Love Between Law and Life

Chapter 5: Following Leads Is More Tiring Than It looks

Florence took in everything that she could as Bobbie kept the woman occupied. One ear was on the conversation, the other out for any personal items she could possibly make a connection to. So far, it looked like the place had been cleaned out. She understood the need to get rid of personal memories, but it was a little sad to see just how far they were willing to go to hide that hurt.

“Can I ask were Mr. Makelo is?” Bobbie’s voice was clear and strong. Unwavered by the daunting task that had been placed on her shoulders the moment she got this case.

“I’m sorry, he’s at work. Is there anything in particular you want to talk about?” Ava smiled at them, a sad look that seemed to be permanently etched into her face. Florence took a couple steps closer to the window in hopes of getting away from the strong emotions that seemed to float around the old woman, of course that wasn’t going to work, but it was better than feeling stifled. “It’s almost lunch for him, if you want, I can call him to swing by?”

“Not at all, don’t trouble yourself. This is quite fine. I wanted to ask if you could recount your report on your son.” The psychic tunes them out at this point, words floating in the air but none of them really registering. She already had a go idea of the case from the files and if there were any new information, she was confident Bobbie would tell her.

Florence looks up and down the light, wooden shelves, taking in the pictures that were gathering dust in their frames. A young man and woman holding a baby, they were happy, the beach glittering behind them. She turns her head for a second towards the kitchen, watching the pair occupied in their conversation before picking up the frame. It was simple and small, beautifully hand crafted, and old. There was small aura around it, like a second layer of dust. She presses her fingers to the picture and watches as the world faded away for a few seconds.

“I really don’t think we should take a picture here.” The woman winced as her husband propped the camera almost haphazardly on a rock, patting her sons back as he giggled.

“Why not?” The man grins and strikes a silly pose, yelping as the camera slips a little. The woman bursts out laughing at his antics, the baby gurgling in curiosity.

“It’s just with all the breeze, you’re gonna damage your screen.”

“It’ll be fiiinnnne.” He reasons and set a timer on the camera, sitting next to her, and taking half his son’s weight on his leg. They share a smile of pure love for a few seconds before looking into the camera.

Florence’s breath hitches as the memory ends, resting the frame a little harshly on the shelf and pressing a hand to her nose. She winces as he pulls back her fingers and eyes the dot on red staining them. It wasn’t like this went she was younger, she was definitely getting to old for this gig if a few seconds worth of a memory already set the beginnings of a headache.

Bobbie and Ava continue their conversation, unaware of anything going on around them. Florence hastily pulls her rag from her back pocket and dabs it under her nose, keeping the cloth in her hand as she moved on to other trinkets scattered around the house. The psychic smiles as she finally notices the wind chime hanging above the entrance to the kitchen.

“That was a gift from my son.” Florence startles as a voice reaches out to her, Ava eases her discussion with Bobbie to point to the wind chime with a soft smile on her face. It’s a row of silver angels, each one with a string lower than the last so that it gave the appearance as though they were flying upward. To the centre were silver tubes that made the gentle noise when they connected with each other.

“It’s beautiful.”

“He was getting better, you know.” She suddenly blurts out, startling the detective and the psychic as she stifles a sob. “He just got caught up with the wrong people, but he was trying to get clean. Makaio was coming home more often, he was happy. He’d brought a friend from the centre that day, for thanksgiving. I remember it so clearly. The wind chime was his way of saying he’d always be here. It’s been so many years, but I’ve never had the heart to take it down.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Don’t apologize. You trying even after all this time to find a lead is enough for me.” Florence nods as she silently hands the conversation back to Bobbie, taking a look at the wind chime. Glancing at the pair, she reaches up and brushes her fingers against the lowest angel, watching as it glittered, and the world melted away once more.

“I think it was a good idea.” Makaio grins as he leans up on the door frame, standing opposite to his boyfriend. Naheo smiles back and raises his hand to touch the wind chime, tilting his head as he listened to the metal clink together like glass.

“The wind chime or coming home?”

“Both really.” Makaio pushes off the door frame and walks closer to him, resting one hand on his chest and another on his face. “And I have you to thank for that.”

“And yourself. If it weren’t for your strength, we wouldn’t be here today.” Naheo moves closer, pressing their noses together even as his boyfriend laughs out loud.

“You and your motivational speeches. Just shut up and kiss me.”

Florence shoves the rag under her nose and turns her head away from the kitchen, making sure that neither of them had noticed anything was wrong. So Naheo wasn’t just his caretaker, interesting. She was happy for them, but she couldn’t help the strike of pain in her heart at the thought of the two young lovers now buried in separate graves at a cemetery with no justice. It wasn’t fair.

She had new information, but she highly doubt she was going to get anymore from the practically new house. Most of everything was stripped down and replaced, it had been years after all, repairs couldn’t be helped. Bobbie getting up from the seat catches her attention and sound around her finally filters in again.

