by Eric Redman
He saw two horses and riders far below. Cowboys or tourists? Impossible to say. Side by side, far from the ranches on Kohala Mountain’s flanks, they left two wakes in the tall grass.
57
Winthrop
When Kawika had confided his romantic dilemma, his mother’s frank response surprised him. Now, drinking beer at Sun Mountain Lodge, he recognized she’d given him a lot to think about.
“I didn’t stop loving your father,” she’d said. “I just couldn’t stay in Hawaii. The first two years were heaven. By the last two years, I felt I was swimming in molasses, barely able to move; if I didn’t get out, I’d drown. Your dad was the opposite. If he’d left Hawaii he would have wasted away. But in the beginning, I was young, your father was gorgeous, and yes, to be the haole lover of a handsome Hawaiian—that was completely acceptable, yet still exciting, a real turn-on.”
“Mom, I—”
“Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you. And no, I didn’t love him just for that. He’s kind and gentle too. Thoughtful, wise, filled with good humor—as you know. Easy to love. But I couldn’t sit still in Hawaii. Which is why I’d worry about you and Patience. Could you two be happy in the same place? She sounds like a wonderful young woman—don’t get me wrong. I was pretty wonderful too, if I do say so myself. I just wasn’t right for Jarvis. Not forever. Too restless for Hawaii, too twitchy.”
“But you’re not saying, ‘Stick to your own kind?’”
“No, of course not. It’s more complicated. The divorce didn’t involve race; it was personality type. But in the beginning, what was exotic and novel did contribute to desire, and desire led to you. We just couldn’t live in the same place. In the end, nothing could disguise that, not even a child.”
Kawika’s stepfather, Pat, also had advice after Lily had selectively summarized the conversation for him. The next morning, he’d lingered in Seattle to share his own views.
“I don’t think race has much to do with this, Sport,” he’d said. “Make your choice—flip a coin if you have to—but get out of this two-timing situation. Don’t agonize about what would have happened if you’d chosen the other one. You can never know that. If you’d chosen the other one, you might’ve been hit by a truck on the first day. And for all you know, one or both of these admirable young women is deciding to go her own way right now. Meanwhile, you’ve got matters of life and death to think about. Focus on those, Sport.”
Kawika made up his mind to focus on matters of life and death. “Any cell phone reception here?” he asked the waiter.
“Yes, sir. Here and a few other places in the Valley. Not many, though.”
Kawika flipped open his phone. Reception seemed perfect. He dialed Tanaka first. He planned to explain that he’d chosen the Methow Valley to recuperate and then found he couldn’t resist a little sleuthing once he’d arrived. He’d worried how Tanaka might react, but he needn’t have.
“Glad you called,” Tanaka said. “We dug out a bullet—the first shot, from what you described. Went right through that wall and into the dirt. Left a big old trail. Just kept getting bigger and bigger.”
“Terry, that’s not exactly comforting.”
“Sorry. The point is, we got a ballistics report on it. It’s a .375 H&H Magnum bullet. Nearly 300 grains, apparently.”
“What’s that? Never heard of it.”
“It’s a big slug, Kawika. Used in Africa mostly. Sometimes in Alaska for bears. Not common here. Too big for animals we’ve got.”
“Too big for wild pigs?”
“At 300 grains? Yeah, if you want to eat the pig.”
“Do we know the make of the rifle? The model?”
“Nope,” said Tanaka. “Presumably a rifle that can handle .375 H&H Magnum ammo.”
“Did we find the casings?”
“No. The shooter must have picked them up. But the slug tells us a lot. It’s nonstandard, oversized. Maybe handloaded. If we find the gun, we can match it. The ballistics are distinctive.”
“Why was the shooter so stupid?” asked Kawika, thinking back to Pat’s words on getting away with murder. “He should’ve used something common, something the locals hunt with, something that uses .30-30 ammo maybe, or .30-06. There must be a lot of those on the island. Or something newer but still common?”
“Maybe he’s not stupid,” replied Tanaka. “Maybe he wants us to trace the ammo. Maybe it belongs to someone else.”
