Dark Lava: Lei Crime Book 7 (Lei Crime Series) (22 page)

Lei made her legs carry her down t
he short hall to her aunt’s bedroom. The drapes were closed, and Rosario Texeira was a small mound in the middle of the bed. Gentle light from a lamp fell over her aunt’s best friend and business partner, seated beside her.

“
Aunty Momi. I came as soon as I could.” Lei hurried to the statuesque older woman, and Momi stood up and embraced her.

Momi brushed tears off her cheeks. “
Just when I think I’m done crying, I find a few more tears leaking out. She will be so glad to see you.”

“
It was hard to get away. Crime never sleeps.” Lei tried to smile but failed. “How’s she doing?”

“
Weak. Hospice has her on a morphine drip, so she’s as comfortable as she can be.”

“
What’s that smell?” Lei whispered. It was making her queasy.

“
It’s the cocktail of medicines they’ve got her on. Kidney medicine, pain medicine, and her catheter.” Momi gestured to the clear, dangling intravenous bag on the steel pole beside the bed. “Her kidneys are failing, as Wayne probably told you. They’re doing dialysis every couple of days. She doesn’t want to go into the hospital anymore, so now it’s all about keeping her comfortable.”

“
This is so hard.” Lei felt her legs fold up, and she sat abruptly on the bed. The movement startled her aunt awake, and Rosario’s deep brown eyes opened.

“
Lei! You came!” Her voice sounded thin and rusty.

“
Aunty. I love you.” Lei embraced her aunt carefully around the cords and wires. She was dimly aware of Momi’s departure as she lay down beside her aunt, plumping one of the pillows so she could lie facing her aunt with her head on it.

“
I love you too, Lei-girl.” Rosario had continued to lose weight since Lei had been there a month ago. The bones of her skull were prominent, and her thick braids had gone almost entirely white. She still had her hair because she’d opted not to do chemo. “I’m so glad you got here in time. It won’t be long now.”

“
Don’t say that, Aunty.” Lei could hardly speak through the tears pouring down her face. She dabbed her eyes on the sheet. “I have good news. You’re going to be a grandmother, sooner than we thought. You have to hang on to see him.” She told her aunt about baby Kiet—that his mother had died and they were adopting him.

“
You’re going to be such a good mama.” Her aunt’s skeletal hand, soft and pink on one side, bony and brown on the other, stroked her hair. “I am so happy for you. She will be such a beauty.”

“
No, Aunty, he’s a boy,” Lei said, but her aunt had fallen abruptly asleep, eyelids crepey over her sunken eyes.

Lei kicked off her shoes and reached over and turned off the li
ght, snuggling down under the covers beside her aunt. She fell asleep as if tumbling down a rabbit hole.

Stevens and Captain Omura sat in Interview Room B with Magda Kennedy and her lawyer. He felt like they were pressing Play on a recording of the inter
views he’d watched a few years ago, when the gallery owner was interviewed in connection with art smuggling and money laundering. Her hair was a shimmering blackbird’s wing under the harsh fluorescent lights, icy blue eyes haughty as she gazed at them.

Her lawyer paced behind her. “
I wonder how we can help the Maui Police Department today,” he said. “As quickly as possible. My client is a busy woman.”

“
Thanks for coming in.” Omura opened a file. “We’re working on a case that’s been in the news a lot lately—the
heiau
desecrations. Someone is, apparently, looting Hawaiian sacred sites for petroglyphs and other artifacts.”

“
I’ve heard about that,” Kennedy said. “Terrible thing.”

“
What do you know about the case?”

“
I know there have been lootings and lost artifacts on Oahu, and now Maui. I don’t know why I’m here.”

“
You’re an art dealer. Have you heard anything in the art world? Rumors about where the artifacts are going?” Omura asked.

“
The art world is a small one, but it’s a competitive one. I don’t generally spend a lot of time with other gallery owners, talking about dealing in stolen objects.” Magda Kennedy kicked a pedicured foot, irritability in the way she tossed her hair back. “Besides, the value of these items seems to be in their antiquity and scarcity more than any artistic merit.”

“
If you have any specific questions regarding this investigation, please just ask them,” the lawyer said. “We’re on a schedule.”

“
Well, your name has come up in connection with the distribution of the artifacts,” Stevens said. “We think they may be going overseas. What can you tell us about that?”

“
Ridiculous and insulting.” Magda made as if to stand.

“
I wonder if you’ve heard about the recent murder of a visitor to our islands. His name is Norm Jorgenson, and he was a professional art thief.” Omura opened the file and pushed over a picture of Jorgenson’s bashed-in head. “There is evidence linking him to the
heiau
desecration here on Maui. We’d like permission to search your gallery and check your computers to see if you, or anyone in your employ, has a connection with this man.”

Magda Kennedy gave a delicate snort and stood. “
You’re wasting my time. Show me a warrant.”

Her lawyer followed her as she went to the door, but it wouldn
’t open. Stevens unlocked it, and she picked up speed as she walked down the hall, gold sandals winking and creamy Grecian-styled dress billowing.

Omura came to stand beside him as they watched her go. “
She was right about one thing. That was a waste of time.”

“
I need to check in with Brandon Mahoe. Get more on where and who he heard that from, because we aren’t getting a warrant on someone with her clout with so little probable cause,” Stevens said. As if on cue, his phone rang. He recognized the number as Mahoe’s. “Speak of the devil.” They walked out of the interview room and down the hall as Stevens picked up the call. “Hey, Brandon. What you got for me?”

“
This isn’t Brandon; it’s his mother. Who is this?” The woman’s voice throbbed with emotion.

Stevens stopped in his tracks. “
What?”

