Surfing Detective 04 - Hanging Ten in Paris

near Ala Moana Center. I called their number. No answer. It was around the time they’d come home from their jobs. I trusted my stake-out wouldn’t last long.
    I was wrong. I waited a half hour. Then another. I was about to pack it in when Heather strolled by and climbed the stairs. I let her go. I didn’t want her—I wanted her sidekick. I waited. Kim eventually walked by and I popped out of my car.
    “What are you doing here?” She looked curious, even cracked a smile.
    “I was in the neighborhood and was worried about you.”
    “Worried about
me
? Why?”
    “Because you don’t deserve to go down for Ryan’s death. I doubt you had anything to do with it. But you’re putting yourself at risk by sticking with your friends who did.”
    “What do you mean? Ryan committed suicide.”
    “Take a deep breath, Kim, and please listen to reason.”
    She stood silently.
    “You and Heather knew Ryan was dead that morning before you asked Meighan to check on him.”
    Her smile faded. “It wasn’t my idea.”
    “I know, but why pretend to have Meighan find him?”
    “Heather knocked and Ryan didn’t answer,” Kimberly explained. “But we figured he was there because I’d heard noise in his room at about nine the night before.”
    “What kind of noise?”
    “Like furniture moving.”
    “Heather didn’t hear it?”
    “She wasn’t there. Heather had a stomachache that night and went to the pharmacy.”
    It wasn’t a stomachache,
I thought. But Kim didn’t need to know her roommate was pregnant until Heather was ready to tell her.
    “So what really happened the next morning?” I asked.
    “When Ryan didn’t answer we opened the door and saw him hanging. And I guess we just got scared.”
    “Scared of what?”
    “Of finding him like that.” She shrugged.
    “C’mon, Kim, I’m trying to keep you out of trouble—but you have to cooperate and tell me the truth.”
    “Believe me,” she said, “I had nothing to do with it. I liked Ryan. I would never dream of hurting him.”
    “I know you wouldn’t hurt Ryan. But somebody did. I need to know who and why.”
    “I told you, I don’t know.”
    “I think you do. You can tell me or you can tell HPD.” Another empty threat, but she thought it over.
    “Kim?” I coaxed her. “What’s it going to be?”
    She hesitated, then finally opened her mouth and the words tumbled out: “I think Ryan’s death might have had something to do with cheating.”
    “Cheating on who?”
    “Not cheating on a person. Cheating on exams.”
    “Whose exams?”
    “Professor Van’s.”
    “Ryan cheated?” That didn’t sound like him.
    “Not Ryan. He caught someone with the answers to all the exams. I don’t want to say who . . . .” She hesitated. “Ryan didn’t think it was fair for this person to party while the rest of us worked.”
    Most college students party. The seven who went to Paris would be no exception. But only two of them were reputed party animals. It would most likely be one or the other, or both. I didn’t press Kim. I didn’t need to. But I did ask: “Why do you think Ryan’s death had to do with this cheating?”
    “He told the person to stop or he’d go to Professor Van.”
    “Did the person stop?”
    “No.”
    “Then why didn’t Ryan go to the professor?” I recalled that Van had said nothing to me about cheating.
    ”Ryan did go to Professor Van.”
    “He did?”
Was Van involved too?
    “Yeah, Ryan told me the Prof. would speak to us about it.”
    “Did Professor Van speak to you?”
    “Not to me or Heather.”
    “Did he speak to anyone? Did he do anything?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    Before I could respond, she ran into the Pi‘ikoi Arms crying,
“Shit! Heather’s going to kill me!”

thirteen

    First thing the next morning I took up Serena on her offer to see the professor’s grade computations. I couldn’t help wondering about Van. Why had he apparently done nothing to stop the alleged cheating? Why had he withheld information from the college and the Paris police? And from me?
    I picked up a large brown envelope from Serena’s assistant and opened it as I stepped back into the morning sun. Inside was a single sheet with the names of the seven students and columns displaying exam scores, semester averages, and letter grades. What immediately stuck me as odd was that all seven— except Ryan, of course—finished the term with an A. There were a few minuses and one plus—for Marie, as Van had told