by Debra Bokur
Every muscle in her body crying out in pain, Kali pulled herself forward to the next knot and tried to find a knot lower down to leverage her feet. The line flapped wildly, and she hit the side of the boat hard with her shoulder, knocking the breath from her lungs.
She was being pummeled by the speed of the boat against the brutal surface of the sea. As she hit the boat a second time, she found the next knot and reached up, then closed her hand around the deck rail. She held on, trying to get her breath. Then, gathering all that was left of her strength, she pulled herself up, feeling the pain rip through her shoulder, swung one leg over the rail, and fell with a crash to the wet deck. She lay on her back for a moment, filling her lungs with air.
As she struggled into an upright position, Kali saw Makena standing against the rail, watching, her face strangely calm, almost disconnected. The gun was still in her hand, pointing downward, her grip slack.
From where he was sprawled nearby, Shane made a small movement with his feet. He groaned, calling out. “Van . . .”
From the stairs leading below, Shane’s daughter appeared. Her face was covered with a full mask, white and blank, punctuated with tiny holes, which allowed her to see and breathe. In her hand, she wielded a war club rimmed with shark’s teeth. She stood framed against the hatch.
Makena spoke, her voice clear above the engine and the wind. “Your lousy father’s going to die,” she said.
Shane’s daughter took a small step forward, and Makena raised the gun, pointed it in her direction.
“Put the gun down, Makena,” said Kali. “Just put it down. I need your help . . .”
Already, the sound of the warning sirens could be heard from the shore, and a flash of red and yellow lights swirled on the beach. From the corner of her eye, Kali saw the woman spring toward Makena, swinging the club at the hand holding the gun.
Kali lunged at the same moment, and careened across the wet surface. She tackled the woman, pinned her to the deck, and wrestled the club from her hand. It skittered on the polished teak, then disappeared behind a built-in cooler. Kali ripped at the mask, pulled it away. She looked with shock at the woman’s face, at her blond hair, and recognized her immediately from Uru’s warehouse.
The woman twisted, kicking and screaming. “You stupid, filthy natives! We’ll show you! We’ll own this whole island, and you can all—”
Kali shoved her knee into the woman’s chest and pressed hard. She leaned down, her face inches from the other woman. “You killed the boy, didn’t you?”
The woman hissed. “So what if I did? He was going to ruin things for me.”
“And the old lady? What was she going to do to you?”
The woman laughed, then bit at Kali, nearly making contact with her wrist. Kali fought against the pain coursing through her shoulder and arm and elbowed her with all her strength, making full contact with her jaw. She dug the handcuffs from her waistband, pulled the woman’s hands together, and fastened them. The woman continued to kick as she rolled on the deck, shouting obscenities. Makena backed away.
“Stay here!” Kali shouted to Makena. She took the gun from Makena’s unresisting grasp.
They were careening toward the beach, the line of rocks close enough to show the cracks in the lava. Kali heaved herself up the stairs to the cockpit and grasped the wheel, then pulled it to the right at hard as she could. As the boat shuddered and swerved, Kali heard the rip of fiberglass as the hull was breached by the rocks just below the water’s surface.
The Coast Guard cruiser slowed, closing in on them, and Kali cut the engine of the Beryl. Walter was already clambering over the side, his face flooded with relief.
Makena had slumped against a bulkhead. Kali reached the bottom of the cockpit ladder and knelt beside her.
“Are you all right?” she gasped, searching Makena’s face. She tried to wrap her arms around her, but Makena pushed her away.
“I told him,” Makena said, her voice eerily calm. “No one ever believes anything I say.”
Kali looked at her, not understanding. “What was it you said to him, Makena?”
“I told him I had friends on the police force. He should have listened.”
CHAPTER 39
By the time they had all reached the harbor, Billy Shane had completed his journey to the next world, and his daughter had been taken away. Makena, concussed and sporting a huge lump on the side of her head, was transported to Kula Hospital, near Wailea. Kali accompanied her to have her shoulder, which had become dislocated, attended to. Walter came along to take statements.
“I hope you know exactly how I feel about the whole ‘swinging from a rope at sea in a storm’ scenario,” he told Kali as they waited for the doctor on duty to examine her shoulder. “You didn’t learn to do that at the police academy.”
“No, you’re right.” She smiled at him. “It’s all the yoga. I keep telling you to come to class with me.”
He ignored her and turned to where Makena was being escorted into another examination room, accompanied by a policewoman.
“She’ll never say thank you, you know,” he said.
“I don’t need her to say anything.”
“In fact, she’ll—”
Kali raised her palm to Walter, interrupting him. “Walter, shut up. Seriously. Just stop talking for a little while, will you?”
He grunted. “Okay, but just until your shoulder feels better.”
“Thanks.” She shifted on her seat, moving carefully to keep her arm still. “I’ll be surprised if Uru had anything to do with this. The cat he was trying to save . . . I’m guessing that was Vanessa, deliberately messing with Uru for her own sick brand of amusement. And the grandmother was supposed to be away, not at home during the theft.”
“Agreed. Hara had Uru picked up for questioning, just to see what light he can shed on the details. Looks like Shane’s daughter may have taken the job to glean as much information on the solar panel sales industry as she could. It also looks like she was intercepting requests for information or orders, sending them on to her father, who was offering far lower rates.”
“There are too many huge houses in his development to be supplying them with just the number of panels that have gone missing.”
“True, but that was only part of the business model. The books on the big developments give every appearance of being legit, as they include actual large-scale purchases from manufacturers. I think he was just getting started on something smaller, which would have brought huge profits in the long run.”
