Primal Instinct

19

July 18, FBI Headquarters

It was growing late, almost twenty-four hours since Lopaka Kowona's moldering bungalow was turned out for the world to see. Jim Parry had just finished staring once more through Lopaka's disgusting victim photos. He next examined the mildewed, dusty black binder, which revealed the man's early days with his wife, Kelia.

The photo album had shots of Lopaka on horseback swinging a rope overhead, a herd of grazing cows in the background. Parry was running it by people in the know, including Hal Ewelo in his cell, trying to get a fix on the name and location of the ranch. There were all manner of pictures of Lopaka sporting long knives and swords, several of which had been confiscated as evidence, some of which would undoubtably match the Hiilani girl's wounds, their edges and the corresponding marks on her flesh fitting together like pieces of a de Sade puzzle. There was another photo collection, separate from this album, which featured each of his swords, some extremely expensive and beautifully ornamented.

A dealer was called in and grilled about the types of weapons, their availability and prices. He was startled by one sword in particular, declaring it to be priceless, an ancient ceremonial blade that people in the business world literally cut their own throats for.

“ How'd he get hold of such a sword if no one knew of its existence?” had been Parry's immediate response.

“ Maybe he murdered someone for it? Most certainly it's a stolen piece, perhaps from a museum or one of the old traditionalist families,” replied Arthur Early, curator of the Museum of Antiquities at the University of Hawaii, when Parry consulted him.

“ Call the Bishop Museum,” Parry told Gagliano after Early had left. “See if they're missing anything, but don't lead them. Don't tell them what we have.”

“ Hey, leave it to me,” Gagliano assured him. “What's the street word on Kowona's whereabouts?”

“ Silence, nothing.”

“ That's bullshit. Somebody's gotta know where the SOB goes when he gets scared.”

“ Nobody's talking, else they really don't know. He's been a loner for a long time, and even family-and it seems he's got some on the island-aren't sure, as I read 'em. They say nobody ever went near him, especially after his wife left him. Said he didn't come around.”

“ Somebody's lying.”

“ Sure somebody's lying, but I haven't found him yet.”

Parry's exasperation escaped in a sigh. He fell into his chair, stared about the room and put up his hands. “The guy just disappears off the face of the… islands?”

“ Could've gotten a plane to the mainland. Could've done so under an assumed name, hours before we got to his place.”

“ Check out the museum lead. See if anybody there knows a Lopaka Kowona, if a Robert or a Bob matching his description ever worked there.”

“ You got it, Chief, and hey, maybe you'd best get some shut-eye.”

It was getting dark again and Parry had been pulling a twenty-four-hour shift. So long as Jessica was exhausting her efforts at the lab, he felt the least he could do was exhaust his efforts at headquarters.

Then he thought of Jospeh Kaniola and George Oniiwah. It was Kaniola's paper that had gotten Oniiwah killed, so far as Parry was concerned. Maybe Kaniola had other thug friends like the owner of Paniolo's who, for a price, would take Lopaka Kowona to a deserted beach and kick the shit and life out of him before feeding him to the sea turtles.

It was the kind of island justice that had been in operation since men first discovered the islands and set up shop; it had survived civilization, the presence of the U.S. Navy, the white man's law and courts, and it would survive Jim Parry, he reasoned. But damnit, he had a right to Kowona as much as anyone. Who was it that'd brought the case out of an officially sanctioned oblivion- “who cares if a few kanaka whores are taken off the street”-and dragged it kicking and screaming into the light? Not the HPD, not Scanlon for damned sure, not the nationalists, not Kaniola's fucking newspaper, not the FBI… but him alone. The least he deserved was to see the case through and to know Kowona's fate, and in the best of all possible worlds, to mete out that fate.

Where was the justice? Where was the bastard?

He got into his car and rushed through congested traffic, honking at the tourists buses, to get to the Ala Ohana storefront office. He found Joe Kaniola behind his desk, his secretary trying desperately to stop the bulldozing FBI man, but far too small to accomplish the task. She looked like a grown-up Hiilani, he thought.

“ That's all right, Suzy,” Kaniola called to her as he saw the train coming. “Welcome to my humble establishment. Chief-”

“ Cut the pilau, Joe. I want to know what the word is out there on Robert Kowona, and don't give me any shit about how you don't know any-fucking-thing.”

