Primal Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  26

  We must be still and still moving

  Into another intensity

  For a further union, a deeper communion

  Through the dark cold and the empty desolation.

  T.S. Eliot

  Once in the air, the team of Parry and Coran felt a sense of great relief wash over them. The plane wasn't much on comfort, the seats like those of a '57 Chevy, the plane an old bucket itself. But they were airborne and as they stared down on the islands, all seemed beauty and tranquility. Jessica rested her eyes. She wanted all the turmoil, all the guessing, all the doubts over, and she wanted to believe that the natives on Kahoolawe had dealt with them fairly, that their cargo was indeed what it was purported to be.

  Beside her. Parry seemed on a cocaine high. He couldn't sit. He paced the small interior of the lumbering aircraft. He sat, stood up, sat again until finally she said, “What the hell's the matter, Jim? I'm trying to catch a few winks here. Do you mind?”

  “Sorry, I'm just so wired by all this.”

  “I understand, but you'll blow a gasket if you don't slow down.”

  “You know this'll kill Scanlon.”

  She blinked curiously at him. “Scanlon?”

  “It's going to blow Scanlon right out of his office, don't you see?”

  “Scanlon? Commissioner Scanlon?”

  “No way he can stay on as police commissioner in Honolulu now. He'll have to go Stateside just to find someone who'll hand him an application.”

  “Jim, just how much pleasure are you deriving from this fact?” She fully opened her eyes to study his response.

  He shrugged, but a smug look remained on his handsome face. “Some... some,” he confided.

  Her frown displeased him, and suddenly his frustration and perhaps his fatigue got the better of him, and he simply lit into her. “What, you don't think the bastard's got it coming? He's an incompetent ass, Jess, and it's bigots and assholes like him who get other people killed.”

  “Whataya mean? He's responsible for all of Lopaka's victims? For Lopaka's psychosis? If you want to blame someone, blame the bastard's father.”

  “Scanlon's got no business in such a position of power... it's just not right,” Jim said, continuing his tirade. “Ahh, forget it.”

  “Abuse of power? You want to talk about abuse of power, think about that Chief Kowona guy, who—” Suddenly, a light came full on deep inside her brain, illuminating all the dark, fuzzy contours around Jim's relationship with Dave Scanlon. “Wait a minute, Jim, what's this really about?”

  “Whataya mean? It's about a bad cop.”

  “A bad cop?”

  “An incompetent cop. You heard what Lopaka Kowona's wife Stateside had to say about Scanlon.”

  “Yeah, and you knew all that long before I got her on the phone. It was all old information to you. And you didn't pay her any more attention than Scanlon had.”

  He looked stricken. 'That's not exactiy fair or correct, Jess. I had access to the records of the victims, and access to police calls relevant or otherwise to the cases in the missing-persons files. I didn't have access to anything Scanlon didn't want me to have. I didn't learn about Kowona or his wife until it was too late. You've gotta know that.”

  “Then tell me this, Jim. Why'd you ever begin delving into Scanlon's old caseload to begin with? What set you on his course in the first place?”

  “That's obvious, isn't it?”

  “No, not entirely.”

  He gritted his teeth. “I admit, it began as a search through Scanlon's past record.”

  “Why? What makes you hate the man so?”

  “He intentionally screwed with an undercover operation when he was a lieutenant with the HPD, and he got a partner of mine killed as a result. He was somewhere he had no business being, Jess, and a friend was killed. Reason enough for you?”

  “So you started on this case to revenge the death of a friend? All along, that's been your motive.” Her tone alone condemned him.

  She couldn't look at him. She turned away, staring out the porthole to see Pearl Harbor below.

  “Jess, Jess,” he pleaded, “it may've started out that way... well, yes, it did start out that way. But that was all back-shelved once I saw the enormity of the crimes. I cared about the victims, and I forgot my original reasons and Scanlon in the process, all before I met you.”

  “Really?” she countered. “And I'm supposed to believe that with you dancing the aisles here, unable to hold yourself in check because you're so jubilant over Dave Scanlon's tumble from grace?”

