Livin' Lahaina Loca

by JoAnn Bassett

  “No, I’ve been there before.”

  “Can I assist you further?” In the background, I could hear other phone lines ringing.

  “No, mahalo, that’s all. I’ll come in today.”

  She signed off and I looked at my watch. Still plenty of time to get my errands done and get to the station before they closed.

  ***

  Keith and Nicole’s wedding was scheduled for Saturday, November 10th onboard the Maui Happy Returns—a for-hire catamaran docked in Lahaina Harbor. Hatch Decker, my-more- than-a-friend but not-quite-a-significant-other had given me the name of the boat captain and had vouched he was a reliable sailor. I’d never used this particular catamaran before and I never commit to anything without first checking it out six ways to Sunday, so I headed down to the harbor to inspect the craft and crew.

  The day was perfect—the kind of weather the Hawaii Visitor’s Bureau plasters on its website and brochures—all golden sun and crystal blue sky with matching sapphire-colored ocean. I had to drive around the harbor area three times before finding a parking spot. I knew I was wasting gas cruising for a spot but something in my local blood won’t allow me to pay for parking. The harbor was abuzz with tourists lining up for the early afternoon snorkel cruises to Honoloa Bay and down to Turtle Town. There are a half-dozen spots in South and West Maui that claim the title, ‘Turtle Town’, but that’s because the snorkel boat captains simply keep an eye on their fish finders and when they spot a few turtles they drop anchor and announce they’ve reached Turtle Town.

  I walked under the block-wide banyan tree on Front Street, smiling at the kids perched on the tree limbs waiting for the old man who twists palm frond strips into the shape of grasshoppers. He gives them to the kids for free. My guess is he’s either a lonely old guy without any local grandkids or he’s an artistic pervert who came up with a clever way to hang around little kids all day and not get run off by the cops.

  The captain had said to look for the Maui Happy Returns at the furthest moorage on the outskirts of the harbor. I made my way across the splintery wooden dock reading the clever names on the boats and checking out the burgees like the ones I’d seen hanging in the Lahaina Yacht Club. A lot of the boats sported a red flag with a white outline of a whale so I figured that must be the burgee for the LYC.

  Crews on the snorkel boats were swabbing down the decks getting ready for the next load of tourists. Everything from rap and reggae to Hawaiian slack-key guitar blasted from their on-board sound systems. I slowed to watch a well-muscled guy shimmy up a mast wearing only a dark tan, a massive lower-back turtle tattoo, and hip-riding board shorts. Looked like a great way to make a living: plenty of exercise and fresh air and not much paperwork.

  At the farthest edge of the harbor I spotted a shiny white hull with plain black letters spelling out Maui Happy Returns. There appeared to be no one aboard. I checked my watch. Almost noon. Maybe I’d written the time down wrong.

  As I got closer to the boat, I took the opportunity to check it out a little before getting the official sales job from the captain. In my business first impressions are everything, so if I smelled fish guts or saw a hull encased in green scum I’d be asking for a refund on my deposit rather than a tour.

  But all was, as they say, shipshape. Gleaming chrome, polished teak, and well-scrubbed ivory-colored decks signaled a pride of ownership that easily passed my cursory inspection.

  “You’re early,” boomed a voice behind me.

  “Not too early I hope.” I turned and looked into the face of a guy who fit right in with the tourist bureau’s perfect day. He was a bit taller than average, probably a few inches over six feet, with a well-defined chest outlined behind a damp tee-shirt. His tanned muscular legs—I’m a fool for a good calf muscle—were topped by baggy khaki shorts. I guessed his age at about forty, but his smiling weathered face could have added a few years to my estimate. He wore a white baseball cap advertising the name of his boat. A short thatch of sun-bleached hair poked from under the cap.

  “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting long,” he said. His smile appeared authentic, and his handshake was warm. It was a good thing I already liked his boat. Demanding a refund from a guy that good-looking would’ve broken my heart.

  “No, not at all. Just got here.” I nodded toward the catamaran. “Nice boat.”

