Page 31 of Pau Hana: Cat cozy Humor Mystery (Paradise Crime Cozy Mystery Book 5)

Elle pulledinto New Ohia at nearly seven o’clock, having taken almost an hour longer than usual to drive the twisting highway due to the heavy rain, but thankfully, we made it without incident.

Once I was inside our house carrying the zipped plastic bag that held the bridesmaid dress, Auntie told me that Pua had taken me up on the offer to sleep over with us in New Ohia. She’d already gone up to rest in the guest room, but Aunt Fae told me she’d made dinner for us first.

Aunt Fae lifted the lid on a pot simmering on the stove with a flourish. A delicious aroma hit my nose and activated my taste buds; I closed my eyes to breathe it in. “That smells amazing.”

“Pua asked me if we had flour, butter, eggs, chicken, celery, onions, garlic and carrots. I told her we did. Then she made her own noodles and whipped up some fantastic chicken soup. All I did was watch.” Aunt Fae had the bedazzled eyes of a groupie.

“And Pua makes another fan for life. I sure am hungry.”

Aunt Fae dished me up a hearty serving, heavy on the homemade noodles. “I haven’t had noodles this good since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

“I can’t remember eating homemade noodles, ever, at all. Was I ever that small, Auntie?” I slurped the hot, tasty soup. “Knee-high to a grasshopper.”

“No. You didn’t stop growing until you were in your twenties.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know. I was there. But was I always tall for my age?” My childhood memories prior to going to live with Aunt Fae at nine were fuzzy. A psychologist had told us that was a side effect of the trauma from the way my parents had died. The accident had not only stolen them from me, but most of my memories of our life together.

“My brother told me when they brought you home from the hospital you were the size of a two-month-old. I was living too far away to see you right away. I didn’t meet you until Christmas of the year you were born, and you were quite an armful by then.”

“So I was knee-high to a horse.”

“Yeah.” Auntie patted my shoulder. “A big, beautiful horse.”

My phone pinged, and when I checked the message, it was a weather alert. “Wow, Auntie. The highway department closed the Hana Highway at mile marker 32, near Wai?ānapanapa State Park. Elle and I were probably one of the last cars to get through to this side.”

Auntie frowned. “I better go check the news and see what’s up.”

It’d been a long day. I was still recovering from a week with too many sleepless nights, and my head pounded from the strain of peering through the pouring rain for two hours on the Hana Highway. I was eager to call it a night, but I couldn’t sleep until I’d found out whether Opal and Artie made it home before the road closed. I also wanted to review the report I’d gotten from the Bureau of Conveyances.

A quick call to Opal verified that yes, they’d made it home okay. Artie was resting comfortably, and Pearl and Clara from the Red Hat Society had brought them a meal and were keeping her company. “Oh good. Will you need any help tomorrow at the store?”

“Clara has volunteered to take the morning, and your auntie is covering the afternoon,” Opal said. She yawned loudly in my ear. “That’s if the power stays on. It often goes out when we have flooding.”

“Noted,” I said, and ended the call.

I bid Auntie goodnight and trailed the cats upstairs. The guest room door was already firmly shut; smart Pua was already in bed.

The cats preceded me to my bedroom and hopped up on my bed. “I see how it is. You girls should be in your own bed.” Tiki turned her back and began grooming, ignoring this suggestion.

I took a shower and did my nighttime routine, got into my sleep tee, and retrieved the rolled up report from my bag. Settling against the headboard and switching on the bedside lamp, I began reading the report on the hermit’s place.

The land Hugh Dragoon had built on was deeded to “Wabash River Associates, LLC.” I wasn’t sure where the Wabash River was—Wisconsin? Indiana? Ohio?—but it certainly wasn’t in Hawaii.

Apparently the owners had applied for a change of zoning, from agricultural to hotel and multifamily housing in the year 2010, but that had been denied. “No kidding,” I muttered. “Like that was going to fly way out in the middle of nowhere.” The property taxes, which were minimal, had been paid promptly each year. The address for the LLC was a post office box in Chicago.

So the property was owned by a mainland outfit whose big plans for development had been nipped in the bud. “So Hugh Dragoon was free to squat and build on it without interference.”

