Restless Waters (23 page)

“Come on, chere. It’s time to call it a night,” Santou said, and practically carried me in to bed.

I don’t remember getting undressed, although I was
suddenly nude. All I wanted was to mercifully sleep. But that wasn’t yet in the cards.

“Listen to me, Rach,” Jake murmured, as he stroked my hair. “You asked me not to take on the big waves, and I’ve been keeping my end of the bargain. But you haven’t lived up to yours. You were supposed to fill me in as to what’s going on. Remember?”

I didn’t respond, but willed myself to stay awake long enough to ask him a question.

“I don’t know what Kevin’s job used to be, but it turned out that he was crooked, wasn’t he? That’s why he’s no longer working. What happened? Did he serve time in jail?” I guessed, putting Jake on the spot.

His fingers tensed in my hair, and I knew that I’d hit the mark.

“We’ll talk about it another night. But no, he didn’t do jail time. Let’s just say he got caught up in something that he shouldn’t have been. Kevin didn’t listen to orders and took it upon himself to act in a manner he believed to be correct,” Santou said, beginning to sound weary himself.

“What did he do?” I questioned.

“It doesn’t matter right now. The upshot was that he sank his career, and nearly lost his life. He reminds me a lot of you, in that sense. That’s what scares me. I never know what drives you to such lengths, or how far you’ll go.”

Neither did I. All I knew was that I seemed to have no choice.

Santou kissed me on the forehead, and I promptly fell asleep.

I’d just closed my eyes when a strange noise suddenly woke me. It was one that I’d heard before. Something was desperately clawing and scrambling its way up a steep cliff of rocks.

The frantic sound clutched at my heart, and tore at my soul, wrapping me in a winding sheet of fear. I kept my
eyes tightly closed, hoping whatever it was would eventually go away. But no such luck. The clawing finally stopped, only to be replaced by something far worse. An arctic breeze settled upon me like a shroud. I could scarcely breathe, let alone scream, as frigid fingers danced on my skin and a ghostly breath whispered in my ear.

Rachel
, it murmured over and over, until I was entombed in a thin sheet of ice.

That was all I needed to hear. I knew what to expect before I even opened my eyes. Sammy Kalahiki was standing there beside me.

His gaping wounds wept, enveloping him in a layer of blood, as he ever so sadly smiled. Then his bloody corpse slipped beneath the covers and into the bed, where he remained with me for the rest of the night.

I lay there awake, not daring to move, knowing that Sammy’s ghost would never leave. We were bound together, forever and ever, as surely as if we’d been married for life.

I
woke the next morning and rolled out of bed, relieved to find that Sammy Kalahiki had disappeared with the dawn. But I knew he’d return each night until his soul was finally able to rest.

With that in mind, I quickly showered, dressed, and got ready for work. I fed and walked Spam, played a game of “what will I eat” with Tag-along, and was nearly out the door when my cell phone rang.

“Porter here,” I answered, not yet in the mood for polite conversation.

“
Here
is exactly where I don’t want you,” Jaba the Hut snapped. “You’re giving me one hell of a massive headache, Porter. But we’re about to change all that.”

Uh-oh. Something told me that my morning bowl of Rice Krispies was about to snap, crackle, and pop right in my face.

“High-level calls are coming in, and they’re all complaints about you,” Pryor briskly broke the news.

“Are you talking about Fish and Wildlife? Or, perhaps a different federal agency whose nose is out of joint?” I countered, ever the suave diplomat.

“That’s very clever, Porter,” Pryor retorted. “In fact, you’re so damn clever that you’ve finagled yourself right into a temporary duty assignment. Don’t bother to come to work today, but instead start packing. Because you leave at the end of the week for two glorious months in Guam.”

“Guam!” I exclaimed in dismay. That was the Pacific equivalent of being sent to Siberia. “Why? What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is that you’ll be somewhere else other than here. You’re so interested in invasive species that I’ve come up with a little job for you. Guam is inundated with alien brown tree snakes that are killing off all the local wildlife. There are about thirteen thousand of the suckers on every square mile of the island. The snakes are easy to identify. They’re long, brown, and they bite. I want you to do something about the problem,” Pryor ordered, nearly chuckling with glee.

The son of a bitch. I was obviously being shipped off to nowhere land as my own particular form of punishment.

“This will get you out of my hair until things cool down around here. Consider it a favor. D.C. isn’t involved yet, which means I’m saving your neck. But unless this shark nonsense stops right now, we’re both likely to lose our jobs. Who knows? Maybe prying those snakes out of trees will help you appreciate your posting in Hawaii a little more,” Jaba proposed.

I got off the phone feeling more despondent and frustrated than ever. The only difference was that anger now replaced my fear. It was clear that I’d inched close enough to make some very powerful people extremely nervous. I should have known that Pryor would crumble under pressure. Still, I hadn’t expected to be exiled.

