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THE NEXT DAY NEWS OF Edward Ladd’s arrest was everywhere. Pat Flanagan and Howdy Howell had a double byline on the front page of the County Courier, but the story was big enough to go beyond Mahina. The Honolulu paper and the wire services had picked it up: Social media star missing, presumed dead. Husband arrested. Some of the longer stories would mention, a few paragraphs down, that Edward Ladd had at one time penned a popular cartoon under the pen name Tedd Ladd. But, the writer would add, Mr. Ladd had been out of the public eye for many years.
It was a struggle to keep class on track. My students already knew, of course, about my celebrity tenant. I was used to discouraging their efforts to pry.
“Jandie and her husband chose Mahina because we treat them like neighbors, not like novelties,” I would explain. “Jandie already posts about where she goes on the island, what she buys, what she eats. We can always read her timeline if we want to know more about her. That should be enough to satisfy our curiosity. Otherwise, let’s let them live their lives and be happy here.”
But my usual deflections weren’t enough to fend off the questions I was getting today. How did he kill her? (We don’t know for a fact Jandie’s husband killed her, I told them.) Were there any signs they weren’t getting along? (Not that I saw, but I hardly ever saw them because I tried to mind my own business.) After my tenant was murdered, was I scared for myself? (No, I told my students. This was a lie.)
I came home that evening emotionally exhausted, to find a pile of what looked like bills and junk mail on the dining table. Emma must have brought the mail in.
I poured myself a glass of wine and sat down to deal with the mail. A happy surprise was a postcard from Donnie, which had been sent from the airport in Las Vegas the first day they landed. A not so happy surprise was a letter-sized lime-green flyer folded in thirds. The return address was the Uakoko Street Homeowner’s Association. Underneath my name and address was stamped, Unauthorized Rental Violation: First Warning.
This I did not need. My homeowner’s association was hassling me now, over my respectively murdered and incarcerated tenants? I hadn’t even known it was against the rules to have renters. Who can remember all the different things you sign when you buy a house?
I started to unfold the paper and noticed there was no postage stamp. That meant it hadn’t been properly mailed; someone had just stuck it in my mailbox. I had heard only the Post Office was allowed to stick things in people’s mailboxes. Was that still true?
A quick online search confirmed my hunch. I may have committed an infraction against the Uakoko Street Homeowner’s Association, but whoever stuck this piece of paper into my mailbox appeared to have violated Federal law.
Too bad I don’t know any lawyers who would be interested in this, I thought. Then I realized I might know one after all.
Petty, I know. But in my defense, I’m not the one who started it.
I phoned Harriet Holmes. She picked up right away and urged me to come by in person. By the time I’d made the short walk up the street she was standing in her open doorway, waving me in. Even from the sidewalk, I could smell pipe smoke.
I followed Harriet inside. Because her hands were full (pipe in one hand, and a glass of what looked like whiskey in the other) I closed the front door behind us.
“Oh, ah, hello.” Nigel, Harriet’s husband, was ensconced in the telephone nook with a small laptop open in front of him. His bushy white eyebrows drew together, prominent on his purplish-red face.
“You remember my department head, darling,” Harriet said. “Molly Barda.”
“Molly. Quite.” The eyebrows relaxed. He ran a hand through his already-tousled white hair. “Yes, of course. Delightful. Delightful.”
The last time I’d seen Nigel Holmes, he had been wearing Jandie’s flowered hapi coat and pink leggings. The occasion was obviously more memorable for me than it had been for him.
“This is the first time I’ve seen your place since you moved in,” I said. “It looks nice.”
But Nigel had already tuned me out. He was staring at his computer screen, typing away.
“Don’t mind him, Barda, he’s rushing to meet a deadline.” Harriet led me over to a rather impressive bar, set her glass down, and with her pipe clenched in her teeth, poured me what looked like a double shot of excellent whiskey. It would have been rude to refuse, of course.
“Let’s leave him to it,” she said. “It’s lovely out on the lanai right now. Don’t worry about the mosquitos. We’ve got it screened in.”
“He’s working on his, uh, prison memoir?” I asked as I followed Harriet outside. We got seated at a stylish teakwood table with matching (and surprisingly uncomfortable) chairs. Harriet set the whiskey bottle on the table. Next to it she placed a small wooden stand that turned out to be a resting place for her pipe.
“Mm. The publisher’s an absolute tyrant about deadlines from what Nige says. But he doesn’t seem to mind. Keeps his mind engaged, he says.”
The sun sinking behind the mountains rendered the vast cemetery two-dimensional in the shadowless twilight. I decided I preferred the view from my own backyard. If I didn’t feel like staring at a graveyard every time I went outside, I could just tell Kaycee to let the foliage grow up a little higher. But Harriet’s house was further up Uakoko Street and at a higher elevation than mine. There was only the low retaining wall separating the backyard from the graveyard below.
“Harriet, thank you for having me over on such short notice.” I produced the plastic bag that held the green folded flyer. I’d already touched it, but I didn’t want to contaminate it more than necessary. “This was left in my mailbox. It’s not actual mail. It’s a crime to tamper with the U.S. mail, isn’t it?”
“Ah yes? May I?”
Harriet opened the bag and pulled out the paper.
“Oh, I was trying to avoid fingerprints—”
“This sort of paper doesn’t hold fingerprints well,” she unfolded the paper and smoothed it on the table. “And nobody’s going to test for fingerprints in any event. It’s a few hundred dollars’ fine at most. No prison time, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”
“Of course not.” Prison for putting a flyer in someone’s mailbox did sound a little excessive when she said it out loud.
“Ah yes, our ever-vigilant homeowner’s association. Hmm, nuisance, vacate immediately, daily fine, oh, it’s all here, isn’t it? No, she can’t do any of it.”
Harriet folded the paper and handed it back to me.
“She?” I asked.
“Head of the homeowner’s association. Asked me for legal argle-bargle she could use to sort out a resident who was running an illegal rental. Had no idea it was you she was after, Barda. Terribly sorry.”
I gazed out at the dark cemetery and sighed.
“I did not realize renting was against the rules. I mean, I know we read through the CC&Rs when we bought the house, but I had about a thousand papers I had to sign and initial. I’m starting to wish we’d never build that rental in the first place. Harriet, what can I do?”
“Ignore it.”
“Really? Sounds like kind of a daring legal strategy.”
“Linda likes to make herself feel important,” Harriet said, “but when it comes down to it, she can’t do any real harm.”
“Are you sure? Because...wait a minute. Did you say Linda? Likes to feel important? As in wielding what little actual authority she has in the most obstructive, bureaucratic, and misery-making way possible?”
Harriet took a deep pull on her pipe and blew a stream of smoke into the night air.
“Sounds like you know her.”
“I think I may. Is her last name Wilson by any chance?”
“Indeed. Linda Wilson. Ah yes, of course. Recently retired from the Mahina State University Student Retention Office.”