Bones of Hilo

by Eric Redman

  Kawika and Patience drove back down the valley to Winthrop for breakfast. The Freestone Inn would have been simpler, but dinner there the night before had unnerved Kawika a bit. The food was excellent, but he couldn’t understand the menu’s culinary terminology without help from Patience, and the prices surprised him even though he came from Hawai‘i. Patience paid the bill, which made things worse. She’d ordered a nice wine, and Kawika drank several microbrews. As a result, romantic possibilities escaped them that night. In the morning, Patience suggested breakfast in town.

  She was gamely picking at her huevos rancheros when a tall and very thin man in a Stetson hat strode by their window, looked them over, and pushed through the saloon-style door. He came straight to their table. He had no spurs on his cowboy boots, Kawika noted. Other than that, he looked like some stereotype from a cowboy Western. Even wore a star on his vest.

  “Detective Wong?” he asked. “I’m Marshal Hanson.”

  “Hello, Marshal,” replied Kawika, inviting the marshal to sit down.

  “Figured it was him,” Hanson said with a smirk, turning to speak to someone at the next table. “Heard he was with a spinner,” he half whispered, loud enough to be overheard.

  “A spinner?” asked Patience.

  “Sorry,” the marshal replied. “A small woman, I should’ve said.”

  “Small women are called spinners?” Patience looked him questioningly. “I’ve never heard that.”

  “Beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have said anything, Miss—?”

  “This is Patience Quinn,” Kawika said. The two shook hands.

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. You too, Detective.” Hanson didn’t remove his broad-brimmed hat.

  “I’m told you’re the man to see with questions about Ralph Fortunato,” Kawika began.

  “Now there’s a coincidence. I’m told you’re a man with those very questions.” Hanson grinned unpleasantly, then called to the waiter. “Hey, Jimbo, how about a cup of joe over here? Joe to go.”

  Something was wrong. After Jimmy Jack, Kawika wasn’t entirely surprised.

  “I’m law enforcement, like you,” Kawika said. “I’m investigating Mr. Fortunato’s murder. You understand.”

  “Oh, I understand all right. I understand you’re about three thousand miles outside your jurisdiction. You’re like someone from Quebec here, Detective. We welcome tourists; heck, we depend on them. If you and Miss Quinn are here as tourists, we want you to enjoy yourselves. But if you’re here detecting, well, that’s not okay with us.”

  “Why?” asked Kawika evenly.

  “What I’m telling you is what matters, Detective. The why doesn’t concern you.”

  “It does, though—it does concern me. A man’s been murdered.”

  “Not just one man, Detective.”

  “Meaning what? Others murdered in Hawaii? Or murdered here?”

  “Meaning Ralph Fortunato got what was coming to him. Good riddance, folks here will tell you. Whoever killed him—why, he’s a hero, as far as we’re concerned. Maybe you’ll catch the guy, Detective. But not with help from us.”

  Hanson rose, nodded to Patience, touched his hat. “Pay attention to what I told you, all right? You’re up there at the Peach Pit—that’s what we locals call the Freestone. You’ve got yourselves a cozy little room. My suggestion is, put it to good use.”

  Hanson waved to another diner and walked out, taking his coffee.

  “Whew,” said Patience. “I don’t believe that.”

  “I believe it,” said Kawika. “Let’s not talk here. Outdoors.”

  They paid for breakfast and stepped out onto the wooden sidewalk. Every building boasted an Old West facade. Somehow the Western theme worked; Kawika could imagine a gunfight on Main Street. Shit, he thought. I hope no one tries to shoot me here. He felt a long way from Hawai‘i—a long way even from Seattle—and suddenly a long way from safety. Clearly, people didn’t want him here.

  “Why are small women called spinners?” asked Patience. But Kawika was looking across the street. He nodded so she’d look too.

  On the wooden sidewalk in front of an antiques shop, two women gazed into a cardboard box that one held. Their radiant faces reflected kittens or puppies as plainly as faces can reflect campfires or candlelight. Kawika and Patience crossed the road and looked into the box. It held two kittens—tiny ones.

  “Oh my gosh,” Patience exclaimed. “They’re adorable.”

  “Yep,” one of the women said. “Picked ’em up this mornin’. Momma didn’t come back, second mornin’ in a row. The others died, so we figured it was time to bring in these two. Hold ’em a minute, will ya?”

