Page 10 of Tiki Beach
“Not yet,” Keone replied, taking the blue chair. “She said the lab’s backed up with a drug case from Kihei side. But she promised to fast-track it as much as possible.”
“I hope she calls soon. I might have made a fool of myself for hauling in those tea leaves because my cat got spooked.” I took a long sip of the cold tea, savoring the mint Keone had added.
“I dropped the samples off myself this morning. Lei could tell I was serious about it. Tiki may be a cat, but I’ve learned to pay attention to her.”
“So have I.” More than once that formerly feral feline had been vital in solving a case. I reached into my purse and pulled out the cream-colored envelope. “I brought something interesting to show you. This came in the mail today, addressed directly to Pearl’s home. She doesn’t get mail there. Weird, right?”
Keone leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he read the elegant script. “‘The Keeper of Secrets, care of Pearl Yamamoto’?”
“No return address, and it’s the same paper Pearl uses for her correspondence.” I turned the envelope over in my hands. “I was going to hold onto it for when she recovers, but after Opal’s rune reading . . .” I summed up the warnings Opal had shared from her own impressions of the tea party, and also what the runes had indicated.
Keone’s brows drew together. “You think it might be connected to what happened?” He took the envelope, examining it carefully.
“Maybe? And given that Pearl’s in the hospital and can’t open it herself . . .” I let the implication hang in the air. “There might be a clue inside.”
Keone raised an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, Postmaster Smith? Tampering with the U.S. mail is a federal offense.”
“I know,” I groaned. “And I feel terrible even considering it. But if there’s something in there that could explain why Pearl collapsed—or worse, whether she was poisoned—don’t we have a responsibility to look?”
He studied my face for a long moment before nodding. “I think we can justify a peek, under the circumstances.” He stood up. “Come on. Let’s do this properly.”
Inside the shack, Keone filled a small pot with water and set it on the hot plate we kept for making coffee. The interior was comfortably cluttered with our investigation materials—a table and chairs, a corkboard covered in notes and photos, a small desk with a monitor we could use with laptops, and file cabinets. The Murphy bed I used to sleep on was up and out of the way, revealing a rag rug made by Aunt Fae as a fundraiser which I’d won in a raffle.
“Steam is gentler than other methods,” Keone said as he tugged on a pair of thin rubber gloves. “Less chance of damaging the contents or leaving evidence we tampered with it.”
“Since when do you know so much about it?”
“The internet. I can pick a lock, now, too.” He slanted me a mischievous glance.
But I felt the weight of my postal oath pressing down on me. “I could lose my job for this.”
“I’m the one who’s doing it. And we’ll only be in trouble if someone finds out.” Keone held the envelope over the rising vapor, carefully working his gloved finger under the loosening flap. “And since the addressee is ‘Keeper of Secrets,’ not Pearl specifically, there’s some ambiguity about who it’s really for.”
“That’s a pretty thin justification,” I muttered, but I didn’t stop him as slowly, methodically, he eased the envelope open, taking care not to tear the delicate paper. When the flap was fully lifted, he extracted a single folded sheet of thick, creamy paper and laid it on the nearby table.
“You want to do the honors?” he asked. “It was your find.”
Guilt and curiosity battled within me—this was definitely crossing a line I’d never crossed before, even in all our other amateur sleuthing. My hands trembled slightly as I unfolded the paper using a capped ballpoint pen. The paper contained just three lines of the same elegant handwriting as on the envelope. I read aloud:
“The time has come. The garden reveals all. The crane will fly once more.”
Keone and I exchanged puzzled glances.
“What the heck does that mean?”
“I don’t know. But combined with Pearl’s collapse and Opal’s rune reading, it feels like a warning—or a threat.”
“We need to reseal this,” I said, my conscience kicking into overdrive. I took a picture of the note with my phone, then carefully refolded the paper using the end of the pen. Keone slipped it back into the envelope. “And I should put it back in my desk tomorrow.”
Keone reached for a stick of glue from the office supplies. “We’ll make it look untouched, and we haven’t disturbed any prints in case that matters. But Kat?”
“Yeah?”
“I think we just stepped into something much bigger than a mysterious health emergency. I won’t be surprised if Lei gets back to us that those tea leaves aren’t what they’re supposed to be.” He slipped the envelope into an empty file and stuck it in the nearby cabinet. “You can take it back to the office tomorrow.”
Whatever secrets Pearl was keeping, someone else knew about them. And that someone had attempted to make cryptic contact with a woman who was in intensive care.
The distinctive sound of tires on gravel announced a visitor—not the gentle crunch of a cautious driver, but the confident approach of someone who knew exactly where they were headed, and they were pulling up in front of the shack.
