Rob Kanahele pulled into the gravel driveway of his bungalow home and killed the ignition. Up the cement steps, pushing open the door and flicking on the lights, hallway, kitchen, living room, tree. He poured himself a very large White Russian and let his body fall into the recliner.

The search of room 114 had lasted over an hour and yielded nothing. Lots of expensive clothes, watch, cufflinks, patent leather shoes. Wakamoto kept his boy in good threads. No computer, no cellphone, nothing. A magazine swiped from the airplane. Wallet in the drawer held no obvious secrets or clues. No planner. No notebook or diary.

No crime scene.

In the garbage can, three scraps of paper that might be useful. One with a phone number, a local one. Two with the kind of doodles people do while talking on the phone. No obvious hints or symbolism in there either, but it was all Kanahele had for now, the only harvest that room had yielded. Meagre indeed.

He pulled them out of his pocket and stared at them now, one by one, in the twinkling light of the artificial Christmas tree.

He sighed. They didn’t mean anything more to him now than they had before. Probably a long conversation, probably something that upset him. There were a lot of dark scratches. Or that might just have reflected his overall mood.

Not much to go on…

“Ah, shit,” Rob groaned, cursing himself. “No phone activity from the hotel room. Of course you’d forget that.” Even if he’d just been told it the same day… Hn. The phone in 114 hadn’t been used. So if Ueshiba called anyone, it must have been from a cell phone. Which meant he had a cell phone, which might have held important information. Well, great, but where was it now?

Rob sat up a bit straighter. He’d ask Wakamoto for the phone number, get it traced by GPS. Tomorrow. Now, he looked at the paper with the Hawaii phone number. Who had that kid been calling, the night he died? Someone he didn’t want tied to the hotel room records. But who he didn’t already have in his cell’s phonebook. A local? Someone he already knew, or someone he had just met in the last days? Probably the second of the two – if he knew the person already, he wouldn’t have needed to take down the number that night.

He narrowed his eyes at the number. Tomorrow, he’d have it traced. Tomorrow.
He took a heavy slug of his drink.

After a minute, he stood, and went to pack an overnight bag for the hotel. His answering machine was flashing. He ignored it – anyone work-related would call him on his cell, and he didn’t have the patience for anything else right now.

He sat thoughtfully by the tree for another few hours, going over the facts of the case. He made himself some Kraft dinner and sat some more. Meticulously recopied his notes on fresh paper, at the dinner table, while the mac and cheese got cold. Then he tucked all his notes, old and new, into his briefcase, the old ones folded into an envelope so as not to get confused with the new ones.

Gnawed at by guilt, before leaving he listened to the message on his machine – his mother, as he feared, asking him when he’d be back for the holidays – and made a note to call her tomorrow, if he ever got the time.

A little after midnight, he pulled back out of his driveway and headed back to the Grotto Beach Hotel.

***

Anne was tired, but starting to feel normal again. Dinner had been a huge lobster and most of a bottle of white wine, and then she had braved the outside for the first time since that fateful afternoon, two days and half a lifetime ago, to stroll under the Pacific stars. She had stretched out in a chaise longue and breathed in the ocean air, and listened to the quiet. The noise of the hotel was behind her and pleasantly dulled by the crisp, soothing sounds of waves.

She must have napped, because by the time she returned to her hotel room her wristwatch informed her that it was almost 1:00. Her head was pounding from too much wine, but at least she was more relaxed than before. And Buxley and Melvina had totally had a happy ending together.

She tried the keycard for a third time before realizing she was holding it the wrong way up. Now the lock beeped green and she pushed the door open with a relieved sigh.

The door met some resistance and she kicked at the obstacle to move it while she fumbled for the light switch. The object felt unfamiliar, and when she finally got the lights, she saw why.

***

Anne sat crosslegged on the bed, chin in her hand.

“When did you find him?” Kanahele said, frowning down at the corpse.
“Just before I called you,” Anne replied. She was drunk and exhausted and maybe that was why this time around, it was almost funny. She wondered if she’d be finding dead people every few days for the rest of her life. Or maybe just this trip. She had a bit of a smile. It didn’t reach her eyes.

