Bones of Hilo

by Eric Redman

  Kawika sighed inwardly. He longed at some level for the familiar—for Carolyn, for his settled existence, for the durable intimacy Carolyn might offer if they could agree on one island or another, and if she didn’t need someone more Hawaiian. He also dreaded, at some level, the arduousness of the new—of Patience. But he couldn’t avoid seeing that dread for what it was: insubstantial, flimsy. Nothing—not longing, not dread, not guilt or scruples—could restrain him from exploring Patience, from exploring himself with Patience. For the first time in his life, he felt the power of sexual thrall, and something more, some feeling about himself that went with it, some feeling he really liked.

  But in not talking about their situation he wasn’t simply avoiding a difficult discussion. He really was preoccupied with the case—and worried.

  So the third time, Patience awoke to find Kawika staring intently at the ceiling fan. “Let me guess,” she said. “You’re thinking about a guy who traps cats.”

  “Not just that. I’m also thinking about a guy who shreds papers. Assuming that was Michael Cushing you saw with the shredder.”

  “Well, earlier tonight you said there’s some kind of fraud going on,” she observed. “Not surprising papers get shredded.”

  “What’s surprising is Michael Cushing shredding them,” Kawika said. “Not Fortunato, but Cushing. The fraud was Fortunato’s, right? But Cushing must be in on it.”

  In the morning, she found him sitting on the lanai, watching the sunrise strike the summit of Haleakalā. “Sorry,” he said. “No coffee yet. Didn’t want to wake you.”

  As if out of habit—as if two occasions could form a habit—she slipped behind him, opened her yukata, and held his head against the bare skin of her chest. She said softly, “I’m not in love with you, Kawika. Not yet. But I am in major like.”

  He reached an arm up to her, pulled her closer.

  “How can I help you, Major Like?” she asked.

  “Make the coffee?” he suggested, laughing.

  “Pig,” she said, kissing the top of his head. “No more Major Like for you.” Then she went to do as he’d asked. He followed her and sat at the kitchen counter.

  “Seriously,” he said. “Help me figure out Jason Hare.” He recounted his conversation with Malia Evans of Kohala Kats.

  Patience frowned. “Well, we knew he was lying about something. Guess he was lying about a lot.”

  “Yeah, but not about everything,” Kawika said. “He saw the killing. The details fit. We’ve known that all along.”

  “So now we know something else,” she said. “He probably wouldn’t work with Peter Pukui, right? Because Pukui’s a notorious cat abuser. Jason Hare even reported him.”

  “Right. And Hare’s not just a cat lover. According to you—and Malia Evans, I guess—he’s right up there with Lizzie Borden.”

  “Quit teasing,” she warned. “This is serious.”

  “Very serious,” he agreed. “Jason Hare witnessed the killing, but he’s not afraid of the killer. And that can’t be because the killer’s Peter Pukui. Jason wouldn’t work with Pukui or even protect him.”

  “Which means …?”

  “Which means I must be guilty as charged.”

  “Guilty of what?”

  “Guilty of persecuting Peter Pukui.”

  32

  Waipi‘o and Hilo

  Sammy Kā‘ai and his team of cops were busy terrorizing a druggie atop the cliff at Waipi‘o, trying to crack the Shark Cliff case, when a ragged and nearly skeletal Peter Pukui staggered up out of Waipi‘o Valley. Startled, the police stared at Pukui, who stared back uncomprehendingly and then crumpled to the ground, muddy and stupefied. Sammy immediately set free the druggie they’d been terrorizing at the cliff top. The druggie ran away quickly, as if he couldn’t believe his luck and didn’t want to test it further.

  Peter, exhausted, started talking to Sammy and wouldn’t stop. He explained why he’d gone into hiding. He had drug debts—bad ones. Pukui’s words came in a flood. Almost delirious, he kept babbling. Sammy wrapped him in a blanket to keep him from going into shock, gave him a bottled water. Peter seized it greedily.

  He’d always been a user, Pukui said after a long drink, showing Sammy the tracks on his arm. Not pakalolo, not meth—heroin. He’d rarely had money, always had trouble paying. And with the heiau thing, plus his girlfriend Melanie sleeping with Fortunato—even though he’d agreed to it, her becoming an extortionist for him, to get him money to pay his debts—he found himself shooting up more and working at the boatyard less.

