by Chip Hughes
I drive Hilo-bound on Highway 11, from the main gate of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park to Volcano Village. The journey downslope is barely one mile.
In less than a minute I turn off the highway into Volcano Village. The village’s scattered homes and B&Bs spread over several miles of high rainforest at the cool elevation of nearly four thousand feet. Its post office and dozen or so small businesses—restaurants, hardware store, and two general stores—all straddle Old Volcano Road, once the main highway around the island. Frequent rains keep everything in Volcano green and mossy.
The old highway that connects the village’s main streets is damp. It’s not raining now, but the next shower is always coming. Only a few thousand people live here. The village gives off a hang-loose-aging-hippie vibe. It’s a place where independent-minded artists, crafts- and trade-persons, retirees, wilted flower children, and corporate dropouts end up after long years of playing the game. Not the mention lifelong residents who are none of the above.
How Sonny Boy fits into this vibe, I don’t know. He certainly wasn’t hang-loose when he dragged Ransom from his car some two decades ago. I recall the CEO’s limo driver, Kawika, saying Sonny Boy grew pakalolo back then on the land cleared for drilling. Maybe protecting his crop made his protest turn violent? When I asked why Chang had attended Stan Nagahara’s funeral, Kawika said the former protester was probably just glad to see Nagahara dead. And would also be glad to see Ransom dead.
No surprise Caitlin named Sonny Boy her suspect number one.
Off the old highway sits a plantation-style cottage on an overgrown jungle that’s seen better days. I pull in. That’s not where Sonny Boy lives. He lives down an equally overgrown path that weaves out of sight behind the cottage. I drive down the path, just wide enough for one car, into a clearing. Sitting on blocks is a rust-orange shipping container, the kind you see on Matson ships, with a window cut in at one end and a door at the other.
I knock on the rusty metal door. I expect it to open to the sweet-sour odor of pakalolo. No. The container smells like wild ginger. Has he kicked the habit?
He steps toward me. He’s not a big man, but wiry and muscular.
“Ikaika?” I say. “I’m Kai. Pualani say maybe you like talk wit’ me?”
“Shoots,” he says, “Call me Sonny Boy.” He shows me in.
The ginger scent intensifies as I follow him. Then I see why. In one corner a plastic bucket that says LONDON DRILLING EQUIPMENT—a relic of his protesting days?—brims with the yellow ginger that grows along the highway.
“You know Pualani long?” I ask and check him out more closely.
Mop of brown hair. Sun-bleached dreadlocks. Dark, intense eyes—with the martyr look in those biblical illustrations of Jesus. But Sonny Boy’s eyes are fiercer.
“Pualani no tell you?” His fierce eyes warm.
“No tell me what?” I say.
“I’m Malia’s daddy.”
Whose daddy? Then it dawns on me. Pualani’s tortured look. Her teenage girl.
“Shoots,” I say. Sonny Boy and Pualani must have hung out together during the protests. Then on one of his return trips from prison, I guess, Pualani had his baby.
“You surprise?” he asks. “Das why I here in Volcano. To be wit’ Malia.”
I shrug and look around the rusty container. On the plank floor sits a small bookshelf with volumes on Hawaiian history and law. And a photo of a smiling teenager who looks like Pualani. No TV. No electricity, I guess. There’s one short stool and a sagging single bed against one metal wall and a surfboard against the other. That’s it.
I try to connect with him. “Where you surf, brah?”
“Pohoiki in Lower Puna.” Sonny Boy gestures to the stool. I plant myself on it and he sits cross-legged on the floor. “Da bes’, brah. But when I can go surfing? No wheels.”
“Maybe we go togeddah sometime,” I say. “I got one car hea, but no board.”
He perks up. Regardless of what I’ve heard about him, I’m starting to like Sonny Boy. His daughter is his life. He surfs. Maybe he is a changed man?
“What you t’ink ‘bout da guy Rex Ransom wen’ huli in da steam vent?” I ask.
Sonny Boy’s eyes turn fierce again. “Good riddance. He deserve ‘em. He rip up da rainforest and he rape Pele.”
“You like tell me, brah, you hea when he wen’ huli?”
“Wuz hea in Volcano,” Sonny Boy says. “Pele did ‘em. Case close. When I pull da guy outta his car, I do ‘em fo’ Pele. She acting t’rough me.”
