by Chris Bauer
The news of the murder had stiff-armed the air out of Philo. He suffixed his offer to Patrick with a please that was soft on supplication, heavy on maudlin.
3
His body was manageable in the water, pockets of air caught inside his bright yellow flight suit. Ella swam on her side, pulling him along, had to keep moving, her fingers under the back of his helmet, her sidestroke and her legs fighting the channel’s sea chop, thankfully light. Once she got closer to the Miakamii shore the breaking waves helped. She dragged her large friend out of the Pacific and onto the sandy beach, his body the deadest of weights now that there was no buoyancy. Ella strained as she pulled him as far onto the beach as she could, away from the tide, onto dry sand.
She’d kept her emotions in check for the hundred or so yards of hard swimming on her way out, and for those same hundred harder-fought yards on her way back. Coughing from the effort to catch her breath, her gasps were now supplemented with a good cry.
“Chester. My goodness. Oh, Chester…”
No reason to try CPR, or chest compressions, or turn him over on his side to expel seawater. Chester Kapalekilahao’s throat was sliced open in two places, the blood and seawater glistening on his dark Miakamiian neck. The oozing blood drained off his skin and into the sand, turning it a purplish-red and then a dull gray, with the sand staying that way until the evening tides would move in to wash away all traces of the gore.
She undid his chinstrap, removed his helmet. Wavy black hair, chunky face, dead man’s stare from his black eyes. He and Ella shared the same date of birth a year apart, which meant they went through much of their Miakamii schooling together because of the island’s negligible enrollment. Those many decades ago he was her crush when she was only a keiki, a young girl who finally settled down with her eventual husband Benehakaka (“Ben”) after Chester’s decision to leave the island. She and Ben were now married more than thirty years.
“Auwe! My dearest Chester,” she said, pacing, sobbing. “Who did this to you, love?”
Ella gazed across the Hanakawii Channel at Kauai, the direction the cigarette boat had taken. Yes, who out there could do such a thing to this wonderful, proud man, and why? He’d been a success story by Miakamiian standards. An inspiration.
Her horse shook her mane, trotted closer to Ella, nudged her shoulder, and neighed. “I know, Kumu, we need to go back. I’ll get Ben to bring a boat.”
She cupped her lifelong friend’s cold, wet cheek, sobbed again. “I have to leave you here for a little bit, Chester. Ben and I will return to take you back to Kauai, back to your family.”
She rose, stood over the body. Her horse nudged her again. Ella climbed onto Kumu’s bare back, patted her neck.
“This is a sad, sad day, Kumu. And I’m afraid sadder days are coming.”
Horse and rider galloped off the beach onto a path through the surrounding thick and prickly scrub brush.
They wrapped the body tightly in boat canvas and laid it lengthwise in the bottom of the skiff. Ben piloted their seaworthy outboard, at one time a lifeboat, back out into the water through the low-tide risers on a calm, late-afternoon sea. He and Ella and the body of Chester Kapalekilahao headed across the seventeen-mile channel that separated Miakamii and Kauai, the sun to their backs. As Ben guided them around the Kauai surf for their push into the bay at the edge of Howling Sands, Ella raised her binoculars. She called over her shoulder to her husband in her native Miakamiian, letting him know that she could see the police chief on the pier.
“Roger that,” Ben said in English. “I’ll bring us in on the sand next to it.”
Closer to Kauai’s cell towers Ella found a cell phone signal. A 9-1-1 call had engaged the island police. Ella’s second call went to Mr. Logan, whose silver Range Rover was now arriving. He parked it next to one of four police cruisers.
After the tears that Mr. Logan—Douglas to Miakamii’s resident islanders—and Ella had shared on the phone, he’d heard Ella explain in a calm voice about where the tourist helicopter, one of five copters the Logan family owned, had crashed in the island’s interior. The wreckage would need remediation that wouldn’t come until after scrutiny by the Kauai police and the National Transportation Safety Board.
