Stolen in Paradise (A Lei Crime Companion Novel) (17 page)

“Is that person listed as an employee in your organization?”

Marcella paused, bit the side of her finger. “No.”

“Then there’s no way for us to track all the potential combinations of customers. We use an algorithm to set up possible matches based on your survey choices and the workplace you choose to disclose. We can only work with the information we have.”

She’d lied on her application. Like she was going to tell them she was an FBI agent—not that the Club was illegal, exactly. It was just not something the FBI would ever find acceptable. She shuddered to think of Waxman finding out.

“You know what? Cancel my membership.”

Marcella felt only a little better when she hung up. She’d needed to do that for a while, but now she had nothing to do for the evening and a lot of restless energy. Her old familiar—guilt—hovered, waiting to pounce. She decided to pick the scab a little more and typed “Detective Marcus Kamuela” into her search bar, suppressing a qualm at such behavior.

Her computer was equipped with a sensitive background-checking program. She pulled up his work record with HPD (exemplary), his educational background (Kamehameha schools, football star), BA in criminal justice from the University of Hawaii
(cum laude)
with a minor in art. (Hmm. Maybe that was where the interest in origami came from.) Kept a small debt on his credit card, where his major expense appeared to be his Club membership and payments on a new Toyota Tacoma truck (blue) .

No marriages. No children. No criminal activity. Even went to Rotary Club. His smiling face, embedded in the Rotary Club wheel on their website, made her feel shitty—like the spying tramp who’d dumped him that she was.

Marcella knew he’d probably already checked her background, and what he’d have found: Catholic school in New Jersey, BA from NYU
(magna cum laude)
in prelaw. She hadn’t gone off the beaten track of predictable until she entered the FBI’s training program after graduation, and her obsessive and controlling relationship at nineteen with a professor at the university wasn’t in her records anywhere—or at least, she hoped not. She didn’t even have a parking ticket in Hawaii for Marcus to hold against her.

She’d hoped that by checking Marcus out, she’d find some dirt, something like a deadbeat-dad conviction that would make her feel better about shutting him down for no good reason but her own paranoia.

Instead, Marcella shut down the computer.

This was definitely not the way to get over the guy. She snatched up her phone when it rang, relieved to be distracted, and brushed off disappointment when she saw it was Sophie Ang.

“Hey. Was getting ready for a little sparring at the Fight Club, wondered if you felt like coming.” The other woman’s voice was hesitant. “I know you’re busy—just thought I’d see.”

“Yes,” Marcella said decisively. “Perfect. Where do I meet you?”

Marcella felt soft and out of shape in her running bra and nylon shorts, her usual outfit for working out and in this case, fighting—though looking down and thumping her abs, they seemed okay. It had been way too long since she’d really spent time in a gym or done her Tae Kwon Do.

She ducked into the warehouse gym on the corner of Kalakaua Avenue, feeling her pulse pick up at the familiar smells of leather and sweat. Gyms—a home away from home. The gym would have to do now that she wasn’t going to the Club anymore.

Ang walked up to her, and Marcella eyed the agent’s long, toned muscles, the tats running down the insides of her arms and down her thighs—kanjis with a tribal look to them. The other woman’s triangular face under that sleek cropped cut was perfectly suited for this setting. In this building, as in the cockpit of her tech lab, Ang was a goddess.

“So I’ll show you around. Not much to it,” Ang said, leading her in. “Lockers. Bags. Weight area. Workout pads. And the ring, as you can see.”

Marcella sucked in her gut in response. Just looking at the ring made adrenaline hum through her system. “What do you have in mind for today?”

“Why don’t we warm up, do some cardio or whatever; then we can watch a couple of sparring matches and I’ll orient you on things. Basically, mixed martial arts is a form of fighting that borrows moves from Muay Thai, Brazilian jiujitsu, boxing, and wrestling.”

“I know what it is—I just haven’t watched any of it, let alone met any women who do it. I’ve heard it’s popular here in Hawaii, though.”

“Yeah, we have quite the scene. Lot of camps, clubs, gyms—and people who follow the sport.”

