Kula (Surfing Detective Mystery Series) Page 6

  “Let me guess what Barry Buckingham wanted to talk about.”

  “Gold . . .” she said.

  Madison Highcamp—rich, idle, and beautiful—would be a prime target for smooth talkers with something glittery to sell.

  “And to reconfirm dinner,” she continued. “I guess he’s at loose ends.”

  “Did you know his wife disappeared—Cheyenne Sin?”

  “That was his wife? I didn’t put two and two together.”

  “Four months ago,” I said. “I thought Buckingham was hiring me to find her. Instead I’m looking for his dog.”

  “Poor man.”

  “Me or him?”

  “Both of you.”

  “It’s a gig.” I didn’t bother to tell her that HPD, and one of his neighbors, suspected Buckingham in his wife’s disappearance. Madison would meet him and make up her own mind.

  She fixed those eyes on me again. “Why don’t you come back to my penthouse after dinner, and we can . . . Talk.”

  “I have to get up early, Madison . . .”

  She leaned forward, her breasts brushing the white linen tablecloth. “You know I’m not good with no’s.”

  “Just for a little while,” I finally agreed.

  “Good. You can show me your shark bite.”

  We both knew what that meant.

  * * *

  After we finished dinner, billed, against my polite objections to Conrad Highcamp’s account, I walked Madison to her Diamond Head apartment, a few minutes’ stroll from the Canoe Club. Her penthouse was one of only two on the entire top floor and commanded a sweeping view of Waikīkī. The view was dark at night, except for the lights of the beachfront hotels reflecting in the surf. We sat on a couch and Madison drank another martini. About half way down she got to thinking. A dangerous thing.

  “Why can’t I be more like you, Kai, and surf all day in the sun?”

  “What’s stopping you?” I said. “You’ve got more time and money than anybody I know.” I could have told her I hadn’t surfed all day since I opened my detective agency, but she wouldn’t have heard me.

  “Let me see your shark bite.”

  “Why do you want to see it again? You’ll make yourself afraid of the ocean and then you’ll never surf.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just so . . . wild.”

  “Wild? I never thought of it that way.”

  She pouted.

  “OK. Here.” I pulled up my shirt.

  Madison’s eyes widened and then she explored the sixteen welts with her fingertips. “You think I have everything, Kai, but you’re wrong.”

  “You can have whatever you want.”

  “No I can’t,” she sobbed. “I’m not free.” She pulled me down with her on the couch.

  I don’t remember much after that. Those nights we spent together in her apartment tended to blur. I’ve had finer moments. Madison and I both knew what we had couldn’t last, but tomorrow didn’t matter as long as we had tonight.

  It was nearly one when I left her apartment. Wheeling my Impala through the drowsy streets of Waikīkī, I felt more alone than when the night began. And I was no closer to finding the elusive retriever. But I had learned about the gold dealer’s tactics with the rich and gorgeous.

  fifteen

  Thursday morning’s Star-Advertiser carried a brief story in the Hawai‘i News section about Dr. Carreras. The police investigation had determined that his accident was caused by a combination of the rain-slick surface of upper Tantalus Drive and the excessive speed of the Porsche. Alcohol was not a factor.

  I wondered again what Dr. Carreras was going to tell me about Buckingham.

  Later that morning I pulled into my parking stall off Maunakea Street and walked to my office at the corner of Beretania above Fujiyama’s Flower Leis. Parking in that part of Chinatown was murderously expensive. Thankfully Mrs. Fujiyama had three stalls reserved for her tenants. She could probably rent them for almost as much as her offices.

  As I walked to the lei shop, the case started stirring up memories again of my dog, Pono.

  * * *

  When my parents died it was a comfort to have Pono. The Kealoha family hānaied me and I moved from town to their Punalu‘u home, across from the beach on O‘ahu’s windward side. Pono came too. I attended school at Kahuku and had trouble adjusting. My grades tumbled. It was soon decided that I would move again, this time to the mainland to live with my Uncle Orson’s family in Pasadena, California, and go to school there. My Auntie promised to take care of Pono until I got settled, then ship him to me.

