Page 5

5

LEI

The next day, Lei and her partner Pono Kaihale attended a training session at the Kihei Police Station. At noon, the class went on a break. All the Kihei District officers and staff fled to their cubicles to check phone messages and emails. Lei and Pono were the only ones left in the room.

Her partner Pono had been with Lei for years. A loyal and trustworthy friend, he was more like a brother to her after all this time. In his mid-thirties, large and muscular, Pono had the features and black hair of his mostly Hawaiian with one-quarter Filipino ancestry. Tribal tattoos, close-cropped hair, and an ever-present pair of opaque Oakley sunglasses hid a kind heart. A doting father and a true ‘local,’ Pono had a deep knowledge of his heritage and culture along with lifelong connections that came in handy during investigations.

Lei now regretted giving away last night’s leftovers. “Dang it. I forgot about this training and didn’t pack a lunch. Think we have time to run out and grab a sandwich?”

“No worries. You may have spaced it, but I didn’t.” Pono reached down into a navy blue insulated pack beside the table at which they sat. “Packed for us both. Hope you like kalua pork; was all we had on hand.”

“Bro. You’re a lifesaver!” Lei gratefully accepted a wax paper wrapped bundle containing generous amounts of Hawaiian style shredded pork on a large, purple taro bun. Her stomach rumbled in happy agreement as she bit into the sandwich. “Mm. Did I mention you’re the best? I didn’t remember to eat breakfast, either.”

“That’s par for the course with you, Sweets.” Pono used the ironic nickname a few people in Lei’s life were allowed to use as he dabbed a bit of mayo off his short, bristly mustache with a napkin. He then fished a couple of icy Diet Cokes out of the cooler bag. “I figure a little caffeine will help us get through the afternoon lecture. The latest in fingerprint technology may be important, but it’s going to take a lot to keep me awake this afternoon.”

They were just finishing up and getting ready to go outside to get a break from the overly air-conditioned room, when the station chief poked his head in and said, “Texeira. Kaihale. Are you the only ones around?”

“Instructor’s on lunch break,” Lei said. “Everyone else disappeared. Who are you looking for?”

“Well, anyone, right now. We have a possible homicide down at La Perouse Bay. I’ve got a patrol car responding. Need some detectives.”

Lei jumped up. “We’ll take it. We’re the senior homicide team on the island, anyway. Come on, Pono. Let’s get out to the scene.”

A few minutes later, flying down the highway through Wailea and Makena in Pono’s jacked-up purple truck with the cop light going on the dash, her partner spoke. “I wish everyone would stop calling it La Perouse. The correct name is Kenoe‘ō‘io. There was a large fishing village located there for hundreds of years. La Perouse was just a European explorer who ‘discovered’ the bay and put it on a map. That whole area is covered with villages, burial sites, and wahi pana —sacred places.”

“Preaching to the choir,” Lei agreed. “Maybe one day they’ll change it back.”

“Or we could just refuse to call it La Perouse and hope Kenoe‘ō‘io catches on.”

Pono pulled the truck, nicknamed Stanley, into the parking lot outside the reserve area, braking in a clatter of gravel. Lei stepped out the instant the vehicle stopped rolling, picking up her crime kit from behind the seat. Pono, carrying his, followed right on her heels.

They approached the patrol officer on-scene, who waved them over to where he was standing in the scant shade of a kiawe tree with the sign-in log. Two middle-aged male civilians dressed in expensive hiking gear with trekking poles stood beside him.

“Sergeant Lei Texeira and Detective Pono Kaihale. What’s the situation?” she asked.

“Hey, Sergeant. These men were hiking on the lava. They discovered a body.”

Lei gazed across the lava and an ocean inlet at a distant figure on the black surface. He seemed to shimmer in the heat rising from the stone. “Who’s that?” she asked, pointing.

“That’s my partner, Officer Regala. He went out there to verify the report in person,” the uniform said.

“Okay. Can you put up crime scene tape at the opening to the trail and close this whole area off? Then call your partner and tell him to stay off the radio; we don’t want any lookie-loos picking this up. Have him use his cell phone if he finds something.” Lei turned to the witnesses and extended her hand. “I’m Sergeant Lei Texeira, and this is my partner, Detective Pono Kaihale. Tell us about what you found.”

The men introduced themselves and described seeing something fluttering and odd on the lava behind a rock protrusion. They went over to investigate. “We thought it might be litter; we planned to pick it up since this is a protected area. But turned out there’s a woman staked out against the rocks. All cut up,” one of the witnesses said, looking green.

