O'ahu Lonesome Tonight? (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series #5) (25 page)

Natalie told
Jason she wouldn’t be able to come. After all, she was pregnant and she hadn’t
been feeling well. She asked Jason to handle it. She told the police what she’d
meant was for Jason to drive Stuart out to the boat yard so he could sleep off
the booze and be ready for work early the next morning. She’d explained to the
police that Stuart often stayed out there. But it seems Jason misunderstood
what she meant by ‘handling it’ and instead of helping Stuart get safely to
work, Jason threw the Mercedes guy out of the club. This made things even worse
for Stuart. She figured the Mercedes guy was so angry at being tossed out of
his private club that he stuck around and later pushed Stuart into the canal.

“But,” I said
to Natalie, “Jason said he’s the one who called 9-1-1.”

“Well, that was
the least he could do,” she said. “He probably heard the commotion and realized
what he’d done.”

As much as I
hated to admit it, it made sense. Maybe I’d used my dislike for Natalie as a
springboard to leap to conclusions. She was snotty and most probably unfaithful,
but if that was a crime the jails would be full of trophy wives.

***

Jason called me
on my cell as I was packing to go home. He asked if he could come over and I
agreed. I figured he probably wanted to apologize for his role in Stuart’s
death. I hadn’t expected to hear from him again, but it was kind of him to
offer.

When I answered
the door I almost didn’t recognize the guy standing there. He looked ten years
older and as pale as freshly grated coconut.

“Jason, come
in.”

He sat down on
the sofa with a heaviness that reeked of sorrow and guilt.

“Can I get you
anything?
Soda?
Water?
I can
go downstairs to the ABC and get some beer.”

“No, thanks.
I’m okay.”

Far be it for
me to point out he looked anything but okay.

“I’ve got to
talk to someone,” he said.

“Didn’t you
just spend the past two and a half hours talking?”

He smiled a
rueful smile. “Let me re-phrase that. I’ve got to talk to someone who might
believe me.”

He launched
into his side of the story of how my brother wound up in the
Ala
Wai
Canal.

“Natalie called
me about ten-thirty and asked me to let her know when Robert
Torstrick
got there. That was weird, because I didn’t know
she even knew Bob. Anyway, she said she was worried Bob and Stu might get in an
argument so would I give her a call so she could come down and get Stu if
things got ugly. Sure enough, when Bob comes in he’s got blood in his eye. He
goes over to Stu and starts giving him beef. I tried to break it up but the
whole thing got physical, like that.” Jason snapped his fingers.

“So, like I call Nat and tell her to get down there.
When
Bob knocked Stu off the stool I told Bob to take a hike. We don’t allow that
kind of stuff at the club. It’s bad for business.”

He shifted in
his seat, as if getting more comfortable would make what he was about to say
any easier.

“Anyway,” he
went on. “Nat tells me she’ll get there as fast as she can. But then she never
shows. I kept the bar open past our eleven-thirty closing
time
hoping she’d turn up but…nothing. Stu gets up to leave and I told him to wait;
I’d walk out with him. I asked if he was okay to drive and he said he was good.
He even offered to take me home but it was late and my place is in the opposite
direction from the boat yard so I said ‘no thanks.’ I’m on my way to the bus stop
when I hear a splash and then yelling. I run back and I see Nat charging across
the parking lot. I know it’s her ‘
cuz
even though
she’s got her hair covered by a baseball hat she runs right over to her own
car, you know, that red Mercedes convertible with the vanity plates.”

“Did she see
you?”

“I don’t think
so,” he said. “She was hauling ass and not looking anywhere but straight
ahead.”

He paused and
rubbed his hands down his face. He looked like he was gearing up to say
something either he didn’t or couldn’t believe.

“So I call
9-1-1 and run toward the canal. But before I get there I see some old guy
pulling Stu out of the water. Stu was coughing and swearing. I couldn’t believe
it. That crazy bitch must’ve pushed Stu in. She knows he can’t swim.”

“But you didn’t
go help him?”

