Death in Paradise Read online

  When Pua arrived, and saw Sam and Jessica sitting on the swing together, she noticed something was going on between the two of them. Jessica had a glow to her face that Pua had not seen in years. And Sam, well–grinned like a Cheshire cat.

  * * *

  At the second property, Sam and Jessica stood on the lanai and leaned on the rail, and took in the magnificent view of Keauhou Bay. They watched the warm tropical ocean lap at the shoreline, as yellow tangs swam by the front of the estate.

  “Which place do you like better?” Sam asked. “The coffee farm was nice and the view of the entire coastline was spectacular. But the view here is also spectacular, and you can be in the water in seconds, just like at Aloha Village.”

  Jessica’s face lit up as she pointed toward a low-flying pueo over the bay. “There’s your answer. The owl is sacred in Hawaiian culture. It’s an omen.”

  It was clear to Sam she liked the place on the water better. He decided, at that moment, that he would make an offer. Now if he could just get over his fear of sharks, he might consider swimming in the bay.

  Pua interrupted their private moment. “What do you think Sam?”

  “Make a full-price offer.”

  “Okay, but there’s something you need to know that just came to light. When I was in the house on the phone a minute ago, I was talking to the seller’s agent and she told me that there’d been an offer made about 10 minutes ago.” Sam didn’t bat an eye. “Call her back and tell her whatever the offer from the other side is, we’ll top it by hundred thousand dollars.”

  Pua frowned. “I’m told the seller accepted the offer.”

  Sam didn’t like being told he couldn’t have something. “Tell the seller’s agent that I’ll pay the buyer a hundred thousand to walk away, and I’ll give the seller a hundred thousand more than the offer they accepted.”

  “I’ll make the offer,” Pua said. As she turned and smiled knowing it was a done deal.

  19

  Uncle Jin

  Uncle Jin Tanaka was the boss of the yakuza in Hawaii. He was a major reason Jessica had moved to the mainland twenty-one years ago to continue her career in law enforcement. It would have been impossible for her to remain on the job in Kona because of her sense of duty.

  The police suspected Uncle Jin was responsible for a majority of the organized crime in the Hawaiian Islands. She knew a lot of cops who looked the other way when it came to the yakuza and family, but she would not be one of them. She didn’t like the thought of being under constant scrutiny, with half of her family being Japanese gang members—or the prospect of having to arrest one of them someday.

  It was quite the family tree. On her father’s side, federal agents and cops, and on her mother’s side, Japanese gangsters. It always made for interesting conversation at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

  Both federal and state law enforcement agencies suspected Tanaka of having ordered half a dozen murders in Hawaii over a thirty-year period. But many people thought of him as a humanitarian as he supported various local charities and causes. He was a pillar of the community on both Oahu and the Big Island because of his contributions over the years according to local civic leaders—at least, the ones he hadn’t tried to extort money from. Half the people who knew him thought he was a saint, and the other half suspected he was the devil himself.

  The FBI had tried for years to get enough evidence against Tanaka to go to trial, but they could never infiltrate the yakuza. And since the murders were of some of Oahu’s most unsavory characters, the cops had done the minimum amount of investigation and called it a day so they could move on to more pressing issues–like seat belt enforcement.

  Pua picked up Uncle Jin at the airport just as she had every other Saturday for the last two years and brought him to her house, where Jessica waited. Kainoa loved his uncle and looked forward to his frequent visits, especially since his father had long since abandoned him. Uncle would take Kainoa to the beach, where they would play in the surf for hours and then get shave ice.

  Kainoa was excited as always to see Uncle Jin and ran up and gave him an enormous hug, when he walked in the door with Pua. “Go beach, Uncle?” he asked with a huge smile on his face.

  “Soon. I have to talk to your Auntie Jessica first.”

  Kainoa’s smile melted as Pua grabbed his hand and led him back to his bedroom. She didn’t know what Uncle wanted to talk with Jessica about, and she didn’t want to know.

