Torch Ginger (18 page)

“You just aren’t supposed to decide that on your own. Jumping the gun again, Sweets.”

“Figures that J-boy’s nickname for me is the one that sticks. If it’s an apology you need, okay. I’m sorry. I’ll be a team player from now on.” She mentally crossed her fingers.

He seemed mollified. “So when is Shellie Samson coming in? I’ll have to be back in time to interview her.”

“Three p.m,” she told him, putting the wig back on and tweaking it in the mirror. He gave it a long look.

“I think I like you better bald.”

“I’m not bald. Just almost. Okay, gotta get on the road.”

He didn’t take his blue, blue eyes off her. Electricity between them made the hairs rise along her arms and her heart thunder in her ears. He reached out, fingers tracing a line up her throat, along her jaw, and circling around behind her head to pull her over for another kiss, a tender invasion that left Lei’s body flushed and tingling.

“We have to stop this.”

“I wish we didn’t have to.”

“But we do. And I need to come up with a cover story. I’ll see you at the safe house.”

She smoothed down the already-crumpled hemp dress. The pull toward him was strong, and he rubbed his hands on his jeans as if to keep them from reaching for her, opening his door and stepping out. Her phone rang.

“I have to take this.” He nodded and shut the door, striding away. Her eyes followed his graceful loping stride as she flipped open the phone. “Texeira.”

“Lei, it’s your dad.”

“Hi, Dad. I called earlier—how’re you doing?”

“Fine. It’s going good. When can we get together?”

“I don’t know. I was in Lihue today and could’ve swung by; but I’m not sure what the coming week’s going to be like.”

They set a tentative time to get together as she got on the road. Lei made the call to Jazz Haddock and Jenkins, then put her foot down for Kilauea.

Chapter 19

Lei and Jenkins sat at the battered police-station discard table that furnished the safe house kitchen. She had a ball cap on, but Jenkins had pried it off first thing, and she’d endured his questions and castigations. Stevens joined them, pulling out one of the kitchen chairs and straddling it.

“What did the captain say?” Lei tried not to sound anxious, but her voice wobbled.

“Wasn’t happy but said the plan has potential. Proceed with caution and keep him informed. Also no more ‛cowboy antics’ or he’ll bust you down to patrol. And I quote.”

Lei blew out a breath. “Guess I deserve that.”

“Yeah, and I think he wants to give that message to you personally next time you’re in the station.”

“Better be out here undercover awhile and bring home
da kine
,” Lei muttered, the pidgin expression for “the goods.” Jenkins got up and hunted around in the fridge, returning to the table with a loaf of whole wheat bread. He dumped a pile of slices onto a plate.

“Dude. Really?” Lei said, as he picked up a slice and took a bite. “Who knows how long that’s been there.”

“No breakfast. We Ohio boys need fuel for the day.”

“Haddock better get here soon. I’m still deciding whether or not to charge him with obstruction for holding back those stones. I called a geology professor we consult with at University of Hawaii on Oahu. We e-mailed him photos of the rocks for identification, and he’s going to research their uses in witchcraft and other religious rituals. I think we’re going to find there’s something significant about them. I mean, how many people have the time and money to collect exotic stones out here?” Stevens took one of the bread slices, bit into it.

“That might have been true at one time,” Jenkins said, “but with the Internet, anyone could be collecting anything from the privacy of their home.”

“I think the best approach is to let me keep working the infiltration plan. I need to start living my cover story as Lani the hippie-chick seeker. I think the cult is suspicious, and they’ve survived this long by keeping an eye on everything that’s going on, probably with a lot of help from Jazz Haddock. Speak of the devil.” Lei turned her head toward the door.

The rattle of the VW van’s motor sounded like a sewing machine as it pulled in next to the other cars. Lei went to the coded gate and let him in. She followed the health-food store owner into the house. Stevens and Jenkins stared Jazz down as he came in.

“Believe you’ve met Detective Sergeant Stevens,” Lei said. “And this is my partner, Detective Jenkins.”

Jazz was a touch defiant as he took one of the cheap aluminum chairs. “I’m here. What do you want from me?”

“How would you like up to five years for obstruction of justice for withholding information and evidence in a homicide investigation?” Stevens asked.

“Bring it,” Jazz flashed. “I’ve had reason to make sure you were going to take this seriously before I disclosed anything more.”