“Thank you, Ava, for everything. I do apologise for the inconvenience.”

“Worry not.”

Bobbie glances over to a frowning psychic as they practically walked back to the car in sync. She wasn’t one to over analyse things, but she couldn’t help but noticed how the two of them could move so easily around each other despite the short time they’d been working together. “Got anything?”

“Not really sure if it’s really of much use, but yea.” She nods her head as they climbed into the van, conversation continuing as the detective pulls out of the driveway and on towards their next target for the day. “So, the house didn’t have much to work on. Not surprising considering it’s been years, but I did find something.”

“What?”

“Naheo, the partner he was buried with was more than his friend. They were dating.” Florence stares at the scenery passing by, mind lost in thought.

“Naheo was his handler to, right?”

“Yea.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Between handler and patient, no clue. But I don’t think anyone knew about it.” She sighs and reaches for their brick of a case file sitting in the back seat. Bobbie glances over a few times as she shifted through the papers, eyes looking fervently for something in particular.

“What’s going on in that mystery brain of yours?”

“A lot of the people killed were pairs, like friends. Six out of the ten were married together. Three married, and two -supposedly just friends. But now we realise Naheo and Makaio were together-“

“You’re thinking the other pair might have had some sort of relationship going.”

“Like I say, it’s not much.”

“No, it’s helpful.” Bobbie sighs and drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “Plus, the fact that we now know that there are more people out there who haven’t been found yet, like Noelani. I think that’s a pretty good fine.”

Naheo’s stepbrother was their next interest. The kid’s life was a mess if Bobbie did say so herself. His father walked out on them, mother moved from partner to partner, Naheo – working through the motions – got in with the wrong crowd and nearly ended up in the ER one to many times. Eventually, the mother settled down with a stable guy, and to show his love, the new husband put Naheo through rehab. Naheo, however, learnt that the man didn’t exactly want anything to do with his new wife’s kid from an old marriage, so he decided to take the mature route out and got a job with the same rehab centre to help others like him when his parents skipped town and decided to live on the mainland.

The only saving grace was Bryan, the stepbrother, who genuinely tried to reach out and make a connection with Naheo. He’d kept in touch, and more often than not, crashed by the younger man’s place whenever he was on a break from his job in New Jersey. When he’d heard that Naheo had gone missing, he’d taken a more permanent residence at Oahu in hopes of helping out in anyway he could. He’d continued making noise in the HPD in hopes of someone taking the case and became a primary caretaker of all his brother’s things.

There was one thing Bobbie had to say she genuinely mourned for. The fact that she completely missed Florence’s whole psychic moment. It was completely unfair, she’d been waiting since day one for a chance to see it and the damn psychic had to go do her whole vision extraordinaire when she wasn’t looking. The fact that she now had the gall to look completely unperturbed in the passenger side of the van, sipping on cold coffee just made her feel more irritated.

“You’re staring.”

“I am.”

“What?”

“This is not fair.”

“What is not, because I seem to recall that you were the one that dragged me out of my own store and is now forcefully driving me around the island to meet people.” She snorted, “Especially since I’m allergic to people.”

“So?”

“So. So? So what?” Her voice reaches a high pitch as she stutters over the word, hands waving as she stares at the detective. The one thing Bobbie liked so far was the sheer animation Florence could carry out in a single statement. No wonder she needed coffee more often than not with the amount of energy she must burn on a daily basis. “What’s not fair?”

“I didn’t get to see you have the vision?”

“Wha- seriously? Does nothing satisfy you?” Florence growled at the leer Bobbie jokingly directs at her, brandishing her finally empty cup like some sort of shield. “Bitchy, bitchy, bitchy. Honestly. What makes you think it was a vision anyway, it could have just been really good detective work. I have worked with cops for a while, you know.”

“I do, which is why I can also tell you that there was nothing in that house that could have given any idea that those two were even in the house together beyond Ava’s recounting, much less that they were in a relationship which even Ava didn’t know about.” Bobbie stares directly ahead as Florence falls quiet, most likely running the entire contents of the house over in her head.

“And?”

“And the fact that I didn’t confirm Naheo’s name to you as Makaio’s handler.”

“Okay, you got me there. I can argue with you that it was in the file but you and me both know I couldn’t recount a single thing from that damn brick right now, if ever.” Florence sighs and sags in her seat, body angled to give her full attention to Bobbie. The detective shoved down the little happy skip in her chest as far as she could at the complete attention. “Yes, I did have a vision.”

“Dammit.”

“But, but, if it makes you feel better, I’ll tell you the next time I have one. Will that make you happy, you damn Nene?” Silence rings in the van for a few seconds, Bobbie’s eyes wide as she stared blankly beyond the windshield.

“Did… did you, did you just compare me to a goose?” Bobbie brain tries to reboot, but the reaction only seems to make the psychic’s grin wider.

“Yes, I did. You want to know why?”

