5 Murder at Volcano House (20 page)

Two counts of murder instead of one?

thirty-three

Sunday morning after Maile and I breakfast together I take Kula surfing. We drive down Mānoa Valley, his head out the window, his fleecy fur glowing in the morning sun. He’s wearing that goofy smile again
. Revved up to surf!

Kula is beside himself when I turn
makai
off Ala Moana Boulevard into Kaka‘ako Waterfront Park. The golden retriever hears the waves crashing beyond the dune and smells the salt spray. He wants to ride waves. Before we do, I power up my phone. It’s been off since last night. There’s a new voicemail.

“Easy, boy.” I try to calm him. “Just a minute while I listen to this message.”
Like he really understands?

But he does. He sits quietly on the seat next to me. I dial my voicemail and hear Ashley’s voice.

“Way
stupid!” She chides herself. “I found that other photo card in my bag. It was there like the whole the time!
Duh!
Can you believe that?”

Yes I can
.

She’ll be working at the mall if I want to come by, 10 to 5. I’ll return Ashley’s call after I set up an interview with Jeffrey’s friend, Byron Joslyn. First Byron, then Ashley.

Once Kula sees the phone call is over, he goes ballistic. I grab the tandem board and we hike over the dune to the water. In the break two surfers are sitting on their boards.

Kula jumps on the tandem and walks to the nose. I hop on behind the retriever and paddle to the break. The two surfers spot a set coming and paddle for it. When the first shoulder-high roller comes, they’re on it. And ride it all the way in.

We watch a few more waves roll through. Then we go for one. I swing the board around and point the nose toward shore.

“Okay, Kula,” I say. “Here we go.”

The golden retriever hunches down, poised to ride. I paddle and Kula hangs his paws over the nose. Soon I feel the rush under the board of the cresting swell. I pop up and turn right, staying in front of the breaking wave. Kula balances himself and keeps in sync with me as I maneuver on the wave. It’s like he has a knack, or something. I hear myself sounding like Ashley.
Gag me!

While Kula and I wait for the next wave I worry about my vocabulary. And I think about Jeffrey’s friend, Byron Joslyn. What might Joslyn’s role be in Rex Ransom’s murder? Was he a willing co-conspirator? Or an unsuspecting bystander—just along for the ride? It’s hard to imagine him not being at least minimally aware and involved. You’d notice if your traveling companion went missing overnight. How much he was involved may determine his willingness to talk. I’m hoping he runs off at the mouth.

When I return Kula to her cottage after our session later that Sunday morning, Maile isn’t home. I bathe the golden boy,
dry him, give him food and water, and leave him in the yard. He’s smiling at me when I close the gate and walk to my car.

On Sunday morning the
lei
shop is closed. I climb the outside stairs to my office and I Google Byron Joslyn. He has an address and phone number in Pauoa, the little valley along the town-side of the Pali Highway. I call the number and a woman answers. I ask for Byron. She tells me he’s working a trip from Seattle and will be back this afternoon.

“He’s still a flight attendant?” I ask, putting two and two together. “I haven’t seen him for a while.”

“Yes,” she says. “Can I tell him who called?”

“An old friend,” I say. “So did Byron finally tie the knot? Are you his lucky bride?”

“Me?”
She laughs. “I’m not his type. We’re housemates. We work for the same airline.” She mentions the airline. It’s the one Jeffrey works for too. That’s all I need to know.

So I say, “You’ve been very helpful. I’ll give Byron a call when I’m in town again.
Mahalo.”

I hang up, go back on line, and check Sunday’s flight schedule on Byron’s airline from Seattle to Honolulu. Only one flight departs Seattle, at 12:50 pm, and arrives in Honolulu at 3:45 pm.

I check my watch. 11:30 am. I call Ashley. She doesn’t answer. I leave her a message that I’ll see her at noon at Safari.

Before driving to Ala Moana Shopping Center I burn a CD containing the images from her photo card. I put the card in a file folder for the Ransom case and take the CD with me. I’m feeling the Bishop Street attorney who represents the Lindquist twins’ father breathing down my neck. Plus, racer-boys like
Fireball who drive drunk, and the clubs that serve them when they’re already drunk, need to be held accountable. I’m hoping this time Ashley comes through.

