Dying for a Daiquiri (3 page)

Thirty minutes later, we arrived at the Kailua pier. Brian easily located the parking lot recommended for seafaring tourists. We grabbed our assorted beach gear and headed for the boat. Foreign-speaking passengers from the enormous cruise ship anchored in the bay wandered around wearing confused expressions. Several companies offered morning boating expeditions, so the pier was awash in aloha-shirted, fanny-pack-wearing tourists.

The strangely pleasant scent of fish and seaweed reminded me of childhood vacations along the California coast. Eventually we located our boat, the
Sea Jinx
. The name of our vessel didn’t enthrall me, but I was pleased it appeared to be immaculate and roomy.

A young woman dressed in a royal-blue polo shirt and form-fitting white shorts, and with a mane of blonde curls secured by a scarf, greeted the passengers. “I’m Amanda, your hostess and marine life specialist,” the petite woman announced in an annoyingly perky voice. “Welcome to the
Sea Jinx
. Is this your first time sailing with us?”

Everyone replied in the affirmative as we followed her up the gangway.

“You’re all going to have a great time. Let me give you the grand tour.” She showed us where the “heads,” aka potties to us landlubbers, were located. Then she bounced up the stairs, assuming we’d bounce along behind her.

Amanda must have noticed my red-rimmed, hung-over eyes because she pointed me in the direction of the coffee. A variety of juices and pastries were also set on the bar.

“After a successful snorkel expedition,” she said, beaming a 100 watt smile at us, “we’ll all celebrate with a Mai Tai.”

I was afraid to ask her definition of “successful.” Did that mean no one on board ended up as shark bait?

We followed Amanda’s instructions to store our gear under bench seats that ran down the center of the main deck. Mother and I sat next to each other on the blue-padded cushions. I immediately proceeded to lather myself with a 15 SPF sunscreen.

Liz plopped down on the slick white non-cushioned seat across from us “You’re going to need something stronger than that,” she said. As the owner of a full-service spa in El Dorado Hills, she was dedicated to protecting her peaches-and-cream English complexion.

Liz pulled a large tube from her red-striped bag and handed it to me.

“A sunscreen with 120 SPF?” I twisted the cap open. “If I put this on, I’ll return home paler than when I left.”

“You’ll thank me in forty years.”

I squeezed the tube. The sunscreen had the viscosity and stickiness of Elmer’s Glue and an unusual scent. Lavender combined with skunk. The ointment would definitely repel any men from attacking me. I wasn’t confident it would have the same effect on marine life.

Despite my teasing Liz, I had no desire for my fair skin to turn lobster red. I tried to pull my T-shirt over my head so I could spread the lotion across my neck and shoulders, but it caught on the strap of my bathing suit. For a brief moment, I worried about a wardrobe malfunction. Good thing only my mother and Liz were in the immediate vicinity.

As I struggled to slide the narrow neck of my tee shirt over my unruly copper curls, my swimsuit strap was prodded back in place.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said.

“Any time,” responded a voice at least two octaves below my mother’s soprano.

In under a millisecond, I ripped the cotton tee over my head. I found myself staring into a pair of cobalt-blue eyes that reflected even bluer than the surrounding ocean. Eyes filled with amusement. The crinkles around the man’s eyes indicated laughing came naturally. He was tall, trim and tan, and I had a feeling he was the captain of the
Sea Jinx
.

I had one additional clue. A captain’s hat perched on his thick, sun-streaked blond hair.

He proffered his hand.
“I’m Steve Bohannon. You must be Dave’s sister. You look like him, except for the beard. And you’re, um…” His gaze briefly dropped to my chest, which I could feel turning the same shade of red as my cheeks.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “Dave said you’re hot. I mean, you know all the hot spots, that is, the hot spots to snorkel…” I looked around for something to do besides babble like an idiot. I grabbed the pink container of suntan lotion and squeezed hard.

White goop shot out of the tube, splattering across the zipper of his shorts. I reached out to wipe off the mess then realized my hand was barely an inch from Steve’s crotch. What would Emily Post do?

