On a beach in Hawai’i…

Even as Teddy Kapahala’s brain sloshed in a mixture of beer and kick-ass weed, he still could make out the form of a pistol.

Its chrome barrel reflected the full moon.

Teddy squinted. “Oh, this ain’t cool,” he said. “You know, it ain’t really about us. It’s all about Hawaii. It’s about freedom.”

No response.

Teddy burped, a low rumble from down deep.

A trembling hand leveled the muzzle with his chest.

“No, see I mean, you should join and uh, help us.” Teddy retreated, took one step into a tall palm tree. His arms outstretched, his eyes locked on the weapon.

An unseen thumb cocked the hammer.

“Hey, we can talk this over, you and me …”

His weary eyelids drooped, and he heard a blast.

The Third Man.

Eventually, there were three of them.

One was a Tongan named Teo. He had huge biceps and narcissism to spare. While he served as the team’s muscle, he also took credit for being its brains, as he believed many of the outfit’s truly great ideas were his.

Another was Roger, who was mostly Hawaiian but also was one-quarter Guamanian. He was shorter and rounder than Teo. While Teo conjured many of their varied schemes on a strategic level, Roger did most of the actual fine-tuned planning.

Lastly, there was Bruce, a late addition to the team. Real little guy, mostly Chinese but with a lot of other blood mixed in. Primarily, he stoked both Teo’s and Roger’s egos.
But Teo and Roger liked him more for his truck, which they figured would help them expand the income stream from their latest endeavor.

Between operations, Teo kept his ear to the ground.

What he heard was that Chester Freitas, owner of a hardware store on Makaala Street in Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawai’i, had fired his longtime inventory manager. Their parting of the ways came after the cops threw the inventory manager in jail for DUI, a definite no-no for a devout tee-totalling Catholic like Chester.

After all, he had a longstanding professional and personal reputation to uphold.
Teo knew there had to be a way to use this development to his and Roger’s advantage. Roger said there was, and went about creating a fake resumé. It was good enough for Chester Freitas to hire Roger as his new inventory manager. When, several days later, Chester Freitas fired the assistant inventory manager for surfing porn on an office computer during a lunch break, Roger recommended he hire a close and reputable friend named Teo.

Within a week, the operation kicked into high gear.

Chester Freitas didn’t have time to micromanage his shop. To the contrary, he served on the boards of numerous civic organizations not just in Hilo but all over the island, and often left the hardware store early to attend to community matters. That included extensive planning for an upcoming annual charity golf tournament. This meant he delegated an inordinate amount of responsibility to his managers, including Roger.

To Roger’s advantage, the store’s department managers were an insular bunch who never bothered to inquire of each other what they were doing. It was a tradition rooted in pragmatism: As long as customers were happy and sales were good, nobody cared. Do your job and don’t fuck with my department.

In his first week or so on the job Roger ensured that the shop had adequate inventory to meet demand. However, shortly afterward he started having difficulty keeping up with sales. He told another manager about this situation, whose response was, “So, handle it. I don’t care.”

Inventory dropped big time, so once a week, Roger shut his office door and called wholesalers and suppliers all over Hawaii. In a CYA move, Roger explained this to Chester Freitas, who said, “Thanks for the update, Roger. Just keep the shelves full.”
Each morning, the day after Roger called a supplier, boxes of inventory items with fresh invoices appeared on the loading dock. Roger had Accounting cut a check for the materials. The payment then made its way to an account at a bank in Hilo.

Unknown to Accounting and anyone else as Freitas’s Hardware, signatories on the account were Roger and Teo.

Roger and Teo were careful to make sure that the same box or crate did not appear on the loading dock twice. One evening after midnight, Roger caught himself loading deck screws into Teo’s Geo Tracker, a box he had loaded and paid for the previous week. Teo suggested he substitute a case of hex bolts instead, as those hadn’t moved in a long time.

The next morning, the hex bolts appeared on the loading dock with an invoice. Roger had Accounting cut a check for them, along with payment for a box of crescent wrenches.
A fellow employee looked at the wrenches and scrunched his forehead. “Damn, these look familiar, like I seen them before.”

“No shit. They’re wrenches,” Roger said. “They all look alike.”

