Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  She was middle-aged, frail and myopic, her head tilted to one side as she considered Chazz through bifocals. Stainless steel instruments, scissors and probes, peeked out of the breast pocket of her white coat. “You would be the biologist, I guess. Good.”

  She shook his hand, dropped it abruptly and continued to stare quizzically at him until he felt himself wanting to fidget. “You found something?” he said.

  “Yes.” Dr. Shih seemed delighted, and clapped her hands together. She produced a small plastic box from her pocket and handed it to him. There was a slide in it resting on cotton. A label identified it as John Doe. “This. A… substance. Fixed. A powder. Unidentified.”

  “Could he have snagged his leg on something with thorns? The so-called Apple of Sodom has thorny leaves and is quite toxic.”

  She leaned back to look up at him. “Well,” she said shortly, “perhaps you could look at the slide before offering explanations, please. Evidence before speculation.”

  “Of course.” He looked at Takamura, who was laughing silently.

  “‘Every Maybe have a wife. Wife called Maybe Not,’” he said.

  “Apple of Sodom poisoning causes excitement, tremors, paralysis of the central nervous system, collapse, and ultimately death in deep coma,” Dr. Shih said, ignoring the interruption. “While some of these signs are not inconsistent with autopsy results, the gastrointestinal inflammation and hemorrhagic nephritis common in cases of Solanum sodomeum poisoning were not present, nor could I find traces of saponin. There was slackness of muscle tone, but no evidence of any sudden and remarkable fall in body temperature prior to death. No, not Apple of Sodom poisoning.”

  “I apologize, Dr. Shih. I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t doing your job. I’m not a doctor. Nor,” he added, looking at Takamura, “am I a policeman. I was told I might help identify an organic substance you found on the body.”

  “Perhaps you may do just that. Please. Take the sample. Look at it. Tell me what you think it might be.”

  “Okay.” He put the plastic box in his pocket.

  A telephone on the wall chirped quietly. “Excuse me,” Dr. Shih said and went to answer. “Lieutenant Takamura?” She held out the phone.

  Chazz lowered his voice when he spoke to Dr. Shih. “What were the symptoms? I could be looking for alkaloids, glucosides, even pollens or spores.”

  “Signs, Dr. Koenig. Symptoms are subjective. The victims are already dead and no longer in a position to report symptoms.”

  “I stand corrected.” Chazz smiled.

  “Death resulted, as I suggested, from effects on the nervous system. Flaccid paralysis and extreme weakness, certainly. Some evidence of violent tremors prior to death. A great deal of pain, it would seem. Not pleasant at all. A violent, convulsive death. It could be a neurotropic toxin, or even a new flu virus, but I don’t really believe that.”

  “Why not?”

  “The diver indicated some of the same signs, Dr. Koenig, but there were no puncture wounds on him. I did section this, however.” She produced another plastic box, identical to the first. The identifying label on this one read Wyman, Rafael Watt.

  “Lung tissue. Mr. Wyman’s lungs were discolored by hemorrhage. I have worked all morning on him.” She nodded toward the white-draped form on table two.

  “Oh.”

  “Unfortunately,” Dr. Shih continued, “I could discover no traces of this substance in his lungs. I did find other substances, though. Cocaine, I believe. It appears he too was a user. If you want my opinion, that may be all we have here, substance abuse, possible overdoses or the drugs have been cut with something lethal. Some of the signs are similar to overdose, though not precisely the same. Of course, this is not the most sophisticated laboratory in the world, and the subject”— she nodded toward the table— “was no longer available to describe his symptoms. But Mr. Wyman’s lungs hemorrhaged. His face mask was full of blood. Extreme rictus; he looked like he was grinning. Would you like to see? I left his face intact.”

  “No. No thanks. May I take the samples?”

  “Where could you do the best job?”

  Chazz shrugged. “DRC would be best. They have a good library, scanning electron microscopes and computer access to medical and biological databases.”

  “You have another one,” Takamura told Dr. Shih, hanging up. “They’re bringing her in. I must drive up and look around. Would you like to come along, Chazz?”

  “A woman?” Dr. Shih pushed Takamura toward the door. “Another body? Then go. I still have much work to do.”

