Wedding Day Dead: A Murder on Maui Mystery Read online

  “You know that you could have just as easily taken me home instead of here,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Harry’s is almost exactly at the half-way point between your home and mine. You could have just gone there.”

  “I guess I knew I had the first aid kit here.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “What are you getting at?”

  I really don’t know what came over me at that moment. Maybe I was filled with extreme confidence after the fight. Maybe the adrenaline was still pumping through my body. I really didn’t know then, and I certainly don’t know now as I write this for you.

  I walked across the kitchen. Alana was still leaning against the counter of the kitchen island. I stopped just a couple of feet from her. I clearly and intentionally invaded her personal space as I had done the night of our first date. She didn’t back away from me then. She didn’t back away now. Of course, she couldn’t back away with the island behind her, but you get the point.

  “I think you brought me back here because you knew we’d be alone. Foxx is probably at his home this time of night. We both like him, but he would have just gotten in the way.”

  Alana said nothing.

  “If I may play the role of detective, this investigation was really the first clue. You don’t need me looking into this case. You have a thousand times the experience I do when it comes to detective work.”

  “You’d already started. It didn’t make sense for me to repeat your work.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “And I’m too close to Hani. I need someone else to keep me objective.”

  “I don’t believe that ‘too close’ nonsense, and neither do you,” I said.

  “So what is it?”

  “You wanted to be near me again.”

  “Oh, look who’s suddenly full of themselves after their first bar fight,” she said.

  “Who said it was my first bar fight?”

  But just between you and me, it was.

  I closed the remaining distance between us and pressed my body against hers. She didn’t try to push me away. I placed my hand on the side of her face. She still didn’t pull away.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said.

  She said nothing.

  I leaned forward and kissed her, and then I leaned back and looked at her. She never took her eyes away from mine. I kissed her again. She reached up and placed her hand behind my neck, pulling me back to her. We kissed for a few moments, slowly getting more aggressive with each passing second.

  I lifted her shirt and ran my fingertips across her smooth stomach. I slowly made my way upward and eventually cupped her breasts. With the other hand, I reached down to her pants and undid the button. She helped me tug them down, while she stepped out of them.

  Then she reached for my shorts, but I was already pulling them away. I kissed her again and lifted her onto the edge of the counter. Alana spread her legs open and wrapped them around me.

  You can figure out what happened after that. I would like to go into more detail, but I’m trying to be more of a gentleman these days.

  Afterwards, we held onto each other. Both of us tried desperately to catch our breaths. I hadn’t planned on this happening tonight. I didn’t know if it would ever happen again. But I had gotten her back, and I would never let her go.

  XIX

  I’m Sorry

  I spent the night at Alana’s. It was the first time I had done so in weeks. I wondered how things would be in the morning. We had made a giant step toward getting back together, and as far as I knew, we were back together, but I wasn’t sure if she felt the same way. I usually woke up before she did, and this morning wasn’t the exception. I stayed in bed though. When she eventually woke, she reached for me. Our love making wasn’t as intense as it had been the night before in the kitchen, but it was perhaps even more pleasurable. We took our time exploring each other’s bodies, and by the end, I knew for certain we were back.

  After showering and getting dressed, we sat on her back patio and had coffee.

  “You’re thinking about the investigation, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “You have that faraway look in your eyes,” she said.

  “Just realizing that there’s something I should have been asking myself but haven’t.”

  “What is it?”

  “The first two questions were obvious. Who would want to kill Panos and who could have followed him to the marina without Hani noticing?”

  “I actually don’t think it would have been too difficult to follow without her realizing it. If she was following Panos, she would have been giving his car all her attention. She probably didn’t even think someone might be behind her.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “So what’s the question you should have been asking yourself ?”

  “How did the person get in Hani’s house to frame her with the flashlight? You said there was no sign of forced entry, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do people normally break into a house?”

  “Usually they break a window. Sometimes door have glass panels in them. It’s pretty easy to knock one of those out and then just reach inside to unlock the door.”

  “But that didn’t happen at her house,” I said.

  “No.”

  “What about picking a lock?” I asked.

  “It’s not that hard if you know what you’re doing. Hell, you can learn to pick a lock on YouTube.”

  “Were there any signs the lock had been tampered with?”

  “Not the lock, but the doorknob,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m pretty sure the person went in through the backdoor in the garage. The outside of the doorknob was free of fingerprints. The inside was not.”

  “Whose prints were on the inside?”

  “We found two sets of prints. One belongs to Hani, the other is someone else. They aren’t in the system,” she said.

  “Didn’t you tell me Hani had a tenant for a while?” I asked.

  “I’ve reached out to her and asked if she could go to her local police station and get printed so we can compare.”

  “Has she done that?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You said the outside of the doorknob didn’t have prints?”

  “It was wiped clean,” she said.

  “So the person picks the lock somehow, opens the door, plants the flashlight, and then wipes the doorknob after they shut the door.”

  “Probably.”

