[Lady Justice 03] - Lady Justice Gets Lei'd

by Robert Thornhill

  “Piece of cake.”

  “Oh, by the way, there was a storm several hundred miles out, so the surf ’s a bit high today. Be careful.”

  We followed our instructions to the letter and pulled off the highway and parked under a gnarly old

  kiawe tree. We grabbed our swim gear and headed for the beach, leaving the camera and other gear supplied by the cops in plain sight.

  Sure enough, the gentle waves that had swirled around our ankles the day before were now rolling onto the beach chest high. At first we were timid about venturing into the surf, but after a few trial runs, we found it exhilarating and were soon body surfing onto the sandy beach.

  I have no idea how long we splashed in the water.

  As the old saying goes, “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  After a while Maggie and Willie and I were absolutely waterlogged and headed for the beach towels and sand mats to catch our breath.

  Mary was having none of it.

  “Hell no, I ain’t coming in. In a few days I’m gonna be back at that damn hotel and wishing I was here. And when do you suppose I’ll ever be back? Huh? Never! That’s when! So you all go rest. I’m gonna surf till I drop.”

  She didn’t know how prophetic that would be.

  The three of us sat on our mats lathering up with sunscreen thoroughly enjoying Mary splashing and bobbing in the thundering waves. The surf had continued to rise during our time there, and every so often a set bordering on scary would hit the beach.

  Mary had finally had enough, and as I watched her stagger to her feet and slosh toward the shore, the retreating surf seemed to slide back into the ocean farther than usual.

  Mary had just raised her hand to wave to us when I saw it coming.

  I jumped to my feet and screamed a warning, but it was too late.

  A wall of foaming blue water ten feet tall blasted into Mary’s backside, pitching her forward, face first, into the sand. The huge wave then thundered over her, sweeping her onto the beach like a rag doll.

  Once its fury was spent, it retreated into the depths as quickly as it had come, leaving Mary beached like a dead whale.

  We rushed to her side.

  “Mary! Mary! Are you all right?”

  We lifted her into a sitting position. She hacked and coughed, spit sea water and sand. When at last she was able to speak, her first word was “Damn!” followed closely by, “Maybe I need one of those umbrella things after all.”

  Detective Chinn had witnessed the whole affair and came running down the beach.

  “Is she okay?”

  “I think so. She wants another mai tai, so that’s probably a good sign.”

  “You have just learned rule number one: never turn your back on the ocean.”

  “And rule number two?”

  “Never swim in murky water. Unless, of course, you want to be lunch for a shark.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind. How did the sting go? We never heard any commotion.”

  “Dry run here. But wouldn’t you know it, while we were watching you, they struck at Luanipoko Beach a few miles up the road.”

  “And I presume they got away clean?”

  “Sure did. As a matter of fact, their target was a couple from your neck of the woods, Kansas City.”

  “No kidding?”

  Harry pulled out his notebook. “Yeah, the gal’s name was Florence Wingate, and her boyfriend’s name was Rocky Graham. The perps really cleaned them out. Took all their luggage: wallet, purse, everything. By the time they discovered the loss, the perps had maxed out two credit cards.”

  Hmmm, Florence Wingate, I thought. The name sounded familiar, but I just couldn’t place it.

  Then Mary spoke up. “Mr. Walt, you remember that new tenant at the hotel, you know, the computer guy. The one whose wife ran off with all his stuff while he was in the hospital. I think her name was Florence.”

  Then it all came back to me. Mary was right on. I remembered Lawrence saying that his ex was somewhere in Hawaii, living the good life.

  Immediately, my mind went to the second most important lady in my life, Lady Justice. Some skeptics say there is no justice in this old world, but somehow, the blind lady keeps the scales of life in balance. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Lawrence.

  I tried not to let Harry Chinn see how pleased I was that the perps had made at least one more getaway.

