"I got that, but you know Mom would freak out if you refused. No way she's gonna allow her sister's baby boy to use a public defender when we've got a lawyer in the family."

James turned to me. "He's up at your place?"

"No, he moved. He didn't think it was safe at my house, so I found him new digs."

"You gonna tell me what's going on here?" said Sifu Doug.

"It's best if you don't know any more than you do," said James.

James and I went outside and he pulled a briefcase from the trunk of his midnight blue Mercedes sedan.

"Gorgeous car," I said.

"Yeah, well, there's the good news and the bad news with this ride. Everybody sees it and thinks I'm doing great. But the truth is, I'm working fifty to sixty hours a week to keep up the payments. And all this pro bono crap with Beni sure doesn't help."

We went over to my sad-looking car and James got in without comment. I pulled out of the alley and headed up Baldwin Avenue.

"The state doesn't pay you to defend guys like Beni?"

"I'd get a small fee if the case was assigned to me by the court. But when you do it on your own-like this, with my family putting the screws to me-then it's totally on my dime. I've even got to foot the bill for expenses."

"Well, I'm sure Beni appreciates it."

He laughed. "Hardly. He's the worst client possible. I bust my butt getting through law school and passing the bar exam and I'm rewarded with a blood-sucking dipshit of a cousin as my number one client. He's never paid me a dime-or even given me so much as a mahalo for my effort."

I pulled into the alley behind Farrah's store and parked.

"He's here? At the Pa'ia Store?" said James. "Not a very smart hiding place."

"He's upstairs."

"I didn't know there was an upstairs."

"Exactly."

I checked to make sure there was no one in the alley before we got out. We went up the back stairs and I used my special knock to let Farrah know it was me. When she opened up, she looked liked she'd been sucking on a lemon and a seed had gotten stuck in her throat.

"Way glad to see you," she said.

"Where's Beni?" said James, looking around the cramped living room.

"He's barricaded himself in my bathroom. I even had to go downstairs to pee." She pointed toward her bedroom. "It's through there."

James went into the bedroom and a few seconds later I heard him tapping on the bathroom door announcing his arrival.

"How're you doing?" I said to Farrah.

"You should've warned me."

"I tried. But he'll only be here a day or two at the most. I've alerted James that time is of the essence if we hope to find Crystal in decent shape. After ten days the poor girl's probably wondering if anyone's even looking for her."

Farrah shot me a look.

"What?" I said.

"Pali, you're a good person. But these people aren't. Don't get your hopes up."

"Sheesh, what's with everybody? First Sifu Doug goes all gloom and doom on me and now you? We need to get moving, but since we know where she is, we should be able to find her pretty fast."

"From your lips to God's ear," she said. "But, as you said before, chances are Beni hasn't told us everything."

CHAPTER 23.

That night, as Steve and I were eating dinner, the phone rang. He got up and checked the caller ID. "It's Farrah," he said, handing me the receiver.

"Hi," I said. "What's up?"

"Can you come down here?"

"I'm in the middle of dinner. How 'bout giving me half an hour?"

"Pali, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. Please, get down here as soon as you can."

"What's going on? Are you okay?"

"Just get down here." She hung up.

As I headed for the back door I asked Steve to stick my plate in the oven. "I'll be back in a little while to finish it."

"Everything okay?" he said.

"Apparently not."

The trip down Baldwin Avenue seemed to take forever. What had Beni done now? The guy was smelly, rude, and infuriating, but Farrah had infinite patience. I was speeding ten miles over the limit and yet it felt like my wheels were slogging through mud.

Farrah opened her apartment door. "Come in."

I looked around her dimly lit living room. Beni was nowhere in sight.

"Did your new roommate take off?" I said.

"I wish. He's holed up in the john again."

"So, what's going on?"

She gestured toward her lumpy sofa. "Sit. You need to hear this sitting down."

As soon as I sat,' Farrah's Jack Russell terrier, Sir Lipton, jumped in my lap. The dog had been named before her gender had been correctly determined, so her name should've been Lady Lipton, but Farrah refused to acknowledge the error.

"Lipton's such a good boy. He always knows when to lend support," she said.

"Okay, spill," I said. "The suspense is killing me."

"Oh, Pali. I know you've been really concerned about that bridesmaid. You know, Crystal Wilson."

She paused. I waited. That kind of phony tee-up from Farrah almost always signaled disaster.

"I'm afraid the news isn't good. A little while ago Beni told me those druggies he's hiding from killed her."

My thinking slowed way down. I couldn't even form a complete sentence. "What? Why?"

"I guess when they sent Keith the ransom note and he just took off, they went nuts. They blamed Beni and made him watch while they killed her."

"Beni's not the most reliable source of information, you know."

"Yeah, but I believe him. He was there-he saw stuff. I called you down here to break the bad news myself, before he goes to the cops."

"As if the cops give a damn," I said.

"So, what now?"

