“You think Hawaiians did it?” he asked. “Which ones?”
“Those temple Hawaiians,” she said. “The ones trying to block KKL. The ones who wanted money.” She looked ready to spit, right there in her own living room.
“Forgive me,” Kawika said. “I’m from Hilo. I heard about Kohala Kea Loa for the first time this morning. I don’t know the temple Hawaiians.”
Corazon Fortunato sighed, composing herself. “Okay,” she said, and began to explain. Kawika took notes: Kohala Kea Loa—proposed new resort and real estate development. Big one. Thousands of acres. Stretches from Waikoloa Village down to Highway 19. All just a lava field today—vast open wasteland. Desolate, dry, remote. What’s planned: a luxury hotel, two golf courses. Shops, health club, tennis courts. Housing, all types: estates, bungalows, townhouses, condos. Hundreds of millions of dollars of investment—more likely a billion. Thousands of jobs.
“Ralph runs it,” she said, not surrendering the present tense. “President of the company. Been working on it for three years, since 1999. Getting the permits, the funding, keeping it on schedule. Everything was going great until they found some ruin. Out in the middle of nowhere.”
As she described it, the ruin was just a fallen-down pile of rocks. No one knew about it before. Lava rock on lava rock: not much contrast.
“Guys came from the University,” she went on. “They said it was some human sacrifice thing. That’s when the temple people got involved. They claim they’re Native. They formed this group called HHH. Something-something-Hawaii. They say the rocks were a temple. They say Kamehameha built it, trying to stop a lava flow.”
According to his widow, Fortunato had done everything reasonably possible to accommodate HHH. He offered to pile the lava rocks back up, preserve the site, install interpretive signs, provide public access, handicapped parking—everything. But then, she said, HHH started to play rough.
“They said we couldn’t build at all. They said because of the human sacrifice stuff, the entire site was sacred. We couldn’t touch it. They said it was kapu.”
HHH held protest rallies, she said, outside Fortunato’s office at Waikoloa Village, blocking traffic. Shut down the shops, made people mad. Terrible publicity. “The investors, they’re Japanese,” she said. “They got worried. The politicians and unions got worried. Everyone told Ralph to solve the problem—just fix it.”
She paused, glaring at Kawika. He thought, She just realized I’m a Native Hawaiian. She lowered her eyes, then continued. “HHH told Ralph, ‘Meet us in private.’ They wanted money. Of course. That’s what they wanted all along, just money. They said, ‘It’s a temple, you have to make a sacrifice.’ They said, ‘We can explain it to the gods, we can make them happy.’ They laughed about it.”
“Did your husband pay?” Kawika asked.
“Hell, no,” she replied. “It wasn’t an official site. It wasn’t protected. It was just a pile of rocks, and they didn’t even care about it. They were using it for extortion. So Ralph went to the County and got a permit. Then he bulldozed the whole thing.”
Kawika blinked. “Bulldozed it?” he repeated.
“Damn right,” she snorted. “Told HHH to fuck themselves. He had their extortion thing recorded—had it on tape. He told them, ‘Make a fuss, I’m giving it to the press.’”
“So,” she concluded, exhaling with a long sigh, “that’s why they killed him. Because of that damn pile of rocks.”
Kawika felt uncertain what to say. He’d never interviewed a surviving spouse, and Corazon Fortunato’s red-hot anger didn’t make it easy. He wanted to speed through it, get it over with. He understood the importance of an investigation’s first hours, the potential importance of the victim’s wife. But he wanted to be out the door and chasing more likely suspects.
“Only a few more questions,” he said finally. “Who’s the leader of HHH?”
“Peter Pukui,” she answered. “Supposedly, anyway. Lives in Kawaihae with his girlfriend, Melanie something. She’s the leader as much as he is, I think.”
“Do you have the tape?”
“No, Ralph probably kept it at the office.”
“Your husband’s movements yesterday?”
“Got up, went to work, met with the head of the Japanese investors, came home, went out after dinner. Had another meeting, didn’t say where or who with. Never came back.”
“The head of the Japanese investors?” Kawika asked.
“Mr. Shimazu,” she replied.
“First name?”
“Makoto,” she said. “But he does it old style: Shimazu Makoto.”
“Mr. Shimazu lives here?”
“No, in Tokyo.”
“You know where he’s staying?”
“No, but probably at the Mauna Lani.”
“Any business partner or close associate of your husband’s here in Hawaii?”
“Just Michael Cushing, his Chief Operating Officer, over at the company office in Waikoloa Village.”
“Any enemies you know about?”
“HHH, I told you.”
“No one else?”
“No. No one.”
“Any—sorry to ask—girlfriend?”
“Jesus,” she shouted. “Those Hawaiians did it. Just catch them. Please.”
A baby cried from another room. Corazon Fortunato stood up and moved angrily away, toward the child. She didn’t look back.
Kawika let himself out. “Let’s keep a guard here,” he told Tommy. “And have your Waimea guys find this Peter Pukui, the one she said heads up HHH, and his girlfriend, Melanie, down in Kawaihae. See if they can find Makoto Shimazu too. Right away.” Tommy nodded and pulled out his phone.
From the steps outside Fortunato’s front door, flanked by bright pink bougainvillea, Kawika looked east and south, turning slowly to take in Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Hualālai. Hualālai was partly veiled in volcanic haze, Kīlauea’s “vog.” But Kawika wasn’t thinking about the Big Island’s volcanoes. He was puzzling over Kohala Kea Loa, a planned Hawaiian luxury resort bearing three of their names: a resort with no beach.
3Hilo
Captain Tanaka sat waiting outside the office of his boss, Haia Kalākalani, the Chief of Police for Hawaii County. He knew the chief would question his having put Kawika in charge of the Fortunato murder case over in South Kohala, mostly because Kawika remained somewhat unproven after his recent short-lived career on the mainland
Kawika had joined the Seattle Police after graduating from college and the police academy. When
