Molokai Reef (8 page)

Like
the wave at a football stadium, the other reporters leaned forward to
hear the prosecutor’s response.

“
No
comment. It is irresponsible for the media to give credence to
unfounded rumors.”

Another
reporter, Connie from the Maui News, gained the floor. “Sir,
is the ice epidemic in Hawai‘i the result of the arrival of
organized crime? Is there a turf war on Moloka‘i?”

The
prosecutor reddened; clearly his necktie was too tight. “Listen
Connie, you know better than to ask that question. Organized crime
has nothing to do with this murder. WE have the perp.”

With
his fingers, he enumerated the means, motive, and opportunity of
prime time television detectives. Physical evidence collected at the
crime scene showed a link to Susan’s company. She had a
documented history of conflicts with the employers of the victims.
Finally, the prosecutor explained that witnesses placed Susan in the
vicinity at the time of the murders.

“
She
is in jail. She is an enviro-fanatic. No more questions.”
The PA, as they were called in Hawai‘i, exited through a door
on the left side of the stage.

In
Gybe’s opinion, the prosecutor was laying the groundwork for
next fall’s gubernatorial race.

Turning
to the television audience, Melinda re-stated the results of the news
conference for those who weren’t paying attention or somehow
missed the paucity of facts offered by the Maui Prosecuting Attorney.
Then she handed the cue back to the station.

The
perfect broadcastress at the anchor desk thanked Melinda, which
counted as a sentence, then tossed the ball to her perfect co-anchor.

Gybe
killed the set. He placated his disgust with sound bite news as he
recalled Mongoose’s project. Mongoose was developing an
animation program to replace the talking heads. During the demo, the
’goose typed in a script and then pressed the Action button.
An animated head, very life like, began talking. Included in the
head selection were several ethnicities, races, hairstyles and
colors, wardrobes, and seven choices for gender. The script
language, he called it Emotion Text Markup Language or ETML, allowed
an expansive variety of characters and emotions.

Gybe
faced Kara. “Sounds like the prosecutor has a pretty tight
case. Susan’s civil disobedience has returned to haunt her.”

“
She’s
innocent.” Kara retorted. “I believe that.”

“
The
prosecutor won’t take YOUR word for it. If you believe in
Susan’s innocence then we have to prove it. After that news
conference, the police are going to look no further for the killer.
Occam rides again. In their mind, Susan, now locked up in their
jail, had the motive, opportunity, and means.”

Gybe
reconstructed the facts. He was worried about the prosecutor’s
claim of physical evidence connecting Susan to the crime. And who
were the alleged witnesses?

The
victims worked for two separate companies, companies involved in
genetic engineering. Ample evidence revealed that Susan held genetic
engineering responsible for the destruction of Moloka‘i’s
reef. The Maui Prosecuting Attorney believed this was Susan’s
motive. Were the genetic scientists killing the reef?

According
to the reports, Jean, a recent graduate, moved from California seven
months ago. Ray, ten years older than Jean, had moved his family
from Oklahoma two years ago. Jean was single. Ray had left behind a
wife and two young children. There weren’t any apparent
connections between the victims. Or were there? Gybe made a mental
note to search for a connection.

Why
would Susan, or anyone for that matter, murder two unrelated
scientists?

13

Kara
guided the ’vair down the causeway. After the news, Gybe had
asked Kara to drive him back to the harbor.

Because
of the shallow water inside the reef, the pier anchored the end of a
half-mile long causeway. The west side of the pier handled the ferry
and barge traffic. According to the charts, the controlling depth
was nineteen feet with a width of about ninety yards. There was room
for one barge to tie alongside the pier at the makai end, while
leaving space for the ferry landing at the mauka end. Used tires
from jetliners and earthmovers hung along the pier to cushion the
cargo barge.

From
the air, the causeway was the shaft, the pier the blunted arrowhead.

