Iced in Paradise Page 14

  “Do you regret going back home?” Emily asks me.

  I have to think about it. I do miss the dark secrets of Seattle, the discovery of a new pop-up restaurant, the music scene, the independent bookstores. But being reunited with the sun and surf of Kaua‘i has been healing, too. Also, there’s been Sean Cohen. I tell Emily more about him.

  “So, what, are you into him?”

  “No, well, I’m not sure. Gotta say it’s nice to have a new friend. A friend that doesn’t know me from elementary school or high school.”

  “Someone who you can start with from scratch,” Emily affirms.

  My phone dings with a message. It’s a new caller, with a 408 area code. Sean with Wynn Hightower’s address.

  “K den, have to go, Emily. There’s some business I have to take care of.”

  Wynn Hightower’s exact address, given to me by Sean, doesn’t show up on my GPS. Does he have enough power to control satellite signals? I wonder. At least I can make it over to his general neighborhood in Hanalei Bay.

  Bamboo Royal was one thing—a Japanese-style pagoda amid old sugarcane fields growing wild—but this exclusive area is something else entirely. Every blade of grass, every flower, looks well tended, pruned, and fertilized. Nothing living has escaped the eyes of the masters of the land. And that includes humans as well.

  I’m wandering on the street, checking over the street addresses. Even the birds must be outfitted with security cameras, because I’m obviously spotted and watched. Wynn emerges from a walkway surrounded by tall hedges.

  “I suppose you’re looking for me,” he says. He wears a short-sleeved shirt and khaki shorts. “Well, don’t keep standing out there like a stalker. If you want to talk to me, come inside.” He turns back to his walkway, and I figure that I need to follow.

  Within the confines of his property is an expansive yard, the lawn the greenest green I’ve ever seen. Fruit trees heavy with mangoes, bananas, and lychee line one side, while on the other are bushes of creamy plumeria, bright red hibiscus, and lobster-claw flowers. If this weren’t Wynn Hightower’s property, I’d think it was the Garden of Eden.

  The house is one story but looks wide and expansive. There’s a large covered porch that surrounds the property. Through the door is an open interior layout with ceiling fans in every zone.

  Wynn practically herds me through a side door into a room that is obviously his home office. There’s a whiteboard with dates and names associated with his various development projects—not only in Hawai‘i, but also California—that dominates one wall. He has a large desk, the kind that I only see on television shows, arrayed with various golf, surfing, and real estate trophies and awards. He points to one of two padded chairs and almost commands me to sit while he takes his position behind the desk.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asks.

  I take out my phone and show him the photo that Nori has texted. “Do you know that Luke received this the day he was killed? He knew about you and Celia.”

  He tries to grab the phone from my hand.

  “Don’t even bother. I’ve already sent it to the police,” I tell him.

  He plops down again into his top-of-the-line ergonomic chair. “Having an extramarital relationship is not a crime,” he says. “And the police know all about it.”

  My heart falls. I was counting on this being key evidence that turns the murder investigation around. If the police are already aware of their relationship, what’s keeping them from considering Wynn a person of interest?

  “I don’t get you,” I murmur. “Why are you still here, doing business as usual?”

  “Ms. Santiago, don’t purport to know anything about me. Kaua‘i is my second home. My great-grandfather worked here. He was a doctor here. He saved and improved the lives of plantation workers. Even though he was from the Mainland, Kaua‘i was where he always wanted to be. His love for this place has been passed down the generations to my family. So even though our home base is in Orange County, my goal was always to return to Kaua‘i.

  “I know you judge me based on the color of my skin, but many of these other descendants, those claiming to have kuleana ties, have never stepped foot on these lands before.”

  Maybe they never had a chance to, I think. Perhaps they didn’t have the family wealth to return and buy hotels.

  “I could never do business after someone from my family died so recently,” I say.

  His face completely changes. All the hard lines soften, and his jaw and chin almost seem to dissolve in the wrinkles of his neck. He seems really old now, less George Clooney like. “Don’t tell me how to grieve my only son’s death. You have no right.”

