Page 17 of Deadly Sacrifice

“When a big chunk of money moves into or out of the state, that could signify a number of things: sale of a house, investment in development, etcetera,ad infinitum,e pluribus unum. Most of those are legitimate transactions because all legal money goes through distinct channels. Crooks moving dirty money have to avoid those channels, so if we can find unusual transactions moving in or out, it might help us find a pattern involving that kind of cash.”

“I’m aware.” Lei sat heavily. “But riddle me this. The last direction I gave you was to find out more about Cheryl Goodwin’s background, and the Hawaii-type props that were at her crime scene.”

“Well, I didn’t much get to the props part, but it was digging stuff up on Goodwin that brought me to this money tangle. She’s a signer on a shit ton of big real estate deals.” Katie twirled one of her pigtails. “Maybe something went sideways with Goodwin’s role on one of those deals.”

Lei glanced around. She needed fuel for this kind of focus. “Got any food down here?”

“Of course.” Katie reached over to grab a lunch box shaped like a pirate’s treasure chest. She opened it and then held it out. “Pick your poison.”

Lei gazed at Rice Krispies Treats, gold doubloons made of chocolate, baggies of candy corn, Jolly Rancher lollipops in the shape of penises, and snack size peanut butter Snickers.

Lei helped herself to one of each except for the Jolly Ranchers. She peeled the Snickers first. Once she had the wrapper off and the mini bar in her mouth, on its way to providing a much-needed sugar high, she refocused on Katie.

The kid was typing away, eyes on her monitor.

“Still not entirely following how you got to where you are muddling around in those numbers, but you need warrants to get that information, and probable cause for the warrants, and all those other pesky Constitutional requirements,” Lei said through a mouthful of sticky peanut butter and chocolate.

“Yup.” Katie was typing faster than Lei could string together a response. “I guess that’s one way to do it.”

It had already been a long day, and her intern was swinging from Lei’s last nerve like Tarzan on a vine. “I need more than sugar to deal with this.”

Lei got up and went to a water cooler in the corner. Gone were the paper cups that used to furnish it; now a row of mugs with sassy sayings emblazoned on them hung from hooks on the wall.

Lei grabbed one that readHaters Gonna Hate.She filled the mug and chugged the water down. She filled it again and then walked back.

Katie started when she saw Lei. “You still here?”

“Katie. Take your hands off that keyboard and look at me.”

Katie did so, blinking owlishly through her big red specs.

“Listen.” Lei leaned forward. “I’m responsible for supervising your work. If you’re accessing information illegally, your actions are going to come back on me, as well as you. Not only that, any fruit of the poisoned tree that you pluck from online sources is ultimately useless to us. Yes, what you uncover could tell us something, but we can’tusewhat it tells us. Not only that, it opens the department up to being sued or even prosecuted ourselves.”

Katie pushed back from her workstation. “But what if no one knows how you got a tip to follow?”

“We still have to account for how we came to pursue a lead. Shortcuts are not as useful as you seem to think they are,” Lei said. “I need you to check with me before digging into anything potentially hazardous to the case.”

Katie nodded; her pigtails bobbed. She finally seemed to be getting the message. “Ah, jeez. Okay. I’ll wrap this up then. What do you want me working on?”

“I was hoping you’d made some headway on that Hawaiiana stuff. What I asked you for originally.”

Katie stood up and stretched; her skimpy shirt rode up to reveal a tiny waist and toned abs. “Let me get a drink and I’ll switch gears.”

Lei frowned. “What kind of drink are you talking about?”

Katie bounced over to the water cooler and took down a mug that readI BRAKE FOR BREAKS.“Water, of course. Sometimes coffee. What kind of drink did you think I meant?”

Her grin made an answering smile tug up the corners of Lei’s mouth. Katie was a little bit impossible and a whole lot of smart; she didn’t color inside the lines even a little bit. Hopefully Lei could keep her intern on the straight and narrow enough to complete probation. She wasn’t going to hold her breath on that; but if Katie washed out of Maui Police Department, Lei’s private investigator friend Sophie could give her a job doing just what she was doing for the private sector. A whole lot more gray areas existed there where Katie could play without creating legal consequences.

Katie sat back down with her mug. “I know TG was going to work on this too, but I did some research on theleiomano—the murder weapon. That’s all I had time for. I added my notes to the file.”

“Great. Summarize for me, will you?”

Katie pulled up a file of images, facts, and websites featuring replicas. She spattered Lei with rapid-fire information. “In short, this is a fairly rare weapon. Obtaining one, even a replica, wouldn’t be cheap. And its use has to be deliberate. Part of the message the killer was sending.”

“Good. I’ll find time to review that. Keep going on the rest of the items, please.” Lei stifled a yawn.

“Hey, boss? I’ve been meaning to ask . . . why does everyone call our crime scene tech ‘TG’? Unusual initials.”

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