Bet Your Bones (26 page)

Chapter Forty

Holding fast to the passenger door of Eleanor’s speeding ’59 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, Dinah felt as if she had lost control of her plan. Events were spinning out of control and she was riding the tiger’s back, hanging on as best she could without a seat belt. The Caddy had not been retrofitted with any new-fangled safety equipment and Eleanor seemed to have little regard for traffic lights and stop signs. The bench seat had been pushed back to its limit to accommodate her girth and, with arms at full stretch, she kept a two-handed grip on the wheel and motored down the center of the Belt Road as if she owned it. In Eleanor’s mind, she did own it.

Dinah said, “It’s only a theory. Avery may not have killed either Varian or Raif. And Jon’s right when he says we don’t have enough facts to run a good bluff. Avery will know that you’re lying. We should forget about it. And anyway, I need to be with Claude Ann. Her little girl is sick.” Before leaving the hotel, Dinah had called Claude Ann. Marywave’s fever had worsened. She might be on the Belt Road at this very minute, rushing toward Hilo in the oncoming lane, trying to get Marywave to the hospital. “Seriously, Eleanor. Let’s put this off to another day.”

“Kaii. The doctors will take care of the girl and Xander will take care of his woman. Nothing you can do.” She had seized the reins. The plan that Dinah had conceived and set in motion was under new command. Dinah had been demoted to aide-de-camp. Eleanor was going to attempt to blackmail Avery by claiming to have information tying him to Varian’s murder. If Avery agreed to pay, it was as good as an admission.

The way Dinah envisioned the setup, Eleanor would call Avery tonight from her home with Dinah standing by to offer advice and encouragement. Eleanor would arrange a meeting with Avery in some public place tomorrow afternoon. Dinah would advise Steve of the time and location and he would go to the police and work his wiles on Vince Langford. Steve had the home-island advantage. He was a well-known attorney and an officer of the court and he was an accomplished persuader. If anyone could sell the plan to Langford, he could. Ideally, Langford or one of his subordinates would show up at the meeting with Avery to guarantee Eleanor’s safety and capture the transaction on tape. Assuming everyone stuck to this script. But as the Coupe de Ville barreled down the road, Dinah began to have second thoughts.

“On reflection, we should clear this with Lieutenant Langford before you make the phone call, not after. If Avery calls your bluff and reports you to the police for attempted blackmail, you could be prosecuted, Eleanor.”

She snorted. “Nobody’s going to put me in jail.”

“Even so, we should wait and talk it over with Jon before making the phone call. He’s going to Volcano to check in on Lyssa and later tonight he’ll swing by your house to pick me up. He thinks that what we’re doing is dangerous and the more I think about it, the more I tend to agree with him. There are too many variables, too many ways the situation could get out of hand. Let’s all put our heads together tonight and come up with a less risky plan.”

“I don’t care about risk.” She braked hard and the lilac-colored behemoth fishtailed into the driveway past the GOD-IS-NOT-HAPPY banner. She switched off the engine and regarded herself in the rear view mirror. “All these years, I’ve been unjust, ho’opono’ole. I’ve been vindictive and stubborn, grieving over a wrong I didn’t understand. Sara Sykes is cleansing her soul and making peace with the past. She is seeking ho’oponopono and I will do the same. But first I will negotiate with Avery Wilhite.” She turned to Dinah and a rare, mischievous smile creased her face. “Let’s chance’um, sistah.”

***

The only inside info Dinah had for this bluff was the knowledge that Varian was Avery’s nephew and the fact that Varian had lived briefly in the Bayside Apartments where the police had found a few books and papers and a PC. It stood to reason that if Avery had known where Varian was staying on the island, he would have cleaned out his apartment of any potentially telltale items. The police hadn’t disclosed the existence of the computer to the press or completed their examination of its contents. If, as Dinah hypothesized, Varian had made a discovery at Uwahi, he would have described his findings. The risk of losing the deal had passed, but the risk of being linked to Varian’s murder must keep Avery awake nights. There was a chance that Eleanor could convince him that she had information worth paying for. And if he could be linked to Varian’s murder, maybe the police could pressure him to confess to Raif’s murder.