  Peter explained to Sammy, who didn’t understand all of it, that once Fortunato agreed to pay Melanie Munu to wave around a page from the Māhele Book and announce herself as Chief Ku‘umoku’s heir, Pukui had convinced his dealers that big money was on the way. His credit became good again. He’d gotten more drugs; his debts grew.

  “Then Fortunato wouldn’t pay,” Peter said. “Threw Melanie out of his car, beat her up. No money. I was a dead man.” He’d fled to the Pololū Valley, he said, because Pololū was the nearest impenetrable place of refuge.

  Now, nearly two weeks later, he’d emerged from Waipi‘o, seven treacherously deep valleys and impassably high ridges south of Pololū. It was an extraordinary feat of cross-country travel. Yet Pukui had obviously done it. Sammy could tell, just by looking at his tattered and emaciated condition.

  “So you didn’t kill Fortunato?” Sammy asked, smiling at his police buddies. “Not like Detective Wong thought?” Sammy didn’t really know what Kawika thought, but he’d read the newspapers.

  “Kill Fortunato?” Pukui asked, seemingly baffled. “Detective Wong?”

  “Forget about Detective Wong,” Sammy said. “Fortunato’s dead. Did you kill him?”

  Pukui just sputtered, shaking his head, looking bewildered beneath the dirt and grizzled beard. “Fortunato’s dead?” he repeated, with evident disbelief.

  “Yeah, Peter,” Sammy said, clasping his shoulder. “Mr. Fortunato is very, very dead.”

  “I, I … I don’t … He was alive when I left. He beat Melanie. He was alive. I swear.”

  “You willing to take a lie detector test?” Sammy asked.

  “About killing Fortunato? Of course, of course. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even know he was dead!”

  “Calm down,” Sammy reassured him. “We believe you. But someone popped him while you’ve been gone.”

  “Melanie?”

  “No, a man did it,” Sammy replied.

  “I mean, where’s Melanie now? Is she okay? Gotta find her,” Pukui said, struggling to stand.

  “Okay, Peter,” Sammy said. “We’ll drive you to Hilo. I gotta take you in anyway. We’ll put you in County, you can call a lawyer. He’ll help you find your girlfriend.”

  Sammy tried to notify Kawika. He couldn’t reach him, so he left a voice message: “Hey, we got Peter Pukui over here. Taking him to the station. But Kawika, I don’t think he’s your man.”

  Within hours, Pukui had passed the polygraph test. Sammy gave him a lawyer’s number, and the lawyer arranged bail, receiving the money in cash from three young men in the courthouse parking lot as Sammy watched. Then the lawyer collected Peter Pukui, and the two of them vanished into the night, followed by the three men who’d put up the cash. There was barely enough light for Sammy to read the license plate of the second car. He wrote it down, just in case. Cash money for bail, handed to a lawyer in a parking lot, wasn’t all that usual in Sammy’s experience.

  33

  South Kohala

  Because Carolyn might try to call, Kawika kept his phone off while he was with Patience. When he drove away in the morning and turned it back on, he found himself far behind.

  Listening to the newest message first, he heard, “Okay, Peter made bail, so now he’s gone.” Kawika flushed; his neck grew hot all at once. He hung up without listening to earlier messages and dialed Terry.

  “Not back yet,” Tanaka’s assistant said. “Maybe still fishing with yo
ur dad.”

  Kawika tried his own assistant next.

  “How we feeling today?” she asked. “Like a king or a piglet?”

  “What?”

  “You got an e-mail from Carolyn. She says she read both reports on the bulldozed heiau. She says the one from the private firm is actually correct, because KKL isn’t located on any lava flow the British saw. She says you’ll understand. She went to the University to find the author of the first report, and he told her Fortunato paid the University team to say his rocks might be Kamehameha’s heiau—might be, she put it in caps—but they aren’t even a heiau. She says she’s disgusted and that she’s going home to Maui to stay with her dad and work on her dissertation. She hopes you’ll join her there.”

  “That’s everything?”

  “No. Like I said, she also calls you her king and her piglet—in Hawaiian, of course. There’s a story behind the piglet, am I right?”

  “Can’t talk about it,” Kawika replied, trying to sound normal. She laughed and transferred him to Sammy Kā‘ai.