  'Think of the number of his own cops who've died or been hurt by this, Jessica!”

  “And think just how tarnished you've become over it, Jim.”

  She turned away, unable to speak another word, anxious for the plane to land and for their departure, anxious to get away from him long enough to sort out her feelings.

  9.-45 A.M., Pearl Harbor, Honolulu

  When they landed at Pearl, they were encircled by brass and press there on the tarmac, including Joe Kaniola, who'd caught a chopper in Wailea near Makena and had openly spread the word ahead, labeling both Parry and Jessica as heroes worthy of the welcome afforded knights returning from a crusade. It'd become overcast and dark on Oahu. Blinding flashes of light came from both cameras and an approaching storm. There were microphones everywhere with the NBC, ABC and CBS logos and others attached to a podium. Everyone in the crowd expected a news conference on their disembarking. Jim looked from the cameras outside to the body at the rear of the transport. “Keep this body under armed guard until I—and no one but me—tells you otherwise, Lieutenant,” he told the young copilot standing beside him.

  “What if the brass says otherwise?”

  “Nobody takes the body out of this place except me. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You'd think we just escaped from Iran,” she whispered to Jim. “What're you afraid of, Jim? That somebody'd actually hijack Lopaka?”

  “Hey, there're people on this island that'd like to tear that body limb from limb, who'd be unhappy to know that the head was cut off before they got a chance to do it. Besides... not so sure I trust Kaniola.”

  The disembarking was met with cheers, cameras zooming in for the local and network news teams. Everyone of rank wanted to have his picture taken with Parry and Jessica. However, Parry took the initiative and simply refused to play their games, insisting he had work to attend to, and Jessica followed his lead, rushing off for the rear of the plane to oversee the disembarking of the third passenger. Hell, they had a body to attend to, she thought, and if it should suddenly disappear, who was to say whether it was or was not that of Lopaka “Robert” Kowona? If Joe Kaniola had planned this diversion and planned on hijacking the body, they might easily have played into his shrewd hand.

  Parry was having none of it. He and Jessica saw to the body's careful transportation to the FBI Crime Lab, irking a number of people in the process, with Doctor Marshal, M.E., for the military, and PC. Scanlon at the head of the line.

  Later, with much help from Dr. Smits, Dr. Lau and his people, Jessica completed the various tests over the body and the autopsy report. She became convinced in the process of her work that they indeed had the man known variously as the Trade Winds Killer, the Cane Cutter and Lopaka “Robert” Kowona on her slab. The blood match was identical to blood found in his home and in the vehicle that had been impounded. Serum and bodily fluids, DNA, all a match. Dr. Smits, using her vast knowledge of cranial reconstruction, created a caste from Lopaka's head and had begun to mold and sculpt it into an exact likeness of the killer. Even unfinished where it sat in a vise in the lab, the chilling thing left no doubt in Jessica's mind that they did indeed have Lopaka. The bone structure screamed the truth and X-rays had been made, which would further prove their case.

  Even before the sculpting was finished, before all the prelim tests were completed, something instinctual told her that the beheaded corpse with the fire-red hair and t
he dark eyes that shone like two sides of an impenetrable abyss below her light was the killer they had sought. Below his nails flesh and blood fragments that matched those of his last victim, the little woman from the liquor store, were still embedded.

  She didn't believe that even Chief Kowona and Ben Awai, even if they could get help from Dr. Lau, could have planted such incriminating evidence on a decoy. She didn't believe this was a case of tampering.

  As to the total fabrication that Lopaka had died of self-inflicted wounds as a result of his suicide at the Spout, choosing that end over Pany's capturing him alive, no one questioned it. Nor would they should she choose to perpetuate the story. In fact. Dr. Lau made it painfully obvious that as far as he was concerned, no one would ever know of any inconsistencies in the autopsy. And Dr. Smits, a bone specialist and not a forensics expert, saw no reason to question Jessica's clinical diagnosis.

