“Stupid or not,” said Kawika, “catch him anyway.”
“We’re working on it. Stay in touch.”
“I will,” Kawika promised. “Right now I’ve gotta find a man named Jimmy Jack. And a woman named Madeline John.”
58Hilo
“Oh crap. You say they’re .375 H&H Magnum slugs, Captain?”
Tommy was on the phone with Tanaka. “I know a guy who’s got a rifle for those,” Tommy continued. “He’s a Waimea cop, a guy I work with. Bruno Moku‘ele. Lives right here in Waimea.”
“Moku‘ele? A Hawaiian?”
“Definitely. He’s one of the ahapua‘a tenants—you know, the hunters? I was checking him out just a few days ago for the Fortunato case, like Kawika asked.”
“Hmm,” Tanaka said. “You think Bruno might’ve killed Fortunato? Then figured we’re getting too close, once you interviewed him?”
“Could be, I guess. Of course, someone else might have gotten hold of his rifle. So we can’t know it’s him yet.”
“Did he know Kawika was lead detective on the case?” Tanaka asked.
“Well, I mentioned it. But all the Waimea cops know anyway.”
“Tommy, I think you’d better pay Bruno another visit,” Tanaka said. “Right away. Whether he was the shooter or not, we have to see if the shooter used his rifle.”
There was a pause. “Guess I’ll grab another detective or two to go with me,” Tommy finally said.
“Of course,” Tanaka replied, thinking, Not exactly “Send me in, Coach, send me in.” Not like Kawika.
59Lahaina and Berkeley
Carolyn had flown home to Maui thoroughly discouraged, and Kawika getting shot made things much worse. She already wondered whether she could find a future with him, this young man she loved. She slowly strolled the beaches of her Maui childhood, deep in thought, deeply breathing the marine air, letting the foamy edges of spent waves cool her feet and wash away her footprints. At the end of each day she devoted extra time to hugging her perplexed father, who really couldn’t help her.
The problem, she believed, was incompatibility between Kawika’s sensibilities and her own, symbolized by Hilo, his world, filled with rain and spirit-crushing forms of darkness, and Kaho‘olawe, her desired world, beckoning with sunlight and spirit-cleansing work and promise. More than just Kaho‘olawe, the land, ‘āina, and things that spring from the land tugged at her. Hilo—and not only Hilo, but Honolulu and other cities where detectives live and work—repelled her more each day.
She didn’t yearn for the past. She yearned for the future, but a future cleansed, a future that skipped the present to sink its roots and find its nourishment in the past. Like Kawika’s mother, but for different reasons, in modern Hawai‘i, in what Hawai‘i had become, she felt she could no longer breathe. Her spirit struggled for air, even when she lay softly in Kawika’s embrace.
She’d read Ancient Hawaiian Civilization, the 1933 book written for Native Hawaiian students in the Kamehameha Schools, and she knew what its distinguished authors urged: that she be able to speak the language, chant the glorification chants. That she dance the hula, sing the mele of her ancestors, and perhaps even fashion an exact replica of Princess Victoria Ka‘uilani’s surfboard from a single plank of koa. But she couldn’t change this: “Fallen is the Chief, overthrown is the kingdom; an overthrow throughout the land.” For Carolyn, that was real.
Patience, too, went home after Kawika was shot. For Patience, home was Berkeley. She confided about Kawika to her mother first, including—blushingly—about the sex. Her mother didn’t blush and advised Patience simply: “If you want to test your love for this Hawaiian young man, spend time with him on the mainland, away from your little Mauna Lani love nest. Be with him where race can create problems. Then see how you feel.”
Her father took Patience aside the next day. “Your mother’s keeping your secrets, whatever you told her,” he said, “so I’m shooting in the dark here. But you know what a man wants in a woman, Impy? He just wants her to show up and be happy. That’s all it takes, my dear. Just show up and be happy.”
Since Patience couldn’t sit still in Berkeley, she decided to take the advice of both parents. She called Kawika, flew to Seattle and then Wenatchee, rented a car, and drove to Winthrop. It was midnight when she showed up, very happy, and stepped out of her car into the warm pine-scented air. She pressed Kawika’s body to hers, far from their little love nest at the Mauna Lani. Yet still, when they were alone in the pitch-dark night—when she couldn’t see her skin on his, or his on hers, and when his moans carried no discernibly Hawaiian intonation—she felt that being with him on the mainland was just fine.
PART FIVE
IN THE METHOW VALLEY
For as all men know, he also knew that many things should be done in this world in silence, and that talking about them is a mistake.
—Owen Wister, The Virginian (1902)
60Winthrop
Kawika’s day began well. Patience playfully pulled him back to bed, later tracing his stitches gently with her fingertips, and Jimmy Jack agreed to meet for lunch. Jimmy Jack had worked at Rattlesnake Ranch, seen the early days of Fawn Ridge. According to the retired FBI agent Frank Kimaio, Jimmy Jack knew the mainland sins of Ralph Fortunato. But lunch with Jimmy Jack went badly.
“You part Apache, like Ralph?” asked Jimmy Jack, holding Kawika’s business card as if it might carry an infectious disease.
“Part Hawaiian. And I thought Ralph was part Athabascan.”
“Apache, Athabascan—how about Assiniboine? Just the first part.”
“Not a popular man, I guess. Tell me about him.”
“So you’re part Hawaiian?” asked Jimmy Jack, ignoring Kawika’s request. “Which part? Your little finger?”
“More than that,” Kawika said, trying to treat it lightly.
“Let me guess. You’re Hawaiian from the waist up—and Jewish from the waist down.”
“I’m Hawaiian on my Dad’s side,” Kawika said, letting it pass. “He’s three-quarters Native Hawaiian.”
“Lot of Native Hawaiians named Wong? Or is that Athabascan?”
“Dad’s part Chinese too. Chinese American.”
“You drink?” asked Jimmy Jack, jerking his head sharply at the waiter, who stepped
