Poe's First Law: A Murder on Maui Mystery

you have no interest in working with me.”
“One more comment. That’s all. I’m not going to let you play me like you did Detective Kalani. You try to obstruct my investigation, I’ll arrest you. I don’t care who you’re married to. Do we have an understanding?”
“And here I had such high hopes for our potential working relationship. But not everything is to be,” I said, and I stood. “Have a good day, Detective. I’m sure we’ll be talking again soon since I have no intention of dropping my investigation.”
Detective Parrish said nothing.
I turned and walked out of the coffee shop. The conversation hadn’t gone anywhere close to where I thought it would. Detective Josh Parrish had already decided that he’d rather have me as an enemy than an ally.
You may be wondering if I was worried about that. I wasn’t and maybe that was my overconfidence talking. I was more than a little annoyed with Detective Kalani for sowing the seeds of discord as she’d walked out the door of the Maui Police Department. I knew our last case hadn’t gone well, at least in terms of how we’d interacted with each other. But I didn’t think she’d try to sabotage my relationship with the department.
Once again, I was reminded of my naïve nature and how I try to look for the best in others. That brought up an interesting question related to my current case. Was I committing the same mistake with Mele Akamu? As I mentioned before, she reminded me of my own grandmother, a woman I admired greatly.
Perhaps my desire to see my grandmother again had me overlooking obvious problems with Mele Akamu. Nevertheless, I’d been honest with Detective Parrish when I’d said that I’d have no problem with pointing the police in Mrs. Akamu’s direction if I discovered she’d been the one to murder Eric Ellis.
Despite the hostile nature of the conversation, I did learn one new interesting fact about the case. Eric Ellis had been killed with a gunshot to the back of the head. It was a pretty cold-blooded way to kill someone, and I had no idea who’d done it.

7
The Best Friend
It took a few days for us to track down Lee Walters, the former co-worker and friend of Eric Ellis. We discovered that he worked as a manager of a jewelry store in Kahului. Since Foxx was my partner in crime on this new investigation, we agreed to meet at Harry’s for the drive north to Maui’s most populous town.
Foxx barely fits in the Z3 convertible, so I climbed out of my car and hopped right into his Lexus SUV. It’s a solid, comfortable vehicle, but it’s nowhere near as fun as the little roadster.
“Nice job tracking down Lee, by the way,” I said.
“Not a problem. I have a pretty good network on the island. I figured it was only a matter of time before I came across someone who knew him. Hey, you never told me what Alana’s reaction was when you told her about your meeting with that new detective. What’s his name? Parrish something?”
“Josh Parrish, and I didn’t tell you anything because I didn’t mention it to Alana.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s been overwhelmed with the upcoming wedding and that party we’re having for Hani. The last thing I want to do is drop another distraction on her and there’s really nothing she can do about it,” I said.
“Good point. Should we be worried about this guy?”
“In what way?”
“He might try to shut us down.”
“True, but I think it was just an idle threat. My bet is that he’ll come back to us for help. He wanted to establish dominance, that’s all.”
“Maybe. At least you got some information out of him. Gunshot to the back of the head. What a way to go. You sure it’s not Mele Akamu?”
“I’m not sure of anything at the moment.”
“Any more ideas as to what Hani’s surprise tomorrow night is?” Foxx asked, shifting the focus of our conversation.
“Nothing, but I stopped trying to guess. Yuto’s lips are glued shut.”
“It’s probably some fancy trip somewhere.”
“I doubt it. We already bought them one.”
During our last investigation, I had to deceive Hani and Yuto for my own safety, as well as Foxx’s. In the process, I said some hurtful things to them that were part of the cover story. Even though I eventually came clean with them, I still felt horrible about the situation.
Foxx, Alana, and I decided to give the new couple an extravagant wedding gift, namely an all-expenses paid honeymoon to Paris. Alana tried to convince me that we should tag along, but the last thing I wanted to do was go on a vacation with Hani since she’d almost certainly want to call the shots, from where we went during the day to where we ate every meal.
“That’s true,” Foxx said. “Why couldn’t they have picked Disney World or something like that?”
“Disney World? That might have cost more than Paris,” I said.
“Any word on where they’re going to live after the wedding?”
“I don’t know. I heard that Yuto was going to move in with Hani and Ava, but I also heard that they’re looking to buy a bigger place. Yuto said he was thinking of renting out his home versus selling it.”
“Isn’t that what Alana did when you guys moved in together?”
“Yeah. She still owns the place, although she was talking about selling it recently.”
“Tired of dealing with renters?” Foxx asked.
“How did you guess?”
“I’ve heard it’s a nightmare. Of course, I’ve only rented space to one person before and that was you. You always paid the rent on time. You know, I should have charged extra once you bought that dog.”
“He more than covered his rent with the added security he provided.”
“Security? That little guy?”
“I’ll have you know that Maui has the heart of a lion,” I said.
“Yeah, I’ll grant you that.”
Our conversation continued to bounce back and forth between making guesses on Yuto’s surprise for Hani and whether or not Detective Josh Parrish