Fire and Vengeance

by Robert McCaw

  The superintendent paused, gathering her thoughts. “But Ranger Kahumana’s extraordinary service didn’t stop with the end of the eruption or the reopening of parts of the park. Sixty thousand earthquakes can do a lot of damage, and many critical areas of the park remain closed, including the Thurston Lava Tube, the Ka‘u Desert Trail, and the Napau Trail. Ranger Kahumana has been a leader in our damage assessment, checking over a hundred miles of hiking trails, identifying hazards, and making sure that our annual million-plus visitors remain safe.

  “For her outstanding service, I am proud to present Ranger Nālani Kahumana with the Andrew Clark Hecht Memorial Public Safety Achievement Award.”

  The audience erupted in applause, and Nālani thanked the superintendent.

  Koa was among the first of many to congratulate his significant other and enjoyed basking in her reflected glory. Nālani deserved the award for her unrelenting drive to restore HVNP, but her real reward, he knew, was doing a job she loved.

  As the crowd thinned and they were alone, she asked, “Have you heard from Alexia? Is the parole board going to give your brother a second chance?”

  He marveled that, at this moment of personal accomplishment, she would think of Ikaika, who had always treated her like dirt, but that, too, was Nālani—intently focused on Koa and the people who mattered to him. “Not yet. Alexia promised to call as soon as she knows anything.”

  Koa kissed Nālani goodbye and was headed back to police headquarters when the screen of his cell phone lit up with Alexia Sheppard’s name. The parole board hearing would happen later in the week, and Koa feared this call wouldn’t bring good news. He answered. “Hi, Alexia, what’s up?”

  “Bad news, Koa. I’ve heard from Benny Koi. The parole board isn’t going to revise your brother’s minimum sentence, not for another year, and maybe not then. I’m sorry, Koa.”

  “Didn’t he read Dr. Kepler’s letter?”

  “Yes, Koa, he read it and thought it impressive, but he says it’s just too soon. They need to see how Ikaika interacts with the prison staff. Whether there’s a real change in his behavior before they’ll grant him a parole hearing.”

  “Shit.”

  She hesitated. “There’s one more thing you should know, Koa.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hardy Moyan weighed in with the parole board, opposing any hearing. In fact, opposing any release until Ikaika’s served his full term.”

  “That prick,” Koa said angrily. He suddenly felt depressed. Alexia had warned him getting his brother a revised minimum sentence and a parole hearing would be a long shot, and he shouldn’t get his hopes up. But after the fabulous report from Dr. Kepler, Koa had become optimistic. And if there were a valid medical explanation for his conduct, then Ikaika didn’t belong in jail.

  “Shit,” he said again. “I guess. I’d really hoped it would happen.”

  “I know. I’m really sorry.”

  He sat in his office staring at the wall. After a while, he slammed his fist down on the desk. “Goddammit,” he said aloud. He wanted to do something—anything—to reverse the decision. But what? He could call the members of the parole board, but there was no point, even if they took his call. The half dozen state legislators he knew well enough to ask would be unlikely to extend themselves for a felon with a long record. He racked his brain for another alternative but came up dry.

  He knew he should turn his attention back to the KonaWili case to follow up on Cheryl Makela’s confession and figure out how to get Watanabe and Na‘auao. And he needed to pressure Leffler, who still wouldn’t talk. Yet, he had no enthusiasm, no energy, for any of it. Instead, he left the office and drove south, past the national park, slowing down where the earthquakes had cracked the road, past Pāhala, past Nā‘ālehu, and down the South Point Road. At the southernmost point in the United States, he turned east along a nearly impassable track to the Green Sand Beach. He found the place deserted and climbed down into the broken crater to the secluded crescent beach with its tiny particles of olivine, a greenish volcanic glass giving the beach its name.

  He’d been coming to this beach for years when the stresses of his job threatened to overwhelm him. He stripped on the beach and plunged into the ocean, swimming out through the gap the sea had cut in the side of the old cinder cone, feeling the pull of the ocean. He stroked dangerously far out.

