Elysium tide, p.19
Elysium Tide, page 19
She looked past Rivera to survey the office. The section, sized for her six-member task force, now held more than twenty department personnel, some standing three or four to a desk, all in deep discussions or on a phone, including Captain Griffith.
“Good,” she heard him say. “Now that the National Guard request is in your system, I need you to expedite up the chain. We need those bodies for an island-wide search. These people may have miles of hidden roads in the cane fields to hide their movements. I’ve already spoken to the commissioner. He wants the request on his desk by nine for his signature, and in front of the governor before noon.”
In the short time she’d been with the department, Lisa had learned to recognize the captain’s not playing around voice. The sharpness of that tone didn’t fade in the slightest when he hung up and stormed over to her. If anything, it intensified. “Kealoha, we haven’t had a chance to talk since the attack.”
“I apologize, sir. I wanted to get right to work on this. I did upload an after-action report from the hospital.”
“Noted. And maybe that’s enough in a big department like Los Angeles, but here on Maui, we prefer a more personal touch.”
“Yes, sir.” Where was he going with this?
“You should thank your friend Detective Fan. She was in my office at dawn to give me a full briefing, running cover for you.”
Your friend Detective Fan? Forcing those two phrases together raised the hairs on the back of Lisa’s neck. “With respect, sir, Detective Fan wasn’t there.”
“Yet your brother, who is not a member of this task force and with whom Detective Fan conducted a thorough interview, was. That’s part of the problem, Kealoha.” He waved Jenny over, and Lisa noticed a lightness in her step as she complied.
Jenny handed the captain a single sheet of paper. “These are the bullet points you asked for—from my briefing, sir.”
“Yes. Good. Thank you.” The captain scowled down at it through his rectangular readers. “This Dr. Peter Chesterfield. Isn’t that the man you arrested?”
“He proved useful. I asked him to consult on the case.”
“I didn’t authorize any payment for consultants, Kealoha.”
“He’s a volunteer.”
This earned her a pointed look over the top of the readers.
Lisa got the message. “Okay. No more consultant. I’ll let him know.”
“And your brother. It says here he shot the witness before the assassins destroyed the commandeered civilian vessel and killed him.”
Jenny’s bullet point had combined three facts in the worst way and with the worst semantics possible, making Lisa’s actions sound indefensible. “Sir, Koa was a suspect before he was a witness, and he pointed a gun at—”
The captain raised a hand to stop her. He looked up from the page again. “And you apprehended . . .”
“No one.”
“No one. No arrest. Nothing to go on but conjecture and a description of two divers in the dark. A pair of bogeymen.” He lowered Jenny’s paper and Lisa felt the knife being yanked out of her back. “We are an island police force, Kealoha, not the Pirates of the Caribbean. I’ve given the full weight of my support to your follow-ups this morning because of the severity of the attack. Neither I nor the commissioner are in the business of letting assaults on our people or witness assassinations go unanswered. But last night, you crossed so far over the line you’d have to fly to the mainland to find it again.”
He let out a long breath. “Detective Kealoha, at this juncture, I think it best to allow Detective Fan to step into the leadership role for this task force. From now on, you answer to her.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
MAUI PD CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE DIVISION
LISA’S MOUTH FELL OPEN as she watched the captain walk out of the section.
Jenny patted her arm. “I didn’t ask him to do that. I swear.”
“You didn’t have to, and you knew it.” Lisa backed up two paces, not so much to escape Jenny’s touch, but to get Jenny’s neck out of the reach of her own hands. “I can’t believe you.”
“Me? You’re the one who went rogue.”
“I followed up a lead.”
“With only friends and family in tow. And it ended in disaster. If you had looped me in, maybe it would have ended differently.”
Had this maneuver come from Jenny’s bitterness over being left out? Lisa doubted it. Jenny had wanted the task force leader position since before Lisa arrived on the island. Lisa darkened her glare. “We didn’t have room to invite you along. It was a small boat.”
“Which blew up, thanks to you.”
