Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery Read online

  A shopping center and several fast food places passed on my left. I wondered if Taco Bell in Hawaii tasted the same as ours in New Mexico.

  The historic house soon appeared on the right. I turned in at the paved drive, between massive lava stone pillars. The Tudor style mansion sat well back from the road. It was trimmed with stone accents, and had about a half acre of dark brown shingle roof. I followed the snaking driveway to a discreet parking lot at the side.

  Behind the main house, I could see stables and groupings of small wooden houses. Acres of lawn spread in all directions, as perfect as a carpet. Bright tropical flowers bloomed in clumps surrounding the outbuildings.

  A small white gazebo stood in the shade of a banyan tree. White chairs, decorated with pink ribbons and flowers, indicated that a wedding would take place later. Two gardeners with hedge clippers snipped at a hibiscus bush and I wondered how many workers it took to run a house this size.

  A bored-looking Clydesdale, hitched to an old-fashioned carriage, stood near the front entrance. A young man wearing a blousy white shirt, brown knee britches, and a pasted-on smile stood near the horse's head, waving to passersby and attempting to drum up business for his carriage rides at seven dollars a pop.

  Inside the main house the foyer was cool and shady. I picked up a brochure, showing the floor plan.

  The house had apparently been built in the 1930s by one of the second generation sugar families. The living and dining rooms were furnished as they had been at the time. I noticed the covered outdoor lanai was now a restaurant, serving in "casual elegance" beginning at eleven.

  I made my way up the heavy wood staircase with its thick handrail, curious to see what a real "morning room" looked like. Immediately, I was disappointed to see that all the upstairs rooms had been converted to shops. I had hoped to see at least a couple of them decorated authentically as bedrooms and whatever else their original purposes had been.

  Jewelry, silk clothing and art prints filled the spaces, obscuring both the views from the windows and the rooms’ original ambiance. I meandered through the halls for a few minutes, but soon lost interest. I could have just as well gone to the mall.

  Downstairs, brightly colored posted caught my eye. Perhaps my neighbor, Elsa Higgins would enjoy a book on the aloha state. Since she was minding Rusty for me this week I wanted to take her something. The woman behind the desk put down the book she was reading when I walked in. She wore a flowing gauzy creation of tie dyed cotton. Her face was clear of makeup, and there was a gentle web of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her light brown waist-length hair showed ribbons of gray. She wore it pulled back from her face with tortoise colored plastic combs. Two fresh plumeria flowers were tucked behind one ear. If this were still the sixties, I'm sure she would have flashed me a peace sign.

  She let me browse the shelves for a few minutes before speaking. I found a picture book I thought Elsa might like.

  "Are you enjoying your stay on the island?" she asked. Her voice was low and soothing, like she might be accomplished at leading meditation sessions.

  "So far, I am. It's only my first day here." I ran my fingers through a stack of bookmarks on display. They were made of dried flowers pressed between plastic to form tiny bouquets. "I'm taking a helicopter ride later to get a better view of the whole place. Paradise Helicopters. Have you heard of them?"

  "Oh, yes." Something in her face shut down, and her voice took on a very un-soothing edge.

  "What's the matter?" Visions of a bad safety record popped into my head.

  She fiddled with a basket of postcard-sized art prints near the register, rearranging and aligning them. I stood, waiting, not intending to let her out of the question. Finally, she looked back up at me. Her answer was not at all what I expected.

  "The state has let this helicopter tour thing get way out of hand," she said abruptly. "Those horrid noise polluters have no business flying over the pristine beauty of this land. It's a travesty, what they're doing to the land. The state won't control them, and as a result, they'll end up destroying what we have here."

  Chapter 2

  The gentle gray eyes had taken on a hard edge. This was obviously a subject she felt strongly about. I couldn't imagine how a few helicopters flying around the island would destroy the land, but clearly I'd walked right into a nest of local political debate here. I had no intention, however, of staying in it, especially not on my vacation.

