Mahu Box Set

by Neil S. Plakcy

  I woke feeling refreshed, yet somehow very sad. Seeing my family the day before had made me realize how much I missed my old life in Honolulu, my friends, my job. But the only way to get back there was to solve the three murders, and I had to keep on surfing, and pretending to be a disgraced former detective who had nothing better to do than hit the waves.

  It was enough to make you crazy. And when I get crazy, I surf—that’s how I let go of what’s bothering me and clear my head so I can get back to work. I knew I needed to think about Brad and what had happened on Saturday night and then on Sunday, and I hoped that I could work it all in between waves. Which led me to Pipeline, just a little while before the bodies were found.

  Bodies in the Sand

  It was about half an hour before sunrise when I slipped into the water, and the sky above Hale’iwa was already lightening from black to gray. Around me, inky silhouettes of surfers in wetsuits paddled their boards out beyond the breakers, the slap of their hands in the cold water an intermittent counterpoint to the crashing waves. I lay flat on my board and tried to feel the water.

  I saw a wave coming, knew intuitively that it was my wave, and started paddling, fast, as the motion of the water thrust me forward. As soon as I could, I stood up, and then I wasn’t thinking any more, I was part of the wave, holding on to it, following it, running with it, first toward the shore, then parallel, surfing the curl, sliding along the crest as the wave and I made our way toward the moment when it threw itself onto the shore in its final dance with death.

  I cheated the shore’s embrace just in time, sliding away and dunking myself in the cold water again. For about three minutes, I had forgotten everything about my life, what was right and what was wrong, and just lived in the moment. That was why I loved to surf, why for four years as a patrolman and then two as a detective, surfing most mornings had been the way I made it from day to day with some piece of myself still intact.

  The sun finally peeked over the Leilehua Plateau, and the dark shapes around me began to become recognizable. I kept on surfing, pushing myself as much as I could. If I couldn’t be a cop for a while, and had to be a surfer again, then at least I was going to be the best damn surfer I could be.

  I had just mounted a mid-sized wave when I heard the scream. It was far away, and the surf was roaring, but something about the pitch or the urgency in her voice penetrated my consciousness. From my peak, I could see her—a young girl, late teens at most, dragging a wide board down the sandy strip from Ke Nui Road. Something had stopped her in her tracks, kept her screaming, hiccupping and finally crying by the time I’d surfed in and run up the beach to her.

  I saw what the morning light had revealed to her, in a hollow of sand: two naked men, in the act of embracing, both of them quite clearly dead from bullet wounds to the head. The blood had run downhill and what had not yet sunk into the sand was pooled around their feet. Though one body was unfamiliar to me, I was able to recognize the other immediately, and I felt my heart rate accelerate and sweat begin to accumulate on my forehead and under my arms.

  There was already a small crowd standing around, staring at the bodies. “Anybody got a cell phone?” I asked.

  A blond haole guy in surfer shorts that revealed a cast on his right leg held one up. “Call 911,” I said. “Everybody get back. Try not to disturb anything.”

  “You’re that cop, aren’t you?” a dark-haired girl said. “The gay one.”

  “Still gay, but not a cop anymore,” I said, as I tried to get everyone to back away. I shrugged. “I guess old habits die hard, though.”

  I couldn’t see either of their faces, but the naked man I did not recognize was lithe and trim, a true surfer’s physique. The man I knew was a little older, a little out of shape, but still handsome. I resisted the impulse to kneel down and touch Brad Jacobson because I knew I would only be contaminating the crime scene.

  I calmed the screaming girl down, and a girlfriend of hers volunteered to keep an eye on her. Everybody else was eager to get back to the waves, and I had no right to keep them around. While I waited for the cops, I practiced bringing my breathing and my pulse rate back to normal. I had seen a lot of dead bodies, and I tried to remind myself that whatever essence had lived in both of them was now gone, leaving behind only an empty shell.

