Anne never knew you could sing ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ in Hawaiian. But that’s unambiguously what it was, being performed live by the band in the bar of the Maui Grotto Beach Hotel and Resort. She sipped her daiquiri through a shocking-pink straw and sighed. Luscious, gorgeous men everywhere, and nary a one for her.

“I hate you,” she told her friend Stacy, for perhaps the twentieth time. Stacy worked with Anne as a legal assistant at Cromway, Hellerman and Wu in Indianapolis.
“Drink your daiquiri,” Stacy said, tossing her short hair. “You’ll hate me less.”
“Nope,” Anne sipped noisily. “I really don’t think I will. In fact,” Anne shifted on her stool, looking Stacy in the eye. “I’m gonna hate you more, because I’ll be drunk and easy and want to get laid with some hot vacationing hunk, and because of you, I won’t be able to. Argh,” Anne exclaimed, and sipped her drink with a vengeance.

Stacy sighed. “I told you, it was a mistake.”
“It was not a mistake. I know you. You booked us at a goddamned gay resort because you like to gawk.”
“Can’t say there isn’t a lot of eye candy,” Stacy admitted with a catlike grin, green eyes following the barely-clad buttocks of a tanned beauty.

“My eyes aren’t the ones wanting a freewheeling holiday. Where’s the candy for my vagina, Stacy.”

The band stopped in time for her words to carry loudly. Two men sitting near her at the bar shifted uncomfortably and left. Anne gave an exasperated sigh, hunched possessively over her daiquiri, and proceeded to ignore everything.

***

For Ken Wakamoto, the holidays were shaping up quite differently. The sexiest boy he’d ever met was hanging on his arm and on his every word, laughing and grinning and looking at him with eyes that just begged to do the things they did in their room when the parties and buffets were over. Kazuma had been his lover for just a year this Christmas – he had taken him to Hawaii to celebrate in lavish style, far from the restrictions of their usual lives. Taken him where his daughter Misato, barely younger than Kazuma, couldn’t give them disapproving glares whenever she was in the room. Taken him where no one would know or care that he was regional manager for a chain of high-end clothing stores. Just taken him somewhere romantic and tropical and free.

Well. Far from free, really. Ken had a lot of money, and Kazuma certainly enjoyed spending it.

Ken watched his lover slip into the skin-tight scuba gear, and decided he had no problems with letting Kazuma waste his hard-earned fortune.
“Aren’t you going to scuba with me?” Kazuma pleaded, grinning.
“I don’t know. I’m too old for that.”
“Oh, don’t say that! You’re not. Cap’n, tell him he’s not.”

The man referred to, a quiet-faced Hawaiian scuba instructor, looked at Wakamoto.
“Don’t think so. How old are you?”
“48,” Ken replied.
“I’m 41 myself. You should be fine. want to join your friend? The reefs are beautiful.”
“Come on, the reefs,” Kazuma tugged on Ken’s arm, smiling coyly. “You won’t regret it~…”
“Well, all right then,” Ken quirked a smile.
The scuba instructor picked out a large wetsuit for Ken. Kazuma pulled him into the changing booth to help him fit into his gear, and indeed, Ken did not regret it.

***

The Maui Grotto Beach Hotel and Resort took up thirty acres of prime real estate stretching out to the Pacific ocean. These included swaths of pristine private beaches (one of them nudist) and snorkeling and diving areas for the exclusive use of resort patrons. Originally built in 1994, it had catered to golfers and their families before being bought out by Pride Resorts International in 2006; now completely renovated, with extra swimming pools, cutting-edge decor, and an all-night disco, it had quickly become the number one destination for gay and lesbian vacationers on the island. The Grotto Beach Hotel prided itself on its accommodating nature, offering a variety of adventure and leisure activities, both exotic and urban, as well as both pub-style fare and four-star fine cuisine between its three dining rooms and two bars. It was a sizable venture: the hotel and its affiliated services provided employment for over two hundred staff, which were picked mostly from locals, albeit with an unspoken but obvious aesthetic bias. If no such criterion existed for those operating behind the scenes – chefs and sous-chefs and dishwashers, office managers and web designers – or those in positions requiring special qualifications – chief of security, scuba instructor, nurse – the vast majority of employees of the Maui Grotto Hotel and Resort were clearly picked for their charms as well as their skills. Rather than making their desk clerks, wait staff and cleaning staff unremarkable, the Grotto Hotel had chosen to make them part of the attraction.