  While the waves rose and the ocean pulled at him, he heard his mother’s voice running in a continuous loop: “You must forgive the pain Ikaika has caused, and find a way to help him … to put your family back together … for my sake … for your ancestors. That, too, I know in my na‘au.” He swam until the muscles burned and his legs felt rubbery. But when he finally emerged, seawater dripping from his hair, he knew what he had to do.

  He made the call sitting in the front seat of his Explorer. It took him several minutes to get through, but eventually, Walker McKenzie picked up the phone. Koa outlined his brother’s parole situation. He filled the reporter in on his meetings with Dr. Kepler and Alexia Sheppard’s efforts to influence the parole board members. He told McKenzie he’d gotten advance word of the negative decision to be formalized in the next couple of days. Finally, he asked the question: Could McKenzie help change the expected result?

  Koa understood the consequences of asking the reporter for help. If McKenzie helped, Koa would be deeply in his debt. McKenzie might not ask him to reciprocate for a long time, but one day the reporter would ask for a return favor—a big one—and Koa would be in no position to refuse. Still desperate to save his brother, he’d cross the repayment bridge when he got there.

  To Koa’s surprise, McKenzie said he’d get right on it and see what he could do. “I’ll call you back as soon as I have something.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  KOA KNEW WHAT Zeke wanted to do, and it pissed him off. Watanabe had the ethics of a snake and deserved to be locked up in the ice house. The little asshole sat in the same seat Makela had occupied across the table from Koa and Zeke. “How much did Makela pay you on the KonaWili project?” Zeke demanded.

  “I got no idea what you are talking about,” the slimy press aide responded. Koa could see him struggling to appear relaxed, but beads of sweat on his forehead gave him away.

  “Bullshit,” Zeke roared. “Makela transferred a 15 percent interest in the project to you.”

  Koa saw the shock in Watanabe’s face at the mention of 15 percent. The man’s mouth opened before he could control himself and he almost said, “How—.” Konane, the Honolulu detective, had pegged Watanabe. The man didn’t have a poker face.

  “Listen, mister,” Zeke continued, “you come clean or I indict your ass and send you to the slammer.”

  “I don’t—”

  Zeke cut him off again. “You lunched with Makela at the Hilo Bay Café. She promised you a 15 percent interest in the KonaWili project. In exchange, you promised Howard Gommes he’d get all the approvals he needed for the development.”

  Koa saw the shock on Watanabe’s face. It was as if Zeke had hit the little rat with a club. His eyes bulged. Sweat now ran down Watanabe’s face. He shook like a palm frond in the trade winds. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. He knew, as did Koa, that only one person in the world could have told Zeke about the luncheon meeting. “That lying whore is trying to frame me.”

  “Be careful who you call a whore,” Koa warned.

  Watanabe’s face flushed as he realized the import of Koa’s remark. “You can’t prove any of that shit,” Watanabe responded hotly.

  “Wanna bet,” Zeke said, placing a small recorder on the table and hitting the playback button. Makela’s voice filtered through the tinny speaker. “Hello, Tomi. How are things in the mayor’s office.”

  “Hectic as usual. I’m working my ass off trying to keep everything under control,” Watanabe said with arrogant self-importance.

  “Howard has another deal for your principals. That KonaWili project.”

  “Oh, yeah.”


  “Howard gets all his approvals and your guys get the usual 15 percent, minus of course whatever they share with you.”

  “What’s it worth?” Watanabe sounded eager.

  “Howard projects the profit at seventy-five million. You can do the math.”

  “Very nice—”

  Zeke punched the button ending the playback. “You didn’t know Babylips recorded your sleazy little deal, did you?”

  Watanabe trembled, nearly going into shock, at the mention of Babylips. “Oh, my God—”

  “What’ll it be, Mr. Watanabe, the truth or a prison cell?” Zeke demanded.

  “I … I … I … won’t … won’t go … go to jail,” Watanabe stuttered.

