Elysium tide, p.20
Elysium Tide, page 20
Cattleman. Car thief. Smuggler’s routes. What did they have in common? Wasn’t it obvious? How could he have missed it?
Peter sat on his suite’s couch with a home nebulizer treatment prescribed by the hospital’s cardiothoracic team and occupied himself by checking his theory on the internet.
The information was easy enough to find. Maui’s media outlets had all covered Ono Beef’s big purchase of cane field acreage. As if they’d all plagiarized the same Ono Beef press release, every article described the purchase as a swath of land stretching from Route 311 to the slopes of Haleakala. “And that includes the Maui Central Baseyard,” Peter said to himself between deep breaths on the nebulizer.
The network of hidden tracks he and Lisa had discovered among the irrigation gullies of the old cane fields were all on Ono Beef property.
If Lisa already despised him for getting her removed from her leadership position, what would one more text matter?
Peter typed it in.
jack carlisle owns cane fields near baseyard. other connections to trejo?
For the first time since the hospital, he received a response.
captain says you’re out. i need you to stop texting me. sorry.
So that was that. No more Dr. Detective.
Peter puffed on the nebulizer a few minutes, casting occasional glances at the darkened screen of his iPad. He couldn’t help himself. He pulled it into his lap again and opened the browser.
The website for Carlisle’s new island cattle operation looked legitimate, and so did Ono Beef’s social media pages, but that didn’t mean much. Peter got the feeling Carlisle could put up a realistic digital front if he wanted. He certainly had the means.
Over the last several months, Ono had maintained a steady schedule of posts on all the major social media platforms. Most were images of large white facilities—giant square barns with long-horned steers, palm trees, and blue water photoshopped in. Only one facility currently existed. Ono Beef had built its first barn on terraced land near the forested slope of the island’s big volcano. According to the announcements, the herd would grow from those pastures to fill the rest of the acreage over the next decade.
The herd.
Peter switched from Ono Beef’s propaganda to the local media coverage. A series of articles showed the first facility under construction, the transformation of terraced cane fields into pastures, and the final product of white picket fences and big green fields. But one key feature was missing from all the photos. Where was all the beef?
CHAPTER
FORTY-SIX
MAUI PD CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE DIVISION
HAD LISA BEEN TOO HARSH with Peter in her text? She hadn’t meant it to be a slap in the face. But when his note about Jack Carlisle had come in, she’d felt like she needed to hide her phone. The captain wanted Peter out—as in zero communications out. With Jenny’s eye on her and Peter’s name popping up on her phone, it might look like she was keeping him in the loop. And wouldn’t her new boss have a field day with that?
Still, he’d been right about a lot of things.
Lisa sat at her desk, typed out a quick text to Clay, asking him to take another look at Carlisle and any connections to Luan Trejo, then tucked the phone away and watched the new boss bark orders at her task force.
“Where are we on the National Guard support?” Jenny had parked herself in front of Lisa’s murder board like an empress on her throne, pointing her whiteboard marker scepter at Rivera. Was that how Lisa had looked?
Rivera answered. “Nowhere, yet. The request reached the governor’s desk a half hour ago, but he hasn’t made a decision.”
“I don’t blame him, not in this climate. No more inquiries. Either we hear something from his office, or we don’t. I’d hate for the governor’s staff to think we’re overstepping our bounds.” Jenny turned back to the board, putting her hands on her hips. “Keep me informed.”
A chair bumped Lisa’s, making her jump.
“Whoa,” Mike said. “Wound pretty tight, aren’t we?” He ducked below her monitor, out of Jenny’s view. “I get it.”
“Do you? You weren’t much help earlier. Where were you when the captain dropped the hammer?”
Mike inclined his head toward his desk. “Over there. Keeping my job. But I’m not entirely gutless, thank you. I intercepted something.” He laid a folded paper on her desk and slid it the six inches it needed to travel to be directly in front of her. “Didn’t think you’d want the captain to see this at that particular moment, or Jenny for that matter.”
Lisa unfolded the paper to see an email with a lot of numbers and exclamation points and the words I LOVED THAT BOAT.
