Free The Green Room by Deborah Turrell Atkinson Page B

would be in the report, which I’ve read, but I’ll check with the officers who handled it.”
    â€œCould you tell me about Ken Matsumoto’s injuries?”
    â€œWhat do you want to know? It was classified an accidental death.”
    â€œDid he drown because a series of waves held him under water too long?”
    â€œAs I remember, he had a head injury, but let me get back to you. One of the officers on the scene plays rugby with me and I have to talk to him about practice, anyway.”
    Storm’s phone rang about fifteen minutes later and she turned into the huge parking lot at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Lā‛ie. Brian Chang had talked to his colleague about Matsumoto’s injuries.
    â€œNo packages.” Brian sounded relieved. “He had extensive head injuries, consistent with the material in the reef where he’d been surfing, and a V-shaped contusion, probably from his surfboard. His family is devastated, but satisfied with that explanation.”
    â€œSo he drowned?”
    â€œRight, there are caves and shallow coral beds out there.” She heard Brian get up and close the door. “The ME reported that the contusion probably would have killed him if his lungs hadn’t filled with water first.”
    Storm could hear a note of something, dissatisfaction perhaps, in his voice. She waited him out, and he continued.
    â€œHe had other injuries, too.” Brian’s chair creaked, as if he leaned back in it. “Both femurs were broken, all three major arm bones. One knee and one hip were dislocated, plus—and this is what bugs me—he’d had two back molars pulled. His gums were still bloody.”
    Despite the hot sun, a chill crept over Storm.
    â€œHe must have been one tough SOB. I’d have been home with an ice pack.”
    Storm doubted that, as she once saw Brian play a game of rugby with a cracked wrist, but she kept quiet, knowing that he hadn’t finished.
    â€œIt’s pretty unusual to see so many broken bones, though the surfers we talked to say it could have happened if he got pounded inside one of those caves. The washing machine effect, I guess.”
    â€œAnd the teeth?”
    â€œWe asked around and one of his friends reported that he’d been to the dentist that day.”
    â€œHe had a lot of friends?”
    â€œHe moved here six months ago from Japan. He apparently was pretty cocky, but no one seemed to have any malice for him. He hadn’t been around that long.”
    Brian sighed and his chair creaked again. “Storm, there’s no evidence of foul play. The case is closed. In the last four days we’ve had an eleven-year-old girl disappear from her Kailua school yard and a tourist stabbed by a prostitute in Waikiki. We’ve got our hands full of ongoing crises.”
    â€œI see,” Storm said, and she did. “Thanks, Brian.”
    â€œYou bet. I’ll see you soon.”
    Storm looked both ways when she pulled back onto the highway, but her thoughts were on Ken Matsumoto and Nahoa. Matsumoto’s death was sad, but not particularly suspicious. Brian would have told her if he’d received a package like Nahoa’s, or been threatened in some other way, but she wondered if he might not know about it.
    She vowed to herself that right after her meetings with Mrs. Shirome and Stephanie, she’d talk to a few of Nahoa’s friends and check on who his girlfriends might be. It would be a relief to find out Nahoa was shacked up with a cutie in Waianae.
    Storm had to put her worries aside for a while. Mrs. Shirome was delighted to see Miles Hamasaki’s niece and so grateful for the personal visit that she put out plates of mango bread, star fruit, coconut manju, and enough iced tea to float an armada. The frail, white-haired lady talked story for nearly a half hour and Storm had three of the flaky manju pastries and two big glasses of iced tea before she could convince