The Fire Thief

by Debra Bokur

  Being home on Maui had left her feeling distracted, and the preparations for the ceremony took longer than she’d planned. She had hesitated too long by her grandmother’s side; she had wasted years in the city, away from those she loved. While she wrestled with the clash of inexperience and the knowledge lodged inherently within her, Pualani drifted away, falling asleep in the cool, sweet evening, never waking. Kali was paralyzed by the conviction that the role of kahu bestowed upon her was a simple mistake, that she occupied a place of honor in the world she had never really earned or been meant to assume. Her expanding list of monumental personal failures simply seemed too great.

  Now, from the shade behind the hammock, Hilo stirred slowly and stretched his front legs outward, only slightly more enthusiastic than Kali about beginning the day. She took a deep breath and bent over slowly, touched her toes, then jogged unhurriedly down the porch steps and across the lawn. Hilo followed a few paces behind, hesitating until he was completely sure that Kali intended to continue this ridiculous and needless display of physical movement, and that he—large, faithful companion that he was—had no options but to accompany her. At the point where the ground began to slope downhill toward the water’s edge, Kali paused. The gray dog collapsed gratefully by her feet, turning his body to face the direction of the house, the suggestion anything but subtle.

  Kali turned back toward the house and picked up her pace, her muscles loosening in response to the rhythmic movement. Maybe, she thought, it was finally time to embrace her heritage. Maybe she could, at last, leave the past behind and consider what the future had to offer. She’d been back on Maui for long enough now, and it was probably time she started to remember what it meant to be a native Hawaiian. The trouble was, she wasn’t completely sure where to begin.

  CHAPTER 14

  Walter stretched his legs beneath the picnic bench in the outdoor seating area at the Ranch Restaurant. He’d just enjoyed an exceptionally tasty pulled pork sandwich and a bowl of coleslaw mixed with bits of fresh pineapple, and he was feeling uncharacteristically benevolent toward the rest of the world.

  Across from him, Hara smoothed the well-pressed collar of his uniform, smiling at someone that Walter couldn’t see. This was due entirely to the fact that whoever the recipient of the smile happened to be, she—and Walter knew that it was most definitely a girl—was positioned out of sight, somewhere behind his back.

  Seconds later, a very pretty blonde, who appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen years old, materialized beside their table, a sweating plastic pitcher of iced lemonade held aloft in one hand.

  “Hi! Umm, Carla—she’s your waitress—just went on break, so I’m taking her tables. Would you like some more lemonade?” she asked eagerly.

  Walter noticed immediately that though the invitation for refills seemed to be directed at both him and Hara, it was at Hara that she was busily fluttering her eyelashes.

  “Indeed I would,” Walter said, noisily pushing his empty glass across the table toward her.

  The girl ignored him. Still smiling, she reached forward and took Hara’s glass instead, which was still nearly full.

  “Thank you,” said Hara, smiling at her in return.

  “Sunny day,” she offered.

  Walter pushed his empty glass a little closer to the waitress. “It most certainly is,” Walter said.

  “Day like this should be spent on the beach,” the girl said to Hara.

  “Or on a shady porch, with a tall, cold drink,” Walter continued, not giving Hara a chance to respond. The girl was oblivious.

  “You ever go to the beach when you’re off duty?” she asked Hara, her voice sounding hopeful.

  “Sure. I usually head down to—”

  “Have you got any more lemonade in that pitcher?” Walter interrupted.

  The girl glanced at him briefly, seemingly surprised to find another person at the table. She looked down into the pitcher, where the ice had begun to melt.

  “Yeah, sure, plenty,” she said. She turned back to Hara, her smile nearly blinding in its intensity.

  “That spot just north of the waterfall, where the rocks make a cove,” Hara said, finishing the thought.

  “Oh, wow! I know exactly where you mean. I go there, too,” she said. “I love to dive off the rocks right into the waterfall.”

  Walter leaned forward and tapped the bottom of his glass on the table to get her attention. “Excuse me, miss,” he said, his voice beginning to betray the edges of combined annoyance and thirst. “I would like you to pour some of the lemonade from that pitcher into my very empty glass.” He paused for effect. “If, of course, it isn’t too much trouble.”

  She looked astonished. “What? Oh, sorry. Be right back.”

  After picking up his glass, she swung around and headed toward the kitchen, Hara following her with his eyes as she bounced away. Walter merely sighed and shook his head.

  “I don’t get it. It’s almost spooky how women react when you’re around. Like you put a spell on them or something.”

  Hara looked slightly embarrassed. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just because I try to be nice to them, you know? When you’re nice to people, they’re just nice back.”

  Walter snorted in disgust. “Oh, yeah. Right. You learn that in Sunday school?”

  Hara’s cheeks began to flush. “Well, it’s just good manners, isn’t it?”

  Walter lowered his voice, leaning across the table slightly. “Hara, if you told that girl to take her clothes off and dance for you right here, right now, with a coconut balanced on her head, she’d do it without even asking you your name.”