“Maybe Pele act t’rough again?”
“Nah,” Sonny Boy says. “Dis time she no need me, or anybody.” He looks me in the eyes. “No mo’ jail again fo’ dat guy. Nevah. I stay wit’ Malia.”
Sonny Boy didn’t get off lightly. Most men in Ransom’s position, for PR sake, would have let an incident like this go. But he pressed charges, attended court hearings, and spoke out against Chang at every opportunity. Why wouldn’t Sonny Boy carry a grudge? Not to mention that he seems to think his actions were divinely inspired.
“Why I make Ransom?” he continues. “No need. Pele do ‘em. All t’ree dead now. Firs’ da plant manager. Den da attorney. And now da beeg boss. It more den one coincidence. Don’t you t’ink, brah?”
“Could be,” I say. And I wonder: Would he risk parole to take another hack at Ransom? Would he risk being with his daughter?
“If you don’t believe me,” Sonny Boy says, “ask Pele’s sistah, Hi’iaka. She see da whole t’ing.”
“She see Pele kill Ransom? Da crazy woman? Da escape mental patient?”
“Sure t’ing, brah. Go ask her yourself.”
“Where I fine’ her?”
“Secret place,” Sonny Boy says. “You got one car?”
I nod. “Told you awready, brah.”
“I take you, den,” he says.
twenty-four
Sonny Boy and I climb into my car. He’s carrying a plastic shopping bag half filled with papayas and apple-bananas. We start to roll and he says, “You like take one makana, one gift, to Hi‘iaka?”
“What kine gift?” I ask.
“One bottle of gin,” Sonny Boy says. “An’ one pack of Camels.” He tells me Hi‘iaka should be honored in the same way her sister Pele is honored.
“Fo’ sure?” I’m thinking this is a scam. I’m thinking the gin and Camels will end up in Sonny Boy’s hands.
He nods. He’s not kidding.
Sonny Boy directs me to a little general store on the Old Volcano Highway. It’s one of those tiny, all-purpose marts where villagers can get everything they need without having to drive to Hilo. The fifth of gin and pack of Camels sets me back nearly twenty-five bucks. I pocket the receipt, wondering how to justify this expense to my client.
We climb into the car again and head into the park. I take Crater Rim Drive past the Volcano House and start to circle the three-ī-mile Kīlauea Caldera. Sonny Boy is not saying where we’re going.
So I ask, “How you know da goddess?”
“Hi‘iaka?” he asks.
“Yeah, Hi‘ iaka—Serena Barrymore.”
“From da protess’,” he says. “Not name Serena anymo’. Dat was befor’ da protess’. We protess’ togeddah da drilling in da rainforest.”
“You know da guy she make, da guy she push in front da bus?”
“Nevah know da guy. Was in prison den.”
I nod and keep driving. The caldera stays on our left as we continue along the counterclockwise circle. It’s mid-morning and The Steaming Bluff, where Ransom died, raises a thin mist into the sapphire sky. The odor of sulfur seeps into the car, despite closed windows.
I turn to Sonny Boy. “Where we going?”
He nods in a forward direction.
I keep my eyes on the road ahead. We pass the Kīlauea Military Camp, site of Stan Nagahara’s funeral, and then the Jaggar Museum and the Southwest Rift Overlook.
Sonny Boy’s face looks confident, even amused. He’s got a secret.
And he knows I want it. But at least he seems to be cooperating with me. Or is he leading me into some remote, quiet place where I could easily disappear?
Soon we approach Halema‘uma‘u Crater, where Karl Kroften’s crushed BMW was found.
I shrug. “Here? Where Pele live?”
Sonny Boy gazes ahead and grins, like the cat that ate the bird. He’s enjoying himself. He likes to keep me wondering.
We swing around the bottom of the circle, where Crater Rim Drive carves into lava flows of the 1970s and 1980s. As long ago as that was, the roadside still looks charred. Only a few sprigs of green sprout from cracks in the black rock.
We pass Devastation Trail—a winding path into a scorched forest. Then Thurston Lava Tube, a tunnel as big around as an airliner that was formed by a river of molten lava. Sonny Boy raises his brows and says, “Almos’.”
I drive by the Thurston Tube. About a half-mile later he says, “Pull ovah.”