One such attraction refilled the champagne flutes of the two Japanese men waiting in line at the lavish dinner buffet. Kazuma gave him a rakish leer, which warranted a light elbow to the ribs from his lover.
“You’re always making eyes at people. One would think you’re single. Stop that.”
“I do what I want,” Kazuma challenged.
“Sure, but I don’t want people getting ideas.”

Kazuma downed his champagne.
“They can get whatever ideas they want.”
“You’re drunk,” Ken mentioned in an undertone, eyes fixing the younger man’s eyes.
“I do what I want,” Kazuma repeated.

Ken sighed. Kazuma had been acting strangely ever since their second evening here.
He shuffled forward as the line moved. Butter and rolls were almost in reach.

“You’re ignoring me,” Kazuma said, poking Ken in the back.
“I have to, sometimes,” Ken replied evenly.
“Why? Do you hate me that much?”
Ken turned, and faced him again.
“You’re stupid sometimes. Of course I don’t hate you. Would I take someone I hated on vacation to Hawaii? Answer me that.”
Kazuma lifted his chin, trying to compete with Ken’s height. But he gave no answer.

Ken sighed again, and shuffled with the line.

He piled two rolls onto his plate, and took some butter. He moved to let his lover get to the buffet as well.

“You should hate me,” Kazuma said then, taking a rye roll. “I’m careless and selfish.”
Ken sighed for a third time. “You’re just spoiled,” he said. “I spoil you, I know it. It’s my own fault, so I can’t complain.”
“I’m ruining you,” Kazuma insisted. “Financially and morally.”
“Now you just sound like my daughter,” Ken chuckled, moving ahead. “I’ve got enough money, and I was morally ruined long before you were even born, darling. You shouldn’t listen to Misato.”

Kazuma fidgeted with his glass. He gestured to a champagne waiter impatiently, who came trotting over.
“Seriously, what does it take to get service here?” The waiter apologized as he poured. “Yeah whatever. Just be faster next time.”
“You’ve had enough, Kazuma.”
“Don’t act like you’re my father!” some of Kazuma’s champagne splashed over.
“If you stopped being so childish, I wouldn’t have to.” Ken quietly served himself a bowl of cream of carrot soup. “You’re older than Misato, start acting your age.”
“Her again!” Kazuma laughed, moving forward with the line. He drank champagne. “You don’t even know, do you?” Kazuma grabbed the soup ladle. “Your innocent prudish little angel. That’s what she is to you, isn’t she? The balancing opposite of your philandering, lascivious self.”

Ken drew himself up to his full height and stared Kazuma down. His voice was quiet and commanding, if fraying a little on the edges.
“Quit it, Kazuma. I don’t know what you’re up to but you’re being very loud about it. If there’s something you need to talk about then let’s do it later, when we get back to the room. There’s no need to make a scene like this. Have some shame.” He turned aside, sternly, and moved up the line.

“Scene?” Kazuma scoffed, loudly. “That wasn’t a scene. This is a scene.”
He took the ladle out of the soup tureen, and emptied it onto the floor in an exaggerated gesture.

***

“There’s a guy emptying soup onto the floor,” Anne pointed out boredly.
“Mm-hm, and all of them buck-naked —what?”
“Soup,” Anne repeated. “Floor.” She pointed to the kerfuffle by the buffet table, where a puddle of orange was rapidly spreading near Kazuma’s feet.

Stacy turned. “Well would you look at that. Lover’s tiff, you think?”
Anne shrugged. “Probably.”
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” Stacy was clearly relishing this.
Anne shook her head.
“Nah, me neither,” Stacy said. She stood up to join the small group of people staring, to listen up close.

