Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series) (32 page)

Beyond the large, rough circle of stones the cobalt ocean glittered in the
distance. Hala trees surrounded the edge of the cliff, bracketing the view with Dr. Seuss-like silhouettes. Stevens thought the hala and ti plants must have been planted there deliberately because he knew Hawaiians wove the long, fibrous hala leaves into basketry and matting and made dance costumes with ti.

“Auwe!” Okapa cried, pointing. On the far side of the heiau were three large stone slabs, and the one in the middle had a raw, chipped-out crater. “They took the other one!”

Stevens followed the distraught guardian, thumbing on the camera phone. He held up a hand to stop Okapa as the man bent to touch the stone.

“Let me dust this one for prints.” Stevens unhooked his radio off his belt. “Kealoha, bring my kit from the Bronco. Over.”

“Ten-four,” Kealoha said.

“Tell me who knows about this place,” Stevens said, hanging the radio back on his belt and taking pictures of the stones and the surrounding area.

Okapa’s rage was evident. He muttered under his breath as he stomped across the stones, ripping out weeds in the dance area. He looked up with a fierce frown.

“Everyone. Because of that damn book.”

“What book?”

“Maui’s Secrets. One stupid haole wen' collect all our sacred places and put ‘em in that book, now everybody can buy it and find whatever. I like beef that guy myself.”

Stevens narrowed his eyes. “Where can I find a copy?”

Okapa spat. “ABC Store. Anywhere get ‘em. I like burn all those books.”

Stevens wrote down the title just as Kealoha burst into view at a trot, carrying Stevens' crime kit. The young man's square, earnest face blanched at the sight of the second desecration. “Auwe!” he cried.

Stevens looked down from Kealoha’s dismay, mentally filing that expression away. Maybe his wife Lei could help him learn how to say it right. The exclamation seemed to capture a wealth of grief and outrage.

“I need to dust for prints and photograph this area,” he told Kealoha. “You can watch me work the first rock, then I'll have you do the other two. Who knows, maybe whoever it was didn't wear gloves. Mr. Okapa, why don't you investigate the entire site and see if you can see anything else out of place, since you know it so well.” Searching over the rocks would occupy the man. Okapa walked off, still muttering as he pulled the occasional weed.

Stevens flipped the clasps of his metal crime kit and opened it, exposing several canisters of dusting powder, a soft long-bristled brush, various other tools and supplies. He snapped on gloves and handed a pair to Kealoha.

“This is probably just a review for you from training, but remember when choosing your powder that you want to pick a color that will contrast with whatever you're dusting. These stones are a dark gray. Which one do you think I should use?” he asked Kealoha, testing.

“White.”

“Good.” He took the soft-bristled brush, dipped it in the powder and twisted it to load the brush, then spun the powder in gentle twirling motions over the rock face.

This was not the porous black lava stone that much of the heiau was made of; these three stones were the much harder ‘bluestone’ often harvested for decorative rock walls. The surface held the powder well, the face of the rock gently sloping and weathered by the elements.

“Mr. Okapa, what did the petroglyph here depict?” Stevens called as the heiau’s guardian returned, still glowering.

“Was a dancer with one rainbow on top.” Okapa gestured, demonstrating the way the stick figure stone carving would have been drawn. “That one at the front marked the heiau. It had three dancers.”

“Why do you think someone would steal these?” Stevens asked, still spreading the powder until it covered the entire rock face.

“I've been watching the news about the other defacements on Oahu.” Kealoha was the one to answer. “They think some underground collector is hiring people to take them.”

“How much would something like this be worth?” Stevens took out his bulb blower, squeezing gently to blow the powder off the rough surface now that it was covered.

“There are not that many early Hawaiian artifacts, period,” Kealoha said. “Every petroglyph is priceless and can't be replaced.”

“As why it so bad this wen' happen,” Okapa said. “Cuz this heiau only had two. And these were good ones. We were so proud of them.”

Stevens blew more air on the rock, and white powder drifted down onto the red dirt soil beneath like misplaced snow.

“I think I see something. A partial,” Stevens pointed out to Kealoha. “It's over on the side. Maybe there were two people digging out the carving, or one of them rested his hand on the side of the rock for leverage.”

Already they could see there was nothing on the face of the rock. Stevens handed the brush and powder to Kealoha and let the young man dust the sides and top of the stone, and the ones on either side of it.

Several prints picked up, all around the edges of the defaced rock. Stevens squinted at the prints, held his hand up. “I think whoever was using the drill or tool grabbed onto the rock for support. These prints look smeared because of the pressure, but I’ll try the gel tape and see if we can lift some and get a good impression.”

He unrolled gel tape and pressed it lightly over the print, pulling away carefully. He did several and then set the tape in a plastic case to photograph with a scanner back at the station.

“Let’s see you do one.” He handed the roll of tape to Kealoha.

“Eh, Lieutenant!”

Stevens looked up at Okapa’s shout, toward the gesturing man on the other side of the heiau. Okapa was pointing at a hole in the ground on the other side of a lantana bush.

“They took a stone from here. Was one oval stone brought up from the ocean.”

“How do you know what stone it was?” Stevens joined him.

Okapa just fixed him with a belligerent stare. “I know every rock in this place.”

Stevens took out his camera phone and shot a picture of the hole. “How big was it?”

“Big enough to need two people to carry it.”

Stevens made a note on his spiral pad. His eyes roamed the area and he spotted a gleam of something in the grass. He squatted, found a beer can. Using the tips of his gloved hands, he picked it up by the rim and put it in an evidence bag.

“You think they wen’ drink em?” Okapa said, his bushy brows drawing together. “Drinking beer while they taking our sacred carvings! I like kill em! Prolly was one stupid
haole
with no respect, no Hawaiian would do this!”

