Fic: Stealth and Sudden Violence (Chapter 2)
Later, Danny couldn't say who moved first, but he was fairly sure they were both running from the room before he'd even finished speaking. McGarrett was in front of him, something he should have objected to, but the man was moving with a purpose that suggested bodily harm to anyone who tried to stop him.
They darted from the study into the open sitting area beside the central courtyard of the house and Danny drew the Colt automatic pistol he carried under his jacket. He realized his companion was unarmed as they skidded to a stop next to the doors of the kitchen.
“McGarrett,” he breathed, reaching down to retrieve the little Mauser pistol he kept strapped to his ankle.
“My house,” the man whispered angrily. “My problem.”
“My gun,” Danny hissed back, jabbing Steve in the kidney with the pistol to get his attention. “I thought you might want to borrow it.”
McGarrett looked down at the proffered gun in surprise, and Danny was about to point out that, yes, it was only a small pistol, but beggars couldn't be choosers until the man took it with a grin like it was Christmas morning. “Thanks, detective.”
“Danny,” he instructed, really not wanting to rush into danger with a man he wasn't on first name terms with. “Call me Danny.”
“Danny,” Steve said, with a shy smile that transformed him from stoic warrior to pleased little boy.
God, Danny thought, McGarrett was a menace. All he'd done was offer the man his name, and a small firearm, and it looked like Steve thought Danny was the best friend he'd ever had. Danny could see a future of trying to put that expression on Steve's face as often as he could if he wasn't really careful.
“There's five doors in the room, including this one,” Steve said filling the silence when Danny didn't speak, obviously deciding he was the one running this show.
“I know,” Danny hissed, trying to get back in control of the situation. “I'm in charge of this investigation. Remember?”
“Right now, this isn't about your investigation. It's about the fact there's someone in my house who shouldn't be and is a potential threat to my friends. Just because it's a woman doesn't mean she's any less of a threat.”
“Oh, I know,” Danny agreed, the silver white scar on his shoulder and a dead partner a constant reminder of the day he'd arrested Big Annie Reagan. “But you do not shoot her before I get a chance to arrest her.”
“If she's not a threat,” Steve said, probably thinking he was being reasonable. Danny wondered just who it was that Steve had been fighting the in the Philippines. The newspapers back home barely mentioned the uprising any more, now that most of the fighting was done, but he supposed that there were some die hard Filipinos who still wanted to try their hand at freedom.
“No,” Danny insisted. “We follow proper procedure and we make sure this can all stand up in court because she is the only lead I have right now.”
Steve turned to look at him, ignoring the door to the kitchen completely. “The only lead,” Steve stated, turning his startled gaze to Danny before fixing it right back on the kitchen door. “Seriously? This is it?”
“Look,” Danny tried, gesturing at the door with his gun. “Could we perhaps concentrate on the current situation before we discuss the shortcomings of the case I'm working?”
“Fine,” Steve hissed, focusing back on the door. ”On my mark.”
Danny rolled his eyes, and mouthed 'on my mark' behind Steve's back. The man was the most annoying person Danny had ever met. And that included Pesky Pete, New Jersey's most prolific and inept peeping Tom.
Steve stepped quickly across the doorway, eying the closed doors the whole time, and turned to face Danny. The Navy man had his gun high, both hands wrapped around it, and held his body in a slight crouch, poised to spring into action. Danny had to admit it was pretty impressive, he was obviously well trained, and probably lethal.
Steve raised three fingers, making sure Danny was watching, and then counted them down. As the final finger went down they both stepped into the doorway, guns raised, and kicked the double doors open, slamming them back against the wall.
“Don't move,” Steve shouted, as they burst through the doors.
Danny was pretty sure he even flinched at his partner's sudden shout, but the woman who faced them across the big kitchen table didn't even bat an eyelid. She simply stopped chopping the vegetables and watched them with a calm detachment that Danny found unsettling.
“Is there something I can do for you, Commander McGarrett?”