  After I’d been in California a few weeks, my uncle got a call from O‘ahu. He sat me down at the kitchen table, a somber expression on his face. “I have some bad news for you, Kai. Your dog was run over by a car. He didn’t survive.”

  Pono’s death, coming on the heels of my parents’ accident—and without my Auntie’s promises of heavenly bliss—was almost too much to bear. Later she sent me Pono’s collar and license. I think I still have them somewhere in my apartment, along with her note promising I would see my dog again in Heaven with my parents. After that I couldn’t imagine having another dog. And I never did. I never even gave dogs much thought—until this case.

  * * *

  Inside the flower shop Mrs. Fujiyama and two of her lei girls, Chastity and Joon, were stringing tuberose. The powerful scent raised the hair on my neck and followed me up the orange shag stairs. At the end of the hall, I stopped in front of the full-color longboard rider airbrushed on my door. Beneath were the words: SURFING DETECTIVE: CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS—ALL ISLANDS. Under those words I felt like scrawling: No missing pet cases. But it was too late.

  Inside my office the red light on the answering machine was blinking. I hadn’t checked for messages since yesterday. There were seven.

  The first: “Can you help us find Puffy? She’s a Persian cat. She wandered off two days ago. She usually comes right back. But we’ve looked everywhere. We live in ‘Ālewa Heights . . .”

  The second: “Max is missing and I don’t know what to do. He’s an Airedale and he’s my only companion since my husband died. Maybe you are my godsend. Please, please call me . . .”

  The third: “Is this the pet detective? I found a dog . . . Uh, a black dog in Palolo . . . and I wondered if you could help me find its owner.”

  The fourth: “Hello, this is Mrs. Leong. I have a favor to ask. Could you help me pick a pedigree Skye Terrier puppy for my granddaughter?”

  Who was referring these people? ‘Ālewa Heights? Palolo? They were nowhere near my posters in Kailua. Maybe it was my ads in the two daily papers? But no mention had been made of a pet detective. Go figure.

  The fifth call came from a man who remembered seeing a leather collar embossed in gold on Kailua Beach. But he went on to say: “I came back the next day and the collar was gone.” I filed that one away in my mental notebook.

  The sixth call: “You want fine’ one golden retrievah? Try one puppy mill in Mililani. She got all kine.” He left an address that I copied down.

  The last call: “I found your dog.” The voice sounded old, male, Caucasian. “He’s a light-colored retriever with no collar. My wife and I live near Kailua Beach. He wandered here yesterday, but I just saw your poster this morning on our walk.” the man left a number and said he didn’t want the reward, just for the “beautiful retriever” to be returned to his family.

  I called immediately. Maybe I’d gotten lucky.

  An old woman said her husband wasn’t home, but that I could come claim the sunny retriever, as she described him.

  “Is the dog male?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “He’s male, and he’s very pretty.”

  “Sounds like Kula.” I was hopeful.

  She gave me her address off south Kalaheo, less than two blocks from Kailua Beach Park where Kula had disappeared.

  * * *

  My Impala was purring over the Pali again, windward bound. The addre
ss the woman had given me was on a quiet beachside street in the residential tract of Ku‘ulei. I pulled up to a ranch-style home that looked comfortably middle class. The sound of my door slamming set off a deep, authoritative barking from behind a palm hedge. The bark obviously came from a big dog.

  I walked around to the front door and rang the bell. A gray-haired woman wearing a flowered mu‘umu‘u that hung on her like a sack invited me in. As she led me to her backyard, she rambled on about the found dog.

  “He’s a beauty. So shiny. And his eyes . . . but you know that.” She opened her screen door. “My husband doesn’t care about the reward. He just wants to give the dog back to its owner.”

  “That’s generous,” I said, “but the reward is his, so long as the dog is Kula.”

  “It’s him all right,” she said. “Follow me.”

  We stepped onto a huge lawn so perfect it looked like a putting green. Encircling it were birds-of-paradise, red ginger, and laua‘e ferns. I spotted the dog wandering among the plants, sniffing then lifting his leg. The moment he heard us he charged in our direction, tail wagging, almost knocking me over. This was a big, gregarious dog and his enthusiasm was over the top.

