Death in Paradise (12 page)

In an unfortunate imitation of Rory, I burst into tears and fled into the bathroom. Thea Kozak. Professional woman. Tough as nails. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, sobbing into a towel until I threw up. Welcome to Hawaii, vacation paradise. Was I having fun yet?

 

 

 

Chapter 8

 

After a while, sitting in there began to feel silly. It was my room, after all, there was no reason why I had to hide in the bathroom. At least they hadn't banged on the door and tried to get me to come out. For that I was grateful. I opened the door and went out, prepared to face whatever was waiting. No one was waiting. Jonetta's dishes were there, every scrap eaten. Nihilani had finished his lemonade. And they were gone. They hadn't even left a note. I sat on the edge of my bed and pondered. Who might have told Nihilani I was outside Martina's door at 1:30 a.m., and where would someone have gotten that idea?

The murder was ugly and it loomed large on my horizon. I would have given a lot to simply press an erase button and have the whole thing disappear from my memory. But despite the cops camped on my doorstep, and my very firsthand knowledge of the circumstances, there was a way in which I'd been able to treat it as not my problem. I hadn't felt any obligation to jump in and start trying to find out what happened. I was reacting to Martina's death like normal people do. Troubled, saddened, and shaken. A little nervous at the idea of a killer around. I had known her, so it affected me, yet it wasn't my job to figure out who had done it. My problem was that I had a history of getting drawn into murders. Violent death lurked in my path like a hidden tiger trap.

I'll be walking along, minding my own business and then boom, I've fallen right into the middle of it.

Okay. Okay. Jonetta said that I was an honorable person and honorable people, which is what I try to be, tell the truth. The truth was that I had deliberately involved myself in my sister Carrie's murder. I had pushed and pried and clawed and stuck my nose in where it wasn't wanted—almost getting myself killed, talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face—because I wasn't willing to let someone I had loved so much be discarded like a wad of used tissue. To this day, Carrie haunts me. I found her killer but I couldn't save my sister. Maybe we can never do enough for the people we love.

I like to think, though, that I've learned a few lessons from the violent deaths that have touched my life. Principal among them to stay out of it. To continue to pursue my already overwrought, overfull, exhausting work life and leave murder and death to the professionals. That was my position on Martina's death. I would cooperate when asked, assuming I wasn't gratuitously insulted. I might bat my eyes and try to wheedle the name of the person who'd told them I was outside Martina's room out of the cops, because I can't stand it when people tell lies about me to try and get me into trouble, but otherwise I was staying out of it. I was determined to protect my sensitive, already-broken-one-time-too-many nose. Just thinking about it made my poor nose hurt. I rubbed the bridge ruefully and promised it, and the rest of my body, a nice, safe stay in Hawaii.

Getting mad, seething, steaming mad like I'd gotten at Nihilani, always leaves me drained. A nap seemed like a good idea. I called the desk, told them to hold all calls, and asked them to wake me at seven. Then I took off my clothes, put on my nightgown, and got into bed, hoping I wouldn't dream.

I fell into a deep sleep so fast it seemed like my head had barely touched the pillow. I was falling and falling and falling. I opened my eyes and saw the balconies streaming past, the long trails of hanging plants, the astonished faces of people bending over and staring at me as I fell. Dream falling. Not plummeting but drifting, like a feather. It took forever to get down. And as I fell, things floated past me. A chair. A lamp. A suitcase. Shoes and belts and shorts and great, leisurely billowing skirts. A pert little red camisole flew by. Then a pair of red shoes. Red panties. A red garter belt, the garters snapping and jerking as they passed. One long, silky black stocking. I tried to wake up. I knew what was coming.

An icy hand clawed my arm, latched on. Clung. Martina's bulging eyes stared into mine. Hers were vacant, fixed. "What have you learned, Thea? What have you learned?" The icy claw pinched tighter. Tighter. Her face was up against mine, cold, horrible, the voice grating in my ear. I tried to push her away and couldn't. I landed, finally, and her body landed on top of me, stiff and sprawling, pinning me there, the purple face just inches from my own.

"Get her off! Get her off!" My own screams woke me up. No. I don't sleepwalk but, boy, do I dream! I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy.

I staggered into the bathroom and turned on the shower. There wasn't enough hot water in the hotel to warm me up. Half an hour later, my skin was still lobster pink and I still felt the chill. I pulled on a robe and went and sat on the bed, too tired to even think about the process of drying my hair. Everyone always says how lucky I am to have long, curly hair. They should only have to live with it. I regularly decide I'm going to chop it all off, but the truth is that even though it's more trouble than caring for sixteen cats, I like it, and Andre loves it. He likes me best, he says, when I'm wearing nothing but my hair. His own private Lady Godiva. Thinking about Andre was nice, but it led to thinking about Nihilani and his remark, and that reminded me of the rest of the day.

Endorphins. That's what I needed. A chemical lift. Running. I threw my hair into a thick braid, pulled on running clothes, zipped my room key into a secure pocket, and took the elevator to the lobby. There was a cement walk along the beach. I could go for miles. I had my shuffle. Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty and a miscellany of other moving music. I put on my headphones, turned up the volume, and took off.

Five miles later I had sweated out at least a gallon of water and I felt great. Rubbery and breathless, but great. And alive. I no longer envied the little circling jet skis, throbbing like a band of chain saws, out on the water. I no longer envied the parasailers, trailing like human kites behind powerboats. I no longer envied the supine bodies, oiled and laid out in the sun to bake like peculiar loaves of bread. I felt the deep pleasure that comes from pushing a well-conditioned body hard.

