Molokai Reef

by Dennis K. Biby

  “Agreed.”

  If it hadn’t been the ’vair, one could say the car ghosted to a stop in front of the widow’s house. A freshly installed For Sale sign flagged the front yard. Gybe and Kara exchanged glances then approached the front door. The driveway was empty. No one answered. Hoping that neighbors would recognize them as home buyers, they wandered to the back yard. The curtains were open on the patio door. Inside, they scanned empty rooms, barren of furniture. They continued around the house. Through two more windows, they confirmed that all of the furniture was gone. The widow and her two children had fled.

  “Guess she didn’t like Moloka‘i as much as she told us the other day.” Gybe opined.

  Back in the front lawn, they were met with the much dreaded and to be avoided nosy neighbor.

  The neighbor, who bragged that she didn’t gossip, told them that a moving van had cleared the house yesterday. She didn’t know when Sharon and the children left. In fact she was disappointed that they didn’t say goodbye. “I baby sat them kids many times.”

  “Now what? I told you I didn’t trust the widow.” Kara sat at the wheel, still parked at the widow’s house.

  “Maybe this place held too many bad memories. Just because she left doesn’t mean that she committed two murders. You’re grasping at anything to protect Susan.”

  “I still don’t like it.” She started the car and drove them back towards town.

  Kara turned left then a block later when the street ended, she turned right onto Malama, the main street of Kaunakakai. About half a block before the ballpark, she spotted the Realtor’s office.

  Gybe waited in the car while she went inside.

  “She moved to Wichita.” Kara said as she slammed the car door. “She listed the house the same day we met her. She left the next day.”

  “She fled town without waiting for Susan’s trial. Without waiting to see the death of her husband avenged. That’s very odd behavior.” Kara added as she spun the car’s starter.

  “Let’s go back to Jean’s house and see if we can talk with the neighbors.” Gybe suggested.

  48

  The neighbor that they had spoken with earlier was not at home. The neighbor on the opposite side of Jean’s house was home but refused to talk about Jean. “I mind my own business.” She said as she slammed the screen door and returned to Oprah.

  They drifted across the street to an old man watching them from his lanai. A lifetime of work under a tropical sun had etched deep wrinkles in his face. His chair rocked as he watched the strangers approach.

  He told them that he lived with his daughter, her husband, and three grandkids. The others worked or went to school while he stayed home most days. He was always home to meet the children.

  He didn’t want to say anymore to the strangers. Gybe sat silently. Kara cooed and flirted until the old man gave in. As a neighbor, he had met Jean soon after she moved in. He had seen Ray many times but only learned his name from the news of his death.

  Confirming the gardener’s story, he had seen Ray and Jean together every Saturday morning. Occasionally, they would return to the house during the week, usually around lunchtime. He had never seen the man’s car parked late at night. In fact, he had never seen the man’s car. The two, Ray and Jean, arrived always together in Jean’s pink Jeep.

  He remembered because he thought that Jean had found herself a man. “A pretty girl like Jean ought to be married.”

  Remembering the lesbian angle with Jean’s boss, although he never used that word with the old man, Gybe asked if Jean had other frequent visitors.

  The old man sat silent for a minute or two as he searched the fading memory banks of his eighty-seven-year-old brain. “Some mornin’s I saw a silver car drive away. The windows were tinted so I couldn’t see who was inside.”

  “What kind of car? New? Old?”

  “Oh, it was a new 'un. Foreign job. Probably one a 'em damn Jap cars.”

  Sensing the beginning of a long, nostalgic replay of World War Two, Gybe stood and thanked the old veteran.

  As he and Kara neared the car, they heard mumblings about MacArthur, Truman, sneaky bastards, and racial epithets not found in today’s politically correct, sanitized, and colorless language. Today only minorities could openly display bigotry, hatred, and ignorance. The rest of society, often minorities themselves, could hurl racial epithets only while safely cocooned inside a steel, plastic, and glass shell with four-wheel drive. Inside the automobile, one was anonymous, protected, and unaccountable.