Steve blinked at her, obviously thrown by the complete lack of response to his big bad soldier act. Whoever she was, Danny had to give her credit for having nerves of steel. He edged further into the room, holding his gun steady. He really didn't like the way she was shifting her grip on the vegetable knife one bit.
“Who are you?” Steve demanded, his brows drawing together in a deep frown. “Who sent you here?”
“You know who I am,” she said, meeting his stare with calm assurance. “I'm your father's housekeeper.”
“He doesn't have one,” Steve replied, taking a step closer.
“Is that what he told you?” she asked, gesturing at Danny. “Did he say he was the police?”
“I am the police,” Danny insisted, knowing really that Steve had every right to be suspicious of him, too. “I've got my credentials in my pocket.”
“Easily forged,” the false housekeeper said, dismissing Danny with barely a glance. Her focus was entirely on Steve, as though she could turn him to her point of view by just the force of her will.
“Your problem, Mrs. McKee, is that he's actually believable,” Steve explained, taking another step closer. “No one trying to spy on me would send an American pretending to be from the Cairo Police, especially not an American who dressed like he thought he was still in New York. You, on the other hand, are a perfect housekeeper. I blame exhaustion for the reason I didn't spot you as a fake earlier.”
Her face twitched slightly and Danny knew she'd worked out the game was up. He was pretty sure he'd squeezed the trigger of his gun before her hand had even started to move but the knife she held still flew towards Steve, only missing because he twisted agily sideways. She dropped to the floor without making a sound.
“She was our only lead,” Steve shouted, stepping towards her and bending to check the pulse at her throat. Danny thought it was a fairly pointless exercise given the hole between her eyes and the blood pooling on the tiles of the kitchen floor.
“And she was trying to kill you,” Danny pointed out, not dropping his gun. “You think she would have stopped with that one knife?”
Steve was still crouched over the body, behind the kitchen table, searching her clothes from the little Danny could see. He doubted there was much to find, she was clearly far too much of a professional for that. Even though she was dead she was still Danny's best lead, if only to tell him that his belief that Jack McGarrett's death was part of something bigger was true.
“You still didn't have to kill her,” Steve objected, peering over the edge of the table.
Danny opened his mouth to argue that, yes, he really did because he couldn't allow members of the public to get hurt, when Steve's eyes widened slightly at something behind the detective. Danny started to turn, but had barely moved before something heavy connected with the side of his head and his world exploded in pain before darkness took him.
There were voices. Far away voices, somewhere way out past the pain in his head. They needed to shut up, but he couldn't work out how to tell them that. He drifted closer to them, identifying a woman's voice among the gaggle of men. That was weird, he was sure he'd shot the woman.
The housekeeper.
She was going to kill Steve. He couldn't let her do that; he'd only just met the man. Danny sat bolt upright, the movement making his head spin and the sandwich he'd eaten with Grace threaten to make a second appearance.
“Easy there, brah,” someone said from next to him, a big paw of a hand easing him bag onto the sofa. “You had a bit of a bump.”
“Are you okay?” a figure that eventually resolved itself into Steve asked.
“Housekeeper,” Danny managed.
“You killed her,” Steve explained, crouching down so he was at Danny's eye level. “How's the head?”
Of course he had. She had thrown a knife and he'd shot her. And then? Then it was kind of a blank. He remembered Steve shouting at him, and there might have been something behind him, but after that there was nothing.
“How?” Danny asked, and then realized that didn't make a lot of sense, even to him. “What hit me?”
“Ah,” the female voice said, stepping into his field of view. “That would have been me.”
Danny looked up at her and then had to look away again so quickly it made his head spin. She was beautiful, with acres of smooth, damp skin, barely covered by a tiny camisole and low riding, short cotton drawers. He was fairly certain some women in his own family had been born with more clothes on. “Christ.”
