by Eric Redman
“So what happened?”
“Well, Pele caught the man in the mountains, and she was really angry, so she killed him. Then she turned him into a plant—the mountain naupaka.”
“She did?”
“Yes,” said Ku‘ulei sternly. “She did. Then she ran back down the mountain. She caught the woman on the beach and killed her too. She turned the woman into shore naupaka.”
“You’ve seen them, these plants?” he asked.
“Oh yes. They both have little half flowers. You take a flower from one and a flower from the other, put them together, and they make a whole flower.”
“Keanu,” he joked. He’d already learned that legend from the Mauna Lani’s shoreside interpretive sign—though Ku‘ulei told the story better.
Ku‘ulei punched his arm. “It is cool,” she insisted. “When you join the flowers, the two lovers are together again.”
Kawika was apart from his two lovers. He’d taken Ku‘ulei on the trip partly to gain a respite from them both, to think, to get a grip: “Cool head main ting.” But his cousin’s tale of Pele’s vengeance unsettled him. So after taking their things to the room at Volcano House, Kawika ditched his cousin briefly in the gift shop and made quick calls, two in succession.
“Just checking in,” he said both times, still indecisive, still—he knew—a jerk.
If not worse.
48
Hilo
When Tanaka suspended Kawika, both men took it seriously, but neither of them expected Tanaka to manage the case for long. The baton was never really passed. Tanaka focused on immediate tasks: getting a call with Shimazu nailed down, calling Honolulu for police accountants to review KKL’s books, pushing the search for Peter Pukui and Melanie Munu and Jason Hare, and ordering the arrest of the Murphys. He waited a day, then had the Murphys picked up, brought in, and fingerprinted in Hilo.
“Book ’em, Danno,” Tanaka told his sergeant, who’d heard this many times before. The Murphys, accompanied by the lawyer Ted Pohano, were not amused.
It took the Murphys a few hours to make bail. Their criminal lawyer flew in from Honolulu. Pohano was still around. Tanaka made sure to show up for their release.
“You’re upset,” he told them. “Just remember, I could have publicized your arrest, but I didn’t. Think about that.”
The Murphys and their lawyers didn’t speak. They just glowered.
“I come from a family of sugar cane cutters,” Tanaka said. “We worked on your plantations. We’d start at one end of the field and cut all the way to the other. The cane’s high, it’s thick, and there’s all kinds of interesting stuff in there: bottles, old tools, maybe even some bones. But when you’re cutting cane, you don’t stop. Later on, when the work’s done and it’s quitting time—pau hana, Mr. Pohano—that’s when you go back and take a look at what turned up.”
Again, no one responded. They didn’t seem to understand Tanaka’s point.
“Right now, our work is to solve a murder,” Tanaka continued. “Not Peter Pukui’s—we have no reason to believe Peter is dead”—he nodded sharply toward Pohano—“but Fortunato’s.”
Ignoring their lawyers, Tanaka looked sternly at the Murphys. “And as for Fortunato, you were the last people to see him alive. You were his enemies. His Teva was found at your door. He never got his sandals back on; his feet had grass stains and cinders. And he was murdered near your house. The next day, you told people he’d threatened you. Then you fled the scene of the crime. Now you’re all lawyered up and you refuse to answer questions. That’s enough for me—it’s not how innocent people act. It’s how guilty people act, and right now you’re the only people acting that way. That’s why I charged you.”
Mr. Murphy started to say something, but the Honolulu lawyer grabbed his arm. “All that’s purely circumstantial,” the lawyer said.
“We’ve sent lots of killers to prison on circumstantial evidence,” Tanaka replied. “Your clients wouldn’t be the first.” He turned to the Murphys. “Now, it’s possible you didn’t kill Fortunato,” Tanaka continued, “and maybe you think the charges won’t stick. Fine. But you should try hard to convince us. You know more than you’re saying. That makes our job more difficult. You’re standing between us and the end of the field, between us and quitting time. Between me and my fishing, more to the point. I don’t like it.”
The Murphys and their lawyers seemed to start to understand.
“Guess what?” Tanaka continued. “Whether you help us or not, we will get to the end of this case. And when it’s pau hana, we’ll go back and take a look at those things we turned up in the field.”
