Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

eyes. “OK?”
    “OK,” I agreed, though I didn’t like to be left hanging.
    “Kiss me, Kai.” She puckered her plum red lips. And I did.
    Leimomi then turned and glided down the dim hallway, past the offices of my fellow tenants: passport photographer, accountant, free lance editor, and psychic, Madame Zenobia. Soon Leimomi disappeared down the orange shag stairs.
    I gave her a few minutes to clear the building, imagining she might stop to chat with the other
lei
girls and with Mrs. Fujiyama. Then I grabbed my manila folder with the wipeout clippings and headed down the stairs.
    As I walked through the shop, I glanced into the back room and saw Chastity and Joon stringing sweet-scented
pikake lei.
Another
lei
girl, Blossom, sat nearby tying off a pale yellow plumeria
lei
. Passing the refrigerated cases displaying colorful strands of island flowers, I glimpsed Mrs. Fujiyama at the cash register, bone thin, steel haired, and, as always during business hours, wearing a courteous smile.
    “Good morning, Mrs. Fujiyama,” I said.
    She glanced up at me over half glasses, her smile suddenly bending into a frown. “Good morning, Mr. Cooke.”
    Strange.
Mrs. Fujiyama and I were on the most cordial of terms, though she was a stern mother hen hovering over her
lei
girls.
    “Anything wrong, Mrs. Fujiyama?”
    “Nothing wrong, Mr. Cooke,” she replied in an expressionless tone suggested otherwise.
    I stepped from the flowershop onto Maunakea Street and headed for my parking garage. As the sharp competing smells of kim chee, cappuccino, rancid garbage, and screw-cap wine reached my nose, the silent wrath of my landlady was making me feel nearly as guilty as the apologetic behavior of my girlfriend.

Three

    Cruising toward HPD headquarters on Beretania Street, I spotted a black Mercedes in my rearview mirror. The car was behind three others, so I couldn’t swear it was the same black Mercedes Summer had climbed into after our Denny’s meeting. But I didn’t doubt it either.
    I kept my eye on the car as my teal blue Impala growled along Beretania, turning a few heads. My ‘69 Chevy is not your nondescript, front-wheel-drive, pale imitation Impala of today, but a genuine V-8, gas-guzzling, glitzy dream machine of the Sixties. The real thing.
    My surfboard rode beside me inside the teal cockpit, the nine-six’s rounded, duckbill nose resting comfortably on the padded dash. That’s the beauty of an outsized classic car like this—pop out the backseat and my longboard slides right in. I like to bring my board along even when I’m not heading for the surf. On the spur of the moment, while cruising O‘ahu’s streets and highways, I can run my fingers along its glossy surface, reminding me of the white-crested beauties that await the end of my day.
    Lucky you live Hawai‘i,
as we say. I feel sorry for my landlocked friends who can only surf virtual waves on a computer. Sitting on your
‘okole
in front of a video screen is hardly the same thing. If just once in your life you could paddle out and catch a real wave—feel the burn in your arms and the salt spray in your face. Then you would know that this ride is nothing like the one you took on your computer. Corky McDahl would tell them. If he were still alive.
    When I finally pulled in front of HPD’s art deco headquarters, the black Mercedes, behind me now by about eight car lengths, also pulled to the curb. I sat in my Impala and waited a full minute. The Mercedes didn’t move. I waited another minute. So did the Mercedes. As I prepared to wait another five, the big black sedan pulled from the curb and slowly drove by, windows so darkly tinted that I couldn’t make out the driver or passengers. No doubt about it. I had been followed.
    Inside HPD’s photo lab I caught up with crack police photographer Creighton Lee, whose expert shots often proved a prosecutor’s best friend. Creighton could size up a crime scene in seconds and capture just the right views of the crucial evidence.
    “Creighton, howz’t?” I grabbed his meaty right hand and we shook by hooking thumbs, local-style.
    “Kai, brah,” he said in a soft-spoken pidgin totally at odds with his thick fire-hydrant frame. “Surprise’ you not up on da Nort’ Shore. Big swell, brah.
Beeeg!”
    Creighton was not only a prodigy with the camera, but also a dedicated soul surfer. He usually rode his twelve-foot tanker in knee-high fun stuff, having little ambition for anything bigger, let alone the