The Suzuki hit a pothole and jounced annoyingly. She said, “You need new shock absorbers.”
Jon’s burned side was toward her. He didn’t turn, but his eyelid fluttered slightly, like a shrug. She found that even more annoying. “Tell me about Tess.” So much for obliqueness.
He kept his eyes fixed on the road. “I see Avery’s been bending your ear.”
“He seems to think more of you than he does of his own daughter.”
“I wouldn’t put too much stock in his analysis of people or events. He’s not someone people confide their secrets to.”
“Did Tess not tell him that your father raped her? Or tried to rape her?”
He clenched his jaw. Shit. And she’d lectured him about tact. She massaged her temples. “I’m sorry, Jon. Truly, I am. I hope you’ll chalk it up to a sleepless night and an overabundance of troubling indicators. Maybe I put something your sister said together with something Avery said and came up with a total blooper.”
He made no comeback.
“Did I? Because I will grovel. I will abase myself. I will…”
“Tess was looking for an excuse to break it off with me. When she wasn’t being cool and distant, she complained that she was bored. I thought she might be seeing someone else. I asked her if she wanted out of the engagement. She said no, she was just feeling nervous. Then one day she came to me crying hysterically with a story that Dad had raped her. I was stupefied. It seemed incredible. I didn’t know whether to believe her or not. She could be fairly intense, but I couldn’t believe she’d hallucinate being raped. I got drunk and fought with Dad. He denied it, said she must be crazy. The next day when I went to work, I was still angry, still not sure, probably still half-drunk. What happened was my own stupid fault, but Dad blames himself. When I ended up in the burn ward, Tess dropped by for a quick visit, recanted her story, and gave me back my ring.”
“And she never told her father this story?”
“Obviously not. If Avery knew, he wouldn’t still be chummy with Dad. He sure wouldn’t have bought into his Uwahi deal.”
“She told Lyssa.”
“Somebody told her. Lyssa means well, but I don’t need her pity and the last thing I want is for her to keep needling Dad. It’s water over the dam. She’s chosen to believe that Tess’ recantation was the lie. I choose to believe the original accusation was the lie. And Dad just wants to make believe none of it ever happened. It’s ripped us all apart.”
Dinah felt an ache of sadness for them all. What a tangled web. If Xander had been falsely accused and it cost him the love and trust of his two children, how sad for him. How disheartening and lonely. It entered her mind that Xander might be another of Claude Ann’s broken-winged birds, that her willingness to trust him so completely and her unshakable loyalty would be a balm to his spirit. But if Lyssa was right—
Jon said, “When Tess took back her story and kicked me in the teeth, Dad’s version of events became a lot easier to believe.”
Dinah could commiserate. Too much of her own life had been spent choosing whose version of events to believe. “How long was it before she recanted?”
“Six days. That’s how long before she visited me in the hospital.”
“Does she still live in Hawaii?”
“She works for a travel agency in Hilo.” He smiled that lopsided, self-mocking smile. “Makes for a sticky situation when we cross paths now and then. But she travels a lot and, anyhow, I don’t get out as much as I used to.”
“Stop! Pull over.” Dinah rolled down her rain-streaked window.
The enormous banner was strung between two coconut palms in front of a yellow clapboard house with a corrugated metal roof. Jon drove onto the shoulder and she read the manifesto emblazoned in big red letters.
God is not happy! 50 Years of lies! Shame on you who celebrate fraudulent statehood and honor the thieves! Thieves who locked up our queen! Thieves like garst who steal our lands! Thieves who beat our ancestors for speaking their language!
“Does one of Eleanor’s disciples live here?”
“Eleanor, herself. It’s an easy commute to the University of Hawaii campus in Hilo where she teaches.”
“She’s a professor?”
“That’s right. Ethnobotany’s her field. She knows everything there is to know about Hawaii’s indigenous plants and how they’ve been used and misused over the years. She writes a weekly column for The Tribune Herald. Locals call her the poison lady.”
