Chapter 2

The post office was busy this Friday morning in the first week of December; that was true everywhere in the United States, I'm sure, but we were a remote, rural outpost. The onslaught of online ordering had hit us hard. We were too small to have mail delivery, so we had to sort deliveries into the postboxes.

Now, that should have been easy. We only had a hundred of those. But for every package that arrived, we marked a slip and put it into the box, then handed out the package personally when the customer arrived and presented their slip to us for pickup. In addition, the hundred postal boxes were inadequate by far for the five hundred-ish residents living in the village of Ohia. That meant those slips had to be filled out and stashed in General Delivery slots as well.

Needless to say, my partner Pua Chang and I barely had time to take a pee during business hours in December. And every day, Chad the delivery dude pulled up in his USPS truck and off-loaded bags, bundles, boxes, and entire pallets of goods like a skinny, pimply North Pole worker with a bad attitude.

I was the bigger and stronger of the two of us staffers, so I helped Chad with the towering piles of boxes and bags. "You know, most of these packages are probably gifts. We're the real Santas. How does that make you feel?" I huffed, lifting a heap of boxes out of the rear of the truck, and using my knees as recommended.

"Bah, humbug," Chad snorted.

"Maybe this will help." Setting down the boxes, I handed Chad a paper plate I'd brought out for him, loaded with chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies and Kona coffee fudge that Aunt Fae had made. She'd been up at all hours baking for the holidays and trying out new recipes now that she'd joined me in Hawaii all the way from Maine.

"Mele Kalikimaka, as they say here. I recommend a hit of the coffee fudge for your drive back to Kahului. It has more kick than an espresso."

Chad's gloomy expression brightened. The kid ripped into the red transparent plastic covering the treats, grabbed a chunk of fudge, and crammed it into his mouth. He shut his eyes and chewed for a long minute; he really did look tired.

"Good," he grunted, and stowed the plate on the passenger seat. "Let's get this done."

"That's what I'm here for," I said with determined cheerfulness. I've always believed in trying to set an example, and though I was as overwhelmed as Chad by the sheer amount of mail, letting that show wasn't good for morale. We hefted the final stack of boxes and wheeled them inside on the dolly, off-loading them beside the big steel table where Pua had already dumped out all the letter mail for sorting.

Pua waved to Chad with her purple latex gloves. "Thank you for all the hard work."

Darned if he didn't smile and say, "Happy holidays, ladies. You make the drive out here worthwhile."

And what a drive it was! Located on the "backside" of the island, the road to Hana that led through Ohia was rough, narrow, and winding. The route was also beautiful and scenic, but when you had a job to do and a schedule to keep, that was harder to appreciate.

As Chad pulled away in the truck, I slanted a glance at Pua. "I'm thinking we need to keep that boy supplied with goodies through the holidays."

"Yes, and we have the perfect ongoing supply." My colleague held up a plastic platter of peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate. "The customers keep dropping off treats. Let's pass them along to Chad."

My stomach rumbled at the sight. "With a pause for tax to me." I pried up a corner of the cellophane wrap covering the balls and popped one in my mouth. "Mmm. We call these buckeyes on the continent."

Pua patted her slim hip. "I'll take your word for it. I'll have to take Sassy for an extra mile walk if I eat one of those." Sassy was Pua's yappy little dog and yes, that pooch definitely needed a calming walk daily.

"I'm more of a cat person, as you know. Speaking of, I've heard of a cat gone missing in Hana." I produced the color print flyer I'd made of the missing Himalayan that Sophie had asked me to locate. "I'm taking a little side job looking for this beauty."

Pua admired the cat, who was posed sitting regally on an ice-blue satin pillow that matched her eyes. Well-groomed, flowing fur draped around her like a queen's robes. "Wow. Looks like an indoor cat. Wonder how she escaped?"

"I have no idea yet how she disappeared. I have to contact the owner, but I thought I'd start the hunt by talking to our customers. Not much gets by the ‘coconut wireless' around here." I lifted the old-fashioned counter flap and headed over to the bulletin board with the flyer. I'd added my number to the bottom on a series of tear-off strips, and I pinned it up prominently. "I'll be posting these around town and asking people if they've seen Lady Sapphire."

"Is this one of your investigative side jobs?" Pua asked as she restocked supplies for the counter.

"Yes. My first one, actually. The job was too small for Security Solutions on Oahu to take, but Sophie punted me the lead. K K Investigations will be taking on the recovery of this beautiful kitty as our first official job." Between the time I'd got the call from Sophie and the start of the day at the post office, I'd found a few minutes to call my partner and boyfriend Keone Kaihale and forward him a copy of the cat flyer. Keone would be posting and sharing it around the Hana Airport as he made his flight run of the day to Kahului.

"I hope you find her soon," Pua said, a wrinkle between her perfectly groomed brows. "She looks valuable."

I shrugged. "Every pet is valuable to its owner." Even Tiki, the stray I'd had no choice in adopting because she chose me first. Tiki's crooked tail and one-eared profile had become as dear to me as any purebred animal could be. "I'm going to make a quick call to the owner before we open the post office doors."

I hurried to my admin work area and shut the door. Scrolling on my phone to the number Sophie had given me for the missing cat's owner, I called it. "Mrs. Scarborough? This is Kat Smith with K K Investigations."

"Oh yes." An elderly woman's voice replied, reedy and thin. "Ms. Smithson with Security Solutions told me to expect your call. Thanks for being so prompt. I am just beside myself about Lady's disappearance."

"I have her photo already made into a flyer, and we're circulating it beginning today. Tell me more about how she ran away."

"Oh, she didn't run away. Someone took her from my garden. It's fenced so she can't get out. I would never let her roam, nor would she want to." Mrs. Scarborough's voice broke on the last sentence, and she sniffled. "She's my faithful companion."

I told her I'd send an hourly contract with a bonus for positive completion to her by email, then got more details.

Lady Sapphire had a cat door that led from the kitchen into the walled garden area where the cat "liked to sit in the sun and maybe watch a butterfly or two float by." She had disappeared from the garden, whose gate was kept closed but not locked, a week ago. Mrs. Scarborough had been combing her neighborhood in Hana and posting on social media ever since.

My heart sank a little; a week was a long time for a cat that valuable to be missing. Someone had probably stolen her, especially when Mrs. Scarborough disclosed that the cat had recently been bred to a champion sire and was expecting kittens. "Each one of them will be worth thousands, but that's not what I care about so much as her going through the birth alone. Her first litter! She will be terrified without me."

Cats, in my experience, were confident and self-sufficient animals who chose to tolerate and like humans for their own reasons. Tiki had been occupying the shack that went with the postmaster job I'd been assigned to when I arrived in Ohia. Over the course of a few months, we'd bonded—but I still never knew what to expect from her.

As today's apparent desertion had shown me.

But perhaps Lady Sapphire, a purebred domesticated cat, had a more symbiotic relationship with her owner.

"I hope I'll be able to find her for you quickly. When are the kittens due?"

"The week of Christmas. I am a woman alone; my family is all gone. I thought the arrival of kittens would liven up the holiday for both of us." Mrs. Scarborough was referring to the cat as a life companion. She sniffled again. "Let me know the moment you know anything."

"I will, of course. I'd like to come by this afternoon and hear more about her daily habits and see where she was snatched," I said.

We agreed on a time, and I hung up the phone with a sinking feeling. Finding a valuable cat that had been stolen was a lot different than one that had just wandered off.