Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

by Hughes, Chip

  Maya was missing this awesome array of islands. The twin diesels’ rhythmic hum had put her to slack-mouthed sleep. I heard a clack on the floor under her seat, then spotted an object near her feet the size of a cigarette pack. I plucked it off the deck. A cell phone. There was a call-back number on the screen, but no messages. I watched Maya’s even breathing as I tried to memorize the number before returning the phone to the floor. Then I peeked into the pocket of her aloha shirt. The bronze sunscreen bottle was still there.

  The crossing from Lanai’s to Maui took every one of the scheduled forty minutes. But before long the engines quieted down again to a syncopated idle. Ahead, Lahaina harbor’s antique lighthouse pointed skyward like an ivory needle. Coconut palms and spreading banyans stood sentinel over the old whaling port, with its vintage square-rigged ships and legendary Pioneer Inn. I’d never been so glad to see the red roof of that storied old inn—a place where whalers once imbibed their grog, and whale-watchers still do today.

  At nine on Saturday morning in prime whale-watching season, Lahaina Harbor was jumping. Sunburned malahinis lined the decks of dozens of vessels, powered and sail, that ply the sea in search of those leviathans. Near the harbor’s entrance, surfers rode lazy little rollers. I envied those board riders, surfing free.

  As the ferry docked I scanned countless cabs and vans and passenger cars flanking the Pioneer Inn, and on bordering Wharf and Hotel Streets. I focused momentarily on each vehicle, looking for telltale signs of Frank O. Sun. That I saw none was not reassuring.

  Maya and I disembarked and lost ourselves in the after-breakfast crowd on Front Street. Lahaina town was as lively as its harbor. Shops bustled with tourists eyeing “I Got Lei’d on Maui” t-shirts, Cheeseburgers in Paradise, time-share condos, you name it. On Front Street we boarded the Lahaina Trolley, which runs north to the resorts of Ka‘anapali, and blended in with the rest of the aloha shirts and bikinis on their way to work or play.

  The trolley, a mock cable car, breezed through town, then along the coast a few miles to Whaler’s Village at Ka‘anapali. From there we caught a shuttle up slope to tiny Kapalua Airport. On the tarmac stood a Twin Otter, my old friend: eighteen seats, two propellers, the boxy shape of a mini-van. Small, but enough airplane to fly us back to O‘ahu.

  Minutes later, the Twin Otter lifted off over the golden sands and pale jade reefs of Ka‘anapali’s famous beach, then the deep blue channel between Maui and the shadowy cliffs of Moloka‘i.

  “Open the sunscreen bottle,” I shouted into Maya’s ear above the engine roar.

  “Here . . . on the airplane?” She yelled back.

  We were seated at the rear of the Twin Otter—the last row by the door—enduring a ear-shattering din. The turboprops screamed, the cabin vibrated, the whole airplane audibly throbbed.

  “Nobody’s looking,” I yelled. I had already reassured myself that no one aboard appeared to be employed by Sun, and no one was manifesting much interest in how two resort workers were spending their Saturday off.

  Maya scanned the passengers, then she unscrewed the cap. She stuck her little finger in the tiny bottle neck and coaxed out the rolled paper.

  “It’s not a map,” she said, even before unrolling the small sheet. “It’s directions.”

  I suspected she had already peaked.

  The document was handwritten in blue-black ink on buff stationary imprinted “The Lodge at Koele,” where Maya and Corky had apparently spent a lost weekend. At the end was a little crude drawing of what looked like a church steeple. Corky had damn lousy penmanship. Or he must have scribbled this thing in a big hurry. It read:

  Hey, Babe,

  Drive to Waimea Bay. Look for the bell tower at the mission on the n– side of the bay. The stuff is in the tower. Go there when the church is open for mass on Sunday so you can climb the tower. At the top is a bench under the windows where you can s– the whole bay. Look under the bench seat.

  If you read this, it means I’m gone. Sorry I didn’t make it with you, Babe. But this map is your insurance policy.

  Luv ya,

  Corky

  “Is it what you expected?” I yelled into Maya’s ear over the roar of the turboprops.

