Closer Than Blood

had been in the middle of it. Women serial killers often killed for profit, for greed. Greedy was Tori to a T. Female serial killers often employed poison. They liked killing in a way that left their hands clean. A stabbing was too up close and personal. Kendall knew that if Tori had killed Zach, she probably had help. Just as she probably did back in Tacoma.

People are supposed to love the weather of the Hawaiian Islands. Kendall figured she’d love it, too, if her body temperature didn’t rise when she was stressed over something. From the moment she landed in Honolulu, she felt the characteristic blooms of sweat coming from her armpits and lower back. She stopped to pull the fabric of her too-tight shirt and knew why her mother had always sworn by the properties of natural fabrics. Her shirt, a light blue cotton-poly blend looked better on the hanger than it did after a five-hour flight from Seattle. She’d gone with the poly blend because she knew that she would never have to send it out to be cleaned and pressed. She liked saving time—and, given that this was not a Kitsap County junket—saving money. She grabbed her ribbon-handled bag from the conveyor belt at the baggage claim as a group of tourists dove for their unfortunately identical black bags, the kind stewardesses used in the day when people still called them that. Now they were flight attendants, of course. Kendall caught a shuttle bus to the car rental lot to pick up a Jeep for the short drive up to the North Shore town of Haleiwa. A Jeep sounded like fun, but it was noisy and rough driving. She wished she’d settled for a Honda Accord. She arrived at 11:30 A.M.—characteristically a little early. Early, she knew, was almost always a good thing. The address was a mile out of town, a secluded place with a large, heavy gate decorated with a family of sea turtles in bronze. They’d gone verdigris in the hot humid weather, making them look nearly lifelike in the way that metal sculpture artists can do. They know that the passage of time reveals new truths in their work. She was hoping for the same thing. Kiwana Morimoto met her outside on the driveway. She was an attractive woman, a fifth-generation islander with silver-streaked black hair, a broad freckled nose, and hands so tiny they’d have suited a child better than a grown woman of more than sixty. She held out her hand and smiled warmly.

“I hope you didn’t have much of a problem finding Bali House.” Kendall returned the smile.

“No, no worries,” she said.

“Mai tai?”

“Too early,” she said.

“Iced tea?”

“Sure. Follow me.” Kiwana led Kendall around the house, an ’80s abode with a low roofline and a seamless bank of windows overlooking the basalt-studded shoreline. A fisherman with a pole that must have been fifteen feet long worked the current in hopes of a suppertime catch. Kendall had no idea what one would pull from those pristine waters, but with a pole like that, she expected it to be big. Really big. They sat on a pair of bright blue lounge chairs under an almond tree that dropped green nuts and tangerine-colored leaves onto the brick patio. A giant green sea turtle basked in the sun.

“I’ve never seen one,” Kendall said.

“Yesterday,” Kiwana said, “we counted eighty-seven here on the beach.”

“They bring good luck, right?” Kendall said. She already knew that they did because she’d flipped through the inflight magazine before takeoff.

“Yes, Bali House for the most part has been a blessed place.” Kendall knew that when the hostess said “for the most part,” she was referring to the reason she’d come across the Pacific Ocean. Tori O’Neal Campbell Connelly. Kiwana disappeared into the house and Kendall watched the fisherman and the waves. When the homeowner returned, she carried a rattan tray of macadamia nut cookies and a pitcher of the pinkest iced tea the detective had ever seen.

“Guava syrup,” she said, catching Kendall’s eye on the pink drink. Kendall sipped.

“It’s good,” she said, stifling the gag reflex that kicked in as she swallowed the liquid cotton candy.

“Let’s talk a little,” she said, swallowing hard.

“Then maybe you can show me around the house.” Kiwana looked out at the water, then at her glass before answering.

“As I told you,” she said, her black eyes suddenly flinty, “I’ve covered this ground a time or two with the police.”

“I know it must be boring for you to talk about it again. I’m sorry.” The older woman let out a sigh.

“It’s all right. I don’t have guests coming to the house until tomorrow. I have to warn you about something, however.” Kendall rotated her glass, catching shards of the sparkle of the lowering sun.

“What’s that?”

“There aren’t many people that I’ve met in my life—a pretty long one at that—whom I cannot stand. Your friend’s sister probably stands alone on the list, when I think about it.” Her words trailed off. It was clear that this woman, this host to strangers in her North Shore ocean home, didn’t like to speak ill of anyone.

“I can see that, but I still need you to help.” Kendall wiped the condensation from the tall glass onto her pant leg. She wished she’d worn shorts.

“I understand.”

“Fine then. I couldn’t stand her. I’ve been renting out Bali House for twenty-seven years. I’ve never met anyone like her.” Kendall urged Kiwana to continue without saying so. Truth be told, nothing could stop her, reticent or not. Tori had made an impression. She always did.

Only one time did Lainie O’Neal find the courage to broach the subject of what had happened to her in juvenile detention when she switched places with Tori. It wasn’t that the images of that night in 7-Pod had faded completely from view. But it was not her experiences that haunted her. It was what she imagined her sister had gone through the months of her incarceration following the accident on Banner Road. She was working as an intern at the Whatcom Weekly during her senior year in college. The story she’d been assigned was what she considered an easy A as far as the instructors at the university were concerned. Students in her journalism major knew that their professors could never fault a story that touched on incest, rape, or child molestation.

“Pick one of those subjects and you’ve got yourself a guaranteed award winner.” She dug into a story at the Whatcom Weekly that fit those parameters. It centered on a young woman who had been raped by a guard at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy. The woman known in the media as “Inmate Nicola B” had filed a civil claim against the state—and it was clear that the state would have to pay. Her proof was the guard’s DNA match to her baby girl. After several weeks of constant but respectful requests, Lainie scored an interview with the former prisoner. It was more than the basis for a story; the meeting between the young reporter and the rape victim was life changing. Nicola, a small woman with penetrating brown eyes and a surprisingly sweet demeanor, said something that Lainie underlined four times after the interview as she built her courage to talk to Tori.

“I honestly felt that the guard owned me. I felt that I was powerless and to try to stop him from the rape was to say that my life was worth nothing. I knew that he would kill me. For the longest time, I thought that all that I’d done in life had brought me to that moment, like some sick payback from God or maybe the devil.” A few days after the interview, Lainie drove I-5 to Seattle and took the ferry to Bremerton. Tori was living in a cheap apartment close to downtown with a peekaboo view of the Manette Bridge. It wasn’t a great place—ratty, dirty. A man was urinating around the corner as Lainie parked. She felt that her sister lived there because that was how she saw herself. She couldn’t shake what the guard had done to her. Tori was singing at the casino then. The only suggestion that her life had any promise was the sparkle of the sequins on the costumes that hung in her closet.

“Pretty,” Lainie said as Tori showed her a red sequined dress she planned on wearing that night.

“Better be, for what it costs.”

“I’d like to hear you sing sometime,” she said.

“Dad would, too.”

“I’d be too nervous to have you two there. You understand, right?” Lainie didn’t, not really.

“I guess so.” Tori mentioned she was dating someone, a fellow named Zach. He was older, had a good job, and drove a nice car.

“Serious?”

“Hell no. I’m never going to be serious.” Lainie mentioned that she had been working on the prison rape story. She unveiled the case slowly, watching her sister’s reaction. But there wasn’t one. At least not one that Lainie could see.