“Dave was able to identify the body they found on the rocks.”
I put my hand over my heart. “Oh no. Who is it?”
“It’s Keiki.”
“Omigod. Do they know what happened to her?”
“I don’t know the details, but it gets even worse.”
“How on earth could it get any worse?”
“They’ve taken your brother in for questioning.”
Chapter 5
The weather mirrored the group’s dour mood on our ride back to the Kailua pier. Dark storm clouds shifted ominously in the sky as we shifted nervously on the boat. Amanda did her best to entertain the passengers by sharing the mating secrets of humpback whales. The subject seemed to enthrall the young woman, but I wasn’t in the mood to think about dating or mating, on land or at sea.
The fifty-minute ride felt like fifty hours, although Steve had the engines on full throttle. We found out the police had not officially arrested Dave, but after meeting with him at the restaurant, they’d “invited” him down to the station for further questioning.
I had plenty of my own questions for my brother, especially after Regan’s inference the previous evening that something was going on between him and the now deceased dancer. I phoned my sister-in-law, but her cell rang and rang. After landing in her voicemail for the third time, I left a message asking Regan to call back. A matter of life and death.
Once we’d arrived at the Kailua Pier, our small group debated our next move. Neither Steve nor Brian thought barging into the Kona police station was an option. For all we knew, Dave might be gone by now. There wasn’t much we could do until we heard from my brother, so we said good-bye to Steve and drove down Alii Drive in search of a place to eat lunch.
As we neared Daiquiri Dave’s, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic. A Mustang and an SUV with blue lights on their roofs were parked in front of the restaurant. I imagined it would have been filled with the police earlier this morning. A few tourists wandered along the street, gawking and snapping photographs of a setting one rarely sees in the tropics––yellow and red hibiscus bushes covered with crime scene tape.
A young couple dressed in sweat-stained T-shirts, jogging shorts and running shoes, darted across the street in front of our car. Brian slowed the vehicle to a crawl to avoid adding any more victims to the local casualty list.
I tapped Brian on the shoulder. “Can we stop for a minute? Let’s see what we can find out.”
“C’mon, honey, pull over,” Liz said. “It’s the least we can do. Maybe they’ll tell us if Dave is still at the police station.”
“Okay.” Brian maneuvered the sedan into a grassy patch further up the road. “They might respond to an assistant D.A., even one visiting from California.”
I threw the passenger door open before he could yank his keys out of the ignition. Brian might have more official status than me, but Dave was my brother, and his welfare was my top priority. My thin-soled flip-flops skidded on the parking lot’s gravel surface as I rushed toward the restaurant. I reached the open door of the building and halted. Although no crime scene tape barred my entry, I was uncertain what kind of reception my appearance would garner.
No one stopped me from entering Daiquiri Dave’s, so I walked inside. Off to the left, in a casual setting, tables and chairs rested on a sandy floor in front of a low lava rock wall, the only barrier between the cliff-side restaurant and the pounding surf twenty feet below. Two men stood in the more formal dining room located to the right of the stage.
A gray-haired man wearing a tan print shirt and khakis snapped photos from various angles. The younger, uniformed officer examined the thick ropes securing one post to another, which kept patrons from inadvertently falling over the wall. I recalled that the top rope barely reached my hips. I tapped the younger officer on his navy blue shoulder. He jumped to his feet and glared.
“What are you doing here? Did you not see the crime scene tape?” he asked in slightly accented English. “No one is allowed inside this establishment.”
“The tape didn’t extend to the entrance so I thought it would be okay.”
He stretched his arm and pointed to the doorway. “Please. Leave now.”
The older man turned toward me. “Do you have a question, ma’am?”
Ma’am? I turned around to see if my mother had sneaked up behind me. I was decades too young to be ma’amed.
“My brother, Dave Bingham, owns this restaurant. My family just heard the news about Keiki’s death and I was curious…”
The detective’s dark eyes shifted their gaze from my face to the rocks below. I couldn’t help but follow his glance. My heart flopped down to my flip-flops when I realized the beautiful dancer must have fallen over the wall on the opposite side of the restaurant, plummeting to her death.