Fate sits on these dark battlements and frowns…
1:05 P.M. July 16, 1995, Panlolo's bar. Honolulu
The raid on Paniolo's bar and grill near the university netted some suspicious blood spatters and other stains lingering after what appeared a hasty cleanup, but no ready evidence of George Oniiwah's having been held hostage there was turned up. Nonetheless, employees and any standing clientele were all arrested on drug charges, as both cocaine and heroin on the premises were sniffed out by dogs trained in the art. A little time in interrogation, a little wheeling and dealing, and someone in Paniolo's employ or sphere of enfluence would give the cretin up, or at least spill something about the missing boy, or so Parry believed.
Somebody heard something. Somebody saw something. Somebody knew something. Meanwhile, Professor Donald G. Claxton was offered protective custody but refused it, leaving Parry to put a couple of men on him, reckoning that if Oniiwah had given up Claxton as the possible killer in the Linda Kahala case, then Claxton would next disappear. And if a white man, however despicable of character, happened to be beaten or killed by kanakas…
All efforts at locating Oniiwah looked bleak until news came over the wire that the body of a young Hawaiian male was found floating in relatively remote Waimanalo Bay just northwest of Makapuu Beach Park and the Sea Peace Museum and whaling village at Waimea Falls.
Parry grabbed Jessica and drove as if possessed through the Pali Tunnel on State Route 63. The tunnel, carved through the dark bowels of the mountain, took them to the other side of the island. There they sped southeast on State 72, Parry praying they wouldn't find the body of the hapa Japa he'd rousted at Paniolo's the night before.
They arrived at a scene already secured by uniformed officers from the district, finding the usual curious onlookers edging closer to have a better look, necks craned, the crowd absurdly held at bay by hundreds of yards of black and yellow plastic ribbon. The streamer tape formed a series of U's and W's where it dangled and flailed in the wind, extended at intervals between coconut trees along the mile-long stretch of beach.
Jessica could tell two things at a distance: Her cane would be useless in the sand, and the body was extremely fresh. She left her cane and heels in Parry's new vehicle-a sporty-looking new Dodge Stealth-pulled a lab coat over her blouse and slacks, grabbed her medical bag and trudged after Parry, who'd not bothered to wait, anxious to know the truth he feared.
She'd sensed his growing anxiety as the day had worn on, and with no sign or word of George Oniiwah until this, Jim was understandably concerned.
If it was Oniiwah's body out on the sand, Jim would bury Hal Ewelo. Jessica had caught a glimpse of the man in lockup, and had found Halole “Paniolo” Ewelo not at all like Joe Kaniola. Joe, despite grief over his son, despite his frustration and the fact that he'd lied to her, had never displayed a fraction of the malevolence found in Ewelo's eyes. Paniolo was a big, burly man whose leathery face-never the same twice-folded with light and shadow as he walked through the dimly lit corridors between holding cell and interrogation room. He looked powerful enough to snap a boy like George Oniiwah in two, and his smile, which could not be wiped away by his predicament, was that of a crocodile.
They'd learned that he had, for most of his life, been a working cowboy on a huge ranch on Maui, of which there were several centered around the town of Makawao, where the famous Makawao Rodeo was held each year on July 4th, where cowboys of every size, shape, color and hue of Hawaiian ancestry or otherwise competed in a day of wild sport. From the look of him, Ewelo rarely lost, but scars on his face, hands and arms were reminders of a rugged life in which he more than once was stepped on by a Brahman bull. It was quite conceivable that the man could easily lose control, go over the top and kill Oniiwah while trying to get the truth-that young George knew something about the disappearance and death of Lina Kahala, at least according to the Ala Ohana, which Ewelo, an illiterate even in his own language, had read to him each moming.
Parry didn't need any further reason to suspect Halole Ewelo after learning of a rumor that the rugged cowboy was carrying out a vigilante search for the sadistic killer of a native girl. Parry had desperately tried to make this clear to Donald Claxton, but the man wouldn't listen to reason.