Dinah had been trailing Eleanor through her indoor jungle for an hour while the ethnobotanist watered her kupukupu ferns, her bromeliads, and an actual forest of areca palms that brushed against the living room ceiling. Orchids proliferated and there was an enormous fish tank in one bedroom where archerfish darted among mangrove roots. Eleanor wouldn’t sit still to be rehearsed. Dinah ducked under a low-hanging philodendron vine and kept up the drill. “If he asks you how you got into Varian’s PC, tell him you have a hacker friend at the U who helped you. Tell him the police would find the contents extremely interesting, but don’t be specific. Keep it vague. Tell him it ties him to Varian and leave it at that. If he thinks there’s a possibility, he’ll fill in the blanks from his own knowledge.”

“I don’t need to rehearse. I know what to say.” Eleanor wasn’t the least bit nervous. She dug her finger into the soil around an umbrella-shaped bonsai tree. “This one’s an arboricola schefflera. Poisonous enough to kill a cat or a baby, but very pretty.”

Xander had called Eleanor “the poison lady.” Dinah wondered how many of these plants were poisonous. “Are there a lot of poisonous plants in Hawaii?”

“One of the deadliest is nanahonua, Angel’s Trumpet. Then there’s the Be-Still tree, oleander to you. People have died from barbecuing over Be-Still wood. The kukui nut tree is poisonous, but not deadly. Kava kava root is safe, but the leaves can be toxic. Then there’s nightshade, foxglove, rosary peas, anthurium.”

“Anthuriums are poisonous?”

“Only if eaten in large quantities.” She paused to inspect the pleated leaves of an orchid and drop a few ice cubes into the pot. “Have you read about Kalaipahoa, the poison goddess?”

“No.”

“She infected a copse of trees on Molokai with a poison so virulent that birds flying high above their branches fell instantly dead. The king decreed that an image of the goddess be carved from one of the poisoned trees. Hundreds of carvers perished. Eventually, the image was finished, but it was deadly to the touch and had to be wrapped in layers of kapa cloth. Kalaipahoa’s priests presided over a murder rite they called praying to death. Pule-ana-ana. They chiseled off splinters of the goddess’ image and sprinkled them in the food of the person they wished to kill.” She made an eruptive noise which Dinah construed as a laugh. “Maybe I should invite Avery to dinner.”

Jerusalem, was she serious? “We don’t know for sure that Avery is guilty of anything, Eleanor. And pule-ana-ana isn’t consistent with ho’oponopono.”

“Let’s make the call now.” She set her watering bucket in a utility sink in the kitchen and led Dinah into her office, the only room in the house not choked with plants. Her desk was surprisingly modern. She pulled out a directory. “Your eyes are better than mine. What’s his home number? About now, he’ll be cleaning up the supper dishes for his bossy wife.”

Dinah found the number and Eleanor dialed. She sat down behind her desk and turned on the speakerphone.

Avery answered on the third ring.

“Eleanor Kalolo, Avery. We have business to discuss.”

He was slow to respond. “Eleanor. To what do I owe this honor?”

“I called to congratulate you on the sale of Uwahi.”

“Well, now. I must say. Didn’t expect congratulations from you.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to close so you’d be rich. No use trying to sell something to a man who can’t pay. Now you can pay.”

“What is it you’re selling?”

“Your nephew’s report on King Keawenui’s bones. He was writing a book on burial customs, how the priests would assemble the skull and long bones of a king into a sitting position and set fire to them. They let them burn for ten days and then the king became a god. His successor had to build a hiding place for the sacred remains. Your nephew found Keawenui’s iwi.”

“Too much,” mouthed Dinah. “Not so specific.”

“Of no interest to me, Eleanor. Take the report to Paul Jarvis. He’s the new owner.”

