My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
Scrambled
>> Waimea Bay
This made absolutely no sense to Jake Peepers, P.I. The same camera equipment that produced only gray fuzz in the 50 photos he'd shot at Turtle Bay of the philandering Victor Primitivo and a beautiful Japanese bim half his age now produced perhaps the best photos he'd ever taken -- of his client, the lovely Mrs. Meg Choy Primitivo.
"Look at this," he said, showing her the last photo, of her cheering the four young men paddling out into 28-foot waves for the next heat of The Eddie. "The camera is working fine now."
"So you can go back and shoot Victor and that girl again."
"If we can find them." He'd already explained how he'd lost the tail on her husband's Escalade outside Kahuku when a cow trotted onto the road just after the Escalade passed and caused a multi-car accident that tied up the highway in both directions. "But I promise you, I saw them embracing, kissing, him groping her."
"What good is that in divorce court?"
"We'll find him."
"I hope so." She had, after all, paid him a $1,000 retainer.
The next heat wouldn't start for several minutes, but the danger had already begun. The four young men in colorful jerseys were struggling to paddle around the breaking waves, through the foamy soup, fighting the rip current. She stood to better see the action.
Peepers remained on his towel, made a call on his cell. The operator at Turtle Bay answered. He asked for Abraham in the security office. Fortunately Abraham Kukui was in.
"Abe, Jake Peepers. How you been?"
"OK." Something in his voice said OK was a euphemism.
"I got a problem, Abe. I was over there about 1 o'clock, shot some digital photos. Not one of 'em turned out. Nothing but gray fuzz."
"No s---." Not a question.
"You sound like you're not surprised."
"Just between you and me, we had the same thing happen here. From just before noon to just after 1, all of our security cameras went on the fritz. Nothing but gray fuzz. I called our supplier. Guy over there said the same thing happened about 11 at a condo in Pearl City, Pearl Palms."
"Any idea what caused it?"
"Some kind of scrambler that knocked down the system's firewalls."
Peepers knew just the guy who could do that, a billionaire who ran several computer/systems/wireless companies, the husband of his client. He left Turtle Bay with the young woman, and had told his wife he was going on a hunting trip for two weeks. As a hunter, he knew the value of covering your tracks.
But why?
And what was the Pearl Palms connection?
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com