That's what living with Andre had done to me. He loved jogging and going to the gym. And skiing and snowshoeing and biking and in-line skating and hiking and walking and playing catch and playing Frisbee and making love. The whole great physical morass. Four months with him and I had muscles on my muscles. I had the kind of back and arms and shoulders I used to admire on women in fitness magazines. I loved it. The trouble was, it took maintenance. Lately, since work always picks up as the school year ends and heads of schools and boards of trustees begin to be anxious about getting projects under way, I'd started feeling the pressure, and wondering if there was any way to exercise while sleeping, or to work while sleeping, or at least to read while sleeping. Sleep was taking up time I didn't have.

I was standing in front of the hotel, sweating and blowing and walking in small circles, like a cooling race horse, when a man approached. Very tall. Handsome in a raw-boned, edgy sort of way if you like lived-in faces. Early fifties, with a graying brush cut and very square shoulders. "Excuse me. Are you Thea Kozak?" Cautiously I admitted that I was. He probably thought he looked like Everyman, but to the trained eye, he had cop written all over him. I wiped my sweaty hand on my shorts and held it out. "Detective?"

He ducked his head, like a boy caught out. "Bernstein," he said. "Lenny. And don't you dare laugh. Been running?"

No,
I thought,
I'm standing out here with a scarlet face and sweat-soaked clothes, panting and gasping, in an abbreviated costume no proper New Englander would be seen wearing, because I want to be noticed
. "Five miles," I said.

He looked me up and down with an eye that was appraising but not prurient. Now that I've been spending more time in gyms, I can see the difference. People who work on their bodies are interested in what other people are doing with theirs. It's more of an athlete thing, an "us versus them."

"You work out," he said.

I shrugged. "The guy I live with, he likes all this stuff. I keep him company."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," he said.

"The guy I live with?"

"And about Detective Nihilani." He pointed to an empty bench. "Would you like to..."

"I'd rather walk, if you don't mind. I'm not quite ready to sit."

"Of course," he said. "No problem." Together we strolled back to the walk along the beach, heading in the opposite direction from the way I'd run, so that the sun was at our backs. "Is this your first trip to Hawaii?" he asked. I said it was. "How are you enjoying it?"

"You're kidding, right? I barely get out of the hotel. This isn't a vacation. It's work. As I'm sure the other detective told you, I'm one of the conference organizers, and a member of the board of the National Association of Girls' Schools, which is sponsoring the conference."

He nodded. "Yes, he did tell me that." He hesitated. "I'm sorry things got onto a wrong footing this afternoon. Detective Nihilani didn't mean to be insulting. He only meant was there someone with you, someone you were meeting with, perhaps, who might have been able to corroborate your whereabouts?"

It was sort of an apology, I supposed. "I had already told him that I was in bed, asleep. That's when he asked me if I was alone." Suddenly a big red warning light in my brain began to blink. He might be attractive and companionable, but he was still a cop. I screeched to a halt so fast my shoes squeaked on the pavement. He was several paces ahead before he noticed that I'd stopped.

"What's the matter?" he said.

"Do I need a lawyer?" I asked.

His expression was adorably puzzled. "What do you mean?"

I rolled my eyes. "Let's just skip the games, Detective. I don't know whether you and Nihilani are playing good cop, bad cop, or whether they sent you because they thought that charm might succeed when blunt force hadn't. That's your business, not mine. But you just said Nihilani was looking for someone to corroborate my whereabouts at a particular time. Your words, not mine, but to the innocent layperson's ear, the suggestion that my presence needs corroboration smacks of alibis and suspects. And since the person whose word seems to need corroboration is me, I can only suppose that means I'm a suspect. If I'm a suspect, you should be warning me about that and I shouldn't be talking to you without a lawyer, right?"

He didn't say anything. "What's the magic word switch here, Detective? Something about when the conversation switches from interview to interrogation, it's time to give the subject a Miranda warning?" I waited for his response.

He looked uncomfortable. "Please, Ms. Kozak, you're blowing this all out of proportion. We just asked you if—"

"If I can prove I was in my room alone and asleep at one-thirty a.m. Which leads me to suppose that that's when Martina was killed, although you won't, of course, tell me that. I don't see that I have any choice here. You won't tell me if I'm a suspect, yet you ask and expect me to be able to answer impossible questions. So," I brushed my hands together in a dismissive gesture. "I have only one thing to say to you, which is this—I had nothing whatsoever to do with Martina Pullman's death. End of conversation. If you wish to speak with me in the future, please schedule an appointment so that I can arrange to have an attorney present."

I turned and walked away.

He came after me, planting himself in my path so that he blocked my progress and invaded my personal space. "Look, you're making all of this much too hard. We just want to talk to you. Now, we can do it the easy way, and have a nice cooperative little talk here at the hotel, or we can bring you down to the station and do it there." He leaned in, his face now grim and menacing.

The woman from the room next door was passing, the one who had stared at me from her balcony. She was staring at me again, obviously wondering what was going on. "Excuse me," I said to her. "Could you come here for a minute?" Lenny Bernstein's breath hissed out through his teeth. If looks could kill, I would have been the day's second casualty. She came over. "This man," I said, pointing at Bernstein, "is from the Maui Police Department. He's being threatening and abusive and he's frightening me. Could you just stand here and be a witness to what he says, because I don't know what to do. Since he is the police, I can't call the police and ask for help, can I?"

The woman looked worried and plucked anxiously at the hem of her shirt. "Well, I don't know if I should...."

"You shouldn't," Bernstein said angrily. "You shouldn't be interfering in police business. You should go away and let me finish my conversation with Ms. Kozak. Nothing is going to happen to her if she just cooperates." It was about what I'd expected he'd say, and it had the desired result.

"What if she doesn't cooperate?" the woman asked in a shaky voice.