  Jessica felt that the lie was worth the peace it preserved and Jim Parry agreed. And now she was exhausted, and she wanted a hot shower and a bed.

  Downstairs, free of her lab coat and responsibilities toward Parry and his office, free of the dreaded case that had removed her both bodily and mentally from the paradise of her surroundings, the case which had haunted her nights now for so long, she breathed in the native air as it whipped and wended its way by her, the continuing trade winds. Investigating her, the mischievous wind next moved out to sea forever. She had left extensive notes for Parry, finishing with a reminder that the body be removed now for the promised burial at sea.

  There Lopaka's evil, feverish soul could wander in limbo for longer than any forever that existed anywhere else on Earth.

  She hailed a cab, feeling quite alone tonight. Jim had not gotten back to her. She didn't know his whereabouts, and she had to pack for D.C. in the morning.

  The taxi that pulled up to the curb was an island Yellow Cab and someone was in the backseat. She looked through the window to find Joe Kaniola waving for her to climb inside, a rare smile on his face.

  Opening the door, she said, “I'm too exhausted for another kidnapping, Mr. Kaniola.”

  He laughed lightly, smiled and pushed the door open. “I only offer you a ride to the Rainbow Tower. That is where you're going?”

  “Thank you.” She got in, and even the stiff seat felt good to her. “I'm very tired.”

  “Everyone wishes to thank you.”

  “Everyone?”

  “The Ohana.”

  “Ahh, the Family, the PKO.”

  “For your discreet handling of the case.”

  “Hmmmm, but you forget. It's not my case; it's Jim Parry's

  case.”

  “I've already thanked Jim, but I must say, he did not accept my congratulations as gracefully as you.”

  “Nobody reads Miss Manners anymore, Kaniola. You ought to be grateful he didn't find some charge to bring you in on, say, aiding and abetting, conspiracy to—”

  “Chief Kowona had a right to administer his own justice to his own son. As a father and a Hawaiian, I respect that.”

  “Maybe... maybe...”

  “We both know what would have happened with Lopaka's case here if it had gone to court. Lawyers with an eye for sensationalism would have prosecuted while others with an equal eye would defend. Before it would have been over...”

  He allowed his thoughts to trail off, but she could read them clearly enough: Two, maybe three years would've passed before Lopaka would be sentenced, if the madman hadn't found a way to kill himself.

  Kaniola said knowingly, “He would have been analyzed and psychoanalyzed and proven and disproven and proven again to be insane. His civil rights would have been proven violated by the HPD, the FBI, perhaps you, Doctor. And the best we could hope for in the State of Hawaii is that his case would end in a sentence

  of life imprisonment in a federal facility for the criminally insane, like your former Matisak case. I ask you, is that justice?”

  “I don't make the laws, Mr. Kaniola.”

  “No, no... you just carry them out... as you did in the Claw case in New York when you held your own execution?”

  She winced at the memory, but her anger was conveyed clearly in the bite of her words. “That was a different case, different circumstances. It was him or me.”

  “Here it was him or Hawaii.”

  They were at the Tower and she got out, waving a final good-bye to Kaniola, saying, “I hope you, your PKO friends and the white establishment will fare better in the future, Joe. I pray for it.”

  “Thank you. We will need all your prayers and more. The future is as uncertain as the past, and unfortunately, we are of a species that doesn't learn from our past, sad a;> it is true.”

  11 P.M.. the Rainbow Tower. Honolulu

  Jessica showered and slipped into a robe, lay down on the bed and fell fast asleep, her mind free of everything that had been troubling her since her first look at Linda Kahala's limb fished from the Blow Hole. The peace descending over her felt as if it had an island origin, a uniquely Hawaiian stamp to it: balcony window in the sky, open to the ocean sounds, trade winds playing soft paws over her where she slept, feelings in tune with the sway of palms and tides.

  And then a knock at the door roused her.

  “Damn,” she muttered, pulling herself up. At the door she asked, “Who is it?”

  “Message, ma'am. Western Union.”

  “Slip it under the door.”