  She looked like she was just warming up, though, as she reached to take the book I had picked out. I set the book on the desk, murmured a polite thanks, and turned toward the door.

  No matter where you go, you can find these battling factions, each righteously expounding their beliefs. I've found that there are two sides to every story, and I wasn't about to get dragged into this one.

  Outside, I took a deep breath. I felt like such a chicken. I wasn't raised to duck out on a debate. My father would have politely let the woman go on. My mother would have joined in the fight, taking a side, any side. But, I just didn't have the heart for it. I was glad to be out of there. A brisk walk around the perimeter of the old plantation house helped dissipate my frustration and I glanced briefly at some of the outbuildings before returning to my car.

  I found a touristy restaurant in town that served an excellent grilled chicken sandwich and tangy fresh pineapple for lunch. My open-air table faced the bay and I breathed deeply, letting the sea air wash away the last remnants of the shop woman's negativity. I took my time over lunch and arrived at Paradise Helicopters' office precisely on time.

  Melanie greeted me again by name in her almost too-friendly way.

  The other passengers had already arrived, a husband and wife with a kid about four years old. He was a handful, whining and tugging at his mother in that center-of-attention way that most preschoolers seem to have They introduced themselves as the Johnsons—Joe, Brenda and young Cory.

  “It’ll be a few minutes until the shuttle driver gets back,” Melanie explained. “Why don’t you put a video on, Charlie?”

  Her hands were busy filling out Joe Johnson’s credit card slip, but her eyes were riveted on young Cory, whose gaze was fixated on the model helicopter that hung above the now-endangered flower arrangement in the corner. He was raising one foot, apparently ready to use the large vase as a step stool.

  I took Melanie’s cue, “Here, Cory, let’s see what this one’s about.”

  I grabbed a tape that looked like a cartoon and stuffed it into the machine. The deedly-deedly music attracted his attention only seconds before two heliconia stalks would have met a nasty fate.

  Brenda sat on the sofa, flipping through a magazine, oblivious to her son’s actions.

  I turned my attention to the scenery outside.

  Twenty minutes later, my fellow passengers and I were on our way to the heliport in Paradise's company van. Sugar cane grew eight feet tall along Ahukini Road, acre after acre of thin green blades. In the distance it stretched on, like a giant's unmown lawn. We went through the intersection where I'd sat only this morning; now we headed toward the airport.

  The van driver veered left, away from the main terminal building, past a collection of smaller general aviation hangars. On our left, a row of helicopter pads was laid out and numbered, like the squares on a huge board game. A couple of the pads contained parked helicopters with their rotor blades tied down.

  For the most part, though, the place was a regular beehive. I watched two helicopters land, and three more take off, just in the time it took our driver to park and unload us from the van. Small as the aircraft were, each had its own distinctive paint scheme.

  A chain link fence, eight feet high topped with a double strand of rusty barbed wire, separated the pads from the parking area. We were instructed to wait behind it until our driver signaled. Meanwhile, the blue and tan JetRanger we would ride in was hovering a short distance away, apparently waiting for another, in line ahead of it, to make its landing.

  My attention
was drawn to the other one as it landed. The pilot brought it in fast, and landed with a bump. Before his shuttle driver could get there, the pilot had opened his door and stepped down. It didn't seem a very safe practice to me, leaving the machine running with passengers inside and no pilot.

  The man motioned toward his driver, calling him over. He stood leaning over the young kid, shaking a finger in his face. I couldn't catch the words, but his body language was easily understood. The young driver cowered at the onslaught, and the passengers inside looked uncomfortable.

  A tug at my sleeve got my attention. Paradise's helicopter had landed, and the previous passengers were out and waiting near the van. I followed our shuttle driver, and stood back as he opened my door for me. The tremendous whirl from the rotor blades caught at the edges of my shorts, whipping the fabric against my legs. Luckily, I hadn’t worn a skirt. I stepped up, and slid into my seat. The pilot helped me find my seat belt.

