One visit might be all that was needed to eliminate Miakamii from consideration. Philo’s Navy buddy Evan would hopefully provide an introduction to the Logans. The family had a long and very storied history dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, when Catherine McDougall Innes, Scottish farmer and plantation owner by way of New Zealand, bought the island from Hawaiian King Kamehameha V with gold and gemstones worth about fifteen thousand dollars. Among the caveats about the purchase was the agreement that the new owners and their descendants would preserve the island’s culture and lifestyle in perpetuity, including a good-faith promise that the family would only visit, not live on, the island. That promise had been kept generation to generation, most recently by Douglas Logan, aging great-great-grandson of Ms. Innes, and his family, the island’s current caretakers.
Philo’s personal attachment to Miakamii was as a Navy SEAL. The Navy used the island for training and defense, something the Logan family had supported for decades dating back to WWII, and later on with SEAL tactical maneuvers front and center in its interior and on its shores.
“Can I go with you tomorrow, sir?” Patrick said.
“To the Navy base? Negatory, Patrick. If the Navy agrees to make a pitch to the Logans for us to see if they’ll let us visit the island, it wouldn’t be tomorrow anyway. They’d need to schedule it.”
Philo’s cell phone chirped. He left traffic and pulled onto the shoulder.
“Commander Malcolm. Hey. Just talking about you. How are you, bud?… What?… My God, Evan… Sure, anything… oh-eight-hundred hours tomorrow. See you then.”
Philo’s phone hand dropped to his lap after the call ended, his straight-ahead look vacant, mystifying. The SUV interior turned pin-drop quiet, Patrick waiting for him to come out of his trance, traffic whooshing past them like racecars passing the pits.
“Philo sir, what’s wrong?”
Philo spoke without fully processing the news, trying to make sense of it. “Evan’s fiancée. She’s dead.”
They had no attachment to the fiancée other than Philo expected to meet her during the trip and have Evan tell him about his decision to get married again. Friendly banter, meet the fiancée, camaraderie, and commiseration re their respective retirements, Philo’s a few years in arrears, Evan’s coming up at the end of the year. A pleasant reunion. Plus the request that Evan cut through some Miakamii visitation red tape for Patrick’s benefit.
“Dead from what, sir? An accident?”
“A home invasion.” Philo swallowed hard. “Her cleaning lady found her. She was disemboweled.”
“Disem-what?”
“Her internal organs were missing.”
Philo blanked his face, then spoke into the windshield. “Evan wants us to look at her place after the scene’s released by the police.”
He faced Patrick, now more in control. “It seems you’ll get to see the base with me tomorrow after all. The base, then her house. If you want to, bud.”
The news of the murder had stiff-armed the air out of Philo. He suffixed his offer to Patrick with a please that was soft on supplication, heavy on maudlin.
3
His body was manageable in the water, pockets of air caught inside his bright yellow flight suit. Ella swam on her side, pulling him along, had to keep moving, her fingers under the back of his helmet, her sidestroke and her legs fighting the channel’s sea chop, thankfully light. Once she got closer to the Miakamii shore the breaking waves helped. She dragged her large friend out of the Pacific and onto the sandy beach, his body the deadest of weights now that there was no buoyancy. Ella strained as she pulled him as far onto the beach as she could, away from the tide, onto dry sand.
She’d kept her emotions in check for the hundred or so yards of hard swimming on her way out, and for those same hundred harder-fought yards on her way back. Coughing from the effort to catch her breath, her gasps were now supplemented with a good cry.
“Chester. My goodness. Oh, Chester…”
No reason to try CPR, or chest compressions, or turn him over on his side to expel seawater. Chester Kapalekilahao’s throat was sliced open in two places, the blood and seawater glistening on his dark Miakamiian neck. The oozing blood drained off his skin and into the sand, turning it a purplish-red and then a dull gray, with the sand staying that way until the evening tides would move in to wash away all traces of the gore.
She undid his chinstrap, removed his helmet. Wavy black hair, chunky face, dead man’s stare from his black eyes. He and Ella shared the same date of birth a year apart, which meant they went through much of their Miakamii schooling together because of the island’s negligible enrollment. Those many decades ago he was her crush when she was only a keiki, a young girl who finally settled down with her eventual husband Benehakaka (“Ben”) after Chester’s decision to leave the island. She and Ben were now married more than thirty years.
“Auwe! My dearest Chester,” she said, pacing, sobbing. “Who did this to you, love?”
Ella gazed across the Hanakawii Channel at Kauai, the direction the cigarette boat had taken. Yes, who out there could do such a thing to this wonderful, proud man, and why? He’d been a success story by Miakamiian standards. An inspiration.
Her horse shook her mane, trotted closer to Ella, nudged her shoulder, and neighed. “I know, Kumu, we need to go back. I’ll get Ben to bring a boat.”
She cupped her lifelong friend’s cold, wet cheek, sobbed again. “I have to leave you here for a little bit, Chester. Ben and I will return to take you back to Kauai, back to your family.”
She rose, stood over the body. Her horse nudged her again. Ella climbed onto Kumu’s bare back, patted her neck.
“This is a sad, sad day, Kumu. And I’m
