Bones of Hilo

by Eric Redman

  “You serious?” Jarvis asked.

  “Halfway,” Kawika said. “I am a bit scared, Dad.”

  “Don’t be scared over here,” Jarvis reassured him. “In Hilo, maybe. But not here. Over here, the boys know you. They know you’re Hawaiian.”

  “Dad,” protested Kawika. “Even I don’t know I’m Hawaiian.”

  “Of course you are. You grew up here, went to school here. You’ve got a Hawaiian name. The paper even spelled it right.”

  “Dad,” Kawika objected. “I grew up in Seattle mostly. I didn’t go to school here after second grade. Any Tom, Dick, or David can change his name to Kawika.”

  “Well, over here every Hawaiian knows you’re my son.”

  “That might keep me safe,” Kawika agreed. “Over here.” He put a hand on his father’s massive arm. “Unless Carolyn comes here and kills me. That’s the other pilikia.”

  Jarvis frowned. “Son, when you came back from Seattle, that Chinatown thing, didn’t you tell me the greatest dangers in life probably aren’t physical?”

  “Something like that. I was quoting Father Brown—a detective priest, in stories.” That triggered something. What was Father Brown talking about? Kawika asked himself. The dangers of high places—dangers greater than falling.

  “Well,” Jarvis said, “Carolyn won’t kill you. But she might dump you. You ready for that?”

  “No.”

  “You ready to give up the other one?”

  “No.”

  “Ugh,” Jarvis grunted. “Pilikia.”

  “Dad, it’s Patience. Patience Quinn.”

  “Son, I figured that would happen the first time you said her name.”

  Kawika didn’t respond. Just hung his head.

  “You look miserable.”

  “Yeah, I am,” he replied. Then he began to talk.

  Jarvis listened to what became a waterfall of words. As a boy in shorts, going to school in Waimea, Kawika had been happy to be Hawaiian, he said. Then in Seattle, he became just a kid who looked different, a kid other kids sometimes teased. Most thought it was cool Kawika’s dad lived in Hawai‘i, and even cooler—you’re so lucky, dude—that Kawika spent summers there. He grew up, went to college and the academy, joined the Seattle police. There, among his fellow officers, he encountered serious racism for the first time. But it hadn’t fazed him. Then he’d gotten fired. He hadn’t failed as a detective, but as a Chinese—a thing he wasn’t, a thing he’d never even thought about, not for a single moment.

  “Did you ever consider yourself Chinese, Dad?” Kawika asked. “Because of the name Wong?”

  “No,” Jarvis said. “Never.”

  “And you’re a quarter Chinese,” Kawika pointed out. “I’m only an eighth. How can anyone be considered X or Y or Z when he’s only one-eighth?”

  Jarvis shrugged, seeming to recognize that this wasn’t Kawika’s real question, the one that needed an answer.

  “So I came back,” continued Kawika. “To Hilo, thanks to you.”

  In Hilo, he explained, he’d felt relieved to become Hawaiian again. Even happier, once he met Carolyn, an authentic and serious Hawaiian. Also an authentically good person—generous, lively, intelligent, loving—and beautiful. She was perfect.

  “Two years together, and she still seems perfect,” Kawika continued. “But there’s a sadness in her, Dad. About what’s happened to Hawai‘i. She needs a real Hawaiian, someone who can share that sense of loss with her. But me, a real Hawaiian? I’m just not, Dad.”

  Kawika sighed and shook his head. “Then out of the blue, I meet Patience. She’s also generous and loving and smart—all that. Beautiful, for sure, and playful; she teases me a lot. She calls herself a kama‘aina, but really she’s a long-time visitor. Yet here’s the thing: my being Hawaiian doesn’t matter to her. And when I’m with her it doesn’t matter to me either. I really like that. It feels good—like coming home somehow, not having to think all the time about being Hawaiian or hapa, a Mainlander, or anything else.”

  Worn out, Kawika stopped talking. “So, Dad,” he said, “what do you think?”

  “Well,” Jarvis began sternly, “For starters, I think you can’t keep a woman in Hilo and a woman in South Kohala, no matter what. Holding hostages while you make up your mind. It isn’t right, and it isn’t fair.”

  Kawika grimaced.

  “Plus, you’re leading a double life. That’s why you’re miserable. You know that, right?”

  Kawika nodded glumly.

