Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

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Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha - book excerpt

Prologue

“What an f’g jackass.” Thumbs in ears, melodramatic [former B-actress] Cousin Reynalda thrust forth her tongue and wiggled long, slender fingers. Sparkly raspberry nail polish glittered under the bright lemon-colored sun.

Standing alongside a looming, leafy shrub that served as target practice for strident feathery friends gliding past, Detective Sammie Sallo chose to turn just then.

In went the tongue and out came the thumbs. With a Hollywood [dazzling] smile, Rey waved both hands, then tucked them into the pockets of daisy-imprinted cut-off shorts.

“Next time, sister, that tongue better mean business.” With a camel grunt, he pulled out a mouth-to-lung e-cigarette bundle. Sallo resembled Stacy Keach’s Mike Hammer right down to the mustache and fedora, an odd hat to be wearing on Oahu. It had arrived with him when he’d moved here two months ago from NYC to replace Devoy Hunt, a detective the three of us had barely gotten to know. He’d opted to move to Hawaii’s Garden Isle, “quieter, calmer” Kauai.

“Jackass,” she muttered, spinning sideways. “Why’d he have to choose the same time as us to come and check out the murder scene?”

“Timing’s everything,” Linda said gaily, giving him the finger when he turned back to view the canal.

The three of us—private eyes from The Triple Threat Investigation Agency (Rey’s choice re name)—hadn’t been officially hired for any particular case. We had, however, received an odd email at 8:30 p.m. two nights ago that read: The game’s afoot, ladies. Check out the area on Laau around the Ala Wai Canal. I suggest you head there now. HA-HA-HA-HA. Your loving GrimReaperPeeper.

A “congratulatory” message from GrimReaperPeeper had been received at the completion of our last case, the third in the agency’s short history that involved bad-ass murderers. And that had been that—until the other night.

Tourists, joggers, and strollers with frolicsome dogs utilized the sidewalk on the makai (ocean) side of the canal. On the mauka (mountain) side was a golf course, park and community garden, and boating facilities, among other things. Sadly, people didn’t—couldn’t—swim in the Ala Wai anymore. To do so could prove hazardous, because the 1.5-mile-long canal was a breeding channel for bacteria, heavy metals, and pesticides, never mind garbage. Kayakers and canoe paddlers, however, seemed fearless, overlooking the fact that getting canal water on your skin or in your mouth could result in rashes and gastro-intestinal issues. Hazards aside, it was a lovely stretch, although the three of us might never quite few it the same way again.

Curious, we’d driven to Laau Street and checked cautiously around. Given the vague directions, there’d been considerable ground to cover and when we were about to give up, Linda had stumbled upon four bodies stretched before the canal by the Fisheries Management area—four bedraggled, bruised, blotched bodies with loose puckered skin as white as the underbelly of a perch and as translucent as a jellyfish.

Countless hours in the canal, which served as both drainage ditch and tidal estuary, would have contributed to multihued patterns on regions still resembling human body parts after aquatic inhabitants had feasted. Would havebut didn’t. These four souls had taken their initial swim elsewhere, before necrophagous insects had come to feast and spawn.

The two couples had been missing since March twenty-fourth and had been dead since March twenty-sixth, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Day. That had been the initial determination and it hadn’t, yet, changed. So where had they been those two days?

Detective Sammie Sallo drew on an e-cig and exhaled at length. Fumes twirled upward like coolant smoke from a tailpipe. Strolling back to join us, he eyed Rey’s face with obvious interest. “Looked kinda like beached whales, didn’t they?”

An image of the humpback whales that migrated to Hawaii this time of year came to mind. The migration was comparable to an Oregon cattle drive of yesteryear, a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, or even a run of the grunion, marine fish related to the mullet that spawned from March to August on the first four nights after the highest tide of each full or new moon. They were so predictable, the California State Fisheries Laboratory published a timetable indicating when they’d appear.

Well, these four grunion had made it to shore all right, but they’d not completed their quest. There’d been no dissolved oxygen to fan their blood, no sand from which to begin the regeneration process, no purpose or hope to keep them alive. And this ending was far from predictable … although there had been a full moon that night. Given that unusual things reputedly occurred during one, was that significant?