  “Calm down, boy.” I patted his yellow head. It wasn’t Kula. “I think this is a labrador,” I said, “a yellow labrador. He’s got a shorter coat than a golden and looks a bit stockier.”

  “Oh,” the woman said, her disappointment obvious.

  “Have you called the Humane Society?” I asked.

  “No. When my husband saw your poster we decided to call you first.”

  “Well, somebody is probably worried sick about this dog.”

  She nodded. “He’s a beauty, all right.”

  I thanked her for calling me, left a poster with Kula’s photo, and drove away. I don’t know who was more disappointed, the old woman or me.

  sixteen

  I hopped onto the H-3 freeway, climbed into the Ko‘olau mountains, shot through the tunnel, and headed for the leeward side. My destination was Mililani town, where my anonymous caller had said I might find a puppy mill. Another questionable lead. But it was worth a try.

  As I drove, I reviewed Buckingham’s three possible suspects—two neighbors and an alleged prowler. Neither of the neighbors got me any closer to the missing dog and neither promised to be any help. Mrs. Gum’s grip on reality seemed iffy, at best, and Dr. Carreras was dead. And I had found no evidence of any prowler to back Buckingham’s allegation. Mostly what I had come away with were allegations against Buckingham himself—that he was a con man, fraud, potential bankrupt, and murderer.

  My own fledgling efforts at pet detection had uncovered two indicted pet thieves, Spyder Silva and Reiko Infante, but neither as yet could be linked to Kula’s disappearance. My dawn stakeout of Kailua beach yielded a possible sighting of Kula in an SUV leaving town, but so far I couldn’t corroborate it. A surf session at Flat Island turned up a possible informant named Moku, who I had no way to contact. And he hadn’t bothered to call me. My newspaper ads and posters were eliciting calls, mostly from desperate pet owners looking for their own lost Fido or Fluffy. Finally, my one promising lead to a light-colored retriever evaporated when the dog turned out to be a yellow Lab.

  So here I was driving into central O‘ahu on the H-2, hoping for a breakthrough. I exited at Mililani Town, where pineapple and cane fields in the plateau between the Wai‘anae and Ko‘olau ranges had been transformed into a crowded suburb of condos, townhouses, and tract homes. And also puppy mills?

  The main goal of a puppy mill, Maile had told me, is to make money. Its owners don’t give a rip about the health and living conditions of the puppies, or about the moms and pops that produce them. I wasn’t looking forward to my visit. Criminals I run into on my everyday cases make me feel bad enough about human beings. I didn’t relish the thought of meeting up with lowlifes who abuse helpless animals to fatten their wallets.

  I drove along Meheula Parkway past a couple of schools, a park, and a recreation center, scouting for one particular townhouse among a sea of thousands. The address I was given by the anonymous caller was not on a street, it turned out, but a court in a secluded tract abutting the park.

  The cream and baby blue townhouse had a carport with an empty mailbox—I checked—attached to one of its pillars. A grimy Jeep Cherokee wearing a Schofield Barracks sticker was parked under a portico with purple hydrangea and parched palms. A faded and torn American flag hung over the doorway.

  As I approached the front door, a rotten smell crept up on me like a dead skunk. Then I heard an animal whimpering. I take that back. Not one animal—many.

  I rang the bell and heard shuffling feet.

  “Yeah, whadda ya want?” a woman’s voice boomed through the door.

  “A golden retriever,” I shouted back.

  The door creaked open to a fortyish dirty blonde sinking her teeth into a strawberry danish. She didn’t need the danish. She had a double chin, ballooning breasts, and a sagging belly that strained her oversized T-shirt.

  “How’d ya fine my place?” she asked with a full mouth. “My newspaper ads don’ give no address.”

  “I asked around.”

  She swallowed her danish and let me in. Her townhouse looked fairly typical. Pale green walls, one bedroom downstairs and probably two more upstairs. A couple of baths. And a narrow kitchen with an electric range, microwave and fridge. What wasn’t typical was the smell. And the mess. The place was a garbage heap. A six-pack of diet cola was perched on a rusty exercise bicycle; a case of rum sat in a laundry basket—four quarts left. The others empty. But I saw no dogs.