As Jessica now approached the body on the beach, dredged up by a local man's net, she feared the worst; Parry's instant reaction to the body lying face down in the sand, the head turned to one side, the mouth agape and playing home to a sand crab, told the story.
Jim's eyes spoke clearly of his hurt, and for a moment she searched his gaze deeply, trying to share the pain, to feel with him, and for an instant she snatched at and caught all the emotions that had cauldroned between them since their first meeting. The empathy surged through her heart.
“ I'm sorry, Jim.”
His terse response was cool, even defiant, a pretense. “I want to know exactly how he died, when he died, what he ate a half hour before he died-down to the last ugly detail. I want all the I's dotted and the T's crossed on this, Jess. I want this sonofabitch Paniolo like I've never wanted anybody before. You understand that?”
She understood it was personal, that he felt guilty, that he believed himself as culpable as Hal Ewelo and the likely others who'd killed this boy. “I'll do what I can,” she quietly said, going to her knees, creating an indention in the sand alongside the body. She began her superficial examination of Oniiwah's remains. She was keenly aware of the incongruity here between the beautiful landscape and the ugly death at her fingertips, and that all around her stood the island authorities, equally puzzled and bewildered by death's ability to end life at so young an age.
The men shuffling about and around her were nervous ambulance attendants, uniformed county cops and detectives, some just arriving to have a look, others responding to the alert. Even here, in paradise, men ruled and men squandered and women picked up the pieces, she thought.
The boy'd been deposited in the ocean without clothing, and his bruises were everywhere over the torso, head and limbs, many of the purple bruises and gashes no doubt inflicted by the coral reefs here, but many also bearing the unmistakable mark of human cruelty…
On first glance, with the body face down, she could not say for sure which blow might have killed Oniiwah, although there was great trauma to the head.
“ All right.” She firmly gave the order. “Let's roll him.”
With Jim's help, she turned the body in a controlled, easy manner so as not to add any new injuries, such as a broken neck from wrongful handling of the dead weight. With the turning of the corpse, a collective gasp went around the men standing over her to combine with her own when the real damage came clear: Oniiwah had been literally emasculated, his sex organs gone, the scrotum washed clean of blood and loose matter by the sea. This alone might have been enough to send him into shock and thus eventual death. Multiple contusions about the eyes, nose and mouth were also contributing factors, along with a horrid gash to the left temple by a blunt instrument, most likely a hefty paperweight, brass knuckles, a ball bat or the butt of a revolver.
“ He was severely tortured,” she said uselessly just to break the eerie silence that had materialized all around her.
“ You saying he was butchered before or after he was killed?” Parry asked, his jawbone set and quivering.
“ I'd need some lab work to prove either way.”
“ Your best guess?”
“ If I were guessing… before. All part of the intimidation and interrogation. Strip him and threaten and cut him.” Parry stalked off, unable to stare down at what remained of George Oniiwah a moment longer. She shouted to the waiting ambulance attendants, “Bag the hands-for all the good it'll do-and finish up here. See the body gets to the FBI morgue in Honolulu.”
She caught up to Parry, who was leaning over the hood of his car. “You can't blame yourself for this, Jim.”
“ Damnit, I should've known better. I should've seen it fucking coming.”
“ Christ, an act of depravity like this? How do you see that coming, Jim? What? You're supposed to be psychic or something? Give it a rest, and give yourself a break, Jim… Jim!”
He pulled away, not listening, climbing into the car. She gave him some space, going to the passenger side and sliding in beside him.
He wheeled on her and pointed his finger in her face. “We're all walking on a tinderbox here. Of all people, Jess, I shoulda known. I shoulda foreseen this. I shoulda been more careful. Tony tried to tell me; hell, the population over in the canal district tried to tell me when they dusted my car, but I'm thick! I'm goddamned thick and stupid. I keep thinking the best of people; keep thinking people've got to see right from wrong, but that's crazy… It gets people killed.”