“Rick’s friend Raif told him I was fighting Xander about Uwahi and Rick came to see me. He said you’d offered him money to keep quiet for a few weeks, but he wasn’t sure you could pay. And you couldn’t have until now, could you?”

Eleanor, no! Dinah waved her hands. Too much.

“But I paid him, Avery. He gave me his report and I’m reading it right now. Appended to the first page is a form you signed, a form giving him permission to conduct his research on the property.”

Dinah studied Eleanor’s face. Was she making this up? Was she a mindreader? Had she actually spoken with Varian?

“Don’t recall signing anything,” said Avery, alarm creeping into his voice. “What’s your game?”

“The same as Rick’s, only this time the stakes are higher. This time it’s not about the money, Avery. It’s about your life. You couldn’t pay Rick and so you had to kill him. But you’ve got lots of money now and you can pay me. It’s what I’ve been waiting for.”

“You’re full of it. This is blackmail. I’ll call the police.”

“Call them. Call them and see what happens.”

“You’re crazy.”

“My price is a hundred thousand dollars. Chickenfeed to you now. Bring the money and meet me at the end of the Mauna Loa Road at nine o’clock.”

Dinah gaped in astonishment. Not tonight!

“I don’t have that kind of cash lying around.”

“Get it. Call your banker. Raid Kay’s knitting basket. Do what you have to do. I’ve waited a long time for this.” Eleanor cut the connection and grinned. “How’d I do, eh?”

“Is any of it, is any of what you said to him true? Did Rick Varian come to see you? Do you have his report?”

“You said to bluff Avery. I bluffed him.”

Dinah was left floundering. She didn’t know what to believe. The people in her life were never what they seemed. Feeling punked and more than a little fearful, she called Steve and gave him the time and location of the meeting.

“Are you kidding? Langford will go apeshit. He’s not expecting the meeting until tomorrow.”

“Tell him we were overtaken by events. I was, anyway. The situation has changed and things are moving fast.”

“I’ll tell him, but you may need that criminal attorney yet. Even before this balls-up, Langford was talking about charging you with obstruction of justice.”

Chapter Forty-one

The earthquake struck at seven-forth-seven. Dinah was eating a ham sandwich. Eleanor was repotting a portulaca molokiniensis. There was an explosion like the Crack of Doom. The furniture danced and the palms swayed. Eleanor looked up and wiped the dirt off her hands and then the lights went out. From far away a siren blared. Dinah stood in the middle of the dark kitchen and listened to glass breaking all around her.

“Eleanor, where are you? Do you have a lantern or a flashlight?”

“Ai yah! Blind mullet!”

“What?”

“Da fish all buss. Kaiii! Nevahmind. I handles.”

“Damn it, Eleanor. This isn’t a teaching moment. Speak English. Where you do keep your flashlight?”

“In the counter drawer next to the stove.”

Dinah groped her way across the floor.

“Found it!” cried Eleanor, followed by a startling burst of static and a man’s voice..

“…at this time, but the epicenter was most likely under the southeast flank of Kilauea. Volcanoes National Park personnel report that Kilauea is erupting in two locations. Fountaining estimated at eighteen hundred feet can be seen from the Observatory. There are also reports of eruptions on Mauna Loa, the first since nineteen-eighty-four.”

Dinah shivered. The kaula Eleanor claimed to have visited had mentioned a fountain of fire. All of the seer’s visions were coming true. Dinah had been worrying about Marywave’s fever for hours. She had tried calling Claude Ann’s number again and again, but her phone was turned off. Was it psychic incompetence or pure perversity that led seers to reveal their visions without providing any context or clues to the outcome? There ought to be a law.

“Eruptions of both Mauna Loa and Kilauea are underway.” The civil defense siren shrieked on and on, but the voice on the radio remained inhumanly calm. “For leeward residents, strong to moderate trades are bringing with them a cloud of volcanic gas. Those with heart and respiratory ailments are advised to remain indoors or wear protective masks. Repeat, south Kona residents downwind of the Mauna Loa eruption are advised to take precautions.”

