Kaua'i Me A River Part 14

"Oh, wow. That's really nice. But what will you wear?"

She flicked a finger for me to join her in the closet. The room was as nearly as big as her kitchen, with fancy shelving and shoe racks. It even had a center island with drawers and a granite top. I stood slack-jawed, staring at row upon row of dresses, blouses, skirts, and pants. All were grouped by color. Her shoe collection took up an entire wall.

"I think I'll be able to find something. Now, how about shoes?" She looked down at my rubba slippas. "What are you? About a seven?"

I nodded. She handed me a pair of taupe-colored sandals that probably cost more than the Kelly Blue Book on my car.

"Mahalo. I'll get this dress cleaned and send it back."

"Oh puh-leeze. Keep it. Since Phil bought me all this, half of it is yours now anyway." She laughed but it made me almost as uncomfortable as staring at the bed.

We went back into the kitchen. She pulled some salad makings out of the refrigerator and asked if I'd do the honors.

"You never answered my question about how long you two were married before my father died," I said.

"I know. I guess I'm a little touchy about it. See, I took care of your dad for nearly two years before we got married. Then-' She stopped and I looked up from making the salad. She was biting her lip and blinking back tears. It was the first time I'd seen her show any emotion over the death of my father.

"I'm sorry. You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to," I said.

"No, it's fine. I can't believe it still gets to me. We both knew what was going to happen. It wasn't like it was a shock or anything."

"But still, it's hard," I said.

"Yeah. I feel bad that you never got to know him. He was one in a million."

"Sounds like it. But I've got to say, it's hard for me to bring up good feelings about him. And now that I know he knew my mom had been killed and he never came for me... Well, all I can say is I'm lucky Auntie Mana stepped up when she did. My brother and I had n.o.body."

"Your father cared for you in the only way he knew how. But he had to keep a low profile."

I stared at her. "A low profile? Sounds like he was anything but low profile."

"Oh, it's complicated," she said. "And anyway, I'm starving."

We sat down to a simple dinner of barbequed chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s and salad. I poked at the chicken but ate more than my share of salad.

Sunny looked at my plate. "Are you a vegetarian? I forgot to ask."

"No, I've been known to knock back many a harmless creature," I said. "But tonight I'm more tired than hungry, I guess. If you don't mind I'm going to head off to the ohana as soon as we've cleaned up the kitchen."

"Don't worry about it. My housekeeper comes tomorrow. I'll just throw the dishes in the dishwasher and leave the rest for her."

I went off to the guest house thinking how different my life would be if I could just pay someone else to clean up my messes.

On Monday, Sunny pulled up in front of the ohana in the Range Rover. "I'm going to drive since Timo's got things to do and who knows how long this court thing will take," she said.

We pulled in at the courthouse and Valentine was standing outside with a grim look on her face. I smiled as we approached but it wasn't returned.

"I don't want to go into it now," Valentine said when we'd gotten within earshot. "But the preliminary autopsy report on Peggy Chesterton has been released and it doesn't look good."

"They did an autopsy on a Sunday?" I said.

"Yes, Peggy's death is all over the news. After all, her father was the former mayor. I'm sure they called the ME right away and told him to get right on it."

"Well, don't leave us hanging," I said. "What didn't look good?"

"It seems she was extremely intoxicated at the time of the accident. But the tox screen was inconsistent with regular alcohol intoxication."

"So what made her drunk?"

"That's the million-dollar question. The ME is considering a more sophisticated test, but he says it might not be worth the trouble since the markers degrade with time and refrigeration."

Sunny shook her head. "Poor Peggy. Makes you wonder what happened. You know, come to think of it she didn't look at all good. I wonder if she might've been abusing pharmaceuticals or even street drugs."

"It's hard to imagine, but you never can tell," said Valentine. "Well, let's get inside. Judges don't suffer late-comers gladly."

We went up to the second floor. The courtroom was smaller than the one I'd been in on Maui, but then Kaua'i has half the number of residents of Maui. The judge was conferring with a court clerk when we slipped in and took our seats.

I'm not sure what I expected, but our courtroom appearance took only minutes. Valentine was approved as the executor of the estate and Sunny and I were noted as being the named beneficiaries in the will. It was all very matter-of-fact.

The judge ordered the notification period to begin. Doc.u.ments were signed and stamped, fees were paid, and we were back outside in less than half an hour.

"That was easy," I said.

"Well," said Valentine. "What we accomplished today was simply to open probate. The process itself takes months, sometimes years. And if there's mediation involved-that is, if someone else comes forward to contest the will-then it can drag on and on."

"Oh, great," I said.

"But don't worry about it," said Valentine. "That's my job. Your job is to get the doc.u.ments the judge requested. Sunny, I'll need originals of Phil's life insurance policies, deeds to the homes, and investment statements. Pali, all I need from you is your birth certificate."

I nodded. "I've got it at home."

"Go ahead and fax me a copy. Before the final settlement I'll need the original, but I have a hunch that will be months from now."

"So, we're done?" I said.

"I can't see any reason for you to stick around," said Valentine. "I can take you to the airport right now if you want."

Sunny and I hugged goodbye.