  “Not if we get the whole truth, including your lies to the Honolulu police.”

  “Masaka—it can’t be.”

  “Oh, yes it can be,” Zeke responded. “Just like you really can go to jail.”

  “He’ll cut my balls off.” Watanabe’s eyes grew shockingly wide. He appeared to be suffering a severe fever, giving his face a yellowish sheen beneath a layer of sweat.

  “You should have thought of that before you climbed in bed with Gommes,” Zeke said without mercy.

  “No! You don’t understand. You have to protect me. He’ll kill me if I talk to you.”

  Neither Zeke nor Koa had expected Watanabe’s terrified reaction. “Who’ll kill you?”

  “Gommes. You have to protect me. Give me a new identity or something?”

  Koa thought of Gommes as a nasty blowhard, but Makela plainly feared him and now Watanabe acted flat-out terrified. “Yeah, we’ll protect you from Gommes,” Zeke assured Watanabe.

  “How?” Watanabe demanded.

  “With a police guard until we lock up Gommes,” Zeke responded.

  Watanabe sat pondering his options before he finally concluded he had no alternative. “What … what do you want to … to know?”

  “Tell us about the KitKat.”

  “The KitKat?” Watanabe asked incredulously.

  “Yes, the KitKat,” Koa said with a hard edge in his voice.

  “I tended bar there in the ’70s.”

  “That’s where you met Gommes?”

  Watanabe’s brow shot up and his eyes grew impossibly wider as he realized what Koa’s questions meant. “Yeah, big-time spender, always surrounded by a bunch of loudmouth frat boys. Some nights he’d drop a couple thousand dollars on champagne and lap dances, except he got more than lap action if you know what I mean.” Watanabe leered at the recollection. “But he tipped good—$150 or sometimes even $200.”

  “He asked you to talk to the police?”

  “Yeah.” Now into the tale, Watanabe found his voice. “One night he comes in all serious. Tells me he needs a favor and will make it worth my while. Says a couple of dumb cops are going to be checking his whereabouts, and he wants me to say he hung out in the club with his buddies, a kid named Spooner, a big guy named Boyle, and some red-head I ain’t never seen. I asked him what’s in it for me, and he says $2,500 and a ticket out of the KitKat. What the hell, it was a good deal.”

  “And you told the police a phony story?”

  “Yeah. Some detective. I don’t think he believed me, but after Babylips told him the same thing, he went away.”

  “And Gommes made good on his promise?”

  “Oh, yeah. I got my money, and he got me a job at one of his development companies. Then I moved up to some political positions, a newspaper job, and then finally became press aide to the mayor.”

  “And he keeps asking for favors?”

  “Yeah, well, he doesn’t ask so nice. He pays good, but you don’t cross Gommes. Bad things happen to guys who cross him.”

  “Like what?”

  “When I worked for his development company, there was this guy. Gommes wanted him to do something, something illegal, and the guy told Gommes to go fuck himself. Next thing I heard, the police found the guy in an abandoned warehouse with a steel pipe jammed up his ass.”

  Zeke and Koa looked at each other. They were seeing the ugly side of Gommes. “Go on,” Zeke ordered.

  “Gommes used to come to me with his requests, but then he started sending Makela. Always the same deal—different numbers—but the same structure. He gets the land use and other approvals he wants and a percentage of the profits go into the trust fund.”

  “The trust fund?” Koa asked.

  “Yeah. There’s a lawyer here in Hilo who set up some kind of a trust fund. A percentage of the deal profits go into the trust fund, and the right people get paid.”

  “And who are the right people?” Zeke asked.

  “I don’t know. I get my piece, but I don’t know how the other part gets distributed.”

  “Does the mayor get a cut?” Zeke asked with a hard edge in his voice.

  Watanabe turned his palms up. “I could guess, but I don’t know.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  WHEN SALLY MEDEA appeared in his office doorway, Koa could see the excitement on her face. “This is a surprise. What brings you here?”

  “This.” She held up a long roll of blueprints. “A lead on Arthur’s hiding place.”

