Murder on Easter Island (27 page)

The floor had been swept; the refrigerator and the oven had been cleaned. No, she couldn’t think of a thing left to do other than to write a note to Daniel and Mahina. Sometimes, she thought, it was best to express oneself in writing.

She pulled a pad and pen off the shipping crate which doubled as a coffee table, contemplated for a moment, and began to write:

Tiare nodded with approval as she reread the letter. She folded it, stuffed it in an envelope, addressed it, and then walked out the front door to the post office. Once the letter was mailed, she headed toward Puna Pau.

She carefully ascended the upward slope, and before long she was walking among the red scoria topknots. She saw the crater open before her and picked her way down the slope.

Tiare sat on a boulder at the bottom and watched her breath move in and out. As she entered a deep state of relaxation, she became aware of a presence. When she opened her eyes, sitting on a boulder across from her was a grimacing skeletal man with a long, hooked nose, dark goatee and long earlobes.

“Sister Tiare?” he said.

“Hitirau?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know my name?” Tiare asked.

“I know all the elders in the Rapanui family.” He grimaced even more. “I also know that you helped the outsider Dan-iel ruin my plans for our people to have their freedom.”

“That is true,” Tiare replied. “But your schemes were evil and had to be stopped.”

“But the deaths of the outsiders were necessary.”

“I see you believe that. But there is another way, a peaceful way, where innocent people do not have to be killed.”

Hitirau looked puzzled and scratched his chin. “Do you believe I am evil?”

Tiare smiled at him. “No one is truly evil, but their actions might be. But I am here for another reason.”

“And what is that?” Hitirau asked.

“I have come to take you home. Are any of your fellow akuaku still here?”

“No,” he answered, “they have all disappeared, one by one. I am the last.”

“You see, they have already found their way.”

“But I thought this was home.”

“Oh, but it’s not,” Tiare said. “If you’d like, I can take you there.”

“But I am comfortable here.”

“I know you are, but your comfort is a trap. And you have been trapped for far too long.”

“What about Paoa?” Hitirau asked.

“All eventually make it back home — even Paoa. But he is not ready yet.”

Hitirau sat for a long time on the boulder, and Tiare could tell he was thinking. Finally he whispered, “I am ready.”

“Give me a moment,” Tiare requested. With that, she closed her eyes and took a few more deep breaths. A shimmering light being, which looked much like the Tiare that she was, arose from her body.

Tiare looked down on her aged form, which now sat quietly in meditation. She smiled at Hitirau. “Take my hand.”

Hitirau was shaking as he grasped it. “I’m scared,” he said.

“I know you are. But I am about to take you to your true home, and once you are there, you will discover that it is far more familiar than our island ever could be.”

Together they walked toward a luminous spirit that waited to greet them. Tiare placed Hitirau before it, squeezed his hand one last time and turned to head back. It was then she heard her name called.

That voice . . . could it be?

As she spun around, standing in front of her was a radiant presence, wearing the biggest smile she had ever seen.

She gasped as he recognized him.

“Ernesto,” she whispered.

He took her hands in his and said, “My love, how wonderful to see you again. I wish we could spend some time together, but you must go now and return to your
earthly existence. When your moment of transition comes, I’ll be waiting for you.”

Tiare asked, “Darling, how long will that be?”

He murmured softly, “When the time is right, not before, not after.”

They slowly separated, and Tiare walked back to her sitting body, frequently glancing back at him.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, she was once again sitting on a boulder at Puna Pau.

Even though tears were flowing from her eyes, Tiare couldn’t stop smiling.

D
aniel and Mahina walked hand in hand alongside the Illinois River just east of Tahlequah, Oklahoma. It was a lovely fall day; the sky was perfectly clear, and a light breeze cooled them.

It came as no surprise to Daniel that Mahina looked just as beautiful in Oklahoma as she did in Rapa Nui. Daniel didn’t believe it was possible to love another person as much as he loved Mahina. The amazing thing was that he felt at least as much love from her.

Daniel listened as the mockingbirds and scissor-tailed flycatchers made sure their songs were heard. Fall in Oklahoma was glorious, and Daniel was certain there was no better place in the world when autumn rolled around.

As he heard the sound of the river flowing by, Daniel remembered the call from his old detective chief, Kip Kelly, when the story first broke about how he had solved the murders. Daniel recalled, word-for-word, how the conversation went:

“Hawk, you ol’ son of a bitch,” Kip Kelly said. “It took longer than I expected for you to clean up that fucking mess down there. But you did — and now you’re a hero. Go figure!”

“Chief, that was the hardest case I’ve ever investigated.”

“I’ll show you hard. Come back to New York City and get back to investigating some genuine murders, not some crazy wacko Easter Island detective who’s gone off
his rocker. I’ll get you some
real
cases to figure out. What’d you say?”

“Chief, I don’t think so.”

“Listen, Hawk, I’ve already talked to Commissioner Walsh, and he’s agreed to
triple
your salary if you’ll come back home. We need you, Hawk. No one ever will come close to figuring things out the way you did.”

“Sorry, Chief, New York City is not home, and I’m not coming back.”

“But Hawk —”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Then Daniel listened and listened, until Kelly ran out of words. Finally, Kelly said, “Someday, Hawk, you and I will meet again. Meantime — I’ll miss you,” and the line went dead.