“Actually . . .” Mike approached with a stack of printouts. “The credit for blowing up the runabout goes to a real live torpedo.” He lifted the top form and then hesitated, as if unsure to whom he should offer it.
Jenny grabbed the paper and flipped it around. “What’s this?”
“The report from Oahu’s Coast Guard Investigative Service team. The CGIS. Sea-gis.” He frowned, pupils drifting upward. “Sea-jis? Sea-jees?”
“Mike,” Jenny and Lisa both said at once.
“Right. Sorry. The Coast Guard takes exploding boats pretty seriously, so they’ve had a team sifting the debris all night.”
Jenny scanned the printout. “This says our gang friends used a 3D-printed weapon.”
“Yep. The body and propellor fragments were layered PLA, a common 3D-printing material. And they think the motor came from an RC boat. The CGIS team found 3D files that matched the propellor dimensions on a family fun project site. The project had instructions for everything except the explosives, including an impact fuse to release an air charge.” Mike beckoned to imaginary children. “Hey, kids, let’s build a working torpedo!”
“A guy like Trejo could make the explosives for it in his sleep,” Jenny said.
Mike nodded, handing her the next sheet from his stack. “The commander of the unit also sent this letter.”
Lisa grew impatient while Jenny read it. “Well?”
“It says he’s impressed with your consultant.” She gave Lisa a flat look. “It appears your British doctor took it upon himself to call their unit and make a few suggestions.”
Lisa sighed. “He’s always making suggestions.”
“Which CGIS followed up on.” Mike stepped around to Jenny’s side of the letter and tapped the second paragraph. “See? The doc says a couple of divers couldn’t get that far out on their own. A boat had to follow you.”
“No kidding,” Lisa said. “The question is, how did they learn we were heading out in the first place?”
“Don’t know. But the doc did some math and came up with a search area, then asked CGIS to go back and check the data recordings from the Navy’s coastal defense radars.”
Jenny lowered the paper. “That data is classified. The Navy never shares it with law enforcement.”
“But CGIS has access. Says it right there.” Mike pointed to another paragraph, then quickly pulled his hand back when Jenny flicked his finger. “The commander says it’ll take time to redact the nonessential information, but with the doc’s narrowed search area, he expects to have a radar trail on our perps’ boat later today.”
“Fine.” Jenny handed the letter back to him. “What else you got?”
“These.” Mike waggled the rest of his stack. “They’re the reports from the containers at the Baseyard.”
Lisa had been waiting for that data. She took the summary off the top before Jenny could get it. And scanned the page. “Let’s see what they found.”
Not much. The summary said that the uniforms had recovered two fiberglass fragments matching the stolen Porsche that had crashed in the salt marsh. Two of the tread marks on the false container wall had matched the tire models listed for the stolen Mercedes. And they’d found one crate of electronics with no manuals or serial numbers. Nothing was traceable to a purchase or a person.
“No drugs?” she asked.
“None. They did find traces of hydriodic acid in the blankets covering the crate, but no other drug-related chemicals.”
Illicit drug operations always left evidence behind—residues, powders, discarded containers, or equipment. They left more than a trace of a solvent in some blankets. Always. Koa’s last words kept coming back to haunt her. This is so much bigger than drugs and boosted cars.
Jenny took the summary out of Lisa’s hands and read it. “What were the electronics for?”
“The evidence team is digging into their circuit boards as we speak, but the analysis will take time. I can tell you there were six black boxes with flat composite plates that looked like radar panels. But we’ll need time to confirm.”
“When you have it, send the information directly to me. I’m going to get this investigation under control.” Jenny popped the cap off a black marker and turned to face the murder board—Lisa’s murder board. “I need to refresh my memory on these details. Lisa, if you want to be helpful, I could use a coffee.”
She had to be joking. Lisa headed for her desk. “Coffee’s in the corner where it’s always been. Get it yourself.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
HAPPY VALLEY
AFTER THE HOSPITAL RELEASED HIM, Peter took an Uber to Lisa’s place to pick up the Cadillac. She hadn’t answered any of his texts. He hoped she was okay.
