Bones of Hilo

by Eric Redman

  Tanaka hadn’t known who’d abducted Rocco and coerced his confession. Marshal Hanson suggested Kawika seemed incurious about that. Actually, Kawika thought he knew. He simply hadn’t wanted to betray his conclusion to Hanson. It was the conclusion that Hanson and everyone else Kawika had met in the Methow Valley and Wenatchee seemed determined to prevent him reaching.

  The great relief for Kawika was that Rocco, not Fortunato’s killer, had apparently been his shooter. The rifle in Rocco’s motel room clinched it. Rocco as his shooter allayed Kawika’s deepest fear, the fear that seized him the moment he’d realized his shooter wasn’t some angry Hawaiian; the fear that Fortunato’s killer intended to kill him too—kill him for getting too close.

  Winthrop to Seattle was a four-hour drive. Along the way, where reception permitted, Kawika took advantage of the three-hour time difference with Hawai‘i. He called Jarvis and Ku‘ulei. Then he called Carolyn at her dad’s on Maui. Tanaka had already been in touch with her. Kawika heard her weeping softly, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. He explained he’d been out of communication—basically hiding—until the shooter was caught. Yes, he agreed, it was a relief the shooter turned out not to be an S&R-enraged Hawaiian.

  “But, Carolyn, we should have known. Ku‘ulei was with me. No Hawaiian would risk killing such an obviously Hawaiian little girl, would he?” This might not be true, but he hoped it might banish one of Carolyn’s bad dreams.

  As a less fraught diversion, he also told Carolyn about Jimmy Jack. For many minutes he described Jimmy’s land restoration work, working from memory as he drove. It did calm her. She even asked questions, took an interest, wanted to know more.

  He didn’t call Patience; it was too late. He told himself she might still be traveling, or home sleeping in California. But that was just avoidance. In reality, he couldn’t share what he now believed about Fortunato’s killer. Not until he’d met with Tanaka—who was thoroughly misguided on this point, Kawika felt sure—and even before that, figured out how to handle that knowledge himself. It seemed an intractable problem.

  Most of the time there was no cell reception. He drove through the mountains on a clear black night with a nearly full moon. Little other traffic shared the eerie vastness, the uncanniness of the alpine darkness somehow supporting, high above him, huge snowfields and glaciers ghostly white in the moonglow.

  In solitude, with the enforced lull, relieved about his shooter, Kawika reflected on how he’d become a detective through the seductions of murder mysteries, stories Pat read him in childhood, and the shared enthusiasm of stepfather and stepson, each hoping to bond with the other. As a result, who were the detectives he knew? Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, Father Brown, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, Inspector Morse, Philip Marlowe, Adam Dalgleish, Travis McGee, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, Kurt Wallander, Martin Beck, Detective Jim Chee, and so on—the literary detectives of Pat’s generation and enthusiasms. None seemed relevant to Kawika in real life. Well, maybe Father Brown. Father Brown always felt uneasy about his soul, never entirely pleased with his own cleverness.

  Not entirely pleased with his own cleverness: Kawika knew Tanaka had gotten the main thing wrong, namely, who killed Fortunato. Tanaka’s dismissal of inconvenient evidence as strays might be helpful most of the time. But this time? Or maybe Kawika, in his cleverness, was overthinking the situation, hoping to be the one to enlighten Tanaka and earn a satisfying Iiko, iiko. Worse yet, maybe Kawika was being disloyal. Tanaka couldn’t really have been fooled, could he? He must have some reason for accepting that a hit man killed Fortunato, mustn’t he? He and Tanaka needed to talk. And not, Kawika had finally understood, by phone.

  Uneasy about his soul. Now that he was heading home, Kawika also tried to focus on his situation with Patience, how to tell Carolyn, all the details and consequences he’d put off in the Methow. He’d escaped to the North Cascades, or been hiding, not communicating anyway, testing the firmness of his choice, trying to delay having to deal with it.

  Now, he knew, he couldn’t postpone dealing with it for long. But the timing was terrible. He’d just solved the case. He was ready to close the books on it, if he could convince Tanaka that Rocco wasn’t Fortunato’s killer, and then make the arrest. First things first. He needed to wait at least that long to talk with Carolyn; he needed to temporize a bit longer.

