by Toby Neal
“Hi, Mrs. Yamaguchi.” Lei identified herself. “I’m following up with you about something you found on the beach? A skull?”
The old woman pushed the door open slightly. “Come in.”
“Thank you.” Lei toed out of her athletic shoes and set them on the low shelf filled with rubber slippers. The cottage was one of the old plantation style homes Lei had always loved, single-wall construction with a tin roof and wide, painted-wood floors interspersed with lauhala matting.
“You came all this way to talk with me about that?” Mrs. Yamaguchi gestured to a futon couch. “Go. Sit. I get the tea.”
Lei was reminded of visiting with her grandfather Soga Matsumoto on Oahu. There was no rushing a Japanese elder, no matter the mission. The house smelled faintly musty, with notes of ginger and soy sauce. Mrs. Yamaguchi was cooking—probably something with homemade teriyaki sauce.
Lei seated herself on the couch, glancing around. A kneeling desk made of old crates doubled as a coffee table in front of the couch. On the walls, three traditional silk paintings made a triptych. Through the sash-style window, Lei could see a square of neatly mowed, very green lawn, and beyond that, the variegated tops of jungle trees rolling downhill to a wind-whipped ocean.
The drive to Mrs. Yamaguchi’s house in Hana had been beautiful, and Lei had been able to flash her lights to get around dawdling tourists blocking the road in front of the many waterfalls in order to get to the remote village in much less than the usual two hours. She’d focused on the challenging act of driving to keep her mind off of Stevens. The road was mostly one-lane, encroached upon by stands of bamboo, lush flowering trees, and extreme hairpin turns.
Sitting here now, her hands resting on her thighs, Lei breathed out a long exhale of held tension. Mrs. Yamaguchi was not going to be interested in her agenda. She would tell her story how she wanted to, at her own speed.
Lei looked at the wall across from the window. On it was a sheathed samurai-style sword with a bamboo practice katana below it, resting on simple wooden pegs. Just above the swords was a line of photos of Japanese men in uniform.
Mrs. Yamaguchi came shuffling back. She was carrying a lacquered tray. It held a small clay teapot, two handleless cups, and a couple of nori-wrapped rice crackers on a plate.
“The water is still getting hot,” the elderly woman said.
“Can I help? Please, Aunty. Let me do something.”
“Okay, then. In a minute you can fetch the hot water from the stove.”
“I will.” Lei leaned forward, opening the file she had brought and set it beside the tea tray. “So I have been assigned to investigate the bone you found on the beach. Please tell me about your discovery.”
“I was doing my morning walk.” Mrs. Yamaguchi pointed to a wooden stand in the corner where several hand-carved canes rested. “I walk every day. How I made eighty-five last week.”
“Congratulations. That’s a big milestone. My captain said you brought the skull in? I was wondering why you didn’t just call us so we could see it where you found it?”
Mrs. Yamaguchi’s dark eyes, so deep a brown that Lei couldn’t see her pupils, seemed to sharpen in the fans of crepe-like skin surrounding them. “I didn’t want someone to take it away while I was calling you. And I don’t believe in those cell phones. So I put it in my trash bag and I brought it home. I had to do my shopping in Costco anyway, so I just took ’em out myself. You can go get the water now.”
“Of course.” Lei got up with a respectful inclination of her head. She walked into the modest kitchen. Sure enough, an old-fashioned white enamel teakettle was just beginning to whistle on the small gas stove. Lei turned it off, glancing around the pristine space with its small round table and two chairs.
She saw no other evidence of anyone else living with the elderly lady, and the thought of Mrs. Yamaguchi driving that hazardous road in the rusting truck she’d glimpsed in the lean-to garage gave her a bit of a shiver. Still, Mrs. Yamaguchi seemed steady enough.
She carried the kettle back out to the tea things. “Is it okay if I pour it in?” She was unsure of the protocol.
“I put the tea in the pot already,” Mrs. Yamaguchi said. “You may pour.”