“–lunatic!”
“More than once, too,” Kazuma taunted. “We’ve been having an affair for months. She moans just like her old man in the sack,” he remarked.
“You son of a bitch,” Ken snarled. He moved as if to hit the younger man, but was met with a broad arc of cream of carrot soup. The splash across his white dress shirt startled him enough to cut his action short.
“Haha,” Kazuma laughed. “Ha. You were gonna find out sooner or later. I guess it was time. Oops,” he shrugged, grinning.
Ken fumed, speechless, livid.

“………I can’t believe I loved you.” He forced a breath. “Get your things out of my room. This is over.” He turned and left.

Kazuma laughed more, with increasing hysteria. In a paroxysm of spite, he grabbed the soup tureen and sent it shattering to the floor.
“See if I need you, old man!” he laughed, almost sobbing, but Ken was already out the door.

Stacy returned to the table.
“Yep. Lover’s tiff.” She dipped a piece of bread into her bowl. “Glad I got some of that soup before it was all gone,” she said.
“Yeah,” Anne agreed, “it’s pretty good.”

***

Adam Kunitz had seen the fight. He smiled to himself now, nursing an Amaretto Sour at the hotel’s second bar, the one where you needed evening wear to get through the door. His white tux contrasted sharply with his deep red hair. His eyes, Pacific blue, followed Wakamoto’s broad frame as he came fuming through the door. He had changed his shirt, but his mood hadn’t changed with it.

Some people came to the Grotto Beach Hotel as a couple. Some came simply for the getaway. Adam, however, came to cruise, and ultimately to steal. The average single gay men coming to the hotel – especially the older ones – had more money than they knew what to do with, and Adam was devoted to the cause of freeing them of some of that burden.

Adam had picked up the whiff of money around the Japanese businessman long before his little boyfriend had started spending it lavishly around the hotel. The rich had a way about them – Adam had a kind of sixth sense for it, and one that had rarely led him astray. Ken Wakamoto was a fantastic target – vain, older, and loaded. And with the boyfriend out of the way, Adam’s plan was forming to perfection. He’d have him wrapped around his little finger by morning.

Ken sat two stools away from Adam and ordered a triple scotch and ginger ale. Adam crossed his legs.

“Quite a hubbub your friend made back there with the tureen,” Adam said, with a calculated smile.

Ken glanced his way.
“Yes. Well.”

Adam smiled. “Lemme pay for that drink.”
Ken shook his head, dismissing, preoccupied. After a moment he glanced at Adam again, only really noticing him this time around.
“…Are you making a pass at me?”

Adam chuckled, looking down into his glass, a little coyly.
“Was it that obvious….?”

“You certainly waste no time,” Ken remarked, while taking his drink from the bartender.
“Thought you could use a little cheering up.”
“Hmm.” Ken knocked back a slug of scotch. “I just found out my boyfriend has been cheating on me with my daughter. Cheering up might not cut it.”
“Ouch,” Adam chuckled. “Well… If it’s a distraction you’ll be wanting, I’m pretty good at those,” he looked at him through his lashes, rakish grin firmly in place.

Ken looked at him for a long time, measuring his options.

“Well.” Ken downed the rest of his drink, and rolled his shoulders. “Why the hell not.”

***

Things got worse for Anne before they got better. The presence of other female guests – notably few – had at first calmed her anger at Stacy, but then quickly riled it up again with closer observation. Given the demographics she was seeing around her, Anne was convinced that everyone now thought that she and Stacy were lesbians.

Her hatred of Stacy bubbled for a few days, but eventually the sea breeze and white sand and fresh fish and plentiful booze mellowed her spirits. She was in Hawaii, for fuck’s sake, chilling out at a lavish hotel with nothing but the sea and great food and long mornings to sleep in a cushy bed that she didn’t even have to make herself. Paradise. Paradise without a hunk to share it with, but she’d manage.

She got up one morning with the mission to explore the coastline as far as her feet would take her, bring a picnic, and call a taxi when she wanted to go back. Yes.