Ang led her over to the bags, and they warmed up cardio with punching and kicking routines. Ang showed her some combinations on the big bag, and Marcella couldn’t believe how much better she began to feel with the release of pent-up energy. Eventually they sat stretching. Another pair of women were up in the ring, sparring.

Ang talked her through the moves. “She’s trying a takedown. That girl in purple—she’s a ground fighter. She’ll try to get you down in a submission hold, ground and pound you out down there. The one in green, she’s more of a striker. She’s going to try to stay out of range and do her beat down with kicking and punching.” The fighters wore split-fingered padded gloves, which Ang said helped with gripping in the various different moves while still protecting the hands for striking.

“Ready to try it?” Ang grinned. “One of the practice areas is free.”

“Yeah.” Marcella followed her new friend into the padded area. They circled each other. Marcella held her arms up and went in for a high kick, reaching for Ang’s head. Used to Tae Kwon Do, she wasn’t ready when the other agent grabbed her leg and bore her down with her own momentum to thump on the mat, Ang’s body tight around hers.

“This isn’t Tae Kwon Do. Keep your arms and legs close, and kick only if you know your leg won’t be grabbed,” Ang said from beside her ear. Hard as Marcella squirmed and wriggled, thumping at the other woman with her free hand, she couldn’t move until Ang released her, bouncing back up onto her feet with ease. Marcella staggered back up, shaking her head.

The next hour passed in a blur of getting knocked down, pummeled, thumped and kicked, and grappling gracelessly on the sweaty mats as Ang talked her through the various moves as they occurred. One last bout ended with Marcella hopelessly pinned.

“Uncle,” she said, thumping the mat. “Think I’ve had enough.”

Ang bounced back up, hoisting Marcella to her feet. “Good workout?”

“As a matter of fact.” Marcella took the thin towel the other woman handed her and rubbed down her flushed, dripping face.

“How do you feel?”

“Great, actually. Just great,” Marcella said, feeling a smile move across her face for the first time that day. “This is a blast. When can we do it again?”

Marcella was sore in the morning, a thousand unused muscles complaining as she poured a fourth cup of steaming black coffee from the carafe in Conference Room A into her favorite mug. She poured another one for Dr. Ron Truman. She was glad to be at work—it kept her mind off the debacle with Kamuela.

Dr. Truman’s face sported whiskers and dark circles—enough to make him a little rugged and even more handsome. He took the FBI mug she handed him gratefully and sat back in his bolted-down armchair in Conference Room A.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. How’re you holding up?”

“You mean my divorce? Or the project?”

“Both. Regarding the project, we’re releasing the lab back to you this morning. My partner, Agent Rogers, is down at the lab unsealing everything and getting it ready for your team.”

“Excellent.” Truman took a sip of the hot coffee. “My divorce is proceeding, and as to the project, it’ll be good to get back to work. With those notes you guys found, we can start rebuilding the research. “

“We know it’s important—and that’s why we’re getting your team back into the lab. But we’re going to need your help more than ever to find who killed Dr. Pettigrew and Cindy. I have some questions about your remaining interns.”

“Of course. Anything I can do to help.”

“What was each of the interns responsible for on the project? I heard that Fernandez contributed something major.”

“Yes, he did. He was the one to isolate the element that assisted in the RuBisCO bind. We were all stuck on that for months.”

“So did he—well, did he get an attitude about it?”

“Jarod’s got some—emotional issues, I guess you could call them. We all tried to take him with a grain of salt in the lab.”

“So is that your way of saying yes?”

“We all have our idiosyncrasies. Jarod’s were a little more obvious than most—his tics, for instance.”

“Yeah.” She set down her coffee. “How real are those tics?”

“Oh, they’re real all right.” Truman shrugged. “But the swear words are different. He can control those, in my opinion. I’ve seen him get really frustrated or upset, which is when they usually come out—and if Dr. P was there, or someone else from the university he was worried about, he’d rein it in.”

“Okay. I’m wondering—did he ever show any aggressive or hostile behavior in the lab? Or elsewhere that you know of?”

“He’d say things that were off. Just not appropriate—maybe a little threatening. I chalked that up to the Tourette’s.”

“Did you know about his reported relationship with Cindy Moku?”

