Primal Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  Parry mentally ran down the list of his agents, anyone remotely connected with the operation. Haley, Reno, Gagliano, Mr. Lau and his people in the labs. He also wondered about himself, if he'd foolishly left anything of a confidential nature lying about for the cleaning lady at the office to pick up. He wouldn't put it past Kaniola to use tabloid techniques to get a story and sell papers.

  News leaked... as if it were obligated to. Especially in the case of a red-ball like this, especially in the fishbowl of an island community, with everyone's eye pressed against the glass. U.S. military brass was interested, the state, the county and the city of Oahu all wanted to know the latest yesterday, as did the State Department and D.C. It was the reason Paul Zanek was so free with advice and with Jessica Coran.

  Now they could all read about it in the papers. Not altogether satisfied, Scanlon abruptly left while Dr. Marshal lingered behind. Jessica watched the officious military doctor step to the window and stare out at the mountain mosaic in the distance, patches of it cluttered by homes that seemed to creep ever closer to the summit each year.

  “I've lived here for nearly twenty years, Inspector, and in all that time I've never felt afraid.”

  “Afraid, sir?”

  “Never afraid of the volcanic activity, the occasional tropical storm or hurricane, the serpentine traffic, the congestion or the growing tourism... not even the worst backwater streets in the worst sections of the city ever really frightened me. But now... this... this scares me. Parry.” He turned from the window to emphasize his point, staring hard at the FBI bureau chief. “This city could go up in flames tomorrow. We all know that.”

  Jessica stepped toward him and firmly said, “I understand your concerns, sir, but I assure you, we are doing everything within our power to bring an end to the killings.”

  “We need more, Parry. We need an arrest, a suspect, a...”

  “A scapegoat?” asked Parry.

  “It would take the heat off; give you room to, you know, maneuver, shall we say? Time to get at the root of the problem. I have it on good authority that the boyfriend of the latest victim has been under interrogation.”

  Christ, thought Parry, how many eyes were watching the fishbowl? Marshal was an old man who had watched Honolulu grow, and he, like most haoles, had invested a great deal in real estate here.

  “I'm not prepared to arrest someone just to appease the likes of Joseph Kaniola or any other newsman, Doctor.”

  “No one's asking you to appease Kaniola.” He looked sternly into Parry's eyes, shocked that Parry didn't understand him. “But there are many who would be appeased by an arrest at this time.”

  “I'll let Scanlon do your dirty work for you. Dr. Marshal. The FBI doesn't knowingly make false arrests.”

  “I have friends in the State Department, Inspector, and you can be assured that everyone back home”—America was forever home to the older generation of whites in Hawaii—”everyone is watching this case with extreme curiosity and interest, I assure you.”

  The veiled threat wasn't lost on Parry or Jessica. He'd only become bureau chief two years before, and a case such as this, left open too long, or worse, defying solution, could cost him dearly. Jessica guessed now that whatever people “back home”—no doubt senators, congressmen and other high-ranking officials— didn't know about the case, Dr. Marshal was only too happy to provide.

  Parry, with obvious disdain, said, “I appreciate and understand the nature of your concern, Doctor, but please, leave the investigation to the experts. It's what we're here for.”

  Marshal only stared for a long moment, Parry returning the cold glint until finally Marshal said, “Of course, and perhaps we at the base can be kept informed? Just as the HPD is informed of the progress you and Dr. Coran are making?”

  “Of course.”

  Marshal extended a hand, and for a moment it was poised between them before Parry reached out and vigorously shook it, saying, “I'll keep you posted.”

  “That's all I ask. Thank you, indeed.”

  With that Marshal disappeared and Parry looked thoughtfully up at Jessica as she waited for him to speak. Instead, he scanned Joseph Kaniola's story once again, and there, in black and white, was George Oniiwah's name, just a line, saying that “Oniiwah has been repeatedly questioned by police,” which meant that the hapa Japa was by innuendo a suspect and that he clearly knew something. “So,” he finally spoke, breaking the unhappy iciness between them, “our good Dr. Marshal thinks it'd be a wonderful idea to lock Oniiwah up, play the Hawaiian population against the Nip population, thereby skirting the FBI profile, which points ever more to a white male, late twenties to early forties. For Oniiwah's own safety, maybe it's not such a bad idea, but it sticks in my craw.”

