Primal Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “You certainly know a lot about the islands.”

  “Can't live here as long as I have and not pick up a few things.”

  “It's really become home for you, hasn't it?”

  He'd disappeared, nude, into the bathroom, and in a moment she heard him call back, “What? Oh, yeah... well, I read a lot, too.” His voice was replaced by the shower spray. She ordered scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee, and then she joined him in the shower.

  After repeated raps on the door without answer, room service left the tray outside.

  16

  Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

  Samuel Butler

  Outside the hotel, Jim Parry parted with Jessica, taking himself on a morning walk to the nearby hospital, where he'd look in on Sergeant Nathan Ivers. But just before they'd left the room, Parry had called into headquarters and been pleased with the news that a confession had been obtained from George Oniiwah's roommate, a story of betrayal which fully corroborated their deepest suspicions regarding Hal “Paniolo” Ewelo. Jim was ecstatic, hungry for Paniolo's head, and close enough to taste it as it was skewered over the pit. Somehow, the thought of avenging George Oniiwah made Jessica, too, feel there might be justice yet in the world, and that perhaps with the noose tightening around Ewelo's ugly neck, he might just have something to share with them about what he knew of the real Trade Winds Killer, for they'd both become convinced that Ewelo knew more than anyone had at first suspected, especially since the tenuous link between Terri Reno's john on the street and the cowboy-turned-pimp bar owner had been made.

  Jessica had checked for any messages left her from the previous evening, and now she was alone outside the hotel, intending to return to the FBI crime lab via cab to see if there'd been any new developments there. Suddenly she was stopped by Joseph Kaniola.

  “What do you want, sir?” she asked coldly.

  “I want you to come with me.”

  She shook her head. “I'm not going anywhere with you, Mr. Kaniola.”

  “I swear on my son's grave, I had nothing to do with the Oniiwah boy's death.”

  “I have no intention of going off with you, Mr. Kaniola. I have no reason to trust your motives, not since our last meeting.”

  He dropped his gaze and said, “I'm sorry if you have felt used. Dr. Coran, but now you see that we are on the same side.”

  She said nothing, flagging down a cab.

  Kaniola persisted. “You have been long enough here now to know that everyone uses everyone in Hawaii, and that none of us are spared such... indignity.”

  “What do you want of me, Mr. Kaniola?”

  “My great-granduncle is a shaman and—”

  “Shaman?”

  “He is a priest among the traditionals and has sent word to me...”

  “And so?”

  “He has the gift, and he has seen this Trade Winds Killer, this man who killed my son. He tells me so, and he says he has seen you with him. He says it is not Ewelo.”

  “Has seen me? With the Trade Winds Killer? Just how?”

  “In a trance. Through here,” he replied, pointing to his temple. “My great-granduncle is what your culture calls a... a psychic.”

  “Really? Look, Mr. Kaniola—”

  “Will you come?”

  “No.”

  “But he can tell you facts not presently in evidence, facts you can use against this maniac you hunt.”

  She shook her head. “This is still the U.S., and in a U.S. court the word of a prophet or seer isn't of any... use, but you know that, so why're you even pursuing this, Mr. Kaniola?”

  “I do as my great-granduncle requests, without question.”

  She glowered at him. “What're you suggesting? That if I don't come voluntarily—”

  “No, no, no, please, Dr. Coran. I only say it is imperative you meet with my great-granduncle.”

  “Bring him round to the Federal building then, this afternoon if you like.” She tried sidestepping him, the cabbie honking his horn, becoming irate.

  He blocked her way. “No, you don't understand.”

  “Take it or leave it, but get out of my way or so help me, sir, you will see my training firsthand.”

  “Great Uncle cannot make such a journey.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “He is ancient and stubborn, like you, and... and he will not... cannot leave the shrine.”

  “The shrine?”