  “Yes and no,” she said, sounding well rehearsed. “Corky took me to mass once at that little church by Waimea Bay. It was strange because he wasn’t religious. He was spiritual—but not conventionally religious. It all makes sense now.”

  “Sunday may be our best bet to climb the bell tower. But we’ll go have a look today anyway. Most Catholic churches hold a mass or two on Saturday evening.”

  After the Twin Otter touched down in Honolulu, we headed for the car rental agencies—no way could we stroll up to my Impala in the lot without being spotted. As I waited at the Hertz counter, craning my neck to spot any dark suits lurking, I called my office for messages. Off O‘ahu now for nearly twenty-four hours, I wondered if Summer had checked in.

  The first message was from Leimomi—she needed me. I had forgotten to return her last call. But it would have to wait longer still.

  There were three other messages.

  “Mr. Kai Cooke? Your Jeep is overdue.” The Lana‘i Plantation Store. I wondered how much not returning that Jeep was going to cost me. Oh, well . . .

  The next message was from attorney Grossvendt. “Any news about my BMW convertible . . . ?”

  I had news: He would never see his beloved BMW again, unless Sun got busted and all his assets were seized. If so, the car would probably come back in pieces.

  The last message was in a low and heavily accented voice: “Mr. Cooke, I think you make some fatal mistake. I say ‘Investigation over.’ And I mean over.”

  Frank O. Sun. I envisioned his dark glasses and Panama hat.

  “You are paid handsomely. Is this not true? I give you one last chance . . . like a gentleman, yes? A word to the wise. Consider most carefully.“

  I heard a click. No message from Summer.

  Maya and I piled into a Hertz Ford and drove to Waimea Bay. We didn’t talk much. Just as well. I was thinking about Summer and wondering whether my beating Sun to the ice would help her, or hurt her. I hoped the former. But that part of it was now out of my control.

  As we pulled onto the H-1 ramp, I checked the rear view mirrors. If Sun knew we had the only map to his missing treasure, he wouldn’t let us out of his sight for long. He had to be back there somewhere.

  When we got to the bay, Kamehameha Highway surrounding it was choked with traffic. I braked and we were stopped momentarily on the ridge. The air was pregnant with mist. Spectators, two and three and four deep, lined the road gawking at the drama below.

  Waimea was breaking!

  The whole crew was out. Big wave legends and newcomers and wannabes. A dozen surfers on stiletto-like big guns stroked for each massive swell. The sets looked good. Eighteen to twenty feet, I estimated.

  Nearly every surfer on earth knows the view from this ridge. The classic scene is portrayed often in the surf media —the horseshoe-shaped bay, the mountainous waves, and their daring riders. And in the background, always, rises the mission’s bell tower, higher than the highest winter waves.

  That surfer Corky McDahl had chosen this tower in which to secret away his treasure, his deliverance, his salvation, made perfect sense. As it loomed into view, the huge monolith took on new meaning for me: the end of the line for this twisted and deadly treasure hunt.

  We crawled in the traffic, a solid line of cars and vans and trucks wrapping around the bay. Finally passing the beach park entrance, where police were turning vehicles away, we crossed Waimea stream and curved around the bay’s north side.

  The gravel lot in front of the mission looked deserted. No Saturday mass? I got out and stepped to the church. It was locked up tight. The front doors were bolted, as were the side entrances. And the bell tower.

  I walked around the building until I found a sign: “Mass Every Sunday—7:30 and 9:30 a.m.”

  Corky had been rig
ht. Our treasure hunt would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Twenty-One

  We followed Kamehameha Highway north past ‘Ehukai and Sunset. Both breaks, like Waimea, were cranking and the highway and beaches packed.

  At Kahuku Point, the highway bent east and then south to La‘ie, where a narrow side road marked by a single sign led makai to the Malaekahana Bay campgrounds. We turned in. Malaekahana’s tranquil beachside campsites in February lay mostly empty, unlike in spring and summer when tents sprout like wild mushrooms. Technically, a state permit is required to camp at Malaekahana, which means driving downtown to Punchbowl Street. We had no time for that.

  “Do you like sleeping on the sand?” I asked Maya.

  She knit her brows. Surprisingly, the footloose redhead didn’t appear to relish the idea. She didn’t even suggest sex on the beach.

