The magazine San Francisco re-launched in 1997, and with her New York Times credential, she’d been hired on the spot. She was home to begin with, but the editors gave her enticing work further afield—assignments like “figuring out Nevada,” as one put it, and “will Wyoming send us wind power—or coal power?” She traveled often, wasn’t home as much. And she was too young to consider her situation carefully, too impatient, too caught up with getting published and the exhilaration of her new career opportunities. In truth, her husband’s whining also put her off. He wanted children but eventually got a lover instead—“someone who’s here for me,” he’d yelled. Patience didn’t really blame him for ending the marriage; she considered that her own fault in large part. But she did blame him for taking a lover first.
Patience understood why she’d gone to bed with Kawika. She’d asked, and he’d accepted. She’d told him why she asked. Most of it, anyway. She’d left out—it seemed too personal, too complicated—her desire for new lovemaking to think about, something to displace from the surfaces of her body, right away, the lingering stale smoke of sex with her husband. In seven years every cell in one’s body is replaced, she’d read. I couldn’t possibly wait, she thought. I needed someone to paint over every cell he ever touched. It was a cleansing for her, not revenge. But she didn’t understand why the sex was so good. Nor why—despite every expectation—she’d started to fall in love again, and with such an unlikely person. He is beautiful, she told herself. And fun. Smart, strong, well-spoken, those eyes …
Half consciously, Patience began looking for her turnoff to the Mauna Lani after her unsuccessful scouting mission. But as she approached another turnoff, she saw a nearly naked dark brown haole with a walking staff coming down Waikoloa Road toward the highway. She slowed down so quickly she nearly got rear-ended. It was Jason Hare, no doubt. With his staff and halo of sun-bleached hair, he resembled Christ in a buckskin loincloth, Christ in serious need of a haircut and shampoo.
He was walking past the heliport at the junction of Waikoloa Road and the Queen K, the takeoff spot for volcano tours and other “flightseeing” trips. Patience noticed bright blue helicopters and panel trucks on the tarmac a hundred feet behind him. More blue copters whirled their way in from halfway up the mountain.
Patience faced a small dilemma. If she didn’t turn, as a slowing car normally would, and instead regained speed to continue on the Queen K, she’d probably get an irritated honk from the car behind her or otherwise startle Hare, who would almost certainly look up and see her. But if she turned she’d pass very close to him; he might look up anyway. She’d also be headed to Waikoloa Village instead of home. She looked at Jason Hare—striding along purposefully, eyes at his feet, smiling to himself—and made the instant decision to turn, averting her face as she did so.
Then Patience needed to turn around to see which way Hare went when he reached the Queen K. She remembered a pullout where she’d seen the “KW: ALOHA” graffiti; she could make a U-turn there. She sped up. But when she reached the graffiti, she braked hard, pulled onto the shoulder, and stopped abruptly. A cloud of her own dust overtook her.
The graffiti had changed. Now it read:
KW: MC
KKL
Holy shit, she thought, fumbling in her bag for her phone. Holy shit. This was completely improbable, ridiculous even, and yet there it was: a graffiti message for Kawika about Michael Cushing and KKL. It had to be. She dialed Kawika’s office in Hilo, reached his assistant, and explained—somewhat frantically—that she needed to leave a message for Detective Wong.
Occam’s Razor cut differently now. And sharply.
35Waimea
Before meeting Jarvis to share his pilikia, Kawika first needed to talk with Dr. Terrence Smith. And the hospital wasn’t far out of his way.
“This isn’t a chat,” Smith protested after the first minutes. “It’s an interrogation. If I’d known, we could have found a place with better coffee.”
Kawika asked why, at their last meeting, Smith had suggested Fortunato was responsible for Joan Malo’s death. And why had he treated Melanie Munu’s injuries without reporting her beating at Fortunato’s hands?
“Same answer in both cases,” Smith responded. “Confidentiality of doctor–patient communications. In Joan’s case I violated it; I should have said nothing. In Melanie’s case I respected it, but maybe I violated the law. I regret that. If harm comes to Melanie, I’ll regret it even more.”
“Why should harm come to Melanie?” Kawika asked. “Fortunato’s dead. Who else would harm her?”
“Tut-tut,” Smith replied, wagging his finger. “I should’ve reported her beating. But I’m not going to report what she said as my patient. She made me promise not to talk. She had her reasons. It’s enough to tell you this: Melanie Munu is still in danger.”
“Will you help me find her?”
“I don’t know where she is. If you do find her, she’ll tell you what she told me.”
“What if we don’t find her? Or find her dead?”
“Then I’d tell you.”
Why did Smith believe the confidentiality of doctor–patient communications died with the patient? That wasn’t Kawika’s understanding. But, as Tanaka had taught him, right now the fact that Smith believed it was more important than why.
“Okay,” Kawika said. “Let’s go back to Joan Malo’s autopsy—what you said about Fortunato’s responsibility. What you knew. Why you knew.”
Smith waved his hand. “That’s where I violated Joan’s confidences,” he said.
“How could you? You told me she wasn’t your patient.”
“She wasn’t. But after she was shot, one of my colleagues came to see me. She’d been his patient, and she’d told him about her affair.”
“Wait a minute,” Kawika said. “Then if anybody violated doctor–patient confidentiality, it would be your colleague, right?