“
Kara,
your Hawaiian words for the day are mauka and makai. Mauka means
inland, towards the mountains, or towards shore. Makai mean towards
the sea.” He pronounced the words as mau-ka and ma-kye.

“
Mauka
– toward shore, inland. Makai – towards the sea or
ocean.” She mimed.

Gybe
explained the method of giving directions in Hawai‘i, as he
understood them. Because the islands tend to be high and rugged in
the center, most movement was along roads or trails that followed the
shoreline. Magnetic directions – north, south, east, and west
– meant little. As you drove along a road, the road might
change from southeast to east to north to west in twenty miles.
Instead of using magnetic directions, islanders who traveled along a
shoreline, either traveled towards the next point of land or away
from the previous.

Kara
seemed interested, so Gybe gave an example. Traveling along the
shore between Honolulu and Waikiki, for example one drove either
towards Diamond Head or towards Ewa – somewhat in the direction
southeast or northwest.

On
the west side of the causeway, Gybe pointed out the boat ramp used to
launch trailer-bound boats followed by the dinghy dock. Beyond the
dock, several private fishing boats bobbed in their slips. As they
drove past the last slip, the causeway melded into the concrete pier.

The
parking lot was at the head, mauka end of the pier near the ferry
terminal. Kara parked in a marked slot in front of the
harbormaster’s office. Gybe, always curious about other
sailboats, walked to the east side of the pier.

Seventeen
sailboats rested in slips that they reached through a narrow channel.
The channel, blasted through the solid coral, was less than eight
feet deep. It led from the main harbor channel around the makai end
of the pier and along the east side. Behind the slips, east of the
pier, a breakwater helped calm the water and protect the boats. In
Gybe’s seafaring eye, few of the boats had left their slip in
the past year. At the mid point of the pier, just makai of the last
sailboat, a small loading dock was available to commercial fishermen.

Gybe
recognized two boats but their owners were not aboard. He strolled
back across the parking lot and joined Kara who was waiting beside
his dinghy.

When
Kara and Gybe had motored to Kaunakakai earlier that morning, they
had left
Ferrity
at anchor seaward of
Makani
,
Mongoose’s schooner. “I want to swing by
Makani
and talk with Mongoose.”

“
Mongoose?”
Kara questioned.

“
That’s
his name or at least that’s what he’s called. I don’t
know his real name. He once told me that a mongoose when caught
young is very easy to tame, very clean, and easy to keep.”

Kara’s
right eye half-closed as her left eyebrow arched.

As an
afterthought, Gybe added. “The ’goose was raised by a
pack of street urchins after his mother abandoned him at the age of
four. She left him standing outside a feeding kitchen for the
homeless in Iwilei and drove off with her drug supplier.”

Kara
asked about the boat. Although she had been around the water, she
was not a sailor and did not recognize the types of sailboats. Gybe
explained that a schooner carried two or more masts, the foremost of
which was shorter than the other masts. Almost no one built them
anymore. Most new sailboats carried either sloop or ketch rigs.
Rarely, did anyone build a yawl.

Gybe
had stepped into the dinghy when Kara said that she wanted to tag
along.

Gybe
wasn’t sure that he wanted her company, but he had failed to
formalize the working arrangement when he agreed to help Kara and her
friend Susan. He hoped that Mongoose’s habits and behavior
might discourage future visits, so he agreed to take her out to
Makani
.

Looking
back at the causeway, he noticed a steady stream of vehicles driving
out to the pier, around the parking lot, and back into town. Island
fever.

Kara
boarded the dinghy while Gybe unlocked the chain that he used to
discourage theft. His Nissan outboard started on the first pull.
The lines were off, so he flipped the transmission lever forward and
idled away from the dock. It was dark and according to the rules of
the road, he should have switched on the running lights. He didn’t.

Nearing
Makani
, he saw the a head prairie dog up from the amidships
hatch.

Having
not seen the movement, Kara asked if anyone was aboard.

