Right from the Gecko (18 page)

“Not after you went and died on me, Jack Feeley,” Alice complained in her gravelly voice. “Leavin' me all alone…hah! You can get your own tea, as far as I'm concerned!”

I looked over at Nick again. Not surprisingly, he had the same horrified look on his face that I suspected was on mine. So much for being a good judge of character, I thought ruefully.

We stood awkwardly in the small living room, pretending to be absorbed in watching Facetious. Fortunately, the spirited Lab was putting on quite a show, nosing a rubber ball across the room, then running after it to fetch it.

“Am I crazy,” Nick finally commented, “or is that dog playing ball all by herself?”

“I don't think
crazy
is the best word to use in this house,” I replied in a near whisper.

Alice, however, had no qualms about making it part of her working vocabulary. “Is that crazy dog playing ball again?” she called out from the kitchen. “Tryin' to get you to join her, no doubt. Or else tryin' to make you think I don't pay enough attention to her. Leave that silly animal and come on into the kitchen so we can talk. Facetious and I don't get much company, and frankly, I'm too selfish to let her hog all the attention.”

Nick and I did as we were told. After we stepped into the kitchen, I took a seat at the small wooden table and he leaned against the counter on the other side of the room so he was facing me.

I watched Alice fill a battered copper kettle with water and put it on the stove, then open one of the upper cabinets. She was muttering to herself—or maybe she was simply continuing her conversation with her dead husband. Reaching between a box of granola and a package of organic wheat crackers, she took a brown bottle down from the shelf. I figured that, like Betty, she considered whiskey a natural go-with for tea, like honey and lemon.

Then she filled a good-size tumbler three-quarters of the way full.

Once she'd placed a chipped mug of tea in front of me and handed a second mug to Nick, she sat down on the other side of the table, clasping both hands around her tumbler.

“You gonna tell me your names?” she asked, squinting at us. She looked confused, as if she'd just realized there were other people in the room.

I wasn't about to point out that I'd already made a point of introducing us both at the beach. “I'm Jessie Popper and this is Nick Burby.”

“And you know who I am, right? 'Course you do. That's why you came lookin' for me. You found out it was me who discovered that poor dead girl on the beach.”

I nodded. “Richard Carrera mentioned it. He's the editor of—”

“I know who he is,” Alice interrupted impatiently. “ 'Course I know that. I've been here long enough to know who all the important people on the island are.”

“How long have you lived on Maui, Alice?” I asked gently.

“Since the late eighties,” she replied in her rasping voice. I was actually starting to get used to it. “Back when real estate was still affordable. At least I managed to buy my little piece of heaven, thanks to an unexpected windfall. Lived in California before that. Got to be a bad scene, though. Bah, too crowded, too expensive, too materialistic. I was going through some messy personal stuff too, and I wanted a change of scenery. I guess I kind of ran away.

“But I realized I wanted to live a simple life, without a lot of bad stuff and bad people getting in my way,” she continued. “Living near the beach—and livin' off the land, as much as I could—appealed to me. I got a nice big piece of land right behind the house, and I grow all kinds of things on it. Never regretted changing my lifestyle either. I like bein' self-sufficient.”

“Nothing wrong with being independent,” I commented, making a point of not meeting Nick's eyes.

“That's the truth,” Alice agreed. “So you still haven't said what all this is about. You wantin' to talk to me about that night and all. You said you were both friends with that girl?”

“That's right. And we're still trying to understand what happened.” Watching for her reaction, I added, “To be honest, Alice, there's nothing more I'd like than to find out who killed her and why.”

“I'm sure you're not alone,” she replied matter-off-actly. She paused to take a few gulps of whiskey. “But isn't that what cops are for? I suppose they do have their uses, every once in a while.”

“The police are certainly working on the case. But they think she was killed by some guy she picked up in a bar. Maybe they're right.” I shrugged. “But no matter what happened that night, I'm just trying to understand. Marnie and I were friends. Nick too. So we can't help trying to find out whatever we can.”

“Terrible thing,” Alice commented, shaking her head. “Terrible, just terrible. Young girl like that, washin' up on the beach like a dead fish or a piece of garbage somebody was trying to get rid of. Wish I hadn't been the one to find her. The image of her lying on the sand, those marks all over her neck…I'm doing my best to put it out of my mind. I don't even want to think about it. Still, I have a feeling it's something I'll never get over. Never.”