It had been two days since the discovery of the bodies. We’d returned this breezy afternoon to take daytime photos, poke around, and get a feel for what might have happened; Sallo, unfortunately, had had similar thoughts.

The fifty-year-old believed that the four had partied hardy, so he’d stated a few times that night. Given his next words, he was still of the same mind. “There was probably a group of them. They got caught up in too much booze, maybe drugs too, and started playing weird cult games. Maybe they were paying homage to the great god of Ecstasy and/or praying to Mr. Full Moon. I’ve seen shit like this before. Booze and drugs make people do bizarre things.” He picked up a large stainless-steel travel mug perched alongside a small plumeria tree, noisily gulped back what was left, and belched.

When it came to class, Sallo had as much elegance as Archie Bunker, a character that retro television wouldn’t let anyone forget. Rey, Linda and I had met him three times in the last few weeks and while Detective Ald Ives (or “Hives” as Rey mockingly called him) seemed to get along well enough with his colleague, we found Sallo as abrasive as steel wool.

Linda smirked, tossing raspberry-red, shoulder-length waves. “You really think a group of them got into ‘cult games’?”

“It sure looks that way, Royale. Remember the marks on their chests? In their fucked-up states, they’d probably thought it was a fun, freaky thing to do. Matches the tatts on their arms and probably other body parts we’ve haven’t seen.” He eyed her with dark amusement, like a deranged despot might his lackey.

“So a group of friends just left them there after moon-and-drug worshipping, and what? Went home to sleep it off? What about their state, that they’d been submerged in water for some time?”

He ignored the last question. “Why not? They staggered home and, come the morning, realized how carried away they’d got. They’re now either having issues coming to terms with it or they don’t give a rat’s ass.”

They’d been found facing the canal with arms folded neatly over chests. Four black fabric roses, glossy and delicate, had been pinned to tops and shirts and all four had had floral designs incised into chests, possibly with a roulette—not the gambling game, but a small toothed disk of tempered steel attached to a hilt and used to make a series or rows of dots, slits, or perforations.

I kicked pebbles as I eyed the crime area ahead, thinking it was time to visit an upset-irate client whose wayward hubby we’d finally caught being wayward—with her sister. We’d promised to arrive around 4:15 to provide a report and invoice, but given Mrs. Starzeneiss’ “high-strung” personality, we’d probably have to stick around to smooth ruffled feathers.

“Isn’t it possible they were murdered by a sadistic killer? A psychopath? Given the roses and all?”

He scowled, hung the mug from a thumb, and popped two ICE BREAKERS mints.

I swallowed a rebuke. Pulling a warm bottle of water from a Hawaiian print backpack, I took a long swallow and eyed fluttering, ripped police tape wrapped around several trees and shrubs. A yellow ribbon tied around an old oak tree it wasn’t. What it was, was jarring. A reminder that something terrible had occurred.

There were obvious if not improbable gaps in Sallo’s hypotheses, but he wasn’t the sort you could argue with, not without wanting to bang your head against a wall or tree.

I nodded to my Jeep parked by a lonely palm several yards down. Thankfully, the sunroof and windows were open (I didn’t much care for A/C).

“Catch ya later, Detective S,” Rey purred, flipping her pretty wheat-color with sunshine-yellow streaks, which was now several inches below her shoulders. Sparkly pyrite drop earrings caught the sun. Cousin Reynalda was a salesaholic who couldn’t resist bags and shoes; in the last month, earrings had become an additional passion.

“Whatever.”

She blew a raspberry and the three of us moseyed to the car.

“Can you spell jerk?” Linda asked, pulling an apple banana from a large crocheted tote.

“Yeah. S-a-l-l-o,” I replied wryly, opening the passenger door.

“What’s up, buttercup?” a baritone voice boomed from behind.

Rey spun, ready to pounce.

Linda and I exchanged amused glances.

“Do you always pop out from behind parked SUVs like that?” I chided.

Jimmy Carcanetta—Jimmy C—was a freelance writer and blogger Linda had gotten to know in the last couple months. He grinned like a toddler who’d just been given a huge slice of icing-laden cake and his pumpkin-shaped head bobbled like a fishing bobber. “Nothing like the element of surprise.”