  Jessica sat at the kitchen table, sipped coffee, and watched him–she didn’t say a word. Uncle Jin filled a cup of his own and sat down across from her.

  They stared at each other for a moment before she asked, “So what do you want to talk about?”

  He smiled. “That’s what I love about you, kid. You get right to the point. So I’ll do the same. You have a problem.”

  “Yeah, I know—you for a relative,” Jessica snapped back.

  Uncle Jin ignored her comment. “The governor and the Triads are planning to take control of Aloha Village.”

  “How?” Jessica asked.

  “My source tells me Governor Fitch is looking to take the resort by eminent domain if you refuse Lau’s next offer.”

  Jessica took a sip of her coffee and studied Jin’s eyes as she swallowed the hot liquid before asking, “Why are you telling me this, and why do you care?”

  “Because the Triads are trying to take over Hawaii, and we can’t let that happen.”

  “We?”

  “Like it or not, we must work together to fight the Triads and the governor. I’ve heard rumblings that the Chinese government is behind them and may have plans for Hawaii.”

  Jessica pulled a piece of gum out of her purse and bit down on it. “Me, work with you, the yakuza? Remember the last time that happened? You went to prison. And do I need to remind you that my father’s side of the family puts your side of the family in jail for a career?”

  Uncle Jin smiled. “I know that. I also know you held back in court. Or else I’d still be in prison.”

  “Let’s just say grandfather kept you from getting a life sentence. And if there ever is a next time, you’re getting the max if it depends on my testimony.”

  Uncle Jin Studied his niece's face for a moment and then nodded and continued, “If the Triads and the governor get their way Kona, as we know it, will cease to exist. There only needs to be one Waikiki in Hawaii and the Big Island will eventually look like Honolulu if they get their plans approved.”

  Uncle Jin took the last sip of his coffee, got up from the table and walked over to the sink to rinse the cup.

  “As much as I’d like to save Hawaii from the Triads and its governor, I don’t have time. I’m more interested in finding out who killed my father.”

  Uncle Jin ignored Jessica’s sarcasm and looked out the window over the kitchen sink at the ocean as he spoke. “I’m almost sure Lau gave the order to sabotage your father’s airplane.”

  “How do you know? Do you have any evidence?” Jessica’s posture straightened.

  “One of my people works at the airport and saw Woo Ching come out of your father’s hangar the night before he crashed his plane.”

  Jessica said nothing. She sat there and stared at her uncle and wondered how much of what he said was true. What was really in it for him? There was no love lost between him and her father. She doubted he cared one way or the other about her father’s death–or her, for that matter.

  Her father and Uncle Jin weren’t enemies—Mike was the only Murphy who hadn’t been in law enforcement. But just the same, they weren’t friends either. It was Uncle Jack that Jin hated. He was the one responsible for sending Jin to prison. Unlike Jessica, Uncle Jack had done his best to lock up Uncle Jin for as long as possible. Now that Uncle Jack was living in Kona, Uncle Jin kept a low profile when he came to the Big Island and saved all his nefarious activities for Oahu. He only came to Kona to act as a big brother for Kainoa and check on a couple of businesses he owned in town that were fronts to laund
er money.

  The thing about Uncle Jin was that he had respect for the old Hawaii that Mike Murphy had fought hard to protect from mainland developers and people like Lau. He also was no fan of Governor Fitch, who he had been paid off for years to leave the yakuza alone on Oahu. If he could get Lau put away for Mike Murphy’s murder, that would be one less competitor in the crime world of Hawaii. And if he could get Jessica to do all the work, that would be even better.

  “Okay, Pua, were done,” Jessica called out.

  Pua and Kainoa returned to the kitchen just as Uncle Jin and Jessica were walking toward the front door.

  “Which beach are you guys going to?” Pua asked Uncle Jin.

  “The Ming,” he answered.

  “Their beach sucks. Why are you going there?”

  Jessica interjected, “He’s going over there to mark his territory.”

  Pua shook her head. “I should’ve known.”

  Uncle Jin said nothing, but grinned as he grabbed Kainoa’s hand to leave.

