the hands-Lopaka was obviously disinterested in jewelry-could be identified by family members. Lau was also working on that tedious and sad process now.
She had to get back to the lab. The autopsy on Hiilani would begin at ten sharp. She'd gotten her rest, sleeping alone the night before. Parry having called her from his desk. He'd been obsessed with the case when she met him, and he was even more so now that he could smell something other than the odor of the victims' blood. Now he could smell the blood of his prey, Lopaka Kowona's blood.
19
Quarry mine, blessed am I
In the luck of the chase.
Comes the deer to my singing.
July 18, FBI Headquarters
It was growing late, almost twenty-four hours since Lopaka Kowona's moldering bungalow was turned out for the world to see. Jim Parry had just finished staring once more through Lopaka's disgusting victim photos. He next examined the mildewed, dusty black binder, which revealed the man's early days with his wife, Kelia.
The photo album had shots of Lopaka on horseback swinging a rope overhead, a herd of grazing cows in the background. Parry was running it by people in the know, including Hal Ewelo in his cell, trying to get a fix on the name and location of the ranch. There were all manner of pictures of Lopaka sporting long knives and swords, several of which had been confiscated as evidence, some of which would undoubtably match the Hiilani girl's wounds, their edges and the corresponding marks on her flesh fitting together like pieces of a de Sade puzzle. There was another photo collection, separate from this album, which featured each of his swords, some extremely expensive and beautifully ornamented.
A dealer was called in and grilled about the types of weapons, their availability and prices. He was startled by one sword in particular, declaring it to be priceless, an ancient ceremonial blade that people in the business world literally cut their own throats for.
“ How'd he get hold of such a sword if no one knew of its existence?” had been Parry's immediate response.
“ Maybe he murdered someone for it? Most certainly it's a stolen piece, perhaps from a museum or one of the old traditionalist families,” replied Arthur Early, curator of the Museum of Antiquities at the University of Hawaii, when Parry consulted him.
“ Call the Bishop Museum,” Parry told Gagliano after Early had left. “See if they're missing anything, but don't lead them. Don't tell them what we have.”
“ Hey, leave it to me,” Gagliano assured him. “What's the street word on Kowona's whereabouts?”
“ Silence, nothing.”
“ That's bullshit. Somebody's gotta know where the SOB goes when he gets scared.”
“ Nobody's talking, else they really don't know. He's been a loner for a long time, and even family-and it seems he's got some on the island-aren't sure, as I read 'em. They say nobody ever went near him, especially after his wife left him. Said he didn't come around.”
“ Somebody's lying.”
“ Sure somebody's lying, but I haven't found him yet.”
Parry's exasperation escaped in a sigh. He fell into his chair, stared about the room and put up his hands. “The guy just disappears off the face of the… islands?”
“ Could've gotten a plane to the mainland. Could've done so under an assumed name, hours before we got to his place.”
“ Check out the museum lead. See if anybody there knows a Lopaka Kowona, if a Robert or a Bob matching his description ever worked there.”
“ You got it, Chief, and hey, maybe you'd best get some shut-eye.”
It was getting dark again and Parry had been pulling a twenty-four-hour shift. So long as Jessica was exhausting her efforts at the lab, he felt the least he could do was exhaust his efforts at headquarters.
Then he thought of Jospeh Kaniola and George Oniiwah. It was Kaniola's paper that had gotten Oniiwah killed, so far as Parry was concerned. Maybe Kaniola had other thug friends like the owner of Paniolo's who, for a price, would take Lopaka Kowona to a deserted beach and kick the shit and life out of him before feeding him to the sea turtles.
It was the kind of island justice that had been in operation since men first discovered the islands and set up shop; it had survived civilization, the presence of the U.S. Navy, the white man's law and courts, and it would survive Jim Parry, he reasoned. But damnit, he had a right to Kowona as much as anyone. Who was it that'd brought the case out of an officially sanctioned oblivion- “who cares if a few kanaka whores are taken off the street”-and dragged it kicking and screaming into the light? Not the HPD, not Scanlon for damned sure, not the nationalists, not Kaniola's fucking newspaper, not the FBI… but him alone. The least he deserved was to see the case through and to know Kowona's fate, and in the best of all possible worlds, to mete out that fate.
Where was the justice? Where was the bastard?
He got into his car and rushed through congested traffic, honking at the tourists buses, to get to the Ala Ohana storefront office. He found Joe Kaniola behind his desk, his secretary trying desperately to stop the bulldozing FBI man, but far too small to accomplish the task. She looked like a grown-up Hiilani, he thought.
“ That's all right, Suzy,” Kaniola called to her as he saw the train coming. “Welcome to my humble establishment. Chief-”
“ Cut the pilau, Joe. I want to know what the word is out there on Robert Kowona, and don't give me any shit about how you don't know any-fucking-thing.”
“ Like I told Tony, I don't. I swear it. The street's gone stone deaf and dumb on this, almost like everybody agrees with the sonofa- bitch who killed my kid, that what he's doing is righteous, or some such fucking dog crap.”
The tone of Joe Kaniola's voice and the conviction in his eye calmed Parry a bit. “Why? Why would your people-”
“ First off, they're not my people… not no more. Not if they're hiding that sickening bastard. They're nobody's people. They're more displaced and disenfranchised than ever if-”
“ I didn't come here for a goddamned political debate on the conditions prevailing in the islands, Joe. I came here for some answers.”
“ And I'm telling you that no fucking one's talking, no one”
“ HPD behind this? Your Hawaiian civil rights PKO guys? Who?”
“ If I knew-”
“ I'd be the last you'd tell, I know, but maybe if you got your goddamned dentures cracked…”
Kaniola whipped out a gun from his top drawer when he saw that Parry was serious. “You lay a hand on me, and there'll be something new for this town to talk about.”
“ Put it away! Mr. Kaniola, don't!” shouted Suzy.
The two men, staring across the desk at one another, were like a pair of bulls sizing each other up. Little Suzy stamped her foot and repeated her demand, until Kaniola, relenting, allowed the gun to softly slide back into its hiding place.”I keep it for protection. You got no idea how often some bozo comes in here threatening me.”Parry gave a little shrug. “Likely a daily occurrence. Lucky you've got Suzy here on your side.”
'This thing with Kowona, it has no sides,” he replied, pulling at his facial hair, shaking his head. “I mean, everybody I speak to wants him dead; everybody is looking for him. I can't believe he just vanished, but they say he is a survivalist type, and if he had gotten up into the mountains, well… it'll take the entire U.S. Army on foot to get him out of there. But bottom line is, nobody's helping him, not even his family.”