  “We did it in New York, you know, on my last case,” she offered, falling into a cushioned chair before him.

  “Did it? Did what?”

  “Arrested a known sex offender, you know, to appease the public mind,” she admitted.

  He frowned at this. “If it were that easy, I might consider it, but Marshal's only half the problem. While he's trying to save the boys in white and blue from Pearl, any number of whom could be our killer, the governor of Hawaii, the mayor of Honolulu and your boss, Paul Zanek, are all screaming for somebody's head.”

  “Zanek's on your case? That's some nerve! I'll have something to say to him. Hell, he's not even your direct super—”

  “Jess, everybody in the military wants to believe our killer's one of them—Hawaiian or of mixed island blood, that is—while everyone in government wants us to catch the Caucasian killer. You see, such an end to this would show good faith, so to speak, take a hell of a lotta heat off every level of government, and—”

  “That's one asinine way to conduct an investigation!”

  “—and our so-called 'good faith' move'll clear law-enforcement agencies throughout the islands of the stain of prejudicial proceedings. Get it?”

  “In one fell swoop. It's coming clearer, yeah.” She shook her head, disbelieving even as she understood.

  “Ironic as hell, isn't it?”

  “Reverse discrimination, so to speak?”

  “At its worst, yeah... something like that.”

  “So what're you going to do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “For now, nada. See which way the wind blows.”

  “As will our killer I'm sure, Jim.”

  “I didn't say we're going to sit on the investigation.” He lost control, shouting, “Just on the goddamned politics surrounding the bloody case!” She dropped her gaze, nodding. “I'm sorry. I know that, Jim. I didn't for a moment mean to imply anything other—”

  “Look, forget it. I'm wound like a top today. Look.” He tried desperately to tread lightly now. “How're things going in the lab?”

  “Torturously slow, but we're moving onward. As soon as I know anything new, you'll be the first.”

  “Well, thanks for coming down on the white charger.”

  “Only hope it helped.”

  “Helped clear the room sooner, that's for sure.”

  Together they laughed at this.

  But their laughter was short-lived when she lifted a copy of Kaniola's paper, written in Hawaiian, yet crystal-clear from the photos of each of the missing young women bordering the story, and a crude sketch of a human forearm with upper muscle and shoulder, ruptured at the wrist, gracing the bottom of the page.

  “I told him nothing about Kahala's arm.” She didn't want to point a finger, but she didn't want Jim Parry to think any worse of her than he already did either.

  “Kaniola's shrewd. He's weaseled out a hell of a lot of details about the crimes. See this?” He pointed to the word 'a'apl.

  “What's it mean?”

  “He says the blade used on the Kahala girl was warped or curved. Here he speaks of tragic misfortune, 'awa, and of persons dying before their time, 'a'aiole. And that it happens with the ae.”


  “The a-eee?”

  'The northeast trade wind.”

  “Geeze... so what else does the story say?” she asked.

  “Depicts Thom Hilani and Kaniola's son as a couple of heroes—the only two cops in the whole of Oahu who'd ever gotten near the Cane Cutter. Describes the rest of the HPD as something far less admirable; depicts the bureau as a confederacy of bungling idiots.”

  “It says all that?”

  “See this word, here, hawawal Its literal translation is unskilled, awkward, blundering and incompetent.”

  “Sounds like the papers back home.”

  “So how'd he get the drawing of the dead girl's limb? If not from you, that leaves someone in Lau's lab, perhaps, or one of my agents, all of whom I'd thought I could trust.”

  She told him of Kaniola's connection to Lau. “Look, when the limb rose from the Blow Hole, people witnessed it. Cops were called on scene and got there before your guys, right? Everyone in Oahu knew about the limb.”

  “Guess so... Damn tired of having to fight my back, though.”

  “I hope you don't think that includes me.”

