5 Murder at Volcano House (15 page)

We head in. We’ve got no flashlight. But Sonny Boy lights a match. We can see again. The tube starts off barely high enough to stand, then gets smaller. We duck our heads. The floor is rough and uneven. Sonny Boy lights another match.

I’m smelling sulfur again. The tube narrows. I see a dim light ahead. And then I smell fresh air.

“Almos’ dere,” Sonny Boy says.

Finally we step into full light. And a fairy tale.

A rainbow arches over a grove of ‘
ōhi‘a
and a gently rolling stream. Brilliant red birds,
‘I‘iwi
, the Hawaiian honeycreeper, hover over the colorful
lehua
blooms. Everything is green and dewy and luminous in the sun. It looks like an enchanted rainforest.
Unreal
.

“Dis where da goddess stay,” he says. He points in the direction of the rainbow.

Under the resplendent arch above that ‘
ōhi‘a
grove a bare-breasted woman dances the
hula
.

“Das her?”

Sonny Boy nods.

twenty-five

She’s wearing a red
haku lei
on her grey head and a ti-leaf skirt. Another red
lei
hangs around her neck, resting on her breasts. She’s not ample like Hawaiian goddesses of legend. I can count her ribs as she dances the
hula
—her hips swaying, her arms undulating, her hands in gentle fluid motion. Her eyes are closed and she chants as she moves.

Sonny Boy puts a finger to his lips.
“Ssssshh,”
he says.

Quietly we come closer. Barrymore’s red
lei
are
lehua
flowers from the ‘
ōhi‘a
tree. The tree she killed for.

She stands on a mossy perch above us, her delicate
lei
contrasting with her leathery skin. Neither her complexion nor her features look Hawaiian. Nearly three decades ago she threatened Ransom and accused him of raping her sister and of desecrating her rainforest. Back then, Barrymore was considered crazy, but harmless. That was before she committed second-degree murder. If she could push a man into the path of a bus, she could push Ransom into a steam vent.

An escaped mental patient can’t make it long on the outside without help.
Sonny Boy
. Why is he helping her? Did they conspire to kill Ransom?

Her eyes suddenly open and she peers down on us.

“I am Pele’s favorite sister, Hi‘iaka, patron of
hula
and protector of trees and ferns and rainforests.” She speaks slowly and distantly, like she’s in a trance. “I bring new life and heal the land after Pele’s lava flows. I was conceived in Tahiti, daughter of Haumea and Kāne. My beloved sister carried me to Hawai‘i cradled in her bosom.”

“Hi‘iaka, it’s me,” Sonny Boy says. “I bring you one
makana
, one gift.”

She perks up when she hears the word
makana
. Sonny Boy hands her the papayas and apple-bananas. She takes them.

“Dis Kai.” He gestures to me. “Kai bring one
makana
too.”

I hand her the gin and cigarettes. She sets them on her mossy perch next to Sonny Boy’s gift.

“Kai like talk wit’ you,” he says.

She smiles eerily, which I guess means, “Okay.”

I start to ask a question, but get distracted by her breasts. I’m not used to seeing women unclothed in broad daylight. I try to keep my eyes on her face. Some words finally tumble out: “Beautiful
hula—
beautiful forest.”

“This is my ‘
ōhi‘a
grove,” she says in perfect English. “The ‘
ōhi‘a
is sacred to me. I am its protector.”

“To cut them down is a sacrilege,” I say. “Just like drilling in the Wao Kele O Puna rainforest. Do you remember the drilling?”

“Hi‘iaka never forgets,” she says.

“And the protests in the rainforest against the man you called ‘the evil one’?”

“He deserved death at Pele’s hands,” she says.

“Not death at
your
hands?”

“Pele took her own revenge. I saw with my own eyes.”

“You saw Pele pitch him into the steam vent?”

“Yes, I saw.”

This conversation is getting loonier by the minute. But I’m beginning to wonder who’s loonier: her for telling me this wacky stuff, or me for asking questions that prompt it.

“Okay, Goddess Hi‘iaka.” I play along. “Tell me what you saw.”

“Pele was in her most provocative
kinolau
—flowing red dress, shimmering long hair, vivid eyes, and lips as fiery as a lava flow.”

Barrymore didn’t have to see the woman on the trail to get these details. This guise is legendary. I’m not convinced.

I turn to Sonny Boy, who’s taking it all in.

“It da truth,” he says. “The goddess nevah lie.”

She continues: “The old man—the evil one—saw Pele coming and tried to run. But he fell to the ground, gasping for air.”

Was that the thud and groan I heard?
I wonder. But I reply, “How did he get into the vent?”

“Pele,” she says again. “Then she ran down the trail past me.”

“You’re sure you saw her?”

“I’m sure because she dropped something.”

“What?” I ask, expecting more nonsense.

“The lipstick that makes her lips fiery red.”

“Can’t be.”
The words slip out.

“I held the lipstick in my own hands,” Barrymore insists. “Then I left it along the trail, in case my sister came back for it. She didn’t. She kept running.”

From my pocket I pull the lipstick. “Did it look like this?”

“Yes,” Barrymore says. “Just like that.”

Sonny Boy turns to me. “Believe now?”

twenty-six

We make our return trip through the dark tunnel. My skeptical side is protesting. I almost believe the young woman I saw on the trail—the same woman Serena Barrymore says she saw—was a
kinolau
of Pele. Almost. I air my doubts.

“Madame Pele immortal, yeah?” I ask Sonny Boy.

“Das right,” he replies.

“Den why she need one mortal lipstick? Why not she jus’ make her lips any kine color she want?”