  To keep from staring obsessively, I forced myself to take a look around, as if I was the investigating detective and this was just another crime scene. I found a pile of clothes just behind the rise that sheltered the bodies. I noticed that the men were lying on a faded, oversized towel, the kind you keep in the back of the trunk for picnics. Or midnight cuddles on the beach.

  Seeing Brad and that other man there, I finally understood that it was my responsibility to find out who was killing surfers, and why. That I had to solve the case to make all my sacrifices have meaning. That whether I could flash a badge or not, I cared about righting the wrongs of the world, about speaking for the dead and making sure that their killers did not go unpunished.

  A black and white was there a few minutes later, parking up on Ke Nui Road, leaving the flashers going. Two cops from the 268 beat began balancing their way over the sand, belts weighing them down with nightsticks, flashlights, radios, handcuffs and more. I had stripped off my wetsuit and stood there in only a pair of board shorts, feeling less like a detective than I had at any point in my career.

  I stepped up as the two cops, a haole and a Chinese, approached, and laid the story out for them. “The girl over there was the first one to see the bodies,” I said. “Just after sunrise. I was surfing, heard her scream, came running up.”

  The haole cop, Luna, looked at me couldn’t figure out where he knew me from. “I ever pick you up?” he asked.

  I had to laugh. “I’m sure I’d remember you.” I stuck my hand out and introduced myself. “I used to be on the force.”

  Luna’s face turned bright red. He wouldn’t shake my hand but his partner, whose name was Chan, did. “Good to meet you,” he said. “I admire you, standing up for yourself.”

  “Thanks.” I stepped off to the side as Luna and Chan took over the site, calling in for a detective, blocking off the area. They didn’t seem to need me, so I went down to the water’s edge, pacing around and talking to other surfers, returning only when Chan waved me back.

  He introduced me to the detectives, Ruiz and Kawamoto. “Detective.. er.. Mr. Kanapa’aka secured the area,” he said.

  Kawamoto was probably in his mid-fifties, and maybe fifty pounds overweight, including a belly that rolled over his belt. He reminded me of that caricature you see of Southern sheriffs, only Japanese. He was missing the ten-gallon hat, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he chewed tobacco.

  Ruiz was haole and younger, maybe mid-forties, dark hair thinning on top. He wore a UH class ring in addition to his wedding band.

  I repeated what I’d seen, being careful not to reveal that I knew anything about the other three murders. I gave them an ID on Brad, but didn’t reveal our relationship and told them I didn’t know his companion. “Might have been a lovers’ quarrel,” Ruiz said, pulling on a pair of plastic gloves.

  “Might have been,” Kawamoto said. Something about his face, though, told me he was already making the connection I wasn’t mentioning.

  I hung around for a while, memorizing the scene, trying, unobtrusively, to take a look at any evidence they found, but there wasn’t much. There were too many footprints between the hollow and the road, even that early in the morning, and it was clear, at least to me, that both had been shot at close range, because of the stippling and powder burns I saw around the wounds. Finally, Ruiz and Kawamoto turned the bodies, so I could get a good look at both faces.

  The guy with the surfer physique was young, in his late teens or early twenties, and he didn’t have much of a tan, which probably meant he hadn’t been on the North Shore for very long.

  I think maybe up to that point, some part of me had been denying that the other dead body belo
nged to Brad. But seeing his face, I couldn’t believe that any more. My heart rate zoomed up, and if I’d been connected to an EKG at that point I’m sure it would have gone off the scale.

  I realized, too, that I had to tell Ruiz and Kawamoto everything I knew about Brad, including the fact that we had slept together, because they were going to find out quickly enough from Brad’s friends, and I didn’t want them to think I was hiding anything from them. “I’d better tell you more about Brad Jacobson,” I said to Ruiz.

  He stepped away from the bodies, motioning me with him. He pulled out a pad and a pen. “He worked at Butterfly, a ladies’ clothing store at the North Shore Marketplace.” I gave him Brad’s address.

  “How well did you know the deceased?”

