“I thought we were going to the airport,” I said. “You turned too soon.”
“No, we’re going to the other side of the runway.”
I didn’t question him. I’d been to that side of the airport earlier in the year. It’s where the private planes land.
“We’re going to the private terminal?”
“Close. We’re going to the heliport, where the choppers are based.”
I perked up. I’d flown countless hours in commercial jets as a federal air marshal but I’d never been up in a helicopter. “Are we going for a ride?”
“Yep. I’ve got a friend who’s offered us a flyover of ‘Iao Valley. I want to see if we can spot anything from the air.”
“I suppose under the circumstances it’s kind of tacky to say ‘yippee’.”
“Regardless of the circumstances, I think ‘yippee,’ is in order,” he said. “I can never decide which I love more: sailing Tomika’s cat or flying in one of Gordon’s birds.”
“You ever wish you could own something like that yourself—you know, a catamaran or maybe a little private plane?”
“You know, I’ve thought about it, but it never pencils out. The maintenance, the insurance premiums, the fuel cost. At this point in my life I’m content being the sidekick—the friend with benefits.”
We got to the heliport and parked. There were three helicopters waiting on the tarmac. A guy in a dark blue jumpsuit waved us over to the far left helicopter and when we got there, he and Ono gave each other a ‘man hug’—one of those shoulder-to-shoulder things followed by a couple of slaps on the back.
“Hey, my man, you didn’t mention you were bringing a co-pilot,” said the jumpsuit guy.
“Pali Moon, this is my friend Gordon Walker. Pali’s a local. She’s acquainted with the girl we’re looking for up at ‘Iao.”
I couldn’t help but notice that Ono played down Crystal’s dire circumstances for his friend.
“Good to meet you, Pali,” said Gordon. “You been hanging around this salty dog for long?”
“No,” I said. “We just met a couple of weeks ago. I booked the Maui Happy Returns for some mainland clients of mine.”
“Then she helped me sail the cat over to O’ahu for Tomika,” Ono said. “She’s a solid co-captain. And, she’s flown for the feds—mostly Homeland Security stuff.”
I wasn’t sure why Ono was glitzing up my resumé, but I went along.
“Good. You ever fly choppers?” Gordon said.
I waited for Ono to answer, then realized Gordon was talking to me.
“Uh, no. Not much chopper experience.”
“Well, no worries. Ono here has probably forgot more’n I’ll ever know. But you think you’ll be okay in the second seat?”
Okay, I’m not stupid. I could see where this was going. I nodded. I figure lying’s a little more acceptable if it’s done silently.
“Great. Well, she’s all gassed up and checked out. But you two will want to do your own pre-flight checks, I’m sure.”
“Mahalo, brudda. I owe you a cold one,” said Ono.
“Dude, you could fly this thing all the way to Japan and I’d still have a ways to go to pay you back for everything you’ve done for me,” said Gordon. “But I’ll take you up on that beer sometime. It’d be good to catch up.”
Another man hug and Gordon loped off toward a little free-standing building with a neon orange wind sock flapping from a pole on the roof.
“You want to fill me in on what just happened?” I said.
“We’re gonna take this bird up and look around for your girl.” Ono’s grin told me he was proud of his little performance—and mine.
“Well, then let’s do it.”
***
I strapped myself in and put on my ear muffs. Ono flipped switches on the dash and started talking to the tower at Kahului Airport. He got clearance to head out and the next thing I knew we were up and away.
Flying in a helicopter is nothing like flying in a commercial jet. It’s not even like being in a small two-seater plane. Helicopters feel like they have more in common with elevators than anything with fixed wings. They go up—straight up. No fooling around with taxiing, no slow climb from the runway to reach flying altitude. The steady whomp, whomp, whomp of the rotor blades reminded me we were traveling in a machine and not something extraterrestrial, but the helicopter lifted so effortlessly it was almost as if it were immune to gravity.
“Whew! This is fantastic,” I said. “I feel lighter than air.”