That night, Roger and Teo hit the ATM. Then they went to the Flip-Side Too downtown for a few drinks, and maybe get lucky.

They didn’t get lucky. However, they did get Bruce.

Bruce sat at the end of the bar two stools down from Roger and Teo. He was small in stature but loud in voice. He spent much of the evening bitching about how a hardware store in town ripped him off when he tried to get a refund for a faulty air compressor.
“The damn thing cost me four-hundred bucks,” Bruce said to nobody in particular between shots of vodka.

“Geez, that’s too bad,” Teo said. “Who ripped you off?”

Bruce squinted at Teo. “Damn, brah, you got some muscles.”

Teo grinned. “Yeah, I do.”

Bruce looked around the bar and lowered his voice. “That guy, you know. That guy who’s hot shit in town. Portuguese buggah. Freitas.”

“He wouldn’t give you a refund?” Roger said. “I hear that Freitas is real good about that.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t give me one, I’ll tell ya that, brah.” Bruce ordered another shot of vodka and slammed it down. “Brand new compressor and he pretty much says, he says, screw you, Bruce.” He shook his head. “Swear to God, I wanna jack him up. Or something, I dunno.”

Roger said, “So what do you do?”

“What you mean, like for a living?”

“Yeah.”

Bruce again looked around the bar, leaned toward Roger, and lowered his voice. “Usually illegal stuff. Ya know what I mean.” He winked. “Odd jobs, things people need done or need help with.”

Roger looked at Teo, then said to Bruce, “So are you between jobs?”

Bruce squinted at Roger and hiccupped. “You look smart.”

“I get that a lot.”

“Yeah, not working now and I got rent due. Why, you know someone needs help?”
Teo sipped his beer. “What do you drive?”

Bruce ordered another vodka shot. “I got a Dodge Ram 1500, big-ass truck.” He slammed the vodka. “Why you aks?”

Roger pointed to an empty booth at the rear of the bar. “How about we go sit back there and talk.”

Late one night the next week, Roger and Teo loaded boxes into the bed of Bruce’s Ram truck and covered the goods with a tarp. Roger followed as Bruce and Teo drove to Teo’s house, over on Lahaina Street off Ainako Avenue. From there, after he made the fake invoices on Teo’s PC, Roger went home.

Before dawn the next day, Teo and Bruce delivered the items – with new invoices attached – to the loading dock. Roger had Accounting cut a check.

Teo and Roger agreed to cut Bruce in for twenty percent as a starting salary. The fact that they could move stuff more with Bruce’s larger truck meant that they too stood to gain more, and in time could give Bruce a bigger share. Maybe make him a full partner, depending how things worked out.

Before sunrise a few mornings later, Bruce and Teo were on their way to the hardware shop with a load of tools when Bruce grimaced and grabbed his stomach. He nearly drove off the road.

“Damn, brah, what’s up with you?” Teo said. “You’re not looking too good.”

“I think I ate bad sushi last night,” Bruce said. “I got the runs. I need to shit real bad. Can we stop somewhere?”

Teo looked at his watch. “Yeah, but hurry up and squeeze it out. Gonna be light soon.”

Bruce pulled the Ram into a gas station at Kaumana Drive and Ainako Avenue, a few short blocks from Teo’s house. Without a word, he left the truck’s engine running, jumped from the cab gripping his stomach, and ran into the station.

Teo watched Bruce dash to the restroom. He shook his head and switched the radio to a classic rock station. ZZ Top’s “Tube Snake Boogie” filled the Ram’s cab; Teo cranked it up loud and played air guitar with his eyes closed. When he opened them, he saw six cops, who surrounded the truck with their guns aimed at him.

At the same moment, several cops raided Roger’s house and crashed into his bedroom. They allowed the two middle-aged women in bed with Roger to get dressed and leave, but only after an ill-equipped sergeant borrowed their fur-lined handcuffs and placed them around Roger’s wrists.

Roger and Teo, puzzled that Bruce somehow disappeared and fearful that he had turned state’s witness, nonetheless ignored their attorney’s counsel to take a plea. Instead, they opted to stand trial, thinking the evidence against them was circumstantial at best.

Among those who testified was Chester Freitas. He told the court that his Accounting Department tipped him off to some unusual payments made for certain inventory items, including those that didn’t warrant restocking.

