Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery (2 page)

Her fluffy wheat-colored hair was pulled up
on top with a stretchy hot-pink band, from which it spewed like a
wild tuft of pampas grass. She wore an elaborate combination of
shimmering pink and blue eye shadow, and had probably used close to
a whole tube of mascara. Too bad, because she was too pretty, and
definitely too young for the drastically overdone look. She had a
plastic badge pinned over her left breast that told me her name was
Melanie.

"You wanna take the flight?" Twin dimples
sculpted themselves into her tan cheeks.

"Yeah, do you have anything available today?"
I stepped up to the teak counter which divided her desk off from
the rest of the room.

She lifted the top sheet of a stack of pages
which were held together at the top with two large bulldog clips.
Her eyes scanned the second page, while her perfectly aligned teeth
worked at masticating her pencil eraser. Her orthodontist would not
be happy to see that.

"I have a single open at three o'clock."

"Nothing sooner?" Once I make up my mind to
do something, I want to do it
now
.

"Not for a single. Now, if you were a
couple... But, see, singles are harder to find, and I have to make
it come out even, and there's this couple with a kid at
three..."

I could see this was going to lead to a long
explanation which wasn't making much sense anyway.

"That's okay." I held one palm out toward
her. "I'll take the three o'clock."

I could tell by the way the dimples
reappeared that I had alleviated some kind of huge concern in the
back of her tiny little mind. She sat in her swivel chair, one leg
tucked up under her, prepared to take my vital statistics.

"Great! Great, now I need your name and your
weight."

I told her.

"Charlie? Isn't that kind of a funny name for
a girl?"

I felt my eyes begin to roll. I was in no
mood to explain to Miss Cutie that I had been named after my
mother's two maiden aunts. Charlotte Louise Parker had been a hell
of a name to stick a tiny baby with, but I was a little young at
the time to have a vote in the matter. Growing up with two older
brothers had turned me into a tough little tomboy, and Charlie was
the name that stuck.

Melanie seemed to sense that maybe I didn't
owe her an explanation so she busied herself with taking an imprint
of my credit card. I watched her fill in the rest of the
information in overemphasized round letters with lots of extra
curls attached.

"Would you like to see where the tour will
take you?" she asked, once business was taken care of.

I figured the big map on the wall with a path
outlined in florescent red dots pretty well told the story, but she
wanted to be helpful. She seemed determined, so I didn't object
when she came around the end of the counter. Her pink spandex
shorts and cut off top made me realize once again that I'd put on a
few pounds over the winter. Her ensemble didn't exactly strike me
as proper office attire, but I figured they do everything a bit
more casual here in Hawaii.

She had just launched into a recital of all
the unpronounceable Hawaiian places I'd see, when a man appeared
from a back office.

He wore a navy blue knit shirt with the
Paradise logo in white on the left side of his chest, and a pair of
navy twill shorts. His wavy brown hair was generously scattered
with gray. His eyes drooped slightly at the outer corners, and
there was a deep worry-crease between the dark brows. He was slim,
and stood with an erectness in his posture that suggested a
military career. I noticed his watch. It was gold, with all sorts
of extra dials on the face. He wore a heavy gold ring on his right
hand, none on the left.

"Mack!" my exuberant little hostess
exclaimed. She turned to introduce us. "Charlie, this is Mack
Garvey, the owner of Paradise Helicopters. He flies on weekdays, so
today you'll be flying with our other pilot, Drake Langston."

I held out my hand to Mack. He shot a quick
flicker of a smile my way as he shook it, but I could tell his mind
was elsewhere. He scowled toward Melanie's spandex-clad behind. He
opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, then closed it
again. It seemed like a good time for me to go.

“Nice meeting you, Mack,” I said, heading
toward the door.

He grunted a distracted “You, too,” as he
crossed behind the desk to check the flight manifest.

"Bye, Charlie! Come back here at two-thirty
to check in for your flight." She waved and grinned, like we were
best pals who planned to meet in the high school cafeteria at lunch
time.