“I heard the gunshot from downstairs and thought Steve was being attacked,” she explained, looking contrite but as though she'd do it again if Danny caused any kind of trouble. At least he understood why she was wet. The cellar of the McGarrett residence housed, alongside a moderately good wine collection, store rooms and a large fresh water cistern, a swimming pool. He'd never seen one inside a private house in Egypt and even back in the States he only knew of a couple of houses that had them.
“That's the first thing I thought when I saw Steve, I bet the delicate little flower needs protecting,” Danny joked, making Steve snort in response.
“That he does,” another man said, moving to where Danny could see him. “I brought you some Aspirin and the doctor's on the way.”
“Thanks,” Danny said, accepting the glass of water and the sachet of Aspirin powder. He was already feeling a little better, even if his head still throbbed, but he wasn't going to argue with the doctor being called.
“The ferocious fighting woman who leaps in to defend decorated naval officers is my cousin Kono Kalakaua,” the man continued, stepping back to stand next to her. “I'm Chin-Ho Kelly and you know Kamekona.”
Danny realized that the presence on the sofa next to him was the missing cook. “Hey, big fella. Where'd they find you?”
“I've been locked in the stable for three days, man,” the Hawaiian said, looking thoroughly embarrassed by the whole idea. “She used some kind of hypnosis or something to trick me.”
“She give you any idea what she wanted?” Danny asked, sitting upright and reaching into his jacket for his notebook.
“Woah, there,” Steve said, pushing him gently back into the sofa. “You need to sit still until the doctor gets here.”
“I need to do my job,” Danny insisted, trying to sit up again even though the effort made his head ache. “I bet you haven't called the police.”
“You're the police,” Steve said, making Danny want to slap him. “Besides, we need to examine the body and try to work out what she wanted.”
Danny stared at him incredulously. Who did Steve think he was? He might be some top of his class whiz kid in Naval Intelligence and he might have more medals than Danny had known existed, but he was still a civilian here, a civilian who could start some kind of diplomatic incident if he overstepped the mark. The British authorities in Egypt were not exactly relaxed and easy going at the best of times, and with the whole country rife with paranoia about spies and Turkish fifth columnists, they were likely to put Steve on the first boat out of Alexandria. If he carried on like this, Danny might just help them.
“Look, Commander, I need to explain a few truths to you here,” Danny tried, hoping a combination of threats and very small words might work. “I realize you're used to having things your own way, although God knows how in the military, but you have to understand that if you get in my way on this case, I will arrest you. You have no authority here. You are a citizen of another country and interfering with a murder investigation will get you deported. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” Steve answered, but the look in his eyes told Danny he was going to ignore everything he'd said. “Which is why I'm going to visit the ambassador tomorrow and suggest he employs me in my father's old job. Until then, I need you to oversee my investigation. In fact, I'm going to ask Jameson to get you assigned to work as my liaison to the Cairo Police.”
Danny gaped at him. It was like Steve had not really heard a word that had been said. He just assumed people would do what he wanted, listen to his every command. It was horrifying. “Has no one ever told you no? Seriously?”
“People have tried, Detective Williams,” Chin said, a fond, but exasperated little smile on his face.
“Danny, please,” he insisted, almost automatically. He caught the slightly surprised look on both Chin and Kono's faces and guessed they were used to being treated as servants. How anyone could mistake those two for servants was a mystery, you only had to watch Steve's interaction with them for about a millisecond to realize they were as close as family.
“All dis chit chat making me hungry,” Kamekona said, heaving himself up off the sofa. “I'm gonna make dinner. After I throw everything dat woman touched in da trash. I don wanna be poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Steve questioned, straightening up from where he was crouched beside the sofa and following the cook out of the room. “We can check for poison. Dad's still got a lab here, hasn't he?”
Oh god, Danny thought, this can't end well.
“Is that the last of it?” Steve asked, as Kono, now dressed in a simple muslin dress much to Danny's obvious relief, brought in a tray of pots.
“Yeah. Kamekona's raiding the store cupboard for things for dinner. He said he didn't even trust the vegetables.”
