by Eric Redman
“I don’t believe you,” Tanaka said. “But I’ll tell you this: if you didn’t need to think before, you do now. That was a crazy Mission Impossible stunt. Don’t let it distract you. What matters is this, Mr. Cushing: someone wants you dead.”
53
Waimea
Dr. Terrence Smith autopsied the dropped body, but no one could identify it. Smith called him the Duct Tape Mummy—an exaggeration, since nothing was covered below his ankles or above his mouth. Smith guessed the nickname would catch on.
The doctor duly recorded measurements, vital statistics—even the total length of tape in which the dead man had been wrapped. He took photos of the victim’s features, his suntan verging on sunburn, and his sun-bleached hair, tattoos, callused hands. He noted the cause of death: a broken neck—cervical fractures and displaced vertebrae—and a skull fracture from a massive blow to the head. Take your pick, Smith thought.
The cervical dislocation intrigued Smith particularly. It was as if the man had been efficiently hanged, with the knot against the right side of his neck. Smith had read that during the French Revolution, executioners delighted in displaying a discovery to the crowd. If a just-severed head was held aloft by the hair, the eyes would turn briefly toward someone who shouted the victim’s name. Smith wondered if hanged men—men hanged properly, that is, with their necks snapped—also experienced a moment of consciousness after the cervical dislocation. How much had the Duct Tape Mummy known?
As he worked, Smith would hum a bit, then sing a few Leonard Cohen lyrics:
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
You live your life as if it’s real,
A thousand kisses deep.
Then, unexpectedly, Smith found in the dead man’s otherwise empty trouser pockets a sprig of greenery with small white flowers. He recognized the plant: shore naupaka. He whistled in surprise and admiration at the daring of it. Who do you think you are? Smith wondered, silently addressing the killer. The Scarlet Pimpernel? Maybe, Smith thought, he’d tell the police a bit less in his autopsy report now, rather than more.
Later, with everything neatly put away, Smith turned out the lights, singing softly from the same song:
You lose your grip, And then you slip
Into the Masterpiece.
Smith rolled the Duct Tape Mummy’s body into a dark refrigerated body drawer—a crypt, to those in Smith’s profession. He had two other crypts available, but Smith chose the same crypt in which Fortunato had once lain, before Smith had cut him up.
PART FOUR
SEATTLE TO THE METHOW VALLEY
“So you find us here, and we find you here. Which is the most surprised, I wonder?”
“There’s no telling,” said I, keeping as amiable as I could; “nor any telling which objects the most.”
—Owen Wister, The Virginian (1902)
54
Seattle
Stepping off the Maui flight into the unheated SeaTac Airport jetway, Kawika thought, The AC’s on too high. Chilly, he entered the terminal, and there stood Lily, his mother, clutching her husband, Pat, and greeting her son with a brave smile and profuse tears.
“Aloha, Sport,” said Kawika’s stepfather.
For a long time, murmuring reassurances, the three embraced, although lightly. Lily and Pat were careful not to touch Kawika’s upper back or right arm. The stream of other passengers split and flowed around them like lava around a kīpuka.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m fine. Really. It’s a scratch.”
“Hardly a scratch,” said Pat. “You’re very lucky.”
“Very,” Kawika agreed. Shit, the guy took three shots.
An hour later, they sipped decaf coffee at the table where Kawika had eaten his cereal as a boy. Lily sometimes wept, and the men put their arms around her. They discussed everything they reasonably could about the shooting and about Ku‘ulei’s condition—she was okay, no stitches, just scraped up and badly frightened. Then Kawika wanted to turn the conversation away from the narrowness of his survival and Ku‘ulei’s.
“Remember Father Brown?” Kawika asked Pat, changing the subject.
“Of course,” his stepfather replied. They’d read G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories aloud together during Kawika’s boyhood. A career prosecutor, Pat had enabled Kawika’s addiction to murder mysteries from a young age.
“Do you remember Father Brown saying that the greatest dangers in life aren’t physical?”
“Father Brown said that?” Pat asked.
