4 Kaua'i Me a River (23 page)

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?
she said. “Is it Hatch?”

“You’re the psychic.”

She glowered at me.

“Okay, I really don’t want to
get into it, but it seems Hatch is having a fling with Shadow.”

“No way.”

“Way.” I told her about Shadow
modeling her lingerie for us on Saturday night.

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“She ordered him to come to bed.
Said she was waiting for him. And then he apologized by saying he’d told her to
‘cool it’ when I was around.”

Farrah bit her lip. “I’ll get to
the bottom of this. I promise.”

I took my Little Debbie booty back
to my shop, hoping to pass the afternoon in a chocolate and sugar haze. The
mail had been pushed through the mail slot and I picked it up. I ripped the
plastic wrap off a Devil Square and started munching while I sorted the catalogs
and brochures from the few pieces of first class mail. There were two white
envelopes. One had the Hawaii Department of Vital Records as the return
address. I slit it open, then wiped my sticky hands on a tissue before removing
what was inside.  

Each of the two pages in the
envelope bore the Hawaii State Seal. The top sheet was my mother’s death
certificate. It was typed in all caps, which made it feel like someone was
shouting. My breathing gave a little hitch when I noted the date and time she’d
been pronounced, and then it hitched again when I read the cause of death—cerebral
hemorrhage.

“True,” I whispered. “But not the
whole truth, so help me God.”

I thought about how, sooner or
later, I was going to have to call Jeff and tell him what I’d learned. That our
mom had been brutally murdered and justice had been denied her for over thirty
years. I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation.

The second sheet was my mom’s marriage
certificate. It was on light green safety paper with a watermark to help detect
copies or forgeries. I was startled to read the date and realize she’d been
married just weeks before she died. But then I read further. I read and re-read
one line since it seemed my eyes were playing tricks on me. Then I dropped the certificate
on the desk and stared out the window.

Like it or not, I had to go back
to Kaua'i.   

CHAPTER
28

I called the airlines and booked
a flight for the next morning. I’d be taking a carry-on bag because this time I
wouldn’t be coming home until I’d cut through all the lies. Then I called Sunny.

“I’ve got a few days off and I’d
like to come for a visit,” I said. “Is it okay if I stay at your place?”

“You’re always welcome,” she
said, but her tone was wary. “When were you planning to come?”

“Tomorrow.” I figured I better
offer some explanation. “Yeah, things with my boyfriend are kind of tense. I
thought maybe a few days apart might help.”

 “When are you arriving? I’ll
send Timo down to get you.”

“
Mahalo
, but I think I’ll
rent a car. I’d like to take some drives; maybe go to the beach for an afternoon.”

“Suit yourself.”

I folded up my mother’s death
and marriage certificates and slipped them in my purse. Then I locked up the
shop and drove home. No sense hanging around pretending I was working. My mind
was already on Kaua'i.

***

On Tuesday morning I caught the eight-fifteen
direct into Lihue. I rented the most inconspicuous car on the lot—a silver-gray
Ford Focus. Before going to Sunny’s I stopped at the police station on Ka’ana
Street.

A handsome wet-behind-the-ears duty
clerk greeted me and asked what he could do for me. I considered a politically
incorrect remark but stifled it. If I was going to get what I’d come for, I
needed to play it straight.

“I’m here about an incident that
happened thirty years ago,” I said. “On the North Shore.”

“That was a long time ago.”

We held each other’s gaze and I
was pretty sure he was thinking what I was thinking,
before he was even born
.

“I know. But I’m not talking about
a parking ticket or littering,” I said. “I’m here regarding an unsolved
murder.”

He sat up straighter. “Okay. Then
you should probably talk to a detective.”

He looked down at his console
and punched in some numbers. Then he turned in his chair so he no longer faced
me and spoke quietly into his headset. Did he think I could read lips? Or maybe
he was telling them he had a nutcase out front. After a few back and forths
with the person on the other end he swiveled back around.

“Sorry. I forgot to ask your
name.”

“Pali Moon.”