“Could you please provide the court with an example of one of these items?” the D.A. said.

“Oh, yeah,” Chester Freitas said. “Hex bolts. We hardly ever sell any of those things.”
Roger slapped the back of Teo’s head. “Ow.”

Chester Freitas then told the court that he suspected Roger was up to something nefarious and that he believed Teo was involved, since the two were such good buddies who hung out together. To find out for sure, he hired a private investigator who billed herself as a mistress of disguise.

The People then called their next witness, private investigator Noelani B. Lee.

Roger and Teo watched as a petite woman with Asian features and hot legs entered the courtroom. As she walked to the stand, she cast a smile at both defendants. Roger was the first to figure it out.

“Oh shit,” Roger said.

“That’s Bruce?” Teo said.

“That’s Bruce.”

“But Bruce didn’t have tits.”

Roger pointed at Noelani’s flat chest. “Neither does she.”
“Yeah, but check out those legs.”

Noelani testified that Chester Freitas and his Accounting Manager showed her suspicious invoices and cancelled checks deposited into an account at a local bank. The name on the account was MidCenPac Tools, LLC. She said she tailed Roger and Teo for a week or so, learned everything from their usual drinking haunts to where they had breakfast. She testified that she rented a big Dodge truck, which she hoped would impress them.

“Did it?” the D.A. said.

Noelani nodded. “The defendant, Roger, even went so far as to compare cubic footage of hauling capacity between the Dodge truck and their older, smaller vehicle, to see how they could maximize their hauls.”

Teo glared at Roger.

“Well, it made sense at the time,” Roger said.

Noelani then explained how she used a disguise and her ability to lower her voice to man-like depths—a side-effect of a hormonal condition called hyperadrenalism –  to dupe Roger and Teo into letting “Bruce” work with them. She demonstrated this skill first by using her Bruce voice to order a Big Mac and fries, as Bruce did when the trio hit a drive-through one afternoon.

Roger and Teo buried their faces in their hands.

Then, to display her impressive range, Noelani concluded her testimony with a dead-on Charlton Heston: “Listen to me, Hatcher. You’ve gotta tell them! Soylent Green is people!”

Impressed with Noelani’s testimony—and in a hurry because they didn’t want to miss Rachael Ray—the jury convicted Roger and Teo in less than fifteen minutes.

Outside of the courthouse, Chester Freitas said, “Miss Lee, I don’t know how I can ever adequately thank you.”

From her purse, Noelani presented him with an invoice. “No thanks are necessary.”

***

The next morning, Noelani B. Lee embarked on her morning commute, from her bedroom to the combination office/living/dining room in her small house on the south side of Hilo. Along the way, she stopped to rub Jeff, her fat Himalayan, behind his ears.
“You’re putting on weight again,” she said. “Maybe I need to get you on a diet or something, huh?”

The rotund cat slapped at her with a paw. That enticed her to lower her voice to James Earl Jones depths and chide him: “Now that’s no way to treat a lady, mister.” In response, Jeff sat up and licked himself.

Noelani reverted to her normal voice. “Yeah, you only do that because you can. Men. You’re all alike.”

She opened a file cabinet and removed the Freitas case file. From it, she took Chester Freitas’s check, folded it, and placed in her purse. For her services, Noelani charged $70 per hour plus mileage and other expenses, with discounts and extended payment plans financed through a local credit union for those on fixed incomes or unemployed. It wasn’t a great living, but a growing number of cheating spouses and deceitful folks of all stripes provided her with plenty of work.

“Okay, mister man cat,” she said, “I’m on my way to the bank. If I were you I’d say ‘thanks’ because you never know, I might come back with a big bag of your favorite food.”

Jeff stretched and rolled over.

“Yeah, whatever.” Noelani picked up her keys and was about to make her way out when someone knocked on her door. She opened it to see a nondescript man on her doorstep, in glasses and a colorful, yet quite un-Hawaiian shirt. He gripped a briefcase in his left hand.

“Hi, how can I help you?”

The man said, “Uh, yes, you are N.B. Lee?”

Noelani pointed to the N.B. Lee Investigations sign hanging next to her door. “According to that I am, unless it was those kids down the block again.” She waited a beat but the man did not respond. “I’m Noelani Lee. What can I do for you?”

