nothing to do but relax until the party tonight.”

“Fine.” Dinah thought it something of a solecism to lump the maid of honor in with the wedding paraphernalia, but that was the least of his sins. “Claude Ann, my only dress was totaled in the blood bath last night. Let me go with you into town to buy another one.”

“Not all of my clothes were ruined and I’ve got a couple of dresses that’ll fit you just fine. Don’t worry about anything except how you’re gonna safety-pin me into my weddin’ dress. This cast will never fit into the sleeve. Do you think we could slit open the seam and Velcro the thing closed around this cast? Oh, nevermind. It’s no biggie. We’ll make it work.”

Xander stopped next to a blue Buick and opened the driver’s door for Claude Ann. He kissed her, helped her into the car, and stood back. “Be careful, darling.”

“I will. Come on, Marywave. Hop in, baby. This’ll be fun.”

Marywave smiled and climbed in on the passenger side. Mother and daughter seemed to have forgiven one another their hala and put things to rights, their ho’oponopono brought about by Hank’s insane act of spite.

Xander folded the umbrella and chucked it into the back seat. “You don’t mind, do you, Dinah? Claude Ann and Marywave will need it to protect their coiffeurs.” He gave Claude Ann’s uncasted hand a last squeeze, as if he almost couldn’t bear to see her go. “I love you.”

“I know you do.”

He waved good-bye, stuffed his hands in his pockets and, shoulders hunched against the heavy mist, walked back toward the terminal.

Claude Ann said, “He’s got his own car parked here somewhere. He and Avery are going into town to talk business with Steve Sykes. He doesn’t blame me at all for last night, Di. He was so sweet. He said nothin’ in the world mattered to him but that I’m safe.” She fastened her seat belt, started the car, and looked at her watch. “Omigosh! Gotta go. Bye!”

Dinah watched her drive off, then walked to a covered walkway across from the terminal and sat down on a bench to wait for Jon. She was glad, at least, of a chance to talk with him in private. She would ask him, obliquely, about Tess and see if she could coax some information out of him. If his fiancée was the girl Xander raped, that would definitely qualify as an insoluble problem.

Lyssa had rented a nondescript beige compact, quite a comedown from the Ferrari on Oahu, and in a surprising turn of friendliness, she offered to take Phoebe to her favorite spa in Pahoa for a lomilomi massage. Phoebe jumped at the offer, probably in no small part because she didn’t want to take any more flak from Dinah about Hank.

Raif rented a red Corvette. As he drove past Dinah, he cocked a finger pistol at her. “If anyone asks, I’m off to a private poker game in Pahoa.” He spotted Avery, who was walking toward the parking lot with Vaughn, and cocked another finger pistol at him. Avery waved back distractedly, as if he had a million things on his mind, and glanced at his watch.

A half hour went by while Dinah sat looking out at the rain and brooding. She had read that Hilo was one of the wettest towns in the world, but the gray skies and drizzle seemed like a personal affront—a thumb in the eye from the local deities. Rain was part of the ceaseless war between Pele and her lover, Kamapua’a. Pele sent the fires that gave birth to the land, then Kamapua’a sent the rains that extinguished her fires. Wild boars dug up the lava and softened it so that seeds could take root and plants and trees eventually covered the island. Then Pele came along and destroyed it all again. Today, Kamapua’a clearly had the upper hand. Dinah was thinking about Jon’s identification with Kamapua’a when a beat-up Suzuki Sidekick pulled up in front of her bench and beeped. Shave-and-a-haircut.

Jon leaned across the passenger seat and threw open the door for her. “This has worked out better than I thought it would. I’m glad it’ll be just the two of us on the drive to Volcano.”

She crawled in and buckled up without looking at him. That ill-considered kiss was going to come back and bite her. She just knew it. “How far?”

“To Volcano, thirty miles. To my place, another three.” He seemed to sense the chill and curbed his enthusiasm.

The wipers scrubbed across the windshield and thunked at the end of their arc in a particularly irritating way without doing anything to improve visibility. She pulled a tourist map out of her purse and rubbed away the condensation on the inside of the windshield so she could see where they were going.