  Uneasy about his soul too, for an even more important reason. Even if he convinced Tanaka, was he actually going to arrest the real killer? What would become of him if he did? If he didn’t? He couldn’t decide as he drove. The intractable problem remained.

  Kawika arrived in Seattle bone-tired. He found his mother and Pat waiting up for him as if he were a teenager, greeting him with smiles, embraces, murmurs, the familiar pleasure of their decaf coffee. They’d already spoken with Tanaka. He’d called, thoughtfully, to tell them the details—Cushing’s arrest, the winding up of the case—and to assure them Kawika’s would-be assassin was dead.

  “We got you something to read,” Lily said. “The confession will be here in the morning. We didn’t want it to be the only thing you had on the plane.” She handed Kawika a paperback copy of The Virginian. “I wasn’t sure if you knew about this,” she said. “It’s a famous old Western, partly inspired by the Methow Valley. Since you’ve just been there—”

  “Perfect,” he said, giving her a kiss. “I saw it over there but missed my chance to buy it.”

  Kawika stayed up late. He opened The Virginian and got far enough to read about the hero, the unnamed Virginian, dutifully and without pleasure lynching two men who’d rustled cattle from Judge Henry, the Virginian’s employer, and about Judge Henry’s efforts to persuade the Virginian’s horrified sweetheart that in the conditions—and traditions—then prevailing in the West, the lynching of bad men was a way of upholding the law, not defying it.

  But that was a hundred years ago, Kawika thought. We’re not the Wild West in Hawaii anymore. It occurred to him, just as he fell asleep, that maybe the Methow Valley still was.

  PART SEVEN

  THE KA‘Ū FOREST RESERVE

  “I think there is something rather dangerous about standing on these high places even to pray,” said Father Brown. “Heights were made to be looked at, not to be looked down from.”

  “Do you mean that one may fall over?” asked Wilfred.

  “I mean that one’s soul may fall if one’s body doesn’t,” said the other priest.

  “I knew a man,” he said, “who began by worshipping with others before the altar, but who grew fond of high and lonely places to pray from, corners or niches in the belfry or the spire. And once in one of those dizzy places, where the whole world seemed to turn under him like a wheel, his brain turned also, and he fancied he was God. So that though he was a good man, he committed a great crime.”

  —G. K. Chesterton, “The Hammer of God,” from The Innocence of Father Brown (1910)

  70

  From Seattle to Honolulu

  The six-hour flight to Honolulu gave Kawika ample time to read and reread the hit man’s confession. Each time Kawika did so, the dead killer seemed to tell him more.

  Statement of Roger (Rocco) Preston

  This statement is intended for Detective Kavika Wong of Hilo.

  My name is Roger (Rocco) Preston. I live at 126 Treaty Oak Avenue in St. Helena, California. This statement is true, but I am being forced to make it. My captors are not police. They say they will kill me if they find anything in this statement to be untrue.

  Kawika could guess the identities of two of Rocco’s captors, although one he’d never met, just knew by name. Perhaps there was a third, if the other two trusted a half-mad highway walker. And might there be a fourth, he wondered—a doctor?

  Michael Cushing hired me to kill Ralph Fortunato, Melanie Munu, and Kavika Wong. Fortunato was killed with a Hawaiian spear, which was left with his body. Munu was killed with a baseball bat, which I buried with her. Wong was supposed to be killed with a rifle that Cushi
ng gave me.

  Earlier, in 1998, Fortunato hired me to kill Steven Kellogg in Washington. However, I did not kill Kellogg. I believe Fortunato did.

  A lot of information there, though some was false. Well, not exactly false, Kawika realized. Fortunato actually had been killed with a Hawaiian spear. But there the confession was deliberately misleading, Kawika knew.

  When Cushing first hired me, he said he and Fortunato were having a business dispute. Cushing said I had to make it look like a native Hawaiian group killed Fortunato. He said Fortunato’s body should be left on the championship tee box of the 15th hole of the South Course at the Mauna Lani. He said I should drive a Hawaiian spear through Fortunato’s chest at that location, put a sacred Hawaiian flower in Fortunato’s pocket, and use other Hawaiian artifacts Cushing supplied.