“I am interested in hiring your services,” the man said. “I was wondering if we could talk.”

She invited him in. “Suit yourself, but my cat’s hungry.” She motioned for him to take a seat in her living room. “How can I help you, Mister …”

The man sat down and placed the briefcase on the floor at his side. “Paakaula. Leland Paakaula.”

Noelani sat in a chair across from him. “Mr. Paakaula, what can I do for you? Cheating wife? No, somebody’s trying to rip you off. Maybe someone embezzled from you or something.” She noted that the last guess generated a stunned reaction from her guest.

“No, none of that.” Leland Paakaula wiped the palms of his hands on his khaki polyester pants. “I was wondering, how are you at undercover investigations of demented, drug-addled pseudo-political organizations masquerading as paramilitary forces, and how much would you charge for this service?”

The Job.

Leland Paakaula, his hands in his lap—fingers laced together as if he was about to pray –
said, “Are you familiar with the Lava Flow Acres resort project that’s going to be built near Punalu’u beach?”

Noelani Lee almost didn’t hear the question, distracted as she was by the three-ring textile circus that was the man’s pullover shirt. Unlike anything she had seen before, it was primarily day-glow orange and bright neon blue, with some areas trimmed in white and burnt orange. Repeated patterns of elaborate circular designs alternated with orange stripes around both short sleeves. More graphics – some that resembled psychotic flowers and Japanese fans, others that looked like the capital letter E – formed double yokes around the shirt’s neck. They extended downward, pointing toward her guest’s paunchy gut. Noelani thought the shirt looked as if second-rate art majors designed it after they dropped peyote and pounded mescal – and ate the worm at the bottom of the bottle for good measure.

She looked away from the bad acid trip garment and nodded. “Yes, now that you mention it, I saw something on the news about that.”

“It’s been in the works for several years. Perhaps then you also know that the County Council is supposed to vote its final approval of the project within the next couple of weeks.”

Local politics typically took a back seat to everything else in Noelani’s life, especially her day job. “I may have heard something about that. On the news, too.”

Leland Paakaula said, “Ms. Lee, I’m glad to see you’re up on your current events. I understand why Chester Freitas recommended you to me. He’s an old friend, you see.”

“That’s good to know.” She got to the point: “So what connection do you have to this resort project?”

“None directly, I can assure you. You see, I’m just a businessman from the Kona coast who’s concerned about the economic stability of my, of our island. And you know, tourism’s not doing well these days, well, a place like Lava Flow Acres would benefit not just me, but all of us on the Big Island. Indirectly, in one way or another.” 

Although Noelani prided herself on being insightful and perceptive when it came to others, she wondered what all of this had to do with demented, drug-addled pseudo-political organizations masquerading as paramilitary forces. As well, she didn’t understand how a private investigator blessed with the ability to convincingly disguise herself as a man played a role in whether or not a group of politicians gave the go-ahead to a massive tourist development. “So, Mr. Paakaula, how exactly can I help you?”

Leland took a clasp envelope from his briefcase. “Several years ago, a young man was shot to death under a coconut palm on Punalu’u beach.” From the envelope, he removed a newspaper clipping. The headline read “Body of Pahala man found at beach”; the article included a black-and-white photo of the victim, identified as a Teddy Kapahala.
Noelani studied the picture. The grinning young man had an avalanche of chins and his hair grew in odd patches. According to the article, he was only twenty-five years old when he met his fate in the wee hours of an early September morning at the famed black-sand beach, a popular tourist destination on the island’s south coast.

She looked at the date on the article; Teddy’s death happened a mere month or two before Noelani moved to the mainland, at the time in pursuit of greener pastures. She lived with relatives in Las Vegas for three years before an unanticipated circumstance led her back to Hilo, and inspired her to become a PI and open her agency.

“I remember hearing about this,” Noelani said. “I remember it being kind of a big deal at the time.” She looked at Leland. “Did the police ever find the killer?”

“No.” His answer was devoid of emotion.

