Unknown Victim Read online

  Felix frowned for the first time Gina could remember, and shook his head. “Looks homeless.”

  “That’s what you told me a couple days ago.” The first siren came from a distance, followed by another. Gina’s trained ear could tell one was a police car and the other an ambulance.

  “He’s the same guy as the other day?”

  Gina nodded. “I’ve found him sleeping on the porch each morning. He moved a little slow, but he always wandered off toward the bridge.”

  “Sounds like the police are almost here,” Felix said.

  “Better go wave them down so they know where to come. And stay off the bridge. There might be footprints there, also.”

  Felix trotted off to the bridge, but crossed through the stream to the street outside. Once he was gone, she looked at the shoes of the dead man again.

  “This isn’t the same kind of grass growing as weeds here on the estate. This is lawn grass.”

  There were several clumps of two-inch bits of grass stuck to the soles of both shoes. All of it was uniform in length, as though it had been mown. She couldn’t help herself but pick one off for a closer look.

  “One little lawn clipping won’t be missed from a dead homeless guy’s shoes. Not like there’s anything suspicious about him.”

  Gina hurried into the house with the piece of grass. Getting the little magnifying glass she’d brought to look at insects and pests close up, she examined the blade of grass. One end was brown, while the other end was still green, freshly clipped. The length of it was still green but dry. A big part of her horticulture education had been in ornamental landscape, and that included lawn care. After all the lawns she’d mowed in the last couple of years during her training in landscaping, she was familiar with grass. This particular specimen looked…

  Interrupting her were loud police sirens. She tucked the blade of grass in a ziplock bag and left it on the kitchen counter before going out to the porch again.

  With one last whoop whoop announcing their arrival, the siren was cut when the police car came across the bridge. When it appeared through the trees, it turned to where Gina waved her arms at them. The squad car bounced through puddles in the gravel double-track as it approached a little too fast, and after hitting one bump too hard, it slowed to a stop. Both uniform cops got out and drew their weapons.

  “It’s okay! The scene is secure!” Gina shouted from her spot on the porch.

  Keeping their sidearms in their hands, they walked slowly toward her, scanning the area around them. That’s when the ambulance showed up, its lights pointlessly flashing in the dim light. The paramedics got out, got several cases of equipment, and trotted to catch up with the police, who were just getting to where Felix stood like a statue.

  “The vic’s up here,” Gina told them.

  “What’s going on?” one of the cops asked. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Gina Santoro. I’m the one that called this in.”

  “What’s the deal with him?” one of the cops asked. He was dark-skinned and big, and his shirt needed to be a size larger to fit right. His partner was a tall woman, with classic girl-next-door looks of blond hair and blue eyes, and a gym rat body. She looked more like a party stripper than a real cop.

  “He’s a homeless guy that’s been sleeping on the front porch each morning. Today, he’s not waking up.”

  The cops holstered their weapons. The big one sent the paramedics up to evaluate the dead man, while the woman went around to the back of the house to look around. After feeling for pulses, the paramedics opened one case and hooked up the EKG monitor to his chest. After a minute of watching nothing happen, they disconnected it, and shook their heads to the police officer. While one put away their equipment, the other filled out a form.

  That’s when the big cop came up the steps to the porch, leaving his pretty blond partner to question Felix after she got back to the front of the house.

  “You’re the home owner?” he asked Gina.

  “Not the owner, but I live here.”

  “This is the old Tanizawa place, isn’t it? I remember coming here as a school kid for a field trip. Kind of a mess now.”

  “I’m getting it back together.”

  “You don’t look like a Tanizawa.”

  She already had her driver’s license ready to show him. “Gina Santoro.”

  He wrote down the information from her license. “You’re from Cleveland?”

  “I just got here a few days ago. Getting kinda tired of telling everybody that, though.” She put her license away again. “I tried to preserve the scene for you, just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “Somebody needs to investigate.”

  “Investigate what?” he asked.

