Molokai Reef (25 page)

As
the drinks flowed, the two women discovered that they shared many
interests, including the environment. Despite their opposite
thoughts on genetic modification, the basis of a friendship
developed.

Susan
had told Kara that she and Jean began spending almost every night
together. On weekends, they often went to Maui where they explored
Lahaina, Hana, and once rode bicycles down Mt. Haleakala. On their
last weekend trip together, they had ridden the ferry to the Manele
Bay Resort on Lāna‘i.

Early
Saturday morning of that weekend, they caught the shuttle bus to
Lāna‘i City – the only town on the island. After
exploring the small town, they returned to the beach and enjoyed a
lazy afternoon followed by an excellent meal in the resort
restaurant. That night Jean told Susan that the relationship was
over.

Jean
explained that she and her boss Dr. Elizabeth Miller, the founder of
GeNesRus, had maintained an exclusive relationship while at UC Davis.
The relationship ended when Elizabeth accepted a position with a
biotech firm on Moloka‘i.

Jean
wanted to get back together with Elizabeth.

“
Susan
was devastated.” Kara sympathized.

After
a moment of contemplation, Gybe said. “Great. With Flyn’s
information about the reef, we eliminate the Franken-corn motive.
Then an hour later, you reveal another motive for Susan. She was a
jilted lover?”

46

The
four sleuths – Gybe, Kara, Mongoose, and Flyn – ate lunch
aboard
Ferrity
. Gybe summarized their findings.

They
hadn’t found any evidence to exonerate Susan. Her belief, or
motive in the eyes of the prosecutor, was flawed. The seed companies
weren’t any more responsible for the death of the reef than
other industries. To the prosecutor, it was still a motive.

“
On
the bright side, if we blow the biotech motive, the prosecutor will
replace it with the jilted lover motive.” Gybe jested.

The
concrete used for the helmets contained a special underwater
additive. Who else on the island used the additive? “Mongoose,
check around and see who sells and uses the concrete additive. I
haven’t noticed new shoreline development, at least on this
island, so there can’t be many that need it.”

“
Uh,
not sure this is important, but Susan told me she was missing two
bags of the additive – she called it Mellose.” Kara
offered.

“
Is
there anything else you forgot to tell us?” Gybe bounced back.

“
No.”
Kara huffed. “Susan assumed the bags were stolen from the
boat. She didn’t have anywhere to stow them one night so she
left the bags on the deck of the workboat. Any item not locked down,
someone would steal, at least according to Susan. No big deal.”

“
Mongoose
– go ahead and find out who else uses this stuff. We’re
not likely to find who ripped off her boat.”

“
Kara.
Susan hasn’t come up with an alibi – has she?”

Susan
had told Gybe and Kara when they visited her the first time that she
had taken the workboat for a ride. She had left Kaunakakai Harbor
around seven and returned just before midnight. Gybe hadn’t
believed her story.

“
Nope,
she went to her secret spot on the sea floor and practiced her yoga.”

“
I
find it hard to believe that she was gone for three hours, by
herself, and never came ashore or saw anyone.” Gybe grumbled.

The
briefing continued when Kara took the lead. “Gybe was with me
when we talked to Ray’s widow. To me, she didn’t seem
very upset about her husband’s murder. I’d like to know
more about her. Could the widow have murdered her husband?”

“
If
she did, then why would she kill Jean too?” Flyn asked.

“
Maybe
she thought Jean and her husband were having an affair.” Kara
proffered.

“
She
couldn’t have done it alone.” Gybe added. “Two
healthy people, the concrete on their heads, the placement of the
bodies near the reef – I don’t think she’s strong
enough. Besides, what’s the point? Why not dump them in deep
water or on a back road? If we assume that she murdered Ray and Jean
then we should look for an accomplice.”

It
was too complicated, Gybe thought. Killing your husband wasn’t
unusual, but there was no evidence that Jean and Ray were having an
affair. In fact, so far, they hadn’t found evidence that the
victims knew each other.