With a few hours to kill, I decided to
explore. Driving west out of Lihue took me inland. According to my
guidebook, there was an old plantation house, now open to the
public, along this road. Apparently, sugar was still big business
here, although the romance of the plantation days was over.

Now, large corporations own all the sugar
plantations. The work has become mechanized. Long gone are the
hundreds of immigrant laborers working in the fields cutting the
tough cane. Their descendants have gone on to pursue other
ventures—Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino and Portuguese—all
blending into a unique society of their own. I made a right turn
and joined the line of traffic heading away from town.

A shopping center and several fast food
places passed on my left. I wondered if Taco Bell in Hawaii tasted
the same as ours in New Mexico.

The historic house soon appeared on the
right. I turned in at the paved drive, between massive lava stone
pillars. The Tudor style mansion sat well back from the road. It
was trimmed with stone accents, and had about a half acre of dark
brown shingle roof. I followed the snaking driveway to a discreet
parking lot at the side.

Behind the main house, I could see stables
and groupings of small wooden houses. Acres of lawn spread in all
directions, as perfect as a carpet. Bright tropical flowers bloomed
in clumps surrounding the outbuildings.

A small white gazebo stood in the shade of a
banyan tree. White chairs, decorated with pink ribbons and flowers,
indicated that a wedding would take place later. Two gardeners with
hedge clippers snipped at a hibiscus bush and I wondered how many
workers it took to run a house this size.

A bored-looking Clydesdale, hitched to an
old-fashioned carriage, stood near the front entrance. A young man
wearing a blousy white shirt, brown knee britches, and a pasted-on
smile stood near the horse's head, waving to passersby and
attempting to drum up business for his carriage rides at seven
dollars a pop.

Inside the main house the foyer was cool and
shady. I picked up a brochure, showing the floor plan.

The house had apparently been built in the
1930s by one of the second generation sugar families. The living
and dining rooms were furnished as they had been at the time. I
noticed the covered outdoor lanai was now a restaurant, serving in
"casual elegance" beginning at eleven.

I made my way up the heavy wood staircase
with its thick handrail, curious to see what a real "morning room"
looked like. Immediately, I was disappointed to see that all the
upstairs rooms had been converted to shops. I had hoped to see at
least a couple of them decorated authentically as bedrooms and
whatever else their original purposes had been.

Jewelry, silk clothing and art prints filled
the spaces, obscuring both the views from the windows and the
rooms’ original ambiance. I meandered through the halls for a few
minutes, but soon lost interest. I could have just as well gone to
the mall.

Downstairs, brightly colored posted caught my
eye. Perhaps my neighbor, Elsa Higgins would enjoy a book on the
aloha state. Since she was minding Rusty for me this week I wanted
to take her something. The woman behind the desk put down the book
she was reading when I walked in. She wore a flowing gauzy creation
of tie dyed cotton. Her face was clear of makeup, and there was a
gentle web of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her light brown
waist-length hair showed ribbons of gray. She wore it pulled back
from her face with tortoise colored plastic combs. Two fresh
plumeria flowers were tucked behind one ear. If this were still the
sixties, I'm sure she would have flashed me a peace sign.

She let me browse the shelves for a few
minutes before speaking. I found a picture book I thought Elsa
might like.

"Are you enjoying your stay on the island?"
she asked. Her voice was low and soothing, like she might be
accomplished at leading meditation sessions.

"So far, I am. It's only my first day here."
I ran my fingers through a stack of bookmarks on display. They were
made of dried flowers pressed between plastic to form tiny
bouquets. "I'm taking a helicopter ride later to get a better view
of the whole place. Paradise Helicopters. Have you heard of
them?"

"Oh, yes." Something in her face shut down,
and her voice took on a very un-soothing edge.

"What's the matter?" Visions of a bad safety
record popped into my head.

She fiddled with a basket of postcard-sized
art prints near the register, rearranging and aligning them. I
stood, waiting, not intending to let her out of the question.
Finally, she looked back up at me. Her answer was not at all what I
expected.

