Zero Island (Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners Book 2) Read online

  Zero Island

  Chris Bauer

  ZERO ISLAND

  Copyright © 2021 by Chris Bauer.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Severn River Publishing

  www.SevernRiverPublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-64875-116-5 (Paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-64875-117-2 (Hardback)

  Contents

  Also by Chris Bauer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Join the Reader List

  Next in Series

  2 STREET: Chapter 1

  Binge Killer

  Thanks for Reading

  BINGE KILLER: June 1962

  BINGE KILLER: Chapter 1

  BINGE KILLER: Chapter 2

  Read Binge Killer

  You Might Also Enjoy…

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Chris Bauer

  Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners

  Hiding Among the Dead

  Zero Island

  2 Street

  Scars on the Face of God

  Binge Killer

  Jane’s Baby

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  For granddaughters Teddy and Bea.

  I hope you enjoy your sisterhood

  as much as Oma and Opa enjoy our grandparenthood.

  WARNING-WARNING!

  All enemy parachutists and invaders are hereby warned

  not to shoot our Hawaiians more than twice.

  The third time “makes them mad”

  and we will not be responsible for their actions.

  —Albert G. Christian, 299th Infantry, c. 1942,

  “The Koa Regiment,”

  Hawaii Army National Guard

  1

  Miakamii Island, Hawaiian Islands

  Late June

  Whup-whup-whup-whup…

  The tourist helicopter jerked and made death rattle sounds as it dropped down, down, down, careening sideways, spinning wildly, four thousand feet, three thousand feet, two…

  Islander Kealoha “Ella” Waumami, on horseback, could hear each whup-whup-whup more distinctly as the aircraft spun earthward, five hundred feet, four hundred feet, slicing into the heavy tree canopy that edged the island’s church and school, crashing fifty yards and two livestock pens away from her, her horse rearing up.

  She’d seen all of it—the copter starting its descent, picking up speed before flipping and twisting out of control, its blades shearing through the treetops on a diagonal until the canopy fought back, the thick vegetation splintering the aircraft. The flight deck skidded nose down to a stop in the clearing, the blades carving up dirt and scrub and animals in pens: cows, sheep, a wild boar, their bloody carcasses splatting against the island’s one-room schoolhouse and tiny church, and crashing through a church window into its interior.

  Most alarming, she’d also seen two people jettison from a high altitude, one dropping straight down like a bullet into the Pacific not far from shore, the other riding the air until a parachute opened, then splashing into the middle of the Hanakawii Channel. A cigarette boat picked him up and spun in an about-face to head toward Kauai Island across the channel.

  Ella galloped her bareback mare out of the clearing and onto the beach, dismounted, then sprinted on short but powerful legs into the water and swam hard. She knew the helicopter pilot well, a close friend. He was the one in the fluorescent yellow jumpsuit who looked lifeless before he hit the whitecaps.

  2

  The second leg of their trip, a flight to Kauai Island’s Lihue Airport, was behind them. Thirteen hours total in coach from Philadelphia with a short layover in Denver, Philo and Patrick on board, one half of Blessid Trauma Cleaning Company. A two-week junket. Philo left the business in the hands of former owners Grace and Hank Blessid, who would operate it on a skeleton schedule. The thirteen hours in the air had turned into fourteen hours plus, the plane needing to circle the airport due to an unspecified air traffic issue.

  They deplaned a short distance from the gate, emergency vehicles and a fire truck assembled on a nearby runway, their sweeping red lights advertising a crisis. At the gate a cop stood listening to a walkie-talkie chirp a message Philo overheard: “Missing helicopter located off-island, on Miakamii. All clear on Kauai, over.”

  “Copy that, over,” the Hawaiian cop answered.

  In shirtsleeves, shorts, and sandals, they entered the single-story airport terminal with eight flight gates inexplicably numbered three through ten. Once inside, it was like someone threw a switch on Patrick.

  “Not feeling it, Philo sir,” he said, his head swiveling. “Nope. Not doing it for me. None of it. This isn’t it.”

  To Patrick, Philo was always “sir” or “Philo sir.” The formality had little to do with Philo’s military background, more to do with Patrick’s dented, challenged noggin.

  Philo Trout. Possessed of enough brown hair to say he wasn’t balding, but the two bare skin patches on either side of his tufted rooster comb were staking larger claims. The rest of him cut a hard, angular physique, tall, lanky, but with good guns for biceps. Counter to his tough cruiserweight body, his hair was losing out to his age.