“Oh, okay, so that’s why you want to hire me.” The thought unnerved Noelani. She had never taken a murder case. The closest she came to being anywhere near a homicide happened when one of her clients, a strung out Mr. Siteti, beat the living bejesus out of a man who had been banging Mrs. Siteti regularly for about eight weeks. Despite a considerable size difference between herself and the two giant Samoans, Noelani—with help from a hysterical but physically substantial Mrs. Siteti—broke up the fracas. But not before the philandering object of Mr. Siteti’s vengeful ire wound up with two broken ribs and several deep lacerations on his arms and face. The victim also suffered a major concussion and endured delicate emergency surgery to remove a broken mop handle that Mr. Siteti had shoved up his ass.

“No,” Leland said. “Truthfully, I really don’t care about Teddy Kapahala or whoever might have killed him. Although, there is a connection to the real reason I am here.” From the envelope, Leland removed a color, five-by-seven picture and handed it to Noelani. In motion, his shirt resembled a kaleidoscope. “That is Nelson Waikalani.”
The photo showed a middle-aged Hawaiian man with droopy eyes, stringy graying hair and a mustache. “Who is Nelson Waikalani?”

“He fancies himself the leader of a separatist group that he calls the Hawaiian United Freedom Fighters,” Leland said. “He and this group, about four of them, believe they can incite an insurrection that will lead to the overthrow of the Americans and restore Hawaii as an independent kingdom.”

“Seriously?”

“Now, you may be wondering what all that has to do with the late Teddy Kapahala.”

“I figured you’d get to it sooner or later.”

“Teddy was one of Nelson’s faithful followers until his death,” Leland said. “In fact, rumor has it that Nelson considered Teddy his ‘second in command.’ Ever since this Teddy died, I hear that they’ve elevated him to martyr status. They, Nelson and his friends, think that someone opposed to their, what they call ‘revolution,’ killed Teddy, hoping his death would would stop them. Now, word has it that what’s left of this bunch, with the Lava Flow Acres vote coming up soon, is prepared to do something drastic to stop the resort from being built, as sort of a twisted tribute to Teddy’s commitment to their lame-brained cause. Not to sound overly dramatic, Ms. Lee, but speculation is that they may be armed and that one of them knows how to make bombs.”

As she listened, Noelani theorized that Leland spent far too much time with his ear glued to the coconut telegraph, the low-level wireless island communications channel better known on the mainland as the “grapevine.”

He handed her a photo of a small, unassuming white house. “This is Nelson Waikalani’s place in Pahala. That’s where he and his friends spend most of their time, as I am told, smoking pot and drinking beer. I’ve been led to believe that a couple of them live with him, since their parents kicked them out or something along those lines. And you know, with pakalolo being a gateway drug, I’ve heard it leads to harder stuff, which in turn can make people deranged and get them do things they shouldn’t do. Like kill unarmed innocents in the course of attempting to stop an important resort project.”

“Mr. Paakaula, if they are armed – ”

“That’s what I’ve heard.”

“ – then they must be paying for weapons and ammunition somehow. What do you know about Nelson’s source of funds?”

“His group has a dodgy little Web site, on which he solicits donations and sells souvenir HUFF logo merchandise and Hawaiian sovereignty flags of poor quality. But his biggest source of income is an extensive savings account. He made some big money when he sold a business a few years ago. I should say, he was forced to sell it after he was hit with several lawsuits. It was a company that made artificially-flavored macadamia nuts.”

Noelani’s eyes widened with nostalgia. “Nelson’s Nuts? Hey, I used to love those things.” The Irish cream flavor had been her favorite. “I always wondered what happened to them.”

“Ms. Lee, Chester Freitas tells me you are a mistress of disguise.”

“Well, I have a reputation for successfully fooling a lot of people a lot of the time.”

“Then that is where you come in,” Leland said. “What I am asking you to do entails a tremendous amount of risk to yourself, perhaps even to the point that you may be putting your life on the line. Yet I cannot stress enough that the security and future of the Big Island and all of Hawaii depends on you, if you take the job.”

“That’s a pretty tall order, Mr. Paakaula,” she said, nonplussed. “But as flattered as I am, wouldn’t this be something more suited for the cops or maybe even the feds?”

