Zero Island (Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners Book 2) Chris Bauer (free reads TXT) 📖

of the Cross, on the loss of its momma, one of the casualties of the helicopter crash.

21

They were met at the pasture gate for Mr. Logan’s Kapilimao Valley ranch by two paniolo on horses, the island’s version of cowboys, if Philo’s memory served, clearly with a strong Mexican influence. The horse and cowboy escorts accompanied their SUV slowly up the trail, dust scattering amid their slow trot.

“Mr. Logan can help, Patrick. He says he’s got tons of records. Maybe he can trace things back.”

“Maybe, sir. Those hats, sir. The paniolo hats?”

“The sombreros? What about them?”

“I just remembered something, sir. Where they keep their guns. Small holsters inside their hats, sir.”

One couldn’t miss their bandoliers, each cowboy’s chest crisscrossed with multiple bullet clips, but the corresponding guns weren’t visible on the cowboys’ persons. Handguns in hats was an affectation Philo always thought silly from his earlier days in training on the islands.

“Yes. One under their shirt, one inside their boot, one inside their sombrero, bud.” The SUV rolled along, Philo pressing only slightly on the gas pedal. Funeral dirge speed. “Silly, right?”

“Nope. Lightweight Sigs. Plenty effective.”

Philo waited for Patrick to finish his statement, to close it off with a “sir” or a “Philo sir.” When it didn’t come—

“Tell me why, Patrick. What do you remember?”

“About what, sir?”

And they were back.

“Why guns inside a hat would be effective.”

“Head-to-toe firepower, sir. Waist, foot, head. I… I saw it work, sir.”

“When?”

A flustered Patrick picked at the hem of his shorts. “Collection day. When I was a kid. They… someone pulled the driver out of the car I was in.”

“They pulled out your dad?”

“Maybe. I was nine. No, ten. Someone dragged him out, took the laundry bag with the money, put a gun to his head. On Nawiliwili Road. He had, umm, just come out of the gym. We were stopped at a vegetable stand, and… and…”

“What, Patrick?”

“This guy… this guy holding a sombrero to his chest, talking with the vegetable farmer’s daughter, he… he dropped the hat, showed two guns in his hands, then shot the guy robbing the driver. Sir.”

Robbing your bagman dad, Philo thought, but he didn’t say it.

“He saved his life, sir.”

They pulled into Douglas Logan’s ranch home driveway. “We’re here.”

Douglas Logan spoke from behind his desk, small towers of file folders piled left and right of him, one folder open in the middle. Philo and Patrick occupied the chairs fronting the desk.

“Here are the results of the 2000 and 2010 censuses for Miakamii.” Mr. Logan removed paper from the folder, placed it in front of Patrick. “Take a look at it, Mr. Stakes, so we can get our bearings.”

Philo and Patrick leaned in.

Total Miakamii population had declined between the censuses by thirty people, from 160 to 130. The names and genders of all the inhabitants for both censuses were on the spreadsheet. Five had died. Which meant twenty-five had moved off the island. There had been no births.

“I knew all the people on the island, but I can’t say I could have matched every face to every name. I can say that I don’t remember you as any of these people, Mr. Stakes, in either census, but I’m getting old, and my memory is suspect nowadays. You can keep that. There’s also this.”

He moved another folder front and center to him on the desk, opened it, scanned the first page. “The Island of Kauai censuses for the same years. Here are some comparisons where we can see the names of every person in each census for Kauai who listed Miakamii as their birthplace. Some of the twenty-five people who left Miakamii aren’t on the Kauai census because they moved elsewhere, or they died. Again, if you or your family were among the people who moved from Miakamii to Kauai, I can’t validate that. I’m sorry.”

Patrick’s eyes had glazed over, but Philo understood the net of it. These lists weren’t definitive enough in divining Patrick’s parents without having census data on all fronts for each year, for Miakamii, the other Hawaiian Islands, and the mainland, where Patrick ended up.

He patted Patrick on the shoulder. “We’ll have to wait, bud, for the Ancestry results to come in. Might still happen while we’re here. Grace and Hank will let us know.”

“But Philo sir. Look at this list,” Patrick said.

Philo looked over his shoulder. “What about it?”

“These people, sir. Her, her, him, and him. We know their names, sir.”

“He’s right, Trout. The four murders—my friend Chester, Captain Malcolm’s fiancée Miya, the Navy contractor Vena Akina, and Ichigoo the street performer—they were all transplants from Miakamii.”

A concern hit Philo dead nuts: Logan didn’t recognize Patrick as a Miakamii transplant, but he couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t one, either, and Miakamiians were dropping like flies.

“You need a gun, Patrick,” Philo said.

“Sir, I can’t—they won’t sell one to me—”

“I’ll take care of it. There’s a fifth death, Mr. Logan. The cops and the Navy are looking into it.” Philo perused the list further, wondering if the fifth murder victim, another gutted woman, her name unknown, was on it. “Her body parts were dropped by drones all over the Alakai Swamp. The Navy found them two nights ago, next to the trail. The cops, they’re trying to ID her—”

Philo arrived at the last name on the list. His face blanched.

“Holy fuck…”

“Trout, that language is not acceptable around here. I ask that you please refrain…”

Philo held the list up to Patrick and pointed.

“Holy fuck,” Patrick said.

“Gentlemen, language, please!”

“Sorry, Mr. Logan, but you need to tell us more about this woman, the last person on this list. Kaipo Mawpaw. Do you know her?”

22

Fresh from his surgical chop shop, where his doctors found a home for a partial liver with an opera star from the sixties and seventies, Wally had Magpie drive them back to the hotel. He was exhausted, having held the woman’s hand all through surgery prep, then for an hour after she woke up. Eight p.m.-ish on a warm night, Magpie made the