“ Like I told Tony, I don't. I swear it. The street's gone stone deaf and dumb on this, almost like everybody agrees with the sonofa- bitch who killed my kid, that what he's doing is righteous, or some such fucking dog crap.”

The tone of Joe Kaniola's voice and the conviction in his eye calmed Parry a bit. “Why? Why would your people-”

“ First off, they're not my people… not no more. Not if they're hiding that sickening bastard. They're nobody's people. They're more displaced and disenfranchised than ever if-”

“ I didn't come here for a goddamned political debate on the conditions prevailing in the islands, Joe. I came here for some answers.”

“ And I'm telling you that no fucking one's talking, no one\”

“ HPD behind this? Your Hawaiian civil rights PKO guys? Who?”

“ If I knew-”

“ I'd be the last you'd tell, I know, but maybe if you got your goddamned dentures cracked…”

Kaniola whipped out a gun from his top drawer when he saw that Parry was serious. “You lay a hand on me, and there'll be something new for this town to talk about.”

“ Put it away! Mr. Kaniola, don't!” shouted Suzy.

The two men, staring across the desk at one another, were like a pair of bulls sizing each other up. Little Suzy stamped her foot and repeated her demand, until Kaniola, relenting, allowed the gun to softly slide back into its hiding place.”I keep it for protection. You got no idea how often some bozo comes in here threatening me.”Parry gave a little shrug. “Likely a daily occurrence. Lucky you've got Suzy here on your side.”

'This thing with Kowona, it has no sides,” he replied, pulling at his facial hair, shaking his head. “I mean, everybody I speak to wants him dead; everybody is looking for him. I can't believe he just vanished, but they say he is a survivalist type, and if he had gotten up into the mountains, well… it'll take the entire U.S. Army on foot to get him out of there. But bottom line is, nobody's helping him, not even his family.”

'Take me to them.”

“ Who?”

“ His family.”

“ They're scattered all over. That would take all night, and the way you look and smell, Mr. Parry… why don't you go home, get some rest.”

“ Goddamnit, Joe!”

“ All right… all right… but I got duties here. I'll get a cousin of mine to drive you round.”

“ Whatever and however, but I want to talk to everyone remotely related to this animal.”

“ I've already done it. You'll be wasting your time, I tell you.”

Suzy handed Parry a cup of steaming tea. He looked into her big, oval eyes. She was pretty and petite, a candidate for Kelia's murdering husband if she were six or seven years younger.

“ I am shamed to say I'm second cousin to Kowona,” she quietly admitted, “and Mr. Kaniola is telling truth. No one in my family knows where 'bout he is hiding. He jus' never did come by. I don't think I would know him if I see him. My mother remembers him, but even she say she would never have nothing to do with him, that he was ona lama, maino and hewahewa.”Joe Kaniola was blinking furiously. “You never tol' me you were related!”

“ Nobody want say dey related to him, 'specially now, Mr. Kaniola.” Her oval eyes drooped. “I afraid for my job here.”Kaniola asked her pointedly, “Pupule? You mean, insane?”

“ Jus' what I say, alcoholic, crazy and cruel. “Kaniola nodded. “Come on,” he said to Parry. “I'll take you to see Suzy's mother, but that's all I can do. From there, you're on your own.”

Parry relented, feeling that both Suzy and Kaniola were being straight with him. Even if they had resorted to their Polynesian language, their body language spoke plainly enough.

The visit to the girl's mother proved yet another dead end, however. She knew nothing and was without guile, and Kaniola reiterated his faith that no one knew anything, and that most likely the psycho had seen from a distance that they'd discovered and turned out his killing ground, and so had fled most likely into the thick cover of the jungle in the Koolau mountain range just above his house.

“ And just how long do you suppose he could survive up there?” Parry asked sarcastically, pointing to the enormous dark green range at the center of Oahu, troubling clouds at the summit.

“ How long can the wild beast exist in its home?”

“ He's that comfortable in the rain forest?”

“ Yes, well, he grew up in the jungle.”

“ How do you know that?”

“ Most of his family, his immediate family, lived on Molokai's remotest edge.”

“ Molokai?” Parry fixed for a moment on the size, shape and location of one of the more remote and less visited islands in the Hawaiian chain. “Then maybe he's run to Molokai.”