  “I assume Adcock knows all of this,” I said.

  “Of course. It doesn’t seem to bother him.”

  We finished our coffee, and then decided to visit Hani. I followed Alana to the jail since she needed to go to work afterward.

  Hani looked a little better than the last time I’d seen her, but just barely.

  “You’re my second guests of the morning,” Hani said.

  “Really? Who else came by?” Alana asked.

  “Makani. He wanted to check on me.”

  “The guy’s really stuck on you,” I said.

  “It was nice of him to come by,” Alana said.

  Hani turned to me.

  “He said you and Kai got into a fight.”

  “Him and some other guy. Much bigger dude.”

  “Don’t know his friend. I tried to stay away from Kai as much as possible,” Hani said.

  “Understandable,” I said.

  “It wasn’t easy, though. Sometimes I thought Makani and Kai were glued at the hip.”

  “Strange they could be so different,” I said.

  Hani nodded, and then she looked at us both, like she was suddenly examining us.

  “Something’s different. Did you two work things out?” she asked.

  “It was the bar fight,” I said. “She couldn’t withstand my manly charm.”

  Hani looked at Al
ana.

  “It wasn’t the bar fight,” Alana said.

  “I’m glad for you both. At least someone around here should be happy.”

  I thought back to my morning conversation with Alana. I turned to Hani.

  “After your tenant moved out, did you change the locks?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t have a chance because I was busy planning the wedding.”

  “I assume she returned your keys to you,” I said.

  “She gave me back the two keys she had. I had a third.”

  “Was the garage door key the same as the front door?” I asked.

  “Yes, all the locks can be opened by the same key.”

  “Did anyone else have a key other than you and your tenant?” Alana asked.

  “I gave Panos one of the keys once we got back.”

  So much for that theory, I thought.

  We spoke with Hani for as long as we could. We talked about random things, like how I was having trouble keeping Maui the dog from occasionally attacking Foxx. We didn’t speak much about her case. There wasn’t much new to say. We were at a dead end. We didn’t tell Hani that, but I think she already knew. The visiting hours ended, and we told her we’d be back as soon as we could.

  I followed Alana out to her car in the parking lot.

  “Anything new on the Peter Bell case?” I asked.

  “Not much. We tracked down the card players Peter Bell owed money to. They have solid alibis.”

  “So you still think it’s connected to Panos’ death?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  Alana looked at her watch.

  “I better get over to the station. I’m way late.”

  “I’ll see you later,” I said.

  I kissed Alana goodbye. She climbed into her car and drove away. I found my car, which was on the opposite side of the parking lot. I wasn’t surprised by the news the card players checked out. I never thought it was them to begin with. Peter Bell had blackmailed the killer. There was no other explanation.

  I left the jail and drove to Harry’s Bar. I figured I owed them an apology for last night’s fight. I also owed them for my unpaid bar tab. Harry’s had become a favorite locals’ hangout of mine, and I was a little worried the owner might ban me from the bar. The last thing I wanted was to get stuck going to a tourist trap. I had spoken to the owner a few times, and he seemed like a nice guy. Maybe I could convince him I wasn’t the one responsible for the fight, even though I threw the first punch, or elbow in this case.

  Harry’s was owned by a guy named Bart. At first, I thought he’d bought an established place that already had a reputation as Harry’s, and he didn’t want to mess up the vibe. But Bart told me he built the bar himself. Apparently, he thought people were more inclined to frequent a Harry’s than a Bart’s. He was probably right.

  I got there before the place officially opened, but fortunately the door was unlocked. I entered and found Bart wiping down the tables. He looked up at me when he heard the door open.

  “Looks like they got yah,” Bart said.

  He pointed to my head. I touched my head and felt the bandage just above my eye. I had forgotten about it.

  “Not too bad,” I said.

  I reached into my back pocket and removed my wallet.

  “I came by to apologize for yesterday and also pay my bill.”

  Bart held up an open hand.

  “No worries. I’ve come to expect a bar fight once in a while. Comes with the territory.”

  “Still, it’s not something I want to be known for. Let me at least pay for the beers.”

  “Already taken care of,” he said.

  “Really?”

  I put my wallet back in my pocket.

  “Some guy came by this morning. Apologized for the fight and paid your bill,” Bart said.

  “Was it one of the guys I fought with?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t recognize him.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Hawaiian guy. Medium build. Quiet fella.”

  “I don’t suppose his name was Makani,” I asked.

  Bart thought about it for a moment.

  “Might have been. I think that’s what he said his name was.”

  “That’s Kai’s brother.”

  I could tell from Bart’s confused look he had no idea who Kai was either.

  I pointed to the bandage on my head.

  “He’s the smaller one who gave me this yesterday.”

  “Got yah. Yeah, this Makani fella kept telling me how sorry he was. You’d think my bar had gotten blown up or something.”

  I walked over to Bart and extended my hand.

  “Either way, I appreciate your understanding. It won’t happen again,” I said.