She cobbled together a cold lunch from the breakfast buffet and put it in a couple ziplocs in a plastic bag with some ice. Bought a wine cooler to go with it, put on her most no-nonsense bathing suit and slathered sunscreen all over. Tried on a couple of hats before finally deciding on just a pony tail and sunglasses, and tied on a pareo around her hips.

Beach time.

The beach was crowded right near the hotel, but as she distanced herself from it she encountered less and less people. The ocean was a brilliant azure blue under the cloud-dotted sky,waves just the right kind of noisy, and the sand was already hot between her toes even at not-quite-ten AM. Anne realized that before all the hotels and resorts and restaurants and clubs would have been built, Maui must have been incredible. She wondered if there were still places in the world where you could enjoy tropical glory without hearing highways in the distance over the crash of waves.

She decided on investigating about other parts of Hawaii for next Christmas.

There wasn’t much in the way of unclaimed beachfront property in Maui. Anne noted that there were, however, unused beaches that surely belonged to individuals richer than she’d ever imagine becoming. Stern No Trespassing signs didn’t much bother Anne on her excursion; she sidestepped the fences and continued her journey heedless of whose property she might be trespassing on, until she found a large flat rock perfect for sprawling.

She pulled her ziplocs from her dribbling bag of cold water – bad idea, the ice, after all – and pulled out a clammy egg-salad sandwich and some cold cuts. She cracked open her wine cooler and sighed her contentment. Now this was more like it. The crashing surf, the warm sun toasting her skin, a packed lunch and a nice drink, and no one around…
She untied her pareo and laid it on the rock, and, after glancing around, peeled off her bathing suit. A little nudie sunbathing never hurt anyone.

The only thing missing, she mused as she nibbled a cold cut, was a sexy male body to cuddle up with after… She sipped cooler and finished her sandwich. She’d never had sex on a beach, in the sun like this… or at night even… She imagined it was probably pretty sandy, all things considered. But it was such a cliché, it must be good, right? She rolled onto her stomach and wondered if she should try hitting one of the clubs in town to find a guy. But ugh, that was such a cheap thing to do… She was horny, but not a tramp. And picking up a dude at a hotel bar is better how, exactly?

She sighed. Maybe her sister was right – maybe she was trying too hard. Maybe she should just give up entirely and let love come to her, instead of looking for it. Sexy male bodies would just have to wait. They’d turn up on their own time.

She sat up again and was pulling her suit back on when she spotted something at the water line. She frowned. It hadn’t been there before. It looked big and dark and waterlogged. She tied on her pareo and trotted over, every step deepening her fear of what she was about to discover, until there was no question left, and she almost revisited her lunch.

It was a male body, all right. But this one was far from sexy.

***

“Looks like he’s been dead two, three days, we’ll have to take him in to make sure. Got good and waterlogged, too. At least 24 hours. And nibbled at by this and that, too,” the coroner pointed out.

Inspector Rob Kanahele rubbed the crease between his eyebrows. “Drowned?”

The coroner shook his head. “Can’t say for sure, but I’d bet the cause of death was this big smashed-in part of his head, here,” he pointed. Photographs flashed.

Insp. Kanahele gazed down at the mangled body. Must have been a good-looking man, before the sea and blunt instruments got him. He glanced back up. “A tourist found the body?”
The coroner nodded. “She’s over there somewhere. Someone’s taking her testimony down, I suppose.”
Kanahele nodded. With a parting glance at the corpse, he walked over to talk to Anne.

***

“I still can’t believe this is real,” Anne said, hugging her knees to herself. She was still sitting on her rock; she felt like she’d been there for hours, and the hot sunlight was strangely cold, and she shivered. “I’m on vacation. I’ve only been here five days. I can’t believe I let Stacy drag me here. I should have stayed in Indianapolis… rather deal with snow than corpses, oh God.” She rubbed her face with her hands.

“Why don’t you tell us again what happened, as exactly as possible,” Kanahele said.
She looked up. “Who’re you?”

