Aloha Betrayed (16 page)

“There is no fool like an old fool,” Elaine muttered, opting for the van that would ferry reluctant bikers down the hill.

My sour, shaved-head companion from the van stood between two bikes, one slightly larger than the other. He nodded at the smaller of the two and pushed it forward in my direction. “Looks like just the right size for you,” he said.

“Yes, it does,” I said, surprised he’d been so considerate. “Thank you.”

He gave me a curt nod and walked the other bike to where a small table had been set up with a coffee urn and pastries. I got on my bike and tentatively began to ride in a circle around the lot. It was a sturdy bike, the oversized padded seat extremely comfortable and the handbrakes nicely positioned. I circled around a few times until I was confident I could handle it, but the lack of sleep was catching up to me and the thought of coffee was appealing.

I poured myself a cup and watched as others began the descent, including Bob Lowell, a little wobbly at first, then stronger as he sped up. Elaine Lowell sat in the van shaking her head.

“Delicious coffee,” I commented to the man with the shaved head, who’d also lingered at the refreshment table.

“Kona,” he said.

“I’ll have to buy some Kona coffee when I get home.”

He nodded and continued sipping.

I finished my cup and tossed it in the trash can. “I suppose I’d better be on my way. Looks like we’re the last ones to leave.”

“Looks like it.” He climbed on his bike and fell in behind me as I began the sixty-five-hundred-foot trip down from Haleakala to the town of Pa‘ia at its base.

I started slowly, wanting to get the feel of the road. I tested the brakes a few times and everything seemed fine, although I did detect a slight shudder when I squeezed the brake handles. Nothing serious, just a matter of getting used to it. I glanced back a few times and saw that the man with the shaved head was fifty feet behind me. Having someone within hailing distance was comforting in the event something should go wrong. Not that I expected anything to be amiss. And I knew that a van would be leaving the top soon to monitor the riders and pick up anyone who changed their mind about riding down the whole route.

The sun was shining, the wind in my face was bracing, and I realized that I was smiling at the sheer joy of it. I thought of my friends back in Cabot Cove and wished they were there to see me navigate the first switchback, although I could imagine what Seth Hazlitt would say: “Don’t you think you’re a little old, Jessica, to be playing daredevil?” which was what he’d said when I took up flying.

I stayed as far to the right as possible to allow cars to pass and gave wide berth to those vehicles on their way up the mountain, including an occasional truck. Drivers tooted and waved as they went by. I didn’t dare take my hands off the handlebars and returned their greetings with an enthusiastic nod.

As I continued the ride my confidence grew, and I allowed myself to go faster, although not beyond where I felt in complete control. Vehicular traffic became heavier—families out for a pleasant day, tourists in rented cars making the trek to see Maui’s most famous and trafficked sight.

I was pleased that I’d decided to make the trip and to bicycle down instead of being driven. The experience was exhilarating, and it had displaced what had become nonstop fixation on Mala Kapule’s death. Not that those thoughts hadn’t intruded from time to time, but they weren’t all consuming, as they had been. On a relatively level stretch of road I glanced back to see that the man who’d left the base camp with me had now closed the gap and was only fifteen feet behind. The straight-and-level portion was quickly replaced by another switchback that curled around the mountain and skirted a steep drop-off. The man with the shaved head was suddenly abreast of me. Hadn’t he heard the admonition that we were to ride in single file only? I shook my head. He didn’t get the message. “Get behind me or pass,” I shouted. He responded by moving close; he was now pressing against me, causing me to have to turn, which pointed me at the drop-off.

“Stop it!” I yelled as I fought to avoid going over the edge. I squeezed hard to apply both sets of brakes. The front brakes did nothing. The rear ones caught, the unequal torque sending my bike into a sideways skid. He gave me one final push with his hand and sped ahead, as I sped ahead, too—straight for a thousand-foot drop into oblivion.

Auē Nō Ho ‘I Ē!
—
Oh, My Goodness!

