The Perfect Body, page 11
part #8 of Professor Molly Mysteries Series
My glasses fogged up the minute I stepped out of the car, thanks to Mahina’s humidity. Downhill to our left, half-embedded in the jungle that had overtaken the untended edges of the property, was a boxy building. It was a dirty white, and completely bereft of Victorian adornment.
“Darn it,” I said. “We don’t get a fabulous Victorian building. That thing looks like it could’ve been built in the thirties as part of the EUR.”
“What’s the EUR?” Emma asked. “Something bad, it sounds like.”
“An un-fabulous suburb of Rome. Built by Benito Mussolini.”
“I think you’re approaching this with a very negative attitude, Molly. Eh, is that where it happened?” Emma pointed upward.
Around twenty or thirty feet above us a balcony jutted from the main hospital building, surrounded by a low railing. I quickly looked down at my feet to see what I was standing on. An old concrete pad, half-buried in charcoal-gray dirt and dried leaves.
“It looks higher up than I remember.” I looked up at the balcony again, and down at the ground.
Floomp. I wished I could forget the sound. “Well, we don’t have all day,” I said brightly. “Let’s go find my office.”
“Eh, careful, ah, you two!”
Emma and I looked up to see a young woman peering over the railing.
“Honey?” I called up.
“Stay right there, I’m coming around.”
“What do you think Honey Akiona is doing here?” I said to Emma. “It must have something to do with Donnie’s case. I hope so, anyway.”
“You tell her about what Betty’s daughter said?” Emma asked. “About our dean talking with the prosecutor?”
“No. Donnie asked me not to get involved.”
“What? And you listened to him?”
“Look, he specifically said to me, don’t contact her, just let her do her job.”
“Wouldn’t she do her job better if she knew about the university wanting to frame him for Stephen Park’s murder, so they can minimize their own liability?”
“If you ask me, yes. But Donnie thinks I’ll go blundering in and mess everything up.”
“Yeah I can see his point,” Emma said as Honey Akiona came around the corner of the building. “Donnie’s right. You shouldn’t say anything to her.”
“What?”
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell her.”
“Ah. Well, tell her whatever you like. As long as it’s clear you didn’t hear it from me.”
“You got it. Eh, Honey, howzit?”
Honey Akiona cut a striking figure. Her leather pumps boosted her to six feet tall, and a navy-blue pantsuit flattered her Junoesque contours. She had cut her dark hair to chin length, where it hung in a glossy bob. She embraced Emma first, planting Emma’s face directly in her impressive bosom. I got a hug too, and then we got down to business.
“Professor, you get my messages?”
“Messages?” I pulled my phone out and saw the icon for un-played voice mail messages in the corner of my screen. “Ooh. Sorry about that. I’ve kind of been behind on my voice mail.”
“I was trying to set up a meeting with you to go over your statement, see if you could remember anything else about that night. But now that you’re here, you got some time to talk?”
“Sure,” I said.
“I get something,” Emma said eagerly.
“Professor Nakamura. Were you at the event?”
“Nah. Molly only went cause her dean couldn’t make it. But you gotta hear this. My dean, Gunderson, and the prosecutor are framing Donnie so the university doesn’t have to pay Stephen Park’s parents.”
As the three of us stood in the chilly shadow of the old hospital building, Emma told Honey Akiona about the overheard conversation between the arts and sciences dean and the county prosecutor. I was impressed by Emma’s memory for detail. I couldn’t think of a single thing to add to her account.
Honey listened with her arms folded, staring at the ground as Emma spoke. She seemed to find the news distasteful, but not surprising.
“I suspected something wasn’t right,” she said, when Emma had finished. “Pang won’t touch a case unless it’s an easy win, or there’s something in it for him. Good thing I came out here when I did.”
“Honey, what are you doing out here?” I asked.
“Taking measurements and pictures. That way if the university tries to fix that railing after the fact, I have visual proof of the way it was before they changed it.”
“Wouldn’t the police have pictures of the scene?” Emma asked.
“I’ve found it’s better not to rely on someone else.” Honey was looking at a spot on the ground about ten feet away from where we were standing. The leaves and dirt had been washed away and one patch was lighter than the surrounding concrete, as if it had been bleached. It was a little disorienting to see it in the daylight, but I still had a pretty good idea of what we were looking at.
“Is that where it happened?” I asked quietly.
Honey nodded.
“Oh, by the way—”
“You remembered something else?” Honey asked.
“Well, not exactly. But Emma and I were talking, and we have a theory.”
“Oh.” Honey’s enthusiasm had vanished.
“Molly,” Emma said, “maybe now’s not the time—”
“We think you should look into Bee Corcoran,” I persisted.
“No, not we,” Emma interjected.
“She has two possible motives,” I went on. “One, she was committing research fraud and Stephen found out. Two, he was cheating on her.”
“I agree something was weird about Bee’s research results,” Emma said. “But the other stuff, we were just kicking some ideas around.”
“Did you see them arguing?” Honey asked. “Corcoran and Park?”
“I didn’t see them arguing, no.”
“You got any proof he was cheating?”