Lei carefully filled the heavy earthenware pot with the boiling water and replaced the lid. She took the kettle back to the stove and rejoined the old woman. “Now, you took the skull in. What made you think someone might take it from where you found it?”
“Someone knows who that child is. That someone wouldn’t want anyone to see the bone,” Mrs. Yamaguchi said.
Lei frowned. “You know who these people are? Who would take the skull and hide it?”
Mrs. Yamaguchi just shrugged. She opened the teapot and stirred the loose tea inside with a bamboo whisk. She placed a china strainer over each cup and carefully poured.
Lei followed the older woman’s lead as she lifted the teacup, sniffed, and sipped. The tea tasted like flowers and green things.
“Delicious.” Lei’s grandfather had a kindred spirit in Mrs. Yamaguchi.
The woman gave a brief nod. “You want I take you to where I find the bone?”
“That would be perfect.” Lei opened the file again. “I just wanted to tell you a few things we have found out so far, in case you might know anything about it. The skull belonged to a male child, aged ten or so. The hole in the front?” Lei tapped the photo, drawing the woman’s gaze to the disturbing break in the forehead. “This happened after the skull was buried. Perhaps when the flood washed it down the stream. There’s no evidence of foul play so far.”
“I am glad of that,” Mrs. Yamaguchi said. “Finish your tea. Then we go. I have to be back by three.”
“Three?”
“General Hospital is on.” Mrs. Yamaguchi jerked her head toward the sleek, wall-mounted flat-screen in the corner. “I always watch.”
Lei hid her smile by slurping her tea. Finishing it, she stood. “I’m ready if you are.”
Chapter Six
I wasn’t sure what I’d just experienced.
I’d just had a hallucination visit from the ghost of my ex-wife, and while I appreciated that Anchara had decided to forgive me and wasn’t going to haunt me anymore, her direction that I get back to our son was about as loony tunes a moment as I’d had in my life.
Looking out into the darkness, at the glowing moth fluttering among the dripping trees, I heard the thin, high scream of some small animal, abruptly cut short. Mosquitoes buzzed in my ears. The moth zigzagged out of sight into the depths.
I had no idea where I was being held prisoner, or how to get anywhere that would get me out of this place. If I’d had anything to drink, I’d have downed it. I longed for that anesthetic, that oblivion. But I didn’t, and I still hadn’t woken up. I pinched my own arm, hard.
Pain spiked.
Apparently I wasn’t dreaming.
If I was going to escape, I needed supplies. A compass. Weapons. Some sort of plan.
And then there was the fact that I was sick. I felt my way back to my pallet just as my wobbly knees collapsed. Lying there, reattaching my rope, I was so dizzy and nauseated from even those small exertions and stresses that I retched.
Finally, curled on my side in the fetal position, I drifted off. Maybe tomorrow I’d be well enough to do something.
I woke to the stabbing of sunshine in my eyes and a rough hand under my arm hauling me upright.
“Come.” It was the man from before. I continued to pretend I didn’t understand Spanish, but his meaning was pretty clear as he untied the rope and hefted me up.
I was definitely feeling a little better today, I realized. My vision was clearer and I wasn’t as dizzy—but I didn’t want to be put back in that muddy pit. I dragged my feet and stumbled, my head lolling.
The guard swore impatiently and draped one of my arms over his shoulders. He had a knife in a scabbard on his belt—a modern combat knife with a molded-plastic handle, a compass embedded in the haft.
; I needed that knife.
The sun was out today, and the humidity was so thick that breathing felt like snorkeling. The mud we slogged through was actually steaming. In spite of the brightness stabbing my eyes, I tried to get my bearings on the camp.
The main access seemed to be a small airstrip, one of the pistas I’d heard of, runways for the drug planes to come and go from the jungle. Clustered at one end of that runway was the encampment, a group of tents and ramshackle dwellings of scrap wood and roofing material, draped in camouflage netting beneath trees that had clearly been left to provide visual cover from the air.