“It’s possible, I guess.”
“Yeah. Someone tried to frame Peter Pukui for killing Fortunato. Why not frame someone for killing you?”
“Have I mentioned Occam’s Razor?” Kawika asked.
“You mentioned it. You didn’t explain it.”
“Well, let’s just say this: the guy’s a bad shot; maybe he’s also stupid. When I apply Occam’s Razor—and even when I don’t—I like that explanation best.”
“Me too,” Tanaka said. “Stupid guys are easier to catch.”
“Stupid or not,” said Kawika, “catch him anyway.”
“We’re working on it. Stay in touch.”
“I will,” Kawika promised. “Right now I’ve gotta find a man named Jimmy Jack. And a woman named Madeline John.”
58
Hilo
“Oh crap. You say they’re .375 H&H Magnum slugs, Captain?”
Tommy was on the phone with Tanaka. “I know a guy who’s got a rifle for those,” Tommy continued. “He’s a Waimea cop, a guy I work with. Bruno Moku‘ele. Lives right here in Waimea.”
“Moku‘ele? A Hawaiian?”
“Definitely. He’s one of the ahapua‘a tenants—you know, the hunters? I was checking him out just a few days ago for the Fortunato case, like Kawika asked.”
“Hmm,” Tanaka said. “You think Bruno might’ve killed Fortunato? Then figured we’re getting too close, once you interviewed him?”
“Could be, I guess. Of course, someone else might have gotten hold of his rifle. So we can’t know it’s him yet.”
“Did he know Kawika was lead detective on the case?” Tanaka asked.
“Well, I mentioned it. But all the Waimea cops know anyway.”
“Tommy, I think you’d better pay Bruno another visit,” Tanaka said. “Right away. Whether he was the shooter or not, we have to see if the shooter used his rifle.”
There was a pause. “Guess I’ll grab another detective or two to go with me,” Tommy finally said.
“Of course,” Tanaka replied, thinking, Not exactly “Send me in, Coach, send me in.” Not like Kawika.
59
Lahaina and Berkeley
Carolyn had flown home to Maui thoroughly discouraged, and Kawika getting shot made things much worse. She already wondered whether she could find a future with him, this young man she loved. She slowly strolled the beaches of her Maui childhood, deep in thought, deeply breathing the marine air, letting the foamy edges of spent waves cool her feet and wash away her footprints. At the end of each day she devoted extra time to hugging her perplexed father, who really couldn’t help her.
The problem, she believed, was incompatibility between Kawika’s sensibilities and her own, symbolized by Hilo, his world, filled with rain and spirit-crushing forms of darkness, and Kaho‘olawe, her desired world, beckoning with sunlight and spirit-cleansing work and promise. More than just Kaho‘olawe, the land, ‘āina, and things that spring from the land tugged at her. Hilo—and not only Hilo, but Honolulu and other cities where detectives live and work—repelled her more each day.
She didn’t yearn for the past. She yearned for the future, but a future cleansed, a future that skipped the present to sink its roots and find its nourishment in the past. Like Kawika’s mother, but for different reasons, in modern Hawai‘i, in what Hawai‘i had become, she felt she could no longer breathe. Her spirit struggled for air, even when she lay softly in Kawika’s embrace.
She’d read Ancient Hawaiian Civilization, the 1933 book written for Native Hawaiian students in the Kamehameha Schools, and she k
new what its distinguished authors urged: that she be able to speak the language, chant the glorification chants. That she dance the hula, sing the mele of her ancestors, and perhaps even fashion an exact replica of Princess Victoria Ka‘uilani’s surfboard from a single plank of koa. But she couldn’t change this: “Fallen is the Chief, overthrown is the kingdom; an overthrow throughout the land.” For Carolyn, that was real.
* * *
Patience, too, went home after Kawika was shot. For Patience, home was Berkeley. She confided about Kawika to her mother first, including—blushingly—about the sex. Her mother didn’t blush and advised Patience simply: “If you want to test your love for this Hawaiian young man, spend time with him on the mainland, away from your little Mauna Lani love nest. Be with him where race can create problems. Then see how you feel.”