  “A person can’t live two lives,” Jarvis went on, more gently. “You gotta choose one life, then live in it—same as you’d live in a house.”

  “But that’s what I don’t know, Dad—that life.”

  Jarvis paused briefly. “Son,” he then said, “I can’t tell you who you are. Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. But I can tell you a few things. Might help.”

  “Please,” Kawika responded.

  “Okay, now I don’t know Flea well, but I’ve known her a long time. She’s not just a beautiful rich haole—she’s got more going for her than that. Still, some haole women do like Hawaiian men because they’re Hawaiian. They like the idea of a Hawaiian man. Maybe they like the idea more than the man himself. Trust me on this, okay?” Jarvis raised an eyebrow at his son, warding off questions.

  “Okay,” replied Kawika. He sensed they were on dangerous ground.

  “So you might be wrong about Flea,” Jarvis said. “Maybe what she likes most about you is the Hawaiian part. Maybe she doesn’t realize it. Not yet.”

  Kawika waited, sensing Jarvis would say more.

  “I think,” Jarvis continued, “what your mom liked most about me was the Hawaiian part. I think she realized that—in the end, not the beginning.”

  “Oh,” Kawika didn’t know what to say.

  “Do yourself a favor, son,” said Jarvis. “Ask her.”

  “Who? Mom?”

  “Yeah, your mom. Ask her about Carolyn and Flea. She’ll give you good advice.”

  “But Dad,” protested Kawika, “Mom’s never even met Patience.”

  “Yes, but your mom is Patience. She never could sit still; she couldn’t relax. Can Patience?” He sounded sympathetic, almost wistful, leaving Kawika to ponder several mysteries at once.

  Kawika knew they’d reached the limits of what they could ask one another, what they could answer, even though Kawika didn’t feel much better. And both needed to get back to work.

  Jarvis walked Kawika to his car.

  “Another house for sale down the road,” Kawika said, changing subjects. “Noticed it driving in.”

  “Your buddy Fortunato’s, actually,” said Jarvis. “His widow’s selling it. Unlucky house. Guy drowned, the one who owned it before. Tom-Tom Gray. Fell off his boat.”

  “I just heard about that,” Kawika said. “Did you know him? Did you think it was an accident, him falling off his boat?”

  “Yeah, I knew Tom-Tom. Did someone say it wasn’t an accident?”

  “No, but he sold Fortunato the land for KKL. And Fortunato was a bad guy, like you told me.”

  “Huh,” Jarvis said. “I did wonder, was it really an accident? I saw Tom-Tom’s kids at his service. Kam and Emma. Watched ’em grow up here. Now they live on the mainland. They weren’t convinced. Said it didn’t seem like something that would happen to Tom-Tom on his own boat. For one thing, they said, he hardly ever took it out alone. I never thought about him and Fortunato, though—that’s interesting. Fortunato wouldn’t have killed him for the house down the road, though.”

  “No,” Kawika said. “But how about something to do with KKL? Maybe bad title to the land?”

  “No idea about that,” Jarvis replied. “But after Fortunato bought Tom-Tom’s house, he used it himself sometimes, between rentals. He’d bring a woman here. Pretty one, in her thirties or forties maybe. Not Hawaiian, something else: Samoan, Fijian maybe.”

  “Melanie Munu,” said Kawika. “Maori, people say. She’s Peter Pukui’s girlf
riend, supposedly. But apparently she had something going with Fortunato too.”

  “Don’t know,” Jarvis said. “Didn’t recognize her. She’s not local.”

  Kawika shook his head. “Talk about living a double life,” he said, thinking of Joan Malo and Melanie and Corazon. “Or a triple life. You could’ve told Fortunato a double or triple life would make him miserable.”

  “Yeah,” replied Jarvis. “Maybe it even made him dead.”

  38

  Waiki‘i Ranch

  Legs crossed and with a flip-flop dangling from her foot, a relaxed Melanie Munu sat on the lanai of an empty house at Waiki‘i Ranch, slowly smoking a cigarette and waiting patiently for Michael Cushing’s man to show up with the cash. She wondered idly if he’d bring it in a big mailing envelope, like FedEx, or a shopping bag. Whatever, she was prepared; she’d brought her own duffel. She’d specified mixed bills, nothing above a twenty. She hadn’t considered how large a bundle that might create. But she could hardly accept a check, and with drug wars raging all over the island, she couldn’t risk attracting attention with a zillion hundreds. Okay, she thought with a smile, maybe not a zillion. But still, a lot.