I counted at least eight men in a quick survey. Two were on guard duty, but not taking it too seriously as they smoked and leaned on their rifles. The rest were playing cards or cooking in an open-sided group tent.
The guard put me in the outhouse again, which I badly needed by then. Afterward, he marched me on past my shed toward a large tent deep in the jungle shadows. We passed by the pit where I knew the other men were. All I could see was the circle of bamboo and palm fronds that covered the hole.
My guts twisted with guilt and worry over them, trapped in the unhealthy filth of that hole. I stumbled, slipping down from my guard’s grasp, and as I did so I grabbed his belt.
He swore and hefted me up again, insulting my mother and sisters in Spanish, but as we got going again, his knife in its snap-on belt scabbard was deep in the cargo pocket of my filthy pants.
Compass and weapon. Check.
Though now that I had it, how long would it be until he missed it?
Too late now.
“Excuse me, sir. I brought the prisoner.” My guard spoke outside the imposing canvas tent.
An interior flap was untied. A guard carrying one of our military-issued M16s stood aside after looking us over. My guard hefted me in. I kept my head lolling on my chest, sneaking glances as I was able.
The man who appeared to be in charge of this operation was sitting at a table, eating. The biodegradable tray he was scooping food from was one of our MREs. Meals Ready to Eat are not known for flavor, but this hefty, black-bearded man was shoveling in the familiar, homely beef-and-vegetable entrée like it was gourmet.
Who were these people, outfitted like our military? Had they stolen all of this, or been given it in some misguided operation?
“I brought the tall, sick one,” the guard said.
“Put him on the chair,” the man replied. His small, beady eyes ran over me. I was floppy and unresponsive as the door guard moved to open an aluminum folding chair. It screeched in protest as he unfolded it and further squealed as my guard dropped me onto it like a sack of rice.
“Tie him,” the commander said. He opened a vacuum-packed plastic container of peaches and poured them onto the tray. The smell hit me right in my empty belly, sweet and heavy as a long-ago summer. My stomach rumbled as the guard tied my hands behind the chair back.
But he didn’t tie my legs.
Head still bowed, I glanced around for a map. If I had a map and the compass, I might have a chance of getting somewhere useful.
“Prop today’s paper under his chin,” the commander said. “Hold his head up.”
They stuck a newspaper, pulpy and curling with damp, under my chin. The guard smacked my cheek. “Look up, damn it.”
A flash went off in my eyes as they took a photo. This must be the next “proof of life” installment since they cut the bone hook off my neck.
With that thought, I suddenly and vividly remembered the attack.
I’d been in the middle of lecturing. A half circle of men was seated in front of me as I talked about the three C’s of evidence collection at a crime scene and the necessity of protecting the area where a crime occurred. Overhead, we heard the thrum of helicopters approaching, but that wasn’t unusual. I didn’t even stop talking until the tear gas shot into the tent, fired from three choppers as they landed in our airstrip area.
They mowed us down with non-lethal ammo and tear gas. A few shots were fired, but our troops clearly hadn’t expected this kind of balls-out full-frontal attack. Most of the men I was instructing didn’t have weapons with them—I’d left my sidearm in the tent, too.
I was on my knees, retching from the tear gas, when one of the raiders, face hidden by a gas mask, checked my uniform, apparently looking for names. LT. STEVENS was right there on a Velcro patch on my chest, right below a patch that read, contractor. Otherwise, my jungle-camo uniform was the same as the ones worn by the other U.S. men in the camp.
The man zip-tied my hands, yelling for help. I wrenched away, stumbled to my feet. One of the trainees had his weapon out and took a shot at my attacker. It drew a line of fire across my side, and I felt rather than heard someone behind me. I couldn’t turn away before he slugged me on the head.
It was lights out after that, until I woke up in the pit. Now I glanced at the camp’s commander from under my brows.
“Is he still sick?” the man asked, picking up the peaches and sucking them from his fingers.
“Yes. He needs help to walk.”
