"Yeah. Well, one of the guys is thinking about fixing her up with his great-uncle. You know, maybe have him pretend he's delivering pizzas and he's lost or something. He could go by her house and ask how to find a phony address in the neighborhood. Then she'll tell him there's no such place and he'll say they might as well eat the pizza together because there's no way he can deliver it since he doesn't have a good address. Then he'll go inside and she'll get him something to drink and they'll start talking. Next thing you know, no more phony heart attack calls. How's that sound?"

"Sounds like you guys are watching too much Lifetime Channel."

"Hey, it costs Maui County hundreds of dollars every time we haul her to the hospital for tests. We gotta do something." He motioned for me to take a seat on one of the battered sofas in the day room. Four guys in station blues were huddled around a computer in the far corner.

"What's this I hear about you getting in trouble out at the airport?" he said.

So much for me tactfully working it into the conversation.

"It was all a misunderstanding," I said. "I went down to the police station and got it all cleared up."

"That's not what I heard."

So, the cat wasn't just out of the bag; apparently the cat had shredded the bag and managed to fashion it into a clever booby trap.

"What'd you hear?"

"I heard you were hauling drug money and you weren't exactly cooperative during the interview."

I stared at him.

He stared back.

"Who's your source?" I said.

"Doesn't matter. If you're mixed up in anything to do with drugs, I need to know."

The guys over at the computer were pretending not to listen, but they weren't doing a very good job of it.

"There's nothing to know."

"Fine," said Hatch. "When there is something, you've got my number."

"Okay, well fine. I just came by to say 'hi' anyway." I got up and started for the door. Hatch didn't budge off the sofa.

"Babe, this stuff can get serious-real quick," he said from across the room. "If you want to talk, I'm off duty tomorrow."

I felt five pairs of eyes follow me out of the day room. I skirted past Mona's desk without saying aloha and got into my car. I revved up the engine but didn't put it in gear-just in case Hatch planned to dash out and apologize. After three or four minutes of pretending to warm up the car I shifted into reverse and backed out. Then I popped it into first and laid a little rubber getting out of there.

Next stop, Farrah's.

"You free now?" I said coming in the store from the back alley.

"Well, not exactly free-but I do come cheap." She'd worn that line out ten years ago but I shot her a smile anyway.

"Hey," she went on, "I'm sorry I didn't call you back yesterday. It was wall-to-wall customers all day long and then I had three private tarot sessions last night. But I've been worried about you, so sit down and spill." She pointed to a stool behind the counter and I dragged it over and sat down.

I caught her up on everything that'd happened the past week. When my shop had been next door to Farrah's store we'd never gone more than a day without seeing each other, so it felt weird rehashing stuff that had happened so long ago.

"Okay, let's see if I've got this right: the wedding's off, your red-haired girl's been kidnapped by some low-life druggies, the police are up in your grill about some cocaine money Keith Lewis left you, your kung fu instructor's loser-ass cousin is hiding out at your house, and you just had a squabble with Hatch," she said.

"That's pretty much it in a nutshell," I said.

A guy came in the store to buy a pack of cigarettes and I waited while she rang him up.

"So, about your missing bridesmaid," Farrah said after he left. "Are the police looking for her now that there's a ransom note?"

"I don't know, but it doesn't look like it. Wong made it sound like they think she's just some druggie tourist who got in over her head. He made me promise to stay out of it. I guess they need me to keep quiet so they can turn a blind eye."

"Maybe that's best," she said. "The cops are busy. They don't have the time or money to track down people who are hell-bent on destroying themselves."

"I can't stop thinking about her, though. I found her hair on my back seat. Her fingernails were hanging on my doorknob, and the ransom note showed up on my car. And, no matter how hard I try, I just can't picture the Crystal Wilson I met as some strung-out junkie. She was too clean."

"Clean girls get sucked into the life, too, you know. Like all those Hollywood celebrities who've OD'd or graced the cover of Us magazine doing the perp walk after getting caught with cocaine at an after-hours club."

"True, but it still feels like something's not right." I picked up a Payday candy bar from the counter display, but when I saw the buck-and-a-half price sticker I put it back down.

"Take it," said Farrah. "It's not like I'm gonna make my best hoa aloha-who I hardly ever get to see anymore-pay for a lousy candy bar."

"Mahalo," I said. "I'm starving." I tore off the wrapper.

"Oh yeah, and speaking of hardly seeing you anymore," Farrah said over the sound of my munching, "guess what happened next door?"

I shook my head rather than throw out guesses since I was juggling a mouthful of peanuts and caramel.

"Seems they've run into a snag."

I swallowed. "Bad wiring? Rotten wood? What?"

"Well, it all started on Wednesday. I heard yelling and doors slamming and then all kinds of people started traipsing in and out. And not just construction people. There were other people I'd never seen before. The parade kept up all day Thursday. And then this morning, it was quiet-real quiet. Finally, one of the head Mo'olele guys-I think his name is Tomo or Bobo or something-"

"Bono?"

"Yeah, that's it. Anyway, he comes in around nine to fill his coffee thermos and he gives me an earful." She smiled, apparently enjoying the tale. "Seems they found some wild stuff down in the crawlspace."

"What kind of stuff-like asbestos?"

"Nope, better'n that."

I waited. I've never been a fan of twenty questions but Farrah refused to stop trying to get me to play.

"They found some iwi-some bones. From the looks of things they're human-leg bones or arm bones or something. Bono said when they first found them the construction workers shot outta there so fast you'd have thought the place was burning down all over again."

"Did you see them-the bones?" I said.

"Yeah. Bono took me over there and pointed them out. They're right under the floor where they'd torn up some burned-out boards. There are stones there, too-piled up. Everyone agrees it looks like an ancient Hawaiian heiau."

