Spider Bones (18 page)

H
EART THUMPING, I FUMBLED AT THE SEAT BELT.

The clasp slipped from my fingers.

The car continued its backward slide, angling more sharply with each foot.

Frantic, I tried again.

The metal gizmo came up, snapped back into place.

Crap!

Willing calm into my trembling fingers, I carefully raised the faceplate.

The lock clicked and the prongs slipped free.

With a lurch, the rear axle dropped. The car picked up speed.

Flinging the belt aside, I jerked up on the door handle.

Too late!

Metal crunched. The car plunged downward.

Adrenaline shot through me.

One second? Two? A thousand?

The Cobalt’s trunk slammed rock, snapping my forehead into the wheel.

The car balanced a moment, front grille pointed skyward.

Thinking back, I remember vehicles pulled to the shoulder. Gawkers, eyes wide, mouths forming little round O’s. At the time, none of that registered.

An eon ticked by, then, in slo-mo, the Cobalt toppled sideways into the sea.

Gravity, or the impact, sucked me down. My spine slammed the gearshift, then the passenger-side door. Somehow, I remained conscious.

Water soaked the back of my clothes, my hair. Above, through the driver’s-side window, I could see sky and clouds.

Grabbing the steering wheel with my right hand and the seat back with my left, I dragged myself upward over the center console toward the driver’s-side door. The car wobbled.

A voice screamed in my head.

Get out!

But how? Lower the half-open window?

No power!

Try to squeeze through?

Get stuck, you’ll drown!

Already, six inches of water filled the Cobalt’s down side.

Open the door?

Go!

Desperate, I lifted the handle and pushed upward with both palms.

My angle was off. Or my arms were too weak. The door wouldn’t budge.

A gurgling sound filled my ears. I looked down.

Eight inches.

Think!

My eyes scanned the small space in which I was trapped. Floating sunglasses. A map. No purse.

Yes!

Yanking the keys from the ignition, I wedged the door handle in the up position. Then, panting from exertion and fear, I arm-wrapped the steering wheel and seat back, flexed my knees, and kicked out with both feet.

The door arced upward, swung back. Moving like lightning, I caught it before the lock could engage.

The passenger seat was now half submerged.

Muscling the door wide, I scrabbled through the opening and launched myself upward and outward.

Free fall, then I hit. Salt water filled my mouth and ears. Closed over my head.

I came up, gulped air. A wave broke, first battering me forward then sucking me back.

Blinking and treading, I gauged the distance to shore. Only a few feet, but the surf was gonzo.

Frantic, I swam a few strokes. Lost ground.

Don’t fight the current! Go with it!

Ignoring every instinct commanding me to swim, I rolled to my back. Aware that waves come in sets, I waited for lulls. Tested.

Too deep.

Too deep.

Too deep.

Finally, my feet touched bottom.

I tried to stand, lost my footing on the algae-covered stones. A breaker threw me. Pain fired across one cheek and up one knee.

I tried again.

Again was tossed, this time pinned to a boulder. Waves pounded my body. I couldn’t break free. Couldn’t breathe.

From nowhere, a hand gripped my arm. Strong.

Another.

With rubber arms and legs, I pushed from the rock. Stood in water up to my waist.

Two strange faces. Male. Young.

“You OK?”

I nodded, gulping air.

“Can you walk?”

I nodded again.

“Man, lady. That was quite a show.”

“Mahalo,”
I croaked.

We picked our way shoreward.

Once ashore, my rescuers insisted on calling an ambulance. I told them I was unhurt. They pressed. I refused, requested they phone the cops to report a single-car accident with no injuries.

When the young men had moved off, I sat, willing control over my trembling limbs. My pounding heart. My harried adrenals.

Again and again I asked myself what the hell just happened. How had a chain of events that started with an autoerotic death in Montreal almost gotten me killed on a highway in Hawaii? Was the accident linked to the Hemmingford pond victim? To Plato Lowery in Lumberton, North Carolina? To a case at the CIL? If so, which one? Lowery? Alvarez? Lapasa? To the fired anthropologist, Gus Dimitriadus? To the work I was doing for Hadley Perry? To the Halona Cove victim with the traction pin, Francis Kealoha? To his unknown companion? Or was the collision with the SUV just that, an accident? A case of wrong place, wrong time?

When composure returned, I moved toward the gawkers. A young woman lent me her phone. Susie. Nice hair. Very bad teeth.

Katy had no car. Danny was tied up at his arrival ceremony. Perry was being grilled by the powers that be.

Hating it, I dialed Ryan.

He went apeshit. As anticipated.

“You think these tools forced you off the road on purpose?”

“Probably. I felt three separate hits spaced apart.”