  “Sorry about that, Harry. Too bad they didn’t hit us. Just the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Yeah, it happens. You guys did your part. Tourists all the way. Just take the Sebring back to the hotel, and I’ll pick it up later when I drop off your tickets.”

  “We may stop for a bite of lunch. Any suggestions?”

  “If you want something quick and simple, try Cool

  Cats. It’s in Lahaina on the south end of Front Street right across from the big banyan tree.”

  Cool Cats was just my kind of place. A life-size cardboard cutout of Elvis was the first thing I saw as we climbed the stairs to the second floor of the open-air shopping center.

  We were seated by the rail overlooking the huge banyan tree that covered a whole city block, and in the distance we could see the boats bobbing up and down in Lahaina Harbor.

  The huge tree, planted in the 1800s, was sixty feet tall and covered two-thirds of an acre. Its multiple trunks and branches, some just a few feet off the ground, provided a shady respite from the warm Lahaina sun.

  The sandwiches on the menu were named after cool people. I had a James Dean, Maggie had a Marilyn Monroe, and Willie had a Sammy Davis. I’m not sure what Mary ordered, but after her recent debacle, it should have been the Three Stooges.

  Shortly after being seated, a grizzled old Hawaiian man peddled his ancient bicycle to the corner directly across from us. He removed a ukulele from the saddlebag and began to sing and play. I couldn’t distinguish the words, but he certainly sang with passion. After a few songs, he put the uke away and brought out his Bible. With all the fervor of a TV evangelist, he began to preach. No one stopped to listen. Actually, passersby gave him a wide berth, but that didn’t deter him in the slightest.

  I asked our waitress about the colorful old gent.

  “Oh, that’s Nathan. He lives on the other side of the island. He rides his bike here and preaches every day. He’s been doing it as long as I can remember.”

  I watched fascinated, and every so often our eyes would meet. Even though I couldn’t understand his words, he seemed to be speaking directly to me.

  I was still hungry after my James Dean, so I ordered a big chocolate milkshake and two straws to share with Maggie.

  Mary, though, was through.

  “Hey, Mr. Walt, see that T-shirt shop right across from where we parked our car? I’m gonna go there and buy some cheap shirts for the boys at the hotel. Pick me up there when you finish your shake.” And off she went.

  We sat and slurped our shake and watched as Mary unfolded every shirt in the shop. She eventually tired of harassing the shirt guy and moved to the next store that sold all kinds of touristy trinkets. She was currently examining a huge coconut that could be addressed and mailed back to jealous friends on the mainland.

  I had just settled our bill when I saw two guys lingering a bit too long around our car. I pointed them out to Willie and Maggie. “I think we may have trouble.”

  Sure enough, they hit the convertible with lightning speed and had our stuff scooped up in their arms in an instant.

  “Maggie! You call Harry Chinn.”

  I leaned over the rail and yelled, “Hey! Put that stuff down!” Like that was going to do any good.

  Of course they took off in different directions with our stuff clutched tightly in their arms.

  My warning did, however, get the attention of one

  Mary Murphy.

  One of the thieves had taken off down the sidewalk and would pass directly by the store where Mary was standing.

  With impeccable timing, Mary swu
ng the coconut right into the forehead of the fleeing thief.

  Whock! You could hear the impact a block away. The poor thief, whose hands were full, never had a chance to defend himself.

  Mary stood proudly over her vanquished foe and, smiling, gave me a big thumbs-up.

  The other guy had sprinted under the banyan tree and would soon be out of sight. I motioned to Willie to follow me.

  The thief had just reached the harbor street, and we saw him turn left. I told Willie to circle the block to his left while I pursued. Maybe we could cut him off. By the time we reached the street level, he had a sizeable lead. Knowing my limitations, I knew I could never catch him on foot.

  Then I saw it.

  “Nathan, I need to borrow your bike. I’ll bring it right back.”

  Before he could utter a word of protest, I was peddling frantically after the thief.

  I turned the corner by the harbor and saw him at the end of the next block by the old fort.

