Broken Ferns (Lei Crime ) (14 page)

“Yes.” Omura punched a few buttons on her computer, and a series of messages from advocacy groups scrolled up the screen. “These are from Twitter and e-mail. The
Maui News
has already called wanting comment on our plans to take down the Bandit, how we’re going to avoid using deadly force. The kid’s got his own fan page on Facebook, for godsake. He’s being touted as some kind of modern-day Robin Hood.”

Lei felt the ambivalence she’d been struggling with all along rise up. Did she really want to capture this brave boy, flying a tiny plane across the ocean to steal from the rich and give to the poor? Good thing her job was clear—catch a lawbreaker. How and why were for a court to decide, she told herself firmly.

“We’ve got to remember something the general public has forgotten. Even a twelve-year-old with a loaded gun is somebody who knows the difference between right and wrong. If he’s a threat to me or other people who should go home at the end of the day, he needs to be stopped. That’s the mentality we have to have. I’m not going to try and reason with a bullet.” Stevens’s jaw was set, blue eyes intense under those dark brows.

“That’s certainly true,” Ken agreed. “But given the PR nightmare and publicity of this chase, my SAC is calling for beanies and SWAT for the final takedown. We’re all to carry rubber ammo just in case.”

“The Robin Hood thing isn’t helping us. I’m sure that’s exactly the image he intended when he began feeding information to Watanabe.” Lei held the disc under the table, where Stevens couldn’t see it. “Of all the mistakes I made, leaking the gun thing to Watanabe is the most damaging. I expect to face disciplinary action when I get back to Oahu.”

“Let’s move forward with what we have to do today.” Ken’s averted, stony face confirmed that he’d already heard from Waxman to that effect. “Two more agents, Scott and Rogers, are on their way over, and we are all to switch to rubber ammo. Capture is the goal.”

“Good. I’m glad to have something to say to the press and those child advocates,” Omura said.

Just then, the triangular phone in the center of the table rang. A tinny voice came through when Omura punched the Receive button. “Captain, this is Dispatch. The aircraft has been spotted in West Maui, near Kaanapali.”

“Any other details?” Omura asked.

“No, ma’am. It was flying over Lahaina, headed for Kaanapali. That’s all we have at this time.”

“Send all available units to try to apprehend. Beanies only,” Omura said, as Ken and Lei stood along with Bunuelos and Stevens. “Get on the road, everyone.”

“Ken, let me drive. I lived here, you know,” Lei said as they trotted through the station behind Bunuelos and Stevens, with a stop to pick up department-issued rifles and boxes of beanies. He nodded, tossing her the keys as she speed-dialed Ang.

“Agent Ang, do you have any idea how he’s choosing his targets?” Lei asked as they reached the SUV and she beeped open the vehicle, getting behind the wheel, Ken climbing in the passenger side.

“I’ve been working on that,” Ang replied. Lei put her phone into the cupholder and set it on speakerphone. “I’ve got a couple theories based on the houses the unsub has hit.”

“Good, because he’s headed toward Kaanapali, and there are a lot of rich houses out there.”

“Okay, I’ll get right on it and try to send you some likely addresses.”

“Thanks.” Lei pulled the vehicle out behind Stevens’s Bronco.

Cop lights on, weaving through town—it brought back memories, some of the happiest times of her life in hindsight. She wondered where Keiki was and missed her dog with an ache that felt physical.

They were on the Pali in no time, roaring along a two-lane highway around swooping cliffs above the ocean on the way to Lahaina. Wide-open vistas of cobalt sea marked by the lavender smudges of Lanai and Kahoolawe Islands and punctuations of whale spume might have distracted her on another day—but she was too busy focusing on driving at well above the speed limit on a road famous for accidents. Ken spent the drive on the phone with Waxman, bringing him up-to-date.

By one in the afternoon, Lei was hot, bothered, and hungry from fruitless searching when they rendezvoused with Stevens and Bunuelos at a little Mexican place in a strip mall outside of Kaanapali, still unable to locate the Hummel.

Lei tossed her Kevlar vest into the SUV as they went into the cantina. “Supposed to keep that on,” Ken said.