  The woman handed Patience the box and fished in her bag for keys. She gave a little wave to her friend, who walked off. Then she opened the shop door and ushered them inside.

  “Are those milk bottles for them?” Patience asked, looking into the box.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the woman said. “Wanna try feedin’ one?”

  “Sure,” said Patience. The woman gently lifted one of the mewing kittens and placed it in Patience’s hands. Then she held the tiny bottle—meant for eye drops—and squeezed some milk onto the kitten’s nose. The kitten licked it greedily. The woman handed the bottle to Patience, who held the kitten easily in her palm.

  “Here you go, you sweet little kitty,” Patience cooed, “you little ball of fur.”

  The second kitten mewed piteously from the box. The woman handed it to Kawika along with another bottle. He and Patience stood together, feeding kittens.

  In that moment, for the first time, he could truly imagine a life with her. Which meant that—also for the first time—he could imagine letting himself fall in love with her, however improbable the match might seem, to himself and others, and however painful the necessity of confessing his decision to Carolyn, making the inevitable break, explaining to confused and questioning friends. He couldn’t decently invoke as an excuse Caroline’s desire to go work on Kaho‘olawe or that she might eventually leave him for that. Things weren’t that simple, and he knew it. He would just have to tell the truth: “I fell in love with someone else.”

  The shop owner bustled around, getting ready for business. Her long black hair, beginning to gray, lay straight and heavy down her back, secured by an oval clip of worked silver and turquoise of Native American design.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Don’t have enough volunteers. Gotta do it all myself, some days. Appreciate the help.”

  “You do this regularly?” Patience asked. “Rescue kittens?”

  “Kittens, cats—yeah, that’s what we do. Plus I run the shop. These two, we been watchin’ the mom and them for days now. Tried to trap her, but the trap’s been empty every mornin’.”

  “You check your traps in the morning?” Kawika asked.

  “Yep. Every mornin’, rain or shine. ’Course, it don’t rain much here.”

  “I thought people checked cat traps at night,” he said.

  “Hmm,” said the woman. “Never heard of that. Don’t seem to make no sense. Your feral cat, it mostly hunts in the evenin’ and at first light. Plus, you want the vet to be open when you pick ’em up. That’s why we check traps in the mornin’. Leastways that’s what we was taught by professionals, over to Spokane.”

  Kawika and Patience turned to one another. “Jason Hare—” she began but checked herself. Kawika nodded: That’s why I asked. Kawika remembered Jarvis teasing him too, asking if he’d camped at the Mauna Kea all night to catch a cat trapper in the morning. It hadn’t seemed important then.

  “What’s your group called?” Patience asked.

  “We call ourselves Methow Meow,” the woman said. “Kinda corny. But folks remember the name. It was either that or Winthrop Whiskers.”

  “Can I write you a check?” Patience asked. “I’d like to make a small donation.” Kawika thought, She does this every time with cats.

  “Why, thank you,” the woman said. “That’s very kind. I apprec
iate it. We’ll put the money to good use, I promise ya.”

  “I’m sure you will,” said Patience.

  “Here, let me hold the kitten.” The woman took it so Patience could open her bag to get her checkbook.

  “I’m Patience Quinn, by the way,” said Patience. “And this is Kawika Wong.”

  “Oh,” said the woman, startled. The bottle of milk stopped half an inch from the kitten’s face. The kitten protested loudly, then stretched to reach it.

  “Well, howdy then,” the woman said after an awkward moment. “Glad to meet ya, I guess. I’m Madeline John.”

  62

  Mazama

  Kawika and Patience didn’t consciously obey the marshal, but they did spend the next twenty-four hours at the Freestone. They made love, they worked—he on the phone, she on the internet—and at Kawika’s suggestion, they tried the dining room again for dinner, this time with greater success. How you feel depends on what you’re thinking, his mom had taught him. Kawika was thinking, Within these walls I’m safe.

  Kawika’s good mood reflected another thought as well: What a lucky break with Madeline John. She’d listened respectfully, then in the end promised she’d intercede with her husband, try to get him to give Kawika another chance.