“It’s a bill,” Mike said, “from some guy named Terrance Shen for a 1972 Formula F190 Twin Engine Classic. He seems pretty mad. Also, I snagged a piece of info from Rivera, told him to keep it to himself for now. He found the sneezy kid.”
“The one I saw in the stands?”
“Yep. Rivera tracked him down, conducted an interview.”
“And?”
Mike bobbled his head. “Annnd he didn’t get much. The kid remembered seeing a guy under the stands before his allergies flared up. The suspect wore a hoodie.”
“In eighty-degree weather—the international sign for ‘I’m up to no good’ or ‘want to look like I’m up to no good’ as a fashion statement.”
Mike touched his nose. “Yep. No facial description, but the kid did catch a glimpse of what he was wearing under the hoodie. A white shirt.”
Lisa immediately thought of the undershirt she’d seen one of Trejo’s men wearing. “A tank top?”
“More like a golf shirt. The kid described a brown collar on the white shirt and a couple of tan buttons. You want Rivera and me to keep this to ourselves?” Mike peeked over the screen and gave the detective-in-training a conspiratorial nod. “He’ll do it. Rivera doesn’t like Jenny. She steals the chocolate-covered macadamia nuts he puts in the fridge—the dark chocolate kind the ABC stores never have.”
Lisa shook her head. “Tell him he did good work—hard work. As the task force leader, Jenny needs to see the report, and Rivera needs to get his due credit. Besides, I’m more interested in solving this thing than sticking it to Jenny.”
Mike raised an eyebrow.
Lisa frowned. “Not much more interested, but enough I’m not planning to bury evidence.”
One of the officers who’d been added to the task force that morning raised a desk phone receiver, hand covering the mic. “Detective Fan, I’ve got the Coast Guard on the line.”
Jenny crossed the room with rapid strides and took the phone. “Detective Jenny Fan . . . Yes . . . That’s right . . . No, I’m afraid he’s no longer associated with this case . . . Mm-hmm . . . Excellent. Thank you.” Still holding the cordless receiver, she rolled Mike and his chair out of the way and waved at Lisa’s monitor, keeping her voice low. “Your email. Open it up. Your doctor friend had them send you the radar results.”
Lisa brought up her inbox and saw a new message from the Oahu office of the Coast Guard Investigative Service.
Jenny took control of her mouse and clicked it open. “CGIS isolated a track from last night’s scans. Probably your attackers. They traced it to the place where it came ashore after the explosion.”
“That’s the kind of lead that fades fast,” Lisa said. “We should get out there.”
“We?” Jenny put a hand on her hip. “I don’t think so. You’re sidelined. And don’t tell anyone else. I want to keep this need-to-know until I’ve checked it out.”
Sidelining Lisa hadn’t been part of the captain’s hammer. She fought back her indignation. “Jenny, I’m asking you, don’t do this. And you can’t go alone. Trejo may have people guarding the boat.”
“Then I’ll take Rivera. He knows how to keep a secret. And why shouldn’t I sideline you? You did the same to me.”
“True. I cut you out of the good leads, and look how it turned out. I lost my position.”
Jenny squinted at her, as if trying to read her intentions.
Lisa held her pleading expression. “I’m telling you, I just want to help. Don’t shut me out.”
“Fine. It’s you and me. Let’s go find these creeps.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-SEVEN
THE ELYSIUM GRAND
PETER SPIED TUNA the moment he stepped off the elevator, seated on a lobby lounger sixty meters beyond the pool and its Greek heroes. The resort doctor held a surfing magazine at eye level, pretending to read. Transparent.
“Waiting for me?” Peter asked, lowering Tuna’s magazine with a finger a few moments later.
“You don’t know that. It’s a big resort, ya? I got a lot of friends here, a lot of potential patients.”
“But you’re waiting for me.”
“Yeah. Okay. I was waiting for you.”
Peter sat on the lounger beside him. “I’m fine.”