“ Perhaps, but unlikely.” Unlikely? Why?”

Kaniola stroked his small beard. “He himself was made an outcast, or so the story goes. Any of the family can always return home, that is a given, but Lopaka was officially banished from that place.”

“ Why was he banished? For crimes against man?”

“ A series of troubles with his father, the chief, which some say began with the death of a girl child when Lopaka was hardly more than a child himself. But nothing was ever proven. When he came of age, he was sent away, lived for some time in Maui by his own wits. Later, he came here and enrolled in college without much of a plan; he'd gone to the missionary school on Molokai and there learned the white ways, and his father, a chief, had believed there was some special reason for his having conceived Lopaka with a white woman, some notion he would learn white magic. But the old chief never completely accepted the son, treating him like an orphan, an adoptee or foundling, finally claiming the boy was not his and banishing him.”

“ So Lopaka's mother was a white woman, a haole?”

“ His mother was British, yes.”Parry and the others had remarked how soft and fine Lopaka's features were despite the native rust-colored skin and kinky red hair. “Go on.”

“ Lopaka's story was told to Dr. Coran by my great-granduncle.”

“ Yes, she's told me about her visit to him, and how helpful he was.”

“ Then you know Lopaka saw his brother killed by his father, his body burned to return it to the gods.”

“ Sounds all a bit fairy-tale-ish for me. But tell me, this brother was also from the white mother?”

“ The brother was actually no relation, just a friend adopted by Lopaka, made his brother through a secret pact between them, but Lopaka himself considered the other boy his twin, or so it is told. The other boy was supposedly malformed.”

“ Defiled, so to speak?” asked Parry.

“ One of the enticements of Christianity for my people, a casting away of such superstitions that lead to killing a retarded child, yes… yes, defiled.”

“ Then your great-granduncle knows a lot about this Lopaka?”

“ He knows every important person's history.”

“ Every important person's history? What do you mean by important?”

“ Lopaka is the son of a chief, Chief.”

Parry's mouth swung open a moment before he continued his interrogation. “A chief? A chief on Molokai? What's his name… no, don't tell me. Kowona.”

“ Precisely.”

“ And so what happened? The chief banished his own son, or sent him away to college?”

“ Sent him away to school, but on learning that the boy was not attending school and instead squandering his money on a young woman, and then when he married without the father's permission, he was banned from the island.”

“ Not because he kills young girls? But because he marries a girl here, he's banished?”

“ Island law makes about as much sense as white law, my friend. Besides, the chief never believed his son truly evil.”

“ Everyone knew about this story?”

“ It was repeated so many times it took on the quality of a legend, or as you say, fairy tale.”

“ Which is it? Truth or fiction?”

“ Look around you, Parry,” said Kaniola, waving a hand like a wand into the Hawaiian night sky. “Who can say what in Hawaii is truth, what is myth?”

“ I see…”

“ Like your white urban myths.”

“ So no one thought this guy anything but harmless?”

“ On the contrary, you heard what Suzy and her mother said about him, but then, there's thousands of islanders, both Polynesians and Samoans, who are alcoholic, cruel and crazy.”

“ That's a fact.”

“ Just as there are as many whites with the same attributes, including your men in uniform at the bases. So why would anyone single out Lopaka Kowona as the most likely candidate to be a psychopath?”

“ If someone had come forward, maybe your son and Thom Hilani and some forty-five young women would be alive today.”Kaniola hung his head at the mention of his son's name. “But you know, same as I, that nobody did… come forward.”

“ His wife, Kelia, from the mainland. You know about her?”

“ I knew she ran away from here.”

“ Did your son, Alan, know about the Kowonas?”

“ Course not. I didn't even know much. This was a long time after the first disappearance, long before DNA matching became standard practice, and there was no real evidence anyone had actually been murdered. You know how active the slave trade is around here. For long time we all thought the wife was abducted or dead. Besides, my boy wasn't even in the academy yet. I never heard the story until Lopaka's name was put on the wires yesterday. Ever'body in the family heard the wife's story of abuse and her suspicions but ever'body also dismissed it.”

“ Why's that?”

“ The family believed Kelia was just lashing out, trying to hurt him, so they'd dismissed it.”

“ Same as the HPD?”

“ I'm telling you that Lopaka's wife informed the Honolulu cops of her suspicions. But then the suspicions of a wife are often ignored.”