A nurse stuck her head around the door of the examining room to ask if they’d like some coffee sent in. She smiled at Kali.
“Yes, that would be great,” Walter said. He turned to Kali. “You never finished telling me about the volcano guy. How’s that going?”
Kali looked uncomfortable. “No idea. Guess he should know pretty soon if he’s getting a transfer out here or not.”
“Oh, how nice. Then you can pretend he’s not here at all, kind of like you do with the hunky Icelandic guy next door, right?”
Kali took a deep breath. She didn’t want to think too hard about the suspicions she’d begun to have about Elvar, or about the ridiculous idea that he’d somehow been involved in Kekipi’s death. Just one more thing, she told herself, to add to the collection of weights around her neck.
“Yup. Just like that. You seem to know everything, Walter. I’m so lucky to have you on my side.”
“Damned right you are,” said Walter.
He got up from his seat and surveyed Kali with no small degree of amusement. She was dressed in a set of blue scrubs, donated by the hospital staff so that she didn’t have to make the drive home in her own wet clothing.
“Let’s get that coffee to go and get out of here,” Walter continued. “You can come to dinner at my house. The girls will love this story. And I want them to see you wearing that outfit. You look great in that shade of blue.”
* * *
Dinner at Walter’s was
good, with coconut pudding for dessert. Walter’s wife and daughters fussed over Kali, making sure her own clothes were washed and dried while she ate. Despite his threats, Walter made no mention of the day’s events beyond saying that Kali had fallen into the water while boarding a boat. He seemed content that she was safe and warm and dry, and sitting beside him among his family.
As Kali was preparing to leave, a plastic container of leftovers carefully balanced in one hand, her cell phone rang. It was the hospital calling to say that Makena Shirai had disappeared from her room, and that a number of needles and an assortment of painkillers were missing from a medical supply cart.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” said Walter when she told him. “You’ve done what you can, and I’ll say it again. She’s not worth it. Mike would never have wanted you to be saddled with that kind of burden.”
Kali didn’t answer. Where, she wondered, did the responsibilities of love begin . . . and did they ever truly end?
CHAPTER 40
Kali stood at the edge of the west-facing cliff, looking down at the sea below as it crashed against a mass of partially submerged lava boulders. The wind carried the sea spray up over the rim of the narrow spot where she stood, as if it were a fountain. Each time the spray of water droplets ascended from the waves below, the sunlight, reflecting from behind, created a small rainbow. This was a sacred place, known to the Hawaiians as Leina a ka ‘uhane, one of the secret locations in the islands that was believed to be a leaping place used by spirits when they were ready to jump into the eternal realm.
Next to Kali stood Lys; Kekipi Smith’s mother, Anna; and his younger brothers and sisters. A few feet behind them, waiting quietly, were Walter and Sam Hekekia. Kali’s arms were raised above her head, and a strand of large brown kukui nuts was around her neck. She was chanting, and her rhythmic voice rose and fell with the sound of the waves, the ocean offering a backdrop to the words of her prayer song that wished Kekipi safety in the afterlife.
In her hands, Anna held her son’s surfing leash by its narrow collar, which had once fitted around his ankle. Lys stood beside her, holding the other end. As the sounds of Kali’s song began to fade, Anna and Lys lifted the leash and pressed it to their cheeks. Then Anna took it and walked to the very edge of the cliff. With a single movement of her arm, she cast the leash over the edge and into the sea. Below, the current caught it and carried it out into deeper water so that the receding tide could bear it far away.
This was her offering, her ho‘okupu. No longer would Kekipi’s spirit be tethered to this world. Now, his aumakua, the loving ancestor god who guarded him and his family, would come forward to meet him. Attended by this spirit, he would board a canoe and slip away across the wide sea on his journey to heaven.
Anna turned to Kali and Walter. She hugged each of them in turn, her back straight, her eyes clear.
“Thank you,” she said. “I can feel that my son’s spirit is on its way home at last. Someday, he’ll come back for me, when it is my turn to leave, and he’ll help me into that canoe. And then there will be no more good-byes.” She gazed out over the ocean. “There he goes, for now,” she said, raising her hand and waving.
Walter stepped forward and took Anna’s arm, then gently guided her toward the path leading away from the cliff.
Kali stood quietly, her head bowed. She had sung these prayers before, and would sing them again. Balance, she thought. Briefly restored for now, for this day at least. But balance was a temporary, tenuous thing, and not, she believed, a state that could be sustained for any length of time in the earthly world.
She walked across the green, living grass, letting the fragrance of the wildflowers fill her lungs. She reached the Jeep and climbed in, then sat quietly for a moment before she started the engine. She watched as Lys walked away along the cliff path, and as Anna and her children got into Walter’s car and pulled away. Kali knew that Walter would make sure that they reached home safely, and that Anna’s friends would come to spend the day with her, that they would speak of Kekipi and of all his accomplishments, of all the things they’d most loved about him.
The engine turned over, rumbling, and Kali eased slowly out onto the road, heading for home. Hilo was waiting for her, and she would stop at the market to see what fresh fish was available today. She thought maybe she’d pull out her grill, the one Mike had once fussed over so proudly, and ask Elvar and Birta if they’d like to come over and share a meal with her. She needed to make amends for her disloyalty to someone who had never shown her anything but friendship, even if she had never given voice to her suspicions. And, she admitted to herself, she didn’t really feel much like being alone today. The way she figured it, there’d be plenty of time for that tomorrow.
