by Chip Hughes
She starts to play—slowly and softly. The tune is simple, serene, and haunting. Her fingers move gracefully over the keys. The piano sounds bell-like and brilliant. I can’t believe I’m hearing concert hall music in a private home in Kailua-Kona. The melody calms me, yet makes me yearn. I know I’ve heard it before, but don’t remember where or when.
As the serene tune continues I wonder what an equally serene world would be like—a world in perfect harmony. And while I know that’s not possible, the piece puts me in a space where I can imagine it. Everything is ordered and beautiful. Everyone loves and cares. All work for peace and the common good. Nobody gets divorced. Nobody steals. Nobody cheats and lies. Nobody murders.
My reverie continues as long as the piece does—just a few precious minutes. When it’s over, my hands feel damp.
She turns to me. “Did you like it?”
When she asks this I suddenly recall her ex-husband’s limo driver saying, “She wen stab ‘em, brah!” I can’t picture it. These graceful hands wielding a knife? Then I remember her eyes turning blank at the funeral when she saw her ex with his second wife. No love lost.
A strained look now crosses Kathryn Ransom’s face. Finally I choke out, “That was beautiful. You’re very good.”
“Thank you.” She seems relieved. “Satie wrote two more variations. But I’ll spare you for now.”
With the musical prelude over, I start my questions. “Would you mind telling me about the time your husband checked into Hilo Hospital with a knife wound? I can’t imagine you had anything to do with it. You just don’t seem like the kind of person . . .”
Her eyes go blank—like at the funeral. I sit quietly and wait.
She doesn’t speak. She turns back to the piano and starts to play again. The musical prelude is not over. The piece sounds like rippling water. It’s beautiful. I’m entranced, by both the tune and her refusal to talk. I almost don’t care. The melody carries me away.
When it ends she says, “That’s Bach’s ‘Prelude in C’. So simple. So exquisite. Another little piece that helped me through the divorce.”
I nod and wait.
She finally starts to talk. “Kai, I wasn’t myself during the divorce. I was self-medicating to get through it—if you know what I mean.”
I nod again. That’s a euphemistic way of saying she was blasted.
“I just sort of snapped. I’d given him everything for thirty years. I gave him three children. I followed him everywhere—from one drilling site to another around the world. I was devoted and loyal and loving. And—with him—that wasn’t always easy.”
“I understand.” I let her keep going.
“But when he lied to me . . . when he deceived me . . . when he took up with that woman half his age behind my back.” She pauses. “I’m not proud of what I did. At that moment, I wanted him dead.”
“Do you mind if I ask you where you were on the morning your ex-husband did die?” I wonder if she’s going to start playing again. She doesn’t.
“I was driving from Volcano back to Kona. I stayed overnight with Stan Nagahara’s wife. We’ve always been close and she wanted me with her after the service.”
“Do you remember what time you drove?”
“Not exactly. I ate breakfast first with Kyoko. Maybe nine or nine-thirty?”
“Anyone ride with you?”
“Just me. Caitlin flew back to Honolulu. She had classes at the University.”
“When did you learn of your ex-husband’s death?”
“Oh, it wasn’t until that night. Nobody official called me, of course. I’m not his wife anymore. I saw it on the TV news. Caitlin hadn’t heard, nor her brothers on the mainland. I had to tell them.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“When the divorce was over, I just wanted to put him behind me. But my children still needed him. And he wasn’t there. I’m sorry for them. Before he died they were just getting close to him again after a long estrangement. Why would I kill him? He was finally coming to his senses and considering his own family.”
I shift gears. “Are you still in touch with Mr. Ransom’s ex-partner, Mick London? I’m going to see him this afternoon. Anything you can tell me about him might help.”
“Mick lost everything when Rex pulled out of Puna. I talked with him about six months ago. He’s living in a tiny shack and drives an old beat up truck.
“I saw the truck,” I say, “at the funeral.”
“His belated entrance was hard to miss.” Kathryn shakes her head. “From what I’ve heard, Mick ekes out a meager existence by scavenging scrap metal. Other than that, he just drinks and fishes. If he didn’t fish, he wouldn’t eat. This is a man who was once very successful. But when the company failed he discovered he was too old to start over. He blames Rex entirely.”