“Did you touch anything?”
“Just the phone,” Anne looked at him. She didn’t even bother to fix her half-untied ponytail.
“Do you know who he is?”
“Nnnnnope,” Anne smiled.
Rob bent over again to inspect the head wound that had finished this poor kid.
“At least this one’s not all bloaty and wet,” Anne said, lying down flat on the bed. She closed her eyes. “Does this happen a lot on your island? I mean, no one I ever talked to who had vacationed in Hawaii had ever found two dead bodies before. Or even one, actually.”

Kanahele looked at the boy’s face. There was something familiar under the trickles of blood. He’d seen it before… “He’s one of the cleaning staff,” he muttered.
“Hm?”
“Ah, nothing,” Rob stood. “– And, no. Your experience here has been pretty… um, unusual, I think.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him.
He looked back.
She made a coo, and rolled onto her side. “I’m happy you’re staying in the hotel now. That’s handy. That means if I find a dead person, I can just ring you up and you’ll come. Did you know that room-to-room calls are free?”
“So’s 911,” Kanahele said, sternly.
Anne made a sleepy sound.

Rob sighed.

***

“What’s with her?” One of the uniformed officers asked, dusting the room for fingerprints.

Kanahele looked up. He was pointing to Anne, curled into the fetal position on the bed, deep asleep.
“She found the body. This is her room.”
“And she can sleep through this?”

Another flash went off as the body was photographed from a closer angle.

“Looks like it,” Rob said.

The uniform shook his head and went back to work.

Rob stifled a yawn. It was three in the morning. He’d had 20 minutes of sleep.

He looked at the body of Carlos Villenza and tried to remember what he had said during the interview with the cleaning staff. To his recollection, it had been almost nothing.

The Ueshiba investigation had never struck him as the kind that would garner a repeat performance. Whether Kunitz or Wakamoto had done it, alone or together, it was almost certainly one of them, and seemed pretty cut-and-dried. But now this. Why was the houseboy dead? Kanahele didn’t want to believe it was unrelated to Kazuma’s murder. Same hotel was one thing, but the M.O. was the same too – back of the head bashed in by something heavy and sharp – and missing.

So why was he dead? Villenza must have witnessed something, something important enough that he didn’t want to say it in front of his coworkers and important enough to get him killed.

Killed in Anne Reynolds’ room.

Rob looked at her. Was there more to her involvement in this than he had been assuming? What she had said earlier rang true. You don’t discover dead bodies by accident twice. Villenza had been killed in her room for a reason. Reynolds was part of this somehow.

He watched her sleep, bony and mussy and tense, and found himself hoping she wasn’t as in the thick of this as the dead body in her room suggested. Regardless, he made a mental note to look for anything linking her with Kazuma Ueshiba. If the two deaths were connected, Anne would have to be involved in the first one as well.

“We’re done here,” an officer said.
Kanahele nodded. “Get the body out of here. And someone find the girl another room.”

***

“Miss Reynolds, I have to ask you some questions. Do you understand why?”

Anne sat, bleary-eyed, in the oversized armchair in suite 1112, across from Kanahele and Cindy. All three had room-service breakfast trays laid out on the coffee table between them. A uniformed policeman stood guard at the door, quiet as furniture. It was 7:30 AM.

Anne slowly sipped her orange juice.
“Probably.” She put the glass down, and put her hands on her knees.

“Could you recount to the best of your ability what you did from 11 PM onwards, yesterday?”

Anne nodded. “Sure. At 11 I was on the beach. I went there after dinner, which I ate late, 9:30 maybe. Stayed there for a long time. I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up I went back to my room, it was almost 1:00, and found a dead body. Then I called you.” Her muddy grey eyes looked at him.

He pursed his lips. “On the beach, were you alone? Did anyone see you?”
“I don’t know,” Anne shook her head. “I mean, yes, I was alone. But I don’t know if anyone saw me. I saw almost nobody,” she said. “I looked for a quiet spot…”

Kanahele nodded. “Can you go over again the exact circumstances of how you found the body?”
“Can I have a hash brown? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be hungry after all this and I’m sort of not but it smells really good,” she made an apologetic pout.
Cindy looked up from the Spanish omelet she had been eating with vigor, and a look of guilt crossed her face.

