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Authors: Charles Knief

BOOK: Diamond Head
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O
ther than
Duchess
and a ten-speed bike, my only transportation is an ancient, military-issue, World War II Jeep. Four-speed, four-wheel drive, it's a 1944 Willys. Not a Chrysler. Not even American Motors. This is the original gosh darned
Jeep
. The only concession to its civilian status is its battleship gray paint. It gets thirty-four miles to the gallon and has a top speed of fifty-six miles per hour, which is perfect for this island. If you go any faster, you're in danger of driving off land's end.
It was a long drive past Makaha on the Leeward Coast. Oahu is a small rock in the middle of a big ocean. Most of the state's population resides on this island, and most of them are in Honolulu. Away from the population center Oahu is just like the rest of the state: rural, agricultural, and with notable exceptions, relatively poor. The Leeward Coast is one of the poorest on the island. Little rain falls there. The rain-giving clouds drop most of their moisture on the eastern slopes of the Waianae Mountains. That's good for Dole and C&H Sugar, but it's bad for the residents of Waianae and Makaha. Most of the Leeward Coast resembles a slum in the desert. A desert possessed of the most beautiful and uncrowded beaches on this planet, but a desert all the same.
Few tourists make it to the Leeward Coast. There's only one
road to and from, and it takes over an hour from the hotel district by car. At Kaena Point, a rugged arrow of land jutting into the Pacific, you're as far from civilization as you can get. There are no amusement parks, no hotels, no cultural centers, no attractions of any kind to lure the tourists from Waikiki and the North Shore.
It's probably a good thing there aren't too many tourists. They're not particularly welcome on the Leeward Coast. The word
makaha
means “fierce” in Hawaiian, and the story goes that long before Captain Cook met King Kamehameha a tribe of cannibals lived in Makaha. They would wait for the occasional traveler making his way along the coast and then attack, kill and eat him. People have been killed for their cars there. The local police station is called “the Alamo,” in reference both to its Spanish-fortress architecture and to an attack by the locals a couple of years ago. The place just does not have the Aloha spirit that tourists have come to expect.
I took it slow through the towns of Nanakuli, Waianae and Makaha. Nanakuli is just a cluster of small homes, but Waianae is a relatively large town. It has restaurants, banks and a minimall. It even has a McDonald's. Makaha is an outpost. There is a luxury hotel the residents of Honolulu use when they want to get away from it all, and there's a condominium complex way up in Makaha Valley whose location defies all logic. Aside from that, the town of Makaha is a collection of corrugated-metal-roofed shacks along the beach.
I didn't know what I thought I would find. The crime was more than three months old. Forensic experts had gone over the site for any evidence that might have been there. I didn't expect to find clues. I just wanted to see the layout for myself, and to imagine what it would have been like when the body was dumped.
I pulled the Jeep onto the dirt strip near the Shark Cave. There weren't any other cars parked in the immediate area. Across the road an old man was fishing, the line from his pole
lying atop calm turquoise water. We were the only people in sight.
I climbed down from the Jeep and entered the cave. The entrance was forty to fifty feet across and more than twenty feet high, soaring overhead like a cathedral, then dropping to meet an insignificant hole in the ground reminiscent of where the rabbit went in
Alice in Wonderland.
I recalled what the place was like inside from a visit I had made out of curiosity one bright afternoon a few years back. The ground was littered with aluminum cans and the assorted detritus of modern civilization, including an occasional condom. Graffiti adorned the rock walls.
I took the photographs of the body from the file and tried to orient myself to the glossy black-and-white background. I got lucky and found the spot almost immediately. Mary MacGruder's corpse had not been left inside the cave, but just at its mouth. From the way her legs and arms were splayed I could tell she'd been casually tossed to the ground like a discarded cigarette.
I imagined it as it had to have happened. The car pulled off the paved road, the driver getting as close as he could to the cave. He couldn't get to the entrance because it was blocked by big lava boulders. Those same boulders also obstructed the view from the road. Mary's corpse had been hoisted up and over the rocks and left on the sheltered side. The car turned around and went back toward Makaha. The road to the north dead-ended near Kaena Point, so there was nowhere else they could have gone.
