Two
896 Words
TwoKaleo draped a blanket around Leilani’s neck. His hand lingered on her shoulder. “Are you OK?”
She glanced up at him through chattering teeth.
It was muggy and hot in the Occidental Hotel’s luggage room but she was frozen to her core.
Kaleo drew her into his side protectively and glared at the man who stood over her.
“It’s time I got her home, Russell. She’s answered enough questions for one night.”
He fixed Sebastian Russell with an uncompromising eagle eye. Officially Russell was assisting the local police captain with investigations. He wasn’t a sworn officer, although he’d acted as such in the past. However, he’d assumed direction of the crime scene with a natural authority.
“She doesn’t know any more than what she’s already told you. Can’t you see that?”
Russell’s mouth was a tight grim line as he shook his head.
“She’s told me nothing. Apart from some garbled story about some boy telling her she was needed. And then Bully staggering up to her clutching his chest.”
Kaleo let out a frustrated snarl. “Because that’s what happened.”
“And what was she doing out there anyway? What’s this disagreement she had with the deceased?”
Russell stepped back, giving them breathing space. He tipped his head toward the door which led into the cocktail bar.
“A lot of people saw it. Your sister and the victim parted on bad terms, from what I’ve been told, not more than an hour before.”
Kaleo made a dismissive sound in his throat.
“And you think she organized herself to kill him within an hour because of some ticklish business discussion? Bully’s like an uncle to us.”
His deep voice dripped with scorn. “What? She came prepared with a knife? Is that it? And where did she dispose of it?”
Her usually imperturbable brother was exasperated.
“Neither of us has seen Uncle Bo for a decade. My sister had no motive to kill him. You’re being ridiculous.”
Lani snuggled into her brother’s firmly muscled ribs and let his warmth flow into her, melting the ice inside, strengthening her. Then she cleared her throat and stepped out of his embrace.
“I’ve told you all I know, Mr. Russell. Bully was annoyed about something, but he wouldn’t tell me what. Something from a long time ago. He said it was none of my business. I don’t know any more than that.”
She appealed to Kaleo with a flash of her dark eyes. “Neither of us do.”
Her inflection was flat and her eyes strayed to where Bully’s body lay, his feet hanging awkwardly over the stretcher end. They’d had a problem finding a trolley long enough to accommodate him.
“He was still conscious when I found him. He tried to say something to me, but I couldn’t make it out.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She gathered the blanket more closely around her and crossed to the gurney with faltering steps.
“He looks so calm.”
He lay on his back, a blanket drawn up over his bloodied chest. He was like of one of those antique marble busts she’d seen in picture books, like a general or commander-in-chief laid to rest after battle, his eagle profile strong and noble in death.
She ran her hand from his hairline down the side of his face. His thick beard was soft under her light touch. Someone, she guessed the doctor, had loosened the collar of his white dress shirt and his throat showed through, unlined and lightly tanned in the gap, as if he’d romped in Maui’s breakers last week instead of decades ago.
She had another flashing image of the young Bully, like a human shark, all muscles and white teeth, the whale’s tooth emblem at his throat shining through the salty foam.
Her heart stopped.
“Where’s his whale’s tooth?”
She glanced up at Kaleo, who had followed her and stood to the other side of the litter.
“His what?” Sebastian Russell’s eyebrows contracted in irritation or confusion, she couldn’t tell which.
“His whale’s tooth pendant. He always wore it.”
Kaleo loosened the shirt at his throat. “You’re right. It was a sign of his rank. He never separated from it.”
He widened the opening of Pike’s collar, slipping his hand inside his fine cotton shirt.
His eyes went straight to Sebastian’s closed face. “Look at this. He’s got an abrasion like a rope burn mark on his neck here, under his ear.”
Kaleo stared at Bully’s throat.
“Someone has ripped his lei niho palaoa—that’s what we call it, his ancestral necklace—off with force. They’ve rubbed against his skin and left a graze.”
Sebastian moved to Lani’s side and leaned over Bully’s body to examine the spot.
“You’ll have to explain. I can see there’s a slight mark here.”
He glanced up at the twins, his handsome face clouded.
“But it’s nothing too nasty. Why do you think it’s significant?”
Lani’s voice was soft and tentative. “Bully’s whale’s tooth pendant was a rare family heirloom. His Hawaiian mother’s family gave it to him when he came of age. Originally they strung it on human hair, but by the time it came to Bully it was threaded on woven fiber from the hala tree with some of the remaining ancient hair woven into it.”
Kaleo interrupted. “It would never have broken. Someone’s grabbed it with force.”
He glanced to Lani. “It would take a man. A powerful man. And he would have wrenched it hard. Or maybe he cut it.”
Sebastian raised his brows. “So if we find the pendant, we find who killed him. Is that what you’re saying?”
Leilani nodded.
“Or someone who knows who did.”
- Writer