  She nodded toward the third occupied table. “The traffic accident,” she said, turning away. “And now another on the way.”

  10

  “Hanalei valley,” Takamura said as he maneuvered the Toyota into a tight left turn at the end of a one-lane iron bridge. “As you can see, it’s a lovely place, ancient taro fields, some of them still maintained. Not developed yet. Even the roads are bad. Still cheap housing up here. A few ex-hippies living on taro and dope. Quite far in, difficult to get to, and not worth the effort. We tolerate them; they don’t cause trouble, and no one seems to mind. There are a few old folks, families all gone, who live on patch farming and welfare. Sally was one of them.”

  Her house was small and very shabby. Chazz stared at it, trying to place this shack around someone’s life. It was more like a garage than a home. Siding peeled away from the studs, warped by moisture and neglect. Finally he climbed out of the car.

  Takamura was already inside. “Not much,” he said, gesturing at the room.

  “No,” Chazz agreed. “Not much.” A narrow iron bed, thin mattress. A sink, a pine table. Two chairs. A curtained-off corner which contained a toilet. Pictures cut from magazines were pinned to the walls – advertisements, mostly, for televisions, Scotch whiskey (a black chemist whose hobby was hang gliding, whose last book read was The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and whose whiskey was Dewars), Aloha Airlines.

  Not much.

  “Sally Cameron. No use to anyone. Hawaiian-Russian mother, American father,” Takamura muttered. He took off his hat and ran his fingers around the brim.

  “Hi.” A small voice at the door.

  “Hello,” Takamura said. The boy was small. His face was as dirty as the shorts he was wearing.

  “Sally’s gone, yes? Dead?”

  “I’m afraid so. When did you see her last?”

  “Morning time. She gave me this.” He held up a rag doll very much the worse for wear.

  “Was she sick?”

  “Nope. She was good.” He was very definite.

  “See anyone around? Since, I mean.”

  “Nope. Just the car.” The boy twitched his head toward the mud road outside.

  “Car?” Takamura pretended to be interested in the hang-gliding chemist on the wall. “Mmm.”

  “Sure. Dark car. Big, old car. Drive up, drive back. Tourist maybe, lost. Not many come up this road, mister, just people who live here, you know? I was up there.” He pointed carefully out the door at the hillside. “Bananas up there. I saw the car, though.”

  “See anybody in the car, son? What they might look like?”

  The boy shook his head. Stuffing oozed from the doll’s armpit.

  “Any idea how long the car was here?”

  He shook his head again. “Not here when I went up the hill. Saw him go out, that’s all. No one up here. Except akua.”

  “Akua?”

  “Sure, many akua. Eat dead people’s brains. Live up high.” The boy pointed at the mountain. “Come down at night.”

  “Oh. Hippies.”

  “Nope. Hippies are people. Akua. Big, long arms. They eat brains.” The boy grinned at Takamura.

  “Not very tasty, I shouldn’t think.”

  The boy shrugged. “Dunno.” He spun on his heel and ran out.

  “Well,” Takamura said. “Big dark old car. There are only about ten thousand cars on this island. Many of them are big, a number are dark, most are old
. But as the great detective would say, ‘Never hunt rabbit with dead dog.’”

  This was too much for Chazz. “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “Beats me,” Takamura shrugged. “Let’s go.”

  They stepped into the bright westering sun. “We won’t find anything,” Takamura said. “Sammy’s been here, the ambulance’s been here, and the day’s been dry. No tracks except in the dust, gone by now. Don’t know why I dragged you here. People liked the old lady. Harmless. Every Friday she rode the bus to the welfare office to pick up her check, rode the bus back.” He looked at the scraggly patch of garden. The top of the soil was already cracking.

  “My grandfather was a farmer,” Takamura said, gazing at the dusty garden. “My father’s a fine calligrapher as well as a politician. A long way from being a fanner. The Japanese were brought over here in the 1870s to work in the cane fields. They brought, and kept, a little of Japan. It is odd in a way, because calligraphy was a samurai art in Japan. Farmers knew little of such arts. Here is democracy. Now we do Zen, make gardens, calligraphy, ikebana, aikido.”

  “Aikido, too?”

