Hula Done It? (14 page)

"ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?" I persisted. When he still gave no indication of hearing me, I turned back toward the front console. Ignoring the lure of the scenery for a moment, I glanced left and right for --

Aha! I grabbed a motion sickness bag from a pocket beneath the instrument panel and pivoted around to drop it onto Carl's lap. There might be a supply in the backseat, but if he kept his eyes shut, they'd be as useful to him as the Weight Watcher's point system. In fact --

I grabbed the rest of the bags and pitched them behind me, figuring he'd thank me when we landed. That Tommy Bahama shirt was probably dry-clean only.

"On the horizon is the famed Na Pali coast," James Earl announced in my ear. "An impenetrable expanse of valleys and four-thousand-foot cliffs, sitting cheek to jowl with the pounding surf." We swept out over the whitecapped ocean and looked northeast toward the successive waves of knife-edged rock that scalloped the towering cliffs. A petticoat of sea foam skirted the base of the cliffs, all swirly and frothy white. "The 1976 remake of
King Kong
was partially filmed in one of these valleys along the coastline," James continued. "Valleys with names like Koahole, Awaawapuhi, and Honopu."

We swooped toward the mainland like a pesky gnat, buzzing into the mouth of a primeval valley that looked like the land time forgot. Giant monoliths of stone, shaped like arrowheads and slick with centuries of moss, rose like skyscrapers before us. Lush greenery carpeted the valley floor. Boulder-strewn streams sliced mean paths through the terrain, seaming the land like permanent scars.

I took a panoramic shot of the arrowheads as we circled around the valley, but as we headed back out to sea, I heard a thump, felt a lurch, then tumbled against Shelly as the chopper pitched wildly to port.

"Mayday," Bogart fired into the mouthpiece on his headset. Shelly screamed as she slammed into the door. I struggled to push off her, but we were too far off-balance. I felt like a bug pinned to a display card; I couldn't pull myself upright.

"Mayday, mayday," Bogart repeated. Fighting the g force, I muscled myself high enough to peer into the backseat. My heart fluttered at the sight.

Carl lay in a huge, lifeless heap, all three hundred and sixteen pounds of him slumped against the window on the left side of the chopper, like a shifted load on a logging truck. He'd finally opened his eyes, but they were obviously blind to the sudden blur of scenery that whizzed past our windshield as we started plunging toward earth.

No! This was a mistake! Carl was the time bomb. His time was up, not mine! I exercised. I went to church. I ate my vegetables. THIS COULDN'T BE HAPPENING TO ME!

As Bogart fought to stabilize us, I clutched Shelly's arm and closed my eyes, suddenly realizing why this was happening.

My hair. It had to be my hair. My shorter, sassier, ridiculously expensive, frizz-free locks. No wonder this was happening -- God didn't recognize me!

"I was sure it was motion sickness," I confessed as I lobbed a stone over the edge of the bluff. It hit the rock-encrusted beach fifty feet below us and ricocheted toward the pounding surf.

Employing some pretty masterful maneuvers, Bogart had managed to set us down on the grassy headland at the valley's entrance, a fairly level plateau overlooking a cliff face of sheer rock. The helicopter had sustained only minor damage, but it wasn't going anywhere with Carl still in it. And neither were we.

"Cardiac arrest," Shelly countered as she lobbed her own stone over the side. "Or a brain aneurysm. I knew that guy spelled trouble from the get-go. The mouthy ones are always trouble." She spun around, shielding her eyes as she checked the sky. "That rescue copter sure is taking its time. I have a manicure scheduled for three o'clock. Look at this." She wiggled her fingers in the air. "I broke two nails on that wild-goose chase yesterday. I was terrified I was going to break another one today."

Shelly was happy she hadn't broken a nail. I was happy I hadn't broken my neck. This illustrated one of the great strengths of today's college coed. She could quickly suppress the trauma of a near-death experience to face the challenge of an even greater crisis: the unrepaired hangnail. Yes, today's collegians really had everything in perspective.

I tossed a look back toward the helicopter to find Bogart leaning against the body of the craft, carrying on an animated conversation by cell phone. I shook my head. "Bailey warned me about helicopters. Wait 'til she hears about this. She'll be
sooo
happy she opted for watercraft rather than aircraft today."

Shelly lifted her brows. "Are you friends with Bailey?"

"Passing acquaintances."

"You seem to know a lot about her, for being a passing acquaintance."

"I know enough to realize that, contrary to what Jennifer implied, Bailey is definitely warm-blooded. Or should I say, viviparous."

Shelly grinned. "Jen likes to throw out those ten-cent words when she's around civilians. Makes her feel intellectually superior." She dug the toe of her sandal into the turf. "I suppose you've guessed by now that Jen isn't a Bailey Howard devotee."

