Molokai Reef

by Dennis K. Biby

29

  When they rolled down the grade into Kaunakakai after several sightseeing stops, the sun had set and the streetlights glowed along the causeway. Accustomed to the missing reverse gear, Kara piloted the ’vair into a space for easy exit, her habit by now. By the time they walked to the dinghy landing, the car engine had rattled to a stop.

  “Shit. Where’s my dinghy?”

  Both stared at the dock where they had left Aweigh securely tied. Only a yellow polypropylene rope dangled from the cleat. The dinghy was nowhere in site. Gybe knelt on the dock and lifted the painter from the water. A clean cut marked the new end of the rope, about two feet from the cleat.

  “I don’t know if they really hung horse thieves in the old days, but if I catch the bastard that stole my boat, he’ll be begging for a noose…”

  “Hey, it’s only a boat.” Kara interrupted. “Aren’t you the one living the simple life?” The words fell out of her mouth before she realized that maybe this wasn’t the time for a discussion of simplicity.

  Gybe scanned the harbor. Ukulele music emanated from Makani, three fishermen stood near the mauka end of the pier, and the vehicle parade rolled up and down the causeway. Although it was after sunset, a couple of old coots were preparing their boat to go out fishing. Gybe asked around, but no one had seen the dinghy since this morning.

  The fishermen gave them a lift out to Makani. Gybe wanted to ask Mongoose if he had seen anything.

  “Welcome wahine, et tu mi amigo.”

  Amazingly the self-medicated Mongoose had worked four languages into the simple greeting. They stepped aboard and into a party in progress. Tied to the starboard side, an outrigger canoe bumped against the fenders – inflated white sausages - that insulated it from the hull. A small skiff dangled from its painter at the stern.

  A uke player removed one of the flower leis from his neck and slipped it over Kara’s head, then stuck a white hibiscus behind her ear. Her eyes widened at the bare canoe-paddler-developed chest of the young man as she appeared to absorb in his scent.

  A beer materialized in Gybe’s hand as he surveyed the deck. On the foredeck, three young women, arms above their heads, undulated their trim bodies while two men on the cabintop, strummed their ukuleles. Gybe joined four women, two men he didn’t recognize, and Mongoose in the cockpit. Japanese lanterns hung from the rigging and cast an eerie glow over the boat’s deck. Kara drifted aft with her new friend. Not surprisingly, the heavy scent of pakalolo, the Hawaiian word for ganja, cloaked the air.

  “That parrot is bogarting your doobie.” Gybe pointed at the yard-long bird perched on the ship’s binnacle.

  Everyone turned towards the bird whose bright red feathers adorned its back and long tail. A yellow band separated the red from the iridescent blue wing feathers. Sensing the attention, the bird hopped to the ship’s wheel and screeched, “Not inhale, not inhale.”

  “It’s not a parrot – it’s a scarlet macaw.” Mongoose explained. “Name’s Bill.” He took the fat doobie from Bill and took a deep hit. Remembering his manners, he passed the joint to the girl on his right.

  Another skiff nuzzled alongside, disgorged its passengers, and joined the other one dangling from its painter astern.

  An hour later, when Gybe and his new friend, Nani, dove off the port bow and swam to Ferrity, few on board Makani were still in the current space-time dimension. No one noticed. No one cared.

  30

  The next morning, Gybe was alone aboard Ferrity when Mongoose motored his dinghy alongside. Kara sat in the bow of the tender, a shallow anger on her face.

  “Nice party, ’goose. Coffee?”

  They settled around the cockpit. Mongoose waited for his coffee to stop steaming, Gybe did the same with Kara.

  “Where’s Bill? And where did you get him?”

  “Won him on a bet at Roach Hill Downs two nights ago.”

  If civilized society, as touted by politicians, newspapers, and high school home ec teachers, was a well-manicured lawn with two stately oaks and surrounded by well-tended flowerbeds, Mongoose was the oil spot on the driveway. He paid no taxes, at least none that weren’t collected at point of sale. Mostly he bartered. The only official papers that he carried were a passport and a ship’s document. He had backups to these in several names. The ’goose’s name embossed no credit cards nor titled any checks.