Dinah bumped into the stove and found the drawer under the counter and the flashlight. She turned it on and the first thing she saw was a little gold fish float past her feet on a stream of water. She looked around for a bowl, but by the time she found one, the fish had washed under a plant stand laden with orchids.

“Hawaii State Civil Defense urges people to stay off the roads if at all possible as landslides may have caused extensive damage to roads and bridges. As they did following the quake in two thousand six, power plants will shut down automatically. Expect power outages.”

If the epicenter of the quake was under Kilauea, was Hilo in danger of a tsunami or would Hawaii be sending a mega-wave on to Maui or Oahu? Dinah wished she’d paid more attention in science class.

“I saved most of them,” said Eleanor, splashing into the kitchen. She carried a flashlight and a water bucket full of fish. “We should leave now for the mountain.”

“What are you talking about? We’re not going up Mauna Loa. It’s erupting.”

“Pele will protect us. She’ll make us like kipukas. The fires will go around us.”

“Is that another of your kaula’s visions?”

“You are the one who suggested all of this. You had Steve explain it to the detectives and they have agreed to be there. You don’t want to make fools of them.”

“Listen to those sirens, Eleanor. The police will have their hands full. They’re none too pleased with our taking the law into our own hands as it is. If they don’t come, or if they can’t come because the roads are blocked by landslides, we could be in big pilikia. Avery could kill us, too. If he comes, which he probably won’t.”

“I’m going up the mountain. I’ll drop you off at Jon’s place if you’re afraid.”

“You can’t go by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”

She smiled and set her bucket of fish in the sink. “’Den we go awready.”

***

The car’s overhead light didn’t work. Dinah tried to hold a flashlight steady on the map, but Eleanor had shunted them off onto a 4-wheel-drive track and the car was bucking and dipping like a rodeo bull. With each dip came the sound of scraping metal. A 50-year-old Coupe de Ville made outstanding yard décor and it would definitely turn heads cruising along the Bayfront Highway on a Sunday afternoon. It had no business venturing off-road. But the paved road had been severed by a fresh lava flow just past Bird Park. With no room to turn her lilac elephant around, Eleanor had coasted backwards down the road for over a mile, sideswiping trees and knocking over a signpost before being stopped by a mound of broken stones. The kaula’s prophecy again. Undaunted, Eleanor had detoured onto this unmarked track and they were moving forward again through dense forest.

“Avery will not be able to get to this meeting, Eleanor.”

“He has four-wheel drive.”

“The police won’t be able to get there.”

“Maybe they sent somebody early, before the road was cut off.”

A rock detonated under the front bumper like an IED. “Your car is taking too much of a beating. This road will destroy it.”

“Minors. If there are no more lava flows, we can make it to the lookout at sixty-six hundred feet. The road ends there.”

Kauhiuhi, Pakekake, Mokuoweoweo. Dinah’s flashlight beam bobbed haphazardly over the tongue-twisting names on the map. Dotted lines denoting trails and four-wheel-drive roads crisscrossed the mountain and there were pinkish-tan markings that indicated lava flows over the years. She gave up trying to pinpoint their location. All she knew was they were lugging uphill at a killer gradient. “Does this track go all the way to the summit?”

“Only if you’re a goat.” Eleanor jerked the gear stick on the steering column down hard. The engine grumbled, but continued to gain ground. “This track dead-ends a mile past a small kipuka. We can rejoin the main road there.”

Previously, Dinah would not have described a one-lane sliver of asphalt that looped and tilted like a roller coaster as a main road. “Does the main road go to the summit?”

“No. The summit road starts on the other side of the mountain. Even if we could get to it, which we can’t, I wouldn’t attempt it in this car.”

Dinah was heartened to learn that Eleanor drew the line somewhere.