He returned to his nearly inaudible
conversation and after another half-minute he returned with a verdict.
“Detective Wong says she can be back here in fifteen to twenty minutes. She’d
like you to wait.”

I took a seat in the all-beige
waiting room. People refer to cops as the ‘thin blue line’ but in my
experience, beige is the operative color.

Half-an-hour later, Detective
Kiki Wong came into the waiting room from somewhere in the back. She led me to the
same nondescript interview room I’d been in when I’d been questioned about
Peggy Chesterton’s accident. She pointed to a seat at the table and then sat across
from me. The room was spooky quiet. All I could hear was the low
shush
of the air conditioner fan.

“Sorry to make you wait. We’re
working a burglary in Nawiliwili.”

“Any news on the Peggy
Chesterton accident?” I said.

“Not much. Are you here to
enlighten me?” She perked up, as if hoping I was there to unburden my soul and
fill in the blanks.

“No, sorry. I’m here about a
cold case.”

She squinted, as if getting
ready to blow me off with, ‘
Not my job
.’

“I think the Kaua'i Police Department
was involved in covering up a brutal murder in 1981,” I said. Nothing like
leading with a sharp jab.

“That’s a pretty serious
allegation,” she said.

“Yeah, well it’s a pretty
serious offense.”

“What leads you to believe this,
Ms. Moon?”

“My mother lived in Hanalei in
1981 and on the night of April 16, 1981 she was beaten to death. The police called
it an accident. They didn’t even investigate it.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“What? Am I sure my mother was
beaten to death? Or sure the police didn’t investigate?”

“Both,” she said. She leaned
back in her chair. I had a hunch she’d much rather have been dealing with the
burglary in Nawiliwili.

I pulled out my mom’s death
certificate and slid it across the table. Then I told Wong the story I’d heard
from both Joanie Bush and Sunny Wilkerson. She listened, but hardly lifted her
eyes from the certificate.

“Is that it?” she said when I
finished.

“Isn’t that enough?” I’d
implicated AJ Chesterton, big-time, and from where I was sitting it looked as if
she was struggling to decide what to do with my allegations.

“I’d like to take this one step
at a time. Let me make a copy of the death certificate and see what I come up
with regarding this incident. Obviously I wasn’t on the force at the time and
many of the people who were are retired.” I figured she was referring to AJ’s
father, Arthur Chesterton. The Chestertons had just held Peggy’s memorial
service so the timing was about as lousy as it could be.

“Are you staying on the island?”
she said.

“Yes. Up at Sunny Wilkerson’s,” I
said.

“Good. We’ll be in touch.”

She led me out to the lobby. As I
was about to go outside, she said, “Oh, and Miss Moon? I’d prefer you keep this
to yourself for now. The Chestertons are…well, you can imagine.”

I nodded.

I drove up to Sunny’s. She remotely
opened the gate and I made my way through the thick foliage. As the branches
scraped the sides of the rental car I once again felt as if I was being
watched. It was the same feeling I’d had up at Taylor Camp. Creepy, but somehow
encouraging at the same time. Like when Farrah talks about communing with her guardian
angel.

Sunny came out to greet me. “Did
you have trouble finding the place on your own? I was beginning to worry. I
expected you an hour ago.”

“Oh, sorry. I stopped off at the
police station,” I said.

“Why?”

“I wanted to talk to the
police.”

“About?”

“About my mother’s death.”

“Oh Pali. Let it go. It was such
a long time ago. I’m sure your mother would want you to—”

“I doubt if you have the
slightest idea what my mother would want. Getting to the bottom of this is as
much for me and my brother as for my mother. We want to know what happened.”

“Suit yourself. Why don’t you
take your things to the
ohana
and come back and join me for a glass of
sun tea?”

I parked in front of the guest
house. When I went inside I felt like calling Sunny and telling her I needed an
hour to freshen up and then tearing the place apart looking for—what? I had to
make do with testing her reaction to the evidence I already had.