  “If Ray and Jean drove around town in an open Jeep, it seems unlikely they were having a clandestine affair. Everyone knows everything that happens in this town.” Gybe mused. “On the other hand, they are not even supposed to know each other, according to Jean’s boss and Ray’s boss.”

  “Somebody lied.”

  The unspoken ‘why’ hung like a cartoon bubble as Kara unclutched the ’vair and jerked down the street.

  On the main street, Gybe directed her to stop beside a pay phone. He punched in numbers until he heard a ringing sound. When the GeNesRus receptionist answered, he set up an appointment with Dr. Miller. They would meet tomorrow morning.

  49

  He was falling – arms and legs spread wide. Far above, the moon receded into the darkness. He wanted to flip over and watch the approaching earth. He felt cold, sharp steel under his chin and woke up.

  “What da fuck?” Nahoa stared up at Gybe. “You’re dead man. You are dead.” His biceps tensed.

  An idle threat. At each movement, Mongoose tightened the ropes leading from each wrist and ankle to the nearest bed corner. Nahoa lie spread-eagled on his bed atop his jungle-motif sheets. His voice was his sole weapon and it was loud.

  “Let’s just say that you are closer to dead than I.” Gybe replied. Ticking the skin on Nahoa’s neck, a small trickle of blood oozed downward. “Let’s talk.”

  “Tell me about your meeting with Ray and Jean.”

  “Don’t know ’em”

  The machete nicked the soft webbing between Nahoa’s earlobe and jaw. “They were the ones who were murdered the other day. Remember? Some tourists found their bodies on the ocean floor west of Kaunakakai.”

  “Do you know who I am? Let me up now and I may let you live. My brother will be here in a few minutes.”

  Gybe lifted the machete and separated the earlobe from the jaw. Like any head wound, blood flowed freely. “I think you’re confused about the situation. Let me explain.” The machete sliced through the waistband of Nahoa’s boxer shorts. Gybe flipped the shorts away leaving the spread-eagled man defenseless and naked. “There are two rules meathead. First rule, I ask the questions. Second rule, you answer. The machete referees. Understand?” Gybe rested the blade under the man’s left nipple.

  “Tell me about the victims.”

  “Coupla dumb haoles. Thought they could sell drugs on my island.”

  “And – keep talking until I tell you to stop.”

  Nahoa told them how he had heard from his distributors that the two haoles had a bunch of hashish. They were looking for a dealer who could distribute it for them. Ray and Jean didn’t know how to sell drugs. They wanted a quick sale to one dealer for the entire amount.

  Makaha, Nahoa’s brother heard about the deal from a cousin. The brothers picked up the two – Jean and Ray – then took them to the old coconut grove west of town.

  Gybe waited for a moment then pressed the blade hard against Nahoa’s chest.

  Speaking quickly, Nahoa said that the couple claimed to have forty pounds of a THC laced product. THC, tetrahydrocannabinol, was the active ingredient in marijuana products.

  “Forty pounds? Isn’t that a lot of pot?” Gybe interrupted.

  “No shit. We only distribute on this island. That’s way more than anything my brother and I wanted to deal.”

  The brothers told the haoles that they weren’t interested. They warned them not to sell it on Moloka‘i. The brothers owned this island’s drug tr
ade. If they tried selling it on this island there would be serious problems.

  “So what did they do with the product?”

  “Don’t know. We roughed them up a little to make sure they understood our position, then left them in the park.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last week, maybe a coupla days before they were murdered.”

  “When did you see them last?”

  “The coconut grove. Saw them there first and last. Only time I met them.”

  “What happened to the drugs?”

  “Don’t know. They ain’t been on the street. My guys would tell me.”

  Remembering the silver Mercedes SL55 AMG, a car with a six-figure price tag, parked in the driveway, Gybe asked if Nahoa had met Jean before the hashish offer. Had he been to her house?

