Vacations Can Be Murder: The Second Charlie Parker Mystery (17 page)

Without too much difficulty, I managed to
follow the loop around that led me to the main airport parking
area. A flimsy yellow automatic arm stopped me from entering the
lot. I pulled a ticket from the machine, and the arm obligingly
raised to admit me.

I parked three rows in, and found my way to
the crosswalk which was supposed to get me safely across four lanes
of traffic. Luck was with me, and I spotted a traffic officer who
was wearing the same HPA uniform as the gate guards.

He was considerably more on the ball than his
senior counterpart, and directed me to the security office.

Inside, a pear-shaped female officer sat
behind a scuffed metal desk. The back legs of her metal chair were
firmly planted on the linoleum floor, the chair back resting
against the wall. I could see a long metal-colored mark on the
paint indicating that this was a common position here. My sixth
grade teacher, Mrs. Singer, would have rapped her knuckles with a
ruler for that.

Her blue and gray uniform might have fit
correctly once, about three children ago. Now it was stretched
across her bulging mid-section in imminent danger of splitting at
the seams. Her body tapered inward at the top, making her average
sized breasts appear proportionately small.

Her long dark hair had been pulled back from
her face, and twisted into an elaborate knot on top of her head.
Two lacquered chopsticks skewered the knot in place somehow. I
puzzled over this for a minute, wondering if it was painful. Three
plumeria flowers stuck out from behind her right ear, perfuming the
air in the small office.

I had caught her in the middle of a phone
conversation, but she didn't let it bother her. I stood at the
counter while she continued to commiserate with someone named
Tessie whose husband, Keoki, slapped her around from time to time.
Neither of them appeared to regard this as particularly critical.
It was just something that Tessie didn't like very much.

I eavesdropped shamelessly while I checked
out the surroundings.

The room was about fifteen feet wide by maybe
twenty-five deep. A formica counter split the space, and there were
two metal desks behind it. The unoccupied one was piled high with
folders and a scattering of loose memos. A short stack of unopened
mail sat precisely in the center. The name plate facing me
indicated Mr. Keala occupied this desk. Two gray file cabinets
behind the desk had the locks pressed in.

Apparently, he was the busier of the two.

By contrast, the desk occupied by the woman
was almost clear. A coffee cup with red waxy smears around the rim,
and a pack of Virginia Slims were the only evidence I could see of
work in progress. Her stapler, tape dispenser, calculator, and
phone were all neatly aligned around the edges of the desktop.

Posters on the walls behind her conspicuously
detailed her rights under the Federal Wage and Hour Law and OSHA
safety standards. On my side of the room, the posters were meant to
inspire, with slogans such as "Security is Everybody's
Business."

After ten minutes, I was tired of hearing
Tessie's woes. I cleared my throat and glanced at my watch.

"Hold on a minute, Tess," the officer told
her friend. She held the phone against her shoulder, and raised her
eyes to me.

"Can I help you?" she asked, in a tone that
said my business better be urgent.

I was beginning to see why Drake said most
people moving here from the mainland soon go nuts or go back. These
people had no concept that a fast lane even exists, much less what
it might be like to live there. Trying to accomplish even the
simplest tasks felt like living in one of those slow moving dreams
where you're walking through an atmosphere as thick as gel.

"I need to know some information about the
guard's work schedule," I told her. "Specifically, which guard was
working the gate near the helicopter maintenance hangars last
Friday night around ten p.m."

"Who's asking?" She narrowed her eyes
suspiciously.

I opened my wallet, flashing my driver's
license toward her. If she wanted to question it, she was going to
have to move her fat ass out of the chair.

"Tess, I'll call you back," she said to the
phone.

Tipping her chair down in slow motion, she
rose to approach the counter. Her name tag told me she was
Beatrice.

"Now, what exactly is it you want?" she
asked.

I thought I had been fairly specific, but I
repeated the request.

"I don't know," she said. "I probably better
check with a supervisor before I give out that kind of information.
That's Mr. Keala. He won't be back until Monday."