  “His death.”

  He took a deep breath, his shirt stretching across his broad chest even more. She noticed the nametag on his shirt said Iosefa. “Miss Santoro, we have calls about a dozen homeless deaths every week. Usually it’s a matter of identifying the body and transporting to the morgue. Most of the time they’ve overdosed on the cheap drug of the week and nobody found them until too late. My guess, that’s what happened here.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. But maybe we should go through his pockets for paraphernalia?”

  “We?”

  “Sorry. You.”

  “Look, lady. I’m still not sure who you are, and you better believe I’m gonna check you out, but I don’t need you telling me how to investigate a death. Got it?”

  “Yeah, sure. Sorry.”

  Felix must’ve heard the dressing down, because he turned toward them. “Hey! She used to be a cop.”

  Officer Iosefa apprized Gina again. “That true?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “That’s why you knew to keep the scene secure?”

  “Just old training kicking in, I guess.” If there was one thing Gina knew, it was to remain on the good side of the police, if for no other reason than to stay out of trouble. “I didn’t mean to interfere.”

  When he smiled at her, it was more of a one-sided sneer that punks back home in Little Italy gave to each other when posturing. Hopefully, it had a different meaning here in Honolulu. “That’s okay. No worries. You know anything else about this guy?”

  “Like why he used my front porch to sleep on?” she asked.

  “Or why he picked your porch to die on?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

  “Nothing. Only that he’s dead on your porch. That raises questions. You’d know that if you really were a police officer in the past.”

  “Look, I have no idea who he is, where he came from every night, or why he came here. He’s just some guy.”

  “Yeah, just some guy.” Officer Iosefa made a few notes on his notepad. “How many times have I heard that from witnesses?”

  “Too many,” Gina said. “They’re always just some guy, until they die. Then when it’s too late to care about them, everybody pays attention.”

  Together, both officers put on gloves before going through the dead man’s pockets while Gina watched. All they found were a leather wallet, small pocketknife, and a shiny bottle cap. As much as she wanted to, Gina couldn’t pick up any of it for a closer look. She’d already been labeled as ‘the gardener’, and as such, she would only interfere. As it was, Gina was surprised she was allowed so close to the body and the evidence. But if she couldn’t touch, she could at least take pictures with her phone.

  Both cops noticed her snapping photos.

  “You don’t mind, do you? Just a few snapshots.”

  “What’s your stake in this, anyway?” the woman cop asked.

  “As we’ve already determined just a moment ago, he’s a dead guy on the front porch of my residence. Plus, I’m the one who found him. We both know that by the end of the morning, a detective will be here asking me questions, and he’ll take as much time as he needs. I might even end up in the police station to answer questions
as a suspect. That’s my stake in this.”

  “Not like you’re from the press,” Officer Iosefa said. “But if I find any of those online in social media, I’m busting you for obstructing a police investigation.”

  “Any ID in the wallet?” Gina asked, ignoring his warnings.

  Officer Iosefa opened it. There was only a small black and white snapshot of a dark-haired woman holding the hand of a small child, with palm trees in the background. No money, no driver’s license, nothing. Just the old snapshot.

  “I wonder who that is?” the blond cop asked. Her nametag said Davis.

  “Maybe Iris?” Gina offered. She took a picture of the photo, trying to get a clear close-up of it.

  “Why Iris?”

  “Look at his forearm. He’s got a tat of the same face, with Iris at the bottom.”

  While Iosefa compared the photo to the tattoo, and Gina took a photo of the tattoo, Davis opened the rickety pocketknife. One blade had been snapped off, and the other had a smear of blood on it. She set it down. Gina got snapshots of that, also. “Been in a fight.”

  “Better check him for wounds,” Iosefa said. The two of them rolled the dead man back and forth with his shirt up looking for fresh wounds, and then checked his legs. All they found was a Band-Aid on his belly. They picked off one side to find a small puncture and only a tiny smear of blood, not at all menacing.