Emily wasn’t available, but Stan miraculously appeared with a beach towel in hand. I grabbed the towel and handed it to Steve. He wiped off his shorts and grinned. “There’s never a lack of adventure on a boat.”

Liz introduced herself and asked if he was ready to leave.

“It looks like all the passengers are on board. We’ll be underway in a few minutes.”

“We know Dave won’t make it, but I haven’t seen Regan yet,” I said.

“Sorry, that’s what I came out here to tell you when you got me a little distracted.” Steve’s smile proved the combination of white teeth against a dark tan could be equally distracting. “Regan texted she’s been delayed so we’ll have to go ahead without her.”

“Did she mention why?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Just said she’d see you later. Trust me. I’ll make sure you have a great time. Don’t forget I’m the guy who knows all the ‘hot’ spots.”

* * *

An hour later, I discovered there’s hot, and there’s steaming hot.

The sun’s morning rays were hot, but with Captain Steve by my side, the sizzle level climbed so high I worried one of us might spontaneously combust.

I never realized how sexy it could be to have a handsome man help me don swim fins. The Hawaiian version of Cinderella. It almost made me forget Detective What’s His Name.

Shame on me. Here I had a boyfriend back home, one who was always there for me.

Sort of. The widowed detective not only had a young daughter to rear, but he’d recently been promoted to head of the homicide division for the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department. Between solving crimes and an occasional Snack Dad moment, there seemed to be little time left for me. I could count our dates in the past two months on one hand and still have a couple of digits left over.

The man kneeling at my feet interrupted my musings. “How does that feel?”

Was Steve referring to the gigantic rubber flippers scraping against my oversized bunions, or the touch of his large hand resting gently on my right calf?

“Fine. Thanks for the help.” I stood and wobbled in my webbed footwear.

Steve put his arm around my waist and steadied me. “Hey, Dave’s my best friend. I promised I’d make you and your mom my priority.”

Steve grabbed my hand and we crossed to the starboard side of the vessel where a ladder hung over the side, dipping into the clear blue water of Kealakekua Bay, a popular dive spot. The white twenty-seven-foot obelisk erected on shore to honor Captain Cook glimmered in the distance. This spot was chosen to honor the sea captain because it was where the natives killed him once they realized he wasn’t really a god.

Tough crowd!

I watched Liz step carefully on the ladder, her fins jutting out at an angle. Brian patiently treaded water near the bottom rung. His bride clambered down the ladder with such dexterity one would think she’d been a duck in a former life. They kissed briefly, donned their gear and swam away from the boat, hand in hand. How nice to have someone waiting to explore the underwater magic together.

I must have looked worried because Steve hurried to reassure me. “You’ll be fine out there. Timmy and Rafe will keep an eye out for everyone in your group.”

Timmy, a young man with longish dark hair, gave me a curt nod then moved to the back of the boat.

Rafe smiled wide, exhibiting a large gap where both front teeth seem to have disappeared. “Yes, missy, I look out for you. I will not let no big shark make lunch from you.”

“Thanks,” I muttered. I hoped any sharks hovering near the
Sea Jinx
were on a low-fat no-protein diet.

I eased down the rungs far less gracefully than Liz. My vision is so bad that if I didn’t wear my contacts, I wouldn’t even recognize an octopus until it had wrapped all eight tentacles around me. I de-fogged the mask before I secured it and hoped no saltwater would intrude.

The ocean looked dark, deep and scary from my masked perspective, but I hated feeling like a wimp. Plus I was surrounded by other snorkelers. What could go wrong? I secured my snorkel and placed my face down in the water where I discovered an incredible new world.

The schools of brilliantly colored fish stunned me. Tiny yellow fish darted here and there, checking out the chubby mermaid who disturbed their play. Larger fish ogled me and I ogled them back.

I continued swimming away from the boat and a huge rock formation floated up on my right. The rocks slowly moved apart and I found myself face to face with a giant turtle. Then something tugged at my left foot. Was a shark about to turn me into an antipasto platter?

I tried swimming away, but the creature refused to let go. I thrashed my legs in a scissor-like movement disturbing the tiny schools of fish. Within seconds, they disappeared from sight.