Omura look
ed at him and frowned but continued on to her office.

“
This phone was in his pocket and this is the only number he called, so I’m calling you before I turn you into the police!” the woman yelled. “So I’m asking one last time, who are you!”

“
I’m Lieutenant Stevens, Brandon’s commanding officer,” Stevens said, his throat closing. He coughed. “What’s happened?”

The woman burst into tears. “
Oh, Lieutenant Stevens! We’re at the hospital and Brandon, he’s in a coma from being beaten!”

“
I’m on my way.”

Stevens shu
t the phone and broke into a run for the front doors. In his truck on the way to Maui Memorial, he got in touch with Dispatch to find out who’d been sent to take a statement. He was able to intercept the responding officers and called Ferreira from his own station for backup. He’d also called Omura on her personal cell to apprise her of the development by the time he screeched into the portico of the hospital.

Showing his badge, he was quickly escorted to the intensive care unit, where Brandon
’s mother, several cousins and siblings had already gathered in the waiting room.

“
Lieutenant Stevens.” He held up his badge as he strode forward, heading for the distraught-looking woman in a Hawaiian-print shirt and capri pants, her black hair wound into a tower held up by chopsticks. “Are you Mrs. Mahoe?”

“
Yes.” She straightened her shirt, standing tall to look him in the eye.

“
I’m so sorry for what’s happened. What can you tell me?”

“
You first. What was Brandon doing that yours is the only number on his phone?”

Stev
ens looked into the window of the ICU. His stomach dropped at the sight of his young recruit. The man’s head was wound in bandages, his sturdy frame motionless on the bed, his robust color gone gray. A nurse moved around inside the room, monitoring the equipment.

“
I’m here to take your official statement and begin investigating what happened,” Stevens said, looking back into Mrs. Mahoe’s tear-stained face. “Is there anywhere we can speak privately? My partner will be joining us.”

A young man, burly and br
own in a wifebeater T-shirt emblazoned with a pit bull, elbowed through the relatives toward him. “I saw the whole thing.”

“
Okay. Let me take your statement first.” Stevens looked around for hospital personnel, approached the nurse’s station, and held up his badge. “How is Brandon Mahoe doing?” he asked.

“
He’s being treated for head trauma,” the nurse said. “He’s currently in a coma. We are hopeful.”

“
Hopeful for what?” Stevens rapped out, aware of the audience behind him.

“
Hopeful that he’ll recover. His skull is fractured. The coma is medically induced, to let the swelling in his brain go down.”

Stevens drew a quick breath in shock, feeling guilt twist his guts
—but now was a time to focus on the job at hand. He could second-guess his decision to send Brandon in undercover later. “Is there anywhere I can interview these witnesses more privately?”

“
The chapel.” The nurse pointed.

Ferreira arrived, recoiled at the sight of Mahoe in the ICU, but didn
’t comment. “Boss, where do you want us?”

“
We’re going to the chapel to take statements.” Stevens gestured to the young man in the T-shirt. “Follow us, please.”

The room was a dim square filled with rows of plastic chairs. At the front squatted an altar that reminded Stevens of his grandmother
’s old walnut TV cabinet from the 1950s. A wall-mounted box with a plastic dove that pulsed glowing light overhung it.

Stevens rearranged several of the chairs into a triangle with Ferreira in one, himself in another, and the witness in a third.

“What’s your name?” He took out his notebook with the stub of pencil.

“
Mana Guinamo.” The young man smoothed his shirt self-consciously, and Stevens spotted dirt and scuff marks on his pants and clothing.

“
Mana, I’m Lieutenant Stevens and this is Detective Ferreira. Did any other officers respond to a call at the scene of the attack?”

A long pause. Guinamo looked down at his hands. Stevens noticed the knuckles were swollen and split. “
No, sir.”

“
So we are the first police officers to talk to you?”

“
Yes.”

“
Tell us what happened.”

“
We were at a Hui gathering. Just a small one, where we were learning to be team leaders for our patrol groups. Do you know about the Heiau Hui?”

Ferreira spoke up.
“Yes, we’re aware. I hear good things about what you’re doing.”

“
I don’t understand it.” Guinamo shook his close-cropped head of wiry black hair. “We were listening to our leader, Charles Awapuhi, when suddenly he pretends to be sniffing the air. ‘I smell a rat,’ he says. ‘I smell a piggy rat.’ Everyone starts looking around all confused, and then he points a finger at Brandon.” Guinamo looked at his hands again. “Mahoe, he’s my friend; we go back to small kid time. He stands proud. Doesn’t say a word. Awapuhi comes over, pokes him in the chest. ‘Who you been ratting to, boy?’ and Mahoe, he says nothing. Then Awapuhi punches him right in the stomach. Suddenly, everyone starts punching him, and one guy he even had a bat! I jumped in and started fighting, trying to get them off him, but once he was down, on the ground, Awapuhi called them off. “Nuff already,” he says. “We just want to send a message.” And they all walked off. I called nine-one-one for an ambulance and they came. I called his mom. I know her. She went through his pockets and found the phone with your number on it.”

“
Why didn’t some officers respond to your nine-one-one call?” Stevens asked.

“
I don’t know.”

“
Did anyone besides you know Brandon was a police officer?”

“
Yes. Plenty people knew. He wasn’t trying to hide it.”

“
Are there any other police officers in the Heiau Hui?”

“
Yes.” Now Guinamo looked down. “But I’d rather not name them.”

“
Tell me more about the Hui, how Awapuhi runs things.”

“
Until now, he’s been hard but fair. We all knew he was the boss, but this was the first time I saw him target anyone. Why Brandon?”