  The old man across the street from Jean’s house had said the unknown visitor drove a silver Jap car, but could he tell a Japanese model from a German model? Gybe doubted it.

  Nahoa denied that he had ever met Jean before. He would never go to her house. Didn’t even know where it was. “Dem haole bitches don’t know their place. Me, I’ll take Polynesian pussy any day.”

  Gybe left the man tied to the bed and motioned Mongoose into the other room.

  “Think he’s telling the truth, ‘goose?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. He was belligerent enough at the beginning but he got a little too cooperative at the end. We should see if his brother corroborates the story.”

  “Agreed. What do we do with Nahoa?”

  “Not to worry, I’ve got just the thing.”

  Back in the bedroom, Gybe used the machete to lift Nahoa’s chin towards the ceiling. Gybe felt Nahoa twitch, but knew that with his head tilted back he couldn’t see what Mongoose was doing.

  A latex glove snapped off Mongoose’s hand. “Done.”

  The machete sliced through the ropes holding Nahoa’s hands, decapitated a lion imprinted on the bed linen, and hacked a deep divot from the mattress.

  With his feet still tied, Nahoa sat up and looked at his privates. “What the fuck is that, you faggots?”

  A smooth metal ring fit tightly around the base of his penis and down under and behind his testicles. The ring looked solid – he couldn’t see a lock. Nahoa looked closer and discovered a marble sized node welded at the base of the ring.

  Mongoose held up a black plastic control similar to the electronic key fob used on newer automobiles. When he pressed the green button on the device, Nahoa jerked from the electric shock. “That’s the green button. I use it for demonstration and testing mostly.”

  The man’s eyes were wide as he stared at the control. There was a red button. “And the red button?”

  With a bit too much enthusiasm, the ‘goose said. “The red button detonates a small charge of gunpowder, powder I removed from a twelve gauge shotgun shell.”

  The man tried to move away from his jewels. A trick never perfected by the late great Houdini.

  “Get it off. Get if off.”

  “It’s my insurance policy. Don’t want to see those gorillas from the other night.” Gybe said. “The ‘goose tells me that if you try to cut it off – the ring that is – it detonates.”

  Gybe and Mongoose walked from the room. Nahoa sat staring at his balls. From the other room, just loud enough to be heard by Nahoa, Mongoose said, “I’d stay away from garage door openers, if I were you.”

  They left Nahoa and walked outside.

  “That thing safe?”

  “Probably,” Mongoose assured Gybe. “It’s my Mod IV.”

  “And the earlier models?”

  “The first was a prototype. A very old microwave set it off. Neighbor’s cordless phone detonated the second model. As for the Mod III, I never determinted what triggered it.”

  “Let’s find the brother before they compare notes.”

  They found the brother, or rather his car, parked behind the hardware store two blocks from the main street. As Makaha walked out of the store, Mongoose shoved a shopping cart into his belly. Gybe lined up a two by four with the back of his head and sank the putt.

  When Makaha came to, the world was upside down. A rope led from his feet over the branch of a banyan tree. He was eye level with Gybe’s belt.

  “Mornin’ Makaha.” Gybe broke the ice.

  As a gesture of fair play, they had left his hands untied. Makaha lunged for Gybe, but without purchase, he only managed to sway under the tree limb.

  “We just talked to your brother. He told us about your meeting with the two murder victims. The meeting about the hashish. We’d like to hear your version of the story.”

  Makaha was reluctant to talk until Mongoose had dropped the eleventh cockroach down the pant legs of the man’s shorts. They say cockroaches are cleaner than cats and some cultures eat them on special occasions, but then there were people like Makaha – he could step on a roach, but he didn’t want them crawling around in his shorts.

  As they say in the movies, he sang like a chipmunk. His story was similar to his brother’s.

  “Where were you on Monday night, the night of the murders?”

  “Around. My brother and me were around.”

  “Around where. Anyone see you between seven and midnight?”

  Mongoose found a gecko on the banyan tree and added it to the wild animal park roaming Makaha’s shorts.