"Because of the honors board thing. Yeah, Bailey brought me up to speed about that."

"Well, Jen might not be one of my favorite people, but I can't blame her for feeling the way she does."

It was my turn to be surprised. "You don't think she should have been called on the carpet for cheating?"

"I'm not talking about the cheating allegations. If she did cheat, she deserved the punishment she got. I'm talking about the other issue."

Right. The other issue. "What other issue?"

She spent all of a nanosecond wrestling with the principles of ethics and confidentiality before filling me in. "This is Jen's take on the matter, not mine, okay? But according to Jen, Dori had something that Bailey wanted. Unfortunately, Bailey didn't have the patience to wait to come by it honestly, so she facilitated a way to acquire it more quickly. In the end, Bailey wins the ultimate prize, and Dori -- Poor Dori gets a one-way ticket to the great beyond."

I gave myself a mental V-8 Juice smack on the forehead. Oh, my God! Was she talking about the journal? Had Bailey wanted Griffin Ring's journal? "But...but...Bailey needed Professor Smoker to sign off on her dissertation. Why would she jeopardize all those years of study by killing him before she had her degree in hand? I mean, for all she knew, the journal could have been worthless. And then what's she left with? Absolutely nothing!"

Shelly frowned. "Journal? I'm not talking about a journal."

"Then what
are
you talking about?"

"She wanted his job!" Shelly looked shocked that I hadn't figured it out for myself. "She wanted to be at
his
desk, in
his
office, at
that
university. It was her main goal in life, or weren't you around her long enough to pick up on it?"

Why was this growing more confusing? I shook my head. "How can an unofficial Ph.D. who's completely green behind the ears expect to end up in the chair vacated by the world's leading expert on Captain James Cook? Come on. Talk about unrealistic expectations. That doesn't happen."

"Oh, doesn't it?" She flashed a smug smile. "Budget cuts. The administration would have to hire an assistant professor to replace Dori, because with all the belt-tightening that's going on, they wouldn't have the funds to hire a full professor. And Bailey has made quite the name for herself on the Captain Cook front, so she'd probably be a shoo-in, especially with her degree so near completion. The campus paper called her the 'best and the brightest' graduate student in the history department. The adjective they failed to include was 'most ambitious.'"

As the faint whir of rotor blades echoed in the distance, Shelly looked up and gestured toward a dark speck in the sky. "Our rescue copter. 'Bout time."

As the chopper approached and circled overhead, I had a numbing thought.

If what Shelly implied was true, I might have sent my little group off today in the company of a cold-blooded killer.

"S
ay 'ah,' " the emergency room doctor instructed, tongue depressor in hand. He looked pure Hawaiian and could have been the poster child for Coppertone tans, BioSilk hair care products, and Rembrandt tooth-whitening systems. Back home the doctors were walking advertisements for Rogaine, Dentu-Grip, and Dr. Scholl's Gel Insoles. They weren't so easy on the eyes, but their lack of movie star looks was a whole lot less intimidating.

"There's nothing wrong with my throat," I objected impatiently, my legs dangling over the edge of the examining table. "Look, my cruise ship leaves port in less than an hour, and if I'm not on it, I'll have to find my own way to Maui. They make that very clear in our travel documents. It's our responsibility to return to the ship on time, and if we're not aboard when the gangplank goes up, it's
adios muchachos."

"Aloha malihini,"
Dr. Akita corrected. "When in Rome." He waggled his tongue depressor again, unmoved by my appeal. I finally gave in and opened wide.

"Ahhhh."

He clicked on his Penlite. "You're right. There's nothing wrong with your throat." He pitched the wooden depressor and returned his Penlite to the pocket of his lab coat.

"My being here is a waste of your valuable time," I pressed on.

"Your helicopter crashed. It's protocol."

"It didn't crash, it was more like a hard landing. My traveling companion didn't even break a nail."

"Have you seen the edema over your eye?"

"Old injury. I did that yesterday."

He went through the mandatory routine of checking my heart and lungs and testing my reflexes, and when he was done, he scribbled something onto a clipboarded form, then turned back to me. "I'll sign your release and you'll be free to leave. I'll also have the front desk call you a cab. Lihue's impossible to get through at this time of day, so your taxi driver may have to gun it to get you back before your boat leaves."

He shook my hand and smiled. "By the way, I hope you're not prone to seasickness. The weather advisories are warning of a fairly significant squall forming southwest of here. If your next port of call is Maui, I'm afraid you may be heading right into it."

"A storm?" I sagged with relief. "Thank God! That'll give me more time to get back to Nawiliwili. The ship won't leave port if there's a storm brewing, will it?"