Highway 11, otherwise known as the Belt Road, was a two-lane thoroughfare that cut through the green interior of the island toward Volcanoes National Park. Modest houses lined the road on either side. As they got farther from Hilo, the houses became more widely spaced and the countryside more rural.

The Suzuki hit a pothole and jounced annoyingly. She said, “You need new shock absorbers.”

Jon’s burned side was toward her. He didn’t turn, but his eyelid fluttered slightly, like a shrug. She found that even more annoying. “Tell me about Tess.” So much for obliqueness.

He kept his eyes fixed on the road. “I see Avery’s been bending your ear.”

“He seems to think more of you than he does of his own daughter.”

“I wouldn’t put too much stock in his analysis of people or events. He’s not someone people confide their secrets to.”

“Did Tess not tell him that your father raped her? Or tried to rape her?”

He clenched his jaw. Shit. And she’d lectured him about tact. She massaged her temples. “I’m sorry, Jon. Truly, I am. I hope you’ll chalk it up to a sleepless night and an overabundance of troubling indicators. Maybe I put something your sister said together with something Avery said and came up with a total blooper.”

He made no comeback.

“Did I? Because I will grovel. I will abase myself. I will…”

“Tess was looking for an excuse to break it off with me. When she wasn’t being cool and distant, she complained that she was bored. I thought she might be seeing someone else. I asked her if she wanted out of the engagement. She said no, she was just feeling nervous. Then one day she came to me crying hysterically with a story that Dad had raped her. I was stupefied. It seemed incredible. I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. She could be fairly intense, but I couldn’t believe she’d hallucinate being raped. I got drunk and fought with Dad. He denied it, said she must be crazy. The next day when I went to work, I was still angry, still not sure, probably still half-drunk. What happened was my own stupid fault, but Dad blames himself. When I ended up in the burn ward, Tess dropped by for a quick visit, recanted her story, and gave me back my ring.”

“And she never told her father this story?”

“Obviously not. If Avery knew, he wouldn’t still be chummy with Dad. He sure wouldn’t have bought into his Uwahi deal.”

“She told Lyssa.”

“Somebody told her. Lyssa means well, but I don’t need her pity and the last thing I want is for her to keep needling Dad. It’s water over the dam. She’s chosen to believe that Tess’ recantation was the lie. I choose to believe the original accusation was the lie. And Dad just wants to make believe none of it ever happened. It’s ripped us all apart.”

Dinah felt an ache of sadness for them all. What a tangled web. If Xander had been falsely accused and it cost him the love and trust of his two children, how sad for him. How disheartening and lonely. It entered her mind that Xander might be another of Claude Ann’s broken-winged birds, that her willingness to trust him so completely and her unshakable loyalty would be a balm to his spirit. But if Lyssa was right—

Jon said, “When Tess took back her story and kicked me in the teeth, Dad’s version of events became a lot easier to believe.”

Dinah could commiserate. Too much of her own life had been spent choosing whose version of events to believe. “How long was it before she recanted?”

“Six days. That’s how long before she visited me in the hospital.”

“Does she still live in Hawaii?”

“She works for a travel agency in Hilo.” He smiled that lopsided, self-mocking smile. “Makes for a sticky situation when we cross paths now and then. But she travels a lot and, anyhow, I don’t get out as much as I used to.”

“Stop! Pull over.” Dinah rolled down her rain-streaked window.

The enormous banner was strung between two coconut palms in front of a yellow clapboard house with a corrugated metal roof. Jon drove onto the shoulder and she read the manifesto emblazoned in big red letters.

God is not happy! 50 Years of lies! Shame on you who celebrate fraudulent statehood and honor the thieves! Thieves who locked up our queen! Thieves like garst who steal our lands! Thieves who beat our ancestors for speaking their language!

“Does one of Eleanor’s disciples live here?”

“Eleanor, herself. It’s an easy commute to the University of Hawaii campus in Hilo where she teaches.”

“She’s a professor?”

“That’s right. Ethnobotany’s her field. She knows everything there is to know about Hawaii’s indigenous plants and how they’ve been used and misused over the years. She writes a weekly column for
The Tribune Herald.
Locals call her the poison lady.”