“He’s bitter about losing his business?”
“That’s only half of it. Mick was dating Donnie Lam before she married Rex. She was some kind of PR person the company hired. She was already widowed, from what I heard. Then she latched onto my husband. I’m not much for women who do things like that.”
I pull the lipstick I found on the Crater Rim Trail from my pocket and crank it open. “Does this look familiar?”
She studies its fiery red hue. “No. Should it?”
“Is it a color that you or, say, your daughter might wear? Or anybody you know?”
“I doubt it,” she says. “Well, maybe Rex’s second wife. That looks like her style. Where did you find it?”
I fudge. “Somebody dropped it and I picked it up.”
We talk a while longer. What I finally take away from the interview is that Kathryn Ransom admits to stabbing her husband during their acrimonious divorce. She also admits to being in or around Volcano on the morning her husband died. She has no alibi as to her exact whereabouts. She says she was driving back to Kona alone. She had the opportunity to kill her husband. But to hear her talk now, not the motive. She claims she’s over the divorce and over her late ex-husband. And I can’t link her, at this point, to the young woman in red.
I find myself believing Kathryn Ransom. For now.
twenty-two
It’s after one when the green copper gate at Kathryn Ransom’s oceanfront estate closes behind me. I make tracks for Waimea.
The highway north of Kailua along the Kohala Coast looks like a bomb went off. From the mountains to the sea, the roadside is charred and empty. It wasn’t a bomb that did this. It was a volcano. Hualālai, the island’s third most active. The lack of rain in this arid region doesn’t help recovery. The lava flow looks like it happened just yesterday, not two hundred years ago. The only things that seem to sprout in the blackness are the luxury oceanfront resorts at Waikoloa and the cryptic white coral graffiti along the highway: “Shade Dada,” “Thelma + Louise,” and “sadkids.com.” And the not so cryptic: “Aloha, Mom,” “Suck it up,” and “Jess loves Bryan.” Or is it “Jeff loves Byron”?
I pass the sprawling resorts along the shore and then climb northeast into the ranchlands of Waimea, officially called Kamuela. The air cools and the roadside greens. This is the high country of Parker Ranch—famous for its fine beef cattle—where verdant pasturelands roll gently from snowcapped Mauna Kea toward the sparkling blue sea.
Kathryn Ransom wasn’t exaggerating when she said Mick London lives in a shack. An abandoned utility shed, really. Weathered grey boards. Rusty tin roof. One window and one door. Next to the shed is his beat-up truck. The bed is heaped with scrap metal. And one fishing pole. The faded letters on the door—LONDON DRILLING EQUIPMENT—make little sense now.
The shed’s door doesn’t have a knob. Only a hasp and padlock. The lock is open. The key in. I assume that means Mick is home. I knock on a grey board, my knuckles managing to avoid splinters.
“Jus’ a min—” drawls a slurred voice from behind the boards.
I wait. Crashing sounds make me think I’ve come at a bad time. I check my watch. It’s a little after two.<
br />
The door finally creaks open, revealing the white-bearded Father Time I saw at the funeral. Mick London is hunched over and smells like a barroom. His flushed face suggests too much whiskey and too much Hawaiian sun. And his murky eyes more of the same. The grime on his tattered shirt and holey jeans reminds me of the Chinatown winos who hang out by Mrs. Fujiyama’s dumpster.
The shack smells like he does. A half empty whiskey bottle sits on the dirt floor by his unmade cot. He motions me to sit in the only chair in the place. He stumbles to his cot.
“Wan’ some?” He reaches for the whiskey.
I shake my head. “I’m good.”
“Doan mine if I do.” He takes a swig.
I thank him for seeing me on short notice. Then I start off friendly and easy. I ask him where he fishes.
“Fissssh?” he looks surprised. “Near Mauna Kea Resor’,” he manages to say. “On the rocks.”
“What do you catch?”
“Ulua,” he replies.
“Really?” Ulua is a large, white-meat game fish, prized by local fishermen.