  I consider what he has just said to me. As much as I hate to admit it, I probably have stepped over the line. All of the confidence that I had earlier has disappeared. Without saying goodbye, I leave his office and home. As I continue down the walkway, there is Mrs. Hightower, wearing a floppy cotton hat and capri pants, kneeling down to trim some low-growing flowers.

  I try to be as inconspicuous as possible, but how can she ignore someone walking from her front door?

  “You’re Tommy’s daughter, aren’t you?” she says.

  I nod my head. I remember that my dad had promised Luke’s mother that he would take care of him.

  “How is he doing?”

  I’m frozen and I can barely speak. “Okay,” I say.

  “Give him my regards.” She returns to her clipping, and tearing out a random weed here and there. This is beyond bizarre, I think as I get into the car. The mother of a surfer whom my father is charged with killing offers her regards. It dawns on me. She knows. She knows that my father is falsely accused. Why is she keeping silent?

  When I’m back in the car, I find the business card in my wallet and make a phone call. “Hello, Taylor, it’s Leilani Santiago. I have some information that I would like to share with you.”

  I meet Taylor in a local plate-lunch place in an industrial area in Līhu‘e. She tells me that she’s starving and hasn’t eaten anything all day. “You want something?” she asks, but not like she means it.

  “Maybe a bottle of water.” I stake out a quiet spot among the picnic tables outside. My stomach is still queasy, and although the food looks and smells great, I figure that I’d better take it easy.

  After about fifteen minutes, Taylor comes out of the place with a Styrofoam container, its compartments overflowing with loco moco, beef stew, and macaroni salad. The girl obviously likes to eat. “What?” she says after seeing the expression on my face. “I told you I was hungry.”

  I take sips of water and watch her devour her late lunch. She’s light on personal grooming. It’s like she slept funny on her hair but didn’t bother to put a brush through it when she woke up. Again, no makeup except for some lip gloss—or maybe that’s just the grease from the loco moco gravy. I recognize the clothes that she’s wearing, or at least they’re the same type as from the luau. I’m getting the feeling that Taylor Ogura is really not a bundle of fun.

  She finally slows down to catch her breath and take a swig of her passion fruit drink. “So, what you got?”

  I enlarge the photo of Wynn and Celia and slide my phone over to her.

  She takes one look and makes a face. “This is all you have for me?”

  “What do you mean? It’s a compromising photo of Mr. Hightower with his son’s girlfriend.”

  “Everyone knows that Wynn is a player. That’s not news. We’re not a tabloid; we’ve been around for more than a hundred years.”

  I don’t mean to, but I halfway roll my eyes.

  “Listen, a rich white married guy sleeping with a girl who is young enough to be his daughter. Do you think anyone gives a shit?”

  Taylor must think I’m ultra-naive and unsophisticated. A shave ice girl and that’s it.

  She finishes chewing her food. “I thought that you had something on the quiet title properties. You know, something related to Bamboo Royal Hills. Hightow
er’s working with a professor at Kaua‘i Community College to find all the descendants to offer them a deal. The professor actually has kuleana ties to the land himself. Wants to help clear up all the challenges to the property.”

  “No kiddin’.” How strange to think that a native Hawaiian academic would want to help Hightower build his real estate monstrosity in such a pristine and peaceful part of Kaua‘i.

  “I actually saw Wynn today,” I say.

  “You what?” Taylor drops her plastic fork in her last bit of beef stew.

  “I went to Wynn’s home office. Hanalei Bay.”

  “You had an appointment?”

  “No, I just went there.”

  “You have balls, I’ll give you that much. What’d he say?”

  “That the police know about his affair.”

  Taylor gives me a look, I told you so.

  “And that his family has long ties to Kaua‘i.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me, his great-grandfather was a doctor who saved all these native Hawaiian lives?”

  I nod.

  “I’ve looked into that. Many plantation workers didn’t get the medical care they needed. I love how Wynn Hightower likes to twist that story.”

