Mahu Box Set

by Neil S. Plakcy

  There was just too much to think about, and I had to shut if all off for a while. I surfed, and then I swam until my arms and legs felt like jelly. Then I dragged myself home and read for a while in the afternoon. Eventually I got into my truck and started to drive.

  It was as if the truck was on automatic pilot, finding its way out to Wailupe on its own. I turned the volume up on an Uluwehi Guerrero CD, letting the pounding of the ipu hula take over my brain, keep it from thinking. I played with Danny for a while, hide and go seek in the backyard, then racing him down the street until he collapsed happily. After he went to bed, Terri poured us a pair of Fire Rock Pale Ales into two tall Pilsner glasses, and we sat out in the backyard under the stars.

  “We’re in the same situation, you know,” she said. “We both have to reinvent our lives. I can’t just be a housewife and mother anymore. I have to do something.”

  “If you need some money I can probably give you a loan.”

  She laughed. “I don’t need the money. My trust fund isn’t huge, but I could certainly run the house on it. And my parents have already put away money for Danny’s education.” She shook her head. “No, I need to do something more with my life. I’m not sure what. Maybe some volunteer work at first. Or else I could go back to the cosmetics counter at Clark’s.”

  A bank of clouds moved in front of the moon and the yard darkened. “You’ve got options,” I said. “Options are good.”

  “You have them too. If this job makes you uncomfortable, then don’t take it.”

  “Actually I kind of think that’s a reason to take it,” I said. I took a long draw of my beer and thought about what I wanted to say. “These last couple of weeks have been really awful, you know? But at the same time they’ve been exciting. I mean, I remember the summer I was thirteen I was miserable, just lying around the house, sleeping like eighteen hours a day, and my whole body ached, because I was having a growth spurt. I was five foot two when school let out and I was five foot nine when it started again. And it was great. I wasn’t the baby anymore. My basketball improved dramatically. My mother started buying my clothes in the men’s department.”

  I had some more beer. “So even though it was miserable, in the end I was better off. Maybe this is just the next step in my growth process.”

  “It’s funny how society labels us. You’re a gay man, now, and I’m a widow. And you know, we’re not the same people we were a month ago, before we had these labels. So maybe the labels change as we change. Who knows what they’ll be calling us a year from now.”

  “To new labels,” I said, clinking my glass against hers. “And to becoming new people.”

  That’s what finally decided me. Just like sharks had to keep moving to stay alive, I thought we all had to keep growing and changing. Sometimes that growth hurts, and sometimes you had to give up things that mattered to you. My father had made sacrifices for me and my brothers, and though I’m sure they hurt him, he made it through. They made him the person he is.

  My brothers had sacrificed for me, too. They had stood by me, taken chances and given me, eventually, their unconditional love. Even men like Tico Robles were willing to take the risk that some asshole would beat them up just because they were at a gay bar.

  The next morning, Derek was freed on bail and he began to spend most days with his grandfather. Aunt Mei-Mei said that the two of them spent a lot of time together, driving out to Windward O’ahu and walking the long stretches of beach there.

  Tim Ryan called me at home that night. He congratulated me, and we talked for a couple of minutes about the choice I had to make. “Listen, Kimo, there’s one other thing I wanted to say.” He paused. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you. The whole gay thing has been so hard for me, and I never had anybody who was there to help me through it. Now I realize I could have done that for you, and I missed the chance. I want to work on that. If I can just get a little more comfortable with myself, then maybe I can be there for someone else. I’m just not there yet.”

  “I understand. But let’s try and be friends, okay? You’ve still got a long way to go before you’re a real surfer.”

  “I’ll work on it.” He laughed. “And I’ll try to let you help.”

  We hung up, and I sat back on my bed thinking. It was a lot of future to face, a new job, new relationships with family, friends and coworkers, and then, finally, starting on the search for what my parents had, what my brothers had. There was a saying among women, that you had to kiss a lot of toads before you found your prince, and I hadn’t kissed many toads yet, so I had some catching up to do. Maybe there was a prince out there somewhere waiting for me. At least, I had to believe there was.