T
hey say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die, but I was too panicked to notice. I slid across both lanes of traffic, screaming as I fought to stop the bike, now on its side, from dropping off the edge. The surface of the road tore at the biking clothes, and my head, thankfully protected by a helmet, scraped the asphalt, the sound assaulting my eardrums. The driver of a fuel oil truck coming up the mountain slammed on his brakes, its oversized wheels threatening to flatten me. It all happened in just a few seconds, yet it seemed as though it were unfolding in slow motion.

And then everything stopped. The front wheel of the bike hung over the edge of the drop-off, the pedals inches from following it. I was on my side, blinking furiously to clear the cobwebs from my brain. I stopped blinking and looked wide-eyed at my situation and position on the road. My first thought was not to move lest any motion push the rest of the bike, and me, over the precipice. I heard footsteps as people got out of their cars and ran to aid me. A man grabbed the bike’s rear wheel and yanked it, dragging me back to the middle of the road. A woman leaned over me. “Are you okay?”

“I—I don’t know,” I managed. “Yes, I think so.”

Hands gently lifted me to a sitting position. I shook my head against a throbbing pain that encircled it. I looked down at my legs. One leg of the biking pants was torn from the knee to the hip; blood seeped through the light fabric from where the road’s hard surface had scraped it.

“She needs an ambulance,” I heard a man say.

“I’ve called nine-one-one,” another replied.

“Get her off the road.”

With help I struggled to my feet but had to lean against someone to keep from sagging to the ground again. Two people, one on each side, led me to a narrow strip of land between the roadway and the side of the mountain, where I sat and removed my helmet.

“What happened?” someone asked.

“I’m not sure, but I think he pushed me.”

“Who pushed you?”

“The man on the bike behind me; at least he was behind me until he wasn’t.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“He was sitting next to me on the ride up, but I don’t know his name. He wasn’t particularly friendly.”

But then a strange thing happened. I realized that I had seen him before. The blow to my helmeted head had jarred loose recognition. He was one of the two men I’d overheard at the luau. Once again I thought back to when I eavesdropped on their conversation.

“She’s never going to give up, you know that, don’t you?”

I glanced over to see two men arguing in low tones. One of them was tall with an athletic build, the other older, softer, and with a shaved head.

“Did he try talking to her?” asked the taller man.

“It’s too late for talking,” the other replied. “She’d better quit if she knows what’s good for her. They’re not going to put up with it anymore.”

“
She’s not going to convince him to change his mind, even if she tries.”

“If she scuttles this project, I swear he’ll kill her.”

“It’ll be tough getting an ambulance up here with all the traffic,” someone said, pulling me back into the present.

“Do you feel okay enough to ride down with us?” a man asked.

“I think so.” I wanted to nod, but moving my head was painful.

The bike was pulled to the mountain side of the road. I was placed in the backseat of a car driven by the man who’d offered me a lift. His wife sat in front and kept asking me how I was doing. Aside from the headache, an aching back, and the bloody scrapes on my knee and hip, I was doing fine. Abject fear had morphed into anger. I was angry at what the man with the shaved head had done to me. All I could think of was finding him and making him pay. But that most basic of reactions meshed with my memories of the threatening exchange at the luau and Mala Kapule’s death. Had they been talking about her? Were they involved with the committee to quash her fight against the telescope on Haleakala? My aches, pains, and scrapes somehow seemed superfluous. My experience of the lovely trip to the dormant volcano and thrilling bike ride down was now anything but pleasant. I was back to where I’d been at the start of that day, determined to get to the bottom of Mala’s death—and whoever was behind it.

•   •   •

At first I argued against being brought to a hospital, but wisdom replaced my false sense of valor and I found myself in the emergency room at the Maui Memorial Medical Center in Wailuku, where a physician took a look at my wounds. A nurse cleaned and dressed my knee and hip, and an X-ray of my back didn’t reveal any structural damage. The only concern was my headache. Had I suffered a concussion? The prevailing view was that I hadn’t and that a good night’s sleep and some Tylenol would do the trick. But they cautioned me to be aware of any of the symptoms they described that could indicate a concussion.

