Surfing Detective 04 - Hanging Ten in Paris

you handled the rope?’
    “Hey, man,” Brad said in a menacing tone, “can’t you see there’s a lady present?” She smiled. “Anyway,” he continued, “Ryan committed suicide.”
    “He didn’t,” I said.
    “He didn’t?” Scooter put on a dumb look.
    “You guys had it all planned. But what you didn’t plan on was somebody talking. Or somebody checking Ryan’s laptop.”
    “This is bullshit, man!” Brad fumed. “What do you think you’re doing, coming in here and saying this kind of crap to us? Do you think you’re funny? Or are you just a complete asshole?”
    “Point is, Brad, you and Scooter hung Ryan because he found out you had answers to Professor Van’s exams. First you tried to shut him up by threatening him and then by giving him the answers. But that didn’t work because Ryan wouldn’t take them. He refused to cheat. That pissed you off even more. And it put you in jeopardy—because if Ryan told Van, you two would flunk the course and not graduate. And if you didn’t graduate, Brad, your dad would cut you off. So you cooked up a scheme to make Ryan’s murder look like suicide. You coerced Kim and Heather and Meighan into helping and kept them quiet by threatening to implicate them if they talked. It was a halfway decent plan. And it worked—for a while.”
    Brad and Scooter glanced at each other. I put a five on the bar, stood, and turned toward the door.
    “So what happens now?” Scooter looked bewildered.
    “Did you guys like France?” I said.
    “Yeah,” he replied. “It was cool. Why?”
    “Because that’s where you’ll probably do your time.”
    I stepped from the reek and darkness into the afternoon sun.

eighteen

    When I crossed Kona Street and walked to my car, I heard my name called from behind. It was Scooter, pushing opening the door of the Z Lounge and following me. He jogged across the street and came toward me. Instinctively I popped open the trunk and retrieved my Smith & Wesson—in case Scooter got nasty.
    “Kai, wait,” Scooter stopped a few feet from me. He didn’t look angry. Just kind of confused. “You’ve got it wrong.”
    “Got what wrong?” I stood by my open trunk, gripping the revolver. “You guys are going down for what you did.”
    “I didn’t do it,” he said. “It wasn’t me in Ryan’s room with Brad. It was Heather.
She
put the rope around his neck.”
    “Who are you trying to kid?” I said, dumbfounded at his stupidity. “Heather was at the pharmacy, complaining of a sore tummy. But actually she’s pregnant, if you don’t already know.”
    “I knew she was pregnant. We all knew. But she wasn’t at the pharmacy when Ryan died—like she told Kim and everyone else. The pharmacy on Rue des Écoles closes at eight. She was in Ryan’s room with Brad. She went to talk with Ryan and asked Brad to go with her, because she was scared about getting caught cheating. They didn’t intend to kill Ryan at first. Just to talk. But Brad got pissed off, like he always does, and knocked Ryan down. His head hit the floor really hard. They didn’t wait to find out if he was passed out or dead. They got a rope from the utility closet, stripped off his clothes, and strung him up. They hung him naked over a photo of Marie to make it look like he killed himself because of her.”
    “Where were you when all this was happening?” I asked, my question inadvertently lending credibility to his story.
    “Asleep in my room. I’d had a few too many already that night and was sleeping it off.”
    “Right,”
I said.
    “It’s the truth, man!” Scooter insisted.
    I almost believed him, but said, “It will all get sorted out back in Paris. Better pack your bags.”
    He turned, looking dejected, and walked back to the Z Lounge. Before he got there, the door swung open again. It was Brad. He waited for his friend to reach the door and then punched him in the face. Scooter didn’t go down. He swung back. Before long it was a brawl. Michi came out and screamed. Then she flipped open her cell phone.
    No honor among thieves ...or murderers,
I thought as I watched the brawl unfold. Then I heard sirens and saw two HPD cruisers pull up in front of the lounge. Before long the brawl was over and each man was inside a cruiser.
    I followed the cruisers to police headquarters on Beretania Street. When the officers unloaded Brad and Scooter, I would be there. And then I’d catch up with my old pal Fernandez in homicide.
    On the way to the station I