by Eric Redman
Half consciously, Patience began looking for her turnoff to the Mauna Lani after her unsuccessful scouting mission. But as she approached another turnoff, she saw a nearly naked dark brown haole with a walking staff coming down Waikoloa Road toward the highway. She slowed down so quickly she nearly got rear-ended. It was Jason Hare, no doubt. With his staff and halo of sun-bleached hair, he resembled Christ in a buckskin loincloth, Christ in serious need of a haircut and shampoo.
He was walking past the heliport at the junction of Waikoloa Road and the Queen K, the takeoff spot for volcano tours and other “flightseeing” trips. Patience noticed bright blue helicopters and panel trucks on the tarmac a hundred feet behind him. More blue copters whirled their way in from halfway up the mountain.
Patience faced a small dilemma. If she didn’t turn, as a slowing car normally would, and instead regained speed to continue on the Queen K, she’d probably get an irritated honk from the car behind her or otherwise startle Hare, who would almost certainly look up and see her. But if she turned she’d pass very close to him; he might look up anyway. She’d also be headed to Waikoloa Village instead of home. She looked at Jason Hare—striding along purposefully, eyes at his feet, smiling to himself—and made the instant decision to turn, averting her face as she did so.
Then Patience needed to turn around to see which way Hare went when he reached the Queen K. She remembered a pullout where she’d seen the “KW: ALOHA” graffiti; she could make a U-turn there. She sped up. But when she reached the graffiti, she braked hard, pulled onto the shoulder, and stopped abruptly. A cloud of her own dust overtook her.
The graffiti had changed. Now it read:
KW: MC
KKL
Holy shit, she thought, fumbling in her bag for her phone. Holy shit. This was completely improbable, ridiculous even, and yet there it was: a graffiti message for Kawika about Michael Cushing and KKL. It had to be. She dialed Kawika’s office in Hilo, reached his assistant, and explained—somewhat frantically—that she needed to leave a message for Detective Wong.
Occam’s Razor cut differently now. And sharply.
35
Waimea
Before meeting Jarvis to share his pilikia, Kawika first needed to talk with Dr. Terrence Smith. And the hospital wasn’t far out of his way.
“This isn’t a chat,” Smith protested after the first minutes. “It’s an interrogation. If I’d known, we could have found a place with better coffee.”
Kawika asked why, at their last meeting, Smith had suggested Fortunato was responsible for Joan Malo’s death. And why had he treated Melanie Munu’s injuries without reporting her beating at Fortunato’s hands?
“Same answer in both cases,” Smith responded. “Confidentiality of doctor–patient communications. In Joan’s case I violated it; I should have said nothing. In Melanie’s case I respected it, but maybe I violated the law. I regret that. If harm comes to Melanie, I’ll regret it even more.”
“Why should harm come to Melanie?” Kawika asked. “Fortunato’s dead. Who else would harm her?”
“Tut-tut,” Smith replied, wagging his finger. “I should’ve reported her beating. But I’m not going to report what she said as my patient. She made me promise not to talk. She had her reasons. It’s enough to tell you this: Melanie Munu is still in danger.”
“Will you help me find her?”
“I don’t know where she is. If you do find her, she’ll tell you what she told me.”
“What if we don’t find her? Or find her dead?”
“Then I’d tell you.”
Why did Smith believe the confidentiality of doctor–patient communications died with the patient? That wasn’t Kawika’s understanding. But, as Tanaka had taught him, right now the fact that Smith believed it was more important than why.
“Okay,” Kawika said. “Let’s go back to Joan Malo’s autopsy—what you said about Fortunato’s responsibility. What you knew. Why you knew.”
Smith waved his hand. “That’s where I violated Joan’s confidences,” he said.
“How could you? You told me she wasn’t your patient.”
“She wasn’t. But after she was shot, one of my colleagues came to see me. She’d been his patient, and she’d told him about her affair.”
“Wait a minute,” Kawika said. “Then if anybody violated doctor–patient confidentiality, it would be your colleague, right? Not you.”