Parking is even worse on Sundays at Ala Moana Center than on weekdays. I finally find a spot, race across the mall to Safari, but step into Long’s Drugs first. I buy a photo card identical to the one Ashley lent me and a lipstick that looks like the one I found on the Crater Rim Trail. Shoving the lipstick into my khakis for later, I cross the promenade to the gleaming hardwood floors of Safari.
Late again!

Against the images of lions, giraffes and elephants that grace the pastel walls, I don’t have to search long this time for the strawberry blonde. But she looks astonished. She says something to her gothic co-worker and then meets me in the middle of the store.

“Sorry I’m late again,” I say. “The parking lot’s a zoo, but this time no excuses.”

“Late?” Ashley says. “Like for what?”

“Didn’t you get my voicemail?” I’m incredulous.

“Um . . . no,” she says. “I totally lost my cell phone again.” Her giddy eyes turn a deeper green.

She lost her cell phone—again?

“I guess I just like left it, you know, somewhere,” she explains. “I’m sure it’ll turn up. I really haven’t looked yet. Whatever.”

“Good luck,” I say.

“I found it last time,” she says. “Well . . . uh . . . the airline found it. But I did find the other photo card.
Really!”

“Great,” I say. “Should we go outside?”

She nods and leads the way in her lanky carefree strides to the benches around the koi pond. She lugs her oversized pink
handbag that I hope contains the photo card she’s promised me. We sit by the pond.

“Before I forget,” I say. “Here’s a new photo card to replace yours, plus all your photos on this CD. I hand her both.

She doesn’t question my keeping her own card. She just says: “Did that totally gross couple by the pool have anything to do with Heather and Lindsay?”

“I’m afraid not.” I tell her the plain truth.

“Um . . . I didn’t think so,” she says. “I can still remember those two like really going at it. And I remember them saying some really weird stuff.”

That gets my attention. “Like what?”

“She said this weird thing to him about Pele.”

“Madame Pele, the goddess of volcanoes?”

“Bizarre
. . . them lying there all wrapped up in each other—
Gag me!—
and talking about the volcano goddess.”

“Can you remember what she said about Pele?”

“Something about revenge—like it was time for Pele to take revenge.”

“What did he say—the guy?”

“He said, ‘Anything you want, baby, you got it.’”

Hmmm
. I scratch my chin.

“Baby?”
Ashley says. “She was like twenty years older than him!”

I grab the spiral notebook I carry in the pocket of my aloha shirt. “Would you mind writing down what they said and how they were behaving?”

“Whatever,” she says.

With the pen I also keep in that same pocket I write the date of the overheard conversation and the place at the top of the page. These will be corroborated by the dated photo
Ashley gave me. I hand her the notebook. She records the conversation as she remembers it and describes Donnie and Jeffrey lying together poolside. I also have her state that she gave me the photo card, to establish chain of custody. She signs and dates her statement and returns the notebook to me.

“Mahalo,”
I say. “This could be a big help.”

Ashley doesn’t ask why. She just smiles and digs into her huge pink handbag. She digs and digs. Another puzzled look. Then she says,
“Oh, no!”

“Oh, no?” I say, expecting the worst.

“The photo card.” Ashley says. “It’s like not here.”

“I thought you said you found it last night?”

“I did,” she says. “I found it and set it on my nightstand before I went to sleep, you know, just to make sure I would bring it today. I guess I like didn’t put it back in my bag.”

“So you don’t have the card?”

“Yes . . . um . . . I do have the card.” She frowns. “Just not with me.”

I shake my head. But manage to hold my tongue.

“I’m totally sorry,” she says. “Especially since, you know, I like forgot the card last time.”

“It’s okay,” I hear myself say. “Could I meet you at your home maybe later today?”

“Oh,
barf!”
she says. “I can’t. I’m going to Maui with some friends right after work. I’ll be back on Tuesday.”

“Tuesday?”
I grab for some patience. It’s hard to find. Finally I say: “Same place, same time on Tuesday.”

I walk her back to Safari and she says, “No way I’ll forget this time—
like I promise!”

And I’m thinking:
Like I hope so
.

thirty-four

Back in my office I get on my computer again before driving to the airport to meet Byron Joslyn. I jot down the number of his flight from Seattle, the arrival gate, and baggage claim area. What I don’t have, yet, is a mug shot.

