Torch Ginger (4 page)

Unless, of course, Keiki was out of commission. She shuddered at the memory of her dog’s injuries last year in the course of a bizarre conspiracy centered around Lei’s family, a case that had broken open memories from her past.

Lei fixed herself a glass of pale chardonnay and a bowl of carrot sticks, taking them out onto the back porch with the journal and letters from Jay’s backpack. She took a minute to enjoy the view: a lush flowering tree shaded the fenced yard, just big enough for Keiki to run around in. A thick lawn rolled down to the shiny green skin of the river, snaking between banks of buffalo grass. On the opposite bank, a raft of
hau
bush dropped bright yellow, cup-shaped blossoms into the water, spinning in invisible currents.

Her landlady, an elderly widowed Filipino lady who lived nearby with her extended family, said it was a good thing the riverbank had that steep slant to it “cuz da river she flood plenny every year.”

The metal hasp on the journal was locked, but it was a simple mechanism. Lei poked around with a paper clip until it gave. The pages were filled with flowing, elegant script, not quite what she’d expected.

July 1

The beginning of my voyage. I put here my hopes, my dreams, my discoveries. I’ve always wanted to do this, just shake the dust of that boring little town off my feet, the idea that success is wearing a suit and selling cars or houses, pimping that mythological American dream.

It appeared that Jay Bennett had left Clovis with the clothes on his back, his sleeping bag, and a dream. He’d hitchhiked and panhandled across the state. The entries were spotty but cogent, revealing intelligence and a reflective nature. She flipped through the journal to where he’d arrived on Kaua`i, only six weeks ago. It was now near the end of October:

September 16

The air here is soft. It touches the skin like walking through a cloud. I can feel my pores opening. Everywhere is color, and if color were sound the world would be filled with music. People are generous. Most of them will tell me something helpful, like where the post office is, or what kind of food malasadas are (Portuguese). I rotate between the parks on the North Shore so the cops don’t kick me out for not having a camping permit . . .

The last entry was from the day before yesterday, marked by a punch-holed Frequent Smoothie Shopper card from the Health Guardian, a natural foods store in Kapa`a.

October 19

I’m getting letters from Kelly through the general delivery. I hate it when they come; but I love it too. I can’t stop myself from reading them again and again. I’ve folded each one in a special way so I can remember which one it is. I have the time to do things like that.

Her voice is like a foghorn echoing across the miles, calling my name and warning me away at the same time. I know if I listen to it I’ll go back to that stifling little town with its box stores and exhaust fumes, Mom and Dad trying to get me back into the dealership—everyone relieved Jay’s “hippie phase” is over.

Sometimes, like tonight, when I’m lonely and all I have to eat is a can of cold beans and there’s no one to share the glory of Hanalei Bay with—the moon kissing the water full of stars—I think I’d better just go home.

I could bring Kelly here for our honeymoon and stop looking for what I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever find.

Lei found herself blinking back tears.

She closed the journal, looked up and out toward the bay where Jay Bennett had last been seen. His writing was vivid and alive. She felt like she knew him already, and this last entry sure didn’t seem like a suicide note.

She couldn’t get over the dread seeping into her, a profound conviction that he was in serious danger if not dead already. Sunset stained the sky behind the sculpted outline of Bali Hai Ridge in the far distance as a few
hau
bush blossoms spun lazily in the current of the river. A mosquito bit her, a surprising little sting, breaking the spell. She smacked it and went into the house.

She called Jenkins while pulling a couple of burritos out of the freezer.

“Yo.”

“J-Boy, lose the mainland slang. Listen, did you pull anything together on the missing persons? I’m getting a really bad feeling about Jay Bennett.”

She peeled the plastic off the burritos and plunked them into a glass dish, splashed salsa over them, and put the dish in the microwave for three minutes.

“Yeah. I printed up a bunch of the reports, the last five years of disappearances. There’ve been a lot, when you consider our remote location and only sixty-five thousand year-round residents on the whole island.”

“Well, I read the guy’s journal and I don’t think he’s a suicide.”

