O'ahu Lonesome Tonight? (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series #5) (2 page)

“It is,” he
said. “So I guess you won’t be the only one going over there next week.”

“I’m already
not the only one.” I told him about Farrah winning the Royal Hawaiian weekend
from
Go Hawaii
.

“Wow, kismet,
right?” he said. “Is she taking anyone with her?”

“I don’t think
so, but I’m sure she only gets one room.”

“But you said
it’s a suite at the Royal Hawaiian. I’d rather be relegated to the floor of a
suite at the Pink Palace than stretched out on a king-size
Posturepedic
in some dumpy dive out by the airport.”

“You better
call and ask her. Last time we talked she was sounding a little ‘iffy’ about
flying.”

Steve called
Farrah right after dinner. After he hung up, he joined me in the living room.
As I’d feared, Farrah told him she’d decided she just couldn’t handle the plane
ride. But she was crushed she’d miss out on her weekend at the Royal Hawaiian.

“Okay,” he said
to me. “I didn’t say anything to her, but what about that guy friend of yours?
You
know,
the hunk with the hull?”

“Ono Kingston?
He’s got a catamaran, but it’s a tourist boat. And it’s not his. He can’t just
take a couple of days off and haul a friend of mine over to
O’ahu
.
He’s got to ask permission. And it’s a long ride.”

“So? Call and
see if he’ll do it. Offer him something.” In Steve’s world, everything’s up for
barter. He takes photos and gets paid in steaks. He does an emergency makeover
of a local bride’s hair and a year later she hires him to take baby pictures of
her newborn. I don’t know how he keeps track of it all, but he does.

“What should I
offer him?”

Steve wiggled
his eyebrows suggestively.

“No. I already
gave him the heave-ho. No way I’m going to trick him into thinking I’ve changed
my mind.”

“Then tell him
the truth. Maybe Farrah could trade him her plane ticket for a ride over.
Everybody needs to fly to a neighbor island at one time or another.”

“Not Farrah,” I
said.

“Yeah, but
Farrah’s in a league of her own. That poor girl never steps foot outside that
funky store.
Ever.
It might be a little awkward with
Ono, but she’s your best friend. Do it for her.”

“Let me think
about it.”

“I know you,”
he said. “
Let me think about it
means you’re
gonna
do it, right?”

I nodded. He
did know me. Unfortunately, he probably knew me a bit too well. But he was
right. Farrah deserved a break and I needed to make an effort to help her get
it.

CHAPTER 3

Early the next
morning I called Ono Kingston. “Talk about a blast from the past,” he said.
 “You probably won’t believe this, but I was just talking about you.”

 “Oh?” I
didn’t want to inquire further. Things had been left sort of chilly between us
when I’d chosen my cop-turned-firefighter boyfriend, Hatch Decker, over Ono.

“Yeah.
Tomika
called and asked me
to bring the boat over to Honolulu next weekend. She asked how you were doing.
Anyway, seems she offered a day sail up to her place at
Ko
Olina
as a prize in some charity fund-raiser. The
person who bought it wants to do it next Sunday.”

Okay, as Steve
would say, ‘kismet.’
Tomika
Fujioka owned the
catamaran Ono skippered. When she said
jump
, Ono didn’t even ask
how
high?
That’s not to say
Tomika
isn’t a nice lady.
She’s a very nice lady, and generous to a fault. But beyond being merely boss
and employee, Ono and
Tomika
have a bond forged by
overcoming a shared demon. There was nothing either of them wouldn’t do for the
other.

I told Ono
about Farrah’s dilemma and although he sounded a tad disappointed when I
explained I wouldn’t be making the trip with them, he agreed to meet her and
discuss it.

Farrah was more
wary.

“I don’t know.
Maybe the universe isn’t cool with me ditching work for four days,” she said.
“I mean, I can probably get Beatrice to come in and work. She’s got eight cats
now and
she’s always needing
more cat food. But I’ve
never dug boats. I mean, what if we end up like ‘Gilligan’s Island’ or
something?” Farrah lived in sort of a time warp of the sixties and seventies.
She’d been named for her dad’s favorite actress on the original ‘Charlie’s
Angels.’ And, since she worked until ten o’clock every night, the only TV she
watched was late night reruns of her parents’ favorite shows—things like ‘I
Dream of Jeannie,’ ‘Bewitched,’ and “The Addams Family.’