While waiting to be discharged I called Mike Kane’s cell phone.

“Hello, Jessica,” he said. “How was your trip up to Haleakala?”

“The trip up was wonderful,” I said. “It was coming down on the bicycle that posed a problem.”

“Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

I gave him a capsule recounting of what had happened.

“Terrible,” he said. “Have you filed a police report?”

“No.”

“You must. I’ll be there in twenty minutes and take you to headquarters. You can go through the mug shots and see if you spot this
hūpō
.”

“This
what
?”

“
Hūpō.
Fool.”

“He’s more than a fool, Mike. He’s a thug, and he might be a murderer.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“But you’re working.”

“If you can call it that. Dull day, no complaints from guests. Sit tight. See you in a few minutes.”

While waiting for Mike to arrive, I looked around the emergency room, where other patients were being evaluated and treated. A loud moan came from an adjacent treatment bay surrounded by a white curtain. I winced in sympathy for what the person in there was suffering. The curtain parted and a nurse emerged, followed by none other than Elaine Lowell.

“Elaine,” I said, getting up and sitting right back down when my own pain reminded me that my knees and back were still sore.

“Jessica? What happened to you?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“Bob fell off his bike. He has a broken shoulder.”

“I had an accident, too.” I didn’t bother going into detail about how my “accident” came about.

“I knew he was too old to ride a bike.”

A bellow came from behind the curtain. “Elaine!”

“He needs me.” She smiled wanly.

I followed her to the treatment bay, pausing at the curtain. Bob lay on the gurney; a pretty Asian nurse tended to him.

“Jessica Fletcher? That you?” he said, managing to raise his head.

“Yes,” I said, stepping closer so he could see me.

“How come you’re here?”

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“Bob has to have surgery on his shoulder,” Elaine said.

“Stupid thing,” he said. “That bike was no good. If I had a decent bike, this never would have happened. I should sue ’em.”

The nurse patted his hand. “Just lie back and take it easy, Mr. Lowell. The surgeon will be here shortly and everything will be fine.”

Bob grasped her hand, his eyes imploring. “How about a little hug for good luck?”

The nurse looked at Elaine and me, disengaged from him, raised her eyebrows, and ducked around the curtain.

“Oh, Bob,” Elaine said.

I saw the disappointment on his face. “I’ll give you a good-luck hug, Bob.”

And I did, and was glad that I had.

They wheeled Bob away for surgery and I returned to the waiting area, where Mike Kane had just arrived. Seeing him walk in buoyed my spirits, and I happily hobbled from the hospital on his arm.

Once we were in the car, he handed me a package wrapped in paper towel. It was heavy.

“What is it?”

“Lani sent it to you. It’s for good luck.”

I rolled off the paper, and a gray rock dropped into my lap. I turned it over to see a white drawing on its smooth gray surface. It was a circle surrounding two white dots.

“That’s the symbol for the goddess Uli,” Mike said.

“Yes. The heavenly mother. I remember.”

“Lani thought you needed a little protection, so she wanted you to have it. Although by the looks of it, Uli’s already been working for you. You’re lucky you’re alive.”

“I’m well aware of that. Please thank Lani for me. I wanted to get a gift for her, and here she’s giving me a gift.”

“There will be plenty of time for reciprocating, provided you stay in one piece.”

“I have to stop at the tour operator to return these clothes and tell them about the bike. Could we swing by there first?”

“Sure you shouldn’t go straight back to the hotel and get into bed?”

“Maybe later. Right now I need to follow up on what happened. The man who forced me off the road was in the van when it arrived to pick me up at the hotel. He must have registered.”

“Okay, but fill me in on the details of what happened.”

I gave him a rundown, including my delayed recognition of the man as having been at the luau the night Mala died, and recounted the brief conversation I’d overheard him have with another man.

“Were they talking about Mala?” Mike said.

