Mahu Surfer

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “I get nightmares. And sometimes my nerves keep going and I can only doze. But then whatever’s bothering me passes, and I sleep again. For a while.” I held my breath, waiting for him to say something, and when he didn’t, I said, “You will, too. Give it time.”

  “Yeah. I hope so.” He yawned. “Gotta make a living. You take care, brah.”

  “You, too.”

  I hung up, feeling like shit yet again. Add Haoa to the list of all those I owed. I should never have involved civilians in a case, least of all my own family, but I hadn’t had a choice; I had been suspended at the time and knew the only way I could get back to the force was to solve the case myself, however I could.

  Thunderclouds moved overhead, and began to spit, then shower me. I turned on the wipers, flicked on the headlights, and kept going. I drove directly to Hale’iwa, where the bodies had all been found, passing the big carved sign with the surfer catching a wave right in the middle. Every time I go through that arched bridge over the Anahulu River, I get excited, because it means I’m going surfing, and there’s nothing better.

  There are no motels anywhere in the area, so I stopped at Fujioka’s Supermarket, where all the visiting surfers check out the bulletin boards for rooms in private homes, for shacks with no plumbing but great ocean views, even for just a stretch of concrete floor with room enough for a sleeping bag and a surfboard.

  Though any of the above might have served when I was 22 and broke (and many did), I could afford to be a little pickier at 32, with a credit card in my pocket and some money in the bank. I copied down information from half a dozen listings, and might have copied one more, from a flyer being posted by a heavyset Filipina with too much eye shadow and lipstick like a bloody gash across her mouth. But she saw me looking, recognized me, and put the flyer in her handbag instead.

  I turned down one place where the landlady eyed me like a rib roast in the refrigerated meat case, another where I would have shared a bathroom with half a dozen surfer dudes in their twenties, a third that was the size of my closet back in Waikiki, and a fourth that was so close to the Kam Highway that I could almost reach out the door and touch the trucks heading up from Honolulu.

  Fortunately the last place I tried was a wood-frame home called Hibiscus House, that had been added onto like a crazy quilt. The main house faced the street, but the driveway ran up alongside it, and the owners had built a series of rooms, one after the other, each with their own entrance and bathroom. It was as close to a cheap motel room as I was going to find, so I paid $500 for a week in advance (in cash, thank you, requiring a quick trip back into Hale’iwa to find an ATM), and set about getting my feet wet in the cool Pacific.

  That first day I didn’t get into the ocean until late afternoon, after the rain clouds had passed over, and the sinking sun welcomed me back with water temperatures in the high 70s and light trade winds. There was still a line of cars parked on Ke Nui Road, but I snagged a spot, then dragged my board off the roof rack of the truck and headed down the sand.

  People were starting to pack up, pulling off their wetsuits, coiling up their leashes and shouldering their boards, but I made my way down the hard-packed sand and felt the frothy water swirl around my ankles. I dropped my board into the surf, paddled outside the breakers and rode my first wave, a mid-sized one that broke to the left. It felt good to be back on the water.

  My room at Hibiscus House came equipped with a miniature refrigerator (the tiny freezer compartment was fused solid with ice that looked like it had been there since before statehood) and a working toaster, so I swung past Fujioka’s on my way home and picked up bottled water, barbecue flavored Fritos, and brown sugar and cinnamon Pop Tarts. Not exactly hitting all the food groups, but I did also get some take-out sushi and chocolate-chip cookies for dessert, and then retreated to my room like an animal holing up in its burrow.

  There had been water damage by the window, a brown stain the color of dried blood dripping from the sill to the floor. The twin mattress was bowed in the middle and smelled like generations of men had jerked off into it. The water in the bathroom was rusty and the bulb in the overhead light flickered like something from a bad movie. But it was home, at least until I earned the right to go back to Waikiki.

  The next morning I went back to Pipeline, but before I got into the water I visualized the scene, based on what I’d read in the case dossier. Someone had been able to bring an M4 carbine to the beach, take careful aim, and shoot a surfer off his board. An M4’s not the kind of gun you can stash in the waistband of your shorts; it can be close to three feet long, and can be fitted with a dizzying array of scopes, lights, magazines and other apparatus. How the hell could you bring something like that to a beach and set it up?

  After strolling casually up and down the beach a couple of times, making occasional eye contact, smiling and saying aloha, I saw a guy pulling his board out of a foam-lined neoprene bag, and had one of those Eureka! moments. Lots of surfers actually transport their boards in bags; with a little creativity you could probably fit a rifle in there, too.

  So you could bring a rifle to the beach, pretty much undetected. But how do you set it up? Looking around, I figured the only solution was to hide behind a dune, using your surfboard to shield you from curious onlookers. There were a couple of likely prospects; if you were careful you could hunker down, letting only the top of your head and the barrel of the rifle peek above the sand.

