Surfing Detective 04 - Hanging Ten in Paris

me how that happened?”
    “Sure. Heather called and asked me to check on Ryan. She hadn’t seen him and was worried. So I went down to his room. The door was unlocked.”
    “You lived on the fourth floor, right? And Heather and Kim lived on the third, same as Ryan?”
    She nodded.
    “Why didn’t Heather check on him herself?”
    “I don’t know. She just asked if I’d mind and I didn’t. So I went.”
    “What time?”
    “About eight on Wednesday morning. I knocked on his door. There was no answer. I knocked again and then tried the knob. The door opened. I saw him.”
    “Did you go into the room?”
    “Not really.” She gripped her coffee. Her hands trembled. “It was kind of . . . uh, a shock. And I didn’t want to disturb anything.”
    “So you did or didn’t go into his room?”
    “I didn’t.” Her eyes glistened. “Look, I’m only trying to help Ryan’s mom and dad. But I feel like you’re accusing me.”
    “Sorry,” I said, then pressed on. “What did you do after you saw Ryan?”
    “I banged on Heather and Kim’s door. I was crying. They knew right away something was wrong. All three of us walked back to Ryan’s room and I opened the door again.”
    “How did Heather and Kim react?”
    “Heather gasped and said, ‘Oh, my God!’ or something like that. Kim asked, ‘What should we do?’”
    “I said we should call the police. Heather said we should call Professor Van first. And that’s what we did.”
    “Why call the professor before the police?”
    “I don’t know. It wasn’t my idea. But Heather insisted.”
    “Where were Brad and Scooter when all this was happening?”
    “I was coming to that. They sometimes partied all night and then slept in the next day. We didn’t know if we should wake them. But Heather said—‘Let’s get ‘em.’ So she and I walked upstairs and knocked on their door. I was surprised when it opened right away.”
    “They weren’t hung over—sleeping it off?”
    “Brad looked better than Scooter, who’d obviously been drinking. But Brad said they both had a test that morning and had stayed up studying. We took them down to Ryan’s room.”
    “And how did Brad and Scooter react?”
    “Brad covered his face. Scooter just stared with a kind of wonder in his eyes. Then Professor Van showed up and walked into Ryan’s room, looked around, and called the police. When they came, we had to leave the building and wait down on the sidewalk. An officer who spoke English came down and interviewed each of us separately. By the time they let us back upstairs, Ryan had been taken away.”
    “And you didn’t go back into his room after that?”
    “No, not after they took him away.”
    Meighan had contradicted herself. First she said she hadn’t gone into Ryan’s room, and then she implied she had. Either she was confused or withholding information.
    I asked her more questions about what happened that night, what led up to it, and what followed. Before long nearly an hour had passed. I finished my decaf and said, “Can I give you a ride back to campus?”
    “Nah, I’ll just stay here and study my French.”
    I stood and said the only French I knew.
“Au revoir.”
    She sat bolt upright.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “The note,” she said. “Ryan’s suicide note.”

seven

    I drove to my office on the corner of Maunakea and Beretania Streets in Chinatown. I’m on the second floor above Fujiyama’s Lei Shop. The sweet aroma of fresh plumeria
lei
being strung inside the shop followed me up the stairs—assuaging, in some way, the sad business I’d gotten myself into. Unlocking my door, I glanced at the longboard rider and SURFING DETECTIVE: CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS—ALL ISLANDS airbrushed there and wondered again why I was investigating a suicide in Paris
. Ryan was a surfer.
That was the best I could do.
    I checked my emails: I had new ones from Heather and Scooter. Heather said I could meet her and her friend Kimberly at Magic Island that afternoon. Scooter said he could see me at the Outback Steakhouse in Hawai‘i Kai the next day. I confirmed both interviews, then later headed to Magic Island.

    Heather and Kimberly were sitting on a bench by the seawater lagoon when I pulled up. Magic Island is not really an island, but a grassy peninsula on the Diamond Head end of Ala Moana Beach Park with the lagoon at the point. Beyond that is a sea wall and crashing surf.
    The two twenty-something island girls were in running gear—tank