  "Hey, Uncle, have him home by six, okay?" Pua said. Uncle Jin waved his hand as he got into his car.

  “Did you two have a good talk?” Pua asked.

  “Not so much good–as very interesting,”

  Jessica replied, as she watched the car until it turned at the corner down the street.

  After Uncle Jin and Kainoa had left, Pua came back inside the house and joined Jessica at the dining room table.

  “We should go diving tomorrow morning. The surf is flat and visibility should be good.”

  Jessica nodded and said, “That sounds like a good idea if you feel like you’re up for it.”

  “Right now I’m between chemo sessions and I feel pretty good, so let’s do it. And besides, my doctor said whenever I can spend time in the ocean swimming is good exercise. And hopefully we’ll see dolphins.”

  20

  Puako

  It was 6:30 a.m. when Jessica arrived at Pua’s house; she was still half asleep and Pua was buzzing with excitement. “We’ll stop at the dive shop and pick up two tanks, then head up to Puako, if that sounds good to you.” Jessica nodded as Pua handed her a cup of coffee before they climbed into Pua’s truck.

  Red and pink sun rays filled the sky over Mount Hualalai as the sun rose behind the mountain. It was a gorgeous morning, Hawaiian slack key guitar music filled the cab of the Toyota Tacoma as they cruised into town to pick up their scuba tanks.

  After a brief stop in town, the sisters cruised north on the Queen K Highway, as the locals liked to call it, to one of their favorite dive spots in Puako.

  After about twenty miles, Jessica asked Pua, “What happened to all the coral graffiti on the lava flows?”

  “Some group of self-appointed do-gooders, with a lot of time on their hands, deemed it an eyesore and removed it. Now people just use spray paint to write on the lava. I don’t know why people can’t just live and let live.”

  “Look, it’s so clear you can see Maui,” Jessica said, as she pointed at Mount Haleakala in the distance.

  “Yeah, the volcano has mellowed out the last couple of years, and we have a lot more clear days now,” Pua replied.

  After a pleasant drive along the Kona coast, they arrived at Waialea Bay in Puako. They got out of the truck, stood on the sandy beach and wiggled their toes in the sand as they watched the two foot tall waves roll for a while before they put on their wetsuits and scuba gear.

  They did a quick safety check of their gear and discussed their dive plan before they snorkeled out to the drop-down spot.

  That day, the surface of the ocean was flat, it looked more like a lake. The underwater visibility was excellent at eighty plus feet. After they had dropped down thirty feet below the ocean’s surface and swam along the reef, Jessica felt her body relax for the first time in a long while. Ah, zero gravity is a beautiful thing, she thought. It felt so good to get back in the ocean again.

  As she swam along she noticed the reef looked healthy, with lots of tropical fish and a sea turtle here and there.

  A few feet away, Pua played with an octopus she had found that tried to blend in next to a coral head. She handed it to Jessica so she could feel its soft, velvety skin.

  About that time, a dolphin swam up from out of the deep and went right up to Jessica. The poor creature had multiple fishing lines wrapped around it that cut into its fluke and needed help to remove the tangled mess.

  Jessica and Pua both worked at a quick pace to untangle and cut free the fishing line that tortured the poor creature. It was unbelievable how patient the dolphin was, it rolled over right in front of them so they could cut away the line wrapped around it.

  After they freed the dolphin, it gave them both what appeared to be a smile and swam off into the abyss, gone just as fast as it had appeared.

  Pua and Jessica stared at each other for a minute in total disbelief. It was a moment they knew they would never forget, and they savored every minute as they swam along the reef, and thought about what had just happened.

  Jessica looked at her air pressure gauge and signaled Pua she was low on air. She pointed up toward the surface, and Pua signaled back okay.

  As soon as the sisters broke the surface, it became obvious they were in big trouble. While they had been down below, a freak storm had blown in. The ocean surface had gone from calm to large swells in less than an hour. Six-to-eight-foot waves pounding the shoreline, getting back to the beach would be dangerous.

