“No, you don’t understand,” Monk said. “These are Brian’s stains.”
“Who is this slob Brian?” Kealoha asked. “And why would he steal your car?”
I explained to Kealoha that we’d come to Kauai for my friend Candace’s aborted wedding, that Brian was her jerk of an ex-fiancé, that his rental car had been vandalized, and that he’d left the island days ago.
“I’m confused,” Kealoha said.
“So am I,” I said. “How could these stains be the stains from Brian’s car?”
We both looked at Monk.
He looked back at us. “Let’s rent another car.”
Monk didn’t bother to explain himself. He insisted that we take him to the nearest car-rental agency, preferably one we hadn’t rented from before.
I argued that we had only one more night left on the island and that it was insane to rent another car now. But Monk didn’t care.
Kealoha gave us a ride to AutoPlanet, the one big rental company left that didn’t know us. He waited around while Monk put the attendant through the ordeal of finding him a convertible that was as close to factory fresh as possible.
We ended up with another Mustang, identical to the ones we had before.
“Where to now, Mr. Monk?” I asked after all the papers were signed and all the insurance options had been accepted.
“The police station,” Monk said.
“You didn’t need a rental car for that,” Kealoha said. “I could have taken you there. What do you want at the station?”
“A knife,” Monk said. “The sharpest one you have.”
We followed Kealoha back to the police station and parked in the lot. Kealoha went inside and came back out holding one of those ugly blades Rambo used to carry around. It was so sharp, I was afraid I could get cut just looking at it.
“We took this off a drunken marine in Kapaa,” Kealoha said, showing us the knife as we got out of the car. “He never came back to claim it.”
“You could cut a tree down with that thing,” I said.
“He said he used it for slicing apples.”
Monk motioned to me for a wipe and I gave him one.
“If you will recall, someone smashed the windshield and tore the soft-top of Brian’s car.” Monk took the knife from Kealoha and thoroughly cleaned the handle with the wipe as he spoke. “When it came back from the body shop, not only were the windshield and soft-top fixed, but the seats were replaced, too.”
“Yeah,” I said. “So?”
“But the carpets were still dirty. I thought it was odd. Now I don’t.”
He gave me the dirty wipe, opened the driver’s-side door of the car, and slashed the seat with his knife.
“Mr. Monk!” I ran up beside him. “What’s the matter with you? You can’t do that!”
He looked up at me. “You took the insurance, didn’t you?”
“It doesn’t cover you for this!”
Monk shrugged and continued slashing the seat cushions as if nothing had been said about it.
“Is this your way of removing difficult stains?” I asked, not bothering to hide my exasperation.
Kealoha joined us. “I’d like to know, too, since technically I’m witnessing a crime here.”
“Brian’s rental car was brand-new, just off the boat,” Monk said as he slashed. “When we went to the rental company for the first time, a couple was there returning a brand-new Mustang that had been damaged in an accident. The next day our car was stolen.”
“Yes, I know all that,” I said. “What I don’t get is why you’re ripping up these seats.”
He stopped slashing and looked at his handiwork. He’d shredded the upholstery, exposing the stuffing and the springs. Hacked-up bits of foam padding were all over the floor.
“After our car was stolen, we rented another new Mustang. A few hours later someone sideswiped us,” Monk walked around to the other side of the car.
“You’re cursed,” Kealoha said. “And, if I may say so, a little crazy.”
“That may be.” Monk opened the passenger-side door, leaned inside, and began slashing the seats again. He acted as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be doing. “But that’s not the reason our first car was stolen or why a truck crashed into our second one. In fact, all these car accidents, thefts, and acts of vandalism have one thing in common: Each rental car involved was just off the boat.”
Monk leaned back and smiled. I recognized it as the smile he gets when everything fits and order is restored, like when he organizes the items in a grocery store dairy case by expiration date. Or when he solves a murder.
Kealoha and I walked around the car and peered inside. The back cushion of the passenger seat was torn apart. Monk had cut away the vinyl and padding to reveal that the seat was stuffed tight with bags of white powder.
I had a hunch it wasn’t sugar.
“I figured it would be drugs,” Monk said. “I think you’ll find that the rate of car thefts and accidents increases considerably after a new fleet of cars arrives on the island and are distributed among the rental agencies.”
“How did you know the cars were being used to smuggle cocaine?” Kealoha asked.
“I didn’t until I saw Brian’s stained seats in our stolen car. Then I remembered something you said—that virtually everything on the island, from cars to peanuts, has to be shipped in. I figured that fact of life must also apply to illegal goods as well.”
“So they’re smuggling cocaine onto the island by hiding it in the seats of new rental cars,” Kealoha said. “They have inside men at the rental agencies who let them know when the cars are rolling off the lot and with whom. Then they vandalize, crash, or steal the cars so they can remove the hidden drugs.”
“Those were Brian’s seats in our stolen car. Because all the seats look alike, they just swapped out the ones with the drugs,” Monk said. “They put Brian’s seats, now emptied of drugs, into the next drug-laden car that came in.”
“Why not just break into the cars while they are on the
