by Chip Hughes
“Maybe Sonny Boy Chang? He assaulted my father two decades ago and has been in and out of prison ever since. He’s out now.”
“I saw Sonny Boy at the funeral.” I recall the bearded, dread-locked man in camouflage. “If we strike out with him, then who?”
“Lots of people on the Big Island fought geothermal development and disliked my dad.” She rattles off a list of essentially the same names that were on my own list. Then she says: “My father sent me a generous check before he died. I’m willing to spend every penny to find out who did this.”
“I’ve got another case going, but I can look into your father’s death around it.” Then I say, “When the deceased is divorced, like your dad was, it’s customary to interview the former spouse. That would be your mother.”
“My mother could have nothing to do with this,” Caitlin insists.
I remember the nasty scar on her father’s right hand, but keep it to myself. “I just want your okay to talk with her.”
“You have it.” Caitlin gives me her mother’s phone number in Kona.
“I should also talk again with your father’s second wife,” I say. “Did you know she was married once before she met him?”
“I heard her first husband died,” Caitlin replies. “Donnie’s not my favorite person, as you can imagine, but she doted on my father.”
“That was my first impression,” I say. Caitlin doesn’t need to know my second.
Caitlin Ransom gives me a retainer before she strides from my office. She’s hardly out the door when I go on line and book a flight to Hilo for the next morning. I get Pualani at the Volcano House on the phone, we talk story, and I explain why I’m returning so soon. Then I phone Caitlin’s mother, Kathryn Ransom, at her Kailua-Kona home and she agrees to see me. Finally I try Ransom’s ex-partner Mick London in Kamuela, with a cell number Caitlin provided. He sounds drunk again—or still?—but he too agrees. I’m batting one thousand. Except there’s no phone number for Pele.
Before I leave the office Monday afternoon, I call Denver again. Neither Ashley nor Ethan answers. I leave more messages—against my own better judgment. I can await their return calls just as well on the Big Island.
Then I phone Tommy Woo. He tells me some jokes too salty to repeat. I ask about his contact with the liquor commission and explain that I need a history of over-serving of customers at the Lollipop Lounge. All Tommy can talk about is Zahra and their wedding plans. I try to change the subject. I ask him about a TRO for Blossom’s abusive ex, Junior.
“Worthless,” Tommy says. “A TRO may only piss him off more. A piece of paper won’t stop a desperate man.”
“Mrs. Fujiyama said the same,” I say. “Well, sort of.”
“She’s right.” Tommy says. “Best thing your lei girl can do is disappear for a while.”
Before I lock up for the day I make one final call—to Maile. I get her voicemail. “Hi Maile. It’s me. I have to go back to the Big Island for a few days on the Ransom case. When I return I’ll give you a call about dinner.”
I glide down the shag stairs, feeling almost giddy. But the air comes out of my sails as soon as I see Blossom. I don’t have to ask how she’s doing. I can tell by the look in her eyes.
“Junior keeps hanging around my apartment,” she says. “He keeps driving by the lei shop. I don’t feel safe anywhere.”
I recall Tommy’s advice. “I’m going off island for a few days,” I say, as the other lei girls, Chastity and Joon, look on. “Why don’t you stay at my place while I’m gone?” As soon as I say this I realize it’s a terrible idea—Tommy’s advice, or not.
Blossom perks up. “You sure?”
“I’m sure,” I say. But the old saying—No good deed goes unpunished—comes to mind. “You can stay tomorrow night. And probably a few nights after that.” I explain where I live and how to get into the building. Then I climb back up the stairs and fetch her my extra apartment key.
When I return, Junior’s black pickup truck is pulling up in front of the shop. He sees me giving Blossom the key. I make eye contact with him and he flips me the bird. Again. Then he lays rubber down Maunakea Street.
“I’m scared.” Blossom trembles.
“Come tonight,” I hear myself say. “I can walk you through the place so you know what’s what.” Then it dawns on me that I have a studio apartment with only one bed. “There should be space enough for two,” I say, trying to convince a-myself. Ah, I’ll sleep on the lānai.
“Oh, mahalo, Kai!” She hugs me. “Mahalo.”