  “It’s not exactly the Lodge at Koele,” I said, “but at least there are cold showers and Sun shouldn’t look for us here.”

  Strong trades bent the ironwoods along the shore as we stepped from the car onto a bed of their pine-like needles, within a stone’s throw of the rumbling surf. It was wild out there. Wet and wild.

  I borrowed Maya’s cell and called Tommy Woo. But before punching in his number, I left her at the campsite and hiked to the restrooms. I didn’t want her to hear the details of my dealings with Sun.

  After Tommy told his obligatory first joke, I gave him Sun’s telephone number and asked Tommy to call him. I wanted to contact Sun personally, but not reveal our location or that I was calling from Maya’s phone.

  “Block your caller i.d.”

  “It’s always blocked,” Tommy replied. “Let’s keep it simple. You talk and I’ll record your voice and play it back for Sun.”

  “OK,” I took a breath. “Here goes . . . .”

  “Recording,” Tommy said.

  “Frank O. Sun, listen up: Harm Summer McDahl and you will never see your ice again. I’m not talking more until you let Summer go . . . .”

  I thanked Tommy, then left a voice mail for Detective Brian Tong at Narco-Vice, telling him succinctly what I had learned about Sun and his organization. If I didn’t make it through the day tomorrow, at least the authorities would profit from my investigation. I then hiked back to the campsite where Maya was gazing out to sea, as if searching for a lost and lonely speck in the boiling surf.

  For the rest of that day we laid low. Night comes quickly to the tropics in winter. After sunset, twilight briefly appears, then vanishes. Suddenly we were in the dark.

  I set my watch alarm for 6:00 a.m. and we slept under the stars, not on the beach, but on ironwood needles. The needles might as well have been cast from iron, for all the sleep I got.

  Maya made no overtures that night. She even stopped asking for my birth sign. Her game was over, I guessed. Or maybe last night’s hike had just taken the starch out of both of us?

  When my alarm rang Sunday morning, a razor-thin orange line glowed above the turbulent sea. By six-thirty we were heading north on Kamehameha Highway.

  The surf was still up. Following a pickup truck with a half dozen boards piled in back, we stopped just short of Waimea Bay and pulled into the mission. The car behind us also turned in. Then another. Early arrivers to seven-thirty mass.

  The mission’s doors, unlike yesterday, were wide open. We followed in a young couple and their pony-tailed keiki who walked down the center aisle, stopped by a pew, genuflected, stepped in, and turned down the kneeling bench to pray. The mission was as small as the typical side-chapel of a larger church, and was overshadowed by the massive bell tower behind it. The pews were polished dark mahogany with kneeling benches upholstered in red vinyl. Overhead, ceiling fans whirred. It was cool and quiet inside, except for the shuffling of parishioners’ feet and the crack of the wooden benches being turned down against the oak floor.

  “Find us a seat,” I said to Maya as I stepped toward the rear foyer. “I’m going to look around.”

  When I glanced up from the foyer’s skylight at that huge tower looming overhead like a medieval fortress, I couldn’t help thinking: The view of the bay from up there must be awesome.

  One thing was clear: To climb to the top I would first have to break in through a solid wood door with an old fashioned keyhole lock, the kind you find these days only in antique chests and steamer trunks. A lock like that can usually be picked, but it would have to be picked quietly.

  I rejoined Maya in the chapel just as the priest rose in a long white robe, spread his arms wide like a cliff diver, and uttered in a deep, resonant voice:

  “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit . . .”

  “Amen,” the rising parishioners responded in unison. I said “Amen” too, hoping for divine intervention to guide me up that tower.

  I looked around us. The mostly local crowd filled the little church to the brim: babies in mothers’ arms, toddlers, teens, tutus, uncles, cousins. It was a family affair and the feeling was good. Behind the priest a vaulted arch was inscribed: “GOD IS LOVE.” And through open windows framing the bright blue bay I could hear the thunder of surf. Big surf.

  “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . be with you all,” intoned the priest.

  “And also with you,” the parishioners responded.