  “We met up at the shopping center,” I said, being as vague as possible about why I’d be at an exclusive ladies’ boutique. “We got friendly quickly, and he took me to a bar called Sugar’s to meet a couple of his friends. After that we went back to his place.”

  Ruiz made a bunch of notes. “You had an intimate relationship?”

  I nodded. I turned a bit, facing toward the water, because I couldn’t keep Brad’s body in my peripheral vision. I knew soon enough that the coroner would arrive, and I knew only too well what would follow that. Looking at his body kept reminding me that at least in a small way I was responsible for his death, all that had happened and all that would.

  “That was Wednesday night,” I said, “and then I went back to his place again on Thursday night as well. I didn’t see him again until yesterday afternoon.” I took a deep breath. I was sweating and my heart was still racing. “A couple of the friends Brad introduced me to were interested in me, and I ended up spending Saturday night with them. Intimately,” I added. Might as well get all the dirty laundry out there in the air.

  “Somehow Brad found out, and he wasn’t happy about that. His impression of our—relationship—was somehow deeper than mine was.”

  “Mmm hmm.” Ruiz made more notes.

  “My family came up from Honolulu yesterday for a big luau at Waimea Bay Beach Park. Brad found out I was there.”

  Ruiz raised his eyebrows.

  “I think you’ll find Brad’s friends form a pretty effective gossip network,” I said. “Word spreads around quickly.” I felt another emptiness at the bottom of my stomach. Brad’s friends would miss him. And they’d probably blame his death on me. I didn’t like that idea.

  “So he came to your family luau yesterday and what—confronted you?”

  “That’s a good word for it. He let me know that he was angry, and that he wasn’t interested in seeing me again. He left, and that’s the last time I saw him.”

  “What did you do after that?”

  “My family was packing up at that point, so I helped them load up the cars, and then they all left, to head south. I felt bad about Brad, though, so I drove over to his apartment. But his car wasn’t in the parking lot, so I went to the bar where he and his friends usually hung out.”

  “You see him there?”

  I shook my head. “He had already been there and then left. I had a beer and hung out with one of his friends for a while, then I went back to the room where I’m staying and crashed. I slept until just before dawn, when I came out here to surf.”

  “Who was the friend you met at the bar?”

  I gave him Ari’s name. “I have his card back at my room,” I said. “But his company’s called something like North Shore Real Estate or North Shore Investments. It’s probably in the phone book.”

  “He go back to your room with you?” Ruiz asked.

  I shook my head. “Nope. I went home alone. And I didn’t see anybody on my way home, or anybody I knew until I got here this morning.”

  I saw Ruiz write the words “no alibi” on his pad. That wasn’t a surprise; I’d written the same note myself many times. What was a surprise was how bad it made me feel, even though I knew I hadn’t killed him. I wondered if all suspects felt that way. This whole case was giving me a new perspective on how people view the police. “You have a number where we can reach you?”

  I gave him my cell number. “Don’t leave town, all right?” Ruiz asked. “I’m sure we’ll want to talk to you again, once we figure out what’s going on.” He paused. “You know the other guy at all?”

  I shook my head.

  “How about anybody who didn’t like your friend, anybody who might have reason to want to harm him?”

  “He was a nice guy, lots of friends. But I got the feeling he had a tendency to pick up—guys who might not always be nice to him.”

  “Meaning?”

  “When I met Brad, I was looking pretty scruffy. I hadn’t showered or shaved in a while, that kind of thing. From things he said, and things his friends said, that was the kind of guy he often looked to pick up.”

  “And they weren’t all as nice as you underneath?”

  I shrugged. “I guess not. He said something to me right before we went to sleep, that first night.” I struggled to remember how Brad had phrased it. “It was something like, ‘I know you won’t be here in the morning, but at least I know my wallet and my stereo will be.’” Remembering that, in Brad’s voice, thick with sleep, made me want to cry, and I wanted so badly to get away from that beach.

  “We’ll check out his habits,” Ruiz said. “For now, I think it would be best if you left the beach.”