“Did you check if she was alive?”

“Didn’t need to,” the other man said, his eyes on his feet. “She was definitely gone. Lots of blood everywhere.”

“Dammit,” Lei muttered; this sounded like a bad one. “Pono, can you call for the Medical Examiner? And start getting these witness’s statements on the record? I’m going over to check it out.”

“Sure thing.” They’d been working together long enough that their communication was smooth, and hassles over task division seldom happened.

Lei hefted her crime kit and set off toward the trail opening at a brisk pace, grateful for a slight breeze that had sprung up, moving wind across the barren, sunstruck lava plain. This was one of those days when she was glad she was a runner and kept fit, dressing every day for motion in black jeans and a tank top with a light cotton jacket concealing her weapon. She tugged a foldable billed hat out of her pocket and put it on, threading her curly ponytail out through the back, then removed the jacket and tied the arms around her waist to cool her torso.

The Department of Land and Natural Resources had been fairly successful in obliterating traces of the old tracks and trails of fishermen and recreational users that had once crisscrossed the lava plain, in an effort to keep people from trespassing into the Reserve.

Most of the lava there was ‘a‘ā , the rough, crumbly, jagged kind, rather than the smoother, ropy pāhoehoe . Even so, paths crossing ancient lava flows were anything but smooth and level. Liquid lava never cooled into a flat surface, and air pockets caused dips and troughs, so even after a hundred years or more of ongoing use, the going was rough.

The trail led into a grove of kiawe trees clustered around a lime-green natural water source. Lei emerged from under the tree canopy and glanced across the inlet, waving to Pono off in the distance. He saw her and raised an arm in encouragement.

A couple of hundred yards later, she reached a young patrol officer. He sat on a low lava rock wall with his head hanging between his knees; his blue uniform shirt was dark with sweat under the arms and along his back.

“Hey. I’m Sergeant Texeira,” she called out. “Are you okay?”

The man glanced up. “Hey, Sergeant. I’m Lopaka Regala. We met before, on that petroglyph case. Gerry Bunuelos is my cousin.”

“Sure, I remember you,” Lei said.

Regala straightened, wiped his face on his sleeve, and stood up, looking pale beneath his tan. “Sorry. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“And that’s a good thing.” Lei glanced past him but couldn’t see the body; it was hidden behind a rock outcrop. “It’s okay. We all felt that way at our first bad scene.” She noticed the bright yellow crime tape draped around the perimeter. “Glad you’ve got the tape up. Where’s the victim?”

“She’s right behind that rock column,” he said, pointing.

Lei made her way over. She stopped at the sight before her. “Oh, you poor thing,” she whispered, and then, searching the ground for trace, moved in closer to examine the body.

The victim was nude from the waist up. She lay in a seated, reclined position, her back against a rock formation and her arms splayed, staked out with a fibrous rope. Some kind of Polynesian print skirt wrapped her waist and was tucked between her legs, but it was so stained with blood that the material was hard to make out. A floral lei po‘o rested on her head, its blossoms and ferns wilting.

Her legs were spread, and she was barefoot. There were no shoes in sight, but her feet were clean; she hadn’t walked to the site. Between her feet rested a pū‘olo , a traditional Hawaiian offering, the shiny green ti leaves tied with a twine cord.

Lei snapped on gloves from her kit, took out her phone, and began taking pictures, dictating observations aloud in the Notes feature.

The woman appeared to be in her forties. Her blonde hair was threaded with silver, a once-stylish blowout disheveled and windblown. Her eyes were partly open but filmed. Her mouth hung ajar, and her skin looked bleached, though her breasts and abdomen were covered in dark, drying blood from the ragged wound that had carved open her throat.

Lei lifted one of the hands; it was limp. Rigor had gone. Guessing by her appearance and a rising smell that had begun to attract flies, she’d been there since the night, at least—but the heat of the sun beating down on the hot black lava surrounding her could be distorting the timeline.

“Who are you?” Lei murmured, staring closely at the victim’s slack face and gruesome wound. “Who violated you like this?”

But of course, the dead couldn’t answer. Couldn’t call out for help. Couldn’t tell who’d killed them.

That was Lei’s job.

As she straightened up, Lei felt a new energy and motivation. She would find answers. She would make sure whoever had so cruelly murdered this woman was brought to justice.