  “You know of aikido?”

  “I teach in Berkeley a couple of times a week.”

  “Then you are shodan, of course. You should meet my friend Shinawa. He is the aikido teacher here.”

  “Shinawa is here?’

  “Ah, yes. You know of him?”

  “He’s a well-known teacher. Do you do aikido?” Takamura smiled. “I’m afraid I’ve never had the time. Police academy hurry-ups and immobilizations only. Also shooting. Police are fond of shooting. We go to Honolulu for training. Here I have never done shooting. This is a quiet island. Why did you take up aikido? You are a big person, Dr. Koenig. You should have no need of a martial art.”

  “I was an angry person, Lieutenant; too violent, sometimes, I thought. I wanted to learn how to not kill people.” Chazz was squinting into the sun, not looking at the policeman.

  “Ah,” Takamura said softly. After a pause he said, “Perhaps you would like to visit Shinawa? He would be happy to see you. Later we will call him.”

  The radio in the Toyota crackled. Takamura went to get it. “Drugs?” Chazz asked when he returned. “You thought of that, eh? No, I’m pretty sure not. We have something else here. She was no drug addict. Maybe it was akua, hah?”

  “Or a curse, maybe? Someone prayed her to death? Silver says the witch doctors can do that sort of thing.”

  “Same as akua. Why?”

  “I don’t know. How about natural causes?”

  “Well, she had the same expression on her face as the others. Until Dr. Shih gets done with her, we won’t really know. But it sounds the same. That was The Kukui Nut on the car radio. Clever police work has uncovered the identity of your traffic accident.”

  “And?”

  “Very curious. He had no identity.”

  “And?”

  “Everybody’s somebody. This man was Ronald Smith. From Indianapolis. Sold insurance from his home, curiously without a phone. No family in Indiana or anywhere else. No fingerprint record with the FBI. Never went to school. Was never in the U. S. military service. Does not exist. Curious.”

  “Driver’s license?”

  “Address is 1305 Broadway in Indianapolis. Happens to be the address of the Indianapolis Police headquarters. Curious. ‘Roots of tree lead in many directions.’”

  The small boy was digging in the middle of the empty field. Chazz watched for a moment. “What’s he doing out there?”

  Takamura shaded his eyes with his porkpie hat. “Digging,” he said. “He’s digging a grave.”

  The boy was burying the rag doll.

  “What’s an akua?” Chazz asked. The boy poured dust through his fingers onto the grave.

  “Monsters who live in the woods. Come out at night and kill people. Never heard of them eating brains, though.”

  “Do you think we might be having an epidemic of some kind?” Chazz suggested. He did not like the idea.

  But Takamura assented. “Of some kind,” he said.

  11

  Dewilliter stopped Chazz in the hall. “Something’s going around,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Disquieting rumors,” Dewilliter said.

  “Oh?” Where did Dewilliter get phrases like that? Dewilliter’s broad face bobbed. “Some kind of infectious disease. I’ve heard rumors. A plague in the tropics. A Sense of Foreboding on the Horizon.”

  Chazz put his hand on the two slide boxes in his jacket pocket. Dewilliter appeared to be waiting, head propped to one side.

  He spoke finally. “Aren’t you curious, Koenig?”

  “My field is microbiology,” Chazz said. “And I don’t think it’s funny.”

  “No. A new disease, Koenig. Or perhaps a very ancient disease. I think it’s the Russians, but Silver says the old Hawaiian witch doctors know a lot about such things.” He shrugged. Chazz noticed that Dewilliter had a belly.

  “But you said you knew a kahuna yourself.”

  “Oh, Ulana, of course. Nice old man, but he’s not a witch doctor. He knows a lot about the plants here, though. I’ve been consulting with him about lobelioids, Koenig. See, there’s a spindle virus that plagues the lobelioids, and we needed them for the Lolo Project…”

  “Lolo? What’s that?”

  “Never mind, it’s nothing. I was thinking about pakalolo. Marijuana. No, it’s the other ones, the bad ones, the ana ana, that’re the witch doctors. Sorcerers. They’re the ones who kill at a distance. It drives men mad,” Dewilliter insisted. “There are strange practices in the mountains. Rituals. Ask Silver, he knows.”