“ Damnit, Jim, we've got no time for this… this self-pity crap! If what you say is true about the Trade Winds Killer, he's still searching for another victim, and the sun'll be down in a few hours.”
His jaw firmly set, he said, “So what the hell do you suggest. Dr. Coran?”
“ I suggest to you that Ewelo be held as long as possible on as many violations as you can get him on, and in the meantime, we do a blood typing on Oniiwah's body, and maybe we'll have a match that will put Ewelo at the scene of the boy's death. But that won't be enough. You've got to have a finger pointed in the right direction. I suggest that finger be the roommate. Lean on him.”
“ Way ahead of you on that score. Tony's working on him as we speak.”
“ And in the meantime, run a check on any possible connections Ewelo may've had with any of the victims. If you find there are any threads there, that he knew Kahala and perhaps Kia, if they frequented his place, and if he put them on the street, that gives him a ticket to the show.”
He considered this in quiet reflection until the ambulance sirened for clearance and sped out of the sand. A cascade of pebbles responded as the ambulance careened onto the tarmac, taking Oniiwah's body off with little fanfare.
“ Better keep the ambulance in view,” she suggested. “No telling how long Ewelo's reach is.”
“ This Paniolo guy disgusts me, but I don't think he's the Trade Winds Killer,” he flatly observed.
“ Aren't you being a bit premature?”
“ He doesn't fit the profile.”
“ Sometimes the profile doesn't fit, so? You can't be a slave to it. Let your instincts guide you. Besides, the color of his skin certainly fits.” She hesitated, doing battle with her seat belt. “Serial killers tend to kill within their own race. At least you've got probable cause which, even if it doesn't stick, may get Ewelo on Oniiwah's murder, not to mention the fact it'll give you some breathing room.”
“ Ever the opportunist, aren't you?”
“ Drive,” she replied.
He tore out and flipped the switch to his strobe light, in hot pursuit of the ambulance. Bodies had been known to get lost before, and if Ewelo did have friends in high places…
Jessica, still with her lab coat over her shoulders, and tearing away the surgical gloves she'd used in examining the body, now said, “Ewelo's mean enough and ugly enough to please Pearl, the city, county, state and the boys back home in D.C. Hell, his eyes alone'll convict him. Just see to it the newsies get his photo-graph-preferably a mug shot.”
“ I like the way your mind works, Jess.”
“ And Jim?”
“ What?”
“ It's time to warn the women of this island in complete detail just what turns the Trade Winds Killer on, just in case Ewelo's not the real thing, which given our doubts…”
Jim, thinking aloud, said, “You think Ewelo used a cane cutter on George Oniiwah?”
“ Possibly, but whatever he used, if the evidence supports it, you'll have him on the boy's murder.”
“ But you agree with me; you don't think he's the Trade Winds Killer, do you?”
“ My luck doesn't usually run that well. How 'bout yours?”
“ I've seen overly helpful men volunteer, join in search parties, work day and night on a case-”
“ Sure, and shout the loudest for police to do their job,” she added.
“ And go ballistic and self-righteous and do the vigilante thing as a cover.”
She considered this a moment as the lush island landscape flew past. “It'd make for a hell of a cover. Yeah,” she conceded, “I've been involved in cases where the killer revisited the crime scene, relived the events over again, fantasized about his emotional release at the point of killing, all without the least worry of being caught by a stakeout, because he's part of the damned stakeout.”
Parry, nodding, added, “Not to mention the fact he becomes privy to the investigation.”
“ Sure, Ewelo could be our guy, but we won't know that unless we can make the connections. One is his proximity to the university where the women were going to school; a second is the fact he may've feared what Oniiwah knew, and in a show of civic duty, he offs Oniiwah, as a lesson to those who dared to harm Hawaiian women. A third connection, Oniiwah's blood, will give us an opportunity to revisit Paniolo's, his den, not to mention his home. Hopefully locate other blood samples. We need to know everything there is to know about this man: who his friends are, who does business with him, where he's worked before on the island, and if he likes to cruise the strip where the women disappeared.”