"I don't know. Give me a minute."

The anger that erupted in me came as a surprise. Farrah snatched Lipton from my lap just in time to avoid the poor dog getting dumped on the floor.

"Those bastards!"

I felt something rattling around the back of my mind but I couldn't put my finger on it. I started pacing.

"I'm so sorry, Pali. I wish I didn't have to tell you this. You and I aren't strangers to heartbreak, that's for sure." Farrah and I had both been orphaned when we were young, and she'd recently had to deal with the death of a newfound love interest.

"I can't even imagine how horrible this was for her," I said. "All alone, so young and far from home. Being held by a bunch of drug-crazed assholes who chopped off her hair and ripped off her fingernails. She must have been terrified."

"If it's any consolation, Beni said she was incredibly brave, right up to the end."

"Sorry, but that's no consolation. In fact, it makes me even more pissed off." I slammed my fist into my palm. "Would you get Beni out here? I need to talk to him."

"He probably won't come out. He's afraid. He said his cousin Doug told him you could kick his ass from here to Hana, and he's scared you're gonna do it."

"I'd like nothing better, but I promise to maintain control. Please go get him."

Beni hung his head as Farrah led him into the room. "Sorry, man," he said.

"Sorry? You let them kill a defenseless woman in cold blood and you think you can wipe it away with a 'sorry'? How screwed up are you? I tried to help you. I even worried about you." By now I was in full shriek mode.

"No, man. Listen. I didn't do nothin'. They said they'd send their guys after me if I didn't show. So I go up there. They were way deep up in there, man. They give me a da kine shovel and say dig a big hole. I figured they were messing with me but then I get they're serious. It takes me a long time to dig the hole, and when I get done I go down to where they were in this blue tent. I see that girl-with the hair chopped off. Next thing I know they drag her out. They push her, like down on her knees."

He hung his head.

"And then what, Beni?"

"I didn't wanna look. She didn't scream or beg or nothin'. And then Slam pulls a gun and there were two shots-bam! bam!"

"You didn't try to stop him? You just let him murder this poor girl right in front of you?"

"I didn't know. I didn't..." He put his hands over his face.

"So then what'd you do?"

"Whaddaya think? I took off runnin'."

"Did you think he'd shoot you too?"

"Hell, yeah. Those dudes don't want no witness. And that hole I dug was plenty big for two."

It was hard for me to feel sorry for Beni, but I did. How did the sweet little fifth-grader I'd met ten years earlier at Sifu Doug's manage to grow up to be such a degenerate 'okole?

At that moment I recalled what had been rattling around the back of my mind: Hatch's fiancee. She'd been murdered the same way-executed by drug dealers. Hatch went into a steep nosedive after witnessing her murder. And now it'd happened again. I was used to watching nightly reports on the Honolulu news detailing crimes committed by O'ahu drug lords. But Honolulu was a big city; drugs and crime came with the territory. Over there it was expected, but here on Maui it was a disgrace.

"Beni, I know a sure-fire way to get the police to offer you protection," I said.

"Yeah?"

"First light tomorrow, you and I are going to retrace your trip up to 'Iao Valley. We're going to find that hole you dug and take some pictures. The Maui cops will have to take us seriously or we'll let them know we'll go over their heads."

"But what if Slam and those other dudes are still up there?"

"What're the chances of that?" I didn't wait for him to answer before saying. "Zero. Why would those scum bags hang around a murder scene out in the middle of nowhere?"

He shrugged.

"I know it's a little scary, but it's the only way. We'll go up there and get evidence. The police will have to act. You with me on this?"

He gave me a nearly imperceptible nod.

"Good. I'll pick you up around six. The sun will be coming up by then but the park won't be open yet."

I gave Farrah a hug and went back down to my car.

On my way home in the dark, the boogey man began whispering in my ear. Why had Crystal's disappearance gone unnoticed? Why had there been no news reports of her kidnapping, or requests for the public to keep an eye out for her? There'd apparently been no calls from family or friends inquiring about her whereabouts-or if there had been, they'd been ignored. Could the Maui Visitor's Bureau have so much clout they could squelch news that cast our idyllic island in a bad light? Or was Beni correct in accusing the police of collusion? Whatever the reason, it seemed pretty clear if we didn't make some noise, Crystal Wilson's murder would disappear-like footprints swept away by the tide.

Not on my watch. If Glen Wong wanted to throw me in jail for doing the job he refused to do, then so be it. He could argue that Crystal's death was simply a bad end for a mainland party girl who'd gotten herself tangled up with local dope peddlers, but I didn't buy it. A young woman-a human being-had been executed, supposedly collateral damage in a beef between a couple of lowlife drug dealers. She'd been buried in the loamy soil of the rain forest where the daily downpours and warm temperatures would quickly reclaim her body to the earth. We had to find her. Her soul deserved to rest in peace knowing the lowlifes who'd brutally ended her short life had been brought to justice.