  “Thirty seconds off the plane on an island you might or might not have ever set foot on before, and you’re already writing it off,” Philo said. “We’ll be island hopping for two weeks, Patrick. Something might click. Give it a chance. Let’s get our bags.”

  They lost their baggage carts at a drop-off point near the street curb. The two men, two rolling suitcases each, strode toward a row of car rentals. A rush of salty Hawaiian air overwhelmed them, stopping Philo in his tracks.

  “Wow. Wonderful,” he said.

  At any given time, Philo knew from personal experience, a person could smell four things on most of the islands: saltwater, coconut oil, plants after a fresh rain, and…

  “Barbecue,” Patrick said. “I smell barbecue.”

  Korean barbecue to be exact, from a street vendor outside the terminal. Upon discovering it, the charcoal aroma became the one thing a person’s nose would search for a
gain and again on Kauai.

  “Plentiful, Patrick, all over these islands. We’ll get some later. Let’s keep moving.”

  Patrick Stakes. Not his real name. A temporary identifier still in place after more than three years. He’d been a John Doe at the ER in a Philly hospital. Was found bludgeoned and unconscious in a foot of snow in a dumpster near the iconic South Philadelphia cheesesteak joint, Pat’s King of Steaks, so why not name him something similar, the ER docs said. The blunt head trauma had lowered his IQ a few points and left him an amnesiac. He was maybe twenty-five years old, his real birthdate and birthplace unknown, and was deemed Hawaiian, or at least Polynesian, this because a female acquaintance of recent infamy, also Hawaiian, touted that as his ethnicity, and it had been confirmed by DNA testing. No matches for his fingerprints or for DNA from the FBI or military databases. It was hoped, therefore, on the part of Philo, Grace and Hank, and Patrick, that this Hawaiian visit would rekindle memories elusive to him from the first twenty-five or so years of his young life.

  A rooster scooted from underneath an SUV rental and crossed the road into Philo’s path, wings flapping, a cake donut in its beak. It lost its hold on the donut, dropping it onto the blacktop at Philo’s feet. A standoff, rooster versus man, or so the rooster’s loud squawk intimated, the donut between them.

  “Don’t go near the donut,” Patrick said.

  “Wasn’t going to,” Philo said, retreating a step.

  Large for a rooster. Wide, gray, feathery collar, brown body, and pronounced black tail feathers. It picked up the treat in its beak and ran past him, onto a pet relief lawn. An Irish Setter on a leash whimpered when the rooster charged it, the dog’s tail curling between his legs. The chicken disappeared into the shrubbery beyond the lawn.

  “I see they still grow their chickens big in Hawaii,” Philo said.

  “They’re wild here,” Patrick said. “The ones at the cockfights are even bigger. The chickens keep the cats under control.”

  “Chicken versus feral cat?” Philo said. “Not buying your assessment about the outcome, Patrick.”

  “Hunger does crazy things on the streets, sir.”

  Inside the SUV, their bags stowed, Philo pressed the ignition. “Pull up the address for our rental cottage on your phone, Patrick.”

  “Target acquired, sir.”

  Philo backed the car out, not particularly careful about any wildlife that might still be lingering underneath. Kauai chickens were, from what he remembered, a nuisance regardless of size because they were everywhere, and they were aggressive. He stopped the car for the traffic light at the parking lot exit, processing the rooster incident in his head. His gaze lingered on Patrick, who stayed serious, his head swiveling at what was, for the moment, non-existent cross traffic. The light turned green.

  “You can go now, Philo sir.”

  “You realize what just happened, Patrick?”

  “Yes, sir. You almost fought a chicken over a donut, sir.”

  “Yes. But I didn’t, did I? Because odd as it all seemed, I knew not to even try. Because I’ve been here before.”

  “Yes, Philo sir, you were smart. Those chickens are nasty.”

  “Yes, they are.” Philo stayed at the exit, waiting for something to click for Patrick. The light turned red again, their SUV still idling. “You listening to yourself, bud?”

  “Sir?”

  “You knew about these chickens. You know this place.”

  Patrick blinked hard, absorbing Philo’s words, his eyes darting back and forth until they sank in. He choked out a response.

  “I’ve… I’ve been here before! The chickens. I remember the chickens!”

  Philo’s congratulatory squeeze of his shoulder put him on alert. Patrick now tried to absorb every detail of every passing tree and building and sign at every turn the SUV made after leaving the terminal. No other hits for him as they drove the island perimeter, but he was beside himself anticipating new revelations.