  I fell for it. I may indeed be the country bumpkin Taylor thinks I am.

  “Mrs. Hightower was at the house, too.”

  “Wow, you got the whole welcome party.” She drains the last bit of her canned drink. “How closely did you look at the Bamboo Royal Hill’s development plan?”

  Ah—I saw the pretty computer-drawn images. I hate to admit that I really didn’t read the rest of it that carefully.

  “Didn’t you see the residential facility in the back, Plumeria Falls?”

  The name sounds familiar. I figured that it’s a clubhouse of some kind.

  “It’s a home for autistic adults. The Hightowers have a daughter a couple of years older than Luke who’s special needs. She lives in some facility in Orange County.”

  “You mean their idea is to move the daughter to Kaua‘i?”

  “I guess they want to spend their later years here with her nearby.”

  It’s strange to think of the Hightowers as real people with problems. Up until Luke’s death, they seemed so golden and blessed. Maybe they struggle with personal issues like the rest of us.

  By this time, Taylor has finished her meal. Not a single macaroni is left in her Styrofoam container. “By the way, text me that photo.”

  “I thought it wasn’t worth shit.”

  “Well, you never know.”

  I forward Nori’s text to her. “Done,” I say, and she checks her phone as it dings. We get up and she throws away her trash on our way to the parking lot.

  “By the way, where are you from?” I ask.

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  “Sorry, didn’t know it was top secret.” It amuses me that Taylor would be so annoyed by such a basic question when her job is to ask strangers such intrusive ones.

  She gives in. “New Jersey. Why?”

  I could tell that she’s not from around here. I want to tell her, Good for you. Be yourself in the Islands. Don’t lose who you are. But instead I say, “No reason,” and head for the Ford. I stop and turn around. “Maybe we should hang out sometime,” I call out to her.

  She frowns, looking even more manly. She doesn’t say anything, probably thinking that my invitation isn’t worth a response.

  It’s been an exhausting day, and as I pull into our driveway, I relish escaping in my cave of a bedroom. While I take off my Crocs at the door, I hear my dad in the living room, “Leilani, come here. We need to talk to you.”

  When I hear that, I know it’s something serious.

  Sunken in our old, collapsing love seat are both my parents. I sit cross-legged on the jute rug and brace myself for what’s to come.

  Even though Dad is the one who calls me over, Mom does most of the talking. “We are worried about that boy, Travis. And about you, too,” she says.

  “We broke up. No shinpai,” I say, using Baachan’s Japanese phrase, “no worries.”

  “Travis likes to drink a lot.”

  “Well, what’s there to do in Seattle? You know it rains all the time. He just got carried away at the luau. And like I said, we broke up.”

  Am I imagining that both Mom and Dad are breathing a sigh of relief?

  “I need to take ’sponsibility,” Dad says. “Since I drank, you lookin’ for a guy like me.”

  OhmyGod. I cannot friggin believe this. Dad is saying the same kind of psychobabble that Travis has said to me in the past. “Good one, Dad. Which step is that in AA?”

  “Leilani!” my mother scolds.

  I feel so, so tired. The reality of the past few days falls down on me like loose bricks. Maybe I’m not my real person even in front of my family.

  “You didn’t tell us that you were arrested,” Mom continues.

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “You have no business with Wynn Hightower,” Dad says. “Stay away from him.”

  That’s a little late now. “Do you know how much stress I’m under?” I tell my parents. “Tryin’ to keep Santiago’s afloat, take care of the girls and Baachan? And you get arrested and the house is mortgaged. We’re about to lose everyting.”

  I’m on a roll and I’m not going to stop. “And you, you knew about Mr. Hightower and his cheatin’ ways. Why didn’t you tell me about him and Celia?”

  “I dunno about Celia.”

  “But you knew that he was a cheater. I bet you say nevah say notting to da police.”

  “I nevah say anyting dat’s not my business.”

  “Dis is your business! You like be in jail, away from Mom, Baachan, Sophie, and Dani?” I’m so mad that I leave myself out.

