by Robert McCaw
“Two weeks ago, I would’ve laughed, but KonaWili proved there’s a fumarole down there.” Tatum used a geologist term for a volcanic vent and pointed at the smoke rising from the destroyed school. “After I found this letter, I started asking around, trying to identify this owl guy and find out whether he’s still alive.”
“And?”
“A friend of a friend—a guy who’s into the aging hippie community—said there’s a guy who calls himself ‘the owl.’ Says he’s a recluse, a former flower child who burned out on drugs during the seventies. He’s been living in a shack up here for the past fifty years. Want to see if he’ll talk to us?”
Koa saw no downside. “Sure, why not.”
They followed a short trail toward a decrepit building that once served as an overnight cabin for hunters. Someone had repaired the walls with discarded chunks of plywood and particleboard. The roof, a mess of rusted tin, patches of wood, and strips of tar paper, looked sure to leak in a good rainstorm. An old man with a belly-length, untrimmed gray beard—he had to be at least seventy-five—sat on the lānai in a chair with one busted rocker. Wearing dirty brown overalls, he smelled like he hadn’t bathed in quite a while.
The island harbored a whole cadre of aging hippies left over from the free-loving era. Most of them hung out in the Ka‘ū and Puna districts growing Puna butter and Kona gold—marijuana—the island’s largest cash crop. Koa had busted many of them and knew their type. But this man with his long unkempt hair, pockmarked face, and tattered clothing lived like a poor cousin of those marijuana barons.
“Aloha,” Koa said as he approached the sagging porch.
“What’s the man doing on my mountain?”
Koa hid his surprise that the old-timer had pegged him as a cop. Maybe the old codger had more on the ball than first appeared. “We wanna ask you about a letter you wrote to the U.S. Geological Survey a long time ago.”
The old man looked up. “Took your sweet time getting here.”
Koa concealed his astonishment. They’d found their man, and he actually remembered the letter he’d written forty years earlier. “You must be Pueo.”
“Got dat right. Come siddown, yeah.” Pueo pointed to a three-legged stool.
Koa took the stool while Tatum tested the strength of the porch railing before leaning against it.
“You here about ka wahine ‘ai honua, yeah?” The earth-eating woman—along with the tree-eating woman and the stone-eating woman—was among the many traditional descriptions of Pele.
“Yeah, we’re here about Pele,” Koa agreed.
“The old fire god, she owns dis mountain. She got her friends and her enemies, yeah.” Like many locals, Pueo added a “yeah” to the end of his sentences, probably to be sure you were still listening.
“How so?”
“You know, back in the good old days the Hawaiians had this big fishpond down there.” Pueo pointed toward the edge of the ocean. “Belonged to their big chief, yeah.”
Koa nodded.
“One day a haggard old lady with glassy white hair comes a hobblin’ down dis mountain. Hungry, she goes a beggin’ for some fish. The konohiki, or overseer, he tells the old witch to get lost. On her way home, a kindhearted fisherman, he gives her some fish. She all grateful an’ tells him to hang a piece of kapa cloth on the corner of his house, yeah?
“Further up dis mountain—” Pueo pointed over his shoulder up the hill—“the old witch, she stops in a little village, where two young girls, they’re roastin’ some breadfruit. They see hunger in the old woman’s eyes an’ give her a piece of their breadfruit. She grateful an’ tells them to put a piece of kapa cloth on their house. You following me?”
Koa, being drawn into the tale, nodded. Pueo, like many old islanders, had a gift for talking story.
“That night a great fire—dis avalanche of rock and burning lava—comes a bustin’ down the mountain, engulfs the village, and buries the fish pond. By the time people realize dis old beggar was Madame Pele, it was one whole boatload of time too late. The fire and brimstone, it spares the houses of the generous fisherman and the young girls, but everybody else gets their shit baked. The old fire god, she like that, she got her friends and her enemies, yeah.”
Silence hung heavy in the mountain air for a time. Despite his faith in modern science, the Hawaiian in Koa loved the old legends. He couldn’t help wondering, at least for a few moments, who had offended Pele. Certainly not the innocent children who’d died at KonaWili. Finally, he said, “Tell us about the steam vent.”
“Which one?”