“What brings you here?”

“The same thing that brought you guys here: a need to piece things together and get a feel for what happened.”

“Your article on the murders was good.”

“For a food and wine reviewer and blogger,” he chuckled, pulling a new Canon camera from a faux-leather bag. “I came to take a few more pics, for context.”

“Any new findings or thoughts?” Linda leaned into the passenger door and bit into the apple banana.

“Not yet. Just mulling over facts. They’d been missing two days and died on the twenty-sixth, or thereabouts. They’d been meticulously mutilated—and please don’t attribute it to cult games or weird rites. I heard that crap from the ass back there the other day.” With a glower, he jerked a thumb rearward. “Any thoughts about the fact they’d been so neatly arranged, with roses yet? That seems very specific, as if the killer were leaving a calling card.”

“Maybe it’s the creep’s way of saying goodbye, a ceremonial or funereal kind of thing,” Rey offered.

“Who said the roses came from the killer?” Linda added. “They could have been a club or party signature thing. The four may have been wearing them before they were done in.”

“Yeah, but the incisions resembled flowery embroidery. And those flowers hadn’t been as, uh, saturated as the foursome.” He scanned the end of the street. “I’m thinking there was a connection between the two, even if Sallo won’t admit it. Why though?”

“Why won’t he admit it? Or what’s the connection?” I smiled drily. “I have a feeling the detective’s going to prove a thorn in many people’s sides.”

“Thorn?” Rey asked sarcastically. “How about curare-tipped spike?”

Chapter 1

Who’d have thought a scrawny pimply-faced guy could have sent a Mack-truck-sized man into the pavement with such caliber and zeal? The impact had surely loosened a few teeth. Blood oozed from the prone truck’s nose and lips like a Rocky mountain stream during spring thaw.

Pimple Guy shook his head, cursed three times, hawked loudly and graced Truck Man’s soiled bargain-store running shoe with a large gob of phlegm before sauntering into an early evening that veiled the local world with a blackberry-plum shroud. Truck Man’s friends appeared embarrassed and unsure as to whether they should assist their fallen comrade or maintain a semblance of dignity and walk away. Heat took its toll on some tempers, but then, so did a late afternoon of lagers and rum chasers under a baking sun.

“Clean up by the fountain!” Faith shouted to Wayne, an attractive beanstalk of a man hoisting a crate of wine bottles onto a rear counter.

“Hey, Shooter Lady! Three KDs, times three,” Paco ordered hoarsely as he hastened past the bar with a sizable tray supporting frosty mugs of beer and fancy (pricey) appetizers.

Faith Suren, recently dubbed “Shooter Lady”, was a former diner waitress I’d met during the agency’s first official case. Instead of slinging loco moco and burgers, these days Faith was serving different shooter cocktails—mini mixtures—each unique and each a specialty. One was the U.S. Kentucky Derby, or KD for short. While there was a shooter named after a special event in each state, KD seemed the most popular this balmy, breezy Saturday night.

Three months ago, my friend had ended up working at Flaming Daisies, a popular upscale lounge, when Rog’s diner burned down, courtesy of an exploding oil vat. Faith and Pollo, the cook, had already left for the night after pulling double-duty, as had the customers. It was Rog’s misfortune to have chosen that particular evening to [finally] perform minor maintenance on said vat. The greasy spoon had been leveled, much like Rog.

Having served greasy but tasty diner fare for too many years to count, it was a blessing in disguise when she had to find a new job. A friend of a friend of a customer of a cousin had recommended her to Ritch Lea and Izzie O’Rourke, owners of the popular venue. Customers had taken a quick liking to the amiable, even-tempered woman and Faith was given better shifts as well as bartending training from Josho, who thought she’d make a great replacement when he finally took early retirement.

It was 6:45 according to a huge prawn-shaped wall clock suspended on a rear wall above a long table where twelve young people sat, celebrating two friends’ birthdays.

“Sorry I couldn’t get out at 6:30, like planned.” Faith topped off my wine glass. “Tamara’s on her way, so we’ll still make it to the theater in plenty of time, yeah.”

“No worries.”

