by Debra Bokur
Kali came to a stop, taking a deep breath, willing herself to remain calm. She recognized the leg and the bare foot attached to it. His tail wagging happily, Hilo left her side and made a beeline for the porch. Kali could hear a woman’s voice greeting him. It was Makena Shirai, Mike’s only child.
Kali made her way unenthusiastically across the lawn and up the steps. Makena was scratching Hilo’s back at the base of his spine where his tail began, and he was moaning in pleasure. Kali looked at her visitor, and made an effort to keep her voice level as she spoke.
“Hello, Makena.” The greeting held neither enthusiasm nor warmth. “If you stopped by for tea, I haven’t made any. Afraid I’m fresh out of crumpets, too.”
The young woman in the hammock sat up and swung her other leg to the floor. Kali could see dirt embedded between her toes and beneath her nails. The dress she wore was at least two sizes too large. The straps across the shoulders that held it up revealed a concave chest and deep, sunken spaces beneath the collarbone; her bare arms were riddled with old needle marks. Kali was surprised to see that despite the overall appearance of undernourishment and general dishevelment, the girl’s eyes were uncharacteristically clear. She felt a sweep of apprehension.
Makena frowned. “Why do you always have to be such a bitch?” she asked, her tone petulant. She stretched her hand beneath Hilo’s chin, scratching vigorously. “It’s like it’s your default setting or something. At least Hilo’s glad to see me.”
“Hilo’s glad to see anybody who’ll scratch him or throw something for him, or share a sandwich. That’s the thing about dogs, Makena. They’re completely without expectations.”
“Unlike you, you mean.” Makena’s brow wrinkled.
Kali ignored the comment. She knew it would be useless to express any of the hopes she’d once held for this girl, remembering with sadness and barely concealed regret the bright young child who’d almost become her stepdaughter.
“Where have you been, anyway?” she asked. “I suppose by now you’ve used up the tray full of needles and painkillers you stole from the hospital.”
Makena stopped scratching the dog and leveled her gaze fully on Kali. “Oh, you mean that night when I saved your life? And I was there for the inquest, like a good girl. Everyone said I was a hero.”
“You were. And then you did your disappearing act. If you’d stuck around, I would have said thank you.”
“That’s okay.” Makena pushed herself out of the hammock and into a standing position. For just a moment, she swayed slightly. She looked at Kali, but her eyes, clear moments before, now had a slight glaze to them. “I came here because I wanted to tell you . . .” Before she could finish, she lurched forward and fell, turning slightly so that she landed faceup on the floor. Kali leapt toward her, but was too late to catch her. Makena’s thin body landed with a thud, her head making solid contact with the floorboards, her eyes rolling backwards into her skull.
“Great,” muttered Kali. “Just what I need tonight. An unconscious junkie on my deck.”
She checked the girl’s pulse and breathing, then pulled a cushion from the nearest chair and lifted Makena’s head just high enough to slip it beneath the matted tangle of dark hair. Makena stirred, then reached for Kali.
“Hush. Don’t try to sit up or say anything. I’m calling 911.”
Makena’s eyes flew open. “No,” she said. “I don’t need anyone except for you right now.” Her voice sounded weak, but coherent.
Kali knelt beside the thin, dirty figure as she pulled her phone from the side pocket of her leggings. Hilo whined, pushing himself between the two women, licking Makena’s bare arm.
“Yeah, you need me and a detox team.” Kali scanned the girl’s face. “Whatever you’re up to, Makena, I don’t have time for it. What did you take? And how much, and when?”
“I know what you think, but I’m not high. I swear it.”
Kali lifted Makena’s arm, surveying the needle scars that ran its length, looking for fresh marks. “You’re always high,” she said. “It makes you boring.”
Makena tried to roll over onto her side, using her other arm to push herself into a sitting position. Kali pressed her hand against the girl’s chest, preventing her from rising.
“Lie still.”
“I mean it, Kali. I’m not using. I’m clean, and I’m going to stay that way.”
Kali shook her head. She’d heard these proclamations before, and knew better than to be sucked into whatever fantasy Makena had concocted for herself.
“Let me guess. Spiritual conversion? Psychological breakthrough?”
“No, sorry.”
“Then what? You’ve got two seconds, then I’m calling for help.”
“I’m pregnant.”
The words fell onto the porch, across the sloping yard, spreading into the air where they mingled with the cries of birds above the beach. Kali felt them envelop her. She knew they were true. Not good. But true. She sat back on her heels and looked down at the girl stretched out in front of her.
“Are you absolutely positive?” She regretted the words, and their tone, the moment they left her lips. Makena searched her face, her expression unfathomable. Kali bit her lip and tried again. “I mean, did you do one of those drugstore tests, or did they tell you at the clinic?”
“Stick test. Three of them.” Makena looked away.
There was silence as each woman considered the significance. Kali knew better than to give voice to all of her own concerns: Makena’s ongoing drug use, her poor health, her deplorable personal hygiene. Certainly there had been plenty of other young mothers like her who had given birth to normal, healthy infants—babies without an immediate dependency on drugs, and who were strong enough to survive. But the odds were not good.