  “What’s your name?” She glanced at me with sad blue eyes.

  “Tommy.” I borrowed my attorney’s name. “And you are?” I asked.

  “Lou,” she grunted. “So you’ look’n for a golden retriever puppy?”

  I nodded.

  “Jus’ a minute, Tommy.” She put her plump hands on her hips. “My pups aren’t ready yet, but you can look ‘em over and pick one in advance.”

  Lou led me into a tiny half bath where a dull red bitch was nursing a half dozen scrawny pups on a bare tile floor. No bed. No blanket. The dog’s tummy was so sunken I could have encircled it with my hands. And I could count her ribs. Every one stood out like a rack of lamb. Her puppies were drinking her dry.

  “Check ‘em out, Tommy.” Lou hovered over me as I knelt down. The odor coming off the pups made my eyes water. My stomach turned, partly from the stench, partly from what I saw.

  “Seventy-five dollars cash will hold a pup. It’s how I pay the rent. My husband got hurt in Iraq. He’s been at Tripler Hospital for months, but he ain’t never gonna be the same again. Never.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It ain’t easy,” she said. “We was gonna retire together, have our own kennel, and breed champions. But then . . .”

  “I like this one.” I pointed to one of the pups, then realized this wasn’t getting me any closer to Kula. “But I’d like to see your adult dogs, too.”

  “Adult dogs?” She clucked her tongue. “You said you wanted a puppy!”

  “I thought I did. But now that I’ve seen them, I don’t know. Maybe one of each.”

  “Follow me.” She trudged across a stinky carpet to a tiny bedroom. There were four crates, each containing a dark dog. Like the one in the bathroom, these adult dogs were also severely malnourished. Rib and hip bones protruding. Stomachs concave. No sign of Kula.

  “These are fine,” I said, “but I’d hoped for a light-colored dog. A male.”

  “A blond male?” she said. “I’ve got just the one. He’s a beauty. But it’ll take me a day or two to get him.”

  “Where is he?” I tried not to sound too excited.

  “Jus’ give me a call tomorrow.” She recited a phone number, and walked me to the front door. “You can decide about the puppy then.”

  “OK, Lou,” I said, forcing a smile. “Till tomorrow.”

/>   She smiled back, red jelly still between her teeth. I left feeling almost sad for Lou. But sadder for her dogs. I wondered if I was cut out for pet detection.

  I knew the answer, but thought the reason was that I didn’t know the ropes. But maybe I just didn’t have the heart, or the stomach, to deal with animal abusers. Then I put my feelings aside and asked myself a question more pertinent to the case: Could this particular abuser deliver the famous surfing dog?

  * * *

  By the time I got back to my office I had two more phone messages. The first was an urgent plea to find an African grey parrot. I deleted it. The second got my attention:

  “You like get da dog back, brah? Bettah geev’ me one call.”

  It was a male voice and his phone number had a 259 prefix—Waimānalo, a good five miles from Kailua where Kula disappeared. Was it likely that a dog could have wandered that far along the heavily-trafficked Kalaniana‘ole Highway that connects the two towns? Doubtful. If Kula was in Waimānalo, he had been driven there.

  I dialed the number. Once I identified myself, the same male voice from the message said, “You get da t’ousand-dollah reward, brah?”

  “I get da money, if you get da dog.” Well, Buckingham had the money, but I could get it.

  “Bring da money if you like get da dog.”

  “Weah I bring it?”

  “I goin’ tell you weah, brah.”

  I heard mumbling in the background, two or three more male voices in garbled pidgin. The caller came back.

  “Da end of Kapu Road in Waimānalo. Know weah dat is?”

  “Dono.” I played dumb.

  “Wen you in da valley, head mauka. Pass da nurseries. Den you goin’ hit one dead end. Come tonight, eleven o’clock. No try bring nobody wit’ you.”

  “What your name, brah?” I asked.

  “Moku.”

  “Da surfah?”

  “Das me.”

  “OK, Moku. Bring da dog or no deal.”