Bet Your Bones (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

The savage, unable to grasp the mysteries of nature or control its upheavals, ascribes his ups and downs to the will of some all-powerful, all-knowing deity—a deity who can send rain or drought, feast or famine, victory or defeat. But the deity’s criteria for meting out these rewards and punishments aren’t always clear. It’s the shaman’s job to interpret the deity’s judgments and policies in terms the savage mind can understand and accept. In ancient Hawaii, this job fell to the kahuna pule, or priest. The detectives’ dry account of Raif’s demise fell short of imparting understanding.

One of the detectives, a youngish Japanese man with spiky, bleach-blond hair who identified himself as Lt. Kimo Fujita, described the circumstances of the murder. “Mr. Reid’s body was discovered at approximately three-fifty this afternoon by park service personnel near Kalapana. He had been shot in the forehead at point-blank range and either fell or was dragged very close to a bed of liquid lava.” He opened his notebook and read. “Due to the extreme heat, it will be difficult to establish an exact time of death.”

Jon was the first to register acceptance of the murder as a fact. “He must have been at least partially cremated.”

“You’ll want a closed casket,” said Lt. Vince Langford, the senior detective. He had beady, suspicious eyes and an underslung, bulldog jaw.

Dinah shuddered. No wonder the police had to confirm his identity through the rental car agency.

Lyssa buried her face against Jon’s chest and sobbed. He held her, but his expression was strangely cold and absent. Claude Ann and Phoebe, who sat across from each other at the kitchen table, traded horrified stares.

“Yuck,” said Marywave, clinging to the back of her mother’s chair.

Xander went to the cupboard, pulled out a bottle of Scotch and five glasses, and poured. He offered one to Lyssa, but she wouldn’t take it. Claude Ann and Jon each took one. Phoebe pressed a tissue against her nose and shook her head, no. Dinah, her back braced against the wall, accepted her glass with alacrity but her hands shook so that she had trouble getting it to her lips without spilling. Xander returned to stand beside the cupboard, but his eyes stayed on Lyssa.

Lt. Langford stood in front of the door with his hands behind his back and surveyed the room. “We’ll need to know how and when Mr. Garst and the rest of you arrived on the island?”

Jon helped Lyssa into a chair and chugged his Scotch. “Our flight from Honolulu landed in Hilo at eleven-thirty. It was a corporate plane owned by my father’s business partner, Avery Wilhite.”

“Eleven-thirty,” repeated Langford. “Didn’t take long for Mr. Reid to get himself killed.”

“The earthquake must have opened up a skylight,” said Jon.

“What’s a skylight?” asked Dinah.

“Magma is what lava is called before it breaches the earth’s crust. Magma flows underground through long tubes. When the roof of one of those tubes collapses, the magma is exposed. Volcanologists call those openings skylights. The earthquake or the aftershock must have fractured the crust down near Kalapana, or maybe the weight of Raif’s body caused it to break through.”

Lyssa raised her swollen eyes to Jon. “Raif was afraid of volcanoes and lava. Why would he walk be walking around in a lava field?”

Langford’s eyes roved the room scrutinizing everyone and everything. He stopped in front of Jon and gave him a hard look. “In the span of two weeks, Hawaii County’s had two homicides. One man beaten and shoved into a steam vent, now another shot in the head and shoved into a skylight. I’m seeing what I guess you could call a geothermal pattern. Would you agree, Mr. Garst?”

“So it would seem.” Jon came across as guarded and defensive, a cat with his back up.

“Ever meet an archaeologist named Patrick Varian?” goaded Langford.

“No.”

“Hmm.” It was the hmm of a prosecutor. Langford rambled around the room with his hands behind his back. “Did Mr. Reid own a gun?”

Lyssa roused herself. “He hated guns.”

“Maybe Raif had changed his mind,” said Xander. “He had a gambling problem or, I should say, a money problem. He owed quite a lot. I don’t know how much, but he was worried. He had asked me for money several times.”

“Liar.” Lyssa’s mouth contorted with rage. “You’ve always despised him and now you’re glad that he’s dead. I hate you.”

“You’re wrong, Lyssa. I’m…I won’t lie to you. I didn’t respect Raif. Maybe I did despise him, but good God, I never wished him dead.” Xander drank his Scotch and poured himself another. “I love you. I’m appalled by Raif’s murder, if that’s what it was.”

Claude Ann left the table and went to stand beside Xander. “Xan’s right. How come you’re so sure it was a homicide, Lieutenant? Maybe it was suicide. Maybe he shot himself.”

