Haole Wood (18 page)

I opened the closet and pulled out a roll of each of the four different colors, the greenish gold, pinkish bronze, blue with sliver and the red. I continued my spiel in a voice announcing nothing but sunshine. “We can do a variety, five wraps in each color.” I leaned the bolts against the corner and reached for the red fabric. I unrolled a few feet of the carnelian material and shimmied it under the light at the window. “Just look how this fabric coruscates in the sunlight.”

Shayna snorted. “So now you’re Dean Koontz? Don’t even try.”

Tough crowd. I cleared my throat. My face felt like it matched the fabric. “Look how pretty the sheen is, it almost sparkles.”

I had read a Dean Koontz novel on the flight over to Maui from San Diego, and maybe subconsciously I did try to incorporate some high-fallutin’ vocabulary. It was actually more conscious than that so I could show them how smart I am. Busted by Shayna. Just what would Mr. Koontz do right about now? There wouldn’t be a guardian angel. There would be some kick-ass carnage and maybe a clown, or two. He’d probably have some super-dog show up and sniff out the real killer and lead me to safety and my one true love. I sighed.

“What’s your company called?” Shayna asked.

“Hollywood Haute,” I answered, trying to remember what it had been like when I was fourteen, and trying to like Shayna in spite of it. I couldn’t understand why everyone laughed.

“That’s a really stupid name,” Shayna said. “That all you got?”

“Well, I think it’s kind of glamorous sounding, you know, like in a haute couture, specially-designed, custom made, snooty kind of way. And then the haute plays off of hot, like heat, from the sun.” My hands made a twirling motion, as if that would make the name easier for them to swallow.

“If you say so,” Lois said.

“Wait a minute,” Shayna said. “I don’t think anyone will get the hot part.”

“Well, either way,” I said, meaning shut it, that’s what I named my company, deal with it.

“Seriously?” Shayna looked at me like I had lost my mind. If only she knew. I thought she and my guardian angel would get along swell together, they could both gang up on me.

“What’s not to get?”

“I just think you should keep it simple.”

“As do I,” I answered in a bossy tone.

“Good job, Shayna,” said her mom, squeezing her with a quick hug around her shoulders. “Shayna can design the labels and we can make those up, too, and sew them onto the wraps.”

“Great. Thanks, Lois. I hope this will be fun and profitable for all of us.”

“Sure. We’ll be back tomorrow and work as soon as the sun comes up. I’ll bring my sewing machine. You can go get some thread, and sequins or something that we can use when we put the beading on the ends.”

“I can do that,” I said.

“Mary and Mary will sew,” Lois continued. “Marie will help me cut the patterns and get them ready, and your grandmother,” she nodded her head respectfully at Halmoni, “will prepare the fabric.” She spoke a few melodious Hawaiian words to my grandmother who clasped her hands and beamed. “Shayna will help with the beading, the labels and come up with new designs. We’ll have your twenty shawls by end of day tomorrow.”

“Sunshminas,” I gently suggested.

Lois waved her hand as she headed for the door. “Hollywood,” she added, shaking her head.

“Why doesn’t anyone like that name?”

Shayna was the last one out and stopped and turned to me. “Listen. I know you’re in charge and my mom may give you a hard time, but she’s a really hard worker. So are Mary, Mary and Maria.” Shayna shrugged her shoulders. “And like, you should know, they need the money. My mom was Mike Hokama’s housekeeper.”

“What? Lois worked for Mike Hokama?”

Shayna nodded.

“In his house?”

“That’s usually where housework is done.”

“I need to talk to her about this. She might know something.”

“You can try, but she wasn’t there.”

“She may have a clue. I’ve got to find out.”

“Good. Ask her anything you want. If you’re paying her, she’ll tell you anything you want to know.” Shayna bit on a fingernail. “Money is tight for everyone. The others used to work up in Ka’anapali but all the resorts have cut back on their staff and hired younger workers so they don’t have to pay them as much. All the jobs on this island are pretty much tourist related. They’re all hard workers and I hope you can keep them working.”

“Thanks for telling me Shayna, I’ll try.” I didn’t have enough to worry about before, I thought, as I headed out to talk to Lois.

