Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii by Goldberg, Lee (best large ebook reader .txt) 📗

poke.” She pointed to the bowl of meat and said, “which is raw, marinated fish.”

“Raw?” Monk choked out the word.

Kiki smiled. “It’s quite delicious, I assure you. But I have to confess, we aren’t being entirely authentic this evening. If this luau were being held in 1778, when Captain Cook visited the islands, we’d have Hawaiian priests on hand who would offer to chew your meat for you first.”

Monk gave me a stricken look, much like the one he had had on his face at the T-shirt shop, as if to tell me, I told you so. He turned back to Kiki.

“Where’s the silverware?”

“Like the extravagant and merry luaus enjoyed by King Kamehameha the Second and his honored guests, you’ll be eating with your hands,” Kiki said. “All the better to enjoy our famous two-finger poi.”

“It’s a good thing I came prepared,” Monk whispered to me, reaching into his pocket and showing me a Ziploc bag containing a set of utensils.

“You brought those from the bungalow?”

Monk shook his head. “From home.”

Two Hawaiian men in traditional dress, which is to say virtually no clothes at all, joined Kiki in the center of the circle. They were carrying shovels.

“The main entrée tonight will be kalua pig, which has been cooking in this imu for the last nine hours.” Kiki pointed to the ground behind her.

“She’s pointing at the ground,” Monk said.

“Yes, Mr. Monk. I know.”

The Hawaiian men began digging up the sand behind Kiki as she spoke. Smoke rose from the hot sand, and almost immediately the men began to sweat from the heat.

“Hot rocks are placed in a six-foot-deep pit that’s lined with banana leaves. An entire pig is salted and placed in the hole, covered with banana leaves to preserve the heat, and buried.”

“Buried?” Monk said loudly, stepping into the center of the circle and addressing the other tourists. “We’re supposed to eat something they’ve buried in dirt? With our hands? Do they think we’re savages?”

“Mr. Monk, please,” I said, pulling him back. “You’re creating a scene.”

“Wait until the health department hears about this,” Monk said to Kiki. “They’ll shut this place down.”

“We’ve been doing this for centuries,” Kiki said with amusement, her smile never wavering.

“And it ends tonight. I’m dropping the dime on you, lady.”

“I can assure you, sir, you have nothing to fear from kalua pig.”

At that instant, a woman in the crowd screamed in terror. We turned to see an elderly woman staggering back, her wide eyes fixed on the imu behind Kiki. Everyone followed her gaze.

The two Hawaiian men, as wide-eyed as the old lady, dropped their shovels and backed away from the hole they were digging to reveal a human hand, gnarled and cooked a deep red, sticking up from beneath the smoking sand.

I felt an irrational pang of fear in my chest and an instinctive desire to run. Apparently I wasn’t alone. As the horrified guests scrambled out of the garden, Monk stood fast, unperturbed. In fact, he didn’t seem surprised at all.

He looked at me and sighed. “I told you they were cannibals.”

To Lieutenant Kealoha’s credit, he wasn’t offended by Monk’s suggestion that Hawaiians were cannibals.

“I don’t think anyone intended to serve the man for dinner,” Kealoha said. “If they did, they probably would have seasoned him and undressed him first. At least, that’s what we usually do when we eat people.”

The police had roped off the luau garden in yellow caution tape, and crime scene techs were digging up the body, careful to preserve the sand around the corpse to retain any possible forensic evidence.

The dead man was dressed in upscale aloha wear, but his face was cooked beyond recognition. The medical examiner told Kealoha that preliminary evidence indicated that the victim was killed by a blow to the head with a blunt object.

One of the techs retrieved a wallet from the victim’s pocket and brought it to Kealoha in a bag.

“His name is Martin Kamakele,” the tech said.

“He’s the operations manager of the hotel,” Monk said.

“We found dried blood and brain matter on one of the shovels,” the tech said. “It’s a safe bet that’s the murder weapon.”

“Thanks.” Kealoha sighed and looked at Monk. “Two murders in one week at one hotel. Hell of a coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Monk said.

“You think this is related to Helen Gruber’s murder?”

“It has to be,” Monk said.

“How?” I asked. “Lance killed Helen for her money. What possible involvement could Kamakele have with that?”

Monk shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll have Roxanne Shaw picked up and brought in for questioning,” Kealoha said. “But I’d be surprised if she did it. I’ve had an officer staking out her place all day.”

“You suspected she might do something?” I said.

Kealoha shrugged. “I figured it couldn’t hurt to keep an eye on her. I certainly didn’t think she’d whack somebody with a shovel.”

“This wasn’t a premeditated crime,” Monk said. “This was an act of anger.”

“Why do you say that?” Kealoha asked.

“The pig was buried nine hours ago, and the body was buried on top of it. So the killing happened in broad daylight. The killer didn’t bring a weapon; he used one that was at hand, probably just lying on the ground. And he didn’t try to dispose of the body, only to hide it temporarily to delay its discovery. Who would plan a murder that way?”

“No one,” Kealoha conceded.

“Lance did,” I said. “He made it look like Helen was killed in broad daylight by someone who hit her with a coconut.”

“So you’re saying Kamakele was killed last night, stuck in a refrigerator, and buried here this morning so the killer would have a kick-ass alibi?”

“No, I’m just noting the similarities,” I said. “Two murders in broad daylight where the killer found something on the ground and clobbered somebody with it. I think it’s kind of eerie, that’s all.”

Monk cocked his head and looked at me strangely, as if he’d suddenly noticed I had three nostrils instead of two.

“What? Why are you looking at me that way?”

“Because you’ve