Broken Ferns (Lei Crime ) (8 page)

“She says she hasn’t seen him in months. She was pretty eager to get away; I think she was telling the truth.”

“So he’s in the wind,” Lei said. “Interesting. They all are.”

Chapter 9

Lei had a simple system for her clothes: dirty clothes all in one plastic hamper. Take to basement. Separate by colors. Work clothes came out of the dryer and went straight onto hangers she took down for that purpose, and everything else went into three additional hampers. They stood in a row against her wall, an accusing reminder that she hadn’t even committed to this apartment enough to buy a dresser.

She rustled through one of the clean-clothes hampers and dug out a pair of nylon gym shorts, a sports bra, and a mesh running shirt. She had something social to do, for once.

Back at the office, Marcella had interrupted her perusal of the young men’s phone records to invite her to Women’s Fight Club.

“Fight Club?” Lei frowned as her friend, already changed out of her FBI outfit into athletic clothes, laced up her shoes. “What’s that?”

Sophie Ang, hanging in the doorway, broke into a three-cornered grin. “Excellent idea, Marcella! We need some fresh meat down at the gym.”

“Heard of mixed martial arts?” Marcella straightened up and picked up her gym bag. “It’s kind of a hybrid of Muay Thai, Brazilian jujitsu, and boxing.”

“I’ve heard of it, just not of chicks doing it,” Lei said. “You’re into this?”

“Hell yes,” Marcella said. “It’s awesome. Gets rid of work stress. Great workout, and it keeps your aggression-management skills up.”

“I’m in.” Lei suppressed a shiver of intimidation. She was smaller and leaner than either of the other women. One good punch would probably blow her away—but Tae Kwon Do and running kept her wiry and agile. She’d make them work for that punch.

“Good. Because there’s a surprise for you there.” Marcella’s eyes sparkled with mischief.

“What kind of surprise?”

“Come, and you’ll see.” On that enigmatic note, her friend bounced out, Ang right behind her.

Ken waved Lei toward the door. “I’ll close down here. Go. You need a workout.”

Now, dressed for action, she looked in the fridge. Still nothing, dammit, and eating a burger on the way seemed like a good way to make herself sick. Food would have to wait.

It wasn’t long before she was entering the huge aluminum warehouse that housed the gym. Large and dim, the interior was lit by skylights and spotlights on long cords dangling from a high ceiling. The air smelled slightly musky with a tang of something that started adrenaline humming through her veins. Two women sparring in the central ring caught her eye, but they weren’t familiar.

A weight area dominated one wall, and the other was marked by square workout pads on the floor. Marcella and Ang, padded gloves on, were already warming up.

Lei understood the appreciation on the faces of those watching them. Marcella was magnificent, even in a pair of long, baggy nylon basketball shorts and a sports bra. Ang was the surprise. The tall computer tech was surprisingly muscled, golden-brown skin braised with kanji tattoos that encircled her upper arms and ran down the exterior of her sleek thighs. The pixie haircut that looked professional in the office enhanced an aura of streamlined power.

Lei moved in between a couple of other onlookers to watch.

The women circled each other, faces intent. Marcella opened with a couple of jabs, then a high kick, a move that had Ang grabbing her foot and flipping her on her back with a whoosh of lost breath. But it didn’t end there. Ang followed up the advantage with a grappling hold, locked around Marcella’s midsection like a python. Marcella thumped and heaved to no avail, eventually smacking the mat with her glove-protected hand, a signal the bout was over.

Ang let go and sprang back to her feet in a fluid motion. “I told you to knock off those high kicks unless you know I can’t grab you,” she chided.

Marcella hauled herself back up much less gracefully and spotted Lei. “Oh good. You made it. Let’s take a break, show Lei the ropes, and you can finish kicking my ass in a minute.”

“Sure. Glad you made it, Lei.” Ang went to a nearby gym bag and brought back a pair of the split-fingered padded gloves the other women were wearing. “Let me introduce you to our coach and show you around.”

“Sounds good.”

“Oh, Lei—the coach is someone you know.” Marcella grinned. “That’s the surprise.”

“Who is it?”

“I’m not saying. I don’t want to spoil it. I’m going to do some cardio, warm up some more.” Marcella headed over to a stationary bike.