“What are you suggesting, Captain?” the Honolulu lawyer asked.
“Your clients know,” Tanaka replied. “They can tell you about it on the way home. They’re trying to corner the market in Mauna Lani real estate.”
“Buying real estate’s not a crime,” the lawyer said.
“Depends on how you go about it, doesn’t it? What you disclose, what you don’t. Whether there’s a conspiracy, an effort to rig the market. How your accounting works, what dummy corporations you set up, what you tell the banks and the tax man. White-collar stuff like that.”
“Oh, come on,” said the lawyer, feigning disgust.
Tanaka shrugged. “Maybe your clients have nothing to worry about. But just the same, discuss it with them. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you.”
As the Murphys stormed out, Tanaka took Pohano aside. “Look, you phony,” Tanaka said, “I checked up on you. Do your clients know you’re from Los Angeles, that you changed your name from Pohaus?”
“I’m still Hawaiian,” Pohano insisted. “Just born on the mainland.”
“Maybe,” Tanaka replied. “But know this, Mr. Poor House: if anyone harms a hair on Kawika’s head, you and your organization with your hateful press releases are toast. Tell that to Mele Kawena Smith—and Keoni Ana.”
Tanaka turned and headed to his office. His assistant greeted him with a slip of paper. “Dr. Smith called,” she reported. “He said Kawika’s voice mailbox is full. I offered to put him into yours, but he asked me just to give you this message: ‘The DNA matches, and it belongs to Michael Cushing.’ Does that make sense?”
“Yes,” Tanaka assured her. “That makes perfect sense. Let Kawika know.”
It makes sense, he thought. But I bet it’s still a stray.
49
Queen Lili‘uokalani Gardens, Hilo
When the first bullet whizzed past him, Kawika didn’t think, Someone is shooting at me. He’d heard no gunshot, just felt a disturbance of the air. The bullet blew through a lava rock wall in the Queen Lili‘uokalani Gardens, where Kawika had taken Ku‘ulei to sightsee before the hula performance. Kawika heard the noise of the impact—it was very loud—and looked behind him to see a cloud of dusty gray silica mushrooming into the sunlight beside Ku‘ulei’s head. His first thought was that the wall must be giving way. Instinctively, he looked up, expecting a tree might topple if the retaining wall collapsed. Ku‘ulei turned to him, confused, holding a cone of shave ice he’d bought her minutes before.
The second shot ricocheted off the dense basalt of an ancient leaning stone in the Gardens. Kawika heard the bullet’s whine and falling pitch as it sped on. Tiny flecks of rock stung his cheek and neck. He smelled something acrid and burning. Carolyn’s whacked-out kanaka leapt to his mind, speeding his reaction by a fraction of a second. He realized now that someone was shooting at him, and he sensed from what direction. He’d also heard the second shot.
Kawika shoved Ku‘ulei down hard, dropping her behind a low lava rock wall and splattering her shave ice, knowing the wall couldn’t stop a high-powered bullet but hoping it would hide them. As he tried to cover her, something pushed him hard across his back and upper arm, furrowing his back muscles and his triceps. He felt pressure, not pain. He first knew he’d been shot when, puzzled, he saw warm liquid trickling down his arm. Then the pain began.
Ku‘ulei la
y pressed to the concrete, her cheek and forearms scraped and beginning to bleed. She was crying, and Kawika’s blood was dripping on her. He could smell it now and knew she could too.
“Someone’s shooting at us,” Kawika whispered. “Don’t move, Ku‘ulei. Don’t move and don’t cry.” She whimpered but stopped crying at once.
Kawika rolled to his left, still out of sight behind the little wall. He figured the shooter might expect him to peer over the wall but not around the end. He wished he had a gun, but he never carried one, and as he rolled, he realized his right arm wasn’t doing well anyway.
He heard a squeal of tires and looked around the wall. A metallic blue panel truck sped away, obscured almost at once by the thickly planted border of the Gardens. The truck had a logo, but Kawika couldn’t see it clearly as the vehicle turned and was gone. Something with a helicopter, perhaps? That’s all Kawika could later tell Tanaka, who began questioning him while Kawika lay face down on a gurney, the doctors still cleaning out his wounds.
