by Neal, Toby
Stevens walked up, jingling his keys, with Torufu following. The giant Tongan carried a big box with one hand and dragged his special jumbo-sized office chair with the other.
“Texeira!” Torufu grinned, and Lei couldn’t help smiling back. “You’re my new partner, and we’re the bomb squad of two on Maui. Captain told me to tell you. We leave for special partner training on the Mainland next week.”
Pono shook his head. Stevens’s brows drew together in a thunderous scowl. And Lei put her head back and laughed.
Watch for these titles:
Lei Crime Series:
Blood Orchids (book 1)
Torch Ginger (book 2)
Black Jasmine (book 3)
Broken Ferns (book 4)
Twisted Vine (book 5)
Shattered Palms (book 6)
Dark Lava (book 7)
Companion Series:
Stolen in Paradise:
a Lei Crime Companion Novel (Marcella Scott)
Unsound: a novel (Dr. Caprice Wilson)
Wired in Paradise:
a Lei Crime Companion Novel (Sophie Ang)
Middle Grade/Young Adult
Island Fire
Contemporary Fiction/Romance:
Somewhere on Maui, an Accidental Matchmaker Novel
Somewhere on Kaua`i, an Accidental Matchmaker Novel
Nonfiction:
Under an Open Sky
Children of Paradise: a Memoir of Growing Up in Hawaii
Sign up for Book Lovers Club or news of upcoming books at http://www.tobyneal.net/
Acknowledgments
Dear Readers:
I am SO GLAD the Lei Crime Series didn’t end with Twisted Vine like I’d planned. Turns out I’ve got a lot more books in this series to write!
I want to begin by saying that there have been no bird poachers that I know of on Maui, and the loss of even one of these precious birds would be too many. In the last five years, through my photographer husband Mike Neal’s conservation work with the Nature Conservancy in Waikamoi Preserve, I’ve come to fall in love with the native birds much like Lei did. I was excited to come up with a plot idea that would take readers to the top of Haleakala and into some of the most pristine cloud forest in the whole state of Hawaii. I hope this book teaches the public a little about these “jewels of the forest” through the story.
I went my whole life, most of it in Hawaii, with nothing more than a vague knowledge of these birds because of their scarcity and habitat restriction to the highest elevations, and I am now a passionate supporter of the biologists working hard to keep them from extinction. My thanks go out sincerely to Hanna Mounce, Ph.D. candidate, Program Director of the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project, an agency that focuses mainly on the preservation of the critically endangered Maui Parrotbill. Hanna took the time to read my manuscript and made corrections, and made my day by pronouncing the scientific solution Kingston comes up with “plausible.” I can’t thank you enough, Hanna, for taking the time in your very busy life, to make sure I wasn’t too far afield.
Agencies working on Maui in conservation include:
Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project: http://www.mauiforestbirds.org/
National Park Service, Haleakala National Park (where the Hosmer’s Grove trail and overlook Lei and her friends explore is located) http://www.nps.gov/hale/index.htm
The Nature Conservancy, which manages the Waikamoi Preserve: http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/hawaii/placesweprotect/waikamoi.xml
East Maui Watershed Partnership: http://www.eastmauiwatershed.org/
Maui Bird Conservation Center (focuses on the critically endangered Hawaiian Crow) http://www.nwrawildlife.org/content/keauhou-bird-conservation-center-kbcc-or-maui-bird-conservation-center-mbcc
Check in and support any and all of these worthy groups to find out more about the native Hawaiian birds.
I also want to thank retired Captain David Spicer for his early read of the manuscript and procedural corrections. He helps me keep Lei from bending too many rules and messing up the prosecution of her cases beyond help, and with David’s input I’ve learned about witness interviewing, evidence retrieval, shooting a fleeing suspect (not done) and all sorts of procedural arcana. Thank you, David!
