House of the Hanging Jade (6 page)

He stepped back a bit. “Is it okay that I'm here? I mean, do you mind? I just thought it would be a nice surprise.”

“Oh, no,” I assured him quickly. “It is a nice surprise. I just can't believe you came all this way, that's all. How did you know where to find me?”

“It's a long story,” he said vaguely. I let that go for the moment.

“Why are the police here?” he asked.

“Someone died here last night.”

His eyes widened. “Really? Who?”

“A doctor who was staying here.”

“How did he die?”

“We don't know yet.”

“Wow. That's too bad. Can I come in?” He didn't seem too ruffled by the news that someone had recently died just a few feet away.

“Uh, I don't think that's a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Was he kidding?
I thought incredulously.

“Because it's really not a good time, Geoffrey. There's obviously a lot going on here and I don't think Mr. and Mrs. Jorgensen—not to mention the police—want a stranger in the house.”

“Oh. Okay. Can we go somewhere and talk?”

I shook my head. “Not now. I need to stay here in case someone needs me to answer any questions.” The police hadn't actually told me to stay on the property, so I hoped the two officers standing nearby wouldn't say I was free to leave with Geoffrey.

“How about later?”

He obviously wasn't going to be shaken off easily. “All right,” I acquiesced. “How about tonight? There's a place in Kona where we could meet.”

“How about at the condo I'm renting? I could make dinner for you.”

“You didn't come all the way to Hawaii to eat indoors, did you?” I asked with a weak laugh. Geoffrey was a great cook, but I preferred to be in a public place with him so he didn't get the wrong idea about my intentions.

“Let's meet at a restaurant on Ali'i Drive. It's right along the water.” I gave him directions to the Kona Inn, a nostalgic restaurant with a long history of catering to locals and tourists alike. When I had told him where to meet me I added, “I can't get there until pretty late.”

He beamed. “No problem! I'll see you then.” He leaned in to kiss me and I turned my head just in time as his lips brushed my cheek. I turned around quickly to go back to the house.

I sneaked a looked over my shoulder a few seconds later. He was sauntering toward his rental car, whistling a nameless tune. The police officers were watching him leave.

Why did he have to come here? And how did he know where I was working? I would have to remember to ask him that at dinner. He was part of the life I had left behind. And while we had had fun while we dated, it was never serious, at least as far as I was concerned. I found myself almost hoping the police would need to talk to me that evening.

I went back to my den in search of Justine. She was playing with Meli, twirling a cat toy as she watched her new friend jump and pounce on it.

“Did you decide on something for dessert?” I asked.

“Chocolate cake,” she answered with a smile.

“That sounds delicious. Let's check the kitchen for all the ingredients we'll need.” She accompanied me back to the kitchen, where we gathered up the ingredients and got to work.

I helped her measure the dry ingredients into a large bowl, then we mixed the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla with an electric mixer. Justine laughed as she held the mixer in the bowl. Her giggles dispelled some of the pall that had shrouded the house since the discovery of Dr. Doug's body.

“I've never done this before!” she cried. “The mixer tickles my hand!”

I laughed with her as I poured the dry ingredients into her mixture, then we poured the batter into the pans we had prepared. While the cake baked, we set out what we needed for the frosting.

“This is fun! I wish Marcus could help us,” Justine said.

“Do you want to ask him if he'd like to help with the frosting?”

“Yes!” She ran off, her apron strings flying behind her, in search of Marcus. She was gone only a few minutes.

“He doesn't want to help. He said he wants to be alone.”

“That's okay,” I said. “I bet he'll help eat it!”

Justine flashed me a wide smile. It was clear that some of her pain and fear had lifted thanks to the simple action of baking a cake. I was glad she had agreed with my suggestion, though I wished Marcus had come to join us in the kitchen. Maybe next time.

“Is there something you'd like to do for a little while? We can't frost the cake until it cools, and that's going to take some time,” I said.

Justine cocked her head. “Can I make lunch for Dad?”

“Sure. Why don't you go ask him what he'd like?”

Justine ran off again and was back again quickly. “He said he'd like a salad. Dad never has salad!” She was breathless.

I grinned. “Let's make a big salad and set it out for everyone to have, just like I did at breakfast.”

“Okay.” She washed her hands again and helped me gather all the salad ingredients. “What's this?” she asked, pointing to a large light-brown vegetable that looked like a cross between a potato and a piece of ginger.

“That's jicama. We'll peel it and put it in the salad. It's crunchy.”

She shrugged.

We made the salad and put it in a huge bowl, then Justine helped me make a mango vinaigrette that we placed in a small pitcher. We placed sandwich fixings on a large tray and took everything out to the table.

I asked her to help me announce to everyone else that lunch was ready on the lanai. She went off in search of Marcus first, while I went to the pool to tell the officers they were welcome to eat lunch. They looked grateful but said they were too busy to stop and eat.

The police were focused on the droplets near the body. They were measuring the distance between the drops, between the drops and the house, and between the drops and the guesthouse.