Within an hour the shooting made the news. Within two, Carolyn called Tanaka from Maui, screaming at him—really screaming—to get Kawika the fuck out of there. Not just off the island, she yelled; out of the state. Jarvis came for Ku‘ulei and kissed his son forcefully on both cheeks. Tommy came from Kohala too, and seeing Kawika’s aloha shirt torn and bloody and needed for evidence, Tommy gave Kawika his. “Literally the shirt off your back,” Kawika, smiling, said appreciatively. Guarded and bandaged, Kawika was soon aboard a police helicopter bound for Maui. There he shared a brief airport embrace with a frightened Carolyn, surrounded by watchful cops. “You wanted me to join you on Maui,” Kawika joked, and she laughed a bit as she sobbed. Then they put him on the nonstop to Seattle.
It all happened so quickly that Kawika couldn’t call Patience until he’d landed at SeaTac Airport. He dialed while the plane was still taxiing to the gate. She wept to hear his voice.
50
Hilo
Tanaka took Tommy with him to the station house in Hilo. He’d never been angrier than after Kawika’s shooting. But his desire to make a good impression on Tommy—they’d never met in person—restrained him a bit. That saved the job of the woman who answered phones for Major Crimes. Trembling, she awaited Tanaka in tears.
“I just didn’t think about it,” she confessed, unable to meet his eyes. “A man called, looking for Kawika. I told him Kawika went to the volcanoes with his cousin. Just being friendly, you know? I said Kawika would be back today. For the hālau.”
“The hula performance?” Tanaka asked.
She nodded, still sobbing, still not meeting Tanaka’s eyes.
“Did you get his name?”
“No. He didn’t say. I didn’t ask.” More tears.
“What did he sound like? A local? Hawaiian? A Mainlander?”
“Not Hawaiian. Haole, I think. I don’t know. I just didn’t think about it,” she repeated, finally looking up at Tanaka. “I’m so sorry.”
Tanaka knew he should offer solace. “Well,” he said, glancing over at Tommy and trying to soften his look, “we don’t know for sure the shooter’s the same guy. Probably wasn’t, if your guy’s not Hawaiian. And Kawika will be okay—just had a close call. But next time don’t give out information—take a message. Or put ’em into voicemail.”
Tanaka held her shoulder for a moment. She met his eyes with a hopeful look. “Not everyone loves cops,” he told her. Then he turned and nodded for Tommy to follow him.
“You think the shooter’s Hawaiian, Captain?” Tommy asked when they reached Tanaka’s office.
“I think the shooter’s some whacked-out local who at least thinks he’s Hawaiian,” Tanaka replied. “Someone S&R stirred up.”
“What about Michael Cushing, though, Captain? Bet he’s still furious, yeah?”
That forced Tanaka to calm down. Besides Cushing’s broken nose, Tanaka had rebuffed Cushing’s lawyer roughly. Cushing might indeed be furious—but angry enough to kill someone? “Didn’t think of Cushing,” Tanaka admitted. “Tell you what: when you drive back, how about stopping in to see him? Don’t call first. Surprise him. You’ve been to his office? You know where he lives?”
“I do. I’ll find him, check his alibi.”
“Good,” Tanaka said. “And I haven’t thanked you. For coming over today when Kawika got shot. Giving him your shirt. That meant a lot to Kawika. I could tell.”
Tommy left wearing a windbreaker from the Hilo police. Three hours later, he called Tanaka from Waimea. “Bad news, Captain. Cushing has an alibi for the shooting, and witnesses too,” he reported. “He was in Kailua. Alibi seems really solid.”
“Ugh,” Tanaka said in disgust.
“But Captain,” Tommy suggested, “just because Cushing wasn’t the shooter doesn’t mean he wasn’t the caller.”
51
Hilo
“Yeah, Terry?” Sammy Kā‘ai stood in the doorway. Tanaka motioned him in. He’d pulled Sammy off Shark Cliff and the search for Peter Pukui—they had the APB out for that—to help investigate the shooting.
“Where are we on forensics?” Tanaka asked.
“Got four guys on the scene,” Sammy replied. “One bullet blew up a retaining wall; it’s buried deep. Another glanced off a pohaku, took a chunk out of it. Bullet probably shattered. One nicked Kawika …”
“Nicked?” Tanaka interjected. “I’d say it creased Kawika pretty good.”