“I hope so,” Kawika replied. “That’s what I keep telling people. Including Dad, it seems.”
“Could be, I suppose,” said Pat. “But wouldn’t Father Brown say something like ‘Life’s great dangers aren’t to the body, but to the soul’? Only more graceful, I suspect.”
“Well, I don’t know about my soul,” Kawika said. “But …” Then he explained to them, with hesitation and head shakes and not much elaboration, the dilemma he’d created for himself, his woman problem. “I’m worried—more worried than about getting shot, now I’m here. I’ve really messed up. And I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh dear,” said Lily, struggling to change her train of thought. “Something went wrong with you and Carolyn?”
“Wrong with me, I guess. I was hoping to talk with you about it—maybe in the morning?”
“Darn,” said Pat. “Can’t be here in the morning, Sport. Legislature’s in session.” Pat ran the association of county prosecutors in Washington. He needed to commute to Olympia during the legislative session.
“Actually, it’s Mom I need to talk with.”
“Your mother?” Pat said with feigned indignation. “What does she know about love that I don’t?” Mother and son both looked at him sadly. “Oh,” he said. “I get it. She knows about the little brown gal—or the big brown guy—in the little grass shack in Ha-vai-ee. Well, yes, she does.”
“I’m sorry—”
“It’s okay, Sport,” Pat assured him, tousling his hair gently. “But, hey, if that’s tomorrow’s topic with your mom, can you talk about your murder investigation tonight? Just a bit? Give an old prosecutor something to think about in traffic jams on the road to Olympia?”
“Sure,” replied Kawika. “But just the Cliff Notes, okay? Still gotta make a lot of calls to Hawaii tonight.”
Kawika told a compressed tale. A Big Island real estate developer, Ralph Fortunato, found dead on a golf course with an old Hawaiian spear through his chest. Hands tied with ancient Hawaiian cord. The dead man had angered Native Hawaiians, apparently intentionally. Looked like a Hawaiian group must have done it, but lots of other people hated the dead man too.
“Any eyewitnesses?” Pat asked.
“Yeah, one guy. But—”
“But he lies like an eyewitness, as the Russians say?”
“Exactly.”
“And you think?”
“I think he may be an accomplice, but not the killer. It wasn’t the Hawaiians—not the organized ones anyway. Whoever did it just wanted us to suspect them.”
“That’s odd behavior,” Pat observed. “If you want to get away with killing someone, the formula is pretty simple. This Hawaiian spear killer didn’t follow it.”
“What’s the formula?” Kawika asked.
“Oh, you know, I’m sure,” replied Pat. “First, do the job yourself. Never involve anyone, never tell anyone—then no one can betray you. Second, use a common weapon—a popular gun, say, with widely available ammo, so the cops can’t narrow the list of suspects. Nine-millimeter handgun, usually. That’s the most common. Then get rid of the weapon. But your killer did the opposite: used an unusual weapon and didn’t get rid of it.”
“Right—keep going.”
“You’re not just humoring me?”
“Not at all.” But partly he was. Kawika felt guilty about excluding his stepfather from the talk he planned with his mother. He needed to ask her things he couldn’t ask in fro
nt of Pat—things Jarvis had suggested, things about Hawaiian men and haole women.
“Well, then,” Pat continued. “Plan your alibi. The police won’t believe it, of course. They don’t have to. It just has to be an alibi they can’t break. Like, fumble your change and ask an odd question going into a movie theater; the cashier will remember you, and you’ve got the ticket stub. When the show gets out, have a fender bender in the parking lot—swap insurance cards, maybe even call the cops. If you’re lucky, no one can prove you weren’t in the theater the whole time.”
“Risky. Things could go wrong with that one.”
“Okay, but then keep working to come up with a better one. ‘Better’ meaning less likely to be broken. Any murder with a motive, not a drive-by shooting, the cops will eventually figure out who did it. But with a good enough alibi, they can’t send you to jail.
“And that’s the last point,” Pat emphasized. “If you want to get away with murder, you’ve got to live the rest of your life with the cops knowing exactly who you are.”
