Page 7

7

KATIE

Katie swung back and forth in the gaming chair she’d brought down to the communal computer lab at the Maui Police Department. When she was assigned to do research investigation under Sergeant Texeira, she’d been given space in the seldom used lab rather than being housed in a cubicle in the ‘bullpen’ upstairs. She’d set out to make her station as optimized as possible.

She’d scrounged up three monitors from dusty corners and networked them together. She’d souped up the tired old Gateway she’d been issued with a couple of extra hard drives and other upgrades.

Katie loved it down in the lab. There were other computers available on open tables, but they were seldom used. The solitude, the air-conditioning, the dim lighting, and her Bose headphones blasting her favorite playlist accompanied her as she did background checks on possible new recruits for the police department.

Her cell phone, wrapped in a hot pink Hello Kitty waterproof case, vibrated on the counter and rang through the headphones. Katie picked up when she saw the caller. “Hey, Lei. Gimme something interesting to do!”

“Answer the phone professionally, even when you know it’s me.” Lei’s voice was brisk; she was in full cop mode.

Something must have happened.

Katie’s heart did a little hop of excitement. “Sorry, boss.” She cleared her throat. “This is Investigations Intern Katie McHenry. What can I do for you today?” Katie pushed off from the desk and spun the chair all the way around, tipping her head back to enjoy the whirling colors made by a string of multicolored chili pepper bulbs she’d hung around the room to brighten it up. “Please tell me something happened. Save me from the boredom of new recruit background checks.”

“Yes, something did happen. I need a full information workup on a murder victim discovered this morning. Her name’s Cheryl Goodwin. We have her address and know she’s a real estate lawyer; that’s all. I want to know everything else there is to know about her. Get me the dirt.”

Katie zoomed the chair back to her desk. “On it. Anything more?” She inputted the woman’s name into an incognito search engine.

Lei hesitated, then spoke slowly. “She was killed—a throat slash—with a shark tooth Hawaiian style weapon while staked out and displayed on the lava at La Perouse Bay. She was found wearing a Hawaiian style skirt or pā‘ū . There was a piece of brick and her driver’s license wrapped in ti leaves left behind, presented between her legs. Some sort of offering or message left with the body.”

“Yikes.” Katie’s imagination filled in the grisly sounding scene; she could see it like a movie in her mind’s eye. “Let me find out everything I can about each of the items.” Katie opened a note window and began jotting keywords. “Can I get access to the case file and view the crime scene photos?”

“Yes. Pono’s adding you to the team so you can get access now. Brace yourself, the pictures are gory. Let me know when you have something of note. Pono and I are going out to Goodwin’s residence to see if there’s anyone home. We’re working on a warrant for the premises.” Lei blew out a breath; Katie had noticed the way a stray curl lifted off her forehead when she did that. “We also need to know Goodwin’s next of kin and who might have been her friends or associates so we can question them.”

“On it. I’ll have something for you in a few minutes,” Katie said.

“A few minutes? Right,” Lei snorted and ended the call.

“Lei doesn’t believe me,” Katie singsonged to the computer. “Finally I’ve got a chance to show her what I can do.”

Katie’s gaze flicked from one screen to the next. All three filled with different sources of information responding to her prompts. Katie’s fingers flew over the keyboard, but her mind drifted, pulled back to the night before, a tide receding from the shore.

She was ready for reminders, now. She’d ordered three copies of the holiday photo of her family taken the Christmas before her father died and had picked them up from Longs Drugs, along with cheap frames—one for herself, and one for each of her brothers.

Now, her father grinned at her from a corner of her work area, one arm slung around her younger self, the other around her mom. Her brothers smiled from their cross-legged poses, their arms around the family dog—a German Shepherd named Scout that they’d had to rehome after Mom sold the farm and they moved to Hawaii.

They’d laughed so hard that day. Last night, though, there had been only memories.

Katie shook the thoughts away, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand: Cheryl Goodwin. Murdered. Staked out on the lava fields of La Perouse Bay.

Katie’s screens brimmed with information—financial records, legal filings, news articles about Cheryl’s career—but something else caught her attention.

The weapon. The leiomano. She opened a new tab and dove in.

The leiomano was a relic of Hawaii’s warrior past, wielded by chiefs and fighters alike. The name itself meant lei of sharks, a poetic contrast to the brutal reality of its construction. A flat wooden club, sometimes shaped like a paddle, its edges were inset with razor-sharp shark teeth, each one bound meticulously with cord and resin to hold it securely in place.

Katie could almost feel the weight of the weapon in her hands, the smooth koa wood polished, the dangerous bite of the teeth if gripped the wrong way.

This wasn’t a weapon of convenience; it was deliberate.

A chill flitted up her spine. Whoever had killed Cheryl Goodwin hadn’t just wanted her dead. They had wanted to send a message.

Katie clicked through search results, scanning modern reproductions. There were weapon smiths still crafting these today—artisans keeping the tradition alive, using fossilized shark teeth and traditional binding methods. Some pieces were displayed in museums; others were custom-made for collectors, cultural practitioners, or high-end decorators looking for a conversation piece with a dark history.

And then there were the black-market dealers. One listing caught her eye—an online auction boasting a "genuine 19th-century leiomano ," with a starting bid at $12,000. The seller’s credentials were vague, the authenticity even more so, but it made Katie’s gut tighten. She exhaled sharply, her fingers drumming against the desk.

This all meant something. The weapon, the location, the ritualistic display of the body—they all pointed to something deeper than a random act of violence. Was Cheryl Goodwin chosen for a reason?

She saved what she’d found on the leiomano to the case file and then switched back to Cheryl Goodwin’s records.

Her screen was soon flooded with data—social media accounts, legal cases, financial transactions. Each result revealed another layer of Cheryl Goodwin’s high-stakes career. She wasn’t just another real estate lawyer—she was a dealmaker, a power broker, a woman who had thrived in the shadows of Hawaii’s most controversial land battles. Katie skimmed through legal filings, corporate reports, and investigative articles. The deeper she dug, the clearer it became: Cheryl Goodwin had made a career out of securing land for the highest bidder, no matter the cost, and making sure developments happened.

One case stood out immediately—the Kō?ele Bay Resort Expansion. The half-billion dollar project had been a public relations nightmare from the start, with environmentalists and native Hawaiian groups fighting tooth and nail to stop the development. The land, they claimed, was sacred, its fragile ecosystems too vital to be paved over for luxury suites and infinity pools.

But Cheryl had pushed the deal through, dismantling lawsuits and navigating zoning loopholes with surgical precision. The resort opened on schedule despite protests that had never really stopped.

Katie tapped her fingers against a fidget toy, eyes scanning further. Cheryl’s name surfaced again, this time in connection with the Maui Land Trust scandal. The project had been pitched as a conservation effort, a land swap that would supposedly protect agricultural spaces. But investigative reporters uncovered a different story—backroom deals, falsified environmental impact reports, whispers of corruption. The scandal had never been fully resolved, but it had left a stain on her firm’s reputation.

And now, Cheryl was dead. Staked out on sacred land, her throat slashed with a leiomano , a weapon steeped in Hawaiian warrior tradition. Those in opposition to her machinations, when they heard about it, might say she’d had it coming.

Katie’s lips curled into a smile. Lei thought she wouldn’t have anything substantial in a short time. Challenge accepted.