Lyssa lashed out at her. “How can you suggest such a horrible thing? Raif wasn’t like my mother. He loved his life. He loved me.” She dissolved into tears again.

Phoebe walked over and tried to take her hand to comfort her. “You were blessed to have Raif for a little while, Lyssa. Be thankful for the time you had.”

“Shut up or I’ll kill myself,” Lyssa snarled.

Langford paced around the room for a minute. After a couple of circuits, he came to a halt directly in front of Lyssa. “Did Mr. Reid carry a cell phone?”

“Of course, he did. An iPhone. He called the spa where Phoebe and I were and left a message. He wanted to meet us and go for a drink when we were finished with our treatments.”

“What time was that?” asked Langford.

“I’m not sure. A little after four, I think.”

Langford and Fujita exchanged a look.

Dinah got it at once. If Raif’s body was discovered at three-fifty, he couldn’t have made that call. “Did you not find the phone with the body?”

“We did not,” said Langford.

Jon walked over to the cupboard and refilled his glass with Scotch. “A murderer would’ve tossed the gun and the phone into the lava. They would’ve melted and been untraceable.”

“The only smart murderers are in murder mysteries,” said Langford. “And tossed phones don’t call and leave messages. But it’s funny you should mention tossing the gun into the lava. Mr. Reid’s murderer tried that, but either he throws like a girl or his aim was off. The gun missed the fire and I guess the surrounding ground was too hot for him to retrieve it and try again.” His suspicious eyes panned the room. “Any of the rest of you own a gun?”

“No,” said Claude Ann.

Dinah lanced her a warning look.

“Not at this time,” she said without batting an eye. “My ex-husband kept guns.” She held up her casted wrist. “Thanks to him, I spent last night in the Honolulu hospital. I’d like to know if he’s been arrested yet.”

“Name?” growled Langford.

“Henry J. Kemper. Hank. The police on Oahu were still looking for him when we left this morning.”

“We’ll look into it. Can you think of any reason why Mr. Kemper would want to harm Mr. Reid?”

“No.” Claude Ann appeared nonplussed. “No. Hank and Raif never met.”

“My daddy wouldn’t break the Commandment against killing,” said Marywave. “He’s a born-again Christian.”

Xander wrapped an arm around Claude Ann’s shoulders. “Why are you asking us about guns, Lieutenant Langford? No one in this family had any reason to harm Raif. You should be questioning the gamblers he kept company with, the people he owed.”

Dinah remembered Raif’s finger-pistol farewell. “When Raif drove away from the airport this morning, I think it was about eleven forty-five, he told me he was on his way to a private poker game in Pahoa.”

“Probably run by George Knack,” said Xander. “I can’t believe the police haven’t been able to shut Knack down. Everybody knows what he does.”

“Everybody suspects what he does.” Langford’s voice was matter-of-fact. “If Knack runs an illegal game, he hides it well. The FBI has been sniffing around him for two years and they can’t nail him. He has a sixth sense about undercover heat.”

“You might ask him why he was in Honolulu last night,” said Jon. “He horned in on the family’s private party. I was showing him the door when we heard Claude Ann call for help.”

Fujita stood next to the front door in his sock feet. Dinah had never encountered such a polite cop. He jotted a lengthy note on his notepad, which had alphabetical tabs.

Langford waited for him to stop writing. “Other than Knack or the people Reid played poker with, is there anyone else who might have a grudge against him? Anyone who felt strongly enough to murder him?”

Lyssa blew her nose. “Raif played poker, Officer. It was recreational. There are illegal games going on all over Hawaii—illegal card games, illegal video slots, illegal bookmaking, and cockfighting, too. My God, even Bingo’s illegal here. People want to gamble. This state’s stupid law was made to be broken. As for the money, Raif was a professional race car driver and I have money of my own. He would have told me if he had gambling debts. We could have paid them. Whatever the reason he was murdered, it had nothing to do with his gambling.”

“There’s some logic to that,” said Langford. “Wouldn’t make much sense to kill a man before he’s paid his debt. But these private games, you never know. Somebody could’ve gotten his ego bruised or owed your husband and didn’t want to pay. Did Mr. Reid tell you about any big wins he’d had lately?”

“No.”

“We’ll dig around and see if we can find out who else might have been playing poker in Pahoa today. Meanwhile, we’ll need statements from all of you regarding your whereabouts between eleven-thirty and four and the names of any witnesses who can corroborate it. We’ll want to obtain fingerprints, but that can wait until tomorrow.”

