Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series) (31 page)
Read Shattered Palms (Lei Crime Series) Online
Authors: Toby Neal
“
Heaven forbid,” Pono said, and picked up the phone. He punched a few intercom buttons. “Stevens, come take your wife to the hospital. Her knee is really acting up.”
He hung up the phone.
“You should be able to do workman’s comp even though you were off the clock. I’m guessing your kneecap’s busted.”
“
Just what I need,” Lei muttered. Pono fetched some boxes and they both began packing their possessions, since they didn’t know whose cubicle they’d be sharing. Pono carefully detached the last of his daughter’s drawings from the corkboard and set them on top of his boxful of personal items as Lei did what she could to pack, sitting down with her leg straight out on a chair in front of her.
Steven
s walked up, jingling his keys, with Torufu following. The giant Tongan carried a big box with one hand and dragged his special jumbo-sized office chair with the other.
“
Texeira!” Torufu grinned, and Lei couldn’t help smiling back. “You’re my new partner, and we’re the bomb squad of two on Maui. Captain told me to tell you. We leave for special partner training on the Mainland next week.”
Pono
shook his head. Stevens’s brows drew together in a thunderous scowl. And Lei put her head back and laughed.
Lei Crime Series:
Blood Orchids
(book 1)
Torch Ginger
(book 2)
Black Jasmine
(book 3)
Broken Ferns
(book 4)
Twisted Vine
(book 5)
Shattered Palms
(book 6)
Dark Lava
(book 7)
Companion Series:
a Lei Crime Companion Novel (Marcella Scott)
Unsound
:
a novel (Dr. Caprice Wilson)
Wired in Paradise:
a Lei Crime Companion Novel (Sophie Ang)
Middle Grade/Young Adult
Island Fire
Contemporary Fiction/Romance:
Somewhere on Maui, an Accidental Matchmaker Novel
Somewhere on Kaua`i, an Accidental Matchmaker Novel
Nonfiction:
Under an Open Sky
Children of Paradise: a Memoir of Growing Up in Hawaii
Sign up
for Book Lovers Club or news of upcoming books at
http://www.tobyneal.net/
cknowledgments
Dear Readers:
I am SO GLAD the Lei Crime Series didn’t end with Twisted Vine like I’d planned. Turns out I’ve got a lot more books in this series to write!
I want to begin by saying that there have been no bird poachers that I know of on Maui, and the loss of even one of these precious birds would be too many. In the last five years, through my photographer husband Mike Neal’s conservation work with the Nature Conservancy in Waikamoi Preserve, I’ve come to fall in love with the native birds much like Lei did. I was excited to come up with a plot idea that would take readers to the top of Haleakala and into some of the most pristine cloud forest in the whole state of Hawaii. I hope this book teaches the public a little about these “jewels of the forest” through the story.
I went my whole life, most of it in Hawaii, with nothing more than a vague knowledge of these birds because of their scarcity and habitat restriction to the highest elevations, and I am now a passionate supporter of the biologists working hard to keep them from extinction. My thanks go out sincerely to Hanna Mounce, Ph.D. candidate, Program Director of the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project, an agency that focuses mainly on the preservation of the critically endangered Maui Parrotbill. Hanna took the time to read my manuscript and made corrections, and made my day by pronouncing the scientific solution Kingston comes up with “plausible.”
I can’t thank you enough, Hanna, for taking the time in your very busy life, to make sure I wasn’t too far afield.
Agencies working on Maui in conservation include:
Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project
:
http://www.mauiforestbirds.org/
National Park Service, Haleakala National Park
(where the Hosmer’s Grove trail and overlook Lei and her friends explore is located)
http://www.nps.gov/hale/index.htm
The Nature Conservancy
, which manages the Waikamoi Preserve:
http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/hawaii/placesweprotect/waikamoi.xml
East Maui Watershed Partnership
:
http://www.eastmauiwatershed.org/
Maui Bird Conservation Center
(focuses on the critically endangered Hawaiian Crow)
http://www.nwrawildlife.org/content/keauhou-bird-conservation-center-kbcc-or-maui-bird-conservation-center-mbcc
Check in and support any and all of these worthy groups to find out more about the native Hawaiian birds.
I also want to thank retired Captain David Spicer for his early read of the manuscript and procedural corrections. He helps me keep Lei from bending too many rules and messing up the prosecution of her cases beyond help, and with David’s input I’ve learned about witness interviewing, evidence retrieval, shooting a fleeing suspect (not done) and all sorts of procedural arcana.
Thank you, David!
Extra kudos go to my faithful beta reader
s, Bonny Ponting and fellow writer Noelle Pierce, who had the courage to tell me the unwelcome news that I’d lost the “emotional tension” of the book by having the wedding right in the middle and solving the case after. So, credit goes to Noelle for Lei’s last minute deferment of the wedding, (something Lei would definitely do!) ratcheting up the stakes of the book to a satisfying conclusion.
I was so darned eager to get to the wedding, I forgot I was writing a mystery
. Shoot. It happens.
Last but never least, thanks to my great book development team. Mike Neal and Julie Metz did an amazing cover, Kristen Weber kept me honest with her editing, and Penina Lopez, my copyeditor, pulled out all the stops to fit my manuscript into her queue, knowing readers were bugging us for it.
I couldn’t do these books without you!
A special thanks to my extraordinary husband, Mike Neal, whose photography and conservation/docent efforts for the Nature Conservancy have drawn me into the magical world of Waikamoi. It’s amazing to walk in that cathedral of pristine wilderness and hear the music of our native birdsong, and I hope this book inspires readers to stop in at Hosmer’s Grove on Haleakala and experience the birds just a little bit.