“Inspector Robert Kanahele. I’m in charge of this investigation.”
Anne’s face pinched up. “It – it was murder, wasn’t it,” she looked queasy. “I come here for a break over the holidays and get involved in a murder investigation. Oh God, am I a suspect?” Her eyes opened wide with fear.

Insp. Kanahele had a small, but honest, smile. “Not yet. And you probably won’t become one. Why don’t you tell me how you found the body? What’s your name, miss?”

Anne swallowed. “I already told your, your friend here,” she indicated the uniformed policeman.
“Tell me again.” Rob said.
She nodded.

“My name is Anne Reynolds. I’m a legal assistant at the firm of Cromway, Hellerman and Wu in Indianapolis. I’m here on vacation with my friend Stacy Lynch,” she said, just as she had said before. “We’re staying at the Maui Grotto Beach Hotel and Resort. We’ve been there since December 12th.”

“The gay place?” Kanahele raised his eyebrows.
Anne sighed. “Stacy booked it. She made a mistake. Not my ideal vacation,” Anne managed a broken smile, “but I’ll take what I get. You have a beautiful island, detective. Were you born here?”

“Inspector. And no, I’m from Kauai. But I grew up in Honolulu.”

Anne nodded. She wrapped her arms tighter around her knees.
“Listen,” she said. “I don’t want to be demanding, but do you think we could go anywhere but here right now?”

Kanahele glanced over his shoulder at what they were starting to lift into a bodybag.

“Sure thing, miss.”

***

“I’m pretty sure I know who the – who the um, corpse is, by the way,” Anne said, wrapping herself in the blanket provided at the station, and warming her hands on a cup of coffee.
“Oh?” Kanahele opened the door to his office and let her in ahead of him. “That’s interesting. Who was he?”

Anne looked around, sheepishly, feeling underdressed and nervous. A fly buzzed in the open window, and out again.
“I don’t know his name,” she said. “But he was a guest at the hotel where I’m staying. He and his boyfriend had a big fight a few days ago. He poured carrot soup all over the floor.”
“Why?” Kanahele frowned.
Anne shrugged. “Dunno. Making a fuss I guess.”

A blond policewoman with short curly hair and Eurasian features came into the room, and smiled.
“Don’t mind me,” she said cheerily. “I’m just gonna take a seat over here.”

“Miss Reynolds, this is Sgt. Cindy Fujita. She works with me.”

Cindy gave a little wave at Anne. Her nose crinkled when she smiled, and Anne noticed that her face was spattered with freckles. She wondered vaguely what Sergeant Fujita’s ancestry was.
“Hi,” Anne said. “Uh. I’m Anne Reynolds. I found the, uh.”
Cindy nodded. “I’ve been briefed. Go on, I’m just a fly on the wall,” she assured.

Anne looked at Insp. Kanahele again.
“Please,” he said, extending a broad hand. “Have a seat.”
Anne nodded, and did.
“You were saying.”

Anne sipped her coffee.

“Well. I guess it was… day before yesterday, no, the day before that – Monday?” she frowned. Time gets so fluid, on holiday… “Stacy and I went to the buffet table early, because that’s when you get the best stuff, right. So we already had a table when the fight broke out.”
“Between our John Doe and…” Cindy piped in. So much for fly on the wall.
Anne nodded. “They were both Asian guys. Him, and an older man, big, tall guy. I’m not sure what they were arguing about but the guy – the – the one I found – he made quite a show of it. Started ladling soup onto the floor. Ended up bashing the tureen itself.”

“That’s some theatricality,” Kanahele frowned. “How did the hotel react to this?”
“I dunno,” Anne shook her head. She breathed in the warm aroma of coffee.
“And you said you had no idea what the fight was about?” said the fly.
“Nope,” Anne shook her head again. “Although Stacy went up to listen. Maybe she knows. She said it was a lover’s tiff. But that’s what she would have said even if they were arguing about cheese or something,” Anne sipped.

“What do you mean?” the Inspector said.
Anne shrugged. “She’s always imagining intrigues. Illicit ones and stuff like that. I dunno. It’s not important.”