Kanahele nodded. “Yes, of course. It’s early, and we’ve all had long nights.” He extended a tanned hand.

Anne thanked him and took her tray onto her knees, protectively, like a security blanket. She bit down on a piece of potato. “So, okay. I unlocked the door, it took me a few tries but I was holding the keycard the wrong way because I’d had quite a bit of wine, I guess. I got it right eventually though, and pushed the door open most of the way before it hit something. I turned on the light and saw that the something it had hit was another dead body. It was horrible and unreal and I really feel bad about this, but it was almost a little funny, last night. You know? Not only do I find another one, but it’s in my room. Inspector, why was it in my room?”

She looked pale and her eyes were wide with incomprehension. Rob shook his head. “I don’t think we know that yet.”

She looked down, and nodded.
“Well, I walked right over to the bed, over the dead body, and picked up the phone and dialed the front desk and asked for the number at the room you were staying at. And woke you up I bet,” she looked apologetic.

“Hm. Don’t apologize, it was the right thing to do.”

Cindy polished off her omelet and sausage links, and sipped her coffee.

“Did you know the deceased, Miss Reynolds?” Kanahele continued.
“Not in the least. Do you know who he was?”
The inspector nodded. “Part of the cleaning staff here. He probably did your room in the morning.”

Anne shook her head. “No, that was some Japanese boy. I mean, I assume he’s Japanese, sine there are so many Japanese here. Maybe he was Chinese or something. I’m not very good at telling them apart,” she admitted, even if it embarrassed her a bit.

She drank her juice.

“Have you ever been to Japan?” Rob asked.
She looked at him. “No. I’m not a big traveler. This is actually my first time outside the continental US except for a trip to Paris with a boyfriend in my 20s.”
“Sounds romantic,” Cindy smiled over the rim of her coffee cup.
“Eh,” Anne shrugged.

Kanahele looked down at his untouched bowl of oatmeal and dried fruits, and eventually took a bite or two. He was thinking.

“Did anyone else have a key to your room?”

She shook her head. “No.”
“And when you left, are you sure you closed the door fully behind you?”
“I think so. I mean, they lock automatically, right? I didn’t do anything different than usual.”
“Has anyone else visited that room since you’ve been staying here?”

Anne raised an eyebrow. “Is that as private a question as it sounds like, inspector?”
“I don’t care about your private life. Has anyone else been in the room.”

Anne retreated into her chair, pulling her tray with her.
“Yeah. My friend Stacy.”
“No one else?”
“No one else.”

Kanahele said nothing. After a while, Fujita asked, “How are you liking your new room?”
Anne shrugged.

Cindy looked at the inspector.

He shook his head. “We’ll want to talk to you again. Later today, okay?”
Anne nodded.

“Don’t leave the hotel. We’ll call you.”

***

Rob’s thumb and forefinger were pressing into his eyeballs, soft, slow, pressing at the ache gathering there. Fujita looked at him, not knowing what to say. The room was quiet.
“…You’ve barely touched your breakfast.”

He sighed, and removed his hand, leaning back in the chair. “I don’t like where this is going, Cindy.”

The sergeant nodded, leaning her chin in her hand.
“Think the same person committed both murders?”
“Probably. God, I hope so. The last thing I want is two homicide investigations to deal with at the same time. We should probably tell Oosterhout to put the hotel on lockdown. Nobody leaves until we’ve figured this out.”
“No one likes that.”
“I know, I know,” Kanahele groaned, and reached for his coffee. “But we’re in a tight spot. I’ll make the call.”
He sipped, slow.

Cindy sat, made a little uncomfortable by her superior’s thoughtfulness.
“So what do we do for now?”
Rob looked at her.
“…Nothing new. Continue the Ueshiba investigation until we hear from Wayne. We’re only three days into this. There’s a lot left to do.”

Fujita nodded. “Checklist?”
“In my briefcase. But maybe things will have changed. Pass it over,” he said, sitting up straighter.

***

Stacy was getting frantic. Anne and she were supposed to go shopping in town today, and things were going from bad to worse. Not only did Anne not answer her phone, but when Stacy went to find her in her room she found police tape instead. The infuriating officer wouldn’t tell her anything, except that Anne wasn’t in the room, but that he didn’t know where she was.

