The range was both a naval facility and military airport located four miles northwest of Kekaha, in Kauai County, Hawaii. Philo knew its attraction to the Feds as an installation: it was isolated, with an ideal year-round tropical climate; the environment was encroachment adverse; it contained the world’s largest instrumented, multi-dimensional testing and training missile range. It was where submarines, ships, aircraft, and space vehicles could be tracked simultaneously, the only place in the world like it. Plus the location gave it eleven hundred square miles of instrumented underwater range and 42,000 square miles of monitored and controlled airspace. It also used the nearby island of Miakamii for remotely operated surveillance radar and helicopter flight training. The deal the U.S. Navy had with the island’s owners, however, was not all-inclusive. Extraordinary or unplanned access to Miakamii was not automatic, always requiring permission. Philo hoped his Navy commander buddy could secure this permission, but with the news about the CO’s fiancée, today’s visit would take a more gruesome, somber tone. As the SUV cruised the Kauai coastline on the way to the last gate, Miakamii was visible on their left horizon, seventeen watery miles away.
“There she is, Patrick,” Philo said. “The Prohibited Isle of Mee-ah-kah-mee.” He enunciated the syllables loud enough to overcome the road whine, the SUV’s windows open. The winding coastal road paralleled the mysterious private island. They were alone in enjoying a great view; this was not a well-traveled road.
“Miakamii is loaded with, dare I say, all the modern conveniences that nineteenth-century Hawaii had to offer, despite enjoying U.S. statehood since, what year was it again, Patrick, that Hawaii became a state?”
A niggling inside joke.
“1959, sir.”
The year kept coming up, the topic of Patrick’s persistent dialogue with Grace and Hank Blessid when he started living in an apartment above their garage in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, after his homelessness. The police and a few medical professionals had originally labeled him as Alaskan Inuit or Eskimo. It took a crime scene cleaner with mob ties—Hawaiian mob ties, the organized crime family resurrecting itself in Philadelphia—to clear up this misconception. The amnesia left him with only small swatches of memory, one of them the year that his birth state had earned its statehood, though that date was shared by both Alaska and Hawaii.
Additional DNA results for Patrick from Ancestry.com were due while they were away for this trip, a vacation to what Philo, Grace, and Hank expected was his birthplace. Would names of family members surface? Aunts, uncles, cousins, close or distant? Ancestry.com just might come through with a storybook ending.
“So Patrick—did you know Miakamii actually voted against statehood? The only Hawaiian island to do that.”
“No, sir. That sure is interesting, sir,” Patrick said.
A rare snippet of sarcasm for Patrick. Philo could sometimes be one big ol’ fountain of trivial bullshit, except this wasn’t one of them.
“I learned some of the island’s history while I trained there, bud. Or what passed as history. Mostly legends and oral accounts, although the statehood voting thing is a matter of record.”
“Really good info, sir.”
“Wise guy.”
Philo slowed the SUV, pulled up behind another car waiting at a tall iron gate separating them from the part of Kauai that housed the military training outpost.
“We’re here,” Philo said. A Marine guard validated their temp passes in the system and a second Marine ran a mirror around the SUV’s perimeter and undercarriage while visually checking the interior. The iron gate slid open for them.
They followed signage at each intersection to CO Evan Malcolm’s office in a one-story building. Palm trees, blue sky, and low humidity surrounded them as they exited the car. Another beautiful day in paradise, except for the murder they were about to address.
Inside the building the CO’s secretary greeted them in an office adjacent to his. Female, a lieutenant, mid-fifties, Caucasian, graying hair wrapped in a bun sitting just above her starched white collar. Career Navy.
“I’m Lt. Bingham, gentlemen. Nice to meet you. Petty Officer Trout, a word if I may.” She motioned him away from Patrick, to outside her boss’s closed door.
“Commander Malcolm needs to not be here today. I can’t get him to go home. He told his captain he’s heading home but he won’t go. He’s insisting he escort you. Talk him out of this visit to his fiancée’s house. Pick another day. It’s too soon.”
Philo shook the lieutenant’s hand, called Patrick over. “I need to talk with him alone first, to try to call this thing off for today. You need to hang out here.”
Inside, Philo strode into a hearty hug with his husky friend, his dark, somber face above Navy khakis, the hug’s front end busy with SEAL and other verbal military platitudes, the back end filled with teary-eyed regrets and a tighter hug because of Evan’s shocking personal loss. The installation’s commanding officer tucked his large frame into a chair behind his desk, his commander’s hat resting an arm’s length away, its oak leaves and acorns—“scrambled eggs”—perched in a single arch on each side of the bill, embroidered in lustrous gold bullion. Evan extended a welcome for Philo to sit.
“So. Scatman.” Philo treaded lightly here with the nickname, forcing himself into a timid smile. Early in their friendship, twenty years and fifty pounds ago, the nickname worked, Evan’s sleek dancer’s frame the reason, reminiscent of a famous black actor. A tightly trimmed black mustache offset the current frog-like bulk of Scatman’s bald head and flat, broken nose. “We’re here to help any way we can, Evan, but I think today’s not a good day to start.”
“Appreciate the sentiment, Philo, but neither you”—Evan glanced at his door—“nor my lieutenant get to make that call.”
“Right. But your captain does. And he did. Go home, take a few days off, we’ll hook up another day.”
“His wasn’t a command, Philo, it