“I can’t handle how hot it is. The Bandit is not going to come in here for a burrito,” Lei snapped. Inside the dim and slightly cooler interior decorated with dusty piñatas and embroidered tablecloths under glass, Stevens and Bunuelos were already perusing laminated menus.

“We’re waiting on a list of possible targets from our tech agent, Agent Ang.” Ken sat down in the booth across from the detectives, Lei beside him.

“Okay,” Stevens said. “As you know, even with a full BOLO out and all our patrol cars on alert, no one’s spotted the Hummel since it made an initial pass in this direction. Must have landed already.”

“Probably ripping off a mansion as we speak,” Lei said. “Not that I can blame the kid.”

“You sound like you want him to get away,” Stevens said as he looked at her. “Kid’s a thief, plain and simple.”

She hid behind her menu, wincing at hearing her own words come back to bite. “Nothing’s ever plain and simple. I can’t help liking this kid. He’s brave, he’s following his convictions. I’ll do my job, but I don’t have to like it. What’s good here? We should eat fast and get back on the road.”

“The enchiladas are good,” Bunuelos volunteered.

They ordered, and Lei sucked down half her glass of iced tea, wishing it were a Corona and wondering what was in store for her when she got back to Oahu and met with Waxman. Some sort of write-up was likely the least of it.

Lei and Ken’s phones toned at the same time, and they looked at them to see the list from Ang, along with a brief message: “The unsub appears to be looking for wealthy off-islanders with a history of bringing in nonlocal help and no record of contribution to the community.”

Those were the kind of people Lei and so many locals resented. Lei’s fish tacos and the rest of the orders appeared at that moment, and they dug in quickly as Ken forwarded the list to the two detectives’ phones.

“It’ll go faster if we split up and hit these addresses,” Ken said. “I think we should keep the interagency partnership thing going, so Bunuelos, you’re with me. That’ll help me navigate a little better.”

Lei sneaked a look at Stevens’s face, dark lashes down over his eyes as he focused on his plate. “Stevens, I’ll drive since I left my vest in the SUV we’re using.”

“Thought you were supposed to keep it on,” he said without looking at her. “Still taking risks, I see. Thought FBI procedures were stricter.”

“I’m her mentor, and I’m trying.” Ken grinned, a glimpse of humor. “But as you know, the girl doesn’t like protocol.”

“That hasn’t changed, then.”

“Hey,” Lei protested. “I made it through the Academy. I made it through probation. Remains to be seen if I’ll make it through this case, though.”

They wrapped up the meal and divided the list of addresses. Lei felt Stevens’s eyes on her back as she practically ran to the SUV and hopped into the driver’s seat.

He got into Ken’s side. “Put your vest on.”

“Shut up. You’re not my mother.” She felt childish for rising to the bait even as she complied, tugging the confining Kevlar down and Velcroing it into place. He was already programming the nearest address into the GPS.

They got on the road with just the lights on and in no time were pulling up to a lovely wrought-iron gate decorated with carved metal birds-of-paradise. Lei rolled down the window and pressed the button on a speaker next to the keypad. “This is the FBI. Open up your gate, please.”

Excited squawks from the speaker, denials of a problem, but Stevens and Lei insisted on checking the grounds. Eventually, the artistic gate swung inward to admit them to a gracious estate, plantings lining a curving driveway that ended at a house doing a good imitation of a Japanese temple.

Lei suppressed her annoyance as they tramped around the estate, escorted by a caretaker, verifying that there was no evidence the Bandit had landed anywhere on the grounds. Looking out at the stunning view of Molokai and Lanai, separated by ten miles of open, sparkling ocean, she could feel a tiny bit of the anger at the world the kid lived in—a world light-years away from this one.

Lei wondered if she’d ever have had the courage to do something about that anger, like this kid was doing. At the same time, she knew that, in her way, she was trying to make the world a better place—even if it meant bringing the Bandit down.

They got back into the SUV. Lei loosened the vest again, glanced over at Stevens. “Where next?”

“We have two more addresses to check.” Stevens punched the next one in. “So. You said you wanted Keiki back.”

“Yes. I do.”

“Turn left in six hundred feet,” the GPS intoned.

“Want to see her? We can swing by the house on the way back to the station tonight.”