She tried to breathe calmly through her nose as she harassed the hotel desk clerk, but he seemed more occupied with gossiping with his friends than answering her questions.
“Anne Reynolds. She’s in the room crawling with cops.”
“There’s like, three rooms like that,” the bright-eyed boy with skin like melted chocolate giggled.
“Omigawd I know!” Squealed a dimply redhead.
“No, guys, guys, hey, you think there’s been another murder?” a bottle-blonde with a pieced lip pawed at them.
The redhead shrieked, and smacked him. “Don’t say it!”
“Woooo, there’s a serial killer on the loose,” the first boy spooked.
“Stoppit, okay!” the redhead said, still laughing.
“CHILDREN.” Stacy smacked her hand on the service bell. The boys barely batted an eye, and she did it again, and again and again and again, until finally they went quiet and three pairs of wide eyes looked at her.

“…What?” said the melted-chocolate boy.

“My friend was in that room. The one with the second murder or whatever it is. The cops aren’t telling me anything and I just want to know if she’s okay and where she is. Anne Reynolds. Please,” she huffed.

The blonde nibbled his lip ring.
“Oh, they moved her last night, I think.” He went to the ledger. “Tyler told me, he was on duty then, god, he was so ruffled by it,” he explained to his two friends. “See? Here it is. Room 612.” He smiled to Stacy.
“Thank you,” Stacy sighed, and ran to the elevator.

***

“Item one, call the daughter in Japan.”

“I got her number from Wakamoto,” Cindy said. “Want to do that now?”
Rob nodded. “Sure. It’s probably as good a time as any to catch her at home.” He pulled out his cell, and started dialing the long string of numbers. “Any progress on getting those private numbers tracked down, by the way? The ones dialed in Wakamoto’s room?”
“Tim down at the station said he’d try to get that by this afternoon.”

Rob nodded. It was ringing.

It rang three, four, five times, then went to voicemail. He clapped his phone shut.
“Nobody home?” Cindy asked.

“Let’s try again later.”
“What’s next on the list?”

“Boat,” he said, glancing at the legal pad. “Look for records of boats taken out or missing on the 14th, in the area.”
“I could look into that. The hotel keeps records of all rentals.”

“Item three is, canvas for places where a body could have been hidden between Ueshiba’s death and his burial at sea. Which,” Kanahele sighed, scratching it off the list with a flourish, “is garbage, and should read, ‘Look for crime scene’,” he amended the list while talking, “since both Wakamoto’s and the boyfriend’s room came out clean.” He sighed.

“What if he was killed on the beach or something?”
“It’s looking more like it all the time.” Rob steepled his fingers, looking introspective. “… More and more, I’m thinking we won’t know anything until we know what the victim did between locking himself into his room that night, and meeting his fate a few hours later.”
“Security cameras?” Cindy suggested.

Rob smiled. “That’s item four.”
Cindy smiled too, and that’s when the inspector’s cell phone rang.

“Kanahele.” He pressed it to his ear.
“Inspector? It’s Wayne. I have something I think you should see.”

***

Wayne Heller was Maui County’s top forensic pathologist, and its coroner. There weren’t a lot of suspicious deaths in Maui, not enough to require a big team, but enough to keep Wayne in a full-time job with a handful of part-time assistants scattered around the five islands that made up the county. Rob rapped on the glass door to the Wailuku morgue before entering.

“You wanted to see me?”

Wayne turned, grinning behind his spectacles. “Uh-uhn. I wanted you to see Exhibit A here. How you been?”
Kanahele shrugged. “Been better. You’re working fast today, Wayne. Autopsy finished already?”
“Not a chance, barely started,” he admitted. “Corpse isn’t what I want you to see. C’mere.”

He walked behind a stand where tools and stainless steel bins were lined up. Carlos Villenza’s pallid and naked corpse lay on the table between them, made decent by a white plastic sheet.

“Behold,” Wayne said, hoisting a tropical-colored thong with forceps.

Rob frowned.
“Underwear? You want me to see the victim’s underwear?”

“Definitely. Check this out.”

He laid the thong out in a metal plate, turning it inside out. Kanahele walked over to take a closer look.
Along the rim of the waistband, blocky letters in blue ballpoint read: anne renolds killed kazuma.