  He saw me coming and turned left, back toward Front Street.

  When I reached the point where I saw him turn, I saw that Willie had indeed cut him off, and he was standing on the sidewalk at the edge of the great tree.

  Seeing Willie advancing from Front Street and me peddling from the harbor, he had only one avenue of escape left—through the labyrinth of the banyan tree.

  He was obviously tiring from running with his arms loaded with booty, and we were gaining fast. Running at full tilt, he turned briefly to check our distance, which proved to be a costly mistake.

  He turned back just in time to be clothes-lined by a low hanging branch of the banyan tree.

  The tree didn’t give an inch, and the luckless thief lay unconscious amid our scattered possessions.

  I heard cop cars screaming up Front Street, and Harry Chinn hopped out of the car in time to see Mary Murphy with her foot on one luckless thief’s throat and Willie Duncan straddling the other one.

  Detective Chinn was impressed.

  “Williams, you and your friends certainly lived up to your billing. We can’t thank you enough. If there is anything we can do to make your visit more pleasant, please don’t hesitate to ask. Here are your tickets. I hope you enjoy the luau.”

  Tired but happy, we trudged back toward our car.

  I pushed the old bicycle back to the corner where Nathan stood, watching and waiting. Sheepishly I said, “Thanks for the use of your bike. I didn’t mean to be rude, but it was kind of an emergency.”

  He stared at me for the longest time then finally spoke, “Kamamalu, we will see one another again. You, Hualani, and I have much to do.”

  He climbed on his bike and rode away.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Old Lahaina Luau was everything we hoped it would be.

  The location was every man’s dream of a tropical paradise. We arrived just in time to see the fiery red orb of the sun sink into the sea, and tiki torches lighted our path past grass huts and wooden canoes.

  We watched Hawaiian men uncover the emu and pull the pig, head and all, from the pit.

  Mary was horrified and declared, “Ain’t no way I’m eating none of that thing!”

  But little umbrella drinks were free for the taking, and after taking far more than she should have, she threw caution to the wind and actually went back for three helpings of the succulent pig.

  The show—featuring dancers from Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, and Tahiti—was fabulous.

  The entire experience was quite obviously designed to appeal to the average tourists’ misconception of life in Hawaii, but, hey, we were tourists after all, and we loved every minute of it.

  Before the show we had met with Liho. He had said that if we were up for it, he would take us to one of the most spectacular scenes on the whole island—sunrise over the summit of the Haleakala Crater.

  He explained that the conditions had to be just right—low clouds below the summit and clear skies above. The rising sun would burst through the clouds and illuminate the surreal landscape with breathtaking beauty.

  But there was one catch—we had to leave at 4:00 a.m. to be at the summit by sunrise.

  I had looked at my little group and could see without asking that as exciting as that sounded, we just weren’t up for it.

  We still wanted to see the crater, so Liho agreed to pick us up at nine for the trip up the mountain.

  He told us to be sure to bring warm clothing, which prompted Mary to retort, “What do I need with warm clothing for? I didn’t bring no warm clothes. It’s ninety degrees out there.”

  Miss Tact all the way.

  Liho patiently pointed out that at an altitude of ten thousand feet, the average temperature was in the fifties, and often the wind chill dipped into the thirties. Occasionally, snow would even fall in the winter.

  So we ‘borrowed’ blankets from our hotel room and met Liho in the lobby.

  It was an hour drive from our hotel back to Kahului.

  Although the summit was only ten thousand feet, it was a thirty-seven mile journey from Kahului along the hairpin turns and switch backs to the top of the crater.

  As we climbed from the valley floor into the foothills, the first little town we came to was called Pukalani.

  Mary jumped on that one right away, “Pukalani! How’d they ever come up with a name like that?”

  The ever-patient Liho responded, “It all has to do with the geography of the mountain. Our trade winds and our weather come from the east side of the island. The massive bulk of the mountain catches and holds the rain clouds, so the east side of the mountain is all lush rainforests.