With a wink, she went to see to a beckoning man’s eager bidding.

A friend had offered Rey, Linda and me tickets to a classic comedy playing at Hawaii Theatre. Unfortunately Linda had eaten something that had disagreed with her, so she was bed-bound for the evening while Rey—who’d already seen the play twice—was on a mission to test domestic decorating skills by painting the laundry room and pantry in our recently acquired house in Kalama Valley, which was part of Hawaii Kai. We’d gotten the five-bedroom house—with ohana—for a song, as the saying went, but only because it was a fixer-upper … in every sense of the word. When Faith had called the day previous to see about getting together, I invited her. The third ticket wouldn’t go to waste; Sach Morin, our neighbor and new pal, would meet up with us in the lobby before the start.

“Hey, Shooter Lady, two times three KDs.” Pierre winked and waited for Faith to fill the order. Young and cute, in an extraterrestrial sort of way (remember E.T.?), he loosened a lavender bowtie, part of the venue’s white-shirt-black-pants ensemble and muttered something about wishing the gentle winds wafting through six open doors would pick up because the rapidly rotating fans above were doing dick.

A valid comment. The muggy evening felt like a layer of nylon clinging to sweaty skin: confining, cohesive, suffocating. The heat and mugginess magnified the usual scents and odors: smells of fried and grilled foods wrangled with hops and barley and malts while a sundry of scents wafting from foodstuffs and bodies fought for supremacy with a host of perfumes and colognes (some which may well have been applied with a soup ladle).

Faith motioned Felicity, a plump and pretty blonde bartender, to see to two arrivals on my left. They reminded me of young versions of Ricky Ricardo and Fred Mertz from I Love Lucy; the one seated was dark and handsome but solemn-faced, and the other standing alongside with an elbow on the bar, was dumpy but cute, in a Cabbage Patch doll sort of way.

I took a sip of Chardonnay. Custom-made glasses at Flaming Daisies were tinted gray-blue with a black-mesh pattern in keeping with the color scheme of the establishment. Glossy black molding complemented gray-blue walls. Fragile-looking bar stools with argent-gray patterned seats were supported by thin black chrome legs. Beams and rafters over the bar were black, as were pillars and posts that supported esoteric, customer-created paintings housed in black frames. It wasn’t very Hawaiian, but it was rather cool.

Pierre wrinkled a flat, scrunched nose and set his tray on the corner of the bar, nearly upsetting a bowl filled with maraschino cherries. Resting one hand on a lean hip, he silently challenged Fred M with a sinister dare-to-say-one-word-about-me-standing-in-your-space smile.

“Hey, Felicity, grab me a couple of Wild Turkeys—and not those two leather-vested boys sitting by the pretzel bowl,” Faith called over bottles of multi-colored ambrosias (or banes, depending on your viewpoint). With a weary chuckle, she motioned a glossy black door that led to the owners’ offices, a change room, locker and storage areas, and rear exit.

I followed and waited outside a small change room for her to step out of her bartending uniform. Crash N. Bern, real name unknown, stepped from Izzie’s office and offered a curt nod as he hastened past. A new addition to the bartending team, the twenty-two-year-old was damn skilled, not simply at the bar, but on the bongos, bass, and banjo. An aspiring musician, he looked the part with long mahogany hair, pierced ears (a skull hung from the left lobe, a saber from the right), muscles that would have made Mr. Universe jealous, and a colorful serpent tattoo that curled around the base of a long, heavily veined neck and slithered down to sights unseen. If he weren’t so attractive, with a gleaming Crest smile and intensive grass-green eyes, never mind the obliging disposition, he could prove intimidating.

Faith opened the door, looking attractive in a rose-pink peasant blouse and gray straight-leg pants. During Rog’s diner days, she’d looked weary, thin, pale. The new job agreed with her, so much so she’d decided to do things never dreamed of: have teeth fixed and whitened, face toned, new make-up regime acquired, and unruly curly walnut-colored hair highlighted and fashioned into a stylish bob.

“Remember the guy you called Howdy-Doody a few nights back when you were sitting at the bar with Rey and Linda?”

“Who could forget those crazy freckles? That beaver smile and mango-orange hair?”