Her father took Patience aside the next day. “Your mother’s keeping your secrets, whatever you told her,” he said, “so I’m shooting in the dark here. But you know what a man wants in a woman, Impy? He just wants her to show up and be happy. That’s all it takes, my dear. Just show up and be happy.”
Since Patience couldn’t sit still in Berkeley, she decided to take the advice of both parents. She called Kawika, flew to Seattle and then Wenatchee, rented a car, and drove to Winthrop. It was midnight when she showed up, very happy, and stepped out of her car into the warm pine-scented air. She pressed Kawika’s body to hers, far from their little love nest at the Mauna Lani. Yet still, when they were alone in the pitch-dark night—when she couldn’t see her skin on his, or his on hers, and when his moans carried no discernibly Hawaiian intonation—she felt that being with him on the mainland was just fine.
PART FIVE
IN THE METHOW VALLEY
For as all men know, he also knew that many things should be done in this world in silence, and that talking about them is a mistake.
—Owen Wister, The Virginian (1902)
60
Winthrop
Kawika’s day began well. Patience playfully pulled him back to bed, later tracing his stitches gently with her fingertips, and Jimmy Jack agreed to meet for lunch. Jimmy Jack had worked at Rattlesnake Ranch, seen the early days of Fawn Ridge. According to the retired FBI agent Frank Kimaio, Jimmy Jack knew the mainland sins of Ralph Fortunato. But lunch with Jimmy Jack went badly.
“You part Apache, like Ralph?” asked Jimmy Jack, holding Kawika’s business card as if it might carry an infectious disease.
“Part Hawaiian. And I thought Ralph was part Athabascan.”
“Apache, Athabascan—how about Assiniboine? Just the first part.”
“Not a popular man, I guess. Tell me about him.”
“So you’re part Hawaiian?” asked Jimmy Jack, ignoring Kawika’s request. “Which part? Your little finger?”
“More than that,” Kawika said, trying to treat it lightly.
“Let me guess. You’re Hawaiian from the waist up—and Jewish from the waist down.”
“I’m Hawaiian on my Dad’s side,” Kawika said, letting it pass. “He’s three-quarters Native Hawaiian.”
“Lot of Native Hawaiians named Wong? Or is that Athabascan?”
“Dad’s part Chinese too. Chinese American.”
“You drink?” asked Jimmy Jack, jerking his head sharply at the waiter, who stepped over to the table.
“A beer would be nice,” Kawika said. Jimmy Jack ordered Diet Coke.
“Ralph drank,” said Jimmy Jack. “Right at this table. Agent Carlson, he said you shouldn’t trust a man who drinks.”
“Agent Carlson?” Kawika asked. “I don’t know who that is.”
“One of the FBI guys who investigated Ralph.”
“Oh. I met a different FBI guy who worked on the case.”
“Indians, we didn’t always have the right to drink,” Jimmy Jack said, veering off again. “Not in bars. You know that?”
“No, I never heard that.”
“It’s true. My daddy, he was the first one legal in our family, when he turned twenty-one. Thanks to Eisenhower. God bless ’im. Ike gave us the right to drink in bars. Only fair, don’t you think?”
“Of course.”
“Know who got the law passed? National Association of Guys Who Own Bars. White man sold us whiskey illegally for years. Bar guys figured, time to get in on it.”
“Huh. I never knew any of that.”
The drinks arrived, and they ordered lunch. “You’re not buyin’ mine,” said Jimmy Jack. “Just so you know.”
“Okay,” said Kawika. “That’s fine. But tell me about Ralph Fortunato.”
“Tell you what?”
“Anything that might help. As I said on the phone, I’m investigating his murder.”
“Murder, you call it.”
“What else would you call it? It wasn’t suicide, I guarantee you.”
“Okay, it wasn’t suicide.”
“It was homicide. Murder.”
“Whatever you say. You’re the detective.”
“Well, what would you say? Maybe I’m not understanding you.”