"The state has let this helicopter tour thing
get way out of hand," she said abruptly. "Those horrid noise
polluters have no business flying over the pristine beauty of this
land. It's a travesty, what they're doing to the land. The state
won't control them, and as a result, they'll end up destroying what
we have here."

Chapter 2

The gentle gray eyes had taken on a hard
edge. This was obviously a subject she felt strongly about. I
couldn't imagine how a few helicopters flying around the island
would destroy the land, but clearly I'd walked right into a nest of
local political debate here. I had no intention, however, of
staying in it, especially not on my vacation.

She looked like she was just warming up,
though, as she reached to take the book I had picked out. I set the
book on the desk, murmured a polite thanks, and turned toward the
door.

No matter where you go, you can find these
battling factions, each righteously expounding their beliefs. I've
found that there are two sides to every story, and I wasn't about
to get dragged into this one.

Outside, I took a deep breath. I felt like
such a chicken. I wasn't raised to duck out on a debate. My father
would have politely let the woman go on. My mother would have
joined in the fight, taking a side, any side. But, I just didn't
have the heart for it. I was glad to be out of there. A brisk walk
around the perimeter of the old plantation house helped dissipate
my frustration and I glanced briefly at some of the outbuildings
before returning to my car.

I found a touristy restaurant in town that
served an excellent grilled chicken sandwich and tangy fresh
pineapple for lunch. My open-air table faced the bay and I breathed
deeply, letting the sea air wash away the last remnants of the shop
woman's negativity. I took my time over lunch and arrived at
Paradise Helicopters' office precisely on time.

Melanie greeted me again by name in her
almost too-friendly way.

The other passengers had already arrived, a
husband and wife with a kid about four years old. He was a handful,
whining and tugging at his mother in that center-of-attention way
that most preschoolers seem to have They introduced themselves as
the Johnsons—Joe, Brenda and young Cory.

“It’ll be a few minutes until the shuttle
driver gets back,” Melanie explained. “Why don’t you put a video
on, Charlie?”

Her hands were busy filling out Joe Johnson’s
credit card slip, but her eyes were riveted on young Cory, whose
gaze was fixated on the model helicopter that hung above the
now-endangered flower arrangement in the corner. He was raising one
foot, apparently ready to use the large vase as a step stool.

I took Melanie’s cue, “Here, Cory, let’s see
what this one’s about.”

I grabbed a tape that looked like a cartoon
and stuffed it into the machine. The deedly-deedly music attracted
his attention only seconds before two heliconia stalks would have
met a nasty fate.

Brenda sat on the sofa, flipping through a
magazine, oblivious to her son’s actions.

I turned my attention to the scenery
outside.

Twenty minutes later, my fellow passengers
and I were on our way to the heliport in Paradise's company van.
Sugar cane grew eight feet tall along Ahukini Road, acre after acre
of thin green blades. In the distance it stretched on, like a
giant's unmown lawn. We went through the intersection where I'd sat
only this morning; now we headed toward the airport.

The van driver veered left, away from the
main terminal building, past a collection of smaller general
aviation hangars. On our left, a row of helicopter pads was laid
out and numbered, like the squares on a huge board game. A couple
of the pads contained parked helicopters with their rotor blades
tied down.

For the most part, though, the place was a
regular beehive. I watched two helicopters land, and three more
take off, just in the time it took our driver to park and unload us
from the van. Small as the aircraft were, each had its own
distinctive paint scheme.

A chain link fence, eight feet high topped
with a double strand of rusty barbed wire, separated the pads from
the parking area. We were instructed to wait behind it until our
driver signaled. Meanwhile, the blue and tan JetRanger we would
ride in was hovering a short distance away, apparently waiting for
another, in line ahead of it, to make its landing.

My attention was drawn to the other one as it
landed. The pilot brought it in fast, and landed with a bump.
Before his shuttle driver could get there, the pilot had opened his
door and stepped down. It didn't seem a very safe practice to me,
leaving the machine running with passengers inside and no
pilot.