Torch Ginger Read online

  “Sounds about as fun as a root canal,” Lei said. “Wow, this rain is coming down.”

  “Kaua`i does have one of the highest rainfall counts in the world,” Jenkins said. “Guess we get to see it firsthand.”

  “I better go talk to my landlady about what they do when it floods. I know it happens every year, so they must have it figured out.”

  “Hope you make it in tomorrow.”

  “Me too. There’s not much we can do now. Keep in touch.” Lei closed the phone. She turned to her father, who was cleaning off the stove. “I better go talk to the Abacans about flood control.”

  “Good idea.”

  Lei went out the front door and found her rubber boots, banging them upside down to scare out any insects. Sure enough, a cockroach fluttered away. Roaches and centipedes tended to hide wherever it was dry in the islands. She stuck her sock-covered feet into the clammy boots and took a clear plastic rain poncho from a hook on the door. She threw it on over her robe and squelched across the saturated grass to the neighbors’ house.

  Lei knocked on the door, but the rain on the roof muffled the sound, so she pounded. Charles Abacan, Mrs. Abacan’s son, opened the door. He was a tall man for a Filipino, with a basketball belly that strained his undershirt and chin whiskers like antennae. Lei averted her eyes.

  “Where’s Mrs. Abacan?”

  “Come to talk about the flooding? Mama doesn’t know anything more than I do, which is that it looks like it’s going to flood.”

  Lei looked at him with dislike. He was in the midst of a divorce and had come home a few weeks ago, bringing children who clustered behind him, staring at her. Alcohol fumes wafted her way—and it was pretty early in the morning to be drinking.

  “Well, what do you do to get ready?”

  “Mostly the river floods below us. We’re on a bank above where it flattens out and curves at the bridge. That’s where it floods, spreads out over the taro fields and just flows through the valley till it hits the ocean. But every three or four years it comes up under the houses. You see the pylons your house is on?”

  He pointed with a dirty forefinger. She looked back through the pouring rain.

  “Well, that’s the flood control. Comes right up under the house but won’t wash you away.”

  “Great,” Lei muttered.

  He cupped his hand around his ear. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing. Think I’ll move my truck though.” They both looked at where it was parked in front of the house in a low area off the pavement. Mrs. Abacan appeared, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “Why don’t you come in, dry off?” she asked.

  “No, thanks. I’m fine.” Lei wasn’t about to stand around in her robe in front of Charles. “Good to know the house is flood proof.”

  “I wouldn’t call it flood proof, more like flood prepared,” Charles said. “Come on over if you want company.”

  “Thanks, but we’re fine.” She retreated off the porch to move her truck, and parked it on the opposite side of the road against the elevated bank. She made her way back to the cottage. The rain continued to thunder down.

  She sloshed through the yard and toward the river. The chocolate-brown water had risen several feet and lapped hungrily at her lawn.

  “Everything okay?” her father called from the back porch.

  “We’re going to have a flood. Other than that, terrific.” She climbed onto the porch and hung up the streaming poncho, and pried the wet boots off her feet.

  Wayne handed her a towel and she rubbed her disordered curls into an even more riotous mess. She hung the towel up on the back of the chair, went into the bathroom, and squirted some Curl Tamer into her palm. She walked back out as she squished it into her unruly hair. Her father watched this with amusement.

  “I should try some of that sometime,” he said as she shaped her hair into something less like a bird’s nest. Lei looked out the window. Keiki made no move to follow, keeping her nose on her paws, eyes nervously darting.

  The water had come up another ten feet on the lawn. Lei watched a whole tree float by, rolling slowly in the current, branches clogged with debris but still rotating slowly as it spun. Below the cottage in the direction of the bridge, she could see the flood spreading to cover the road.

  “It feels wrong to just sit here waiting.”

  “I know. I’ve been through a few floods myself when I was growing up on Oahu. Lotta times there’s nothing to do until it’s time to head for high ground.”

  Just then the lights flickered, and with a little buzz, the power went out.