I went back inside, where I found Lars on the lanai helping himself to salad and a few slices of sandwich meat. He smiled wanly at me, passing a hand over his unshaven face. Dark circles surrounded his eyes. “Thanks for giving Justine something to do this morning. She needed that.”

“So did I. She's a very sweet girl. She made cake for dinner too, and we'll frost it this afternoon. But don't tell her I told you. I think she wants it to be a surprise.”

He chuckled and turned to go back to his office, but Barbie appeared on the lanai as he was leaving. She looked terrible. Her long curly hair frizzed in all directions and she was dressed in a stained T-shirt and cutoff sweatpants. Her skin had a pallid cast; her eyes were puffy and bloodshot.

“Thanks for making lunch, Kailani. I know how hard it must be to cook with the tragedy that's occurred,” she said.

“Cooking is like therapy for me, so I cook whenever I'm under stress. It works well for everyone,” I answered with a small smile.

“Have the children eaten?”

“I don't know,” Lars answered. He looked at me. “Kailani, have you seen Justine and Marcus?”

“No. Justine went looking for him a few minutes ago to tell him that lunch is ready.” Just then, both kids walked through the doorway and onto the lanai.

“My darlings, you must eat something to keep up your strength,” Barbie urged them, her bottom lip trembling. Marcus rolled his eyes.

“Don't worry about me, Mom. I'm fine.”

“I made lunch,” Justine announced to her mother. “Kailani helped me.”

“Oh?” Barbie asked, obviously uninterested. Justine seemed to brush off her mother's indifference; she helped herself to a large serving of salad and drowned it with mango dressing. “C'mon, Marcus. Have some. It's good.” Marcus took a helping of salad and several pieces of sandwich meat, then sat next to her.

Lars glowered at Barbie, his lips a thin white line. He took her arm and steered her away from the table, but his words were audible to the rest of us.

“Barbie, would you please pull yourself together? I know you're upset about your boyfriend, but you still have a family and your daughter is trying to talk to you.”

Marcus stopped chewing and looked down at his plate. Justine looked at me out of the corner of her eye. I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

Barbie stared at Lars. Despite the warm trade winds dancing lightly around us, it suddenly seemed very cold. “Have you no heart?” she asked him shrilly.

“I used to.” He turned and stalked back to his office. Barbie watched him go, her eyes flashing, then turned to the kids.

“Don't worry. Your father is just upset. I'm going back upstairs. Would you both come visit me this afternoon?” She turned without waiting for a reply.

Marcus and Justine looked at each other wordlessly. I didn't know what to say. I cleared my throat. “Justine, the cake should be cool by the time the lunch things have been cleared away. Would you still like to make the frosting with me?”

She stopped eating and tears began to roll down her cheeks. She shook her head as she ran from the lanai toward her room.

I looked helplessly at Marcus. He pushed his chair back. “I'll go talk to her,” he said in a gruff voice. He didn't look at me. I wondered if he was holding back tears of his own—tears of anger? Or fear? The events of the morning were starting to take their toll.

I
was cleaning the kitchen and preparing to make the frosting for Justine's cake when the police came looking for me.

I accompanied an officer to the family room, where they had apparently been questioning members of the household staff again. I took them through my actions that morning, once more leaving out the argument I had heard between Barbie and Lars the night before.

“Do you know the nature of the relationship between Dr. Fitzgibbons and Mrs. Jorgensen?”

I hesitated. “I'm not sure.”

“What do you understand to be their relationship?”

“Well, I have heard that they were having an affair.”

“Who told you that?”

“Akela, the housekeeper.”

“Do you know how long that had been going on?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you observed any behavior between Dr. Fitzgibbons and Mrs. Jorgensen that would support that rumor?”

I recalled seeing them eating dinner together in the small dining room and being convinced their relationship went beyond being friends. I related the incident to the officer.

“Thanks. Stick around. We may want to talk to you again later.”

“A friend asked me to go to dinner later tonight, after I've served dinner here. Should I stay?”

The officer shook his head curtly. “You're free to go out to dinner. Just tell the officer where you're going before you leave.”

* * *

I went looking for Justine. I knocked softly on her bedroom door. “Justine? I'm going to start the frosting now and I was wondering if you've changed your mind about helping.”

“No,” came the muffled answer from the other side of the door. I went back to the kitchen and made the frosting myself. Then I finished dinner preparations and went to my bedroom for a short nap. I was tired from all the drama and not sleeping much the previous night.

The family straggled in for dinner at different times. Marcus and Justine ate together. Lars took a plate to his office after the children had disappeared to their rooms once again. Barbie dragged herself into the kitchen after Lars had returned to his work. She had obviously been crying.

“How are you doing, Barbie?” I asked.

“Not very well, I'm afraid.”

“Can I get you something to eat?”

She nodded and turned around to go out to the lanai. I took her a tray with a small bowl of yogurt and honey and some sliced fruit and found her sitting at the dining table, her head resting on her arms. Her shoulders shook.

