Mayhem, Mystery and Murder

by John A. Broussard

  That part of the island is in the never-never land between leeward and windward Hawaii Island, on the northwest side. In some years, the moist trades wrap around the tip of the island to dump eighty inches or more on these old lava fields. Other years the land becomes a desert when the trades happen to stop short of the area. This year had been a mixed bag. It had been a drenching wet spring. The buffle grass and scattering of keawe trees had put on lush growth, only to then suffer through three long months of scorching Kona winds, clear skies and a relentless summer sun. At the moment everything was tinder dry, just asking to go up in flames.

  As I look back at it now, I’m convinced that only a change in the wind saved the homes. It was blowing full at us when we got into position behind them. The terrain was a rock-strewn abandoned pasture, difficult to maneuver in, even without the heavy umbilical cord of a water-filled hose dragging behind.

  In moments, the wind that had been blowing off the Kohala Mountains whipped itself into a miniature cyclone. Smoke rose hundreds of feet into the air. At about that time I heard the noise of the helicopter, an always-welcome sound when you’re battling a brush fire. It was especially welcome at this one, since those of us on the ground had to give all of our attention to saving the houses.

  It would be the chopper’s job, scooping a hundred and fifty gallons at a time from some nearby water source, to stop the flames from moving up the hill and devastating thousands of acres. Dense thickets of Christmas berry and acacia were waiting there, ready to turn the grass fire we were fighting into a raging forest fire.

  I looked up, but the towers of smoke hid the chopper from view and my goggles had already begun to mist over. It was close by, though. Even over the sound of the crackling fire and the noise of the water spewing from my hose, and despite the muffling of my helmet, I heard the thud and splash of the first huge bucketful, better than a half-ton of water. The reward was immediate. The flames I was working toward disappeared in the thick haze of smoke and vapor.

  Connie shouted something in my ear, and I had to think for a moment before “turtles” made any sense. I looked over at her and could see her grinning through her mask. A copter drop had drenched one of the volunteer companies a month before down at the south of the island, and a seventy-pound turtle had just barely missed one of the firefighters. Connie’s comment reminded me that there was more than water to be concerned about when those machines flew over. The pilots didn’t stop to ask questions when they roared down to scoop up a bucket full. Coral, fish, and even turtles could be sucked up in those giant buckets. I pressed my hard hat down more firmly.

  About then Connie tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and saw relief coming—suited regulars with masks and air bottles. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how tired I’d already become after only about a quarter hour of moving across the rocky ground and trying to hold back the fire. I did know I was sweating like an overworked mule from the heat of the flames and from a midday sun that seemed just as hot as ever, even though I couldn’t see it for the smoke. My goggles were sooted up and my lungs were rebelling against the smoke I’d been breathing, in spite of my mask.

  When we got back to the road, we could see Marty helping one of the police officers who had showed up to direct traffic. The two of them were wrestling with ramps so vehicles could cross the supply line without damaging it. At times like this, it always seems that every car and truck driver wants to be someplace on the other side of the fire hoses.

  Kuulei was still marshaling her forces. Catching sight of us, she shouted a warning. “There’s black smoke coming out of that gulch about a hundred yards out in the field.” She pointed in the direction we’d come from. “I’m not sure what’s causing it, but pass the word along to keep away from there. I’ve already sent for the Hazardous Materials crew from Kona, but it’s going to take them another half-hour to get here. In the meantime, let that area burn itself out.”

  I turned to look, and over the house roofs I could see a sooty, greasy looking cloud in the midst of the gray billows from the burning grass. The helicopter, now on it’s third or fourth trip, disappeared into the black smoke, dropped it’s load and whirled back out. Kuulei pressed the button on her transmitter and sent off words of warning to the pilot.

  Meantime, crowds had begun to gather. Adults wandered about, asking questions we couldn’t answer. Several children were floating wood chips in the stream created by a leaky hydrant, ignoring all the smoke, fire and activity going on around them.