  “The family shrine, where he lives in the mountains, there...” He pointed to the imposing array of mountains over his shoulder and looming over Honolulu. They appeared so unreal as to be painted onto the sky, the most breathtaking mountains Jessica had ever seen anywhere on earth. Kaniola continued, saying, “Great Uncle has seen you in here”—he again pointed to his cranium — “and now pleads to see you in the flesh.”

  She took a deep breath. “Seen me? On the six o'clock news maybe, or in your paper?”

  “In his trance, and he wishes to tell you face-to-face of the... of an impending danger.”

  “Like I don't know the risks?” She almost laughed.

  “No... you don't... no one knows as Lomelea knows. He is a hemolele.”

  “Would you mind? I don't have an Hawaiian dictionary on me and—”

  “'Ole, pono loa, a perfect, a priest.”

  “Look, Kaniola, I'm already late and—-”

  “It is an honor to be asked to come before the perfect.”

  She stared at the waiting cab and then back at Kaniola. “Do you really think this old man can tell me anything I don't already know about the case?”

  “This old man has lived for generations. He is over a hundred years old.”

  She dropped her gaze now. “This... this just better be legitimate and not a waste of my time, Mr. Kaniola, do you understand me?”

  “I do, and it won't be.”

  “Where?”

  “I will take you to him personally.”

  Waving off the angry cab driver, Jessica reluctantly followed Kaniola to his waiting car, knowing Jim would be furious with her when he found out what she'd done. Maybe this was why she gave in to Kaniola's less-than-persuasive plea. If she could back Jim off to arm's length, keep him guessing, keep him upset with her, then maybe she had a chance of keeping the relationship under her control—a thing that was going to be doubly hard now that they'd been intimate.

  9 A.M., July 17, somewhere in the Koolau Mountains

  Jessica found herself at an ancient Polynesian shrine built into the mountainside of Oahu's Koolau Range, away from the bustling city of Honolulu. The shrine was multi-tiered and draped with flowers and ceremonial leis far more beautiful and intricate than any she'd seen at the various tourist traps of either Maui or Honolulu. Kaniola led the way through a labyrinthine garden that connected with the shrine nestled here among trees. It was a shrine of light and life, of wind and bird, of water and greenery, a monument to all that seemed good in the islands. She found a sense of enormous peace and equanimity here, a feeling she'd never completely had before.

  Looking back along the path they'd followed, far in the distance she could see the city of Honolulu stretching out like a serpentine creature, the skyscrapers like its knobby and horned backbone where they stood in a row along the coastal waters several hundred feet below.

  If she squinted, she could make out the enormous crater called the Punchbowl, Puu-owaina, Hill of Sacrifice, where the remains of American soldiers, sailors and marines and famous Hawaiian nationals reposed in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

  Closer to her, she made out the man-made canals created in the 1800s by engineers to take the mountain rains to the sweeping flatlands of the coasts on either side, land which would otherwise be in a constant state of drought. She could see from this vantage that the islands were a playground for nature, which had created broad

  paint strokes of every hue.

  Kaniola stopped in his tracks just
ahead of her, bowed before the entrance to his great-granduncle's home and stepped through the humble little cottage door.It was cool and damp inside, a natural form of air-conditioning, and candles lit their way to the rear where the old man, all skin and bones, lay in a cot that was little more than a rickety hammock. A Hawaiian Ghandi, she thought on seeing him. He wore the same wire-rim spectacles that Ghandi had worn.

  On hearing their approach, he sat up. Bare-chested, he quickly placed a muumuu over himself the way a woman might. He didn't bother tying the baggy dress and his shape and tiny arms were lost in its billowy folds and flowered print, only the small brown face and white head showing at the top.

  The models at Hilo Hattie's five-and-dime shops in Honolulu had nothing to fear from this competition, she told herself, stifling a smile at the wizened old creature.

  “Forgive appearance of old men,” the wheezing voice that came out of the prune face said. The man had obviously lost all his teeth and could not bother with dentures, as attested to by the sunken gums and the empty apple-sauce jars that littered his home.

  “You are Kaniola's great-granduncle?” she asked, feeling a bit uncomfortable with her surroundings.