Dinah ran her eyes over the metallic lilac Cadillac taking up most of the length of the driveway. It looked like a relic from the Fifties with its elongated tail fins and protuberant red taillights. Even in the rain, they glittered like the orbs of Satan. “Is it also an easy commute from here to the wedding site?”
“It’s not far.”
Dinah took a deep breath. Why did everything have to be so complicated? She couldn’t keep yo-yoing back and forth. She had to make up her mind whose version of events to believe, whether to support and defend the bride and forever hold her peace or gang up with the groom’s many detractors. Somehow, Eleanor’s over-the-top banner decided her. “Claude Ann’s had enough bad luck, Jon. Will you ask Eleanor not to interfere with the wedding? You’re her nephew. She’ll listen to you.”
“Nothing I could say would have any effect. Eleanor has her own agenda.”
Dinah’s temper boiled over. “Well, for crying out loud, what is it? Does she intend to kill Xander?”
He did the shrugging eyelid thing again, merged into traffic, and stepped on the gas.
Jerk. Dinah stared out at the wet road and listened to the annoying goddamned windshield wipers as they scrubbed and thunked like a jug band. At mile 29, a sign indicated the turnoff to Volcanoes National Park. Jon turned in the opposite direction onto Old Volcano Road, which seemed to have been hewed out of a rain forest.
Dinah rubbed her bare arms. “How can it be so cold in Hawaii in late June?”
“We’re at four thousand feet. You may want a fire in your room tonight.”
He turned down a one-lane road choked by tree ferns and honeysuckle and jounced along for about a mile before turning again onto a still narrower track. He drove for another mile and turned in through an open gate. There was a vine-covered, multi-car carport with a hanging wooden sign that said Wahilani, the place Xander had better not have mortgaged. Jon parked next to the only other car, a red Jeep Wrangler.
“Whose car is that?”
“Dad’s. He keeps it around for the occasional guest. I’m supposed to crank it up every now and then, but I haven’t done it in a long time. The battery’s probably dead.” He got out and opened Dinah’s door for her. “I’ll show you to your cottage and come back for the luggage.” He led her along a misty footpath bordered by tree ferns and travelers trees and wild red anthuriums. “There are five cottages on the place. You’ll be staying in mine. I’ve moved into the one next door for the week-end.”
“That seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble.”
“Less trouble than being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to rescue you from the mongoose that lives under the cottage next door. I call him Hairy Potter.” He spelled it.
“Ha-ha.”
“Hairy sometimes slithers inside when the weather’s nippy. When Phoebe gets here, she’ll be in the third cottage, then Raif and Lyssa in the fourth. Dad’s place is the one at the end of the property if you want to visit Claude Ann this afternoon before the party. It’s the largest and has a spare bedroom for Marywave.”
After about twenty yards, they arrived at a small cottage enveloped in a jungle of ferns and vines. He stepped up onto the lanai, took off his shoes, unlocked the door, and waited. Dinah noted the Mahalo, No Shoes sign, slipped off her sandals, and set them on the rack. There was nothing else on the lanai except a single rock
ing chair, a barrel for rain catchment connected to the corrugated metal roof, and a weathered teak table upon which sat a fly swatter, a flashlight, a pair of binoculars, and a clean ashtray.
He held the door open for her. “A family of Kalij pheasants lives on the property and the birdwatching’s good, especially early in the morning. You’re welcome to stay on after the wedding.” He said that last without looking at her.
They went inside and Jon’s style was immediately apparent—spare and practical, yet refined. The walls, the planked floor and the high, beamed ceiling were gold cedar and none of the large windows had coverings or needed any. The view on all sides was forest. A sweet, woodsy smell permeated the room, which appeared to serve as both kitchen and den. There was a round table under one window with a bowl of anthuriums, a basket of fruit, a bottle of red wine, and a corkscrew. A pair of well-worn beige club chairs sat in front of a large black heater. The rest of the furnishings consisted of a tiny, two-burner stove, a large cupboard with a mini refrigerator on the bottom shelf, and a microwave oven on the top. A small stainless steel basin had been wedged into the corner.
