Broken Ferns (Lei Crime ) (5 page)

They took a few turns off the highway once on the Kaneohe side, guided by the Acura’s refined GPS voice. A pair of huge metal gates decorated with hammered copper flowers and foliage opened wide, leading into the gracious Spanish-style mansion. Lei tried not to be impressed as she stepped out of the SUV, gazing at the arched columns leading in a colonnade from the curved parking turnaround to pair of stained-glass double doors at the front of the house.

A round man with a bald pate and a white Fu Manchu mustache pattered out of the house and up to Lei and Ken. “I’m Silvio Hernandez. The caretaker.”

“Eh, Silvio.” Ken had a lilt of pidgin in his voice. “What happened here?”

“I always lock up at night; then I go around, open some windows in the house during the day to keep the air moving around. Otherwise the mold, she come bad.” Silvio shifted his weight excitedly from foot to foot. “This morning I come around. I walk in the back door; I see one window over the kitchen sink, she stay broke. I go look, and the office, it stay open. The fridge too.”

Lei approached the patrol officer near the front door as Ken continued to question the caretaker. “What made your unit think this was our case?”

“Checked with my sergeant this morning. He said call you once he saw this.” The uniformed officer led her around the graceful plantings that bordered the house to the seamless melding of green lawn with golf course that rolled away to rugged mountains robed in clouds beyond the course.

A gouged path ending in divots marked the spot where a small aircraft of some type had landed. Farther out, a few chunks of lawn showed where it had taken off again. “The front gates were locked up tight. The caretaker hadn’t been turning on the alarm inside the house because he had that routine and really didn’t anticipate a burglary from this side.”

“Bold move. It does look like it could be related to our case,” Lei agreed.

Ken joined them. “Let’s take a look inside.”

Lei swiveled her head, taking in all the furnishings—classic hacienda-style woven rugs and “rustic” furniture—as Hernandez pointed them down a dark red Mexican-tiled hallway to the back office. The two agents preceded him, hands on their weapons as they checked that the room was clear.

“Dr. Witherspoon and his wife live in the Mainland. Somehow the burglar did this.” Hernandez gestured dramatically to the open wall safe, door ajar. “I don’t know what they had in there, but it’s gone now.”

Lei had brought in her crime kit from the Acura and snapped on her gloves. “Any other damage or loss?”

“I think only the kitchen.”

“Let’s take a look,” Ken said. They followed the caretaker into a vast, dim, Mediterranean-looking kitchen done in stone counters and verdigris fixtures. Shining copper-bottomed pots hung from a wrought-iron pot rack in the center.

A hook-mouthed smiley face was scrawled across the silvery surface of the fridge in Sharpie.

“Hm. Familiar unsub.” Ken extracted the Canon from its case.

“Can you believe this? And what is ‘unsub’?” asked Silvio, hopping from one foot to the other with agitation.

“Unknown subject,” Lei said. Ken took his first shot, and the flash reflecting off the refrigerator blinded her. “I’ll go look at the safe.”

She headed back down to the office, the rubber soles of her black athletic shoes squeaking on the tiled hallway floor. Lei set the crime kit—a matte black aluminum box—on the mission-style desk and popped the metal hasps.

Nested in the foam interior were packets of evidence swabs, swatches of peel-off fingerprint retrieval tape, a wide, soft powder brush, spray bottles of luminol and ninhydrin, a measuring tape, a digital camera, and several screw-top canisters of fingerprint powder. She even had a roll of expensive gelatin tape for the new fingerprint technology.

Opening and looking through the well-stocked case always gave her a warm, contented feeling—she wondered if that was how other women felt looking at a closetful of clothes.

She removed the camera first and took pictures of the office from various angles. Nothing appeared out of place but the partway-open safe and a cowboy painting leaning on the wall beside it.

Lei photographed the medium-sized, wall-mounted safe. It had a dial mechanism with a shiny chrome handle, and the interior, lined with a single shelf, was empty. She pushed the door a little wider, and this time she saw the familiar hook-mouthed smiley face scrawled on the interior of the door.

“I wonder what that’s about,” she muttered, as she took a few more shots of it. “Is it still about Max Smiley, or is it some kind of personal statement?”