Lei trailed Ang as she pointed her to the warm-up area, weight area, practice mats, and sparring ring. “Bathrooms and showers back here. We get three hours every other night for Women’s Fight Club, when we get to use the practice area and ring exclusively. I think you’ll like our coach—he’s only part-time, but he’s really helping the women’s aspect of the sport get some good events and exposure.”

Lei stood slightly behind her as she knocked on a door and pushed it inward. “Hey, Coach,” Ang said.

A man turned around from a file cabinet to greet them. Tall and brown, with a shock of ruffled dark hair falling over his brow, dimples, and a white grin that faded at the sight of Lei, Alika Wolcott was the best of
hapa
, mixed Hawaiian and Caucasian heritage.

“Lei Texeira.” He stuffed the file back in the drawer and slammed it hard. “This is a surprise.”

“Hey, Alika,” Lei said. He wasn’t the only one surprised. She regrouped first, stepped forward to give him the awkward A-frame hug of people who’ve dated and ended badly. His hands barely brushed her shoulders before he pulled away.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I’d ask you the same. Thought you were totally embedded in Kaua`i.”

“You know each other.” Ang glanced between them as she picked up on the vibe. “Well. Hey, that’s great. Coach, Marcella invited her.” Her delicate inference set the blame on Marcella as the culprit. “I’ll leave you two to catch up. See you back on the practice pads, Lei.” Lei hardly noticed her departure as she and Alika took each other’s measure.

“Never thought I’d see you again.”

“Kinda mutual there.” Lei groped for something to say to the man she’d dated on Kaua`i before choosing Stevens in the end. “I went to the Academy, as you must have heard—and they posted me here. Small world.”

“Yeah. Well, I—decided I needed to get off the rock, expand the business in a different direction.”

“This sure is a different direction.” Lei gestured to the vast barnlike space outside the office.

“Oh, no. Coaching is just my hobby. I own the gym building, though. Still doing real estate development, working with mostly apartment and office buildings now.” He leaned on the desk, a pose that emphasized his chiseled shoulders and back. “When Marcella started coming here, I should have known you wouldn’t be far behind.”

“Well, they invited me. Thought I’d give it a try. I do Tae Kwon Do; that should help.”

“Not necessarily.” Alika’s normal confidence reappeared as he pushed away from the desk, leading her back out into the main workout area and toward the practice pads. “A lot of MMA is groundwork. Got to be careful not to get into those high kicks. Your partner can take you down. Sophie is really good. You can learn a lot watching her.”

They rejoined the group surrounding Marcella and Ang, who were back at it. Sure enough, Marcella tried another kick, and once again Ang caught her foot and upended her, following up with a grappling hold. Marcella yowled with frustration and took to whacking Ang about the head and shoulders, then burst out laughing.

“No.” Alika looked down at them, hands on his hips. “Just no. No laughing in the gym.”

This time Ang laughed, too. Lei withdrew to one of the stationary bikes against the wall, watching as the two women hopped up and began another round. This time Alika followed them, circling around, calling advice to Marcella, and finally she was able to win a round with formidable Sophie Ang.

A few minutes later, Ang trotted over to Lei. “Ready to go?”

“You know what? I don’t think so.” Lei wasn’t in the habit of backing down from a challenge—but she didn’t have the wherewithal to get smacked down in front of Alika, who was still looking on, now coaching another pair of women. “Think I’ll just do some cardio and call it good. This isn’t my thing.”

“Oh, c’mon. Lei.” Marcella approached, mopping her flushed face with one of the thin gym towels. “Get out there with me. Or better yet, let Alika show you a few moves.” She winked. “He might still be into you.” Marcella had had front-row seats to their dating debacle on Kaua`i, something Lei still felt bad about. She wasn’t ready to joke about any of it.

“Seriously?” Lei felt a flush of embarrassed anger burn her face. “Not funny.” She got off the bike. “Thanks for the invite, Sophie.”

“Lei—I’m sorry. I was just teasing.” Marcella followed her as Lei strode toward the door.

“See you at work,” Lei tossed over her shoulder. She beeped the truck open and hopped in, slamming the door.

The truck revved satisfyingly as she pulled out, but it wasn’t until she was back on the highway that she felt the prickle of tears behind her eyes. She liked to think she wasn’t usually so touchy, but the combination of Alika, their history, and the sheer physical beauty of Ang and Marcella had her on the proverbial ropes. She felt like a pale shadow of herself.