  She felt the satisfaction of a harrowing ordeal successfully completed: She’d finally get the money. Peter Pukui needed to stay alive; he was HHH’s orator and leading public figure. Plus she truly did care for him. He’d be dead if he couldn’t pay his drug debts—maybe even if he couldn’t get more drugs, more of that damn H, something she’d never touch herself. To get money, with Peter’s drug-driven blessing she’d gone to bed with Fortunato after he refused the HHH demands over the heiau. And even then, Fortunato had demanded more; it wasn’t enough just to share his bed. So Melanie had agreed to conspire with him, pretending to be Chief Ku‘umoku’s heir—an improbable heir, she’d warned him, since normally she posed as a native from New Zealand.

  The whole thing was risky, the idea of Melanie exposing KKL’s faulty legal title at Fortunato’s command, and the timing had remained fuzzy. Just to be safe, Melanie had taken a hastily provisioned Peter Pukui to the top of Pololū Valley, letting him hide deep in the rugged coastal wilderness until she got a cash advance from Fortunato and paid off Peter’s dealers.

  Then Fortunato had reneged, dragging her from his car and beating her on the Queen K when she told him someone else was going to sue over KKL’s title. And just when she’d decided to extort money from him anyhow—he was married, after all, and using that bad legal title for some sort of fraud—Fortunato had gotten himself killed.

  Shocked, it nonetheless took Melanie only a day to realize she could extort the money from Michael Cushing instead. Cushing seemed surprised when she asked to meet for coffee, and stunned when she told him that KKL’s title was faulty. Fortunato hadn’t let Cushing know everything, she realized. Wisely, she didn’t repeat her earlier mistake: She didn’t tell Cushing the Murphys and their lawyer Ted Pohano were going to expose KKL’s bad title anyway.

  “Ralph wanted me to declare myself the chief’s heir in court,” Melanie had said to Cushing. “But you don’t want me to do that, do you?”

  “Definitely not,” he answered, flushing bright pink.

  “Well, I’ll just forget my claim in return for what Ralph promised. Same amount, nothing more. But he’s dead now, and you’re still here.”

  “Your damned boyfriend, Peter Pukui, killed him,” Cushing said, angry now.

  “He didn’t,” she replied.

  “Liar. You’re a liar.”

  “Look, if Peter killed him, I’d know,” she said calmly. “After all, I was fucking them both, wasn’t I?”

  “You’re such a liar,” Cushing repeated. “You weren’t fucking Ralph and he wasn’t fucking you.”

  “Suit yourself; I’m not proud of it. But hey, let’s stay on track here.” Melanie started to get tough. “Do we have a deal or not?”

  “What if I refuse?” Cushing asked.

  “Well,” she replied, “in that case I’d have to pursue my claim.”

  “So basically it’s pay you now or pay you later?”

  She’d smiled and handed him a card with her phone number. On it she’d also written a dollar amount.

  “I need to hear from you in two days. Sorry for the rush.” She’d tapped the card and walked out.

  Two days later, right on schedule, Cushing had called and said a man would bring her the money in twenty-four hours. Cushing told her to wait at a particular house at Waiki‘i Ranch, one she knew well; she used to meet Ralph there. What a relief to get the money, get this all behind her. Peter had called her from Hilo after his wilderness ordeal, and she gave him the good news. But since she didn’t have the money yet, she’d told him to go with his lawyer and keep out of sight.

  She’d been waiting only about twenty minutes when a man drove up in an SUV and got out, but not carrying a bag. That confused her.

  “Hi,” the man said as he approached. “I’m Rocco.”

  “You’re from Michael Cushing?” she asked, stubbing out her cigarette and standing up.

  “No, I’m from California,” he replied. “So’s this,” he added, pulling a handgun from his waistband.

  “Whoa, wait a minute, Mister,” Melanie said, raising both hands to slow him down, to placate him. “I haven’t broken into the house. Just came up here to enjoy the view. I’ll leave right now.”

  “No, you won’t,” said the man who called himself Rocco.