Before he took the car, he knocked on the door. Lisa was at the station. He knew that. But her mother might know how she was doing.
Ikaia, the big cook, opened the door instead. “Yo. Dr. Chesterfield. Howzit?”
“All right, I suppose.”
“Really? Pika says you almost died.”
“Did he tell you he saved my life?”
Ikaia smiled, coming out and letting the screen door close behind him. “He mighta mentioned it. To hear him tell the tale, he snatched you from the tentacles of a kraken, ya?”
His phrasing struck Peter. “A what?”
“Kraken. You know, one o’ those—”
“No. I mean, I know what a kraken is. It’s just . . . Never mind.”
Ikaia watched him, cocking his head. “Getting dragged down like that, into the chokin’ dark, makes a man think, eh?” He waited, but when Peter gave no answer, he went on. “We talk about the water heaps around here. The bounty. The danger. Some say drownin’ is the most terrifyin’ way to die. Some say it’s the most peaceful.”
“I’m sure it depends on your perspective.”
A short laugh rose from Ikaia’s great chest. “For sure. For sure. But the one thing they all say is drownin’ and survivin’ brings you so close to death’s gate you can peer through the bars. When you had the chance, Doc, did you open your eyes and see?”
Open his eyes? Peter wished he could have closed them, but whatever he’d experienced—whether a nightmare or something else—hadn’t left him that option. In any case, he had no desire to describe the tentacled creature he saw dragging him into the dark after the water had flooded his lungs.
Peter glanced at the Cadillac. “I’m sorry. I should be going. I just came to pick up my car and thought I’d ask how Lisa was faring.”
“You haven’t heard?”
“She hasn’t answered my texts. And I don’t want to call and interrupt her work.”
“I see.” Ikaia looked down. “She . . . uh . . . she’s havin’ a hard time. Got a text from her a half hour ago. Said the captain came down on her hard.”
“How so?”
“He fired Lisa from her big-time gang-hunter job and gave it to her best frenemy—Jenny Fan.”
DETECTIVE FAN. Peter had seen the way she and Lisa were together. He’d seen the glances Detective Fan gave her when Lisa wasn’t looking. If Lisa had been removed as head of the gang task force, he could imagine it had as much to do with Jenny’s actions as her own. More than either of them, however, Lisa’s loss of position came down to Peter’s foolhardy interference in her case.
He pounded the seat beside him as he turned onto the long stretch of highway leading to Wailea and the Grand. With his meddling and pushiness, he’d cost Lisa the position she loved—that she’d worked for. No wonder she wouldn’t return his texts.
To think he’d had the gall to call the Coast Guard from his hospital room, inserting himself once again without invitation or permission. “I am such a muppet.”
When Peter raised his eyes to the rearview mirror to get a look at his muppety face, he noticed a black Dodge Charger two cars back. He’d seen the same Charger pull in behind him from the first cross street he passed after leaving Lisa’s place. Pain radiated from his sternum—a dead match to the pain he now experienced every time he laughed. But nothing about this was funny.
Peter’s right hand quivered at the wheel—not a pronounced shaking, but present.
A psychogenic tremor? Anxiety? Cold fear?
During an ambush in Afghanistan, while digging lead out of a Marine who’d not yet reached twenty, Peter had hardly noticed the rounds whizzing past him. Afterward, when the adrenaline wore off, he hadn’t experienced the post-action shakes other Navy doctors had described. The next time he ventured outside the wire with his unit, it was the same.
Peter did not do fear—not on the battlefield and not in the operating theater.
He tightened his grip to force back the tremors and checked the mirror again.
The Charger was gone.
Instead of a comfort, he found the vehicle’s absence a cause for greater concern. On the way to the marina the night before, the bluish headlights had turned away. And the movement on the dock had ceased. In both cases, a shadow had faded, giving him a false sense of relief. And then the monster reappeared beneath him in the deep.