Mrs. Fujiyama—always the protective mother hen—frowns when she sees me lead her lei girl out the door. Doesn’t she remember I learned the hard way already not to date her girls? Plus this one is nearly half my age.
I glance back at my landlady and shake my head.
twenty
The tiny lānai of my studio apartment looks thirty-five stories down into Waikīkī-. The only thing between the lānai and a very long drop is a thin plate of glass. All night long I listen to traffic below on Ala Wai Boulevard, the chirping tires of racer-boys like Fireball, and sirens of HPD cruisers chasing them. Scrunched into a patio chair, hanging in the air above the noisy streets, I dream of Maile’s hillside cottage.
My dream is interrupted by Blossom bouncing off my sofa bed, turning on lights, pacing the apartment, and talking on her cell phone. To whom, I don’t know. She’s in a new place. And maybe she’s anxious. I don’t blame her, but I also don’t get much sleep.
By morning, I’m a wreck. No good deed goes unpunished.
After an impromptu breakfast, Blossom and I walk the carpeted hallway to the elevator. One of my neighbors lifts an eyebrow at me when he sees my pretty companion. I drop Blossom at the lei shop on my way to the airport. Fortunately, we don’t get the same look from Mrs. Fujiyama. I guess by now she’s figured it out.
My plane lands in Hilo at a little before eleven, I pick up a rental car—no wait and no hassles this time, but sadly no Porsche—and climb once again to the Volcano House. I pull through the portico of the barn-red hotel, park the car, try not to breathe the sulfur-laden air too deeply, and pass the fireplace on my way to the registration desk. The Park Service sign cautioning about the fumes is still posted.
I don’t have to ring the bell.
Pualani greets me with her warm Hawaiian hospitality. She knows why I’m here, but she says playfully, “Kai, why you nevah come back sooner?”
“Was here only las’ week,” I say. “Remembah?”
She turns to her yellowed keyboard and peers at the monitor that’s been around since the dawn of the personal computer. She types on the ancient keys. “Geev you one deluxe crater-view room dis time,” she says. “Kama‘aina rate.”
“T’anks, eh?” On my own dime, or should I say on my client’s dime, I had reserved the cheapest room in the hotel facing the parking lot rather than the crater.
“Room numbah one,” she says. “Da same room da geothermal guy stay in dat wen’ huli inside da steam vent. Spooky, yeah?”
“Das okay,” I say, secretly stoked. I ask Pualani if I can see the guest register for the night before Ransom died. I don’t expect to find anything obvious. But maybe a name will pop out. Or maybe a name that means nothing to me now will mean something later.
“I remembah da date,” she says. “How I can fo’get?” Her fingers dance on that yellowed keyboard again. When she finds the appropriate record she wrestles the monitor in my direction.
The names on the screen include my own, those of Rex and Donnie Ransom, and the man from Puna Security. The other names don’t mean a thing to me.
So I ask Pualani: “Anyt‘ing strange happen on dat day?”
“Nah.” Then she thinks for a moment. “Wait!” she says. “One guest wen insist fo’ crater view room numbah t‘ree. He make like big fuss. Said he mus’ be on da groun’ floor. Afraid of heights. Da hotel full, yeah? But I move da guests suppose to be in numbah t‘ree to anoddah room upstairs. He says he come
to see da eruption. Den what he do? He check out early da nex’ morning—no time to see da eruption.”
I glance at the hotel map. Crater view room three sits right next to room one—the Ransoms’ room and now my own.
“When he leave da nex’ morning?” I ask
“I dunno . . . maybe eight,” she replies, which would be before Ransom died.
“What his name?”
She points to it on the screen. Lars Stapleton.
The name doesn’t ring a bell. “What dis’ guy look like?”
“Small kine haole guy,” she says.
“Hair color? Eyes?” I try to jog her memory.
“So many people, dey come to da desk,” she says. “How I can remembah dem all?”
“Where he from?”
She goes to another screen and scrolls down. “New Jersey.”
“Nah.” The more I hear about this Stapleton, the more I’m losing interest. His name could be an alias, but his profile doesn’t fit any pieces of this puzzle.