  Cushing said he’d give me the spear, the sacred flower, etc., after I got to Hawaii. Each day for several days I drove to Hapuna Beach in a rental car. I left my car keys on the wall of the men’s restroom by the parking lot. When I got back from the beach each day, I picked up my keys and drove to my motel in Kailua, where I opened the trunk. The first few days, it was empty. Cushing said I should kill Fortunato on the day after I opened the trunk and found the Hawaiian spear, the sacred flower, etc.

  After Fortunato was dead and his body left in the place Cushing wanted, I flew to Honolulu and then to San Francisco on Hawaiian Airlines.

  There’s the crucial omission, Kawika thought. Right there. Did Rocco ever open his car trunk and find the items Cushing had promised? The confession didn’t say so. And if he did, what happened between that moment and when Rocco boarded the plane? The confession was silent on that too.

  Kawika could easily imagine the heated negotiations between Rocco and his captors over these paragraphs. A terrified Rocco must have refused to say outright that he’d murdered Fortunato, because his captors had insisted they’d kill him if he lied—and they knew he hadn’t murdered Fortunato. So somehow captors and victim had negotiated this not-quite-false but highly misleading compromise language. And it hadn’t saved Rocco anyway.

  After I returned to California, Cushing had me come back to Hawaii to kill Melanie Munu. He told me Munu was trying to extort money from him.

  Cushing did not want Munu’s body found. He said I should arrange to meet her at Waiki’i Ranch. I used cash to buy a shovel, a plastic tarp, and a baseball bat in Kailua. I drove to Waiki’i Ranch and stored the bat at the house. I dug a grave beside an animal path about two hundred yards downhill from the house, piled the dirt and sod on the tarp, and left the shovel there.

  Cushing called Munu to say I’d bring her the money and told her where to meet me. I got the bat and walked her to the grave at gunpoint, where I hit her once on the back of the head. It was quieter than shooting her. Then I buried her and the bat. I dropped the tarp and shovel in dumpsters in Kailua. I called and left an agreed message for Cushing, who was in Honolulu for his alibi. The message was, “An overthrow throughout the land.”

  Poor Melanie, Kawika thought. He could guess what had killed her. She must’ve tried the heir-of-Ku‘umoku extortion ploy with Cushing after Fortunato was gone, presumably omitting to tell Cushing that the Murphys and S&R’s lawyer Ted Pohano had a real heir who’d challenge the title anyway. It hadn’t worked. Dr. Smith must have guessed something of what she intended; no wonder he’d told Kawika she was in danger.

  Before I left Hawaii again, Cushing called and said he also needed me to kill Kavika Wong. He said Wong was investigating Fortunato’s death and had information that could link Cushing to the Hawaiian items found on Fortunato’s body.

  Each time Kawika read this, he shook his head. He’d missed so much that evening at Cushing’s. Partly it was chance—what if he’d simply said, The murder weapon has three barbs, and yours has four? Cushing would have dropped his blender full of Mai Tais, and events would have taken a wholly different course.

  Yet some of it was Kawika’s fault, a failure of alertness even before he’d sipped a drink. Kawika thought he’d been clever, disguising from Cushing why he knew about olonā. But he’d failed to put two and two together—or one piece of olonā fiber with another—as he gazed at the fishing line in Cushing’s display case.

  Of course, the confession finally provided Kawika the answer to Tanaka’s question, “Why did Cushing provoke you?” He’d wanted to get Kawika fired immediately. Once arrested, Cushing had admitted that the murder weapon was his—a three-barbed ihe that should have been hanging above his door. When he’d walked Kawika to the door and seen the wrong ihe hanging there, Cushing must’ve realized in an instant that his own ihe, the one whose legendary history he’d just described to Kawika, had been stolen and used to kill Fortunato—realized, too, that someone was trying to frame him, not just with the ihe but with Cushing’s missing length of olonā fishline. But only Kawika knew about the London dealer, the man who could link that ihe to Cushing. If he’d been fired, Kawika now realized, the murder weapon might never have been traced. Kawika had forgotten all about the London dealer until Cushing’s arrest, and until reading the confession Kawika never had any reason to suspect Cushing owned the fatal spear.