“That’s up to us to decide,” Insp. Kanahele said, as gently as he could, which wasn’t too gently at all.

Anne looked at him, and nodded, a little scared.

“Do you remember anything else about the victim?” Sgt. Fujita asked.

Anne considered. “…Not really. I saw him once or twice before that, always with his boyfriend or whatever. Didn’t see him after though. After the fight, I mean.”
“And the boyfriend?” Kanahele asked. “Did you see him again?”
“Oh, sure,” Anne said. “He found somebody else real quick. Sharp-dressed redhead. Kinda cute,” Anne tried to suppress a girlish smile, but failed.

Rob Kanahele made a sound.
“Well.” He shuffled some papers on his desk. “Officer Cobrero has your statement on how you found the body,” he says. “One last thing though, and then we’ll let you leave. The property the body was found on belongs to a Mr Howard Jeffrey Monteith. Friend of yours?”

Anne fidgeted. “No sir.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I guess I was trespassing. But no one was there and the beach was so beautiful, and I wanted to get away from all the people… you understand?” She nibbled her lip, looking up at him imploringly.

Kanahele looked at her for a solid few seconds, and then sighed, with a nod.
“We’ll let it go this time, no harm done. Just remember that those signs aren’t up because they’re pretty – private property is private. Some people get mighty upset if you sneak onto their beach. Of course,” the inspector mused, “Monteith will probably be more upset that his beach became a crime scene. Oh well.” He shuffled papers again, which Anne realized was a sign that she should probably be leaving.

She looked around, not wanting to stand without being told or something. She sipped her coffee.

“Come on,” Sgt. Fujita smiled. “Someone will take you back to the hotel.”
Anne stood with relief, and made to follow.

“Oh, and miss Reynolds?” Kanahele called out.
She turned, at the door.

“Sorry you had to get dragged into all this,” he said.

She smiled.

***

“Nice girl,” Rob Kanahele mused. He and Cindy were alone in his office, with the door closed.

“Think she’s involved?” Cindy asked.
“In the murder?” Rob raised an eyebrow. “No. Why, do you?”

Cindy looked at her nails. “She sure painted that big guy, the victim’s lover, as a prime suspect. Maybe she has something to hide.”
“Far as I can tell,” Rob leaned back in his creaking chair, “bigdude is the prime suspect. Public fight three nights ago, young lover isn’t seen since, body washes up three days dead. Seems almost cut-and-dried.”

“Too cut and dried,” Cindy Fujita narrowed her grey eyes.
The inspector smiled. “Not everything is a red herring, Sergeant.”
“Some things can be,” Cindy insisted.
Rob slipped on his light jacket. “Well, you know this is why I like you working with me. I’ve got the imagination of a mole crab.” He stood. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got a hotel to question.”

***

When Stacy saw Anne step out of the police cruiser, she was both sincerely concerned and excited like a kid at Christmas. There would definitely be an interesting story to this.

She trotted over in short skirt and heels, carrying her booze-in-a-coconut.

“Jesus, what happened, Annie?” she reached out her hands.
Anne grudgingly took them, but looked upset and embarrassed. “Let’s get away from where everyone can see us, huh?”
Stacy nodded, and escorted Anne back to her room.

She sat on the chair, letting Anne huddle up on the bed.

“So what the fuck happened, Anne? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Anne made a choked sound. “Sort of.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Corpse,” Anne shuddered. “Found a corpse. On the beach. All dead and bloated.”

Stacy stared.

“That,” she said after a while, “is heinous. Oh my God. Are you okay?”
Anne shook her head. “I don’t know. It was really gross, Stace… and … then I went to the police department to give a statement…” She looks up. “It was that guy, Stacy. That guy who poured soup all over the floor.”

Stacy squeaked in agony! “Oh no!” She put her hands to her mouth, face pale. “Oh no, no Annie but he was so hot!”
Her face showed despair.
Anne nodded, and sighed. “Yep. Not anymore.”

