Mahu Surfer m-2

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “You’ll see, it’s going to be beautiful,” he said, unrolling the first drawing. “Not some ticky-tacky little place like they put up nowadays.” The plan showed a circular drive, much like the one at Cane Landing, with an entrance down on the Kam Highway and a guard house. The houses were situated on the bluff so that each one had at least a partial ocean view. He laid out a couple of other drawings, of each style of house. They looked much like where I was staying, and I had a feeling I was looking at the property Ari had talked to me about.

  “This one’s going to be mine,” Bishop said, pointing proudly at a lot at one end. “I’ll still be able to see all the way down to Hale’iwa.”

  “What about all the land behind us?” Terri said, pointing to the area on the other side of the highway.

  “Clubhouse and swimming pool,” he said. “If we can get the zoning changed to multi-family, we’ll put a couple of low-rise condo buildings up there. Max six stories, very high-end.”

  “I’m a little worried about developing all the land,” Terri said carefully, “and I know my father and Aunt Emma are too. They might be willing to agree to change the deed restrictions if they knew part of the property would be preserved.”

  “The mauka part?” Bishop asked, meaning the area on the mountain side of the highway.

  “I think I could get them to agree to that.”

  “I’d have to see what Ari says.”

  “Harry?” Terri asked, but I’d already recognized the name.

  “Ari. Short for Aristotle. Young Greek fella. He’s the one put all the money together to buy the land and get the construction started.”

  “Can I take a copy of these plans with me?” Terri asked. “I’d love to be able to show my dad and Aunt Emma what you’re considering.”

  “Sure. I’ve got more sets here somewhere.” He rolled up the drawings for us, and then we sat and drank lemonade for a while. I watched the ocean while Terri talked about family stuff, and finally we all stood up and said our goodbyes.

  “I’ll get Rich to open the gate for you,” he said.

  “What do you need a security guard for, Uncle Bishop?” Terri asked. “Has the North Shore gotten a lot more dangerous?”

  “People today have no respect for private property,” Bishop said. “Surfers used to traipse through here like it was public beach. I put up the fence and the gate, but that hardly stopped anybody. So I hired Rich to keep an eye on things. He’s had to fire a few warning shots, but people have started to get the message.”

  “I don’t like the idea of anybody shooting up here, Uncle Bishop. Somebody could get hurt, and sue you, or sue the Trust. I don’t think my father or Aunt Emma would like that.”

  “My brother and my aunt can jump in the Pacific and drown, for all I care,” Bishop said, raising his voice. “Your father has looked down his nose at me since we were kids, and I’m sick and tired of it. And as for Aunt Emma, well, I never fit her idea of what a Clark should be, and the older I get, the less interested I am in that idea. And you can tell her I said that.”

  There was a knock on the back door, and it opened a moment later. “I heard some shouting. Everything okay in here, Mr. Clark?” Rich asked.

  “These folks are just leaving,” Bishop said. “You can open the gate for them.”

  Terri looked like she wanted to say more to her uncle, at least kiss him goodbye, but he turned and walked back toward the dining room. We got back into the Land Rover, and Terri turned around, then headed out the drive. Rich had already opened the gate, and as we headed toward the Kam Highway my last view was of him pushing the gate closed again.

  A Place Like This

  “I’ve got a lot to tell you,” I said, as we reached the Kam Highway. “You in a hurry to get back?”

  “Nope. My mother’s picking up Danny at school, and she can give him dinner if I call.”

  “Then you can follow me up to my new digs. I think you’ll want to see it.”

  While we headed back to Rosie’s so I could pick up my truck, I told her what I knew about Rich and the accident in Bosnia that had ruined him for surfing. “So he’s pretty bitter,” she said.

  “You bet. I’m going to look up any incident reports involving Bishop’s property, see if Rich really was shooting at people.”

  “Lovely. That’s a detail I think I’ll leave out of my report to Aunt Emma.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  Terri followed me up to Cane Landing. I motioned her around me, so that I could open the gate for her, and then open it again for myself, and then I jumped around her to lead her up to the third house.