  I had been given the front seat next to him, while the Johnson family were lined up across the rear. I was thankful that the noise of the rotor blades forced us all to wear headsets. If I'd had to listen to one more plaintive demand from Cory in the back seat I'd have decked him.

  The twenty minute wait in the office before heading to the airport had just about cinched my decision not to have children. This one was a whiner and Joe and Brenda Johnson apparently didn't believe in suppressing their child's natural outspokenness.

  I caught our pilot’s glance at the kid as they were loading, and we exchanged a brief raised eyebrow. He helped me put my headset on, while the shuttle driver assisted those in the back seats.

  "Can you hear me all right?" His voice was low and soft, coming into my right earpiece. I nodded.

  “I’m Drake Langston.” He introduced himself.

  “Charlie Parker,” I said, extending my hand, “and no, I’m not the jazz musician.”

  He laughed, a low and pleasant chuckle.

  “No, I would have never mistaken the two of you,” he said. “Charlie—I like that.”

  There was something in the smile he flashed at me that I found immensely attractive. Not to mention the touch of gray in his dark hair, and the sureness with which he handled the controls.

  The muscles of his forearms rippled slightly as he flipped a couple of switches. He wore a navy knit shirt with the company logo on the chest, like Mack had worn earlier in the day. His khaki slacks were neatly creased. I absorbed all this in less than a minute before my attention strayed again to the other helipad, where the angry pilot was still shaking his finger in the other guy's face.

  He had pulled his headset off now, and I watched as the wind whipped his red ball cap off. That provoked his anger all over again, and he ordered his driver to retrieve it. He stomped back to his aircraft, jerking the door open.

  "I'm sorry you saw that," Drake interrupted. "His name is Bill Steiner. That guy is trouble all the way around. Gives a bad name to the rest of us."

  "What's he so upset about?"

  "Who knows? With him it could be anything. He just better hope there's not an FAA man out here right now. He'd be busted for sure, leaving his passengers like that."

  I wondered what makes some people need to flaunt this kind of behavior in public. Perhaps they like the feeling of control over others that it gives him. Behavior like that does have a certain show-stopping effect.

  Meanwhile, the rest of our group were buckled into their seats, and the doors securely latched. With Mr. and Mrs. Doormat and young Rowdy settled into the back seats, Drake began a safety briefing. Cory promptly stuck his hand out the narrow vent window the minute Drake mentioned this as a safety no-no. He flashed Brenda Johnson a glare, and she grabbed her kid's hands. Her eyes bored into the back of Drake's head with a look I once saw on a female German shepherd with eight pups.

  Drake had switched radio frequencies, and I watched his lips move as he cleared us for takeoff with the tower. The turbine engine whined and the ground fell away as the craft rose straight up before it picked up gentle forward momentum.

  It was fascinating to watch Drake fly the machine. Both feet and both hands were working, each doing something different. I envied his coordination and admired the aircraft’s maneuverability. I watched as the airport fell away at our feet, becoming miniaturized in just a couple of minutes.

  Drake pointed out the sprawling Westin complex with its golf course, half-dozen restaurants, and labyrinth of canals as we passed over. Nawiliwili Harbor lay below, with tiny boats moored in slips and a large freight barge off-loading orange and brown containers. Beyond the harbor, Drake indicated the Menehune Fish Pond.

  Apparently, the menehune are the Hawaiian equivalent of leprechauns, performing mystical feats in the middle of the night. In this case, they had supposedly carried lava rocks down from the mountains to dam up a section of river, forming a pond. The wall looked about three hundred yards long. The little guys really had a busy night of it. And, for this they were paid one shrimp each. Talk about minimum wage.

  "The primary crop on the island is sugar cane," Drake's steady voice informed us. "We also commercially grow coffee and macadamia nuts, which you see in the fields below us now."

  In the back seat, the missus attempted resignedly to keep control over her rambunctious offspring while her oblivious husband snapped pictures from his window seat.

  I turned my attention back to the scenery. We were approaching mountainous country, and I could see that Drake was about to maneuver us in front of a triple deck frothy white waterfall.