  “Dad, we need to dig out my emergency stuff. I never unpacked it.”

  She opened the broom closet and sneezed. With the heavy rainfall darkening the room, the closet was too gloomy to navigate. She pulled the boxes out and handed them to her father. They stacked them in the middle of the kitchen and broke them open. Her father held up an apron.

  “What’s this for? Doesn’t seem like you.”

  “Ha-ha. Just be glad we have a gas stove, or I don’t know how we’d cook anything.” She pawed through the box and found a heavy police flashlight. Of course, the batteries were dead. She had a small emergency radio, but that was dead too. At least she had a radio on the truck if they needed to call for help.

  Eventually they located the candles and matches and then used the time to unpack and put away the contents of the boxes. She felt a prickle of something like happiness even in threat of the oncoming flood, to see her father so carefully unwrapping her cheap glasses from the newspaper she’d packed them in.

  Lei looked out the window. The line between rain and river had blurred even further.

  Her phone shrilled on the counter.

  “Texeira.”

  “Ginger 4, this is Dispatch.”

  “Warning me about the flood?”

  “Negative. Witness walking on the beach has called in a Code 17–9.”

  “What am I supposed to do about it?”

  “Patrol units are stuck on the other side of the bridge. Don’t want whatever it is to get moved by the flood. Captain wants you to go bag ’n’ tag if you can get to the beach. It’s by the pier.”

  “I have four-wheel drive. I guess I can try to get there, but the road looks washed out from here.”

  “Ten-four, Ginger. Just give it a try. Dispatch out.”

  Lei shut the phone, took a deep breath.

  “Crap,” she said. “Someone’s called in a body or body parts washed up on the beach. I gotta try to get down to the pier.”

  “It looks totally washed out,” Wayne said from the window. A swath of brown water had crossed the road a hundred yards down from the house.

  “No one else can get there or they’d have sent someone. They’re afraid it’s going to wash away if I don’t collect it.”

  “Collect it! What the hell!”

  “Don’t think it’s a whole body,” Lei said. In her bedroom, she changed into light nylon running pants, strapped on her holster, and loaded the Glock, clipped on her badge. “I’m just going to try to get down there, but if I can’t, I’ll come back.”

  “No way,” Wayne said. He’d been changing too, into jeans and a parka. He tied his shoes on. “I’m not letting you go out alone.”

  Lei looked at him thoughtfully, hands on her hips. It could be useful to have his help if they got stuck or otherwise in trouble. On the other hand, taking a convicted felon along to recover reported evidence could create a host of problems later.

  “What about Keiki?” Wayne asked. Keiki had crawled under the bed in the bedroom, but the dog stuck her head out at the sound of her name, brown eyes worried.

  “We’ll have to leave her with the Abacans. They’ll know what to do if they have to evacuate.”

  They left the shivering Rottweiler with the family. The kids were overjoyed—Keiki less so. Lei and her father sloshed out to the truck.

  Lei’s heart thudded as she hopped up into the cab and turned the key. She looked o
ver at her dad and saw his knuckles showing as he gripped the armrest. She smiled.

  “Hang loose,” she said, local slang for “relax.” He looked over and winked.

  She took out the radio and called in.

  “Dispatch, this is Ginger 4 heading out for the 17–9 at Hanalei Pier. I have civilian Wayne Texeira on board for emergency help.” Hopefully the extreme situation would mitigate any legal problems related with using a felon for backup.

  “Copy that, Ginger. We’re monitoring.”

  She put the truck in four-wheel drive and rolled forward. The road was still clear below the house, though slick with rain. She eased into the water as it rushed across the road. It steadily rose as they rolled forward, the truck rock steady in four-wheel drive. She slowed to a crawl, trying to remember the geography of the road, which had become impossible to see. Wayne pointed.

  “Follow the markers.”

  She reoriented, looking at the roadside steel markers that vibrated with the pressure pushing against them. They felt the power of the water as the truck shuddered. Wayne opened his door a little to check the water level.