“There’s more than one steam vent up here?” Koa asked.
“Yeah. There’s one farther up the mountain.” Pueo hooked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the direction of the summit. “And then there’s the one that popped the kiddie school. Quite a show with all ’em flashin’ lights. Better than a fuckin’ Grateful Dead concert.”
Pueo didn’t have much empathy for the dead kids. “Tell us about that one.”
“It don’t go splish splash too often—jus’ every couple a dozen or so years after we get one of those motherfuckin’ Kona storms and the angry gods they dump a boatload of rain on my mountain.”
“But you’ve seen steam from that vent?”
“Luahine moe.”
“Old woman who sleeps and snores?”
“Yeah, man. Pele sleeps and she snores. Most of the time the vent’s asleep. But I’ve seen ’er vent leakin’ a little trickle of steam and, yeah, I’ve seen it steaming like Old Faithful, ’cept it smells like shit.”
“When?”
“Maybe two or three times since I come here in ’72 and before dem developers covered it up. Da buggah stopped steaming after they dumped all the rock and shit down the hole.”
“Damn,” Tatum interjected. “Trying to seal a volcanic vent is beyond stupid. Just causes the pressure to build up until you get an explosive release.”
It was even worse than Koa feared. If Pueo was to be believed, the developers had deliberately filled the vent to choke it off, creating a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode. “When’d they cover it up?”
“First, the cowboys put a fence around it to keep the stupid cows from gettin’ roasted—”
“The old ranchers knew about the vent?”
“Sure as shit, yeah. Fenced it off way back.”
Koa wondered if the ranchers disclosed the existence of the fumarole when Paradise bought the property or if Paradise told Gommes and Makela. He guessed not. Why would Gommes buy into a volcanic problem? But then again, Koa thought, a sharp operator like Gommes might have used the existence of the fumarole to bargain for a better price. Either way, the buyers learned of the existence of the vent. Pueo’s recollection made that clear. And rather than disclose the hazard, the Hualālai Hui developers bulldozed it over.
“When?” Koa asked. “When did the developers bulldoze the site?”
“Just before the surveyors showed up to mark out all ’em streets. Yeah, man, the developer, he brings in a dozer to fill up the sucker with rocks and dirt.”
Koa wanted to pin the time frame down. He guessed the Hualālai Hui had hired a heavy machinery contractor to do the job. Most real estate developers didn’t own construction equipment. They rented what they needed, and only a few outfits on the island rented heavy equipment. Koa planned to have Piki check those companies. “You’re talking about 2006. How long before the surveyors showed up on-site?”
“Yeah, man, sounds about right,” Pueo responded.
That wasn’t good enough. Koa wanted a better date. “How long before the surveyors arrived?”
“Maybe a couple of weeks … yeah, about that.”
If there’d been a volcanic vent down there, and it popped off every fifteen or twenty years, why hadn’t the USGS known about it? Koa turned to Tatum. “Doesn’t the USGS monitor Hualālai?”
“Yeah, we do, all the time,” Tatum responded. “Better today than in the seventies and eighties, but we
watch for magma movements.”
“So how come you didn’t detect these vents?”
“We use seismographs to monitor earthquakes, GPS to measure ground movement, and satellite imagery to search for temperature changes, but none of those methods would pick up an isolated steam vent, especially if it only rarely erupted.”
Koa outlined the timeline in his head. Gommes’s Hualālai Hui covered up the vent before selling the land to the state. The state hired Boyle to build the school, and Tony Pwalú graded the site, scraping away enough rock to reveal hidden yellow sulfur powder. Tony told Hank Boyle, who showed it to “the lady from Honolulu.” The school project should have died. But no. Somehow Boyle got money to buy over a thousand yards of concrete and forged ahead with construction. They thought they’d fooled Pele, but the old fire witch never tolerated interference for long.
All the important players in the chain of title had known about the fumarole, and none of them raised the alarm. Why? Why would they knowingly put grade-school children at risk? Money? Could it just be pure greed? The Hualālai Hui stood to make tens of millions of dollars on the subdivision. But could greed alone—even big-time greed—motivate a whole group of people to expose children to the risk of being burned alive? Maybe, but Koa’s instincts told him something more sinister must be at work.