  An article on the Internet about the annual cockroach races at Purdue University, dubbed Roach Hill Downs had inspired him to bring the event to Moloka‘i. For the starting gate, Mongoose used a one-gallon glass jar that he had painted black. He placed the entrants in the jar and then sat it upside down in the center of a seven-foot circle. Because the jar shielded the light, the roaches were quiet in the container. A rope, duct-taped to the jar and led over a rafter completed the gate assembly.

  The blowing of a conch shell signaled the start of a race. The raising of the jar exposed the roaches to the bright lights in the arena. The race began. Rules were simple. The first roach over the outside circle won. ’Goose’s roach won three consecutive races and hence the grand prize – the scarlet macaw. “Won him off a fellow calling himself Jack Sparrow.” Mongoose amplified.

  “It was exciting, man. Much better than them chicken fights you see all around the islands. After the races, I set up a gecko-wrestling pit. In the pit, a 32-gallon Rubbermaid garbage can, we placed one gecko and one cockroach. If the roach survived two minutes the roach won, else, the gecko won.”

  “Bill,” he motioned to the red macaw, “chose from the losers. As a vegetarian, he shuns red meat and insects. But like a cat with a bird, he needs his toys.”

  He explained his dream to take roach racing to a national level. “The working man needs a sport that doesn’t require expensive thoroughbreds, pit crews, or whiny, spoiled athletes. A sport where a ticket doesn’t cost thirty dollars or a beer eight bucks!”

  Gybe interrupted the dream, “How will you get the roaches to wear Nike caps or Budweiser jackets?”

  “The illiterati always scoff at genius.” Mongoose continued. “Besides racing roaches and gecko-roach wrestling, I foresee maze running, chariot races, and roach-pulls in the future.” A regular Mark Twain and his Calaveras frog.

  Kara remained quiet.

  “I got some stuff on the seed companies.” Mongoose changed the subject.

  31

  “Good – tell me.”

  Mongoose explained what he had discovered. GeNesRus, the company where Jean worked, was researching methods to perfect the transfer of genes from one species to another. They worked exclusively on plant-to-plant transfers, focusing on methodologies without specific goals for any particular transfer.

  “So they are working on techniques, but not specific products?” Gybe asked to clarify.

  “Exactly. They want to learn how to move genes quickly, predictably, and successfully. They want to master the gene transfer process between ANY two plants. If they succeed, they will be able to custom design to specification new plants – plants with new characteristics – faster than the traditional single-goal development cycle. According to the reports that I read, they are very close to succeeding. In tests, they’ve been able to pull any genetic trait from over five hundred species and place that trait into any other species and create a viable new plant within forty-five days.”

  “They have a computer database that lists up to fifty traits for each of five hundred plants. A simple program randomly pulls a trait from the set and assigns it to another in the set. This random match-up becomes the problem for the researcher to solve.”

  “The murdered Dr. Splicer was one of five trained scientists working in this area at GeNesRus.” Mongoose continued. “Of course, they have several lab assistants and technicians, but the five scientists were responsible for the research. Jean’s boss – Dr. Miller – whom I believe you met was head of the company.”

  “Who funds it?” Gybe interrupted.

  “That’s a little hard to say. All of the employees own stock whic
h they purchase with their own money. In addition, they have generous stock options. Like many startups, they have accepted founder’s stock and stock options in lieu of high pay. Their salaries are modest at best.”

  “Dr. Miller put up her own money for the lease and receives no salary. As you know, she got a very sweet deal on the lease. The previous renter abandoned the building lock, stock, and barrel. Or maybe it’s equipment, desks, and computers. She has accepted seed capital from two Boston based venture capital firms.”

  “I’m curious about the company that left everything behind. That’s very strange. What happened to them?”

  “Didn’t check into that, but I will.”

  “What else did you find?”

  Mongoose rattled along for another ten minutes describing the other scientists and some of the assistants. “Guess you know about Jean and her boss?”