Smith frowned, considering the point. “Maybe,” he said. “But two doctors conferring doesn’t violate patient confidentiality, I think.”
“But you weren’t conferring about a patient,” Kawika responded. “His patient was dead. He was giving you information about a corpse.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
Kawika circled back, probing a weak spot. “Doctor, a moment ago you said you’d tell me what Melanie told you, if I found her dead.”
“Right. And I would.”
“Well, I did find Joan dead.”
Smith looked at Kawika steadily. “Very clever, Detective,” he said. “Let me think about it for a minute.” Smith walked out into the hallway and paced slowly, a hand to his chin. Then he strode back and sat down.
“Okay,” he said. “You asked for it. I warn you: it won’t help, and it isn’t pretty.”
“It wasn’t pretty seeing her die,” Kawika responded.
“No,” Smith conceded. “I don’t suppose it was.” Then he explained. When Joan had confided in her doctor about the affair, he’d urged her to take precautions at least—practice safe sex, but she’d said Fortunato wouldn’t agree to it. “She told her doctor, ‘It’ll be safe anyway because I’m not sleeping with anyone else except my husband. And Ralph’s not sleeping with anyone else except his wife.’ Her doctor said, ‘If he cheats on her, he could cheat on you. And his wife could cheat on him. The point is, you don’t know.’”
“Joan wasn’t persuaded?” asked Kawika.
“No, it wasn’t that,” Smith replied. “According to her doctor, she just felt helpless. Helpless to end the affair, helpless to insist on safe sex. Still, she worried for her husband. She didn’t want to infect him with anything.”
“But she couldn’t go home and tell her husband to start using condoms,” Kawika ventured. “Not if she wanted to keep the affair secret.”
“Right,” replied Smith. “Condoms cause questions. That’s one reason they aren’t used when they should be.” He looked at Kawika pointedly, as if accusing him. But how could he be? Kawika thought.
“A few months ago,” Smith resumed, “Joan and Fortunato traveled to Japan. Afterward, she came to see her doctor. She was worried because on the trip she’d had sex with others, not just Fortunato.”
“Others?”
“Some men.”
“Some? Not one, not two, but some?”
“Yes. Some men. An indeterminate number.”
“All Japanese?”
“With respect, Detective, I believe you’re thinking like a man, not like a woman.”
Kawika, chastened, nodded glumly to concede the point and gestured for Smith to contiue.
“Fortunato’s Japanese boss provided entertainment to his guests,” Smith went on. “On this occasion the entertainment was Joan. Some of it didn’t pose a disease risk—bondage, and so on. But some did. So now she was even more worried about infecting her husband. Her doctor took tests, reassured her as much as he could. Not that it mattered in the end.”
Kawika felt queasy. Joan had been vague in describing her weekend with Shimazu. She’d said just enough, no more. Nothing like this.
“That’s why I blamed Fortunato,” Smith said. “He pimped her out, broke her spirit. She must’ve confessed something to her husband—you didn’t tell me what—and her husband killed her. When I saw you that day I’d just heard all this, just opened her up and taken her apart. I was angry. But I should have kept my mouth shut.”
“When she talked to me, it didn’t sound like rape,” said Kawika. �
�It seemed she’d just made a bad mistake.”
“It didn’t start out as rape,” Smith replied. “Basically, she consented to be wrecked. A thousand kisses deep.”
“What?”
“Sorry. That Leonard Cohen song again. Runs in my head. I only meant, she agreed at the start. Then things, well …” Smith’s words trailed off.
Something else troubled Kawika. “You didn’t know any of this when you performed Fortunato’s autopsy,” Kawika said.
“The stuff about Joan? No, I didn’t. She was still alive.”
“And yet you were in a pretty good mood that day. Joking around with me. Not like when you autopsied the Malos—grim business, remember?”
“Well, I already knew Fortunato was a bad guy,” Smith explained. “Don’t forget, I’d seen him beating Melanie.”
“Was that all?” Kawika asked. “Nothing else?”
“Yeah, that was all.”