Kanahele raised an eyebrow. “Well. That’s original.”
“Maybe he was worried something would happen to him, you know?”
“Backup plan?” Kanahele pointed to the thong.
“Right. If he knew who the killer was, and wanted to tell the police, this is as good a way as any. If you’re dead.”

Inspector Kanahele crossed his arms. Anne Reynolds? He frowned. This certainly put a new twist on things.

He stood for a while, rereasing the inscription. Then he sighed and glanced at the coroner.
“Okay. So if he thought she did it, why would he go to Anne’s room to get killed? That name in his underwear? It’s the person who found him.”

Wayne pushed his glasses up with a wrist.
“Weird. But hey, that part’s your job, inspector,” he grinned.

***

Kanahele passed by home after leaving the morgue. He called his mother in Kauai, admitted he had not gotten the package she sent – a notice from the post office poked up from the pile of mail, and he grabbed it, phone tucked between ear and shoulder – and even admitted that he was working on two murder cases in one of the big hotels, and didn’t know when he’d be done with them. She wasn’t happy, of course, but he’d realized decades ago that lying to her just made him feel horrible, even though it usually made his life easier. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, but it usually did hurt him.

He swung by the post office on the way back to the hotel.

***

Anne unlatched the door and blinked sleepily at her friend, who threw herself into the room and around Anne’s neck.
“Jesus Christ, Anne, you had me freaked out. Jesus. What the hell happened to your room. There’s cops all over the place. Is this about that body you found?”

Anne reluctantly let Stacy into the room, and crawled back into bed.
“Nope. Other body.”
“Other body? What?” Stacy sat next to her friend, staring. “What do you mean, other body? There’s another body?”
“Yup.” Anne slid down under the covers, and closed her eyes.
“Who? Where?”
“Dunno. And in my room. Old room.”

Stacy felt shock drain the warmth from her face.
“Annie, they found a body in your room?”
Anne shook her head. “No, I did. And not so loud please, I’m kinda hungover,” she said.

Stacy crawled into bed too, then, suddenly cold.
“…Are you telling me you found a second dead body?” she tried not to be too loud.
“Yeah,” Anne mumbled.
“…Are you okay?” Stacy was in shock – she couldn’t even imagine what Anne must have been feeling.
Anne shrugged, a tiny movement.
“I guess so. I’m tired. And hungover.”

Stacy took Anne’s face in her hands, turning her carefully to look at her. Anne squinted painfully.
“What?”
“You’re totally traumatized by this, aren’t you.”
Anne looked at her.
“Probably,” she admitted. “I really want to sleep, Stace… Wake me up after Christmas, all right?”

For once, Stacy was completely at a loss on what to do.

***

“I want to see that Kunitz guy again.”

Cindy Fujita looked up from her legal pad as Rob entered the room, and made a gesture for just a minute, as she jotted down a few more things from her conversation on the phone.
Rob let himself fall into a chair, pulling out his notes from his briefcase. She hung up the phone and looked at him.

“What’s up? What did Wayne have for you?”

“Underwear,” Rob said.
“What?”
“Never mind. Evidence linking the two murders.”
“Oh! Convenient?” Cindy crossed her legs.
“And suggesting that the killer’s Anne Reynolds.”

Cindy looked at him, uncrossing and recrossing her legs.

“Well, that’s unexpected,” she said, finally. “Conclusive evidence?”
Rob shook his head. “I don’t… Let’s get Kunitz in here.”
“The evidence involve him too?”
“No. Get him in here.”

***

“Aww, inspector. Miss me already?”

Adam grinned, tossing his mop of red hair.

“Cut the cute stuff, Kunitz. What does the name Carlos Villenza mean to you?”
“Hmm. Isn’t he a guitarist?”
“That’s Carlos Santana,” Fujita said helpfully.
Adam chuckled. “Oh. Right,” he winked at her.

Rob huffed.
“I told you to can it, Kunitz. Villenza’s dead, know anything about that?”

Adam looked at the inspector, more soberly.
“You think I did it?”
“You’re not answering my questions.”
“Neither are you,” Adam pointed out.
“I’m allowed. What have your interactions with the cleaning staff been, since your arrival here?”

