Page 21 of Talk Story

“I should have been your first call!”

Apology not accepted, apparently. So much for humble pie.

I was beat and I’d made an effort which wasn’t working; now I wanted to go home, take a shower, and get to sleep.

I stood up and looked my fiancé in the eye. “Keone, we’re both tired. It’s been a long day. How about we reconvene tomorrow?” I yawned, sudden and involuntary. “The note was no big deal, or I would’ve told you. The person who left it told me to ‘stay with my mail.’ Not exactly terrifying.”

Keone’s hands were on his hips and his eyes had narrowed. “Just when I think we’re making progress, that you’re starting to treat me like a real partner and not some sort of lesser sidekick, something like this happens.” He scowled. “I’m out of here.”

The door banged behind him hard enough that dust was dislodged from the ceiling and sifted down. The geckos and Miss Prissy disappeared. I heard his truck roar into life and peel out of the parking lot.

I was left alone, staring at the ring on my right hand.

“Dang it,” I said. Tiki, resting in her cat bed in the corner, fixed amber eyes on me in reproach. “I know, girl. But as Popeye said, ‘I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam’.”

She turned her back with a huff, unimpressed. I was pretty sure Keone would feel the same way about that quote.

Though downcast after Keone left, I called my friend, tech whiz Sophie Smithson at Security Solutions in Honolulu; I wanted to get her take on how we could set something up in Sacred Valley to monitor the petroglyphs.

Sophie picked up on the second ring. Her professional competence extended to a form of anticipation that had occasionally made me wonder whether she had some kind of alert set on my name. “Kat.” Her British accent voice was warm and crisp. “I heard about the destruction at the Heritage Garden—and the theft of the petroglyphs.”

“That’s what I was calling you about.” I sipped a glass of water I’d poured. “But how did you know about something so . . . obscure?”

“I have a software program that monitors online keywords, and I’ve got an alert on anything and everything Ohia. My information travels at the speed of aloha spirit.” I heard the smile in her voice. “Did you know that the GoFundMe to repair the garden hit seven thousand dollars this morning?”

“That’s great. But I actually called about the petroglyphs.” I told her about our visit to the cave and the rockfall—all of it. “I want to find a way to alert authorities when the thieves try to remove the rest of them. Do you have any recommendations?”

“Let me get back to you on that; I anticipate several challenges. Geography, power source, connection strength, and expense being among them.”

“I know.” I rubbed my temples; they’d begun to ache.

A brief pause ensued, during which I could hear a keyboard’s clatter. “In case you’re interested, I have eyes on the Sacred Valley development situation,” Sophie said. “I’ve been watching Chang Development’s permit history.”

“I should’ve called you ages ago, but I didn’t know any of this was happening until recently.” I smacked my already-sore forehead. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, there’s nothing illegal in what’s currently available online for my program to decipher. Victor Chang’s company has eighteen active development projects across the Pacific. Maui is the one that doesn’t fit the pattern for his business. It’s smaller than his usual scale, the location is complicated, and the permitting has been difficult. But he’s spent more time personally on East Maui in the last year than on any other project. Flew in on his own plane, stayed at Hotel Hana for weeks at a stretch.” Sophie’s keystrokes were always very precise; she must have a mechanical keyboard chosen for the tactile feedback. “Here’s something that might be useful. Chang Development received a significant capital infusion six months ago. Private equity, structured in a way that makes the source difficult to trace; but I’ve tracked it down. The money originated from a shell company registered in the Cook Islands. The beneficial owner of that company is a Honolulu attorney named Everett Lano. Who is also the Santos family’s primary business counsel.”

I stared at the wall of the shack, where one of the geckos chirped; he’d reemerged after his fright. “So Santos is bankrolling Chang’s operation,” I said. “We suspected there was a connection.”

“His attorney Lano has devised a way to fund it that keeps Santos’s name off the paperwork, but yes. I can send you the documentation. Off the record until your detective friend decides if it’s admissible.”

“Please do.”

“Already sent.” A brief pause. “I completed a search on surveillance cams for a remote location like the Sacred Valley. They’d have to be satellite-enabled, and the hardware and software package is . . . not cheap. Does the community, or Hana PD, have any funds? I can give you Security Solutions’ discount, but it would still be about ten thousand to set up a system that could both notify police in real time, record and video capture the thieves at that location.”

I whistled through my teeth. “What about passive surveillance and a loud alarm? We could video them, then scare them off. Have someone go out to check regularly and retrieve the data.”

“Much cheaper, of course.” We discussed a plan to implement that for less than five thousand dollars. I forced her to take my credit card; I was confident that I could get the Red Hats and probably more donors to pony up and reimburse me—but time was not on our side. We needed that surveillance equipment months ago.

“The cameras and system should arrive tomorrow via FedEx,” Sophie said. “They will come with complete installation instructions. Meanwhile, Kat, these men have resources that include legal teams, accountants, and people whose job it is to make problems disappear. Be careful.”

“I’m aware.”

“I only remind you because I care,” Sophie said, and hung up.

My headache hadn’t gone away; I dug in the shack’s junk drawer for a bottle of aspirin and tossed two back, slugging the rest of the water.

I sat in the shack with my phone in my hand and thought about what a Cook Islands shell company meant about the scope of what we were dealing with.