  39

  South Kohala

  Though he sometimes forgot, Kawika tried not to go into a meeting without a specific objective. Kawika’s objective for his meeting with Michael Cushing was simple: get the man talking. Here he applied a lesson from Dashiell Hammett’s fictional detective Sam Spade. “Get a man talking,” Spade observed, “and maybe you can get somewhere.”

  Kawika didn’t suspect Cushing of murder—not after interviewing him that first day. Cushing had been terrified of an unknown killer and desperate for Kawika to catch him. Cushing had suspected Peter Pukui, but Kawika no longer did. He half suspected Jason Hare, but half suspicion was as far as he could get. Hare didn’t strike him as a killer. An accomplice, maybe. Perpetrators betray themselves, Kawika believed. Hare hadn’t done that.

  Kawika felt Hare had been clumsy, though. He’d lied in his statement. The graffiti messages seemed clumsier still, assuming they were his, and a stupid idea to begin with. They might have been missed entirely, and the first ones seemed meaningless. The third—“KW: MC KKL”—managed to convey information. But to Kawika, its only practical import seemed to be that he should interview Cushing again—something he’d already arranged. So was “KW: MC KKL” clumsy of Hare too?

  Nothing could overcome Kawika’s powerful first impression: Cushing didn’t know who’d killed Fortunato. So why, Kawika thought, would Hare bother to compose “KW: MC KKL”? Occam’s Razor suggested Hare hoped to misdirect him, to have Kawika suspect Cushing instead of the real killer. But who could know for sure?

  Kawika wondered if Fortunato’s real estate fraud—not his sex life, not his battles with HHH or others—might have gotten him killed. The exact nature of the fraud eluded Kawika. He had wisps of understanding, nothing more. He felt—and this was his most elegant notion—that if he could get Cushing talking, he might finally comprehend the real estate scam. Then he could winnow through motives and opportunities and come up with possible suspects.

  40

  South Kohala

  Cushing, too, tried never to go into a meeting without a specific objective. Now, alone and pacing around his KKL office, he tried to think what his objective with Kawika should be.

  Cushing’s ultimate objective—wealth—didn’t require rethinking. He’d grown up with tastes dependent on it. His mother’s fortune came from two Big Five families, the missionaries’ descendants who’d grown rich. But Cushing’s father had ruined Cushing’s mother and vanished, and the family scandal had mortified Cushing’s wife. She now spent little time in Hawai‘i, pr
eferring to lose herself in the South Pacific on tours she led for National Geographic. Her earnings helped, but Cushing wanted real money.

  With KKL, he’d thought, he and Fortunato had a very good thing going. Then, inexplicably, Fortunato had begun jeopardizing it all—jeopardizing a billion-dollar project and multimillion-dollar paydays for them both. Why? Cushing had no idea. He tried to restrain Fortunato, cautioning at first, then arguing, finally pleading, but Fortunato had just laughed.

  In desperation Cushing hired Rocco, a contract killer from the mainland—but someone else had killed Fortunato first, in precisely the place and manner Cushing had planned. Who had done that, and how? The question nagged Cushing incessantly.

  Cushing opened a sliding door, went out onto the office deck, and lit a cigarette. He’d quit smoking a decade earlier. But now he’d started again. He inhaled deeply, looked out at the mist-shrouded Mauna Loa and Hualālai, and tried to think.

  After Fortunato’s death, Cushing learned—from Melanie Munu, of all people—that the whole development rested precariously on a faulty legal title. The heiau incident and the hunters—KKL could survive those, Cushing figured. But a title problem running all the way back to the Māhele? Fortunato had not only concealed this potential fatal flaw but clearly intended—somehow—to exploit it. It presented a mortal threat to KKL. And Melanie couldn’t be trusted to walk away even if he paid her. So Cushing had arranged for Rocco to solve the Melanie problem, and with it, he thought, the Māhele problem. Who else would know or care about a long-dead Hawaiian chief’s title to a lava field?

  Then Cushing had traveled to Tokyo. There he found Shimazu violently upset by the killings of Ralph and Joan. But Shimazu made clear he wasn’t going back to help the Hawaii police.

  “I doubt you’re a suspect,” Cushing had told him, although the thought had occurred to him.

  “Not the point,” Shimazu had replied. “Got no time for that, with KKL in the spotlight because of these murders.” He demanded that Cushing prepare a revised business plan quickly, something Shimazu could use with investors, banks, and regulators. “They’re pressuring me,” he said. “Hard.”