Authors: Jeanne Matthews
Bet Your Bones (14 page)
“You’ll find glasses in the cupboard and there are some fresh papayas and cheese in the fridge if you’re hungry. The bedroom’s in here.” He opened French doors into an airy room with cedar book shelves on the back wall and, on the facing walls, the same wide, uncovered windows looking out on the jungle. There was one leather armchair, a card table with an open laptop and a stack of books and papers, and a platform bed under a rattan ceiling fan. “The bath and shower are through there. If you want to check your e-mail, feel free to use the computer.”
“You have Wi-Fi here in the jungle?”
“All the conveniences of civilization.” He turned back into the kitchen. “Come and I’ll show you how to turn on the gas heater if you need it.”
Dinah watched as he pointed out the switches and buttons. “How long have you occupied this little corner of Paradise?”
“About five years. Dad wanted to build a resort hotel on the property, but I persuaded him to leave it green and let me build what I want. It’s handy to the volcanoes and the U.S.G.S. Observatory where I do most of my work.”
“It’s beautiful. This close to the national park, it must be worth millions.”
“Dad’s promised it to me in his will.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll change his mind after he and Claude Ann are married?”
“No.” The voice of Johnny Cash blared from his jacket pocket. “I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire…” He pulled out his cell phone, glanced at the caller’s name, and shut it off. “I’ll go and bring in the bags.”
There was a loud clap, like thunder, and the floor jolted. Dinah grabbed onto him.
“Quake,” he said as the bowl of anthuriums jumped off the table and smashed to smithereens at her feet. The dishes in the cupboard trembled and clinked for a few seconds and then the shaking stopped, as suddenly as it began.
“That was a good one. I’d better unload the luggage and head over to the Observatory to check the seismometers.”
“Flaming Jerusalem! You’re not going to leave me here alone, are you?”
He laughed. “You’re not scared of a little earthquake, are you?”
She glared at him.
“I’ll shut off the gas before I go. If there are aftershocks, keep away from the windows and crouch down in an interior corner. And if you want to visit any of the others when they get back from town, follow the path to your right where it forks.”
Dinah picked up the pieces of the broken bowl, threw them in the trash, and mopped up the water. She tossed the heart-shaped anthuriums loose into the sink and turned on the faucet to a slow drip. She didn’t feel like looking for another vase or flower arranging. She fetched her pack of Sincerely Yours and her book of myths, put on a sweater, and went out on the lanai. As the crow flies, she couldn’t be more than a couple of miles from the entrance to Volcanoes National Park and scores of people, but she’d never felt more isolated in her life. She wished she’d gone to the spa with Lyssa and Phoebe.
She lit a cigarette, inhaled like there was no tomorrow, and opened her book to the story of how the world was created. All was Chaos. She blew out a cloud of smoke. Based on her Hawaiian experience, not much had changed.
She read on. There was no form or meaning until the god Kane lobbed a giant gourd into the air and created the sky. (There was no explanation as to how the gourd came into existence, but Dinah wasn’t a stickler). The seeds of the gourd scattered across the darkness and became the sun and moon and wheeling constellations. Kane used the rest of the gourd to fashion the earth. A few helper gods pitched in and formed the sea and land and living creatures and when Kane was satisfied with the end product, he set about to design an ali’i nui or ruling chief who would have dominion over this new Earth. After tinkering around for a while with stone and bark, he took a hunk of red clay, shaped it in his own image, breathed life into it, and dubbed this first man Kumu-honua. After Kane made his Adam, he tackled the job of making a first woman. And just as in the Hebrew book of Genesis, he made her out of the sleeping man’s rib. Her name was Ke-ola-ku-honua and, right off the bat, she let a lizard con her into eating a kapu breadfruit, which got the couple evicted from their pleasant garden.
According to this version of the myth, there were so many parallels between the Hebrew and the Hawaiian creation stories that some religious anthropologists theorize that there must have been a cross-cultural link between the early Polynesians and the Jews. One historian even surmised that the Menehune, a race of dwarfs from whom the Hawaiians were thought to have descended, might be one of the lost tribes of Israel.