“Barbie?” I ventured softly. “Here. Eat this. It might make you feel a bit better.”

She looked up at me, miserable, her tearstained face sallow and pasty. “Have the police talked to you?”

“Yes.”

“Did they tell you anything? About how Doug died?”

“No.”

“They didn't tell me anything, either. I guess they have to wait and see what the medical examiner says.”

I nodded in silence. I fervently hoped Dr. Fitzgibbons had fallen, that he had hit his head on the ground and died that way. Accidentally. I turned and went back to the kitchen to wait for her to finish her meal. I felt a prick of guilt over leaving her alone with her pain, but it was uncomfortable sitting with her.

After a while I heard her chair scraping against the tiles. I waited a few more moments, then went to clear away her dishes. She had eaten almost nothing. I felt sorry for her.

I took my time washing the dishes, I think because I was putting off the moment I had to face Geoffrey and tell him that I did not want our relationship to continue. But I couldn't wait forever, so shortly after I cleaned up the kitchen I set out for Kona.

The sun had set, so there was no ocean vista to calm my mind as I drove. I found myself getting anxious and fidgety. My fingers tapped the steering wheel the whole way and I kept switching radio stations, not content to listen to any one song for more than a few seconds. My mind flitted from one scenario to another, worrying about how the conversation with Geoffrey was going to go.

But Geoffrey took the news better than I thought he would. We sat at a table overlooking the water, unable to see it, but listening to the waves crashing against the shore. The wind blew softly. It would have been the perfect setting for a date.

I told Geoffrey that I didn't think it would work out between us now that I was home. “We're just at different places in our lives,” I told him gently. “I'm home, where I want to stay. Your family and your business are in Washington, and it wouldn't be fair of me to expect you to leave all that behind to stay here.”

“I think I should be the one to decide whether I want to leave everything behind,” he answered.

“But you'll regret the decision to stay here. I know you will. Then you'll resent me for making you leave Washington. And I'll feel guilty, and then we'll both be unhappy. I can see it now.”

He sighed. “But what if I want to stay here?”

I looked at him, sitting across the table from me, his handsome face reflecting the candles on the table. “I just don't think I'm ready for anything serious right now. I just got back, started a new job—heck, maybe started on what could be a different career path. I'm just not ready for anything else. I don't feel that this is the right time to have someone else in my life. I'd feel selfish.”

“Okay, Kailani. I think I understand. Can we still be friends? I rented the condo for a month, so I'd like to stay and see what the island is like. Maybe we could get together sometimes, you know, just as friends.”

“That sounds good, Geoffrey.”

After our meal, which we finished eating in relative silence, we parted ways in front of the Kona Inn. He kissed me lightly on the cheek.

“Give me a call sometime if you feel like getting a drink or something,” he told me.

“I will,” I promised.

I waved to him as we went our separate ways. I should have felt sad, but there was a lightness in my heart that I couldn't ignore. Geoffrey and I weren't meant to be more than friends.

There was one officer still on duty when I got back to the Jorgensens' house. He stood by the breezeway as I walked into the house.

“Any word?” I asked him, fully expecting him to ignore me.

“The medical examiner put a rush on this because he's not sure the doctor's death was an accident. There was evidence that his death involved foul play.”

I was stunned. A chill went up my spine and my arms were suddenly covered in goose bumps. “They don't know that for sure, though, right?” I asked, hoping they were wrong.

“No, but they wouldn't put a rush on it if they weren't very suspicious. Goodnight, miss,” he said abruptly.
Maybe he wasn't supposed to tell me as much as he did.

I hurried along the hall to the lanai, then to my bedroom. I wanted to break into a run, but I forced myself to remain calm. When I got to my rooms, I locked myself in and made sure all the blinds were drawn. I scooped Meli up, hugging her to me while she tried to escape, bewildered by my behavior. She did eventually curl up with me in my den chair while I watched television for a while. There was really nothing on worth watching, but at least I felt like I had company.

My mind kept returning to Marcus and Justine. I was worried about them. I felt a certain protectiveness toward them because they sometimes seemed so alone in the world, but I didn't want them to suspect that Dr. Fitzgibbons may have died from something other than a simple accident.

I wondered if Barbie and Lars were aware of this development. I could imagine Barbie, crying alone in the master suite upstairs and Lars, sitting alone in his office, brooding.

Lars.
He would be viewed with suspicion, I was sure. He had known that Barbie and Dr. Fitzgibbons were more than just coworkers, and told Barbie as much. I didn't want to think that he had been involved in Dr. Fitzgibbons's death. I wouldn't speculate in that direction.

I thought again of the kids. Barbie and Lars and the police wouldn't be able to keep the secret of Dr. Fitzgibbons's death from them forever. I couldn't imagine the fear they would suffer upon learning that murder had visited their home.

I shook my head forcefully. I had to stop thinking such terrible thoughts. Nothing had been confirmed. Maybe the medical examiner was wrong.