  “Boy, you’re moving up in the world,” she said, as we both got out in the driveway.

  “Wait til you see the inside. And it’s all courtesy of Aristotle Papageorgiou.”

  “Let me guess. The young Greek fella.”

  “You got it.”

  “Interesting.”

  I gave her the grand tour, and she oohed and aahed appropriately. There were still a couple of Konas left, and we sat down in the living room with them. “So this Aristotle must be some kind of North Shore real estate mogul,” she said.

  “Seems like it. He’s a nice enough guy-I mean, it’s certainly nice of him to put me up here. And he doesn’t know that I know you, or Bishop, so it’s not like he’s doing it so I’ll help him in some way.”

  She slipped off her pumps and slid her feet underneath her, relaxing on the leather sofa. “Speaking of Bishop, didn’t you find all those guns kind of creepy?”

  “It’s a guy thing,” I said. “My dad has a couple of guns, and so do my brothers. Almost every guy I know owns at least one gun.”

  “Not Harry.”

  “Um, actually, yes, Harry has a nine millimeter Glock. I helped him pick it out.”

  Terri shook her head. “Like I said before, boys and their toys.”

  I took a swig of my Kona. “Only your uncle has some toys that can do some serious harm. That buffalo gun that can shoot at a thousand yards, for starters.”

  “Could you shoot a surfer with a gun like that?”

  “You’re reading my mind. I think so. Maybe not that gun, because it’s an antique, and there might be some rust or other damage inside. But a rifle like that, sure, you could shoot somebody off a board if you were a good enough shot.”

  She sat up and pulled her legs around to the floor again. “How about Rich? I didn’t like him. Something about him gives me the creeps.”

  “Something like his prosthetic leg?” I kicked out with my right leg.

  Terri frowned. “I can’t say I like that, but no, it’s not that. Something about his personality.” She rubbed her upper arms.

  “He’s a security guard, Terri. I don’t much like him, either, but I don’t think a charming personality is a prerequisite for being a guard.”

  “You think he hates surfers enough to start killing them?” She shuddered. “I hope Uncle Bishop hasn’t gone so far around the bend that he’s involved in what you’re investigating.”

  “I asked Lieutenant Sampson to look into Rich’s war record,” I said. “He’s an ex-soldier, so he’s probably a good marksman. I know he has a grudge against surfers, because he can’t surf any more, and because they piss him off when they trespass on your uncle’s land.”

  I popped open my laptop and checked my email while Terri went to the restroom. Still no word from Sampson on Rich Sarkissian’s war record. There was an email from Harry that he was looking into the dead surfers’ bank records, and also trying to find Harold Pincus. I made a couple of notes about Bishop’s guns, in case we ever needed to subpoena them for ballistics tests.

  “This is some house,” Terri said, when she came back. “I think Uncle Bishop would be happy with a place like this.”

  “You can’t blame the man for trying to maximize his assets and secure his old age,” I said.

  Terri sat down again on the sofa. “You can blame him for squandering a lot of the money that was supposed
to take care of him for the rest of his life. But I’ll try and make peace between him and rest of the family. I think I can convince Dad and Aunt Emma to let his plan go forward if we carve out some open space. And that will only make the houses more valuable.”

  “Assuming that the guy who’s killing surfers gets caught, and people come back to the North Shore,” I said.

  “Oh, my,” Terri said, and she sat quickly on the couch. “I just thought of something.”

  “What?” I was worried she’d remembered something about Eric, her late husband, that had upset her.

  “Property values will go way down if people are frightened,” she said. “Maybe some of the people who are opposed to Uncle Bishop’s development will leave, or the government will ease up on restrictions in order to keep the economy moving.”

  “So you think your uncle might be directing Rich to kill surfers?”

  “I don’t know. But you saw him today-he’s not the same man he used to be. He’s getting crazier. And I can see a guy like Rich, wanting to prove he could be useful again, appreciating the chance Uncle Bishop has given him, wanting to help.”

