Chapter 32

I surveyed the area:no one was anywhere around. The parking lot between the post office and the Ohia General Store was empty but for Opal and Artie's sturdy SUV, parked beside their home.

The road was, for once, empty of traffic due to the flood closures.

The palm trees at Ohia Bay gyrated in the gusty wind; the beach was pretty much empty of anything but a crab or two. By squinting, I could also make out a turtle pulled up on the sand.

Fine misty rain wet my cheeks as I turned back to survey the cardboard box.

Perhaps someone new to the area didn't know we were closed on Saturdays.

Maybe it was an old empty box someone had dropped off for us to recycle. Since we handled so much cardboard material and junk mail through the postal system, many patrons dumped unwanted boxes and junk mail into our garbage cans in the lobby. Maybe this time someone had dropped one of them off outside. Pua and I didn't appreciate this, but couldn't seem to get the habit to stop. A guy from the main district came around about once a month to pick up recyclables which Chad helped us bundle and store.

I couldn't conclude the box was a threat without investigating it further. I gingerly approached the item. The rain had eased to a light drizzle, and the cardboard was out of the direct rain, flush against the door under the roof overhang.

I gently touched a corner of it. The cardboard felt soggy, as if it had been sitting there for a while. I squatted beside it to examine the thing without touching it further.

Where the address should have been, in neat, felt-tip pen block letters, it read: "Kat Smith, Post Office."

The box wasn't sealed with tape; the four flaps had been tucked inside each other.

I processed the scenario: an abandoned box, with no one around, after a nearby dwelling had been blown to smithereens only ten days earlier.

I glanced across the parking lot at Artie and Opal's place. If the box contained a bomb, it might be powerful enough to demolish the post office and their store and home with them in it.

I hesitated and sucked in a breath, wishing there was someone, anyone, I could call to handle this instead of me. But with flood conditions blocking the road and no power, it was up to me to see if the box contained an explosive. "Big girl panties, Kat. You got this," I muttered.

I scanned the box visually for any wires or other booby traps; there was nothing visible. I gently unfolded and lifted one of the flaps and peered inside.

The box wasn't empty, but in the gloom of the cloudy morning it was hard to make out what it contained. I peered in closer. The object at the bottom of the box was coiled around the four corners, leaving an open area in the center.

My first impression was snake.

But there were supposedly no snakes on Maui?

Thankfully, the item wasn't moving or making any noise.

I gently lifted the box and tilted it to capture whatever feeble sunlight was available.

I gasped: it was a long braid of human hair.

Salt-and-pepper gray human hair, shorn at one end and held together with a decorated elastic band at the other.

I turned the box upside down and dumped the item out. The severed braid tumbled onto the steps, the yellow plastic plumeria ornament that held the braid together making mockery of the macabre souvenir.

I had no doubt who this braid belonged to.

I went inside and used the landline to call Lei. She didn't answer so I had to leave a message. "Lei, please call me. I just opened a package that was left here at the post office and it contains human remains," I said. I thought better of that. "Not remains, more like human waste." I hadn't described the contents of the box correctly but I was too rattled to think straight. "I mean, evidence of a human . . . mutilation? I guess. Just call me. It's an emergency."

I paced around my dim office. How long would I have to wait? There was nothing to do in the gloomy space but take a dustcloth to the furniture and office supplies on the counter.

Thankfully, ten minutes later, Lei called back. "What are you talking about, ‘human remains'?"

"Remember that really long braid of Barbara Long's, the foster mom in Haiku? With the yellow plastic plumeria at the end of it? She cut it off and brought it up here to freak me out. She left it outside the post office on the front steps. I don't know how she got it here," I said. "I think the road's still closed."

"It is." I could hear Lei's keyboard rattling in the background. "Did the box have any identifying marks on it? Return address, anything like that?"

"No. It was creepy. Left on the front steps of the P.O. with my name on it. I was worried it was a bomb." I chuckled nervously. "Do you think she did it to get back at me for getting her fired?"

"Pretty weird." Lei sounded distracted.

"So, what do you?—"

"I don't know, but I don't like this. Pono and I are heading out to Haiku to check on Long's place right now. See what's up with her."

"Do you think—suicide?" My stomach lurched. "And it's my fault."

