Rip Tides Read Online Free PDF Page B

accident.
    Acknowledging that she was still hurting from the events three months ago was hard, but they’d had a lot to deal with. Their house burned down, a violent firefight raid, a hijacking—and worst of all, her miscarriage. She’d carried on, but didn’t feel the same. Coming up soon, she had to go to the Big Island to testify in the trial of her enemy. Her stomach clenched at the thought.
    Pono’s truck had almost been blocked in by other vehicles, but with some creative maneuvering they got out of the driveway and headed back toward Kahului.
    “That went about as good as could be expected,” Lei said.
    “Yeah.”
    “Did you get anything off the dad?”
    “Not really, nothing more than was obvious in the living room. He didn’t agree with his son’s choice of career and the mother supported it.” Pono rubbed his lips under the short, bristling mustache he sported, a habit he had when troubled. “We need to go back when they’ve settled down a little.”
    “I’ll feel better taking a shovel to that shit pile when we know what the ME says about cause of death. No sense stirring all the issues if it was an accident.”
    “Agree.”
    Back at the station, Lei organized her notes, and side-by-side, Lei and Pono built the case file. Lei was happy to be back partnering with her oldest friend on the force. Captain Omura had reassigned them for a time, but continued restructuring in the department and both their continued requests had gotten them back together. Lei had liked all her other partners—Jack Jenkins on Kauai, Ken Watanabe when she was in the FBI on Oahu, and Abe Torufu while she did a brief stint on the bomb squad—but she and Pono knew each other so well that they worked smoothly and quickly on everything from paperwork to interviews.
    “I’m going to call Dr. Gregory. See if he’s got anything off the body yet. We need to keep working the case hard for the next twenty-four if it’s a homicide. If it’s not looking that way, it’s not as important to chase down that windsurf van today,” Lei said.
    “Right.” Pono was uploading the photos he’d taken at the scene.
    Lei used her desk phone to call the morgue. “Hey, Doc,” she said when Gregory answered. “I know it’s early, but are you getting anything off the body to indicate homicide? Because if so, we’ve got some leads we should follow up on.”
    “Just a minute. I was grabbing a bite to eat at my desk.”
    Lei squinched her eyes shut, picturing his desk in the corner of the big, open room full of bodies on tables in various stages of dismemberment. To Gregory’s credit, the doc had a folding screen separating his work area—but still, the smells alone were enough to put Lei off food for hours.
    “Okay. Yeah. We haven’t had time to open Simmons up yet, but I found bruising on his throat and the top of his head, hair pulled out even. The more hours that pass, the more we’ll be able to see the soft-tissue damage on the body. But it looks like someone could have grabbed him by the neck and head. Probably held him underwater.”
    “Oh, damn,” Lei said faintly. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d been hoping the surf champion’s death was accidental. Murder was going to amplify the tragedy of the young surf star’s death and stir up the close-knit surfing community even more.
    “I’ll know more when I open him up and check his lungs, but so far everything else is indicative of drowning as cause of death.”
    “Okay. Thanks. We’ll move on this right away.”
    “I’ll put him at the front of the autopsy line. I know this kid was high profile. I’ll give you a call as soon as I have anything more.”
    “Appreciate that.” Lei hung up and turned to Pono. “Possible homicide. We’d better brief the captain and find that van.”
    * * *
    Stevens pulled up the driveway to their property out in rural Haiku; an area dominated by jungle and large eucalyptus robusta trees, brought over to Hawaii in