“Hell, I’m no lawyer,” replied Jimmy Jack. “Let me put it this way. Ralph’s dead, right? Someone did it. But if it weren’t for the law, Ralph never would’ve made it out of this valley alive. No one here would’ve called it murder.”
“Well, that’s why I called you,” said Kawika, seeing an opening. “I’m trying to learn about Ralph’s life here, what he did, what happened.”
“And that’s what I ain’t gonna tell ya. People mess in Ralph’s life, they end up dead. I aim to go on livin’ a bit. Ain’t never got involved in Ralph’s shit. Far as I’m concerned, the whole thing’s a white man’s problem.”
“Wait a minute,” Kawika objected. “It’s true some people in Hawaii ended up dead after Ralph got killed. I almost ended up dead myself. But here?”
“See,” said Jimmy Jack, “that shows you ain’t done your homework. With what you don’t know, you’re dangerous.”
Kawika was stunned. Yes, he hadn’t done enough homework, he realized now. He’d never had a chance to follow up with Frank Kimaio, to progress beyond Fortunato 101, to dig into that category Tanaka had written on the whiteboard, “Mainland guys.” Neither he nor his colleagues had used the internet for research on Fawn Ridge matters. But after all, nothing had suggested the need for homework of the sort Jimmy Jack was now suggesting. Fortunato had plenty of Hawaiian enemies, and he’d been murdered in Hawai‘i with a distinctly Hawaiian weapon, in a carefully staged Hawaiian killing, perhaps an intended Hawaiian sacrifice.
“Wait—” Kawika began.
“No, I ain’t waitin’. You’re snoopin’ around in Ralph’s life. You want to know about Ralph, ask the marshal. You want to know about restorin’ land—weed control, native species, that sort of stuff—ask me. That’s what I do: land restoration. That’s what I know about, what I talk about. Oh, and here’s our food.”
Kawika considered his options. He decided he wanted to know about land restoration. By the end of lunch he knew a lot, mostly about invasive species. He’d learned the pioneers nearly ruined the land by breaking the sod, and that folks now relied too much on pesticides and too little, Jimmy Jack believed, on biological controls such as beetles and goats. Kawika even took notes, because he finished his food before Jimmy had taken three bites, and it felt awkward just sitting there. Besides, with notes he could always tell Carolyn, who’d probably be fascinated: lessons in comparative land restoration.
After lunch Kawika walked along the Methow River to The Virginian. His interview with Jimmy Jack reminded him of his interview with Bingo Palapala. Kawika had suspected Bingo of wrongdoing and essentially accused him; no surprise Bingo reacted defensively. But Kawika hadn’t suggested he suspected Jimmy of anything. So why would Jimmy deflect all discussion of Fortunato—yet discourse happily about noxious weeds? Had anyone actually died here because of Fortunato? Or was Jimmy just inventing an excuse for not talking?
Kawika had almost r
eached The Virginian when a car horn sounded behind him. He turned and saw Patience driving up in her rental car, smiling happily.
“Hop in,” she called as she pulled over. “I’ll save you the last hundred feet.”
His day brightened. Here in Winthrop at least he wasn’t leading a double life, just a life with her. Carolyn and Hawai‘i seemed far away. He kissed Patience when he climbed in the car, and again—several times—when they arrived at The Virginian.
“I found a great place to stay,” she said, quite pleased. “The Freestone Inn, up the valley in Mazama. Wait till you see it. It’s so romantic. Seriously, Kawika. We’ll be happier there. And I’ve already booked us a suite. We can split the cost.”
“Okay,” he said, although remaining in Winthrop would’ve been more convenient.
“Goody,” she replied, clapping her hands. “You won’t regret it, I promise. And I bet the Freestone has a better internet connection too. I can do some online sleuthing—very safely, I promise—while you go sleuth around in the sagebrush.”
“Maybe you should sleuth around the local cemetery,” Kawika said. “It seems people may have died here because of Fortunato.”
“The local cemetery,” she said. “Let me guess. In this fake cowboy town, it’s called Boot Hill.”
“Boot up and find out,” he said.
61
Winthrop