“He's a wise man,” Danny muttered from where he was slumped in the armchair Chin had maneuvered into the makeshift lab once the doctor had left. He still looked pale and almost on the verge of passing out, but he was stubbornly refusing to leave Steve to do the tests.
“Shouldn't you be resting?” Steve tried again, spooning some of the soup they'd found bubbling on the stove into a glass flask. “You can use one of the bedrooms.”
“And miss you playing the mad scientist?” Danny retorted, his speech slightly distorted from where his face rested on his hand. “Not on your life.”
Steve looked at him for a few moments. Danny's eyes were closed as though the light was painful and his whole body looked like it ached. Most men would have been happy to accept the offered bed and the ministrations of a repentant Kono, but not Danny. He was going to do his duty if it killed him, and Steve found he really didn't like that idea. “If I promise to document everything, will you go and lie down?”
“Steve,” Danny started, cracking one eye open a little. He was going to argue, even if it made his head pound, and the Navy man couldn't let that happen.
“Alright, stay,” Steve interrupted, turning back to his work bench. “But don't throw up in here.”
“Don't worry, princess,” Danny huffed, making Kono laugh, which earned her a glare from Steve. “I haven't thrown up since 1899. Takes more than a little crack on the head to upset a Williams' constitution.”
“Good to know,” Steve murmured, the goofy smile on his face hidden from Kono and Danny. This abrasive, misplaced detective, who answered him back and wouldn't be intimidated, made him feel things, something no one else had since his father's death. He wasn't sure most of the time if he wanted to punch the man or laugh at him, but he didn't care, at least he wasn't numb anymore.
Steve poured some of the hydrochloric acid he'd found in the store at the back of the lab into the flask and waited for the bubbling to stop. He swirled the disgusting looking solution and hoped that the tests he could do with what he had here, which he had to admit was nearly as good as most police labs, found something. If they didn't, he knew he'd have to keep trying to run more and more tests until they found what the poison was. If there even was a poison.
Whoever had killed his father, and he had to assume they were connected to the woman lying dead in the cold cellar, had had plenty of time to search the house between the murder and Steve's arrival. Even with the police and Kamekona about the place it wouldn't have been that hard to do. So they still needed something. That had to mean they thought they would find what it was by watching Steve, or they needed to get him permanently out of the way.
Tomorrow, he'd send a telegram to Mary to warn her that there was a tiny chance that someone might try to kill her. He spent a few seconds composing it in his head and then decided he'd ask Kono to write it. Anything he said would have Mary on the first boat here or running for the hills. He lowered a copper strip into the now bubble-free mixture in the flask and waited.
“What are you testing for?” Danny asked, still slumped in the chair.
“Arsenic,” Steve said, before realizing he should clarify things with the detective. “Actually this test is for several heavy metals, including mercury, thallium, antimony as well as arsenic, but it's an easy test to do so it's the best place to start. If we get something here I'll set up the Marsh test, which is more complex, to definitely identify arsenic.”
“Why arsenic?” Danny inquired, sitting up a little straighter.
“It's what I'd use,” Steve answered quickly, noting the flicker of surprise on Danny's face before he continued. “One, it's easy to get hold of and easy to administer. Two, it mimics cholera and other gastric illnesses so unless the doctor’s looking for it, it'll probably be recorded as a natural death. And three, if she wanted to cover her back for the murder keeping Kamekona around would give her the perfect patsy. Who's going to believe it wasn't the foreign cook?”
“Me,” Danny said.
“And that's why I want you to work with me,” Steve said with a grin that only got larger when Danny sighed and shook his head slightly in an exasperated manner. He hadn't said no. Steve was counting that as a win.
Danny heard the clip of horses hooves on the street outside, the creak of a carriage as it drew to a halt, and somehow knew it was McGarrett. Sighing, he put down the book he was reading and went to the window to check. Sure enough there was the man paying a cabbie, a bundle of files under his arm. He didn't have a jacket or a hat, something Danny wouldn't dream of leaving the house without, just a khaki shirt, open at the neck, khaki pants and a pair of worn riding boots. Steve looked like an archeologist, a dangerous archeologist who could kill you with his pinkie, but an archeologist none the less.