  One of the residents, remarkably calm in the face of what could still have become a disaster, overhearing Kuulei’s warning, commented, “Da gulch get maybe half-dozen wrecks. Old cahs.”

  “Probably dumped there by some of my damn relatives,” Kuulei muttered, loud enough for us to hear.

  “Must be the crankcase oil causing the smoke,” Connie suggested.

  I wandered off looking for something to drink. Amazing how thirsty one can get while handling thousands of gallons of water. About that time one of the support personnel came by with a jug of ice water. Delicious!

  By then, with six engines lined up along the highway, with the choppers—there were two of them now—dumping their buckets in rapid succession, the fire seemed at least contained. The smoke was worse than ever, but there were no visible flames except for a few still-burning trees. The pilots were reporting success in preventing the spread uphill. Best of all, the wind had died down.

  Seeing Marty leaning on one of the trucks, I went over and asked, “How can they make those round trips so fast? The ocean must be at least a couple of miles away from here.”

  Marty grinned. “It’s the resort. We’re scooping out of the golf course pond. The least they can do for having you folks protecting them is to supply the water.”

  Connie and I decided it was time to tank up and do some relieving. Breathing was easier now that I had a full-face mask on and a supply of clean air, but the footing was just as bad as before. Actually worse, because of the heavy gear that was now loading us down. The visibility was worse too. We’d pretty much licked the fire, but one result was a lot more smoke.

  By following the hose, we managed to grope our way to the two regulars who had taken over. I had the distinct impression that they were only too happy to pass the nozzle back to us. Over the noise, I shouted Kuulei’s warning about the situation in the gulch to the pair, even though—knowing Kuulei—she’d undoubtedly already gotten the word to all the firefighters on the line. One of the regulars we were relieving said something which I didn’t catch. He waved a gloved hand at us and started back for the road.

  We were working our way toward the gulch, Connie on the nozzle this time, me dragging the hose, when we heard the explosion. At first I thought it was that preliminary, loud jolt Big Island earthquakes are noted for. But then I immediately realized the noise was local. It had come from somewhere in the direction of the black smoke that was by now the major source of the thick haze confronting us. Figures, suited like us, were damping down pockets of burning sod and the skeletons of what had been live keawe trees little more than an hour before.

  Since we were now within shooting distance of the smoldering fire in the gulch, Connie, who had the nozzle on full-fog pattern, switched it to a thirty-degree stream and aimed it at the base of the black column. Resigned to being chewed out by Kuulei for ignoring her instructions to wait for the Kona Hazmat team, I crab-walked along behind Connie to the edge of the gulch. Normally, I wouldn’t defy an order from the Chief, but I knew she would go easy on Connie… after all, good, qualified drivers are hard to find. I was counting on Connie’s immunity being a shield for both of us, the same way the fog pattern we’d been laying down had protected us from the flames we’d been fighting.

  At that moment the wind gusted briefly, exposing the charred remains of a half-dozen vehicles. I shouted through my mask into Connie’s ear, “That must have been a gas tank we heard explode.”

  She nodded.

  “Be
tter not get too close. Another one may be set to go.”

  She shouted back, at the same time shaking her head. “That’s not too likely. It’s been so hot down there that any other tanks would have gone off by now.”

  Ignoring my warning—and Kuulei’s—she inched slowly forwards, keeping the stream on the now steaming junkers. I followed closely behind, helping to steer her through the cloud of smoke and water vapor with a hand on her shoulder—in the best training tradition. But I wasn’t exactly happy about approaching that close to where something had exploded just a few minutes before.

  A fresh gust of wind came up, and suddenly the scene was completely clear of smoke. We both saw it at the same time, right in the midst of the burnt-out vehicles, but Connie was the first to react. “Jeezus! A body.”

  There was no mistaking it, even though I had seen only one burned body before. Connie, who had served on a volunteer force on the mainland and fought numerous structure fires, had seen a lot more.