“I'm sure that's true,” I agreed. “Alice, once you got over the shock of what you'd discovered on the beach Sunday night, did you notice anything in particular about Marnie Burton? The condition she was in? Anything she was wearing or holding…or maybe something that washed up on the beach with her?”

Alice thought for a few moments, meanwhile taking a few more sips of her drink of choice. “Can't say as I did. I saw the marks on her neck, that's for sure. Those were as plain as day. Other than that, I can't say I looked all that close. Like I said, the sight of that poor thing was hard to bear. I never had a daughter of my own, but my heart goes out to that girl's mother. What a thing for her to have to live through.”

I decided to be direct. “Alice, had you ever seen Marnie when she was alive?”

She looked surprised by my question. “No,” she replied. “Never did. Which I suppose is one of the reasons I'll never get that image of her lyin' in the sand, dead, out of my head.”

I glanced over at Nick, curious about what he was making of all this. But from his expression, he seemed as undecided as I was. Alice certainly sounded sincere. In fact, I probably would have been inclined to believe Richard Carrera's characterization of her as harmless if I hadn't seen her name on that list Marnie had hidden away.

“Nick and I should probably be going,” I said, figuring we'd learned everything we could. “We have to be somewhere at eight.” I stood up to bring my mug over to the sink and dump out the rest of its contents. “Thanks for your time—and the tea.”

“You don't have to clean up,” she protested. “You're my guests.”

“It's the least we can do.” As I stood at the sink, I zeroed in on something on the windowsill right above it. It was the color that caught my eye. While the other items lined up there were the soft grays and whites of shells and stones gathered along the shore, this one was pale blue and green and pink.

It was a single earring, made of tiny pastel-colored shells. And it perfectly matched the ones Marnie had been wearing the night she was killed.

Chapter
10

W
hat's this?” I asked, struggling to keep my tone casual. I could hear the blood rushing through my temples, and my head had begun to pound so loudly I hoped Alice couldn't hear it. I made a point of keeping my eyes away from Nick's, not wanting to give myself away.

“What's what?” Frowning, Alice got up from her seat and came over. I noticed that she was a little unsteady on her feet.

I didn't dare pick up the earring. Not with my hands shaking the way they were.

“That?” Alice grabbed it off the windowsill, then shrugged. “Just a piece of jewelry I found. It's not worth very much. I mean, it's not real gold or anything. But I like the colors and the fact that it's made out of shells. So I decided to make it part of my treasure collection, keep it with all those special things I found on the beach.” Still holding it in her hand, she looked up at me with a puzzled expression. “Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” I replied, hoping I managed to sound nonchalant. “I just thought it was pretty. Unusual too. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it.”

I searched her face but couldn't see any reaction. “Me either. Guess that's why it caught my fancy.” She put it back on the sill. “Nice to add a little color to the place, though.”

Marnie's earring, in Alice Feeley's house.

My thoughts were racing. Perhaps it could provide a piece of forensic evidence that would prove the identity of Marnie's murderer, I thought. A fingerprint or some skin cells that had come from her attacker, even a stray hair that had become lodged between the tiny shells during a struggle.

But before I could give it to the police, I would have to get its current owner to give it to me. Either that or talk Detective Paleka into coming to Alice's house to get it himself.

Given the way our face-to-face meeting had gone, that didn't strike me as much of a possibility.

Instead, I filed its existence away in the back of my mind. At least for now.

“Nick, we should really get going,” I said, finally daring to look at him. His forehead was tense and his eyes told me he knew something was going on. Something bad. “Thanks again for the tea.”

“What was all that about?” he demanded as soon as we were safely in the car and out of earshot.

“That earring I found on Alice's windowsill,” I replied in a strained voice. “It was Marnie's. She was wearing those earrings the night she was killed.”

As we drove through the darkness, away from Alice's house, Nick was silent. I knew he was mulling over the piece of information I'd just delivered, trying to figure out what it might mean.