“ Well, Joe, thanks for the education. Dr. Coran's working on trying to get the wife on a plane back here.”

“ From what I hear, she'll never return; she fears him too much.”

“ Well, we'll see.”

“ If you do get her back, I'd like to interview her myself.”

“ I'll see what can be arranged.”

They parted on much better terms than they'd ever enjoyed in the past. “Could've knocked me over with a pillow when I learned the killer was one of us and one of you, hapa haole; in a sense, from the beginning, I guess, we were both right about the racial makeup of the killer,” said Kaniola, walking him out to his car. “I hope it doesn't foretell the future.”

“ I don't possess any crystal ball and I'm no prophet, but I'm sure Oahu hasn't seen the last of Kowona's kind. I just hope your people and mine can cooperate better than we have on this case.”

He nodded. “I welcome that day.”

“ As I've said before, Joe, I'm sorry you lost your son to this maniac.”

“ When you catch him. Chief Parry, just make sure he's put away in the deepest hole you can find at Dillingham.”

Once again Parry privately thought that life in the state pen was hardly appropriate. “We're going to do our damndest on that score.”

“ But you can guarantee nothing, I'm afraid.” Parry shrugged, saying, “What with the intricacies and complications of the system?”

“ A simple justice is all we ask.”

“ A simple justice… sounds like an antiquated idea in our times, Mr. Kaniola-”

“ Joe, call me Joe.”

“- but as I said, Joe, we'll prosecute with everything we have, which is considerable, and we hate this bastard as passionately as you, but that's not for print.”

“ Understood.” Kaniola managed a half smile and slapped him on the back. “I'm confident you will have him in custody within a day or so.”They shook hands and Parry motored off for his house and some much-needed sleep. Along the way, he radioed in, telling Tony about the jungle theory and that the Army should be contacted and asked to help out on a sweep of the mountainous terrain just above and around the Lopaka house. Helicopters might also be dispatched for a wider sweep.

Gagliano thought it a good idea as no evidence that the murdering Kowona had gotten off the island either by plane or boat had surfaced. “Sure,” Gagliano said on the other end, “he hasn't gone anywhere. The creep's up there in the greenery like a murdering ape, ready to take up where he left off as soon as everything cools off. Bastard's become an animal, Jim.”

“ Any luck at the museum and where he worked?”

“ Bus line acts' if he never sat in a bus, as if they'd fired him a year ago.”

“ They fire him?”

“ No, hell; they just want to make out as if he didn't belong to them, get me?”

“ Got it.”

“ Act as if they know as much about him as they do the motors under the hood, you follow? Did some cursing down there.”

“ What about the museum?”

“ Nada, but they were real interested in the sword.”

“ You didn't give them the damned sword, did you?”

“ Hell, no, just a copy of the photo. Tellin' you, Jimbo, they went like nuts for it. Recognized it, too.”

“ Recognized it?”

“ Said it was from the Kowona dynasty, which I ain't never heard of, but then-”

“ Get to the point, Tony!”

“ The point, Jim, is this: It came from an ancient tribal group that once lived on Kahoolawe.”

Kahoolawe, the forbidden isle, the island where even the FBI had no juice; the island that was now protected as a last bastion of Hawaiian culture and religion, supporting a lifestyle that had no room for deformed or maladjusted children, a land truly meant for the ancient rites and simple justice that Kaniola had referred to, a land like remote Molokai which had spawned Lopaka, a land which had spawned this beautifully ornamented, ceremonial sword he'd used on his victims, which the Bishop Museum people might kill for…

Parry next asked Dispatch to put him through to Lau's labs to speak to Jessica to learn what was going on at her end.

In a moment she came on a bit breathless, telling him of her bizarre phone conversation with Kelia Laliiani and the fact that the HPD had been warned years before-and quite recently-about Lopaka Kowona, but that she'd been ignored.

“ Why the hell didn't she contact us?” he asked.

“ I asked her that on a follow-up call.”

“ What did she say?”

“ She was told by a brother that telling the HPD was the same as telling the FBI.”

“ That's some excuse.”

“ She also said she didn't know Hawaii had an FBI bureau.”

“ It's always been a fairly well kept secret, yeah. People!”

“ The important thing here, Jim, and I want you not to go crazy if I tell you… promise?”

