Lei walked up the old fashioned church aisle in her dress blues with her offering, an orchid plant in a turtle-shaped ceramic pot. She set it at the base of a three-foot picture of Mary’s smiling face set on an easel, with a basket of round black pebbles from Punalu`u Beach beside it. Lei picked one up and put it in her pocket.
She turned and made her way to one of the wooden pews, sliding in to sit beside Pono and his little family. Pono reached out to give her a side hug and Maile, the toddler, dimpled around the finger that plugged her mouth. Statuesque Tiare had her hands full with baby Ikaika, but reached over to pat Lei’s shoulder.
Lei took the surroundings in, tilting her head to see the arched ribs of the graceful nave, stained glass windows dropping coins of colored light across the polished floor. Massed arrangements of gardenia, Mary’s favorite flower, filled in the air with scent. The church was standing room only for the memorial, filled with police, friends and family. Mary had been well loved, and outrage over her death felt palpable in the hushed tension of voices.
Lei sat, huddled inside crisp dark uniform armor, with a sense as if the event were a movie in which she had little part. An ukulele and guitar band had already begun playing ‘Amazing Grace’ when Michael Stevens slipped into the pew beside her. He leaned over next to her ear and whispered, “You okay?”
His warm breath tickling the hair beside her ear was the first thing she’d felt in her own body all morning. She nodded, holding the song sheet, her voice reedy and choked. Jeremy Ito slipped into the pew beside Stevens. He’d brought a digital camera.
“Got to get shots of all the guests. He may be here, watching.”
Stevens nodded, and Jeremy took up an unobtrusive post behind a pillar on the side. Lei felt the eye of his lens on her and hated the necessity that put him there, watching for a killer.
She didn’t cry through the poems, and speeches, and even the releasing of a dozen white doves outside the church, a heartrending touch Mary’s boyfriend Roland performed in honor of the moment he’d planned for their wedding. She was able to stay in that bubble of disconnect all the way home, but when it was time to change out of her dress blues and go to work, she found herself getting out the emergency vodka bottle and calling in sick.
She threw back shots standing at the sink until her vision went blurry, then staggered to bed and fell into a black well.
Lei’s senses slowly booted up, one at a time. She opened her eyes. She was looking up at the familiar net canopy of her bed at home. Her head throbbed.
Thank God for medication, she thought, lifting herself up enough to throw some extra-strength Advil into her mouth from the side drawer and swish them down with bottled water she’d left out. Keiki lifted her head and watched Lei as she subsided with a groan.
The door creaked open.
“Hey, you’re up,” Pono said.
“Not sure about ‘up.’ I’m still deciding if I’m alive.”
“Here, Keiki,” Pono called, and the big dog leapt off the bed. “Lieutenant told me to come look in on you when you called in. You forgot to lock your house or turn on the alarm. You look like shit, by the way.”
“Sssshhhhhhh,” Lei whispered. “I’m waiting for the Advil to work so I can go back to sleep.”
“Oh no. It’s almost 11 a.m., and I made the call last night. She’s going to be here in only a couple hours.”
“What? Who?”
“Your Aunty Rosario.”
“Oh my God!” Lei sat up too fast and fell back, her head spinning.
“I’ll get you some coffee.”
Lei sat up slowly and carefully this time, swinging her legs off the bed. She tottered to the bathroom. One of her old notes was still dangling from the corner of the mirror. She pulled it off and dropped it into the rubbish and brushed her teeth carefully.
“Now what’s this about Aunty Rosario?” she asked, reaching for the steaming mug of coffee Pono held out to her in the kitchen.
“I found your phone last night and called her,” Pono said, sitting down. “I told her you been being stalked, your friend was murdered, and you needed some TLC.”
“I didn’t want her to know,” Lei said, frowning. “She has a lot on her plate and she’ll be upset.”
“She’s your family. She get one right to know you need her. She told me she was getting someone to cover the restaurant and catching the next plane out.”
Lei sat back, looked into the milky coffee. Weaker than I usually make it, she thought grumpily. She took another sip.