From my time in the Secret Service, I’d learned that even the most innocuous detail, something that didn’t seem to matter all, could be the spark that lit the fuse of what became an aggressive act.

What had set off Hugh Dragoon?

Even with how tired I was, sleep was slow in coming as my brain refused to let go of the image of Maile’s sweet, haunting face.

* * *

The next morningI lay in bed listening to the patter of rain on the roof. I patted around on the quilt beside me and discovered the cats had gone back to their cozy bed. It was Saturday, which meant I had two more days until I had to be back at work: two more days for my ribs to recuperate, but two days that were already heavily scheduled. First up was Edith and Josie’s wedding rehearsal and dinner, and then Sunday would be taken up by the ceremony and reception.

I got up and went downstairs in search of coffee. As I passed through the living room on my way to the kitchen, I could see through the window that the soil around our house was so saturated that pools of water surrounded the base of every bush.

Out the kitchen window, I spied a steady stream of water sluicing down the asphalt driveway and, although it wasn’t visible from that vantage point, I could imagine the stream joining up with a wider one rushing down the entrance road to New Ohia.

Our model home had nearly every conceivable upgrade, from instant hot water to a top-of-the-line air conditioning system, but it didn’t have gutters. Rain poured from the roof as if we were living under a waterfall.

I reached over and flicked the switch for the overhead light.

Nothing.

I flicked it again. Same result.

I gazed at the shiny appliances in the dim confines of the kitchen. The blue clock readings on the microwave and oven weren’t illuminated. Cocking an ear, I couldn’t hear the refrigerator running.

As Opal had predicted, we’d lost power during the night.

“Ugh.” No coffee maker. No cell phone chargers. No TV to watch the weather report to see when the storm would pass.

Aunt Fae joined me in the kitchen a few minutes later. “Power’s out?”

I nodded.

“I was afraid of that. The clock by my bed is as dead as a dodo.”

“Well, we need coffee. Unfortunately, the stove is electric.”

“Oh, poo,” said Auntie. “We won’t have anything to offer Pua when she gets up.”

“I’m more worried about my total caffeine withdrawals. Opal won’t be opening the store without power, so we can’t get any there, either.”

Just then, someone knocked on our front door. We both hurried to answer it as if the arrival might be the only small bit of entertainment we’d get that morning.

Elle stood on the stoop wearing a bright yellow slicker. Her bright smile made her appear unfazed by the weather and lack of electricity. She stepped inside, holding a cardboard box which she lifted like a trophy. “Elle L Beane to the rescue!”

“What’ve you got there?” said Aunt Fae.

“A French press, ground coffee, and a chafing dish heater with canned heat,” she said. “I was concerned we might lose power, so I brought this stuff home from the hotel earlier in the week. I thought we all might need hot coffee on a morning like this.”

I could’ve kissed her.

Pua, dressed and coiffed, arrived from the guest room as Elle was making her way to the kitchen with her rescue kit. I introduced them.

“You work with Kat at the post office,” Elle said. “You helped me fill out my mailbox request.”

“Of course. Lovely of you to bring us what Kat calls the Elixir of Life,” Pua said. “Unfortunately, a request is only a spot in line at the Ohia Post Office. We’ve got customers who’ve been waiting for years to get a box.”

“No worries,” said Elle. “I rarely get mail. Besides, I like to check out the local ‘talk story’ while I wait in the general delivery line.”

Elle measured water into our pot and lit the chafing dish heater. She placed the metal teapot over the heater and measured pre-ground coffee into the French press. Within fifteen minutes, each of us had fresh brewed coffee. The French press could only hold four cups, so we carefully divvied it up among us.

“It’s so sweet of you to think of us,” said Aunt Fae.

“I can handle most types of deprivation, but lack of coffee on a rainy day constitutes a violation of the Geneva Convention,” Elle said.

“We have that in common, too,” I said.

My phone vibrated—thankfully, it was still working, and I picked up for Keone. “Are you okay out there? I’m in Kahului, hoping to get a flight out that way later today. Right now, the airport in Hana is closed since there’s no power for the runway lights and visibility is next to nothing.”

“We’re okay here,” I told him. We kept the conversation short, though, because my phone was down to twenty percent and I had no idea when I’d be able to charge it up again. We agreed to catch up later at the rehearsal dinner if he made it out this way.

