but you know that, so why're you even pursuing this, Mr. Kaniola?”
“ I do as my great-granduncle requests, without question.”
She glowered at him. “What're you suggesting? That if I don't come voluntarily-”
“ No, no, no, please, Dr. Coran. I only say it is imperative you meet with my great-granduncle.”
“ Bring him round to the Federal building then, this afternoon if you like.” She tried sidestepping him, the cabbie honking his horn, becoming irate.
He blocked her way. “No, you don't understand.”
“ Take it or leave it, but get out of my way or so help me, sir, you will see my training firsthand.”
“ Great Uncle cannot make such a journey.”
“ What's that supposed to mean?”
“ He is ancient and stubborn, like you, and… and he will not… cannot leave the shrine.”
“ The shrine?”
“ The family shrine, where he lives in the mountains, there…” He pointed to the imposing array of mountains over his shoulder and looming over Honolulu. They appeared so unreal as to be painted onto the sky, the most breathtaking mountains Jessica had ever seen anywhere on earth. Kaniola continued, saying, “Great Uncle has seen you in here”-he again pointed to his cranium — “and now pleads to see you in the flesh.”
She took a deep breath. “Seen me? On the six o'clock news maybe, or in your paper?”
“ In his trance, and he wishes to tell you face-to-face of the… of an impending danger.”
“ Like I don't know the risks?” She almost laughed.
“ No… you don't… no one knows as Lomelea knows. He is a hemolele.”
“ Would you mind? I don't have an Hawaiian dictionary on me and-”
“ 'Ole, pono loa, a perfect, a priest.”
“ Look, Kaniola, I'm already late and-”
“ It is an honor to be asked to come before the perfect.”
She stared at the waiting cab and then back at Kaniola. “Do you really think this old man can tell me anything I don't already know about the case?”
“ This old man has lived for generations. He is over a hundred years old.”
She dropped her gaze now. “This… this just better be legitimate and not a waste of my time, Mr. Kaniola, do you understand me?”
“ I do, and it won't be.”
“ Where?”
“ I will take you to him personally.”
Waving off the angry cab driver, Jessica reluctantly followed Kaniola to his waiting car, knowing Jim would be furious with her when he found out what she'd done. Maybe this was why she gave in to Kaniola's less-than- persuasive plea. If she could back Jim off to arm's length, keep him guessing, keep him upset with her, then maybe she had a chance of keeping the relationship under her control-a thing that was going to be doubly hard now that they'd been intimate.
9 A.M., July 17, somewhere in the Koolau Mountains
Jessica found herself at an ancient Polynesian shrine built into the mountainside of Oahu's Koolau Range, away from the bustling city of Honolulu. The shrine was multi-tiered and draped with flowers and ceremonial leis far more beautiful and intricate than any she'd seen at the various tourist traps of either Maui or Honolulu. Kaniola led the way through a labyrinthine garden that connected with the shrine nestled here among trees. It was a shrine of light and life, of wind and bird, of water and greenery, a monument to all that seemed good in the islands. She found a sense of enormous peace and equanimity here, a feeling she'd never completely had before.
Looking back along the path they'd followed, far in the distance she could see the city of Honolulu stretching out like a serpentine creature, the skyscrapers like its knobby and horned backbone where they stood in a row along the coastal waters several hundred feet below.
If she squinted, she could make out the enormous crater called the Punchbowl, Puu-owaina, Hill of Sacrifice, where the remains of American soldiers, sailors and marines and famous Hawaiian nationals reposed in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Closer to her, she made out the man-made canals created in the 1800s by engineers to take the mountain rains to the sweeping flatlands of the coasts on either side, land which would otherwise be in a constant state of drought. She could see from this vantage that the islands were a playground for nature, which had created broad paint strokes of every hue.
Kaniola stopped in his tracks just ahead of her, bowed before the entrance to his great-granduncle's home and stepped through the humble little cottage door. It was cool and damp inside, a natural form of air-conditioning, and candles lit their way to the rear where the old man, all skin and bones, lay in a cot that was little more than a rickety hammock. A Hawaiian Ghandi, she thought on seeing him. He wore the same wire-rim spectacles that Ghandi had worn.
On hearing their approach, he sat up. Bare-chested, he quickly placed a muumuu over himself the way a woman might. He didn't bother tying the baggy dress and his shape and tiny arms were lost in its billowy folds and flowered print, only the small brown face and white head showing at the top.
The models at Hilo Hattie's five-and-dime shops in Honolulu had nothing to fear from this competition, she told herself, stifling a smile at the wizened old creature.
“ Forgive appearance of old men,” the wheezing voice that came out of the prune face said. The man had obviously lost all his teeth and could not bother with dentures, as attested to by the sunken gums and the empty apple-sauce jars that littered his home.
“ You are Kaniola's great-granduncle?” she asked, feeling a bit uncomfortable with her surroundings.
“ Lomelea”-he pointed to himself-“I… am…” He spoke at a snail's pace and was hard to decipher. “And I… did… see you.”
“ Yes, in a newspaper maybe, or on television?”
He only laughed. “I live here. Do you see TV? Don't have it. Won't allow it. Western pilau!”
He put as much emphasis into the word pilau as his frail form could muster. Kaniola hadn't lied about the probable age of the old man.
“ How can I help you, Mr. Lomelea?”
“ It is… the killing one… You are close, but you see only his shadow…”
The old man had no idea how accurate that sounded, but she did. “We're getting closer,” she simply said.”You be near. I see you both… in my red dream.”
“ You've seen us both?”
She tried not to sound too disappointed in having come all this way for nothing.
“ He is… one of us.” The old man's head shook sadly, independent of his body, like that of a marionette, the strings moved by the wind flowing through the open-air back room where he slept.
She silently wondered how many times the 'old man's shrine, over his lifetime, had been demolished by the angry island gods, only to be painstakingly rebuilt like the proverbial house of straw.
“ A cathedral it is not…” he said in shaky English as if reading her thoughts, “but ground is sanctified, and me… a holy man.”Wishing she hadn't come, and wishing to get this behind her, she said, “What can you tell me about the killer, Mr. Lomelea?”
“ He has fire hair.”
“ Fire hair?”
“ Red, rusty-colored, natty hair of many of our people,” Kaniola explained for her. She recalled Terri Reno's description, and the police sketch, and it fit. She realized that by now Kaniola and every other newsman in the islands had a copy of both the sketch and the description. Could Joe have cued his old relative with the information?
“ You have… healthy doubt. Good, I respect,” said the old man. “More I tell you. With heart you listen.”
With that the old man squatted and called on his trance state to enable him to reveal more about the monster roaming his island. His gibberish was in Hawaiian, however, and she did not understand until Kaniola translated.
“ Laulima…”
