Dark Lava: Lei Crime Book 7 (Lei Crime Series) (18 page)

She
’d been able to fall asleep after talking to Marcella and was sure Marcella would tell Sophie Ang about the situation. She pulled out and headed for the police station.

As she pulled in to the station parking lot, her phone rang.

“Lei!” Sophie Ang’s slightly accented voice was hurried. “My God! Marcella told me what happened to Stevens’s ex-wife!”

“
Yeah.” Lei shut her eyes. “It’s terrible. In every way. Stevens is on Oahu now, actually, visiting the baby at the neonatal unit. I’d appreciate if you guys called him, kept him company. This has been really rough, and being at the top of the suspect list doesn’t help.”

“
I can only imagine. So does this photo you sent have to do with that case?”

“
Yes, but not directly. We’re trying to discover the name she had chosen for her son.” Lei still couldn’t say Anchara’s name out loud. “This is on the front of a baby book she kept, but it’s all in Thai. You’re the only person I know who reads or speaks that language.”

“
Yes. I can translate the whole book for you, if you like.”

Lei
’s stomach knotted at the thought. She didn’t want to read about Anchara’s hopes and dreams for her son month by month. It would be too sad. But it might be a priceless gift for a motherless boy someday. “That would be great. Next time we get together, I’ll give it to you.”

A long pause.

“Well, do you want to know what the writing says?” Sophie asked, her voice a little tight with tension.

“
Yes. Lay it on me. I can call Stevens, and he can put it on the birth certificate at the hospital.”

“
Kiet. Kiet Mookjai.” Sophie took a breath, blew it out. “Kiet is spelled K-I-E-T, and it means ‘Honor.’”

Lei
’s eyes filled with tears, and she bit her lip.
Honor.
Naming the child Anchara’s choice was a way to ‘honor’ her memory. “Thanks, Sophie. I owe you.”

“
No, you don’t. I’m your friend. Let me help. What else can I do?”

“
Call Stevens this evening and you and Marcella distract him. Find a way to make him laugh.” Lei struggled with how much to tell her friend and finally said, “I’m worried about him.”

“
Don’t worry. We’ll take care of him. Now, go call him about Kiet, and you can decide if you want to keep the name.”

“
Oh, we will,” Lei said, and blinked again as she hung up. Kiet. It sounded good when she whispered it.

She called Stevens. “
Where are you?” he asked. “I tried the house phone.”

“
I’m sitting in my truck, outside in the station parking lot,” Lei said, looking around at the parked personal vehicles and rows of squad cars outside the fortress-like building. She spotted McGregor and Chun coming out the sliding doors. She saw them heading her way, and McGregor pointed at her truck.

“
Listen, I can’t talk. I found something with the baby’s name on it, and I got it translated. His name is Kiet, spelled K-I-E-T. And it means ‘honor.’” A pause as Stevens absorbed this. McGregor was getting closer. His choleric face was frowning, and she could see a white paper in his hand. “I think we’re about to be served with search warrants. I have to go, but I was thinking you might put your dad’s name in as a middle name. A way to remember him.” McGregor reached her, knocked on the window. “Whatever you decide, I support. But I love the name Kiet already.”

Lei hung up the phone. She took a deep breath, rolling down her window. “
What can I do for you, Detective?”

Stevens put his phone back in his pocket. He was standing in the hallway of the hospital nursery, still in the scrubs and gloves he’d been wearing. The baby was being discharged the following day to the foster home.

He hadn
’t had a chance to say anything to Lei, to answer her at all, but he didn’t need to.

“
Kiet,” Stevens said aloud. “Honor.” And he knew it was perfect, as perfect as adding his father’s name as his middle name. Edward Stevens had been a firefighter and had died on the job when Stevens was sixteen. He’d been a hero. He’d saved three people before the fire in an old motel with faulty wiring claimed him and the rest who were trapped inside.

Stevens had stepped into his father
’s oversized shoes and done his best to be the “man of the house,” but his mother’s drinking, until then a little problematic, had tipped into raging alcoholism with the loss of her husband. Stevens escaped to the military and his brother, Jared, two years younger, had followed their father into firefighting.

Kiet Stevens. It had a ring about it.

He called the caseworker next. “Ms. Fujimoto? My wife found out what our baby’s mother wanted to name him. I’d like to get the paperwork started for his birth certificate, and to adopt him. His name is going to be Kiet Edward Mookjai Stevens.”

McGregor handed Lei a folded white paper through the truck’s window. “Warrants to search your house and cars.”

“
Mine, too?” Lei frowned. “I alibied out on TV during the time of the murder.”

“
Doesn’t mean you weren’t in on it together,” McGregor said, but his eyes shifted away.

Lei snorted. “
Do what you gotta do.” She got out of her truck, gathering her backpack that served as a purse, where the blue cloth-covered book was stowed. The receipt she’d found planted in Stevens’s truck felt like it was burning a hole in her back pocket.

She handed her keys to McGregor. Neither of them would meet her eye, and as she headed into the station, she felt a shiver of terror: Maybe whoever h
ad killed Anchara had planted something in her truck, too. She’d been so preoccupied, she hadn’t searched her own vehicle; nor had she had time to return to check the house.

Her palms were sweating. She needed to get rid of that receipt, but not to McGrego
r and Chun.

Lei knocked on Captain Omura
’s office door. Her boss looked up. “What is it?”

Lei shut the office door and approached the desk. She set the receipt in its plastic evidence bag on the captain
’s desk and slid it over to her.

“
I found this in Stevens’s truck at the airport. Hidden in the driver’s seat.”

Omura looked up, frowning, studied the receipt. “
Why didn’t you give this to McGregor and Chun? I know they were headed out to serve you with warrants.”

