over with.”
Ben beat Kala to the garage in seconds. He unfolded two aluminum lawn chairs, which he placed half in the garage and half in the driveway. Then he rolled one of the huge trash cans and placed it between the two chairs. “All we have to do is go through it and toss what we don’t want into the can. I’ll wheel it back to the gate, and we’re done. We should have done this days ago. Mail is sacred,” he huffed.
“If you say so,” Kala said through clenched teeth.
It took both of them to upend Kala’s canvas bag of mail. She shuddered at the array of catalogs and flyers. She went to work separating the first-class mail into a pile; the junk mail was tossed into the trash can with barely a glance.
“You know, Kala, you have got to be on someone’s mailing list. If you’d stop shopping from catalogs, you wouldn’t be getting all this junk mail. Ah, here’s what I’m looking for.” Ben tossed what looked like a heavy manila envelope to the side and finished up with the rest of his junk mail.
“Fold up the bags and take them out to the mailbox. Patty said the mailman will pick them up. They have to be returned to the post office, and I don’t want to make a trip there. And the reason I shop from catalogs is I hate driving through parking lots looking for a parking space, then standing in line to check out.”
“Point taken, dear.”
“Will you get that garden basket over there so I can put all this other stuff I have to go through into it? I see there are overdue notices for the house insurance and every other insurance I have. Not to mention the utility bills. How could I have forgotten all that stuff? That’s not like me.”
Ben tried to make his voice as soothing as possible. “In all fairness, Kala, you did have a lot on your mind-the trip, Sophie, the office, the whole ball of wax. You can pay online in ten minutes. If you’re good to go here, I’m going to leave. I have to help my friend; he’s counting on me.”
“Go ahead. I’ll see you in the morning. Are you going to be at the courthouse?” Kala asked as she folded the lawn chairs and stacked them up against the wall.
“If you want me there, I’ll be there. I can even pick you up.”
“Okay, that works. Nine-thirty should do it. Night, sweetie, and thanks for cooking dinner.”
Kala waved to Ben as she pressed the remote that would close the garage door.
Inside the kitchen, she kicked off her shoes, opened her laptop, booted up, then poured a tall glass of wine for herself. She ripped at envelopes, typed in amounts, and sent off her payments, all within minutes. All the first-class mail and congratulatory cards taken care of, Kala looked at the two padded envelopes that were the last things she had to go through. One had a local address she didn’t recognize, and the other was something she’d ordered from the shopper’s channel. She ripped at the envelope. A purple pepper mill. Her favorite color. The other envelope was in a post office priority padded envelope. She ripped at it.
Kala’s eyes rolled back in her head. She gripped the edge of the kitchen table with both hands because she thought she was going to black out. The minute she was able to focus, she reached for the tall wineglass and drained it. Her eyes watered, her throat burned, and she could barely catch her breath. She dropped her head between her knees and struggled to take great gulping breaths. She reached for her cat, Shaky, and brought him up to her lap. He purred and licked at her. She started to babble to the cat, not understanding a thing she was saying. Obviously, Shaky didn’t understand it either. He stopped purring and hissed his displeasure before he hopped to the floor with a loud plop. His luxurious plumed tail swished angrily as he waddled from the room. In the doorway he turned, hissed again, then disappeared to his bed, wherever he had dragged it to earlier in the day.
A good ten minutes went by, the slowest ten minutes of Kala’s life, as she struggled to get herself under control. The moment she felt like she was firing on all cylinders, Kala reached for the wine bottle and poured. So what if she got drunk? So what?
Kala looked down at the kitchen table. Audrey Star’s last journal stared at her like some benevolent eye. In this case, a yellow spiral notebook kind of eye. She didn’t touch it. Instead, she looked at the address on the priority envelope and the date. The mailing date was the very day Adam Star Clements had expired. The address looked familiar: 5665 Peachtree Dunwoody Road in northeast Atlanta. Of course! St. Joseph’s Hospital!