“
Since
Kara’s paying the bills, let’s look for a motive for the
merry widow. Goose – find out if the good Dr. Ray left his
widow a fat insurance policy or inheritance or coin collection.
Flyn, see what the coconut telegraph has to say about the widow.”

“
Kara’s
paying? Gybe, you omitted this minor detail,” the ’goose
queried.

Spiking
Gybe’s response, Flyn interrupted. “You say that Jean
was having an affair with her boss, Dr. Miller. That fits with what
Mongoose discovered in their e-mails. Right?”

Mongoose
nodded.

“
You
also said that Jean’s gardener told you of a man who was at
Jean’s house every Saturday morning?

Gybe
and Kara nodded their agreement.

“
So
Sherlock, is it possible that Dr. Miller, Jean’s boss/lover,
discovered her cheating, with a man no less, and offed them both?”

“
Indeed
my faithful Watson, Kara and I shall talk with the gardener again.
We’ll learn the name of the mystery suitor.” Gybe
assumed the role of Sherlock.

In
his head, a headache erupted at the competing theories. The Jean as
lesbian theory required that her boss/lover found Jean cheating with
a man – Ray – and killed them in a fit of passion.

In
the other theory, Ray’s widow killed Ray for any of a dozen
common reasons that spouses kill each other. Jean was either an
active or a passive bystander.

Gybe
also knew that Jean’s sexual preferences pointed northeast.
“Anyone want dibs that a pony shows up next?” He
mumbled.

“
Don’t
forget about the hashish and the drug brothers?” Kara
reminded.

“
Mongoose
and I have a plan to visit the brothers.” Gybe answered.

“
Shouldn’t
you wait until your face heals?” Kara kidded.

Flyn
had known Gybe for several years, so she was unconcerned about his
rematch with the brothers. On the other hand, she had been surprised
at the results of his first meeting with the brothers.

“
I
have a plan.” Gybe announced. Gybe shifted the focus to Dr.
Spooner or Les, as he preferred.

Without
naming
Lagoonabago
or Andrea, Gybe gave an abridged version of
the events leading up to Les’s hasty departure from the boat.
They were curious about the mystery boat and the girls, but Gybe
ignored their questions.

“
SynCorn
needs money. Some of his employees are accepting promises as pay. I
don’t see a tie-in with the murders, but …. I felt he
was blowing smoke – cigar smoke – up my shorts when Kara
and I met with him.”

“
Flyn,
he doesn’t know you. Can you snoop around at his company –
SynCorn? Also, see what you can pick up in the local hangouts -
bars, cafés, wherever he might go after work. Goose has
broadband Internet on
Makani
. Get on that and see what you
can find on the Internet. Okay ’goose?”

Mongoose
nodded and Flyn agreed.

Everyone
split to his or her assigned tasks. Kara and Gybe took the dinghy
towards shore. “Gybe, ’goose has satellite driven high
speed Internet on
Makani
? I saw lots of other toys. Does he
have a rich uncle? Is he a bank robber? Drug dealer?”

47

“
Mongoose
is an inventor.” Gybe replied.

He
held several patents crossing a range of technologies. Last April,
Mongoose had sold his most recent startup, a company he founded three
years earlier. The preeminent product combined the latest generation
of night vision technology from Russia with a face recognition
software algorithm developed for airport security. The ’goose
modified and merged these technologies to create the NOFOD system.

“
What’s
NOFOD?”

NOFOD,
Gybe deciphered, stood for No Outside Food Or Drink. The system
scanned movie auditoriums and identified those moviegoers who had
smuggled outside food and drinks into the theaters.

They
secured
Aweigh
to the dinghy dock and approached the ’vair
from upwind. The stench was so strong that even dogs stayed away.
Kara herded the ’vair towards town where they hoped to find the
gardener.