“I’m afraid not, although your work would go a long way to helping law enforcement bring these toked-up, reefer-head madmen to justice.” Leland took a deep breath and exhaled dramatically. “What I need for you to do, Ms. Lee, is infiltrate Nelson Waikalani’s group. Use one of your disguises and buddy up to Nelson and his co-conspirators. Make yourself one of them. Once inside his organization, you need to find out what they intend to do to Lava Flow Acres and when. Then report the details to me, so I can alert the authorities before something awful happens to us all.” He sat back in his chair. “Because this is an exceedingly risky proposition for you, I am willing to pay you double your normal rate.”

Noelani looked at Leland for a moment, then wordlessly stood and paced across the room. She crossed her arms over her little bosoms and digested everything Leland had said. She thought about this Nelson Waikalani and his friends and assumed they were in fact the stoned-out loose cannons that Leland made them out to be. If that was so, and if she somehow slipped and blew her cover, then they might have no problem doing to her what someone else did to this Teddy Kapahala.

That was another matter. Leland Paakaula’s chilly attitude toward the late Mr. Kapahala and the circumstances surrounding his death were disturbingly cavalier. Even if Leland distrusted Nelson and his friends, he could at least express a bit more respect for the dead. She hoped that if something like that happened to her, that he’d show more compassion than he did toward this Teddy.

Then she thought about Leland’s verbal commitment to pay her twice her hourly rate. Above all else, Noelani was an economic pragmatist. Maybe even a tad libertarian, a trait inherited from her father. Although, when she was a child he took his freewheeling entrepreneurial spirit to a level that assured she would never see him again. Still, Leland had offered the prospect of a decent payday, which Noelani on an hourly basis believed she could milk for all it was worth. She’d grown bored with her recent caseload that consisted almost entirely of cheating men. Perhaps, a job like this, it might be fun to bring an illegal revolutionary to his knees, even if he wasn’t a two-timing asshole.
Strictly for a change of pace.

She turned to face Leland. “Mr. Paakaula, you understand that I will first need to do my due diligence.”

Leland nodded. “I have nothing to hide. As you’ll see.” He then wrote a check, stood, and offered it to her. “As a token of good faith and to cover any up-front expenses, here is an advance payment. A retainer, if you will. If you take the job, the money is yours. If not, throw it away. Actually, shred it or burn it, since if someone gets their hands on my account number…well, trust me, identity theft can be a real bitch.”

Noelani smiled as she accepted the check and shook his hand. “Give me the rest of the day and I’ll call you first thing in the morning with my decision.”

***

Noelani found Ike Tabua downtown, sitting in the old pavilion beside the big banyan tree, next to Hilo Bay. He was eating lychee. The Hawai’i Police Department detective had a Styrofoam cup in front of him, which he used as a depository for the fruits’ skins and as a spittoon for the pits.

Ike—nearly a full foot taller than Noelani—stood up and bent over, then gave her the traditional pressed nose-to-nose hongi greeting of the Maori, his father’s side of the family.

“Aloha, Ike.”

“Kia ora, hot stuff.” He motioned toward the lychee as they sat down. “Got these over at the farmer’s market across the street. Want some?”

Noelani declined the offer. “They look good, though.”

Ike grinned as he checked out her golden thighs. “So do you, sistah.” The big detective with the broad face took advantage of every opportunity to flirt with Noelani. The fact that she never caved to his charms failed to dissuade him. Being a detective, he figured the law of averages would eventually work to his favor. “You still wanna go out to dinner sometime? My treat.”

“Ike, I never said I’d go out with you in the first place and besides, you have a girlfriend. Right?”

“Not this week. I think she went and dumped me again. She don’t go returning my calls.”
“Yeah, well you know how I feel about men. Not all men, but no offense, some of you guys are real dicks.”

He feigned a pout. “Yet you still like me. Don’t you?”

She smiled. “I have to. You’re a cop.”

Ike sucked a fragrant lychee fruit out of its red skin and spit the seed into the cup. “So okay, you don’t wanna go out with me then. Maybe instead you wanna tell me what’s this about some losers down in Pahala and this Paakaula fella from Kona?”

Noelani recounted her conversation with Leland Paakaula. She detailed Leland’s descriptions of Nelson Waikalani and his concerns over the extreme measures that Nelson and his friends might take to stop the Lava Flow Acres project. “What do you know about them?”

Ike shook his head. “Not much. I mean, they’re down in Pahala, that’s in the Ka’u District. I work South Hilo District, you know that.”