Parry liked what he heard, and he gunned the Stealth until they were a hundred yards behind the ambulance, which was now cutting off 72 for 63 and the Pali Tunnel. Once they were back in Waikiki they'd tighten up to be sure the driver knew he was being watched. Never again would Parry assume anything when it came to the mind of a Hawaiian national. He gave a thought to the political power of the PKO, the Preserve Kahoolawe Ohana, which had come into greater prominence in the nineties.
Parry radioed ahead that they were coming in with George Oniiwah's body, and said that information should be conveyed to Claxton for his own safety and that Claxton was to be picked up.
“ On what charges, sir?” asked Dispatch. “Contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”
“ Roger that. Number 1. We have your orders.” Even Dispatch liked the sound of it.
“ You think you can make it stick?”
“ Maybe not, but when we wheel Oniiwah's body past him, maybe he'll change his mind about protective custody and a change of scenery.”
“ What about Claxton as a possible suspect in the Trade Winds killings?”
“ No, won't wash.”
“ Why not?”
“ He's a lover; likes pretty young women, can't keep his hands off them, but he doesn't get his jollies by beating or humiliating them, no… and he's not into carving them up for sexual arousal as obviously our boy is.”
“ So, what're the Cowboy's sexual proclivities?”
“ Closer to our killer's, I'm told.”
Jessica could never quite fathom the sadistic sexual urge that led to a primitive need to destroy a sexual partner completely in order to ejaculate and thereby conquer wholly the being of another. Murder and sex, an ancient story. The Cane Cutter didn't murder to cover a rape, however; in fact, what he did was not classified at all as a rape by FBI standards, but rather he raped in the ultimate sense by raping life from his victim in order to fulfill his peculiar, deviant sexual urges. The Trade Winds Killer punished his victims because they had something he did not: a normal sex drive; he tortured them and cut into them to prove himself a man, to prove that he could overcome his own impotence, showering them no doubt with his sperm when it finally came forth, ending the ritual of foreplay and ejaculation only to open the door to the final ritual of death, the last act played out between victim and killer.
Having enjoyed the victim's pain and blood, which “turned him on,” blinded by a mad desire for more, the final raining blows and cuts-which Jessica postulated from the Kahala arm must number in forties and fifties-filled the killer with a mystical and religious release from this plane of existence.
Not everyone could comfortably contemplate or fully comprehend such a religion; it wasn't everyone who had to examine such diabolical acts to make sense-however twisted-of sexually motivated mutilation murders. But she and Parry had to do exactly that. Tenderness, caresses, kisses, soft touches, all that love meant for normal, God-fearing human beings who found a healthy lust in mutual respect, care and fondling, were turned to their opposite extremes by the sado-masochistic Cane Cutter and others of his kind. The Cane Cutter preferred brutality to tenderness, punches and knife wounds to caresses, a disgorged tongue to a kiss, a clawing, tearing rake of nails to a soft touch, madness to a healthy lust, tearing and rending to fondling, humiliation to respect. He wanted total domination over life, to completely bond with and take another life. Ironically, he preferred pain to pleasure, death to life. Subconsciously wanting death for himself, but too cowardly to destroy himself, he instead becomes the carrier, the reaper.
The more Jessica thought about him, the more she both recognized and despised the Trade Winds Killer, and the more she believed him still out there, despite the Claxtons and Paniolos of the island or other deviants behind bars at the moment. For not only was he a psychopath, the Cane Cutter was quite cunning, planning out his every move, cautious to a fault and invisible even when seen.
It still remained true that Officers Thom Hilani and Alan Kaniola were the only two lawmen who'd come even remotely close to ending the terror of the Trade Winds Killer.
4 P.M., July 16. FBI Crime Lab, Honolulu
Back at Lau's labs, as they'd come to be known since Dr. Shore's extended departure, Jessica prepared Oniiwah's blood to be tested against that found at Paniolo's. Each specimen was carefully processed, but it would take time to know for certain if they had a match or not. In the meantime, she had to know whether she could or could not trust Lau, who would be overseeing the tests.