“What’s the matter, chere? You’re looking awfully glum
this morning. And why aren’t you at work yet? Do you have the day off?” Santou asked, padding into the kitchen in only his jockey shorts.

I gazed at the man and nearly burst into tears. No way did I want to leave him for two months. But it was already a done deal.

“How would you like to visit the lovely island of Guam for a while?” I dourly suggested.

“Thanks, but no thanks. You’re kidding, right?” Santou responded, with a laugh.

I gave him a look that made it clear this wasn’t a joke. “I’m afraid not.”

“Oh, Lord. What happened now?” he asked, wrapping his arms around me.

“I’m being sent over there on temporary duty assignment to atone for my sins,” I succinctly summed up.

“For how long?” Jake questioned, not seeming to be very pleased.

“A couple of months. Apparently, I’m getting too close for comfort to whatever’s going on,” I revealed.

If I’d been expecting sympathy, I was in for a shock.

“Pryor’s doing the right thing. In fact, you’re probably getting off damn easy,” Jake responded.

I opened my mouth to let loose a rant, only to be stopped.

“What’s more important? One lousy case that you have no business sticking your nose into in the first place? Or continuing on with your career? I mean it, chere. Be practical. Which will help you achieve your goal? You’re not a one-woman show. You can’t save every species that’s on the planet. Remember what we talked about last night? You’ve got to carefully pick and choose your battles,” he lectured.

Bullshit. I stewed in silence for a moment, and said
nothing. Not because I didn’t want to fight, but rather because the grown-up thing to do was to think things through before I blew up and went ballistic.

Guam.
Great. All I needed was a black-and-white-striped prison uniform, along with a ball and chain shackled to my leg. Jake must have been thinking along the same lines.

“Come on, chere. It’s not as bad as all that. I’ll fly over to see you on visiting days,” he jested, by way of cheering me up.

“Very funny,” I sullenly retorted.

“Don’t worry. The time will go by fast. You’ll see. Besides, there are other cases to be made. Ones that are probably far better. But forget about all that for now. Kevin and I are going to hit the waves this morning. Why don’t you come outside and watch us for a while? You can sit on the beach and admire my physique,” Jake playfully suggested.

I sulked in the house as he and Kevin got their act together and left, taking Spam along with them. My stand-off lasted all of ten minutes before I became deadly bored. Grabbing a tube of sunscreen, I headed down the beach to join in the festivities.

A line of cars had already formed up and down the road, their drivers urgently searching for anything resembling a parking space. They planned to either surf the waves themselves or sit on the beach and watch the show. That was the thing about living along the North Shore. Part of me felt smugly elitist, while my other half felt as if I were hanging out with a fraternity of cool jocks.

I found Spam, already sprawled on the ground, and plopped down beside him. His tail wagged back and forth in the sand, wiping away any bird tracks and imperfections. Santou caught sight of me and waved from his slice of Shangri-la, a surfboard bobbing in the sea.

I jabbed my toes deep into the sand with the dogged determination of ten tiny spades, intent on building my own bit of paradise out of something a little more solid. I soon tired of that and followed a bird coasting along the water, like an avian surfer, before it disappeared behind a wave.

I spent most of the day sitting on the beach, stuffing myself with junk food. If this was the life of a beach bum, it didn’t seem half bad. Maybe Guam would prove to be “a good thing,” in the words of Martha Stewart. Yeah, right. Who was I kidding? Try as I might, I felt as if I were living under a black cloud.

I barely paid attention as Santou and Kevin coasted down one breaker after another, sometimes as graceful as a pair of dancers, sometimes as clumsy as two sloppy drunks. By late afternoon, my mind was on a more important matter: the fact that this wasn’t simply a throw-away case but rather an entire species at risk.

Perhaps it was the fact that I had too much time on my hands, but the longer I sat there, the angrier I became. What was wrong with people, anyway? Why was it so difficult for them to understand, or care, about another living, breathing creature? It couldn’t have been any more clear that unless something was soon done about it, sharks could very well vanish.

A breeze blew across the water, momentarily turning the waves as choppy as rippling muscles. I sat there looking at the swells and was reminded of Stas Yakimov’s washboard abs.

One of the things that bothered me was that I’d found so little evidence at his place. The intruder had obviously been searching for something important when I’d walked in. But what could it have been? The question continued to haunt me nearly as much as Sammy Kalahiki’s ghost.

Vinnie and I had both carefully combed through the house. There was always the chance that Vinnie had stum
bled upon something more and decided to stay mum. The other possibility was that whatever evidence existed still remained hidden behind those walls.

A car backfired and tore off with a growl, catching me by surprise. Funny how such a simple thing can set off a chain reaction of thoughts. I now realized where further evidence might possibly be concealed. Why hadn’t I come up with this before? Stas had been as crazy as he was clever.

I raced back to our place without waving good-bye or leaving a note. Instead, I jumped into my Ford and took off, driving straight to Stas Yakimov’s house.