“Dunno, brah,” answers Sonny Boy. “Pele do whatevah she want. If she want one mortal lipstick, she do ‘em.”

“Or maybe Goddess Hi‘iaka jus’ dress up like Pele? Maybe Hi‘iaka herself pitch Ransom inside da vent?”

“Don’t t’ink so, brah,” he says. “Hi‘iaka too old. Maybe she can pitch ‘em inside da vent, but she no can look like one young
wahine
.”

Sonny Boy has a point. The woman I saw was definitely young. Serena Barrymore could not have resembled that woman, even in the mist. As we emerge from the tube into daylight and walk back to the car, I realize my investigation
so far has turned up more evidence implicating Pele than any human suspect. That’s fine—if you believe in goddesses.

For the sake of thoroughness, I have Sonny Boy write in my spiral notebook his recollection of Barrymore’s story, signed and dated—the loony tale of a crazy woman verified by an ex-con on parole.
Solid evidence?
The best I’ve got.

Back at the Volcano House I grab a sandwich in the hotel dining room. After lunch I’m walking by the reception desk where Pualani has just been extending her
aloha
to a hotel guest.

“Eh, Kai,” Pualani says, “So you meet da
lolo wahine
dat t’ink she one goddess?”

“How’d you know?” I ask, before I put two and two together and come up with the inevitable: Sonny Boy.

“Jus’ know.” Pualani says again. “She no mo’ Goddess Hi‘iaka den dis bell on da desk.”
Ding!—Ding!
Pualani rings the little chrome bell for effect. “She
lolo
. Da
wahine
sick.”

I agree with her. “She say she see Pele, in da
kinolau
of one beautiful young
wahine
, pitch da geothermal boss inside da vent. You evah see one woman like dat ‘round hea?”

“I no see her,” she says, “but was Pele. She
make
da oddah two. Why not da boss? Pele your suspect numbah one!”

“You t’ink so?”

“Fo’ sure. You gotta go to Halema‘uma‘u Crater at sunset wit’
‘
ōhelo
berries. Make her one offering. She come to you. Guarantee.”

I slowly nod.

But, Pualani warns me, it’s not the best time to visit the crater. Its floor—the thin crust resting on a lake of boiling
lava—is bulging. Park volcanologists worry another eruption is coming. She describes fiery fountains spewing ash and molten rock into the air. She cautions me to be careful.

“T’anks, eh?” I think of the cliché:
fool’s errand
. Then I go it one better:
dangerous fool’s errand
.

Back in my room I catch up on paperwork. I write out detailed notes about my four interviews on the Big Island with Kathryn Ransom, Mick London, Ikaika “Sonny Boy” Chang, and Serena Barrymore, a.k.a. Goddess Hi‘iaka. I will refer to these notes when I report back to my client. I can’t count out any of these four suspects just yet. But while all four had, to varying degrees, motive, opportunity, and means to kill Rex Ransom, the interviews lead me to believe none actually did kill him. Unless one of the four incriminates him- or herself, or unless another suspect surfaces, I’m left with only
Pele
.

Barrymore claims she saw the goddess heave Ransom into the vent. I can dismiss her description of Pele’s widely-known
kinolau
, but not the lipstick I later recovered on the trail. Barrymore had to be there for that. And so I’m stuck with her story. Stuck at least with part of it. To believe it all, I’d have to believe that the goddess materialized bodily on this earth and caused the death of a mortal man.

That’s a huge leap.

I lie back on the bed and decide that it might not be a bad idea to at least check in with Pele later at the Halema‘uma‘u Crater. Maybe it could help me get into a frame of mind to understand how so many people, some of them at least apparently sane, could conclude that it had to be the goddess who pushed the old man to his death.

I’m not a normally a napper, but the long drive yesterday and fitful sleep last night make me drift off.

Suddenly I’m on the edge of the crater at sunset gazing into the fiery pit. Standing over the hiss and roar, I wait for the goddess to appear. Finally she does. Pele rises out of the flames as the seductive young woman I saw on the trail. She says my name and promises to tell me everything. Before she does I awake.

It’s late afternoon—little time to spare before sunset. I drag myself out to gather an offering for Pele. Yes, I actually do this.

I don’t have to hike far on the Crater Rim Trail. Just to The Steaming Bluff. Sulfur fills the air. By the vent where I found the old man I spot the green-leafed stems of the
‘
ōhelo
plant reaching skyward and carrying pale yellow to bright red clusters of fruit, about the size of blueberries. There’s plenty to choose from. The
nene
, or Hawaiian goose, loves these berries and disperses their seeds widely. The berries aren’t fully ripe. I’m a bit early to pick, since peak season is June through October, but I doubt the goddess will mind. Or even notice.

One stem yields up two or three berries, another nearly a dozen. I end up with several stems—berries and leaves and all—and carry them back to my room.

Since sunset comes at quarter to seven in early April, I make reservations for dinner at eight. An hour should be more than enough time to interview a goddess.

But what do I know? I’ve never done it before.

Fifteen minutes before sunset—I hate being late—I pass the registration desk where Pualani is still working. I hold up my stems of
‘
ōhelo
berries and say, “On my way.”

“Bettah go fas’,” she says. “Da Park Service gonna close da Halema‘uma‘u overlook.”

“Why dey close da overlook?”

“Cuz da crater floor bulging. Maybe dey t’ink one eruption coming.”

“I going.” I make tracks to my car.

I head south again on Crater Rim Drive toward Halema‘uma‘u. About half way there I pass the Jaggar Observatory and Museum where Park Service personnel are loading barricades into pickup trucks. I mash the gas pedal. Once the barricades go up, I’ve got no chance with Pele.