CHAPTER TEN
BACK IN HIS office, Koa answered his sister’s call. His brother had fainted, but Koa first thought of his mother. “How’s Māpuana?”
“She’s fine. It’s our brother Ikaika we have to worry about. The doctors did some kind of scan and say he’s got a brain tumor. It’s really serious, Koa. I’m here with the doctor now. He wants to perform surgery tomorrow.”
A brain tumor? Surgery? The news stunned Koa. After a pause, he said, “Can you put the doctor on the phone?”
A moment later. “This is Dr. Carlton.” The doctor’s deep baritone voice reached across 213 miles from the hospital in Honolulu.
“Tell me about my brother.”
“Your brother has a pilocytic astrocytoma in the cerebrum.”
After years of listening to pathologists, Koa hated medical jargon. “Excuse me, Doctor, but I need you to speak English.”
“Oh, sorry, your brother has a large tumor, or maybe two tumors, in the frontal lobe of his brain. This type of tumor typically occurs in children and grows very slowly. It’s rare, but not unheard of, in adults. In children, it is typically benign, meaning non-cancerous, but your brother’s tumor shows some evidence of malignancy.”
Koa wanted to be sure he understood. “You’re saying my brother has brain cancer, and the tumor may have been there for years?”
“That’s partially correct. I can’t tell you for sure when the tumor developed, but he’s most likely had it since childhood. And we won’t know if the tumor is malignant until we remove it.”
Koa thought of his brother lying in a hospital bed with a brain tumor and wondered if he’d ever see Ikaika again. He suddenly recalled his baby brother, maybe an eighteen-month-old, playing on the lānai of his family home. Ikaika had been such an inquisitive and fearless baby, venturing down the steps and crawling off into the yard. Koa’s mental image morphed into an ugly picture of his brother drunk after a bar fight. Ikaika had lashed out at him so often and caused so much pain, their connection had atrophied. But now Koa couldn’t bear to lose his brother. Funny how a moment of tragedy pulled estranged brothers together. “What are his chances?”
“Actually, pretty good. These types of tumors are well contained and good candidates for surgical resection. Based on the MRI scans we’ve done, we should be able to remove it. The extent of surgical resection is the best indicator of long-term survival.”
“Resection?” Koa asked.
“In simple terms, if we can cut out the entire tumor, then your brother will have excellent odds for long-term survival.”
Good long-term news, but the short term concerned Koa more. “And the survival rate for this kind of surgery?”
“We’ve made lots of advances in the last few years. With advanced imaging and computer-guided surgery, patients come through the surgery amazingly well.”
Koa had a lot to absorb all at once. “And this needs to be done right away?”
“Yes. Any brain tumor increases intracranial pressure and can damage other parts of the brain. That’s why your brother blacked out.”
“What’s the recovery time?”
“Typically, about eight to twelve weeks, but it varies depending on the person and the surgery.”
Koa knew the state paid for routine medical care of prison inmates but wasn’t sure about complex surgery. “I’ve one last question, Dr. Carlton. I’ll bet there’s a hefty price tag on this kind of surgery.”
“Oh, don’t worry about the cost. The Supreme Court interprets the Eighth Amendment to require the same level of medical treatment for prisoners as other citizens receive. The state of Hawai‘i will pay for your brother’s care.”
After putting down the phone, Koa walked to the window. Rain splattered against the glass, and gray clouds hung low over Hilo Bay. Was it ever, he wondered, going to stop raining in sunny Hawai‘i? His brother in a coma with a brain tumor, a tumor he’d had since childhood. Scenes flickered through Koa’s mind like comic-book pictures: his brother’s angry face, his shouting irrational taunts, his sudden bouts of violence. He thought of Ikaika’s schoolyard fights, his first car theft, his first stint in prison. The pain in his mother’s face as clear as if it all happened yesterday. He flashed back on all the times he’d tried to get through to his brother. The visits to his prison, helping Ikaika get jobs, bailing him out when he got in fights, the excuses. And Ikaika always blaming Koa.