Four more days. No way I was going to let
this lady stall me that long. I gritted my teeth to keep my
impatience from showing.

"Beatrice," I smiled, trying a different
tactic, "I really started out all wrong with you, didn't I? First
off, I should apologize for interrupting your phone
conversation."

She was still wary, unsure whether I was
being serious or facetious.

"You and Tessie obviously have some important
things to discuss. If I had the name I need, I could get out of
your way, and you could resume your conversation."

She narrowed her eyes, probably wondering if
I would turn her in to the supervisor.

"Actually," I continued, "maybe you and
Tessie would rather keep your conversation private. Discuss this,
say, over lunch? In fact, since I interrupted the conversation,
maybe I could treat the two of you to lunch?"

I pulled a twenty out of my purse.

A black three-ring binder appeared from under
the counter as if by magic. She flipped through a couple of sheets
to locate the correct date. I wrote down the name her index finger
pointed at. Willie Duran.

"When is Willie working next?"

She flipped forward one page. "Tomorrow. Same
gate, seven to three."

"Have a nice lunch," I said, sliding the
twenty across the counter.

Stepping out of the air conditioned office,
the humidity hit me again like a blast. The four lanes outside the
terminal were jammed with cars. The combination of exhaust fumes
and flowers made my throat want to close up.

The front of the terminal was completely open
to the street so I stepped inside, hoping to get a little distance
from the cars. I found pay phones near the Hawaiian Airlines ticket
counter. One stall actually had a phone book intact.

There were two Willie (not William) Durans
listed. Senior and Junior. I wrote them both down. I'd try Junior
first. The address given was on Kuamoo Road (pronounced
koo-ah-mo-oh according to my guidebook).

In Hawaiian, each vowel forms a separate
syllable, and they are always pronounced one way. Unlike English,
which must confuse the hell out of people trying to learn our crazy
language.

The street maps in the front of the phone
book showed Kuamoo to be between the towns of Lihue and Kapaa,
maybe five miles or so from the airport.

I paid the parking attendant my fifty cents,
and headed back out Ahukini Road to Kuhio Highway. Past the golf
course, and just over the Wailua River, I saw the turn.

Now I recognized it as the same way I had
come with Drake to his house. Kuamoo took me through part of an old
coconut plantation and some low-lying fields flooded with water. I
wondered whether they grew rice or taro there. I'd have to ask
Drake.

The road began to climb, taking me past a
large waterfall. A parking lot beside the road was crowded with
tourists, who wandered to a lookout point, and aimed their cameras
toward the waterfall.

Beyond the fall, the area turned residential.
I began to watch addresses. I passed the turnoff to Drake's place
before the numbers started to get close to the one I was looking
for. I slowed down, risking the wrath of a black pickup truck
behind me who was inches from my bumper.

Finally, I spotted the number I was looking
for. There were two houses on the lot. A two-track dirt lane at the
edge of the property took me to the back one.

The square wooden house had once been painted
brown. Where the paint had chipped away, the wood beneath was
weathered gray, giving the structure a mottled appearance, like a
toad with a skin condition. Blotches of rust stained the corrugated
metal roof like some giant bird had flown by and done its
thing.

A shiny new four-door blue Honda with a child
seat in back sat near the front door. I parked beside it.

Ti plants grew in a scraggly line along the
front of the house, providing the only attempt at landscaping. A
banana plant near the front steps leaned precariously, laden with
an almost ripe head of bananas.

The grass immediately around the house had
been mowed, the effort ending abruptly about twenty feet out. A
Ford van, apparently not operational, was parked against one side
of the building. I noticed the mower had detoured around it,
leaving grass over a foot tall growing around its tires.

A generic dog of possible beagle/pit bull
ancestry trotted out to my car, and lifted his leg on the back
tire. His territory thus established, he seemed friendly enough. I
got out, and approached the house. The dog ignored me, finding his
way to a shady spot under the banana tree.