  “And you don’t know, Bishop could be paying him, or promising him money when the development gets going.”

  Terri shivered. “I don’t want him to be involved. Please, I don’t want him to be involved.”

  “I haven’t seen a connection between Bishop and any of the dead surfers,” I said. “And it seems to me that Bishop would want land values to go up, not down, so he could get more money for the land.”

  “It’s a question of short-term versus long-term,” Terri said. “If Uncle Bishop trades his land for a piece of the equity, then the development company acquires the land cheaply. By the time the houses are built, everyone’s forgotten about the killings, and house values go up. There’s that much more profit to be made.”

  “You know who else has a motive there,” I said, thoughtfully. “Aristotle Papageorgiou. He’s very determined to see this project succeed.” I made a note to check him out further.

  She looked at her watch. “I should go.”

  At the front door, she hugged me. “This was fun. I miss you. I want you to come back to Honolulu soon.”

  “I will.”

  I had barely gotten back in the door from seeing her off when my cell phone rang. “Yo, Harry, what’s up, brah?”

  “I’m thinking I need a little surfing in my life. You got some extra space at that hotel hell where you’re staying?”

  “Actually, I’ve upgraded.” I told him about the switch from Hibiscus House to Cane Landing. “Got room galore. But if you’re going to surf the North Shore, you’ve got to be fearless.”

  “I have been surfing the North Shore with you since we were hitching rides on cane trucks.”

  “Yes, but no one was shooting surfers then.” I told him how the whole North Shore seemed to have emptied out.

  “More waves for us. I’m teaching until noon Friday. I can be up there a little after one and spend the weekend. And we’ll find out what we can about all these folks you’re interested in.”

  We made plans to meet, and I hung up. I fired up my laptop and put together all the notes I wanted to share with Ruiz and Kawamoto. Step by step, what I had learned about Lucie, Mike and Ronnie, with as many names, places and facts as I could put together. It took me almost two hours, but by the time I was done I was pretty impressed with myself. I emailed a copy to Ruiz, and then separately, a copy to Sampson.

  When I was finished, I sent a couple of other emails, fixed dinner, and then relaxed in front of the TV. It was definitely a different lifestyle from the one I’d enjoyed in Honolulu. There, I lived in a small studio apartment on Waikiki. I tried to surf when I could, but most mornings found me at my desk rather than on the waves. I worked with a station full of cops, I had a partner to bounce ideas off, I had a badge and a gun and a sense of identity as a police detective. I spent a lot of time with my family, I read, I rode my bike, I roller bladed, walked and ran. Here on the North Shore, all I seemed to do was eat, sleep, surf, and try to figure out who had killed five people.

  Dario’s Surprise

  Around nine o’clock that night, I started getting antsy. I knew I ought to just go to sleep, but I wanted to see if there was anyone hanging around at any of the bars. After all, people are more likely to talk when they’re drunk, and I wasn’t getting any leads sitting around the house staring out at the stars.

  I decided to start at Sugar’s, because I hadn’t been there since Sunday night, when I’d gone there looking for Brad. I was still planning to keep my vow of celibacy-at least until I got this case behind me. Back in Waikiki, who knew what would happen. But on the North Shore, I was keeping my pants zipped up. Then what was I doing going to a gay bar? Well, for one thing, I wanted somebody I could talk to about Brad. I was hoping his friends would be there.

  Ari was there, sitting with Dario at a table near the bar. Of course I knew that Dario was some kind of investor in Ari’s project, and Dario had been the one to call Ari and get me the place at Cane Landing, but I didn’t picture them as the kind of friends who hung around together for a drink.

  While I was at the bar getting a beer, Dario came up. He wearing a Next Wave logo t-shirt and cargo shorts, looking like he’d spent a long day on the selling floor at the surf shop. “Got to drain the lizard,” he said. “You gonna come join us?”

  “Sure.”