  Hara drew himself up as though trying to give at least the impression that this sort of talk was an affront not only to him but also to the island’s population of women. “I hardly think that’s the case. I think she’s new here, anyway. Probably just trying to meet people. You know how it is.”

  Walter rolled his eyes. “Oh, I know how it is. I’ve been married for twenty-eight years, Hara. Three daughters, all of whom I want you to stay away from, incidentally. Mortgages, dental bills, riding lessons, cold dinners, and a wife who thinks romance means a computerized washing machine. Sure, I know how it is.”

  The girl came back to the table, Walter’s glass in hand. She placed it in front of him, her glance clearly saying that she’d just done him an enormous personal favor. “Here’s your glass, sir.”

  Walter noticed immediately that somehow, during the short trip from the table to the kitchen and back, the top button of her blouse had managed to come undone, strategically revealing a section of very tanned collarbone.

  Walter drained his glass and grinned across the table at Hara as he stood up. “Lunch is on you today, Officer. I’ll wait for you at the car.”

  Walter headed for the spot where the patrol car was wedged as far beneath a sprawling banyan tree as possible, which wasn’t a lot. They’d left the windows rolled down, but it was still too hot to get inside. He opened the doors and walked behind the car to where the roots of the banyan spread in a wide parameter from the tree’s trunk. He was about to sit down on the edge of one when he saw a girl. She was curled up on the ground, her dirty dress pulled up along her thighs, her feet bare. Makena Shirai. It took him just a minute to recognize her, and when he did, he felt the beginning of a migraine tighten up directly behind his eyes.

  Sighing, he moved closer, then reached among the roots and shook the girl’s arm.

  “Makena, get up.”

  The girl swore under her breath and tried to roll away from him. Walter swore back, shaking her harder.

  “Leave me alone,” she snapped.

  “I will not leave you alone. Get up, or I’ll pull you out of there. And I don’t care if I break your arm in the process.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she growled, pushing herself upward into a half-sitting position. “Police brutality. I keep forgetting that’s your specialty.”

  He said nothing, instead surveying the girl’s state. At n
ineteen, she could pass for thirty-five. Her matted, unwashed hair and filthy clothes reeked. Her eyes were sunken, with dark circles still clearly evident beneath them, despite the soft brown of her skin.

  Walter pulled out his cell phone and punched in Kali’s number. At the other end of the line, her voice answered, sounding more than a little annoyed.

  “I’m trying to write a class synopsis, Walter.”

  “Working hours, Detective. And I’ve never even seen you finish writing a shopping list, so don’t give me any grief.”

  “That’s because—”

  “I’ve got Makena here. That’s got to be worth at least a book on its own.”

  Silence. Then the sound of a deep breath.

  “Conscious or unconscious?” she asked.

  “Somewhere in between, I’d say.”

  “You want me to come down?”

  “Not necessarily. Just wondered if you had any clever ideas.”

  Walter waited, knowing that she was considering the available options. Having him deliver the girl to Kali’s doorstep was not one of them.

  “Bring her over to the park entrance. I’ll meet you there. And if you don’t mind, let’s keep it from being official.”

  “No problem. Just giving a local a ride.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Walter slipped his phone back into his pocket. The girl looked up at him, glaring.

  “Did you call Mommy?”

  “She’s not your mother, Makena. Now get out of there.”

  Hara, finished with bill paying and the gathering of phone numbers, walked up and looked curiously to where Walter was standing and, to all appearances, having a conversation with himself. As he drew closer, he caught sight of Makena.

  “Need some help there, Captain?”

  Makena crawled out from beneath the roots, straightened the grimy skirt of her dress, and eyed Hara with growing interest.

  “Drunk, sir?”

  She scowled. “I’m not drunk. I was sleeping, until Sir Lancelot here decided to wake me up.”

  Walter turned to Hara. “Yeah. The poor thing was just trying to come down from her latest meth spree without anyone bothering her. Terribly sad.”

  Hara looked at Makena with growing disapproval. “Did you search her?”

  Makena scowled more deeply, then lifted her dress up over her shoulders, revealing tattered panties and bones protruding sharply from emaciated hips. “Nothing here, sweetie. See?”

  Hara looked away, clearing his throat.

  “Put your dress down, Makena,” said Walter. “Your father would be ashamed of you. I’m ashamed of you.”

  “Oh, the whole world’s ashamed of little old me,” she mimicked sarcastically. “And my father’s dead, remember?”

  “I remember. Probably a good thing he died when he did. Seeing you like this would have no doubt killed him.”

  Makena pushed past him, attempting to cross into the parking lot. Walter grasped her firmly by the shoulders, bringing her to a halt.

  “Let go of me, you creep.”

  “We’re giving you a ride up to the park.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  Walter tightened his grip. “Not yet. But we can do it that way if you prefer. Hara, cuffs please.”

  That caught her attention. She stopped struggling and scowled at Walter. “Fine. Whatever.”

  He released his grip, pointed toward an open car door. “Get in.”

  She climbed into the backseat, slumped against the upholstery.

