Page 6 of Tiki Beach
Sometimes a girl just needed her pilot, her cat, a roomy shower, and a small Hawaiian cottage by the sea.
2
I was only a little fuzzy and frazzled from a fun-filled (if sleepless) night doing the No Pants Dance with Mr. K when I arrived at work the next morning. Our delivery guy, Chad, had arrived at the P.O. early and was honking the mail truck’s horn as I pulled into the lot at eight a.m. on the dot.
I was rather proud of myself for being able to make yesterday’s clothes smell OK with a laundry freshener sheet in Keone’s dryer.
“It’s time you left a few things here,” Keone had said, and I was still thinking on what he meant by that as Chad and I toted in the usual canvas bags and towering piles of mail-order boxes for sorting. The package delivery revolution had caught Ohia understaffed and unable to keep up most days, but we did the best we could.
My bright purple nitrile-clad hands moved on autopilot, sorting the mail delivery into our few and highly prized postal boxes. The familiar scent of paper, cardboard, and sniff-of-the-day tropical air freshener (today’s surprise: guava) felt oddly comforting in their normalcy.
But nothing really felt normal after yesterday’s tea party gone wrong.
Pua Chang, my coworker, came in at nine several mornings a week so I could go off duty a little early. This was time I usually spent private sleuthing for K & K Investigations, my little side hustle with Keone. I’d be out at three p.m. today so I could follow up with all that had unraveled at Pearl’s house yesterday.
According to Kawika, who I’d contacted first thing in the morning (Pearl’s main health contact as her caregiver), she had made it through the night but was still in intensive care and being treated by neurological specialists.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been on tenterhooks (whatever the heck that meant!) about an elderly friend’s health status. So far, Keone and I had weathered serious crises with his mother Ilima (a terrifying stroke, mostly recovered), Edith (heart episode, fully recovered), and Opal’s husband Artie Pahinui (diabetes, partially recovered.) Maybe that’s what came of having friends in the over-seventy age bracket, but it didn’t mean I was ever going to like that aspect.
I replayed yesterday’s tea ceremony in my head as I took a break from envelopes to stack boxes and fill out matching call slips for them.
Had Pearl seemed different? Worried about anything? No. Far from it. She’d been excited and a little mysterious, but that went with her theatrical side.
But maybe the stress was what had caused her collapse. Maybe the tea just smelled wrong to Tiki. How embarrassing if the lab at MPD turned nothing up from my samples! I’d never live it down. I could hear Lei teasing me now. “Remember the time Kat brought in those tea leaves her crazy feral feline decided she didn’t like?”
I cringed at this possible future outcome. “You better not be wrong about those tea leaves, Tiki,” I muttered. “My butt is on the line here.”
The back doorbell chimed precisely at 9:00 a.m.
“Good morning, Kat.” Pua Chang glided in, elegant in a silk pantsuit that somehow defied humidity, stains, and her mundane job as a postal clerk. Her neat chin-length bob set off crystal hoop earrings that caught the morning light. “Such a tragedy about Pearl.”
I nodded, throat tight, eyes on my task. “She’s got the best care in Hawaii. Hopefully she’ll pull through.”
“My sources say it was a stroke.” Pua always had her finger on the pulse of the ‘coconut wireless’ gossip hotline around here. She set her Chanel bag behind the counter with precision. “Helen at Sweet Dreams Bakery in Kahului mentioned something interesting from their bridge game last week. Pearl was talking about ‘making things right’ and ‘before it’s too late.’”
“Could’ve been about what she gathered us to discuss yesterday.” I hefted another big square plastic bin of mail, welcoming the physical effort to ground myself. Campaign flyers spilled out over the broad mail table as I dumped it. “Mayor Santos: Building Our Future” competed with “Council Member Lee: Voice of the People” and “Vote Chang for Real Change.”
“Not your cousin’s campaign, I assume?” I pointed to the Chang flyer and managed a teasing smile. Pua was related to a large and infamous family that dominated organized crime in Hawaii.
“No relation. You know Chang is a common name here in the islands.” Pua’s perfectly arched eyebrows conveyed volumes of disdain as she gazed at the blocky print of the postcard. “My cousin Raymond, who’s in politics, would have far better graphic designers.” She flipped up the old-fashioned pass-through counter and headed over to pull back the reinforced shutters and unlock the lobby doors. On her way back, she straightened a display of priority mail envelopes that had been perfectly straight to begin with. “But about Pearl—you were there at her party, weren’t you? Was there anything . . . unusual about what happened?”
“Of course. Pearl collapsed,” I snapped. Pua was fishing, and I wasn’t ready to talk.
The front doorbell jangling saved me from answering as Mrs. Agusto arrived for her daily morning P.O. box check. She yelled a greeting to Pua; apparently she’d forgotten her hearing aid again.
Was there anything unusual about Pearl’s tea party? Besides everything?
A strange envelope addressed to “The Keeper of Secrets” care of Pearl Yamamoto caught my attention. No mail was ever delivered to her home, and this had her house’s address on it. I flipped the card over, looking for a return address. Nothing. The paper was the same cream-colored stock Pearl always used. Very strange.
Pua had returned to continue her stream of consciousness on the events surrounding Pearl’s collapse, and because of the envelope I’d lost the thread of it.
“—and, naturally, the development contract for her proposed Heritage Tea Garden remains unsigned,” Pua was saying, adjusting the stacks of forms behind the counter. “One does wonder about the timing of her health emergency.”
“Pua,” I interrupted, studying the mysterious envelope. “Did Pearl mention expecting any important correspondence to you?”
“Correspondence? No, but she did seem preoccupied at last week’s Historical Society meeting. And you know how meticulous she usually is about the minutes . . .”
“That’s right. Pearl is the recording secretary for the East Maui Historical Society,” I muttered, still studying the mysterious piece of mail.