When I went over to the main
house Sunny was outside waiting for me. I sat down and she handed me a glass of
sun tea.

“This is good,” I said, taking a
sip.

“It’s my personal blend. I get
it at an organic tea shop in Waipouli. So, tell me what’s going on,” she said.
“I can’t believe the police had much to say after all these years.”

“My father’s name was Philip
James Wilkerson, right?

“That’s right. Well, technically,
Philip James Wilkerson,
the Third
.  He was named after his father and grandfather.
I guess when he was little everyone called him ‘PJ’. He hated that.”

“And what was his brother’s
name?”

“Robert. Phil said his brother was
named for your mother’s father.”

“Robert Allen?”

“Yes, I think that’s right.” She
narrowed her eyes. “Why do you ask?”

I pulled out the certificates
I’d received from Vital Records and handed her the marriage certificate. She
took it, gave it a quick glance and then dropped it on the table between us.

“Huh. Well, I guess now you know,”
she said.

“My mother was married to my
uncle?”

“It was kind of a mess,” she
said.

“I’m sure. But I want to know.”

“Okay,
as you already know, Phil and your mother lived up at Taylor Camp in the
mid-70’s. Right after you were born he ran out of money and his father made him
come home and go to college. He promised your mom he’d come back after he
finished. He told me he wrote to her while he was gone but she never wrote
back.

“So,
anyway, when he graduated from the University of Oregon he came back to Kaua'i.
By that time Taylor Camp had been burned down and everybody had moved. He found
your mom living in an
ohana
on some other woman’s property.”

“My Auntie
Mana?”

“He
didn’t say. Anyway, when your dad came back…” she stopped and chewed on her lower
lip. In the silence that followed I picked up the fragrance of a nearby
plumeria tree.

“Don’t
stop now,” I said. “What happened when he came back?”

“Are
you sure you want to hear this? I mean, when Phil told me I thought maybe the
drugs were messing with his head or something.”

“Go
on.”

She blew
out a breath. “Okay, so your dad comes back and finds your mom. But by then she
had another kid. He couldn’t believe it.” 

“My
brother, Jeff.”

“Yeah.
Trouble was, it was also his brother’s.”

“Okay,
you lost me there.”

“Your
mother had hooked up with Robert, your father’s brother, while Phil was away at
school.”

“So,
Uncle Robby really
was
my uncle?”

“I
guess so. Robert had come to Kaua'i to visit Phil after he got out of the Army.
When Phil went back to Oregon, Robert told him he was moving to Honolulu to look
for a job, but he didn’t. He stayed. Then Phil showed back up.”

 I was
trying to put the pieces together but some didn’t fit.

“Okay,
so my mom started living with Phil’s brother after my dad left for college?”

“Yeah,
but Phil thought she didn’t know.”

“Didn’t
know what? Didn’t know that Robert was Phil’s brother?”

“No, of
course she knew that. Phil thought she didn’t know he was planning to come back.
Phil said he sent his letters General Delivery to the Hanalei Post Office. And
he said Robert must’ve intercepted his letters to your mom.”

I
squinted. “That’s just weird. Why would he do that?”

“Who
knows? The guy had been wounded in Vietnam. He had a drug problem. Phil invited
him to come over to Kaua'i to relax and get his head on straight. It never
dawned on him his own brother would put the moves on his girlfriend.”

“Why
did Phil think Robert had taken the mail?”

“Because
after Robert died, Phil found the letters. He said Robert had hidden them.”

“So, Phil
and Robert got in a fight?”

“Yeah.
Phil said a few nights after he came back to Kaua'i his brother sneaked in his
room while he was sleeping. Robert was drunk or high or something and he made
so much noise crashing into the room that it woke Phil up. Robert was carrying
a baseball bat.” Sunny took a sip of tea. “What happened that night haunted
your dad ‘til his dying day.”

I shot
her a skeptical look.

“Anyway,
Robert took a swing at Phil but he was so messed up he missed. Right about then
your mom showed up and tried to break it up. I guess when Robert raised the bat
again, your mom was in the way.”