“It killed some of our cows and sheep, Douglas,” she told him, “and the church, it… the church, Douglas! It’s damaged…” With Douglas Logan, she hadn’t had to go into detail about the livestock loss and what it meant. He knew the hardship this would cause. The Logan family had been supplementing the island’s food needs through times of hardship that often lasted years. But damage to the small island’s only church had made the cut to Chester’s throat seem even deeper, crueler.
“Ella, you needn’t worry about any of it,” he said. “We’ll get through this. I want to see my good friend Chester first. We’ll talk about the damage later.”
Chester had left Miakamii at age eighteen, went to work for the Logan family on their cattle ranch in Kauai. He attended flight school at Douglas Logan’s expense, learned to fly helicopters, and had stayed in the family’s employ ever since, handling tourist sightseeing. The bond Douglas shared with all Miakamii islanders was real, but the one he shared with Chester was special, like father and son, and not unlike the love Douglas also had for the island of Miakamii itself.
But the Logan family was in a financial tailspin, Miakamii the cause of it. Their ventures—a cattle ranch and a sheep farm, the shell leis made by island craftspeople, a robust Hawaiian honeybee and honey business—had all taken a hit lately. The ranches and farms and the honey business had been shuttered, with the cattle ranch resurrecting itself on Kauai but costing the Logan family a fortune to transition it. Adding to the family’s financial miseries was their impact on the Miakamiian people, whose jobs relied on these ventures. The island’s poor prospects were sinking the Logans in debt and throwing the native inhabitants into poverty.
Which put the island’s ownership in question, and this in turn put the island in play as an available property. There’d been a long-held opinion that the state or federal government could and should claim eminent domain, this due to the island’s strategic military location as an early-warning site in the Pacific. Losing its viability as a privately held commercial enterprise also made it a prime acquisition target for someone who could make it financially healthy again, maybe resurrect its cattle farming and honeybee businesses. Miakamii’s stewardship by the Logan family, in place for more than 150 years, was in jeopardy.
A new player had emerged, much to Douglas Logan’s dislike: another well-heeled family that claimed its interest wasn’t in owning the island. A certain consideration could help the Logans climb out of their mountain of debt: the island’s shell lei business. They wanted the Logans and the island residents to allow an indigenous family to manage it. Miakamii shell leis were like gold and rare gems, coveted worldwide. An important enterprise for sure, some of the leis bringing more than ten thousand dollars each on the open market because of the rarity of the shells. The mollusks that produced them were, to anyone’s knowledge, found nowhere else on the planet, and the unpolluted water gave the shells an uncommon luster.
Ben motored the skiff parallel to the thin pier jutting from the beach, the pier empty of fishermen or other foot traffic, the police having chased everyone off its fifty-yard length. He steered the skiff through the sea foam to the beach’s edge. Four Kauai police officers met them near the “No Boat Landing or Launching” sign and helped pull the skiff onto the sand.
Police Chief Terry Koo legged his way down the pier in time to join Mr. Logan in his trot from the parking lot. The two were soon walking side by side through dried seaweed, Chief Koo slowing his gait to remain alongside the shorter yet trimmer Douglas, determination etched onto their faces. Their footsteps sank into the dark, wet sand.
“Douglas,” Chief Koo said in acknowledgment.
“Terry,” Douglas said, breathing hard.
“Let us handle this, Douglas.”
&n
bsp; “No issue, after I see Chester.”
Blue-eyed and with thinning hair, the Douglas Logan that Ella knew could be both ornery and polite inside the same exchange, a benevolent employer, and very much a Christian. While under the Logan family’s tutelage, Miakamii residents were expected to always behave in a Christian manner, and they had done so dating back generations. Douglas steadied Ella after she climbed out of the skiff onto the sand and leaned into a hug as tight as one he’d give a grieving child. Douglas also gathered the rugged Ben in his arms, the three of them suffering through a hard cry cut short because of the task at hand.
“Let’s get him out of the boat, then we’ll take him where his family can be with him,” Douglas said.
Chief Koo interrupted. “The medical examiner needs to see him first, Douglas, to pronounce him and then determine cause of death. This isn’t negotiable.”