“Don’ fo’get Pele.” Does Pualani want to help—or to pull my leg some more? Here in the park, so close to Pele’s home and the mist that surrounds it, how could I forget the legendary goddess or deny her power? Pualani insists: “Pele knows. She da one you need talk to.”
“But how I goin’ investigate Pele?” I ask like it’s a serious question. “How I goin’ track down one goddess?”
“I tell you bumbye,” she says, by which she means soon enough. Then she winks again.
I walk just a few steps from the registration desk to crater-view room one. This is the biggest view room in the hotel and usually costs double what I’m paying. Not a bad place to cool my heels before the long drive tomorrow to Kona and Waimea, on the other side of the island. Pualani must still like me. Or she’s just full of aloha.
Though the best room in the house, it’s spare like the rest. No TV, no radio, no cable or Wi-Fi. Just a koa desk and chair, a small bath with shower, and a closet with a sliding door. There’s a beautiful Hawaiian quilt on the double bed. But best of all is the sweeping view of Pele’s domain.
I open the windows overlooking the crater, whiff sulfur in the air, and scan smoldering Kīlauea below. Across the desolate expanse, smoke plumes waft lazily into the sky. Despite their slow twirling, beneath them lies a massive unstoppable force—molten magma miles below the surface. And Pele stands for the power behind all this. No wonder so many believe she’s a force to be reckoned with.
Turning my gaze away from the windows to the wall against the bed, I see a small door that appears to connect to the next room—crater view room three where guest Lars Stapleton stayed. I unlock the door, not even stopping to think about any guests in the adjoining room who might not welcome my intrusion. The door opens to another identical door. That door is locked. To enter one room from the other, both doors must be unlocked. Obviously, guests in both rooms must desire and welcome such intimacy.
What this has to do with the death of Rex Ransom, if anything, I don’t know. Ransom didn’t die in his room. And when I was here with Donnie the door to room three was not open. Lars Stapleton from New Jersey remains off my list of suspects, for now.
At one I walk to the hotel dining room overlooking Kīlauea. It’s been less than a week since I watched Rex and Donnie Ransom enjoy their last supper together at a candlelit table. The dining room looks different by daylight. Red oilcloths on the tables glint in the sun. The caldera appears to run for miles. It must be an optical illusion, but it looks like forever. At the far end, nearly out of sight, the smaller but more active Halema‘uma‘u Crater smolders.
I have my pick of tables, so grab one by a window. Just me and a bottle of Tabasco on the red oilcloth. While I wait for the waitress the image comes to mind of Donnie Ransom walking into the dining room leading her husband by the hand. A picture of devotion. But my cynical side chimes in: He’s loaded and she’s half his age. Then my more charitable side: If she wanted him dead, why would she hire me to protect him? But now I wonder again about the secrecy she insisted on. Was it to protect his pride, or to hide that she was having him watched?
I order a Volcano Burger and the waitress leaves me with the view and with my thoughts. When my burger arrives, I pass on the Tabasco and dig in. What Maile said about Donnie pops into my mind. Rex Ransom was not the first rich old man Donnie married. Now she’s twice widowed. I look across the caldera and count the steam plumes twirling into the air. I get to twenty-two and stop. I’m procrastinating.
I pay for my burger and step outside onto the Crater Rim Trail. I hike through the tree ferns to The Steaming Bluff. The rotten-egg odor intensifies as I approach the vents. I stop at the exact spot where I found Ransom, lean over the railing, and peer into the gaping hole. It’s warmer today and less misty, but the memory of what happened is seared into my mind.
I’m following him, the young woman in red approaches, Donnie calls me and frantically shows me the note, and then I return to find the woman gone and the old man in the vent. Before I dial 911, I survey the scene. I find nothing. No footprints, not even Ransom’s. The trail reveals zero.
Since it’s clearer today and the sun has broken through, I try my search again. I’m sure the guardrails by the vent have been dusted. But the fact that no suspects were pursued suggests that no usable prints were found. I go off the trail and explore in a circular, falcon-like pattern, making wider and wider sweeps as I walk in the tall brush. A couple strolls by arm-in-arm and gives me a look. I smile. I’m almost done and still find nothing.