  “I’m a Native Hawaiian,” Kawika had told her. “Mr. Fortunato destroyed a Native Hawaiian cultural site. It was an ancient boundary marker or an altar; some people thought it was a temple. I know he destroyed a Native American cultural site here too. If you and your husband will just talk to me about that one thing, the wintering shelter, I won’t ask about anything else. I promise.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she’d replied. “But you understand why Jimmy don’t wanna talk? It weren’t just Mr. Kellogg he thinks Ralph done, but Bill too.”

  “Mr. Kellogg? Bill? I’m sorry, I—”

  “It’s all right,” she’d said. “Jimmy’ll tell ya—or he won’t.”

  When Kawika and Patience left the shop, they’d smiled at one another with satisfaction. “Great move,” he’d teased, “writing her a check. If cops had money, we wouldn’t have to, you know …”

  “If you had money,” she’d replied, “maybe you wouldn’t have to play the race card like you just did.” She’d dug her elbow into his ribs. But she’d laughed too.

  They headed back to the Freestone so Patience could get on the internet and start searching for the deaths of a Mr. Kellogg and someone local named Bill. Kawika called Tanaka. He intended to pass along the names Madeline John had mentioned and also what she’d said about trapping cats, but Tanaka had more dramatic information.

  “We arrested your shooter,” Tanaka said. “At least we think he’s your shooter, unless someone else got his gun and is trying to frame him. The bullets are his, he owns a rifle for .375 H&H Magnum ammo, and the rifle’s missing.”

  “Oh, thank God,” said Kawika. “Who is he?” Patience looked up sharply. Kawika scrawled GOT THE SHOOTER on the Freestone notepad and tossed it to her. She read the note, burst into a grin, and pumped a clenched fist.

  “Well, sorry to say, he’s a Waimea cop,” Tanaka replied. “Bruno Moku‘ele. One of those hunters up at Waimea.”

  “The ahupua‘a tenants?”

  “Yup.”

  “Moku‘ele? He’s Hawaiian?”

  “Yup. But not whacked out, I don’t think. A cool customer.”

  “How’d you catch him?”

  “Tommy got him. Your buddy.”

  “Good old Tommy.”

  “No kidding. Soon as we told Tommy about the rifle using .375 H&H Magnum cartridges, he said, ‘I know who has one.’ Tommy and some other detectives went and got Bruno out of bed. The gun case was in his garage, but not the gun. He acted all surprised. Said it was there last time he looked, and so on.”

  “Does he have an alibi?”

  “The usual: off duty, home alone, working in his yard. No one saw him.”

  “Does the ammo match?”

  “Same as the slug. Three-hundred-fifty-grain bullets. Even heavier than we thought. Not handloaded, but specialty items—Woodleighs. We haven’t done ballistics yet, but they’ll match up.”

  “Good work, Terry. Thank Tommy for me.”

  “I will. But here’s something important. Guess how Bruno got the rifle and ammo? They were gifts from Ralph Fortunato.”

  “Fortunato! When? Why?” Kawika sat baffled, but Patience didn’t look up. She stared at her computer, wholly absorbed. She typed something, hit a key, and waited.

  “Don’t know yet,” Tanaka said. “Bruno decided to stop talking. Wanted to see a lawyer. That’s when we arrested him.”

  “Is he lying? About Fortunato giving him the gun?”

  “Doubt it. That’s how Tommy knew about the gun. Bruno showed it to Tommy when he first got it, told him Fortunato gave it to him. We’ll try to find out where Fortunato got it. And maybe there’s a record of Woodleigh shipping him the ammo.”

  “Is Bruno someone S&R stirred up?” Kawika asked. “Does he think I’m responsible for the Malos? For Peter Pukui going missing?”

  “We don’t know. Like I said, he wouldn’t talk. But his lawyer doesn’t like you.”

  “Oh no. Don’t tell me.”

  “Yup. Ted Pohano.”

  “Jeez. Can’t we get him disqualified?”

