Page 39 of Shark Cove

“I’m telling you I don’t know anything about that box!” Evenson was red with agitation. “I swear!”

“Sergeant Texeira!” Bunuelos’s voice, hollow with distance in the metal building, had gone high with excitement. “You have to see this!”

Lei left Stevens bagging the cigar box, while keeping an eye on the loudly protesting Evenson, cuffed in his chair. She hurried out into the dim, echoing depths of the metal warehouse with its faint smell of must and metal.

Bunuelos had his flashlight out and was shining it around the interior of a metal shipping crate at the bottom of a stack in the corner. “Check this out.”

Lei pulled a powerful flashlight off her belt and flicked it on as she approached.

Torufu and Bunuelos had been opening the stacks of metal containers. This one had been crudely made over into a cage. Holes were bored around the top of the box; bedding, still rumpled with use, rested upon a slowly deflating air mattress. A light source in the form of a small LED lamp as well as a few tattered magazines and paperbacks attested to a lengthy stay. Lei managed not to let her revulsion show at the sight of a paper plate, still crusted with food, and utensils in one corner. “Someone was kept in here.”

“Here too.” Torufu rumbled. He showed her another of the boxes.

“I also found some very incriminating evidence in the office,” Lei said. “This supports that the girls were in transit here, at least some of the time.”

“Look how small these are!” Bunuelos said. “The poor kids couldn’t even stand up!”

“I’m glad they took out whatever they made the girls use as a toilet,” Torufu said. “That must have been nasty.”

“I’ll call Nunez to come down here and check for prints, hair and DNA.” Lei pulled her phone out of her pocket, ringing Becca Nunez, their head crime scene tech. “I want you to collect samples from the crates,” she told the young woman. “Hopefully we can match them to something from our victims. We will also have hair samples we discovered for you to process too.”

“Finally, a break in the case!” Nunez said. “I’m on my way.”

Just then, Stevens came out of the office, wrestling Evenson in front of him. “I didn’t do it! Whatever you’re thinking—I didn’t do it!” the little man yelled.

“That’s what they all say,” Lei said. “You’ll have plenty of time to tell us all about it down at the station.”

Keith Evenson’shandcuffs had been clipped onto the metal table in one of Maui Police Department’s interview rooms. Captain Omura, called in despite the hour, was watching them through a one-way mirrored panel.

The lawyer that he’d called was familiar to Lei from other cases; Davida Fuller wore simple dresses and chunky art jewelry that set off well-developed arms. “I want to make sure that my client has been apprised of all of his rights,” she said, seating herself beside Evenson.

Lei recited the Miranda warning a second time as she turned on the recording equipment, then sat down across from him with Stevens at her side.

A couple of hours had passed since their raid on the warehouse, and Lei’s eyes felt sandy with fatigue and the aftermath of adrenaline overload; but, at last they had some evidence they could follow, and there sat Evenson, looking as guilty as a potbellied possible pervert could look.

The man continued to protest his innocence, claiming not to know anything about the boxes in his warehouse being used for human trafficking, or the cigar box in his desk. “I swear, I’m being set up! I have a legit business! I always wear noise-canceling headphones when I’m in the office because that damn building screeches and creaks in the wind like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs!”

“We’re collecting DNA evidence and will soon have more information about whose hair we found in your desk, and who might have occupied those shipping crates,” Lei said, when Evenson had finished his declarations. “We found two crates that had been occupied. We want to know everything about this operation and how it went down. Where are the girls now? Specifically, Stacey Emmitt?”

Fuller put a manicured hand on Evenson’s arm as he opened his mouth to protest. “My client has no comment.”

“No comment!” Evenson yelled.

That was the gist of the interview from then on, and it broke up in a half hour with Evenson booked into holding.

The MPD team and crime lab had combed through the warehouse, extending the search to the work trucks used in Evenson’s business. The following day they would be executing search warrants on Evenson’s home and personal vehicle.

Outside the interview room, Stevens and Lei checked in with Captain Omura, then headed out to the parking lot.

“I finally feel like we might be close to finding out what happened to these girls,” Lei said. “I’ll call Marcella and Harry and let them know about this break.”

“You do that; take all the time you need. I’ll head home and make sure the kids are fed, bathed, and tucked in if you get held up.” Stevens leaned over and kissed her, a little longer than strictly necessary, but she wasn’t going to complain. “I’ll see you when you get home.”

Lei got into her truck; her spirits had been marginally lifted by Stevens’s loving gesture.

The hardest thing about this case had been the dead ends at every turn; now they finally had some solid evidence that they could really run down.

As Lei took her phone out to call Marcella and update the FBI on their progress so far, she pictured Evenson’s adamant negations. The little man really had been oblivious to their noisy penetration of the building; perhaps he was telling the truth.

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