He thought about breaking protocol and going and opening the door himself, but his landlady was still in the depths of a huge snit because he hadn't come home the night before. Mrs. Hudson, and yes, the irony was lost on her, liked to know where her gentlemen were pretty much the whole time. She used a ruined dinner as an excuse, but he knew she just had an overly prurient interest in other people's love lives. He was pretty sure she thought he'd spent the night in the company of a loose woman, as she called them; God alone knew what she'd make of Kono. Probably have an attack of the vapors and have to be sedated.
He hadn't bothered to try to explain to her that he had a head injury, that the doctor, and then Steve and his band of crazy folk, had insisted he stay somewhere with people to watch him. He had, however, tried again to explain that police work didn't have regular hours, but he knew he was his own worst enemy on that front, usually sending a message if he was going to be out late.
He heard the bell tinkle in the hall, and then a few moments later Mrs. Hudson's heavy footsteps along the corridor. Danny wondered what she'd make of Steve. She was a funny old bird and it could go either way. She seemed to see through any bullshit that Danny gave her, but Grace, on the rare occasions she visited, could spin any kind of yarn and the old lady would lap it up.
There was a knock at his door and it opened before he'd even had time to respond. He was used to it by now, but it still irked some days. Mrs. Hudson appeared, her face a little flushed and her breathing a touch too fast. Steve had obviously turned on the charm.
“The's a Commander McGarrett to see you,” she said, her agitation letting a bit more of her broad Yorkshire accent sneak in than she usually allowed. “He says as how you know him.”
“I do, unfortunately,” Danny admitted, knowing Steve would be listening in the hall outside. “You better show him in.”
Before Mrs. Hudson had even processed his words, let alone turned to go and get Steve, the man himself appeared at the doorway.
“Detective,” he said by way of greeting, stepping past Mrs. Hudson as though she were nothing more than an inconvenient piece of furniture. Something, given the rather Victorian tastes of his landlady, his rooms were stuffed full of. He'd often wondered just how many side tables she thought a man could need.
“Commander,” Danny acknowledged, before turning to the gaping woman. “Mrs. Hudson, could we have some tea? You drink tea, don't you, McGarrett?”
Steve looked at Danny for a few moments like he'd asked him if he'd like to be disemboweled with a spoon before turning and noticing the still motionless landlady and managing to speak. “Yes, tea would be nice.”
“And maybe some of your excellent cake, Mrs. Hudson,” Danny suggested, mainly because she seemed to have become frozen in place by Steve's utter lack of social graces, but also because she baked cakes almost as delicious as the ones his mother made.
Finally, Danny's compliment and the chance to convert another soul with her baking, overrode her faux pas induced inertia and she left the room.
“Seriously, Steve, were you raised by wolves?” Danny asked, actually interested in the answer rather than simply the chance to take a casual swing at the other man. “Your father seemed like he managed to function in society, so what happened to you? Were you dropped on your head as a kid?”
“It's not like I couldn't hear you say I should come in,” Steve complained, his face shifting into a beginnings of a pout.
“That's not the point, Steven,” Danny snapped, reaching the end of his tether with Steve trampling over all the rules Danny tried to follow. “I'm really pleased that you've been living in a world where you can just do what you want without a thought for how other people feel or what they might think of your actions. It's fantastic that this utopia of a place exists. But out here, in the real world, there are some things we do, some rules we follow, that let us all rub along without annoying each other too much. It's what separates us from the jackals and hyenas.”
“Jackals and hyenas?” Steve asked, looking genuinely perplexed by Danny's rant.
“We're in Africa,” Danny said dismissively, not ready to let Steve off the hook yet. “The point is, I'm already in Mrs. Hudson's bad books for staying out last night without letting her know. Which is your fault, too. So you coming in here and ignoring all the social conventions she lives by? Not helping.”
