Page 10 of Talk Story

The spot where Tiki had been digging was now a shallow hole, wet and empty. The soil around it was churned into mud. Whatever impression of a tool or hands might have been left was dissolved into a red-brown slurry.

“Someone’s been here.” My jaw tightened. “Whatever was buried is gone.”

Officer Peahi crouched beside the hole. She photographed the empty depression from multiple angles, methodical and precise. “The crime scene flags are undisturbed,” she noted. “Whoever did this knew enough to avoid the marked evidence but came straight for this spot.”

“Someone was watching us.” The realization prickled across my skin. “They saw Tiki digging. They saw us react. And the minute we left, they came.”

“It appears so.” Peahi stood, mud on her uniformed knees. “In a thirty-minute window. While my partner was still on-scene.”

“That’s bold.”

She gave a curt nod and walked off to investigate something else nearby.

Tiki sat at the edge of the spot, tail wrapped around her paws, staring into the muddy depression with an offended expression. She glanced up at me and gave a low, throaty growl as her ruff rose.

Something was seriously wrong, and she wanted it on the record.

“I know, girl,” I said. “I should have let you dig it up when you had the chance.”

I pulled out my phone and scrolled to the photos I’d taken at the scene earlier. I enlarged the image where Tiki had been pawing and studied it closely, but there was nothing to be determined from the image.

Tiki sneezed, as if to confirm her important role.

I stood up and gazed around at the damaged garden: the crane at its broken angle, the stone lanterns with their smashed frames, the heliconia, ginger, and other flower beds slashed apart with the violence of something done in anger, haste or in both. As I stood there, the plumeria tree’s last blossoms fell, spinning gently to land on the roughened ground.

I’d been in Ohia for close to two years. When I’d first come, this garden had been overgrown, nearly forgotten. What it had become was the tiny town of Ohia’s statement of what was important to preserve. Its very existence said: this is ours. This is record. This is not for sale.

But someone had trampled that statement with heavy boots and a machete or two.

“Ms. Smith,” Peahi said. “I want to talk to both Changs about their movements prior to the council meeting.”

“My guess is that, if they had anything to do with this, they hired someone. I saw them all squeaky-clean at the community center; they’d have been sweaty, tired, and covered with mud at the end of all this.” I made an encompassing gesture.

“Makes sense—but who’d do this from around here?”

“Probably someone hired from off-island. I can’t imagine anyone from Hana or Ohia being willing to steal sacred petroglyphs or destroy the Heritage Garden.” I put my hands on my hips.

Peahi gave me a measuring look. “You have a reputation for independent investigation.”

“Keone and I have a small side gig known as K & K Investigations. We’ve uncovered a perp or two,” I said. “Strictly small-time.”

Something crossed her face—the brief, unwilled smile of someone who finds something genuinely funny but is stifling it. “We should be on a first-name basis; call me Malia,” she said. “And share anything you find with me directly.” She grabbed my phone and plugged in her personal cell number. “Whoever is behind this has resources and no hesitation about destroying irreplaceable things.” Her gaze moved to the disturbed soil where Tiki sat. “And they’re watching what we do.”

“Not a pleasant thought,” I agreed.

We headed back to the vehicles. The garden was quiet; only the drip of water from the vegetation and the distant crash of waves on the bluff below broke the stillness as we reentered the parking lot.

Tiki paused at the garden’s edge, her single ear swiveling, tracking something I couldn’t hear. Then she turned and trotted to Sharkey with a purposeful gait, her kinked tail high.

Whatever had been buried under that plumeria tree was gone. But Tiki had seen it. I’d learned to trust what Tiki saw.

“I’m going back to the Hana station to write this up,” Malia said.

“Sounds good. Thanks for all you’re doing on this.” I waved goodbye and got into my SUV, letting Tiki in at my feet. The cat soon found her way to her comfy, strapped-in carrier.

My phone buzzed. Keone: How’d it go?

Someone beat us to it. Whatever Tiki found is gone. We were being watched.