  “I think we should reverse as soon as it touches the undercarriage,” he said. “We’re about an inch away.”

  “I know,” Lei said tensely. She braked and the truck obeyed sluggishly as a log barreled by in front of them. She rolled forward again. The road ascended to meet the bridge off to the right, but Lei kept going, bearing left, back down into the flood and toward the beach.

  Without speaking, they inched forward into the flat of the valley, the vehicle shuddering and pulling to the right. She fought it, keeping it on the road with both hands and following the steel markers, and they gradually moved into shallower water until they were able to pick up speed.

  “I think we made it!” Lei exclaimed. Wayne leaned back and took a long, trembling breath.

  “Got a few new gray hairs here,” he said, grabbing his forelock.

  Lei laughed, a release of tension, and they turned right toward the pier. Just past the last of the houses in Hanalei town, the flood began again. Lei halted the truck, mid-axle.

  “Dispatch, this is Ginger 4. Where is location of 17–9? Pier area under water.”

  “Roger that. Witness says Pavilion Park.”

  Lei shook her head in disgust, put the truck in reverse, and splashed backward to the Pavilion parking lot, which was slightly elevated and only a few inches underwater. She turned off the truck. The overworked engine ticked in the silence, punctuated by the patter of the rain on the roof. Her father zipped up his parka and put the hood over his head.

  Lei put the clear plastic hood of her rain poncho up as well and reached in the back for a handful of evidence bags. She opened the glove box and took out a pair of latex gloves.

  “Put some on,” she told her father. “I might need your help.” He followed suit, and they stepped out of the cab into a wet, gray world.

  They squelched past the cinder-block bathrooms and down the long slope of open lawn dotted with built-in barbeques toward the beach. Chocolate-brown, angry waves churned against the sand, and great clumps of flotsam pushed up in waist-high mounds along the beach. Lei looked for the civilian who had phoned in the discovery.

  She spotted a man with a German shepherd under a rain-battered kamani tree. They walked toward each other, and Lei held up her badge.

  “Detective Texeira,” she said.

  “Tom Owens,” the older man said. He was in full rain gear, bristly beard pearly with moisture. “I’m a retired firefighter, and Chelsea and I like to keep an eye on the community in weather like this. We came out to check what was happening with the beach and she got all excited and led me to this.”

  He gestured for them to follow him. Lei and Wayne picked their way across the debris, their progress impeded by slippery mounds of vegetation washed down from the banks of the river. The shepherd barked when they got to one of the mounds. Lei suppressed apprehension and followed to where Tom was pointing.

  Tangled in the pile of wet debris was a hand. Mottled, mahogany-brown fingers curled as if in supplication, palm upward. Without the dog, it would have escaped notice, blending perfectly with the branches where it rested.

  Lei’s heart picked up speed. A hand was good—the prints might be viable.

  “I looked all around,” Tom said. “I had Chelsea search, but this was all we found.”

  Lei reached inside her poncho and brought out her little digital Nikon, photographing the hand in situ.

  A wave broke nearby, and brown foam rolled up around their feet.

  “This is why I called it in as an emergency,” Tom said. “I think this pile is going back out to sea.”

  “Looks like it.” Lei walked behind the mound, leaning over to photograph it from above. The flesh was ragged and bloodless, and she could see abrasions on the protruding bone.

  “I don’t think this is a recent piece of remains,” Tom ventured, turning to Wayne. Neither Lei nor Wayne said anything, so he went on. “I was thinking maybe someone was buried and the flood washed the body out, and this hand got broken off or something.”

  Tom had addressed all his remarks to Wayne, who remained expressionless and silent. He certainly looked like a cop, radiating a natural authority. Lei smiled a little at the irony.

  “Can you collect Tom’s contact info while I bag the evidence?” She handed her father a notebook and pen from her backpack.

  “Name and address?” Wayne asked.

  While they were occupied, Lei took one of the plastic evidence bags out of her back pocket, lifted the leathery hand out of the tangle, and slid it into the bag. Another wave surged up around the pile of wood, underscoring the urgency of retrieval. She put the bag into her backpack.