  “Jean and Elizabeth? No.” Gybe responded.

  32

  Gybe noticed that Kara remained silent throughout the conversation. Her facial expression alternated between a far away almost dreamy quality and a stern angry set. Was she dreaming of the paddler-boy from last night or the swimmer-girl that followed Gybe home?

  “They were very friendly.” Mongoose answered his own question.

  Kara snapped back to the present. “You mean lesbians? How do you know? Elizabeth told us that Jean had a boyfriend.”

  “Maybe she did, but the e-mails that I read were pretty explicit. How many people send e-mails to their bosses signed ‘kisses J?’ Besides, your friend Susan should know.”

  “Should I ask how you got this information? How you read her e-mails?” Gybe wondered. “I suppose you hacked through their firewalls and into the server?”

  “You underestimate me Gybe.” The masterful Mongoose explained how excellent firewalls and security systems protected the computer network at GeNesRus. The trade secrets under development were very valuable. Biometric devices, attached to each workstation, read fingerprints and scanned retinas before allowing access.

  “They even had a prototype pheromone sniffer. When it detects the scent of an unauthorized person or a particularly obnoxious perfume, it blanks the computer screen. The IT Director has accused one male hacker of using the sensor for immoral purposes. Something to do with predicting estrus cycles.”

  “The scanners are very difficult to bypass, at least for most people.” Mongoose added without elaboration.

  He explained that he could have hacked into the system, but he found it easier to befriend the IT manager.

  The Information Technology manager was a gamer, ’goose amplified. A gamer, Latin name Geekonus gamerectus, was one of the two known subspecies of the more commonly encountered geek. The gamer worked at GeNesRus as an antidote to starvation. She didn’t care whether the company worked with genetics or gondolas. When she wasn’t working, she was gaming.

  In exchange for a bootleg copy of a soon to be released and much hyped game, the IT manager gave Mongoose read-only access to the server. From there, he was able to explore the entire GeNesRus computer network including all workstations and the mail server.

  “Trite as it may sound, people are always the weak link in a security system.” Mongoose expounded.

  “Good work on GeNesRus, what did you find at SynCorn?”

  “Not much more than you already know. Dr. Wilson, before his murder, was working on the color modification of corn kernels using genetics. Rather than trying to solve a real world problem, like pest control, productivity gains, or drought resistance, their goal was to make red, white, and blue corn. Or any other color that the marketing department needed.”

  “I haven’t gotten into their computer system yet, but I will. The word on the street is that Mr. Lester Spooner is about out of money. He founded SynCorn from his own pocket, money that he made on the stock run up of his last employer. He bailed, that is, he cashed in his stock, before the company went the way of the American chestnut.”

  Kara explained ’goose’s comment. “Billions of American chestnut trees died in the first half of the twentieth century. Trees up to one hundred feet tall with trunks up to ten feet in diameter blanketed much of Appalachia. They are on the brink of extinction because of the chestnut blight. A parasite that traveled with Asiatic chestnut trees imported in the 1800’s. Just another example of man screwing up the environment.”

  This woman was a one-tracker. Gybe thought.

  “Anyway, Les’s company is short on funds and some suppliers have cut off deliveries. He hasn’t laid off anyone. Yet. But at least two of the key researchers have seen their paycheck go away. Les has talked them into accepting stock.”

  For another twenty minutes, the three discussed what they knew and what they should do next. Gybe emphasized that they needed more information. Specifically, he was interested in the personal lives of the dead Jean and her very much alive boss, Elizabeth. Could some sort of lover’s triangle have precipitated the murders? Was Jean seeing the dead Ray as well as Elizabeth? Could Elizabeth have murdered them both during a jealous rage?

  Or could it be the other way around? He remembered how their interview with the dead man’s wife had ended abruptly when he questioned their marital bliss. Could Sharon, the dead man’s wife, have believed that the two victims were having an affair?

  Finally, was money involved? Could the SynCorn’s financial troubles play into the deaths?

  There were too many unanswered questions.