“ What?”

“ Promise me you won't go ballistic?”

“ Goddamnit, Jess, out with it.”

“ The guy she wrote to at the time was the captain of a major precinct who'd been working the disappearances.”

“ Scanlon, yeah, I know he was working the original cases. Got that from my own research, but-”

“ She read about him in the Ala Ohana and sent him a letter directing him to check Lopaka Kowona and his place out, but nothing was done, or so she believes.”

“ Something was done, Jess,” he countered.

“ What? How do you know?”

“ It was filed away with every one of thousands of unsolicited letters regarding the disappearances. Scanlon was up for P.C., and the case was a drag on his career and he knew it. He found a drawer and lost the case file for as long as it took. In the meantime, each year since, there've been more disappearances, and Scanlon's been blackmailed ever since.”

“ Blackmailed? Christ, by whom? You don't mean Joe-”

“ Whoa, whoa, I was speaking figuratively, sweetheart.”

“ Jeez, we don't need another complication in this mess.”

'Tell me about it, but Scanlon's running scared now. You saw him at the scene. He's being blackmailed by his own damned conscience, and I can't blame him. Hell, I know he's an airhead politico with ambitions and a finger up his ass, but he's also got a decent side that has to be ripped by all this.”

“ You think so?”

“ Well, yeah, I believe so.”

“ Then hold onto your seat, love.”

“ What's that?”

“ Scanlon was contacted by Kelia again after his two cops were killed out at Koko Head. She tried to revive her earlier complaints against her 'crazy,' estranged husband, but once again Scanlon ignored her.”

“ He didn't completely ignore her the first time around, Jess. According to police reports of the time, he dispatched a squad car to look into Mr. Kowona's doings, but they came back empty- handed. Hell, I saw the same complaint and follow-up myself, but amid the thousands of others… well, it meant very little.”

“ So? What about after Kaniola and Hilani were gunned down? Scanlon ignored her again.”

“ It was no longer his case. He's the commish now, so if anyone was told to look into it, which I doubt, it'd have to be a direct order from him. It was probably handled as just another crackpot call.”

“ Letter… she wrote him from California.”

“ Mail to the police, even addressed to the P.C., goes through thirty steps before it lands on the proper desk, and with a politically involved guy like Scanlon, you're looking at weeks before he opens his mail unless it had a return address to the mayor or the governor. In point of fact, a secretary probably re-routed the letter before he ever had a chance to see it. Still, somebody in the chain must've spoken to him about it and it clicked some tumbler in his memory, because he did in the end send a squad car around to check on Lopaka, and that's how Lopaka's car was spotted. I only learned of it because I was with Ivers when that baby-faced cop Janklow wanted to personally tell Ivers about it. I immediately got HPD to hold off only because Scanlon was away, something about a fund-raiser on Maui.”

“ How's your friend's eyes?” she asked.

“ Healing, prognosis for recovery is good. Anyway, now we both understand why Scanlon wanted control of the crime scene the other day. Why he was so damned adamant. Now he's running scared; now he really is vulnerable to blackmail, and maybe one day I'll collect on that note.”

“ Let 'im sweat, huh?”

'Teach him to prick around in my cases.”

“ I'm sure he's saying precisely the same about you right now. Better watch your back.”

“ Yeah, I've given that some thought. Remember what happened to my LTD? That bastard ordered his cops to stand down on that. I had a creepy feeling about it when it happened, but now I know.”

“ Jesus, Jim, be careful out there. Where are you now?”

“ Just pulling into my driveway.”

“ Don't leave your car out.”

“ Yeah, next thing you know there'll be a ticking package in the mail for me.”

“ You're joking, right?”

“ Just one favor, dear.”

“ What's that?”

“ Promise me you'll get the evidence on the bastard to put him away if anything should ever happen to me.”

“ Nothing's going to happen to you.”

“ Promise?”

“ Nothing's going to happen to you-”

“ Promise!”

“- 'cause you won't let it happen, not if you… care about me.”

“ So, anything new in the slab lab?”

“ Shore and I were right about the nature of the wounds. She died of bloodletting… accompanying shock, after which Kowona drove the blades through her with enough force to bring down a rhino. You get a sense he gets off on seeing the muscle spasms and the body dance on impact, but first he had to draw his tattoo patterns over the flesh.”

