Kathy Reichs - Spider Bones

“So, Ralph. We know who I am. We know who you are.” My frown slid from Palenik to the face hanging outside his window. “Perhaps an introduction is in order?”

The men exchanged one of those smirky ain’t-testosterone-grand glances, then Detective Nameless straightened, rounded the cruiser, and opened my door.

“Ivar Lô.” A diminutive hand shot my way.

Surprise made me blurt, “Hung and—”

The hand was withdrawn. “My partner’s handling a domestic dispute.”

“How did you know—”

“Detective Ryan thought you might need dry clothes.” Lô tossed the gym bag onto my lap. “Sorry, no undies.”

I should have been grateful. Instead, I felt peeved. And embarrassed.

Lô circled back to Palenik. “Got a call from a guy on the job, homicide, Montreal. He’s stuck up on the North Shore. Asked me to deliver the little lady to a rendezvous point.”

Deliver the little lady?

“Her lucky day. She gets a little ride-along.”

Lô smiled in my direction.

Ride-along? Not only had Ryan kicked into shining knight mode, Lô was treating me like some dimwit TV viewer with cop fantasies. The old anger switch tripped in my brain.

I reined it in. No reason to antagonize the little twerp.

“I am perfectly capable of calling a taxi.”

“And paying with what?”

“I’m certain—”

“You done with that form?”

I handed the clipboard to Palenik.

“Ryan says you come with me.” Lô was bending in, speaking to me.

“Does he.” Tundra cold. “I do not need a ride-along, Detective Lô. I’ve spent a great deal of time on police investiga—”

“You can change in my car.”

“I have no intention—”

“Wrecker’s on the way.” Palenik cut me off. Why not? Lô was doing it. “I’ll deal with the tow.”

“I owe you, buddy,” Lô said.

Palenik started his engine. Subtle fellow, Ralph.

Clutching Lô’s gym bag, I got out of the cruiser and slammed the door. Hard.

Lô pointed at the Crown Victoria. “I’ll wait here.”

“And where will this little ride-along take me?” Barely civil.

“Your partner’s meeting us in Kalihi Valley.”

Oh?

“I’ve got a CI says Francis Kealoha was murdered.”

THE CROWN VIC’S INTERIOR SMELLED OF SOY SAUCE AND GARLIC.

Lô drove like Ryan. Gun it. Brake. Gun it. Brake.

Or maybe it was the gallon of ocean sloshing in my gut.

Ten miles out, I felt queasy.

I suspected I was wearing Lô’s clothes. The parrot shirt and waistband fit reasonably well, but the pants legs stopped three inches short of my soggy sandals.

My cheek was raw and my forehead had a lump the size of a peach pit. My hair was knotted atop my head. Poorly. I’d had no comb. And only tissues to remove my smeared mascara.

Fetching.

The radio hissed and spit the usual cop stuff.

Lô had donned John Lennon shades. Now and then I peeked his way.

Apparently, my curiosity wasn’t all that subtle.

“Norwegian mother, Vietnamese father.”

My eyes snapped front and center.

“A blessing I got the old man’s height.”

I glanced back at Lô.

“Scares the crap out of people.” Deadpan.

“I’d have guessed it was the shirt.”

“Icing on the cake.”

Silence filled the car for another mile. Then, “Ryan seems like good people.”

“He’s a prince.”

“He explained how you two roll.”

I didn’t reply.

“He says you’re OK.”

Though incapable of arranging my own transport home. I bit back a pithy retort.

Truth be told, I was more annoyed with myself for contacting Ryan than I was with Ryan for taking over. I knew the man’s style. I called anyway. My bad. But what the hell? Though hiding it, I was actually pretty shaken up.

“You disappointed me,” Lô said.

“I disappointed you?”

“Ryan swore the ‘little lady’ tag would bring a boatload of feces down on my head.”

“Did he.”

“The ‘ride-along’ bit was strictly mine.”

“Icing on the cake.”

“As it were.”

“You should go into comedy, Detective Lô. Maybe get a job writing for Tina Fey.”

“Yeah, that could work.” Lô nodded slowly, as though seriously considering the suggestion. “First I’ll nail the dogball who sent your car into orbit.”

“You think it was deliberate?”

“I intend to find out.” Lô flicked a glance my way. “You want, I could take you up to Lanikai.”

“I feel much better than I look.” Not true, but I’d have eaten pigeon droppings rather than admit to weakness.

Lô shrugged. “Your call.”

“Tell me about Francis Kealoha.”

“The kid’s sister lives over by Kalihi Valley. KPT. A lovely chunk of real estate.”

Kuhio Park Terrace is the largest of Hawaii’s public housing projects. Kalihi Valley Homes, another big gorilla, isn’t far away. Small wonder that most of the state’s new immigrants start out near Kalihi Valley. I’d read that upward of eighty percent of the area’s population is Asian and Pacific Islander, that probably half is under the age of twenty.

“Gloria. A fine young lady.” Lô killed the radio with a jab of his thumb. “We’ll drop in on Sis, then have a chat with my CI. Ryan will hook up with us there.”

“Your CI will be cool with outsiders present?”

“He’ll do what I tell him.”

“What if Gloria’s not home?”

“She’s home. And by the way, you’re a potted palm when I talk to these wits.”

Thirty minutes later Lô parked near a high-rise complex that looked like a nightmare straight out of the seventies. Built in an era when the goal in public housing was to isolate and stack, KPT has all the warmth and charm of a barracks in the gulag.

Following a ten-minute wait, during which Lô stood calmly, arms crossed, and I paced, mourning the loss of my BlackBerry, we rode an overcrowded freight elevator to the fifteenth floor. A concrete balcony led past trash chutes jammed with ruptured supermarket and pharmacy bags. Insects swarmed the overflow—aluminum cans, bottles, soiled diapers, chicken bones, rotten produce, bunched tissues.

Lô stopped at unit 1522 and pounded with the heel of one hand.

No sound but the buzzing of flies.

He banged again, louder. “Honolulu PD. We know you’re in there, Gloria.”

“Go away.” The muffled voice was female and faintly accented.

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“We’ll wait.”

Seconds passed, then locks rattled, and the door swung in.

Gloria Kealoha was big. Very big. She had nutmeg skin and bottle-blond hair, and wore enough maquillage for an entire village makeover.

Pocketing his shades, Lô badged her. “Detective Lô. We spoke earlier concerning your brother.”

“And I told you what I know.”

“Francis is dead, Ms. Kealoha. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Life’s a bitch.” Gloria drew deeply on a half-smoked Camel jutting from her fingers.

“Questions remain.”

“So, what? I’m going on Jeopardy! ?” The smoke-cured laugh was completely joyless.

“I need the names of Francis’s friends.”

“Sorry, toots, can’t do it now.”

“This isn’t a social call, Gloria. We talk here or we talk downtown.”

“Jesus, who died and made you God?”

“My uncle.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks.”

Gloria’s eyes slid to me.

“Who’s the haole?”

“Dr. Brennan identified your brother.”