  “Very nice. I wish it were mine. I’m Oliver Kingston—friends call me Ono, like the fish. I’m the captain; the owner lives in a Honolulu high-rise.”

  “Well, he should be very pleased with you. It looks like you keep his boat in great condition.”

  “Not to split hairs, but the owner’s a she.”

  Something about the way he said it, it sounded like there was more than an employer/employee relationship between them. I reminded myself my job wasn’t to delve into the guy’s personal life. I was simply there to check out a wedding venue.

  “Well, all the better. May I have a tour?”

  “Certainly. Mind removing your slippas?

  I’ve lived in Hawaii all my life, so I already knew to remove my shoes before getting onto a boat—or going in a house—but with my light coloring I’m accustomed to people mistaking me for a mainlander.

  “Wow. This cabin will hold, what, thirty or forty people?” I said, looking around the spacious interior. It had a large bar, and padded seats all around the inside walls of the cabin. Big picture windows allowed guests to stay dry if the boat should encounter a rain shower or if big waves kicked up salt spray.

  “It’s rated for forty-eight, but that would be a bit tight. But that’s just inside the cabin. The entire boat can easily handle sixty-five.”

  He showed me the bridge where he steered; the heads—what we landlubbers would call restrooms; and then finally the netting stretched like a trampoline across the bow which allowed casually-attired guests to lay back and enjoy the ride while watching the ocean slip by below.

  “That’s pretty much it. A catamaran is pretty much a wissiwig vessel.”

  “Wissiwig?”

  “Yeah, it’s an old software term. It’s spelled ‘w-y-s-i-w-y-g.’ Stands for ‘what you see is what you get’. Not many hiding places on an open hull boat like this.”

  “Well, it looks in perfect shape and I’m sure my clients will be very pleased. You’ve got us down for one o’clock on Saturday the tenth, right?”

  “Yep. I’ve got a little rendezvous with the owner this Sunday in Honolulu but I should be back by Tuesday. After that, she’s all yours for next weekend.”

  “Could the wedding party have pictures taken onboard before the wedding?”

  “No worries. Same day or a day or two earlier?”

  “Probably on Saturday morning. That way the bride’s hair and makeup will be all ready for the ceremony.”

  “I don’t know how you wedding planner people keep it all straight.”

  “That’s pretty much the whole job—keeping things straight. If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been at this gig?”

  “Oh, less than a year,” he said. “It’s a long story. Say, have you had your lunch yet?”

  He invited me to help myself to a packaged deli sandwich and a soft drink from the bar refrigerator. As we sat outside on the aft bench, taking in the sun and bobbing in the gentle wake of boats entering and leaving the harbor, I wondered why I’d never considered being a boat bum.

  During lunch, I told him about being born in Kauai but raised on Maui. I mentioned my short stint as a TSA air marshal and then told him how I’d fallen into wedding planning after helping a friend with her wedding when her planner bailed on her at the last minute.

  Ono followed up by describing his life on the mainland. “I spent the better part of my life laboring under florescent lights. I’d stay up all night wrestling with CAD-CAM drawings and then try to trick my body into thinking I’d slept by drinking way too much coffee. I never questioned my day-to-day existence until my wife, Penny, got cancer.”

  We locked eye
s.

  “Yeah, she died. An ugly way to go, no doubt about it.” He dropped his head and rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Anyway, I said, ‘Screw it’ and set off to see the world. As you can see, I didn’t get very far.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry to hear about Penny or sorry I only made it this far?” He smiled, and the sadness lifted a bit.

  Finally, I got up to leave.

  “You’re so lucky to have been born and raised here,” he said as we made our way to the gangway.

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “Those of us who’ve come over later in life can’t help but wonder what it would have been like to grow up kama’aina here on a neighbor island.”

  “Well, like all things, it’s got its upsides and downsides.”

  “Oh yeah? Give me a downside.”

  “Nah. It’d sound like whining, and I’m not a whiner. But believe me, there are things you take for granted on the mainland—or even on O’ahu—that we don’t have over here.”