  She turned back to Tom. “Your theory about a burial floating up is pretty good. Can you and Chelsea walk with us down the beach and see if we can find anything more? Her nose will come in handy since this body part isn’t exactly fresh and the color makes it hard to spot.”

  “Sure.” Tom’s beady eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. He snapped his fingers, loosened Chelsea’s leash, and the dog put her nose down and set off. Lei and Wayne followed a little more slowly.

  The beach was hazardous between the mounds of debris and heaving brown surf. They traversed the length of it slowly, ending at the creek on the other side of the bay. The usually gentle stream was impassable, a violent brown flood a hundred yards wide. Nothing further was discovered but a drowned pig.

  Back at the car, Lei peeled off her latex gloves and shook Tom’s hand. “Thanks so much. Call if you find anything else.”

  “Will do.” Man and dog disappeared into the drizzling rain. Lei stowed the backpack in the rear of the cab as they got in the truck.

  “Didn’t look fresh,” her father commented, handing her the notebook.

  “I know. I guess I was kind of hoping it was some evidence of the guy I’m looking for, but on the other hand, I’m relieved it’s not him—there’s still a chance he’s alive.”

  It was awkward not being able to discuss the investigation with her father—she wished she couldtalk about the hand like she might have with Jenkins. She turned the key and listened with relief to the roar of the engine—it hadn’t succumbed to the wet.

  They made their way slowly back—the river hadn’t risen any further, and having done it once, both of them were a little more relaxed. Lei parked the truck up against the raised embankment on the opposite side of the road from her cottage.

  “I’ll get Keiki; you can deal with the evidence,” Wayne said. Lei nodded and radioed in the collection of the hand and their safe return, then sloshed her way into the house.

  She took the hand out of her backpack in the kitchen, giving it a quick visual survey before Wayne came in. It was the dark brown of earth, and desiccated as a piece of leather. The soaking had caused the tissue to plump back up, but even so it had a mummified look to it.

  And in the light, saw marks on the bon
e were clearly evident.

  Wayne and Keiki came back in, and Lei held up the plastic evidence bag with its grisly contents.

  “Observe me put this into a paper bag,” she said, slipping the ziplocked bag with the hand into a plain brown bag. “I’m sealing this.” She taped the brown bag shut with packaging tape and wrote the date/time on it in Sharpie, signed it with her initials.

  “Not that I’ll be such a good witness if you have to testify about this chain of evidence,” Wayne said. “Convicted felons related to the investigator might not make for much credibility.”

  Lei pushed her Hot Pockets and frozen vegetables aside and put the brown paper bag in the back of her freezer. With the power out, it was the best she could do.

  “Won’t come to that. Besides being an emergency situation, more than likely this is just a burial missing its body.”

  Though who would saw a hand off a body that was buried in a grave? And why? The lab might be able to find out more, and in the meantime, hers was a true cop freezer, with body parts among the frozen peas.

  The river decided to give them a break and stopped rising five feet short of the back porch. Without electricity, Lei and her father sat on the steps overlooking the river and drank decaf coffee into the misty night.

  It was time to tell him.

  She took a breath, blew it out. “I need to tell you something that involves someone from your past. Do you remember a guy named Charlie Kwon?”

  “No.”

  “Small-time dealer. Worked for the Changs in Hilo. Back when you were in the game.”

  “Okay, yeah. We had words a few times.”

  “Well, he moved in on Mom after you got popped—he got her into the hard stuff, hooked. He did it on purpose.”

  Her father’s face had gone stark. Eyes dark pits. Fingers curled so hard around his knees they were white. Lei looked away to say the rest.

  “In prison he bragged he got a twofer with me and Mom—because he molested and raped me.” She blew out a breath, looking out into the moonlit river, anywhere but at her father. “Not just once, for months. Mom overdosed when he left her, and that’s why I ended up with Aunty Rosario—child welfare sent me to her.”