Page 37 of Talk Story

The cam swung away from Santos as an officer moved in to escort the man out. Lei’s gloved hand reached up and tapped the button cam; the feed cut to black.

For a moment the three of us sat there in Pearl’s dining room, the silence ringing after all that focused intensity and noise.

Outside, the wind chimes had picked up. The lawn equipment in the Heritage Garden droned on, indifferent to the fact that the world had shifted on its axis quite a few miles up the coast. A whiff of cut grass blew in to tickle my nose.

“Santos gave up Victor,” Pua said. Her voice was stunned. “He said Victor’s name on a police camera. My cousin is his bargaining chip.”

“Once his lawyer gets to him, he’ll wish he hadn’t said anything,” I said. “But Lei’s got it recorded. That’s a thread that ties Santos to Chang, in his own words, the day the petroglyphs turned up in a warehouse Sophie traced back to Chang’s shell company.” I set the phone face down on Pearl’s table; my hand wasn’t quite steady. “It’s not the whole case—but a big piece of it.”

“Most importantly, the petroglyphs are safe,” Pearl said. She had recovered herself; the tear was gone, blotted away at some point, and her chin was up. “They will go home to Awawakapu and be safe. NAGPRA will see to that, and so will I.” She picked up a virgin square of gold paper from the side table and smoothed it across her chair’s armrest, her arthritic fingers creating the first crease for an origami crane.

Pua let out a long breath and slumped back in her chair, less like the town’s polished gossip queen and more like a woman who’d spent the afternoon doing the hardest thing she’d ever done. “I think,” she said, “I need to go home, take off these shoes, and lie on my floor for a while.”

“You earned it,” I told Pua. “I’ll go back and hold down the post office for the rest of the day—such as it is.”

Pearl nodded. “Now go on. I have calls to make—Edith, Ilima, my nephew on Oahu. People who will want to hear this from me before the coconut wireless spreads it.” Her eyes glinted. “And it will. It always does.”

“I’ll spread the news accurately, at least,” Pua said, rallying enough to flash a ghost of her usual smile. “Quality control.”

My phone buzzed against the table—it was Aunt Fae with a text that pulled me right back out of the case and into the ordinary machinery of my actual life:

Don’t forget. Dr. Yoshimoto at four. The cast comes off TODAY or I’m sawing it off myself. Need a ride. Bring the cat, she cheers me up.

I checked the time. “Dang it. I have to go,” I told Pearl, pocketing the phone. “Aunt Fae’s getting her cast off this afternoon, and if I don’t take her to the doctor, she will saw it off herself. She’s been threatening it for a week.”

“Then go,” Pua said wearily. “I can get through the rest of the day at the counter.” She perked up a little. “Especially with this news to share.”

Pearl waved a beringed hand, the gold crane finished and standing in her palm. “Tell Fae I’m glad her foot is mending. And Kat⁠—”

I paused at the door.

“Thank you.” She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to.

“Anytime, Pearl.”

“You’re true ʻohana,” she said.

I found Tiki outside on the lanai railing, where she’d retreated to sulk after being denied entry to the human drama. She submitted to being scooped up with the long-suffering air of a cat who had, once again, done all the real work and received no credit.

“Come on, you,” I said, settling her against my shoulder. Tiki started her motor, that deep tractor purr buzzing through my collarbone. We headed out into the golden afternoon. “We’ve got a foot to liberate.”

11

The orthopedist’s office in Kahului was a modern building in a business park that always smelled of antiseptic; it was done in the greige neutral color that medical facilities everywhere seemed to have agreed upon.

Dr. Yamashiro had been Aunt Fae’s orthopedist for the duration of the cast and had, over that time, developed the same slightly bemused respect for her that most people did. Aunt Fae was a patient who had been doing what she was supposed to do, as much as she felt like doing it—and was well ahead of schedule.

The X-ray was clean.

Her bone density was good.

The fracture had resolved itself, neat and tidy.

“Excellent progress,” Dr. Yamashiro said. “No complications.”

“Of course not.” Aunt Fae beamed.

The nurse removed the cast with an electric saw as Aunt Fae and I watched; when it came off she gazed at her pale foot for a long moment. The skin had the translucent quality that comes from six weeks under fiberglass; her ankle showed evidence of the swelling that had been there when she’d come in.