  I did not want to kill a cop, but Cushing said Wong’s boss refused to remove him from the case, leaving him no choice. Cushing also wanted me to use a rifle I’d never seen, one owned by a native Hawaiian. I knew if I didn’t cooperate that Cushing could implicate me for the other murders if Wong arrested him, so I went ahead.

  Ironic, Kawika thought. If only Tanaka had fired him after he’d broken Cushing’s nose—doing what Cushing hoped and what Cushing’s lawyer demanded—Kawika would never have found himself in an assassin’s gunsights.

  Cushing said native Hawaiians were mad at Wong and blamed him for several deaths. Cushing said the native Hawaiian features of Fortunato’s death had kept suspicion from him, and the same would be true if Wong was killed with a gun owned by a native Hawaiian.

  Cushing gave me the gun and ammo, again by putting them in the trunk of my car. He included a newspaper photo of Wong so I could recognize him. After the shooting I was supposed to leave a message for Cushing, who had gone to Kailua to establish his alibi. The message was “The bones of Hilo are broken.” Then I would return the gun to Cushing by leaving it in my car trunk at Hapuna, etc.

  Those damn S&R press releases, Kawika thought. And that damn photo. True, a Native Hawaiian hadn’t shot him after all. But still, there was only one reason for the big front-page headshot.

  Cushing told me he called the police station and learned that Wong would return to Hilo from the volcanoes the next day. Cushing said Wong drove a yellow Mustang convertible. He told me the route Wong would probably use. He instructed me to leave the shell casing behind after I shot Wong, so the police could trace it to the gun’s native Hawaiian owner.

  Kawika bristled every time he thought of someone giving out his itinerary over the phone. Didn’t everyone at the station realize S&R was inciting Native Hawaiians against him? And that there must be almost twenty thousand Native Hawaiians on the Big Island for S&R to incite? On the other hand, he did recognize, ruefully, that a bright yellow Mustang convertible might not have been the best automotive choice for a homicide detective.

  I spotted Wong’s convertible and followed it to a city park. I concealed the rifle in a beach towel. The rifle has a telescopic sight, but I missed him with two shots and only wounded him with the third. I realized the rifle must not be sighted properly and was about to compensate, but Wong ducked behind a wall, and right then my captors abducted me and drove away.

  Thank God for small favors, Kawika thought. Either Bruno Moku‘ele had never sighted the rifle properly, or Cushing must have bumped the sight while putting the gun in Rocco’s trunk—or perhaps Rocco had hit a pothole on the drive from Hapuna. The fact that the rifle wasn’t properly sighted was, in this case, definitely more important than why.

  Back in 1998, Fortunato called me from Seattle. He said
he’d gotten my name at a gun show from a guy whose name I recognized. Fortunato wanted me to kill Steven Kellogg. He said Kellogg had ruined his business.

  I did not kill Kellogg, because I was unexpectedly in jail in the summer of 1998. I phoned Fortunato from jail to explain. He was upset, so I suggested he prepare a good alibi and do the job himself. I told him to use a nine-millimeter handgun he said he owned. I told him to break it down afterward and throw away the parts. I warned him the police would not believe his alibi. I said they would wiretap him, so I told him not to call me again.

  Kawika imagined that Ernesto Gonzales and Harold Billings, back in Eastern Washington, probably closed the Kellogg murder investigation once they knew Fortunato was dead. But here was evidence that Fortunato had indeed owned the handgun they’d never found, the one whose existence Melissa Jane Harding had confirmed to Kawika after withholding that information from the FBI. How differently things might have turned out if Melissa had told them about that handgun! Fortunato might never have reached Hawai‘i, might be in prison even today, appealing a death sentence for murdering a Federal prosecutor.

  Here’s how Cushing got my name: from Fortunato. I was surprised by that. He said they were having dinner once and ordering bottles of Preston wine. Fortunato said he knew another Preston in California. Fortunato boasted of our relationship, told Cushing where I lived, and said he’d once hired me to kill someone who’d ruined his resort development in Washington. Cushing said Fortunato told him this in order to sound like a “tough guy.”