  I took my beer over to their table. “Hey, Kimo, how’s the house working out?” Ari asked. He wore a white dress shirt open at the neck, with a loosely-knotted striped tie, and he looked tired.

  “It’s great. I really appreciate your fixing it up for me.” I held my glass up and clinked it against his.

  “No problem. Any friend of Dario’s, you know.”

  I realized, looking at Ari, that there was a question he could answer for me. “You know, I wanted to ask you something about Sunday night, something that’s been bothering me.”

  “What?”

  I put my beer down on the table. “I can’t figure out why Brad took Tommy Singer out to the beach. He took me home; why not Tommy?”

  “That would be thanks to Rik.” Ari folded up the papers he had in front of him and put them into his briefcase. “Rik stopped by Brad’s to see if he wanted to come out, but Brad’s car was already gone. Your truck, however, was there in the parking lot. When Rik showed up at Sugar’s, while Brad was at the bar with the college guy, he told Brad you were out there.”

  “That’s right. I wanted to apologize.”

  “Brad didn’t know that. Just before he left, he told me he thought you were angry, that you were waiting for him to get home to make a scene. I told him he was crazy, you weren’t like that, but that’s probably why he didn’t go back there.”

  “And with Tommy Singer being a closeted college student sharing a dorm room, they couldn’t go there,” I said. “Beach the next best thing.”

  “Guess so.”

  Well, that made me feel like crap all over again. Every thing I’d done with Brad had been wrong, and each seemed to have led inexorably to his death. But like Terri said, there were so many what ifs. I couldn’t focus on them.

  Dario came back and sat down with us.

  “How’s The Next Wave doing?” I asked him. “Still slow?”

  “Dead. I took in about a thousand dollars today. After I pay for the merchandise, I’ve got just about enough left to keep the doors open. Fortunately most of my staff quit, so I don’t have much in the way of payroll.”

  “The silver lining is that if this goes on much longer, the county commission will get nervous and want to jump start development up here. That puts Bishop’s Bluff in a good situation,” Ari said.

  “If we can all hold out that long.” Dario took a long drink from his beer. “But enough about my troubles. So, Kimo, how are you enjoying this forced retirement of yours?”

  “It’s not bad. I’ll have to get another job eventually, but
it’s nice to go back to a time when all I had to worry about was the surf conditions.”

  Of course that wasn’t true, but I was playing a part-a part I felt I had to keep playing even around an old friend like Dario. We kept on talking, and drinking. We ordered a pitcher, and it was gone much too quickly, so we ordered another. We talked about surfing, and the North Shore, both as it was when Dario and I were younger, and now. Ari told us a couple of stories about growing up in Minnesota, and then we started talking about what had caused us to leave home and come to the North Shore in the first place.

  “I was so damn glad to leave the Big Island I think I’d have been happy on a pig farm,” Dario said.

  “I forgot you came from the Big Island,” Ari said. “Whereabouts?”

  “Kamuela. Also known as Waimea. The whole town’s pretty much run by the Parker Ranch. My dad was the real deal, a paniolo his whole life, just like his daddy and his granddaddy and his great-granddaddy before him.” He drank some more beer. “You can just bet how happy he was when I told him I wanted to be a surfer, not a paniolo.”

  “Probably about as happy as my dad when I told him I was leaving Minnesota,” Ari said. They both looked at me.

  “Sorry, my dad was a surfer when he was young, and I’m the baby, so my folks didn’t get too excited when I told them I wanted to surf. They just wanted me to wait until I finished college.”

  Ari drained the last of the pitcher. “Another?” Dario and I nodded, and he signaled the waitress. “So tell us about growing up on the ranch,” he said to Dario. “You learn to ride horses, rope cattle, all that stuff?”

  “You bet. I’m a rootin’ tootin’ dang cowboy all right.” He laughed. “It sounds pretty goofy to be a Hawaiian cowboy, but the Parker Ranch is the largest privately owned ranch in the country. Over 225,000 acres, over 50,000 head of cattle, a hundred paniolos to take care of it all.”