She unscrewed one of the fingerprint-powder canisters (she chose white, to contrast with the matte black surface of the safe), swirled the brush in the powder, and applied it to the safe in gentle spinning motions. The long, soft nylon bristles splayed the powder generously over the surface. She pumped a couple of gentle puffs of air from a rubber bulb over the door, including the metal handle.

“Anything?” Ken’s voice from behind her made her jump.

Lei carefully applied one more puff of air. All of the white powder drifted away and decorated the floor beneath the safe.

“Doesn’t look like anything on the outside.” She prodded the safe open with a gloved finger. “Check out the smiley face in here. He’s thumbing his nose at somebody.”

“Attitude is a part of this for sure. I didn’t find any prints on the fridge or cabinets.”

“I’m still pretty stumped on how the unsub got the safe open.” Lei turned back, spun the powder over the surface of the desk. Puffs from the bulb brought up prints, but the knob used to pull the desk drawer was clean. Lei tugged the drawer open—and a three-by-five card greeted her. She picked it up by the edges. On the back, in faded ballpoint pen, a series of numbers were printed.

“Apparently, this was lying around somewhere. All the unsub had to do was find it.”

Silvio Hernandez trotted up, holding up a cell phone. “Dr. Witherspoon wants to talk to you.” Ken took the phone as Lei went back to fingerprinting the interior of the safe.

“Special Agent Yamada here.”

From where she was dusting, Lei could hear indignant squawks from the phone.

“I understand you’re upset, Dr. Witherspoon. We are just beginning our investigation, and it would help us greatly to know what you had in your safe.” Ken was unflappable, as usual.

More squawking.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. The safe was wide open. We found a card in your desk with the combination on it. So did the thief. Why don’t you fax an inventory of what was in the safe to our office?” Ken walked slowly around the room. Lei knew he was looking for anything that might have been dropped or lost by the burglar. He wrapped up the phone call with the homeowner, making soothing noises about insurance claims and speedy recovery.

Ken definitely had a way with people, and Lei knew there was a lot about that she could learn from him. Each of her partners—first in the police department, now in the FBI—had had something to teach her. She finished up the safe, shook her head.

“Nothing. It was wiped, because there’s nothing left behind by Witherspoon either.”

“Same in the kitchen.” Ken handed the phone back to Hernandez. “Your boss said he has a fax machine here and he’s having the inventory of the safe faxed to that number. Do you know where it is?”

“Follow me.” Hernandez hurried off, with Ken close behind.

Lei packed up her supplies and carried the case into the kitchen, where a visual survey revealed a similar snowfall of fingerprint powder and not a whole lot else. She opened the towering Sub-Zero refrigerator and looked inside.

Hernandez returned. “Dr. Witherspoon, he like me keep some supplies on hand for if they return unexpected. Cheese, eggs, bread, some lunch meat and fruit…”

Lei pulled out the interior drawer. “Nothing in here at all.”

“Yeah, that’s what I told the other agent—he cleaned out the fridge.”

Ken returned, carrying a couple of faxed sheets. “Quite a haul here. Mr. Hernandez, can you step out a moment and give us some privacy?”

Hernandez’s white brows twitched and he huffed out, offense in every stiff line of his body. Ken looked at Lei, his straight dark brows drawn together with concern.

“There were at least ten thousand dollars in that safe and a good deal of jewelry. There was a loaded gun in there, too. Walther PPK.”

“The gun of the James Bond fan. That raises the stakes.” Lei felt her heart sink for the burglar with an attitude who’d stolen a Chihuahua and left behind smiley faces. Her intuition was still telling her this wasn’t an adult—but they had little to go on in developing a profile.

“Yeah. We have to be prepared to use deadly force now.” Ken didn’t look any happier than Lei felt. “Let’s get on the road. We still have interviews down at Paradise Air.”

Chapter 6

Lei pushed at ringlets springing free from the bobby-pinned bun she’d corralled them into, using the mirror over the sink of Paradise Air’s employee restroom. A shadow moved behind her, and a hefty-built woman in a Paradise-Air-logo-covered aloha shirt moved in behind her.

“You the FBI agent here to talk to us?”

Lei turned, extended her hand. “Yes, one of them. Special Agent Lei Texeira.”

“Reynalda Tamayose.” The woman waved a little in lieu of shaking. “I came in to wash.”

“Sure.” Lei moved aside so Reynalda could wash her hands. “Yes, we’re investigating the theft of a small aircraft from Max Smiley’s house.”