Stevens looked up at Okapa. He could feel the other man's rage, and he stood deliberately, uncoiling to his own full height, without breaking eye contact. “You want to be careful about what you say, Mr. Okapa. It's just a beer can. We don't know anything about it.”

Okapa whirled and stomped off through the underbrush toward the road.

Kealoha rejoined Stevens. “I took off everything I could find.” The young man had packed up the crime kit too. Stevens glanced at the carefully stowed evidence collected. “Good job. What can you tell me about our volatile friend here?”

A flush stained Kealoha's neck. “He one
kupuna
—an elder. He…” Stevens could see the struggle the young man had in disclosing anything negative about a respected man in his culture. Stevens remembered something from Pono's cultural tips and looked away from Kealoha, turning to align his body with the officer’s, standing side by side. He addressed his remarks out over the heiau. “I'm worried about Mr. Okapa. I don't think some half-cocked vigilante justice is going to help the situation. I don't like the idea of Okapa having a gun.”

“I know.” Kealoha blew out a breath and Stevens could sense his relief that a superior officer wasn't suspecting the respected
kupuna
. “I'm worried about him too. He has a reputation for anger, that's why his wife left—but this heiau is his life. I think he'll cool down. I'll talk to him.”

“Good.” Stevens moved out toward the narrow, overgrown path. “As terrible as this is, the last thing we need is some kind of violent racially-motivated outburst when we haven't even identified a suspect.” He paused. “Speaking of—what is this scene telling you? I want to hear what you've been able to assess from it.”

Kealoha swiveled, hands on hips, imitating Stevens’s stance. “I think there were at least two in the crew. They had proper tools, came prepared. They knew exactly what they wanted from what I can tell, and they worked fast according to Mr. Okapa, which means they probably came ahead of time during the day to case where the artifacts were.”

“Very good.” Stevens clapped the young man on the shoulder, and set off down the narrow, overgrown path with Kealoha following. “Further, I think they were professionals in removal technique. I could see very little waste or fracture on the rock faces, and believe it or not, those hand jacks are hard to operate. So
, my sense is that these are pros procuring something for a buyer, which means they're probably connected with the Oahu desecrations.”

“We have to stop this,” Kealoha muttered. “Whatever it takes.”

They emerged beside the cruiser and the Bronco. Okapa had already crossed the now-busy highway, and Stevens could see him glowering at them from a chair on the front porch of his battered, tin-roofed cottage.

“Why don't you go take his official statement?” Stevens said. “Give him a chance to tell the tale and cool down.”

“Yes, sir.” Kealoha looked both ways and trotted across the road, already taking out his notebook.

Stevens beeped open the Bronco and stowed the crime kit and evidence bags in the back. Getting into the SUV, he looked over at the tableau across the street. Kealoha was seated beside Okapa, one hand on the older man's shoulder, head down listening as the older man gesticulated.

Turning the key, Stevens hoped this was the last he was going to see of Okapa, but he had a bad feeling about it.

Haiku Station was a small former dry-goods store across a potholed parking lot from a large Quonset-style former pineapple-packing plant that had been converted into a shopping center. He had a small crew under his command—one other detective, four patrol officers and Kealoha, a new recruit.

Stevens felt good about how Kealoha was coming along. The benefits of nurturing talent had been drummed into him by his first commanding officer in Los Angeles, along with the fact that all the training in the world couldn't make up for a recruit without the “gut instinct” for police work.

Stevens lifted a hand briefly to the watch officer on duty as he passed through the open room where his team's desks were situated, heading for the back room where his office was located. He hadn't seen Lei since yesterday—his wife was at a one-day training in a wilderness area learning
ordinance retrieval, and he missed her.

He supposed that was the word to apply to a feeling like a limb had been amputated, like something vital was missing. He wondered how he was going to deal with it when she left for a two-week multi-agency intensive training on IEDs in California.

Sitting at his desk, he phoned her on speed dial even as he twirled the dial of the lock on the evidence locker in the corner of his office.

“Hey.” Her
slightly husky voice conjured her instantly before him—tilted brown eyes sleepy, curls disordered, that slender body he was always hungry for, warm in their bed. “You woke me up—I just got home and we were up most of the night.”

“Wish I was there waking you up some other way.” He stacked the bag with the beer can and the labeled plastic boxes holding the gel tape on the shelf and picked the clipboard dangling from a string to log in the items.

“Me too.” He heard her yawn, pictured her olive-skinned, toned arms stretching, her small round breasts distending the thin tank top she liked to wear to bed as her body arched. He felt himself respond to the rustle of her tiny movements in a way that wasn’t appropriate for work, and he gritted his teeth. “So, when are you going to be home?” she asked.

“Usual time. Got called out early—a heiau desecration.” He sketched a few details—as a fellow officer, she often helped with his cases, and he hers.

“That sucks so bad.” Lei yawned again. “I’m too fuzzy to make sense. I’m going to turn the phone off and try to get some sleep.”

“I’ll see you later. I love you,” he said. He’d said it to her every day since their marriage a month ago.

“I love you too. Come home soon. I’ll keep the bed warm.” She clicked off.

Lei Texeira. Scary brave.
Smart, intuitive, neurotic as hell. As necessary to him as breathing.

Stevens set the phone down, trying not to think of her under the silky sheets in that skimpy tank top, and that he was doing his best to get her pregnant. Trying not to think about the spooky threat that had come against them on their honeymoon, always somewhere on his mind. Well, she’d have the alarm on, and their dog, Keiki, on the bed with her.

A knock at the doorjamb. He looked up, irritated. “Yes?”

Kealoha came in and shut the door. “I gotta tell you something, sir.”

….To Be Continued.