“Aye,” Stephen’s father agreed.

  “Thank you.” I sank into the closest armchair.

  Come to think of it, I had done a lot for Stephen. Organized his portfolio for him when he went up for promotion. Packed him off to rehab and arranged a cover story for him at work when his addiction got out of control. Refrained from murdering him when I found out why he’d stood me up on my birthday.

  “Well,” I said, “would anyone like more coffee?”

  “Oh yeah,” Emma took the cue. “Coffee? Or tea? Molly has tea somewhere, you have tea, right, Molly? Where do you keep your tea?”

  Stephen’s parents weren’t so easily distracted.

  “Look at you, Molly. Married. And a baby.” Tiffany had taken on the hearty tone of the runner-up who is trying hard to be a good sport. “So. Are we going to meet the man who stole you away from our Stephen? He must really be something.”

  And right on cue, we heard the side door open. Donnie came in through the kitchen. He wore the same work uniform as his employees, a red polo shirt with the Drive-Inn logo. I don’t want to be vulgar, so let’s just say that Donnie is in excellent physical condition and his shirt was on the close-fitting side.

  “Eh, Donnie!” Emma lifted her mug in a sort of greeting.

  “Wow,” Stephen’s mother blurted out. “Is that him?”

  “You’re home early,” I added, unnecessarily.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I made quick introductions as Donnie took the baby from me. Donnie expressed his condolences to Stephen’s parents and dispensed handshakes and hugs as appropriate.

  “Donnie, what a pleasant surprise,” I said. “This is so nice that you could come by.”

  “It was a little slow at the Drive-Inn, so I thought I’d stop in and see how everyone was doing,” he explained.

  It was only later that he confessed to me he’d been concerned by how much Emma had been drinking. He’d come back to make sure the baby was safe, and no one was passed out on the floor.

  “Will you be joining us for an early dinner, Donnie?” Stephen’s mother asked hopefully. This was the first I’d heard of anyone going to dinner.

  “Tiffany, I’m sure the man’s busy,” Angus said.

  “I have to get back,” Donnie said. “You go, have fun. I’ll take Francesca.”

  Donnie hoisted the baby onto his shoulder, grabbed the diaper bag, and left. Emma made her excuses and followed him out. It was just as well, as it turns out.

  The Parks’ attorney was waiting for us at the Lehua Inn Coffee Shop. He was conspicuously drab among the colorful tourists, and probably the only person in the hotel who was wearing a suit.

  I slid into the vinyl booth next to the man and introduced myself. He told me his name and handed me his card. If I run into this guy in the street tomorrow, I thought, I probably won’t recognize him. His forgettable-ness was certainly deliberate; he probably had many clients like Stephen’s parents, who would not tolerate being upstaged.

  “Shall we get started?” he asked. He had a fresh yellow legal pad next to his plate, blank except for the date written at the top of the page. The handwriting was like the man himself, small and spidery.

  “Let’s get something to eat first,” Stephen’s mother said. “I’m starving.”

  I realized I was hungry too. The Lehua Inn’s pancake and coffee aroma was tantalizing.

  The Lehua Inn’s coffee is mediocre and always smells better than it tastes. (Like sin, as the saying goes.) But their pancakes are divine. Give me a stack of golden, hubcap-sized pancakes topped with a foamy ball of butter, bring out a warm, sticky pitcher of maple-flavored syrup to glug over the whole mess, and I can endure anything.

  Even a conversation with the parents of my dead ex about suing my employer.

  The lawyer took down my name and contact information and asked me to tell him what I could recall.

  “From the time you entered the old Mahina Memorial building,” he said. “Please include anything you may have noticed about the condition of the building.”

  I told him what I could, uncomfortably aware of Stephen’s parents sitting across from me. I was telling a story whose grim ending they already knew.

  “Why did you exit the building after you visited the washroom?” the lawyer asked.

  “I had tried to wash a stain off my blouse. I wanted to give it a chance to dry off a little before I went back to join the others.”

  No one at the table needed to know about my makeshift paper-towel breast pads. I’d sure learned my lesson that night, though. I now had four pairs of proper pads stuffed in my purse.

  “Anyway, when I went outside the door locked behind me,” I went on. “So, at that point I had to go around the building. I didn’t have a choice. Oh, I did notice that the stairs felt pretty rickety. It might have been termite damage, or rot.”

  The attorney nodded and made a note.

  “How was the lighting?” he asked. “Could you see where you were going?”

  “There was no lighting. I don’t remember whether the moon was out or anything. Whatever it was doing it was covered up with clouds. That’s not unusual for Mahina, though. I had to use the light from my phone to find my way.”

  He kept writing as I spoke. Then he underlined something.

  “And it seems you are…married?” He looked at Tiffany for confirmation. She pursed her lips and nodded.

  “But you attended this dinner with Stephen Park.”

  I stared at him.

  “No. I went with Donnie. My husband. We just all ended up at the same table. It was assigned seating. We didn’t know in advance who else was going to be at our table.”

  “What is your husband’s full name?”

  “Donald Muraco Gonsalves.”

  “Unusual middle name,” the lawyer said.

