Bones of Hilo

by Eric Redman

  BONES OF HILO

  A NOVEL

  Eric Redman

  For Heather, our children, and our Big Island ‘ohana, including Carolyn, Ku‘ulei, Haia, Grace, and Kawika whose names—but nothing else, other than a tattoo— I’ve borrowed for this tale

  Acknowledgments

  The individuals I have to thank are too numerous to name, but those mentioned here played particularly important roles in helping bring this book to fruition. I thank each of them deeply.

  On the Big Island, my cousin by marriage Carolyn Wong, a Native Hawaiian (and mother of the real Ku‘ulei) cheerfully helped with matters of Hawaiian language and culture. Gail Mililani Makuakane-Lundin of the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo reviewed the manuscript from a Native Hawaiian perspective and made helpful suggestions, as did her UH Hilo colleague Todd Shumway. The late Tom Hagen, a one-time activist with Save Hapuna, taught me the history and economics of South Kohala resorts. The Reverend Dr. Teruo Kawata and his wife, Kiku Kawata, then of Volcano, provided comfort and spiritual insight to our family after the 2001 murder of my brother-in-law Tom Wales, the event that prompted this novel. Dr. Cary Waterhouse, a veterinarian, shared information on feline trap-and-neuter efforts in South Kohala. Dr. Terrence Jones of North Hawai‘i Community Hospital in Waimea, after I’d been maytagged by a wave, attended me with a big smile, an aloha cap, and aloha scrubs. Part of this book was born right then.

  In the Methow Valley, my thanks and those of my wife go to Karl and Carol Ege, Dan Dingfield, the late Peter Cipra, and Delene and Bob Monetta, all of whom, in Turgenev’s phrase, helped “chain us to the land,” very pleasantly; also to the Methow Conservancy, a land trust that not only helps preserve the Methow but also works to sustain its people. These include—aspirationally at least—the few surviving Methows, the Native Americans whom the US Government so long ago removed to the distant Colville Reservation. Ancient wintering shelters are real, but sadly their conferring land rights on the Methow people is imaginary.

  Elsewhere on the Mainland:

  My lifelong friend Barbara Anderson encouraged, prodded, and poked me into writing this book. I would not have started or finished it without her. I’m immensely grateful.

  Frederick C. Allen, author of A Decent Ordinary Lynching, a history of the Montana vigilantes, suggested valuable improvements to my manuscript, as did Hoyt Hilsman.

  Gary Loomis schooled me in matters of riflery and so much else about the outdoors of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

  The late Professor Paul A. Freund of Harvard Law School coined the phrase “like a little boy who had the chance to go to the blackboard and spell the word ‘banana’ but didn’t know when to stop” to describe the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren. Blackboards are vanishing, but I thought this playful image should not be lost.

  Dr. Pat Jarvis of Seattle taught me a great deal about human relationships and how we think and feel; if there are useful insights in this book, they came from Pat. One character’s parting words here, however, were my late father’s parting words to me.

  My late brother, Michael Redman, a county prosecutor and head of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, taught me a lot about how killers get away with murder or don’t, as did James Yoshida and Nat Gasperetti, former homicide dectectives with the Seattle Police Department.

  James and Deborah Fallows are special friends who always give generously of their time to encourage and support my literary efforts, including this time, while writing bestsellers of their own.

  My skillful literary agent Anne Depue has shown great patience and good humor; she’s been a boon companion on the winding road to publication. My friend and assistant, Terrell Bond, helped me with research and organization throughout.

  Karen Schober drew the excellent maps, working from earlier versions by Jane Shasky.

  Friends who were kind enough to read earlier versions of the manuscript include Earl Gjelde, Caroline Hagen, Chris Lynn, and Brett Wilcox.

  At Crooked Lane Press, my editor, Ben LeRoy, saw the promise of this tale and was indefatigable in his efforts to see that promise realized; his many observations and suggestions vastly improved it, for which I am grateful. Melissa Rechter and Madeline Rathle of Crooked Lane did the work of converting the manuscript into a book and launching it into the world. I thank them both, as well as Jill Pellarin for excellent copyediting.

  My wife, Heather Redman, and our three children, Ian, Graham, and Jing, have all been extraordinarily supportive throughout my efforts to bring this tale to the printed page. They deserve special thanks.