"Port is the worst place a ship can be during a storm. A vessel the size of your cruise ship is always much safer riding out a storm at sea."

"You're kidding, right?" The tidal wave scene from the
Poseidon Adventure
flashed before my eyes. The
Poseidon
hadn't been safe at sea; the
Poseidon
had gone belly-up five seconds into the movie and all the important cast members drowned!

Dr. Akita regarded me indulgently. "The most dangerous thing a ship can run into during a storm isn't wind, waves, or rain. It's land."

Land?
"But what about that old saying? 'Any port in a storm.'"

Dr. Akita grinned wryly. "I believe that applies mostly to birds."

Ten minutes later, I sat on a bench outside the emergency entrance, waiting for my taxi to arrive and trying not to freak out about having only forty minutes left before the
Aloha Princess
sailed into the sunset without me. With most people, disasters happened in threes. With me, they seemed to happen in twelves. Was it simply old-fashioned bad luck or one of those annoying quirks of the new math?

I lent a passing glance toward the sky, wondering if Carl had been transported back to Lihue yet. Our rescue chopper had dropped off the medical examiner and some other officials at the crash site, then flown Shelly and me back to the airport, where we were transferred to Wilcox Memorial Hospital. Shelly ended up getting released from the ER so fast that she popped into my cubicle to tell me she could probably still get her nails repaired, so she'd see me around.

I'd learned a few surprising facts about Shelly today. She could deck a horse in three seconds flat. She could shake off adversity like a dog shakes off water. She could ditch a friend in favor of a cheap manicure. I'd known other people like Shelly Valentine, and they all ended up the same way.

They really went places.

Come on, come on,
I willed the taxi. I slid to the opposite end of my bench to see around the ambulance that was partially blocking my view, then anxiously watched cars entering the long drive that fronted the hospital. I peeked at my watch, tingly warmth creeping up my throat as each second ticked by. Where was the freaking taxi?

The emergency room door slid open and two paramedics sauntered out, one lighting up a cigarette, the other waving a styrofoam cup in his hand. "It's a state park," the guy with the cigarette said. "The trails need to be marked better, and if they're not, we're going to be out there hauling more dead bodies to the morgue."

"They don't want to disturb the island's natural beauty by posting signs."

"Hey, I'm grateful for the work, but my overtime will kill them."

I spied a car with a roof light turning into the drive and popped up to get a better look.

"Kevin!" A woman in blue scrubs hurried out of the building to join the two paramedics. "What's this I hear about you taking a hike today? I've been telling you to do that for years."

The guy with the cigarette gave the woman a quick hug before tossing his stub to the ground and crushing it under his foot. "Must be a full moon. There are way too many weird things happening today. Did you hear about the copter crash on Na Pali? One fatality there. We're heading out to the airport right now for pickup and transport."

My ears perked up. They were talking about Carl. Oh, God.

"What about the one you just brought in?"

The car with the roof light drew close enough for me to read the writing on the plastic.
KAUAI CAB
. Yes! My taxi!

"DB on the trail in the state park."

"Accident?" asked the nurse.

I frantically flagged the cab down. I checked my watch. Thirty-five minutes and counting.

"Not likely," Kevin responded. "Head bashed in. No ID. What does that sound like to you?"

"The Tourism Board will be doing some fast talking about this one," the paramedic with the styrofoam cup chimed in. "Nothing stems the flow of tourist dollars like a violent death on a hiking trail."

I shivered at their conversation, suddenly glad to be leaving the "garden island."

"You my fare to Nawiliwili?" the cabbie asked, through his open window.

I nodded. "I have less than thirty minutes to catch the boat. Can you get me there in time?"

He grinned with the cool confidence of a man who lives for speed. "Piece of cake."

As I climbed into the backseat and slammed the door, the nurse's voice drifted toward me. "Did the CSU close the trail?"

"For a while, but it's probably open again by now."

"Which park was it? Polihale?"

"Wailua. The Secret Falls trail."

The Secret Falls trail?
A body had been found by the Secret Falls? But...but that's where Nana and the gang had been today. Oh, my God! What if the body belonged to someone I knew? What if --

My cabbie peeled away from the curb like a Grand Prix driver on a straightaway; tires screeching, rubber burning. Eh! I toppled onto my side in a tangle of arms and elbows, realizing that the gravitational pull of a nosediving helicopter was small potatoes compared to the g force produced by Hawaiian cab drivers. I forced my head up to read the identification card attached to the dash.

PIERO DONATI
.

Donati?
I dug my fingers into the back seat, holding on for dear life as we screamed around a corner on two wheels.
Thank you, Jesus!
There was no way I was going to miss the boat with this guy driving.