“Let’s hope they get the power back on,” Keone said. “Until then, stay safe, Kat.”

I hung up, realizing belatedly that Keone’s tone and words had been strictly business. No “I love you” or even “Miss you.” A little hole opened up in my heart as I considered the rocky content of our last encounter. Were we in trouble as a couple?

Elle said she had a few things she needed to do at work and asked if someone would mind taking her to Hana. “My fuel gauge is down to ‘E’ after my trip to Wailuku yesterday, and since gas pumps require electricity to operate, I’m out of luck until the power comes back on.”

Pua offered to drive Elle to the hotel. Soon it was just Aunt Fae and me at the kitchen table, with Tiki and Misty at our feet.

“I think I’ll go check on Artie and Opal,” I said. I could’ve just called them, but the dim confines of the kitchen walls were starting to close in. In similar situations in Maine, Aunt Fae was known for coming up with various chores for us to do to pass the time. These included such heart-pumping activities as organizing the spice rack into alphabetical order or wiping imaginary dust from the tops of all the canned goods.

Besides, given the power outage, I wanted to check and make sure everything in the post office was okay. I couldn’t think of anything that could be harmed by a lack of electricity, but I’d never experienced this situation before, and as Aunt Fae liked to say, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

I put on my Nikes and a parka and walked down to Opal and Artie’s store. The “Closed” sign was in the window.

I knocked on the back door. A few minutes later, Artie came to open it for me. His color had returned, and he appeared to have regained his usual cheerful demeanor. “Artie! How’re you feeling?”

“Hey there, Kitty Kat. Never better. Come in and have a cup of hot tea.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” I hung my parka on a hook on the door. Opal bustled in. She scowled. “He’s much better, physically,” she said. “But a cooped up man is never a happy man.”

“You got that right,” Artie said. “I’d rather be on the porch, strumming my guitar.”

“No reason why you can’t do that, whether the store is open or not.”

He smiled. “Something to look forward to later, when the day warms up.”

“It’s not really cold now, but it’s still raining,” I said.

Opal had fired up a small gas-powered lantern for light, and a hot water kettle burbled on the one-burner Coleman stove set up nearby. We sat at the little kitchen table in their personal quarters. While we waited for Artie to prep the cups and tea bags, Opal took out a little notebook from her flowing dress.

“You remember when I cast the runes about what happened out there at the hermit’s place?” she said.

Although the hermit and his horrendous act had been top-of-mind for me, I’d completely forgotten about Opal’s rune reading. “You never interpreted them, right?”

“Not to you. But while I was sitting here in the dark this morning, I revisited my notes. You want to hear what I came up with?”

“Sure.”

“The three most important messages I saw were destruction, revelation, and, see this one that looks like an ‘X’?” She pointed to her illustration. “It means ‘a gift.’ Maybe there’s some good that will come from what happened out there. Can you imagine what it could be?”

From where I was sitting there was absolutely no good that could come from a crazy man and a little girl being blown to smithereens. I shook my head.

“In any case,” Opal said. “I thought you might want to know.”

“Thanks, Opal.” I couldn’t muster anything more; I was too depressed over the whole thing.

We talked about the rain. I asked if she and Artie had lived in Ohia when they’d closed the road before.

“Oh, lots of times. These roads are forever getting closed due to slides and washouts. No tourists can get out this way, so it’s just us chickens.” Opal cackled as if pleased to be cut off from civilization, and Artie nodded in agreement.

“Snow days in Maine were like that for us when I was growing up,” I agreed.

I thanked them for the tea and hopped, skipped, and jumped around puddles until I got to the back door of my own place of business.

The interior of the post office was downright creepy in the dark. I walked from room to room, checking that we had surge protectors for all the electronics and that everything was either Off or unplugged. I had to remind myself that flicking the switches wasn’t going to do anything to dispel the gloom. After I locked up, I walked around to the front to check that the door was locked.

I frowned. Someone had left a cardboard box on the steps, tucked under the eave of the roof.

The airport warning: “Do not leave bags unattended. If you notice an unattended item or suspicious activity, immediately report it to the police or airport personnel.” flashed into my mind. This box was that kind of item.