Cinders pinged against the hood and windshield and a confetti of gray ash eddied in the headlights. The smell of burning rubber wafted in through the de Ville’s vents. The tires? And there was a powerful smell of rotten eggs. Sulfur. The stench of hell. Except for an occasional streak of fire rocketing heavenwards, the world had bleared into a dusky, black and white lithograph. Maybe Hank was right. Maybe this really was the Apocalypse prophesied in the Book of Revelations. Dinah sent up a silent prayer. Please, please cork the volcano.

“That’s the kipuka.” Eleanor slowed nearly to a stop and squinted.

Dinah strained her eyes. All she saw was a thicket of trees. Eleanor made a hard left and, after a few more dips and scrapes, they were back on pavement curling up the mountain. Three streams of orange-red magma spread out from the summit like talons, as if the mountain were about to be carried off by some apocalyptic bird of prey. Avery would not come. Only a pair of madwomen would drive up this mountain tonight.

“Reach into the back seat,” said Eleanor. “There’s a daypack with dust masks and windbreakers. Put your mask on now. It’ll protect you from the volcanic dust and ash.”

Dinah climbed up on her knees, stretched over the seat, and grabbed the pack. “He won’t come and even if he does, he won’t have brought money. And he’ll expect that you’re recording everything that he says, so he won’t say anything that can be used against him. Even if he did, recording a private conversation without the other person’s knowledge is illegal.”

“In Hawaii, it’s legal to record a conversation if one party to the conversation consents and I consent. Give me a mask.”

Dinah handed her a mask. “He could give himself consent to record you and turn the tables on us. Blackmail’s illegal in all fifty states and it’ll be your word against his as to what’s going on in the conversation.”

“He’s afraid. I heard it in his voice. He will break.”

“He’s too smart to be taken in. Anybody would be too smart. In retrospect, this was a stupid game plan, totally full of holes. Please, Eleanor, let’s turn around before it’s too late.”

“If Avery was smart, he would have figured out how to stall Rick Varian and Raif Reid until after the closing without having to resort to murder. No, Avery’s not so akamai. He’s nervous and hasty. Those are his weaknesses. They will bring about his downfall.”

Dinah had run out of arguments. A fountain of fire leapt into the black sky and she cursed herself for starting the fire in Eleanor’s brain. If Langford’s ugly mug materialized out of this fire-riven darkness and read her her rights, she would jump for joy. “I thought you’d want to help after you learned that Xander wasn’t to blame for Leilani’s death. But you’ve gone off the reservation, Eleanor.”

She jerked the car hard around a big rock, causing Dinah to fall against the door and smack her elbow. “That’s not an idiom I’d have expected from the mouth of a hapa Seminole.”

“And pigheaded persistence in the face of an erupting volcano isn’t what I’d have expected from a woman who fancies herself to be so akamai. Why are you doing this? It isn’t to keep Xander or Claude Ann or me out of jail, is it? And it isn’t because you crave justice for the two dead men. Listen to me, Eleanor. If you think you can make Avery feel guilty for the words he may or may not have said to Leilani that drove her to kill herself, forget about it. Maybe all he did was tell the truth. And if he was sadistic, I’m sure he granted himself a pardon years ago.”

“Pele didn’t grant him a pardon. Neither have I.”

The road ended. This was the point where, on normal days, hikers began their ascent to the summit. The Caddy’s headlights picked out a covered picnic table, a port-o-potty, and a mall parking area barely wide enough for two cars. A Subaru Outback hogged most of the space. Did it belong to some godforsaken hikers or had Avery taken the bait?

“It’s his car,” said Eleanor. “Get down and don’t let him see you.”

Dinah slid down low in the seat. They were a half-hour early. If the car was Avery’s, he must have left before the quake.

Eleanor wrestled the de Ville into the space next to the Outback and killed the engine. “Give me that flashlight. I’m going to go and sit at the table. When I get out of the car, I won’t close the door completely. Put on a mask and get as close to us as you can with the recorder.” She fitted a mask over her face, opened the glove compartment, and pulled out a dagger.

“What’s that?” asked Dinah, knowing full well what it was and meaning what the hell do you intend to do with it.

“It’s a pahoa. My great grandfather carved it from the beak of a marlin.”