Stacy took a few moments to let all the news sink in.
“… Do they know… who did it? I mean – I mean was it an accident, or, or …”

Anne shook her head. “I don’t know. I think they think it was murder or something.”
“Oh God, Annie, murder?” Stacy frowned, and shook her head. “We could be stuck here for a while, you know that, right? They might not want us to leave until it’s solved. If we’re witnesses or something.”

Anne had a wan smile. “Well. I guess that means an extended Hawaii vacation for us,” she said. But her heart wasn’t in it.
“Now if you don’t mind,” she said, slipping under the covers, “I think I need a nap.”

***

“I hate going in here,” Rob Kanahele frowned as he padded up the steps to the Grotto hotel lobby. “Always makes me nervous. The way everyone looks at me.” He grunted.

Sgt. Cindy Fujita smiled to herself. The inspector was a good-looking man, stocky and solid with tawny skin and a short ponytail of sleek black hair. Many of the women in the department looked at him in much the same way as these men he was lamenting. At 44, he was already in the top brass of county law-enforcement, and although he’d been divorced for six years, there was no whiff of current romance about him, at least as far as the department girls could tell. He’d confessed to Cindy once that after the disaster that was his first marriage, he had no interest in repeating his mistakes. Cindy sometimes wondered if courting the inspector herself mightn’t be a good idea, you know, if they didn’t work together and all that. But he was close to twice her age, and although she didn’t mind that per se she knew it tended to make relationships difficult sometimes. Sgt. Fujita may have had a fondness for detective fiction that sometimes spilled out into how she did her job, but she was also a pragmatist.

“Are you homophobic, inspector?” Cindy smiled a little.
Kanahele frowned. “Of course not. Wouldn’t be appropriate of me. I’m just a little worried about what they want from me, that’s all.”

Cindy suppressed further commentary, and they stepped into the Maui Grotto Beach Hotel and Resort.
The lobby was lavish, and tourists of all ages and races – mostly men – smilingly wandered through, paths crisscrossed by comely houseboys and bellhops. Burly security guards imposed their sexy yet discreet presence. Cindy could easily see why this resort had gained the kind of popularity it had.

They walked up to the front desk. A young clerk with short blond hair greeted them, a little warily.

“Inspector Robert Kanahele, Maui County Police Department,” Rob showed the pretty desk clerk his badge. “We’d like to speak to the manager. One of your guests has been found dead under suspicious circumstances.”

The clerk blanched, but nodded. He told them to wait a moment, and went to inform the manager.

***

The manager was a tall, bony man named Hendrik Oosterhout. He greeted them grimly, in his sober office.
“Please, come in, sit down,” he said. “I hear there’s been a tragedy at my hotel.”

“Not sure where tragedy struck exactly, yet,” Inspector Kanahele noted. “The body was found quite a ways away from here. But the young lady who found the body was a guest here, and she says that she recognized the man she found as being another guest. He was a Japanese man, early to mid twenties. Ring any bells?”

Oosterhout steepled his fingers. “We get a lot of Japanese visitors. There are at least a dozen guests currently staying at the hotel who would fit that description.” He had a short smile. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“The woman who found the body, miss, ah, Anne Reynolds, she said she had seen the deceased in company of an older man, also Japanese, quite tall and large I believe. She said they had a very public falling-out in the dining room, involving carrot soup.”

The manager’s face drained of what little colour it normally had.
“You’re talking about Kazuma Ueshiba,” he said. “The… yes. Are you sure?”

“We’ll have to get someone who knew him to positively I.D. the body,” Kanahele said. “But according to miss Reynolds, that’s who it is.”

Hendrik Oosterhout stood and paced a little. “Well. It’s Ken Wakamoto you’ll want to talk to. To identify the body, I mean.”
Kanahele nodded. “You know where I can find him?”
“I’ll have him called,” Oosterhout fidgeted.
“Thank you. And, Mr. Oosterhout, I trust we’ll have your full cooperation in conducting our investigation in this hotel?”

The manager looked at him uncomprehendingly. “Investigation…?”

“Yes,” Sgt. Fujita said. “Mr. Oosterhout, we’re afraid this looks quite a bit like murder.”

- TO BE CONTINUED -