With much aloha,
Toby Neal
Sign up for the Book Lovers Club or new title notifications at
http://www.tobyneal.net/
A Lei Crime Novel
By
Toby Neal
The worst things always seem to happen at night, even in Hawaii. Lieutenant Michael Stevens stood in front of the defaced rock wall, hands on lean hips, brows drawn together. A chipped hole gaped raw as a torn-out tooth where the petroglyph, a rare rock art carving, should have been.
“I keep watch on the heiau,” the witness, sturdy as a fireplug, glared up at Stevens from under the ledge of an overhanging brow. “I live across da street. I come, check ‘em every day, pick up trash, li’dat. Last night I hear something, like—one motor. I was sleeping but I wake up cuz it goes on. Then I see a light ovah here.” He spoke in agitated
pidgin English, hands waving.
“What’s your name, sir?” Stevens dug a spiral notebook out of his back jeans pocket, along with a stub of pencil tied to it with twine. He knew it was “old school.” Many officers were using PDAs and tablets these days—but he liked the ease and confidentiality of his personal notes.
“Manuel Okapa. Our family, we guard the heiau. This—so shame this!” Okapa spat beside their feet in disgust. “I like kill whoever did this!”
Stevens waited a beat. He caught Okapa’s eye, shiny and hard as a polished kukui nut. “Sure you want to say that to a cop?” Stevens asked.
Okapa spat again in answer, unfazed. “I wish I brought my hunting rifle over here and blow ‘em away. But the light go out, and the noise stop. I thought someone was maybe dropping off something. Sometimes, the poor families that no can afford the dumps, they drop their broken-kine rubbish here. They know I take ‘em away.”
Stevens noted Okapa’s threats and disclosure of a gun in his notebook for future reference. He turned a bit to take in the scene. The heiau, a site sacred to Hawaiian culture, was situated on a promontory overlooking the ocean, separated from Okapa’s dilapidated cottage by busy two-lane Hana Highway. Even this early, a steady stream of rental cars swished by them, on their way to experience the lush, waterfall-marked Road to Hana.
“What kind of trash do they leave? Appliances?”
“Yeah, li’dat.” Okapa squatted down in front of the wound in the rock. His stubby brown fingers traced the hole, tender and reverent. “I heard this kine thing was happening on Oahu but nevah thought we get ‘em over here.”
“Looks like it was taken out with some sort of handheld jackhammer,” Stevens said, squatting beside the man. Okapa’s touching of the rock’s surface would have disrupted any fingerprints, but it was too late now. He took out his camera phone and shot several pictures of the defaced stone, inadvertently catching one of Okapa’s hands, gentle on the rock’s wound. “Did you see anything else missing? Disturbed?”
“Come. We go look.” Okapa stood up, and Stevens glanced back at the blue-and-white Maui Police Department cruiser parked close to them, his Bronco just behind it off the busy highway. One of his new trainees, Brandon Kealoha, had responded to the defacement call and immediately contacted Stevens as his superior to come investigate. Kealoha was a Maui boy born and raised, and immediately appreciated that the stealing of a petroglyph was more than ordinary property damage. The young man, hands on his duty belt, looked questioningly at Stevens.
“Stay here and don’t let anyone pull over,” Stevens said. “Find something to cover the damage for now—some branches or something. We don’t want to attract attention to this yet.”
Stevens’ mind was already racing ahead to the press coverage this would draw, potentially connecting this crime with a string of looted heiaus on Oahu. He knew the pressure would be on MPD as soon as the community caught wind of this outrage.
He followed Okapa's squat form, feeling overly tall as he towered over the shorter man. He'd found his height sometimes provoked defensive reactions in smaller local people and his wife’s partner and friend, Pono Kaihale, had given him a frank talk on how to interact with the locals more effectively. “Don't stand too close and loom over them unless you like scrap. Not a lot of eye contact, because that’s seen as challenging. Be prepared to disclose some personal information about who you are, where you’re from, and try to find some common connecting place, family or history. Tell ‘em you married to a Hawaii girl if they give you hard time.”
As if reading these thoughts, Okapa tossed over his shoulder, “How long you been here?”
“Two years, Maui. Big Island and Kauai before that,” Stevens replied. “Maui no ka oi.”
Okapa's gapped teeth showed in a brief smile. “As how.”
Apparently he’d hit the right note, because Okapa’s shoulders relaxed a bit. Every island had its pride and special uniqueness, Stevens had discovered.
They followed a tiny path through waist-high vegetation. Thick bunchy grass, ti leaf and several hala trees, their umbrella-like structures providing pools of shade, created a uniquely Hawaii landscape.
“I used to cut da plants back, keep it nice here. But then I see the tourists always pulling over to the side, trampling in here with their cameras. So I let ‘em grow, and less come here. Only the hula halaus come out for dance. This is one dance heiau.”
“Oh. I didn’t know there were different kinds. Anything you can tell me would be helpful.”
“Yeah. Get some for worship da gods, like the big one in Wailuku. This one for dance.
Halau
is one small-kine school with a
kumu,
teacher. That kumu leads and trains dancers in the group. This place was used to teach and worship with hula by the halaus.“
They reached a wide area, ringed by red, green and striped varieties of ti leaf growing taller than Stevens had ever seen. The layout was an open area of flat stones ringed by a wall of stacked ones. He’d noticed Hawaii's monuments were simple, made of materials naturally occurring, and without the oral traditions of the people and the movement to reclaim the
culture, much history would have been lost and the heiaus themselves swallowed back into the land.