  I called Lieutenant Sampson the next morning and told him I was ready to come back.

  About the Author

  NEIL S. PLAKCY is the author of over thirty mystery and romance novels. The highly acclaimed Mahu series stars openly gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka. He also writes the Have Body, Will Guard gay adventure romance books about bodyguards Aidan Greene and Liam McCullough, and the golden retriever mysteries, where (mostly) reformed computer hacker Steve Levitan solves crimes with the help of his golden retriever, Rochester.

  He has also written numerous stand-alone mystery and romance novels, which can be found at his website, www.mahubooks.com. He also edited the anthology Paws & Reflect:A Special Bond Between Man and Dog, which was excerpted in The New York Times.

  He is a professor of English at Broward College in South Florida, where he lives with his husband and their rambunctious golden retrievers.

  Acknowledgements

  This book is for Marc, my love and my inspiration, and for Sam, who gives us so much unconditional love, as well as in memory of Charlie, Pierre and Gus.

  Thanks to Steve Greenberg, Pam Reinhardt, and Vicki Hendricks, my earliest readers, and to my mother, Shirley Plakcy, for all her love and support. Jim Hall, my MFA thesis advisor, read a very early draft of this book and convinced me I had to know more about Kimo before I could proceed. Lynne Barrett, Les Standiford, and John Dufresne are great instructors at Florida International University’s creative writing program, who provide instruction, mentoring and friendship in equal doses.

  Thanks to Caren and Tom Neile and Ginny and David Wells, for all the encouragement, advice and editing over the years, as well as to all my FIU classmates and friends. Thanks also to Dan Jaffe, who gave Kimo his first literary exposure in Blithe House Quarterly. Other faithful friends and readers were David Beaty, Karen Blomain, Jessie Dolch, Lynne DuVivier, Jill Freeman, Sally Huxley, Christine Kling, Kathy Lawrence, Eileen Matluck, Stewart O’Nan, Barbara Parker, Ginny Rorby, Sharon Sakson, and Andrew Schulz.

  Thanks to Maury Blitz and Morena Carvalho for help with the Mahu logo. Robert Phillips introduced me to the range of authors writing mysteries with gay detectives, for which I am quite grateful. Finally, thanks to Mr. Norman Haider, my tenth-grade English teacher at Charles Boehm Senior High, who first showed me how rewarding writing could be, and to all the other teachers who encouraged me.

  When I first started writing about a surfer named Kimo Kanapa‘aka back in 1992, I had no idea that the character would take such a hold of my imagination. I have written nearly 20 stories, both mysteries and erotica, about his adventures, and I’m working on the fifth novel in the series.

  Along the way, I’ve tried to understand Kimo’s appeal—both to me, and to the many readers who have written and emailed. I think the secret is that he’s a guy who’s trying to do the right thing, even when it’s difficult. Sometimes he succeeds, and sometimes he makes a mistake and tries to learn from it.

  After I finished the final draft of Mahu and sent it off to my publisher, I couldn’t stop thinking about Kimo. Like him, I came out of the closet somewhat later in life, and I realized that the process didn’t stop the first time I told another person that I was gay. I thought it would be interesting to put Kimo through those same steps—first kiss, first date, f
irst gay friends, first real boyfriend, and so on.

  At the same time, I have tried to find cases for him to solve that force him to confront these issues, and to accept his place in the larger gay community. As a college professor, I feel it’s important to be a role model to my students, and I’ve given Kimo that same desire. He’s not just a cop, he’s a gay cop, and that extra designation carries a lot of responsibility, both to himself, the GLBT community, and his employers, the City and County of Honolulu.

  This is the fourth version of Mahu to appear in print. Thanks to Jay Quinn and Greg Herren, my original editors at Haworth Press, who gave Kimo his first chance to shine. I also appreciate those at Alyson Books who brought out the previous edition: Dale Cunningham, Anthony LaSasso, and Paul Florez. I appreciate the work of MLR publisher Laura Baumbach and my terrific editor Kris Jacen of MLR for keeping Kimo’s story going. Mahalo nui loa!