Adam quirked an eyebrow. “Either that’s a nonsequitur, inspector, or this Carlos is – was – one of them.” He smiled. “Got a dead houseboy on your hands?”

Rob succumbed to an angered growl. “Just answer my question,” he said, forcing himself to calmness.

Adam sighed. “Fine. Interactions almost nil. See them around, like anyone else, smacked their bottoms once or twice, but who’s counting? And no, I didn’t know any of their names, and I never talked to one or was around one for more than a few seconds, so you can’t pin this one on me, boss.” He had a defiant little smile.  “You really want me to be the culprit, don’t you. Do I make you that uncomfortable?”

Kanahele looked at him evenly.

Maybe, just maybe, he was right.

“Did you meet or hear of Ken Wakamoto before you met him the day of his fight with Ueshiba?”
Adam, for a moment, looked a little taken aback.
“…No. I mean,” he pushed hair out of his face, “I had seen him around.”
“Where?”
“Here, at the hotel. In the days before. His boyfriend was fond of making quite a show of spending his money,” Adam explained. “It was easy to see what was going on there.”
“And what was going on there?”
Adam’s eyes sparkled. “A very rich man, a very sexy boyfriend, a very strenuous relationship, except for the sex, I’m sure. People will put up with a lot in order to keep getting laid.” He smiled.
“I bet you know all about that. Did you help make the relationship more strained?”
“Little ol’ me?” Adam brought a hand to his chest. “Why I’d never. I know when a man’s been baited and hooked. That Ueshiba kid had his claws way into him. I’m not unscrupulous enough to try and swipe a sugar daddy off somebody else.”
“I bet you’re not,” Rob said, unconvinced. “Anne Reynolds. Do you know her?”
“Was she after Ken too?” Adam raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.
“My question, please.”

Adam crossed his arms. “She found that Ueshiba guy, didn’t she? We talked once or twice.”
“Do you know what she’s doing here?”
“No fucking clue, inspector. As far as I know, not a lot of straight girls hit the Grotto.” He sparkled a smile. He turned his glance from Kanahele to Sgt. Fujita. “You suspect her, don’t you.” Back to Kanahele. “Am I allowed to ask why, boss?”

Rob scratched his cheek.
“I’m watching you, Kunitz.”
“Mm, you’re watching everybody. Hotel’s in lockdown mode, and the boys at the front desk are talking about serial killers to anyone who’ll hear. If you really thought I was guilty, you’d have made a move by now. What happened with Carlos Whatever?”
“Why don’t you ask the boys at the front desk?” Rob scowled.
Adam smiled. “Thanks. I think I will. Will that be all, inspector?”

Kanahele sighed.

***
“Too smart for his own damn good.”

“Well, I think it’s starting to fit together nicely,” Cindy said.

Rob stirred peppermint hot chocolate powder into his boiling water.
“I don’t. And I think we won’t get this solved before Christmas has come and gone,” he brooded.
Cindy smiled. “We’re allowed to take the 25th off,” she reminded.
Rob grunted.

She put her hands on her knees. “Preoccupied by the holidays, sir?”
He eyed her, taking his seat with his cup. “…I got a call from my mom.”
“Oh,” Cindy smiled, a little knowingly. “How is Mrs. Kanahele?”
“Apart from the fact that she seems to think it’s my personal fault that I’m stuck in a murder investigation at Christmastime?”
“She thinks you did it on purpose?”
He had a small grunt.
“Sent me this hot chocolate powder and the cookies. You can have one if you want,” he nodded to the tin. “They’re not homemade though. Not as good as when she made them herself.” Mrs. Kanahele’s arthritis made it difficult to stir.

“Thanks,” Cindy said. She took one, gingerly.

Rob sipped.

“I got the information you wanted about the boat, by the way,” Cindy nibbled.
“Oh?”
“One of the hotel’s inflatable dinghies is missing, has been since the 14th.”
Rob nodded. “We’ll call the station, put a couple guys on beach patrol, see if anything turns up.  Have ‘em keep their eyes peeled for a murder weapon, too.”

Cindy nodded, taking note.

Rob sighed, drinking his watery hot chocolate.
“So you really think Anne Reynolds killed Carlos Villenza.”