“What more
could I do? I’d already called for help and Stu was okay. I had no way of
knowing if Nat was still hanging around. You don’t get it. She’s cold as ice. I
know for a fact she owns a gun. If she thought I’d seen what she did to Stu,
she’d go after me too. No doubt in my mind.”

“You told all
this to the police?” I said.

“Yeah.
Just now.”

“Did they
believe you?”

“Probably not.
But I’ve got an ace in the hole. I won’t play
it unless she makes me. But if she makes me, then all bets are off.”

“What is it?”

“I know the
truth about the baby.”

“Natalie and Stuart’s baby?”

He nodded.

“The kid isn’t
Stuart’s,” I said. It was a guess, but not a brilliant deduction or anything.

He nodded
again.

“How do you
know?”

“Because it’s
mine,” he said.

Now if I’d come
up with
that
it would’ve been a brilliant deduction.

CHAPTER 35

My mouth hung
open for a good half-minute. I’m sure it wasn’t a pretty sight, but I’d
forgotten how to make my jaw work.

“Okay, I’m
completely confused,” I said when I regained my faculties. “Natalie claims the
guy who had the fight with Stu—the car dealership guy—pushed him in but you’re
sure it was her?”

I’d already
secretly cast my vote for Natalie, but I could see how this was sizing up to be
a he said/she said.

“That’s the
stand-off,” he said. “She played Bob
Torstrick
just
like she played me.”

“So Bob
Torstrick
is ‘BT’ on her phone,” I said. I didn’t expect
Jason to know what I was talking about, but he chimed in.

“No, that’s
me.”

“But your
initials would be—”

“It’s not about
initials; it’s what she called me, ‘Boy Toy.’ Pretty sick, huh?”

“Were you with
Natalie on Sunday, the day Stuart died?” I said.

“Huh? No way. I
was home. I mean, my best friend died that morning. You think I was partying
with his sick-o wife?
No way.”

“Look, you just
admitted fathering Natalie’s baby. It doesn’t sound to me like you were that
good a friend to Stuart.”

His expression
grew hard and he stood up. “It wasn’t like that.”

I looked at the
clock on the wall. It was after six. “Don’t you need to be getting to work?”

“Hardly.
That job’s over, dude.
Nat’s probably down there right now spreading lies about me.”

“Well then, let
me buy you a drink and you tell me everything. Starting with how you came to
father Stuart’s child.”

***

We went
downstairs and got a table at a sushi place. I should have been hungry but I
wasn’t; I was too keyed up. I ordered a large hot
saké
.
Nothing loosens the tongue like hot alcohol on an empty stomach.

“Stu and Nat
had been trying to get pregnant from the get-go. Stu used to brag that he was
going to finally beat me at something—having a kid. But after months and months
nothing happened. Nat figured it was her so she went to the doctor and they
found she was fine. Stu used to laugh and say he was ‘having fun trying’ but I
could tell it bummed him that month after month she never got knocked up.

“Anyway, one
day she asks me to come over. She says she’s got a proposition for me. I go
because, although I was never a big fan of Nat, Stu was my
bruddah
.
I’d do anything for him. I go over there and she’s all nice and gooey and she
asks me how much
do I
love Stu and all that.”

Jason raked a
hand through his hair. “I can’t believe I fell for her bullshit.”

“She wanted you
to sleep with her?”

“I thought
that’s where she was headed, so I tell her, no way will I do that. She sends me
one of her famous looks and says—and I’m quoting her—
You
think way too highly of yourself, Jason
. I
shoulda
shut down that bitch right there and then,
ya
know?”

I nodded.

“Anyway, she tells
me that with Stu’s dad dying she’d love to give Stu some good news.
To cheer him up.
She asks if I’m a good enough friend to do
that for him.”

“She wanted you
to donate sperm at a sperm bank?”

“Not exactly.
Nat wanted no trace. No record. She said she’d
researched it on the internet and she knew how to do it at home.”

“A Mason jar and a turkey baster?”

