O'ahu Lonesome Tonight? (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series #5) (15 page)

“So was Stu
okay when he left that night?”

“Totally.
He wasn’t limping or anything.”

“Do think Stu
jumped in or did he get pushed?” I said.

Jason jerked
his head back as if I’d poked a finger in his eye. “No way
he’d
jump. First off, the dude can’t swim and he hated water. If Stu Wilkerson was
gonna
do something stupid like that, he’d use a gun. And if
you’re asking if
I
pushed him, the
answer’s
not
just ‘no’ but ‘hell no.’ I had no reason to hurt him.”

He glared at
me; I glared back.

I changed the
subject. “But Natalie thinks Barry did have a reason: money.”

“That’s what
she’s saying.”

The glass doors
opened and an early-thirties woman in dark slacks and a plain white blouse came
outside and started heading our way. She had a photo ID badge on a lanyard
around her neck. I pegged her for the hospital social worker Stu’s doctor had
mentioned. She looked vaguely familiar but I chalked it up to we’d probably
shared an elevator or passed in the hospital hallways.

“Excuse me,”
she said. “I’m looking for Stuart Wilkerson’s sister. Is that you?”

I stood. “Yes,
I’m
Pali
Moon.”

“Great. I’d
appreciate a few minutes of your time. Are you willing to talk to me?”

She seemed a
bit abrupt for a social worker sent to console the next-of-kin, but what did I
know? From what I’d heard about social workers, their job pretty much consisted
of juggling too many cases and making too little money. And in a hospital
setting, I suspected they rarely got to be the bearer of glad tidings.

“Sure.”

She flicked her
eyes down to Jason. “And you are…?”

His eyes
narrowed. “I’m Jason, Stu’s friend. Who are you?”

She hoisted a
black messenger-style bag off her shoulder and pulled out a white business
card. “Sorry,” she said, handing me the card. “I was so glad to find you I
must’ve forgotten my manners. I’m Wendi Takeda with the
Honolulu
Journal-Dispatch
. I’m investigating what happened to your brother.” She
looked at Jason.
“And to your friend.”

“You’re a
reporter?” I said.

“That’s
correct.
An investigative reporter.”

“And you work
for the newspaper?”

“That’s also
correct.”

“But didn’t I
see you on the news last night? I
mean,
the television
news?”

Wendi narrowed
her eyes. “That was my twin sister,
Cindi
. We’re both
reporters. Only I’m a journalist, and she’s a, well, you saw what she is.”

I checked her
hands to see if she’d been de-clawed.

“How did you
hear about my brother?”

“All the major news
organizations monitor the emergency channels. At first the call seemed like it
was just another drunk falling in the canal. But I had a hunch and followed it
up. Your brother’s infection is a much bigger story. We at the Journal believe
his condition was caused by the city’s woeful disregard for human life and
safety when they decided to pump untreated sewage directly into the canal.”

“Maybe, but his
doctor claims they’re not sure what caused Stuart’s infection.”

“Oh, please.
They’ve pumped fifty
million
gallons of raw sewage into our city’s main
waterway and they can’t do the math? They should’ve closed Waikiki Beach days
ago.” She pulled out a tiny tape recorder. “Would you mind?
Just
a few questions.”

I took a seat
on the bench next to Jason, but Wendi remained standing. Actually, she paced.
Her twitchy demeanor reminded me of a guy I knew in college who used to chug
Red Bull and chase it with a shot of espresso before he’d go in to take a
final. I was pretty sure he never got a gold star for penmanship.

“Okay,” she
said. “Let’s start at the beginning. How much do you know about what happened
Tuesday night? I mean, do you know how your brother wound up in the canal?”

“We were just
talking about that,” I said. I looked over at Jason to see if he wanted to
weigh in, but he looked content with me doing the heavy lifting. “As near as we
can tell, he met with a business associate at the Waikiki Yacht Club and later
he fell in the water. The Yacht Club’s right at the mouth of the
Ala
Wai
Canal, you know.”

“Yes, I know.
Was it accidental, or do the police suspect foul play?”

 “I don’t
even know if the police have weighed in on this.” I looked over at Jason. “Did
you hear anything?”

Jason rocked
back and forth, the heels of his hands digging into his thighs. After a long
moment of silence, he looked up. “You know, I need to get going. I start work
at four.”

Wendi checked
her watch. “That’s two hours from now.”

“Yeah, but I
need to shower and everything.”

He got up and
sprinted toward the glass door like a kid being let out for recess.

“What’s his
story?” said Wendi.

“He’s Stu’s
best friend from way back. I think he’s worried about him and he doesn’t want
to talk about it.”

“Maybe,” she
said. “But I’ve been doing this a long time. It always seems that the ones who
have nothing to say are usually the ones with the most to hide.”

CHAPTER 19

Wendi Takeda
gave me her take on the situation. “I think your brother didn’t just fall into
that canal. I think he was pushed in. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Are you thinking
Jason did it? Because I just asked him and he was pretty emphatic he didn’t.”