One particular scene stuck in Koa’s mind. Ikaika must have been seven or eight. Koa had found him in the forest preparing to butcher the neighbor’s cat. When Koa challenged him to stop, Ikaika had turned on him. He’d seen a demented light in Ikaika’s eyes, and his brother had stepped forward swinging his knife at Koa. Only at the last second had Ikaika halted. “I hate you,” Ikaika said. “Hate … You understand, big brother.” An hour later, Ikaika had strolled through the house, announced he was going fishing, and left as if nothing untoward had happened.
Koa had thought of Ikaika as a bad seed, like eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark in Maxwell Anderson’s movie. He’d viewed Ikaika as evil to the core, but he now saw the glimmer of a different cause. Maybe Ikaika had been sick. Maybe his violent acts had a medical explanation. Koa wondered if any of the doctors he knew could shed light on that possibility.
Brain surgery! They were going to cut open his brother’s head. Would Ikaika be the same person? Then Koa caught himself. Ikaika’s future wasn’t the question. If he didn’t survive the doctor’s knives, he’d have no future.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KOA, RESPONDING TO Piki’s urgent call, reached Reed’s Island, one of Hilo’s toniest areas, at 6:30 a.m. Small mansions occupied large lots on the tree-lined street. Driveways harbored Mercedes, BMWs, Lexus sedans, and a Tesla or two. Neighborhood children went to private schools like HPA—Hawai‘i Preparatory Academy—in Waimea or Punahou in Honolulu. Hilo’s one percent.
Koa parked behind two other police vehicles, lights flashing, outside 7 Ka‘iulani Place. The front door of the white clapboard-style house stood wide open. The elegant setting made the bloodied body of Arthur T. Witherspoon, the architect who’d designed the KonaWili school, all the more startling.
Koa knelt beside the body. Witherspoon, dressed in linen slacks, a silk shirt, and expensive loafers, had been shot twice in the chest at close range. One bullet was still lodged in his body, but the other had gone through, splattering the man’s blood over the foyer.
Witherspoon had fallen backward and lay with his eyes open seemingly fixed on the crystal chandelier above. Koa took note of the man’s gold chain, wedding band, and platinum Rolex watch. Inside Witherspoon’s pants pocket Koa found several keys on a sterling silver
ring and a leather wallet with several $20 bills. Plainly, not a robbery. A Hawai‘i driver’s license confirmed the man’s identity. He checked around the body for shell casings but found none. Koa tried to imagine what the architect saw just before the bullets ripped into him. Most likely the eyes of an assassin. The killing had the earmarks of a professional hit.
Koa experienced a wave of guilt. After the Boyle killing, he should have warned Witherspoon or put him under police protection. Koa had become a cop to assuage his guilt over killing Hazzard and his part in the death of Jerry, his Army buddy, who’d died from a bullet meant for Koa. Yet he couldn’t escape guilt. When cops screwed up, people died. Witherspoon might have been partly responsible for the KonaWili disaster, but his death still weighed on Koa. He sighed. ‘O ka mea ua hala, ua hala ia, what is gone is gone. His guilt never solved a homicide.
Turning to look out the front door, Koa peered down the concrete path from the stoop to the roadway and noticed a puddle halfway between the house and the street. Walking back over the lawn to avoid disturbing evidence, he found two places where wet footprints hadn’t dried, leaving impressions—heavy thick treads—on the concrete. Hiking boots? Not the kind of shoes worn by cops. Knowing the prints would dry up before the police photographer arrived, he knelt and snapped cell phone shots of each print.
Koa returned to the house where Piki advised him that Mrs. Witherspoon had gone upstairs to change out of her nightclothes. While he waited, Koa examined the living room and the adjoining dining room. He wanted to know more about Arthur Witherspoon. Seeing how a person lived—what things occupied special places—often yielded insights into personality. If you couldn’t get inside a dead man’s mind, you could still study his man-cave.
The house had a warm, lived-in feeling. Tasteful and expensively furnished, the rooms appeared orderly, but not obsessively neat. Architectural photographs and drawings of churches decorated the dining room walls. One in particular, a color photograph of a cathedral with two massive, but different, spires rising to enormous heights caught Koa’s attention. Another picture showed the front of a church with a giant circular window between two towering spires. As he studied the spires in the two photos, he realized they belonged to the same church.