Tahoe Ice Grave

by Todd Borg

  “You want me to do your dishes, too?”

  “Sure. But more important, the bathroom could really use a new coat of paint.”

  Diamond turned and pulled on Spot’s collar. “C’mon, Spot. Let’s see how big the back seat is on a Douglas County Explorer. And no drooling.”

  Spot eagerly walked away with Diamond, his tail held high. He got into the Explorer without a single look back at me. Whatever happened to that one-man, devoted dog stuff?

  I called out to Diamond.

  He couldn’t hear me through the window. He hit the button to roll it down. “Que dites-vous?”

  “What are you saying?” I said.

  “No, that’s what I said. It’s French for ‘what are you saying.’”

  “What happened to English?” I asked.

  “Getting pretty good at that. Trying to learn Francais.”

  “Oui,” I said. I gestured a lot to make up for what I didn’t know. “I wanted you to comprendre we had a monsieur over in that clearing.” I pointed. “Watching us. Deux nights ago.”

  “Bad guy?”

  “Maybe. And this morning Spot smelled someone who didn’t come to either of my doors but spent some time at my windows.”

  Diamond frowned. “I’ll be attentif,” he said as he drove away with my dog.

  I went inside, rewound my answering machine tape, put out the trash, and took another look at the Calder mobile and the Rodin bronze. Rodin’s female figure was lithe and perfect. Street was thinner, too thin, she always said, but she and the Rodin figure shared a lushness of curve. I touched one wire of the mobile and it danced away from me. I touched another and it too made a quick escape. At least, Street would be at my side every night in Hawaii. I threw some clothes in my bag and left.

  I drove down the mountain, picked up Street a few minutes later and, after she reassured me that she had packed both the black one-piece and the red string bikini, we headed to the Reno Tahoe airport.

  We checked the various morning flights, trying to figure out the best connection to Kauai. We compared arrival and departure times and concluded that the best way to go was to take a flight that was leaving immediately for Burbank and then take a shuttle to LAX. If there were no delays, we’d be able to catch a United flight direct to Lihue, Kauai and avoid the inter-island hop from Honolulu.

  Thirty minutes later, the jet left Reno, arced up over the mountains and climbed into the sky over Lake Tahoe. The deep blue of the lake was set off by the dazzling white of the snow-covered mountains. At the edge of the lake was the jagged face of Mt. Tallac. I could just about see the little house where Janeen and her grandson Phillip lived.

  The plane turned south and in a few minutes we crossed over Yosemite Valley. We could see some of the world’s highest waterfalls plunging down next to the largest granite walls on the planet. Half Dome had a cap of snow and stood like a benevolent king in a white beret looking over his magical kingdom. Our plane crossed out over the broad, flat Central Valley and began our descent into the Los Angeles area.

  It was one of those perfect smogless days when one could see the blue Pacific even as we came down into Burbank. The contrast between the winter air of Tahoe and the warm air of L.A. was wonderful.

  The shuttle seemed to be running late, but we made it across town to LAX in time for the late morning flight to Hawaii. The jet was packed. Fortunately I had an aisle seat so that I could periodically stretch my legs, much to the chagrin of at least one flight attendant who looked at me as if my extra length were something I’d contrived just to be a troublemaker.

  While Street read, I used the phone in the seatback in front of me to do some exploring for lodging and finally found a condo on the east shore of Kauai. They’d had a last minute cancellation and thus could fit us into a sold-out season. I made reservations for the coming week, figuring that even if I reached nothing but dead ends in a day or two, Street and I could still use a vacation, walking the beach and sipping colored drinks with little umbrellas in them.

  When we stepped out of the plane in Lihue, Kauai, the humidity was heavy and the air was thick with the powerful scents of tropical flowers.

  “Get a whiff of that,” I said.

  “Unique aromas from unique flowers,” Street said. “Hawaii is the most isolated island chain in the world. As a result it has an entire ecosystem of plants and animals that exist nowhere else.”