“Who you are,” Kawika said, “and where you are too. Right?”
“Right. They’ll keep tabs on you.” Pat stood, squeezing Kawika’s good shoulder before heading off to bed and offering a parting thought. “If the cops know who the killer is but just can’t prove it, they’ll never let an old case become a cold case. Never.” Then Pat headed upstairs for the night.
The next day, Pat called Kawika from Olympia. He’d thought of something to add.
“Hey, Sport, remember that Edgar Allan Poe story about the guy who tricks the other guy and walls him up in the catacombs of Venice?”
“‘The Barrel of’—something,” Kawika replied.
“‘The Cask of Amontillado.’”
“That’s right. Gave me nightmares as a kid,” Kawika said. “Why do you mention it? What’s up?”
“Well, I knew the name Fortunato reminded me of something. Took me a long time to remember; it was driving me crazy. Finally I got it. So go get our old book of Poe stories. The blue hardback. It’s in the bookcase by the fireplace. Read me the first paragraph of ‘The Cask of Amontillado.’ I’ll wait.”
Kawika found the volume and the story. He read the first paragraph aloud to Pat over the phone:
THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. AT LENGTH I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.
“Interesting, huh?” Pat asked when Kawika had finished.
“What a spooky coincidence,” Kawika agreed. “Of course, it’s not a clue.”
“Perhaps not,” Pat conceded, “if you believe in coincidence.”
55
Seattle
Kawika spent a few days in Seattle—long enough to get his stitches checked—and it was there Tanaka called to tell him about the Duct Tape Mummy.
“Dropped right into Cushing’s car!” Tanaka still couldn’t get over it.
“Sounds impossible,” Kawika said doubtfully.
“Yeah, it’s crazy. Just the same, someone did it. Sending a message to Cushing—or trying to kill him. Cushing swears he’s never seen the dead guy. I asked if he’d take a lie detector test, and he said yes. Very emphatically. And he passed it.”
“That naupaka in the guy’s pocket—that’s not a stray, is it?” Kawika asked.
“No,” Tanaka agreed. “Two bodies, two plants, nothing else in the pockets. Can’t be a stray. Could be a coincidence.”
“How so?”
“Well, the first killer used naupaka to suggest Hawaiians killed Fortunato, right? But we never made that evidence public. If the killer’s the same in both cases, that explains it. But if not, the second killer is trying to send a message of his own.”
“What message?”
“Could be a red herring: ‘The Hawaiians did it.’ Or a boast: ‘I’m a Hawaiian, and I did it.’ Either way, we’re meant to suspect a Hawaiian.”
“There’s a legend about those plants,” Kawika said. “Pele killed two lovers, turned them into mountain naupaka and shore naupaka. When you put their flowers together, the lovers are reunited.”
“You think Fortunato and the Duct Tape Mummy were lovers?” Tanaka joked. “The Mummy couldn’t bear his grief, so he tucked a flower in his jeans, wrapped himself in duct tape, and jumped out of a helicopter? You’ve been off the case too long, Kawika. But keep thinking.”
It’s what Kawika was doing. He was thinking about Carolyn and Patience—or Patience and Carolyn, depending on the moment—and about the mess he’d created. But even removed from the case and with Tanaka in charge now, the baton having passed decisively this time, Kawika’s thoughts still ran to Fortunato’s murder. And in Seattle, what could he do to solve it?
Seattle wasn’t a good place to think. There were too many distractions. Lily needed constant reassurance. Pat kept driving up from Olympia to share dinner. Friends from the Seattle Police Department—Kawika still had a few—invited him for lunch or coffee. Everyone in Hawai‘i—Patience, Carolyn, Jarvis, even the busy Tanaka—kept calling to check on him.
More important, in Seattle there wasn’t a single clue, no evidence, not one line of inquiry for him to follow. With nothing new to pursue, he could think—even obsessively—but not productively. He felt like an electric pump in a well run dry, a pump doing no good, sucking air, getting closer and closer to burning up, shorting out.