“So was it just happy coincidence, you driving right behind Fortunato’s car when he pulled over and started beating her?”
“Yup. Just a coincidence. Wouldn’t call it happy.”
As they walked to the hospital entrance together, the former FBI agent Frank Kimaio came around the corner. He smiled and raised a hand.
“Hello, Doctor,” said Kimaio. “Aloha, Detective.” Kimaio shook hands with them both.
“You know each other?” Smith asked.
“I was going to ask you the same question,” Kawika replied.
“Frank’s a patient,” Smith said. Kimaio confirmed this with a nod.
“Well, he’s helping me with my investigation,” said Kawika.
“Trying anyway,” responded Kimaio. “You still going to call me, Detective?”
“Or I just could wait here if your appointment won’t take long.”
“Sorry,” Smith said, motioning Kimaio toward the entrance. “He’ll be a while. Go on in, Frank. Things are all set up and they’re ready for you. I’ll be right there.”
“Sure enough,” said Kimaio, smiling. “Talk later, Detective.”
When Kimaio had left them, Kawika said, “He looks tired.”
“It’s the chemo,” said Smith.
“Chemotherapy? For cancer? What kind of cancer?”
“The kind you get from Agent Orange. Not looking good, I’m afraid.”
“Meaning what exactly?”
“Meaning the prognosis isn’t good,” Smith explained. “You win awhile, and then it’s done, your little winning streak. As Leonard Cohen would say.”
“So …?”
Smith nodded. “So, soon we’ll bid aloha ‘oe to Frank, I’m afraid.” He smiled sadly, waved the shaka sign, then followed Kimaio inside.
Seems you just bid aloha‘oe to patient confidentiality, Kawika thought. Why? This patient’s still alive.
36
Waimea
Once burned, twice shy: Kawika checked his messages as soon as he left Dr. Smith. Tanaka’s came first, reassuring Kawika that he’d had Sammy take charge of the search for Peter Pukui and Melanie Munu. Patience was next, reporting her discoveries: the roadside graffiti, Jason Hare on the highway, the links between Hare and Thomas Gray, the man who’d sold KKL its land.
Kawika listened, then braked hard, pulled over, and called her, his hands shaking.
“Hello?”
“Patience? P?” He was practically shouting.
“Kawika. Did you get my—?”
“Yes, I got it; thank you. It’s important stuff. But P, you’re not listening. You can’t go searching for Jason Hare. You know he’s an accomplice, at least. He could be the killer.”
“I know, I know!” she exclaimed. “It explains so much.”
“Yes, but he’s dangerous. Not harmless. Not eccentric. Dangerous. And he knows how to get to your condo. You’ve got to stay away from him, P.”
“Okay,” she said. “I will, I promise.”
“You promised last time.”
“This is different. I wasn’t snooping around the Murphys’—”
“That’s not the point. You didn’t stay away from him.”
“Okay,” she repeated. “I get the point. Honest. But Kawika, listen. There’s something else. Could someone have killed Thomas Gray? The man who sold KKL its land? Supposedly, he fell off a boat. I saved the obituary for you.”
“Thomas Gray fell off a boat? Why would someone kill him?” Kawika asked, surprised.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe because he sold Fortunato the land? And he was tied to Jason Hare somehow—Kohala Kats, and they’re both Vietnam vets. Although Thomas Gray didn’t join an Agent Orange lawsuit for Hawaii vets, and Jason did. I found it on the internet.”
“That lawsuit, can you check another name for me? Frank Kimaio. That’s K-I-M-A-I-O.”
“Sure, just give me a sec.” Kawika heard the click of computer keys, then a beep. After a moment, she said, “Nope, not here. Nothing under Kimaio. Why?”
“Supposedly, he got cancer from Agent Orange. When was the suit filed?”
“It says 1995.”
“Ah, he wasn’t in Hawaii yet.”
“Want me to print out the document?”
“Yes, please. I’ll look at it tonight. I’ll get to your place as soon as I’m done with Michael Cushing.”
“Speaking of Cushing—”
“Right,” he said. “The new graffiti message.”
