Murder in Honolulu: A Skye Delaney Mystery (27 page)

Ridge's cell phone rang. He grabbed it from
his jacket pocket and gave me one of his excuse me smiles before
answering.

I watched as he listened mostly to the
caller. Ridge hung up with a grim look in his eyes.

"What is it?" I hesitated to ask.

Ridge swallowed hard as he muttered: "Kazuo
Pelekai was just found in his Lexus with half his face blown
off—"

CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR

He kissed her breasts. They were soft with
hard nipples.

His lips moved to her mouth, which was
waiting for him, attacking it with hot kisses as they had sex.

It was over in about five minutes. He spent
another half hour listening to her tell him how great it was.

Not for him. He could think of any number of
women he'd rather be with and who could satisfy him. One in
particular. But he could only play the hand dealt him, which at the
moment was putting up with the one he was with.

While she dozed off, the alcohol and sex
apparently making her tired, he grabbed the remote and cut on the
TV. He recognized the face that filled the screen.

He sat up and listened as the reporter said:
"Reputed crime boss Kazuo Pelekai, also known as Chano, was found
dead in his car last night. He was shot in the face at close range.
So far there are no leads or suspects—"

He grinned. No leads? No suspects?

Good, he thought. Keep them guessing.

As far as he was concerned, it was one less
person to pollute the streets of Honolulu.

Rest in a million pieces, Pelekai,
he
thought gleefully.

Suddenly, the one he was in bed with looked
inviting again. He woke her up and was all over her like a cheap
suit. He put his imagination in high gear and pretended she was the
sweet, sassy and sexy private investigator named Skye Delaney.

CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE

With Kazuo Pelekai dead, I was quickly
running out of suspects. At least living ones.

Not quite sure which direction to turn, I
showed up at Edwin Axelrod's home to pay my last respects. As might
be expected for a high-priced, shady lawyer, he lived in style. The
waterfront place on Diamond Head Road was two stories of slate
cement stucco with large, gabled windows. Unfortunately for
Axelrod, he couldn't take the elegant digs, expensive car, or money
with him. Presumably, that left it all to the wife.

I rang the doorbell. It was the lady of the
house herself who answered the door. I believe Ridge had told me
last night during our heated debate that her name was Isabella and
that she was indeed a fashion model, as I had once imagined. She
certainly fit the bill: beautiful, tall, and sleek. She was wearing
an outrageous floral print sheath and platform slides. Her long red
hair was draped over one shoulder and her bold blue eyes looked
swollen from tears.

She glared at me. "You! How dare you show up
at my house!"

My guess was that she remembered our brief
meeting at her husband's office. And yet I sensed there was much
more to her hostility.

"I think there's been a mistake..." I told
her and waited to see what came next.

"You're damned right," she blasted, her
voice coming alive, "and
you
made it when you started
sleeping with my husband!"

"Now wait just a minute—" I said and
actually felt some relief that her anger was misplaced. "I don't
know who you think I am, but I guarantee you I wasn't your
husband's mistress. I'm a private investigator—"

Isabella Axelrod sighed while checking me
out. She seemed less interested in my casual outfit of shirt and
shorts than my overall physical appearance in deciding if I fit the
bill as the possible mistress. Evidently she knew her husband was
fooling around, if not with whom.

A moment or two passed before she asked
suspiciously: "What do you want?"

"I'm investigating the death of Carter
Delaney," I told her. "He was..."

"I know who he was," she interjected.

In that case, I got right to the point. "I
think his murder might somehow be connected to your husband's
death—"

Isabella stared at me for a full minute
before saying: "Come in."

I was led through the foyer to a spacious
living room filled with traditional furnishings and exotic art. A
carafe of brandy sat on a table beside a half-filled glass.
Isabella picked it up and sipped mechanically.

"Would you like some?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No thanks. I need to keep
a clear head during my investigation."

She shrugged and sat on the sofa, folding
her legs beneath her. I took the liberty of sitting in the chair
closest to me.