“Yeah. I heard rumors to that effect. I think there was a little triangle going on with her, Fernandez, and Abed.”

“What was their relationship like?”

“Honestly, if I hadn’t heard about it from Cindy, I wouldn’t have known. They kept it very private.”

“So no public displays of affection, etcetera?”

“Not that I ever saw. Frankly, I wondered what she saw in him. Abed is a much more engaging fellow, and he moped around when she dumped him.”

“What was his relationship like with Dr. Pettigrew?” Marcella rolled her shoulders against stiffness from the workout the night before. Soreness and a few bruises thumped at her from various points on her body, but she was surprised to find that overall she felt good. Relaxed—except for thoughts of Kamuela that kept hitting her at unwelcome moments. She muscled her attention back to the interview.

“Fernandez was rigid in how he liked to do things, and Dr. P was definitely the boss. They butted heads a few times.”

“And how about you?” She slid the question in gently between sips of coffee.

“Collegial. She was my director, my principal investigator, and I applied to be under her after looking for the best. It was her job to develop the research ideas, find the grants, promote the project, gather and vet the team, review the results and get them published. I basically ran the lab and kept all the parts working, troubleshot glitches in the work, served as her gofer when she needed one.”

“So how well did you know Peter Kim?”

“He kept to himself. He came in, put in long days, but he didn’t interact as much as the others.”

“What was his relationship like with Dr. Pettigrew and Cindy?”

“He butted heads with Dr. P too—he wanted the research published in stages, instead of waiting until it was all completed, as she’d decided. Each stage of the research has had several viable articles within it—but Dr. P really wanted to create a sensation with BioGreen by breaking it all at once. He was friendly but nothing more with Cindy. I think Kim is a quiet, but very ambitious man.”

This was consistent with Marcella’s assessment, and her opinion of Truman went up another notch as well. He was much more than a pretty face—not only articulate, he seemed to have a good sense about people. No wonder he’d been taken with the fey, striking Natalie Pettigrew.

“How about Abed? What was his connection to the others?”

“Well, he’s someone who wears his heart on his sleeve. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I can’t see him killing someone in the cold, impersonal way Dr. P was shot. I could see him laying hands on someone who hurt him badly enough—as Cindy did. He took it hard, like I said, when she dumped him. But if he killed Dr. P, I think it would have been something impulsive and personal—hitting her on the head or something like that.”

“That’s very interesting, but total speculation,” Marcella said, privately agreeing. She was beginning to wonder more and more if there had been two killers—but Truman, still a suspect, was not someone to share that with.

“Did any of the interns…write poetry or journals that you were aware of?”

“No, nothing creative like that that I ever saw.” He snorted a laugh. “We all hunched over journals, all right, but they were the project lab books, and those follow a strict protocol.”

“All right. Are you going to be able to move forward with the staffing you have?”

“No. We have to re-create a lot of the project, and we need some more interns. I’ve been using the time away from the lab to review grad student applications—but I’m feeling confident we’ll be able to rebuild an effective team.” He stood. “Speaking of that, you said you’d release the lab to me?”

“Let me check with my partner. He was doing a final walk-through before we turn it over.” She speed-dialed Rogers. “Matt. Is the lab ready for the team to come back?”

“I just got done reprogramming a new security code into the door. Write this down.”

Marcella scribbled the number Rogers gave her on a notepad and showed it to Truman, who copied it into his phone.

“Thanks. I’ll see you later at the office.” She cut the call and gestured to the door. “Looks like you’re free to pull your people in and get back to work. We left a photocopied pile of Dr. Pettigrew’s photos of the lab books for your review in the back office.”

“The project’s got a foundation to build on, thanks to you,” Truman said, shaking her hand with both of his, green eyes shining with something that might have been tears. “It will be great to get back to work, and thank God Dr. P took those photos. Where did you find them?”

“At the bottom of the Ala Wai Canal,” Marcella said, ushering him to the door. “Call me if you see or hear any suspicious behavior from your team. Anything at all.”

“Oh, I will,” he said fervently, and hurried down the hall.

Marcella shut down all the recording equipment and checked her dive watch—it was time to get on the road for an important appointment.