I do and we climb out. He grabs his shopping bag with papayas and bananas and I grab my gin and smokes. We walk back toward the lava tube.
“Where we goin’, brah?” I ask.
“I show you.” He keeps walking.
We walk in single file along the shoulder of the road. Soon Sonny Boy steps through a break in a fern hedge and we find ourselves on a trail that weaves through a forest. The air is moist and cool. An invisible stream gurgles. A chorus of crickets and birds serenades us.
“Dis where Hi‘iaka live?” I ask. “On dis trail?”
“In one secret lava tube, brah,” Sonny Boy says.
I consider what he’s said. The Thurston Tube is the most famous, but there are hundreds in the park and in the East Rift Zone where lava flows to the sea. Some tubes have been charted and explored, by the likes of Stan Nagahara who died in one, but others remain mysteries.
Sonny Boy leads the way. The trail gets narrower and the forest thicker. This would be a perfect place to rub out a PI who’s too niele—too nosey. If the ex-con has anything to do with Rex Ransom’s death, or the deaths of his two officers under equally suspicious circumstances, he could disappear me here—if not forever, for a very long time. I size up Sonny Boy again and decide to take my chances.
“We there yet?” I’m already breaking into a sweat. The sun is blazing, we’re hiking up and down and around, and there’s not much air among the giant ferns.
“Almos’,” he says again.
And, true to his word, not one minute later he slows down, stops, and scans the trail as if he’s searching for something. He looks and looks and then says: “Hea.” Meaning, this is the place.
He squeezes through some more tree ferns into one of those hidden, uncharted lava tubes. While the Thurston Tube is lighted for the convenience and safety of park visitors, this tube is dark.
We head in. We’ve got no flashlight. But Sonny Boy lights a match. We can see again. The tube starts off barely high enough to stand, then gets smaller. We duck our heads. The floor is rough and uneven. Sonny Boy lights another match.
I’m smelling sulfur again. The tube narrows. I see a dim light ahead. And then I smell fresh air.
“Almos’ dere,” Sonny Boy says.
Finally we step into full light. And a fairy tale.
A rainbow arches over a grove of ‘ōhi‘a and a gently rolling stream. Brilliant red birds, ‘I‘iwi, the Hawaiian honeycreeper, hover over the colorful lehua blooms. Everything is green and dewy and luminous in the sun. It looks like an enchanted rainforest. Unreal.
“Dis where da goddess stay,” he says. He points in the direction of the rainbow.
Under the resplendent arch above that ‘ōhi‘a grove a bare-breasted woman dances the hula.
“Das her?”
Sonny Boy nods.
twenty-five
She’s wearing a red haku lei on her grey head and a ti-leaf skirt. Another red lei hangs around her neck, resting on her breasts. She’s not ample like Hawaiian goddesses of legend. I can count her ribs as she dances the hula—her hips swaying, her arms undulating, her hands in gentle fluid motion. Her eyes are closed and she chants as she moves.
Sonny Boy puts a finger to his lips. “Ssssshh,” he says.
Quietly we come closer. Barrymore’s red lei are lehua flowers from the ‘ōhi‘a tree. The tree she killed for.
She stands on a mossy perch above us, her delicate lei contrasting with her leathery skin. Neither her complexion nor her features look Hawaiian. Nearly three decades ago she threatened Ransom and accused him of raping her sister and of desecrating her rainforest. Back then, Barrymore was considered crazy, but harmless. That was before she committed second-degree murder. If she could push a man into the path of a bus, she could push Ransom into a steam vent.
An escaped mental patient can’t make it long on the outside without help. Sonny Boy. Why is he helping her? Did they conspire to kill Ransom?
Her eyes suddenly open and she peers down on us.
“I am Pele’s favorite sister, Hi‘iaka, patron of hula and protector of trees and ferns and rainforests.” She speaks slowly and distantly, like she’s in a trance. “I bring new life and heal the land after Pele’s lava flows. I was conceived in Tahiti, daughter of Haumea and Kāne. My beloved sister carried me to Hawai‘i cradled in her bosom.”
“Hi‘iaka, it’s me,” Sonny Boy says. “I bring you one makana, one gift.”
She perks up when she hears the word makana. Sonny Boy hands her the papayas and apple-bananas. She takes them.
“Dis Kai.” He gestures to me. “Kai bring one makana too.”
