A certain bravado pervades his mind, telling him that if there is a sharpshooter hidden up there in the mountains, then let him fire. His lazy stance outside the door is a dare he can take. Ku will protect his own.
The front page of the little newspaper strikes him as hard as any bullet. His face, or a very close facsimile, is on the front page, along with his first name, Lopaka. He's stunned, his knees wobbling. It must've come from Paniolo, is all that he can conceive. The lousy bastard has given him up as the Trade Winds Killer, obviously unable to recall his last name but not his features.
“ MotherfuckingbastardPaniolo!” he screeches and darts back into the lair. He scans the paper for what the outside world knows of him. It appears at first very little, in fact, and he catches his breath. He then sees what the paper assumed to be a separate story, that of his near capture of the night before. He scans the story to learn what they know, and it comes clear that the car outside his door is a major liability now. They know the make and model. They know that the fuel line or gas pan was spewing gas as the car sped away. The story relates the tale of a “heroic” attempt on the part of a beefy-faced Irish cop named Ivers to stop a hit-and-run driver, a subsequent fire and the cop's bout with his injuries. A photograph of Ivers shows a tired-looking man with thinning gray hair and a surly glare at the camera.
A scan of missing-persons reports has turned up the fact that Hiilani has not come home the night before, so the paper-not waiting the official twenty-four-hour grace period the HPD usually allows Lopaka-has put out a cry for information regarding her, an accompanying shot showing her sitting before a birthday cake in a crowded little room. Her employer has given a description of Lopaka which is startlingly close, but which the fools haven't yet put together with the description in the Trade Winds Killer story, at least so far as he can tell.
Lopaka feels his knees wobbling. They could stop him. They could put an end to his quest today, within the hour, within a minute, if someone puts two and two together; if Paniolo's memory improves, if that bastard Claxton should for once think past his nose-hell, even if his newsboy that morning smelled the gasoline odor that still lingered to the Buick… or if some particularly observant tourist on the bus yesterday stared too long at his mug shot on the visor.
Panic drips into his brain, filling him with an acidic fear, a consternation and dread like nothing he's ever experienced before.
He feels strongly now he must run, escape to finish his work elsewhere, in a safer environment. But where and how to get there?
Relatives… get to your relatives, he tells himself. The island is teeming with them. One of them will help you off the island; blood is thicker than anything, they say. Besides, what relative would ever imagine the enormity of his crimes, or link him seriously with the string of murders. All he need do is speak of a bad drug transaction that has gotten him into serious shit with a creep like Paniolo, who would implicate his own mother to save his own neck. That will suffice, he tells himself.
“ But what about Kelia?” ask the voices in his head.
“ Her remains must be cleansed and sent over. “
“ You can't just leave her here like this. “
“ I'll be back for her. I'll find a way,” he replies, going for the closet-like bathroom, where he rinses blood from his hands and chest and abdomen. Using a hand rag he wipes it from between his toes and off his shins, leaving it to linger on his private parts. He quickly dresses, gulps down a glass of water and taking all of his savings, rushes out, locking the door behind him. He walks down the narrow, winding road for the main road where he can catch a bus, aware that neighbors who have seldom if ever seen him are staring from behind windows and drapes.
“ I'll be back for you, Kelia,” he vows halfway down the hot road when he hears the rack inside his den and inside his head sag once more with her weight, as if in reply.
Navy divers called in by the FBI had given every effort to recover any unusual objects and bones found in, around and about the area of the Blow Hole, but very little was forthcoming. Some of the bones found were not bones at all but fossilized coral, others were animal bones, but there was a human femur, an ankle bracelet, an earring, several watches and one human pelvic bone. The Blow Hole and its subterranean runway was giving up very little; it appeared that this particular purgatory was a timeless one for the victims of the Cane Cutter.
Still, Jessica couldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, so she thanked the Navy representatives who'd come bearing these questionable forensic gifts, apologizing for not being able to do more. And with Dr. Lau's help, she went instantly to work over the new specimens.
“ God, what I wouldn't give for a skull,” she now told Lau, her exasperation apparent.
The little man silently nodded his understanding, picking about the sad assortment of bone fragments, and clearing his throat, he added, “It would be too easy.”
She knew what he meant. With a skull identification could be far more rapid and sure, with its teeth intact, for then extractions, scars and other features unique to an individual could be “hit” points on an I.D. chart. All they'd need were comparison X-rays showing faulty tooth occlusions and corrections, and a good forensic orthodontist to tell them what they were looking at. But as Lau said, nothing came easily.
Photographs of the cleaned and dried artifacts brought up by the Navy divers had to be made, but not before cleaning in bleach, soap and ammonia and then a thorough drying. Some of the bones were in a fragile condition, flakes peeling away. It would take time to air-dry them for a day or two before they could safely be handled, but who had that kind of time? She knew they'd have to allow time its due nonetheless. The waiting was one of the more maddening aspects of the work.
Like hef, Lau was anxious, wanting immediate answers and so vulnerable to wrong interpretations as a result. They must do as her father had always said, “Bow to the wisdom of time.”
But even so, even with the naked eye and the encrusted femur, Jessica could read the fact it bore an injury, an injury that looked like the painful rent of a powerful metal object like a cane cutter or even a sword. Lau, looking from the femur to her and back again, saw the same indelible fracture.
As soon as the bones were air-dried and photographed they'd go to work with the Butvar, a granular, dry adhesive mixed to a gel-like consistency and applied liberally to the porous bone fragments to permanently fix them. After this dried, the fragments could be newly photographed and the photos so tagged.
For any of the pieces that might be found to fit together, they'd use Florentine Red Wax to re-invent the structure. It was the same wax used by archaeologists to reconstruct pottery pieces. The process promised only tedium without any further guarantees, but Jessica was saved from this purgatory when a lab tech called out that a phone call had come for her.
“ Tell 'em we're busy here!” she countered, not wanting to leave Lau alone with the unsavory work.
“ It's Chief Parry.”
She frowned and Lau, with a funny little gesture of the fingers in a miniature horse race, indicated for her to run. “Chop, chop,” he said.
“ I won't be long,” she promised.
'Take whatever time is necessary, Dr. Coran. We here can manage with these paltry bones.”
She nodded and moved off at once, going for the office that'd been turned over to her. Closing the door, she took Parry's call. “Hello, Jim?”
“ We got an interesting cross-reference on a lead that could pan out to be our killer. You interested?”
“ Damn straight, I am.”
“ I talked with Ivers. He gave me a name, a first name, Lopaka.”
“ Lopaka?” She repeated it, realizing that it was the same as that given by Lomelea, Kaniola's great- granduncle, when she had visited him at the shrine. “Robert,” she said into the phone.
“ Hmmmmm, your Hawaiian is coming along,” he replied curiously. “Anyway, seems when Paniolo Ewelo was shown the police sketch we put together and the tapes were played for him, he instantly came up with Terri Reno's would-be protector and provider.”
“ That's great.”
“ And get this, the name's Lopaka. Ewelo calls this guy a creep, if you can imagine that.”
“ Our boy scout pointing a finger? Imagine that. Of course, you know how impressed a jury will be with Ewelo.”
The sarcasm and truth of what she was saying wasn't lost on Parry, who continued. “Well, I think we can nail this bastard without cutting any deals with Ewelo.”