  I inhaled a long breath through my nose. “I suppose there are unique bugs as well.”

  “With unique aromas, too,” she said.

  “Aromas,” I said. “My favorite euphemism for the odors of bugs.”

  “You know, you’re very predictable when it comes to insects.”

  “Predictability,” I said. “Good quality in a man, don’t you think?”

  “Not if it means you disrespect the bugs.” Street’s training as an entomologist made her constantly aware of, and empathetic with, a world of creatures that the rest of us swat at and step on.

  “I respect insects. Especially some of the Hawaiian ones. I seem to recall something about poisonous centipedes.”

  “Actually, centipedes are the most dangerous thing on the islands. But they aren’t insects. Centipedes are the same Phylum, but a different class. Chilopoda, I think. A completely different animal.”

  “I always get that wrong,” I said. “From now on I’ll just call them creepy crawlers.”

  “That, as applied to centipedes, I’d agree with.” Street hugged herself and seemed to shiver in the tropical air. “Did you know that centipedes are carnivorous? They kill their prey with a venomous bite.”

  “If they bite a human, is it fatal?”

  “Not usually. It falls into what I call a category five bite, which is to say it probably won’t kill you, but you’ll spend some time wishing it had.”

  “Is there an antidote?”

  “No. With category five bites, the best treatment is liquor. Lots of it, for several days running.”

  “Maybe we should stop at the airport bar and get some drinks now, just in case.”

  “I don’t think this little airport has a bar.”

  I looked around and didn’t see one. “Do you know what places to avoid if you don’t want to be centipede dinner?” I asked.

  “They hang out in the jungle. Dark, wet, leafy kinds of places.”

  “Like the Na Pali cliffs I want to go explore?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m lots bigger than a centipede.”

  “Not as much bigger as you think,” Street said. “Centipedes can grow to a foot.”

  “Excuse me?” A small wave of discontent rose within.

  She nodded, her face somber in the glow of the late afternoon sun.

  A palm-covered walkway took us across to the rental car offices. In the distance was a thunderstorm, its thrusting cauliflower head glowing pink in the approaching sunset.

  The woman at the counter gave us our car keys along with a map and directions to our condo. We stopped at a market and picked up basic provisions, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, wine, some fixings for dinner and breakfast. Then we headed north up the coast.

  We turned down a lonely road, came to a small sign that announced our lodging and soon were ensconced in a second-floor luxury condo a few yards from the beach.

  After we’d cooked a delicious dinner of fresh-caught tuna with bread, salad and a Pinot Noir from Oregon, Street opened the slider. The ocean breeze made the curtains billow enticingly. Street slipped past them and walked out onto the lanai. I snuggled up behind her at the railing.

  Nightfall had come. The moon was bright, yet the rest of the sky, free of the glow of civilization, was black with a million stars. Below us was the graceful blue oval of the swimming pool, lit with underwater lights. Above it shimmered a canopy of palm trees, their fronds glistening and clicking as they waved in the wind. Around the pool stretched a spacious lawn and, beyond it, the ocean.

  Street turned, leaned her back against the railing
and said, “This is so special, you should probably commemorate it by kissing me.”

  Which I did.

  The heat of her high metabolism was significant.

  As if in answer to my thought she said, “It’s so warm here a girl hardly needs any clothes,” she mumbled through our kiss.

  “Really?” I said. “Maybe we better check it out.”

  Which we did.

  THIRTEEN

  Street was in the tub the next morning when I padded into the bathroom. I took a long look at her. “If you’d been Degas’ model he never would have painted ballerinas. He would have just stayed with bathers.”

  “For that matter,” Street said, “you could model.”

  I glanced at myself in the mirror and quickly sucked in my stomach. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. For one of those butt calendars.”

  “Street, my sweet, I didn’t know you were aware of such things.”

  “That art you study in your books. It’s all there. Line and form and such.”

  I tried to look around and back at my butt. I turned for a better angle in the mirror. “Think there’s any money in it?”