  To all those named above, and the many more who’ve helped without recognition, I express my sincere gratitude. If errors remain, they are mine alone.

  Kawaihae, Seattle, and Decatur Island 2020

  Hawaiian Pronunciation

  The few Hawaiian words that appear in this book should be understandable from the context. For pronunciation it helps to know that Hawaiian words end in vowels and are accented on the next to last syllable (except for certain compound or merged words). So haole, heiau, and ihe become “HOW-lay,” “HAY-ow,” and “EE-hay”—or nearly so. In Hawaiian, e is almost always pronounced “ay” as in lay.

  Kawika, a Hawaiian transliteration of David, is pronounced “kuh-VEE-kuh.” This reflects the foregoing rules, plus that w is pronounced “v” after a and that the 12-letter Hawaiian alphabet does not include d, for which k is substituted.

  The ‘okina, an inverted comma, is considered the 13th letter of the Hawaiian alphabet and signifies a glottal stop before a vowel (pronounced as in “uh-oh”). The kahakō, or macron, signifies that the vowel sound is prolonged rather than short.

  Some characters in this book, and the author, use the term Hawai‘i and other words with the ‘okina and kahakō. Others generally just say “Hawaii” without the glottal stop and pronounce other words without the ‘okina or kahakō. This is commonplace in Hawai‘i—and nothing to feel embarrassed about.

  Apart from these matters of pronunciation, little else in this book should be relied on as factually or historically accurate. This is a work of fiction, for which facts and history simply provide points of departure before imagination and invention take over.

  PART ONE

  SHARK CLIFF AND SOUTH KOHALA 2002

  The end of that wind,

  The end of this wind,

  Join and cause a whirlwind.

  —Fragment of a chant from E. Smith, C. Handy, K. P. Emory, E. H. Bryan, P. H. Buck, et al., Ancient Hawaiian Civilization (1933)

  1

  Waipi‘o and South Kohala

  Detective Kawika Wong landed by boat and spent the day with Hilo Major Crimes picking body parts off the rocky beach and cliff face far below the Waipi‘o Lookout. Kawika’s boss, Captain Terry Tanaka, and Kawika’s older colleague Detective Sammy Kā‘ai seemed almost unperturbed, as if picking up body parts were somehow routine. But Kawika wasn’t feeling well.

  Maybe it was the sharks. Not just the thought of sharks—the imagined vision of them tearing the broken victims—but actually seeing the sharks, a whole school of them lolling sluggishly at the surface just outside the surf line, rousing themselves at the sound of the police boat like cats at the clink of a bowl. Kawika, repulsed, had struck at one with the body retrieval hook. Then they’d scattered.

  Maybe it was the boat itself, unsettled on the sea, unsettling Kawika’s stomach as he tried to watch the waves and the beach and the looming cliff face all at once, his eye not able to avoid—his eye in fact searching for—the bits of human flesh scattered here and there on waves and beach and cliff alike.

  Or maybe it was imagining the fall, Kawika’s sense of what it must be like to be thrown from a cliff, to plummet a thousand feet through
darkness, accelerating, the wind tearing unheard screams from the throat—those tumbling last seconds, all too easily imported into Kawika’s dreams.

  Whatever it was, the next morning it woke Kawika before first light and sent him hurtling to the bathroom, uncertain at first whether to sit on the toilet or kneel before it. He stayed there a long time. Kawika lived alone. His girlfriend, Carolyn, hadn’t joined him this night, so Kawika had no bedmate to disturb by bolting from bed. But neither had he a bedmate to calm him, to banish those sharks.

  Later, as the sun rose and faced Hilo, Kawika sat with his cup of coffee and faced it back. He rubbed the night’s poor sleep from his eyes and tried to settle himself. He often did this before work, especially these past few months, ever since the silent skies right after 9/11 had left every Islander with a sudden sense of Hawai‘i’s isolation and vulnerability.

  When the phone rang, Kawika was shaving, leaning forward at the bathroom sink of his small rental house and thinking about those tiger sharks just outside the surf line, waiting at the foot of the cliff. He welcomed the interruption. Grabbing a towel, he wiped shaving cream from his face and picked up the phone.