  He shook his head. “No, no. You, I think, are genuine. Look at this,” he said, changing the subject, pointing once more to the Ala Ohana's Hawaiian words. “Our pal Kaniola talks about you, too, here.”

  “What?”

  “Calls you an anchor stone for the investigation.”

  “Anchor stone?”

  “Heleuma,” he replied, using the Hawaiian term, and then he read on. “'Dr. Jessica Coran has been called onto the case by top-ranking FBI officials'—that'd be me—'to oversee the forensic investigation in the absence of Dr. Harold Shore. Coran has solved a number of puzzling and bizarre serial-murder cases on the mainland, the most famous of which culminated in the capture of the mad vampire slayer, Matt Matisak, in Chicago, and also the case of the Claw in New York City last year.'“

  “I see,” she said, staring to where he pointed.

  “The placement of your name at this juncture is direct innuendo that the information following this came from you.”

  She looked quizzically at the Hawaiian words before her. “What information?”

  “That the suspect is believed to be a white male between the ages of twenty-seven and forty.”

  “I told him that was just probability, that it is statistically likely that—”

  “The Hawaiians are looking for the least provocation to shut down Pearl as a base of U.S. operations; word of this spreads, we're going to catch hell from both sides, and we know Marshal's going to spread it—not to mention the racial tensions which are running quite high right now.”

  “Kaniola's playing on these emotions?”

  “Like a virtuoso, yes. That's how native political power works.”

  She shook her head. “I can't entirely agree.”

  “Sure, sure, he genuinely wants his son avenged first and foremost; for all their inherent good nature, the fact that Hawaiians are lovely people does not lessen their sense of justice and faith in vengeance.”

  “Like most of humanity?”

  He gave her a knowing look and a smirk. “Okay, but Joe Kaniola's also fanning embers that've been smoldering for a long time, over a hundred years to be exact. He's got a whole population of disenfranchised people to blow off to, to vent his spleen with, over this issue, which leads him and his people straight back to the fundamental issue of who governs here and who carries the big stick of enforcement.”

  “Oh, God... I hope I didn't really mess things up for you, Jim.”

  “Well, the worst of it has nothing to do with what you told Kaniola.”

  “What's that?”

  “Like I said, this mention of George Oniiwah. Putting his name into this story made him a target for anyone remotely interested in avenging Linda Kahala, Thom Hilani, Alan Kaniola or any of the other women. Shit, if someone reading this decides that Oniiwah is the Cane Cutter, some bad pilikia's going to follow.”

  “Is Oniiwah white?”

  “Half Japanese.”

  “Surely that's inconsistent with Kaniola's innuendo that the killer is suspected to be a white male.”

  “Kaniola characterizes the kid as half 'white' by virture of his and his family's so emulating the white man—dressing white, dancing white, eating white, all that.”

  “Surely that's not enough to condemn him. Nobody could possibly decide that the FBI profile states the killer's whiteness is just mock white behavior, could they?”

  “We got some pretty big, pretty nasty and pretty dumb Samoans and Hawaiians on this island who put pilau like that together all the time, and proud of it.”

  “Is the man under arrest, in protective custody?”

  “Neither, and he's missing.”

  “What're you saying? That he's gone into hiding? That he's fleeing, what?”

  “No one's sure at this point.”

  “You're not saying... he's not been abducted? Has he?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Jesus...”

  “Minute I saw the paper, I called to have him picked up, but it was already too late. Oniiwah's roommate tells a story about three heavyset Samoans bursting into their dorm room—middle of the night—at the college. The roommate was knocked senseless, or so he maintains, but we're not sure his story is a hundred percent accurate.”

  “You suspect he was in on the abduction?”

  “Bruises he sustained are minimal; could've been inflicted by someone, but certainly not enough to knock him unconscious as he states. Anyway, his story has these big Samoan dudes taking George out by the hair, kicking and screaming. Tony's continued to grill the guy and—”

  “Neither Scanlon nor Marshal know a thing about this development, obviously, and you're not telling?”

  He ignored her and continued. “An APB's being put out on the kid, but it doesn't look good for Oniiwah. All in all, nothing's turned out quite right.”

