Mahu Surfer

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “For a while.”

  “Cool. See you around, then.” He gave me a shaka and walked back toward his friends.

  Ben had seen Mike and Lucie talking to each other at a party. It didn’t mean that they were best friends, or involved together in some way, but it was a start.

  Coach Tex

  I surfed all day Saturday, hoping to see Trish. Though I talked to a bunch of surfers, I didn’t learn anything new, and I was starting to get discouraged. Once I actually heard the word “faggot” muttered under someone’s breath—but I couldn’t tell who had said it. I was discovering information, but very slowly, and that was frustrating. By late afternoon, I was beat. Though I had surfed regularly in Waikiki, that was nothing compared to the punishment I was putting my body through. I couldn’t even keep my promise to get out for meals—I stopped at Fujioka’s and bought some takeout sushi, and nearly fell asleep eating it.

  Sunday morning, I put on my wetsuit and walked out into the pre-dawn darkness, dragging my board with me. I couldn’t help thinking about the murders as I surfed. Usually the water is the place where I can put everything else aside, but knowing that all three victims had been surfers somehow connected the act of surfing with their deaths, making it impossible for me to forget them.

  I surfed most of the day, resting between waves, scanning the sand for Trish and talking to whoever passed by. I had a burrito for lunch, bought from a roach coach that drove past around noon playing a complicated tune on its horn. By around three o’clock, I gave up, and after a quick shower back at Hibiscus House I drove over to The Next Wave, hoping that Dario had the day off.

  Either he did, or he was holed up in his office the whole time. I was grateful, and it allowed me to focus on doing more computer searching. I already knew a lot about Mike Pratt, so I decided to spend some time on the other two. I knew it would be hard to zero in on someone with as common a name as Chang, but I wanted to give it a shot.

  After a number of fruitless searches, I found a site from Lahainaluna High School in Lahaina which listed winners of a science fair. One Ronald Chang had won second prize for a case study of how one could hack into the school’s computer system and change student grades. Chang’s photo, which was close enough for my purposes to the one I’d seen in his dossier, clinched the deal for me.

  There was a little note on the web page thanking Mr. Chang for his insight, which resulted in a total revamp of the school’s computer grading system. If Ronnie could do that at 16, I thought, what was he capable of at 25?

  I went back to the dossiers on the dead surfers. Ronnie Chang was a computer technician for a firm in Honolulu, and the investigating detectives had spoken to his co-workers, but as far as I could tell, no one had spoken to his family or friends back in Maui. I wondered about that, and sent a quick email to Lieutenant Sampson asking if there had been a reason why not.

  There was almost nothing online about Lucie Zamora, other than her name on the roster of a couple of surfing tournaments. The original detectives had run all three surfers through the police system, checking for arrests, warrants, and other malfeasance, and all three had come up clean.

  My brother Lui emailed that he still felt bad about running the stories on me, even though both the series on gay cops around the country, which ran while I was suspended, and the series on coming out, which ran during my first week on the North Shore, got great ratings and great viewer feedback. He suggested that a big family luau at Waimea Bay Beach Park might make me feel better.

  I replied by saying I’d only agree if I could challenge him and Haoa to a surf contest, and I copied the entire family on the message.

  My older brothers had been great surfers in their day. Neither had pushed it as far as I had, but both were good, and both still kept their boards in their garages, though I doubted either had been on the water for years. My father even promised that he would join us for a wave or two if we would all go out together. I could just imagine what my mother thought of that idea, but as my father got older, he never missed a chance to hang out with his boys.

  Sampson must have been online himself that afternoon, because I got an email back almost immediately, authorizing me to fly to Maui to talk to people about Ronnie Chang. It wasn’t a big deal; an inter-island flight takes about half an hour, and the round trip, with a rental car, would be under $200. I was able to get a reservation for the next morning, which meant I needed to be at the airport in Honolulu early. I decided to drive down that night and sleep in my own bed—but I didn’t tell my family or friends, because I didn’t want to have to come up with yet another lie.

  It was strange pulling into my own parking lot, climbing the stairs to my own little studio apartment. I had only been away for two weeks, but I had immersed myself so much in my new life on the North Shore that I almost felt like I didn’t belong back in Honolulu. Or maybe it was that I knew I didn’t belong back there until I had solved the murders.

  I had been waking before sunrise every day, so the next morning I was able to make it to the airport in plenty of time for my flight. The Hawaiian Airlines agent recognized my name at the gate and winked at me, but that was the extent of my notoriety. I figured I had finally slid out of the newspapers, and I was able to settle back into a bit of anonymity.

  I got into Kapalua-West Maui Airport on the Valley Isle a little after ten. I had a list of things to check out—Ronald Chang’s high school, and his parents’ restaurant, for starters. I was also going to cruise a couple of surf shops, looking for anyone who might have known him.