"Can I ask you a favor?" I said as Valentine and I walked through the parking lot. "Do you have time to drop me by the The Garden Island newspaper office? I need to check on something."

"Sure. I don't have appointments until after lunch. What do you need?"

"I'm hoping it will only take a minute. I want to see if there were any news stories about my mother's death back in 1981."

Valentine drove me to the office on Kuhio Highway and I went inside. She stayed in the car returning phone calls.

"Aloha, can I help you?" said a young local guy at the counter. "You want to set up a subscription?"

"No, I'm here to see if you can find something for me in your archives."

"We post our archives online, you know."

"Yes, and I checked it. But this is about a killing that happened in 1981."

He squinted up his face as if realizing I was going to be a tough customer. "I don't know what we'll have from back that far. We had a fire in the building in the middle eighties. Lost a lot of microfiche. Back then, we put all our archives on microfiche."

"Would you mind looking anyway?"

"Sure. Give me the date. I'll look it up and let you know if we have anything."

"Can I give you a month and year?"

He really squinted at that one. "That will take a while to go through. How about this? Do you have key words or maybe a name? We've put the big stories from the archives in a computer database. If I can find the exact date it will speed things up."

I gave him my mom's name, Marta Warner. I figured if they couldn't find it by her name then the microfiche had probably been lost in the fire.

He typed in the name.

"Ah. Seems we have a hit for Marta Warner on April 17, 1981," he said. "Would you like a copy? We charge a dollar a page for microfiche images. But I have to warn you; sometimes they're kind of blurry."

"That's okay. How many pages is it?"

"Um, looks like just one."

"Yes, please print it out for me."

He left, and a few minutes later he came back with the print-out. I took a dollar out of my purse.

"Nah. No charge. I looked at the story. Was she ohana?"

"Yeah. My mom."

"Sorry." He gave me a sympathetic nod and we held eye contact just a tad longer than was comfortable. "We publish good news too, you know? So if you ever want to sign up for home delivery..."

"Mahalo, but I live on Maui now."

I folded the print-out and went out to Valentine's car. She was still on the phone but she signed off a few seconds after I shut the door.

"Did you get what you needed?" she said.

"Yes, mahalo. I appreciate you waiting."

We drove for a minute and I said, "I was surprised to learn how long it's going to take to get the will through probate."

"Is it going to cause a hardship?" she said.

"No, but my car's sort of on its last legs."

"Oh. Well, sorry, but that's how probate works in Hawaii. I tried to talk your dad into a trust but he wouldn't consider it. I guess he had *trust issues'." She turned and smiled as if she'd said something funny.

We got to the airport and she offered to park and come in to make sure I got a flight but I told her to go ahead and leave. "I'll get the next flight to Honolulu. From there, flights leave for Kahului every half-hour or so."

While I waited for them to call my flight to HNL I read the old newspaper account of my mother's death. Three times.

I learned nothing new. The only person named in the article was my mom. The story referred to the two men involved as simply *North Sh.o.r.e residents.' The way it sounded, my mother had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had taken a blow to the head. No mention of the police chief's son, not that that was surprising.

When I got on the plane, I buckled up and leaned back in my seat. I'd been gone less than three days but a lot had happened and some things didn't add up. Why had Joanie called my mom's death a murder if everyone else considered it an accident? And why had formerly clean and sober Peggy suddenly decided to fall off the wagon and drive into a tree? And why hadn't Phil come forward to get me when he heard my mother had died?

I was eager to get home. My brain worked better in familiar surroundings.

CHAPTER 21.

Steve picked me up at the airport. I slid into his spotless black Jetta and felt a little zing of envy. If things went as Valentine predicted, it would be months, maybe even a year or more, before I could get a new car. It was the one thing I wanted that money could buy.

"How are things at home?" I said.

The scowl on his face tipped me off. "Well, I guess if one enjoyed living in a hippie day care center they'd say *great.' I, on the other hand, am finding the environment a bit challenging."

"What do you mean? One kid doesn't const.i.tute a day care center."

"True, if there was only one. Farrah's up to three now," he said.

*Three? What's going on?"

"I should probably let her tell you herself. She asked me to stay out of it."

"Tell me, Steve. I have a hunch I may need to practice an eviction speech."

"Okay, so here's the situation so far: a woman dropped Moke off at the store. Then, on Sat.u.r.day, Farrah did some of her juju nonsense and located his mother. That afternoon the mother showed up and she's got two other kids, twin girls. I'm not good with kid's ages, but I'd say they're around four or five. The mom looks barely eighteen, so I a.s.sume she was making babies when she should've been studying for a middle school algebra test. Anyway, she's got food stamps, but other than that, she's pretty much living on the street."

"Farrah's taken in all of this woman's kids?"

"Not exactly. She's agreed to raise Moke as her hanai kid, but she's watching the other two while their mother's out supposedly looking for a job. So, in the s.p.a.ce of one weekend, my life has gone from perfecting the topping on my creme brulee to mastering the art of transforming powdered baby formula into liquid without lumps. And it's that soy stuff so it's always got lumps. And, it stinks to high heaven."

"Three kids?" I couldn't get past the number.

"Yep. And from the looks of things, the teenage mom's not going to score a job anytime soon."

"Are they all sleeping at the house?"