  “Pack your toothbrush,” said Captain Tanaka. “You’re headed to South Kohala. Woman found a dead guy at the Mauna Lani resort this morning. Someone killed him on a golf course with an old Hawaiian spear, ancient maybe. The division chief in Waimea asked for you by name. They want a ‘real Hawaiian’ to take the lead, he said, because of that old spear and some other evidence, cultural stuff. And someone from over here, objective, because of some local controversy there, something about Native Hawaiians and developers.”

  “A real Hawaiian?” Kawika replied. “That’s a bit of a stretch, Terry. You know what happened in Seattle, that time the chief thought I was Chinese American. It’s risky, picking people by their names.”

  “I know,” Tanaka said, “but he wants you over there, and you’re smart. You’ll figure it out. So I gotta pull you off the Shark Cliff case.”

  “After one day, boss? I was just getting my stomach back.”

  Tanaka arranged the Major Crimes helicopter to fly Kawika to the scene. As the chopper rose over the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the great volcanoes of the Big Island, and as the leafy rainforest and tree ferns gave way to the dry expanse of barren Kohala, Kawika thought, It began as a simple homicide investigation—or so he imagined. Kawika read murder mysteries. He always had. During a case he’d often wonder how a mystery writer might present it, how a fictional detective might approach it, what the book’s first line might be.

  He reached the Mauna Lani just after eight AM, landing on a fairway by the ocean. A Waimea cop lifted the yellow tape, and Kawika ducked under it. He crossed the lawn to an elevated oceanside tee box built of lava rock and resembling an ancient Hawaiian heiau, or temple. Kawika climbed the steps, then stopped. The victim—a middle-aged haole, or white person—well-dressed but barefoot, lay in a pool of bloody grass. Kawika saw the thin wooden stake protruding from the dead man’s chest. A Hawaiian spear, all right.

  Kawika could guess what someone intended him to see: an ancient human sacrifice.

  “Any of you know him?” Kawika asked the Waimea cops. All four shook their heads. With a nod, he turned the crime scene back to them. Before squatting down to watch their work more closely, he flipped open his cell phone and called Tanaka.

  Two hours later, evidence gathered and body removed, Kawika stood alone on the championship tee box. It provided a breathtaking view of the sea beyond the Kohala shoreline bound in black lava rock and beyond the vivid green of the golf course. Just below him, spray from the surf added saltiness to the pungent marine air. Play continued on the South Course, with a spare hole at the clubhouse placed into service. The fifteenth hole—the Mauna Lani’s signature hole, an over-the-water par 3 featured in all the resort’s advertising—remained off limits. Curious golfers, slowing their carts as they detoured around it, could see Kawika on the tee box, looking up and down the coast, then back at the resort, then out to sea.

  Turning away from the view, Kawika saw a blonde woman observing him from the lawn outside her condo, separated from him by a gully of jagged lava rock. Probably the woman who’d reported the body. He waved and motioned to indicate he’d take the path to the condos. She answered his wave, then turned to walk inside. Kawika noticed bright sun on well-shaped calves.

  A Waimea detective named Tommy, in plainclothes and wearing a University of Hawai‘i cap, took Kawika to her door. A tile hung above the bell: “Hawaiian style—Please remove your shoes. Mahalo.” Kawika slipped his off. Big and black, they dwarfed a pair of pink sandals set neatly by the mat.

  “Patience Quinn,” said Tommy. “Crazy name, yeah? She’s from San Francisco.”

  A petite blonde answered the door, and instead of flashing a badge, Kawika handed her his card. “Kawika Wong,” she pronounced, hesitantly but correctly.

  “Good,” he said, and smiled. “Hawaiian’s tricky, even for me.” He didn’t want to mislead her, let her think him more Hawaiian than he really was. With Mainlanders, he knew, race could create discomfort and excessive caution.

  Patience Quinn told a simple story. She’d awakened at six, brewed coffee, then taken a cup outdoors. She liked to watch the first rays of sun strike the summit of Haleakalā across the channel on Maui. In the early light she’d noticed an unfamiliar shape on the championship tee box about two hundred feet from her condo. She couldn’t quite make it out. Then she’d seen it was a man—a man with something sticking out of him.

  She led Kawika onto her lanai so he could stand where she’d stood, see what she’d seen, minus the body and the spear. He took in the scene, then motioned her back inside. A fragrance, faint and pleasant, trailed behind her.