  I took the Honoapiilani Highway, which circles around West Maui, down to Lahaina, where I was looking for Victor Texeira, the computer science teacher at Lahainaluna High. I was somewhat surprised to discover, when I asked at the office for him, that I was directed to the gym, rather than to a computer lab.

  There was only one teacher in the gym when I stuck my head in there, a very fit guy in very tight clothes, with a whistle around his neck. When one of the kids called him, “Coach Tex,” I was even more confused.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, coming over to me. “You guys do two laps, then hit the showers,” he called to the kids, who promptly took off around the perimeter of the gym.

  I gave him my name, and he said, “I’m Victor Texeira.” He smiled. “The kids call me Coach Tex, as you heard.”

  I had worked out a story in advance. I explained that I was a former homicide detective, and that I’d been asked to look into a series of murders that had occurred on the North Shore. All that was true. I have discovered, in years of listening to lies and pulling them apart, that those lies which are most closely rooted in truth are the easiest ones to maintain.

  One of the victims had been Ronnie Chang, his former student, I continued. “I’m a little confused, though,” I said. “I thought from what I read online that you taught computer science.”

  “I do, one class. Mostly I’m the gym teacher, though.” He motioned to a room at one corner of the gym with glass windows looking out on the floor. “Come on into my office and I’ll explain.”

  I followed him, noting privately how his little gym shorts hugged his ass, the way his pecs and biceps bulged out of the skin-tight polo shirt he wore. I was pretty sure he was straight; he wore a wedding band and one of those little Jesus fish pins at his collar. Even so, I rarely saw a straight man dress so provocatively. I could even tell he was wearing a jock strap under his shorts—that’s how tight they were.

  “I want you to know, I’m not normally the type of guy to speak ill of the dead,” he said, opening the door to the office and motioning me inside. “But in this case, I’ll make an exception.”

  “Tell me how you knew Ronald Chang,” I said, sitting across from his desk. The room was lined with trophies, certificates and commendations, including pictures of Coach Tex with the governor and both state senators.

  “It was my first year here,” he said, sitting. “I was hired as a coach, but the state had just installed this email
system for us, and they needed somebody to administer it. I had just graduated from UH, and I’d lived in a computer-equipped dorm, so that made me the most qualified.”

  “Ronald Chang was a student then? How old was he?”

  “He was a junior,” Texeira said. “Ringleader of a bunch of kids who didn’t take gym seriously. Every day they’d come in with obviously faked excuses—recovering from a cold, can’t get overheated, that kind of thing. Then on the weekend I’d see them all at Breakwall or Shark Pit, surfing like there was nothing wrong with them.”

  I knew Breakwall and Shark Pit, both decent surfing spots in Lahaina. “That must have pissed you off,” I said.

  “It did. So one day I decided I’d get even. I came up with a bunch of exercises designed specifically for surfing. Nothing elaborate—your standard strength conditioning, flexibility and so on, but I packaged it right. I waited to collect everybody’s excuses, then I announced this special program all week. But anybody who was sick that day couldn’t start, and would have to miss the whole week.”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? I was twenty-two and cocky. I thought I’d really put one over on them.”

  “Something happened, I’m sure.”

  He nodded. “The next day, somebody hacked into the school’s computer system, and sent a bunch of x-rated emails from my address to a bunch of the female teachers. I nearly got fired—it was clear that I didn’t send the emails, but I wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping the network secure either.” He shrugged. “Like I said, I didn’t know all that much about computers. Ronnie hacking into the system showed our weak points.”

  “You know it was him?”

  “We couldn’t prove it, but I just had to see his nasty smirk to know he did it. I had one more trick up my sleeve, though.”

  “What was that?”

  “I created a computer club, and made him the president. The club was charged with helping the school maintain its system. So he had to find every hole and plug it up.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous—putting the fox in the henhouse?”

  “It was a risk. But I thought if everyone knew he had all access, and then something happened, suspicion would fall directly on him. So he had to keep things clean to protect himself.”

  “He must have been a pretty sharp kid.”

  “He was. But he had a sneaky side, and I never trusted him. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t surprised at all when I heard he’d been killed.” Suddenly a thought occurred to him, and he got serious. “You won’t tell his parents any of this, will you? I wouldn’t want to trespass on their grief. I’m just telling you this because, you know…”

  “I appreciate everything you’ve said, and I’ll keep it in confidence.” I stood up, and Victor Texeira stood with me. “Thanks for your help. I appreciate your candor.” I paused before walking out the door, though. “Is there anyone here in Maui who might know more about Ronnie as an adult?”

  Texeira thought for a moment. “There’s a guy named Will Wong who was a classmate of Ronnie’s. He works in a surf shop in downtown Lahaina called Totally Tubular.”

  “Great. Thanks.” We shook hands, and maybe it was my imagination, but I thought he held my hand a little longer than he should have, and looked a little too directly into my eyes.

  Man, I thought as I left, I’ve got to get my gaydar working.

