By that time, Tommy had apparently left the station; when Kawika asked, no one had seen him. The Waimea police loaned Kawika a car so he could get around. He drove out of sight, pulled over, and flipped open his cell phone. First he called Patience to excuse himself from seeing her that night. He explained the circumstances briefly, to her horror, and suggested meeting the next night. Then he called Carolyn in Hilo to explain why he couldn’t get home as early as planned. The Malo killings horrified Carolyn too. He promised to see her soon—probably in two days, he said.
Kawika had arrived simultaneously at two of life’s worst places. He felt responsible for the death of another person, and he found himself wanting two women enough to mislead one, by omission, and deceive the other. It wasn’t like him to deceive anyone, much less Carolyn. This added to his queasy self-disgust. But he couldn’t deal with his love life just now.
He knew he’d blundered. Two people were dead and two children orphaned. The dead woman—her desirability, but particularly her immediacy, his sense that she was still sitting there, still talking, her emotions still showing in her fine-featured face—wouldn’t let him go. Nor would the image of that same face, dead, above a torso torn to bloody fragments by three bullets in the white BMW.
His third call was to Terry Tanaka. Kawika described his mistakes unsparingly: he shouldn’t have made Cushing name Joan Malo in the presence of Tommy, and he should’ve called her himself to set up the interview, not left that to Tommy. “I was stupid,” Kawika said. “I didn’t even mention her to Dad last night, knowing what a small place Kohala is. I should’ve had more sense with Tommy. I should’ve told him not to mention her affair.”
“Yes,” Tanaka said sternly, not sparing him. “But Tommy made a bigger mistake. Her boss had been murdered. That was reason enough to interview her. That’s all he needed to tell her. He didn’t need to mention her affair.”
“He probably just wanted to warn her,” Kawika said. “Let her know her secret was out, that Cushing knew.”
Kawika could tell Tanaka was trying to reassure him—a bit. “You didn’t kill her,” Tanaka said. “Now go to your dad’s, get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.” All the same, Kawika knew Tanaka was shaken.
Kawika arrived at his dad’s after sunset. Jarvis sat in one of the lawn chairs, without a light, waiting. “Rough day,” Kawika said. “You heard?”
“Yeah,” Jarvis said. “I told you: Fortunato pretended to be nice. But he wasn’t.”
“He didn’t kill anyone.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“No,” Kawika admitted. “But he didn’t kill Joan Malo or Kai Malo.”
Jarvis rose and drew his son into his engulfing embrace. “Try to forgive yourself, Kawika,” he said. “If you don’t, you’ll never be able to forgive others.”
“No one needs my forgiveness.”
“Yes, they do,” Jarvis said. “Or they will. Starting with Tommy.”
In the morning Kawika felt, if not better, at least resolute. He drove Ku‘ulei to school in Waimea, treating her to a ride in the borrowed police car. She wanted him to turn on the siren, but he smiled and declined.
Ku‘ulei told him about Lono and about Makahiki, the great god’s annual four-month festival. “During Makahiki,” she informed him, “fighting and war were kapu. Everyone danced, played games, ate tons of food. It was, like, a holiday. A really long vacation.”
“Did kids have homework?”
“No, silly!” she laughed. “No one had homework during Makahiki! Everyone just had a really good time.”
Kawika gave his cousin the shaka sign—thumb and pinky extended—as she got out of the car at school. She slammed the car door behind her. He thought of Joan Malo slamming another car door. Ku‘ulei beamed at him, then turned to run off, waving happily to friends.
At the Waimea Police Station, work went swiftly. Kawika called Tanaka to agree on what needed to be done, and included the Waimea detectives in the call. They seemed to appreciate that. While a police spokeswoman handled the news media—Waimea was suddenly packed with TV cameras—Kawika and the Waimea detectives devised a plan to find out if Kai Malo had really been on Moloka‘i the night Fortunato died.
Then they discussed how to trace the Fortunato murder weapon, the old wooden spear. A museum piece, Dr. Smith had called it, probably missing from some collection. They agreed Waimea would contact museums and dealers and describe the spear, including its three barbs behind the tip.
“But don’t release that detail to the press,” Kawika emphasized. “Don’t mention anything about the barbs. Or the olonā fiber cord or the mountain naupaka.”
Next they considered how to catch Peter Pukui and his girlfriend, Melanie Munu. The local police agreed on Pololū as the place they’d probably hide. The Pololū Valley was relatively near and uninhabited—roadless, overgrown, impenetrable, slicing through sheer rock cliffs. A steep path provided the only access. In Pololū no one could sneak up on Pukui and Munu. The Waimea detectives pointed out another fact: the valley contains Hawai‘i’s most dense concentration of ancient heiau. “And ghosts,” a detective added.
But how to catch Pukui and Munu in Pololū? One detective suggested using dogs.
“None on the island,” a second pointed out.
“Get ’em from Honolulu in a day,” a third noted.
“Let’s not use dogs on Peter or Melanie,” Kawika said. “At this point they’re not even official suspects. He’s a Native leader. So’s she, apparently. He’s got his dignity. She probably does too.”
“And those TV crews got cameras,” one of the Waimea detectives added.
In the end they decided to block access to Pololū and stop Pukui’s allies from supplying him and Munu with food. With a barricade, and with Waimea police officers manning it, HHH would understand the situation. If Pukui and Munu were hiding in Pololū, sooner or later they’d walk out, surrender.
Kawika then called Michael Cushing. Cushing seemed far