  “Insect bite?” Officer Davis, the blond cop, asked.

  “Looks like a bite from a cane spider,” Iosefa said, sticking the Band-Aid down again.

  “What’s a cane spider?” Gina asked, while taking another picture.

  “Nasty things that rather hide than bite, but when they do, they take a chunk out just like that,” Iosefa said, making a few more notes.

  “They must be big if they can take a bite that size.”

  “The body’s not so big but the legs are long, and they can move fast when they want to. The real problem is the infection that someone gets later. Nasty stuff.”

  “It doesn’t look puffy or red as though it was getting infected,” Gina said.

  Officer Iosefa started snapping pictures of his own on his phone. “Probably died before it could. Who knows? Maybe he died from an allergic reaction to it?”

  “There’s something peculiar about this,” Davis said. She looked at the dead man’s hands again. “A smear of blood on his pocket knife, and now he’s dead, but without any defense wounds. It’ll be interesting to see if the blood on the blade matches his own.”

  Officer Iosefa got out his phone. “Let’s call for a CSI team.

  The sky was mostly light by then, and a couple of pickup trucks came into the estate from the bridge. Instead of approaching, they remained at a distance with their engines running when Officer Davis went out to wave them down.

  “Who’re they?” Officer Iosefa asked Gina. Felix had joined them on the porch by then. “Friends of yours here to see a body?”

  “My work crew. They’re supposed to start work this morning.”

  “Not today, they aren’t.”

  “They’re not working on the house, just out in the fields clearing brush and marking trees and shrubs for pruning,” Gina told him. She knew she was sounding like an impatient witness rather than an officer now, by wanting her day to proceed in spite of the police activities that could easily take hours to complete. “Please?”

  Officer Iosefa sent Davis to string yellow crime scene tape in a perimeter around the house.

  “CSI will need to check for tire prints and footprints between here and the bridge. After last night’s rain, this soft dirt is perfect for that. They’ll collect fingerprints here at the porch. They’ll need to know everywhere you’ve gone this morning, and everything you’ve touched. They might even need to dust the interior of the house, looking for the dead man’s prints. You’d know all that, Miss Santoro, if you were a cop.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Gina sent Felix out to the waiting crew to explain what was going on. A few had come closer to watch, restrained only by the yellow crime scene tape the blond cop was stringing around the area. Flor watched her with intense interest, at least until his wife noticed and put an end to it with a swat to his arm. “What if CSI takes casts of tire treads and shoe prints first? Then I could put my crew to work. I’m sure they’d promise to stay out of the way.”

  “Actually, I have a detective coming,” Officer Iosefa said. “He’ll be running the show as soon as he gets here. Until then, nobody goes anywhere. Something isn’t square about this deal.”

  Gina knew what was bothering him. It was bothering her also. A smear of blood on a pocketknife was never innocent, especially when found in the possession of a dead man. No money, no ID, only a snapshot in his wallet and a bottle cap found in his pocket made for a curious mystery, even if she was a gardener now and no longer a police officer.

  Chapter Eight

  Gina went to her work crew to explain what was happening. Felix seemed to be searching for something positive to say, Florinda looked peeved, and Clara looked to be in a panic as she rubbed a hand in circles over her belly.

  “Day off with no pay?” Gabe asked, looking disappointed.

  “No, not yet. I just need to get the area released by the police so we can get started, but I have to wait for the police investigator to get here for that.”

  Gina needed to think fast to find something for her crew to do before they turned into an angry gang. They were only getting paid minimum wage, but they were farmers and unskilled laborers living in an expensive city, and every dollar counted. If they all lost confidence in her or the project and quit, they’d have a hard time finding other work, and she’d have a hard time finding a new crew. Gina was in a tight spot and had some fast thinking to do. She gave Felix her Tanizawa credit card and a list of things she thought they needed to get the work started.