“Great,” she muttered. She felt vulnerable, thin in her own skin, brittle somehow. Keiki put her big square head on her leg and it was the only thing that felt good in the world.
Lei pulled the truck up to the sidewalk outside of the baggage claim. Her aunt waited, a sturdy brown woman in a muumuu with a thick curly braid hanging past her waist. She held a little suitcase, the kind of “overnight bag” they made out of vinyl and cardboard back in the 50s. A big white cooler on wheels also sat on the sidewalk. Aunty dropped the suitcase with a cry at the sight of Lei.
Lei hurried around the front of the big truck and threw her arms around her aunt. She buried her face in Rosario’s neck, inhaling the smell of talcum powder and pikake perfume that had always meant safety and love.
“Aunty,” she whispered.
“Why didn’t you call me?” Aunty Rosario stroked the tangled curls back as she searched Lei’s face.
“We’re making a scene, Aunty. Let’s go already.” Lei slung the little bag into the back passenger seat and hefted the cooler into the bed of the pickup. Keiki wriggled with joy at the sight of the other woman. Aunty fended off slobbery kisses as Lei started up the truck.
“When you goin’ teach this dog some manners?” Aunty scolded as Keiki nudged her with her big square head, her tongue lolling in a happy grin.
“She’s actually very well-trained,” Lei said, snapping her fingers. Keiki withdrew her head from between the seats and settled into the backseat with a sigh.
“So tell me what the hell has been going on,” Aunty said, pinning Lei with her fierce black eyes. “Why I gotta hear from a stranger my baby girl being stalked?”
“I’m sorry,” Lei said, keeping her eyes on the road. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“What? Who raised you to talk crazy like that? Oh yeah, that crack whore momma of yours. That’s why I should expec’ this kine thing.” She folded her arms and stared out the window. They drove in silence for some minutes, Aunty letting the full weight of her displeasure settle over the cab. Finally Lei put her hand on her aunt’s arm.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’ll call you next time I have a problem, I promise.”
“That’s what family is for,” Aunty said, slightly mollified. “I guess I should expec’ I gotta teach you that. Now tell me ever’t’ing.”
“I nevah like talk about it,” Lei said.
“You stay goin’ to,” Aunty said. “I need fo’ know.”
Aunty never took her eyes off Lei as she filled her in on what had happened with the stalker and Mary.
“I want you to come back to San Rafael with me,” her aunt said with a note of finality. “Take some vacation time. Momi and I will take care of you.” Momi Pauhale was her aunt’s longtime partner in the restaurant and like a second aunt to Lei.
“No,” Lei said. “I have to see this through. I want to catch these guys-the one who killed Mary and the girls, and the one who’s stalking me.”
“Sometimes you gotta let other people take care of you,” Aunty said, an eerie echo of fifteen years ago when she’d picked up a battered child of nine from Social Services.
“And sometimes you have to be the one who takes care of business.” Lei pulled into her driveway, going through the motions of opening the house, showing her aunt where to stow her things, giving her the bedroom and getting out the futon for herself.
Rosario had brought a lot of food from the restaurant in the white cooler, and she put it away, keeping up a stream of gossip about mutual friends and relatives as she thawed some kalbi ribs and warmed up poi rolls for their dinner.
“Business has been pretty good. I still surprised how many Hawaii people drive for miles to find us. Momi and I are training some new waitresses; we lost Kailani when she went back school. The best one is our new girl Anela Ka`awai. She’s related to the Ka`awais from Kaua`i and she a hard worker. Momi talking about making her assistant manager
…”
Lei sat at the little table, and let the words wash over her.
She squinched her eyes shut, trying to shut out the memory of Mary’s dusky face. Funny how she’d never noticed that little mole by her mouth before.
“Lei.” Aunty touched her shoulder and she looked up.
“What?”
“I brought something. Something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about for a long time.” She came and sat back down beside Lei. She was holding a thick packet of letters bound with rubber bands. She set them in front of Lei. “From your father.”