“I was checking for a text re next week’s schedule and accidently hit a news app. Look at this.” She held up her cell phone. There was a small full-face shot of the fellow Rey had dubbed Howdy-Doody. His name according to the article was Van T.L. Quist. Very “was”. Yesterday morning, his body had been found in an alley not far from the bar, under a pile of cardboard. Apparently, it had been a few days since he’d died. Speculation regarding cause of death: drug overdose. There’d been traces of a suspicious powder on his person, a short-needle syringe in a back pocket, and a crop of dot- or pin-like marks on his chest. Injecting into the chest was less conspicuous than an arm, I supposed.

With the island heat, you had to wonder why no one had discovered the poor guy; surely the stench from the ripening body must have been overwhelming. I mentioned this to Faith.

“They’re often strewing garbage in that alley,” she said, draping a polished-leather tote from one shoulder and closing the change-room door. “The smell of death wouldn’t penetrate the smell of rotting foods, and whatever additional ugliness may lay there, yeah.”

“But they must collect garbage on a regular basis,” I pointed out as we stepped from the rear exit into a small, well-lit parking area.

“Way at the rear?” She appeared dubious and shrugged. “It does go to prove, though, that appearances aren’t everything. Would you have thought that fresh-faced guy was a drug user?”

I recalled the young man who might have been labeled wholesome, like a choir boy or Boy-Scout leader. “No, but he was pretty good at tossing back the booze.”

“He reminded me of a university kid, out for alcohol-infused fun. And an unwelcome morning hangover.” She slipped into the passenger seat of my Jeep when I opened the door. “Do you suppose he bought the drugs at the bar? Or sold them?”

“Anything’s possible.” I got into the driver’s seat. “I wonder when the cops will come calling at Flaming Daisies.”

“They only just found the body, so they have to figure out the wheres and whens and whos. Apparently, the fellow who wrote the story was in the vicinity when it all came down and, so, the ‘scoop’.”

“My Vancouver friend would call him a keener.”

Faith chuckled and adjusted the seat belt.

***

The following morning found the three of us at Flaming Daisies, where we’d agreed to meet Faith and an HPD detective who’d requested a meeting to discuss Van T.L. Quist. She, in turn, had requested we attend; given our profession, she felt we might have something of note to add.

Ritch and Izzie had personally opened the bar to observe the police investigation. Organizing bottles and jars, they not so surreptitiously watched as Faith sat with a new HPD detective, Detective Petroni Carter Hammill. Felicity and Paco were also there, waiting to be interviewed re the Howdy-Doody Murder, as Rey had labeled it, even if it hadn’t officially been confirmed as one.

Save for the closely cropped chocolate-brown hair, the attractive man bore a striking resemblance to singer-songwriter-model Shawn Mendes. I tried not to gape, unlike Rey and Linda and Felicity, whose jaws were hanging between their navels and knees as they leaned into the bar counter. Faith simply sipped coffee and waited for the man to talk, her gaze as expressionless as her face.

“I understand you were serving Van T.L. Quist last Friday night.” His voice, somewhere between gravelly and raspy, wasn’t asking a question but making a statement. The hint of an accent was hard to place.

“Mr. Quist was sitting at my counter for an hour, an hour and a half, give or take,” Faith advised, gesturing the bar. “He was chatting with one of the regulars a lot of the time.”

“What’s the regular’s name?”

“Morris. I don’t know his last name, but I do know he works at the university in an administrative capacity.” She glanced over at Felicity. “Do you know Morris’ last name?”

She shook her head and started slicing limes.

The man’s shapely sensual lips drew into a tight line as he keyed something into his cellphone.

I gave him a casual once-over. Defined facial features. Long thin neck. Adam’s apple bearing a tiny scar. Broad shoulders that saw weights regularly. He was too attractive by half.

As he pulled a black lizard-skin card holder from the inside pocket of a trim-fit navy-blue blazer, eyes as black as eight balls and as deep as abysses glanced over and eyed Rey for several seconds. He then smiled tightly. “Can you three spare a few minutes?”

Grabbing chairs, we sat next to Faith and eyed Hammill expectantly. The man seemed in no hurry to ask questions.