Lau had not been present when she'd arrived with the samples she had taken from Oniiwah's corpse. It was 6 P.M. and Lau had gone home, but now his sudden return surprised her.
“ You've heard the news?” she asked.
“ The Japanese-Hawaiian boy, George Oniiwah, yes,” he admitted.
'Then you knew of him?”
“ Only what I have read in the papers.”
She knew he was lying and from the speed of his darting black eyes, and the pretense with his hands over a rack of test tubes and slide trays he fiddled with, Jessica knew that he knew she'd just assessed his body language.
“ You are closely related to Joseph Kaniola?” she asked.
“ Closely? No, not closely.”
“ But you are related?”
“ By blood, no.”
“ Marriage then?”
“ Yes.”
“ You know your work here must remain confidential at all costs; you know that, and yet you told Kaniola details that should not have left this office.”
Lau's brow creased and he found a stool to sit on. Shaking his head as if to say no, he replied. “I only told what was already public record.”
“ No, you told him about our cane-cutter theory.”
“ And you told him more than that,” he said defensively.
She stared back at the impenetrable black eyes of the small man. “I am an investigative member of this team as well as a forensic expert, Mr. Lau. You are the manager of a lab. Are we clear on that?”
His jaw tightened, but he said, “Yes, of course.”
“ Chief Parry knows that it was you who divulged the fact the killer uses a cane cutter.”
“ Kaniola promised me it was off the record, that he would not use such information.”
“ Right,” she said, but she could believe the little man, too. “So what're you saying, that Joseph Kaniola was forced into printing all that he knew?”
“ Who do you think funds his paper? You know business? Politics?” A little shrug of the shoulders and Lau felt he had explained all.
She nodded. “All right, so far, so good. Kaniola is pressured by the nationalist party members to tell all to the people. Who's twisting Kaniola's arm?”
“ The Honorable Provisional Government of our people, the PKOs, those who will take over power of the islands when your government has lost our many standing suits in your courts.”
She could almost forgive Lau his idealistic and naive dream that the U.S. Government would one day benevolently return all native lands and properties to the Hawaiians. It was about as likely as one day seeing Arizona returned to its native population there. With the capital invested in Oahu alone, in the Waikiki strip alone, the islands of Hawaii were inextricably bound to the economic and social fabric of the U.S., and nothing would ever change that, despite the agreement to return Hong Kong to China by Great Britain in 1977-or perhaps because of it.
Jessica could almost forgive Joseph Kaniola now, knowing that his own “provisional government” ties could make life hell for him and the rest of his extended family, and that such a government wasn't above using a man like Halole Ewelo anymore than her own might. As for Ewelo's part, he must've been promised much for the role he'd played in the drama-his attempt to lead the investigation to a white male suspect, namely Professor Claxton, knowing that hanging a white teacher for the murders of island girls would spell out a victory for the nationalist party. But perhaps no one could know just how far Paniolo Ewelo might take his deadly interrogation techniques.
“ Who are the PKOs?” she curiously asked.
“ Kahoolawe preservation society. They want everything to return to traditional ways.”
Jim had mumbled something about this PKO group in the car on their way back. She had to get Jim on the line, explain her newfound knowledge to him. See if he did not concur that both Kaniola and Lau were being squeezed, and that these men were both in an impossible position. But for now she had Lau to deal with.
“ Now we have another dead Hawaiian, Mr. Lau, thanks to politics. Do you really think the deaths of all these young women have anything to do with political matters on the island?”
“ No, of course not, but your government-whom you work for-is desperate to use the killings, to point to the heathens living here-”
“ I've got no such orders!”
“- to bring home the fact we can't conduct our own affairs-”
“ I've had no such instructions, Mr. Lau, and neither has Parry,” she scolded.
“- that we are little more than pagan children still to be Christianized and colonized and Westernized and homogenized.”
“ You can't believe this, Mr. Lau.”
