“I know, I know!” she exclaimed. “It explains so much.”
“Yes, but he’s dangerous. Not harmless. Not eccentric. Dangerous. And he knows how to get to your condo. You’ve got to stay away from him, P.”
“Okay,” she said. “I will, I promise.”
“You promised last time.”
“This is different. I wasn’t snooping around the Murphys’—”
“That’s not the point. You didn’t stay away from him.”
“Okay,” she repeated. “I get the point. Honest. But Kawika, listen. There’s something else. Could someone have killed Thomas Gray? The man who sold KKL its land? Supposedly, he fell off a boat. I saved the obituary for you.”
“Thomas Gray fell off a boat? Why would someone kill him?” Kawika asked, surprised.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe because he sold Fortunato the land? And he was tied to Jason Hare somehow—Kohala Kats, and they’re both Vietnam vets. Although Thomas Gray didn’t join an Agent Orange lawsuit for Hawaii vets, and Jason did. I found it on the internet.”
“That lawsuit, can you check another name for me? Frank Kimaio. That’s K-I-M-A-I-O.”
“Sure, just give me a sec.” Kawika heard the click of computer keys, then a beep. After a moment, she said, “Nope, not here. Nothing under Kimaio. Why?”
“Supposedly, he got cancer from Agent Orange. When was the suit filed?”
“It says 1995.”
“Ah, he wasn’t in Hawaii yet.”
“Want me to print out the document?”
“Yes, please. I’ll look at it tonight. I’ll get to your place as soon as I’m done with Michael Cushing.”
“Speaking of Cushing—”
“Right,” he said. “The new graffiti message.”
“Think it refers to him?” she asked.
“Yup, I do. That ‘KKL’ at the end pretty well clinches it.”
“So someone really is using graffiti to send you messages?”
“Looks that way,” he said. He remembered Arthur Conan Doyle’s maxim, “Eliminate all other factors—in this case, coincidence—and the one which remains must be the truth.”
“Someone’s pointing a finger at Cushing,” he said. “So someone wants me to think he’s a bad guy.”
“But who? Who’s doing the graffiti?”
“Where did you see Jason Hare?” he asked. “On the Queen K or walking toward it?”
“Ah, I see what you’re saying. He could have done it. He was by the heliport, still on Waikoloa Road. With the graffiti a ways behind him. And sort of a smirky smile on his face. But if he’s an accomplice and he wants you to suspect Cushing—?”
“Then Cushing probably didn’t do it,” Kawika said. “Speaking of people who didn’t do it, there’s some news. Peter Pukui turned up.”
“Alive and well?”
“Not well. Turns out he’s a junkie, hiding from his dealers. Heroin. Nothing to do with Fortunato. My pals in Hilo let him go. Now we gotta find him again before the dealers do.”
“Whew.”
“Whew is right. Anyway, sorry I shouted. I really am grateful for your help.”
“But no more of it, right?”
“None that puts you in harm’s way. Stick to the internet. It’s good you found the Thomas Gray obituary and the Agent Orange lawsuit. I’ll look at them tonight.”
“Tonight, I might not let you,” she teased. “But if you’re good—I mean really good—I might let you tomorrow morning.”
“Ha!” he replied. “So far, the only things you’ve let me look at in the morning are the same things you let me look at in the night.”
“The ceiling fans?”
“Not the ceiling fans. You know what I mean.”
Kawika drove off to meet his dad for lunch—late, but not by island standards. Patience returned to the internet, searching for more on Thomas Gray. All she found were letters to the Puako Post responding to the Thomas Gray obituary, arguing over whether he’d claimed to be one-quarter Cherokee or only one-eighth. And whether he’d actually said Cherokee or Sioux or Cheyenne.
37Puakō
Jarvis Wong served his son a lunch of poke and kalua pork, leftovers from a luau at the Mauna Kea Hotel.
“We’re eating up your fringe benefits,” Kawika said.
“Sure beats dog, though,” said Jarvis. “That’s an old Hawaiian dish, you know.” Both men looked at Jarvis’s dog, pacing impatiently nearby. Jarvis chuckled and threw a piece of pork. The dog snapped it up.
“That reminds me, any slipper dogs at the Mauna Kea?” Kawika still wondered why only one of Fortunato’s Tevas had turned up. Had some “slipper dog” taken the other, as so often happens with footwear left at the door in Hawai‘i? But what if had Carolyn been right, suggesting the lone Teva might be planted evidence instead?
“No way,” Jarvis said. “No dogs on the property.”
“How about the Mauna Lani?”
“Even less likely there. Surrounded by lava, more isolated. Slipper dogs, you find ’em in towns mostly, where locals live.”
“How about cats?” Kawika asked.
“At the Mauna Kea?” responded Jarvis. “Not lately. Colony cats, we call ’em. A virus wiped ’em out. Happens every ten years or so. They’ll come back, but not right away. Why?”
“Just wondered. Someone told me a guy named Jason Hare ran cat traps at the Mauna Kea.”
“Jason Hare, the highway guy?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Just know he walks along Highway 19. Long hair, no clothes.”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Kawika said. “He also traps cats.”
“He ran cat traps at the Mauna Kea? Recently?”
“Not too long ago,” replied Kawika. “Maybe just for a few nights.”
“No way,” Jarvis said. “Trust me. I’d know.”
“I’m sure you would.”
“That’s the pilikia?” Jarvis joked. “You had to wait overnight at the hotel to catch a cat trapper in the morning? Couldn’t sleep here?”
Kawika shook his head. “No,” he replied. “I couldn’t sleep here because some whacked-out kanaka might come looking for me.”
“You serious?” Jarvis asked.
“Halfway,” Kawika said. “I am a bit scared, Dad.”
“Don’t be scared over here,” Jarvis reassured him. “In Hilo, maybe. But not here. Over here, the boys know you. They know you’re Hawaiian.”
“Dad,” protested Kawika. “Even I don’t know I’m Hawaiian.”
“Of course you are. You grew up here, went to school here. You’ve got a Hawaiian name. The paper even spelled it right.”
“Dad,” Kawika objected. “I grew up in Seattle mostly. I didn’t go
