Sand Dollars Read Free Page B

tragedy.
    â€œHaole lawyer confused, that’s all.”
    And the subject closed.
    â€œYou find new boat yet?”
    â€œNo. Haven’t looked.”
    â€œStill in that dump on Seaside?”
    I nodded. Waikiki depressed me, closed me in, but I didn’t have the urge to go out and search for a new home to replace Duchess, my boat of many years. She sank in a hurricane, along with all of my possessions. Living in a hotel was a temporary solution for an anachronistic vagabond, but I didn’t yet have the urge to abandon that way of life.
    Homeless but for the cash on hand, I’d gravitated to the beach. There was a lot of cash, so there was a lot of beach time. I’d made money after a personal tragedy, too. About the same amount as Chawlie. Maybe a little more.
    Not worth the loss.
    Not worth it at all, when I thought about it.
    I tried not to think about it.
    The Rainbow Marina was changing, too. That helped put me off finding a new boat. The navy was building a bridge to
Ford Island from Aiea, using the marina parking lot as a staging area. When it’s finished, the new bridge will loom over my old slip. Construction would take more than a year, they said, peace and quiet a thing of the past, sacrificed to progress. Or, as in this case, to access.
    And so I put off the move and stayed away from Pearl Harbor. If I found a boat, I’d have to find a new place to dock. Somewhere peaceful, away from traffic and the crowds and the construction. Somewhere on the windward side of the island.
    But I wasn’t ready.
    I’d originally planned to head for California after the events of the previous year, but that ambition died gradually into inertia when I returned to Honolulu and found myself settling into a high-rise hotel room on a side street across from a pair of motion picture theaters. I lived a day at a time, content to watch the tides change and tread the sandy beaches, giving time a chance to heal minor physical and major emotional wounds.
    I survived the Christmas season, not venturing far from my hotel room except to run or work out at Duke’s Gym or accomplish the occasional errand. The holidays can be cruel when you’re suddenly uprooted from your accustomed environs, your life shattered. The forced good cheer of the season too quickly brings up the gag reflex, so I hid from the world until the first week of January, when I felt it safe enough to come out.
    So when I got a letter from a Mainland banker, the envelope containing a small retainer in the form of a cashier’s check and airplane tickets along with a request to fly to San Diego, there was little holding me. A phone call to the banker solved the mystery of the connection. I don’t know that many bankers. I know none on the Mainland. I don’t advertise my services, even when I need the work.
    The woman’s son had been one of the boys I’d rescued from the Mahi, the one who had thanked me. He’d apparently related everything, including the fact of my profession, overheard during my conversation with J. Lawrence Tishman. His mother had checked me out, and liked what she’d heard. Her
client needed an outside expert, someone who knew boats. Most important, the detective had to be a fresh pair of eyes, someone who could pick out the forest from the trees.
    It intrigued me and I agreed to meet her and her client in San Diego.
    San Diego had been an unrealized destination for years, a place where intention and destination never seemed to converge. Self-absorption is only one of my minor vices, and here was the excuse I needed to get off the beach. Max was there. So was the admiral. And California was a good place to buy a boat.
    â€œThis case in California. How long it take you?” Chawlie leaned forward, his voice a raspy whisper. When he does that, I almost expect him to call me Grasshopper.
    â€œI don’t know what it is yet. You have something?”
    â€œNo, no, no,” said the