My foot finally pulled free and I surfaced. My sigh of relief lasted less than a second before a dark shadow hovered next to me. I squinted at the large mammal, which did not possess a long snout and, oddly enough, wore swim trunks more iridescent than the fish I’d admired moments before.

I straightened and treaded water while I removed my mouth guard to scold my visitor. “Stan, why did you grab me?”

With his head above the waves, Stan fumbled with his own equipment before taking out the piece of rubber stuffed between his thin lips. “Sorry. I was afraid if I didn’t latch on to your foot, I’d never be able to stop you. You need to come back to the
Sea Jinx
.”

“Is it my mother? Is she okay?”

“Your mother is fine. For now.”

“What do you mean?” The heart palpitations I’d felt earlier when I thought I was about to turn into shark bait returned in full force.

“Dave was able to identify the body they found on the rocks.”

I put my hand over my heart. “Oh no. Who is it?”

“It’s Keiki.”

“Omigod. Do they know what happened to her?”

“I don’t know the details, but it gets even worse.”

“How on earth could it get any worse?”

“They’ve taken your brother in for questioning.”

The weather mirrored the group’s dour mood on our ride back to the Kailua pier. Dark storm clouds shifted ominously in the sky as we shifted nervously on the boat. Amanda did her best to entertain the passengers by sharing the mating secrets of humpback whales. The subject seemed to enthrall the young woman, but I wasn’t in the mood to think about dating or mating, on land or at sea.

The fifty-minute ride felt like fifty hours, although Steve had the engines on full throttle. We found out the police had not officially arrested Dave, but after meeting with him at the restaurant, they’d “invited” him down to the station for further questioning.

I had plenty of my own questions for my brother, especially after Regan’s inference the previous evening that something was going on between him and the now deceased dancer. I phoned my sister-in-law, but her cell rang and rang. After landing in her voicemail for the third time, I left a message asking Regan to call back. A matter of life and death.

Once we’d arrived at the Kailua Pier, our small group debated our next move. Neither Steve nor Brian thought barging into the Kona police station was an option. For all we knew, Dave might be gone by now. There wasn’t much we could do until we heard from my brother, so we said good-bye to Steve and drove down Alii Drive in search of a place to eat lunch.

As we neared Daiquiri Dave’s, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic. Several official-looking cars with blue lights on their roofs were parked in front of the restaurant. I imagined it would have been filled with police cars earlier this morning. A few tourists wandered along the street, gawking and snapping photographs of a setting one rarely sees in the tropics––yellow and red hibiscus bushes covered with crime scene tape.

A young couple dressed in sweat-stained T-shirts, jogging shorts and running shoes, darted across the street in front of our car. Brian slowed the vehicle to a crawl to avoid adding any more victims to the local casualty list.

I tapped Brian on the shoulder. “Can we stop for a minute? Let’s see what we can find out.”

“C’mon, honey, pull over,” Liz said. “It’s the least we can do. Maybe they’ll tell us if Dave is still at the police station.”

“Okay.” Brian maneuvered the sedan into a grassy patch further up the road. “They might respond to an assistant D.A., even one visiting from California.”

I threw the passenger door open before he could yank his keys out of the ignition. Brian might have more official status than me, but Dave was my brother, and his welfare was my top priority. My thin-soled flip-flops skidded on the parking lot’s gravel surface as I rushed toward the restaurant. I reached the open door of the building and halted. Although no crime scene tape barred my entry, I was uncertain what kind of reception my appearance would garner.

No one stopped me from entering Daiquiri Dave’s, so I walked inside. Off to the left, in a casual setting, tables and chairs rested on a sandy floor in front of a low lava rock wall, the only barrier between the cliff-side restaurant and the pounding surf twenty feet below. Two men stood in the more formal dining room located to the right of the stage.

A gray-haired man wearing a tan print shirt and khakis snapped photos from various angles. The younger, uniformed officer examined the thick ropes securing one post to another, which kept patrons from inadvertently falling over the wall. I recalled that the top rope barely reached my hips. I tapped the younger officer on his navy blue shoulder. He jumped to his feet and glared.

“What are you doing here? Did you not see the crime scene tape?” he asked in slightly accented English. “No one is allowed inside this establishment.”