"Wow. Like a sacrificial altar or maybe a royal burial spot? Do you think your folks had any idea that was down there when they ran the store?"

"Probably not. But anyway, for now work has stopped-totally pau hana. Personally, I think it's pretty funny the historical society got shut down by an inconvenient historical discovery."

"But what about you?" I said. "How do you feel about having ancestor bones right next door?"

"I'm fine with it. Remember, I had a kahuna come and bless the store before I opened it back up after the fire. And I'm not afraid of ghosts. Over the years I've bumped into a few ghosts and so far I've gotten along with every one of them. The dead are big on aloha."

A smile spread across her face and she went on. "So hey, ol' Bessie Yokamura and her hupo Maui Mo'olelo Society thought they could boot you out of your shop and kick you to the curb-no worries. But now they got worries. They can't put a visitor center over sacred ground, and nobody else will want it once they hear about those bones down there. You wait, your phone's gonna start ringing and ol' Bessie's gonna be all happy talking you about how she's changed her mind and she'd love to have you as a tenant."

"And I'd love to be back here," I said. "I hate driving to the West Side every day and then trying to get rid of the restaurant smells before my clients show up. If she calls, I'm gonna jump at it, bones or no."

"No, girl. Don't be too quick. Slippa's on the other foot now. Doesn't take a psychic to see if you play your cards right you be paying some dirt cheap rent over there."

We hugged good-bye and I went out to my car feeling pretty good. I could get a kahuna to bless my shop and leave the bones to rest in peace. I'd get to work in Pa'ia again, and, if Farrah was right, pay less rent than I had before. Everything was looking pretty good after all.

CHAPTER 19.

I'd like to say Beni Kanekoa cleaned up well, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. His hair was a little less greasy, and he smelled a tad more like soap than scum, but he still resembled something you'd find three-feet down in a Dumpster.

After a few minutes of small talk, Steve, Beni and I ate the rest of our dinner in silence. Steve pushed back from the table and announced he was sorry but he couldn't help with dishes since he'd offered to give a guy a ride somewhere. It was my turn anyway. He didn't need to come up with phony excuses.

After Steve left, I snatched Beni's nearly full plate and scraped it into the garbage. He'd eaten only a few bites, but the alfredo sauce was starting to congeal and I didn't hold out much hope of him suddenly digging in.

"You know, I got the cops after me, too," he said, totally out of the blue. "Seems I got both cops and robbers on my tail."

"Beni, hopefully I can help you with the trouble you're in. But first, you're going to have to come clean with me on what you know about Crystal Wilson-you know, the red-haired girl."

"Oh man, that's a freakin' mess. She gets pinched by those guys and then... Hey, I told 'em it was stupid. By the time they figured out I was right, it was a done deal."

"Whoa, wait a minute," I said. "What're you saying? They didn't mean to kidnap her? How do you mistakenly kidnap a person? Doesn't something like that take a lot of planning?"

"I don't know. They don't tell me nothin'. I was only s'posed to make sure that haole dude knew they had her. That's all. But then he takes off and it all got fu-uh, I mean, messed up, eh."

"So, why do you think they're coming after you?"

"They gotta blame somebody. They finger me for the local dumb-ass so I'll take the fall."

"Okay, let's start at the top. These guys grabbed the red-haired girl when? The day before Halloween?"

"Yeah, the night before. I guess she was at a party at Moose McGillicuddy's down in Lahaina. She left down the back stairs, alone."

"And they abducted her. And then they cut off her hair."

"Yeah, like that."

"And then they told you to make sure Keith Lewis knew about it."

"They called him a different name. But it was the guy you were doing the wedding for," he said.

"The police hinted he'd given me a phony name. Do you remember the name your friends called him?"

"Hey, they're not my friends, eh? They're just some bad-ass dudes I owed a bunch of money."

"Okay, fine. But what name did they call him?" I said.

"Johnson, Jackson, Jock-itch-some stupid haole name like that."

"So you're the one who put the hair in my car. Why in my car?"

"Because those guys tol' me to put it where that haole guy would find it. But he was staying up at the Ritz. Not like a dude like me can go hangin' around there and not get caught on a camera. I followed him for a while and figured out you were doing his wedding. I remembered you from my cousin's kung fu place. On Halloween I follow you to Lahaina and when you park your car I stick it in there. I knew you'd tell him. Smart, eh?"

I chose not to weigh in on his intellectual prowess.

"So, did you also key my car door?"

"Huh? No way, man. The door was open."

Good thing I hadn't perjured myself by agreeing he was intelligent.

"And then when nothing happened after I found the hair," I said, "the kidnappers peeled off her fingernails."

"I s'pose. They don' tell me much."

"So you were the one who hung the bag of fingernails on my doorknob."

"Yeah. I would've put 'em in your car again but I couldn't get in."

"And how about the ransom note?"

"I don't know nothin' about that. After I hung that thing on your door they start accusing me of messing up. They made me point you out. I took 'em by your house and then down to your place in Lahaina. After that, I was pretty out of it." He squirmed in his chair. "Look, we done here? I'm feelin' kind of sick." He belched as if to add authenticity.

"We're done for now. Get some sleep and we'll talk some more in the morning."

"There's nothin' more to say. I did what they told me to do. There's no way this was my idea-no way. Now you gotta help me. I tell ya, if they find me they'll kill me too."

I squinted at him.

He shook his head. "No, I mean it. These dudes have done the deed lots of times-to friends of mine. They squash guys like me like bugs, eh."

Not exactly the note I wanted to end on, but Beni was shaking and sweating like a hosed-down Chihuahua, so I halted my interrogation and helped him get back upstairs to bed.

I felt lousy about the way I'd left things with Hatch. I knew I wouldn't be able to get to sleep if I didn't try to straighten things out, so I called him.