  If I hadn’t seen one before, I might have mistaken it for the body of a child. Fire seems to shrink the human frame. Here, the intense heat from the blazing automobiles had shriveled this one even more. The flesh was parchment-like, resembling burnt, glossy magazine paper, it’s gloss gone, leaving only a fragile covering behind. And the body was quite clearly broken. The skull—it was nothing more than that—was at least a yard away from the torso. One arm was missing. The rib cage was shattered and scattered.

  We looked at each other and simultaneously headed back to the highway.

  Connie got there first and caught sight of Marty. “Hey, Uncle Marty, we’ve found something that’s up your alley.”

  Kuulei dropped out of the seat of the truck and looked questioningly at us.

  I nodded. “It’s a body, Kuulei. In the gulch. Right smack dab in the middle of all those old wrecks.”

  Marty borrowed a jacket, bunker pants, helmet, gloves and a pair of boots, and the four of us headed out through the smoldering field. Kuulei summoned two more hoses, and we viewed the scene below us as the streams of water erased the last wisps of smoke while the gulch turned into a muddy ooze.

  “Enough,” Kuulei said, directing the nozzle people to redeploy to sod-drenching duty. The four of us, along with one uniformed policeman, struggled down the steep sides of the ditch, Marty in the lead. Along the burnt-out rim, several firefighters, and some residents who’d been helping with the final wetting down, watched our slipping and sliding progress. My immediate thought was that there would now be no need for all the careful preservation of the scene so often portrayed in movies. No scene could have been much more devastated than this one. No scene could be less harmed by invasive, intruding footprints or fingerprints.

  “No telling how long he’s been here,” Marty commented, as he stood over the remains.

  “No could be long.” The voice came from the gulch’s rim from the same resident who’d alerted us to the presence of the wrecks. “Kids play all ovuh dis place. Specially now wid school out. Every day.” He was emphatic.

  Marty looked up from his inspection and seemed thoroughly puzzled. “It doesn’t make sense. The body’s all torn apart. The fire couldn’t have done that.”

  Kuulei had picked up something from the ground. “Look, Uncle Marty. It’s part of an SCBA.“

  Seeing the question on Marty’s face, she elaborated “Self-contained-breathing-apparatus. He must have been wearing an air bottle. I saw what happened to a firefighter last year in a bad burn in Colorado. He got caught in a firestorm and his tank exploded. It scattered parts of him all over the…”

  The realization of what she was saying struck her. She began announcing over her pak radio: “All companies. Make an immediate check of all personnel in the vicinity. Report back if anyone is missing. Repeat. All companies. Make an immediate check of all personnel. Report back as soon as you’ve made a count.”

  A string of 10-4’s followed. The worried crease in Kuulei’s forehead didn’t disappear until we had been back at the truck for fifteen minutes or so and each of the companies had reported all personnel accounted for. By then, hoses were being laid out, sprayed off, and rolled. Most of the other fire trucks pulled away. Ours and one of fifteen’s stood by, still pumping water for those of the crew who were out in the field soaking down the few remaining hot spots.

  Marty, waiting for the homicide lieutenant to show up, was surrounded by several of Fifteen Alpha’s firefighters and a handful of residents.

  “Well, let’s look at the possibilities,” he said, speaking mainly to me, since I seem to provide him with his favorite audience. “If it isn’t a fireman from one of these companies, who else could it be?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe a wildcat volunteer?”

  He’d been breaking out his pipe and tamping tobacco into the bowl, but he looked up on hearing my suggestion. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “It’s someone who can’t or won’t join the volunteers, but who loves to fight fires.”

  Marty’s eyes narrowed. “Loves to fight ‘em and loves to set ‘em?”

  Before I could answer, Kuulei broke in. “Wrong track, Uncle Marty. We know how this fire started. Two kids set off some firecrackers left over from the Fourth. One was a misfired rocket. Besides, the only wildcat volunteer we know of is in Hilo hospital. He broke his leg a couple of days ago while demonstrating to a neighbor how to fight a roof fire.”

