Fire Beach: Lei Crime Book 8 (Lei Crime Series) (4 page)

Besides, he didn’t really have a choice. Whoever this was knew his identity. What he was. Where he lived. If he didn’t do what they wanted, there was no reason not to rat him out—in fact, that threat was implicit in the bold way his name was printed on the envelope.

Moving slowly, the Fireman lifted the battered stop sign he’d stolen from one of his ignition sites into the window. How did this person know about the sign, even? Looking around, he realized the window was uncovered, and someone in a nearby building could probably see right in.

He closed the blind, lowering it down behind the stop sign and resolving to keep it down permanently. He sat back down and counted his money again. That comforting activity didn’t stop his mouth from going dry as his phone dinged with an incoming text message containing an address.

Stevens and Ferreira, along with Tim Owen, ranged around the remains of the burn victim on the steel table in the morgue. The portly ME, bright in a rainbow-covered aloha shirt, pushed magnifying glasses onto the top of his head as he gestured to the body. “Cause of death is asphyxiation from smoke inhalation. Burns are secondary. Tox screens will take a couple of weeks, but the stomach was empty. I’m guessing he’ll have a high blood-alcohol count.”

“I’ve found the point of origin of the fire,” the young investigator said. He spoke in the nasal voice of someone mouth breathing. The body’s odor and appearance hadn’t improved with the autopsy. Stevens peered closely at the victim’s red, swollen and blistered face.

“We’re interested in that, of course,” Stevens said. “But we’re more interested in who this man was. Did you find any ID? Anything on or near the body?”

“No,” Dr. Gregory said. “Nothing in his pockets but a beer opener.” He handed the scorched item, neatly bagged, to Stevens. “Wasn’t enough skin left on his fingers to take prints. Maybe there’s a print on the beer opener.”

Stevens turned to Owen. “Did you find where this man was camping in the field? Maybe there was something left at his campsite.”

“I did.” Owen took out his file and opened it on an unoccupied steel table beside the body. They clustered around the fan of photos he spread out. “See this directionality?” He pointed to the way the sugarcane was pointing. “I could see which way the cane had burned from this and could see the remaining leaves on the downwind side. The char pattern is also rough in the direction of the point of origin. I found three spots along the cane-haul access road that tested positive for hydrocarbons, indicating a petroleum-based accelerant. I also found the remains of a gas can.” Owen held up a photo of a blackened metal can with a blown-out crack in it, lying in a gridded area. “This is what remains of a gas can that tested positive for the same residual trace as the origin sites.”

“What does that mean?” Ferreira asked. Stevens saw the gleam of Vicks on the older detective’s handlebar mustache below his nose, and he wished he’d thought of putting some on to head off the smell.

“It means the arsonist must have been careless. This can exploding would have been like a mine. No reason I can think of that he would have left it in the fire.”

“Any fingerprints?” Stevens asked.

“Actually, I did get a partial. Kind of a miracle.” Owen flipped to a blown-up photo of several whorls of a fingerprint, outlined in the black of char. “Lucky to have this. Brought an extra photo for you.”

“Excellent.” Stevens took the photo.

“So you said you found where this guy was camping?” Ferreira indicated the body on the table.

“Yes. He had a small tent. Must have been able to keep the spiders out that way.” Owen gave a nod to Stevens. “The tent was burned, but I was able to find and identify the remains of the fabric, and the make is by Coleman.” He showed them another photo. “See all these bottles? Looks like you were probably right, Dr. Gregory. This guy was holed up out there on a bender. Didn’t find any ID, though.”

They wrapped up the meeting, and Stevens and Ferreira walked out with Owen to go to the sugar mill headquarters. “Been out there yet?” Ferreira asked Owen as they reached their vehicles in the parking lot.

“Yeah, we’ve had a meeting already,” Owen said, gesturing toward the central area of the island before he got into a bright yellow Maui Fire Department truck.

“I know right where the admin building is,” Ferreira said to Stevens. Stevens handed his keys to Ferreira, and the burly older detective got behind the wheel of the Bronco.

“Let’s take the lead on this interview,” Stevens said as Ferreira fired up the vehicle. “Even though Owen set it up, this investigation’s already out of his purview now that we know it’s an arson homicide.” Each state had a different way of investigating fire crime. In Hawaii, fire investigators focused exclusively on the causes of fire, and criminal investigation went to law enforcement.