  “It was the name of a famous local wrestler.” I spelled the name for him. “His sister’s middle name is Bysentenyl. Like two hundred years, except spelled in a unique way. Their parents apparently liked unusual…I guess it’s not important. Sorry.”

  “So at dinner, it was just you and Stephen and your husband?”

  “And Bee Corcoran. There were supposed to be two other people sitting with us, but there was a scheduling mix-up and they couldn’t make it.”

  The waitress came by and doled out our giant plates of food. I said grace, crossed myself, and dug in. As soon as my mouth was full of pancake, the attorney cleared his throat.

  “Now, I want to ask you about access to the terrace outside. How difficult would it have been, in your view, for someone to gain access to the outdoor terrace?”

  He’d caught me off-guard with my cheeks full of pancake. I took a quick gulp of coffee. It didn’t have much flavor, which was good, because the flavor it did have was kind of nasty.

  “I don’t know whether they wanted people going out there,” I said. “But there wasn’t anything stopping them. There were these tall French doors at the far end of the dining room. I don’t remember seeing any velvet ropes or signs that said ‘stay off the terrace’ or anything like that.”

  “Were the doors locked?”

  “I don’t think so. They must have been unlocked for Stephen to get out. So I guess my answer is that it was probably pretty easy to gain access to the terrace.”

  More writing. Lots of underlining.

  “So, a reasonable person would have concluded that it was acceptable to exit the dining room and go out onto the terrace?”

  “Probably. Sure.”

  I was doing exactly what Stephen’s parents wanted: putting the university at fault. And the university was at fault. They owned the building, they had decided to open it for an event while they were still doing renovations, they had set up the dinner, and they had left the terrace accessible to guests.

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, I sympathized with Stephen’s parents. I couldn’t begin to imagine what they were going through. And the university should not have let people wander out onto an unlit terrace with a potentially fatal drop.

  On the other hand, Stephen’s parents had plenty of money. And the university, my employer, didn’t. Except for that big student success grant. Which had so many restrictions on it that it was no help at all.

  “When Stephen left your table to go outside, did he go alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was there a particular reason he left?”

  In fact, he’d turned green and bolted the minute the topic of breastfeeding came up. I decided it wasn’t necessary to share that particular detail. It would have disappointed his parents, I think.

  “He said he was going outside for a smoke.”

  “He told us he’d quit,” Stephen’s mother objected.

  “Was anyone else out on the terrace?” the lawyer asked.

  “No. At least, not that I saw.”

  “After Stephen left the table to go outside for a smoke, when did you see him next?”

  Oof. Who thought it would be a good idea to discuss this over dinner?

  “When I went outside I saw Stephen up on the terrace, smoking.”

  “You said it was dark outside,” the lawyer said. “You’re certain it was Stephen you saw?”

  “I recognized the smell,” I said. “He smokes those clove cigarettes. Then when I looked up, I saw the glow of the cigarette. Then I heard him calling my name. No, wait, first I heard him say, ‘Molly’ and that must have been why I looked up…I’m sorry. I’m getting mixed up about the exact order of things.”

  “You say he called you by name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you recognize his voice at that time?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when he called out to you, what did you do?”

  I stared at my plate to avoid looking at Stephen’s parents.

  “Nothing. I kept walking.”

  “You heard Stephen call out to you, you looked up, and you kept walking?”

  “Yes,” I said to my pancakes.

  “Did you say anything to him?”

  I shook my head. Nothing he could have heard, anyway.

  “Now, I’m sorry to have to ask this,” the lawyer said to Stephen’s parents. “Did you see him fall? Please think carefully.”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t see anything until I turned around. And then he…and then I called for help. And then things happened quickly. Police, and ambulances, and I guess someone must have told the people inside. Bee came running out, but it was too late. She wasn’t allowed to touch his body—she wasn’t allowed to go near him.”

  “Who is this Bee person?” Stephen’s mother asked.

  “Beatrice Corcoran,” I said, glad to be the bearer of good news for once. “One of our rising stars. She just won a systemwide research award. She’s very impressive.” She had also told me that she had no romantic interest in Stephen, but his parents didn’t need to know that.

  “What does she do?” Tiffany asked.

  “She’s an assistant professor of kinesiology.”

  Stephen’s mother turned to her husband.

  “That’s just great. Our son was dating a P.E. teacher.”

  Stephen’s father decided this would be a good time to go pay the bill, and Stephen’s mother went to freshen up. This left me sitting next to their attorney.

  I cleared my throat. “May I ask you something?”

  The attorney paused his writing and looked up, which I took as a “yes.”

  “What exactly killed him? Stephen?”

  The lawyer looked at me like he wasn’t sure he’d heard me right.

  “He fell from a height of ten meters onto a hard surface,” he said slowly.

  “No, I know that. But I mean, if he hit his head first, it would’ve been over quickly. But if it was internal injuries…you know what I’m saying? Stephen didn’t suffer, did he? I guess that’s what I’m asking.”

  The furrows on the man’s forehead cleared.

  “Oh, I see. I don’t have that information. We’ll know more when the autopsy’s done.”