  "Where's your camera?" he asked me. Again, that smile, and the voice like velvet.

  "I'm not much of a photographer," I answered. In truth, I didn't want to miss out on the panoramic view by looking through an undersized viewfinder.

  He took us to two or three more waterfalls—I was beginning to lose count—then headed toward Waimea Canyon. I loved the way it felt like the bottom dropped out as we flew over the edge.

  Waimea Canyon is a mini version of the Grand Canyon. I was amazed at how un-tropical it looked. The red earth was dry here, and I even spotted clusters of cactus growing on some of the ridges. We flew past a lookout point where tiny tourists stood by a railing, looking up at us and pointing.

  Shortly after flying through the canyon, we broke out over the tops of the almost razor sharp ridges of the Na Pali coast. The contrast was remarkable. The multi-colored earth stratified throughout the canyon had been softly muted by time and the river's flow.

  The sharp peaks of the Na Pali, on the other hand, spoke of indomitable strength as they'd withstood brutal attacks by the wind and sea for thousands upon thousands of years. I realized the pictures don't come close to doing this place justice.

  Twice, I caught myself open-mouthed as we skirted the sharp peaks which drop straight down into the sea, each hiding a tiny secluded beach in its shadow. The scene repeated itself again and again down the distant shore.

  Drake had planned the stereo music playing through our headsets to correspond with the terrain. Soft and gentle at first, quick and exciting over the rugged parts.

  "Folks, normally we try to fly into the Kalalau Valley, but it's become socked in with clouds the last hour or so," Drake's voice came through, still confident and clear. "I'll take us a little way farther up the coast to Hanakapiai, and we can buzz in there for a close-up."

  None of us knew one valley from another, anyway. It sounded fine to me. It was all beautiful.

  The back seat group wasn't saying anything at this point. Cory was pulling the airsick bags out of their wrappers, while Brenda ignored him, grabbing a moment of silence for herself. Drake glanced back at them, and we exchanged another raised eyebrow.

  We did a few more circles and turns over the small beaches. The sand was the color of a freshly baked sugar cookie with turquoise water lapping gently at the edges of it. We headed inland up a narrow valley with high lava peaks on either side of us.

  "As early as 800 A.D., the ancient Poly
nesians had sailed across open ocean to discover these islands, and many of them settled in these very.... valleys." Drake's voice broke off quietly, and I turned to look at him.

  "What is it?" I tried to speak loud enough for him to catch my words, but he wasn't looking at me, and couldn't hear me over the engine noise.

  His face had turned pale under his tan. I followed his line of sight down to the rugged lava embankment below.

  A very dead-looking man lay sprawled across the rocks.

  Except for his bright red shirt with geometric patterns of blue and gold, he would have been difficult to spot. His dark slacks and shoes blended with the lava rocks, and I didn't see any flashy jewelry. He appeared to be about five-ten, slim, dark haired.

  I looked back up at Drake, then glanced again at the back seat. They were all occupied, Cory with a pile of shredded paper and plastic now at his feet, and the parents, staring up at the rugged cliffs surrounding us.

  Drake had switched radio frequencies again, and was speaking rapidly, although those of us in the aircraft could no longer hear him.

  I stared out again at the dead man, noticing details out of habit. He was about a hundred yards in from the shore, lying face down in an area where the terrain started to rise, the lava rocks becoming rougher farther inland. I wondered how he had gotten there.

  Drake had mentioned one narrow foot trail along the coast, which hikers and campers used. Had he gotten off the trail and fallen? It would be easy to do out here. The endless rows of sharp ridges looked impossible.

  Yet the picture struck me as not quite plausible. For one thing, he didn't have a backpack or any other gear that I could see. And his clothes weren't right. The multi-colored shirt looked silky, more like a dress shirt than outdoor wear. And the shoes. They were black dress shoes. No one in his right mind would attempt to hike in those.

  Who was this out-of-place victim?

  Drake had circled as casually as possible, and we headed now out of the narrow confines of the valley.