I'm Kona Love You Forever (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series Book 6) (11 page)

Loke
was squatted down by a gravesite when we pulled up, but when she saw us she stood and started walking toward the car.

I hopped out.
“I’ll make this as quick as possible,” I said to Hatch.

“No rush. It’s beautiful up here. Maybe I’ll walk around a little. Check things out.”

“It’s a
cemetery
, Hatch.”

“I know. But if they didn’t want people to visit, don’t you think they’d lock it up
or something?”

I joined Loke and
apologized for being a few minutes late. She shrugged it off.

“Sometimes I come up here just to get away,” she said. “It’s so peaceful.”

She led the way and we made small talk on our way to the gravesite. When she stopped, we were standing in front of a tiny brass marker about the size of a brick. The marker was engraved “Lili’uokalani, Most Precious One.” Even though the thirty-two letters and spaces were written in tiny letters, it took up the entire marker.

“I love it here,” Loke said with a sigh. “See? I’m going to be buried right next to her.” She pointed to a
small patch of unclaimed land to the right of the marker. It was a tiny plot, maybe two feet square. No way was it even big enough to hold Loke’s less-than-a-hundred-pound body.

She seemed to sense my confusion. “I’m going to be cremated.
Ray is, too.”

She gestured
to a stone bench at the edge of the lawn and we sat down. “So, what did you want to ask me?” she said.

“Lili’s birth certificate is signed by a ‘
Charlene Cooper.’ I’m assuming she’s the midwife who assisted at the birth.”

“That’s right.
Lili was born at home. But when Charlene saw she was having trouble breathing she called an ambulance to take her to the hospital.” Loke’s eyes wandered back to the baby’s gravesite. It felt macabre talking about her daughter’s birth in sight of her final resting place but Loke seemed to take it in stride.

“What can you tell me about Charlene? Does she still live here in Kona?”

“Oh, sure. Charlene was the only midwife on this side of the island for, I don’t know, ten years or so. She used to work at Kona Memorial, but she hasn’t been there for a while. Back in the day, almost every woman I know used Charlene to deliver their babies. Especially women who didn’t have fancy health insurance.”

“
And her last name’s Cooper?”

Loke laughed. “
Yeah, but that’s hardly important. Everyone ‘round here just calls her ‘Auntie Charlene.’ She lives right here in Kealakekua, in a little purple house on Kalele Road. She’s got a
haole
last name, but that’s on her dad’s side. Her mother’s people go all the way back to King Kamehameha. Anyway, that’s what she claims.”

“From what I hear
, Kamehameha had a bunch of wives. Seems reasonable he’d have a lot of offspring.”

“I suppose. Anyway, why don’t you go by her place and see if she remembers anything
about the birth certificate? She’s got an amazing memory even though she’s not in the baby business anymore.”

“I hope she’ll talk to me. I don’t really have any legal standing here.”

Loke laughed. “You don’t need to worry about that with Charlene. She’s uh, well, let’s just say she isn’t much for rules. But I’ll give her a call and tell her the situation. I’m sure she’ll do whatever she can to help you get this thing ironed out.”

I thanked her and got up to go find Hatch. I’d seen him lurking around the edge of the cemetery taking pictures. I didn’t know if that w
as frowned on or not, but I was ready to get out of there and go back to being among the living.

“How’d it go?” Hatch said as we climbed into the car.

“Fine. Loke’s going to call the midwife who signed the birth certificate so I can go by and talk to her. She said she lives near here on Kalele Road.”

“
You want to go there now?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

He pulled out his phone. “What’s her address? I’ll plug it in.”

“I didn’t get an address, but Loke said it’s a purple house. How many of those could there be?”

He tapped “Kalele Road” into the GPS and the recorded voice said, “
Drive the highlighted route
.”

“I’
ve got an idea,” he said. “Why don’t we go by the midwife’s house and then we can go down to Pu’uhonua O Honaunau Park and check it out.”

“Whew
,” I said. “I’m impressed. You said that perfectly.”

“Yeah
well, I’ve been practicing all those vowels. The guys at the station said if I’m going to Kona for the first time I should go see the place of refuge. They said it’s an amazing place.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

***

The house
near the end of Kalele Road in Kealakekua turned out to be a riotous shade of purple. It was a small bungalow squatting in an overgrown yard cluttered with overgrown bushes interspersed with mirrored gazing balls and whimsical bird feeders. The porch beams sported a dozen tinkly wind chimes made of glass, metal, wood and bamboo. Near the front door was a wok-sized brass gong hanging on a bamboo stand. A striker was affixed to the stand.

“Looks like maybe
this midwife and Farrah were twins separated at birth,” Hatch said.

“Yeah, she’d
probably love this place.”

A
black cat was curled in a crumbling wicker chair by the front door. It looked up, blinked at us, and then resumed its nap.

There was no sign of a doorbell.

“I think you’re supposed to use the gong,” Hatch said.

“Like
I’m gonna do anything that goofy,” I said. I knocked on the door and waited.

Nothing.

Hatch lifted the striker and whacked the gong. The deep
bong
reverberated through my skull, setting up an echo of remarkable clarity. The cat shot us the feline equivalent of stink eye then resumed its nap.

Still
, no one came to the door.

“No one
’s home,” Hatch said, stating the obvious.

“Maybe she’s at church,” I said.
“It is Sunday.”

Hatch fingered a tiny red Chinese Communist flag hanging from a cord on
one of the wind chimes. “Seriously?”