Lei missed Stevens and Keiki with a sudden stabbing pain, so acute she grasped the steering wheel, swallowing back a sob. Maybe it was just a stomachache and what she needed was food.

She pulled into the same Burger King drive-through and ordered a Whopper meal. What the hell—fat and carbs might settle her churning stomach. She chomped down the burger in a few bites, and it rested, an uneasy brick, in her belly.

Lei drove back toward her neighborhood, but the thought of the empty, depressing apartment was too much to bear. Passing her building, she kept driving, this time heading down into Waikiki. Her route took her past Kwon’s apartment.

That crime could be her undoing—somehow she had to find out who’d shot him. Getting Kwon’s shooter behind bars was the only way she’d be totally safe. But how could she investigate without stirring up Kamuela’s interest? She rolled her windows down to take in the sight of tourists clogging Kalakaua Avenue as she munched the comforting greasy saltiness of fries.

Her cell rang and she checked it—Marcella. She let it go to voice mail. She wasn’t ready to talk about anything yet, and she knew her friend would want to. One more person she’d failed—she wasn’t much of a friend to Marcella, either.

She spotted a young man in a hoodie, attitude palpable as he shouldered his way purposefully through the wandering crowds. Something about him reminded her of the Smiley Bandit—youth, angst, and attitude now airborne. What was this unsub up to? Was he really some kind of modern-day flying Robin Hood? If so, she couldn’t help liking him even more.

Her cell rang again—this time her father, Wayne Texeira, in California. They talked only every few weeks, so she put the Bluetooth resting in the brake well into her ear and answered it.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, Lei-girl. How’s Honolulu treating you this week?”

“Okay.” Lei thought of all she couldn’t say to her ex-con father about her cases, her broken heart, her chickenshit moment at the gym—it would fill a book. “How’s Aunty Rosario and the restaurant?”

“Same old, same old. We’re planning a trip over, though, for Christmas.”

“Sounds great!” It really did sound great—though she’d have to get some furniture for her apartment if they followed through and showed up in a couple of months. “Hey, Dad, it’s a good thing you called. Remember the Charlie Kwon shooting?”

Her father was silent a moment, probably taken aback by the abrupt change of subject.

“’Course.” His voice was clipped. He obviously still remembered her phone call to ask if he’d done it, too.

“Well, it’s never been solved, and I’m starting to think I’d better work on it somehow. I visited him the day he was shot, you know, and I’m still worried it will come back on me.”

“You told me then that you didn’t do it. You have to let the facts be enough. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

“I know, and you’re right about that. But maybe there’s some way I can point the investigation to the right answer or something—get some more insurance for myself. So I was wondering if you knew of anyone who might have been involved. Had motive, you know. Some of the Hilo people, maybe?” It was a long shot, but worth taking—and she’d never asked him since their abruptly ended conversation a year ago.

She waited the long moment he took to answer, driving through the stop-and-go traffic into the cool green of Kapiolani Park.

“Any number of people wanted Kwon dead,” Wayne said. “But there’s one I think you might want to get to know anyway. Your grandfather.”

“What?” Lei pulled into the park’s nearby lot. This surprise was going to take her full attention. She brought the truck up under a spreading monkeypod tree in the generous parking area. “You mean the Matsumotos?” Wayne and Rosario’s parents were gone, so it had to be her Matsumoto grandfather. She hadn’t seen them since she was a baby.

“Yes. Your grandfather Soga Matsumoto contacted me last year. He’s been following your career from a distance and he lost track of you after you moved to Maui. He tracked me down, wanted your address, and said his wife died.” Wayne sighed, a long, shuddering loss of breath. “I was pretty angry. They hadn’t done anything to help you when your mom died and you almost went into foster care…I thought he didn’t deserve that chance, and I told him off. I told him about Kwon, too, to make him feel bad.”

“Wow.” Lei felt the familiar tightness of anxiety and loss in her chest. Her family life had never been simple. She found her hand sliding into her pocket to retrieve the white-gold disc. She flipped it between her fingers. A ray of sunlight passed through the windshield, glancing off the embedded diamonds and casting sparkles onto the felted interior of the truck’s roof.

“Yeah, I was angry. I wanted him to suffer, to feel bad for being such a bad grandfather. I have his address. I felt the Lord telling me my attitude was wrong later, so I called him back and apologized, but he wouldn’t answer my call.”