Then I see a glint in the tall brown grass and reach for it. It’s lipstick. I remove the cap and crank up the stick. Red.
Fiery red.
twenty-one
Wednesday morning I start early for Kailua-Kona. I take the Belt Road almost due south from Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park to the southern tip of the island—and the southern-most point in the United States. It’s a craggy stretch with plenty to see—if you like rocks.
The Big Island, as its name implies, is the biggest island in the Hawaiian chain. It has more land area than all the other inhabited islands combined. The drive from Volcano House to the west side’s most populous city will take me more than two hours. And the Kona district is not my only stop. From there I’m driving another hour north to Waimea, in the island’s northern-most region of Kohala. Adding the return, I’ll be on the road the better part of the day.
The long drive gives me time to think. I pull from my aloha shirt the lipstick I found near the steam vent where Ransom died.
Fiery red.
Any hope of usable prints has been dimmed by the lipstick’s exposure to days of mist and sun and rain. Was this the same lipstick worn by the woman who approached Ransom? Why would she take it along hiking? Maybe to freshen her appearance before meeting a man? An old man?
I slip the lipstick back into my shirt.
Finally come the outskirts of Kailua, the once sleepy fishing village and home of Hawaiian royalty. Kailua and the Kona District have experienced some of the same growing pains as other places in the islands. More building, more traffic, more tourist-oriented development.
I consult my map. Kathryn Ransom lives far from the congestion of Kailua’s tourist trade. It wasn’t always so busy here. I remember visiting family on the Big Island when I was a keiki. I’d fish from the lava rock seawall along Ali‘i Drive, dangling my toes in the crystal-clear water and casting my line into blue Kailua Bay. Just a few hotels lined the shore back then, frequented by kama‘aina and akamai travelers who knew about this quiet getaway—a world apart from the bustle of Waikīkī-.
I turn off Hawai‘i Belt Road just outside of town and weave my way into a gated retreat perched above the sea. Her home is hidden behind a grove of areca palms and a green-patina copper gate.
I call on an intercom and get buzzed through. The gate swings open and I edge down a gorgeous flagstone drive. More palms—stately Royals—line either side. At the end is an estate rambling over
several prime oceanfront acres. I park under a granite-columned porte-cochere by a carriage house. I step out to the sound of pounding surf. She did well in her divorce.
I follow more flagstones to sea-blue stained glass doors and knock. Soon the statuesque woman I’d seen at the funeral appears. Kathryn Ransom smiles. Her shoulder-length brown hair is no less meticulously arranged than on the day of the funeral and, though silver-flecked, reminds me of Caitlin.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mrs. Ransom,” I say. “I’m very grateful.”
“Please call me Kathryn,” she says in a voice as lovely as her daughter’s and leads me in. Up close, she’s just as elegant as I remember. She’s in cream today, rather than black, and it sets off her coloring nicely. I guess her age in the sixties—about twenty years older than Rex Ransom’s second wife.
Kathryn Ransom’s home looks way too big for one person; clearly it was the family residence before the divorce. As we walk there’s a glimpse, on the right, into a spacious kitchen of oak and granite and stainless steel. A knife rack above one of the stone countertops glints with what looks like pricey German blades.
We pass into a magnificent living room overlooking the sea. The golden bamboo floor glows in the streaming sunlight. We sit on a white leather sofa, almost as immense as the white grand piano across from it. Lettering on the piano says STEINWAY & SONS.
Tommy would drool.
I start things off easy by gesturing to the piano. “That’s a beautiful instrument.”
“It’s a concert grand,” she says. “We bought it at the New York factory and had it shipped here.” She pauses. “Do you like music?”
“I do. Would you play something for me?” I don’t know why I say this. It just pops out.
Kathryn Ransom’s face glows. “Yes, of course. What would you like to hear?”
“Maybe one of your favorites?”
“Okay.” She rises and walks to the piano, sits, and lifts the fallboard covering the keys. Her profile at the white piano is silhouetted against the blue sea. She settles herself, takes a breath, and says, “This is a calm, contemplative little piece. It helped me through the divorce.”