“You"re positive he left sometime last Friday?” I asked Jem Stretta over the phone. Like Buddy, he lived in Lahaina, but in the Kelawea Mauka neighborhood near his late younger brother, Eb.
“No. Like I told the cops, Eb called me the previous Thursday evening telling me he had a mission on Oahu and he"d be leaving the following evening. Pay was better"n good, he said. He was pretty excited, even mentioned champagne and a trip to Kona on Big Island, which meant it had to pay excellently well. Then he hurried off to do stuff.” Jem"s exhalation sounded like the whistle of an old steam locomotive. “I phoned three times and texted twice between fix-it jobs because I wanted him to get some stuff, but he never answered. I checked with Andy, his coffee pal, and he hadn"t heard from the Ebster in