Dwarfs. She squashed her cigarette in the ashtray. Why had no one ever told her that Hawaii was this weird?
There was an aftershock. The shoes danced on the rack and a windchime made of mangled spoons and forks jingled madly. Just a little jiggler, she told herself. She went to the kitchen and raided the fridge. There were some individually wrapped wedges of cheese and sliced papayas. She sat down at the table and ate. This was the perfect opportunity to nap, but she was too nervous and antsy. She looked out the large picture windows at the rain forest. What if Hank had slipped through the police net? He could be lurking out there with Claude Ann’s Beretta, waiting for her to return. Maybe he had tried to communicate with Marywave again. Dinah pulled Marywave’s cell phone out of her purse, flipped it open, and tried to check the voice mail. The battery was dead.
An hour had passed since Jon left. Where did he keep the keys to that Wrangler? Maybe that battery wasn’t dead. Maybe she could take it out for a short drive, get a better sense of where she was, and lose the heebie-jeebies. She ransacked the place, but had no luck. She was stranded with nothing to do but wait, her least favorite thing.
She went back to the lanai, picked up the book of myths, and read about Lono. Lono was one of the founding movers and shakers of the cosmos—god of the sun and of wisdom, god of fertility and agriculture, and CEO of the weather, including hurricanes and earthquakes. He was a happy god, happy in his work and happy in his marriage. His wife was the comely Kaikilani, a goddess in her own right. While Lono went about presiding over the rain and wind and ambient temperature, Kaikilani disported herself from island to island as a sort of ambassadress to the little people. The kanaka maoli. One day, in her democratic zeal, she had an extramarital roll in the ferns with a no-class kanaka from Molokai, a perfidy Lono could not tolerate. He slew the faithless goddess, packed his canoe, and vacated the islands, leaving the weather to regulate itself. His Second Coming had been prophesied for generations. The long, humdrum stretch of time during which there was nothing to do but wait for his return, was called kulo’ihi.
There was no second coming of Jon or anyone else. The only thing that came was another aftershock. I’m trapped in kulo’ihi, thought Dinah. Another hour crawled by and then two. She smoked another cigarette, but she couldn’t read anymore. Lono reminded her of Hank and Hank reminded her of the Beretta. It was only a half-hour drive from Hilo to Volcano. How long could they dilly-dally with their hair and their lomilomis? Why hadn’t she written down Claude Ann’s cell phone number?
She searched the cottage until she found the Hilo Yellow Pages tucked away in the cupboard and called every beauty salon and spa in the list, but none had heard of Ms. Claude Ann Kemper. She found the Volcano Village directory, looked up the number of the U.S.G.S. Observatory, and asked for Jon. The man she spoke with said that Jon had taken a few days off for his father’s wedding and would she like to leave a message. She considered asking whether Jon made a habit of going walkabout in the wake of Pele’s tantrums, but self-censored and rang off in frustration. Where had he gone and why had he lied?
Well, there was nothing for it but to chill out and entertain herself as best she could until the laggards returned. She looked through the shoebox of CDs she’d seen in Jon’s bedroom. He seemed to favor an artist named Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole. As shown on the cover of one CD, Bruddah Iz was a mountain of a man, 700 pounds at least, with dark shades on his eyes, a straw boater on his head, and a small, round mouth overarched by a thin mustache. She was unfamiliar with Hawaiian music, but assumed it would be soothing. She pulled out a few disks, inserted them in Jon’s Bose, and lay down on the bed to listen.
Bruddah Iz’s voice was surprisingly light for such a large man. It seemed to float on a strong current of melancholy. He strummed a ukulele and sang alternately in Hawaiian and English. When he crooned the words “cry for the land that was taken away,” Dinah felt a tug at her heart. His voice expressed with a soft poignance what Eleanor and her partisans expressed with threats and angry signs. The music lulled her into a Hawaiian state of mind where time ceased to matter. She was on island time. By the time Bruddah Iz segued into a bouncy rendition of “Over the Rainbow,” she was feeling as soothed as if she’d spent the afternoon being coddled at the spa.