  “Lomelea”—he pointed to himself—“I... am...” He spoke at a snail's pace and was hard to decipher. “And I... did... see you.”

  “Yes, in a newspaper maybe, or on television?”

  He only laughed. “I live here. Do you see TV? Don't have it. Won't allow it. Western pilau!”

  He put as much emphasis into the word pilau as his frail form could muster. Kaniola hadn't lied about the probable age of the old man.

  “How can I help you, Mr. Lomelea?”

  “It is... the killing one... You are close, but you see only his shadow...”

  The old man had no idea how accurate that sounded, but she did. “We're getting closer,” she simply

  said.”You be near. I see you both... in my red dream.”

  “You've seen us both?”

  She tried not to sound too disappointed in having come all this way for nothing.

  “He is... one of us.” The old man's head shook sadly, independent of his body, like that of a marionette, the strings moved by the wind flowing through the open-air back room where he slept.

  She silently wondered how many times the 'old man's shrine, over his lifetime, had been demolished by the angry island gods, only to be painstakingly rebuilt like the proverbial house of straw.

  “A cathedral it is not...” he said in shaky English as if reading her thoughts, “but ground is sanctified, and me... a holy man.”Wishing she hadn't come, and wishing to get this behind her, she said, “What can you tell me about the killer, Mr. Lomelea?”

  “He has fire hair.”

  “Fire hair?”

  “Red, rusty-colored, natty hair of many of our people,” Kaniola explained for her. She recalled Terri Reno's description, and the police sketch, and it fit. She realized that by now Kaniola and every other newsman in the islands had a copy of both the sketch and the description. Could Joe have cued his old relative with the information?

  “You have... healthy doubt. Good, I respect,” said the old man. “More I tell you. With heart you listen.”

  With that the old man squatted and called on his trance state to enable him to reveal more about the monster roaming his island. His gibberish was in Hawaiian, however, and she did not understand until Kaniola translated.

  “Laulima...”

  Kaniola said, “Community food patch, cooperation, working together.”

  The old man continued on, unstoppable. “A'ohe launa ka make 'u...”

  “No fear, friendly, sociable, yet there's no limit to the fear that is no fear,” explained Kaniola.

  “... Keiki lawehala... lawe kahili...”

  “What's he saying?”

  “Sin, no... sinner, evil sinner, delinquent son of'—Kaniola hesitated—”of bearer of the feather standard.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Royalty...”

  The old man seemed in another realm now, his eyes rolled back in his head so that all she could see were the whites. His speech was being taped by Kaniola, and for the first time she realized this fact.

  “Can you be more specific?” she asked, wondering how she could possibly use what the old man had had to say so far. His glazed-eye trance routine had been perfected over time.

  “Lawehana,” he continued.

  Kaniola engaged the old man in their native tongue. “Lawehana ? “

  “A me lawe hanai, eia ho 'i lawehana.”

  “Both?”

  “What?” asked Jessica.

  'The killer, he says, is both a grown man and a child, a common laborer and an adopted child.”

  “Adopted?” she asked.

  “Halfway so, yes.”

  How was someone halfway adopted? she wanted to scream. Still, she patiently listened as the old man continued.

  Over the old man's head hung an ancient set of leis, one a lei palaoa, ivory pendents from whale's teeth suspended by two coils of braided human hair the texture and color of which matched the alleged killer's. Alongside this was a lei of rosary beads, known as a lei korona for the crown of England. A dog-tooth necklace, called a niho'ilio, dangled nearby as well. As she stared at these museum pieces in wonder, the old man spoke as if in her brain, saying, “Killer fashions cords from human hair,” but it was Kaniola, translating, breaking into her thoughts.

  “Lehe luhe, lehelehe.” The old man's mouth creased in a smile over his own words.

  Kaniola remained grim, saying, “The killer's lips are fat like those of the vagina, pouting lips.”

  “Lei palaoa, niho 'illo mahine. “

  Kaniola visibly stiffened.