I hand her the gin and cigarettes. She sets them on her mossy perch next to Sonny Boy’s gift.
“Kai like talk wit’ you,” he says.
She smiles eerily, which I guess means, “Okay.”
I start to ask a question, but get distracted by her breasts. I’m not used to seeing women unclothed in broad daylight. I try to keep my eyes on her face. Some words finally tumble out: “Beautiful hula—beautiful forest.”
“This is my ‘ōhi‘a grove,” she says in perfect English. “The ‘ōhi‘a is sacred to me. I am its protector.”
“To cut them down is a sacrilege,” I say. “Just like drilling in the Wao Kele O Puna rainforest. Do you remember the drilling?”
“Hi‘iaka never forgets,” she says.
“And the protests in the rainforest against the man you called ‘the evil one’?”
“He deserved death at Pele’s hands,” she says.
“Not death at your hands?”
“Pele took her own revenge. I saw with my own eyes.”
“You saw Pele pitch him into the steam vent?”
“Yes, I saw.”
This conversation is getting loonier by the minute. But I’m beginning to wonder who’s loonier: her for telling me this wacky stuff, or me for asking questions that prompt it.
“Okay, Goddess Hi‘iaka.” I play along. “Tell me what you saw.”
“Pele was in her most provocative kinolau—flowing red dress, shimmering long hair, vivid eyes, and lips as fiery as a lava flow.”
Barrymore didn’t have to see the woman on the trail to get these details. This guise is legendary. I’m not convinced.
I turn to Sonny Boy, who’s taking it all in.
“It da truth,” he says. “The goddess nevah lie.”
She continues: “The old man—the evil one—saw Pele coming and tried to run. But he fell to the ground, gasping for air.”
Was that the thud and groan I heard? I wonder. But I reply, “How did he get into the vent?”
“Pele,” she says again. “Then she ran down the trail past me.”
“You’re sure you saw her?”
“I’m sure because she dropped something.”
“What?” I ask, expecting more nonsense.
“The lipstick that makes her lips fiery red.”
“Can’t be.” The words slip out.
“I held the lipstick in my own hands,” Barrymore insists. “The
n I left it along the trail, in case my sister came back for it. She didn’t. She kept running.”
From my pocket I pull the lipstick. “Did it look like this?”
“Yes,” Barrymore says. “Just like that.”
Sonny Boy turns to me. “Believe now?”
twenty-six
We make our return trip through the dark tunnel. My skeptical side is protesting. I almost believe the young woman I saw on the trail—the same woman Serena Barrymore says she saw—was a kinolau of Pele. Almost. I air my doubts.
“Madame Pele immortal, yeah?” I ask Sonny Boy.
“Das right,” he replies.
“Den why she need one mortal lipstick? Why not she jus’ make her lips any kine color she want?”
“Dunno, brah,” answers Sonny Boy. “Pele do whatevah she want. If she want one mortal lipstick, she do ‘em.”
“Or maybe Goddess Hi‘iaka jus’ dress up like Pele? Maybe Hi‘iaka herself pitch Ransom inside da vent?”
“Don’t t’ink so, brah,” he says. “Hi‘iaka too old. Maybe she can pitch ‘em inside da vent, but she no can look like one young wahine.”
Sonny Boy has a point. The woman I saw was definitely young. Serena Barrymore could not have resembled that woman, even in the mist. As we emerge from the tube into daylight and walk back to the car, I realize my investigation so far has turned up more evidence implicating Pele than any human suspect. That’s fine—if you believe in goddesses.
For the sake of thoroughness, I have Sonny Boy write in my spiral notebook his recollection of Barrymore’s story, signed and dated—the loony tale of a crazy woman verified by an ex-con on parole. Solid evidence? The best I’ve got.
Back at the Volcano House I grab a sandwich in the hotel dining room. After lunch I’m walking by the reception desk where Pualani has just been extending her aloha to a hotel guest.
“Eh, Kai,” Pualani says, “So you meet da lolo wahine dat t’ink she one goddess?”
“How’d you know?” I ask, before I put two and two together and come up with the inevitable: Sonny Boy.
“Jus’ know.” Pualani says again. “She no mo’ Goddess Hi‘iaka den dis bell on da desk.” Ding!—Ding! Pualani rings the little chrome bell for effect. “She lolo. Da wahine sick.”