“No argument there. Kid’s wet behind the ears.”

“Maybe, but he seems to know his stuff. Takes initiative, too.” Stevens already felt a little protective of Tim Owen. He knew how hard it could be to get established in a place like Hawaii, with so many hidden social rules and agendas.

For some reason that reminded him of Anchara’s simple life on Maui after their divorce. She’d been making a place here for herself and her son—before her life was stolen from her and her baby came to Stevens by default. Her murder would always haunt him.

He decided it always should.

They drove through the nondescript sprawl of urbanization that was downtown Kahului, but right outside of town, Ferreira turned left onto a semi-deserted one-lane asphalt road crusted with the red, iron-rich soil of the island. They drove down the narrow road bordered by tall, waving sugarcane and turned right into the mill area.

The rusted steel outbuildings and belching stacks of the processing plant rose around them like a factory out of a Dickens novel. Ferreira navigated past a row of parked red Ford trucks caked in filth and down an alley between towering corrugated metal buildings. A clattering rumble of machinery surrounded them and made it hard to think, and the cab of the truck filled with the rich, tactile scent of boiling molasses.

“I’m in favor of the sugar industry, but you wouldn’t see me working here,” Ferreira said, parking in front of a rusty metal outbuilding with no windows.

“It’s quite a contrast to the beaches—that’s for sure,” Stevens said, stepping out of the truck into the parking lot. Dirt rose in reddish, powdery puffs under his boots.

Owen had parked beside them, and he got out of the yellow truck. “Gonna have to wash this when I get back to base,” he said, gesturing to the residue that already coated the vehicle.

“That’s why the workers stay covered up.” Ferreira pointed to a group of workers getting off a beat-up old school bus. They were attired in long-sleeved shirts and pants, big cloth hats, and bandannas covering their faces. “Let’s get inside where it’s air-conditioned.”

Lei walked onto the plane and slid her tightly packed backpack into the overhead compartment. She took out the case file to review during the flight. Settling in her seat, she wrestled one last time with her conscience.

She should have at least called Stevens. She’d gotten better at remembering to communicate, but she didn’t want to call now and have Stevens realize there was more going on than she was willing to say. Once she was in Hilo and checked into the cheap motel she’d picked out, she could text him. If he called, she’d tell him about the case that had brought her over to the Big Island. Less was more right now.

Still, Lei’s gut roiled uneasily at the deception. “No help for it,” she muttered.

How she was going to pull off anything useful remained to be seen.

She’d had to check her weapon in its special case, and she felt a little naked without it. She buckled her belt over her unfamiliarly tight waist and settled back in the seat, telling herself to relax.

She shut her eyes as the plane took off, remembering last night with a pang of guilty loss. After Lei locked everything back up in her office, she’d come out to the living room. Jared was gone. Kiet was asleep in his bouncy seat, an empty bottle beside him, and Stevens was on the couch.

“Alone at last.” Stevens had hooked a long arm around Lei, hauling her over to him on the couch and giving her a thorough kiss. She’d melted against him, her tender breasts prickling with need. She didn’t remember hearing about how pregnancy made women feel sexy, but now that the nausea was gone, Lei always seemed to be “in the mood.” Just a look or a touch from her husband seemed to be enough to get her going these days.

Kiet belched softly from his seat.

“Well, not quite alone,” Stevens said, turning back to the baby and loosening the straps that held him in. “I’ll put him down. Meet you in the bedroom.”

“I’ll be a few minutes. Got to clean up.” Lei went into the kitchen as he carried the baby off. She put away the leftovers and loaded the dishwasher. Part of their agreement with her dad was that he got a clean kitchen in the morning. She went to the bedroom after brushing her teeth, stepping inside and shutting the door.

He’d closed the curtains, and the light was off. In the total darkness, the known became new again. “Where are you?”

“Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.” Stevens growled, and she smiled, feeling her way forward.

“Thought that was my line,” Lei said. “I don’t want to grab Keiki by mistake.” The big Rottie slept on the bed with them.

“She’s banished for the moment.”

“Oh. You have some devious plan, I can tell.”

“You told me you liked my devious plans. Back when we weren’t old married folk.”

“I do like your plans.”

“No more talking.”

Lei’s heart rate spiked at his low, commanding tone. Her nipples tightened as a soft ache tugged at her. Prickling awareness rippled up her arms and made the tiny hairs rise in instant response.