“You’re gonna keep saying that. You and I both know it. And we both know it’s not true. You almost died, Peter. It’ll be a long time before you’re anything close to fine.”
“How many people are going to harp on this today?” Peter laid his head back on the cushion, staring up at the blue sky. “You, Ikaia Kealoha—”
“Maybe Ikaia got a message he was supposed to talk to you about this.”
“From you?”
Tuna laughed. “No, silly. From on high, like me.”
Messages from the sky deity. These Christians and their superstitions. Peter lolled his head over to give Tuna a look of derision. “God told you and Ikaia to grill me about my near-drowning.”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“It is. Especially since—as I was going to say—I also received a bit of a grilling from Jack Carlisle, who doesn’t strike me as the kind of man with whom God has congenial conversations.”
“Jack Carlisle? The cattle guy?”
“The same.”
“How did he even know what you’d been through?”
Dumb question, or at least ironic, since Tuna was Jack’s source. “He said he overheard you describing the whole thing to the concierge.”
Tuna turned and laid a knee up on the lounger. He rested a hand on his leg to give Peter a somber look. “Never happened.”
“Are you sure? The man is a gossip addict, listening to everyone’s conversations.”
“That’s the thing. The conversation itself never happened. I haven’t spoken to anyone at the resort about the attack. Not one word.”
The two doctors stared at one another for several heartbeats, then both stood.
Tuna slapped his surfing magazine down on the end table. “I think it’s time I showed you my villa.”
“AND YOU NORMALLY USE this telescope for . . .”
“Whale watching.” Tuna hauled a long telescope and its tripod to the southern corner of his lanai, angling it up the curving beach.
His villa had a certain ’80s luau charm, Peter thought, but it also had a certain scent. For too many seasons, the place had soaked in the humid, salty air. “That’s a powerful sea odor.”
“She’s a classic, ya? Pure Hawaiian. None of that McMansion marble and stucco like the others. All that stuff is too mainland for my taste.”
Water stains on the grass-cloth wallpaper. Coffee stains on the bamboo matting that carpeted most of the floors. The place was due for a renovation. Peter considered taking a seat on a love seat near the lanai’s sliding glass doors but saw more stains—some of which he couldn’t identify—and decided to remain standing. “So, the telescope. Whale watching.”
“And sailboats. I have a camera attachment that lets me get great shots of the boats and whales.” Tuna nodded at the wall behind Peter.
Sure enough, a framed photo of a sailboat hitting a dark blue wave in a mist of spray hung there above the love seat. “Fine. Whale watching and sailboats. I’ll buy it.”
“But today”—Tuna adjusted the scope with one eye buried in the vertical eyepiece—“we’re spying on the neighbors. Thanks to the westward curve of the beach in the villa section, this puppy can see”—he made another adjustment—“right through Carlisle’s lanai doors and into his pretentious all-stainless-steel kitchen.”
Jack Carlisle. As far as Peter was concerned, he’d earned himself some spying. If Tuna had never told the concierge or anyone else at the resort about the attack, then Carlisle had lied. Not only had he lied, but he’d hinted at details he shouldn’t have known.
Going down like that. Fire and black water.
Where had Carlisle gotten his information?
Peter waited his turn at the telescope while Tuna described what he saw.
“Carlisle’s on the phone. Looks mad. Clenched fist. Now he’s pounding on the counter. Oh, yeah. I think he’s trying to keep his voice down, but it’s taking every bit of his willpower.”
“What’s he saying?”
“How’m I supposed to know? I’m a doctor, not a lip reader.”
“I wish we had some kind of listening device. The unit I worked with in Afghanistan had laser microphones. Incredibly useful toys.”
With his eye still in the scope, Tuna flopped a hand in the direction of the lanai’s outdoor storage closet. “In there. Top shelf.”
“Really?”
“No.” The resort doctor slapped Peter in the side. “Don’t be ridiculous. Here, have a look.”
Peter gave it a go. He hadn’t used a telescope since his boarding school days, but he remembered how the eyepiece took some getting used to. Tuna’s telescope was no different. For several seconds, he saw nothing but his own eyelashes. Then the kitchen came into view—an empty kitchen. “He’s gone.”