“Well, not proof exactly, but—”
“Do you know who he was cheating with?”
“Well, no, but he—”
“Are you sure Corcoran and Park were romantically involved to begin with?” Honey asked.
“They came to the dinner together,” I said, a little defensively. “Bee actually told me she and Stephen weren’t an item, but that was after he was already dead. Maybe she was lying to me to throw me off the scent.”
Honey nodded.
“Okay. Well, I’ll look into it,” she reached into her briefcase to pull out a business card. “Listen, I gotta go, but please call me if you remember anything else.”
“Honey, wait.”
She turned around.
“You said the prosecutor would go after a case if it was an easy win, or something else. What is the something else?”
“The usual. Reward his friends, punish his enemies, or get a big donation for his re-election campaign.”
Emma and I remained standing on the spot after Honey had left.
“Molly,” Emma asked, “what is wrong with you?”
“What do you mean? You were on board with the Bee theory.”
“Yeah, when we’re talking about it between ourselves. But you say it out loud in front of a real lawyer and it sounds totally meshuggeneh.”
“If there’s nothing to it then there’s nothing to it. But I don’t think there’s any harm in sharing our thoughts with her. Dang it. She probably does think I’m nuts now, doesn’t she?”
“You still wanna go see your office or what?” Emma asked.
“Dan said we have the top floor,” I said as we started down the hill.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I hope my new office doesn’t look out this way,” I said as we made our way along the narrow walkway through the trees. “I don’t want to have to see where Stephen died.”
“Molly. Don’t you live next to a graveyard?”
“Another reason why I don’t want to stare death in the face all day.”
“You know this place was a hospital. Literally tons of people died here. And don’t call me out for saying ‘literally’. I do mean literally, cause all you need is ten or twenty people to make a ton. Even less if it’s a bunch of fat guys.”
“I know Stephen wasn’t the first person to die here, Emma, I’m not an idiot. But he’s the first person I know personally who died here. It’s different.”
The building entrance was a soap-green wooden door. Unlike the double doors at the entrance to the main hospital, this was not at all grand. Emma pushed the door open and I followed her. Inside it was surprisingly bright. I looked up to see that the center of the building was an atrium, open all the way up to an expansive skylight.
“This is like that hotel I just stayed in for my conference in Phoenix,” Emma said. “You step out of your room and there’s like this low wall about waist high, and like fifty feet below is the lobby.”
“It sounds dangerous,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be easy to fall right over?”
“No one died when I was there.”
“Well, here’s my new daily workout,” I said as we started up the steps.
“Ho, this is pretty nice. Helloooo!”
“Emma, don’t shout.”
“What? You afraid I’m gonna wake up the ghosts?”
“No, I’m afraid your voice is going to destabilize the building like the Tacoma Narrows bridge and it’s going to tumble down and crush us to death.”
“Hello!” Came a man’s voice. From the top of the stairwell, I could see the top of a shaved head.
“Pat!” Emma picked up speed and bounded up the steps. I did my best to keep up, but I quickly lost sight of her. Emma’s canoe paddling keeps her extremely fit. By the time I had reached the top floor I felt like I was breathing sandpaper.
Pat was attired after his usual fashion, in black boots, grubby jeans, and a battered flannel shirt over a Joy Division t-shirt. He’s pale, wiry, and tall. Emma is short, brown, and built for power. Standing side by side they look like an illustration of Diversity of the Human Species.
“This is it?” I exclaimed, after I’d exchanged a quick hug with Pat. “Just a landing and a couple doors?”
I backed away from the railing.
“You should stay away from the railing,” Emma advised helpfully. “You’re scared of heights.”
“Yes, thank you for reminding me. Except there’s not a lot of space up here.”
“Hey Molly, sorry to hear about Donnie,” Pat said.
“Thanks. It’s been pretty stressful. Have you heard anything down at Mahina PD?”
Pat shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, it doesn’t seem like anyone there really thinks Donnie killed anyone.”
“Eh, Pat, you know anything about this building?” Emma asked.
“I didn’t even know it was here until today,” I added. “Emma, you’re making me nervous leaning over the railing.”
“I’m not gonna fall over,” she said.
Pat was snapping photos with his cell phone. “I’m gonna come out and say it’s definitely haunted. At least for the purpose of my next installment of Mysterious Mahina.”
“I thought your thing was called Haunted Hawaii,” Emma said.
“It was, until the Mahina Chamber of Commerce started advertising in Island Confidential. They wanted something more distinctive and Mahina-centric. So now my column is called Mysterious Mahina.”
“Is this the famous firewall between editorial and advertising that we’re always hearing about?” I asked.
“Give me a break. I’m just trying to make up the difference between teaching intro comp and making a living wage.” Pat tried the handle to Room 310; it was locked. He turned back from the door and looked around. “Hey. Where’s Emma?”
I had a flash of panic, imagining Emma tipping quietly over the railing and plummeting to her death. Fortunately, Emma strolled out of the bathroom at that moment as the sound of gurgling water reverberated in the walls.
“Here she is,” I said. “How’s the bathroom?”