  It hit me then that Stephen Park was really gone. It must have been the word “autopsy” that got me. I was suddenly desperate to escape the crowded coffee shop with its cloying pancake smell. Stephen’s parents were making their way back to the table. As they approached I made a show of glancing at my wrist. Only to remember I wasn’t wearing a watch.

  “Thank you so much for dinner.” I stood and sidled out of the booth. “It was wonderful to see both of you again, very nice to meet you Mister…well. I should be getting back.”

  “Are ye gonna walk?” Stephen’s father asked, surprised. Right. Stephen’s parents had driven me over to the hotel.

  “I have a ride,” I improvised, and before anyone could stop me, I rushed out to the lobby and called Emma.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It didn’t take long for Emma’s Prius to zoom up to the front of the Lehua Inn. She was of course dying to know everything that had happened at dinner.

  “How about we get down to the Maritime Club before happy hour ends, and you can tell me everything.” Emma screeched out of the parking lot and made a two-wheels-off-the-ground left turn onto Hotel Drive.

  “Sounds fun, but Donnie has the baby with him at work,” I said. “I should probably go pick her up.”

  “They’ll be okay,” Emma declared with the confidence of an expert. Which she most definitely is not when it comes to babies.

  “I’d feel better going back and relieving Donnie,” I said. “I’m not sure a fast-food restaurant is the best place for a baby, and he’s not off work for a couple more hours at least. Besides, happy hour at the Maritime Club? What has your poor liver ever done to you?”

  “I am very nice to my liver,” Emma said.

  “Didn’t you just drink up all our gin?”

  “It wore off already. So fine, no Maritime Club today. Tell me what happened at dinner.”

  I told Emma everything I could remember.

  “I used to get so frustrated with how Stephen’s parents would enable him,” I said.

  “They did enable him,” Emma agreed. “Remember that thousand dollar a night rehab or whatever it was? You know it wasn’t his theater professor salary paying for it.”

  “But now that I have Francesca, I understand why they did what they did. He was their child, and he—”

  “Nah, you were right the first time,” Emma said.

  “Okay, maybe he was spoiled. But I didn’t realize one of the things about having a baby is, it never stops. By the time your baby’s approaching middle age and has tenure, Stephen’s parents should’ve been able to stop worrying about him. But no, you never can stop worrying. Having a kid is a life sentence.”

  “You should stitch that onto a throw pillow,” Emma said. “Having a kid is a life sentence. Anyway, you enabled him too, you know,”

  “I know. Thanks for giving me something else to feel bad about.”

  “Don’t feel bad Molly. Stephen’s dead.”

  “How is that supposed to help?”

  Emma pulled into the Drive-Inn’s lot, and I hopped out to look for Donnie. I found him inside, among the sizzling griddles and bubbling pots that made me so nervous. Francesca wasn’t there with him.

  “Where’s the baby?” Emma asked when I returned to the car empty-handed.

  “At the house with Margaret.” I pulled the door shut and buckled in. “He could’ve let me know before we came all the way here. I walked in and there he was, empty-handed, no baby. I practically had a heart attack.”

  “How was he supposed to let you know?” Emma pulled out and made a daring left turn into traffic in front of a truck lifted so high the driver probably didn’t even see us.

  “Emma?” I said. “We just missed getting run over by that truck.”

  “Nah. We woulda gone right under him. Anyway, don’t blame Donnie. You know what it’s like when the restaurant’s busy. He was running around with his head cut off the whole time, it was probably hard enough for him to get ahold of Margaret.”

  “Emma, the expression is running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “But now I have the image in my mind of Donnie running around with his head cut off. It’s very upsetting. And I’ve already had an excruciating day.”

  “See, Molly?”

  “See what?”

  “You shoulda drank some gin when you had the chance.”

  I came home to find Margaret at the dining room table. She was balancing Francesca on her lap and reading to her from her CPA review book. I came over to take the baby. Francesca lit up when she saw me. Then she smacked me in the face with her damp little fist and pawed at my blouse.

  “I’ll get you a glass of water.” Margaret jumped up and headed to the kitchen as I got settled on the couch.

  “Thank you, Margaret!” I called after her. “And thank you for being available on such short notice.”

  “I heard you had dinner with Professor Park’s parents.” She set a tall glass of ice water in front of me. I picked it up and drank most of it before I answered her.

  “Well, that news traveled fast. Yes, I did.”

  “Do you mind if I fix myself a hot chocolate?”

  “No, of course not. Help yourself.”

  Margaret was one of those thin women who always feels cold. I envied her that. I’d love to be able to wear a stylish sweater or jacket now and then without risking heatstroke.

  Margaret returned with a mug of hot chocolate, and a second glass of ice water for me. She sat on the couch and hunched over, her slim hands clutching the mug for warmth.

  “So…” she asked timidly. “How was it?”

  “Seeing Stephen’s parents? They’re devastated, as you can imagine.” I touched Francesca’s pulsing cheek. She drew her eyebrows together and ramped up the suction. She apparently didn’t appreciate being bothered while she was eating. Fair enough, neither did I.

  “It’s really nice that you still get along with them even though you aren’t seeing Professor Park anymore.”

 

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