  Bart shook my hand.

  “I’ll catch you later,” I said.

  “Sure thing. Thanks for stopping by.”

  I left the bar and walked back to my car. I wondered how much apologizing Makani did for his hothead brother. I got into my car and drove home.

  I decided to test Alana’s theory that anyone could pick a lock. I logged onto YouTube, and sure enough, there were several videos that showed you how to pick a deadbolt. They made it sound like any first grader could do it, but it was actually trickier than it looked. It took me about twenty minutes to get the lock on Foxx’s house to open. I figured I could probably get that time down to a couple of minutes if I practiced more. Still, my brief experiment on lock picking taught me it might not be the easiest thing for an amateur to do, especially if that amateur was in the process of trying to frame Hani. He or she had to be nervous. They would have been in possession of the flashlight with Panos’ hair and blood.

  I didn’t know what else to do at this point, so I drove to Hani’s house. When I got there, I noticed she had a privacy fence around her backyard. It was something I hadn’t really paid attention to on my previous visit. That time, I had concentrated solely on the actions of the police. Both her neighbors had one-story houses, so it would have been relatively easy to play with the lock without anyone noticing. I walked into the backyard and examined the lock. I didn’t notice anything weird. It had been a wasted trip, but sometimes you feel compelled to do something.

  I got home and decided to take the dog for a walk when my phone rang.

  “Hello.”

  “This is Mara Winters, Hani’s attorney. I just got out of a meeting with her. She asked me to call you and pass on some information. She said she remembered Makani had a house key once. He would cat sit for her when she was out of town, but she got the key back.”

  “Okay, thanks for the information.”

  “Does this make sense to you?” she asked.

  “Perfect sense. Thanks.”

  I ended the call. He might have given the key back, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t copy the key beforehand. There was something else. I’m sorry. Makani said that to Hani and the bar owner.

  Was that the answer?

  I drove straight to Kihei. The traffic was heavy, as usual, but it gave me time to work out my theory. It made sense, and I was completely convinced I was right by the time I arrived.

  I parked in the lot of the strip mall where Makani’s surf shop was located. This time I parked in a slot near the road versus the back of the mall in case I found him behind the store like before. I had no idea what Kai’s car looked like, so there was no point in scanning the parking lot. I really hoped he wasn’t there, for multiple reasons, but it wasn’t going to stop me from exploring my new theory. Before I entered the store, I took out my phone and turned the video recorder on. I didn’t think there was much chance I would get a confession this morning, but it was better to be safe than sorry, as the old saying goes. I slipped the phone back in my pocket. Hopefully it could pick up the audio between us.

  I opened the door and saw Makani sitting behind the sales counter. Kai was nowhere to be seen, neither was his Hulk Hogan-sized friend or the young guy with the magazine I saw on my last
visit. It was just Makani and me. I expected more of a reaction from him when he saw me, but he seemed pretty calm.

  I walked across the store and stopped in front of the counter. We were only a few feet away from each other. He didn’t stand. He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me.

  “Thanks for paying my bill at Harry’s,” I said.

  Makani still said nothing.

  “Thanks also for visiting Hani this morning. I know she gets really lonely in there. You feel bad about that, don’t you?”

  “Who wouldn’t?” he asked.

  “She told me you kept telling her you were sorry,” I said.

  I waited for a reaction from Makani, but I got none.

  “When she told me you said you were sorry on your first visit, I didn’t think much of it. That’s kind of the thing to say, isn’t it?”

  I waited a moment for Makani to answer me. He didn’t.

  “I’m a little mad at myself. I should have caught it then, but it wasn’t until after the bar owner told me you had said you were sorry that I figured it out.”

  I watched Makani for a reaction, but he gave me nothing. I wondered if he had a really good poker face, or if my new theory was total garbage.

  “When you told Hani you were sorry, you weren’t saying it in a generic sense, like telling a widow you’re sorry for her husband dying. Your sorry was more specific. You actually feel responsible for her being in jail. I never seriously considered you for killing Panos. I knew you hated the guy, but I thought you were too mild-mannered to pull off slitting his throat. It would take some serious fury to do that. Your brother is another story. You told him what happened after the rehearsal party. He lost his cool and went to the marina. Did you follow Panos there? Is that how you guys knew he was there?”

  Makani said nothing.

  “Here’s why else I know Kai did it. The flashlight. I know you love Hani. You’re probably mad at her too for leaving you, but I don’t think you’d actually frame her. Kai, on the other hand, wouldn’t have an issue with doing that. He’s the one who put the flashlight in her garage. He got the key from you, but Kai didn’t have to frame her. As far as he knew, he’d gotten away with it. Or maybe it was Peter Bell. Maybe once Peter contacted you guys after the murder, Kai felt he needed some extra insurance so someone else would take the fall. It’s kind of killing two birds with one stone. He gets back at Panos for humiliating you, and he frames the girl who broke your heart. He’s an asshole, but he really cares about his brother. I’ll give him that.”