Extra kudos go to my faithful beta readers, Bonny Ponting and fellow writer Noelle Pierce, who had the courage to tell me the unwelcome news that I’d lost the “emotional tension” of the book by having the wedding right in the middle and solving the case after. So, credit goes to Noelle for Lei’s last minute deferment of the wedding, (something Lei would definitely do!) ratcheting up the stakes of the book to a satisfying conclusion. I was so darned eager to get to the wedding, I forgot I was writing a mystery. Shoot. It happens.
Last but never least, thanks to my great book development team. Mike Neal and Julie Metz did an amazing cover, Kristen Weber kept me honest with her editing, and Penina Lopez, my copyeditor, pulled out all the stops to fit my manuscript into her queue, knowing readers were bugging us for it. I couldn’t do these books without you!
A special thanks to my extraordinary husband, Mike Neal, whose photography and conservation/docent efforts for the Nature Conservancy have drawn me into the magical world of Waikamoi. It’s amazing to walk in that cathedral of pristine wilderness and hear the music of our native birdsong, and I hope this book inspires readers to stop in at Hosmer’s Grove on Haleakala and experience the birds just a little bit.
Don’t miss the teaser Chapter for Dark Lava, Lei Crime Series #7, included at the end of this volume! Releasing summer of 2014.
With much aloha,
Toby Neal
Sign up for the Book Lovers Club or new title notifications at http://www.tobyneal.net/
Dark Lava
A Lei Crime Novel
By
Toby Neal
The worst things always seem to happen at night, even in Hawaii. Lieutenant Michael Stevens stood in front of the defaced rock wall, hands on lean hips, brows drawn together. A chipped hole gaped raw as a torn-out tooth where the petroglyph, a rare rock art carving, should have been.
“I keep watch on the heiau,” the witness, sturdy as a fireplug, glared up at Stevens from under the ledge of an overhanging brow. “I live across da street. I come, check ‘em every day, pick up trash, li’dat. Last night I hear something, like—one motor. I was sleeping but I wake up cuz it goes on. Then I see a light ovah here.” He spoke in agitated pidgin English, hands waving.
“What’s your name, sir?” Stevens dug a spiral notebook out of his back jeans pocket, along with a stub of pencil tied to it with twine. He knew it was “old school.” Many officers were using PDAs and tablets these days—but he liked the ease and confidentiality of his personal notes.
“Manuel Okapa. Our family, we guard the heiau. This—so shame this!” Okapa spat beside their feet in disgust. “I like kill whoever did this!”
Stevens waited a beat. He caught Okapa’s eye, shiny and hard as a polished kukui nut. “Sure you want to say that to a cop?” Stevens asked.
Okapa spat again in answer, unfazed. “I wish I brought my hunting rifle over here and blow ‘em away. But the light go out, and the noise stop. I thought someone was maybe dropping off something. Sometimes, the poor families that no can afford the dumps, they drop their broken-kine rubbish here. They know I take ‘em away.”
Stevens noted Okapa’s threats and disclosure of a gun in his notebook for future reference. He turned a bit to take in the scene. The heiau, a site sacred to Hawaiian culture, was situated on a promontory overlooking the ocean, separated from Okapa’s dilapidated cottage by busy two-lane Hana Highway. Even this early, a steady stream of rental cars swished by them, on their way to experience the lush, waterfall-marked Road to Hana.
“What kind of trash do they leave? Appliances?”
“Yeah, li’dat.” Okapa squatted down in front of the wound in the rock. His stubby brown fingers traced the hole, tender and reverent. �
��I heard this kine thing was happening on Oahu but nevah thought we get ‘em over here.”
“Looks like it was taken out with some sort of handheld jackhammer,” Stevens said, squatting beside the man. Okapa’s touching of the rock’s surface would have disrupted any fingerprints, but it was too late now. He took out his camera phone and shot several pictures of the defaced stone, inadvertently catching one of Okapa’s hands, gentle on the rock’s wound. “Did you see anything else missing? Disturbed?”
“Come. We go look.” Okapa stood up, and Stevens glanced back at the blue-and-white Maui Police Department cruiser parked close to them, his Bronco just behind it off the busy highway. One of his new trainees, Brandon Kealoha, had responded to the defacement call and immediately contacted Stevens as his superior to come investigate. Kealoha was a Maui boy born and raised, and immediately appreciated that the stealing of a petroglyph was more than ordinary property damage. The young man, hands on his duty belt, looked questioningly at Stevens.