  Lahaina Harbor

  I drove slowly down into the center of Lahaina, thinking about what Victor Texeira had said. I pulled into a parking space in the quaint downtown area, and before I got out of the car I looked back at Ronnie Chang’s dossier. He had attending UH for two years, leaving without a degree to work for the company that let him telecommute from the North Shore. Even though the original detectives had been there, I figured they would be worth a stop, deciding that I’d sleep in my own bed again that night, visit them the next morning, and then head back to Hale’iwa.

  It was just lunch time, and the restaurant owned by Ronnie’s parents, Wok ‘n Roll, was crowded, so instead of going in I went for a walk through Lahaina. By the time I’d strolled through the harbor, I’d built up an appetite.

  Ronnie’s mother, Yee Chang, was working the register, his father Lan behind the stove cooking. Though I’d never met them, their pictures had been included in my dossier. Yee had lost weight since the picture was taken; grief will do that to you. I waited until there was a break in the crowd, and walked up to introduce myself, with the same story I’d given Victor Texeira.

  She looked like she might cry. She reached out and took my hand. “We are so happy you investigate who kill our son,” she said.

  “I’m doing my best.”

  “Eat first, then talk,” she said. “What you like? Honey chicken very good today. My husband make everything fresh. Lan! Make honey chicken special for detective. Give extra rice!”

  She wouldn’t take money from me. I took the plastic cup she handed me, filled it with ice and lemonade, and waited for Lan to serve up my chicken, reminding myself why I didn’t like to interview the parents of the deceased. They almost never had anything bad to say about their child, and though occasionally they could point you in the direction of a bad influence, the dead child was almost always blameless, an innocent victim. Even when the deceased had a laundry list of warrants, arrests and convictions, his parents always believed the best of him.

  I had almost finished my chicken when Yee had a young girl replace her at the register so she could come sit with me. The dining room was bright and airy, spotlessly clean, looking out on Front Street and the harbor. It had to be expensive real estate, I thought, which meant that the Changs were doing well.

  My father’s best friend, Uncle Chin, is Chinese, so I was very familiar with Chinese culture. I began by telling Mrs. Chang how sorry I was about her son’s death, and how I knew it was impolite of me to ask questions about him, but that I believed it was important to bring whoever killed him to justice.

  She nodded eagerly. “His spirit very restless. Must have peace. You can bring my son peace?”

  “I can try.” I paused for a minute, then began asking simple questions. She did not know much about his life on O’ahu, but she knew that he loved to surf. He did not have any enemies that she knew of, no one who held a grudge or had any reason to dislike him.

  “How about his friends,” I said. “Did you ever meet any of them?”

  The few names she gave me were already in his dossier. “And his fiancée, of course,” she said.

  “Fiancée?”

  “We never meet her, you know, engagement too soon before he died. And not Chinese girl either.” For a moment a frown crossed her face. “But she make Ronnie happy.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Filipina girl. Lucie…”

  “Zamora?”

  “That’s it!” she said. “She must be so sad, to lose Ronnie.”

  “I’m afraid she was killed, too, Mrs. Chang. Around the same time Ronnie was.”

  Her mouth opened into a wide O, and her hand flew up to cover it. Her surprise mirrored my own. I had a feeling that there was no formal engagement between Ronnie Chang and Lucie Zamora; if there was anything between them at all beyond friendship I thought it was either a figment of Ronnie’s imagination, or Lucie was playing him for something.

  Mr. Chang came out from behind the stove, and his wife quickly told him, in Mandarin I only partially understood, that Ronnie’s fiancée had been killed, too. His surprise was less visible than hers, but it was clear he hadn’t known.

  I thanked both Changs again for the delicious lunch, and walked out onto Front Street, which was busy with tourists in matching aloha shirts, slippas, and uneven tans. I strolled down Front Street, looking for Totally Tubular and Will Wong. The surf shop was a little hole in the wall near the marina, with nowhere near the selection you could find at The Next Wave. But they were doing a good business, and I had to wait a few minutes before the exceptionally tall Chinese guy I assumed was Will Wong could
talk to me.

  He must have been six-four or six-five, at least, and he was skinny as a rail. I was surprised he wasn’t playing basketball for some mainland team. That is, until he stumbled over a boogie board on his way to talk to me and knocked over a rotating display of sunglasses.

  After I introduced myself, we sat outside in the sunshine to talk about Ronnie Chang. “We were tight in high school, man,” he said. “Ronnie was like, awesome with computers. Crappy surfer, but man, he could figure out a way into any system.”

  “He still a crappy surfer when he died? I know he went to a tournament in Mexico.”

  “That was a joke, man,” Will said. “He only went because he was chasing some girl, and she said she’d party with him down there.”

  “And did she?”

  “He was pretty cagey when he got back,” Will said, sitting back on a bench and stretching his long legs out across the sidewalk. “He came back with a whole lot more money than he left with, and I know he didn’t win it.”