She’d reached the side of the bed. As her eyes adjusted, she saw the faintest outline of his long, naked body, and her mouth went dry. She swallowed, trying to see more, savoring the anticipation. There was only enough light to glimpse the heavy curve of his shoulder, the slant of his side, the long plane of his extended thigh.

“Come here.” His voice was a vibrating chord that thrilled her.

No, marriage and family hadn’t quenched their passion. At least not yet.

Lei forced her attention back to the file, feeling bad again for leaving him. Deceiving him. Well, maybe nothing would come of it. She’d work her case and go home. Still, this was an opportunity to get an eye on the Changs’ operation. She had to take it.

Fortunately, no one had taken the seat beside her, so she was able to open the file and sort through the records she’d collected on the gambling ring that had emerged on Maui. Just a week ago, a confidential informant she’d cultivated had gotten her involved in what was developing into a case with deep roots.

“So, mah-jongg one Chinese game,” her CI, Claudine Figueroa, an innkeeper in Wailuku she’d met on a murder investigation, had told her. “I been getting these invitations on e-mail. Me and my friends, we like go. Sometimes we watch the players. Sometimes we play and we bet.”

“How high are the stakes? I mean, this sounds like small potatoes,” Lei said. She’d responded to Claudine’s phone call that she had some “important information for the MPD,” and now that she was here, at the woman’s inn, the equivalent of organized bingo didn’t sound like a big concern.

“Stakes are big. My second cousin, he lost his house in one of these games. Not only that, they get some boys breaking legs if people don’t pay,” Claudine said, sucking her dentures the way she did when upset. She plucked at the neck of a banana-yellow muumuu, and Lei spotted matching Crocs peeking out from underneath the hem.

“I can tell there’s more going on than you’re telling me.” Lei fiddled with the rough, white-gold pendant she always wore.

“Those boys, they’ve already got us paying protection money,” Claudine hissed, leaning forward to catch Lei’s eye. “If it’s not mah-jongg, it’s blackjack or the lottery in the Mainland. They got an idea for everyone who like gamble, and you don’t get hooked on something, they keep trying until you do.”

“Protection money? And who is ‘they’?”

“I don’t know exactly. Six months ago, these two guys, they came around to all the small-kine businesses in Wailuku. Nobody knows them, but they’re big guys, armed. They tell us they charging one ‘tax’ for keep doing business here. Some of us no like pay the tax. And you remember the building wen’ burn down on Market Street? That guy, he no like pay.” Claudine’s pidgin thickened with her agitation. “I tell the husband, we going pay. So we do. Then next thing, we getting e-mails about all the things they like us to gamble on.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Lei asked. “When you had that homicide at your inn? It might have been important.”

“No, I nevah like deal with it then. Now I know this just going get worse and worse until they bleed us dry, and it’s got to stop. After my cuz lost his house, I say enough already. And I know you. That’s why I call you. You one good girl.”

Lei smiled at that description. “I have to take this back to the station and see if my captain wants to assign it to Vice. I usually work Homicide. But thanks for the tip, Claudine. I’ll get back to you no matter what.”

Captain Omura had ended up authorizing Lei to run with the case. Lei was working it alone because she was currently without a partner, due to resigning from the hazardous explosives detail. Abe Torufu, her partner on that assignment, was now training with another detective who’d volunteered to take her place on the bomb squad.

And it was just as well she didn’t have a partner, Lei thought, as she leafed through her notes. Through interviews, she’d uncovered persistent rumors that both the “protection” payments and organized gambling had their roots in the Changs’ Big Island operation and that the two thugs who collected payment were unknown to Maui folks because they came over from that island. Last week, when she’d asked to go to Hawaii to check out the situation, Omura had given the okay.

But Omura didn’t know Lei had been ordered by the FBI not to have anything further to do with any investigation involving the Changs. Lei would have been perfectly happy to honor that if she didn’t suspect Terence Chang had somehow found a way to kill Anchara and her aunt and set Stevens up for murder.

And Chang was still holding on to one more shroud.

She shut the folder, reclined her seat, and closed her eyes for the short flight. Her mind immediately went back to the bedroom with Stevens. The remnants of that rich memory didn’t make it easier to get off the plane, knowing she was going after their enemy behind his back instead of by his side.