“I think if the
catamaran gets stuck anywhere between here and
O’ahu
it’s going to be on Moloka’i,” I said. “And, last I heard, they have cell phone
service over there. So, as romantic as it sounds, you can forget about getting
washed up on a deserted island with Thurston Howell the Third or the professor.
Although, come to think of it, I’ll bet Ono could make a radio out of a coconut
if he needed to.”

“Is it safe?”

“The sail to
O’ahu
?
Of course it’s
safe. I’ve done it.”

“That doesn’t
mean jack. You pay money to fight people. You, my dear girl, are not the best
judge of ‘safe’.”

“Farrah, I
haven’t been in a martial arts tournament in more than a year. Not because it’s
not safe, but because I’ve been kind of busy. But the federal government spent
a lot of money training me to keep people safe. I’d never try to convince you
to do something that would harm you.”

“But you want
me to fly in an airplane.”

“Flying is
extremely safe.
Really.
But if you don’t want to do
it, then try something else.
Like sailing.”

It went on like
that for longer than I’d hoped, but in the end, Farrah agreed to let me take
her down to
Lahaina
Harbor to meet Ono and check out
his catamaran.

***

The next day we
started for
Lahaina
right after the noon rush at the
store. Farrah left the store in Beatrice’s capable hands. But although Bea’s
seventy-year-old hands are capable, her hearing is not-so-much.

“We’ll be back
around four,” I told Bea while I waited for Farrah to come downstairs.

“Huh?
Something on the floor?
I don’t see
nothing
,”
she said, scrutinizing the worn planks of the plantation-era flooring.

“Not the
floor,” I said. “
Four
. Like four o’clock.” I pointed to the Felix the
Cat clock on the wall. Bea and I both looked over at the clock. Its tail wagged
back and forth marking the seconds.

“Yeah,” I said
waving my hand to get her attention. I held up four fingers. “Four. We’ll be
back by four.”

Bea mimicked my
four-fingered wave. “Okay, dear.
Fine by me to use the back
door.”

***

“I love your new
car,” said Farrah as I whipped my new Mini Cooper through the swerves of
Highway 30 on our way to
Lahaina
. “But why don’t you
put the top down?”

“It’s too
windy. When we get closer to town I’ll put it down.” I love the open
convertible at speeds under fifty. But any faster than that makes me feel like
a rotisserie chicken in a convection oven.

We pulled into
the
Lahaina
Harbor area and, wonder of
wonders,
I immediately found a parking spot.

Farrah turned
to me. “So, are you cool with Ono?  I mean, if he’s
gonna
go all harsh on you, I don’t think I want to—”

“Don’t worry.
He’s too much of a gentleman for trash talk. And besides, we’re good. Sometimes
it’s better to be long-time friends than short-time lovers. That’s how it is
with us.”

“So you guys
never did, uh, you know?”

“No, never.”

“Whew. That’s
cool. I was worried.
Nothing more downer than a dude with
unrequired love.”

“I think the
word is ‘unrequited’.”

“Yeah, whatever.
So, you think I’ll be chill riding on his
boat?”

“I’m not going
to lie to you, Farrah. It’s a full day’s sail to
O’ahu
,
and it can get kind of bumpy. But Ono’s an excellent captain.”

“Are you
disappointed in me?”

“Of course not.
Why would you even ask that?”

“Because
compared to you I’m a total
wuss
. I mean, you’re like
Wonder Woman brave. You do your kung
fu
and you
worked for Homeland Security and all that. What do I do? I run a gnarly grocery
store. You don’t need to be Brave Heart to card pimply dudes for beer.”

I took her
hand. “Look, you’re the most courageous woman I know. I can’t count the number
of times you’ve stuck up for me and gotten knocked around for it. You’re a lot
of things, Farrah, but ‘
wuss
’ isn’t one of them. Now
let’s go see a man about a boat.”