"They said it would never work," she said
reflectively. "A young, good-looking runway model and an older,
handsome criminal defense attorney. I mean, what did we have in
common, right? Well, we proved them wrong—at least in the
beginning..." She wet her lips with brandy.

My insatiable curiosity about people and
places from all walks of life prevented me from saying do us both a
favor and keep your personal trials and tribulations to yourself.
After all, I knew a little something about becoming involved with
the wrong man who seemed right at the time. Obviously, it helped
her to have someone to talk to about this.

"I'm a very jealous woman," Isabella freely
admitted. "I've been with men who had other women hanging all over
them. I couldn't deal with it. Edwin knew this when we got married.
All I ever wanted from him was to be honest with me...no secrets
and no affairs. I deserved to be respected. Having very different
careers and working hours made it easy for him to cheat on me. I
actually thought our love and trust would keep him faithful." She
laughed cynically and sipped her drink. "Then I overheard Edwin on
the phone one day talking to some bitch who talked about how good
he was in bed. I wanted to kill him—and her!"

It was a feeling I could very much relate
to—at least in theory, I thought. I hoped that was the extent of
her pain and resentment as well.

"Edwin swore to me it was over," Isabella
continued, "and I believed him." She sneered. "What a fool I was to
think that he was any different from other men who only cared about
what was in their pants—"

"Maybe he was telling the truth—about it
being over," I offered, trying to give Edwin Axelrod the benefit of
the doubt for her sake.

"When I saw you at his office, I thought you
were the bitch he was sleeping with." She gazed at me with
lingering suspicions. "Of course, he denied it. Then you show up
here today now that Edwin's dead. What else could I think?"

"I'm very sorry about your husband's death,"
I told her compassionately. "I went to see him regarding the case
I'm working on."

Her eyes narrowed. "What did Edwin have to
do with the death of Carter Delaney?"

I had to be careful here. Both men were
dead. There was no reason to bring more pain to the living if it
could be avoided. Yet I couldn't escape the thought that these
deaths were related in some way.

"One of your husband's clients was a man
named Kazuo Pelekai," I said. "He was found dead last night in his
car—the apparent victim of foul play. Before that, he was being
investigated by the P.A.'s office for everything from drug
trafficking to the murder of Carter Delaney..." I shifted my body
and looked at her face. "I think your husband may have put himself
in danger by working for Pelekai—"

Isabella's lower lip trembled. "Are you
saying Edwin was killed by this man...Pelekai?"

"Or maybe one of his associates," I
suggested, feeling there was no other way to put it. "I believe
there's a good possibility that your husband's doings may not only
have cost him his life, but Carter Delaney's as well."

Isabella frowned and drank more brandy. "I
once told Edwin his drive and ambition would get him killed," she
said, teary-eyed. "But I was only kidding—"

"The police think your husband's wound may
have been self-inflicted—" I told her frankly, noting that a gun he
owned was found near the body.

"No way—" she insisted. "Edwin was
not
suicidal. He wouldn't have taken his life—not without
any warning..."

Maybe you just didn't know your husband
as well as you think you did
, I mused, immediately realizing
the irony of that thought, as I had apparently fallen into the same
trap with Carter.
Join the club.

But that hardly meant I believed Axelrod
killed himself any more than I believed Carter had, even though it
appeared that they had.

If Isabella Axelrod knew anything more, she
was in no condition or frame of mind to divulge it. I left her to
her mourning and went from one recent widow to another.

* * *

I caught Darlene just as she and Ivy were
leaving the house in what appeared to be a big hurry. Darlene was
carrying a duffel bag that looked overstuffed. I honked my horn to
get their attention. It did, and probably the whole neighborhood as
well.

I wasn't about to let Darlene skip town
before this thing had been resolved.

"Going somewhere?" I asked, placing myself
between them and the BMW.

"Skye," Darlene said in a jittery voice.
"What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you." It seemed obvious
enough to me.

