She shrugged. “It’s just a fact,” she said. “If you promise jobs for the locals and spread money around, well, eventually you’ll get your permits.”
“So what are the economics of these resorts?” he asked. “How does a developer plan to make money?”
“Well, the hotel is just a centerpiece, a loss leader,” she explained. “The money’s in real estate. Attract people with a great hotel and beach, let them play a few rounds on a seaside course, get them hooked on the climate and beauty and aloha spirit. Then sell them a house or condo on the golf course or along the beach.”
Kawika thought for a moment. “You said Rockefeller got the two best beaches—no one could compete with him. But now South Kohala’s got the Mauna Lani, the Orchid, the Hilton at Waikoloa.”
“Even Rockefeller couldn’t foresee everything,” she responded. “Turns out this lava rock is basically just glass. It’s sharp—it’ll cut your foot. But bulldozers can crush it, grade it, create a new resort anywhere. You can dig a trench in it too, so you can lay a water line—even from the wet side of the island, since it’s so dry over here. And you can build a beach or lagoon. Bring sand in by barge. The Mauna Kea and the Prince still have the best beaches. But they can’t monopolize them—partly because of public access but mostly because Hapuna’s a state park. We have a snorkel beach here at the Mauna Lani. But for surf we get in our cars and drive to Hapuna.”
“That doesn’t explain KKL, up on a mountain,” Kawika said. “Fortunato could build a hotel and golf course, I suppose, but how would he attract people without a beach? What would he put in his ads? A picture of Hapuna? Tell ’em, ‘You can drive there in half an hour?’”
Patience nodded. “Here’s what he’d say: ‘In Hawaii, there’s public access to every beach.’ He’d also say—you guessed it—‘You can drive to Hapuna in minutes.’ He’d probably say, ‘Locals prefer living up on the mountain; not as hot, you’ve got a great view’—all that. But what he’d emphasize most of all: ‘You can afford it up here.’ He’d make a virtue of necessity and sell real estate at prices way below the Mauna Kea or Mauna Lani. Lower prestige, but lower price points. South Kohala on a budget.”
He paused to consider what she’d told him.
“Kawika,” she said gently, “KKL’s business plan doesn’t really matter, does it? You just don’t want the killers to be the temple people, the Native Hawaiians. You want someone else to have killed him for some other reason.”
He almost denied it, but she was partly right. “Look Patience—or Impy or Flea or whatever I should call you—I do hope someone else did it. But there’s stuff we don’t know yet, and stuff I can’t tell you. We have to check all the possibilities. And something connected with KKL—something besides Hawaiians—well, we can’t rule it out. But if the Hawaiians did it, we’ll get them.”
“I’m sure you will,” she reassured him. “I just hate to see you make it difficult for yourself. A man those Hawaiians hated destroyed a sacred site. He made them really angry, and he turns up dead as a human sacrifice, stabbed to death with a Hawaiian spear.”
“The killer could still be someone else,” he noted. “Maybe someone trying to make it look like Hawaiians did it.”
“Maybe. But have you heard of Occam’s Razor?” He shook his head. “It’s a principle of logic, a way of resolving uncertainty. It says if there’s more than one possible explanation for something, the correct explanation is usually the simplest one. Or at least it makes sense to investigate the simplest one first.”
Kawika rose, brushing sand from his pants. “Well, we are investigating the simplest one,” he said. “But others too.”
She also rose but stopped him, putting a hand on his bare arm, touching him for the first time, other than to shake his hand.
“Kawika,” she said, “I want to ask you something. Are you married?”
“No.”
“Engaged?”
“No.” That was true, but incomplete. He knew he should say more.
“Well then,” she said, taking a deep breath, “this probably sounds a bit impulsive, and I guess it is. But will you come back and see me? For dinner?”
He hesitated, searching her eyes. “Okay,” he said cautiously, not sure what she had in mind.
She let the breath go and gave a laugh of relief. “Tonight?” she asked.
Now Kawika felt uneasy. “Sure,” he nonetheless replied. They were just family friends, he told himself, just two people getting acquainted—or reacquainted. It might be all she had in mind; it seemed plausible. She must enjoy company sometimes, living alone. He couldn’t quite imagine that a rich, beautiful haole from California would have any other interest in a hapa haole cop from Hilo. And yet, though he knew he shouldn’t, he still felt what he’d first felt the day before: a twinge of desire.
Walking with her toward the hotel, a little disconcerted, Kawika noticed a sign the resort had placed near some path-side vegetation—a sign explaining shore naupaka, mountain naupaka, and an ancient Hawaiian legend linking the two plants and their half flowers. He paused to read the little sign, and Patience did too.
All of a sudden I’m learning about naupaka, Kawika thought.
The shore naupaka with its white half flower spread out along the path. But Kawika was thinking of mountain naupaka, with its corresponding half flower, a sprig that lay wilting in Waimea’s makeshift morgue, protected by the plastic bag in which Dr. Terrence Smith had placed it after withdrawing it with forceps from Fortunato’s pocket.
11Pu‘ukoholā Heiau
From the Mauna Lani, Highway 19—the Queen Ka‘ahumanu, or Queen K—follows the coast north toward Kawaihae, past Kamehameha’s grassy training grounds, then turns east to leave the sea and wend its way up the smooth flank of Kohala Mountain. At that turn stands Pu‘ukoholā Heiau, like a huge brown pyramid with its top cut off, one of largest heiau in Hawai‘i and certainly the most