He wasn't Hawaiian.

He was Italian!

We roared into the cruise ship terminal with a full six minutes to spare. I tipped the driver handsomely, dashed through the terminal, flashed my ID at the computer security guy, then ran up the central staircase to deck seven. "Nana?" I yelled as I pounded on her cabin door. "Are you in there?"

Five seconds passed.

Ten.

More pounding. "NANA!"

The door opened a crack. Nana poked her eye into the gap and peered out at me like the mythological Cyclops. "You got anyone with you?"

"No, I'm by myself. Are you all right? I just heard about the --"

"You can come in, then." She opened the door another few inches, hauled me into the room, then slammed the door shut. "I woulda answered sooner, dear, but I had to clear me a path." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "We got company."

I looked beyond her and pressed a grateful hand to my chest when I saw who the company was. "Eh! Thank God you're all here! I was so worried!" I paused. "You
are
all here, aren't you?" I squeezed past Nana, maneuvering into the cabin so I could count all their fingers and toes. The Stolees. The Teigs. Lucille. Margi. Bernice. Alice. Tilly. They were bunched shoulder to shoulder on the sofa, on the beds, on the floor. I looked left and right. "Where's Osmond?"

I heard the resounding
whoooosh
of a toilet being flushed.

Okay, everyone present and accounted for.

"He's retaining water," Bernice nodded toward the bathroom, "so he's taking pills to get rid of it. He's become a human fire hydrant."

"Smokey the Bear should hire him to put out forest fires," Alice chimed in.

The bathroom door opened and Osmond appeared, adjusting his hearing aids as he stepped out. He regarded all the faces looking up at him and smiled perceptively. "Powerful suction, hunh? You want me to flush it again?"

"Oh, boy, you guys, I was really sweating it," I confessed as I dropped my shoulder bag to the floor and sank down cross-legged beside it. "Someone discovered a body on the trail to the Secret Falls today, and I was terrified it might be one of you."

"You always think the worst," said Bernice. "You're such an alarmist."

Life teaches us many lessons. One of the important ones it has taught me is never to take offense at anything Bernice Zwerg says.

"Was it a hiking accident?" Tilly asked.

"I overheard a grisly conversation describing the body, so it doesn't sound like an accident. Did any of you see anything? Were you anywhere near the trail when it happened?"

"I'm afraid we're not going to be much help to you, dear," Nana lamented. "We were on a trail, but it wasn't exactly the one to the Secret Falls." Ten sets of eyes telescoped roundly on Bernice.

"What?" she complained. "You didn't have to follow me. You could have gone the other way. What are you? A bunch of lemmings?"

"We didn't want you to get lost," Grace Stolee rationalized.

"Well, don't go pointing fingers at me," Bernice sniped. "Margi started it."

"I did not!" defended Margi.

"Did so!" said Bernice.

"No, suh."

"Yes, suh."

I looked from one woman to the other, wondering if it was possible for a Norwegian to win a Mexican standoff.

"All right!" Margi gave in. "Maybe I was partially responsible, but...I couldn't help it. Once I get started paddling in one direction, it's hard for me to change course."

No doubt about it, Margi had all the makings of a great political leader.

"But you headed down the wrong fork of the river," Dick Teig scoffed. "How come you didn't go the same way we went yesterday?"

"I thought it
was
the same way we went yesterday. It looked the same. Trees. Water. More trees. More water. How can you distinguish one way from another if everything looks alike?"

"Yeah," Dick Stolee agreed. "They could use better landmarks in this place. Signposts. Billboards. A few silos."

I rolled my eyes. "So did you come across anything on the right fork of the river that you didn't find on the left?"

Grins. Quiet sniggers. "We did find one thing of interest," Tilly said, dipping her head toward the opposite end of the room.

I followed her gaze to find a wooden box the size of a church hymnal sitting on the lighted vanity.

"It's constructed of teak," she continued. "One of the hardest and most durable woods known to man. Polished exterior. No nails. No hinges. No locks. It's the hardwood equivalent of a brick."

I nodded. "You found a wooden brick?"

Tilly smiled. "We found Griffin Ring's treasure."

"YOU WHAT?" I leaped to my feet and stumbled over a host of outstretched legs to reach the vanity. I peered down at the box, awestruck. "This is Griffin Ring's treasure?"

"Tilly thinks so," said Osmond, "but personally, I think it's a doorstop."

It was apple-peel smooth, dark and unblemished, the parallel striations in the wood grain its only decoration. "Can I touch it?" I asked, my hand hovering over the top.

"Go ahead," said Tilly. "Everyone else has."

I lifted the box into my hands and shook it slightly, my eyes widening when something rattled inside. "Oh, my God. There's something in here."