  Kimo’s story continues in Mahu Surfer.

  Book 2: MAHU SURFER

  A finalist for the

  2007 Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Mystery

  Mahu Surfer, Neil Plakcy’s second mystery novel, sends openly gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka back to his surfing past. Rather than announce Kimo’s public return to the HPD after the events of Mahu, his new boss asks the former competitive surfer to go undercover on O’ahu’s North Shore to find the killer of three young surfers.

  In his return to the North Shore, Kimo discovers trouble in paradise, from an epidemic rise in the use of crystal meth to increasing pressure on real estate prices. As well, he rekindles an uneasy friendship with an old friend whose sexual assault drove Kimo into the police academy, and further into the closet, six years earlier.

  Mahu Surfer showcases a handsome, sexy hero who struggles to overcome personal troubles and makes private sacrifices for the public good. Throw in an exotic tropical locale, plenty of aloha spirit and a dash of surf culture, as well as a slam-bang ending that puts Kimo and the people he cares about in danger, and you’ve got the makings of a page-turning mystery.

  Back to Work

  I parked my battered pick-up at a meter on South Beretania Street, about half a block away from Honolulu Police Headquarters, and sat there with the windows open for a few minutes. Keola Beamer was playing a slack key guitar piece on KTUH, the radio station at the University of Hawai’i, and a light breeze rustled the palm fronds. It was nice to sit there, rather than face what was waiting for me inside.

  The pick-up was a hand-me-down from my father, a small-time contractor who supported my mom, my brothers and me by building everything from an addition to somebody’s house to small shopping centers all over the island of O’ahu. He yelled a lot when I was a kid, and let my older brothers pick on me too much, but he and my mom instilled a sense of honor in me, a need to do what’s right. That’s partly why I became a police officer six years ago.

  That sense of honor made my coming out so hard. I had to admit, to myself and others, that I had been lying about being gay for so long, and it was even tougher because the media dragged me out of the closet when my sexuality became an issue during a case I investigated. My family had to learn I was gay from a TV report.

  They stood by me, though, while I was suspended from the force, and they rejoiced with me when the suspension was voided, and I was offered a new job, in a different district, with the boss I was about to report to.

  Keola finished, and the station segued into Keali’i Reichel, who sang, “Every Road Leads Back to You.” I figured that was a good cue to see where my road was going to lead me, so I locked the truck and headed down the sidewalk.

  The sour-faced aide manning the metal detector looked like he knew exactly who I was, and he wasn’t happy to see me. I took the elevator up to Lieutenant Sampson’s office, and the two cops already on it stopped talking as soon as I stepped in. Neither said a word to me, and I didn’t say anything to them.

  I started to understand what it was going to be like to come back to work again, now that everyone on the island of O’ahu knew who I was.

  Though I met Sampson when my suspension was voided and he offered me a transfer to his division, I didn’t know much about him, just that he seemed to be a fair, no-nonsense guy. “Come on in, Kimo, have a seat,” he said, standing up to greet me. “How’ve you been holding up?”

  “It hasn’t been easy,” I said, keeping my back stiff as I shook his hand. I looked around as I sat. The furniture was standard-issue HPD, simple and utilitarian. Sampson’s desk was loaded with paperwork and a few framed pictures. A paperweight on a shelf caught my eye; it was a scale model of what looked like a Civil War-era cannon. “Coming out is tough enough when you’re just telling your family and friends. When the media gets involved, and you nearly lose your job, it’s even tougher. But I appreciate your willingness to bring me into your team, and I’m looking forward to getting back to work.”

  He sat down across from me. “Good. I’m embarrassed that this department, which I believe in, didn’t treat you right, but I think we can put all that behind us.” I noticed that he was mimicking my posture, staying stiff and serious. Finally, he smiled. “I’m looking forward to having you work for me. So let’s get going.”