Her mind jumped to a variety of sad and distressing future scenarios as she helped Makena to her feet and guided her inside to the sofa. She pushed the thoughts away, wanting to be optimistic, charitable even.
“Sit down. I’ll make up the spare room. You can stay here for a few nights until we figure out a plan.”
Makena nodded.
Kali considered the girl’s uncharacteristic silence as she brought a set of fresh sheets and pillowcases from the hall closet to the small spare room that she used as storage space, placing them on a stack of books. A camping cot that served as guest accommodations for her rare visitors was folded up against the wall. She brushed a thin, fine layer of sand off the exposed top edge and unfolded it. On the floor behind the cot was a thick foam rubber pad, rolled into a column, which she pulled out and spread across the surface of the cot.
Instead of making up the bed, she gathered the sheets and pillowcases and sat down on the edge of the cot, clutching the stack of linen in her arms. She looked through the door to the living room. The back of the sofa was visible, and she could hear Makena’s voice, talking softly to the dog. She remembered, suddenly, a long-ago morning on O‘ahu, when she had volunteered to teach Makena to surf while Mike was busy. It was an attempt at bonding, but it had felt like something more—a sharing of knowledge and tradition, two women from different generations communing with the vast, restless sea. That day, Kali had been filled with hope for the future and all that it might hold: a family, even ready-made, and the welcome responsibility of teaching the child by her side how to become a woman.
She caught her breath in sudden grief. This girl was ill-equipped to care for a baby, and had already proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, unable to care for herself. She wished for a moment that Mike was here to help sort this out. The fleeting thought was replaced instantly with a feeling of gratitude that he had been spared. His life had ended tragically in an act of violence, but at least it had been swift and he’d been spared the anguish of watching his only child deteriorate over the years.
She rose to her feet to finish making up the bed, choosing two thick pillows and a light, soft quilt in case the night became cool. She would make something to eat and see that Makena
went to bed with enough nourishment inside of her to pass along to her baby. At least for tonight, there was nothing else that could be done.
CHAPTER 13
Kali sat beside Walter in the patrol car. It was morning, and she’d left Makena at her house, still asleep. Walter started the engine and they waited for the air-conditioning to get up to speed before they pulled out onto the road. The windows were still rolled all the way down, and the hot air that had already settled across the dashboard and the seats had yet to cool.
The weather had been unusually scorching. Kali longed for a strong trade wind to lift the heat and carry it away—and there would be no argument from her if the wind chose to take the burden of Makena along at the same time.
Walter had asked her to ride along to follow up on a lead to the illegal rooster fighting he was investigating, as she had history with Angelo Mendoza, who was a suspect. A bust of a staged fight had been attempted the night before, but someone had gotten word that the police had found out about the cock fight, and there had been nothing to be found at the address where the event was supposed to have taken place.
Kali moved the conversation to Makena. She’d just finished filling Walter in on the details of the pregnancy, but he had yet to respond. She glanced at him, waiting until he’d adequately processed the story before she said anything more.
He sat quietly, staring ahead, then grunted. “She say anything useful, like who the father might be?”
“I haven’t pushed the conversation that far yet.”
“Odds aren’t great that this will end well,” he offered. “Lots of babies born to heavy drug users . . .”
“. . . are stillbirths, or arrive with their own drug dependency already in place. Yeah. I know.”
“How far along do you think she is?”
“About five months, from what I was able to gather, though she doesn’t look it. Skin and bones. I’m not sure how much attention she’s been paying.”
Walter turned, looking intently at Kali. “Hey, you know what? This kind of makes you a grandma.” He threw his head back and laughed, the deep sound reverberating throughout the car.
Kali took on a murderous expression. “You’re hilarious, as usual. She’s no relation of mine.”
“Sort of she is, right? I mean, if Mike hadn’t died . . .”
“Been killed.”
“Okay, if Mike hadn’t been killed, you’d have been married, and Makena would have been your legal stepdaughter.” He laughed again, holding his side and sliding down in his seat. “Okay, okay, I’ll concede on the details. This makes you almost a stepgrandma. How’s that?”
“Shut up, Walter. Just shut the hell up.” She was in no mood. “I’m telling you all this because I could use some actual help figuring out what to do. You’re the one with all the kids. How is this supposed to work? Did Nina do something special when she was pregnant with your girls?”
He wiped his eyes and sat up a little straighter. He pressed the button that automatically rolled up the windows, then looked carefully in his rearview mirror and out the side windows before easing the car from its parking space.
“Well, yeah, but Nina is healthy. Woman won’t even take an aspirin when she has a headache. And you know how she insists on all the food that comes into the house being organic. Free-range mangoes and all that.”
Kali was silent. She knew that Makena’s diet too often consisted of what she could harvest from garbage cans, or steal off store shelves. “I made an appointment for her to get a checkup at the clinic,” she finally said, “and also to see what she needs in general.”
“Good,” said Walter. “I remember that Nina was big on those prenatal vitamins. And she was always going off to some kind of yoga class that was for pregnant women, to help make the delivery easier. Maybe you should call her.”