  “What if someone got caught out there by the fire, and a tank that had been dumped exploded?” This was Connie’s suggestion. “An old oxygen tank or acetylene tank would go off about the same way as compressed air.”

  Marty shook his head. “Nope. Considering the shape that body was in, he had to have been carrying it on his back.” Kuulei nodded in agreement. Marty went on. “There’s no question but that it was one of those wildcatters you were talking about. He showed up early, after seeing the smoke, threw on his gear, and ended up fighting his last fire.”

  The omnipresent resident who had made the two earlier pronouncements spoke up again, as he pushed a short blonde woman wearing an expansive muumuu to the front of the circle surrounding Marty. “June, here, say it’s her boyfriend Charlie.”

  June’s eyes were red rimmed. She nodded but said nothing.

  Marty’s face lit up. “He was a firefighter, wasn’t he?”

  June shook her head.

  Marty continued impatiently. “Well, what was he doing here?”

  June sobbed, “He was a scuba diver.”

  Marty’s eyes rolled heavenwards. “And he went walking out into the fire in a wet suit with a tank on his back, flippers and all. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  A head shake. “He went diving for golf balls. He wasn’t supposed to. It’s illegal you know. Some company had a contract to get them out of the water hazard on the course. But Charlie sneaks out there with his scuba gear to get the balls. He went today, but he hasn’t come back. I know why, now.” She looked up at the helicopter coming back with what would probably be its last bucket of water for the fire.

  Marty glanced up at the aircraft, then—pipe firmly in his mouth and looking over at me—he shook his head, and muttered, “Well, son, I guess there are times when you gotta think zebras.”

  LOVE LETTERS

  Jimmy Lang had stopped minding the drab emptiness of Joliet prison months ago, had even stopped noticing it. Life had changed since the first letter from Grace Millanos. The money he’d scraped together to pay for having his name listed in a “mail-order bride club” had been the best investment he’d ever made or would ever make, as far as he was concerned.

  And he’d done it all in spite of the ridicule from Joe Martin, his cellmate. But then Joe was a lifer, cynical as all hell, too old to even think about what it would or could be like to have a wife and family. Jimmy was a long way from having such an attitude. He’d be thirty-seven when he got out, maybe younger if all of his good behavior impressed the parole board. And Grace would be waiting for him.<
br />
  Even after her first letter, Joe had sneered. “You poor, dumb bastard. She’ll be asking for money, first thing you know. It’ll be for a good cause—her church or a paralyzed nephew. She’ll pile it on and strip you of everything you own and all you can borrow. She’ll bleed you to death. Just wait and see.”

  But Joe had been wrong, wrong, wrong! Three months of wonderful correspondence had brought never a hint of what Joe had predicted. It was just the opposite, in fact. Grace had begun to send him small presents. They weren’t much. A homemade bookmark, a small set of pressed Philippine butterflies Jimmy now had on the wall next to his bunk. Just little things to show she cared. And she never mentioned she was poor, but Jimmy had read enough about the Philippines to know what Grace’s situation was like. Even if well educated—which she was—and even if middle class by her country’s standards, she was still living in a family which would be classed as underprivileged in the States.

  For what must have been the hundredth time, Jimmy started in on the shoebox full of letters, the exotic stamps on the envelopes still intriguing him, the sum of the letters packed lovingly away in their container. There had been a few other letters from women in the Philippines, in Peru, and even Russia, but Jimmy had been intrigued with Grace from the start. And it wasn’t long before the lovely young woman smiling out at him from several photographs had quickly become his one and only correspondent. He sighed contentedly, stretched out on his bunk, the prison noises faded away; he reopened her first letter.

  Dear Sir,

  Hello, Perhaps you would be surprise upon receiving this unexpected letter of mine. Actually, I got your name from World Partners and I read partly of your data.

  Meanwhile I would like to introduce myself. I’m Miss Grace Millanos, 24 years of age, a pure Filipina. I am 5’2 in height, 101 pounds and slender with a fair complexion, short and black hair. I am the second child of 10 and I am a nurse here in Butuan City.