“
He’s
there. And he knows we are coming.”

Gybe
slipped the engine into neutral and glided to the starboard quarter
of
Makani
.

“
Ahoy
Makani
, anyone home?”

Mongoose
popped from the hatch. “Hey Gybe. Come on aboard.”

Since
Kara was sitting in the bow, he asked her to hand the painter to
Mongoose.

Mongoose
tied the painter to the aft cleat. Kara scampered up the boarding
ladder. She was in good shape and displayed the agility of a raccoon
reaching a tree three feet ahead of the hounds as she moved from the
tipping dinghy to the rolling schooner.

14

“
Howgozit
Mongoose? This is Kara. Kara, Mongoose.”

Kara
took a seat in the cockpit opposite Gybe.

“
Brewski,
anyone?” Mongoose offered.

Kara
and Gybe nodded and Mongoose disappeared below. Moments later, cold
beer in hand, Gybe told Mongoose about Susan. He explained how Kara
had flown to Hawai‘i from Mendocino and was here to help her
friend Susan. Gybe guessed that Mongoose knew more about the murders
than Gybe had learned, but he wanted to watch the ’goose’s
reaction.

Unable
to take her eyes off Mongoose, “What’s with the teeth?”
Kara blurted.

“
Subtlety
is not your middle name, I take it. You don’t like my teeth?”

“
I’ve
never seen fluorescent orange teeth before.”

“
Well,
I’ve never seen a …”

Gybe
sipped his beer as he listened to Mongoose and Kara exchange barbs.
Most visitors to
Makani
waited until they had Gybe alone
before asking about the ’goose’s teeth. Kara didn’t
seem to fit the
most
category.

Not
long after they first met, maybe even the first time they met,
Mongoose had told Gybe the story of the teeth. When the ’goose
was young, he had sought refuge from a rival street gang by climbing
a banyan tree. When he slipped and fell, the leader of the gang
kicked out his two front teeth. A dentist at a public health center
fitted him with a partial plate. He wore that plate and successive
plates until he was in his early twenties. Then, in a fight –
this time in the New Jolos bar in Subic Bay – he lost his
newest plate.

At
the time, he was working as a deckhand on the log carrier,
M/V
Mongla
,
out of
Chittagong, Bangladesh. His contract did not include dental
coverage. One night after several San Miguel beers, a street vendor
offered to make him a new set of teeth.

When
Mongoose returned the next day to pick up his new teeth, he was so
pleased that he purchased the mold from the street vendor. Using a
blemished and discarded tiki god carved from monkeypod wood, the
vendor had whittled a mold for the two missing teeth. Into the mold,
he had positioned two retainer clips over which he had poured an
epoxy resin, the same epoxy used in the manufacture of surfboards.
Over the years, Mongoose had built up an extensive collection of
teeth in many colors and often with embedded jewels, flora, fauna, or
trinkets.

Today,
Mongoose’s two front teeth were fluorescent orange. Gybe
thought that he could see a small insect embedded in the left tooth.

“
So
’goose, what have you heard about the murders?” Gybe
asked.

Gybe
knew that Mongoose was a man of the people, especially the people in
the bottom strata – welfare bums, ordinary bums, drifters,
druggies, drunks and nomads. By choice, the ’goose floated
atop the lowest socio-economic layer of American society.

He
confused many people with his attire and habits. Judged by his
appearance, Mongoose was a bum. But Gybe knew that the ’goose
possessed a depth and breadth of knowledge that surpassed anyone he
had known. Beyond his street smarts, Mongoose had taught himself
many skills. Few knew, but Mongoose was a millionaire many times
over.

Mongoose
paused to organize his thoughts then presented a concise timeline of
events. Several young people on the pier had seen Susan board her
workboat around 7:30 p.m. on Monday. She motored out of the harbor
and headed west. Around midnight, she returned and tied up to the
loading dock on the east side of the pier.