“
I don’t trust them,” Lei said. “I trust you.” And she turned on her heel and left the office with her boss holding the receipt.

In the women
’s room, Lei washed her hands and face, decided to leave her unruly hair in the ponytail, as it had completely frizzed once it had been restrained. She put on a touch of mascara and a dot of lipstick. Maybe looking better as she and Torufu went into the meeting with Captain Omura would help calm her nerves.

Still, Lei knew she wouldn
’t rest easy until she found out if McGregor and Chun’s searches had come back empty. She’d turned in the receipt. She’d had to. Destroying evidence in a murder investigation went against every case she’d ever worked on. Damning as the receipt was, she had to hope the process would clear Stevens in spite of how thoroughly he’d been set up. There was nothing to do but stay busy until then, and with a fresh body, that wasn’t going to be hard.

On her way back to the cubicle, Torufu headed her off. “
We need to meet the captain, update her about the Norwegian.”

“
Right. Did you get anything off that jackhammer?” Lei asked.

“
I did. Rock dust consistent with samples from the
heiau
.”

They turned in to the captain
’s office. Torufu handed her a folder. He’d prepared copies of all the data they’d collected on the Norwegian’s death for her, as well as for Omura. She gave him a grateful look. “Thanks, man.”

Omura was sipping on a Diet Coke through a straw in a rare moment of relaxation as they came in. There was no sign of the receipt; nor did she indicate in any way that Lei had been in the room on
ly minutes previously. She set the soda aside, turning to her keyboard. “Report.”

They took the chairs in front of her desk, and Torufu handed the captain the folder he
’d prepared. “Norm Jorgenson. At least according to his fingerprints in Interpol. Wanted for international art theft. We found no ID at the scene.”

Omura leafed through printouts from the crime scene. “
Crowbar. Messy. Where did you find the murder weapon?”

Lei described
the process of elimination that had led to the iron’s discovery under the window of the inn. “There were three perps in the room.” They all looked at the shoe print photos Lei had taken.

“
Were you able to surmise which pair of shoes actually connects to the murderer?” Omura asked, eyeing Lei over square reading glasses that made the Steel Butterfly look even more fashionable.

“
We haven’t had time to do a scene reconstruction,” Torufu said. He went on to tell her about the samples and the hand-held jack. “The victim probably had something to do with the
heiau
desecration Stevens is working on.”

“
So. Any hint of any connection to the Heiau Hui?”

Lei shook her head. “
Nothing direct. Stevens has his inside man keeping an ear out, and he’s on Oahu. I told him this vic was likely connected to the
heiau
case, and he said he was meeting Marcus Kamuela and would bring them up to speed.”

“
He’s supposed to be on admin leave, but yes. In fact, just before this meeting, I got a call from Kamuela’s captain on Oahu, asking us to bring the FBI and Interpol in on tracing this man Jorgenson’s financials and identity. He’s the first solid connection we’ve got to whoever’s looting the sites, and none of us here have the kind of online tracking the Feds and Interpol do.”

“
Do you want to make the calls, or should we?” Lei asked.

“
I need to sign off on an official request, but since you’re our FBI liaison, you call over there first. Let’s move on this. One last bit. What are you liking for motivation for this murder?”

Torufu and L
ei looked at each other. They hadn’t had time to do the usual brainstorming about motives. Torufu led off, turning back to the captain. “I see a possibility he was killed by his own crew. Wasn’t going along with their agenda or was going to sell them out or something. No honor among thieves.”

Lei cleared her throat. “
We both think there was a lot of anger in the way Jorgenson was bludgeoned. Blood spatter flew all over the ceiling from multiple blows to the back of the head, when he probably died after the first blow. So it’s also possible this was someone from the Heiau Hui who tracked the thieves and let their emotions gain the upper hand. There were three people there, which speaks to some sort of grouping.”

They sat for a long moment; then Omura turned b
ack to her computer. “I’ll compose the request for FBI help and fax it over to Oahu, and, Lei, you let me know the name of the agent we’ll be working the case with.”

“
Yes, sir.” They both got up and left for their cubicle.

Lei took the blue cloth book out
of her backpack. She wanted to photograph the pages and send them to Sophie Ang, but first she needed a quiet place to make a call to Marcella, updating her on everything.

“
Back in a few,” Lei told Torufu.

The Tongan just nodded, sitting down in his offi
ce chair. The chair squeaked in protest as Torufu opened the case report. “Just hope we don’t get any bomb calls today.”

She liked that about Abe Torufu. He didn
’t bug her for anything she didn’t want to tell him. Lei ducked into Conference Room B, currently empty, and opened the case folder as she used the triangular phone in the middle of the table to place a call to Special Agent Marcella Scott.

“
Lei!” Her friend sounded rushed. “Just got back in the car after another bank robbery downtown.”

“
The fun never stops,” Lei said. “Do you have a minute? Omura’s putting in an official request for FBI assistance regarding this victim whose case I pulled this morning.” Lei rattled off the details.

“
I’m swamped right now. Better go up the chain with this one, let Waxman assign it.” Lei could hear Marcella turning on the AC of the black Acura “Bucar” her team used. “What’s going on with Anchara’s murder? That’s the case I’m really interested in.”

“
Me too, obviously. Stevens is over on Oahu bonding with the baby.”

“
I knew that. Sophie, Marcus, and I are taking him out tonight.”

“
Good. Well, I’ve been doing a little poking around myself. I know we’re being set up.” She told her friend about her visit to the GreenDeath Place and finding the receipt. “An hour ago, I was served with search warrants. I’m hoping McGregor and Chun come up empty, but I’m not at all sure. The GreenDeath guy told me two more shrouds were purchased. The only person left in my life who hates me this much is Terence Chang. What do you think about reopening the investigation into him?”