I, however, was in the mood for thinking out loud. “The way I see it,” I said, “there are two possible explanations for how that earring ended up in Alice's possession. One is that it was simply something she happened to find on the beach, possibly the same night Marnie was killed. Maybe the reason she didn't turn it in to the police was that she'd found it far enough away from the body that she didn't realize it belonged to the victim. In other words, the reason Alice hung on to it is exactly the reason she gave us, which is that it was just one more pretty thing she found on the beach.”

“It's possible,” Nick agreed. “What's the other, as if I don't already know?”

I swallowed, hoping to alleviate the dryness in my mouth. “The other possibility is much more onerous: that just like everyone else who comes to Hawaii, Alice enjoys collecting souvenirs. Only in this case, it was something to remember her victim by.”

It wasn't until I jabbed my key card into the lock of our hotel room that I realized how tired I was. It had been a ridiculously long day.

“Let's concentrate on having fun tonight, okay?” Nick suggested as soon as we closed the door behind us. “I know this was a heck of a day for you, but we owe it to Betty and Winston to forget all that and have a good time with them at the luau.”

“You're absolutely right,” I agreed, dropping onto the bed and cradling Moose in my arms. He looked so happy to see us that I felt bad for leaving him alone so much of the day. “I'm going to do my best to put all the bad stuff completely out of my mind, at least for the next few hours. As soon as I do one more thing, that is.”

“What's that?” Nick asked warily.

“Tomorrow night, you and I are having dinner at that quiet, romantic restaurant Ace took Marnie to a few hours before she was killed. I want to find out what went on between the two of them that night.”

“Okay. What restaurant?”

Leaping to my feet, I replied, “Figuring that out is my final challenge of the day.”

While Nick poured food into Moose's bowl and gave him fresh water, I rummaged around in the carton I'd filled with Marnie's personal possessions from work. Reaching down to the bottom, I gathered up the stray books of matches I'd tossed in with everything else.

Then I laid them out on the bed and studied them. There were seven, six of them from various restaurants on Maui.

Only one of them interested me: the Kula Grill. Marnie had told me she was meeting Ace at an out-of-the-way restaurant that he was particularly fond of and that it was located in Kula. I dialed the number and made a reservation for two for the following night.

With that done, I silently declared myself officially ready for an evening of fun. And if it involved umbrella drinks and fresh pineapple and maybe even some more of that coconut shrimp, so much the better.

“Hey,
wahine
,” Nick murmured as he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Want to take a quick shower before we go down to the luau?”

It took me only a few seconds to realize he meant take a shower
together.
I may have been tired, but I was still sharp enough to recognize a good idea when I heard it. And this one was even better than either pineapple
or
coconut shrimp.

By the time Nick and I wandered into the Royal Banyan's outdoor restaurant, the location of the nightly luau, I was clean and refreshed and very mellow. I could practically feel the aloha spirit in the air.

For the event, the tables at the Oceanview Terrace had been rearranged into a near circle around an open area I suspected would serve as a stage. Off to one side was a tremendous pit in which a huge slab of meat was being roasted.

“Looks like we've got some more Polynesian dancing in our future,” I observed. “I hope we're not part of the show.”

“This time I'm standing firm,” Nick insisted. “They're not getting me up on stage unless they put me on salary. And I want benefits. Including dental.”

“The food looks great,” I commented, scanning the laminated menu that listed the evening's fare. “Yum. Roast pork, Hawaiian style.” In addition to kalua pork, the meal included lomi lomi salmon, poi, fresh pineapple…True, I couldn't identify everything that was named, but what I did recognize looked mighty good.

“Aloha!”

I glanced up and saw Betty and Winston standing at the edge of our table, beaming. They looked like an authentic
wahine
with her
kane,
with Betty in a bright pink and purple flowered muumuu and Winston wearing a splashy Hawaiian shirt with his white shorts. Their cheeks were flushed, but I had a feeling the pink color had nothing to do with overexposure to the sun.

“Aloha!” Nick returned. He jumped up to pull out Betty's chair, but Winston beat him to the punch.

“What a beautiful spot!” Betty cooed. “It's so romantic here on Maui. The sunsets, the palm trees, the balmy breezes…”

“Very romantic,” Nick agreed, casting me a surreptitious glance.

“Makes me wish I'd come here years ago,” Winston added. “But I suppose that's what happens when you fall in love. You find yourself doing things you never dreamed you'd be doing.”