“Stay here and don’t let anyone pull over,” Stevens said. “Find something to cover the damage for now—some branches or something. We don’t want to attract attention to this yet.”
Stevens’ mind was already racing ahead to the press coverage this would draw, potentially connecting this crime with a string of looted heiaus on Oahu. He knew the pressure would be on MPD as soon as the community caught wind of this outrage.
He followed Okapa's squat form, feeling overly tall as he towered over the shorter man. He'd found his height sometimes provoked defensive reactions in smaller local people and his wife’s partner and friend, Pono Kaihale, had given him a frank talk on how to interact with the locals more effectively. “Don't stand too close and loom over them unless you like scrap. Not a lot of eye contact, because that’s seen as challenging. Be prepared to disclose some personal information about who you are, where you’re from, and try to find some common connecting place, family or history. Tell ‘em you married to a Hawaii girl if they give you hard time.”
As if reading these thoughts, Okapa tossed over his shoulder, “How long you been here?”
“Two years, Maui. Big Island and Kauai before that,” Stevens replied. “Maui no ka oi.”
Okapa's gapped teeth showed in a brief smile. “As how.”
Apparently he’d hit the right note, because Okapa’s shoulders relaxed a bit. Every island had its pride and special uniqueness, Stevens had discovered.
They followed a tiny path through waist-high vegetation. Thick bunchy grass, ti leaf and several hala trees, their umbrella-like structures providing pools of shade, created a uniquely Hawaii landscape.
“I used to cut da plants back, keep it nice here. But then I see the tourists always pulling over to the side, trampling in here with their cameras. So I let ‘em grow, and less come here. Only the hula halaus come out for dance. This is one dance heiau.”
“Oh. I didn’t know there were different kinds. Anything you can tell me would be helpful.”
“Yeah. Get some for worship da gods, like the big one in Wailuku. This one for dance. Halau is one small-kine school with a kumu, teacher. That kumu leads and trains dancers in the group. This place was used to teach and worship with hula by the halaus.“
They reached a wide area, ringed by red, green and striped varieties of ti leaf growing taller than Stevens had ever seen. The layout was an open area of flat stones ringed by a wall of stacked ones. He’d noticed Hawaii's monuments were simple, made of materials naturally occurring, and without the oral traditions of the people and the movement to reclaim the culture, much history would have been lost and the heiaus themselves swallowed back into the land.
Beyond the large, rough circle of stones the cobalt ocean glittered in the distance. Hala trees surrounded the edge of the cliff, bracketing the view with Dr. Seuss-like silhouettes. Stevens thought the hala and ti plants must have been planted there deliberately because he knew Hawaiians wove the long, fibrous hala leaves into basketry and matting and made dance costumes with ti.
“Auwe!” Okapa cried, pointing. On the far side of the heiau were three large stone slabs, and the one in the middle had a raw, chipped-out crater. “They took the other one!”
Stevens followed the distraught guardian, thumbing on the camera phone. He held up a hand to stop Okapa as the man bent to touch the stone.
“Let me dust this one for prints.” Stevens unhooked his radio off his belt. “Kealoha, bring my kit from the Bronco. Over.”
“Ten-four,” Kealoha said.
“Tell me who knows about this place,” Stevens said, hanging the radio back on his belt and taking pictures of the stones and the surrounding area.
Okapa’s rage was evident. He muttered under his breath as he stomped across the stones, ripping out weeds in the dance area. He looked up with a fierce frown.
“Everyone. Because of that damn book.”
“What book?”
“Maui’s Secrets. One stupid haole wen' collect all our sacred places and put ‘em in that book, now everybody can buy it and find whatever. I like beef that guy myself.”
Stevens narrowed his eyes. “Where can I find a copy?”
Okapa spat. “ABC Store. Anywhere get ‘em. I like burn all those books.”