  Jessica pressed him to translate the words.

  “He... the killer makes leis from their teeth and hair. He has them in his house. He knows the ancient ways and he knows the modem ways.”

  “I lawa no a pau ka hana Ku, ho 7 ho 7 kaua, “ continued the old man.

  “He says that as soon as the work is finished for Ku, the ancient god, then the killer will leave.”

  “Will leave for where?”

  “To be with Ku.”

  “Aelo, aewa,” continued the old man.

  “Says your killer has no backbone, weaves back and forth like seaweed, that he is like the infertile egg that smells of rot from within.”

  The old man continued rambling. “ 'A'ohe Ahahui Mamakakaua.”

  “He says this man is no son or daughter of Hawaiian warriors.”

  “What, now we're back to it's a white man?”

  “... ahiwa, ahewa... 'aihue kanaka, ai kanaka, aikane, 'ai kapu, ai kepa, 'ai noa, ai pa 'a, aiwa...”

  “What's he saying?”

  “He's not making much sense, I'm afraid.”

  “Tell me.” She was impatient.

  “Well, I'll try. He says the kidnapper is a man who seeks to find guilt and administer scorn, and that he is a cannibal, a man-eater, yet friendly or a friend...”

  “Ahonui!” shouted the old man.

  “That he has infinite patience.”

  “He's a stalker,” she agreed, “and he knew those he killed, and it's possible they were cannibalized to some degree.”

  “Says he eats by using cutting blades and sometimes tears with teeth, and that he eats under taboo, yet he eats freely, ignoring taboo, without observing them.”

  The old man muttered in his native tongue.

  “What else is he saying?” Jessica asked.

  “Either that Great Uncle wants a present of cooked taro in ti-leaf bundles, or that you face a difficult problem, a mystery.”

  “He's got that right.”

  “Aka' ula... akiu ala kai...” continued the old man in a monotone.

  “He is speaking now of you,” said Kaniola.

  She exchanged a look with Joe Kaniola, who said, “You search for answers, seek, probe, a medical person, but what you seek is a red shado
w like the sunset. You can not touch it though you see it before you.”

  “... alaula ala'ula... aloalo. 'ale'ale ho'i alelo.”

  “He says a canoe will take you to a flaming road in a land filled with hibiscus where no one will know your tongue—a land of kings.”

  Was he describing the Rainbow Tower where I'm staying? Jessica wondered, surprised at her own jaded and suspicious nature. Still, she'd become captivated by the old man's “second sight,” predictions and native charms such as they were.

  Kaniola listened intently for his great-granduncle's next words. There was a long silence and the old man looked faint, about to give in to his fatigue when he bellowed out yet another stream of words.

  “'Au ho'au. Doctor... 'auamo, 'au'a.”

  Kaniola was reluctant to translate, but Jessica insisted he do so.

  “He asks you a direct question, about your cane.” Kaniola indicated the cane at her side.

  “What about it?” She feared he was asking after it as an offering, a gift for his services. She hadn't seen a basket to toss folding money into.

  “He says you are a strong swimmer in the sea, that you need no handle or staff or stem, that it is a burden to you, but you are stingy and won't part with it.”

  She gripped her cane tighter and asked Kaniola to ask the old man one question.

  “Yes?”

  “Ask him how many times will the red shadow kill?”

  “Ehia. Great Uncle, ehiaV

  “'Ehiku,” came the quick answer.

  “Don't tell me,” she said, raising a hand, “seven?”

  Kaniola nodded. The old man said, “ 'Ehu, 'eho kino, nuinui kino.”

  “What's that?”

  “He says all the bodies are below the spray, stacked like stone markers, many, many bodies.”

  “How many years has the killer stalked victims?”

  “ 'Ehiku.”

  “Seven again.”

  The old man then told a tale of a chief whose son was bom with many problems, from asthma to diseases that left the child crippled and deformed. The child looked like an old man who'd had a stroke. The chief adopted a foster child, a well-formed child, and had this child take the place of his only male child. With the