“You sure?” Tuna pulled him away and looked for himself. “Yes, you are. Carlisle must have walked out of the shot, ya? Don’t worry. He’ll be back.”
A throaty engine cranked up from somewhere in the vicinity of their target.
Tuna straightened. “Or not. That’s Carlisle’s Bentley. He makes a point of revving it for the neighbors once a day. We should get my car.”
“You mean tail him?” Peter held up both hands. “Hang on a tick. Are we taking this too far?”
“Brah, a second ago, you were staring into the guy’s house through a telescope. But now you think following his Bentley is crossing some sort of line?”
How could he argue? Peter stepped out of Tuna’s way and made an after you gesture. “Lead on.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-EIGHT
THE ELYSIUM GRAND VILLAS, WAILEA
“THERE ARE ONLY TWO ROADS out of Wailea,” Tuna said, backing his 2000 Toyota Tacoma compact out of the villa’s garage. “One is the world’s slowest beach roads past all the resorts, and the other is the Pi’ilani Highway. Unless Carlisle has a lunch at one of the other resorts, we’ll catch him on the highway. The odds are in our favor.”
The odds. Was that why the bluish headlights had stopped following Peter and Lisa once they turned toward the marina? That dead-end road had only two or three destinations. Not long after, a boat of killers had found them on the open water. Was it why the Charger had turned away when Peter took the Pi’ilani Highway toward the Grand? Where else would he have gone but back to his resort? Like magic, Carlisle had been waiting in the lobby when he arrived.
At the thought of the attack and the mysterious Charger, Peter’s right hand began to quiver again. Not now. Please, not now. He lowered it behind his thigh to keep it out of Tuna’s view.
“There he is.” Tuna snapped his fingers and eased off the accelerator. “Ha! I told you we’d find him, ya? Black Bentley, four cars up.”
“Should we get closer?”
“Nah. Broad daylight. Big car. We won’t lose him. Settle in. With our island speed limits, this might take a while.” Tuna laughed. “Let’s hope he’s not going to Hana, ya?” He glanced across the pickup’s small cab at Peter. “So, uh . . . There anything you wanna talk about?”
Did he know? Peter tucked his quaking fingers under his leg, willing them to be still. “Lisa. I’m worried about her. She’s been removed from her position as the head of the task force, and it’s my fault.”
Tuna returned his eyes to the road, looking disappointed. But to Peter’s relief, he played along. “Lisa’s okay, Brah. She’s a big girl. Makes her own choices. If she didn’t want you on that boat, she’d have left you standing on the dock. Believe me.”
Peter hadn’t thought of it in those terms—that Lisa had wanted him on the boat. The whole time, he’d been imprisoned within the view that his actions propelled the world around him and everyone in it. He’d inserted himself in the investigation. He’d pestered her until she let him tag along. But was that really true? Lisa was the one who’d invited him to meet her at her house for dinner. And he hadn’t needed to ask permission to join her on the water. She’d practically pushed him into the boat.
Play this right, and tonight you’ll be part of your first arrest as a consultant for the Maui CID.
Control hadn’t been stripped from Peter when he dove into the water. He’d let go of it the moment he answered her text. When was the last time he’d voluntarily put someone else in the driver’s seat of his life? Outside of his military days, he couldn’t remember. “Well, whether it was her choice or mine, I’m sorry for her. I feel like a first-class muppet.”
“A what?”
“A muppet, a floppy, brainless doll that cannot move unless someone else animates it, utterly unaware of its own cluelessness.” Peter’s hand had settled. He leaned back in his seat, watching the Bentley. “And here I am again, still interfering.”
Tuna caught his eye. “You wanna turn back?”
“Not at all. Before, I was a clueless fool. Now I am a fully aware fool and happy to own it.”
The Bentley followed a big loop of highways around the island’s central valley, east on 36 and south on 37. As it reached the lush slopes of the Haleakala volcano, though, it turned west, downslope, on a gravel road. “Where’s he going?” Tuna asked.