“I know. I love it. In the Army I flew Uncle Sam’s big Bell copters, but flying a little sightseeing chopper like this is like driving a fancy sports car. Keep a sharp eye out, we’ll be over ‘Iao Valley in no time.”
He was right. We were moving much faster than we ever could’ve on land, and within a few minutes we’d left Kahului and Wailuku behind and were entering the lush green of the valley.
“What are we looking for?” I asked.
“Didn’t you say Beni said your girl was in a blue tent? Maybe it’s still there.”
“Yeah. But I don’t know what color blue. It could be dark blue, baby blue, turquoise blue—”
“Doesn’t matter. If you see something blue, sing out.”
We swooped in low over the ridge of the ‘Iao Needle and I grabbed the edge of my seat in alarm.
“Coming in a little low there, cowboy,” I said.
“Nah, don’t worry. We’re not as close to the ground as it looks. And the altimeter bell will go off if I get too hold-ass crazy. We gotta stay low if we hope to see anything from up here.”
We zipped along and it seemed to me that even if there was anything worth seeing it would flash by too quickly for us to notice.
Then I saw it.
CHAPTER 27
I pointed to the four o’clock position in the front bubble window of the cockpit and Ono nodded. A bright smudge of royal blue contrasted against the mottled green of the carpet of foliage below.
“Do you think that’s it?” I said, squinting my eyes to peer at the blue blotch.
“I’m gonna take her around again and see if I can get in a little lower.”
“Lower?” My voice sounded squeaky through the mic system in the ear muffs.
“Not too much lower. Just enough to see if we can get a fix on a surrounding landmark.”
There weren’t many landmarks. The dense tropical forest stretched on and on—a bumpy topography of tree-tops and dark green hillside brush for as far as the eye could see.
We hovered above the small patch of blue for a few seconds. Ono blew out a breath and then dipped the chopper down a bit lower.
“Hang on,” he said. “We’re good, but I’m trying to get a bead on pinpointing the stream from here. If I can locate the stream in relation to this blue thing, we’ll have a shot at finding our way back here on foot.”
The stream turned out to be only a short distance to the west of the blue spot.
“Just like you thought,” he said. “We’re over the opposite fork of the ‘Iao Stream. This isn’t the side we were on this morning.”
He tapped one of the cockpit dials, then maneuvered the stick to take us up a little higher. As we hovered over the spot, he scribbled a note on a tiny notepad clipped to the instrument panel.
“We’re good. Let’s take ‘er back now,” he said.
I shot him my best sad-faced do we have to? look.
“Okay. I’ll take you on a quick spin over the West Side before we buzz on in. I promised Gordy we’d be gone less than an hour. He doesn’t mind sharing his chopper, but paying for the fuel’s another thing.”
We flew all the way through the ‘Iao Valley, then dipped and followed the Launiupoko Valley until we popped out on the leeward side of the island. I could see Lahaina Town to my right and a huge tract of glittering ocean straight ahead. The islands of Lana’i and Molokai lay ahead on the horizon, their tops still shrouded in clouds. Just at the point where the earth curved away fro
m view I spotted what I think was the uppermost point of Diamond Head on O’ahu. Ono steered left and from that vantage I was able to make out the stark brown landscape of the uninhabited island of Kaho’olawe, just off the southern tip of Maui. I knew the Big Island of Hawaii lay somewhere further south, but it wasn’t visible. Below me lay a dazzling expanse of diamond-studded ocean quivering beneath a fierce blue sky.
I didn’t say a word. There was nothing to say that would capture the awe I felt at that moment.
***
By the time we landed it was almost one o’clock, which gave us plenty of time to go back into the valley to check if the blue smudge we’d seen from the air was the tent in the campsite we’d been looking for. But I was hungry.
“Mahalo for the ride,” I said as Ono helped me out of the cockpit. “I think we’ve got something to shoot for, but before we go back up there, can I buy you lunch?”