The whole operation would have taken less then fifteen seconds to accomplish. There were at least two men, one to drive and one to wrestle the body from the vehicle and over the boulder. Taking a dead woman from a car would not be easy. Even an open vehicle such as a pickup or a Jeep would have presented problems. So what did they use?
There was only one answer that came to mind: the serial
killer's best friend, the van. With cargo doors on the passenger side and at the rear, vans have been the choice of terrorists, serial and professional killers for over three decades.
It wasn't much. It was merely an insupportable supposition. Yet my instinct told me I was right. It wasn't anything, but it was a start.
I left the cave, the file under my arm.
And froze in place.
Two young men were sitting in my Jeep. One had broken open the glove compartment and was rummaging through its contents. The other was busy with both hands buried beneath the dashboard. They were big, they were young, and they were trying to steal my Jeep.
I set the file down behind a rock, stepped out of my sandals and approached from the driver side.
I wasn't worried about the Jeep. No matter what they tried they couldn't start it. I'd installed a disabler on the starter. There's no alarm, because I think they're useless and needlessly irritate, but a little infrared transmitter on my key chain disables the engine when I push the button. A would-be thief couldn't start it even if he had a key. I only kept insurance and inspection records in the glove box, but I didn't appreciate the attempt.
“Any luck?” I asked.
The youth looked at me, startled. He hadn't heard my approach. “Who're you?” he asked. The other thief sneered, trying his best to intimidate.
“Haole fuck,” he answered for me.
“That's my Jeep,” I said. “Who're you?”
“Fuck 'dis.” The driver shoved hard against my chest. I backed away from his hand and his momentum carried him. He tumbled onto hard-packed ground, landing on hands and knees.
“Careful,” I said. “You're going to hurt yourself.”
The other young man came around the back of the Jeep,
carrying something in his hand. I watched him approach, my hands on my hips, mindful of the driver struggling to his feet.
“Don't get in over your head,” I warned the one coming at me. He held a short tire iron. His intentions looked far from peaceful.
I'd already decided on
aikido,
a form of martial arts that has no attack, and I centered myself for what was to come. These two were young and probably had no experience in fighting, but I saw an innate meanness of spirit, too. They looked like they got through life by bullying whatever came their way. They looked as if another lesson in mean would not teach them anything they hadn't already absorbed. One more ass-kicking more or less probably would not matter in the overall scheme of their lives.
The one with the tire iron swung it overhead and brought it down where my skull had been. By the time it came full arc I was behind and beside him, catching his wrist in both hands, continuing the swing of his arm until he rolled onto his back. I released his hand before the shoulder broke, but twisted the weapon until it came free.
I tossed it over the road into the sea.
The one who had been in the driver's seat was now on his feet, scrambling toward me.
The passenger got up and clubbed at me, his fist traversing thin air. I assisted his turn, pirouetting him into his partner. They slammed together and sat down hard. It would have been comical had they not been so intent on caving in my head and stealing my vehicle.
“This is ridiculous,” I said as they got up. “Nobody's been hurt yet. Let it rest.”
“Haole fuck,” said the one who had used the pry bar, seemingly stuck on that one expression. He leaned against the side of the Jeep, feeling around the footwell, apparently looking for a weapon of some kind. The driver hung back, unsure, as if the fight was gone from him.
“Go on home,” I told them. “Have a beer. No harm done.”
“Fuck you, haole.” Having found nothing, the passenger launched himself at me, both meaty hands grabbing for my throat.
I moved to the side and let him run past. He stumble-stepped a couple of strides, tripped over his own feet, and sprawled onto his stomach.
I turned toward the driver, but he backed away, his hands in front of his body to ward me off.
“Go!” I shouted, taking a step toward him.
He fled.
Something hit me on the shoulder with nearly enough force to knock me down. I ducked as another baseball-size stone zinged by my head. A third kicked up a cloud of dust near my feet. The thief with the limited vocabulary and a propensity for hitting people with hard objects was pitching lava rocks at me as fast as he could pick them up. He had an almost unlimited supply where he was positioned, near the mouth of the cave.