“Yeah, and I want to go to college,” Shayna added, following close behind me.

“Lois?” I hurried up to the car.

Lois rolled down her window and rolled up her eyebrows.

“I know Mike Hokama was your cousin, and I’m very sorry about his death.” I tried to catch my breath. “Shayna just told me you were his housekeeper. Please. Do you have any idea who could have killed him?”

Lois began shaking her head before I even finished my sentence. “Like I told the police. He was a regular guy. Had some friends, had some enemies. I didn’t see anything strange, he wasn’t acting funny. It was business as usual. I also told the police there was no way your grandmother could have done it.”

“Thanks for that,” I said.

Lois shifted her car into reverse.

“Wait. What about Lana?”

Lois laughed. “No way. Lana may be a lot of things, but she’s not a murderer. Those two.” Lois shook her head. “They loved each other. I’m sure they would have ended up together.”

After they left, I headed out to the fabric store to get supplies, and then stopped by the attorney’s office.

“Hi, O’Boyle.”

“Nothin’ new.” He sighed and fell back into his office chair. “They questioned several people, but they all have alibis.”

“Who did they talk to?”

“They’ve talked to Mike’s ex-girlfriend, Lana, but she was singing that night. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t have done it. We can cross her off the list.”

“Why cross her off? Why couldn’t she have done it? Why does everyone keep saying that? Why is it so impossible for Lana to have killed him? Isn’t it usually the boyfriend or girlfriend? I bet she did do it. I’ve seen her and she looks quite capable of masterminding this. What if Mike was trying to mess up her career, or, wouldn’t marry her? There are tons of reasons why she could have killed him. A crime of passion. It happens all the time. This is the perfect murder mystery. It has everything, pretty people, money, a great location.” I lowered my voice into a narrator’s drone, “Murderrrrrr in Mauiiiii—passion, poison, and . . .” I paused, well, I don’t know, pina coladas. “O’Boyle, can’t we check this out more? How can people just wave her aside and not treat her like an honest to goodness suspect?”

“She didn’t do it. She’s clean. She was singing in Lahaina during the hours they pinpointed his death. Hundreds of people saw her. She’s been helpful. Poor kid is really torn up by his death.”

Et tu
, O’Boyle? I thought, as he spared precious extra syllables for St. Lana.

“What else?” I asked him.

“Former business partner sued him for commission on a deal they had done. He does big infomercials for how to get rich selling real estate. He calls his TV program
The Eve of Achi
?” He quirked his eyebrow at me. “Like everyone is on the brink of getting rich? Achieve?”

I sounded it out. “Achieve? He did it,” I said.

“He was on the mainland at the time and hadn’t seen Mike for weeks.”

“Who else?”

“The police gave me a list of everyone who had been seen going into and out of his house the week leading up to his death. They’ve questioned them all, from the gardener, to the driver he occasionally hired, to the housekeeper.”

“The housekeeper came up clean?” I asked. I had to double-check.

He leafed through a few papers. “Lois Somebody. Yes. She checked out.”

“What about Diane Clary? She’s the tourist who bought my sun wraps. Have you heard about her? She said she had a deal going with Mike.”

“She’s been cleared, too. She had no motive, since she needed him alive to get their deal to go through. I think they were trying to buy one hundred fifty acres near Hana, where Oprah has a place. Now that he’s dead, Diane will have a hard time pushing that through without his influence.”

“Yes, but maybe they had an argument over money or something and she had him whacked.”

“Jaswinder,” he said. At least he knew my name. “I have been exploring every lead.”

“What about Oprah? Maybe she didn’t want Mike Hokama and whatever he planned to build to be her neighbor?”

Looong pause. “While I’m sure it would have been a concern, do you really think Oprah Winfrey killed Mike Hokama?”

“Sorry.”

“Mrs. Park continues to be the prime suspect, and her preliminary trial has been set for two days from now.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, my spine tingled as if it were made of shave ice crystals.

“It’s where they determine if there’s enough evidence to send her case to trial. I have to prepare you both, it looks like there is. Also, they will probably revoke her bail because they think she’d be a flight risk.”

“O’Boyle, she is being framed. Who would have to gain from A. Mike’s death, and B. My grandmother taking the fall?”