“I will. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to get Makena to this appointment. If I tell her about it, she’ll probably refuse to go.”
“You want me to help?”
It was Kali’s turn to laugh. “I hate to be the one to break the news, but you’re not exactly her favorite person.”
Walter grimaced. “And you are? I was more or less volunteering to put her in cuffs and give her a ride in the squad car. Your call, but just know that I’m happy to provide the transportation.”
Kali’s mental image of an outraged Makena exiting the back seat of the police car to an audience in front of the medical clinic was supplanted by a more sobering one of Makena giving birth to an underweight child with underdeveloped organs, or poor motor skills, or fetal stroke—or maybe even all of these problems. Each scenario was highly possible. The condition of prenatal methamphetamine exposure was a terrifyingly real problem among children who were born to meth mothers. Ironically, the drug itself was to blame, at least in part, for the growing number of pregnancies in young female users because of its inhibition-lowering effects.
She stared out of the passenger window. Her beautiful islands might be wrapped in birdsong and the perfume of a billion flowers, but they suffered from the same problems as any other place on the planet. Through the glass, she could see the litter that had accumulated along the road’s edge, and knew that a multitude of empty plastic water bottles could be found abandoned along her favorite paths. She closed her eyes briefly. Maybe it was simply her training as a detective that meant she would always look more deeply than a casual observer to peer below the surface of everything she encountered, but she didn’t know how to shift her perspective. It was simply who she was.
Even as the thought crossed her mind, she glimpsed an empty plastic shopping bag dangling from the branches of a tall bush along the side of the road, and felt her stomach tighten with anger and despair. Surely anyone could see the ugliness of the discarded bag.
Just then, a convertible filled with young people passed them, their music blaring, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the vehicle they’d just passed was a police car.
Walter swore, and flipped on his siren.
“Just give them a lecture, okay?” said Kali. “I have a strong feeling that it’s going to be a bitch of a day.”
One of the passengers in the convertible looked back at them as the driver pulled over, then dropped a plastic bottle and a crumpled paper bag onto the road verge.
“Ignore what I just said,” said Kali, reconsidering. “Give them a nice fat ticket, and I’ll fill them in on criminal littering in the meantime.”
Walter grinned as he pulled up behind the convertible. The car eased over onto the verge, and Walter pulled in behind it, cutting the engine. “Are you going to use your scary voice?”
“You bet I am,” she said, pulling out her badge and hanging it around her neck. “Plus, this will give me something constructive to do to take my mind off the pineapple-field bodies while I’m waiting for Tomas to get back to me.”
“About the disappearance of Matthew Greene?”
“That, and whether his father-in-law, Bill Bragden, was seriously an official suspect.”
“How could he not have been? He seemed pretty sure his daughter was the victim of domestic abuse.”
“Yeah, but I can’t read him. He’s old now, and it’s hard to picture him killing someone, even in revenge.”
“How many killers have you met that were obvious from the beginning?”
Kali considered his question. “You’re right. But this guy . . . I don’t know. Piano teacher, lives in a fussy house with too many vases and candy dishes, takes good care of his garden . . .”
Walter shook his head. “Classic, high-functioning psychopaths sometimes have nice gardens, too.”
“We should bring him over to Maui for questioning. Get him out of his comfort zone.”
“Agreed.”
“Lots to think about.”
“Yeah.” He looked at the idle convertible on the road ahead of them, its wheels straddling the verge.
“But first them, I guess.” He turned toward her, brow raised. �
��Before I give them a ticket, you want me to throw in a speech about drugs and a warning about the consequences of unprotected sex?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Sure. Be my guest.” She undid her seat belt and opened the door. “Then you can buy me lunch before we talk to the rooster guy.”
* * *
The post-traffic-ticket stop for lunch was brief. They pulled into a roadside parking area where a food truck was selling fish tacos, and ordered ono tacos topped with slaw and avocado. After enjoying their meal at a picnic table in the shade, they made the twenty-minute drive to the Kahanu Garden on Ulaino Road. Inside, they followed a pathway that opened into a green area and past the colossal rock structure of Pi‘ilanihale Heiau. The ancient edifice had been created from basalt lava rock, and was spread across several acres that included multiple terraces and platforms. Once, long ago, the heiau had been a place of worship and ceremony, where gods were offered sacrifices, and people gathered for moments of significance within their community.
Existing within the garden’s borders was an expansive native hala Pandanus forest, which bore the distinction of being the largest existing forest of its type within the Hawaiian Islands. There were extensive collections of native plants and flora that had been introduced to Hawai‘i from other parts of Polynesia, and they walked among them, eventually coming upon a grove of breadfruit trees where they found Angelo Mendoza tinkering with the engine of a riding lawnmower. He was surrounded by a small sea of manicured, freshly cut grass. When he saw Walter and Kali approach, he stopped fiddling with the mower and removed a wide-brimmed hat, then wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Angelo Mendoza?” said Walter.
“That’s me.” He looked inquisitively at Walter, then turned his attention to Kali, recognizing her.
“Hi there, Angelo,” she said.
“Oh, it’s you. I got something you cops need?” Angelo directed the question to Kali, his voice unfriendly.