“Look, Terry. Ella explained what the wounds look like, what she saw before the copter went down. Let the M.E. meet us at the funeral home. His family will be there—”
Ella stepped between the two men before past bad blood could surface. She raised her chin to Douglas, spoke compassionately to her dear employer, patriarch, friend, and ally, with the common sense required to get Chester’s body where it needed to go as soon as possible.
“It will be all right, Douglas. His neck—no coroner will be able to get past those wounds as cause of death. The autopsy should be quick.”
Chief Terry Koo chimed in. “My guess is that the M.E. won’t need more than a day, Douglas. Let’s let everyone do their jobs so we can get the bastard who did this, okay? Don’t fight me on this.”
“Language, Terry,” Douglas said.
“You know what I mean, Douglas. Sorry, Ella. We’ll get this done as soon as possible so he can be turned over to his family without a significant delay.”
Douglas acquiesced. The four police officers removed Chester’s wrapped body from the boat and laid him on a medical stretcher for the short trek through the sand to the coroner’s vehicle just arriving.
“Hold it,” Douglas called, Ben and Ella bringing up the rear. “I need to see him before he goes. It’s—I just need to see him, please…”
Chief Koo halted his men. “I’ll make you a deal, Douglas. I need to get some people onto the island to see the helicopter crash site while the NTSB does its work. You can take a quick peek if you promise not to argue with me on that. Deal?”
Ella held her breath a moment. Douglas had never been keen on allowing people onto their precious island other than current and former Miakamiians and the U.S. Navy, plus paying safari participants for controlled commercial hunting trips.
“Deal,” Douglas said.
“Fine.” Chief Koo gestured for his Kauai officers to lower the stretcher to the sand. “Make it quick, Douglas, please.”
Douglas, Ella, and Ben caught up. “I did the wrapping, so let me undo him,” Ben said.
Ben undid the clips along one side of Chester Kapalekilahao’s canvas-clad body, then unwrapped the top section to expose his upper torso and the barbaric wounds on his neck. From the looks of it, the two wounds in combination had nearly decapitated him.
“Lord have mercy,” Douglas said, his eyes widening, but with no gasp. He placed his hand on his friend’s chest. “Chester. I am so sorry, son. May you rest now, dearest Chester.”
Chief Koo’s cell rang. “Koo. Fine, got it. Douglas, we have to get him to the morgue right now. I’ve got another crisis. My officers are needed elsewhere.”
Chester’s hands had been gathered together and placed near his waist, in a coffin pose. Douglas patted one, lifted and kissed it—“We’ll find who did this to you, Chester”—then laid it back down. He stepped away from the body and Ben rewrapped it.
Chief Koo addressed his men. “Officers, after we load up Mr. Kapalekilahao, one of you needs to call the dispatcher. Probable home invasion near the Navy base. One dead…”
4
Hawaiian Missile Training Outpost
Howling Sands, Kauai
Philo was first in line inside the visitor center. “Tristan Trout, with Patrick Stakes, to see CO Evan Malcolm.”
“How’s everyone doing today?” the guard said, Seaman Long per her nametag. A rote question. The greeting held no cheer and was unsmiling, her blank eye contact an indication that the outpost’s mood was grim. The murder of the commanding officer’s fiancée could do this to an installation.
“I’m a close friend of the CO,” Philo said, feeling the need to mention this. “I’m aware of his loss.”
She nodded. “A sad day. You’re on today’s list, Petty Officer Trout. Show me some personal ID and info on your car, please. I’ll process you first, sir, then your associate.”
Tristan “Philo” Trout, Petty Officer First Class, Retired, dropped his driver’s license, car rental agreement, Uniformed Services ID card, and permit to carry a concealed weapon onto the desk blotter in front of the seaman.
“Are you carrying your firearm today, sir?”
“Not today, Seaman. Not on my person or in my car.”
“Good.” She checked off a box, passed it to an associate at a desk behind her. “Very well. Please stand over there. Seaman Kerry will wand you, then take your picture. Next, please.”
Patrick presented his official State of Pennsylvania ID card to the seaman, the only form of ID he had.
“No driver’s license, Mr. Stakes?”