“You’ll find glasses in the cupboard and there are some fresh papayas and cheese in the fridge if you’re hungry. The bedroom’s in here.” He opened French doors into an airy room with cedar book shelves on the back wall and, on the facing walls, the same wide, uncovered windows looking out on the jungle. There was one leather armchair, a card table with an open laptop and a stack of books and papers, and a platform bed under a rattan ceiling fan. “The bath and shower are through there. If you want to check your e-mail, feel free to use the computer.”
“You have Wi-Fi here in the jungle?”
“All the conveniences of civilization.” He turned back into the kitchen. “Come and I’ll show you how to turn on the gas heater if you need it.”
Dinah watched as he pointed out the switches and buttons. “How long have you occupied this little corner of Paradise?”
“About five years. Dad wanted to build a resort hotel on the property, but I persuaded him to leave it green and let me build what I want. It’s handy to the volcanoes and the U.S.G.S. Observatory where I do most of my work.”
“It’s beautiful. This close to the national park, it must be worth millions.”
“Dad’s promised it to me in his will.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll change his mind after he and Claude Ann are married?”
“No.” The voice of Johnny Cash blared from his jacket pocket. “I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire…” He pulled out his cell phone, glanced at the caller’s name, and shut it off. “I’ll go and bring in the bags.”
There was a loud clap, like thunder, and the floor jolted. Dinah grabbed onto him.
“Quake,” he said as the bowl of anthuriums jumped off the table and smashed to smithereens at her feet. The dishes in the cupboard trembled and clinked for a few seconds and then the shaking stopped, as suddenly as it began.
“That was a good one. I’d better unload the luggage and head over to the Observatory to check the seismometers.”
“Flaming Jerusalem! You’re not going to leave me here alone, are you?”
He laughed. “You’re not scared of a little earthquake, are you?”
She glared at him.
“I’ll shut off the gas before I go. If there are aftershocks, keep away from the windows and crouch down in an interior corner. And if you want to visit any of the others when they get back from town, follow the path to your right where it forks.”
Chapter Twenty
Dinah picked up the pieces of the broken bowl, threw them in the trash, and mopped up the water. She tossed the heart-shaped anthuriums loose into the sink and turned on the faucet to a slow drip. She didn’t feel like looking for another vase or flower arranging. She fetched her pack of Sincerely Yours and her book of myths, put on a sweater, and went out on the lanai. As the crow flies, she couldn’t be more than a couple of miles from the entrance to Volcanoes National Park and scores of people, but she’d never felt more isolated in her life. She wished she’d gone to the spa with Lyssa and Phoebe.
She lit a cigarette, inhaled like there was no tomorrow, and opened her book to the story of how the world was created. All was Chaos. She blew out a cloud of smoke. Based on her Hawaiian experience, not much had changed.
She read on. There was no form or meaning until the god Kane lobbed a giant gourd into the air and created the sky. (There was no explanation as to how the gourd came into existence, but Dinah wasn’t a stickler). The seeds of the gourd scattered across the darkness and became the sun and moon and wheeling constellations. Kane used the rest of the gourd to fashion the earth. A few helper gods pitched in and formed the sea and land and living creatures and when Kane was satisfied with the end product, he set about to design an ali’i nui or ruling chief who would have dominion over this new Earth. After tinkering around for a while with stone and bark, he took a hunk of red clay, shaped it in his own image, breathed life into it, and dubbed this first man Kumu-honua. After Kane made his Adam, he tackled the job of making a first woman. And just as in the Hebrew book of Genesis, he made her out of the sleeping man’s rib. Her name was Ke-ola-ku-honua and, right off the bat, she let a lizard con her into eating a kapu breadfruit, which got the couple evicted from their pleasant garden.
According to this version of the myth, there were so many parallels between the Hebrew and the Hawaiian creation stories that some religious anthropologists theorize that there must have been a cross-cultural link between the early Polynesians and the Jews. One historian even surmised that the Menehune, a race of dwarfs from whom the Hawaiians were thought to have descended, might be one of the lost tribes of Israel.