I arrived to find his residence neatly wrapped in yellow tape and closed up tight. It clearly announced to passersby that the house had been the scene of a crime. All was as quiet as a grave as I walked through the front gate.

There were no howls of dogs or grunting and trilling of lizards coming from the backyard. Neither were there calls of
Spartacus
to stop an attack—only the specter of puzzled chameleons bobbing their heads as they pondered their fate. I proceeded around to the back, having little interest in the house itself.

It felt as if I’d entered a cemetery the moment I set foot on the grounds. The headstones were the pens in which Yakimov’s dogs had resided; the footstones, a few scattered wire cages that had been left. Even the mobile of pit bull bones sounded pitifully hollow, giving more of a whimper than a snarl, as the skeletal remains swung dejectedly in the ghost of a breeze.

I wasted no time, but headed directly to the cinderblock bunker where Yakimov’s cougar had been housed. The padlock was no longer on the door, and the cat had been removed, probably clawing and screeching all the way, to a feline sanctuary. However, traces still remained of its former presence. Mounds of scat littered the floor, along
with a chunk of raw meat laden with maggots. It lay like a decomposing corpse beside a heap of bones. I held my breath and walked inside hoping to find something more.

Dealers in South Florida were notorious for maintaining cougars to guard their drug stash. I figured that strategy would work equally well when it came to safeguarding anything else. After all, who in their right mind would willingly walk into a pen holding a growling, pissed-off mountain lion? That made this bunker the perfect hiding spot.

A steel bar had been driven into the concrete floor. Attached to its top was an iron ring and a chain. Stas must have somehow hooked the cat to it like a leash. I couldn’t imagine that any secrets would be buried beneath the poured cement floor, unless perhaps for Jimmy Hoffa’s body. Other than that, the cage was bare. All except for a large wooden perch that had been suspended off the ground.

The perch was supported by heavy metal brackets on either end, and hung like a shelf on the wall. I figured this was probably where Yakimov’s cougar had slept. It was only upon closer inspection that I saw it wasn’t one piece of wood. Rather, the perch had been constructed from two separate boards.

Each board had been carefully cut so that it measured the same length and width. After that, they’d been placed one on top of the other, just like a sandwich. That should have made it all the easier to dismantle the perch. However, I found myself struggling to lift off the top plank.

The wood landed on the floor with a thud. But the battle proved worthwhile as I caught sight of a manila envelope that was fastened to the bottom board.

It was an early Christmas in Hawaii as my hands anxiously tore at the tape, fending off splinters as they pried the envelope loose. They nearly tripped over each other in
a ten-digit race, eager to liberate the contents and reach their goal.

I finally yanked the envelope free and ripped open the sealed flap. Then my hand impatiently dove inside, only to find there was nothing but photographs. Wouldn’t you know? It was probably Yakimov’s secret stash of porn. If so, the pictures could have used better lighting. The images appeared to be mostly dark and grainy.

I walked outside the bunker and into the sun, hoping to get a better view. It proved to be a smart move. There were no naked bodies, but rather something of much more interest. The pictures were of the same man that had confronted me the night before, Michael Leung, and appeared to have been taken inside a warehouse. My pulse promptly joined in the race. This could very well be the interior of Leung’s dockside business, Capital City Fish Products. I swiftly began to shuffle through the rest of the photographs.

There were some in which Leung was standing beside a woman. The only problem was, I couldn’t make out her face. Then it dawned on me. The shots must have been snapped with a concealed camera. Neither one seemed to be the least bit aware they were being photographed.

It wasn’t until I flipped through a few more images that I began to understand what I held in my hands. I now realized why the photographs had been hidden. In the background of each were hundreds of shark fins laid out on drying racks. No wonder Leung had rushed outside to stop me from snooping around his building. But what I still didn’t get was how he’d known my name.

There were still a couple of derelict photos left inside the envelope, and I pulled them out to take a quick gander. They were all pretty much the same: snapshots of Leung and the mystery woman standing in his warehouse. That
is, until I reached the end of the stack. Stas had saved the best for last. He’d finally managed to get a clear shot of the woman’s face.

Something about her seemed incredibly familiar. I studied the image, trying to figure out what it could be. The woman was Asian, had short dark hair, and a gaze as sharp as high-heeled stilettos, with a mouth as firmly set as the concrete floor of Rocky’s bunker. It was clearly apparent that she was used to getting her own way and controlling things.

Where in the hell had I seen her before? Damn the fact that I was getting older. My memory wasn’t what it used to be.

No excuses, Porter. Come on, think!

Oh shit.

A near electrical shock raced through me as I suddenly realized exactly who I was looking at. It was none other than Hawaii’s representative to Washington, the honorable Senator Shirley Chang.

Dear Lord. Could this be the high-level government official that Sammy had alluded to during our one and only meeting? My head began to spin as another thought hit me. I was willing to bet that these pictures had been taken by Sammy. The images had the same poor quality as those I’d found inside the hat box.