  Walter looked at Hara and gestured toward the area beneath the tree where he’d found Makena. “See if there’s anything of hers down there, would you? Some shoes, maybe.”

  Hara climbed among the roots and emerged finally with a pair of cheap, cracked plastic sandals. He tossed them into the backseat then joined Walter in the front and closed the door.

  They made the drive to the park entrance in silence. When they pulled in through the gate, Kali was already there, leaning against the hood of her Jeep.

  * * *

  Kali nodded in thanks to Walter, watching as Makena extracted herself ungracefully from the back of the police car. Ignoring Kali, she walked around to the passenger seat of the Jeep and climbed in. Kali regarded her without enthusiasm, then turned back to Walter.

  “She clean?”

  “Hardly,” said Walter. “You can smell her an island away. But she doesn’t have any drugs on her, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Okay. I’ll deal with it from here.”

  Walter shifted the police cruiser into reverse. “I’ll be over at the station. Got some paperwork to catch up on, and Hara needs to re-wax the patrol car.”

  At this, Hara looked up, dismayed.

  Kali nodded. “Right. Thanks.”

  The police car slowly pulled out, and Kali slipped into her seat behind the steering wheel.

  For a minute, the two sat in silence. Makena stared straight ahead, with a sour expression.

  “Thought you’d stopped using, Makena.”

  The girl continued to stare out the windshield. “Yeah. So did I. So what?”

  “So if you want to kill yourself, why don’t you just go ahead and do it? Throw yourself off a cliff. Slit your wrists. Show a little dedication. Put some real effort into the project.”

  Makena turned her head so that Kali could no longer see her face. “What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing, anymore. I’ve tried to help you. I don’t think you want to be helped.”

  “Uh-huh. ’Cause you were in love with my father a million years ago. Big deal.”

  “Yes, because I loved your father. That is a big deal.”

  “And he broke your heart by getting killed, and you think you have some kind of obligation to me because he was going to marry you, and blah, blah, blah.”

  Kali gripped the wheel. “I don’t think I have any obligation to you at all. You’re just an ungrateful, self-indulgent addict, as far as I’m concerned. Worse, you’re a contributing factor to the drug problem on this island, and you don’t even have enough of a conscience to know or care that it was meth dealers who shot and killed your father.”

  “So? Everybody dies. This is your big crusade, not mine. You know, I’m getting sick and tired of you showing up all the time with your crappy philosophy. And your crappy Jeep.”

  Kali shrugged. “Someday I won’t. Or someday I’ll show up just long enough to identify your body and wait while someone writes up a case report that explains how you overdosed or how some dealer raped you and then beat you to death for not paying your bill. I guess until then, you’ll have to put up with me. Maybe I’ll buy a new car, just to see if that’s what it takes to make you happy.”

  “Don’t bother. What makes me happy is to be high. To be someplace else, even if it doesn’t last.”

  “So now you have your own philosophy. I guess that’s progress.”

  She started the engine.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the shelter.”

  “Good. I need a fix. That’s the best place to get one around here.”

  When she got no response, Makena put her feet up on the dashboard and leaned back against the seat.

  Kali said nothing. She eased the Jeep as far as the park’s entrance, then waited as a line of rental cars slowly wound past on the legendary Hana Highway. She could see the tourists craning their necks out the windows, determined not to miss a single sight. They stared at her, and a few snapped pictures. She wondered briefly what stories they’d tell once they were home in London or Philadelphia or Connecticut to explain the Hawaiian with the long dark hair and the string of ceremonial talismans around her neck and the warrior tattoo wrapped around her upper arm. Chances were, not a single one would identify her as a respected detective with the Maui police.

  Not that she cared. At the moment, she had bigger issues to consider—one of which was sitting beside her in her crappy Jeep.

  CHAPTER 15

  Walter
stood looking over Hara’s shoulder at Hara’s computer screen, where an angry-looking housewife was delivering her version of instant karma on the head of a would-be thief.

  “Where did this come from?”

  “Chad Caesar’s Ruler of the News Podcast. He picked it up after a couple of teenagers recorded it on their phones at the Kmart and blasted it all over social media. Apparently, it’s been all over for the past twenty-four hours. Also . . .” He hesitated.

  “What?”

  “Well, Caesar had the teenagers on his show for a brief interview and insinuated—rather strongly, in my opinion—that not only is our department not doing its job, but that we’re also deliberately keeping information from the public.”

  Walter closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I think I’m getting a migraine.”

  “Would you like me to get you an aspirin, sir?”

  “This headache is going to require more than an aspirin.” Walter frowned, then suddenly leaned forward and peered more closely at the screen. “Back up.”

  “Sir?”

  “The video . . . Can you rewind it a bit?”

  Hara clicked on the time bar beneath the video window, then dragged the tab backward a few seconds. Walter watched intently until the camera footage of the thief showed a closer view of his face.

  “There. Stop it right there.”

  Hara did so, then backed his chair away from the computer to give Walter a better view.

  “Well, I’ll be a damned shell collector,” said Walter, smiling slightly. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s our old pal Polunu Hausuka.”