  On each pillar between the church’s open windows hung a bas-relief depicting one of the fourteen stations of the cross—Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering—seven stations on either side of the chapel. White marble statues of Mary and Joseph stood behind us, each adorned with a green haku lei. Not the kind of scene for Sun in his Panama and shades.

  “The grace and peace of God our Father . . . be with you,” the priest continued.

  “And also with you . . .” the parishioners replied.

  Then the tuneful choir, a dozen strong, began singing their hearts out. I mumbled along. The Hawaiian wahine leading the choir broke into a solo, while strumming a guitar and directing three keiki playing ‘ukulele. Soon everybody was singing merrily. Me, I kept mumbling and watching and waiting.

  Maya and I did our best to rise and kneel and pray with the faithful. Though we were always off a beat. Personally, I could have used some soul cleansing right then, but I had work to do.

  When the priest took up the sacred host, the chalice and the wafers for holy communion, I prepared to make my move. The priest raised the chalice and solemnly crossed himself, then the choir sang like earth-bound angels, “Al-le-lu-ia! Al-le-lu-ia!” Parishioners rose one pew at a time and filed forward to take communion. I tapped Maya on the shoulder. “Wait for me at the car after mass.”

  Maya stepped toward the altar with the others. I slipped to the back of the church, then into the foyer adjoining the bell tower.

  “Danger—No Admittance” said a sign on the dark lacquered door leading to the tower. With only my keys and a tiny keychain jackknife so small it passes airport security, I worked the lock, while the communion hymns covered the clinks and clanks of my lock picking. First I tried my keys: Apartment key. Office key. I wiggled each key inside the keyhole. I even tried the rental car key. No luck. Suddenly the choir’s sweet “Al-le-lu-ia!” ceased and the priest said: “The Lord be with you . . .“

  I didn’t have much time. Then I tried my Impala’s key—old-style, long and skinny. I heard a promising . . . click . . . but that was all. The tiny jackknife was my last hope. I opened the longer blade, slowly inserted it, and moved inside the lock. Another promising . . . click. But this one was followed by a louder . . . Click . . . Click. Yes! Finally, the lock sprung.

  The bell tower door opened to mustiness and semi-darkness. Rusty folding chairs and card tables layered with dust leaned against two walls. In the center, a spiral of wooden stairs. I mounted the creaky wood that serpentined up into the gloaming. Through the viewing ports above came a brilliant light. With each creaking step, I rose toward it.

  The choir cranked up again, guitars and ‘ukulele and off-key voices:
>
  Kindness and truth shall meet;

  Justice and peace shall kiss . . .

  The choir’s voices grew fainter as I climbed, their fading hymn soon blending with another. The hymn of booming surf.

  Waimea.

  When I finally reached the tower’s summit, I saw a bench lining each wall of the empty belfry, just as Corky had said. The benches doubled as storage bins; each could be lifted to reveal an enclosed compartment. In one of these compartments would be the prize. One million worth of methamphetamine ice.

  As I moved toward one wall, I couldn’t help but gaze out the viewing port. The bay was cranking! Swell after swell steaming in. And plenty surfers taking the big drop.

  I tore my eyes away and considered the bench compartments. There were four—four chances.

  I tried the bench opposite Waimea first, facing down the coast toward Pipeline and Sunset. Prying the seat up with my fingers produced cobwebs and a coil of rope. That was it.

  Next I tried the bench facing mauka toward the sacrificial heiau and Waimea Stream. No. Empty.

  I tried the one facing out to the open sea, where those huge rollers swept around the point into the Bay. More junk: a stack of yellowed copies of the Daily Missal, a mousetrap with a decapitated mouse, a cheap screw cap bottle of wine, a used condom.

  That left the last bench facing Waimea Bay, where Corky had faked his wipeout and started this whole mess. I should have guessed. It made perfect sense.

  Slowly I pried up the bench seat. My eyes scoured the empty space.

  Twenty-Two

  Nothing.

  Or was there was something? I noticed some sparkling dust and reached down and with my fingertips, extracting a gleaming speck. It was almost crystal-clear, like rock candy.

  The ice had been here and now it was gone. How could Sun have found it before we did? We had the only map, according to Maya. Had Corky, before he died, revealed the location to the drug lord? If so, why was Sun still following us?