He needed water in that well. It didn’t take him long to decide where to look: the Methow Valley. He didn’t know what he’d find. He regretted not having learned more from Frank Kimaio, the ex-FBI agent. They’d intended to follow up by phone, but Kawika had been distracted. The day Kawika had seen Kimaio last—the day he’d encountered him at Dr. Smith’s—was the same day Kawika had broken Cushing’s nose and gotten suspended. Then after a day at the volcanoes, he’d promptly been shot.
Technically, Kawika’s five-day suspension must have ended, he supposed. But still, he was on medical leave, not on the case. So he wouldn’t ask Tanaka’s permission to go to the Methow Valley. If he found something, then he could call Tanaka—and after that, if Tanaka allowed him back on the case, he could call Frank Kimaio and try to learn more about Fortunato in Washington.
Meanwhile, Kawika decided, he’d just go recover in the Methow Valley, as any recovering Seattleite might do. And maybe poke around a bit, see the sights, talk with the locals. He’d visit the site of Fawn Ridge, try to meet Jimmy Jack and Madeline John—he loved their names—find Fortunato’s first wife, if he could, and anyone else involved in the events Kimaio had described, the people Tanaka had labeled “Mainland guys” on the whiteboard. Maybe he’d be lucky. Maybe he could break the locks on Fortunato’s past, search out the secrets of his spear-shredded heart.
56
Winthrop
Kawika drove over the North Cascades Highway, looping up near Canada and dropping down into the Methow Valley from the north. The dramatic mountain passes, high and narrow, might have inspired a line in Owen Wister’s The Virginian: “Love was snowbound for many weeks.” Kawika, though snowbound—or avalanche-maytagged—in matters of love, wound his way down on clear, dry pavement to the imitation Old West town of Winthrop.
He’d chosen Winthrop so he could start with Jimmy Jack, the Methow Indian who’d tantalized and frustrated Frank Kimaio with his knowledge of Fortunato’s fraudulent Fawn Ridge activity but who’d refused to testify. Jimmy Jack had a Winthrop phone number. Kawika hadn’t wanted to call him in advance; it seemed better to go to Winthrop first, try to arrange a meeting once there, perhaps make Jimmy Jack a little more wil
ling to talk.
Kawika had years ago visited Winthrop, the Western-themed town with its wooden sidewalks and false fronts and cowboy-related images everywhere, a riverfront village set amid grassy meadows and tall ponderosa pines, replete with grazing cattle and scores of lofty Cascade peaks. This time he rented a little cabin at The Virginian, a motel on the bank of the Methow River. While checking in, Kawika asked where to get a good view of the valley.
“Sun Mountain Lodge,” said the friendly clerk. “Head for the bar. Go out on the deck. Best view around, anywhere they serve a drink.”
Kawika picked up a Methow tourist guide. On the same table, paperback copies of The Virginian stood stacked beside a little sign: “Classic Western novel based in part on Methow Valley and the author’s visits here in the 1890s. $7.50. Pay at desk.” Kawika almost picked up the book but instead opened the tourist guide, found a map, and noticed an oddity in the sidebar:
Fun Fact: First person over the North Cascades Highway on opening day? Ted Bundy, future infamous serial killer, who was the limo driver for then-Governor Dan Evans.
“Ted Bundy worked for Governor Evans?” Kawika asked the clerk.
“That’s right. Ted had the Guv up at Washington Pass. Dan survived, though!”
Kawika meant to buy a copy of The Virginian, but the famous serial killer’s odd connection to the governor and the Methow Valley distracted him. He took the map and found his way to the deck of Sun Mountain Lodge, perched on a high hill looking down over the glacier-carved valley and up at the glacier-sharpened peaks. In the warm air, he could smell a fragrant mix of evergreen forests, sage and bitterbrush, haying, and some faint combination of wildlife and cattle, all rising from the valley floor and surrounding hillsides. He ordered a local beer and gazed out across the valley, surveying the smooth and undulating terrain below the mountains. It reminded him of the smooth and undulating curves of the woman he could not decide whether to let himself love.