We walked to
the far end of the boat slips where Ono’s catamaran, the
Maui Happy Returns
,
was tied up. I had mixed feelings about being back there. I’d loved it when Ono
had taken me out on my first sail out of there, but I’d also had a pretty close
call right there on that very same dock.

When we got up
alongside the gleaming white hull Ono was standing at attention on the gangway.

“Hey,
stranger,” he said giving me a big hug as I came aboard. He reached to take
Farrah’s hand. “And you must be my new crew member. Welcome aboard.”

Farrah shot me
a look and froze.

“Farrah’s a
little nervous about this,” I said. “She’s worried you’ll want her to do stuff
she doesn’t know how to do.”

“Oh, I was just
kidding about you being crew,” he said. “I have to report you as a member of
the crew or it messes with my insurance. I take tourists out so my liability’s
pretty steep. They keep tabs on me.”

 Farrah
shot him a tentative smile and climbed aboard.

“Wow, this
boat’s so groovy,” she said.
“Beautiful wood.”
She
trailed a hand across the highly-polished teak hand rails.

“It is.
Pali
must’ve already told you it’s not mine. That’s why
I’ve got to go to
O’ahu
next weekend. The owner wants
me to haul some people out on a day sail.”

“
Mahalo
for offering to take me.
I’ve got to warn you, though. I don’t get out much. I’ve never been on a boat
ride that lasted more than an hour. And that was a long time ago.”

“That’s cool.
The ride to
O’ahu
can get a little rough, but I’ll
have you stay down here in the salon if it gets really
rockin
’.
It’s the most stable place on the vessel. If you look out the windows you
shouldn’t get seasick.”

At the mention
of the word,
seasick
, I saw a flash of worry in Farrah’s eyes.

“What if I get
sick anyway?” she said.

“No worries,”
said Ono. “We’ve all fed the fish one time or another.”

Farrah asked if
she could explore the rest of the boat and Ono nodded. “Let me know if you have
any questions.” She started down the ladder to go below deck. Ono turned to me.
“Wow, you didn’t tell me your friend was so beautiful. She’s got gorgeous
skin.”

I doubted it
was her skin he was really taken with. Farrah’s figure boasted some eye-popping
elements that even an
eighty
-dollar bra could barely
keep in check.

“Yeah, she’s
very pretty. She’s also my best friend.” I said it to put him on notice that he
better not try anything. It seemed he took it wrong.

“You got a
little green monkey whispering in your ear,
Pali
? I
never figured you for jealous.”

“I’m not. I
just want you to remember she’s—”

Farrah popped
up from surveying below decks. “You’ve got a really big bed down there! Way
cool. Do you live on this boat?”

“I do,” Ono
said. “I haven’t been a land-based life form for more than a year now.”

“Wow. That’s
bitchin’. I don’t know if
Pali
told you, but I live
where I work too. We’re like, the same.”

And then it
dawned on me. They were.

CHAPTER 4

I was leaving
for Honolulu in the morning but I still had to get through Friday’s wedding. I
arrived at the wedding site three hours early and everything was progressing
well. One-by-one the vendors showed up on time and everyone seemed to have
everything they needed. The bride and groom had opted to have their formal
photos taken the day before to avoid last-minute jitters. Now the ceremony was
about to begin and we’d encountered our first glitch: we had no best man. This
wasn’t the first time this had happened. Bachelor parties have a way of
incapacitating the most trustworthy of men, even grooms, but today the groom
was present and accounted for. It was the guy who’d agreed to stand up for the
groom, to hold the ring and sign the marriage certificate, who was missing.

“Would you like
to choose one of your groomsmen to stand in as best man?” I said to the groom,
Jake. Jake was a good-looking kid who normally sported a cocky grin, but he
wasn’t smiling now. We were in a back room of the community hall. In the main
room, four dozen guests were already seated. The low hum of whispers and
rustling alerted me that it was pretty certain everyone knew something was
amiss.

“No. Andy will
be here. He wouldn’t do this to me, or to Rebecca.”

We waited ten
more minutes and then I went to talk to the bride. She’d shooed her bridesmaids
out of the “bride’s room” and had asked them to wait outside in the vestibule.