  I was happy to comply. Even if he hadn’t shooed me away, I couldn’t have stayed there any longer, and I certainly couldn’t have gone back in the water as if nothing had happened. I dragged my board back to my truck and headed toward The Next Wave. I need a cup of coffee and an internet connection.

  Even though I wanted to curl up in bed and sleep until it stopped hurting, or pick up a six pack and drink myself into oblivion, I had to let Lieutenant Sampson know what had happened, and about my personal relationship with Brad. I was still a cop and I was still investigating the original three murders, so I would also need him to get me as much information as he could on the dead surfer, who I was willing to bet had been to Mexico recently, or at least had some connection to Mike Pratt, Lucie Zamora or Ronald Chang.

  It was going to be a lot more difficult for me to investigate now that the police knew me and knew I had a connection to the case, through Brad. I had to find out how Sampson felt about that. Maybe he would take me off the investigation, let me return to Honolulu and reclaim my badge.

  As I pulled up in front of The Next Wave, I realized I didn’t want that to happen. I already felt connected to the three dead surfers, and wanted to know what had happened to them. And now with Brad, my personal sense of responsibility deepened. I couldn’t give up the case so easily.

  My first email was to Lieutenant Sampson. I filled him in with everything I knew about the latest murders, including my relationship with Brad. I squirmed a little writing it, trying to balance an honest recitation of the facts with my own personal reticence about spreading my sex life around the department. But in this case, it couldn’t be helped.

  I felt bad for Brad Jacobson, who had obviously been in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he’d only gone home and waited for me to show up and apologize, he’d be alive, I thought. Or if I hadn’t let him leave the parking lot angry.

  I finished the email and hit send. Then I sent a couple of other messages and did some surfing. Just as I was getting ready to start nosing around The Next Wave, my cell phone rang.

  I recognized the 529 prefix as originating from police headquarters before I answered. “Kanapa’aka.”

  “Sampson. I need to see you ASAP. How soon can you meet me?”

  “I can leave now, and be in Honolulu in a little over an hour,” I said.

  “Traffic is tied up inbound on the Kam,” Sampson said. “You’ll be stuck around Wheeler for at least an hour while they clear it. How about if I meet you half way. Parking lot of the Dole Plantation, 45 minutes.”

  “I’ll be there.” I sat t
here wondering why things had become so urgent that Sampson had to see me immediately. Was he angry about my relationship with Brad? I hardly knew the man, so I couldn’t say, but I knew he had taken a chance on hiring me when I wasn’t exactly everybody’s favorite cop. Would this give him a reason to change the deal we’d made, and cut me loose?

  An Explosive Situation

  I spun gravel in the parking lot of The Next Wave, heading out to the Kam. All the way south I alternated between guilt over Brad’s death and worry over what Sampson would have to say to me. I made it to the plantation a few minutes before he did, and got out to look at the visitor’s center, a long, hipped-roof building with a vaguely colonial feel to it. A big sign advertised the world’s largest maze, as certified by the Guinness Book of World Records. I felt like this case was turning into a maze, and I was stuck somewhere inside it.

  Sampson pulled up in a big silver Lexus. He had a folder in his hand when he got out of the car. “Hot off the press, just for you,” he said, handing it to me. “As much as we have so far on the latest victims.”

  I stood there next to his car and flipped through a measly three pages. They’d gotten a quick ID on the guy with Brad. That was the good news. The bad news was that his name was Thomas Singer, and he was just a kid, twenty years old and a junior at UH. The worse news was that his father was a captain in the traffic division, which meant the pressure from inside the force to solve these murders was going to shoot through the roof.

  We started walking, hoping to stretch both our legs and our cognitive powers. Sampson wore a gold short-sleeve polo shirt with khaki slacks, looking every inch the professional. I wore a pair of hibiscus-patterned board shorts, flip flops, and a t-shirt from the North Shore Cattle Company with an angry-looking black steer on it. No one would have made us for a pair of cops. “Any proof yet that they’re related to the previous three?” I asked.