  Standing at the water’s edge and looking back, I could see you’d be protected. But you’d still be vulnerable from the street. It wasn’t until I saw an amateur photographer begin to set up his gear that I realized how the gunman had completely avoided suspicion. Bring enough gear with you, a couple of cameras with big lenses, some umbrellas, coolers and other paraphernalia, and everyone on the beach would assume you were there to shoot pictures, not surfers.

  Once I figured that out, it was time to get wet. I hadn’t tackled big water for a long time, and I knew it would take a few days before I looked like I knew what I was doing. I stuck to Pipeline, because Mike Pratt had been killed there, and because both he and Lucie Zamora had been tournament-class surfers. At Pipeline, I’d be likely to meet up with other surfers who knew them.

  Pipeline is actually a series of three reefs, meaning it can generate a variety of swells, from small to monster. You almost never get a wave to yourself there: if the surf is low, then every surfer and bodyboarder is out, fighting for those few precious feet at the top of the swell. Even when the surf is high, there are daredevils all around, dropping into your wave and pushing you out.

  The potential for disaster is everywhere, and maybe that’s what makes Pipeline so much fun. The drops can be so high that you get giddy with exhilaration—yet that reef is waiting for you when you fall. You may have mastered a tall wave, but watch out for that guy cutting across in front of you. With every tube you face the possibility of getting sucked under the water.

  Pipeline requires the most basic skills: getting in early and placing your turn just right. Those were things I knew I could do, if I worked at them long enough. I took the small and medium waves, often sharing them with other surfers when the beach was busy, and I let the really big ones go. If you aren’t prepared for those, you can end up hurting yourself on the rocky, coral bottom.

  I alternated between Pipeline and Backdoor, a perfect right only about 150 feet away, and though every muscle in my body ached by the time I dragged myself back to my little room, I was starting to feel like a real surfer again. But all the time, I was thinking about the case, too, trying to come up with ways to learn about the dead surfers and who might have killed them.

  Occasionally when I surfed, I’d run into my cousin Ben, who was about ten years younger than I was. He was doing what I’d done at his age, trying to see if he could make it as a professional surfer. My mother is the oldest of five daughters, and Ben’s mom was my Aunt Pua, the youngest. Pua was a hippie, far from my prim and proper mother. She was an aromatherapist at
a posh resort in Hawai‘i Kai, and had been married and divorced three times.

  Because of the age difference between us, and the attitude difference between our mothers, we didn’t know each other that well, but we recognized each other and made small talk about the family and the surf. He was a Pipeline expert, making it his home base, and I learned a few tricks from talking with him.

  Some people seemed to know who I was, and sometimes they wanted to talk. A haole guy with Rasta hair and tattered board shorts wanted to know if I knew a good attorney—I didn’t. A middle-aged Japanese lady waiting with me to buy bottled water asked me if I knew where her son could get information about AIDS. I told her about an agency in Honolulu.

  Nobody seemed aware that three surfers had been killed, and though I dropped names with everyone I met, I got no reactions to Mike Pratt, Lucie Zamora or Ronald Chang. I could see why the original detectives hadn’t made much progress, and started to doubt whether I could learn anything they hadn’t.

  When I returned to Hibiscus House, I called Lieutenant Sampson to let him know I was settled in, and pass on my idea on how the shooter had brought the rifle to the beach. Then I called my parents, just to check in. They were full of well-meaning suggestions for my future. “You could come work with me,” my father said. “I could do big projects again, if I have you to help me. No more malasada shops.” The malasada is a kind of Portuguese donut, and of late my father had been building tiny shops to sell them around the island.

  “Al, let the boy alone,” my mother said. “He should go back to school, get a graduate degree and become something—an architect, a businessman, a lawyer.”

  “Pah, back to school,” my father said. “Why go back to school when he can learn everything he needs from his father?”

  “I’m not making any decisions for a while.” I had already heard that my brother Lui was sure he could find me a job of some kind at KVOL, if I wanted it. My brother Haoa wanted me to join him in the landscape business. My sisters-in-law and my friends all had their own ideas.

  And I had to lie to each and every one of them, telling them all I was still figuring out what I wanted, that I was enjoying just surfing every day. More lies than I had ever wanted to tell. And telling them kept getting harder and harder for me, and would only keep getting harder until I could come home with a solved case.

  The Next Wave

  By the end of my second full day of surfing, I was beat. I collapsed on the beach, catching my breath and massaging my calves, when a haole girl who couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen stuck her board in the sand and sat down next to me and said hi. She was wearing a neon yellow bikini, and had her sandy blonde hair pulled up into a pony tail with a matching ribbon. Her skin was the deep bronze of someone who spends a lot of time on the water.

  “Hi,” I said back. I’d seen her surfing; she was pretty damn good.

  “You’re that guy who used to be a cop, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Guilty as charged. Kimo.” I held out my hand.

  “Trish,” she said, shaking it. “I saw you on the news.”

  “My fifteen minutes of fame.”

  She nodded toward the water. “Your form’s pretty good for somebody who hasn’t surfed for a long time.”