So much for good intentions.
I charged into the barrage, zigzagging as best I could, avoiding most, but not all of the stones. One hit me in the chest and another staggered me when it glanced off my knee. As I neared, he abandoned the rocks and retreated into the cave. I followed, catching him from behind.
Two blows to the side of his throat felled him. He collapsed, graceless as a sack of cement. I checked him for vital signs. He wouldn't die, I had pulled my punches. I left him on the floor of the cave. It was cooler there, out of the sun.
I retrieved the file and my sandals and went to the Jeep. It took about five minutes to repair the damage done to the ignition switch, and to realize I'd thrown my own tire iron into the Pacific. Before I left I checked the young man in the cave again. He would awake soon and be able to prey on his fellow humans some other day. He might even improve his language skills.
Of the other thief there was no sign.
I smugly congratulated myself on the outcome of the battle. I'd taken my lumps and had given a few; one foe was vanquished, the other fled. They'd been warned early on. Only their persistence had caused them hurt. That they were both at least a quarter century younger was satisfying for the moment.
But as I drove back toward Pearl Harbor I still felt as if I'd kicked the family dog.
 
 
I
t was too soon to talk to the detective in charge of the case. I didn't yet know enough to ask intelligent questions. My level of understanding wasn't what it should have been, and only a dose of old-fashioned hard work would remedy that deficiency.
According to the file, Mary MacGruder had worked in one of the hotels along Waikiki Beach. The place was one of the landmarks of Hawaii, and once upon a time I'd spent a pleasant week playing tourist there with a woman I'd hoped might be the love of my life. She would have been, were I willing to settle down to a forty-hour week, pension plan, health benefits and a 401-K. She hadn't made those demands. She hadn't made any, but she'd expected me to make the offer, and the absence of the offer hung there between us until she got smart and went back to the mainland. I was another disappointment in her life, a familiar part for me to play.
The hotel had seven bars, and with the sun going down it wasn't the worst assignment I'd ever given myself, moving from bar to bar, nursing white wine and making small talk with the waitresses to find someone who might have known the admiral's daughter. The turnover in those places is high, but there's always one waitress who's been there since they poured
the foundation, and in the third bar I tried, the one on the lanai next to the white sand beach, I found Louise.
My table was about the size of a cocktail tray, wedged against some boulders between two palm trees. The bar was crowded and Louise was busy hustling drinks, but she was the kind of waitress who could talk fast and serve fast and never lose her nerve or her memory. I vaguely remembered her as a cocktail waitress from my romantic interlude here. Hers was a personality that sticks with you. You get the service, you get what you order, and if you're any kind of interesting at all, you'll get fast, popping sarcasm to go with it. If anyone would remember Mary MacGruder, it would be Louise.
Security guards were shooing people off the beach while carpenters assembled a portable stage on the sand in front of the bar. Most of the big hotels have some kind of commemoration marking the end of another day in paradise. The Hilton Hawaiian Village shoots fireworks over its own lagoon and the Royal Hawaiian has a luau, complete with a roasted pig. I didn't know what this hotel had planned for the event, and I didn't care. The bar would be packed until the show was over, and then it would be deserted as the tourists sought their celebration elsewhere. I gave up my table to a young sunburned couple wearing matching Aloha shirts and new rings on the third fingers of their left hands.
I removed my sandals and walked along the edge of the Pacific, watching the sun go down beyond the reef. It was another of nature's spectaculars, something we expect as an entitlement as
Kama'aina,
children of the land. Clouds drifting south from Barber's Point reflected a limitless, flamingo orange-pink sky.
My shoulder ached. My knee hurt. Max had warned me I was getting too old for this. Maybe he was right. He would know better than most. It didn't bring me joy, banging on those car thieves, and it didn't bring satisfaction, either. Violence always left a bitter aftertaste, a bile from the soul. But I wouldn't deny that part of me, either.
