She parked and walked into Dr. Kapuy’s office. The color scheme of beige walls that ran down to meet with beige carpet was meant to be restful, but it only succeeded in making her feel half alive. The odor of antiseptic assaulted her nose, and she nearly turned around and left, but she forced herself to approach the receptionist, who told her the doctor might have a few minutes to spare if she could wait a bit.
Leia snagged a scuba magazine from the rack and settled onto the brown sofa. Two women sitting in the waiting room looked at her. One leaned over to the other and whispered. Leia knew they were talking about her, but she raised her head and stared them down until their whispers stopped. She flipped through the pages but didn’t really notice what she was seeing. She put down the magazine as Dr. Kapuy entered the waiting room, a faint cinnamon scent coming into the room with him.
He took the cinnamon toothpick out of his mouth. “Leia, what a pleasant surprise. Have you come to your senses about finishing your residency yet?” His voice was as gruff as a truck driver’s.
She stood and took his hand. “Not yet, Doc.” The doctor had always reminded her of a Hawaiian monk seal. His weathered face was plump and lined with deep creases, and a huge mustache dwarfed his round face. He was bald as well and had deep wrinkles on his scalp just like the seal.
He shook his head. “Such a waste. You’re still vegetating at Kalaupapa with your kapa hobby, eh?”
Dr. Kapuy had taken her under his wing, helped her get into college, and sent her encouraging e-mails all through med school. He had a right to question her. She nodded. “I’m getting rather good at it.”
“Ah, Leia, I still have hopes for you. I could get you back into a good internship if you’d just let me.”
“Now you sound like my mother. Tell me about an internship in homeopathy and I might be interested.” She followed him down the hall to his office, a small room stuffed with medical journals. A silver-framed picture of his wife, Alema, sat on the bookshelf behind his desk. She’d been dead for fifteen years now, but as far as Leia knew, the doctor had never considered remarrying.
He stared at her over the bulge of his nose. “I actually heard about a residency in natural medicine recently. It’s in Honolulu. If you’re interested, I’ll get the information for you.”
“I might be. I’d like to look at it anyway.”
He settled his bulk into the well-worn leather chair and steepled his fingers together. “What brings you to see me if it’s not a request for help to get back into residency?”
“You examined Tony Romero. I wondered if you could tell me what you found?”
He dropped his hands. “What’s your interest in it?”
“I was there when he came up dead. The police are acting like it was murder.”
Dr. Kapuy quirked an eyebrow. “I really shouldn’t be talking about it. You should speak to Detective Ono.”
She saw the gleam in his eye and kept quiet. What the doctor should do and what he did do were often miles apart. When he didn’t say anything more for a few moments, she prompted him gently. “His weight belt was missing. Did the detective tell you that?”
He frowned. “No, he didn’t. I was just told to examine him and run toxicology tests before sending him on to Honolulu for the autopsy.”
“So there’s no real evidence yet that he was murdered.”
“I didn’t say that.” He sighed and pulled one pudgy ankle up onto his knee. “I know Tony. He was an expert diver. I suspect he ingested something or was poisoned in some way that caused respiratory failure. If he’d just been unconscious, he would have exhaled naturally as he came up.”
“So he should have exhaled even while unconscious, but it appeared that he didn’t and his lungs burst. What could cause that?” Her mind raced through the different drugs she’d studied in school.
The doctor pursed his lips. “I suspect he may have been injected with a sedative that depressed his respiration. Tony wouldn’t have been able to exhale. A pulmonary embolism would have resulted. I found blood on his nostrils.”
She nodded. “It looked like a pulmonary embolism when he came up. I knew he was too experienced to forget to exhale, even if he was shooting to the top.”
“Good girl. You haven’t forgotten all your training yet. The autopsy showed evidence of a fish meal in his stomach. It’s possible he ingested tetrodotoxin. I’m not sure what caused it, but something kept him from exhaling.”
“Puffer fish,” she said. “I don’t think he would have done that. He had a close call with puffer fish once before in sushi. I’ve never seen him eat it since. Which do you suspect?”
Dr. Kapuy’s dark eyes were bright with interest. “We won’t know for sure until toxicology comes back, but I told Detective Ono my suspicions.”
“Which is why he’s telling us all not to leave the island until the investigation is finished. I doubt it’s a puffer fish though, and aren’t narcotics controlled? How hard would it be for someone to steal Demerol or some other narcotic?”