“Think it refers to him?” she asked.
“Yup, I do. That ‘KKL’ at the end pretty well clinches it.”
“So someone really is using graffiti to send you messages?”
“Looks that way,” he said. He remembered Arthur Conan Doyle’s maxim, “Eliminate all other factors—in this case, coincidence—and the one which remains must be the truth.”
“Someone’s pointing a finger at Cushing,” he said. “So someone wants me to think he’s a bad guy.”
“But who? Who’s doing the graffiti?”
“Where did you see Jason Hare?” he asked. “On the Queen K or walking toward it?”
“Ah, I see what you’re saying. He could have done it. He was by the heliport, still on Waikoloa Road. With the graffiti a ways behind him. And sort of a smirky smile on his face. But if he’s an accomplice and he wants you to suspect Cushing—?”
“Then Cushing probably didn’t do it,” Kawika said. “Speaking of people who didn’t do it, there’s some news. Peter Pukui turned up.”
“Alive and well?”
“Not well. Turns out he’s a junkie, hiding from his dealers. Heroin. Nothing to do with Fortunato. My pals in Hilo let him go. Now we gotta find him again before the dealers do.”
“Whew.”
“Whew is right. Anyway, sorry I shouted. I really am grateful for your help.”
“But no more of it, right?”
“None that puts you in harm’s way. Stick to the internet. It’s good you found the Thomas Gray obituary and the Agent Orange lawsuit. I’ll look at them tonight.”
“Tonight, I might not let you,” she teased. “But if you’re good—I mean really good—I might let you tomorrow morning.”
“Ha!” he replied. “So far, the only things you’ve let me look at in the morning are the same things you let me look at in the night.”
“The ceiling fans?”
“Not the ceiling fans. You know what I mean.”
Kawika drove off to meet his dad for lunch—late, but not by island standards. Patience returned to the internet, searching for more on Thomas Gray. All she found were letters to the Puako Post responding to the Thomas Gray obituary, arguing over whether he’d claimed to be one-quarter Cherokee or only one-eighth. And whether he’d actually said Cherokee or Sioux or Cheyenne.
37
Puakō
Jarvis Wong served his son a lunch of poke and kalua pork, leftovers from a luau at the Mauna Kea Hotel.
“We’re eating up your fringe benefits,” Kawika said.
“Sure beats dog, though,
” said Jarvis. “That’s an old Hawaiian dish, you know.” Both men looked at Jarvis’s dog, pacing impatiently nearby. Jarvis chuckled and threw a piece of pork. The dog snapped it up.
“That reminds me, any slipper dogs at the Mauna Kea?” Kawika still wondered why only one of Fortunato’s Tevas had turned up. Had some “slipper dog” taken the other, as so often happens with footwear left at the door in Hawai‘i? But what if had Carolyn been right, suggesting the lone Teva might be planted evidence instead?
“No way,” Jarvis said. “No dogs on the property.”
“How about the Mauna Lani?”
“Even less likely there. Surrounded by lava, more isolated. Slipper dogs, you find ’em in towns mostly, where locals live.”
“How about cats?” Kawika asked.
“At the Mauna Kea?” responded Jarvis. “Not lately. Colony cats, we call ’em. A virus wiped ’em out. Happens every ten years or so. They’ll come back, but not right away. Why?”
“Just wondered. Someone told me a guy named Jason Hare ran cat traps at the Mauna Kea.”
“Jason Hare, the highway guy?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Just know he walks along Highway 19. Long hair, no clothes.”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Kawika said. “He also traps cats.”
“He ran cat traps at the Mauna Kea? Recently?”
“Not too long ago,” replied Kawika. “Maybe just for a few nights.”
“No way,” Jarvis said. “Trust me. I’d know.”
“I’m sure you would.”
“That’s the pilikia?” Jarvis joked. “You had to wait overnight at the hotel to catch a cat trapper in the morning? Couldn’t sleep here?”
Kawika shook his head. “No,” he replied. “I couldn’t sleep here because some whacked-out kanaka might come looking for me.”