"Stop it, Kat. Go home and wait for a call from us at your house. That's an order." She ended the call with a bang of the receiver.

"Okay," I said to the dead air. I locked up the post office and walked briskly back to our house. I was on the front steps, taking off my parka, when Pua pulled into the driveway.

She got out and shut the door of her Honda. "Sorry, Kat, I'm still your houseguest. Can't get to my place." She zeroed in on my face with that keen stare she had. "What's happened? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Turned out, I hadn't seen a ghost, just the dire possibility of one. "Something super weird is going on. It's postal business because . . ." This was getting complicated. I hadn't kept Pua up to speed throughout the case, but now, since the box had been left on the post office steps, she deserved to know everything. "Let's talk out here in your car. I don't want Auntie to get alarmed until we know more. She's had some lightheaded spells and I don't want to frighten her."

We were still in the car, hashing it out, when Auntie came to the door and waved the cordless landline phone at me. "Kat! It's Detective Texeira for you. She says it's official business."

I hopped out and ran to take the phone from her. "Thanks, Auntie. I'll fill you in on everything in a minute." I avoided her reproachful eyes and hurried past her, taking the stairs two at a time to get privacy in the upstairs office. "Lei? Is everything okay at Long's place?"

"No." Lei blew out a breath. "But it could have been worse. It's a good thing Pono and I went out to the house when we did, because Barbara Long was imprisoned in her ‘time out' shed behind her Haiku home."

"What? How? Is she okay?" My voice rose.

"From what the EMTs were saying, Long's condition could go either way. She was unconscious, and we think she was put in there shortly after we made our home visit—so several days without food or water," Lei said. "She'd been smacked around a bit too."

"That's horrible." Barbara Long more than deserved a taste of her own medicine, but that was beside the point. My mind was scrambling. "Could she have somehow gotten herself locked in there?"

"No. She was tied up. On a chair. She had knocked it over, but couldn't get loose. You saw the lock on the shed. This was deliberate."

I didn't say anything as I considered the possibilities.

"And yes, Long's hair had been cut off, so the braid you found at the post office was hers, if the decoration matches the one we saw," Lei went on. "When the road opens, I'm going to need to come get the box you found along with its contents. Evidence for our investigation."

"Of course." I recalled carefully replacing the braid in the cardboard box and bringing it into my office, then locking the door of my private work space. I wasn't sure how much help the box would be in identifying the perpetrator, but regardless, I'd be glad to have the creepy hair coil out of my possession. "Why do you think her braid was left on the front steps, addressed to me?"

"The perp wanted you to know he, or she, had done something to Long. That's my guess."

"Right. But how did they know I had any connection to her?"

"If we knew that, we'd be halfway to solving this case. Oh, and one more thing," said Lei. "Evidence from inside the home points to the possibility of someone other than Long staying there for the past few days."

"What? What kind of evidence?"

"From what we can ascertain, the home invader may have stuck around for a while after locking Barbara Long in the shed. There are dirty dishes everywhere, and the refrigerator is empty. Forensics is working on fingerprints and trace collected, but so far, no matches to anyone in the system."

I sat down, hard. Since I'd arrived in Ohia, there'd been a string of bizarre events. With this imprisonment of a woman I'd met only a few days earlier, I was well on my way to having a reputation as a "mayhem magnet." Kat Smith moves into town and the social order goes haywire. "Do you think this crime against Long had anything to do with her getting the boot from CWS?"

"The timing speaks to it, but we can't assume anything," Lei said. "As the social worker pointed out, Long wasn't a good caretaker. I'm sure there are plenty of kids, some of them grown now, and maybe even a few bio parents, who had issues with her abusive child-rearing. Maybe the news that she'd been busted got out from the agency. Candace says she kept Long's disciplinary action confidential, as she's supposed to, but her superiors knew. The agency could have leaks."

I thanked Lei for filling me in and ended the call, setting the cordless phone on its useless charger. Thankfully, that landline still worked as long as the battery held.

Glancing around the room, I felt like I was returning to my body. "Wow. That's a lot to absorb."

I didn't want Auntie or Pua to know any of this until it was more resolved. Lei hadn't sworn me to secrecy, but it went without saying that what she'd told me was for my ears alone.