  “Maybe. The man’s a walking conflict of interest. But we’ve got a suspect in custody, and that’s enough for now. I should have—”

  Kawika didn’t hear the rest of it. Patience leapt from her chair, grabbed her laptop, and rushed toward Kawika, who was sitting on the bed. She stretched the laptop’s phone cord tight but it wasn’t long enough. So she held the laptop a few feet from his face. The screen displayed an old article from Northern Lights, a newspaper of the Methow Valley. The headline read:

  Prosecutor Slain In Wenatchee

  Steve Kellogg Led Fawn Ridge Team

  63

  Mazama

  Kawika and Patience both sat stunned. How many bodies, Kawika wondered? It began, he mused, with just one—Fortunato. Just one, that is, assuming no connection to Shark Cliff. The Malos had followed, thanks to Kawika’s mistakes but also, as Dr. Smith had insisted, more fundamentally thanks to Fortunato himself. And now there was an even earlier killing, it seemed, one Kawika could easily guess might be connected to Fortunato’s much earlier time in the Methow, just as the local paper’s headline half hinted.

  All of a sudden, “Mainland guys,” as Tanaka had labeled them on the whiteboard, seemed more credible to Kawika as suspects. But in that case, why the Hawaiian spear? Why the olonā fiber cord? Why the mountain naupaka?

  Kawika and Patience couldn’t put work aside, not after what she’d found. Patience—who’d skipped wine at dinner, as Kawika had skipped beer—worked all evening on her internet research, promising to report before they went to bed. While she worked, Kawika called Tanaka to report her astounding discovery. He’d have to call Frank Kimaio next.

  “Why are we just learning about this now?” Tanaka sounded exasperated, not just with Kawika but with himself as well. “That FBI guy in Seattle never mentioned this to me. You didn’t get it from Frank Kimaio either?”

  “No, and that’s my fault,” Kawika admitted. “We just had a first interview. He gave me the background stuff, called it ‘Fortunato 101’ and saved the rest for later. He took me through the fraud investigation, the destruction of the wintering shelter, the failure of the prosecution. Then he left for a doctor’s appointment. Said we could follow up by phone, and I even ran into him at Dr. Smith’s a few days later, but he was just starting a chemo treatment. And that same night I broke Cushing’s nose, I got suspended, and then I got shot. So I never had a chance to follow up.”

  “Well, we sure dropped the ball, you and me both,” said Tanaka. “We had ‘Mainland guys’ on the whiteboard from the start.” Kawika expected more blame than that, but all Tanaka added was, “We could have done a Google search, for gosh sakes.”

&nb
sp; “Doing it now,” Kawika said, not mentioning Patience.

  “Well, consider yourself back on the case, and call Kimaio,” Tanaka instructed. “Better late than never, and all that.”

  Kawika tried—he remembered Kimaio’s phone number with no difficulty—but Kimaio didn’t pick up and didn’t seem to have an answering machine. “Damn,” Kawika said.

  Filled with adrenaline—and with Frank Kimaio, Bruno Moku‘ele, and the murdered Steve Kellogg tumbling around in his head—Kawika kept trying to reach Kimaio, without success. He finally gave up. He called Tanaka to tell him.

  “Okay, it’s late where you are,” Tanaka said. “I’ll call him myself. Meanwhile, I’ve got an update for you.”

  Tanaka had finally spoken with Shimazu directly. Unfortunately, Shimazu already had Japanese lawyers and refused to talk. So Tanaka had asked Hawai‘i prosecutors for options.

  “They say we’ve got to go to court, get some papers,” he told Kawika. “Then we can question him under oath in Japan—eventually. We can’t extradite him unless we charge him. That’s down the road, to say the least. Right now, we can’t question him for weeks—maybe months.”

  “You make Shimazu for Fortunato, Terry?”

  “I didn’t at first. Now I wonder. Cushing thinks it might be Shimazu. He’s helpful now, worried Shimazu might kill him too. The Duct Tape Mummy really got him thinking. He still claims to know zip about that guy. But he thinks he’s figured out the scam Fortunato was running. And he may be right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Fortunato was cheating the company, right? Skimming money and keeping KKL going by hyping the financial projections, making KKL look better than it ever could be.”

  “The luxury resort with no beach.”

  “Right. But it had to end sometime,” Tanaka said. “Now he’s studied the real financials, Cushing says the whole thing would have come crashing down, no matter what, if KKL ever got its final permits. Because then KKL would have to go out for construction loans and permanent financing—and the lenders would probably be some sharp Americans with their own due diligence teams. Not sitting in Japan, believing whatever information Fortunato and Shimazu fed them.”