“Like I said,
I’m not overly concerned with how your brother got in the canal,” she said.
“I’m more interested in what happened after that. How he ended up in Intensive
Care with a nasty infection no one will talk about.”

She took a seat
next to me on the bench and spoke in a conspiratorial voice. “Look, I know it’s
your brother, and I don’t mean to sound callous. But the big story here isn’t
what went down on Tuesday night. The story is what’s going on right now.”

“My brother
Stuart has an infection. The hospital is treating it. That’s news?” I said.
“People come to the hospital every day with different things wrong with them.
Why would you think Stu’s case is any more newsworthy than someone who came
here with a heart attack or a broken bone?”

“Because your brother’s infection isn’t normal.
It wasn’t
caused by normal things. It was caused by negligence and a total disregard for
human life.”

“Yeah, by
whoever tossed him in the
canal.
”

“No! You don’t
get it, do you?” she said.

I slumped
against the back of the bench. Right then my cell phone went off. I checked the
caller ID. It was Natalie. I clicked it over to voice mail. I’d call her back
later.

“Look,” said Wendi.
“I’m not family so they won’t tell me anything. But they’ve got to tell you
everything. In return, I’ll help you find out what happened Tuesday night. What
do you say?”

“I don’t care
what happened. I only care about my brother getting well.” I got up and made my
way to the door.

“You will.” She
said, in a stern voice loud enough to reach me as I grabbed for the door
handle.

I turned. “Will
what?”

“Will care what
happened.
And when you do, give me a call.
You’ve got
my numbers.”

I felt for the
business card I’d slipped in my pocket. Then I went back inside.

***

I went to the
hospital cafeteria and called my brother Jeff in California. “I’ve got to check
out of the penthouse tomorrow morning, but there’s been an accident and Stu’s
in the hospital.” There was no love lost between Jeff and Stuart so I wasn’t
surprised when Jeff didn’t ask if he was okay.

“Do you need to
stay over?” he said.

“I’d like to,
if possible. But I don’t want to impose on your fraternity brother.”

“He’s cool. Let
me give him a call. How much time you need?”

“I don’t know.
I’m hoping it will just be a few days but it could be as long as a week. By the
way, how are things at the lab?”

“Crazy. In
fact, I’m in the middle of something right now. I’ll get back to you,” he said.

A few minutes
later my phone alerted me I had a text message.

‘
1 wk.
No more.
Ppl
arv
nxt
Sat.
Lv
Jeff
’

Moko
came back to the hospital after work. I was reading a
months-old magazine in the waiting room when he showed up.

“You still
here?” he said.

“Yeah.
I was hoping for an update. I figured as soon as I
left the doctor would show up.”

“Where’s
Natalie?”

“Who knows? She
left right after you went back to work and I haven’t seen her since. She said
she was having morning sickness and being here at the hospital wasn’t helping.”

“It’s not
morning no more,”
Moko
said. “What’s she got now,
‘night’ sickness?”

I let it drop.
I’d never been pregnant so I didn’t figure I had the right to judge.

“No word from
the doctor?” he said.

“Not since I
was in Stu’s room earlier this afternoon.”

“In all this
time, you didn’t go back in again?”

“No. You have
to put on all this stuff over your clothes.
A gown, a cap and
a mask and gloves.
Also, I didn’t want to get in the way. Stu’s got a
long hard fight ahead of him.”

 “You get
any dinner yet?”
Moko
said.

“No. But I’m
not really hungry. I haven’t done anything all day but sit here and watch CNN
and read magazines. Where do they get these magazines, anyway?
Prevention
?
Men’s Health
?
Living Well
?
Seems to me these magazines are kind of
sadistic for a hospital waiting room.”

“Sad—what?”

“Sadistic.
Like putting salt in a wound.
I mean, if you’d ‘lived well’
and used an ounce of ‘prevention’ you probably wouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah, I get
it.”

 “Do you
want to go in and see your brother?” I said.

“Yeah.
But I’m
kinda
nervous about
it.”

“You want me to
go with you?”

He nodded. I’d
never been able to play big sister to
Moko
, and for a
moment, it struck me as sad.

“Let’s go.”

We gowned up
and I helped
Moko
tuck his tangle of hair into the
blue paper cap. This time, I added a pair of blue shoe covers to my ensemble.
When we were as veiled as a couple of Iranian women at a Tehran fish market, we
went in.

Stu was in
exactly the same position he’d been in eight hours earlier. I didn’t really
expect him to be lying on his side or propped up watching TV, but seeing him in
suspended animation like that made it look like he hadn’t made much progress.

Moko
gasped behind his paper mask and I reached over and
took his hand. It was weird holding hands with rubber gloves on, and I nearly
made a distasteful joke, but thankfully I kept it to myself.

“Why’s he all
puffed up like that?”
Moko
said.

I looked at
Stu’s face. I couldn’t be sure, but he did look a bit more swollen than he had
earlier.

“He’s got an
infection. From what the doctor said, they think it’s a pretty bad one and
they’re giving him a bunch of different antibiotics. See those bags hanging
there? They’re all IVs. So Stu’s got like a ton of fluids going into him. That
puffs you up,” I said. “You know, like when you put a dry sponge in water. It
puffs up.” It was a lame explanation, but to some degree even I believed it.