  “I’ve been surfing since I was a kid, The last few years, though, not too much. Mornings, before work. Weekends. The occasional odd trip up here.” I paused. “How about you?”

  “I was born in Iowa, but my mom wanted to be a movie star, so she divorced my dad when I was seven and we moved to LA so she could pursue her destiny.”

  “And did she find it?”

  “If her destiny’s waiting tables at the International House of Pancakes on La Cienega, then she found it, all right. Me, I found surfing.”

  I had a gut feeling that Trish had something she wanted to tell me, something more than just the story of her mother’s failed attempt at movie stardom. I wasn’t in a hurry; my calves still needed a rubdown before I could stand up. And I’ve learned that when somebody has something they really want to tell you, they will, if you give them enough time.

  “How long have you been in Hale’iwa?”

  “Two years. I didn’t actually run away; I waited until I was sixteen, and I left a note.”

  “A note’s always good.”

  “And I talk to my mom every Sunday. Religiously.”

  “Admirable.” I waited. Trish watched the surfers. Finally, I said, “You must know a lot of people around here after two years. You know any of the surfers who’ve been killed?”

  She looked up in alarm. “More than Mike?”

  Pay dirt. “Two others. Did you know Mike?”

  She nodded. “He was my boyfriend. I was surfing just behind him, and I was the one who pulled him out of the water.”

  “That’s tough.”

  She looked like she was about to cry.

  I was thinking about what to ask her next when a guy called “Yo, Trish!” from up the beach. “Come on, let’s go!”

  “I gotta run,” she said, standing up. “I’ve got some stuff to think about, but I want to talk to you. You’ll be around?”

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Good. Catch you later.” She grabbed her board and started running up toward Ke Nui Road.

  That was progress. I had seen Trish around, and I was sure I would see her again. There are, after all, a limited number of spots for serious surfers. Plus, surfing is an individual sport, but after you’ve caught a monster wave, you want to tell everyone about it. You want to hang out with other surfers, compare notes on gear and breaks. Pipeline was one good place to meet people who might have known the three victims, but I needed more sources.

  I left the beach with a plan. Each night, I’d choose a different bar, ordering a burger and a beer and showing my face around. I started with the club where Lucie Zamora had been shot, but the crowd there was very young and only interested in drinking and dancing, and there was no way I could strike up a casual conversation with anyone about her or her murder. A couple of times, it was clear people recognized me—there was some whispering, and a guy pointedly moved away from me when I walked up next to him to order a beer.

  Over the next few days, I saw Trish a couple of times, but the time was never right for us to talk. She always made eye contact, though, and I knew I just had to give her time. On TV, when they compress an entire case into an hour-long show (with time out for commercial breaks) the witnesses and the suspects always talk on cue. In life, though, people tell you the most when they’re ready to talk, and I was willing to wait.

  I spent my first few days at Pipeline, getting to know the surfers and working on my cover story. A few wouldn’t speak to me, though I didn’t know if it was because I had been a cop, because they knew I was gay, or just because they were unfriendly. After long, hot showers and lots of sports cream rubbed on to my aching calves, I went out every night, but finally I realized that in the places I’d been choosing, the music was too loud and the patrons too drunk. I decided to rethink my strategy and find the best surf shop on the North Shore, the one where the top surfers would hang out to swap stories and salivate over new gear. Maybe someone there could give me a lead.

  After cruising up and down the Kam Highway, I decided The Next Wave was the place. The collection of high-end equipment and the cappuccino bar made it a place not only where surfers would hang out, but where it was quiet enough to strike up a casual conversation.

  As I moved around Hale’iwa, I discovered that there weren’t many people left on the North Shore who remembered me from the time I’d spent there; most of those I surfed with had moved on with their lives, as I had, or else were chasing waves elsewhere around the world.

  One person had remained, though. Of course, he was the one I didn’t particularly want to see, and of course, he was the owner and manager of the Next Wave, meaning I was bound to see a lot of him.

  Dario Fonseca and I had a complicated history. He was
not the reason why I gave up pursuing a career as a professional surfer, nor was he the reason why I entered the police academy. But he certainly contributed to both those decisions. Dario was a few years old than I was, but no better a surfer. Unlike me, though, back then surfing seemed to be all he had; no education, no family, nothing but a board and a wave and the desire to put them both together.

  He and I, along with many of our friends, regularly entered tournaments we had no hope of winning. Then in March, when the great winter waves on the North Shore had died down and the best surfers had gone to chase waves elsewhere, I came in fifth in the Pipeline Spring Championships. It was the best I’d ever done, and I was riding high, thinking I was finally reaching my potential.

  A bunch of the guys took me out drinking that night, buying me beers and shots until the bar closed and dawn streaked the dark sky. I was in no condition to drive, so Dario dragged me over to his place, a one-room cottage north of Hale’iwa, to crash. I remember wanting to lay down right there on the beach, I was so wasted.