“Well, let me know if he gets any worse. He can be our first casualty,” the commander said. “We’ll start killing them tomorrow. One a day until we get the money.”
I controlled my response with an effort, keeping my breathing slow and my head lolling.
“They aren’t paying the ransom, sir?” the tent guard asked.
“Fucking tightwad Americans,” the man said. “We’re going to have to show we’re serious.” He picked up another MRE packet. “Get him out of here and start bringing up the men from the pit.”
I allowed myself to be lifted up and helped back to the shed.
There the man threw me another rice ball and refilled my water bottle before he locked me in.
They weren’t paying our ransom, and I was going to die tomorrow if these thugs didn’t get the money. I rolled onto my side, removed the knife, and slid it under one of the bags stacked beside me, in case my guard missed it and came back to search me.
I was going to have to escape, and if possible, bring the other men with me.
Now that I had the knife with its compass, survival was at least possible, and while I didn’t have a map, I’d gotten a good look at the one on the wall behind the camp commander. Directly north of us, through a belt of jungle and what looked like some open area, was the Coco River, and on the other side, Nicaragua. I could get some help if I could just find people to alert to our situation, and hopefully the kidnappers wouldn’t pursue us into another country.
It was still light out. There was no hope of escape until dark, and even then, getting the other men out was going to be difficult.
But maybe the ransom would come today.
There was nothing I could do until nightfall, so I ate the rice, drank only a little water because I planned to take the jug with me, and willed myself to sleep.
Of course, it didn’t work.
Instead, I remembered Lei on the last night before I left, standing in the doorway of our bedroom, wearing nothing but a towel. I’d gone to her. Looked down into her face, hoping.
I loved that face so much it hurt.
Her big, tilted brown eyes were full of shadows and darkness, but her lush mouth was turned up to mine. I bent down and kissed her, and she responded, the kindling of our bodies against each other instant and fiery.
I’d missed her so much. We hadn’t been together in two months, since she’d moved out of our room when I’d told her about the deployment. I was too stubborn to beg or try to visit her in her little hideout at the back of the house. She was too stubborn to come back to me. But now she was here, and she dropped the towel. Nothing was left between us.
All that existed was the velvet of her skin, the slickness of her mouth, her strong legs and delicious breasts and all of me over and in and around her as we strove. It was hard and harsh, wrenching and intense. Then, sweet and slow as a long last breath.
What a fool I’d been.
Yeah. I’d punished us both, and my son, too.
But I was still alive, and I was off the booze now, and I’d faced Anchara’s ghost for the last time, at least according to her. Now I just had to stay alive and get back to my family.
I’d go tonight.
I shut my eyes and waited for night to come.
Lei slammed the door of her truck. She’d pulled up onto a half-moon of stony beach a short drive from Mrs. Yamaguchi’s house. “So you go down here every day?” she asked.
“Yes.” Mrs. Yamaguchi had slid on a pair of bright green Crocs with her cotton pants and shirt, and donned a ratty sweater for their drive to the beach. She carried a canvas shopping bag emblazoned with Hasegawa General Store, the small family-run emporium in Hana that stocked everything for the remote town from candles to cartridges. “This for my litter cleanup.”
Lei followed the elderly lady as she picked her way with the aid of one of her canes across the mounds of smooth volcanic rocks polished round by the ceaseless tumble of waves on the shore below. She looked up and down the beach. No one was there but the tiny white arc of an iwa, a Hawaiian tropicbird, flying above with its distinctive pure white silhouette and long, split tail. The ocean was the gray-green of an overcast day, and off in the distance, Lei spotted an unusual red rainbow beneath storm-blown cloud. Wasn’t that some sort of Hawaiian omen? She turned back, making her way through piled rocks and the mounds of driftwood clotting the beach.
Mrs. Yamaguchi was still walking. They reached a small creek coming down from one of the many nearby valleys. The creek drained out into the ocean here, bouncing and trickling across the stones and carving through them to the sand beneath.