“ If your government can show this, then they take back Kahoolawe and all lands and titles we have fought to regain over the years.” A kind of native islander's paranoia had infiltrated the man's voice.
“ Damnit all, Mr. Lau, we-people such as you and me-we have an obligation to the truth first and foremost. In the laboratory there are no bloody politics, only science… only fact. That's true in every state of the Union, including this one!”
“ Noble words, sister American,” he said calmly, “but all we do, all we say, they wait to pounce upon and twist to whatever expediency may suit them. Read the Congressional Record.”
Christ, she silently admitted, he did understand the Great White Way. “You can trust Parry.”
“ Can I?”
“ Yes, damnit, and you can trust me. The only question remaining is, can either of us trust you?”
He hesitated answering. “It is a small island still in many ways. We have modern skyscrapers. Western high-tech businesses, the computer revolution confronting us, all this speeding change in a handful of years, change which your country and people have had a hundred years to assimilate to. We still struggle and stumble. And I must live here after you and Parry and others are gone.”
“ I need your help to catch a killer, Lau; that's all that matters inside this lab.”
His steely eyes bore into hers, and she allowed her own to send forth a vivid fire of determined anger. “Are you willing to give your full support to this investigation? And to keep what is confidential in-house? I must have your word, your guarantee; otherwise there will be more George Oniiwahs.”
“ No one wished Oniiwah dead, least of all me.”
She saw the pain he'd concealed. “Mr. Lau, if anyone's to blame for Oniiwah's death, it's the man they've jailed for it.”
“ No, the fault belongs to us all,” said Lau, “to the climate we've all contributed to here, one of fear and desperation and political unrest.”
“ Yes, I believe so,” Jessica agreed, extending a hand. “I want to trust you again, Mr. Lau.”
“ Now it is Doctor Lau,” he replied, taking her hand and vigorously shaking it, “as of today. I received news of my final review and dissertation acceptance.”
“ Congratulations.” Her smile was genuine. “It was being held up… for political reasons.”
She shook her head over this, realizing that it was due the ineptitude, mistrust and jockeying of Lau's so-called superiors- white men-that he had become the enemy beneath their noses.
“ Then we are all guilty after all,” she conceded. “Will you trust me, Mr… ah, Dr. Lau? And can we work as scientists, together, amid this turmoil, keeping no secrets from one another?”
“ I would like that very much, yes.”
She demonstrated her trust by giving him the details of the death of George Oniiwah and asking him to finish the lab analysis of Oniiwah's blood type, so she could be in attendance at a meeting of all the FBI agents involved in the ongoing search for the Cane Cutter.
Lau took the samples and promised to have results back to her as soon as humanly possible. She knew now that they could start over, on firm ground.
As she was about to leave, he said, “Oniiwah was not supposed to be killed. How it happened? Only this man, Paniolo, can say.”
“ He was not under orders to kill the boy, we know.”
“ No, no such orders, ever.”
“ But he was ordered to interrogate the boy?”
“ For information, that is all.”
“ Dr. Lau, you tell these people for me that, under U.S. law, it is they who are legally responsible for contributing to the boy's abduction, violations of his civil rights, and ultimately his death.”
“ These people, Dr. Coran, do not recognize U.S. law, unless to do so helps in their cause.”
“ These people, Dr. Lau, will recognize it when they see it from behind bars.”
“ You will never find them to lock them up. They are umalu and 'uhane, shadows… spirits.”
“ You just tell your brother-in-law that I want to meet with him, that I want to talk.”
“ He will contact you,” Lau assured her.
“ Good… good. Then can I expect results on the blood in the next twenty-four hours?”
“ You can.”
“ And you expect it will match the stains taken from Paniolo's place?”
“ I am certain it will.”
“ Prove it then, and what happens to you, Dr. Lau?” 'The same as Kaniola. I am in the middle. We are all of us Hawaiians in the middle.”
She nodded, stripped off her lab coat, grabbed her cane and walked from the lab, somehow confident that Lau could be trusted for the truth.