“No, ma’am, just that. I have dissociative amnesia. Someone helped me get the state ID. There’s nothing else. I’m, uh, here in Hawaii…”
Patrick eyed Philo eyeing him. Philo’s nod said, You’re doing great, Patrick. Stay with it.
“I’m here in Hawaii because I hope to, um, I want to—”
You got this, Patrick bud…
“I need to know who I am, ma’am. These islands… they might tell me who I am.”
“Hold a minute for me, please, Mr. Stakes, while I confirm the protocol.”
She punched some numbers into her console, spoke quietly into her headset. A nervous Patrick moved from foot to foot, Philo’s wink doing little to calm him.
Seaman Long listened to instructions, held the ID away from her face, and toggled it in the reflective light. “Yes, it has a hologram, sir,” she said into the mouthpiece. “Yes, sir. Mr. Stakes?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You’re good to go. Stand over there. Seaman Kerry will wand you.” To Philo: “After your friend’s picture is taken, we’ll issue your temp IDs and vehicle pass. Have a nice day, gentlemen.”
They returned to the SUV, their passes on dog tag chains around their necks. Time check: they were due in CO Malcolm’s office on the south end of the U.S. Navy’s Hawaiian Missile Training Outpost at 0800 hours, thirty minutes from now. One more checkpoint to negotiate before they’d gain entrance to the outpost itself, three miles away.
The range was both a naval facility and military airport located four miles northwest of Kekaha, in Kauai County, Hawaii. Philo knew its attraction to the Feds as an installation: it was isolated, with an ideal year-round tropical climate; the environment was encroachment adverse; it contained the world’s largest instrumented, multi-dimensional testing and training missile range. It was where submarines, ships, aircraft, and space vehicles could be tracked simultaneously, the only place in the world like it. Plus the location gave it eleven hundred square miles of instrumented underwater range and 42,000 square miles of monitored and controlled airspace. It also used the nearby island of Miakamii for remotely operated surveillance radar and helicopter flight training. The deal the U.S. Navy had with the island’s owners, however, was not all-inclusive. Extraordinary or unplanned access to Miakamii was not automatic, always requiring permission. Philo hoped his Navy commander buddy could secure this permission, but with the news about the CO’s fiancée, today’s visit would take a more gruesome, somber tone. As the SUV cruised the Kauai coastline on the way to the last gate, Miakamii
was visible on their left horizon, seventeen watery miles away.
“There she is, Patrick,” Philo said. “The Prohibited Isle of Mee-ah-kah-mee.” He enunciated the syllables loud enough to overcome the road whine, the SUV’s windows open. The winding coastal road paralleled the mysterious private island. They were alone in enjoying a great view; this was not a well-traveled road.
“Miakamii is loaded with, dare I say, all the modern conveniences that nineteenth-century Hawaii had to offer, despite enjoying U.S. statehood since, what year was it again, Patrick, that Hawaii became a state?”
A niggling inside joke.
“1959, sir.”
The year kept coming up, the topic of Patrick’s persistent dialogue with Grace and Hank Blessid when he started living in an apartment above their garage in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, after his homelessness. The police and a few medical professionals had originally labeled him as Alaskan Inuit or Eskimo. It took a crime scene cleaner with mob ties—Hawaiian mob ties, the organized crime family resurrecting itself in Philadelphia—to clear up this misconception. The amnesia left him with only small swatches of memory, one of them the year that his birth state had earned its statehood, though that date was shared by both Alaska and Hawaii.
Additional DNA results for Patrick from Ancestry.com were due while they were away for this trip, a vacation to what Philo, Grace, and Hank expected was his birthplace. Would names of family members surface? Aunts, uncles, cousins, close or distant? Ancestry.com just might come through with a storybook ending.
“So Patrick—did you know Miakamii actually voted against statehood? The only Hawaiian island to do that.”
“No, sir. That sure is interesting, sir,” Patrick said.
A rare snippet of sarcasm for Patrick. Philo could sometimes be one big ol’ fountain of trivial bullshit, except this wasn’t one of them.
“I learned some of the island’s history while I trained there, bud. Or what passed as history. Mostly legends and oral accounts, although the statehood voting thing is a matter of record.”