After the incident at the Shark Cave I went to my bank to visit my safe deposit box. There isn't any money there, that's aboard
Duchess
, but if Chawlie had anyone watching me I didn't want him reaching the right conclusion. I carried a day pack with a few odds and ends and the five thousand dollars in cash. The fifty bills were a heavy load inside the pocket of the pack.
I am not normally a nervous person. Two or three times I've carried more cash in places where the locals would have happily cut my throat for fifty cents American. But that money belonged to someone else and it was back in the bad old days when I needed an adrenaline rush with every job. The “crank” was as necessary for me as the income. I no longer am an adrenaline junkie. Having that kind of cash money makes me jumpy. And things have changed here. Parts of the island are no longer safe at night. Roaming gangs of vicious children are beating, robbing and raping both tourists and residents, choosing their victims with equanimity. Elementary-school arsonists are setting the mountains on fire. Waikiki no longer has the harmless Disney atmosphere it had ten years ago. At night, Kapiolani Park feels like Central Park.
I'm not particularly worried about my own safety, but it was a comfort knowing the money would be out of my hands in a few hours.
The memories and the sunset and the newlyweds and the alcohol combined to make me maudlin, and I wondered about the woman I had disappointed. I remembered her walking away from me near this very spot, marching off with a stiff back, her head held high. That she was better off without me was a foregone conclusion. She thought I could have been right for her, but she didn't really know me and there were too many qualifiers. I knew she wasn't The One. I'd loved that one long ago, and they'd killed her.
I cut through Fort DeRussey and wandered back down Kalakaua Avenue toward the hotel when I judged the sky was dark enough and the crowds were thinning along the beach.
When I got to the entrance of the hotel I found I'd judged it right. Feeling like a salmon on a spawning run, I bucked against the pedestrian traffic flooding onto the street.
The bar was empty of patrons. The sun was gone and so was the view, replaced by a vast darkness. Louise was leaning against the bar, resting her elbows on the ceramic tile, easing her back and her feet. She watched me enter the bar with such visible mixed emotions it made me smile.
“I'll sit at the bar,” I told her. “Make it easy on you.” I slipped onto the bar stool next to the waitress station.
She smiled and didn't move, her weariness and gratitude both visible. “What'll you have, sugar?” She had a voice constructed of equal parts Louisiana bayou, cigarettes and cheap whiskey.
“Chardonnay.”
“You were here earlier. You stayin' here?”
“No, ma'am.”
She leaned toward the bartender, who'd heard the conversation. He nodded and reached for the house bottle.
“Six fifty,” she said, placing the wine on the tile in front of me. I handed her a twenty and told her to keep the change.
“Kinda steep, ain't it?” she asked, instantly wary.
“Cost of doing business,” I said.
“Expense account, huh? You working?”
“Looking for information on a girl who used to work here. Thought you might have known her.”
“I probably do, mister,” said Louise. “And if I do, it's probably best if you don't ask.”
“This girl was killed about three months ago. She worked here before then, but I don't know when or how long.”
“That MacGruder girl? The one that was in all the papers? That's the one you mean?”
I nodded.
“That poor little thing.” She looked at me again, this time really appraising me and my clothing. I'd changed at the boat,
putting on my best shorts and a long-sleeved white Egyptian cotton shirt with straps on the sleeves so you could roll them up and secure them with a button. It was the equivalent of my Sunday best. “You a cop?”
“I'm looking into the matter for the family,” I said. It was the truth, as far as it went.
“Some kind of a private cop?”
“Just doing a favor for a friend.”
“You ain't no tourist. I knew that right off. Thought you were military, the way you move, the shape you're in, that ‘ma'am' stuff.” She pursed her lips. “Look, sugar. You've got an honest face, but the management here don't like me chawin' with the customers, if you know what I mean? I get off in about thirty minutes, soon as my side work's done and Leeanne comes in, if she can get off from her other job on time and her baby-sitter's not late. You're gettin' expenses, you said. You can buy a tired lady some dinner and I'll tell you anything I can about that poor child.”

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