“Probably that little silver toy Hummel of his.” Reynalda made a face at herself in the mirror, checking her teeth. They were unnaturally white. The woman’s face had the immobility of Botox and the patina of a good deal of makeup. “I’m one of the personnel managers. Been with the company since it was just Max and his first couple of pilots back in the early eighties.”

“We were wondering about some of the workplace policies, especially around health care and vacation. According to some of the correspondence Mr. Smiley gave us, employees weren’t happy with the conditions.”

“Mr. Smiley going to get to see the notes from the interview?”

“Of course not. Everything to do with the investigation is confidential.”

“Then I’ve got a few things to say.” Reynalda led the way out of the restroom. “I’d like to be interviewed first.”

Lei followed her to the conference room they’d been assigned for the interviews. It didn’t look like it had been updated since the company began in the eighties: mint-green wall-to-wall, flattened by the tracks of chairs, was leavened by a Pegge Hopper print in faded pastel tones on one wall.

Ken Yamada was setting up a small video camera on a tripod as they entered. Lei made introductions. “Special Agent Yamada, this is Reynalda Tamayose, one of the personnel managers.”

“Welcome, Reynalda. Thanks so much for helping out with the investigation.” The smile Ken gave Reynalda was so brilliant, so warm, Lei saw the older woman get melty in the knees as she sank into one of the molded plastic chairs.

“Of course. Anything I can do.”

Lei signaled him to turn on the equipment, and as he did so, Lei stated the woman’s name, the date and time, and hurried on, eager to ride the wave of disclosure begun in the restroom.

“So, Reynalda. You’ve been with the company how long?”

“Thirty years. Since the beginning.” Lei saw the woman sneak a once-over at Ken.

“And you’ve known Max Smiley all that time?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of employer would you say he is?”

“He’s good to those who don’t complain, who show up to work every day, and who are willing to suck it up to keep a job. I’ve been one of them.”

“So it seems like it’s been a tough place to work in some ways.” Ken let his statement trail off encouragingly.

“Well.” Reynalda batted her eyes at him. “I’ve done well here. I started as a baggage handler and receptionist. Now I’m one of two managers.”

“So you must be an exemplary employee.”

“Max seems to think so.”

“So does he give you a lot of responsibility for the day-to-day operations?” Lei asked.

“Yes. I do the scheduling of employees, a lot of the hiring and firing.”

“So what can you tell us about who might have had an ax to grind with Max Smiley?” Lei noticed Reynalda had turned away from her, angling her body toward Ken. She raised an eyebrow at her partner, and as smoothly as passing a baton in a race, he picked up the thread.

“Yes, Reynalda. You seem to have been in a unique position to monitor and implement Max’s policies.”

“I had a part to play, sure. But I didn’t make the rules. Max told me to schedule people nineteen hours a week every month so they didn’t qualify for health insurance—so I did. Didn’t mean I liked doing it. When they came in to complain, I told them what I’m telling you. I just followed orders, or my head was next.” Reynalda took a packet of Virginia Slims out of her pocket, tapped them on the table. “Mind if I smoke? It’s against regulations, but I’m the boss in this office, and I’m not gonna tell.”

“Of course not,” Ken said smoothly, but Lei saw by the flare of his nostrils that he did mind. She got up and turned on an overhead fan and cracked the door as Reynalda produced an empty Diet Coke can from her pocket and lit her cigarette. Ken looked through the stack of employee files in front of him, pulling out the four possibles Lei had flagged as they waited for Reynalda to complete her first deep drag on the cigarette.

“We’ve had to let a lot of people go over the years,” Reynalda said. “One of the worst ones recently was a young guy named Tom Blackman.” Reynalda’s arched brows drew together, her painted-on mouth puckering hard as she took a pull on her cigarette. “Sassy little punk.”

“Sounds like he had an attitude problem.” Ken had Blackman’s folder open, leafing through the slim paperwork.

“He had a few friends, but no one goes against Max when he makes a decision to fire someone.” Lei noticed the transition from “Mr. Smiley” to “Max” as the woman got more comfortable. “Yeah. He’s a guy with an ax to grind with Max. Kid had some piercings; Max told him to take them out—he was old-fashioned that way. Tom was on the baggage handling line; he didn’t think it mattered and told Max so. They had words. Max fired Tom.”