Gybe
assumed that the gardener was working today. There were few streets,
fewer than ten through streets, and maybe a dozen culs-de-sac in the
town. Using a simple grid search, he told Kara which streets to
drive.

Before
beginning the search, they drove to Jean’s house hoping to find
him in the greenhouse watering the corn. His pickup was not there.
Jean’s neighbor to the right of the house stood near her
mailbox. Kara asked if she knew the gardener and if so, where he
lived.

She
didn’t know the address, but she gave them directions to the
gardener’s house. “Live on last street, mauka side of
town.”

When
Kara turned into the street, Gybe recognized the gardener’s
pickup in front of the third house on the left. Kara drifted to the
left side of the road and parked face to face with the pickup.

The
gardener remembered them from Jean’s house and invited them to
sit under a monkeypod tree in the side yard. Gybe showed him a
picture from the paper of the dead Ray Wilson. Well, actually, it
was a picture of Ray Wilson before he was dead.

“
That’s
him. That’s the fellow who used to work with Jean in the
greenhouse. I’m sure.”

“
How
often did you see them together?”

The
gardener told them that he had seen the man and Jean together every
weekend. He added that during the week, he took care of the corn.
Jean and the man tended it on weekends. The gardener saw Jean only
when he swung by to pick up his pay. He liked to stop by early
Saturday morning before going to the farmer’s market.

Accomplishing
their goal, Gybe thanked the gardener, then he and Kara returned to
the ’vair.

Kara
started the ’vair while Gybe pushed the car back from the
pickup. At the end of the cul-de-sac, Kara ricocheted the car off
the right curb, bounced off the left one, then accelerated out of the
turn.

“
If
Jean and Ray were having an affair, they weren’t very secretive
about it.” Gybe mused. “I think we should visit the not
so grieving widow.”

“
Agreed.”

If it
hadn’t been the ’vair, one could say the car ghosted to a
stop in front of the widow’s house. A freshly installed For
Sale sign flagged the front yard. Gybe and Kara exchanged glances
then approached the front door. The driveway was empty. No one
answered. Hoping that neighbors would recognize them as home buyers,
they wandered to the back yard. The curtains were open on the patio
door. Inside, they scanned empty rooms, barren of furniture. They
continued around the house. Through two more windows, they confirmed
that all of the furniture was gone. The widow and her two children
had fled.

“
Guess
she didn’t like Moloka‘i as much as she told us the other
day.” Gybe opined.

Back
in the front lawn, they were met with the much dreaded and to be
avoided nosy neighbor.

The
neighbor, who bragged that she didn’t gossip, told them that a
moving van had cleared the house yesterday. She didn’t know
when Sharon and the children left. In fact she was disappointed that
they didn’t say goodbye. “I baby sat them kids many
times.”

“
Now
what? I told you I didn’t trust the widow.” Kara sat at
the wheel, still parked at the widow’s house.

“
Maybe
this place held too many bad memories. Just because she left doesn’t
mean that she committed two murders. You’re grasping at
anything to protect Susan.”

“
I
still don’t like it.” She started the car and drove them
back towards town.

Kara
turned left then a block later when the street ended, she turned
right onto Malama, the main street of Kaunakakai. About half a block
before the ballpark, she spotted the Realtor’s office.

Gybe
waited in the car while she went inside.

“
She
moved to Wichita.” Kara said as she slammed the car door.
“She listed the house the same day we met her. She left the
next day.”

“
She
fled town without waiting for Susan’s trial. Without waiting
to see the death of her husband avenged. That’s very odd
behavior.” Kara added as she spun the car’s starter.

“
Let’s
go back to Jean’s house and see if we can talk with the
neighbors.” Gybe suggested.

48

The
neighbor that they had spoken with earlier was not at home. The
neighbor on the opposite side of Jean’s house was home but
refused to talk about Jean. “I mind my own business.”
She said as she slammed the screen door and returned to
Oprah
.