  “Go to the hardware store and get whatever you think we need. Shovels, tools, anything.” She went to Florinda and handed over the last of the cash she’d brought from home. “You and Clara go to the grocery store and get a few things. If you don’t mind, I could use something for the kitchen.”

  “Better than hanging around here waiting for something to happen,” Florinda said. “What do you need?”

  “If you could find me a coffeemaker and some grinds, that would make me a lot more cheerful in the morning.”

  “What about him?” Clara asked, still staring at the body on the porch. The strain in her eyes made her look ten years older.

  “Hopefully he won’t be here much longer.” Gina and Florinda watched as Clara got in a car. “Hey, she’s not freaking out, is she?”

  “Clara? She’s always been superstitious. All of us are. She’s pretty tough, but she just doesn’t want her baby to be around, well, that guy.”

  “I don’t blame her. Who’s her husband?”

  “No more husband. I mean, Clara’s not married. She’s my sister. That’s why she comes with us.”

  A little soap opera was starting.

  “When’s her due date?” Gina asked.

  “Still three months. Everything’s fine. She can still cook for us.”

  “Cook?”

  “Yeah. No one told you? We’re a regular group that works together all the time. Clara’s new with us, just since she got hapai. All the does is cook, taking it easy, you know?”

  “Cook what?”

  Florinda crossed her arms. “That Felix is no good as foreman. He shoulda told you that we work six in the morning till to two in the afternoon, with lunch in the middle. Clara makes a few sandwiches and something to drink. It keeps us going and doesn’t take too long. After two o’clock, it gets too hot to work. But rain or shine, you’ll still get eight hours of work from us.”

  “I wasn’t worried about that.” Gina leaned in close. “Look, I really don’t want Clara going into labor here. It took a while for the police and ambulance to find where to come. I don’t want this place turning into a maternity wa
rd.”

  “Never been around hapai girls, have you?”

  “Hapai?”

  “Pregnant way.”

  “Not too many. Why?”

  “Pinay pregnant girls not so fragile as you think, Miss Santoro. Been making babies for a long time.”

  “I don’t know what that means, but you don’t have to call me Miss Santoro.”

  Florinda smiled. “Okay, Boss.”

  “Just call me Gina.”

  “But you’re the boss!”

  “Look, you can call me anything you want as long as you get me that coffeemaker and a bag of grinds.”

  While Florinda and Clara drove out, Gina watched as a sedan came in. It had tinted windows, push bumpers on the front, and the rims were painted to match the blue color of the car.

  “Yep, there’s the detective.”

  He was tall, and had a muscular body that made him look like a football coach. Curly hair was tied back in a stubby ponytail, something Gina had never liked on men. Instead of the sport coat and slacks she was accustomed to seeing on detectives at home, he was dressed in cargo pants and a Hawaiian print shirt in subdued blues. In his hands were a thick notebook and an electronic tablet. The only thing that made him look like a cop was the sidearm holstered to his belt.

  Gina knew better than to interrupt when he went to the two uniformed officers. They were mostly watching the CSI techs that had arrived, busy marking things on the ground, and taking photographs of tire treads and footprints in the soft soil near the front of the house. Officer Iosefa and the detective had a quick conversation, the detective copied a few things from the officers’ and CSI techs’ notes, and Gina was finally pointed out. Apparently, police posturing was the same everywhere. She watched as the detective came to her, a swagger in his walk. He had his notebook of paper ready when he got to Gina.

  “You’re Santoro?”

  “That’s right. First name is Gina. You are?”

  “Detective Michael Kona, Honolulu Police. I hear you’re Cleveland PD?”

  “Was. It’s been a while.”

  He read his notes. “I understand you’re here to get the Tanizawa estate going again?”

  “The grounds. I was hired by the Tanizawa family to restore the estate as close to historically accurate to the original as I can. I have a crew of a dozen and we were supposed to start today. Now I’m finding busy work for them to do until you release the grounds to us.”