“Yeahhh.” He takes another drink. “Fur dinner.” Fish seems to be, as Kathryn Ransom said, his only sustenance. Besides whisky.
I ask him how he teamed up with Rex Ransom.
“Tha’ sonofabitch!” Mick reddens. “We go waaay back.” Mick says he came with Ransom Geothermal from Montana to be Rex’s plant manager in Puna. But then he started a side business with his boss’s blessing and sold his wares exclusively to him. It was a great deal for Ransom, I gather, since Mick took the risks of acquiring and stocking the equipment. He admits he made good money while the arrangement lasted, but was not prepared—not even told—when Ransom abruptly pulled out of Puna. Mick eventually filed for bankruptcy.
“Did Ransom help you in any way?” I ask.
“Tha’ sonofabitch?” Mick is about to boil. He explains he took Ransom to court, but the CEO’s shifty lawyers prevailed.
“Too bad,” I say, trying to keep him going.
“An’ tha’ bitsch he marry—” Mick spits out the words. “She wuz gonna marry meee!”
“Donnie?” It sounds unlikely.
“Yeahhh, tha’ shlutt!” Mick goes on to say that when Donnie sniffed what was coming—his bankruptcy—she jumped ship.
“Make you angry to see them together at the funeral?” I ask.
Mick’s face reddens. He gawks at me.
He’s right. It was a stupid question.
“Dey deserff eash other!” He sneers. “Doze two!” Mick claims Donnie only married Ransom for his money. Which gives her a good reason to want him dead. “If Pele didn’ keeel ‘em,” Mick says, “Donnie did!”
“How could Donnie kill Rex?” I ask. “I was with her when he died.”
“Jus’ kiddin’,” Mick says. “Sour grapes.”
I shrug. “Do you mind if I ask where you were when he died, the Wednesday after the funeral?”
“Doan remember,” he says. And I believe him. He was smashed.
“Did you drive home after the service? Did you stay another night in Volcano?”
Mick looks puzzled. “Now I remember—I drove but I got shleepy. I pulled off an’ shlept.”
“Where?” He obviously couldn’t see straight.
“I dunno.”
“Did you get a room?”
“Nah. Wadda I wan’ a room fur? Got my truck.”
“Did you see or talk to anyone?”
He shakes his head. He’s got no alibi. He seems to know that. But I’ve got no evidence against him. He seems to know that too.
We talk more. I ask more questions. Time passes.
“Thanks,” I finally say. “Gotta long drive back to Volcano.”
He nods and I stand. Mick rolls back on his cot and hoists his whiskey. “To yo’ healff.”
I let myself out and soon begin winding down the Hamakua Coast, mulling over the interview. Opportunity. Mick London has no alibi on the morning Ransom died. Motive. He’s still bitter about his old boss taking away his livelihood and, Mick claims, his woman. Means. But how could he do it? Even if he showed up on the Crater Rim Trail that fateful morning, Mick was in no condition to kill a flea. And what possible connection could he have to the young woman in red?
Back at the Volcano House Wednesday evening I get a call from Tommy Woo. He tells his obligatory jokes and then asks, “Whatever happened to your little lei girl and her thug boyfriend?”
“Blossom may be little, Tommy. But she’s not a girl. She’s twenty. If you want to know, she’s staying in my apartment while I’m on the Big Island.”
“Bad idea,” he says.
I know he’s right, but I say, “You yourself advised she should disappear for a while.”
Tommy shrugs it off. “What are you doing back on the Big Island?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Ransom’s daughter hired me to look into his death. She doesn’t believe an accident put him in that steam vent.”
“You’re investigating Pele?” Tommy’s tone suggests he’s ribbing me.
“Yeah,” I respond in kind. “I’ve got her on the ropes. I’ll have a complete confession before I leave. Guaranteed.” Then I go him one better. “And if the goddess refuses to confess, there’s a few human suspects I like for the crime.”
“Good man . . .” Tommy pauses. “But you better be careful about lending your apartment to the lei girl. When her ex-boyfriend finds out, he’s gonna think you’re her new guy.”
