Death in Hilo by Eric Redman

Author:Eric Redman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Ku‘ulei was the first to speak. “Okay, we see the pattern. Fortunato murdered the guys who sold him land and made it look like they drowned. But where does D. K. Parkes fit in?”

Tommy suggested one possible answer. “To get back from the middle of the Maui Channel, Fortunato would’ve needed someone with a second boat to pick him up, right? That was D. K. Parkes?”

“Fortunato definitely needed help to get to shore,” Kawika agreed. “Parkes was a captain for hire, a guy who skippered boats for owners like Thomas Gray who wanted to concentrate on fishing. Before Fortunato’s widow left the Big Island, I showed her a photo of Parkes. She recognized him. She said he used to skipper Gray’s boat when Fortunato and Gray went fishing together.”

Ku‘ulei brightened. “So you’re thinking Fortunato and Parkes were both on Gray’s boat and killed him together? They just needed another boat to pick them up, out in the Maui Channel, like Tommy says?”

“It might have happened that way,” Kawika agreed. “I do believe Parkes helped Fortunato kill Gray on the boat.”

“But then who killed Parkes?” Tommy asked. “Who threw him off Shark Cliff?”

Kawika and Tanaka exchanged wary glances. Elle looked steadily at Kawika, her expression unchanging. She didn’t look at Tanaka.

“Gray had two adult children—Kam and Emma,” Tommy began, as if trying to answer his own questions. “It says so right in this obituary.” He waved the paper in the air. “They would’ve had a motive for killing both Parkes and Fortunato, if Parkes and Fortunato murdered their father. Is that what you’re telling us, Kawika? That Gray’s kids killed them both? That we got the Fortunato murder investigation all wrong, that Cushing’s innocent? Innocent of killing Fortunato, at least?”

That awful possibility hung in the air and silenced everyone.

No one responded to Tommy’s questions.

Tanaka interrupted instead. “Just a minute, Tommy,” he said, and turned quickly to Kawika with questions of his own—questions he hadn’t asked twelve years earlier. “Then who picked them up out in the Channel, Kawika? Fortunato and Parkes, I mean. Who came to get them? Who drove the getaway boat?”

But just then Kawika’s cell phone rang. “Oof,” he said, looking at the screen. “It’s a reporter. Bernie Scully from the Star-Advertiser.”

Everyone exchanged glances.

Kawika decided to answer. “Aloha, Bernie, what’s up?” he said into the phone. He listened as his wife and colleagues waited inquisitively. Finally, Kawika said into the phone, “We’ve released no information on that case yet, Bernie. So I can’t comment.” He listened again briefly. “Sorry,” he said. “Again, no comment. Yeah, that’s right. No, nothing new on the Slasher either. So, ah, good-bye.”

Then he turned to the others, a look of consternation on his face. “He and Zoë know the headless victim we found in Kapi‘olani Park is named Keoni Parkes. He says they know Keoni was the son of D. K. Parkes and that he worked for the TMT. No idea how they got that information. But here’s what’s weird: he says Zoë has a source here on the Big Island who told her Keoni was killed because of his work for the TMT.

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