I Google Byron Joslyn again. I get hits from
ancestry.com
and sites like that dealing with deceased and historical Byron Joslyns.
Who’d have known there were so many?
Why am I wasting time? I go to Facebook.

Two Byron Joslyns come up. Only one resides in Honolulu. And he has an uncanny resemblance to Jeffrey Bywater. The two look like brothers. There’s a shot in Byron’s photo gallery of the two of them arm-in-arm. Byron must be older. He’s got features like Jeffrey’s, but not his boyish looks. Byron’s personal information says he’s in a relationship. The implication of the photo is that the relationship is with Jeffrey. If so, it’s not an exclusive one.

I look at Byron’s list of friends. It includes Jeffrey, of course. And also Donnie Ransom. And checking his gallery again, I spot photos of all three of them arm-in-arm.

But what most impresses me is that uncanny resemblance of the two men. One could probably pass for the other. So I Google Jeffrey Bywater to see what I can find. I go to one of those public records sites that says it will supply dozens of records pertaining to Jeffrey Bywater if I pay $14.95. I don’t usually pay for this kind of information, but I’m in a hurry and I’ll take my chances. So I key in my credit card number and see what comes up.

There’s quite a bit. Mostly addresses and previous addresses. A divorce about five years ago. I’m wondering if I’ve wasted my fifteen bucks. But then I see this: NAME CHANGE. Jeffrey Bywater is not his given name. He changed his name barely one year ago. And guess what? His given name is Joslyn. Jeffrey Bywater and Byron Joslyn don’t just look like brothers. They
are
brothers.

On a hunch I Google Jeffrey Joslyn. The first hit is a review in
The Garden Island
of an amateur performance at the Pohu Theatre in Lihue of Oscar Wilde’s
The Importance of Being Earnest
. I recall Caitlin’s mentioning that Jeffrey acted in a play on Kāua‘i. It appears he’s kept his real name as his stage name. The review goes on and on about the controversial and daring move by director Nani Michaels of casting male actor Jeffrey Joslyn as a leading lady.

Jeffrey Joslyn, in the role of the beautiful and pretentious Gwendolen Fairfax, who embodies the qualities of conventional Victorian Womanhood, is bound to raise eyebrows. The young Gwendolen—fixated on finding a husband named Earnest—played by a man? But Joslyn pulls it off swimmingly. He nails the
speech, mannerisms, grace, and charm of the twenty-something Victorian beauty so completely that you forget almost instantly he’s cross-dressing and raising his voice an octave . . .

“You forget almost instantly he’s cross-dressing.” That line sticks in my mind. And suddenly it’s so clear.

Jeffrey Bywater—a.k.a. Jeffrey Joslyn—is an accomplished amateur actor, especially accomplished at convincingly portraying young women. It was him I saw in his next role: the beautiful young
kinolau
of Pele on the Crater Rim Trail.

I don’t bother with the other hits on Jeffrey Joslyn. I’ve found what I need. By now it’s approaching three. Byron’s flight arrives in forty-five minutes. I shut down my computer, take the business card of the
Pride of Aloha
staff who assisted me, and head for Honolulu International Airport.

I park near baggage claim area G, where passengers from Byron’s Seattle flight will collect their luggage. And that’s where the crew will most likely pass. I’m early, but I’ve never known a flight to arrive exactly on time. Often airplanes catch a tailwind to Hawai‘i and arrive ahead of schedule. I can’t risk missing Byron Joslyn.

I walk from the garage to baggage claim. The arrivals board says that Byron’s Seattle flight has indeed landed early. Passengers begin streaming down an escalator and through sliding glass doors near where I’m standing. As bedraggled moms and dads with their yawning kids stumble in, I keep an eye out for the first sign of the flight crew.

As baggage claim fills, behind the throng the crew begins to emerge. Women flight attendants. Two pilots. More attendants. And finally a woman and a man walking together.

The man is Byron. He’s put on weight since his Facebook photo, but Jeffrey’s features still shine through. I follow Byron through baggage claim and out the glass doors to ground transportation and the parking garage. He and the woman part company. Then I walk up to him.

“You look familiar,” I say. “Did you recently sail on the
Pride of Aloha?”

“Yes,” he says. “Were you on the cruise?”

“I work for the cruise line.” I show him the
Pride of Aloha
business card, but pull it back before he can see the name “Margo” on it. “I’m waiting for some VIPs arriving on a flight from San Francisco.”