“Gordy loaning me his chopper, you buying me lunch—this day just keeps getting better and better,” Ono said with a smile. “Where do you want to go?”
“You like saimin?”
“Sure. Who doesn’t?”
“You ever been to Sam Sato’s up in Wailuku? It’s right on our way back up to ‘Iao Valley. It’s nothin’ fancy but he’s got broke da mouth good saimin.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
We made it to the saimin place in twenty minutes and were served and back out on the road in another thirty. Ono’s van chugged back up to the entrance to ‘Iao Valley State Park but this time we had to park much further down the road since the place was now teeming with tourists.
“Do you think we should try this with so many people around?” I said.
“Nobody’s gonna be looking at us. Let’s play like we’re lovers looking for a little afternoon delight. I hear this is a popular spot for that kinda thing.” He grinned.
“Sounds like the voice of experience,” I said.
“I told you, I come from hippie stock. We’re big into getting back to nature.”
We held hands and lolled around the footbridge waiting for it to clear off before ducking below it. As we scrambled through the thick brush it occurred to me we’d probably never find the blue tent—the landscape was so overgrown it was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead.
“Ono, this is ridiculous. We could be out here for hours and still miss that tent by half a mile.”
“Not hardly,” he said. He swung his pack off his shoulder and pulled out the little note he’d jotted down in the helicopter. Then from a different pocket he dug out a device about the size of a cell phone. He fired it up and showed me the display.
“Global positioning,” he said, punching in numbers. “This baby’s accurate to within ten feet. From the looks of things, we’re right on track.”
We slogged on. This time we didn’t cross the stream, but instead kept to the right of it as we hiked up the steep terrain. We passed a couple of small clearings, and as we approached each one, Ono checked his GPS device and then shook his head.
At last we arrived within the hot zone of the GPS coordinates.
“Keep an eye out. It’s gotta be right around here somewhere,” he said.
We pushed through the brush and came out at a narrow rock-strewn trail.
“This looks promising,” I said. “Why didn’t we see this trail before?”
“Don’t know,” said Ono. “It looks like it’s been pretty well traveled. In fact, check this out: looks like we may not be the first people up here today.”
He pointed to a muddy shoe print traveling in the direction we were headed.
“How do you know that print’s not a week old?” I said. “It could be from the kidnappers—or Beni.”
“This is a rain forest,” he said. “It rains nearly every day—especially this time of year. This print is fresh—no more than a day old.”
“So while we were chowing down at Sam Sato’s someone else might have beaten us to the campsite?”
He put his finger to his lips to noiselessly tell me to shush.
We stepped back into the trees and crouched down. I peered through the thick brush. I couldn’t see much, but within a few seconds I heard men’s voices coming our way.
“…not likely, brudda,” said one guy. His voice sounded local.
“What you think?” said another guy.
“…up here not so easy to find…” The wind rustling the leaves made it difficult to catch the whole conversation.
Ono and I stayed silent and hidden. My thighs were starting to burn by the time the guys came within earshot.
“I tol’ you this was a waste of time. The wife gave me a ton of kaumaha about ducking out on a Sunday.” It was the first guy’s voice.
“You think they’ll close the park?” said the second guy.
The other guy laughed. “No worries to me. I still get paid.”
“Man, maybe we should look around a little more. I don’t want no trouble with the cops.”
“No, I gotta get home. It’s my keiki nephew’s birthday. Nothing’s gonna…” and then their voices drifted away.
We stayed hidden for another half-minute to make sure they didn’t circle back, then we stood and stretched.
“Whew. That felt like a million thigh squats,” I said. “My Sifu Doug makes us do those if we whine during practice.”
“Well, now we have some idea who made the shoe print we saw earlier,” said Ono. “And it sounds like they were up there looking for something. We need to get a move on.”