“Both of them,” Cindy said, sprightly. She bit into a second cookie. “Ueshiba too.”
“The underwear?”
“Is one clue, yes,” Cindy nodded.
“There’s more?”
She nodded again.

Rob looked up at the grey sky blowing by the window. “How do you think it happened, then?”

Cindy stood up and went to look out the window herself. The hotel had such views…

“Remember how Wakamoto told us Kazuma had started acting strange a day after they arrived? That’s been bugging me since the beginning. I think I know why. Anne Reynolds arrived here that same day. The guy was acting strange because he saw her. It’s her that got him spooked. I don’t know why – maybe she knew about him and Wakamoto’s daughter, maybe she threatened blackmail. Maybe she’s an ex-girfriend or a long-lost sister or whatever. It doesn’t matter. But something about her really got to Kazuma. Something bad enough to make him get self-destructive over it.” She leaned against the windowsill, looking at her superior. “Good so far?”
Kanahele watched her attentively. He nodded.”Go on.”
“So after his scene in the dining room,” she continued, encouraged, “maybe that was just to show her he’s not afraid, I don’t know, anyway, she arranges to meet him somewhere, late at night. I don’t know where, but that’s where she kills him. Takes him out in the dinghy, consigns his body to the waves, comes back, goes to bed. Few days later, she goes for a long walk thinking that if she’s the one to find the body, that will make her less of a suspect.”
“Deterring attention by attracting attention?”
“Something like that, yes,” Fujita said, eyes glimmering at the inspector. “She gets to act innocent and we treat her like a victim in this, instead of what she is, a cold-blooded killer.”

“Nh,” Rob shook his head. “She should have expected we’d look into her story if she was the one to find him. Why bother? she could have sailed through this invisible. I don’t buy it.”
“Maybe she’s that confident in her coverup. It’s certainly unconventional.”

Rob shrugged. “Fair enough. And Villenza?”
“Witness,” Cindy said. “That one’s easy. Just like what was written in his underwear. When he comes in to clean, she offs him.”

“No dice,” Rob shook his head. “Villenza wan’t in charge of cleaning on that floor. And even so, they do the rooms in the morning, not at night. Villenza wasn’t killed that morning, he was still warm when I got there.”
“Then she invited him over,” Cindy said. “Under some premise.”

Rob scrached the underside of his chin thoughtfully. He put down his cup, and leaned his cheek in his hand.

“…” he shook his head. “Too many holes. I don’t buy it.”

Cindy leaned against the window, suppressing a sigh. She’d worked with Kanahele long enough to know that her job was to be a fountain of ideas, good and bad and crazy. It was still always a little disappointing when the inspector wasn’t hooked, especially if she felt her theory was consistent.

“Who then?”
“Wakamoto. Kunitz.” He shook his head again. “Gotta be one of them.”
“Their alibis check out. And I know you don’t like Kunitz, sir, but you admit he doesn’t act like a man who’s just committed two murders.”
“He’s cocky,” Kanahele grumbled.
“Unless he’s a total psychopath, a murderer under investigation wouldn’t usually act that cocky.”
“So he’s a total psychopath.”

Cindy giggled.

“Well, Wakamoto then,” Rob said, regaining his calm. “We should get him in here again.”
Fujita nodded.
“Sir?” she inquired, politely. “How would Wakamoto have gotten into Anne Reynolds’ room?”
Kanahele frowned. “… The victim could have let him in. The cleaning staff all have universal keycards.”
“Why let him in? And why there?”

Rob leaned back and stretched. He closed his eyes, thoughtfully.

“There’s too many facts, Sergeant. Let’s take the time to tie them together.” He opened his eyes, following the distant path of a seabird in the wind. “Maybe something will turn up in the Villenza investigation to make the Ueshiba one click. I know we’re missing pieces to the puzzle, Sergeant,” he said. “We just have to look harder.”

- I WAS TOTALLY WRONG GUYS, AND THIS IS GOING TO BE A FOUR-PARTER, NOT A THREE-PARTER! STORY GOT CARRIED AWAY :D SO, THIS IS THE INSTALLMENT THAT IS TO BE CONCLUDED …NEXT TIME! -