  “Because the rain clouds are trapped on the east side, the west side receives very little rain and resembles your western deserts.

  “Pukalani is right in between. A few miles to the east in Makawao; it rains almost every day. A few miles to the west, cacti grow on barren hillsides. The literal translation of Pukalani is ‘hole in the heavens.’ It has just the right amount of rain and sunshine.

  “Say, we’ve been driving for an hour and a half, and it’s another hour and a half to the summit. Anybody up for a snack?”

  Receiving an enthusiastic yes, Liho pulled into the parking lot of the Pukalani Superette. “They’ve got snacks and drinks in here, so help yourself. I’m going to get some tako poke.”

  “I like tacos too,” Mary blurted. “Could you get me some?”

  “Uh, sure, if that’s what you want.”

  We all came back with chips and soft drinks and

  Twinkies, your typical haole junk food.

  Liho joined us and handed a sack to Mary.

  “I hope they put lots of cheese on them. I love cheese,” she said as she opened the sack.

  “Holy mother of God! This ain’t tacos! What is this awful stuff?”

  We all looked at the plastic container that Mary held in her lap and instantly turned away with a collective “Eww.”

  It was comforting to know that my gag reflex was in fine working order.

  Liho was crestfallen. “It’s tako poke. Just what you asked for.”

  “But what is it?”

  “It’s octopus mixed with herbs and spices. Hawaiian soul food. It’s delicious.”

  Well, that certainly explained the little sucker things sticking up.

  Liho popped the lid off his poke, and a smell that I can best describe as the bottom of a garbage can filled the car.

  We all bailed out like kids doing a Chinese fire drill.

  I tapped on Liho’s window. “When you’re through eating, let us know. We’ll just wait out here.”

  We drove with the windows down, and it still took twenty minutes to clear the air of that awful stench. As we drove up the mountain, we passed through pristine forests, and the poke smell was replaced by another sweet fragrance.

  Maggie picked it up right away. “Um, what’s that wonderful fragrance?”

  “Eucalyptus,” Liho replied. “This whole forest is eucalyptus.”

  As we woun
d up the switch backs, the forests turned to grassy fields where cows grazed along the road. We passed through low clouds that hugged the side of the mountain, and like a plane ascending in the sky, we broke through into brilliant sunshine.

  The grassy fields gave way to rocky, barren hillsides where the vegetation was nearly nonexistent. We rounded another hairpin turn, and there alongside of the road was one of the most beautiful plants I had ever seen.

  Growing there in that barren landscape was a flowering plant that stood at least six feet tall. Its massive base supported a stalk with hundreds of white blossoms.

  “What is that?”

  “That is ahinahina, the silversword,” Liho replied.

  “It is a plant that grows only on the slopes of Haleakala. It only blooms once then dies. The blossoms drop seeds that start the next generation.” We looked around and saw smaller versions of the beautiful plant in various stages of growth.

  “You have a very special mountain,” I said.

  “Indeed we do,” he replied.

  When we reached the summit, the sun was shining brightly in the cloudless blue sky. But when we stepped out of the car, it felt more like an October morning in Missouri than a summer day in Hawaii. We wrapped our purloined blankets around us and made fast tracks for the warmth of the visitor’s center.

  The center was built on the very edge of the crater rim, and the minute we stepped up to the window, the panoramic view of the Haleakala caldera took our breath away.

  It felt like I had been riding in the Apollo 11 spacecraft and, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, found myself looking at the barren moonscape for the first time.

  The crater rim was miles across, and below, massive cinder cones rose from the crater floor.

  Liho stood by our side, and even though he had been here many times, I could still see the wonder in his eyes.

  “The last eruption was in 1790. It has been dormant since. My people were coming here for a thousand years before that to pay homage to their gods. They called this place wao akua, the wilderness of the gods. It was the home of Pele, the Goddess of Fire.