Banana Split (42 page)

He immediately looked scared, and Sadie hurried to continue. “You’re not in trouble. But there are a lot of grown-ups who haven’t been doing good things, and the police need to talk to you about it. Will you come with me?”

He looked at her, still not quite trusting her. It made Sadie sad to think of how many times this little boy must have been let down by people he trusted.

“I got your message,” Sadie continued. “You heard me tell Nat I wanted to help you. I meant that, and even if it doesn’t feel like it, I’m trying to help you now.”

“I need you to help me find my mom,” Charlie said. “That’s the help I need. I think Mom is on O’ahu. She didn’t go to any of her friends in Kaua’i, so maybe she went back to where we used to live.”

“I see,” Sadie said, exhaling. Should she try to convince him that his mother was gone? The idea made her wince inside. She couldn’t do it. “I met a really nice police officer who wants to help you too,” she said, totally passing the buck but needing Charlie to come with her. “Will you let me take you to him?”

“I’ll be in
pilikia.
”

Sadie had heard the word before but didn’t know what it meant. “What’s that?”

“Uh, trouble I guess. I’ll be in trouble.”

Sadie shook her head. “No you won’t. All we want to do is help, but we need your . . .
kokua
.”
Kokua
meant cooperation, and the police certainly needed that from Charlie.

Finally, Charlie nodded, and Sadie smiled before leading him to the car. When he slid into the passenger seat, Sadie told him to put on his seat belt, which he did without argument. She’d said she was taking him to the police, but she was planning to go to Nawiliwili first. Then she’d go to the police with
everything
she knew. She could hand it over and walk away. Well, maybe she couldn’t walk away from Charlie. She wondered if going to Nawiliwili was in part a chance for her to have a little more time with him.

“Can you tell me about the last visit you had with your mom?” Sadie asked as they left the airport. She might as well learn what she could while they were together.

“Why?” he asked, caution in his tone.

“I’m just curious,” Sadie said. “What did you guys do?”

“We went to the beach,” Charlie said.

Kiki had said she thought they’d gone to a movie and ice cream. “Did you go to a movie?” Sadie asked.

“We was gonna, but it was too much money. And I like the beach.”

“You went home after the beach?”

“We got a shave ice. I got cherry lime, and Mom got mango.”

Mmm. Sadie loved shave ice.

“And
then
you went home?”

Charlie nodded.

“Did your mom seem okay? Was she happy?” Kiki had said Noelani seemed distracted and worried when she dropped off the car after the visit. Whatever had motivated Noelani to leave work later that night had something to do with her son. Maybe he knew what it was without realizing what he knew.

“She’s always happy when she’s with me,” he said, looking at her as though daring her to question it.

“Well, of course she was,” Sadie said with a smile so he would know she didn’t doubt it. “But sometimes adults get worried about stuff—stressed out.”

“She wasn’t stressed out,” Charlie said, shaking his head. “She was happy.”

“Did she drop you off or walk you to the door when you got home?”

“Kinda both.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wanted her to see the tree house ’cause Nat and me’d finished it, but she went to make sure it was okay with CeeCee first.”

“I bet she liked the tree house.”

Charlie nodded. “We played spy.”

“Spy?” Sadie said, a tingle erupting in her chest. “What’s that?”

“A game Mom made up. We laid real still in the tree house so no one would see us.”

“Who might have seen you?”

“Nat,” Charlie said. He smiled at Sadie. “He was a spy for Russia, and we had to listen and not get caught. He was talking on the phone. Spy talk.”

“What did he say on the phone?” Sadie asked. A sign for Nawiliwili came into view, and she began to slow down.

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t remember?”

Charlie shook his head and looked around. “Are we going to Nawiliwili?”

“You know this place?” Sadie asked, turning into the marina’s parking lot.

“They keep boats here.”

“Yes, they do,” Sadie said, parking the car and looking out over the marina. Big boats were on one side; smaller boats were pulled up to docks on the other side. She looked over the water, a churning feeling in her stomach. Maybe she should leave and let the police follow up on Mr. Olie’s discovery. But she was so close. What if the police missed something? What if they didn’t think it was important?

If she could get a picture of the boat in Slip 23 and show it to Bets, she might be able to identify it. The slip was leased, which meant that there would be records that could lead back to whoever had put Noelani on the boat.

Sadie pulled out Gayle’s phone and texted, well, herself, and told Gayle where she was and what she was doing. Chances were she didn’t have the cell phone with her if she was being questioned right now, but Sadie wanted to make sure people knew where she was. Just in case. She didn’t want to explain to Charlie exactly what she was doing, but she also didn’t dare let him out of her sight.

“We just need to run to the dock and take a quick picture of a boat, okay?”

“Why?”

“Just ’cause,” she said with a smile and a shrug like it was no big deal.

He scrambled out of the car, and they headed to the pier. When they arrived, Sadie stopped and took a deep breath as she stared at the water. This pier was wider than the others she’d encountered and probably had steel beams holding it to the ocean floor. It was safe and secure.

“Auntie?”

Sadie looked at Charlie in surprise at the unfamiliar greeting. She’d heard other women called that, but no one had ever addressed her with the informal endearment. She liked hearing it, though; she liked that Charlie would use it for her.

“You okay?” he asked.

Sadie smiled. “I don’t like the water very much,” she admitted. “It scares me.”

“It’s just water,” Charlie said.

Sadie chose to borrow some of his bravery. She put out her hand. “I know you’re too big to hold hands, but I’m not.”

