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

trees, and a shallow hole had been dug in the ground in search of the old koi pond. Other than the weeds being knocked down on the double track that circled the estate, and a brush pile started, not much looked different. Because of that, her mind wandered from her project to her investigation.

“Dad said to stick to what I know best, and that’s being a gardener. What’d he mean by that, anyway?”

She sat in the shade under the broad avocado tree behind the house. That seemed to be the cat’s hunting ground, as it went off in search of a meal in the deep grass.

“Okay, people at home keep calling me a gardener, including Dad. What’s that mean to them?”

She watched as the cat’s tail twitched over its back, one paw rising and lowering at a time as it stalked something.

“It means I mow lawns and prune shrubs like Mister Mancuso does back home. There’s more to this project than mowing the lawn, though.”

Gina grabbed a handful of long grass and pulled it free from its roots. The cat took another careful step.

“Maybe that’s all I am, a glorified lawnmower, with other people doing most of the work for me.”

The cat leapt like a spring being let loose, pouncing on something hidden in the grass beneath a tree. Gina couldn’t see what was being consumed, but it hadn’t been big. Whatever it was had apparently got away, because the cat chased after it in a zigzagging pattern.

“This job makes me responsible for several different gardens on the estate, not just mowing grass.”

When she tossed away the blades of grass in her hand, one blade stuck to a finger. Pulling it free from the sticky spot left over from holding the fruit rinds, she remembered something her father had mentioned about the dead man’s shoes.

“The grass clippings had stuck to his shoes not because they’d been wet. Most of it would’ve fallen off once it had dried, and it had. There were only a few clippings on each shoe, not a lot. But the one blade that I pulled off had been stuck down as though adhesive was holding it in place. It wasn’t water, but something stickier.”

She pulled free a few more blades of grass, this time looking at them a little more closely. She tried imagining what would be on someone’s shoes that could make grass stick so well.

“Not like that guy had been walking through a glue factory. What else could he have walked in before walking on the grass? Where was the lawn that he walked across? If I can figure that out…”

Gina realized that she really was trying to solve his murder, not just learn his identity.

“That’s Detective Kona’s problem, not mine.”

After allowing herself a quick fantasy of Kona, she shook herself free from it just as the fun stuff was starting. When she got back to the house, she got her city map.

“Okay, I have a good idea the man got his Tuyo beer at Bunzo’s Bar because of the bottle cap in his pocket, and the two missing bottles from the case in the back hallway. I just don’t know how long he’d been carrying it around in his pocket, or why. Why save a bottle cap from a crappy brand of beer? Just so he knows what not to get a second time?”

She found the location of Bunzo’s on the map, and traced her finger to Pinoy Boy’s Emporium a few blocks away. What she hadn’t noticed while driving around there a couple of days before was a city park. It was roughly triangular in shape and looked like it took up the space between a busy boulevard, the freeway, and a botanical park with a stream that went through the middle of it.

“Kapalama Park. That’s the name of that part of town.”

She got her phone and brought up cellular data. Searching for Kapalama Park, she looked at a few pictures of the place. It was flat, had a few small pavilions and picnic tables, and the lawns appeared threadbare. Orienting a couple of the pictures in her mind with the map on the kitchen table, she wondered if the trees in the background were a part of the botanical gardens. She looked at pictures of the elegant gardens for a moment, and was instantly jealous of them.

“Queen Lili…Lili’uo…what?” She tried pronouncing the long name of past royalty. “Whoever she was, I hope she was important for having a name like that.”

She looked at more pictures of the gardens and the stream that ran through it. While she looked at those, her mind began assembling images for the Tanizawa Estate, and if she’d be able to accomplish the same thing as what the Queen’s gardeners had.

“Forget the gardens. I need to know more about that Kapalama Park.”

She read a few things about it, about how it had originally been part of the botanical gardens next door, but had become a city park in recent years so there could be a place for picnicking and some playground equipment. In even more recent years, however, it had become a place for homeless to live. The park was still maintained by the city, with ‘emptying the garbage cans and cleaning the public restrooms daily, and the occasional landscaping’, the city’s website said.

“Mowing the grass at a park used by homeless people only a couple of blocks from Pinoy Boy’s store and Bunzo’s Bar,” she said. “He had lawn grass clippings on his shoes, and a cap from a bottle of beer that can be found only in one place.”

Gina dressed quickly to get out early before the day got hot. If there was one thing she’d learned from her work crew, it was that Honolulu’s climate was best enjoyed from sunrise to noon, and again in the evening. Putting on a hat, she left the house in her little Datsun.

It was easier finding Kapalama that day, since she’d already been there a couple of times.