“Yes, I’d like to know why I was compared to a flying, feathered creature?” Her voice is just on the side of a shriek. Bobbie prided herself on being quite a hard person to lose her cool, but with Florence, it seemed to be a minute by minute thing. If only Elliot could see her now, he’d be laughing his ass off.

“Simple. They squawk a lot.”

“I do not squ-“

“Ah ah ah. They’re endangered like your species seems to be with the sheer amount of danger you seem to get yourself into on a daily basis.”

“My species?”

“Yes. That amount of recklessness couldn’t have come from the genes of a human being. When a human sees danger, they try to protect themselves for fall back on the natural ‘safety in numbers’. You on the other hand seem to lack that safety gene and run towards the danger.” She huffs, hands gesturing widely as though she were painting a picture in the air.

“How do you even know this?”

“Captain Akamu thought it’d be good for my prolonged health to know who I’d be working with.” She shrugged as Bobbie fixed a questioning glare on her, “If it makes you feel better, I turned down the offer of reading your file. But don’t take it as a compliment, I just like learning people on hand rather than judging them from a piece of paper.”

“Huh.” Bobbie’s respect for the psychic grew with that statement. Clearly there was much more to this woman than she realised. “Okay, fine. If I’m a – what did you call it? – Nene. Then what are you?”

“A wallaby of course.”

“A wallaby. Why you get to be the cute, fuzzy creature. You are not cute and fuzzy.”

“Now that’s just mean.” Florence seems to be more humoured by the comment than offended. “I’ll let you know that I can be pretty warm and fuzzy, just when I’m not around you.”

“And she calls me mean.” Bobbie mutters to no one in particular, shoving down a smirk as the psychic laughs out hard.

“I choose wallaby ‘cause those suckers are actually feral. I wouldn’t say vicious, but they’re not quite friendly to most other creatures. I can stand to that when dealing with other human beings.”

“Okay, yea, I guess I can see that.” Bobbie nods, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel before she shoots Florence a curious glance. “Have you ever seen a wallaby in real life though?”

“Beyond a zoo? Surprisingly no.”

“Huh.” The car dissolves into silence for a few seconds as they pull into the next driveway, the engine idle.

“Also, I picked Nene, ‘cause while they’re all bark and bite, they’re fuzzy when you really get close to them.” With that, Florence hops out the high van with ease, leaving Bobbie trying to figure out if she’d been insulted or complimented.

Unfortunately, Naheo’s stepbrother didn’t have any new information for them. The house was just a rented space that Naheo had planned on keeping for just a short while until he’d gotten a proper living space, but unfortunately, that never happened. Bryan was still eager to help, however, relief taking over his aura at the thought of someone trying the case again.

Bobbie was a sport, taking his full attention with questions of his series of events and memories of his life and Naheo while Florence snooped around the house. It felt kind of wrong to go through the well cared for things, but Florence had had a long life at twenty-eight and things like this didn’t exactly bother her anymore.

One of the main reasons she refused to see a therapist - aside from the fact that they were expensive – was that she didn’t need someone to tell her she had problems, she knew that all too well already – it’s not like a lot of people see the spirits of the beyond after all. Besides, it’s not like she was planning on stealing anything.

Unfortunately, the house wasn’t in Naheo’s possession for long, since he’d recently moved out of his mother’s place when they decided to sell it in their half-planned move to the mainland. Worse yet, the house was now under new management and most likely would contain nothing of what Florence would need for a vision. The meagre things Naheo did have were either new or gifts from Makaio that wouldn’t be of any help either.

Eventually, Florence had to call quits and make a vague gesture to Bobbie at the lack of luck. Bobbie just takes all of it in stride and wraps up the conversation like a pro, shaking Bryan’s hand and leading her temporary partner back to the van.

“Nothing?”

“Nope.”

            “Okay, can’t do anything about that.”

            “So, where to next?” The whole hopping in and out of the van was starting to get too familiar at this point, seeing as their conversation didn’t even pause. Florence wrinkled her nose curiously at that but didn’t bother to bring it up as Bobbie hardly reacted.

            “That depends. Noelani’s folks are out of town for the weekend, there is no way we’d be able to catch them before they hit the airport. Plus, the last thing I think they’d want on their mind before a vacation is the knowledge that their daughter isn’t really classified as missing anymore.”

            “Oh… yea. I forgot that I’d technically confirmed that.” Florence lowers herself in her seat, frowning as she remembers Noelani’s kind face. It sort of sucked when seeing a ghost more often than not meant that the person was either confirmed dead or at least near it. She hated the days when she had to pray not to see a particular ghost to anyone she knew so that the friends and family could hold out hope.

            “Hey, none of that. At least we know now instead of running blind on missing cases.” Bobbie watches her sternly, hitching her arm under Florence’s and dragging her back up on the seat. “Another name on the list, yes, but at least we know what happened to her now.”

            “Fine.” The psychic sighs and claps her hands together. “Where to next then?”