Dwarfs. She squashed her cigarette in the ashtray. Why had no one ever told her that Hawaii was this weird?
There was an aftershock. The shoes danced on the rack and a windchime made of mangled spoons and forks jingled madly. Just a little jiggler, she told herself. She went to the kitchen and raided the fridge. There were some individually wrapped wedges of cheese and sliced papayas. She sat down at the table and ate. This was the perfect opportunity to nap, but she was too nervous and antsy. She looked out the large picture windows at the rain forest. What if Hank had slipped through the police net? He could be lurking out there with Claude Ann’s Beretta, waiting for her to return. Maybe he had tried to communicate with Marywave again. Dinah pulled Marywave’s cell phone out of her purse, flipped it open, and tried to check the voice mail. The battery was dead.
An hour had passed since Jon left. Where did he keep the keys to that Wrangler? Maybe that battery wasn’t dead. Maybe she could take it out for a short drive, get a better sense of where she was, and lose the heebie-jeebies. She ransacked the place, but had no luck. She was stranded with nothing to do but wait, her least favorite thing.
She went back to the lanai, picked up the book of myths, and read about Lono. Lono was one of the founding movers and shakers of the cosmos—god of the sun and of wisdom, god of fertility and agriculture, and CEO of the weather, including hurricanes and earthquakes. He was a happy god, happy in his work and happy in his marriage. His wife was the comely Kaikilani, a goddess in her own right. While Lono went about presiding over the rain and wind and ambient temperature, Kaikilani disported herself from island to island as a sort of ambassadress to the little people. The kanaka maoli. One day, in her democratic zeal, she had an extramarital roll in the ferns with a no-class kanaka from Molokai, a perfidy Lono could not tolerate. He slew the faithless goddess, packed his canoe, and vacated the islands, leaving the weather to regulate itself. His Second Coming had been prophesied for generations. The long, humdrum stretch of time during which there was nothing to do but wait for his return, was called kulo’ihi.
There was no second coming of Jon or anyone else. The only thing that came was another aftershock. I’m t
rapped in kulo’ihi, thought Dinah. Another hour crawled by and then two. She smoked another cigarette, but she couldn’t read anymore. Lono reminded her of Hank and Hank reminded her of the Beretta. It was only a half-hour drive from Hilo to Volcano. How long could they dilly-dally with their hair and their lomilomis? Why hadn’t she written down Claude Ann’s cell phone number?
She searched the cottage until she found the Hilo Yellow Pages tucked away in the cupboard and called every beauty salon and spa in the list, but none had heard of Ms. Claude Ann Kemper. She found the Volcano Village directory, looked up the number of the U.S.G.S. Observatory, and asked for Jon. The man she spoke with said that Jon had taken a few days off for his father’s wedding and would she like to leave a message. She considered asking whether Jon made a habit of going walkabout in the wake of Pele’s tantrums, but self-censored and rang off in frustration. Where had he gone and why had he lied?
Well, there was nothing for it but to chill out and entertain herself as best she could until the laggards returned. She looked through the shoebox of CDs she’d seen in Jon’s bedroom. He seemed to favor an artist named Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole. As shown on the cover of one CD, Bruddah Iz was a mountain of a man, 700 pounds at least, with dark shades on his eyes, a straw boater on his head, and a small, round mouth overarched by a thin mustache. She was unfamiliar with Hawaiian music, but assumed it would be soothing. She pulled out a few disks, inserted them in Jon’s Bose, and lay down on the bed to listen.
Bruddah Iz’s voice was surprisingly light for such a large man. It seemed to float on a strong current of melancholy. He strummed a ukulele and sang alternately in Hawaiian and English. When he crooned the words “cry for the land that was taken away,” Dinah felt a tug at her heart. His voice expressed with a soft poignance what Eleanor and her partisans expressed with threats and angry signs. The music lulled her into a Hawaiian state of mind where time ceased to matter. She was on island time. By the time Bruddah Iz segued into a bouncy rendition of “Over the Rainbow,” she was feeling as soothed as if she’d spent the afternoon being coddled at the spa.
Bet Your Bones Page 14