  “Okay.”

  As if in answer, Dr. Silver appeared at the end of the corridor, carrying a stack of clear plastic culture dishes. When he saw Chazz and Dewilliter he paused, then came toward them.

  “Nitrogen-fixing bacteria for bog plants,” he said, nodding at the tray.

  “Your current line of research?” Chazz asked.

  Dr. Silver gave his benign smile. “Oh, no, I’ve gotten rather interested in ethnobotany now, to tell you the truth. How people used plants. Or, as some might have it, the other way around?”

  “‘Day of the Triffids’,” Chazz said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Intelligent plants with an abiding hatred of human beings. They counterattack. An old science-fiction film.”

  “Oh, yes. You have a fondness for B movies?” Dr. Silver looked distracted. “That wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”

  He hurried away with his tray of seedlings.

  “I didn’t know you knew Silver,” Dewilliter said. He seemed aggrieved.

  “He invited me here.”

  “Oh.”

  In his office, Chazz put the John Doe slide under the microscope and focused. Two hours later he pushed back his chair and stretched.

  Wyman’s lung tissue meant little. Some cell walls were ruptured, of course, as if invaded. The effect could be viral work, or something corrosive, but on the whole it didn’t look like anything life-threatening.

  The other slide held cells and cell parts of all kinds – epithelial, plant tissue, bacterial— but few whole cells. He would have to use the scanning electron microscope.

  On his way to Electron Microscopy, he ran into Dr. Silver again.

  “Say, Chazz, I’ll be leaving town in a couple of days. Before I go, I wanted to invite you along on a little field trip we’re planning tomorrow. You’d be welcome. There are some interesting primitive plant survivals on these islands. How about it? A hike will do you good. Can’t be all work, you know. Lab work is pretty routine; you’ll get stale.”

  “Okay, sure. Where are you going?”

  “A swamp above the reservoir. Not up on top, just a few miles up a dirt road. A strenuous hike in, of course, but there are trails of a sort.”

  “Sure, Ben,” Chazz said. “What time?”

  “We’ll leave here at noon. See you then.�
� Ben loped off down the corridor.

  Chazz spent the next hour preparing specimens for the electron microscope. He rubbed his eyes, put the specimens aside and went by Dewilliter’s office. “Are there any poisonous lobelioids, Dewilliter?”

  The smooth round face took on a glow. He probably did not get many questions about his specialty.

  “Poisonous lobelioids?” he repeated., “Yes, certainly. Some quite rare ones, too. For example, there is the isotoma longiflora. Otherwise known as Star of Bethlehem. A broadleafed weed, rather spiky in appearance. Has a five-petaled flower and a fruiting body… The alkaloid is called lobeline, and is mildly toxic. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Just curious, I guess. People are dying more frequently than usual. Those Disquieting Rumors you mentioned.”

  “You don’t think I’m responsible, do you?” Dewilliter seemed genuinely alarmed.

  “No,” Chazz assured him. “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that. By the way, there seems to be some kind of cult. Have you heard?”

  “No.”

  “According to Silver, those witch doctors could pray people to death. Some kind of extrasensory projection or something.”

  “Really?”

  Dewilliter was hurt by the irony. “That’s what Silver said. The other night, at the party.”

  “But what about this fellow you know, this Ulana?”

  “I told you, he’s just an old man with arthritis who knows a lot about local botany, that’s all. He turned back to his drawings of a lobelioid, which looked like a lettuce head perched on top of a fishing pole. He was working meticulously on a genetic chart under the drawing.

  “Cult,” Chazz said to himself. He went to the library and signed on a terminal. He took a number of books with him to the carrel. Sedentary science was dulling him. He realized how much he looked forward to meeting Shinawa later.

  The empty screen stared back at him long enough for Chazz to realize that he could see, faintly reflected in its glass, the window behind him and the poinsettia garden outside. The poinsettia was a “shrub with milky sap and lanceolate leaves,” one of the books told him. “The milky juice and leaves are poisonous,” it said. “The poisonous substance is neither an alkaloid nor a glucoside, and is probably a resin. It causes intense emesis and catharsis, and delirium before death.”