“His name’s Junior and he already thinks that. He’s wrong.”
There’s a beep on my cell phone indicating an incoming call. I glance at caller ID. Maile? No. Area code 303. Denver. The Pali case. I’ve got to take this call! But just as I tell Tommy to hang on, the number disappears.
“Sh—!” I say.
“What’s wrong?” Tommy asks.
“I got another call, from Denver—probably the Lindquist twins’ friend who may be the key to the Pail case. I’ve been waiting on her for a week.”
“She’ll leave a message,” Tommy says. “Anyway, you better watch your back for this Junior dude. I bet he’s got a rap sheet as long as his arm.”
“And outstanding warrants,” I say. “He’s gonna do some time, once HPD gets him off the street.”
Then Tommy coyly asks, “Remember what I told you about Zahra?”
At first I draw a blank. “Oh, yeah. You’re going to ask Zahra to marry you.”
“Right,” he explains. “Otherwise she has to go back to Kenya.”
My phone beeps again—this time with the tone indicating a new voicemail. From Denver?
“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.” I’m getting impatient because I’ve already reminded him about his two marriages. After the second he got his cats, Miles and Charlie, and swore off marriage forever. Truth is, Tommy isn’t cracked up to be a husband. His late-night gigs after long days at his office mean he’s seldom home. I’m surprised his cats haven’t left him.
“I’ve got to pull the trigger soon,” Tommy continues. “I’ve got to co-sign that fiancé visa, or she has to go back.”
“Tommy, you already have my blessing. Whatever makes you happy, my friend.”
“Well, I have a favor to ask you about the wedding.” He pauses and I wonder what’s coming. “Would you be my best man?”
“Do I have to wear a tux?” I’m looking for a way out. I’m not much for weddings, or any kind of formal events. Sunset on the beach with a few beers. That’s my kind of celebration.
“Nah,” Tommy replies. “Zahra and I are wearing African wedding robes. You can wear whatever you like.”
“Swell,” I say. “I’ll be there.”
“T’anks, eh?” Tommy hangs up.
I call my voicemail and retrieve my new message.
“Hi, this is Ashley,” says the twenty-something female voice. “I’m totally sorry I haven’t called you back. I like left my cell phone on the airplane, you know?”
Is she ask
ing me or telling me?
“It took the airline a really long to find it! Bogus.”
Bogus?
“Whatever,” Ashley continues. “I’m flying back tomorrow—okay?—and can meet you Friday, like at noon. I work at Safari in Ala Moana Shopping Center. For sure I’ll bring my pics of Heather and Lindsay’s twenty-first birthday party. Way sad.”
Then she says as an afterthought. “Oh, Ethan got your messages. He’s like just a guy I know in Denver. He wasn’t at the twins’ party.”
Okay, Ethan wasn’t at the twins’ party. But why was his phone number riding with them in Fireball’s car?
I save Ashley’s message. Now I have another question to ask her on Friday.
twenty-three
Thursday morning I stop by the desk at the Volcano House and ask Pualani if she has any idea where I might find Ikaika “Sonny Boy” Chang. It’s a big island—but not that big. Like most island communities, this one is tight.
Hearing Sonny Boy’s name seems to startle her. She composes herself and then says that after the Save Pele Coalition disowned him for dragging Ransom from his car, Sonny Boy has been in and out of prison, but recently returned on parole to Volcano, where he lives only about a mile away. She claims he’s a new man. We’ll see.
“Sonny Boy stay only one mile from da Volcano House? You got one address fo’ ‘em?”
“No need address,” she says. “Volcano one small kine village, yeah?” She tells me how to find his digs. “But he no make da geothermal guy. I know. Pele da one.”
“How you know he no do ‘em?”
“Jus’ know.” She gets a tortured look on her face. “Sonny Boy at home,” she says.
I wonder how she knows. “You okay?” I ask.
She nods, but her eyes tell a different story. Leaving the desk I ponder what just happened and what Pualani has to do with Sonny Boy.
I drive Hilo-bound on Highway 11, from the main gate of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park to Volcano Village. The journey downslope is barely one mile.