"What for?" she asked innocently.

I looked at Ivy, who smiled up at me as her
pigtails bounced against her ears. It was my first good look at the
little girl who, under vastly different circumstances, could have
been my own.

I smiled back just as her mother said: "This
is my daughter, Ivy—"

"Hi, Ivy," I said sweetly, trying to hide
the awkwardness I felt and Darlene was no doubt enjoying. Ivy had
Carter's eyes and smile as well as a more dainty version of his
nose.

"Skye is someone your father knew a long
time ago," Darlene told her, making me seem older than I was. I
wondered if Carter had ever planned to tell his daughter about our
life together as husband and wife that had once been just as
important to him. Or had he planned to pretend that part of his
history never existed, except for when it suited him to
remember?

"Hi, Skye," Ivy said politely.

I looked at Darlene and said: "I need to
talk to you about a certain defense attorney—"

Her brow creased with uneasiness. "Wait in
the car for me, honey," she told Ivy. "I'll be just a few
minutes—"

I watched Carter's daughter skip to the BMW
as if not a care in the world, and couldn't help but wonder what
this entire mess would do to her over the long haul. Particularly
as she learned more about her father—and mother.

Speaking of which, Darlene looked about as
fearful as I had ever seen her. "I heard about Edwin," she muttered
while moving away from the car toward the house. "It's starting to
get creepy. I'm mostly scared for Ivy. That's why I'm taking her to
stay with my sister for a while—"

"Do you know anyone who would want to kill
Carter, Kalolo, and Edwin?" I asked point-blank. Not to mention
Pelekai, I thought.

She sighed. "I've thought about it. But I
honestly can't say anyone comes to mind who would have reason to do
such a thing."

"Were you still seeing Edwin Axelrod after
Carter died?" I asked, locking eyes with her in assessing whether
or not there were possibly further implications from the
affair—such as murder.

Darlene flashed me an annoyed look.
"Absolutely not!" she said. "We both agreed it was best to end it
as quietly and painlessly as possible."

"Did anyone else know about your
affair?"

Darlene fluttered her lashes. "You mean like
his wife?"

"I mean anyone," I reiterated, as the
reporter Liam Pratt came to mind.

She pursed her lips and said: "Just you—"
She paused and added: "It wasn't exactly something to brag
about..."

I considered that maybe I was way off base
here. Despite Darlene being the common link between the victims,
each could have easily died independent of one another. But did
they?

I asked her: "Did Axelrod ever ask you about
Carter the businessman...or former prosecutor?"

Darlene stared at the question before
responding. "He might have. Why?"

"Did you ever give him any information you
had on Kazuo Pelekai?" I asked.

Darlene shot me a cold stare. "Are you
suggesting Edwin was using me to get information from my
husband?"

I nodded. "It's a very good possibility," I
told her.

She did not take the news well. "Look,
Carter and I may have had our problems—okay, we had some big
problems—but I would never have sold him out by giving away any
tidbits concerning his professional life, past or present. Besides,
Carter didn't believe in bringing his work home—figuratively or
literally. And I never encouraged it."

"I had to ask," I said, giving her the
benefit of the doubt.

She studied me. "Why?"

"Because people are dying all around us,
Darlene," I pointed out, "and I have a vested interest in making
sure that
we
don't end up on that list, too—"

That was at least partially true. The other
part had to do with solving Carter's murder—the first murder that
tied us together. I was pretty sure Darlene knew more about it than
she was letting on.

She sighed and said: "I made a mistake—maybe
a few—and I'll pay for it for the rest of my life. But I never
knowingly did anything that I thought might get Carter or anyone
else killed."

Knowingly?
I thought. What about
unknowingly? I couldn't help but wonder.

I told her: "It's probably a wise move to
get your daughter out of harm's way. And if I were you, I think I'd
seriously consider hiring a body guard, just until you can be sure
you're not on someone's hit list."