  This first destination island, Kauai, was an indulgence, Philo looking to check in on a retiring Navy commander he’d served with on more than one deployment: Commander Evan Malcolm, CO for the Hawaiian Missile Training Outpost at Howling Sands, on the western side of Kauai. Philo awaited a return call from his CO buddy to set up their reunion. Howling Sands was a military-use-only airport, not open to the public. But before tomorrow’s cross-island stop, they needed to drive twenty miles along the coast to their VRBO beach cottage rental, where they were scheduled to stay a few nights. Close to the cottage was tiny Port Allen Airport, like Lihue Airport open to the public, but with a runway able to handle only small aircraft and tourist helicopters.

  The plan was to check in, then rest on a sandy beach for the remainder of the day to handle their jet lag. Tomorrow morning would be more beach time for Patrick, with Philo intending to drive farther west along the coast to Howling Sands. He had a favor to ask his Navy buddy Evan: could they get clearance to visit Miakamii Island from whoever could grant it? For Patrick’s sake, to at least rule it out as an origin for him, a long shot considering Miakamii’s secretive status and strange history. Two weeks to visit all eight islands. It was ambitious, but that was the plan to give Patrick the best chance at finding his identity and lost early life. Kauai and Miakamii, the westernmost inhabited islands, would be their first two stops.

  “Monk seals, ten o’clock,” Philo said. Patrick craned his neck to look past Philo, out his window. They splashed out of the water and onto a small beach as they drove past. The seals were prevalent on Miakamii and Kauai both, Philo recalled. “They do anything for you, Patrick?”

  “Sorry, sir. Not remembering the monk seals. But they’re really cute.”

  Miakamii Island, a.k.a. “The Prohibited Isle.” Where time stood still for 1,230 inhabitants per the 2010 census. During the last decade the census count became suspect, both from heavy attrition and closer scrutiny. From a practical perspective, no one knew the real year-round population, save maybe for the island’s ruling family. Conspiracy types questioned if there was anyone still actually living on the island, considering so many had migrated to Kauai to lead “normal” lives.

  One visit might be all that was needed to eliminate Miakamii from consideration. Philo’s Navy buddy Evan would hopefully provide an introduction to the Logans. The family had a long and very storied history dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, when Catherine McDougall Innes, Scottish farmer and plantation owner by way of New Zealand, bought the island from Hawaiian King Kamehameha V with gold and gemstones worth about fifteen thousand dollars. Among the caveats about the purchase was the agreement that the new owners and their descendants would preserve the island’s culture and lifestyle in perpetuity, including a good-faith promise that the family would only visit, not live on, the island. That promise had been kept generation to generation, most recently by Douglas Logan, aging great-great-grandson of Ms. Innes, and his family, the island’s current caretakers.

  Philo’s personal attachment to Miakamii was as a Navy SEAL. The Navy used the island for training and defense, something the Logan family had supported for decades dating back to WWII, and later on with SEAL tactical maneuvers front and center in its interior and on its shores.

  “Can I go with you tomorrow, sir?” Patrick said.

  “To the Navy base? Negatory, Patrick. If the Navy agrees to make a pitch to the Logans for us to see if they’ll let us visit the island, it wouldn’t be tomorrow anyway. They’d need to schedule it.”

  Philo’s cell phone chirped. He left traffic and pulled onto the shoulder.

  “Commander Malcolm. Hey. Just talking about you. How are you, bud?… What?… My God, Evan… Sure, anything… oh-eight-hundred hours tomorrow. See you then.”

  Philo’s phone hand dropped to his lap after the call ended, his straight-ahead look vacant, mystifying. The SUV interior turned pin-drop quiet, Patrick waiting for him to come out of his trance, traffic whooshing past them like racecars passing the pits.

 
“Philo sir, what’s wrong?”

  Philo spoke without fully processing the news, trying to make sense of it. “Evan’s fiancée. She’s dead.”

  They had no attachment to the fiancée other than Philo expected to meet her during the trip and have Evan tell him about his decision to get married again. Friendly banter, meet the fiancée, camaraderie, and commiseration re their respective retirements, Philo’s a few years in arrears, Evan’s coming up at the end of the year. A pleasant reunion. Plus the request that Evan cut through some Miakamii visitation red tape for Patrick’s benefit.

  “Dead from what, sir? An accident?”

  “A home invasion.” Philo swallowed hard. “Her cleaning lady found her. She was disemboweled.”

  “Disem-what?”

  “Her internal organs were missing.”

  Philo blanked his face, then spoke into the windshield. “Evan wants us to look at her place after the scene’s released by the police.”

  He faced Patrick, now more in control. “It seems you’ll get to see the base with me tomorrow after all. The base, then her house. If you want to, bud.”