  “Maybe so. But the color came back into my life the day I sailed the Maui Happy Returns out of the harbor in Honolulu to bring it over here. I can’t imagine where I’d be today if I hadn’t met Tomika.”

  I gave him a puzzled look.

  “Tomika Fujioka is my lady-friend in Honolulu. She owns this boat, and she also owns a big piece of my heart.”

  I nodded. Okay, to tell the truth I was a little disappointed. Hatch and I were doing okay, but there was something compelling about Ono that made me want to get to know him better.

  I thanked Ono for lunch and reluctantly disembarked the catamaran. As I crossed the dock, I looked back at the brilliant white hull bobbing in the wake of an incoming boat. I’d never imagined living anywhere other than my little house in Hali’imaile, but at that moment I could’ve sailed right out of that harbor and never looked back.

  ***

  I checked my watch as I trotted back to my car. It was already after two o’clock and I needed to get Keith and Nicole’s cake order up to Keahou’s bakery in Kula. Also, I’d had a call on my shop phone from a prospective client on the West Coast wanting to discuss a Christmas wedding. She said she couldn’t talk long since was calling from work but she wanted me to return her call at around seven—Pacific Time. It was still daylight savings time over on the mainland, so with the three-hour time difference, I still had an hour to go. I’d charged my cell phone around noon. With the way the battery had been acting up, I’d be cutting it close to have enough juice by then.

  I got in my car and glanced in the back, hoping against hope the rightful owner had come by to retrieve her missing locks. No such luck. It was probably my imagination, but it seemed the color had faded a little since I’d first found it. It looked more bottom-of-the purse copper penny than shiny-new copper penny. Maybe Nicole was right. Maybe I’d leapt to conclusions simply because red was an unfamiliar hair color in Hawaii. But regardless of whether it was Crystal’s hair or not, she was still missing.

  I had two stops to make before calling it a day: the police station and Keahou’s bakery. Which should I do first? The hair wasn’t going anywhere, and there was no way of knowing how long the cops would detain me.

  Delaying the missing person report was regrettable, but conducting a wedding without a cake was unthinkable.

  CHAPTER 5

  I had the Geo floored as it clawed its way up the steep road to Kula. My agreement with my cake vendor required me to place my order—in person—at least ten days in advance to guarantee delivery. I’d decided to go up to Kula first, then stop at the police station in Wailuku on my way back down. The last time I’d dealt with Maui’s finest I’d been stuck in an interrogation room for hours. This time I was bringing in evidence, so they’d probably grill me about finding the hair, and then do a big CSI number on my car. Who knew how long that could take?

  Keahou, cake artist extraordinaire, lives in an area we call “upcountry,” on the flanks of Haleakala, the island’s tallest volcanic mountain. It’s always cooler up in Kula. When I was a little kid, I thought the word cool came from the word ‘Kula’. It’s also very lush up there, with farms and ranches and even an upcountry vineyard. With good traffic it takes at least an hour from Lahaina, and since it was mid-afternoon the traffic situation was going from good to iffy as rush hour approached.

  “Hey, girl,” Keahou said, meeting me at the door with a big hug and a glass of pog—the super-sweet fruit juice every Hawaiian kid guzzles until they graduate to beer.

  “Hey, Auntie,” I replied. Of course she wasn’t my biological aunt. In Hawaii, every friendly female a decade or more older than you is usually greeted as auntie, unless they really are related to you in which case you might call them mama or tutu.

  “You got a cake order for me?” she said. As we went into her house I sucked in the aroma of baking bread, caramelized sugar and chocolate. No doubt heaven smells like Keahou’s kitchen.

  “Yeah. A big ono one.” It didn’t escape my notice that the word ono—which is Hawaiian for good or special—was also the nickname of a certain boat captain I hadn’t quite yet put out of my mind.

  “Oh, sounds good. Sit down. Let’s see what you got.”

  I went over Keith and Nicole’s cake order and Keahou smiled shyly when I got around to the breast-shaped cake.

  “She’s going to get you a picture of hers so you can match it.”

  “Why all these girls think their da kine boobies are so special? Mostly I make the same cake and then I just make the frosting a little lighter, a little darker, yeah?”