At four o’clock, the drizzle stopped and an anemic sun filtered through the trees. She went onto the lanai, laced up her Nikes, and went for a jog. At four-forty-five, she returned to the cottage. Still no one had returned. So much the better. She took a leisurely shower, picked out a not-too-wrinkled shirt and slacks for tonight’s party, and dressed. She went back to the kitchen area and noticed the forgotten red anthuriums in the sink. She supposed she ought to be a good guest and find another container for them.
She went to the cupboard and rummaged around behind the mugs and plates. A cereal bowl was too shallow and a tea glass too tall. She pushed aside a platter on the top shelf and saw a framed 5 x 7 photograph of the smiling young Xander standing on a beach next to a smiling, dark-haired beauty who had to be Leilani. In the foreground, two laughing little children, a boy and a girl, chased after a beach ball. Dinah took the picture to the table and sat down to study the happy family. How could anyone look at this idyllic scene and imagine that the woman’s pretty smile hid thoughts of suicide?
An edge of paper peeked out from the back of the frame. Dinah removed the back and unfolded a yellowed photocopy of a news article datelined San Francisco, November 4, 1989. “Earth Sciences Conference Marred by Death.”
Someone tapped smartly on the door. She looked up and two policemen in uniform were peering in at her through the glass panel. One of them signalled for her to come. A queasy sensation came over her, a premonition that what they had to say would not be good. She forced herself up, forced herself to walk across the room, forced herself to open the door.
“Is Lyssa here?” asked a baby-faced cop with a blond soul patch and a grave manner.
She shook her head.
“How about her brother, Jon?”
“No.”
“Do you know how to reach either of them?”
“No. What’s wrong?”
The other cop had sad, pouchy eyes that telegraphed bad news. “Are you a relative?”
In the sense that all mankind descended from the same Mitochondrial Eve, she was a relative. “Yes. Has something happened to their father? To Xander Garst?”
“It’s Mr. Raiford Reid. He’s been murdered. His body was discovered next to a fresh lava flow a little over an hour ago.”
Dinah sat down on the lanai and smoked another cigarette. She was in a state of suspended animation, unable to process this whammy and unwilling to think about what might follow. The younger policeman had apparently gone to school with Lyssa and he’d asked permission from his supervisor to deliver the news to her in person. The two men made a few desultory comments while they waited, mostly about the earthquake. It had cracked a couple of side streets in Hilo and they’d heard a report of a landslide makai of Pahala. They recalled the quake of 2006, which had cause considerable damage to the northwest corner of the island. This time it was the south’s turn. But as Dinah struggled to assimilate the stark reality of Raif’s murder, the earthquake’s terrors receded in her mind.
At six o’clock, the sound of slamming car doors brought her to her feet and galvanized the cops. They hurried down the path toward the carport. Dinah slid into her sandals and tagged after them. The widow had arrived. Lyssa wore an inquiring half-smile as she got out of the car. “Mark, hello. Did somebody vandalize Jon’s mailbox again?”
The younger policeman, Mark, took her arm. “It’s about Raif, Lyssa.”
“Come on, Mark, did you have to arrest him? You’ve been known to play a friendly game of cards, yourself.”
“It’s not that. He’s been murdered, Lyssa. Shot to death in a lava field west of the Pahoa Highway near Kalapana.”
She looked blank. “Murdered?”
Mark held onto her arm. “A couple of park rangers on horseback found him.”
Phoebe came around the side of the car and covered her mouth with her hands. “Dear God! Raif’s dead?”
Mark said, “Homicide detectives and the medical examiner are on the scene now. They’ll be here to talk with you in a little while.”
Lyssa broke into a welter of sobs. Dinah vacillated, waiting for Mark or Phoebe to do something or say something. When they didn’t, Dinah put her arms around Lyssa and murmured something inane. “There, there” was about all she could come up with. She wished she could offer the girl some interpretation of this horror that she could understand and take comfort from, but she couldn’t. She could think of no silver lining, no light at the end of the tunnel, no mitigating factors of any kind whatever. She felt, as she always did, useless in the face of grief. Raif’s death was a bolt out of the blue and Dinah had no inkling how to construe it, let alone how to help Lyssa bear up to it.