“It didn’t occur to me at the time,” I said. “I never gave it much thought until she died. Now that one of those men tried to kill me, there can’t be any other conclusion to come to.”

“Let’s see what they have on record at the tour operator,” Mike said, speeding up.

After multiple expressions of condolences for what happened to me while on their tour—and with my assurances that I wasn’t intending to sue them—I asked about the man with the shaved head. Yes, they had the reservation he’d made. “John Smith” was his name.

“John Smith?” Mike and I said in unison.

The tour operator shrugged. “We don’t check on people’s names,” he said. “He paid in cash; it’s not unusual.”

“What about the hotel where you picked him up?” Mike asked.

A phone call confirmed that no person named John Smith was registered there, nor had anyone by that name reserved a spot on the Haleakala tour through the hotel. A further check of records indicated that he’d made the call from a phone not associated with the hotel but had asked to be picked up there.

“You say he deliberately forced you off the road?” I was asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s a first for us,” the tour operator said. “All I can say is how sorry we are, and if you want another bike tour of Haleakala, it’s on us.”

I managed a laugh. “I’m not ready to take you up on that, but I’ll keep it in mind. I left the bike on the side of the road. My apologies. I’m sure it was damaged in my fall.”

“No need for apologies, Mrs. Fletcher. Please, if anything we need to apologize to you. However, I must assure you that all our bikes are checked before they leave here. We have a detailed system to ensure the safety of all our vehicles. The brakes on your bike passed our inspection—but I have to say they wouldn’t now.”

“You’ve seen the bicycle already?”

“Oh, yes, it was delivered here by one of the other tour operators. We went over it carefully and discovered a problem that wasn’t there before. We believe someone must have tampered with the front brakes.”

“This is taking on a whole new dimension,” Mike commented as we got back in his car. “This thug who tried to run you off the road obviously works for someone who has it in for you, and the only reason I can think of is that it’s connected to Ms. Kapule’s murder.”

“I see that you’re now saying ‘murder’ rather than ‘death.’”

“Up until now I didn’t want to rush to judgment, Jessica, but as far as I’m concerned, she didn’t accidently fall. Someone killed her—and has tried to kill you.”

“You want me to file a report at police headquarters?”

“Absolutely, especially in light of the tour operator’s comments regarding possible tampering with the brakes. You should also look through mug shots. Maybe you’ll get lucky and spot this man’s picture. Are you feeling up to it?”

“I’m fine, Mike. While I’m doing that, can you check on a company, Douglas Fir Engineering? It’s in Oregon, back on the mainland.”

“Why your interest in it?”

“Mala’s attorney was at last night’s meeting of the anti-telescope group. He told me she was hired as a consultant to this company in Oregon and was evidently paid a good sum of money for her work. I remember seeing an envelope from the company on Mala’s desk. It might mean nothing, but I’d like to erase it off the list of things on my mental blackboard.”

“Easy to do,” he said.

With Mike as my escort into police headquarters, I was quickly ushered into a small conference room with a computer. Detective Tahaki was there, as well as a female uniformed officer who got me settled at the table.

“Sorry to see you again under these circumstances,” Tahaki said. “Mike explained what happened.”

“Thank you.”

“Can we get you some coffee? Juice?” the officer asked.

“That would be lovely,” I said. “You wouldn’t happen to have iced tea with pineapple juice, would you?”

“I think I can come up with that,” she said.

Mike left as Detective Tahaki recorded my statement about what had occurred on the bike trip down from Haleakala and said that it would be typed up for me to sign before I left. “Now,” he said, “let’s see if we can identify this guy who assaulted you.”

He punched up a program on the computer and entered my description of my assailant. “If he’s had a run-in with the law, he’ll be in one of these files,” he said.

With my now-favorite drink in front of me, I started the slow, tedious process of looking at face after face of men—Asian, Caucasian, a smattering of African-Americans, bearded, clean-shaven, some hardened, others not looking like anyone I would assume was a lawbreaker—a cross section of male humanity.