Breathe.
Air.
Kick.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t kick.
The light at the upcoming intersection turned yellow, and Peter tried to shift his foot to the brake. His foot didn’t move. He tried his left. Same. Just like in the water. All through his fight with the diver, he hadn’t been able to kick. He hadn’t been able to move his legs at all.
At the hospital, Peter had demanded tests with good reason. Fragments from the explosion had impacted his back. The vest had stopped them from penetrating, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t experienced a spinal concussion. He’d requested X-rays and an MRI, but the doctors had found nothing, forcing him to decide his partial paralysis in the water had been temporary.
But here it was again.
Glancing down at his obstinate limbs, Peter saw writhing black tentacles locking them in place. The floorboard had vanished, leaving nothing but emptiness below. He had no control. Control was an illusion.
Horns blared. Tires squealed.
His legs came free. Peter stomped on the brake, skidding to a stop on the far side of the intersection. The driver of an Audi that had been turning left gunned past him, shaking her fist.
He eased the Caddy onto the shoulder. As a neurosurgeon, Peter knew the risks of anoxic/hypoxic brain injuries, the most likely physical trauma to result from a near-drowning. He knew the symptoms too. Motor impairments were common, but not hallucinations. He collapsed back against his seat. “What on earth was that?”
CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE
THE ELYSIUM GRAND
PETER HAD NO INTENTION of trying to park the Caddy in one of the Grand’s narrow garage spaces, not with his motor skills in question. He passed it off to a valet, leaving the key fob and ten pounds on the dash.
At some point, he’d have to remember to get some US cash.
“Dr. Chesterfield, right?”
The Dallas accent. Peter winced, then glanced up as the valet drove away with the Caddy.
Jack Carlisle sauntered out from the Grand’s open lobby. He thrust his chin at the attendant out front. “Hey, son. Order up a car to take me back to my villa. And this time make sure the driver hasn’t been smoking before he comes. I don’t need to smell that reek.”
Peter pretended he hadn’t heard Carlisle call his name and tried to walk by. He kept his right hand, still plagued by a slight tremor, behind his back.
Carlisle stepped into his path. “You all right, Doctor? I heard you had quite a scare—spent the night in the ER.”
Peter didn’t know this pompous buffoon and didn’t want to. And he certainly didn’t want to discuss the attack with him. “I’m fine.” He tried to step around.
Carlisle sidestepped to block him. “Really? I could swear I heard Dr. Iona telling the concierge that you had a boating accident. Pretty serious. I wasn’t eavesdropping, per se, but you know me. I like to get all the scuttlebutt.” He made a tsk sound. “A ship going down at night and far from shore? Fire and black water? That kind of scare has a big effect on a man. Makes him rethink his life choices.”
“Again, I’m fine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I—”
“The ocean is all the more dangerous for landlubbers like you and me, Doctor. Folks like us oughta stay on the beach where it’s safe. Stay in our own lanes, if you know what I mean.”
For an instant, Peter saw the same look behind Carlisle’s gaze as he’d seen in that of the Afghanistan warlords and Trejo. Only an instant, but enough to send a chill straight through him. Then it was gone.
The resort car pulled up, and Carlisle patted Peter’s arm, brimming with friendliness and concern. “You feel better now, Doc, you hear?” He headed for the door the bellhop had opened for him. “Get some rest. Stay off your feet a while. That’s a nonnegotiable prescription.”
Stay off your feet. Nonnegotiable. Was he offering advice or a warning?
THE FACT THAT CARLISLE had issued Peter an order to relax and stay off his feet prevented him from doing anything of the kind. The tremors in his right hand ceased on their own, but apart from that, he couldn’t settle himself down.
Peter showered, had a bite, and paced so much he thought he might wear a path through the room’s woven bamboo flooring. In the grand scheme of murders, gang lords, and hidden smuggler’s tracks, Jack Carlisle was the one thing most out of place. What did a cattleman and Luan Trejo have in common—apart from a killer’s gaze?