“Don’t know. I have a PI checking out some of the names.” I didn’t say anything and eyeballed him until he was forced to look up at me. The poor man looked miserable, like he wasn’t used to not knowing.

“There’s something I just can’t put my finger on,” I said. “I saw the photos. I believe my grandmother was there with her teas and herbs to help Mike, which she admits, but something’s just not right. I can’t figure it out, it’s like I’m missing a clue.”

“If you think of anything, let me know.”

And with that touching goodbye scene, I got up and left. I headed home and hung out for awhile with Halmoni. I finally told her good night, even though I was positive I would never sleep. I felt hopped up on Kona coffee, with sunshmina plans swirling into solving Mike Hokama’s murder. How I yearned to harness caffeine’s powers for good. I let my parents believe if I ever had a daughter that’s what I was going to name her, Caffeine. It starts to sound really pretty around the three hundredth time of saying it. My parents didn’t get me at all. Besides, look what they named me. If caffeine could unlock the hidden treasures in my brain, I would be a very rich woman, indeed. I would stop saying words like indeed. I would have the superpower to get by in life on only four hours of sleep, instead of the seven hours okay-but-still-cranky vs. eight hours now-you’re-talking vs. the sad reality of I only feel human if I get nine hours of sleep. I punched my pillow. Caffeine fantasies were the least of my problems, as I was about to find out.

The next morning my eyelids gently flickered and my smile stretched to reach my pillow. I wasn’t ready to leave my dream. It left me all fluttery, and had I been a twelve-year-old boy I would have had to change my sheets. I snuggled back into the pillow to try to snuggle back into the arms of . . . Ugh. I bolted straight up in bed. Yuck. I had a sex dream with that guy? That old guy who hosted an actors’ interview show?

I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, as if trying to erase the images of intimacy. I finally have a good dream and it’s with Mr.-Tell-Me-More-About-What-Turns-You-On? I shuddered, and not in a good way. I wondered if guys ever have sex dreams with not-in-a-million-years-last-person-on-earth types, and if they did, if it mattered. Girls are different. Even in our dreams we look for emotional connections. Unless Mr. Dreamy was really hot.

What in the world was my subconscious trying to tell me? Do I have a hidden desire to be famous, where fans wait with baited breath to learn my favorite color? Maybe he was supposed to be an intrepid interrogator, asking just the right question. What message was this dream sending me? I saw his face in my dream after we
did it
and remembered him taking out his white handkerchief to clean his glasses. He then folded it up and put it back in the breast pocket of his suit jacket, which he had been wearing. Hmm. What clue was I missing? What secret was this dream supposed to unlock?

During the waking light of day there was not one sexually intriguing facet I could attribute to the guy. My guardian angel was lying on the other bed, and pretended to smoke a cigarette. My mouth opened in a silent scream. I threw my pillow at him.

“Now, now, little one,” he chided me. “Did you sleep well? Sweet dreams?”

“You are disgusting.” I stomped off to the bathroom. So was I, but I just knew there was some clue hidden in that dream. The problem was, figuring it out.

I quickly dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen. My grandmother was still sleeping but I heard a noise. There he was again, sitting on the countertop, in all his glory, with the ketchup bottle.

“Give me that,” I said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Not that,” he said.

“Very funny. I’m nervous about this whole sunshmina project, which Shayna told me all the ladies are counting on. No added pressure there. But, I also thought I could make a little money until I figure out what I want to do with my life and can get off this island.”

He shook his head. His earlobes were as thick as the old-fashioned tomato pin cushion in my grandmother’s sewing room. “You will experience everything you must. Do not try to fight your destiny.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Quit with all this cryptic crap and give me something I can work with. What do you know?”

“What do you want to know?” He asked. “If you could know one thing, what would it be?” He held up one finger. “Do you want to know who killed Mike Hokama?” He continued counting on his sugar cane-sized fingers. “Do you want to know if Dr. Jac likes you? Do you want to know how your little Hollywood business is going to go?”

“I want to know who you are,” I said, putting the kettle on to boil for tea. I spun back around to face him. “I do want to know who killed Mike Hokama. Can you tell me? I’ll do anything.”