  Kawika asked routine questions. No, she hadn’t seen anyone else. She hadn’t heard any unusual noise, just the crash of breakers and the calls of doves and francolins. No, she wasn’t a tourist; she considered herself a kama‘āina, or resident. Her parents once owned the condo, but it was hers now; she visited several times a year for extended stays, by herself or with family. On this trip she’d arrived alone. She and her husband had recently separated. No children. She worked for San Francisco magazine. She wrote feature stories. She was here to do a possible article on Hawai‘i’s 9/11 victims, the ones who’d died on Flight 93.

  Kawika glanced around the condo, out at the golf course, then back again at Patience Quinn. They were “all of a piece,” his mother would say: elegant, well-kept. Patience appeared to be in her twenties still—like him. She couldn’t have been married long.

  Kawika’s phone vibrated. He excused himself and stepped outside, walking back to where Patience Quinn had watched the sunrise touch Haleakalā.

  “They ID’d the body,” Tanaka told him. “Ralph Fortunato. Big-time real estate developer. Got a wife and kid up in Waimea. You’re in charge, so better get up there, yeah?”

  Kawika walked back inside. Patience Quinn looked inquisitive.

  “The victim’s named Ralph Fortunato,” he said. “Heard of him?”

  “Oh my God!” Her hand leapt to her mouth. She grabbed a chairback to steady herself, and her lightly tanned face became paler instantly. “Oh my God!” she repeated. “He’s the one trying to build Kohala Kea Loa!”

  Kawika observed her shock; it was real. “A new resort,” she explained after a deep breath and a shake of her head. “A huge one. Across the highway, all the way up to Waikoloa Village. KKL, people call it. It’s a giant controversy. Oh my God.”

  Kawika’s cell phone vibrated again. “Wong,” he answered curtly.

  “Aloha, Little Wong,” the caller said, chuckling. “It’s Big Wong. You over here? You spend the night? Come for dinner? We talk story?”

  Kawika sighed. “Yeah, Pops,” he said. “All those things. Call you later.” He snapped the phone shut and smiled with embarrassment.

  “My dad,” he explained. “Lives in Puakō. No one
can do anything on the Big Island without him knowing it. Now I gotta go see him.”

  Patience Quinn smiled slightly, recovering herself. “Sounds like you should go see him,” she offered. “Maybe he knows who did it.”

  Kawika noticed her teeth: very even, very white. They went with that lightly tanned and cared-for skin, the fineness of her clothes and facial features. He wasn’t used to standing next to women like this one, especially haole women. He wished his plainclothes weren’t quite so plain. He thought of Raymond Chandler’s ill-dressed detective, Philip Marlowe, in Farewell, My Lovely: about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake.

  Departing, Kawika turned to look at her once more than necessary. Then he let Tommy the local cop drive him up to Waimea, past the broad lava fields, grown grassy now, where Kamehameha—Hawai‘i’s last great warrior king—had trained his armies. On the way, Tommy told him more about Ralph Fortunato and KKL, his controversial real estate development.

  “You didn’t recognize his body, though?” Kawika asked.

  “Never seen ’im before,” Tommy replied. “But you live here, you know the man, believe me. He’s not popular.”

  Kawika looked away, up the slope of Kohala Mountain, the dormant volcano looming ahead of them, up to the dark green line of ironwood trees on the Kohala Mountain Road, the road to Hāwī. Tommy noticed.

  “Heard you were born in Hāwī,” Tommy said. “Like Kamehameha, yeah?”

  Kawika merely nodded. He was concentrating on an inconvenient sensation: the god of desire, with the tip of his ancient spear, had nicked Kawika’s heart.

  2

  Waimea

  “Fucking Hawaiians.”

  The newly widowed Corazon Fortunato spoke contemptuously.

  “Fucking Hawaiians,” she repeated, this time with anger. Sitting across a koa wood coffee table from her, Kawika could guess she was a Filipina. Dark and smooth-skinned, ordinarily she might have seemed beautiful. Today she looked tear streaked and blotchy. A painting of a sunlit sandy beach fringed with palms hung behind her. On the adjacent wall hung color photos of a beaming Ralph Fortunato in head shots with individual suntanned golfers, presumably famous ones; even from a distance, Kawika recognized Tiger Woods.