Page 20 of Tiki Beach
I glanced down, expecting another message from the Red Hats or perhaps Aunt Fae reporting on Tiki’s latest household crime.
Instead, the screen displayed a message from an unknown number: “Stop digging or join Pearl.”
“What is it?” Pua asked, noticing my reaction.
“A threat,” I replied, forwarding the message to Keone and Lei. “Someone doesn’t like that I’m looking into things.”
The post office would be opening in a few minutes, and customers would soon be lining up for their morning mail; in fact, Chad pulled up in the mail truck at the back door with a noisy crunch of gravel and squeak of brakes. Even so, the day’s postal duties seemed trivial compared to the warning glowing on my phone screen.
“Pua, can you handle opening by yourself?” I asked. “As soon as we unload the truck, I need to follow up on this.”
She nodded enthusiastically, eager to make amends. “Of course. I’ll hold down the fort. And Kat? I really am sorry about the envelope. And the invasion of privacy.” She winced at her own admission.
“Just don’t do it again,” I warned. “And if anyone asks about Pearl or the Heritage Garden project, let me know immediately. Don’t pass on the news about the attempt on Pearl’s life.”
“Will do. Oh! That reminds me,” she called as we headed for the back door. “Edith Pepperwhite called me this morning asking if you’d gotten her texts. Said it’s URGENT—” Pua mimicked Edith’s distinctive emphasis, “—that you meet her at her law office. Something about Pearl’s paperwork for the garden project.”
“Edith is handling the legal side of Pearl’s project?” I asked. I sort of remembered that from the tea party, but had forgotten in all the subsequent drama.
“Apparently so,” Pua confirmed. “And you know Edith—if she says it’s urgent, she’ll probably send a search party if you don’t show up.”
As I left the post office after unloading the mail truck with Chad and Pua, my phone buzzed with another text. This time it was from Maile:
“Hi Auntie Kat! Aunt Fae says to tell you you’re out of cat food AGAIN and can you pick some up? And to remind you it’s your turn to cook dinner next month when I stay over. PLEASE, not tuna casserole again. Tiki ate most of it anyway. Love you and miss you! PS: Opal came by this morning and said to tell you ‘the stars are aligning but beware the serpent.’ Whatever, lol.”
Maile was clearly loving having her own phone, a recent development. Despite the threat still weighing on my mind, I smiled at the message. Between Aunt Fae’s culinary experiments, Maile’s preteen directness, Tiki’s perpetual appetite, and Opal’s cosmic warnings, my extended ‘ohana was a chaotic source of love in the midst of this growing mystery.
I texted Maile a quick reply and then alerted Edith that I was on my way to see her, and no more alarm bells needed to be rung that we were overdue to meet.
As I drove toward Edith’s law office, I couldn’t shake the chill from that anonymous text. Someone was watching, tracking our investigation closely enough to know we were “digging” into Pearl’s poisoning. And they were bold enough—or desperate enough—to issue direct threats.
I checked my phone once more before putting it away—Lei had not responded. I had to trust that my more than competent detective friend was doing her part.
The Heritage Tea Garden project clearly threatened someone’s interests more deeply than we’d realized. The question was: how far would they go to protect those interests?
7
Edith Pepperwhite’s law office occupied the second floor of a restored Victorian building on Hana’s main street. A brass plaque beside the door proclaimed “Pepperwhite Legal Services: Family Law, Estate Planning, and Historical Property Rights” in bold, elegant script that somehow managed to convey Edith’s forceful personality.
I turned the knob of the office door. A bell chimed somewhere inside as I stepped over the threshold. “THERE you are!” Edith exclaimed, the volume making the framed law degrees on the wall vibrate. “I’ve been going bananas worrying!”
Edith Pepperwhite, five-foot-no inches of pure legal determination and personality—swooped out of the back. She wore a lavender muumuu, with a red hat adorned with what appeared to be artificial fruit. The effect was somewhere between eccentric grandmother lawn gnome and tropical Carmen Miranda. She grabbed me in a hug like a purple-clad hawk landing on a pigeon.
“It’s only ten a.m., Edith,” I pointed out, disentangling myself. Edith was someone whose hugs I still occasionally found claustrophobic, a throwback to the touchphobia I’d worked hard to overcome. “I came as soon as I could.”
“Well, you’re here now, that’s what matters.” She led me into her office, towing me by the hand with surprising strength for someone her size. “Terrible business with Pearl. TERRIBLE. And now the police asking questions about poison of all things!”
“Detective Texeira interviewed you already?” I asked, settling into one of the leather chairs across from Edith’s imposing desk.
“First thing this morning!” Edith confirmed, bustling around to sit behind her desk. “We did a Zoom. But—as if I would know anything about plant toxins!” She shook her head, refocusing. “That’s neither here nor there. I called you about Pearl’s papers.”
“For the Heritage Tea Garden project?”
“Exactly!” Edith pulled a thick folder from a neat stack on her desk. “Pearl asked me to handle all the legal aspects. Historical site designation, educational trust setup, the works.” She lowered her voice dramatically. “What she didn’t tell me initially was how politically explosive this project would be!”
“Because of Mayor Santos?” I asked.
Edith’s eyes widened. “You know about that connection?”