“Did you recognize them?”

“No.”

“The vehicle?”

“No.”

“Did you get a tag number?”

“No.”

“Were they drunk?”

“There wasn’t time for a Breathalyzer.”

“You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine.” For the fourth time. “But the Cobalt is toast.”

“Shit. Lily just went out for an SUP lesson.”

“SUP?”

“Stand-up paddling. You float on a surfboard-looking thing and propel yourself with a paddle. Don’t ask me why. Anyway, she’s out of contact for another twenty minutes.” Agitated breathing. “Look, I can run down there, take you to Lanikai, shoot back up here—”

“Where are you?”

“Wailea.”

“That’s at least an hour from here.”

“Maybe I could—”

“Ryan, it’s no biggie.”

Actually, it was a real pain in the ass. I was soaked, my knee hurt like hell, my face was hash from the lava rock, and, obviously, I had no wheels and no wallet.

“How will you get home?”

“The cop probably has reams of forms I have to fill out. Maybe he’ll take pity on me. Or order a taxi.” If Samaritan Susie has left with her phone.

“Would the rental agency send someone to pick you up?”

“Right. I’m going to be
très
popular with Avis.” I was dreading that call.

“The accident wasn’t your fault.”

“They’ll be gratified to know.”

“Yo?”

I turned.

The cop was shouting at me from outside his squad car. Older guy, probably fifty. Palenik. I was
très
popular with Officer Palenik, too. No ID. No license. Car resting in ten feet of water.

“Your story checks out,” Palenik bellowed, to the interest of the onlookers. “How about we move this along?”

“I’ll be right there,” I shouted back. To Ryan. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you at the house.”

I was right. Tolstoy devoted less paper to
War and Peace
than the Honolulu PD does to a traffic accident.

I was finishing the last form when a white Ford Crown Victoria made a U-ey and slid to a stop on our side. The shoulder was empty now, save for the cruiser in which Palenik and I sat.

The Crown Vic’s driver got out and walked in our direction, hitching his pants. Which were white. His untucked shirt was aloha blue and red. His left hand gripped a gym bag.

Based on size, I wasn’t sure if the guy was full grown.

Palenik watched, never budging from behind the wheel.

No alarm. OK. I was cool, too.

Proximity resolved the question of age. Though standing five-three and weighing maybe 120 wet, up close our visitor’s face said he was in his forties. High cheekbones and hidden upper lids suggested Asian ancestry. Turquoise eyes and ginger hair suggested input from elsewhere.

The man placed a forearm above the driver’s-side window, leaned on it, and spoke to Palenik.

“Aloha, Ralph.”

“Aloha, Detective.”

Detective?

“How’s it hanging?”

“Can’t complain.”

The turquoise eyes roved to me. “Dr. Brennan, I presume?”

Palenik grinned. A first. “How long you been waiting to deliver that line?”

“It’s nice when you can give an old classic your own spin.” Detective Nameless also grinned.

My clothes were molded to my body. My makeup was soup on my face. My hair was hanging in salty wet tangles. My car was in the drink. I was not amused.

“So,
Ralph.
We know who I am. We know who you are.” My frown slid from Palenik to the face hanging outside his window. “Perhaps an introduction is in order?”

The men exchanged one of those smirky ain’t-testosterone-grand glances, then Detective Nameless straightened, rounded the cruiser, and opened my door.

“Ivar Lô.” A diminutive hand shot my way.

Surprise made me blurt, “Hung and—”

The hand was withdrawn. “My partner’s handling a domestic dispute.”

“How did you know—”

“Detective Ryan thought you might need dry clothes.” Lô tossed the gym bag onto my lap. “Sorry, no undies.”

I should have been grateful. Instead, I felt peeved. And embarrassed.

Lô circled back to Palenik. “Got a call from a guy on the job, homicide, Montreal. He’s stuck up on the North Shore. Asked me to deliver the little lady to a rendezvous point.”

Deliver the little lady?

“Her lucky day. She gets a little ride-along.”

Lô smiled in my direction.

Ride-along? Not only had Ryan kicked into shining knight mode, Lô was treating me like some dimwit TV viewer with cop fantasies. The old anger switch tripped in my brain.

I reined it in. No reason to antagonize the little twerp.

“I am perfectly capable of calling a taxi.”

“And paying with what?”

“I’m certain—”

“You done with that form?”

I handed the clipboard to Palenik.

“Ryan says you come with me.” Lô was bending in, speaking to me.

“Does he.” Tundra cold. “I do not need a ride-along, Detective Lô. I’ve spent a great deal of time on police investiga—”

“You can change in my car.”