  Tomorrow, Kara would take the Moloka‘i Princess ferry over to Maui and question Susan again. The ’goose would continue his efforts to break into the computer system of SynCorn. Plus, he would dig into the personal lives of the murdered woman’s boss and the murdered man’s wife. When Kara went below to use the head, Gybe asked Mongoose to snoop around about Susan as well.

  Gybe, for his part, was going for a sail. He needed to ponder the problems and probe the possibilities. That is, if he could find his damn dink.

  33

  The chuckling Mongoose, if mongooses could chuckle, forced out, “I know where your dink is, man.”

  “Where? What’s so funny? When I find the guy who stole it, I’ll shellac his testicles and present them to his girlfriend as earrings!”

  “The dink is right where you left it.” Mongoose paused for effect. “Almost anyway, it’s on the bottom.”

  “The dink is an inflatable, you moron, it can’t sink. Even if the air leaked out or someone deflated it, the dink would stay afloat like a limp air mattress in a swimming pool.”

  “Not if it’s full of concrete. Remember that pretty young wahine that I was with last night?”

  “Mongoose, when I left there were at least eight young women on Makani. You’ve got to ease up the pakalolo. There’s a reason they call it that. It comes from the words for tobacco and crazy – crazy tobacco.”

  “Gybe, I saw you swim away with Nani. You’re awfully uptight, didn’t you get…”

  “Enough! Why is my dink full of concrete?”

  According to the girl, yesterday afternoon an island concrete truck pulled onto the pier and backed up to the dingy dock. As always, several locals were on the pier. The driver swung the dump chute over Aweigh and starting pouring concrete. Inspecting his work after the dinghy sank, the driver noticed that the painter was still holding up the bow. The driver retrieved a machete from the truck cab, slashed the line, and drove away.

  “Didn’t anyone call the police? Did they get license plate numbers?”

  “Everyone knew it was your dink. While you have yet to make enemies, you haven’t made any friends. To the locals, you’re a yachtie or rich haole. They thought it was pretty funny.”

  Mongoose had brought his dive gear and a float bag with him. At the pier, they found the dinghy on the bottom, thirteen feet below the surface. The concrete man had stopped pouring once the dinghy sank. The air chambers, still inflated, kept the whole mess at near neutral buoyancy. They removed the outboard and carried it to the surface. Aft
er attaching the float bag to the starboard grab rope, they used the scuba tank to inflate. When the bag was two-thirds full, it had lifted the dinghy up to a 45-degree angle with the bottom. From this position, the two men were able to flip the little boat onto its top, concrete down. The concrete plug wore the dinghy like King Kong’s condom.

  Gybe released the air from the dink and the two men peeled the Hypalon fabric of the dinghy away from the concrete. Kara had remained on the dinghy dock where she helped with the salvage operation.

  “I need to do some laundry before I take the ferry to Maui.” Kara said once the motor and dinghy were safely on the dock. “I’ll take the ’vair to the laundromat.”

  “Check the dryers.” Gybe hollered as Kara started walking towards the car.

  Kara halted, turned towards Gybe as if he had just told her to wash her hands before supper, then started walking.

  “Squid – check for squid in the dryers.”

  That stopped Kara. She faced Gybe. “What squid in the dryers?”

  Gybe explained that fisherman sometimes used the dryers instead of hanging the squid on racks in the sun. Kara shuddered, then boarded the ’vair.

  In the parking lot, Gybe field stripped the outboard. He removed the carburetor, fuel line, and spark plugs. After rinsing everything in fresh water and then drying the parts, he reassembled the simple two-cylinder engine. Less than two hours after they had peeled Aweigh off the bottom, she was afloat with the engine purring like the good little rice-burner that it was. He bid adieu to Mongoose and motored to Ferrity.

  Gybe stowed the dinghy on the foredeck. Since he was sailing only a short way and downwind at that, he broke his own rule and left the dink inflated, but lashed securely. Thirty minutes after returning to his boat, Ferrity was ready to sail.

  With the anchor on deck, he left the foredeck, stopped at the mast, and raised the mainsail. Predictable trade winds blew from the east.