  Koa felt a tingle of anticipation and stood while she unrolled architectural drawings across his desk. “Where did you find these?”

  “Hidden,” she responded, “behind a loose panel in the alcove where he sometimes worked in the apartment.”

  Koa’s optimism dimmed as he took in the tangle of lines. He couldn’t make sense of the drawing nor read any of the notes, which appeared to be in a foreign language.

  “What is it?”

  She pointed to the large lettering across the top—CLAVIS. “It’s Latin and it means ‘key.’”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “This is a top view, looking straight down.” She pointed to a large five-pointed star with short, dotted lines across each of its points. “See the circle in the center of the star?” she said, running her finger around the circle.

  “Yeah,” he responded.

  She pulled the sheet aside revealing a second page with a more complicated drawing. “This is a side view. This plug—” she pointed to a rectangle at the top of the drawing—“corresponds with the circle in the center of the top-down view.”

  “It’s a locking mechanism.” She pointed to a complex bundle of lines beneath the plug. Then he understood. The whole thing looked like a miniature bank vault in the center of a star with a locking mechanism near the top.

  “Okay, I see it,” he said. “It’s like a lid on a canister with a combination lock.”

  “Exactly. And it’s just the sort of contraption Arthur would imagine.”

  “So where is this mini-vault?”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know. From the drawings, I know the front or top of the device is flat, so it could be concealed in any wall, floor, or even a ceiling. I’ve been through our apartment, tapping on every wall, floor, and ceiling. It’s not there.”

  “Where else might Arthur have put such a device?” Koa asked.

  “Someplace where he could get to it, but not his house or office. Those places are too obvious, and Arthur never played obvious.”

  Koa wracked his brain. If it wasn’t in his house, his office, or the apartment he shared with his mistress, where might it be? “Could it be in one of the buildings he designed?”

  She nodded. “That’s what I thought, but he designed dozens of buildings. I have no idea where to look.”

  “Let’s think about this logically,” he began. “It wouldn’t be a private residence because he wouldn’t have access.”

  “That makes sense.” She fingered the edge of the drawing.

  “Nor a private commercial space.”

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  “He’d have picked a nearby place. Let’s say in Hilo.” He paused. “How many public buildings did he design in Hilo?”

  She thought for a minute. “The police station, the new co
urthouse, the mayor’s office, the government center, a couple of churches. Then there’re the renovations of the old post office, the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center …”

  He stopped her. “Let me see the first blueprint again.” She spread the drawing on his desk. He ran his hand across the blueprint, stopping at the star. He traced each of the dotted lines across the five points of the star. “What’s with these lines?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Normally a draftsman would draw dotted lines to show the connection between the thing in this drawing and the rest of the project, but I can’t make sense of them.”

  Koa studied the lines and suddenly the picture snapped into focus. It made perfect sense. He took a ruler from his desk and extended each of the dotted lines until they formed a shield around the star—a shield with a flat top and a point at the bottom.

  “The great seal of Hawai‘i!” she exclaimed.

  “Dead on!” Koa couldn’t contain his excitement.

  “The one in the foyer of the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center?” she suggested.

  “You bet. Right under the old police station. That’s got to be it,” Koa exclaimed.

  “It’s brilliant,” Sally responded. “It’s just the kind of place that would appeal to Arthur—history, mixed with symbolism, and cleverness.”

  They practically ran to Koa’s police Explorer and sped across town to the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center. Rushing into the building, they spooked the old Hawaiian docent who sat in her flowered mu‘umu‘u behind the information desk. “What are you doing?” she asked as Koa knelt on the floor at the center of the great seal.

  He felt the center of the seal. He couldn’t see any gap around the circle, but he could feel it with his fingertips. “There’s a plug here.”

  “What are you doing?” the docent asked again, alarm evident in her voice.

  Koa didn’t know what Witherspoon had hidden, and he didn’t want this woman gossiping about it. He turned to her and flashed his badge. “This is a police operation. You need to leave.”