  “Depends on how good you are at posing,” Street said.

  “Which do you like?” I tried a pose. “Like this?”

  Street giggled.

  “Or like this?”

  Street’s giggle became a hearty guffaw. “Okay, maybe it’s not the best idea,” she said.

  I turned away, wounded. “If you want me, I’ll be on the lanai.” I did an Elvis-style hip thrust and strutted out of the bathroom.

  We drank our coffee out on the lanai and had a breakfast of mango and pineapple.

  Street wore a pair of yellow shorts and a white blouse that didn’t quite cover up her midriff. Her feet were up on the lanai railing, her ankles catching the sun. I didn’t know what to stare at.

  “Did you hear that loud clicking last night?” she said. “It sounded like someone was tapping on a window with a key. I got up, but saw nothing.”

  “Sorry, I was sleeping.”

  “Not fair,” she said. “Whenever we have energetic romance you sleep like the dead and I’m awake half the night.”

  “Energetic romance?”

  “You would call it raw, raucous sex?” she said.

  I grinned at her.

  Street picked up our coffee cups and filled them from a pump-action thermos. “Anyway, you wouldn’t believe the sound. So I came out here on the lanai and discovered the clicking noise came from geckos.”

  I gave her a questioning look.

  “Geckos are little lizards that eat cockroaches.”

  I thought about that. “My new best buddies.”

  “So what is your plan for today?” Street asked.

  “Today I look up Thos’s father Jasper and Thos’s cousin John Kahale junior.”

  “John junior is the one who is next in line to learn the location of the sacred cliff shrine?”

  “Yeah. Janeen said that because Thos was their only son, Jasper would normally tell his closest brother, John senior. But because he died in the car accident, Jasper must now tell his nephew John junior instead. Janeen didn’t know if Jasper has told him yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had. Being the only one with the knowledge of the shrine’s location would be scary. Hundreds of years of family tradition would be dependent on you being very careful not to have a sudden accident.”

  “Look both ways before you cross the street,” Street said.

  “Right. Do you want to come along with me, or are you going to sit here and look beautiful all day?”

  “Why don’t I explore the beach?” she said. “It looks like it goes for miles. When you’ve got something on the agenda that you know will be exciting, I’ll tag along.”

  “Are you going to do your beach exploration in one of your swimsuits? If so, I’ll be forced to come along and fend off the modeling agents and onlookers.”

  “How about I wear baggy shorts and a baggy shirt?”

  “Good idea,” I said, then went inside to make inquiries.

  I got Jasper Kahale’s number through Information. He said he’d see me after lunch at his home in Poipu on the south side of the island.

  Next, I called the helicopter company that John junior flew for. The woman who answered said he was off today and the next. I booked his first flight the following morning.

  When I was done on the phone, I found Street reading Michener’s Hawaii. I gave her my schedule and asked if she’d like to join me on the helicopter ride.

  “Day after tomorrow at nine o’clock. Just you and me,” I said. “A private carriage ride.”

  Her eyes widened. “Would he take us to the shrine?”

  “I don’t think he’d tell us the location, but I don’t see why he wouldn’t give us a tour of the Na Pali cliffs in general. From the brochure the rental car company gave us, it seems that all the helicopter companies go to the cliffs.”

  “I’d love to go.” She was sitting back on the deck chair. She bounced her toes against the lanai railing. The movement made her calf muscles flex. My heart thumped. She must have seen me notice.

  “What are you staring at now?” she said.

  “Maybe we should cancel all these plans and concentrate on – what did you call it – romantic energizing?”

  “No, I didn’t call it that, and you have work to do.” She waved me away with her hand. “Go. Now. Away. Do your work. We can energize some other time.” She picked up the Michener book.