It was then I noticed the young woman
watching me. Standing behind the brownish screen door, I hadn't
seen her. I wondered if she had watched me drive up. She held an
infant balanced on her hip. The baby was trying to stuff fistfuls
of the woman's hair into his mouth. She didn't seem to notice. I
approached the door, and caught the strong scent of diapers.

"Hi, I'm looking for Willie Duran," I
said.

Her eyes narrowed, suspicious of my motives.
"He's not here."

"Do you know when he might be back?"

She made no move to open the screen door.
Beyond it, I could see that a toddler had a tight grip on her leg.
I tried to see into the dim house without appearing to stare. The
TV was turned up loud, Oprah announcing that her guests today would
be victims of lesbian sexual assault. As intriguing as that
sounded, I turned my attention back to my hostess.

"Are you Mrs. Duran?" I asked, attempting to
get
something
out of her. She nodded. "I don't know when he
be back. He go out for beer." In pidgin, it sounded like be-ah.

"Does he work at the airport?"

"Yeah, but he no work today. Tomorrow."

"Okay, I'll catch him later."

I jumped at the sound of a shriek behind
me.

Two more children, boys no more than three or
four years old, rounded the house, and disappeared around the other
side.

I looked back at the woman. She didn't look
more than twenty or twenty-one. She had probably been a cute little
thing in high school. Her face showed good bone structure and nice
eyes, but her body had rounded out. She wore a faded purple t-shirt
with a black Local Motion logo on it, and stained white shorts.
There was a large spot of grease or spit-up over her right breast.
She had a hickey on her neck the size of a quarter.

What a life.

I decided not to leave my card. I didn't want
Willie to have time to think about what he'd say to me. Not being
familiar with the good ol' boy network here, I couldn't be sure he
and Joe Esposito weren't golfing chums at the same country
club.

I got back into my car, and fitted the key
into the ignition. As I backed out, the two little boys reappeared,
each carrying two yellowish fruits about the size of tennis balls.
They giggled and tried to hurl their ammunition at my car.
Fortunately, a three year old's range is only a couple of feet.

It was not quite four o'clock, and the dark
clouds we had seen earlier had moved inland, leaving this side of
the island in bright sunshine. Maybe I'd just go back to the hotel,
and lay around the pool for an hour or so. I'd still have time to
shower and dress for dinner that night with Drake. He had mentioned
wanting to take me somewhere nice.

Thirty minutes later, I was again making the
rounds of the lounge chairs surrounding the pool. I had brought my
notebook along, thinking I would read back over my notes. Possibly,
a new inspiration might hit me.

"Hi, Charlie!" The female voice came from my
left, as I circled the pool, and I turned to see who it could
be.

It was Susan Turner, looking tanned and fit,
stretched out on her stomach. She patted the empty lounge chair
next to her. She was not exactly my idea of great company, but what
the hell, maybe I could learn something new about Gil from her.

I felt decidedly flabby as I settled into the
chair. Susan's lime-green bikini left absolutely nothing to the
imagination. The top appeared to be nothing more than a band of
stretchy cloth, pinched together in front between her breasts,
which, from this angle, looked ready to spill over the top. The
bottom of the suit was a G-string, leaving both buns fully exposed.
She had the firmest looking glutes I'd ever seen. Her skin was the
color of caramel, without a tan-line showing anywhere.

She swung her long legs around, and sat up.
At least I didn't have to talk to her rear end.

I noticed that her every move attracted quite
a lot of male attention, which did nothing to bolster
my
confidence. I kept my T-shirt on. I didn't need to be marked as
inferior goods in the little comparison shopping game that was
going on.

She offered me a pineapple daiquiri. She had
two of them on the table beside her chair, one still untouched.
They had been sent over by admirers. I declined, having no desire
to hang around for Susan's leftovers, either drinks or men.

"One last afternoon of sun," she said,
stretching luxuriantly. "I can't wait to get out of here tomorrow,
though. Hopefully, I can turn the car in early. My flight out is at
eight in the morning."