“There will be housing. There’ll be a workforce.”
“So you could stay out there on weeknights only, right?”
“We’d be apart all week.”
“Not on weekends, though.”
“Kawika. Two days out of seven? Three nights?” Kawika had never considered what portion of a week a couple should spend together. Apparently Carolyn had.
“Okay. Second option, then. You work there for a year or two. Earn your stripes. We have weekends, vacations, breaks. Then you take your experience and your credentials and get some big forestry job back here.”
“Oh, God, Kawika, you really don’t understand. The Big Island, O‘ahu, Maui, Kaua‘i—I’d be living with all these scumbags again.”
As she’d poured out her heart, he’d tried using logic’s leaky ladle to refill it. It wasn’t working. He changed his approach.
“Third option: I become the constable of Kaho‘olawe,” he joked. “Maintain order among restoration workers and bomb squads. Keep an eye on saloons and whorehouses. That sort of thing.”
She was beyond soothing by jokes. But at least she let him hold her. He thought of her Hawaiian-ness, its depth and ingrained nature. Once again he sensed his love of it in her—and his love of her for it. It had never become ingrained in him. Neither Hawai‘i nor the mainland ever had, he realized. And that helped explain the upending of what had seemed, until a few days ago, his settled existence.
By ancestry and blood, Carolyn was no more Hawaiian than he. He knew her name Ka‘aukai survived only because her Portuguese grandfather, a fisherman, assumed it from his half-Hawaiian wife when he learned it meant “man of the sea.” But Carolyn was somehow Hawaiian, and despite this morning’s emotions, at peace with being Hawaiian, in a way and with a completeness that Kawika never quite could be.
“Carolyn.” He spoke softly. “Babe. There isn’t even a restoration program on Kaho‘olawe yet. We’ve got time to work this out. We don’t have to solve it this morning, do we?”
Tearfully, she shook her head. “No,” she admitted. “No, we don’t. You’re right.”
“Then come back to bed,” he said, leading her toward it.
He made love to her, not believing it would fix anything—much less everything—but feeling stupid that he couldn’t think of anything else to fix things. He felt responsible for her sadness. Somehow, he sensed, it all related to Patience, not his work—to his guilt, his confusion, to the hundred ways one’s doubts betray themselves to a lover even when the existence of another lover remains a secret.
Carolyn fell back asleep. He held her, thinking of Kaho‘olawe, the pummeled isle. He’d often seen it on flights to Honolulu, looking like nothing but dirt, without a green thing on it. He remembered Ku‘ulei saying the ancient Hawaiians used the channel between Kaho‘olawe and Maui to align their canoes for the voyage to Tahiti. He felt like paddling to Tahiti, taking Carolyn on the long voyage. But when he suggested it—he must have dozed off too, and dreamt—she murmured that Tahiti, too, was ruined.
When next he woke, Carolyn was pummeling him again, playfully this time, her eyes bright with blinked-back tears.
“Constable of Kaho‘olawe,” she laughed. “You don’t find me some breakfast ‘āwīwī, I’m gonna lock you up with your own keys and have the Navy drop one great big bomb on you.”
25Hilo
“Murder. In general, you shouldn’t generalize about it,” Tanaka began.
Kawika waited to see if Tanaka would smile. They were both a bit rattled. Safe now, seated in the room with the big whiteboard, they’d had to push through a knot of noisy demonstrators to get in the building. They hadn’t expected that. They’d thought the news media would scoff at S&R’s press release. Carolyn had said she wasn’t so sure. Still, no demonstrators recognized them. None knew what they looked like.
“But,” Tanaka added, “in this case, some generalizations are worth considering. One: The victim generally knows his killer. Fortunato knew his killer, right? He wasn’t just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Right.”
“Two: Generally the killer hates the victim. The feeling is white-hot, at least for that moment. Extremely personal.”
“Well, not if it’s a contract killing, right? Maybe the Japanese had him hit. Shimazu, that bunch.”
Tanaka nodded, then moved on. “Drug killings aren’t personal either,” he said. “Just business. Generally.”
“Generally. But you don’t see this as a drug killing, do you?” Kawika asked. Tanaka shook his head.
“No, that’s Shark Cliff,” Tanaka said. “Enough murders there for the druggies. They’re having a war, I think.”
“That reminds me,” Kawika said. “I need to ask you about those handcuffs.”
“Later, okay? We’re getting somewhere here.” Tanaka moved to the whiteboard. “Who really hated Fortunato?”
Kawika started counting. “Pukui, of course. And not just for the heiau, right? Probably for Melanie too.” Tanaka wrote 2x after Pukui.
“Sex, betrayal—lots of white-hot hatred there,” Tanaka observed. “Causes a bunch of murders. Including one of yours, right?”
Kawika lurched slightly in his chair. “What?” he asked.
“The one you solved in Puna,” Tanaka said. “That stoner who killed his wife. He thought she’d cheated on him, right?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Kawika remembered. “You cheat, you die,” the stoner had said.
“So, for sex-and-betrayal suspects, besides Pukui we’ve got …?”
“Joan Malo, I suppose.”
Tanaka frowned. “I suppose,” he agreed. “Throws her life away to be with the guy, and he abuses her in every way. Even cheats on her with Melanie Munu.”
“I doubt she knew it,” Kawika said. “When I interviewed her, she was depressed, not angry. She’d made a bad mistake and it was eating at her. If she’d killed someone, she would’ve acted differently.”
“I believe you. Still, you can’t cross her off the list.” Tanaka wrote Joan Malo.
“Cross her off the list.” Tanaka’s matter-of-fact words stung; Joan was dead and Kawika still felt responsible. “Can’t cross Kai Malo off either,” Tanaka added. “Not yet, anyway.” Kai Malo joined Joan.
“Then there’s Melanie Munu,” Tanaka continued. “Sleeping with Fortunato, cheating on Peter. Running some big risks. Fortunato said he’d pay her to claim she’s an heir of Ku‘umoku and challenge his legal title in court, part of
