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I SWITCHED ON THE SPEAKER and dialed. Three rings, four rings—
“It’s too late,” I said. “He’s already asleep.”
As I said it, the line clicked.
“Eh, Molly?” It sounded like Davison had been woken from a sound sleep. “Where you?”
“I’m calling from Mahina, Um, sounds like you got back okay?”
“Mahina.” Davison guffawed. “Aw, kinda far for one booty call, ah? How long’s it gonna take you to get here?”
I rested my forehead in my hands.
“Davison, have you been drinking?”
“Nah, nah, nah. Just some margaritas is all.”
“I don’t think this is going to be a productive conversation,” I said.
“Please,” Medeiros mouthed.
“Molly.” My phone squawked. “Who’s there wit’ you?”
“Your father is right here, Davison. You’re on speaker.”
“Hey, buddy,” Donnie said, without conviction.
“Aw, Dad. I was just kidding around wit’ Molly, ah?”
Medeiros motioned to me to start talking.
“Hey, Davison? Remember Randy Randolph? The unpleasant man who ended up squashed to death in his home gym?”
“Yeah?” Davison sounded wary now.
“I remember Crystal mentioned he was a client. You must’ve talked about him with her.”
“Aw, that girl was psychic.”
“Do you mean psychotic?” I asked.
“Nah. What I said. Psychic. I told her how I almost got into it with Randolph, and she says, ‘Don’t worry about him. Karma’s gonna get 'em. An’ she was right.”
“Did you ever talk to Crystal after that incident with the cockroach costume? When she stormed out of the house?”
“Nah.”
“Do you know why Crystal was so angry about the costume?”
“’Cause young girls like her want things romantic an’ perfect all the time an’ can’t appreciate when someone’s just joking around.”
“Her real name was Christine Roach. She didn’t like her name, and she thought you were making fun of it.”
Davison absorbed the information in silence, then slurred a few swear words.
“Language,” Donnie mumbled halfheartedly.
“Okay, listen,” I said. “They just found the body of a young woman. About Crystal’s age, hair color, and build. She was wearing a crystal around her neck on a leather string.”
“Aw, no. Crystal?”
“It wasn’t Crystal.”
There was no sound on the other end.
“Davison, are you there?” I said.
“Yeah?”
“I’m telling you this because you knew Crystal better than any of us. Now, did she ever tell you she changed her identity, went on the run, anything like that?”
“She told me her last name, Phoenix, meant something about a bird that dies an’ gets reborn.”
“Did she tell you whether she’s ever been reborn, specifically?” I asked.
“I dunno.”
“Crystal was caught stealing from her employer,” I said. “She was fired, and the theft was reported to the police. If Crystal had committed a serious crime under another identity, she couldn’t afford an encounter with law enforcement. She’d have to get away quickly and throw the police off her trail.”
I was talking to Medeiros now. The fact that Davison was on the line was incidental.
“Conveniently, a young woman fitting Crystal’s description ends up dead, wearing Crystal’s jewelry and carrying Crystal’s ID. Obviously, this is supposed to make people think Crystal herself is dead. Shortly afterward, a passenger disappears from a cruise ship at Aloha Tower, the next major stop on the cruise ship route after Mahina.”
Detective Medeiros perked up at this.
“One of my students has a friend who works on a cruise ship. Someone disembarked on Oahu and never returned to the ship. I’m sure the police will look into this, to find out if the missing passenger was, in fact, the ship’s yoga instructor, Alison Boyd.”
Medeiros took his small notebook out of the pocket of his aloha shirt and started to make notes. He didn’t look happy about it, but to his credit, he did it.
“What do you want me to say?” Davison demanded. “If Crystal did something bad, let someone else snitch. I’m not gonna do it.”
“Someone else?” I said. “Who? Randy Randolph, her former client? Primo Nordmann, her former coworker? The poor visiting yoga instructor who fell down a five-hundred-foot embankment, dressed as Crystal? None of them can snitch, Davison. You know why?”
Medeiros was making a palms-down motion at me. Either “that’s enough” or “calm down.”
“All right, I’ll let you go,” I said. “I know it’s late, and you probably want to get to sleep.”
“Eh, Molly,” he mumbled. “It’s cold out here, ah? Freezing my `okole off. Maybe you could—”
I disconnected the call.
“We’ll follow up on the missing cruise ship passenger.” Medeiros plucked the eavesdropping device off my phone and tucked it into the pocket of his aloha shirt. I was annoyed. He didn’t say thank you or anything like it. “You got anything else you want to tell me?”
I gave him Lars Suzuki’s contact information.
“You think he’ll talk to us?”
“Lars Suzuki? Oh, absolutely. He’ll talk.”