“I have no intention—”

“Wrecker’s on the way.” Palenik cut me off. Why not? Lô was doing it. “I’ll deal with the tow.”

“I owe you, buddy,” Lô said.

Palenik started his engine. Subtle fellow, Ralph.

Clutching Lô’s gym bag, I got out of the cruiser and slammed the door. Hard.

Lô pointed at the Crown Victoria. “I’ll wait here.”

“And where will this little ride-along take me?” Barely civil.

“Your partner’s meeting us in Kalihi Valley.”

Oh?

“I’ve got a CI says Francis Kealoha was murdered.”

T
HE CROWN VIC’S INTERIOR SMELLED OF SOY SAUCE AND GARLIC.

Lô drove like Ryan. Gun it. Brake. Gun it. Brake.

Or maybe it was the gallon of ocean sloshing in my gut.

Ten miles out, I felt queasy.

I suspected I was wearing Lô’s clothes. The parrot shirt and waistband fit reasonably well, but the pants legs stopped three inches short of my soggy sandals.

My cheek was raw and my forehead had a lump the size of a peach pit. My hair was knotted atop my head. Poorly. I’d had no comb. And only tissues to remove my smeared mascara.

Fetching.

The radio hissed and spit the usual cop stuff.

Lô had donned John Lennon shades. Now and then I peeked his way.

Apparently, my curiosity wasn’t all that subtle.

“Norwegian mother, Vietnamese father.”

My eyes snapped front and center.

“A blessing I got the old man’s height.”

I glanced back at Lô.

“Scares the crap out of people.” Deadpan.

“I’d have guessed it was the shirt.”

“Icing on the cake.”

Silence filled the car for another mile. Then, “Ryan seems like good people.”

“He’s a prince.”

“He explained how you two roll.”

I didn’t reply.

“He says you’re OK.”

Though incapable of arranging my own transport home. I bit back a pithy retort.

Truth be told, I was more annoyed with myself for contacting Ryan than I was with Ryan for taking over. I knew the man’s style. I called anyway. My bad. But what the hell? Though hiding it, I was actually pretty shaken up.

“You disappointed me,” Lô said.

“I disappointed you?”

“Ryan swore the ‘little lady’ tag would bring a boatload of feces down on my head.”

“Did he.”

“The ‘ride-along’ bit was strictly mine.”

“Icing on the cake.”

“As it were.”

“You should go into comedy, Detective Lô. Maybe get a job writing for Tina Fey.”

“Yeah, that could work.” Lô nodded slowly, as though seriously considering the suggestion. “First I’ll nail the dogball who sent your car into orbit.”

“You think it was deliberate?”

“I intend to find out.” Lô flicked a glance my way. “You want, I could take you up to Lanikai.”

“I feel much better than I look.” Not true, but I’d have eaten pigeon droppings rather than admit to weakness.

Lô shrugged. “Your call.”

“Tell me about Francis Kealoha.”

“The kid’s sister lives over by Kalihi Valley. KPT. A lovely chunk of real estate.”

Kuhio Park Terrace is the largest of Hawaii’s public housing projects. Kalihi Valley Homes, another big gorilla, isn’t far away. Small wonder that most of the state’s new immigrants start out near Kalihi Valley. I’d read that upward of eighty percent of the area’s population is Asian and Pacific Islander, that probably half is under the age of twenty.

“Gloria. A fine young lady.” Lô killed the radio with a jab of his thumb. “We’ll drop in on Sis, then have a chat with my CI. Ryan will hook up with us there.”

“Your CI will be cool with outsiders present?”

“He’ll do what I tell him.”

“What if Gloria’s not home?”

“She’s home. And by the way, you’re a potted palm when I talk to these wits.”

Thirty minutes later Lô parked near a high-rise complex that looked like a nightmare straight out of the seventies. Built in an era when the goal in public housing was to isolate and stack, KPT has all the warmth and charm of a barracks in the gulag.

Following a ten-minute wait, during which Lô stood calmly, arms crossed, and I paced, mourning the loss of my BlackBerry, we rode an overcrowded freight elevator to the fifteenth floor. A concrete balcony led past trash chutes jammed with ruptured supermarket and pharmacy bags. Insects swarmed the overflow—aluminum cans, bottles, soiled diapers, chicken bones, rotten produce, bunched tissues.

Lô stopped at unit 1522 and pounded with the heel of one hand.

No sound but the buzzing of flies.

He banged again, louder. “Honolulu PD. We know you’re in there, Gloria.”

“Go away.” The muffled voice was female and faintly accented.

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“We’ll wait.”

Seconds passed, then locks rattled, and the door swung in.

Gloria Kealoha was big. Very big. She had nutmeg skin and bottle-blond hair, and wore enough maquillage for an entire village makeover.