Lei took a sip of her chardonnay and sat down at the little Formica table. Keiki padded in and flopped theatrically at her feet, exposing her belly for a rub. Lei used her toe to scratch the dog’s tummy. The last rays of the sunset slanted through the window and caught in her wineglass. She spun it between her thumb and forefinger, watching the ball of light bounce around in the golden liquid.

“Anyway, he seems like . . . well, a sensitive a guy, a thinker. Not the druggie I initially took him for. More like a seeker.”

“Frickin’ hippies,” grumbled Jenkins. “‘Finding themselves on the public dole.”

“You’ll get no argument from me about hippies on welfare, but I think this guy had some family money; didn’t seem that type. Bennett had a girl and a family trying to get him to come home, and he was basically deciding to go back. I haven’t read the girlfriend’s letters yet.”

“I did printouts on the last five years of missing persons.” He yawned. “How about I give them to you tomorrow?”

“Guess that’ll have to do. See you.” She closed her phone. The microwave dinged—her dinner was ready.

Lei took the letters out of the ziplock bag after she ate. Each one was folded carefully, some in origami shapes. She opened the topmost one, careful to preserve the creases so she could refold it.

Dear Jay,

I’m getting on with my life like you told me to. I go to work in the mornings, and I walk Chester, and I have dinner with my parents on the weekend, and I talk to my girlfriends on the phone.

You told me to do all that.

And I’m trying not to miss you . . . But I know I have a distant look in my eye that can’t help looking for you and a distracted air about me because one ear is always cocked for your voice.

I hate myself for it, and I hate you for making me that way, and nothing about any of it changes the fact that I love you and miss you. Don’t be surprised if I just show up someday and do something about it.

Kelly

Lei sucked in a shuddering breath as her eyes fell on the naked ring finger of the hand holding the letter. Her heart squeezed as she pictured Stevens laughing, blue eyes crinkled, head thrown back. Stevens reaching for her, lifting her so their faces were the same height, kissing her. Stevens asleep with Keiki, curled around the dog on the couch.

On the day he’d asked her to marry him, they’d been on one of their long, rambling drives, exploring the far corners of the Big Island, and they’d come to the farthest point south in the entire United States—the long empty sweep of windswept grass and rugged lava beach called South Point.

Stevens had spread a blanket in the lee of a lava outcrop, and they’d finished deli sandwiches and bottled lemonade she’d packed. Keiki had gnawed a beef bone, and Lei’s head had been pillowed on Stevens’s thigh as she watched the lazy turn of one of the vast white windmills that marked the rusting line of an abandoned wind farm stretching for miles on the wide-open bluff. She’d sighed with contentment.

“Thanks, Michael. This is so nice.”

She’d extended her hand up to touch his face, and he’d dropped the ring into her palm. She’d gasped as diamonds kindled into flame in the rays of the setting sun.

“Marry me.”

She’d slipped the ring on her finger in answer and reached up to draw him down into a long kiss that said all she’d never been good at putting into words.

Abruptly she refolded the letter. What could it possibly tell her about this case, about what had happened to Jay Bennett?

Nothing.

Maybe Jay had taken a long swim to nowhere—but Lei didn’t believe it. Jay Bennett was going to go home to Kelly and bring her to Kaua`i for their honeymoon. There was also a good chance the circular currents in the bay would have washed him in and he’d have been found by now.

Jay Bennett was gone, but he wasn’t a suicide. And what the hell did that shoe with the three stones mean? She should take another look at those stones. There had been something unusual about them.

Lei refolded the letters, stacked them, put them in a ziplock bag, and stowed it and the journal in her backpack to take back to Evidence tomorrow morning. She dug out the slipper and the three stones and set them on the table, turning on a powerful overhead lamp.

Shoes are universal, anonymous, and yet intensely personal. She picked up the worn slipper. It had once been a good brand, with a nylon webbing strap and a built-up area that would have supported Jay’s instep. It was worn now, the brand name no longer discernible—but his footprint was. The slipper carried the deeply impressed outline of his toes and extra heel wear that indicated he didn’t always pick up his feet when he walked.

