Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series) (21 page)

Takama gave a brief nod and lapsed into silence.

Lei kept her eyes on Kingston up ahead. He was turning his head to look at the wilderness around him, an expression of tender wonder on his face as he gazed around. Lei could relate to his expression as the spell of nature settled over them. Nothing broke the silence but their muffled footfalls and the clink of chain. Lei wondered where the birdsong was and remembered that the native birds didn’t live in the experimental conifer area, a forest desert.

“
What’s going to happen to my research?” Kingston asked. “I have my field journals, samples, and some other things at the lab I’d like to take back and—if I can—turn over to Dr. Snelling or Dr. Biswandi. Everything I did shouldn’t be lost because of this.”

“
We’ll see,” Lei said. “Where were you with your research?”

“
It was on the laptop Cam hid at Jacobsen’s,” Kingston said. “I was just putting some finishing touches on my paper.”

“
It seems like you really went to some lengths to see it completed,” Lei said carefully. Perhaps, in this natural environment, with them walking along as if they all were on the same team, he’d disclose something more.

“
Well, it’s not a cure or anything. But what I’ve discovered is that some birds are already manufacturing the antibodies for malaria. I’ve isolated the antibodies and made an injectable inoculation, and what’s really exciting is that birds who’ve been inoculated then pass on their immunity to offspring. What I was going to propose was a captive breeding program to increase the malaria-resistant birds in the population. Birds with the antibodies could be released into the wild and keep breeding with the nonprotected birds—help nature along by speeding up evolution.” Kingston waxed enthusiastic as they walked. “I thought we could inoculate breeding pairs of the birds with the antibodies, put them on an accelerated breeding schedule, and eventually they would outnumber the unprotected birds in the population.”

Lei and Cantorna looked at each other. This was not something they could speak to intelligently, but Takama chimed in.
“Do you know how expensive that would be? And all the challenges of breeding these nectar feeders in captivity?”

“
Yes. That’s why I thought we could just mist-net a section of forest heavy with nectar-bearing trees and concentrate the protected birds in that section to increase their population. As they had chicks, we’d release them back into the regular population. It wouldn’t be that bad.”

“
But what about the territoriality of the
Kiwikiu
and
Akohekohe
?” Takama asked, and the two continued with discussion points too heavy with birder knowledge for Lei to keep up with. Still, the hike passed quickly until Kingston gestured to an ohia tree on the side of the road.

“
This is the way to my lab.”

There was no trail, but now,
having become more attuned to the native forest, Lei could see Kingston had subtly marked his path with hemp strings he’d tied to branches. As they got deeper into the forest, birdsong filled the air, and Lei smiled as a red `
apapane
landed near them, cocking its head, black dewdrop eyes bright, as if curious about these interlopers.

The lab appeared suddenly as
they came around a large, full koa tree. Dark green camouflage netting draped the entire structure built between four tall ohia trees forming a rough square. Kingston must have looked for a grove that would lend itself to supporting a structure.

“
Keeping the moisture out has been challenging,” Kingston said. He and Cantorna did an awkward dance around the cuffs and chain until Kingston could open the low door, nothing more than a square of plastic Velcroed onto the plastic wall. “I’m not a carpenter, and I knew anything I built I’d have to take out. Just getting the materials up here and to this site was really challenging. I couldn’t have done it without Rinker’s help.”

Lei squirreled this bit of intel away as they ducked to enter the cr
ude shelter. The room inside was cool and dim as an underwater cave. Light falling through leaves above combined with the netting to throw patterns onto the dirt floor of the interior. Kingston walked straight to a plywood workbench nailed to the trees. His microscope stood upright in an extra-large Ziploc bag along with various other items swathed in plastic. “Looks watertight,” Kingston said.

“
Takama, can you wait outside?” Lei asked. “And, Cantorna, we’ll cuff the prisoner to one of these supports while we search. I basically want to take in everything we can carry. Don’t know what will have trace on it, and we need to be in the lab to test it.”

“
You won’t find anything,” Kingston said as Takama stepped out and resealed the door. Cantorna uncuffed the young man, clipping the chain onto a bracket nailed into one of the trees. Kingston moved back, standing near the bench and a box of tools.

Lei ignored his comment. S
he took a pile of evidence bags out of her backpack and handed them, along with a pair of gloves, to Cantorna. “Bag everything you can.”

Lei flicked on
her ultraviolet flashlight, looking for blood trace. The bench lit up immediately.

“That’s bird blood,” Kingston said. “I take blood samples from the birds, looking for antibodies.”

Lei bent close with the light. The trace did look
like small fingerprint smears. She took several swab samples anyway.

Kingston showed her where h
e kept his lab books in a sealed plastic bin, and she bagged those. It didn’t take her and Cantorna long to loot the tiny space of anything that looked like it might be remotely related to their case.

“
Will you send those materials on to Dr. Snelling?” Kingston asked again, his forehead scrunched anxiously as they filled their backpacks, including ones for him and Takama to carry.

“
We’ll see,” Lei said. “Now, where did you hide the bow and arrows?”

“
A ways out, maybe half a mile,” Kingston said. Lei sighed. Now they had to carry everything, including the heavy microscope she’d given to Cantorna.

“
Let’s leave these packs here,” she told them. “We’ll travel lighter and come back to pick them up.”

Takama was waiting when they came out.
“I’ll take down this structure with some volunteers,” he said to Lei.

“
Wait until we give the word,” she said. “We have to see what we’ve collected first.”

Kingston, reconnected to Cantorna
by the chain, led them deeper into the forest. Suddenly, he stopped, turning to look around. In front of them, Lei could see one of the deep gulches that bisected the whole area, almost concealed by a stand of head-high ferns.