  “We were with a coupla girls. Swimin’ out at the old Ali‘i fishpond. I forget their names. Let me down.”

  “Where are the drugs now?”

  The ‘goose added the rest of the bucket of roaches, survivors of the recent Roach Hill Downs.

  “I don’t know. Let me down. I don’t know, I swear.”

  “Mongoose, tell him about his brother’s new jewelry.”

  The machete swung, a quicker thinking man might have rolled with the fall.

  When they left, Gybe was confident that the writhing, pant-less Makaha, even after he found the last cockroach, would not bother them again.

  Gybe and the ‘goose drove away. “You know, I forgot to ask them about my dinghy – did they sink it?”

  “We can go back, if you want?”

  “Naw, give me that control. I’ll ask Nahoa the next time I see him.”

  50

  Gybe wanted to speak with Jean’s boss, lover, or whatever alone. He pulled the ’vair into a visitor slot and rolled the wheels up to the curb. A counterclockwise twist of the screwdriver broke the engine’s electrical circuit, an age-old technique for shutting down a gasoline engine. When the ’vair’s engine failed to stop, Gybe popped the clutch and the car lurched over the curb pinning a bicycle against a kukui tree.

  The receptionist recognized Gybe as he entered the office. She buzzed Dr. Miller and announced his arrival.

  “I’m Gybe and I have an appointment with Dr. Miller.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve just called her and she asks that you have a seat. She’s running late and will be with you in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Small island again. Everyone knows the stranger in town. Makes it hard to rob banks.” He joked.

  The receptionist smiled. “Can I get you coffee, soda, water, anything to drink?”

  Gybe asked for a diet soda and the receptionist ducked into another room and returned with the soda and a glass of ice.

  Since he had a fifteen-minute wait, Gybe pumped the receptionist for information on Jean. How well she knew her, who her friends were, and so on.

  She revealed that everyone liked her. Here the office, they called her Dr. Jean, a play on her name and her work.

  The receptionist’s name was Lea. She was very talkative until Gybe asked whether Jean had a boyfriend. Lea’s eyes darted around the room.

  “Not that I know of. She worked late every night. Doubt if she had time.” Lea looked to her desk, searching for something to do.

  “How about a male coworker here?”

  “We don’t have any. Only women work here.”

  �
�Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Don’t know, I’m just the receptionist.”

  Gybe knew that although her title was receptionist, Lea knew far more than she revealed.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Gybe. Come into my office. Lea, please hold my calls.”

  Seated again in Dr. Miller’s office, Gybe relayed his discoveries about Jean. When he mentioned the frequent visits by Ray Wilson, the male victim, Elizabeth’s eyes broke contact as she glanced to her desktop. She knew something.

  “You told me the other day that Jean didn’t know Ray, isn’t that correct?”

  “I didn’t think she did.”

  Gybe waited through the long pause. He had learned that guilty, lying, or misleading people could not sit in silence, unless they were professional fabricators. He didn’t think Dr. Miller fell into the latter category.

  “Jean had her own life. Here at the company, she worked hard. Late almost every night like most of my employees. I wouldn’t know what she did on her own time.”

  Sure that she would say no more, Gybe asked the indelicate question – was Jean a lesbian? He knew that rumors put Jean and Elizabeth together back at UC Davis. Susan had confessed about their relationship, but Elizabeth didn’t know that he knew. Gybe waited for her response.

  “Again, I wouldn’t know. What difference does it make?”

  Picking up steam, she continued, “That’s a very rude question and I don’t see what it has to do with Jean’s murder.” Elizabeth’s face was taut, her eyes stern, her posture rigid.

  Gybe waited two beats then laid one theory on the table. Maybe Jean had a lesbian lover who found her cheating with Ray. Could that be possible?

  “Why do you say lesbian? Maybe she had a male lover who found her cheating?”

  “You could be right.” Gybe played along. “But, so far I’ve found no evidence of men in Jean’s life, except Ray of course. Since it wasn’t a double suicide, he’s not a suspect.”