Adam had had the journal all along. And as he had appointed her as the personal representative for his estate, it was only natural that he would send this last-what was it, a piece of evidence?-to her? Why?
Kala gulped at the wine, but she didn’t drain her glass. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold it. She wished then that Ben had stayed with her. A second later, she was glad he hadn’t stayed with her.
Kala sat on her hands to stop them from trembling until she realized she wouldn’t be able to open the diary or turn the pages. She got up and started to pace around her kitchen table, her arms and hands flapping like some silly marionette. She drank more wine straight from the bottle.
Finally, finally, Kala sat down at the table and opened Audrey Star’s last and final journal. The time was ten- thirty by the digital clock on the range. At two-thirty, the wine bottle was empty, replenished with a second bottle, which was half-empty when Kala closed the journal. She knew she was drunk as a skunk when she got up and took precise little steps over to the kitchen counter, where she had her cell phone charging. She tried to focus on the numbers she was pressing, but it took her several tries before the phone was picked up on the other end. The voice demanded to know if the caller knew what time it was.
“It’s late, Spenser, and I’m drunk. I don’t have a clue as to what time it is. You need to come to my house right now. Right now, do you hear me? I just got finished reading Audrey Star’s last journal. Are you coming or not?”
“Of course I’m coming. Where did you find it?”
“The post office sent it to me. It’s been sitting in my damn garage for over a week now. They held my mail, and Patty just picked it up the other day. When are you coming? Do you know where I live?”
“I do know where you live, and I’m going out my door right now. Stay on the phone with me, do you hear me, Kala?”
“Spenser, this is not… Why aren’t you here yet? I’ll put the light on for you as soon as I can find it. I don’t want you tripping over my cat when you get here.”
Ryan Spenser broke every speed law in the town of Dunwoody, Georgia, that night. He arrived at Kala’s house in eleven minutes. He laughed out loud when he saw the great Kala Aulani standing, more like leaning, in the open doorway, chugging from a bottle of wine.
“What took you so long?” Kala sniffed, as Spenser led her back to the kitchen.
“I think you’ve had enough of this,” he said, pouring the rest of the wine in the bottle down the drain. “Where do you keep your coffee?”
Kala waved her arm about. Spenser finally found it as Kala staggered to the downstairs bathroom. He shuddered at the horrible sounds finding their way to the kitchen. “You’re sounding good in there!” he bellowed. “Keep it up, get it all out!” he bellowed again. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Kala shouted something that sounded like, “Shut the hell up, Spenser.”
A long time later, when Kala found her way to the kitchen, Spenser looked up at his colleague. Her face was red and splotchy, her hair looked like a wild bush, but her eyes were focused. “You look like shit, Spenser,” she said as she headed to the coffeepot.
“You don’t exactly look like a Hawaiian beauty queen yourself.” He grinned as he tried to smooth down his spiky hair. “You want to tell me what’s in here, or do you want me to actually read it?”
Kala poured two cups of coffee. She handed one to Spenser. “You need to read it for yourself, okay? We can talk about it when you finish it. Whatever you don’t understand about Audrey’s chicken scratching, I can explain later. But you have to go through it. Where it ends is where Adam started writing. I’m going to go upstairs and take a shower.”
“Are you okay, Kala?”
“Hell no, I’m not okay. Why would you ask me such a stupid question, Spenser?”
“Because I want to know,” he said patiently. “I’m not going to like this, am I?” Spenser said, pointing to the yellow spiral notebook.
“No, Spenser, you are not going to like it any more than I did when I read it.”
“Okay. By the way, how was the homecoming reunion?”
“Very pleasant. We toasted with two bottles of champagne. Then us old people left, and the young ones went to Patty’s house. Sophie is staying with Patty. She’s only going to be here five days, then she’s going back to Hawaii. She said she loves it there. What’s not to love? Hawaii is the land of sunshine and all that good stuff. I can’t