From Daniel’s point of view, there was no reason to listen further anyway. Daniel had already rented a small space in Hanga Roa for his own business. While they were on vacation in Oklahoma, one of the local woodcutters was preparing a sign for his office. It was to say:

Daniel “Hawk” Fishinghawk, Jr.
Private Investigator
of the
Strange and Mysterious

Who could tell what kinds of unusual cases would present themselves? He smiled as he pictured the sign in his mind and seeing the “Jr.” — as Tiare had announced at their marriage — that was now part of his name. It felt healing to embrace his heritage, not push it away.

As for the rongorongo boards, the one shaped like a turtle was joyfully accepted at the museum on Rapa Nui, while the second was sold through Sotheby’s in New York City. Because of its pristine condition, it was auctioned off for the unbelievable price of $20 million US to the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in Wellington, New Zealand. After their vacation, plans were to be drawn up for the institute.

With all that was happening on Rapa Nui, Daniel and Mahina made the joint decision to live on the island and raise a family there. Daniel reasoned it was only fair; she had given up everything to be with him — now it was his turn.

His only request was that, at least once a year, they return to Oklahoma for a vacation. There was something about Oklahoma that grew on a person, and the thought of never returning home was just too much to bear. The best way to describe it was like a deep itch that had to be scratched every now and then. Besides, every so often Daniel needed to connect with his roots — and his roots were here.

After an hour or so of walking, Daniel and Mahina finally reached their destination: a cottonwood tree that stood well over one hundred feet high, right next to the river. Its leaves had already changed from summer green to bright yellow.

“Are you ready, my dear?” Daniel asked.

“Dan-iel, you have told me of this place, and it is far more beautiful that I ever could have imagined. Yes, I’m ready.”

With that they began to shimmy up the tree trunk, Daniel first, followed closely by Mahina. The higher they went, the more they were able to smell the fragrance of the wild honeysuckle bushes that grew along the river’s edge.

Before long the trunk branched and they continued to climb, side by side, until they had gone as high as they were safely able. The branches they clung to swayed side to side in the gentle breeze.

Daniel and Mahina both laughed with the exhilaration of it all, and any residual pain that Daniel had carried from his previous experience there vanished with the wind that moved them.

Finally the breeze blew their branches close to each other so that they were able to wrap their free arms around each other. As they held each other tightly, they passionately kissed.

Daniel said to Mahina, “A-da-do-li-gi.”

“A-da-do-li-gi? What does that mean?”

“It’s something my grandpa used to call me. It’s Cherokee and means blessing. Mahina — you are my blessing.”

They kissed once again and Mahina repeated, “A-da-do-li-gi. Dan-iel, you are
my
blessing.”

“My love, we bless each other.”

Mahina said, “As we should.”

With that they released each other, and the wind playfully rocked them to and fro through the clear Oklahoma sky.

In March of 2012 my wife Sheridan and I took a vacation to Easter Island. Actually our first choice was Patagonia, a wilderness area in the far south of Chile, and we were making preparations for the trip when Patagonia was closed due to a devastating fire.

Fortunately, the lodge we had been scheduled to stay at had a sister hotel on Easter Island, and we switched to that location. While I was initially disappointed, my wife was delighted, as Easter Island was a place she had always wanted to visit. You might say God works in mysterious ways.

Once there, we both fell in love with Easter Island, which the islanders prefer to call Rapa Nui. The people were extremely friendly and while the island was deforested, there was an inherent beauty and a non-commercialism that was instantly attractive. Besides that, there were the magnificent moai and ahus, remnants of a past shrouded in mystery and turmoil.

There are many to thank in the formation of this book. First I must thank my wife Sheridan for her adventurous spirit and willingness to travel to faraway places. After we arrived back home, she was most supportive as I disappeared for hours on end feverishly researching and writing this book.

I want also to express my appreciation to our Rapanui guide, Yoyo Pakomio, for his explanations and patience as he led us on treks over a good part of the island. Through his assistance, we were able to view the island from the perspective of someone whose roots belong there. Only those with Rapanui blood can truly understand the visceral pain and difficulties their people have suffered through.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Georgia Lee, one of the founders of the Easter Island Foundation (EIF). Shortly after I began writing, I realized I needed a mentor to help me with my many questions, and I phoned the EIF asking for help. A few days later she agreed to assist me and has been an invaluable asset as I put together
this book. I later discovered she is an archeologist who had spent over six years doing field work there and has written multiple books and papers on Easter Island. While I am responsible for any historical inaccuracies found in this book, her advice has helped me to be as precise as possible.

Finally, I want to thank my editors, the late Betty Wright and Betsy Lampe, who formed an indefatigable team with me as we worked on this novel. Hillary Clinton once authored a book, titled
It Takes a Village
, and that is certainly true in the construction of
Murder on Easter Island
.

Gary D. Conrad lives with his wife, Sheridan, and their dogs, Inky and Karma, in Edmond, Oklahoma. Gary is an emergency and integrative physician, and his interests include Tibetan rights, meditation, the music of Joséph Haydn, organic gardening, choral work and wilderness hiking.

Gary’s first book is the award-winning visionary fiction novel,
The Lhasa Trilogy
. His second is an autobiographical collection of memoirs in short story form,
Oklahoma Is Where I Live: and Other Things on My Mind
. He is currently working on a sequel to
Murder on Easter Island
.