  “I agree. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all. But it helps if I offer the personal touch.”

  “You didn’t touch her!” Her eyes bugged out as if I’d dropped my pants.

  “No, no. I mean, I tell them to get me a picture of theirs so they will think it’s a totally custom cake—special for them. That’s what ‘the personal touch’ means.”

  “So ‘personal touch’ means ‘special for you’? I never heard that before. I like it.”

  “Anyway, here’s the written order for both cakes. I need them for the Saturday next, on the tenth. The ceremony’s down in Lahaina, on a boat. Then we’re going to Gerard’s at the Plantation Inn for a fancy dinner and reception. I’ll be here by nine that morning to pick up the cakes.”

  “This three-tier cake is pa’akiki—you know, not easy. And much money. I don’t mind carrying it down to Lahaina Town. I’ll get Komo to help me.”

  “You sure? It’s sometimes hard to find a parking place down there.”

  “No worries. We know Pako, one of the line cooks at Gerard’s. He’ll let us park in the truck zone for a few minutes.”

  I left her with a hefty down payment on the cakes and a pledge to meet her at the Plantation Inn at ten o’clock on the day of the wedding. I knew that for Keahou—and most of the residents on Maui—that meant any time before noon, but I’d adjusted my timetable accordingly.

  Leaving Keahou’s, I felt my heart rate quicken as I considered my next stop. There’s a police station on the West Side—in the Lahaina Civic Center—but I opted for the Wailuku station since it was closer to home for me. Besides, I’d met a couple of the guys there when I’d gotten involved in a crazy proxy wedding last winter, so I hoped I’d run into a friendly face.

  Traffic was light on my way down to the Hana Highway and from there I made it to Mahalani Street in less than half an hour. I parked in back and went through the familiar glass doors marked Maui County Police Department. The police station was decorated in classic your-tax-dollars-at-work décor. Everything was beige, with shiny tile floors, low fluorescent-lit ceilings, and a big glass case displaying various awards and citations earned by members of the department and local citizen heroes.

  A smiling receptionist sat behind a wide counter on the far side of the room. She wore a wireless telephone headset with a black foam bulb near her mouth. I assumed she was on a call since she was talking in a low voice a
nd there was no one else in sight. Her long black hair was pulled back and as she turned to pull a file from a cabinet behind her I couldn’t help but notice the bright blue scrunchie securing her ponytail. I shook off a shudder.

  She signed off from her call and turned to me. “Aloha. Can I help you?”

  “Aloha. I need to speak to someone about reporting possible criminal activity.” I’d rehearsed that line while walking into the station.

  “Possible criminal activity? What exactly do you mean?”

  Okay, so much for my attempt at cop-talk. “I have evidence that indicates a missing girl may have been abducted.”

  “How old?”

  “Well, it was left in my car last night. But this was the first chance I’ve had to bring it in.”

  “No, how old is the girl?”

  I had a strong desire to mutter never mind and flee. Were Keith and Nicole right and I was overreacting? “Oh, sorry. She’s… I don’t know, probably twenty-two, twenty-three years old.”

  “Then she’s an adult female, not a girl.” She glanced down as one of the lines on her phone console started to blink. A second later it began humming an almost soothing, chirr-chirr. She broke eye contact as she picked up the call. As she questioned the caller, I wondered if maybe she was finished with me. Even though it had been over forty-eight hours, it was starting to look like the police didn’t consider a missing adult a big problem.

  I turned to leave. I heard her quietly say, “Hold please.”

  I was nearly to the door when she said in a much louder voice, “Miss? Please have a seat. I’ll have you speak to Detective Wong.”

  Glen Wong was one of the few guys I’d met at the department. When a crazy wedding I was involved in last winter had gone sour he’d questioned me for what seemed like days, but turned out to be just a little over four hours. Not a hostile guy, but definitely thorough and a bit aloha-challenged when it came to dealing with the public.

  The receptionist gestured toward a row of beige plastic chairs. “It’ll be just a few minutes. He’s on the phone.”