“I'm sorry.”
“She's the only landlady I could find who doesn't mind having kids around the place sometimes,” Danny continued even though Steve had apologized, because it was important that he understand the precarious position Danny was in. “As it is I barely get to see my daughter. We've not slept in the same house since the divorce, which means I've not read her a bedtime story in eighteen months. Eighteen months, McGarrett! Instead, I get to have tea with her twice a week in the mansion my ex-wife now lives in with another man.”
“I'm sorry.”
“I can't afford a place of my own yet and so I have to keep Mrs. Hudson on my side.”
“I get it,” Steve interrupted, looking so obviously contrite that Danny felt a little guilty for laying it all on his shoulders. “I'll apologize to Mrs. Hudson. Why is that name familiar?”
“Sherlock Holmes,” Danny said, and then at Steve's slightly baffled look continued, “Sherlock Holmes' landlady is called Mrs. Hudson.”
“Right,” Steve said, looking less pleased than he should by working out the connection. “My dad read all the books. He loved them. Him and my sister. I never... I didn't really read that much as a kid.”
“Maybe you should give them a try,” Danny suggested, motioning Steve to sit in the chair opposite one he sat down in. “It might give you some pointers about being a detective, which I guess you'll need if you're taking on your father's job.”
“How did you know?”
“I'm a detective, a good one,” Danny answered, smiling when Steve rolled his eyes. “Also, you wouldn't be here with an arm full of files and a spring in your step if the ambassador had shot you down.”
Steve grinned at him, obviously pleased with Danny's deduction and with the fact that he'd gotten his way and had taken over the case. “Russell, the Assistant Commissionaire of the Cairo Police, was there, and even though they both argued about procedure and form, I'm pretty sure that they'd already been planning on offering me the job.”
“You really shouldn't be investigating your own father's death. You'll never get a case to court with you as the investigator.”
“Which is why you've been assigned to be my partner and liaison to the Cairo Police,” Steve told him, like it was the best piece of news he was ever going to get.
Before Danny could set him straight about just how not pleased he was with the arrangement, the door to his rooms opened and Mrs. Hudson appeared with a heavily laden tray. Steve leapt up, hurrying over to take the tray from her with his most charming smile. Danny stood, after all a lady had entered the room, and watched with amusement as Steve's face screwed into a frown as he tried to deterime which of the multitude of tables he should use. Finally he placed the tray on the larger side table nearest Danny with exaggerated care.
“I'm sorry about barging in before,” Steve said to the landlady, who was gazing at him like he was the second coming. “I was just overexcited about some good news I got today and I wanted to share it with Danny. He's going to be working with me, for the American Ambassador.”
She might have been under some Steve-induced spell but it wasn't strong enough for her to miss the reference to where her rent money was coming from. “You're not going to be a detective anymore, Mr. Williams?”
“Since Commander McGarrett only saw fit to tell me the news about thirty seconds before he told you, I have no idea of the details. I'm sure someone will be paying my wages though, Mrs. Hudson.”
“Of course they will,” Steve said, looking insulted that Danny would think he hadn't taken care of everything. “You'll even get a raise.”
“Thank you Mrs. Hudson,” Danny said quickly, ushering her out of the room even though she was clearly more interested in staying. “That'll be all.”
“What?”
“I'd like to make the decision if I tell my landlady about any raise I might get,” Danny explained with a sigh, sitting back down. “I expect there'll be a sudden rent hike, one that only affects me, in a couple of weeks.”
“Oh,” Steve said, taking his own chair again. “I'm sorry. I'm just... it's that this actually means something. That I can do this.”
“Even though you're not making any kind of sense,” Danny said, letting go of his irritation in the face of Steve actually showing that he was human. “I think I get it. Let's go through the files and work out our plan of action.”
“I want to involve Chin and Kono,” Steve said determinedly, even though Danny could tell he was half expecting his new partner to object.
