Unknown Victim by Kay Hadashi (classic books for 11 year olds .TXT) 📕

asked, still staring at the body on the porch. The strain in her eyes made her look ten years older.

“Hopefully he won’t be here much longer.” Gina and Florinda watched as Clara got in a car. “Hey, she’s not freaking out, is she?”

“Clara? She’s always been superstitious. All of us are. She’s pretty tough, but she just doesn’t want her baby to be around, well, that guy.”

“I don’t blame her. Who’s her husband?”

“No more husband. I mean, Clara’s not married. She’s my sister. That’s why she comes with us.”

A little soap opera was starting.

“When’s her due date?” Gina asked.

“Still three months. Everything’s fine. She can still cook for us.”

“Cook?”

“Yeah. No one told you? We’re a regular group that works together all the time. Clara’s new with us, just since she got hapai. All the does is cook, taking it easy, you know?”

“Cook what?”

Florinda crossed her arms. “That Felix is no good as foreman. He shoulda told you that we work six in the morning till to two in the afternoon, with lunch in the middle. Clara makes a few sandwiches and something to drink. It keeps us going and doesn’t take too long. After two o’clock, it gets too hot to work. But rain or shine, you’ll still get eight hours of work from us.”

“I wasn’t worried about that.” Gina leaned in close. “Look, I really don’t want Clara going into labor here. It took a while for the police and ambulance to find where to come. I don’t want this place turning into a maternity ward.”

“Never been around hapai girls, have you?”

“Hapai?”

“Pregnant way.”

“Not too many. Why?”

“Pinay pregnant girls not so fragile as you think, Miss Santoro. Been making babies for a long time.”

“I don’t know what that means, but you don’t have to call me Miss Santoro.”

Florinda smiled. “Okay, Boss.”

“Just call me Gina.”

“But you’re the boss!”

“Look, you can call me anything you want as long as you get me that coffeemaker and a bag of grinds.”

While Florinda and Clara drove out, Gina watched as a sedan came in. It had tinted windows, push bumpers on the front, and the rims were painted to match the blue color of the car.

“Yep, there’s the detective.”

He was tall, and had a muscular body that made him look like a football coach. Curly hair was tied back in a stubby ponytail, something Gina had never liked on men. Instead of the sport coat and slacks she was accustomed to seeing on detectives at home, he was dressed in cargo pants and a Hawaiian print shirt in subdued blues. In his hands were a thick notebook and an electronic tablet. The only thing that made him look like a cop was the sidearm holstered to his belt.

Gina knew better than to interrupt when he went to the two uniformed officers. They were mostly watching the CSI techs that had arrived, busy marking things on the ground, and taking photographs of tire treads and footprints in the soft soil near the front of the house. Officer Iosefa and the detective had a quick conversation, the detective copied a few things from the officers’ and CSI techs’ notes, and Gina was finally pointed out. Apparently, police posturing was the same everywhere. She watched as the detective came to her, a swagger in his walk. He had his notebook of paper ready when he got to Gina.

“You’re Santoro?”

“That’s right. First name is Gina. You are?”

“Detective Michael Kona, Honolulu Police. I hear you’re Cleveland PD?”

“Was. It’s been a while.”

He read his notes. “I understand you’re here to get the Tanizawa estate going again?”

“The grounds. I was hired by the Tanizawa family to restore the estate as close to historically accurate to the original as I can. I have a crew of a dozen and we were supposed to start today. Now I’m finding busy work for them to do until you release the grounds to us.”

He scratched his neck for a moment. “Gotta let my CSI guys do their thing. What I don’t get is why you’re here as a gardener?”

“Landscape horticulturist. Like I said, I no longer work for the force. I’m doing this now. I can get you the Tanizawa contact number, if you want to talk to them to verify my story?”

“I can find it, and yes, I’ll be verifying everything you tell me. Tell me what happened this morning.”

“With the body?” Gina retold the story of finding the dead body on her porch, of how she had to shove the screen door to push him aside just to get out of the house.

“Why didn’t you use the back door?” he asked.

“I guess I didn’t think of it. Mostly, I was trying to wake the guy up.”

“You didn’t know he was dead when you first saw him?”

She shook her head. “I thought he was sleeping off a bender.”

“The position he’s in now isn’t the same as when you first found him?”

“His position is the same, but just in a slightly different spot. I pushed him about a foot away so I could get through the door. I also rolled him up a little. That’s when I discovered he was getting stiff, and knew he’d been dead for a while.”

He glanced at the door and jotted a few notes. “Once again, why did you push him with the door instead of go out the back door and come around? What you did was tampering with evidence. You know that, right?”

“Well, yeah, of course. But at first I didn’t know he was dead. I just thought he was sleeping like the other mornings.”

“Other mornings?” he asked.

Gina nodded. “This is the fourth morning he’s been here.”

“Each morning was the same thing? You had to push him away from the door to get out?”

“Not yesterday. He was in the middle of the porch when I found him yesterday. The other two mornings someone else found him.”

“Your roommate?”

“No, I live here alone. The first day it was Felix who had found the man. By the time I got to the