“It’s a tough one this week. I’m thinking of switching to Sudoku.”
“I won’t be able to help you with that. Bad with numbers.” She pushed through the second set of doors to the bull pen, got her cup of inky coffee, and booted up her aging IBM. Pono eventually rolled in.
“Hey,” she said, looking up from the endless departmental E-mail. “You look tired.”
“Baby’s got something again,” he said, sneezing.
“Sounds like you do too,” she said. “I think I might have chased the stalker last night, and since you wanted me to keep you informed..”
“Fill me in,” he said, flopping into his rump-sprung office chair. She did.
“Man. You starting a whole new crime-fighting day when you get off work,” he said. “I getting tired just hearing about it.”
“Me too. It seems like it’s escalating.”
“No kidding. He went from a note, to a note with evidence, to sending you a package… I think he’s going to try to make face-to-face contact soon. We gotta be prepared.”
Lei’s cell rang. She dug it out of her backpack.
“Hello?”
“Lono Smith from Puna PD. A woman matching Mary’s description has been found washed up in Uli`i Park. I’m heading down to the morgue to see about making an ID.”
“Oh my God. No!” Lei said, as her heart hammered and stomach dropped. “What’s happened to her?”
“Drowned.”
“I can identify her. I’m coming down,” she stated, and shut her phone. Detachment dropped over her like a cloak.
“We need to go to the morgue,” she said to Pono. “Mary might’ve been found.” Her lips felt numb as her mouth formed the words.
“Oh shit.”
They hurried out the front door, Pono telling Dispatch where they were headed. Lei fired up the Crown Vic and they roared onto the main road. Her hands felt greasy on the wheel and there was a tunnel quality to her vision.
“Maybe it’s not her. I have to go see.” Lei reached down to pinch her leg, hard, through her regulation slacks. The pain helped, and her vision expanded again.
“I should be driving,” Pono grabbed for the dash as Lei whipped around another vehicle, hitting the siren and lights. It was no time before they pulled into the emergency area of Hilo Hospital. Lei double-parked the Crown Victoria and they jogged into the lobby, where Lono Smith had already arrived with his partner, a lean haole guy he introduced them to as Brett Samuels.
They walked down the echoing linoleum hall to the elevator and Lono pressed G for the basement. In the long empty moment of watching the elevator lights and listening to the bing of them changing, Lei focused on her breathing, not allowing herself to think. Her heart roared and her stomach heaved, but by holding the pressure point in the web of her hand and taking one small slow breath after another, she was able to get off the elevator and walk down the hall to the morgue.
They pushed through the swinging doors into the pistachio green tile-lined room with its steel tables, deep sinks, and shiny row of refrigerator boxes. Morgues have a unique smell, and this one smelt of powerful, nose- tickling lemon cleaner with a decomp chaser that clung to the back of Lei’s throat.
“We thought we’d have you guys identify her first,” the morgue assistant said. “We’d like to spare the family looking at the wrong body if possible.”
“What happened to her?” Lei asked as the assistant unlatched one of the refrigerator box doors with a vacuum-seal pop. Her nerves felt exposed, as if her skin was peeled off. She curled her hand into a fist, the nails cutting into her palm.
“Looks like drowning though we haven’t done the autopsy yet.”
He pulled the sliding rack out and the detectives clustered around as he lifted the drape off the shape he’d revealed.
Mary’s dark skin was grayish and her lips were deep purple. Her eyes were a little open, her eyelashes cartoonishly long. There was a little brown mole beside her mouth Lei had never noticed before.
“It’s her,” Lono said. “I’m the detective on the case, so you can uncover the body.”
Please don’t, Lei thought desperately, but of course he did.
Mary’s body told the story of her struggle, from bruises braceleting her wrists to the shadowy marks of hands on her hips and vivid welts from the Taser. Lei felt the blood leave her head and she swayed, grabbing the edge of the steel table and accidentally, unforgettably touching the marble-cold flesh of Mary’s arm.
Pono’s voice came from a long way away. “Her friend,” she thought he said, before his warm bulk hoisted her against his side and he supported her down the hall, choked and blinded by grief and horror.
Chapter 27
Saturday dawned overcast and drizzly, as it often was in Hilo. Lei misted her orchids on their plastic shelving under the mango tree, Keiki panting contentedly beside her. It was almost time to bring one of the phalaenopsis inside. Two butterfly-like blooms had opened on its graceful stem, with a row of buds promising more. Delicate purple tracery marked the ‘veins’ of the blood orchid, a rare variety.
There were apparently still beautiful things in the world.
She’d gone home and cried her eyes dry, then gone to bed. She was barely aware of Stevens coming over, and he’d wisely left her alone. This morning’s emotional hangover was the worst she ever remembered.
Lei wondered again what it was about her that brought such bad luck. She remembered telling Mary that, and the way her friend had dismissed it. Now all those possibilities, including their friendship, would never happen for a beautiful, brave, fun-loving woman named Mary who should’ve had her whole life ahead. At the thought Lei’s eyes filled again and she blinked rapidly.
“Good morning.”
She turned, mister in hand, every movement feeling heavy and slow. Stevens was leaning in the back doorway, a cup of coffee in his hand, holding another out to her. His hair was rumpled, his blue eyes dark and sleepy, and he hadn’t put on a shirt. His jeans rode low on his lean hips and looked like they were going to fall off. This would have interested her on a different day, she thought with the muffled objectivity that cloaked her.
“Thanks,” she said, walking over and taking the mug.
“Are you okay?” His voice was husky. He reached out a long finger and pushed a curl out of her eyes. She could only imagine how unsightly she looked.
“I don’t know.” She brushed past him and went into the house. “I guess so. I have a date with Tom Watanabe to get ready for.”
“I’m so sorry about your friend.”
“You keep saying that. I actually didn’t know her that well.” Lei heard how wooden, how stilted and wrong this sounded and couldn’t seem to make it any different. She stood by the sink and looked out the window as she sipped the coffee.
“Well, she’s got some good people on her case, I hear.” He sat in one of the kitchen chairs and turned his coffee mug in his hands. “I don’t want you to go out with Watanabe. It’s a bad idea, especially today.”
She picked up his shirt-draped over the back of a chair-and tossed it at his head. “And I think you should put this on.”
She sat down as he pulled on the shirt and combed his dark hair with his fingers. She took a big swig of coffee.
“I actually can’t believe I’m going on a date with this guy,” she finally said. “What was I thinking?”
“You can always call and cancel.”
“I guess I better. I’m just not up to it today.”
Lei went to the coffeepot, pouring herself a refill for something to do. The muffled, insulated feeling was dissipating, replaced by an exquisite oversensitivity. The tiny hairs on her body seemed to stand on end, colors were