“Okay,” Danny said, reaching for a slice of cake. “We'll have tea, pretending we're civilized human beings, and then go to your house. I assume you've got coffee? Real coffee?”
“As opposed to fake coffee?” Steve asked, looking at Danny like he was mad.
“You, my friend, obviously haven't had that most British of drinks, Camp Coffee,” Danny mocked, gesturing at the other man with his cake before taking a bite and talking through the rich, sugary mouthful. “Once you've been given that by someone who thinks it's what coffee is, you'll understand there is fake coffee.”
Danny took another bite of his cake, trying not to remember the hideousness of the 'coffee' that Mrs. Hudson had given him the first and only time he'd asked her for it. At least she knew how to make a good cake. He was going to savor this slice and possibly the one Steve was studiously ignoring, because he figured working with his new partner was going to keep him away from his rooms a lot, and there was no knowing when Mrs. Hudson would even speak to him again, let alone provide him with cake.
“And that's it?” Steve asked, leafing through the pathetically thin files they had. “That's everything?”
“No, Steven,” the detective said, patting his person in an exaggerated fashion. “I'm keeping all the good stuff in my magic bottomless pockets.”
Kono snorted, a truly unladylike sound. If Chin were the sort of cousin who worried about his female relation's marriage potential, he supposed he ought to tell her so. But then he'd have to mention the fact that she was wearing a pair of khaki drill pants not unlike his own. She did have a very proper lady's shirtwaister blouse on, too, but had it unbuttoned low enough to make Danny blush every time he looked at her. Chin had wondered if he might have to have a quiet word with the man, but he was beginning to suspect that his interest lay elsewhere. Even if Danny didn't realize it yet.
“It's just,” Steve started, before drawing to a halt and blowing out a frustrated breath. “I thought we'd have something to get started with.”
“You've actually got more than I've had for three weeks,” Danny pointed out, ignoring Steve's skeptical expression and listing the things on his fingers. “You've got a fake housekeeper, armed with a tin of arsenic no less, and some interesting speculation that she's from Germany from your new pal, Dr Bergman. How he got that from dental work I'll never know. You know there's something whoever was running the show wanted because they wouldn't have bothered to set someone up to be here when you arrived, and you know it wasn't simply a plot to kill you because she hadn't used the poison yet.”
“We could have interrupted her before she dosed the food,” Steve suggested, but Chin could tell he didn't really believe it.
“I don't think so,” Kono said, drawing all of their attention. She swung her feet down off the table where they'd been propped as she leaned back in the chair to read the files. Something else Chin was sure other men would be warning her about.
“What makes you say that?” Danny asked, blushing a little less this time as he looked at Kono. Chin couldn't begin to imagine how Steve's plan, with them all working as a team, would have turned out if the detective hadn't been accepting of Chin and Kono as equals.
Chin had found in his time in the navy that Americans, especially from the big cities, were usually more used to non-whites being part of society than most Europeans were. It didn't always hold true, and many people still treated him and Kono as servants, but at least they'd found a broadminded friend in Danny.
What Chin was still marveling at was how open Danny was with Kono. Alright, he still blushed around her, but he was putting that down to remembering her in her swimsuit, but on the whole he accepted her opinions were just as valid as his or Steve's. He'd told them last night about a few of his cases from New Jersey, some involving scarily capable women, but he still wasn't sure where the easy acceptance came from.
“Well, if it had been me,” Kono began, obviously pleased with being given the chance to express her ideas. "If I had wanted to get Steve out of the way, and possibly us, too, I'd have done it before we even got to Cairo. Why risk the things to be connected when an accident or illness somewhere else would likely be written off as coincidence?”
“And,” Chin interjected, drawing all eyes to him, "whatever they're after must have been worth the risk of tipping their hand.”
“That's true,” Steve said, standing up from his seat and pacing away from the huge table that had appeared at the house courtesy of their new employer. “I just wish I had some idea what it was. I read through all of dad's notes that were here last night and you've seen those the ambassador gave me. You didn't take any of them away, did you, Danny?”