“From us?” Lyssa’s eyes riveted on her father. “Why do we have to be fingerprinted?”

“A formality,” said Fujita. He shifted from one socked foot to another, as if he’d found some glass shards Dinah’s cleanup had missed. “To rule out those who didn’t handle the weapon.”

“Let’s begin with you, Mrs. Reid.” Langford rubbed his palms together in a manner that Dinah saw as almost sadistic. “Where did you go when you left the airplane?”

“Phoebe and I went to a day spa. Peacequest, in Pahoa.”

“Peacequest.” The name seemed to surprise Langford. “Were you in the same room?”

“No. We opted for different treatments.”

“I had the seaweed facial and the salt glow,” said Phoebe.

“Thank you.” Langford didn’t ask Lyssa about her treatment. He turned to Jon. “And you, Mr. Garst? Where were you?”

“I drove here from the airport with Ms. Pelerin. We got here about twelve-thirty and I showed her around. When the quake struck a little after one, I left. I intended to go to the Observatory, but I changed my mind and drove down the Chain of Craters Road to Holei.”

“And why was that, sir?”

“To look for damage. I sat on the cliffs for a while, thinking.”

“Thinking.” Langford’s eyes glinted.

“That’s right.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. Alone.”

Dinah massaged her temples. What was it about these Garsts that moved them to do so much of their thinking alone on clifftops?

Marywave allowed as how she and her mother had gone to the beauty parlor to have their hair done for the wedding. “I got a princess updo. Mama got a Grecian goddess.”

Dinah hadn’t even noticed their hair. Marywave’s looked sleek and carefully arranged. She couldn’t tell any difference between Claude Ann’s regular style and the Grecian goddess.

Claude Ann provided the name of the salon, Nani’s Cliptomania on Kalanianaole Street. “When Nani finished with me, I left Marywave there and went shopping in the Prince Kuhio Plaza.”

“Which shops did you visit?”

“Macy’s and maybe another boutique or two. I don’t recall the names.”

“Make any purchases?”

“No. When I was through shopping, I went back to Nani’s and picked up Marywave.”

Langford swiveled around to face Dinah. “What about you?”

“I was here. I tried to find the keys to Xander’s Wrangler to go for a drive, but I couldn’t. Anyhow, Jon told me the battery was probably dead.”

“Hmm. And Mr. Xander Garst, where did you spend the afternoon?”

“I drove to my house in Kapoho. Ms. Kemper and I are to be married—were to be married—tomorrow morning. I was making sure everything was ready for us to move in.”

“Kapoho. That’s what, eight, ten miles from Pahoa? Maybe ten or twelve to Kalapana?”

“Thereabouts.” Xander fixed him with a stony look.

Fujita turned to the W tab in his notepad. “You said that you flew to Hilo with Mr. Avery Wilhite. Where can we reach him?”

“Christ!” Xander raked his forelock out of his eyes. “He’s probably at the Kilauea Lodge right now. We were supposed to meet there for dinner and a pre-wedding party. We should be there now. I’ll call the lodge and explain.”

“You’re free to go if you’d rather explain in person,” said Langford. “We’re finished here for now.”

Fujita passed out cards with his and Langford’s contact numbers. “We’ll be back in the morning with our forensics people to collect everyone’s fingerprints.”

As the detectives prepared to leave, so did everyone else.

Lyssa clutched Jon’s hand. “Will you come with me while I phone Raif’s parents?”

“You know I will.”

“You, too, Phoebe. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’d like you to stay with me for a while.”

Lyssa was the first out the door, followed by her two comforters, Jon and Phoebe.

Xander whispered something in Claude Ann’s ear. She whispered in Marywave’s ear and the three of them left without so much as a backward glance at Dinah.

Langford stood on the lanai and watched everyone troop off into the gathering gloom while the exceptionally polite Fujita sat down and put on his shoes.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, thought Dinah. “Lieutenant,
if it’s not classified information, what kind of gun was used in the shooting?”

His jaw jutted as he appeared to take her measure. “I don’t see that it matters. It was an old Beretta. Until it landed near that skylight, somebody had taken real good care of it.”

Dinah made a superhuman effort to return Langford’s stare without shrieking. She thanked him, said good-bye, and went back inside. Shell-shocked, she sat down at the kitchen table to think. The framed photograph of Xander and Leilani was still there, but the article about the death that marred the conference in California was gone.