learned at Mesa's table. After I finished, the room was quiet.
Sabas finally said, 'I thought we agreed we were gonna all work this together. You couldn't make a call and let us in on what you were up to?'
'It was sort of a spur-of-the-moment decision,' I defended. 'We were only going to check it out but when we saw that party, it sort of developed into something else.'
'You aren't the only one who needs closure on Pop's murder, Shane. We're all hurtin'. You gave us your word if we let you call the shots, you wouldn't freeze us out. But you went ahead and did this on your own anyway.'
I'd had a bad morning. I was starting to get annoyed. 'It was late, almost eleven P. M. when we got there,' I said. 'Last time I called and woke you up you chewed my head off.'
'Boys, boys, boys,' Vicki said. 'Let's stop bickering and deal with what Shane and Alexa found out. What's it mean?'
'I don't know,' I admitted, taking a breath to cool down. 'Haven't a clue. But we need to review everything we know. See how quickly we can unpack this and figure what the elements were that really got Pop killed.'
So we began.
Some of it was just theory, some of it was feelings. A lot was sad memories and regrets about Pop.
Diamond kept asking why E. C. Mesa might have that big, rhino-chaser cigar-box board in his garage. Seriana wondered if it could be a coincidence.
'In law enforcement, the rule is never trust a coincidence,' I told her.
Vicki said, 'The suicide note seemed like hooey even when we still thought Pop had killed himself. Now that we know he was murdered, it's gotta be bullshit.'
I got up and limped over to the desk and found my copy of the note. I handed it to Vicki and lowered myself painfully back into the lounge chair.
She began reading a few parts aloud. ''Got pulled down by leash drag? 'Sorry about the yard sale? Tf you need the reason, tap the source, Walt? That doesn't sound right to me at all. Who writes a last note that sounds like that? But if somebody was forcing him to write it, Pop might have been trying to send a secret communication.'
'You mean maybe it's like a code or something?' Diamond said.
Vicki looked at us and nodded. 'If he knew he was going to die and somebody was making him write this, then maybe he was using all this surf lingo to tell us something.'
I didn't give that idea much credence. We were beginning to grasp at fringe theories.
'Here's something that's been bothering me,' Seriana said. 'Why the six of us? I loved Pop, and I certainly owed him, but I don't think I was more special to him than a lot of other kids who were at the home when I was.'
'Most people don't pick their own pallbearers,' I said, nodding. 'But Walt wrote that letter a week before he was killed, naming the six of us.'
'Why would he do that?' Vicki asked.
'Alexa thinks Pop must have already known he was in some danger the week before he was killed and chose his pallbearers because he knew the kind of people we are.'
'Which is?' Diamond said.
'Well, except for you, Diamond, we Ye nonconformists who don't do what were told. Alexa thinks maybe Walt picked us because in the event he got murdered, he knew we wouldn't accept the official version of his death and would keep looking until we found out what really happened.'
'That's one fucking smart lady you got there, hoss,' Vicki said.
'So you buy it?' I asked, looking around the room at everyone.
'I've also been wondering the same thing,' Vargas said, nodding. 'I always felt special in Walt's eyes, but then so did everyone else. I keep thinking, out of all the hundreds of people who went to Huntington House, why was I one of six that he wanted to carry his coffin? I feel the same as Seriana. There were so many others that he could have chosen.'
Diamond broke the silence that followed. 'So what's our next move?'
'I was waiting to go back and look at Pop's house until the coroner assigned a homicide number to the case,' I said. 'My idea was to take a forensic unit over to his house and redo the entire crime-scene investigation.'
'Come on, that's nuts,' Sabas sniped. 'It's been a week and a half. There've been cops and newspaper people traipsing through there. That's a totally contaminated site.'
I didn't have much patience for his tone. Despite a promising start after that fight at the gym, we were now getting on each other's nerves.
'I agree,' I said, struggling to control my irritation. 'So instead of waiting, let's go now. We knew Pop better than the cops who investigated this. Let's use our knowledge of him to see if we can find something they missed.'
I rode with Sabas in the yellow truck. Halfway there, he looked over, staring at me with vato eyes. In that moment I could see remnants of the little nine-year-old shooter who had killed to protect his drug turf.
'Don't freeze me out,' he warned. 'Next time you torch me like that, I'll just take this into my own hands.'
'Sabas, I wasn't leaving you out. We turned up the address on Avalon Terrace late at night. We didn't know there'd be a party and that Jack would be there. Why can't you cut me a little slack?'
'Why should I? Lookit you, you been getting beat worse than a birthday pinata. You ain't inspiring much confidence.'
I decided not to argue with him. Despite all the mistakes I'd made, I felt I was on the verge of something. The answer seemed near. It was like the feeling I always got as a kid on sunrise patrol just before a big set rolled in.
As we neared Walt's old bungalow, in my subconscious I could hear Walt talking to me, using that crazy pidgin Hawaiian. Paddle hardf bra. We be in da zone fo shur.
The crinkly smile, the seawater-blue eyes, counting on me to get him to shore.
Chapter 42
Pop's house was a white bungalow with a red tile roof in a middle-class neighborhood not too far from Huntington House, and it was exactly as I had remembered. After his wife, Elizabeth, died, Pop had continued to live there alone.
He always kept the hide-a-kev in the same place-inside the feed drawer in the base of a large wooden birdcage that now hung empty from a chain on the far end of his front porch.
He used to sit out here on summer nights while a big green and yellow parrot sat in that cage squawking loudly. The bird spoke only pidgin and was named Hang Six. Pop had bought him in the early-seventies on the Hawaiian North Shore. Hang Six had to be at least forty by now, if he was still alive.
On nights when some of us were over here visiting Pop, having one of Elizabeth's home-cooked meals, we were always fascinated by the bird's island patois.
Hey hapa haole, boy. Surfs up, bra!' He would screech that stuff incessantly.
I thought it interesting that despite our age difference, every one of us knew that the hide-a-key was always kept in the feed drawer under the cage. Pop hadn't bothered to change its location in almost four decades.
That told me he hadn't been too worried about security. If his killer knew him, then he probably also knew where the key was and could have used it to get in here and lie in wait.
We opened the front door, turned on the lights, and stood in Pop's small living room. There was a lot of surfer art adorning this space. Over the fireplace hung a large painting of a forty-foot windswept wave, a magnificent aqua green crescent with white foam blowing off the leading edge. There were all kinds of surfer knick-knacks on the walls, along with half a dozen photographs under glass of huge storm breaks on the North Shore of Oahu.
Hang Six's indoor cage was also empty, standing in the corner. Diamond said the cops had taken him to animal control after Pop died.
'Where do you want to start?' Sabas asked.
