“Did you ever see Kelly go with them?”
“No. Kelly and Haunani were just getting to be friends. I don’t think Haunani wanted anyone else to meet him. She wanted to keep him all to herself.” Again the silvery giggle. “So I walked across the street when he was picking her up so I could get a look at him, but he wasn’t anybody I know.”
Stevens slid the folder of photos over to her. Lei had folded the license information over so only the pictures were showing.
“Do you think you could pick out his picture?” he asked.
“Maybe.” Angela leaned over the photos, the swath of hair a black silk curtain hiding her face. She slid each printout to the side as she rejected it. She took her time, but in the end she pushed them all aside.
“I don’t see him.” Her eyes glittered defiantly. Stevens reassembled the pictures into a grid.
“Look again.” He set the photos before her, six on a side. She went through them again, shook her head.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” he urged. Lei felt the glare of James Reynolds’s eyes burning up at her from his photo on the top left. Angela cut her eyes to Stevens.
“He’s not here.”
“These are all the photos of men 25 to 45 who drive a dark Toyota truck with Hilo or outlying addresses. That’s what you told us. So what did he look like?”
“I’m not sure how old he was. Dark hair. And I think the truck was black.” A long pause. The only sound was Stevens breathing through his nose.
“What about dark blue or charcoal?” Lei asked, gesturing to the photos.
“I don’t know,” Angela repeated. “I thought it was black.” She stood up, gossamer hair swinging back over her narrow shoulders. “I have to go. My friends are waiting for me.”
Stevens put his hand on her arm, held her gaze.
“It’s important that you try to remember. Anything, any details. You don’t know what might be important. This man may have killed your friends.” Angela looked down, fiddling with the gold-plated logo dangling from her purse.
“I know. But he’s not here.”
“Okay. I may see you again if I get anything else. Here’s my card,” Stevens said, slipping it into the side pocket of her purse. “Call me if anything else comes to mind.”
She nodded and spun on kitten-heeled slippers to clip-clop out of the room. The door shut with a clang behind her. Stevens shuffled the pictures back into the folder and looked at Lei.
“Well? What do you think?”
“I believe her. She didn’t recognize him. I was so sure she would pick Reynolds out, and he does have dark hair. It’s too bad, would have made things easier. So, what is his supposedly airtight alibi?”
“Nothing too exciting. He was out with his wife, having a ‘weekend away.’ Left Kelly on her own at the house to take care of the dog. Kelly’s mom confirms they went to a bed and breakfast for the night, and when they got back, the dog was still locked in the house and hadn’t been fed or let out. They were worried something had happened to Kelly and started calling all her friends and the police.”
“What do you think?”
“I can’t believe a mother would choose her new husband over her daughter and cover for foul play. I know it happens, but I can’t get my head around it. So yeah, I believe them.”
“Believe it. It happens,” Lei said flatly. “Check it out.”
“Jeremy’s following up on it.”
They made their way back to the office, turned in the visitor badges. Stevens’s hand touched her lower back as they pushed through the glass door, and she felt the simple gesture zing up her spine. He squinted at her in the midmorning sun outside.
“Well? Are we going car shopping?”
“I thought you’d given up on that with all the drama that’s been going on. I know I did.”
“I’m still game if you are.”
“Sure, I guess.” She played it cool.
“Follow me,” he said, with a sweeping gesture.
Chapter 14
Lei turned the key, smiling at the snarl of the engine turning over, the purr as it settled down. Her silver Toyota Tacoma had that new car smell and sound. That black truck can’t outrun me in this, she thought. Keiki sat majestically upright on the seat beside her. She’d bought the extended cab so that in case she had a passenger, she could put the dog behind them. There was plenty of room for the leash, water bottles, and beach and bookbags she’d packed. Since she’d already called in sick, she might as well try to relax, have a little fun.
Lei pulled out and drove past Tom Watanabe’s house. His second car, a black Nissan Frontier, was in the driveway this time. She continued on through her meandering neighborhood, with its plantation-style homes, neat yards, and sagging electric lines. Most of Hilo was older, built in the style popular in Hawaii with extended roofs over porches to catch the trade winds. Hilo had a downtown area with big box stores and industrial buildings, but most of it was unpretentiously residential. The plethora of hapu`u fern trees lining driveways and exotic hibiscus, orchids and plumeria massed in gardens was what set Hilo apart-that, and the volcano looming in the distance.
She took Stevens’ card out of her pocket and rubbed it absently as she drove, thinking about Tom Watanabe. As a water inspector he would be familiar with all of the waterways going in and out of Hilo, and with his job, his tramping around a stream or culvert would never be questioned. The black truck, while not the right make, struck her as an odd coincidence.
She pulled out onto the highway that ran out of Hilo toward Punalu`u Beach Park. The shiny hood of the pickup caught the afternoon sun, dazzling her as she ran her hand around the ergonomically engineered steering wheel.
Tropical jungle lined the highway: gigantic fern trees battled with royal palms, and majestic albezia trees hung with trailing vines soared over it all. The road was a wide, straight black ribbon furling to the caldera of Kilauea, the epicenter of the national park, and on through past Honuapo to Kona.
Lei stomped down on the gas, and the engine roared back at her, leaping forward. She’d got a deal by buying the stick shift, and she whooped with glee as she put it in overdrive at ninety miles an hour. They whizzed by a few tourists and she smelled the hot stench of oil burning off the new engine and throttled it back to a sedate seventy- five.
She thumbed open her cell in a celebratory double traffic violation.
“Aunty!”
“ Ku`uipo, sweetheart! Whatchu stay doing?”
“I’m blowing down the highway in my new truck,” Lei said. “A silver Toyota Tacoma four-wheel drive.”
“Oh my God, girl! Whatchu doing spending that kind money?”
“I have it, Aunty. I had plenty for the down payment, I got no credit cards and just the basic bills… I can afford it.”
“Congratulations, then you deserve it. You work hard enough.”
“Thank you, Aunty,” Lei replied. Well-being filled her as she whipped around another tourist, passing with ease. Keiki swayed, her eyes glued on the road ahead, the stump of her tail twitching with excitement. They chatted a while longer and Lei snapped her phone shut. It was good to hear Aunty Rosario’s voice, there for her whenever she needed her.
Almost like a mother.
She tried to shut out the flash of memory: her mother reading the note and screaming like she’d been mortally wounded. She’d grabbed a wire hanger and beat Lei with it until her rage was spent, shoving the girl down the steps into the garage and slamming the door. This in itself was not unusual.