“Well, in any case, she’s not here
,” I said. “I’ll have to come back later.”

We went back to the car and headed down
Highway 11 to the Honaunau Post Office. At that point the GPS lady told us to turn
ma kai
onto Highway 160. Actually, she didn’t say “
ma kai
,” she said “
make a right turn
.” After a few miles of snaking down a rather steep incline bordered by brushy vegetation and not much else, we saw the park sign: Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park.

“What did the guys at the
fire station tell you about this place?” I said. In school we’d learned about Hawaiian
kapu
laws and the function of
pu’uhonua
in ancient Hawaiian society, but I wanted to know what Hatch had been told.

“Well,
from what I gather, this was a place of refuge,” he said. “If somebody screwed up and pissed off the king or the chief poobah or whatever, if they could get to this place they’d get a pardon. No harm, no foul.”

I nodded. That was pretty much it
in a nutshell.

We paid the entrance fee and
parked. There weren’t many cars in the lot. The park had an eerie feeling to it—like a place out of time. Which, of course, it is. Other national parks in Hawaii seem energetic and vibrant. Haleakala National Park on Maui is alive with hikers, bikers and sight-seers. The large park on the other side of Hawaii Island, Volcanoes National Park, is a geologist’s dream with the footprint of the island changing with each eruption of mighty Kiluea.

But this park
is different. There’s a hush in the air. Signs advise visitors the area is a culturally sensitive monument and to please show respect. It’s a place of religious significance to the Hawaiian culture no less significant than the Vatican is to Catholics or the Western Wall, sometimes called the “Wailing Wall,” is to Jews. From what I could see, visitors here didn’t need to be reminded. Everyone spoke in whispers. As people carefully made their way around the numbered exhibits, reading the placards and gazing at the treacherous rocky lava beach, it seemed we were all thinking the same thing. How did ancient
kapu
-breakers ever find this place? And even more puzzling, how did they manage to get ashore before being drowned or dashed on the rocks?

The park has an entire forest of
tall carved wooden statues, or
ki’i.
The
ki’i
have been bleached gray by sun and salt air and each displays a menacing face and ominous pose. Not exactly the type of welcoming committee you’d want to see if you were fleeing for your life. There are various sites depicting ancient houses of both the
ali’i
, or royalty, and the common people, and implements of everyday life during the time of Kamehameha.

One of the
few amusing signs at the park is near a large rock dubbed the Queen Ka’ahumanu Rock. It tells the story of how King Kamehameha’s favorite wife, Ka’ahumanu, had to flee to the
pu’uhonua
after quarreling with the king. Apparently bickering with the chief, even if he is your husband, was unacceptable and she feared for her life. According to legend, she snatched up her little dog and walked the coastal trail to the northern part of Honaunau Bay. But once she got there she was unable to access the place of refuge across the bay. So, she started swimming. She and the dog swam to the
pu’uhonua
and then hid behind a big rock. Meanwhile, her husband and his band of merry warriors were in hot pursuit. When they got to the end of the trail the king figured she must’ve taken refuge in one of the local homes. He ordered his men to set fire to the grass houses in an effort to smoke her out. Luckily for the residents, one of Kamehameha’s men spotted Ka’ahumanu’s little white dog on the other side of the bay and the arson was halted.

The king
and his men doubled back inland and approached the place of refuge from the land side. As the queen hid behind the rock, her dog began barking and gave her away. She emerged and the king was forced to pardon her. Even kings answer to someone—the gods. And the gods commanded that forgiveness must be extended to all who reached the
pu’uhonua
. Like all good stories, this one has a happy ending. Within a short time the two reconciled and Ka’ahumanu resumed her place as Kamehameha’s favorite wife.

“So,” I said,
“It seems no matter how heinous the crime, you got a do-over if you could just get here before you were caught.”

“Yeah,” said Hatch.
“Kind of like, ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’.”

We drove back to the B & B for our last night on the Big Island. We had dinner at a
tiny spot in the Kona Banyan Court called the Rapanui Island Café. Hatch had chicken curry and I had the mac nut crusted prawns. The place may be small but the portions were huge—and tasty.

We slipped into bed early
. Our flight wasn’t until late morning on Monday, since Hatch had traded shifts and didn’t need to be back to work until Tuesday. I suppose we could’ve spent our last night at a local watering hole, drinking
mai tais
and dancing, but nothing sounded as good as just being horizontal with the man I love. One more night of bliss. Then it was back to nagging slacker suppliers, cajoling demanding brides, and praying for clear weather.

CHAPTER 14

On
Monday morning we were on the B & B lanai enjoying our second cup of Kona coffee when my cell phone chimed. I checked the caller ID. It was Lili Kapahu, probably checking on my progress with her birth certificate. I considered letting it go to voicemail, but at the last second I picked up.

“
Aloha
, Lili,” I said.

A muffled noise, like someone gargling.

“Lili? Can you hear me?”

Again, the gargle.

“Lili, I think we have a bad connection. I’ll call you back.” I’d
started to click off when I heard her say, “Pali?”

“Yes, that’s better. I can hear you now.”

“She’s dead,” said Lili in a strangled voice.

“Who’s dead?”

Lili resumed the gargling sound. I turned to Hatch. “I’ve got a real bad feeling things are about to get complicated.”

By the time I calmed Lili down enough to give me the who, what, and where of what’d happened, Hatch had gone inside and showered. He came back out to the lanai, all manly smelling with his wet hair slicked back. He wore a teal colored golf shirt. My favorite.