A nurse bustled
in as we watched the machines beep and ping while Stu remained as motionless as
a hunk of driftwood. “Oh, hello,” she said. “I hope you’re all members of the
patient’s immediate family.”

“Yes,” I said.
I looked over at
Moko
, but he appeared to be
transfixed by the patient monitor machine. Stu’s heart rate, blood pressure,
temperature and pulse were illuminated along with various colored lines that
sketched out a moving graph of his condition.  

“I’m
Pali
, the patient’s older sister. And this is
Moko
, his younger brother.” No way was I going to go into a
lengthy discourse on the various ‘
halfs
’ and ‘steps’
involved in our relationship. When an
ohana
member is fighting for their life, I figured family is family.

My cell phone
went off in my pocket. The nurse shook her head. “No cell phones in here,” she
said. “Please turn it off; or at least to vibrate.”

I pulled out
the phone.
Natalie again.
I clicked it to the vibrate
mode.

The nurse’s
paper gown rustled as went about checking Stu’s IV lines and changing empty
bags for full ones. When she finished, she put a gloved hand on my arm. “You
know, we have a chapel on this floor. It’s just down the hall, past the waiting
room and then on your right.” She gave my arm a little squeeze before she left
the room.

“What’d she
mean by that?”
Moko
said.
“Chapel?
I got in enough chapel time in high school to last me a lifetime.”

“She was just
being nice. People in the ICU are pretty sick. She probably says that to
everyone.”

“You think?”

Our eyes met.
Like passengers on a sinking ship we each needed to think we were helping the
other hold out hope. Too bad it didn’t work inside our own heads.

***

Moko
insisted I take a few hours off. “You go back to your
place and get a shower and some rest,” he said. “I’ll stay until midnight.”

“But what if
something happens?”

“Look, what good
is it for both of us to be sitting here?” he said. “And anyway, Stu’s got to
get all those drugs in him before he starts to get better. Did you see that
stuff?
Drip-drip-drip?
That’s
gonna
take time.”

I was sick of
CNN and my back was stiff from the ergonomically-challenging chairs in the
waiting room so I agreed to leave. I took the bus back to Waikiki and
practically fell asleep in the elevator as it slowly rose to the thirtieth
floor.

Once inside the
apartment, I stripped off my clothes and left them lying in a pile on the
floor. I took a long shower and got out feeling marginally better.
Time to return Natalie’s call.
No doubt she wanted an update
on Stu. I could only imagine how stressful it must be for her to be unable to
stomach the hospital environment yet waiting for news that could change her
life forever.

“Hello,” she
said in a sleepy voice.

I checked the
clock on the stove. It wasn’t even eight o’clock.
“Hi
Natalie.
Were you sleeping?”

“
Pali
?
Is that you? Oh my God. Are
you calling because—
”

I didn’t want
to cause her any more distress than necessary so I broke in. “No, no,
everything’s going well. Stu’s resting comfortably, and they’ve got him on so
many drugs I think I should buy stock in Bristol-Myers.”

“Good.” She let
out a soft sigh. “I was worried, you know? I feel horrible I can’t be there. I
want
to be there. But I want this baby to be okay. If I get really sick and stressed
out, I’m afraid…”

She didn’t need
to finish. I didn’t know my brother well, but I’d seen the look on his face when
he’d told me he was going to be a father. “You need to take care of your baby,
Natalie. Right now, that’s your number one priority.”

“Thanks,
Pali
. I’m glad you understand.”

I went to the
bedroom and pulled out a clean pair of cropped pants and a tee-shirt. Then I
laid
down on the bed. Two hours later I awoke with a start.
I got up and got dressed. The bed was giving me a ‘come hither’ look as
seductive as a siren’s song but I knew if I didn’t get back to the hospital
before midnight I’d feel crushing guilt that I’d let my brothers down.

Maybe if I’d
known what awaited me at the hospital, I would’ve crawled into that bed and
called it a night. But playing ‘if I’d known then what I know now’ is a loser’s
game. And right then, I wasn’t feeling like a loser. I was feeling like a
caring big sister.

CHAPTER 20

The hospital
was only slightly less busy at midnight than it’d been in the middle of the
day. I guess that’s how it goes in places like that. Injury, disease, birth,
death: none of that stuff wears a watch.

Moko
was slumped in a chair in the waiting room when I
showed up. I was pretty sure he was asleep, but when I touched his arm, he
jerked his head and said, “I’m awake.
Just resting my eyes.”

“How’s he
doing?” I said.
“Any news?”

“Nah.
I went in there a couple of hours ago, but he looked
pretty much the same.”

“And no word from the doctor?”

“
Nothin
’.
I hope there’s a survey
or
somethin
’ when this is over with, because I’m
gonna
tell ‘
em
the customer
service in this place sucks.” He smiled a thin smile. Deep bruised-looking
pockets hung beneath his bloodshot eyes.