  “Hell, I didn't even know about Oniiwah when I spoke to Kaniola.”

  “I know that. Look, it could get ugly,” he stated.

  “If the boy's hurt...”

  “Oniiwah's being half Japanese and dressing the way he does... that's all some Samoans need to know. The typical dyed-in-the-wool Samoan believes in 'act now, think later,' and that's why there're so many of them in the state pen. Samoans are worse than the native Hawaiians in their hatred for the Japanese and the whites. They're the ones who initiated and now annually hold the Hawaiian version of Hell Night here, the 'Kill a Haole Day' festivities which annually lands many behind bars. So, don't go whipping yourself over this.”

  She sensed that he was doing exactly that to himself all morning.

  “Anything happens, it's Kaniola's fault and mine,” said Parry. “I should've listened to Tony last night. He tried to warn me about the mood of the people. Damn...”

  “What next?”

  “We've got a notion we're playing out. Tony's working on getting paper for a search warrant as we speak. I'd be over at the site myself by now if I hadn't got hung up with Scanlon and Marshal.” He looked at his watch. “Should be about time now. When's the last time you were in on a bust?”

  “A bust? Me?”

  “Sure, why not. You want to see some real local color?” She took it as a challenge.

  “Want to join me or not?” He buzzed his secretary and called for his car to be brought around. “Well?”

  “All right, all right, maybe I will.”

  Lopaka's hands are busy over the wheel of the bus he drives, a small, versatile twenty-four-seater for Enoa Tourist Industries. The bus makes stops at predesignated hotel locations to load more passengers till filled to capacity today. A typical Tuesday on the island. But while his hands and eyes are occupied here, Lopaka's mind is elsewhere.

  His eyes scan the city streets for his next victim, for someone who resembles Kelia, someone who may walk like her, and whose pattern of life he can approach and intercept. Once their paths cross, he migh
t easily fit into her world, which is his world, too. He's on the same streets every day, doing his job, carting tourists back and forth along the same avenues from the hotels—making some six to seven stops depending—to the sights at Pearl Harbor on his run. Along the way, he must spout the history and culture of the islands to the hungry tourists, who seem to have tattoos over their eyes that scream, “Tell me something I don't know, excite my curiosity, wake me up.”

  “Over to the left, the large building you're looking at is the Bishop Museum, Hawaii's largest and oldest museum. A day's visit in its friendly confines is a delight for all who visit the islands, a real must!” he tells his passengers, but even as he speaks in rote memory of his lines, his mind shifts between past experiences with the Kelias he has known and killed, and the future Kelias he will slay, and he wonders what life will be like after he reaches the final number, seven times seven, the one which will make him immortal.

  'The Enoa Bus Line can of course accommodate you on a separate and unique trip to the Bishop Museum, if you wish to see the archaeological treasures of the islands,” he says over the P.A. just as they pass the turn for the famous museum. “Should you wish an extended trip into a truly Hawaiian world of gala festivities, topped off by a traditional evening luau, Enoa buses run daily to the Polynesian Cultural Center on the other side of the island. Read about it on the back of your free Enoa Tours map and plan for a six-hour tour.”

  The bus came to a shuddering slowdown with traffic jamming up ahead. “No worry, folks,” he tells his charges. “Just a little accident up 'head on da freeway.” At just the right marker and moment, he adds, “Coming up on your right is the world-famous Hula Bowl, host to the world's finest young athletes, the All-Stars of college football each year after the regular season. The Hula Bowl is also known for being the home of...”

  He no longer hears himself, having so often done the stock spiel. His mind is partitioned and while the left side takes care of business in the here and now, the other is considering his choices after dark. He might simply go to Alakana's ABC Liquor and Pharmacy on Ala Moana, the street of abundance, where he'd gotten to know the sales clerk enough to call her by her first name, Hiilani, and while she was younger than Kelia by a few years when Kelia had left him, she was all Hawaiian—no mix. At least she'd claimed to be a full-blood native when he'd jokingly asked if there were any full-bloods left. He had bought his newspaper as usual and had been careful not to overstay his welcome, but he did ask her what she'd do if he showed up that evening to drive her home.