“Yes, but you know cops down there. Maybe they can tell you something about this Waikalani and his friends, you know, if they have criminal records or anything. On the sly, that is.”

Ike ate another lychee and again admired Noelani’s legs. “Yeah, all right, you know I’d do anything for you. I’ll see what I can dig up on them and let you know. Now, you said this Kona fella talked about a murder.”

“He said some kid named Teddy Kapahala was shot down at Punalu’u beach, about seven years ago.”

Ike stared at the blue water of Hilo Bay for a moment. “Yeah, I kinda remember that. If I’m right, there were four homicides on the island that year and that one was the only one went unsolved. I’ll do some research when I get back at the office, boss is on vacation so no worries. But you know, now that I think about it, there’s something I remember hearing about that one.”

“What’s that?”

Ike grinned. “Tell you if you buy me lunch.”

Noelani laughed. “A burger for your thoughts.”

“Well, see, yeah, I remember talking with the guys down in Ka’u about that. Yeah, they said this Teddy guy was shot, he was a big fat bruddah. I mean, not Iz fat but pretty damn big.”

Noelani pictured the late, beloved Hawaiian singer Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole, a massive man who once tipped the scales at seven-hundred seventy pounds. “Even half an Iz is a lot of man.”

“Anyway,” Ike said, “when Teddy got shot, he was pretty fucked up. He’d been smoking weed big time and had a blood alcohol content with a number about as high as the paycheck George Clooney got for his last movie.”

Noelani nodded but said nothing.

“I remember there was something else,” Ike said, “but not off the top my head. Some of the cops down in Ka’u, they said the medical examiner told them that the shot may not have been what really killed the kid.”

Noelani furrowed her brow. “Really?”

“Well, it helped it along, him dying and like I said, he mighta bled to death there on the beach. It was the middle of the night so there wasn’t no one around, it was one of those no one saw nothing or heard nothing things.” He shrugged. “I need to look up this other thing. All I remember about it is, it was big time strange. Should be in the reports. I got a guy down there owes me some favors, so I can get my hands on copies.”

Noelani picked up one of Ike’s lychees. “Well, someone at least tried to kill him.”

Ike pushed the remaining fruit to Noelani and gave her the Styrofoam cup. “I guess you could say, whoever did it pretty much did it. Why, this Kona fella wants you to find the killer?”

“Not really. In fact, he doesn’t care about that at all.”

“Hmm. Then you’re looking out of curiosity, huh.”

“I don’t know. There may be a connection with the murder, and this Waikalani character and Lava Flow Acres. Or, maybe not.” Noelani flashed on the newspaper photo of Teddy Kapahala as she ate another lychee.

“Knowing you, you’ve done your research on this Paakaula fella already,” Ike said. “What’d you find?”

“Nothing bad. He owns some tourist businesses over in Kona, like a restaurant and some shops. He’s active in the Chamber of Commerce. Has a nice house there, too, which he kept after he got a divorce. It seems his actress wannabe wife split to L.A. a while back to launch a career in osteoporosis commercials.”

“Now that you mention it, I think I’ve seen her. She’s good.”

“And, he openly supports the Lava Flow Acres but that’s about it.” Almost as an afterthought, Noelani said, “He has some tight political connections, too.”

“Sounds like to me, you’re gonna earn your money big time this time.” Ike stood up. “Listen, I have to get back at work. I’ll call later when I got some knowledge to drop on you.” He leaned in close to her. “Then you’ll get me that burger, yeah?”

“A big, juicy one.”

“Better be with chili and cheese or no deal.”

After Ike left, Noelani sat alone in the pavilion, watching waves on the bay. Then she took her cell phone from her pocket and made a call.

“Hi, Mom…no I’m fine…yes, everything’s okay…just running errands… Jeff needs food, again…no, I’m trying but he doesn’t stop eating… Hey listen, Mom… I got a job today…yeah…this one’s gonna take up some time… So anyway, I wanted to let you know you won’t be able to reach me for a few days…yes, mother…”

As she spoke, she thought again about the picture of Teddy Kapahala, the shooting victim. Just a kid, in his mid twenties, he died alone on a dark beach in the middle of a warm late-summer night...

Then it hit her.