Pocketing his shades, Lô badged her. “Detective Lô. We spoke earlier concerning your brother.”

“And I told you what I know.”

“Francis is dead, Ms. Kealoha. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Life’s a bitch.” Gloria drew deeply on a half-smoked Camel jutting from her fingers.

“Questions remain.”

“So, what? I’m going on
Jeopardy!
?” The smoke-cured laugh was completely joyless.

“I need the names of Francis’s friends.”

“Sorry, toots, can’t do it now.”

“This isn’t a social call, Gloria. We talk here or we talk downtown.”

“Jesus, who died and made you God?”

“My uncle.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks.”

Gloria’s eyes slid to me.

“Who’s the haole?”

“Dr. Brennan identified your brother.”

“What the fuck, girl? You stop a train with that face?”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.

“You some kinda coroner?” Gloria yanked on the bustier. A rosebud tattoo that had once winked from low-cut necklines appeared above the spandex as a stretched and wilted blossom.

“I need the names of your brother’s friends.” Lô brought the interview back on track.

“I told you. I got jack.”

“Where was Francis living?”

Gloria drew on the Camel, exhaled, waved the smoke from her face with a once-manicured hand.

“I heard he went to California a couple years back. Last I knew he was still there.”

“You were unaware that Francis had returned to Honolulu?”

“We weren’t exactly on each other’s mailing lists.”

“What
can
you tell us?” Lô’s voice had a “don’t screw with me” edge.

“Look.” Gloria took a drag, tossed, then crushed the cigarette butt with the ball of one flip-flop. “I got nothing. The kid was ten years younger than me. Growing up we lived in different worlds. By the time Frankie was six, I was off on my own. I really honest to God never knew him.”

“Dig deep. Give me something.”

Gloria picked a speck of tobacco from her lip, inspected, then flicked it. “OK. The story of my life. When I was fourteen and Frankie was four my ma left my pa for a guy she met working as a hotel maid. Two months after, our old man bought it in a boating accident.”

Gloria stopped. Lô waited, hoping she’d feel compelled to elaborate. She did.

“Ma married the creep. We got adopted. Eighteen months later the asshole split. Guess a ready-made family wasn’t his thing after all.”

“Who was the guy?”

“Sammy Kealoha.”

Lô studied Gloria as she spoke. I studied Lô.

“Where is he now?”

“You’re the detective, you tell me.”

“How did your brother feel about him?”

“Hated the guy’s guts.”

“Why?”

“Frankie blamed Sammy for screwing up his life.”

“How so?”

“Shit, you name it. For busting up the family, for us living in the projects, for Pa drowning, for Ma going freako, for the rash on his ass.”

Gloria crooked a hand to her face, registered surprise at the absence of the Camel.

“After Sammy left, Ma worked when she could, drank when she couldn’t. Soon as I turned sixteen I boogied for Kona to do my own thing.”

“Your thing?”

Gloria crossed her arms. “Massage therapy.”

“Uh-huh. Do you recall if your brother had any tattoos?”

“Sure. A fluffy French poodle right on his dick. He called it—”

“Tell me, Gloria. This massage therapy. You licensed for that?”

Lô slid a photo from one pocket. As he passed it to Gloria I recognized a close-up of the shark motif tattooed on the Halona Cove ankle.

Barely glancing at the image, Gloria handed it back.

“I’m going with Picasso.”

“Did Francis ever break a leg?”

“Yeah. He did.” Gloria’s surprise sounded genuine. “I forgot about that.”

Lô rotated one hand in a “give me more” gesture.

“He was in high school.”

Again, the hand.

“Not much to tell. Frankie got drunk, went boarding, wiped out. He ended up at The Queen’s. My mother whined about it in a couple of letters. She was so pissed I felt sorry for the kid and sent him a card.”

For a quick moment some internal turmoil flashed in Gloria’s eyes. Was gone.

“That’s when Ma was still writing to me.” Shoulder shrug. “Then she died.”

“I’m sorry,” Lô said.

“What the fuck. Bottom line, I got to thank the old gal.” A meaty arm swept an arc, indicating the squalid surroundings. “Thanks to Ma I’m living the American dream.”

Lô drew a card from his pocket and handed it to Gloria.

“If you think of anything, call me.”

Ignoring the card, Gloria stepped back.

“And, until we get this resolved, don’t travel without letting us know,” Lô added.

“Well, shit busters. There goes yachting in Monte Carlo.”

Gloria closed the door.

The locks reengaged.

As we drove off, I looked back.

The towers of Kuhio Park Terrace loomed bleak and hopeless against the perfect blue sky.

Like the occupants trapped in them, I thought sadly.