  She watched the envelope creep into the room. What the hell's this, she wondered, word from Zanek? Maybe the long-awaited and too late apology from Alan Rychman? “Thank you, got it,” she said through the door.

  But she let it lay where it was and started back for bed when the phone rang.

  “Christ,” she sleepily muttered, lifting the receiver.

  “Jess? It's me. Jim.” Where the hell've you been she silently screamed, but only said, “Where... where are you?”

  “I'm in the lobby. Can I come up?”

  “It's late Jim, and I'm booked on an early morning flight.”

  “I'm sorry I disappeared on you, Jess, but—”

  She unnecessarily shook her head, saying, “That's all right. Jim. We both knew this day was... inevitable.”

  “Honey, listen, I...”

  “I'm hanging up now, Jim, and I think we ought to make a clean break of it here and now. You and I are going to be too far apart to ever... really... to...”

  “Jess, the State Department's asked us to stand down on the Kowona case.”

  “What?”

  “They've asked us to comply with the wishes of the nationals. To let it alone.”

  “Well, that's good... actually...” Jessica imagined all that might have happened to Kaniola, Awai, Chief Kowona and his followers if the U.S. Government had actually decided to investigate. In fact, she wondered if she'd come out unscathed in such a review if anyone with the know-how were to go through her autopsy reports with a fine-toothed comb. Would they then prosecute Jim and her, according to the letter of the law? The thought rubbed her nerves raw. She feared more for Jim than herself, however, and somehow this made her breathe easier. Perhaps, if she had to, she could be something other than an M.E. and an FBI agent. The fact that she could let go if she wanted to offered its own reward and peace, and the fact that she cared more about Jim's jeopardy than her own was uplifting, hopeful and inspiring. Maybe she could love someone completely and without reservation as she had once before.

  Just hearing his voice had put her at ease. “Come up. I'll put some coffee on, and you can tell me all about it.”

  She sleep-walked about the room, lifted the Western Union envelope off the floor and found the coffee-makings in the kitchen area. She was halfway through the fixings when his knock came at the door. She went directly to him, and helplessly they fell into one another's arms.

  “You must be stone tired,” he told her. “I know I am. Forget the coffee.” He gently took her into his arms and returned her to the bed, where she coul
d not have resisted him if she had wished. He tenderly kissed her and caressed her forehead and ran his fingers through her thick, auburn hair. “Just rest, just rest,” he chanted.

  “I'm worried about promises we made to Kaniola and Kowona.”

  “Me, too, but for all intents and purposes, Jess, it's out of our hands.”

  “This could cause a terrible new rupture in race relations here. Do they know that?”

  “Nobody knows more than our guys just how sensitive the situation is, Jess. Leave it alone. It's in capable hands. The higher-ups've had their eye on the case from day one.”

  “Yeah, I guess they have.” She momentarily thought of Paul Zanek.

  “Things are mellow.”

  “I'm just afraid for you, Jim,” she admitted. “This could cost you big time if the details leak out.”

  “They're not going to. Now quit worrying.”

  “God, I wish we could just go back to Maui... hide out there...”

  He kissed her, remembering their night on the isolated black sand beach in Maui. She passionately returned his kiss.

  “One good thing'll come of this,” he said into her ear.

  “Oh?”

  “Could mean you'll stay on longer?” It was a wishful question.

  “Maybe... maybe I just will.”

  They embraced, kissing until she felt as weak as a feather drifting in the trades. She trembled childlike at his touch.

  “Make love to me, Jim, and sleep with me tonight. I don't want to be alone.”

  Wordlessly, he obeyed and the sound of the surf outside kept cadence with their lovemaking.

  What's another night of uncertainty, she told herself.

  27

  Instinct is not enough; emotion defies precision.

  David Simon, Homicide

  Dawn. July 22, the Rainbow Tower. Honolulu

  The Hawaii dawn crept into their private world, awakening Jessica first. She turned to find Jim beside her, fast asleep. Now, she thought, I can see straight to make that coffee.