“I only know
about the jar part. I wasn’t there for the actual conception,” he said.

“So how does
this have anything to do with Stuart’s death?” I said.

“After she got
pregnant, she started blackmailing me. I realized what she’d done.”

“Blackmailing
you?”

“Yeah,” he
said.

“For money?
No offense, but from what I’ve seen you don’t
have as much money as Stu.”

“Not for money.
For sex.
She said if I didn’t do everything she
wanted, she’d tell Stu we were having an affair and the baby wasn’t his. She
said she’d prove it with DNA after the kid was born.”

“Oh wow. So how
is the baby being yours your ace in the hole? It looks more like a ticking bomb
to me.”

“Because in a
moment of passion—and believe me, with Nat those are few and far between—she
admitted to me that she was sick of Stu. She told me when she married him he’d
promised her the moon. He thought he’d be a very rich man when his dad died.
But when that didn’t happen, she started looking around. And she found somebody
else.”

“Why would she tell you all this?”

“She loved to
torture me. As if making me perform like a trained monkey wasn’t enough. She
got her jollies telling me cruel stuff to undermine my friendship with Stu. The
bitch really knew how to turn the screws.”

“Did she tell
you the name of the guy she was having an affair with?”

He laughed. “Oh
honey, get out a pad of paper. You’re
gonna
have
writer’s cramp before we get to the end.”

“And you believe
her?”

“I don’t care
enough to believe or not believe her. After all, she’s totally crazy. I just
shut most of it out.”

“Why didn’t you
tell Stuart? I mean, how long has this been going on?”

“Not long.
Maybe a couple of months.”

I thought of something
but I rolled it around in my mind for a few seconds before saying it. “How do
you know she was actually pregnant with
your
baby?”

“Because she told me.”

I gave him a
look like a mother catching her kid with chocolate all over his face who claims
he never even knew there was a Hershey bar in the house.

“Oh, and she
showed me the stick,” he said.

“The at-home pregnancy test?”

“Yeah.
She waved that thing around like a fairy godmother or
something. Stu even brought it to the club one night. It was disgusting.”

“But the stick
only shows she’s pregnant. Not who the father is.”

Jason stared at
the back wall without saying a word.

I tossed down
the last of my
saké
and paid the bill. I was a
little tipsy but sober enough to realize the impact of what I’d just learned. I
went back upstairs and finished packing. I knew something had to be done, but I
didn’t know what.

And, to quote
Natalie, ‘
What difference does it make
?’

CHAPTER 36

My plane didn’t
leave until one o’clock in the afternoon but I was up and ready by seven. I’d
been trained both as a martial arts student and an air marshal to not let evil
stand. Although there wasn’t a thing I could do to bring my brother back, there
was no way I could allow Natalie Wilkerson to get away with this. It would require
me exposing Stuart’s failings—his sterility, his being cuckolded by a wife he
adored, his being too proud to finger his attacker while he had the chance. But
I had to do it.

I dragged my
suitcase down to the lobby and asked the bellman to lock it up for me. “Oh, and
if it’s okay, could you please bring the car down one more time?
Mahalo
again for loaning it to me.
I’m leaving this afternoon so I won’t need
it again after this.”

“No worries.
I’m still sad to think about what happened to your
bruddah
.
I say a prayer for your
ohana
. Looks like your
sis-in-law’s
gonna
get some big bank from the city,
no?”

I wanted to
tell him if I have anything to say about it she won’t get a dime and hopefully
she’ll be doing hard time, but I just smiled and thanked him for thinking of
our
ohana
.

I drove out to
Stuart’s house via surface streets. The H-1 would be backed up even going away
from the city, and anyway, I wanted to take in the view of the beach as I
prepared for how I’d deal with Natalie.

As a wedding
planner one thing I’m good at is putting first things first. I’d check out how
Natalie reacted to my knowing the truth before I’d tell
Moko
.
And I’d decided that
Moko
and the family deserved to
know what kind of scum-sucker Natalie was before I contacted Wendi Takeda and
allowed her to splash it all over the news.