  I relaxed a bit in the chair, crossing my leg, and he leaned across and dropped an 8 x 10 blowup of a dead man in front of me.

  I’ve seen a lot of bodies and I always feel an initial stab in my guts. I think when I stop feeling that I’ll have to turn in my badge. This one was no different. After I blinked and swallowed, I forced myself to look closely at the photo.

  I saw a Caucasian male, early twenties, obviously fit. He wore a wetsuit, which meant that he had been either a surfer or diver, and he was spread-eagled on the sand, one arm turned at an awkward angle. Someone had carefully parted his wet, dirty blond hair to show a gaping hole in the right side of his head, but otherwise he looked unharmed.

  “Michael Pratt,” Sampson said. “Twenty-two. Born and raised in Absecon, New Jersey. Lived on the North Shore, in Hale’iwa. He’s been using it as his base off and on for the last two years, following surf competitions around the world when he could. He was surfing at Pipeline one morning about five weeks ago, and bang! somebody shot him right off his board. Dozens of people in the water and on the beach, and nobody saw the shooter or even heard the shot. Witnesses said it looked like he fell, and it wasn’t until the body washed up with a bullet hole in the head that anybody thought to look around. By that time, of course, it was too late.”

  I took another look at the photo, trying to imagine Pratt on a board. Pipeline was one of the prime surf spots on the North Shore, a unique combination of an extremely shallow coral reef and waves that break close to a soft, sandy beach. It’s the standard by which all tubular waves are measured. When Pipeline waves are six feet and under, they have enough juice to allow you to try any maneuver. But as the waves get taller, you focus simply on the thrill of flying so high and so fast—and then try not to kill yourself when the wave dumps you unceremoniously on the shore, or worse, on some outcropping of spiky coral.

  I spent countless hours surfing there as a teenager, sneaking out of my parents’ house with my best friend, Harry Ho. I lived about a mile from it during the year I spent immediately after college, learning that though I was good, I would never be good enough to make a living from surfing.

  “Damn good aim,” I said, thinking of Pratt speeding across the face of a wave. “A moving target like that.”

  “An M4 carbine, based on the ballistics analysis,” Sampson said. “Standard military issue since about 1994. Gives you distance and accuracy.”

  He dropped another photo in front of me. This victim was female, Filipina, black hair, olive-colored skin just a few shades darker than mine. She, too, had been shot, this time just above the heart. She wore a hot pink strapless mini-dress with matching stiletto heels, and she had the trim, fit physique of a jogger, an aerobics instructor—or a surfer.

  “Lucie Zamora.
Another surfer. Same weapon. Shot about three weeks after Pratt, outside a club in Hale’iwa. She had walked out about two a.m., and there was no one else in the parking lot at the time. She was found just a few minutes later, but even though a bouncer tried CPR, she was already dead.”

  I studied the photo. She had obviously fallen just after she’d been shot, her right leg tucked under her, a pink clutch spilling cosmetics onto the black pavement next to her. She wore huge pink hoop earrings and nearly a dozen skinny pink bangle bracelets. “She know Pratt? Any connection to him or his murder besides the weapon?”

  Sampson shook his head. “Not that we’ve been able to figure out.” He threw another picture in front of me.

  “Jesus, how many of these have you got?” I said, pulling back. This photo was the most gruesome of all. The body had been in the water for some time before being pulled out, and it was bloated and shriveled and had been nibbled on by various sea creatures.

  “This is the last one. Ronald Chang. Washed up off Pua’ena Point about two weeks after Lucie Zamora was shot.” Sampson sat back in his chair. Around me, I saw the evidence of his investigative and managerial success—commendations, plaques, photographs. Sampson himself was a bear of a man, tall, burly and bearded, and I was interested to note that he wore a navy polo shirt and khaki slacks, not a suit or uniform.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Same weapon.”

  “Nope. This was a handgun, probably a Beretta. From some faint bloodstains we found in the parking lot of his apartment building, we think he might have been shot there. We don’t know how or why he ended up in the water; probably just dumped.”