“Phoebe? You’re a comforter. You’re a life coach. Help me out here.”
But Phoebe stood frozen with her hands still covering her mouth.
“There, there, Lyssa. There, there.” Where the hell was Xander? Where was Jon?
At last, Mark took the initiative. “Let’s walk up to Jon’s cottage, Lyssa. Come on. Ms. Pelerin can make you some tea or something while we wait for Jon to get home.” He took her arm and nudged her ahead of him up the path. “Travis, will you give her dad’s number another try? And her brother’s?”
“What was he doing in Kalapana?” Lyssa asked in a broken voice. “Mark, are you sure?”
“That’s what the detectives are trying to find out. He left his rental car on the side of the road. That’s how they know it’s Raif.”
Dinah frowned. His wallet must have been stolen or they’d know who it was from his driver’s license. He must have been robbed by one of the people he’d played poker with. Raif was a smart-alecky playboy who relished acting like an outlaw, probably because he thought it made him look cool. But not all of the people who violated the state’s anti-gambling law would be harmless rascals. Raif must have tangled with a player who didn’t care for his attitude or his winning ways.
Another car pulled into the drive. Dinah turned and saw Jon get out of the Sidekick.
“Officer Travis, what’s up?”
Travis walked over and said a few words to him. Jon flung an uncertain look up the path and started after Lyssa.
“I guess there won’t be a wedding after all,” he said to Dinah and kept walking.
For the first time, Dinah thought about Claude Ann and the hideous undoing of her perfect wedding. She would need a lot of there-thereing, herself. Jon could give Lyssa her tea. Or Phoebe, who had rallied enough to follow the others toward the cottage. The maid of honor would wait here by the carport for the bride and give her a shoulder to cry on. Claude Ann would probably feel guilty for her facetious wish that Raif and Lyssa would drive off a cliff into the ocean.
Xander pulled his gold Lexus under the carport and got out. “Is something wrong, Officer?” He huddled with Travis for a few minutes and reacted as if he’d been physically struck.
Travis reached out and steadied him. “Do you need help walking to the cottage, sir?”
“No. No, I’m all right. Is my daughter, is Lyssa here? Has she been told?”
“Yes, sir. Her brother’s with her.”
As Xander slogged up the path, he looked like a man on the way to his own hanging. He seemed not to see Dinah as he passed by. He was probably grappling with how to express his sympathy and regret for the death of a man whom he detested.
Travis followed Xander, as if he didn’t believe he could make it by himself.
Dinah said, “I’m waiting for Xander Garst’s fiancée and her daughter. They should be here any minute.”
“So should the detectives. Tell them where we are, will you?”
“Yes, of course.”
Dinah tried to swallow the knot in her throat. This would be the second time she’d had to tell Claude Ann that her dream wedding had turned into a nightmare. Thank God, she didn’t have to tell her that Xander was dead. Their wedding could never be entirely dissociated from the terrible thing that had happened today, but they were alive and in love and not all happy marriages were formed in the month of June.
A car squealed around a corner close by and Dinah found herself wringing her hands.
The blue Buick swerved into the driveway, slinging gravel, and screeched to a stop behind the patrol car. Claude Ann swung out of the car with a big smile. “I shopped too long and the time got away from me. We’re gonna be late to the party. Come on with me and I’ll show you a darling dress I think you should wear.”
“There won’t be a party, Claude Ann.”
Her smile wilted as she took in the police car. “Have those protesters been here?”
“No, Claudy.”
Marywave got out of the car and came around to her mother’s side.
“Did they bring my daddy? Is he here?”
Claude Ann pulled Marywave in front of her and rested her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “They wouldn’t do that, would they?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the fuzzmobile doin’ here?” She tightened her grip on Marywave’s shoulders. “You look like hell. Did something bad happen to Hank?”
“It’s Raif, Claudy. He’s dead. Murdered.”