  “Peter didn’t kill Fortunato,” Sammy declared. “Unless the lie detector lies. And believe me, he was in no condition to fool it.”

  “Okay,” said Kawika. “So why was he hiding?”

  “He was hiding from his dealers. Turns out he’s a junkie. Heroin, not meth. He owed them a lot of money. He thought they’d kill him.”

  “And now they won’t?” Kawika asked, barely containing himself. He heard a muttered curse. “We put a tail on him, right?” he continued. “When we let him go?” It took a lot for Kawika to say we instead of you.

  “Um, we didn’t do that, actually. He was gonna spend the night at his lawyer’s.”

  I can’t believe this, Kawika thought. “Well, where was he going after that?”

  “Probably to find his girlfriend,” Sammy replied. “Melanie Munu, yeah?”

  “Where else, you think?”

  Sammy thought a bit. “To meet his dealers?” he ventured. “Make peace, buy some time, score some shit? That what you’re thinking?”

  “Yeah. I’m also thinking, if Peter thought they’d kill him, these could be the guys you want for Shark Cliff. Another reason to tail him.”

  “Shit,” said Sammy, sounding a bit unnerved. “Shark Cliff. It’s possible, I guess. But there’s lots of drug gangs.”

  “Just find him again, okay?” Kawika asked. “Melanie Munu too. Bring ’em in right away, bail or no bail. Please? And don’t let ’em go before I get there.”

  “All right, we’ll find him. We know his lawyer, and I’ve got the license plate of the guys who paid his bail.”

  “What guys?”

  “Three young guys. Almost kids, really. They paid in cash. A bit strange, I thought. I was gonna run the plate today, see what I can learn.”

  “Christ,” Kawika murmured.

  “We did try to find you,” Sammy said defensively. “We left messages. Couldn’t track you down. Looked everywhere.”

  “Yeah, well,” Kawika muttered. “My fault, I guess.”

  “Hey, these things happen.”

  Looked everywhere. Kawika knew who to call next.

  “Aloha, Jarvis Wong speaking.”

  “Dad, it’s Kawika.”

  “Kawika. You call the station? They left messages with me yesterday, looking for you.”

  “Yeah, I guessed that.”

  “They said you were spending the night in South Kohala.”

  “Yup.”

  “They figured you’d be with me and Ku‘ulei.”

  “Yup.”

  “I was fishing with Terry. Ku‘ulei stayed with a friend. I got worried when I heard the messages.”

  “Sorry. I really am.”

  “So where did you spend the night?”

  “Dad,” said Kawika, “I need to come talk with you.”

  “Uh-oh,” Jarvis said. “Pilikia, yeah?”

  “Yeah, Dad. Pilikia.”

  Pilikia. Trouble.

  34

  On the Queen K

  Patience had promised she’d stop sleuthing. But she couldn’t quite. So after Kawika left that morning, she booted up her computer and began, with a sigh, to endure the Big Island’s slow connection speeds.

  Initially, the work was tedious—article after article with no new information. Fortunato’s photograph, his grinning tanned face, appeared often. She didn’t recognize him. She’d seen him only once, from a distance, lying on his back with a spear through his chest.

  She found articles on the heiau, HHH, and Fortunato’s death, along with one on KKL sponsoring a slack key guitar competition Kai Malo had won. Finally an entry popped up that intrigued her:

  Kohala Kea Loa (search): Obituary … Thomas (“Tom-Tom”) Gray … fisherman of the Kona Coast … sold the land for Kohala Kea Loa Resort … [Puako Post, Hawaii, 6/30/2000]

  Patience clicked on it, waiting—and reverting to Impatience—as the screen slowly filled with text.

  OBITUARY

  Thomas (“Tom-Tom”) Gray, Loved to Fish

  PUAKO—Services were held Sunday, June 25, at Hokuloa United Church of Christ for kama‘āina Thomas (“Tom-Tom”) Gray, 58, a well-known fisherman of the Kona Coast, missing and presumed drowned after his 35-foot sportfisher, the Mahi Mia, was found adrift near the Mid-Channel buoy between Maui and Hawai‘i on Thursday, May 25.