“ Concerned about taboos,” said Parry. “Say again?”

“ The true native doesn't make a move without blessing every this-and-that in sight; the ornamental slashes were to bless the offering, make it as pure or puree as flesh gets, I suppose, for the gods.”

“ Who've you been talking to?”

“ Got some info from a university prof.”

“ Hmmmm… Sounds like Kaniola's great-granduncle.”

“ Yeah, well, Joseph says the streets are stone cold for information on Lopaka's whereabouts. He could be anywhere. Could be in California, going for the real Kelia… could be on another island, or he could be under our noses.” He quickly explained Kaniola's theory that Lopaka was hiding out in the Koolau Mountains.

“ God, from what I saw up there at Lomelea's shrine… hell, the bastard could disappear in a moment if a helicopter passes over. A foot search'll be difficult, time-consuming and costly,” she said thoughtfully.

“ Whatever it takes. Tony's calling out the Army-Navy guys now.”

“ You get some rest,” she told him. “I can hear tired coming through the line.”

They said good night and Parry, having parked in his garage and having cut off the motor, wearily pulled himself from the car. In the shadows, just outside the unlit garage, there stood a man as tall as Jim, staring. Unable to see anything metallic in the man's hand, Jim nonetheless momentarily wondered if he'd be found dead here the next morning, a. 38 slug in his chest. The figure could be only one man, he surmised. “Scanlon? What the hell're you doing here?”

“ Been waiting for you to get home now for some time, Jim. Wanted to apologize for yesterday… at the scene…”

“ Forgotten, old news. Commissioner.”

“ I… I want a truce, Jim, between you and me, I mean. I want our separate agencies to work in better harmony, you know that, you've got to know that.”

“ Sure, sure, I know that.” There was no gun in the man's hand, only a heavy weariness in his voice. He had been sweating, just as Jess had said, in dread fear that his oversights would be tomorrow's front-page story in Kaniola's Ala Ohana.

“ You spent some time with Kaniola today,” he said as if reading Parry's mind.

“ That's right. Look, Scanlon, you want to come inside for coffee or something and we can sit, talk?”

“ I didn't come for coffee. Parry, or any bullshit. I come to say I've been wrong, to say it like a man, to put it on the table. Maybe if I'd been more of a cop and less of a… a…”

“ Ambitious man?”

“… then maybe I'd have seen this creep for what he was the first time around.”

“ Or maybe the second?”

“ Damnit, Parry, there were a thousand leads; you know how many women get battered by their husbands and see a story in the papers and come running to us with some wild story about how her man's a rapist or serial killer or an alien from another friggin' world?” His laugh was hollow, unfelt. “Christ, we do… I did what I could. When I was working the case, I didn't have any help, no task force, nothing, and everybody-and I mean everyone- treated it like a street-sweeper job.”

“ A street-sweeper job?”

“ You know, so many derelicts off the streets, so who's going to miss 'em, right? That was the mentality I was dealing with when Price was P.C. I couldn't get manpower on the thing, and I was fucking inundated, and there were a string of high-rise robberies, a hostage deal and the visit from the damned Pope!”

It all sounded like a series of hollow excuses to Jim Parry, but he raised a hand to Scanlon and said, “Listen, Commissioner, that's all ancient history so far's I'm concerned. I haven't discussed this with anyone.”

He didn't include Jessica.

“ Certainly will never talk to Joe Kaniola about it, especially if relations between your office and mine are kept amenable.”

Scanlon, ever the politician, caught the veiled threat like a pro, his mitt held at just the right angle.

“ Sure, sure, Jim. Just like Shore said when he got back. We can learn from one another, support one another. Anything your office ever needs just-”

“ At the moment I do need every available officer for a sweep of the mountains above Lopaka's house. Whataya say?”

“ I can arrange it, sure. When?”

“ Tomorrow, daybreak. Have them coordinate with Agent Tony Gagliano and the Army.”

“ Not a problem. What else you need, Jim? Name it.”

“ Sleep, I need sleep, so good night, Commissioner.”

“ Yeah, good night. Chief… Jim.”

Parry had moved closer and closer to his kitchen door, and now he zapped the down button on his garage door, which clattered chain-and-drumlike in Scanlon's face. It gave Parry great satisfaction, the entire scene.