“All right, ’nuff already,” Lei said. “You’re on board now and that’s what’s important. So let’s put that behind us and move forward. Why don’t you tell us everything you know about TruthWay and its leadership.”

Jazz looked at his gnarled hands. Jenkins took out a yellow pad and pen; Stevens put a tape recorder in front of the older man and pressed Record. But Jazz didn’t start speaking until Lei gave his arm an encouraging pat.

“It started out as a way to connect with people,” he said. Jenkins and Stevens exchanged an ironic glance, but Lei shook her head at them as the aging hippie took a deep breath and looked around the modest little kitchen. “Do you have anything to drink? Some water?”

Jenkins filled a glass at the sink and brought it to him. The older man took a long drink, the three detectives watching him. He sighed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“The TruthWay began in 1971 in the hippie encampment on the North Shore. The founders just wanted to celebrate life, each other, and this island. They wanted something different than the canned bureaucratic religions our parents had.” He took another fortifying sip.

“The group borrowed ideas and practices they liked from various different religions. Dance as a form of worship from the Native Americans. The use of hallucinogens and marijuana from Sufism and native practices. Meditation from Buddhism, and the idea of oneness and nirvana—only we believed we could achieve that state here on earth, through the pursuit of spiritual pleasure, and that there is no afterlife, only a connected Now.”

“Spiritual pleasure?” Lei wasn’t familiar with the term.

“It’s a concept the cult has. Hedonism with a twist.” His seamed mouth turned down. “As time went on I saw that, instead of becoming more enlightened and loving through our practices, we were becoming driven by addictions, jealousy, apathy.” His voice trailed off. “My brother, Cal, and I have been involved for seven years—since we got here. I tried to leave, but by then Tiger was in place as our leader, and he has a no-departure policy.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s clear that once in, you stay in. I don’t ask questions.” He folded his lips shut on secrets he wasn’t ready to share.

“What has your role been in the cult?”

“I helped organize our celebrations. I don’t have a role now, not that there are many. That’s part of the Canon—we don’t formalize positions.”

“Sacrifice anything as a part of your celebrations?” Stevens asked.

“No. Not a part of the cult’s practices, as far as I know. However, Tiger’s adding to the Canon all the time, and I wouldn’t put much past him.”

“The Canon?” Jenkins interjected. “You said that before.”

“The cult’s book of beliefs and practices. It’s kept by a cult member elected Lore Keeper. Right now that’s Peggy Jones, one of the owners of the papaya farm headquarters.”

“Is that where the cult meets for . . . worship?” Lei wasn’t sure what to call it.

“Yes.”

“I bet that’s where Tiger, aka Jim Jones, is holed up,” Lei said. “How soon can I come join the festivities?”

“Soon. I want to get you established as one of my employees on a spiritual quest.”

“I’ll be at the store later today.” Lei held her foot up and jiggled it. She’d put on a chiming anklet of tiny metal clappers. “With bells on.”

“So that’s the cover story?” Stevens asked.

“Yes, I’m Lani. Single name. Looking to find myself through fun and spiritual frolics.”

They spent another hour working out details for communication. Lei would check in with Jenkins twice a day by phone and would keep away from the station, just going from home to the Health Guardian unless she could unobtrusively work something in for her cases.

“They’re watching me,” Jazz said. “They know I’m talking to the police.”

“Then we’ll just have to leave you alone so the attention dies down.”

The older man nodded. “I’m not sure how far they’d go to protect the cult, and I don’t want to find out.”

Chapter 20

Lei hit the gas, her cop light flashing in the back window of her truck. Jenkins and Stevens followed. At the end of the older man’s tale, all their cell phones had gone off, one after the next. They’d pushed Jazz out of the house and locked it up, Lei tossing the belled anklet into her truck.

A body had been discovered in a gulch in Kapa`a.

It wasn’t long before she pulled up behind the medical examiner’s van and the patrol vehicles on the side of the road in a rural area outside of town and got out, stepping into long grass. Yellow crime scene tape already marked the area.

She waited for Jenkins and Stevens and then pushed through the underbrush, picking her way down a slope covered with scrub guava trees and lantana. A knot of officers marked the discovery at the bottom of the gulch; she slipped between them.