“
I’m not sure,” Kingston muttered. “I thought it was here, but I tied one of my twine markers somewhere, and I don’t see it.”

With a clinking of the chain, he knelt by a dense bush—and suddenly motion er
upted, a crunching and crashing. A huge black boar exploded out of the vegetation.

Kingston
leaped out of its way with a cry as the boar slashed curving tushes back and forth. Menacing black bristles covered a body that seemed the size of a sofa—nothing like the pink domestic pigs Lei was familiar with. She jumped behind a nearby sapling, drawing her weapon, and tried to get a bead on the boar. She couldn’t with Kingston and Cantorna directly behind it and in the line of fire. The two men were scrambling backward through the ferns, tangled with each other.

Takama
stood steady and even. He took a step toward the beast as it swung its huge head, tiny black eyes aglitter. His compound bow was fully drawn, an arrow nocked. The boar grunted, a deep and menacing sound, and lunged forward. The beast was amazingly fast for its size, flying past downed Cantorna, who’d tripped in the scramble. Kingston, behind him, frantically wrestled with the chain and cuffs.

Takama let fly his arrow as
the animal passed him, and Lei fired her weapon after it, the report deafening.

A
high, terrible sound, like a human scream, made the hairs all over Lei’s body rise on end. It stumbled on, and suddenly, pitched forward onto its chest and, in slow motion, crashed onto its side. Takama’s arrow protruded, deep below its shoulder, and a gunshot hole on its side welled blood. The animal’s small, cloven hooves spasmed, tossing leaf litter, and the pig’s screams subsided in a drowning gurgle.

“
Holy crap.” Lei took a deep breath.

Cantorna pulled himself to his feet, the chain clinking
as it swung free. “Damn thing almost got me,” he said. He turned to look behind him. “Hey! Where’s Kingston?”

“
Dammit!” Lei cried. The man was gone. She could hear a crashing in the underbrush down the side of the gulch. “He’s getting away!” She bolted after him, followed by Takama and Cantorna.

T
he ground fell away in a cliff right behind where Cantorna and Kingston had been, which had prevented the boar fleeing in that direction. Lei parted the ferns and spotted Kingston at the bottom of the gulch, rock hopping away.

“
Stop! Kingston, stop!” Lei yelled, pulling her weapon by force of habit—but she jerked back in horror as Kingston screamed suddenly. He pitched forward, arms outflung, into the stream. An arrow protruded from his back.

Lei spun, mouth open, to grab Takama.
Cantorna yanked the bow away from the ranger.

“
Takama! What the hell!” Lei exclaimed. She wrenched the ranger’s unresisting arms behind his back and snapped cuffs on him, venting her shock and dismay in a series of expletives.

“
He killed Jacobsen,” Takama said, his voice stony. “He can’t be allowed to get away.”

“
You don’t know that!” Lei exclaimed. “No one elected you judge and jury!”

“
I know he did it,” Takama stated, unbowed.

“I’ll deal with you later. Now I’ve got to see if another murder’s just been committed. Cantorna, control this prisoner.” Lei got the satellite phone out of one of the cargo pockets in her pants. “Dispatch, we need a medical transport.” She checked that the GPS on the phone was enabled so they could be found in the wild forest as she described the situation, moving to the edge of the gulch.

Lei climbed down t
he precipitous cliff by hanging on to roots and bushes as handholds, wondering how the helicopter was going to land and how she’d misjudged Takama so badly. She should never have let him carry his bow along at all, but she couldn’t deny he’d dealt handily with the wild pig. Lei was pretty sure his arrow had been the kill shot on the boar. Hopefully his marksmanship wouldn’t have been as effective on Kingston.

“
Help me,” Kingston whispered as Lei squatted beside the scientist. He was facedown in the shallow water, sprawled among the rocks. The arrow protruded from just below his shoulder blade, and Lei could see bubbles forming around the hole—the man had a pierced lung. It brought back the terrible memory of when one of her partners had suffered a similar injury, also in a remote area.

“
Help is on the way.” Lei reached under his armpits. “This is going to hurt, but I have to get you out of the water. It’s cold, and that will make your shock worse.”

Carefully, painfully, she dragged
the moaning Kingston out of the water and up onto a flat rock. Once she had him resting, she took out the phone and called again. “How soon is the transport? This man is bad.”

“
Fifteen minutes. Bird’s just leaving.”

Lei leaned down close to Kingston
’s pale face. “Fifteen minutes. Hang on.”

Kin
gston closed his eyes and groaned. “I don’t know if I have that long. Why did you let him shoot me?”

“
I didn’t know he was going to do that. Takama seems pretty sure you shot Jacobsen,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me what really happened—in case you don’t make it.”

Kingston
’s eyelashes fluttered, and she saw the whites of his eyes as they rolled back. Blood stained the corner of his mouth. She splashed some water on his face, patted his pale cheeks.

“
Stay with me, Edward.” His name sounded awkward in her mouth, but she wanted to ease his distress. He seemed to be suffering as much as the Chinese poacher, and if that was so, he really might not make it.

“
I did it,” Kingston whispered. Lei’s thumping heart sped up even more. The man thought he was dying and seemed ready to confess.

“Tell me more,” Lei said, leaning close to his ear. “This might be your last chance to die with a clean conscience.” She thumbed the Record feature on the phone, already thinking of Shimoda and how he’d try to exclude this confession as coerced—but she’d worry about that later.

“
I shot Jacobsen. It was an accident.” Kingston kept his eyes shut, but his voice got a little stronger—he really wanted to tell her. “I didn’t get a good look at him and he was in camo gear. I feel really bad about it. I should never have gone back to his place a second time, when you caught me. I wouldn’t really have shot you at the house—I just needed to get away.”