Lei’s hands went sweaty on the wheel as she tried to concentrate on the road. “’Course I want to see Keiki. But I don’t want to see your wife.” She tried not to choke on the last two words.

“She’s not there.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s visiting a friend.”

“What?” Bumps on the median had her swerving back into the proper lane. She glanced over at him and noticed what she’d ignored so far—dark shadows under his eyes that just made them bluer, beard stubble, tufts of misdirected hair from his habit of running his hands through it when stressed.

“Yeah.” He stared out the windshield. “We’re working some things out. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No way. You have to tell me what’s going on.” Black spots swirled around the edges of Lei’s vision, telescoping it down—a return of PTSD symptoms she hadn’t had in months.

“Turn right in three hundred feet,” the GPS intoned. Lei yanked the wheel over and pulled up under a kukui nut tree on the side of the road. She tore off her seat belt, smothering in the tight, hot Kevlar vest. She wrestled out of the vest, gasping for air as she got it off her head. The black spots of incipient oxygen deprivation receded and tunnel vision opened up as she tried not to let herself hyperventilate.

“Still having panic attacks, I see.” Stevens’s voice was carefully neutral as Lei did her relaxation breathing:
In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
She put her head as far forward as she could, given the steering wheel.

“Obviously. They were better though, until today.” She felt her heart rate coming down and turned to him. “What’s going on with you two?”

“You’re the last person I should be talking to.”

“I’m the first person, since you never should have married her.” A desire to hurt him like he’d hurt her made the next question burst out. “Did you hit her or something?”

“No. God no. I can’t believe that’s where your mind goes.” He picked up the department-issued Remington 870 twelve-gauge, cracked open the loader, and checked that the beanie cartridges, marked hot pink, were loaded. Ratcheted the gun with a sound that instinctively raised her heart rate again. “She’s upset since I’ve been in touch with you.”

“What do you mean? It’s the case. It’s all business. It’s obvious you wouldn’t have anything to do with me if you could help it.” She tried not to sound bitter and was pretty sure she’d failed as he narrowed those blue eyes at her.

“Apparently I ‘haven’t been myself’ since we’ve been on this case. She said she needs some space to think about things and wants me to do the same.”

He wasn’t himself. He still felt something for her. Lei wanted to think on what this meant but her cell toned, and she grabbed it out of the cupholder. “Agent Texeira here.”

“Lei, it’s Ken. We aren’t finding anything so far.”

“We aren’t either.” She started the vehicle and hit her Bluetooth, pulling them back onto the narrow side road. “We’ve only been to one of the addresses, though. This is kinda inefficient.”

“I know, but at least Ang was able to find enough commonalities to give us something to check. Let me know when you’re done with your list.”

“Of course.” She clicked off as the GPS gave the next direction and glanced at Stevens. He had the second shotgun open on his knees and was ramming the hot-pink beanbag shells into the chamber.

“So what’re you going to do?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean? You should go after her.”

“She said she needs space to think. I’m giving it to her.”

“That’s womanspeak for, “I want you to prove you love me and come after me.”

“I don’t know about that.” He shut the loader with a click and laid the gun on the backseat with the other one. “She’s from Thailand. Maybe it means something different there.”

“It doesn’t. Even if she gets mad when you go after her, she’s doing this to test you. See where your loyalties lie. And damn if I can believe I’m giving you marriage advice.” Lei shook her head as she pulled into another gracious driveway bisected by a grand-looking metal gate. “Do whatever; it’s nothing to me.” She tried to say it like she meant it as they rolled down the drive, eager to change the topic. “Didn’t know there were so many of these fancy gates over here. Metalworkers must be doing okay in this economy.”

It would always be part of Lei’s experience to identify with the workers who built the houses and kept up the estates more than those who occupied them. She’d had to work too hard just to drive a decent car to ever forget the divide between the wealthy and working class in Hawaii, a state run on a service economy.

They went through the admissions and explanation process three more times before they’d run out of the list, and after checking with Ken, decided to head back toward Kahului in the cooling light of evening—the Bandit must have gone to ground, because even with the island-wide BOLO, no one had spotted the ultralight again.

“So do you still want to see Keiki?” Stevens asked, as they came around the last of the curves of the Pali toward Kahului, the main town spread out through the waist of the figure-eight shape of the island.