Later, I couldn’t help thinking about how my life would’ve been different if we hadn’t found the kidnappers’ campsite. I’m a pretty good wedding planner for a lot of reasons, but mostly it’s because I’m detail-oriented and have great visual memory. I see something once and it sticks. As we made our way up the trail to the campsite, I tried to imagine what we’d find once we got there. I pictured a tidy little mound of freshly-turned earth, with maybe a little circle of stones marking a final resting place. I steeled myself to deal with finding a sandal, maybe a piece of ripped clothing, or some other distressing clue to Crystal’s final struggle. What I was totally unprepared for was seeing just how vicious people could be. With each step I came closer to creating an enduring memory that still haunts me each time I close my eyes to sleep.
As they say, you can’t un-ring a bell.
CHAPTER 28
The campsite was a mess—broken bottles strewn around; a barely-covered latrine hole that stunk to high heaven; and the collapsed blue tent flapping in the wind like a huge bird foundered by a broken wing. We took it all in but stayed back.
“This is a crime scene,” I said. “I think we need to locate the grave, take a few pictures, and then get the hell out of here.”
“Yeah,” said Ono. “Except for the ‘head hole’ the dirt in this area looks pretty intact. No grave here.”
“Beni said he was ordered to dig some distance away. He said when he finished he went down to where they were holding Crystal.”
“Okay,” said Ono, “why don’t you circle around that way to the left and I’ll circle right and let’s see what we come up with.”
Left was uphill from the campsite so I wasn’t surprised when I was the one who first spotted the freshly-turned earth. The hole was shallow—maybe two or three feet deep. It was still open; no one had bothered to fill it back up with the mound of dirt piled nearby. Maybe Beni had been right in assuming the drug dealers had chased him as he’d fled the scene. Or, maybe they were just such inhumane dirt-bags that they’d purposely left Crystal’s body exposed to the elements so it would decay faster. It didn’t matter. There it was, a body-sized bundle, wrapped in a dirty sheet.
“Ono,” I yelled. “She’s up here.”
He thrashed through the brush and joined me. We both gazed down at the bundle.
“You think that’s her?” he said.
“Who else?” I’d seen enough. Although the body looked small, lying in the open grave, th
ere was no doubt in my mind we’d finally found Crystal Wilson.
“We better take a look,” said Ono. He knelt down and grasped an edge of the sheet. I looked away.
“This her?”
I reluctantly turned back.
He’d pulled the sheet away from her head. She was face-up, her skin the color of day-old poi. Above her closed eyes, dead center in her forehead, were two dime-sized black holes. I sucked in a breath. The last thing she’d seen on this Earth must’ve been the callous face of her executioner. I could only hope she’d closed her eyes as a final gesture of defiance—to rob her killer of the satisfaction of watching the panic in her eyes as he pulled the trigger.
I turned away again. I’d seen enough. Later, Ono would recall the full extent of Crystal’s injuries and the state of her body after almost a week in the hole, but I spared myself the details.
“What do you want to do now?” said Ono as we stood alongside the gravesite. I appreciated him saying that. He was used to issuing orders; being a boat captain and all. But this was my predicament and he respected that.
“Let’s take a few photos and get out of here. I’d like to report this before those guys on the trail say anything. Who do you suppose they were?”
“My best guess is they’re park workers,” Ono said. “You heard the one guy say he’d get paid even if they closed the park? Sounded like a dedicated public servant—Maui-style.”
“Would you mind taking the pictures?” I said. “I’m kind of having a hard time here.”
“No problem.” He rummaged around in his backpack and pulled out my cell phone. Then he leaned over the open hole and snapped half a dozen shots.
“Any other photos you think we should get while we’re here?” he said.
I pointed to the debris-strewn campsite below. “Probably ought to take a few establishing shots. I want to make sure Detective Wong has everything he needs to work on this, and nothing he can use to make excuses.”
“It’s still hard to believe Wong shut you down again and again. Seems to me you brought him some pretty solid leads—the hair and fingernails—not to mention that ransom note.”
Livin' Lahaina Loca Page 19