“Okay,” Sammy conceded. “One wounded Kawika, then went through a coco palm and toppled that mother. Just cut the tree right in half. So that bullet’s out in the bay. Maybe we’ll find it, maybe not. We’ll dig out the first one for ballistics, though.”
“Shell casings?”
“Still looking,” Sammy replied. “Haven’t found any. But we figured out where the shooter fired from. And something’s odd, Terry. You said Kawika saw a blue van peel out of there?”
“Yeah, with a helicopter on the side. Must belong to that flightseeing outfit in South Kohala. Waimea guys are checking. Not all the vans are back for the day yet.”
“But Terry, there’s no parking space where the shooter was. And how would he know where to park? Exactly where to be? No one knew Kawika would go to the Gardens, did they? At most the caller knew he’d go to the hālau. And the hālau’s across town.”
Tanaka frowned. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking the shooter spotted Kawika’s Mustang and followed it till Kawika parked. Then the shooter shadowed him on foot, stalking him.”
“Concealing the gun?
“Yeah, somehow.”
“So the shooter must’ve had a getaway driver, you’re thinking?”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I bet the shooter wasn’t alone in that van.”
52
On the Queen K
Having taken Hawaiian studies in college, Michael Cushing knew that, despite the common misconception, ancient Hawaiians made human sacrifices to other gods, not just Kū. He also knew that in Kailua there are ruins of a heiau for Kanaloa, the god who ruled the ocean, where Hawaiian royalty sacrificed their victims for a special reason: to improve surfing conditions. The bone pits remain, and the site has been preserved as a little park, crowded with tourists.
The man who called in the night told Cushing to meet him at the little park. The call woke Cushing from a troubled sleep. It took him a few moments to orient himself and begin writing down instructions. He was exhausted, not just scared.
“Get this right the first time,” the caller warned. Cushing was given no choice. “If you’ve looked at your old spear or fishhook recently, you already know we can get into your house,” the caller pointed out. He told Cushing to leave at a specific time in the morning, well before first light. Cushing was to drive with his convertible top down, despite the cold, so he could be observed and seen to be alone. “Just bundle up,” the caller instructed. He told Cushing to drive at the speed limit, precisely sixty miles per hour, once he reached Highway 19, the Quee
n K. “You won’t see us,” the caller said, “but we’ll be watching.”
Cushing followed the instructions, like a man driving to his own funeral. It was still dark when he reached the coast, turned south, and began driving sixty miles per hour to the gods knew what. On a straight stretch of empty highway, Cushing heard something louder than the rush of wind past his car: a beating noise, something percussive, something approaching from behind. He looked in his mirrors. Nothing. But the noise grew louder—louder and closer. Cushing turned and looked behind him, overhead.
A helicopter—a small one, though it seemed enormous, flying only thirty feet above the highway—was rapidly overtaking him. The copter displayed no lights. It was a loud black object against a nearly black sky.
Cushing swerved erratically across the highway, his tires squealing. The helicopter crew may not have anticipated this maneuver, because when the helicopter delivered its parcel—a man wrapped tightly from his ankles to his mouth in silvery duct tape, his nostrils flaring and his eyes wide with terror—instead of dropping cleanly into Cushing’s back seat, the falling man struck his head on the rim of the passenger compartment, crushing his skull and breaking his neck.
Cushing screamed, braked hard, and swerved off the road, bouncing over rough lava rock until he jolted to a stop, his face whipped by thorny kiawe branches and then punched by his airbag—a blow that broke his nose again. The airbag deflated with a hiss. The tape across Cushing’s nose was covered with blood as he turned in horror to look behind him, first at the helicopter—which rose and banked away—and then at the dead man in his back seat, a man he’d never seen in his life.
Later, Cushing told Tanaka that as the helicopter turned away, the first light of morning caught it and it appeared, perhaps, to be blue. Apart from that, Cushing couldn’t provide useful information. He had no idea who’d been dropped into his car, or why. He claimed he’d gone for an early morning drive with his convertible top down because he couldn’t sleep. He’d needed to think, he said; to clear his head.