Dinah ran her eyes over the metallic lilac Cadillac taking up most of the length of the driveway. It looked like a relic from the Fifties with its elongated tail fins and protuberant red taillights. Even in the rain, they glittered like the orbs of Satan. “Is it also an easy commute from here to the wedding site?”

“It’s not far.”

Dinah took a deep breath. Why did everything have to be so complicated? She couldn’t keep yo-yoing back and forth. She had to make up her mind whose version of events to believe, whether to support and defend the bride and forever hold her peace or gang up with the groom’s many detractors. Somehow, Eleanor’s over-the-top banner decided her. “Claude Ann’s had enough bad luck, Jon. Will you ask Eleanor not to interfere with the wedding? You’re her nephew. She’ll listen to you.”

“Nothing I could say would have any effect. Eleanor has her own agenda.”

Dinah’s temper boiled over. “Well, for crying out loud, what is it? Does she intend to kill Xander?”

He did the shrugging eyelid thing again, merged into traffic, and stepped on the gas.

Jerk. Dinah stared out at the wet road and listened to the annoying goddamned windshield wipers as they scrubbed and thunked like a jug band. At mile 29, a sign indicated the turnoff to Volcanoes National Park. Jon turned in the opposite direction onto Old Volcano Road, which seemed to have been hewed out of a rain forest.

Dinah rubbed her bare arms. “How can it be so cold in Hawaii in late June?”

“We’re at four thousand feet. You may want a fire in your room tonight.”

He turned down a one-lane road choked by tree ferns and honeysuckle and jounced along for about a mile before turning again onto a still narrower track. He drove for another mile and turned in through an open gate. There was a vine-covered, multi-car carport with a hanging wooden sign that said Wahilani, the place Xander had better not have mortgaged. Jon parked next to the only other car, a red Jeep Wrangler.

“Whose car is that?”

“Dad’s. He keeps it around for the occasional guest. I’m supposed to crank it up every now and then, but I haven’t done it in a long time. The battery’s probably dead.” He got out and opened Dinah’s door for her. “I’ll show you to your cottage and come back for the luggage.” He led her along a misty footpath bordered by tree ferns and travelers trees and wild red anthuriums. “There are five cottages on the place. You’ll be staying in mine. I’ve moved into the one next door for the week-end.”

“That seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble.”

“Less trouble than being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to rescue you from the mongoose that lives under the cottage next door. I call him Hairy Potter.” He spelled it.

“Ha-ha.”

“Hairy sometimes slithers inside when the weather’s nippy. When Phoebe gets here, she’ll be in the third cottage, then Raif and Lyssa in the fourth. Dad’s place is the one at the end of the property if you want to visit Claude Ann this afternoon before the party. It’s the largest and has a spare bedroom for Marywave.”

After about twenty yards, they arrived at a small cottage enveloped in a jungle of ferns and vines. He stepped up onto the lanai, took off his shoes, unlocked the door, and waited. Dinah noted the
Mahalo, No Shoes
sign, slipped off her sandals, and set them on the rack. There was nothing else on the lanai except a single rocking chair, a barrel for rain catchment connected to the corrugated metal roof, and a weathered teak table upon which sat a fly swatter, a flashlight, a pair of binoculars, and a clean ashtray.

He held the door open for her. “A family of Kalij pheasants lives on the property and the birdwatching’s good, especially early in the morning. You’re welcome to stay on after the wedding.” He said that last without looking at her.

They went inside and Jon’s style was immediately apparent—spare and practical, yet refined. The walls, the planked floor and the high, beamed ceiling were gold cedar and none of the large windows had coverings or needed any. The view on all sides was forest. A sweet, woodsy smell permeated the room, which appeared to serve as both kitchen and den. There was a round table under one window with a bowl of anthuriums, a basket of fruit, a bottle of red wine, and a corkscrew. A pair of well-worn beige club chairs sat in front of a large black heater. The rest of the furnishings consisted of a tiny, two-burner stove, a large cupboard with a mini refrigerator on the bottom shelf, and a microwave oven on the top. A small stainless steel basin had been wedged into the corner.