Stevens wrote down the title just as Kealoha burst into view at a trot, carrying Stevens' crime kit. The young man's square, earnest face blanched at the sight of the second desecration. “Auwe!” he cried.
Stevens looked down from Kealoha’s dismay, mentally filing that expression away. Maybe his wife Lei could help him learn how to say it right. The exclamation seemed to capture a wealth of grief and outrage.
“I need to dust for prints and photograph this area,” he told Kealoha. “You can watch me work the first rock, then I'll have you do the other two. Who knows, maybe whoever it was didn't wear gloves. Mr. Okapa, why don't you investigate the entire site and see if you can see anything else out of place, since you know it so well.” Searching over the rocks would occupy the man. Okapa walked off, still muttering as he pulled the occasional weed.
Stevens flipped the clasps of his metal crime kit and opened it, exposing several canisters of dusting powder, a soft long-bristled brush, various other tools and supplies. He snapped on gloves and handed a pair to Kealoha.
“This is probably just a review for you from training, but remember when choosing your powder that you want to pick a color that will contrast with whatever you're dusting. These stones are a dark gray. Which one do you think I should use?” he asked Kealoha, testing.
“White.”
“Good.” He took the soft-bristled brush, dipped it in the powder and twisted it to load the brush, then spun the powder in gentle twirling motions over the rock face.
This was not the porous black lava stone that much of the heiau was made of; these three stones were the much harder ‘bluestone’ often harvested for decorative rock walls. The surface held the powder well, the face of the rock gently sloping and weathered by the elements.
“Mr. Okapa, what did the petroglyph here depict?” Stevens called as the heiau’s guardian returned, still glowering.
“Was a dancer with one rainbow on top.” Okapa gestured, demonstrating the way the stick figure stone carving would have been drawn. “That one at the front marked the heiau. It had three dancers.”
“Why do you think someone would steal these?” Stevens asked, still spreading the powder until it covered the entire rock face.
“I've been watching the news about the other defacements on Oahu.” Kealoha was the one to answer. “They think some underground collector is hiring people to take them.”
“How much would something like this be worth?” Stevens took out his bulb blower, squeezing gently to blow the powder off the rough surface now that it was covered.
“There are not that many early Hawaiian artifacts, period,” Kealoha said. “Every petroglyph is priceless and can't be replaced.”
“As why it so bad this wen' happen,” Okap
a said. “Cuz this heiau only had two. And these were good ones. We were so proud of them.”
Stevens blew more air on the rock, and white powder drifted down onto the red dirt soil beneath like misplaced snow.
“I think I see something. A partial,” Stevens pointed out to Kealoha. “It's over on the side. Maybe there were two people digging out the carving, or one of them rested his hand on the side of the rock for leverage.”
Already they could see there was nothing on the face of the rock. Stevens handed the brush and powder to Kealoha and let the young man dust the sides and top of the stone, and the ones on either side of it.
Several prints picked up, all around the edges of the defaced rock. Stevens squinted at the prints, held his hand up. “I think whoever was using the drill or tool grabbed onto the rock for support. These prints look smeared because of the pressure, but I’ll try the gel tape and see if we can lift some and get a good impression.”
He unrolled gel tape and pressed it lightly over the print, pulling away carefully. He did several and then set the tape in a plastic case to photograph with a scanner back at the station.
“Let’s see you do one.” He handed the roll of tape to Kealoha.
“Eh, Lieutenant!”
Stevens looked up at Okapa’s shout, toward the gesturing man on the other side of the heiau. Okapa was pointing at a hole in the ground on the other side of a lantana bush.
“They took a stone from here. Was one oval stone brought up from the ocean.”
“How do you know what stone it was?” Stevens joined him.
Okapa just fixed him with a belligerent stare. “I know every rock in this place.”
Stevens took out his camera phone and shot a picture of the hole. “How big was it?”
“Big enough to need two people to carry it.”
Stevens made a note on his spiral pad. His eyes roamed the area and he spotted a gleam of something in the grass. He squatted, found a beer can. Using the tips of his gloved hands, he picked it up by the rim and put it in an evidence bag.