She shrugged. “Clean. Unisex bathroom though. So it’s probably not going to stay clean with you an’ three guys in your department. Hey Pat, guess what—”
“I’m going to go look at the bathroom.” I jerked my head toward the bathroom. “Emma, you want to show me around?”
“Yeah, let me show you around,” she said and followed me in.
Unlike the landing outside, the bathroom was humid and poorly-lit. A small globe fixture and a dusty breadbox-sized window were the only sources of light. A cloudy mirror was mounted over a cantilevered celadon-green sink You’d think the combination of the dim light and the aged mirror would be flattering, but a quick glimpse of my reflection showed the opposite. Not only did I look waxy and undead, but my hair was going wild in the humidity. It was like every strand had decided it hated every other strand and they were bristling as far from one another as they could.
“Do you think these are the original floor tiles?” I asked.
The floor was covered in 2-inch hexagonal tiles in the same celadon green as the sink, the walls, and the rust-speckled metal stalls. The tiles were cracked and chipped, but clean.
“Molly, why are you acting so weird? I know you didn’t bring me in here to talk about floor tiles.”
“I thought you were going to tell Pat what Betty’s daughter overheard. About your dean trying to talk the prosecutor into framing Donnie for Stephen’s death.”
“Yeah, I was, so?”
“Anything you tell him will end up in Island Confidential.”
“And then?”
“And then it could mess up whatever Honey might be planning. Maybe she doesn’t want to tip them off that she knows what they’re up to.”
Emma sighed.
“Yeah, okay. Eh, check out this magic mirror, all blurry. Makes me look like a frickin’ movie star.”
Emma flicked her hair over her shoulder and sauntered out. I followed her out to the sunny landing.
“So, let’s have a look at my choices,” I said. “Which office will I least regret choosing?”
“Pat, tell her which office has the least ghosts living in it,” Emma said.
“The fewest ghosts,” I wanted to say, but didn’t. You’d think people would appreciate helpful corrections like this, but I’ve found they don’t.
Room 310 was on the wall to the left. On the right was the door to the restroom. In front of me were three doors in the same hospital green as the front door and the bathroom. They were labeled 311, 312, and 314.
“So what have you found out about this place?” I tried the door handles. But the offices were all locked.
“I have some good stuff on the main building.” Pat had his hand braced on the railing.
“Pat, don’t lean on that,” I said. “You don’t know how much termite damage there is.”
He picked his hand up and folded his arms but didn’t move away from the railing.
“They put in a lot of effort and expense considering it was a TB hospital in a territorial backwater,” he said. “They got Carrara marble for the floors. Think about shipping marble from Italy to Hawaii. The family that financed this wanted the hospital to be a showplace. To put Mahina on the map. I found this quote. Hang on.”
Pat brought something up on his phone.
“Here it is. ‘Fair Mahina will outshine not only Honolulu, but will grow to rival the great capitals of the world.’”
“Great capitals of the world?” Emma snorted. “Mahina? Pat, you should do a series called Delusional Rich Idiots of History.”
“So what was this building used for then?” I looked up at the skylight, which from the top floor looked enormous. It was rectangular, around eight by ten feet, of plain frosted glass. Four muntins formed a large rectangle in the middle and little squares in each corner. “Dan thought it might be nurses’ quarters.”
“Was it the nuthouse?” Emma walked over and punched my shoulder playfully. “Cause that’d be appropriate.”
“This building was actually the Inebriate Asylum,” Pat said. “Old-timey rehab.”
“Eh, no look at me li’dat,” Emma protested.
“What? I didn’t say anything about you reeking of beer in the middle of the day,” Pat said.
“I took the breathalyzer before we drove here, ah, Molly?”
“You have a breathalyzer?” Pat asked.
“In my glove box,” Emma declared proudly. “Don’t leave home without it.”
Pat shook his head and recommenced taking pictures. Pat never drinks alcohol, and he never talks about it. And I’ve never asked him.
“It’s true,” I said. “She was below the limit. Emma won’t tell me where she got that aftermarket liver installed, but I want one. Do you hear sirens?”
The sirens got louder, and then seemed to stop somewhere below us.
“Sounds like it’s on that side,” Emma said. “Behind those doors.”
“Only one thing to do,” Pat reached into his back pocket and hunched over the handle of the door marked 312. “Molly, you might want to turn away.”
“From what? I see nothing.”
It took Pat less than a minute to do whatever he was doing to the door. He stood up and pushed it open. The room was around ten by twelve feet. Two large crank-out windows admitted the hot afternoon sun. The walls were the familiar hospital green, and the linoleum square flooring was a checkerboard of green and beige. A putty-colored file cabinet, frosted with rust, was the only piece of furniture.
At first I thought the windows didn’t have any kind of covering, but on closer inspection I could see yellowed Venetian blinds that had been pulled all the way up. The view was of the back of the main hospital building. From this angle I saw the hospital walls were streaked with black mold and the windows were black and dusty. If I pressed my face to the glass and looked down, I could see the terrace where Stephen spent his last living moments. Further to the left, nearly out of my line of vision, was the rickety wooden staircase leading from the emergency exit down to the ground.