“We did,” Danny admitted, but looked apologetic at Steve's hopeful intake of breath. “But I brought them all back when it was obvious there was nothing in there.”
“Damn it,” Steve muttered, just as the door to the kitchen swung open revealing the sweaty figure of Kamekona. A waft of warm, delicious smelling air drifted out behind him.
“Dinner's ready in ten, my friends,” he told them with a smile, as he moved across the courtyard to the open seating area they had hastily converted to their office. “
“Thanks,” Steve said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You'll eat with us again? I know you and dad ate together and I'd like to think you'll be happy doing that with us.”
“More than happy,” said the big man, grinning at Steve and then all of them. “You guys are all in need of some good feeding, just like Jack was.”
Danny groaned, but it was halfhearted at best. “You're worse than my Ma. I'll get fat.”
“Kamekona?” Steve asked, breaking the levity. “Did my father have somewhere else that he might have hidden his notes? I know you probably don't trust me, you don't even know me yet, but all I want to do is find out who killed him.”
“Ho Steve,” Kamekona said, before pausing and making sure the other man was looking at him. “Who I tell you to go and visit with last night?”
“Haah? Mamo?” Steve asked, and Chin had to smile at the pidgin that was sneaking back into his friend's speech when he spent time around Kamekona.
“Who?” Danny asked, clearly frustrated that he was being excluded from the conversation because of the language. “You knew where the notes where and you didn't tell me?”
“Wasn't sure I could trust you,” the big guy said, offering Danny an apologetic smile. “I'm only telling Steve because Mamo's a wily old man who won't give anything away if he thinks someone's up to stuffs.”
“Who's Mamo, boss?” Kono asked, obviously trying to stop Danny exploding with frustration.
“Mansoor Ali Abdul Hassan. He was a friend of my father's,” Steve said, running his hand over his face as though the memories of his childhood were too much. “After my mother died, dad kind of... disappeared. He was here, but he didn't seem to want to have anything to do with Mary or me. I was sixteen and just, well, it wasn't a good time. Mamo took me under his wing and taught me how to be a man.”
“Taught you how to be a man?” Danny scoffed.
“That's what he called it,” Steve said with a small smile. “I learned to navigate across the desert, ride a camels and horses like the Bedouin, fight, shoot a rifle, smoke a hookah, all kinds of things my father probably would have hated if he had bothered to take notice.”
“I think he noticed, brah,” Kamekona said, his face full of sadness. “Jack was always proud of you. You and your sister. He, he just got lost after your mother died and I know he wished he could have changed what happened.”
Steve looked away, but not before Chin caught the stricken look in his eyes. There were huge holes in his knowledge of Steve's past, for all the closeness they shared. This revelation started to fill in some of the blanks. He'd known Steve's mother had died, even that his father had sent him to live with an uncle of some sort in the US, but these details were something Steve never discussed. Chin sometimes wondered if he should push, pry the secrets out of Steve, but he'd never had the courage to face the fall out.
Kamekona, because he obviously knew McGarrett men all too well, squeezed Steve's shoulder briefly, and ambled back to the kitchen, saying “Dinner,” as he went. Chin and Kono, knowing their share of McGarrett men too, got up from their seats and headed to the dining room. Kamekona had already pulled back the doors of the room, opening it to the courtyard, so they could still enjoy the sound of the fountain and the smell of the jasmine while they ate.
“We're going to find out who did this,” Chin heard Danny say, and the Hawaiian winced. You didn't approach a wounded animal, everyone knew that, and it was surely obvious to even the dimmest person that Steve was hurting.
Chin turned, expecting to have to rescue Danny or possibly Steve, but instead saw something that made his eyes widen just a little. Steve accepted the hand Danny had wrapped around his bicep, even if he was studiously looking at the opposite wall, and Chin was pretty sure he was even leaning towards the shorter man. This was... interesting.
Chapter 3