He frowned at her hand, but took it reluctantly. Sadie gave his hand a squeeze and finally felt capable of stepping onto the dock. It didn’t shift beneath her feet, and she felt better.

She began reading signs that directed her to the right section of slips. The sky was the color of orange sherbet as the sun set, warning Sadie she didn’t have much time if she wanted a decent picture. The motion of the waves against the side of the stationary dock gave her a sense of vertigo. She held on tighter to Charlie’s hand.

There was a locked door with metal grating around it to keep the slips secure, but when a man came out talking on his cell phone, Sadie told Charlie to run forward and catch the door before it closed. He was fast and nearly silent; the man didn’t even notice. That boy could get himself all over the island—catching a door was elementary.

Sadie looked around to make sure no one was watching them. A few people were around, but they were all involved in their own activities and paying no mind to the haole lady and her little brown companion.

The boat slips were basically slots cut into an extra-wide pier, providing docking access on three sides of the boats, which were backed into each slip. Black numbers were painted on a three-foot cylinder at the head of each slip; most of the cylinders had hoses coiled around the base.

“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty,” she muttered, counting them off as she moved down the dock. Most of the slips were occupied with some type of watercraft, everything from small speedboats to larger boats that seemed to be a tight fit. “Twenty-one, twenty-two.” She stopped and stared at the numbers on the cylinder, afraid to look at the boat itself. “Twenty-three.”

She lifted her head and looked at the blue-and-white boat gently shifting on the small waves within the inlet. The name
Serenity
was spelled out in flowing silver letters on the back of the boat and seemed to hypnotize her. There was no “serenity” in any of this, but
this
was the boat Bets had described,
this
was the boat Noelani had been thrown into and possibly out of three weeks ago.

“This is Nat’s boat.”

Sadie’s stomach sank as she looked over her shoulder at Charlie. Maybe she should have left him in the car after all. She didn’t want to know it was Nat’s boat, even though she’d suspected it since learning about the game Noelani had played with her son in order to listen into Nat’s phone call. He must have said something about a time when he would be at Ho’oka Beach.

Sadie imagined Noelani processing whatever she’d overheard as she got ready for her shift that night. Maybe she considered calling the cops but rejected it based on the last meeting she’d had with them. Plus, she’d want to know whatever she overheard was valid before going to the police.

Sadie imagined Noelani working and watching the clock, knowing she would miss her chance if she didn’t act. The choice may have been a split-second one. She called Kiki but didn’t want to tell her what she was doing in case it was nothing. She called Bets for directions. She bought the coffee on her way out of town so she wouldn’t forget, and maybe as a way to tell herself that she was on a fool’s errand and that she’d be back at the motel in no time, feeling silly for overreacting.

“Auntie?”

Sadie forced a smile at Charlie. “I just need to take a quick picture.”

Why would Nat have a boat like this anyway? Maybe it wasn’t his boat at all and Charlie was mistaken somehow. She could be jumping to conclusions.

Charlie pointed to a triangular flag attached to the stern. It had black-and-yellow zebra stripes. “That flag used to be on my bike, but my friend Rhett said it looked like a girl flag so I didn’t want it no more. Nat didn’t think it was girly, though.”

Sadie felt her stomach drop even further. Nat
was
involved. A sense of urgency sent her scrambling for Gayle’s phone in her bag. She tried to figure out how to use the camera and tried
not
to imagine Noelani’s crumpled body lying inside the boat.

Sadie finally got the camera figured out and had lined up the shot when Charlie jumped onto the boat as though he’d done it a hundred times, which he likely had.

“Charlie,” Sadie scolded, finishing the picture and dropping the phone back into her bag before moving toward him. She immediately saw the water within the slip and pulled her hand back, afraid she might lose her balance and fall in. “Come back here. We’re not getting on the boat right now. It’s time to go.”

Charlie looked at her from where he stood on the back of the boat. “Why did we come here then?”

“Uh,” Sadie said, not wanting to tell him. “Just come with me, okay.” Sadie stepped as close to the edge of the dock as she dared and held out her hand again. The water seemed dark and menacing, and her breathing became shallow. “Come on,” she said. “Please.”

Charlie looked confused, then turned his back to her and headed toward the bow. “Do you think my mom came on this boat? Did Nat give her a ride somewheres?”

Sadie swallowed, then she took a deep breath before stepping onto the boat, immediately grabbing the railing on either side of the step-in with both hands. The boat shifted beneath her weight, and she felt sure it was going to flip over completely. She didn’t breathe again until she was all the way in the boat, trying to calm her heart rate by taking deep breaths. She couldn’t see Charlie anywhere. There was a covered driving area toward the closed bow with seats on either side of a narrow set of steps that led down to an open door.

“Charlie,” she said, using a softer tone since her sharp one hadn’t worked. She headed for the stairs, holding on to something with every step she took even though the boat barely moved beneath her. “We shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe.”

Charlie didn’t answer her, and she headed down the steps and ducked to enter the narrow cabin door. The cabin consisted of cushioned seats set up in a horseshoe around the wall of the boat. The seats were piled with fishing equipment, life jackets, and some articles of clothing. Charlie stood in the middle of the cabin, holding a cell phone in his hands. It was purple and black. He looked up at Sadie with a hopeful expression on his face.

“She
was
here,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “Maybe Nat knows where she went!”

Sadie didn’t know what to say; she’d say anything if it meant getting Charlie off this boat. Yes, his mother had been on this boat, but not like he thought.

“That’s your mom’s phone?” Sadie asked once she found her voice.