Betty sighed blissfully. “This is just lovely, the four of us finally sitting down for a real Hawaiian dinner.” Her eyes were glittering as she added, “Especially since Winston and I have wonderful news to share.”

My eyes traveled downward, focusing on something else I'd just noticed that was also glittering.

Her left hand. More specifically, the ring finger of her left hand.

Before I was able to digest the meaning of what I was seeing, she announced, “Winston just asked me to marry him—and I said yes!”

While my first reaction was joy, it took only about a hundredth of a second for my stomach to feel as if someone had stored a bowling ball inside it. That is, after bonking me on the head with it.

Nick cleared his throat loudly. I had a feeling I wasn't the only one who was reacting strongly to Betty's news.

“Congratulations!” he exclaimed. “Betty, Winston, that's great news!”

“How wonderful!” I seconded, at least having the presence of mind to follow his lead. “I wish you both the best!” Somehow I managed to stand up and lean across the table to give Betty a kiss on the cheek. Nick, meanwhile, shook Winston's hand.

“Can you imagine anything more romantic than a marriage proposal on Maui?” Betty cooed. As she reached over and grabbed Winston's hand, interlacing her fingers with his, I made a point of studying the attractive floral pattern on the tablecloth. That wasn't exactly a question I was in a hurry to answer.

Betty and Winston…getting married? I could barely hear my own thoughts because of the buzzing in my head. When they'd only known each other for a few months? True, Betty had once commented that people their age tend to experience time differently. But they'd barely gotten used to living together!

Of course, their monumental decision also had other implications, like the fact that Nick and I were dragging our heels when it came to making a real commitment to each other. Or at least I was.

I only hoped Nick wasn't thinking the same thing.

“Have you picked a date?” I finally asked. My voice sounded only minimally strained. In fact, I thought I was doing an excellent job of hiding how stunned I was.

“Sometime this spring,” Betty replied. She gave Winston's hand a squeeze. “May or June, when the flowers are blooming and the sun is shining….”

“We thought about getting married here on Maui, on a secluded beach somewhere,” Winston added. “It's hard to imagine anything more romantic. But in the end we decided to give ourselves enough time to plan a small, private ceremony with a reception. That way, we can include our friends.”

“I was thinking it might be nice to hold it in the garden,” Betty noted. Gazing at Winston with dewy eyes, she added, “Right outside our home.”

Turning to me, she said, “And I hope you'll be my maid of honor, Jessica.”

I gulped before replying, “I'd love to.”

I was relieved when our waiter reappeared. Not that I wasn't happy for Betty and Winston. But at the same time, I was more than ready to change the subject.

“Aloha,” he greeted us. Aside from the red-and-white pareo wrapped around his waist, he looked about as Polynesian as I did. In fact, his strawberry-blond hair and the sprinkle of freckles across his nose made him look more Hawaiian Surfer than Hawaiian Native. “Can I get you folks something to drink?”

“Our friends here just got engaged,” Nick announced.

“No way!” Our waiter looked impressed. “How cool is that? This means the first round of mai tais is on the house.”

“Really?” Betty asked. “You mean the restaurant actually has an official policy about people who've just gotten engaged?”

“Sure,” the waiter replied with a shrug. “Happens all the time.”

“I told you there was nothing more romantic than getting engaged on Maui,” Betty commented. “I'm obviously not the only one who thinks so.”

“I'd say we get at least one couple here every night who've just gotten engaged,” the waiter informed us. He sounded proud of the restaurant's track record. “In fact, a couple of nights ago, we had a guy get down on one knee right here in the middle of the restaurant. When his girlfriend said yes, everybody in the place went wild. Complete strangers were going over to their table and congratulating them. It was awesome.”

“How sweet,” Betty cooed.

“Of course,” the waiter went on, glancing around the restaurant, “half the people in here are on their honeymoon. I don't know why, but Hawaii is like the most romantic place in the world. I'll be right back with those drinks.”

As soon as he left, the five-piece band that had gathered at one end of the stage area began serenading us with soft Hawaiian music.

“Ooh, let's dance!” Betty cried, jumping up and grabbing Winston's arm.

Winston allowed himself to be dragged to a standing position, meanwhile glancing at the musicians nervously. “I could be mistaken, but aren't they playing a hula?”