  Jessica pulled the regulator out of her mouth and yelled at Pua over the sound of the wind, “I don’t know about you, Pua, but getting pounded into the reef wasn’t in my game plan today.”

  Pua had surfed on the women’s pro tour in her late teens and early twenties and could make it through the big surf. But Jessica always stayed on the beach when the surf was over eight feet. This surf was far bigger than any she had ever bodysurfed, and to swim through it with dive gear on, was the last thing she wanted to do.

  Pua dropped her weight belt and took off her BCD. Then she unstrapped the scuba tank and let it drop to the bottom before she put the BCD back on to use as a life jacket. “You have to drop your tank,” she yelled at Jessica.

  Jeez, Jessica thought, we’re really going to do this. She followed Pua’s instructions and dropped her gear in forty feet of water, and watched it sink to the bottom.

  “No turning back now, Jess. Let’s go.”

  The good news was that at least they had fins on. The bad news was an even bigger set of waves rolled in, twelve to fifteen feet in height.

  “Let’s try to bodysurf in,” Pua yelled. Jessica nodded in agreement as the next gigantic wave came rolled in. They both put their heads down and swam as fast as they could to catch the wave.

  Pua was a much stronger swimmer than Jessica and caught the wave and rode it all the way to the beach. As she crawled up to the beach, she looked back to see where Jessica was. When she didn’t see her, she threw off her BCD and ran back into the surf to find her sister.

  Jessica swam just slow enough that she hadn’t caught the fifteen-foot rogue wave but had gone over the falls, as the surfers called it. Because she’d been late to catch the wave, she’d been at the top of it when it had crashed onto the shallow reef and knocked her out.

  Between waves, Pua found Jessica as she floated facedown close to shore. She grabbed one of the straps on Jessica’s BCD, flipped her over, and swam as fast as she could with one arm. She kicked her fins harder than she ever had in her life. If she didn’t, they would get pounded on the reef by the next wave, and that would be the end of them.

  Pua dragged Jessica’s head and chest out of the water and onto the beach just enough so she could start CPR. Jessica’s lips were blue–every minute counted.

  “You’re not dying today!” Pua yelled at Jessica, as she pumped her chest.

  Thirty pumps and two breaths were all Pua could remember to do for CPR. It would have to work, because Pua’s energy had faded fast and she was ready to collapse.
/>   About two hundred and fifty yards down the beach a nurse, who was visiting the island and taking photos, saw what was going on. She ran up to help and took over the CPR.

  “It’s okay, honey. I called 911 as soon I saw what was going on,” the nurse said.

  Sam had planned on meeting Pua and Jessica after their dive so they could all go to Cafe Pesto for lunch. When they weren’t at the boat ramp at the agreed-upon time, he scouted around the area to look for them. Fifteen minutes later, he found Pua’s Tacoma parked on a side road near the beach, so he stopped to see if they were nearby.

  Sam rounded the corner from the road to the beach, and saw Pua with the nurse huddled over Jessica’s body in the sand, about a hundred feet away. He knew it wasn’t good and broke into a run toward them.

  “What happened? Where’re the paramedics? How can I help?” Sam fired the questions at Pua.

  “Call 911 and find out where the hell the paramedics are,” the nurse barked, as she pumped Jessica’s chest.

  Sam pulled out his phone and made the call. The operator said the paramedics were on the way, but some kind of equipment issue had slowed them down.

  “What about the fire department helicopter?” Sam asked.

  “It’s out of service for repairs,” the operator answered. Annoyed did not begin to describe the look on Sam’s face.

  Sam called Uncle Jack. Fifteen minutes later, a Black Hawk helicopter from the Pohakuloa Training Area, just east of them, landed in a clearing near the beach and flew Jessica to the Kona hospital.

  21

  Hospital

  Six hours later, Sam, Pua, Uncle Jack and Jasmine sat in the hospital waiting area. Nobody said a word until Dr. Kiyoshi came into the room. They all jumped to their feet, sounding like a group of reporters as they fired off one question after the other. “How is she? Is she going to be okay?”