Lei picked up the closest stone, a reddish opaque round with translucent spots and patches of black. She knew it wasn’t local. The next one was more jagged, pale green with crystalline white striations. The last was a round cabochon of some type of opal with blue fire caught in its matrix. She needed to find out what the stones meant, what type they were. She scooped the stones into a smaller ziplock.

Lei fingered the dog-eared green Frequent Smoothie card with its multiple punch holes—the next place to look for Jay Bennett.

Chapter 5

Thursday, October 21

Lei started her day by driving to the little store in the middle of Kapa`a, a freestanding purple building called the Health Guardian. She’d driven by it a dozen times, always noticing the tables outside filled with earthy-crunchy types drinking green shakes and eating salads.

Inside the weathered building the smells hit her first—powerful scents of rosemary, garlic, and sage. She looked up and, sure enough, skeins of garlic and bundles of herbs hung from the rafters. Low shelves displayed what Lei thought of as “hippie food”—boxes of quinoa, bags of lentils, bins of granola.

Lei went straight to the counter, where a tall, cadaverous man was working an old-fashioned register. She waited behind the last customer, taking in the atmosphere.

“Help you?” Hooded blue eyes looked at her warily from a seamed face. A ponytail drew graying hair back from a forehead bisected by a bandanna.

“Yes.” She opened her jacket and showed her badge. “I’m investigating a missing person—this man.” She pushed the photo of Jay Bennett over to him.

He tapped the photo. “How long has he been missing?”

“Not long. He disappeared a few days ago.”

“I’ve seen him—he picked up food here.”

“Can I talk to you privately for a few minutes?”

He looked at her a long moment, then at Jay’s photo.

“Okay.” He waved over a young man to cover the register. “Come back to my office.”

He led her through a thick curtain of clattering bamboo beads and cotton fabric. The room in back held a lounger, a stereo, storage racks, and a computer workstation.

“Sound carries in here.” He shut an inner door and sat in the lounger, gesturing her to the couch. Lei sat down. She took out Jay Bennett’s photo and reached in her pocket to bring out the three stones and place them on the table. The aging hippie rubbed his knuckles as if they hurt him. He cleared his throat.

“I don’t believe I know your name,” he said with an old-fashioned formality.

“Detective Lei Texeira.” She extended her hand. He shook it.

“Jazz Haddock. People call me the Guardian, not only because I look after their health but because I look out for our alternative community.”

“So how well did you know Jay?”

“Not well. I knew he was camping around. He’d shop here.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Last week. He came in a couple times a week, liked the smoothies.”

“How’d he pay?”

“Cash.”

“He ever say anything about someone stalking him?”

“No.” Haddock cracked his knuckles. “Did he say that?”

“Yeah. Apparently he thought he was being followed. Told his girlfriend about it. You have any ideas about that?”

Haddock’s eyes skittered around the room, coming to rest on the bookshelf. “Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“Maybe I know something.” He folded his seamed lips together.

“You gonna tell me what it is?”

“Maybe.”

She decided to let it go for the moment. “Did he ever meet anyone here?”

“Not that I saw. This is about more than Jay Bennett, isn’t it? It’s about all the other disappearances too.”

“What disappearances?” Lei rocked back in astonishment, suddenly wishing she’d gone to the station to see what Jenkins had been able to pull up. She’d left a message on his phone that she was going to the Health Guardian first.

“Yes. I’ve been watching it happen for years.” Haddock’s chambray eyes glistened as he looked at her. “I’ve written letters to the editor. I’ve called the police department every spring and fall, but I’ve always been ignored.”

Lei dug in her jacket pocket for her notebook. “I’m going to have to corroborate that, Mr. Haddock.”

“Call me Jazz,” he said. “I warn them too.” He gestured back toward the café area. “I’ve posted pictures of the missing; I tell people they’re in danger if they’re camping alone. But no one listens . . . He always finds a way to take another.”

“Who’s ‘he’?” Lei made notes as fast as she could write.

“I don’t know, of course. Not that the police would listen to me if I did. I’ve tried everything I could short of hiring my own detective to find out where they disappear to.”