  “Your father trying his best.” Mom has now become Dad’s biggest defender.

  “What’s your best? Hiding what happened at Uncle Rick’s house on Saturday night? Something’s not right. You’re protecting someone.”

  Dad is stone-faced. He doesn’t dare look me in the eyes. Now I know that I’ve come dangerously close to the truth.

  “So be dat way!” I get up from the floor and go straight into my bedroom, slamming the door shut.

  Small-kid move, Santiago, I tell myself. I’m embarrassed to be me right now.

  That night I wake up with a mean stomachache, one that feels like long sharp needles are piercing my belly. All I ate tonight was some leftover okazu that Baachan had left in the fridge. I run to the bathroom and lift the toilet seat. I try to hurl but nothing comes out. What the hell is wrong with me? The ground below me seems to be shifting. I can’t hold on to what I’ve known or who I’ve been.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I GET A TEXT AROUND 7 A.M. Damn Sean Cohen and his early-morning ways. My head is pounding from not getting enough sleep. I should have straightened Sean out from the beginning and told him not to contact me before 10 a.m.

  I glance at the text:

  Story in the local paper about Wynn Hightower

  There’s an internet link.

  I leave my phone on a crate, my makeshift bedside table, and turn over to sleep. The story will still be there in two, three hours.

  I rest for another couple of hours, but I’m not sure if I really went to sleep. I pick up my phone and click on the link. Sure enough, it’s Taylor Ogura’s story. As she had said yesterday, she doesn’t mention a thing about Wynn High-tower’s illicit affair. Nori’s photo of him and Celia together doesn’t get any play on the web page, and I’m actually relieved about that.

  The story is all about the quiet title lawsuits and how they affect kuleana landowners. I was curious about why they called it “quiet title,” and in her reporting, Taylor explains it—a lawsuit can serve to “quiet” a native Hawaiian’s claim to ancestral land. If they don’t pony up the money to challenge the lawsuit, in essence they are forfeiting the land. Since these developers have a lot more ava
ilable money, it makes sense that they either usually win or are able to offer some money to clear title.

  According to Taylor’s story, Wynn Hightower has filed fifty quiet title lawsuits—fifty! It makes me sad to think that land will be lost. After all, no one owned land at one time in Hawai‘i. It was open to all. Now outsiders with the big bucks were coming in, and we have become the outsiders.

  One woman, originally from Los Angeles, Alice Lindquist, is quoted as having a claim over an acre of land. “Lindquist is actually physically occupying the land with her girlfriend to make sure that it isn’t bulldozed over to make way for Hightower’s project,” Taylor has written. “She, in fact, was arrested in the protest of Hightower’s hotel in Po‘ipū.” Alice Lindquist must have been my neighboring jail mate.

  With so much at stake, maybe someone did kill Luke to make a point. It was no secret that Luke was coming to the surf competition and that he was being coached by my father. Could someone have been lying in wait for him that night?

  I make a phone call and Sean picks up immediately. “Hello,” I say. “Listen, I’m not a mornin’ person. I thought I’d set you straight on that.”

  “Oh, sorry, was it too early for me to text?”

  His voice is so soft and apologetic, I feel bad that I came off so bitchy.

  I hold the phone to my ear as I walk out of my room. The house is dead quiet, aside from baka Jimin crowing in the backyard. There’s a note from my mom on the table: “Took the car to run some errands. Dad and Baachan are at work.”

  “No, thanks for the article. It was super interesting, actually. Wondered if you could spare some time to do investigative work with me.”

  “What kind of investigative work?”

  “The kind around Bamboo Royal.”

  “What time do you want me to pick you up?”

  Once I’m in the van’s passenger seat, Sean offers me some green tea in a tumbler. Thankfully I’ve brought some coffee in my UW one so I can decline without telling him that his tea is more lethal than bug killer.

  “Travis left already?” he asks once we are on the highway.

  “Yeah,” I say. “He had things to do.” It doesn’t seem right to tell Sean about our breakup. Like I’m opening a door to a room that hasn’t been cleaned yet.