The medical examiner, Dr. Hasegawa, crouched over a small, curled white hand and pale arm protruding from the red clay soil. Becky, standing behind him with her arms loaded with tools and sample bags, gave Lei a quick smile and Stevens a longer one.

“Hey. What’s the situation?” Lei asked.

“Some kids out exploring with their dog found the body,” Becky said. “They saw the hand sticking out of the dirt. That big rain we had washed a lot of the soil off her—she wasn’t buried very deep.”

“Trowel,” Dr. Hasegawa snapped.

Becky handed him the implement.

He carefully uncovered more of the body, using a wide-bristled brush to flick the dirt off and the trowel to dislodge the soil.

“Can we help?” Lei asked. Stevens crouched behind Dr. Hasegawa, his eyes scanning the ground.

“Get these uniforms out of here and any other nonessential personnel,” the ME said. “Senior detectives only.”

Impatient to a fault, he was known as a hard-driving perfectionist. The doctor wore rubber boots and a coverall, properly dressed for his work, and his eyes behind their wire-rimmed glasses never left the body.

Lei turned to the patrol officers, who’d heard and were already shuffling off, grumbling. The detectives leaned in to get a better look as the woman’s face emerged, a waxy gray-blue tinge to the skin, swollen and mapped by enlarged black veins. Black hair, tangled with soil, formed a muddy halo around her face. In spite of the decomposition, Asian features were apparent, and the only mark on her was a dirt-filled bullet hole in the center of her forehead.

Lei found her hands had balled into fists, nails digging into her palms. The pain anchored her. She sucked a few relaxation breaths, but the sweetish smell of decomp ruined the effect.

They watched as Dr. Hasegawa got Becky working as well, and soon the two of them had the remains clear of the shallow grave. The dead woman wore shorts and a T-shirt with the Island Cleaning logo on it. Her feet were bare and clean of anything but remnants of clinging soil.

“I think I know who this might be. Lisa Nakamoto from Island Cleaning.” Lei wished she’d remembered to put Vicks under her nose, an old trick against the smell.

“Who?” Stevens asked.

“She’s been missing. She was involved with the meth lab operating out of the Island Cleaning building and probably involved with the vacation rental burglaries. Fury and the narco guys have been looking for her and the other workers ever since the lab got busted.”

“Don’t see any blood trace around or in the soil,” Dr. Hasegawa said. “And she didn’t walk here. So you’ll need to find the original scene.”

“Looks like it might have been a nine millimeter.” Stevens leaned close to the bullet hole.

“We can’t determine that without the bullet or casing,” Dr. Hasegawa said, bagging the woman’s hands for trace. Becky’s camera clicked as she took photos of the body. The rest of the crime scene team arrived, and the detectives backed off to let them do their business.

“I know what a nine mil bullet hole looks like,” Stevens said stubbornly as they walked toward the cliff. “I’ve seen a lot of head shots—looked like an execution.”

“Well, I vote we go get some lunch, let the techies do their thing,” Jenkins said. “We’re probably not going to get this case anyway.”

“You never know.” Lei pulled on guava saplings to climb back up the vegetation-covered slope. “And the mansion burglary case is ours. Lisa is connected to that.”

“Thought you were doing the serial one hundred percent.” Stevens flipped the brim of her ball cap as they reached the top. “Thought you were going to immerse yourself in the undercover role.”

“Damn,” Lei muttered. “I did say that, didn’t I? I’m going to the Health Guardian after this. Okay. The usual for lunch?” She raised an eyebrow to Jenkins.

“Yeah. Let Anuhea get an eyeful of the fresh meat in town.” Jenkins whacked Stevens’s back. “Follow us.”

Lei followed Jazz into the verdant dim interior of the Health Guardian. She took the sacking apron Jazz handed her and tied it on over her hemp dress, filling a pocket with the honey-flavored organic candy he wanted her to give out. She’d styled the black wig in a simple braid, and plain reading glasses sat uneasily on her nose.

Lei couldn’t rid herself of a creeping sense of urgency even though she wasn’t on the new murder case. Fury had joined them at lunch after visiting the dump site and all the talk had been about possible reasons for Lisa Nakamoto’s murder (though identity hadn’t yet been confirmed) and the whereabouts of Darrell Hines, her dealer boyfriend. Lei detached herself reluctantly, donning a role that had begun to feel like a silly long shot. She’d stopped at the drugstore, throwing the glasses on at the last minute.