  Gray was born in Hilo on April 8, 1942, the son of William Gray, a Parker Ranch supervisor, and Leslie Mercer Gray, a homemaker. He was educated at Waimea schools and West Point, an appointee of former U.S. Senator Hiram Fong (R–HI). He served in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam as a first lieutenant and won promotion to captain in the U.S. Army. In 1965, he was decorated for bravery in combat. He received the Purple Heart in 1966.

  After Vietnam, Gray returned home and started his Puako-based realty firm. In 1999, on behalf of the Gray Family Trust, he sold the land for Kohala Kea Loa to NOH, a Japanese consortium. He retired and realized a lifelong dream by buying the Mahi Mia, on which he set forth almost daily from Kawaihae Harbor in pursuit of his own “grander,” or thousand-pound marlin.

  Gray never caught his “grander,” but he came close with a 904-pound monster in December 1999. He was well-known for sharing catches with neighbors in Puakō and Kawaihae. Friends nicknamed him “Tom-Tom” in reference to his frequent boast that he was one-quarter Cherokee.

  Authorities believe Gray fell overboard while fighting a fish or attempting to retrieve a fishing rod or other object.

  Gray’s children, son Kamehameha “Kam” Gray and daughter Emma Gray, returned from the mainland for the service. They remembered their father with stories of warm aloha. Gray’s wife, Leilani, preceded him in death in 1988. The family suggests donations to Kohala Kats, a feline rescue organization Thomas Gray founded in 1989.

  OMG, Patience thought. Kohala Kats. Excited now, she started a new search for “Jason Hare.” Only one entry turned up:

  Jason Hare (search) … George M. Aaron, et al. v. William V. Perry, in his capacity … Joseph W. Hamaukala, Jason Hare, Edward R. Hart … [Honolulu Advertiser, 10/19/95]

  Patience waited a long time for the item to open. When it finally appeared, she recognized it as a complaint in an Agent Orange lawsuit filed on behalf of Hawaiian veterans. Patience checked: Jason Hare was a listed plaintiff, but Thomas Gray wasn’t. Still, Thomas Gray and Jason Hare were both Vietnam vets. And Kohala Kats also connected them. She knew she’d found something significant.

  Patience slipped on her sandals and headed to her car. She wasn’t sleuthing, she told herself. She knew Kawika wanted to interview Jason Hare again, so she was just trying to determine Hare’s current location. If he happened to be walking along the Queen K, she’d just pass along that fact.

  Patience reached the highway and turned north. North proved wrong; she drove to Kawaihae without seeing the half-naked, half-mad Jason Hare. Then she drove almost to Kona Village and Hualālai Resort before turning back. As she slowly lost the expectation of f
inding Hare, her thoughts began to drift. What was happening to her, this past week or so?

  She felt regret over her impending divorce. The weight had rarely lifted until she met Kawika. Her husband had been a young doctor, just starting out, working exhausting hours and needing her home when he was. But after her own long hours at a downtown ad agency, not in the creative part either, just to help him through med school, she couldn’t wait to resume the work as a journalist she’d barely begun before. The New York Times had published her Hapuna Prince article when she was still in college.

  The magazine San Francisco re-launched in 1997, and with her New York Times credential, she’d been hired on the spot. She was home to begin with, but the editors gave her enticing work further afield—assignments like “figuring out Nevada,” as one put it, and “will Wyoming send us wind power—or coal power?” She traveled often, wasn’t home as much. And she was too young to consider her situation carefully, too impatient, too caught up with getting published and the exhilaration of her new career opportunities. In truth, her husband’s whining also put her off. He wanted children but eventually got a lover instead—“someone who’s here for me,” he’d yelled. Patience didn’t really blame him for ending the marriage; she considered that her own fault in large part. But she did blame him for taking a lover first.

  Patience understood why she’d gone to bed with Kawika. She’d asked, and he’d accepted. She’d told him why she asked. Most of it, anyway. She’d left out—it seemed too personal, too complicated—her desire for new lovemaking to think about, something to displace from the surfaces of her body, right away, the lingering stale smoke of sex with her husband. In seven years every cell in one’s body is replaced, she’d read. I couldn’t possibly wait, she thought. I needed someone to paint over every cell he ever touched. It was a cleansing for her, not revenge. But she didn’t understand why the sex was so good. Nor why—despite every expectation—she’d started to fall in love again, and with such an unlikely person. He is beautiful, she told herself. And fun. Smart, strong, well-spoken, those eyes …