  FOURTEEN

  I drove by several expensive resort hotels on the south side of Kauai to get to Jasper Kahale’s house, a small, neat box made of concrete block. The house was painted bright turquoise with dark green shutters. It sat directly back from a great beach, a wide swath of white sand with crashing waves the same color as the house. A narrow, cracked sidewalk led around to the side where I knocked on a green door that had prickly pear cactus growing in the dirt on either side. I watched the waves for a long minute before I finally heard noises on the other side of the door. The knob turned and the door opened.

  The short, broad man standing in the dark entry was older than his ex-wife Janeen by a decade or more, yet his dark and supple Hawaiian skin had few wrinkles. He wore an orange, floral Hawaiian shirt. The shirt hung over baggy blue shorts that seemed to be slipping off his large belly. His legs were as sturdy as Koa trees and his bare feet were wide and gnarled. Despite his age he still looked very strong.

  “Aloha,” he said with a sad smile.

  “Mr. Kahale, I’m Owen McKenna. Thank you for seeing me.”

  He stepped out into the sunlight and leaned his head back to look up at me. He shook my hand, holding my forearm with his left hand. “Call me Jasper. Everyone does. Mr. Kahale was my father.” He smiled, but it didn’t hide his sadness. He still held onto my hand and arm. His own arms were scratched in several places.

  “Good to meet you, Jasper. Tell me, these cactus plants next to your door, aren’t they unusual in the tropics? I thought Hawaii would have too much rain for cactus.”

  “C’mere, Onan,” Jasper said, finally letting go of my hand.

  “Owen.”

  “Owen,” he repeated. Jasper turned, reached a thick hand back up to my elbow and steered me out toward the beach that was his backyard. He walked stiffly and had a slight bend in his back so that he leaned a few degrees to the left.

  When we were away from the house, he pointed inland toward where the land rose up to thick clouds. “See all those clouds? They cover the summit of Mount Waiale’ale. That’s our volcano. Rainiest spot on earth. Four hundred and fifty inches a year. But the trades that carry all the moisture come from the other side of the island.” He turned and looked up at me, his eyes searching mine.

  “So when the winds blow up the mountain from the other side they drop all their rain, right?” I said.

  He nodded. “By the time the air gets back down to this side of the island it is drier than...”
He faded off, then seemed to wake with a start. “They call it a rain shadow.”

  “I follow,” I said. “This side of the island is a desert.”

  “Not a desert, but arid. Yet up there is the wettest place you’d ever hope to see. Just a few miles apart. Amazing, huh?”

  “Amazing,” I agreed.

  “Omen, what can I get you to drink?”

  “Owen.”

  “Right. Owen. What can I get you to drink? I’ve got Mountain Dew. You want a Mountain Dew?”

  “Sure.”

  I followed him inside. It was dark and cool in the block house and the roar of the waves was diminished.

  The inside of the little house was as neat as the outside. There were two faded blue wicker chairs arranged side by side. In front of them was an old TV on a rickety metal stand with plastic wheels, a loud game show filling the house with commotion. A wicker couch sat near the end of the room and behind it was a black surfboard with yellow stripes. A bulletin board was covered in faded, curled pictures of children, most of a boy at a variety of ages, some of a girl, all when she was quite young. No doubt they were Thos and Shelcie.

  “Have a seat,” Jasper said. He punched a switch on the TV and the screen went dark, clicking with static discharge. “Owen, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  Jasper walked into the kitchen area from the living room. I browsed the pictures on the bulletin board.

  Thos’s pictures were mostly of sports, riding his surfboard down a large curling wave, launching his bicycle into the air off a dirt jump, racing down a steep road on his Roller Blades.

  Balance.

  Shelcie’s pictures showed her acting or acting up. She sat in front of a chocolate cake, her face covered in frosting so that only her huge grin and eyes showed through. In another photo she was a little girl dressed up in women’s clothes, putting on lipstick in front of a mirror. In a third, she stood at a mouth-high fence post out in a field, the post being like a microphone stand. Her arms were stretched out like Judy Garland’s, her head was back, eyes closed. Maybe she was singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow.