NEXT INSTALLMENT 
| NEXT INSTALLMENT
Near Peach Springs, AZ -- 10:50 AM MST
Quentin Yellowhawk stood beside his grandfather and watched, wide-eyed, as the helicopter hovered over the ravine. The man he had discovered was still trapped below.
Dust swirled furiously, but Quentin didn’t notice. His grandfather would gladly have gone back home, or at least moved further away from the swirling debris, but he had to stay. The boy would not leave.
A three-man rescue team was hard at work, trying to free the man without injuring him further. They finally managed to get him into a wire-mesh litter and start hauling him up.
One of the men standing near the edge of the precipice shouted to a man just below. The second man cupped his ear, indicating he could not hear. The first man shouted louder.
“I said, does he have any ID?” Quentin heard him ask.
“No,” said the second man, shaking his head. “No wallet, no ID. Nothing.”
Quentin flinched, then patted his pocket. He knew he should give the wallet to the chopper crew, but he didn’t. Something held him back.
The patient was loaded inside the aircraft. The leader of the rescue team climbed aboard. He waved to the boy and his grandfather and closed the sliding door.
Then the helicopter rose into the morning sky and flew away.
Pahoa Meat Packing Co., Pahoa Town, The Big Island, HI -- 8:00 AM Hawaii Time
Ohana, the Hawaiian word for family, has many meanings. It is used in the usual way, of course, to describe relationships between fathers, mothers, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins, but it also refers to other kinds of kinship. People from the same town or village who share no ancestors; whose parents and grandparents merely played together as children, for example – they too, are ohana.
In a larger context, ohana has also come to stand for a kind of informal social contract, a set of obligations, expectations and responsibilities shared by people who belong to a common group. In Western culture, the perceived obligation to loan money to a ne’er-do-well brother-in-law, for example, might be said by Hawaiians to spring from a sense of ohana.
Caleb and Joshua Keona’s parents had danced at Moses and Alana Pukuli’s wedding. Until his death, their father, like Moses, had served as a member of the Hilo Police department. The twins themselves had attended the same schools as the Pukulis’ nieces and nephews. Caleb and Joshua were ohana.
When, after their father’s death twelve years ago, they began having behavioral problems, Moses had tried to intervene. He had brought them to his home. He had talked to them. He had spent time trying to help them sort out their feelings of anger and grief. It had not been enough.
The boys fell in with a tough crowd. There were a series of arrests. Once, as passengers in a stolen vehicle, they had been pursued at high-speed and, along with their companions, apprehended by police. The second bust had been for possession of marijuana; five kilos. Three or four similar scrapes followed.
Shortly after their sixteenth birthday, a truly serious offense had finally landed them in real trouble: conspiracy to detonate an explosive device. They had been tried as adults and, in spite of the best efforts of Moses Pukuli and others, had drawn a sentence of 10 to 15 years.
Several times they came up for parole. Just that many times it was denied. On the most recent occasion, Pukuli, now a state representative, wrote a letter vouching for their character and offering employment at Pahoa Meat Packing should they be released and, at last, they were.
Today, Sunday, inside a glassed-in cubicle, the company’s HR director was putting in overtime in an effort to clear some busy work from his desk. Among his tasks was finding a place for Joshua and Caleb, the company’s newest employees. He disliked bothering people on their day off, but a call to the plant manager proved necessary.
“Have you seen these guys, Milt?” he was saying into the phone. “They’re fucking huge...I swear to god, if they were hauling ass they’d have to make four trips....and they’re not fat either, just big...What do you wanna do with ‘em? They’re staying with the Pukulis, so we gotta treat ‘em right. On the other hand, I don’t think Moses wants ‘em coddled...What do you think? The slaughterhouse?...Stunning and bleeding?...Yeah, good...they can also pull shifts with MOPS...on the rendering trucks...I think that’ll be a good fit...Absolutely. Wait until you get a load of these fellows, Milt. You’ll see. They could sling two pigs apiece all day long and never break a sweat.”
206 Kauwa Road, Pahoa Town, HI -- 11:30 AM Hawaii Time
Dickley stayed in his shack. He spent Friday and Saturday drawing Iggy’s death scene from eight different angles. The memories, the blood and gore, however, still plagued him.
On his ninth effort, he included himself in the picture and that helped. He relaxed a little.
Maybe that’s it, he thought. Maybe I have to be more accurate. It was then that he began trying to recall what else the woman had said to him. ‘Go and tell them’ was only part of it. He knew that. There was more.
Dickley chewed on the end of his pencil. He remembered something about poisoning people, about death and the number four, but that was all. He drew a larger text balloon on his most recent drawing, again with an arrow pointing toward the woman.
“Don’t poison four people to death,” he wrote in the balloon. “Go and tell them.”
That wasn’t quite right, Dickley knew, but it was the best he could do for now.
Mesa Urgent Care Center, Bullhead City, AZ – 12:20 PM MST
It was dark. Is this a room, he wondered, or a cave? How had he gotten to this place, wherever and whatever it was? Wait, he thought. That’s it. I’m asleep. I’m dreaming. He strained toward consciousness; struggled for feeling. Bit by bit, a few sensations returned.
He recognized the smell of disinfectant. He could feel movement. The squeal of rubber wheels on highly polished linoleum and the sound of people’s hurried conversations painted a picture in his mind. He was in a hospital, on some kind of cart, speeding down a corridor. The cart was called...what? Oh, yes. It was called a gurney.
“Is he conscious?” someone said. “Did he say something?”
“Sir? Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes? Can you tell me your name?”
His eyelids fluttered. Hazy contours and patterns of light passed overhead. For perhaps a second, a man wearing a pair gold rimmed glasses and a green surgical cap appeared in his peripheral vision.
“You’ve had an accident, sir,” said a voice. “You fell. Do you remember that?”
I fell? From where? Does that matter? No, no. That’s not important. There is something else that means more...much more. What is it? There’s something I have to do. Someone...no...two people...a woman...a child...they need me. Who are they?
“Sir?”
“He can’t hear you.”
“How bad is the head trauma?”
“It doesn’t appear extensive, but then we haven’t looked inside.”
“All right. Let’s take a look. Get some pictures. Check him for internal injuries. We’ll worry about the rest later.”
He strove to stay awake, fighting to remember. Then it came. The face of a woman sitting on a blanket at the beach appeared in his mind. Yes! That’s her! But what about the boy? Where’s the boy?
The strain was too much. His head swam. He felt himself drifting downward. No, no. I mustn’t sleep. I have to go, he thought. He tried to lift himself up. A strong hand gripped his shoulder, holding him down.
“Take it easy, sir. We’ve got you.”
His head was too heavy. He lay back and closed his eyes.
Desert Pioneer Hotel Kingman, AZ – 1:30 PM MST
The euphoric effect of amphetamine on Nachtmann’s bedraggled psyche had long since evaporated. In its place was a grumbling, itchy, blackness of spirit he was powerless to dispel.
He had failed. If Deborah Garrison was not already in Hawaii, she was certainly en route.
Is it possible, he wondered, that she has not yet realized what destiny has in store for us? He shook his head.
In any event, he was no longer needed in Kingman. The Garrison man was unimportant. He could be left to die in the desert. Nachtmann and his crew must return home.
Currently, he was overseeing the breakdown and packing of the surveillance gear. Only a few items remained: some video equipment, a monitor, and the satellite dish, still mounted on the balcony.
Seated, Nachtmann squirmed uncomfortably in the glare of 500 watts of TV lighting. A technician stood nearby, focusing the camera and adjusting the lights.
Moments from now in Hilo, an encrypted signal would beam toward a satellite hovering over the Pacific. The satellite would convey that signal to the dish on the hotel balcony. where it would be decoded before showing up on the video monitor.
The technician made a minor adjustment in the angle of a light stand. A bulb shone in Nachtmann’s eyes.
“For Christ’s sake man,” he said, holding a hand over his face. “Watch what you’re doing, why don’t you?”
At that instant, a sputter of static and a flickering picture announced the beginning of the teleconference.
“I would think, sir,” intoned a voice from the monitor, “that a man might hesitate to give orders which he, himself, has proven unable to follow.” Nachtmann turned toward the screen. There, on the display, was the prune-like and puckered face of ill-tempered billionaire, L. David Kane, his every feature exuding displeasure.
“You were represented to me as someone who is good at his job, Mr. Nachtmann. Perhaps my advisors were mistaken. How difficult could it be, I wonder, to locate and seize a defenseless housewife and her four year-old child?”
“She had help, sir,” Nachtmann began lamely.
“And you had none?” Kane growled. “Nearly two million in resources were squandered in this debacle. I ask you, if you were in my position and I in yours, what would you do?”
Nachtmann remained silent, filtering out the sting of his employer’s remarks by concentrating his attention elsewhere. At the moment, he was trying to decide which of Kane’s features was less attractive: the viscous, white ooze collecting in the corners of his mouth or his knobby and bewhiskered Adam’s apple, now bobbing up and down over his string tie.
“While I am mindful of the manner in which you secured your position,” Kane continued, referring to Nachtmann’s blackmail of a fellow director’s family, “that situation does not afford you unlimited protection.”
“Sir, I...” Nachtmann began.
“Shut up and listen” Kane said. Nachtmann started as if he’d been slapped. “You have three days...until Wednesday. Get the boy...any way you can. Kill the woman if you must. Keep her alive if you wish. Do anything, go anywhere you have to go. I don’t care. Just get the boy. Deliver him to me no later than 9:00 AM Wednesday. Or else.”
Nachtmann knew it was foolish. He tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. Kane’s
cavalier remark about Deborah had made him reckless.
“Or else what, sir?” he said.
“Or else it won’t matter to me if you have dirt on the devil himself. You’ll go down. Do you understand?”
“Mr. Kane...”
“Do...you...understand, sir?”
Though the TV lights continued to shine, Nachtmann could no longer see them. Huge black and red spots blinded him. A deafening roar filled his ears. For a moment, he thought he might pass out. At last, however, through the din of his senses, he somehow managed to speak.
“Yes, Mr. Kane,” he said.
“Good,” said Kane. “I hope, for your sake, that you do.”
Central Police Station, San Francisco, CA – 12:45 PM PST
Frederick dragged a hand down his face and looked again at his phone log. So far, he’d placed calls to General Briggs, the Air Police, the Operations Group, even the medical facility. He’d drawn a blank. No one took his calls and no one returned them.
One person he did manage to reach was Allen Kertz, Garrison’s financial advisor.
“Mr. Kertz,” he said, “this is Inspector Hal Frederick. I’m working with Jim Garrison on locating his wife.”
“Yes. Hello detective,” Kertz replied. “Have their been any developments? Is she OK?”
“We’re not sure, sir. I was hoping you could help.”
“Anything. Name it.”
“Are you authorized to check Mr. Garrison’s credit card accounts?” the inspector asked.
“Yes.”
“Do me a favor, then. Call them and let me know if there’s been any activity in the last twelve hours. Mrs. Garrison may have some of his cards as well as her own. Mr. Garrison isn’t here right now and I need some fast information.”
“I thought the police could check credit card activity.”
“We can,” Frederick said, “but that would mean getting a warrant and I need this fast.”
“Oh, of course,” Kertz said. “Sorry, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll get right back to you.”
“Great, and if you can’t reach me, ask for Paul Wingate.”
The inspector hung up the phone and sat with his eyes closed.
After a few moments, he straightened up, reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a business card. He’d forgotten about the pilots of Garrison’s plane, Jennifer and Harry McGovern. Not only might they have heard from their boss but, if necessary, they could corroborate Frederick’s account of what had happened in Arizona. Frederick dialed their number and let it ring ten times. No one answered. He hung up just as Wingate returned from the coffee machine.
Frederick picked up his memo pad and read over the notes he’d made while interviewing Jim Garrison the previous day. “By the way,” he said to Wingate. “What’d you find out about Garrison’s houseman, Lewis Foo?”
“Oh, shit.” Wingate slapped his forehead. “I forgot all about that lying bastard.”
“He lied?” Frederick said. “About what?”
“Everything,” Wingate said. “To begin with, there’s no herbalist, no doctor or any other kind of medicine man at the number he gave you.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know,” said Wingate. “An embassy or something.”
“He wasn’t out sick then?” said Frederick.
Wingate shook his head. “And his phone records show no incoming calls during the time he said he talked to Mrs. Garrison. The only call in or out of his place from Wednesday through Saturday was when Mr. Garrison called him.”
“So,” Frederick said, “he wasn’t sick and he wasn’t at home.”
“And he’s still not,” said Wingate. “As of yesterday, he’s not anywhere. I waited at the Garrison house after the three of you left. Foo never came back there and he didn’t go home, either. He’s vanished.”
The phone rang. The inspector answered.
“Hal Frederick,” he said.
“Hal, it’s Bob Southwell again. I got hold of Agent Schmidt, but I’m afraid it did more harm than good.”
“What happened?”
“Schmidt hit the ceiling. He confirmed what Agent Carmichael in DC had already told me. He says Garrison went back home with you. He also said I should follow the same advice he gave to you...back off. He was pissed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he complains to the brass over your way.”
“Shit.”
“Sorry, Hal. I did my best. I think Schmidt’s got a little too much starch in his shorts.”
“Not a problem,” the inspector replied. “Actually, I expected this. Thanks anyway.”
Frederick switched to another line and dialed the McGovern’s. Again no one answered. He hung up.
“Here,” he said to Wingate, handing him the card. “Get the address on this number. If we don’t get moving, everybody in this case is going to disappear.”
Sausalito, CA –2:45 PM PST
The McGovern’s houseboat was one of many anchored in Richardson Bay, just north of Golden Gate Bridge in Sausalito. San Francisco was damp with fog but, just fifteen minutes away, the southernmost tip of Marin County basked in sunlight. Wingate pulled off Highway 1, onto the main drag and into a waterfront parking lot. He and Frederick got out of the car and crossed a short footbridge to a redwood walkway. Just over the water was the McGovern’s floating neighborhood.
“Which way?” Wingate asked. Frederick checked his memo pad against the addresses on the homes.
“Right,” he said.
Having come from the city, both men wore raincoats. A barefoot teenager in a tank top and cut off jeans cast a curious eye in their direction, as did a graying matron, out watering her plants in a sleeveless dress. From inside one of the houseboats, a young woman could be heard comforting a crying baby. But for that and the lapping of the waves, it was quiet.
“What’s the house number?” said Wingate.
“Sixty-seven,” Frederick replied, pointing. “That’s it, over there.”
The last houseboat on the pier, #67 Gatehouse Way, boasted the ultimate in Marin County cachet: a spectacular view of both Mount Tamalpais and San Francisco Bay. Frederick stopped in his tracks and stared. Since arriving here three decades ago, no day passed during which some Bay Area vista had not so affected him. What a town, he thought. What a place.
Planter boxes overflowing with jasmine and fuchsia lined the pathway. A hummingbird hung in midair, investigating an especially plump blossom. The two policemen walked under a redwood trellis to the entrance. Frederick knocked. The door creaked open. The inspector stuck his head inside, knocked on the doorjamb and called out.
“Hello? Jennifer? Anyone home? Harry?”
A small Yorkshire Terrier wearing a turquoise collar came to the door yapping.
“What’s that on his face?” Wingate said. “Is that blood?”
Frederick looked down. A dark crimson smudge stained the fur on the tiny dog’s muzzle. A trail of faint reddish footprints traced his path.
“What do you think?” Wingate said.
“I think that’s probable cause.”
They ducked inside, the dog at Frederick’s heels. The inspector took the downstairs, Wingate the sleeping loft on the second floor. For several minutes neither man spoke as they rummaged through the home, opening and closing doors, closets and storage spaces. Wingate came back down the steps.
“There’s nothing upstairs, Hal,” he said. Frederick did not answer. “Hal?”
A long drapery over a sliding door blew into the room. Wingate went to it and looked out onto the deck at the rear of the houseboat. Inspector Frederick had again stopped in his tracks, staring, but this time he was not looking at scenery.
There, on the deck, lay the prone and lifeless bodies of Jennifer and Harry McGovern, their hands tied behind their backs, a pool of blood by each of their heads. The tiny terrier sat, whimpering, nearby.
Wingate froze.
“Damn!” he said. “Is that them?”
“Yeah,” Frederick said. “Strike two.”
Wingate blew out a long breath. “Looks like a professional hit.” he said.
“Oh, yeah,” said the inspector, frowning. “Real fucking professional. Top of the line.” He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and opened them again. “How long have they been dead?”
Wingate went down on one knee beside Harry’s body. His fingernails and lips were pale, almost white. Most of the blood had drained away. Where the cheek touched the floor of the deck, Wingate could see what looked like dark bruises. This was lividity -- blood pooling. The skin was waxen and purplish. The eyes had begun sinking.
“Four hours,” Wingate said. “Five at the most.”
“I should have called them sooner.”
Wingate glanced back up at Frederick. “What are you saying?” he said. “That you’re responsible for this? Come on, man. It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, it is. I didn’t act fast enough. I forgot about them,” Frederick said. “I should have called when I found out that Schmidt was lying about Garrison.”
“Stop beating yourself up,” Wingate said. “You couldn’t have anticipated this.”
“It’s been right in front of me all day,” Frederick said. “It was in both those news items I got from the radio station.”
“What?”
“That name of that charity...the Faber-Brady Trust...it’s worth over $8 billion, Paul. That’s what this is all about. It has to be. For that kind of money, Sister Theresa would have whacked the McGoverns. I should have seen it coming.”
Office of J.B. Devlin, Department of Building and Safety, Hilo, HI -- 2:15 PM Hawaii Time
Born in Torrington, Connecticut, J.B. Devlin did not have far to travel when, upon graduating high school at the age of fourteen, he was awarded a full scholarship to Yale University. The campus was less than 40 miles from his grandparents home, where he lived.
In another sense, however, that short distance represented a leap of nearly one hundred years for the studious young recluse. Since his tenth birthday, when he’d received a three-volume set of books on the subject, J.B. Devlin had been completely immersed in another era entirely: the American Civil War. Left to his own devices, he would have used his scholarship to study history. His grandparents had other ideas.
“Take engineering,” they urged. “An engineer can always find a good job.”
Devlin reluctantly acquiesced but, in his spare time, continued to pore over whatever literature he could find, old or new, touching his favorite subject.
At sixteen, as a college sophomore, his interest surged higher when he discovered that abolitionist, John Brown, was a relative. That revelation piqued his curiosity regarding a whole new field of study: slave rebellions.
African-American slave leaders like Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner became as familiar to him as any general, blue or gray.
Stories of the downtrodden bondslaves were pitiful; their unremitting abuse, heartbreaking. It thrilled J.B. to read of their uprisings, but puzzled him that, even though buttressed by the twin virtues of passion and righteousness, they invariably failed.
Then, one afternoon, while rereading Plutarch’s account of the slave rebel Spartacus, Devlin had an epiphany. These insurrections, he suddenly realized, did not fail for want of passion or integrity. They failed for want of capital.
To Devlin’s way of thinking, his ancestor, John Brown, had been on the right track when, in October of 1859, he raided Harper’s Ferry in an attempt to appropriate 100,000 weapons with which to arm slaves. The direction was right, Devlin thought, but it’s goal was misguided. Instead of guns, he should have gone after money.
Money is more portable and, when used properly, more persuasive.
With cash, he reasoned, Nat Turner could have bought supplies and gathered followers through influence and guile rather than murder and pillage. With cash, Spartacus and his army might have purchased boats and made good their escape from Italy. With cash, John Brown could have acquired, more-or-less legally, what he’d been unable to steal.
J.B. Devlin brooded over these thoughts for the remainder of his college career, all the while longing for some means by which he might test his theories. Toward the end of his senior year, he discovered the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement. Upon graduation, he accepted a position with the Hilo Department of Building and Safety.
It was from this humble position that J.B Devlin hoped to leap into the pages of history.
Pahoa Police Substation, Puna District, The Big Island, HI -- 2:30 PM Hawaii Time
A groundskeeper at the ancient temple, Mo’okini Heiau, made the fearful discovery just after daybreak that morning. While shooing away a noisy group of quarreling seagulls from the sacrificial alter, he came across what first appeared to be animal entrails. Closer examination revealed that the items were, in fact, pieces of human flesh.
“I thought it was fish bait,” the man had told investigating officers.
Police in the North Kohala District were aware of what had become known as R2M, the ritual murder/mutilation cases in neighboring Puna. The groundskeeper’s gruesome find was connected in some way, surely.
They contacted Sergeant Wicks at the Pahoa Police substation shortly after noon. At 12:30 PM, Wicks placed a call to the congressman’s home. Upon receiving the call, Pukuli left immediately, bound for the substation.
By the time he arrived, additional evidence was available: photographs of the scene, and confirmation, based on comparing the newly discovered tissue with DNA taken from the four dead drug dealers, that the body parts were theirs.
“Let me see the R2M case file,” Moses said. Wicks produced a three inch thick rust colored accordion envelope, the so-called ‘murder book.’ Moses pulled out the four smaller folders containing background information on the dead men.
What do we know about these people, Moses asked himself. He made a list.
At one time, they had all been drug dealers
They had all died by the same means if not by the same hand
They had all died within a five mile radius
Pukuli lined up their photos, placing them side-by-side on the desk top. People are seldom at their best in mug shots. These four, grim and unkempt, were no exception. Two of the men had worn their hair long and sported goatees. One had the crew cut look of a 1950’s collegiate. The other, Edmond ‘Iggy’ Arnold, had a shaved head and wore a nose ring.
Their faces are different and so are their styles, Pukuli thought, but the eyes are all the same.
In his days as a policeman, Congressman Pukuli had seen eyes like these more times than he could count. It was not just that they appeared hostile. Almost everyone being photographed by a police camera looks angry. No, what he saw in these men went beyond resentment. There was no mistaking it. Gazing out from each of these photographs was the flat, cold-blooded stare of a psychopath.
What else might they have in common, Pukuli wondered. He kept looking.
He lined up their rap sheets, the chronological lists of each individual’s arrests and indictments. As expected, their histories showed them to be career criminals with violent tendencies. Arrests for strong-arm robbery, assault and domestic violence showed up under each name.
He ran his finger down the columns, checking for overlapping dates and places of incarceration, common associates, employers or any other kind of shared relationships. He found none. Even their residences were far afield. They had lived on different islands.
Something else must have tied these men together, Moses said to himself, but what?
Bistro Bernardo, San Francisco, CA – 6:45 PM PST
Hannah Frederick sat in a corner booth nursing a glass of pinot blanc, waiting for Hal. Bistro Berrnardo was the site of one of their first dates. They returned whenever possible, as much for sentimental reasons as for the live jazz and grilled monkfish.
Sunday nights, the restaurant drew only a few diners. Two couples sat nearby. A lone man occupied a booth next to the kitchen. The lights were dim. A solo piano player brooded over Benny Golson’s classic, “I Remember Clifford.”
Hannah took a compact mirror from her purse and checked her lipstick. When she looked up, Hal was standing tableside. She smiled as he leaned over for a kiss.
“Hi, sweetie,” Hannah said, noting his expression. “Tough day?”
“The toughest,” Frederick replied. He took off his coat and sat down opposite her. “Garrison’s gone missing.”
“Missing? I thought the FBI had him.”
“They claim he came back to San Francisco with me.”
“But...”
“It’s their word against mine.”
“Someone else must know, surely,” Hannah said. “What about the people at the air base?”
“Federal employees, protecting their own,” said Frederick. “I contacted everyone there. Even the general won’t return my calls.”
“Garrison’s crew? They’re not federal employees.”
“They’re not anyone’s employees anymore. Paul and I found them at their home in Sausalito, dead...murdered.”
Hannah gasped.
“A hit,” Frederick said.
Her face went pale. “Oh, god,” she said. “Shades of 1967.”
“What do you mean?” Frederick asked. “What happened in ’67?”
Hannah leaned forward and spoke in hushed tones.
“That’s when Deborah’s parents died. There was conspiracy talk then, too.”
“What conspiracy?” he said. A waiter appeared, left a pair of menus and took Hal’s drink order. Hannah waited until he’d gone before continuing.
“Deborah Garrison’s parents, Isaac and Rebecca Faber were...well, sympathetic toward the Hawaiian people. Isaac sat on the board of the trust. The talk was, he was trying to make some changes in the charter and they killed him for it.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Frederick said, holding up his hand. “You’re telling me this story like I already knew what you were talking about. Which trust? What charter? Who are ‘they?’”
Hannah leaned in. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I guess since everyone in Hilo knows this story so well, I assume the rest of the world knows it, too.”
Frederick looked around the restaurant. “Why are you whispering?” he asked.
Hannah giggled. A woman at the table across from them looked over and smiled.
“Old habits die hard,” Hannah said. “Back home, we instinctively keep quiet about the Faber-Brady Trust. We’re afraid not to.”
“OK, if you had my attention before,” Frederick said, “you’ve really got it now. Yesterday, I’d never heard of the Faber-Brady Trust. Today, it’s everywhere I turn.”
“I don’t really know much about it...about how it works, I mean.”
“What do you know?”
Hannah sipped her wine. “I remember that it was started by a descendent of a high ranking ali’i family.”
“Ali’i?” Hal said.
Hannah slapped his hand teasingly. “You’ve been married to a Hawaiian woman for all this time and you still don’t know what an ali'i is? It means noble. The ali’i were tribal chiefs. They ran things back in the old days.”
“And one of those ali'i guys started a trust?”
“One of the girls, actually,” Hannah said. “She was the last of her line. That’s why she inherited everything.”
“If it was started by a Hawaiian, why is it called the Faber-Brady Trust? Shouldn’t it have an Hawaiian name?”
“She married an American,” Hannah said, “a descendant of one of the missionary families. Lots of ali’i women did. That’s how she wound up with the name Faber. Her maiden name was Akela...Luella Akela Faber. She would have been Deborah Garrison’s great-great-great great-aunt.” Hannah counted the ‘greats’ on her fingers.
“I thought you didn’t know anything about the trust.”
“I don’t,” said Hannah, “but I know about the families. Like I said, old habits die hard. Hawaiians had no written language until the Europeans came. That’s why memory is so highly valued, even today...especially memory concerning lineage.”
The waiter brought Frederick’s drink and took both their orders. After he’d gone, Hal raised his glass.
“To your powers of recall,” he said, clinking her glass. “What’s a great-great-great great-aunt?”
“Your great-aunt is an aunt of your mother or father. A great-great-aunt is an aunt of one of your grandparents. A great-great-great-great...”
Frederick smiled. “I get it, I get it,” he said. “But I’ve seen photos of Deborah Garrison. She looks like Miss Sweden. How could she be a blood relative of an Hawaiian woman?”
“Her Hawaiian ancestry goes back several generations, Hal. It’s only a fraction of her genetic makeup. With that kind of mixture, there are African Americans who look as white as Deborah Garrison.”
“Good point. All right, then. What happened to her parents?”
Hannah leaned forward, lowering her voice again. “As I said, Deborah’s father, Isaac, was on the board of directors of the Faber-Brady Trust. It was an hereditary position. What I remember was that he wanted to make some changes to the charter and the other board members were against it. Things got ugly. The next thing we knew, Isaac and Rebecca were dead.”
“How did it happen?”
“Auto accident, supposedly. Isaac and Rebecca’s bodies were fished out of the ocean, but the car was never recovered. Everyone assumed they’d been murdered.”
“That’s a big leap, don’t you think?”
“The feeling was that Isaac wanted to get back to the spirit of the original charter and the board members liked the status quo.”
“And the status quo was...?”
Hannah shook her head. “I really have no idea,” she said. “Sorry I can’t tell you more.”
Frederick took a long breath and gazed into his glass. “You’ve told me plenty.”
After a few minutes their food arrived. They’d both ordered monkfish.
“Um,” Hannah said, taking a bite and closing her eyes dreamily. “This is so good.” She glanced across the table. Her husband, still staring into space, hadn’t touched his food. “Hey, you,” she said. Frederick looked up. “Come on. Enough about work. Eat. Animate yourself. Ask me about my day.”
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “How was your day?”
“Great. I volunteered at St. Anthony’s...did a little window shopping, then I stopped by the shop for a few minutes. Um, that reminds me, when I got there, there was a message from Moses on the machine. It was very mysterious. He says he’s got some kind of surprise planned.”
“I knew it,” Frederick said. “He bought me a pony. I’ve always wanted a pony.”
Hannah giggled again. “Could be” she said. “I couldn’t reach him. We’ll find out tomorrow.”
Hannah took another bite of food, then looked back at her husband, who had once again lapsed into a reverie.
“Come on, Hal,” she said, touching his hand. “Eat.”
Faber-Brady Trust Executive Offices, Hilo, HI -- 10:45 PM Hawaii Time
L. David Kane, for forty-seven years the executive director and chief financial officer of the Faber-Brady Trust, harrumphed and threw his newspaper aside. A headline in the metro section disturbed him. “Faber-Brady Bombers Released,” it read.
A decade earlier, the young men to whom the headline referred, Caleb and Joshua Keona, had been convicted of planning to destroy Mr. Kane’s fondest creation.
By far the tallest structure within city limits, the Faber-Brady Building stood 24 stories high, dwarfing adjacent edifices along the south shore of Hilo Bay. The project had never been popular. Local jokesters, taking their cue from the building’s stiff rectangular shape and granite skin, had wasted no time in giving it a waggish nickname: ‘the Hilo Headstone.’
Shortly before the building’s completion in 1983, Caleb and Joshua, then 16, hatched an ill-fated scheme to destroy it with homemade explosives. From the beginning, the plot was doomed. To begin with, the charges themselves were inadequate. They would never have done sufficient damage. Expert testimony at their trial established beyond a doubt that, had the Keona twins not cooperated in disarming the device, the ensuing explosion would have done little more than scorch the concrete. Add to that the fact that their consciences would not allow him to actually detonate the bomb, and the recipe for failure was complete.
Nevertheless, at their trial and at the insistence of L. David Kane, the maximum penalty was exacted. The boys were tried as adults and convicted, then sentenced to not less that ten and no more than fifteen years imprisonment. Kane was incensed at what he called “the leniency of the punishment.”
“It’s an outrage,” he was quoted as saying. “It’s our duty to teach these people proper behavior. This is no longer their land to do with as they please. They must learn that. Our choice is simple: either urge them down the path toward progress or watch them return to the pagan savagery of their heathen ancestors.”
It struck Kane as cruelly ironic that, on the day after these terrorists’ release, he, Kane, was being forced to deal with exemplars of the selfsame pagan savagery of which he had spoken ten years earlier.
“The Council of Kahunas,” he said to himself. Kane spoke quietly, but his feelings were plain. “A convocation of clowns, that’s more like it.”
For the third time in twenty minutes, he picked up a communiqué from the Council of Kahunas’ attorneys and read a highlighted paragraph:
“Pursuant to the death of the Reverend Dr. Faber Heath, an hereditary member of the board of directors of the Faber-Brady Trust (hereinafter referred to as the trust), and in keeping with the bylaws of that trust, it is incumbent upon Mr. L. David Kane, executive director and chief financial officer, to locate and install an appropriate replacement for Dr. Heath within ‘a reasonable period.’ Failing in that responsibility will result in the default of all Faber-Brady Trust assets, both real and fiduciary, to the care and keeping of our clients, the Council of Kahunas.”
The tone of the letter was unbearably arrogant. Kahunas, indeed. Why, the very word was an insult. In the Hawaiian language, kahuna meant ‘priest’ or ‘wise man.’ To call these animals priests was a sacrilege; to suggest they possessed wisdom, patently ridiculous.
In the days before white men came, kahunas had been relegated to advising farmers when to plant and fishermen where to fish. Conjuring about nature and animal husbandry, that’s what they’re good for, Kane thought. They should stick to that. The very idea that a gaggle of barbaric soothsayers could legally seize control of billions of dollars in cash and assets was unspeakable, insane, preposterous and intolerable.
Kane was in torment. He fidgeted incessantly, occasionally wiping the sweat from his upper lip with a leathery forefinger. There was no getting around the facts. The authority of the Faber-Brady charter was unimpeachable, and the meaning of the term ‘reasonable period’ had been decided by the courts. He had until Wednesday, three short days to find Faber Heath’s successor. After that, were he to fail, he was finished. There could be no resurrection, no second chance.
A cloud came over the executive director’s face. Respecting the potential collapse of his personal empire, his decision had been made.
“I forbid it,” Kane said to himself. “I absolutely forbid it.”
Near Peach Springs, AZ -- 11:15 PM MST
“I can’t sleep, Grandfather,” Quentin said. The old man did not stir. He had heard the boy enter his room. He had seen the dim shadow cast by the door as it opened from the outer room. But turning in bed was hard work. It pained his back, so he lay still.
“Have some of the goat’s milk,” the old man said. “That will help you sleep.”
“No. That won’t help.” This was what the boy always said to his grandfather, no matter what the topic, no matter what the advice. The old man sighed and made his usual reply.
“How do you know it won’t help if you don’t try it, Quentin?”
“I just know, that’s all.”
The old man said nothing. I’ll just lie here, he thought. Perhaps the boy will grow tired of waiting and go away.
“Grandfather...” Quentin began.
“I know, I know,” his grandfather said. “You can’t sleep. Go tell your mother. Maybe you can get in the bed with her.”
“No, Grandfather, I can’t. She’ll be mad.”
At this, Quentin’s grandfather began to turn over, groaning as he did.
Over the past two years, the boy and his mother had been frequently at odds. Quentin’s father, the old man’s son, had been killed in a hunting accident. The loss had been hard on them both.
It was worth some pain in his back, the old man thought, if he could help ease some of the tension between them.
“Your mother won’t be mad at you for not being able to sleep, Quentin.”
“I know that.”
“What then?”
“She’ll be mad at the reason I can’t sleep, Grandfather.”
“What do you mean, boy?” Quentin lifted his hand and showed something to his grandfather. The old man squinted in the near darkness.
“It’s his, Grandfather,” the boy said. “It’s a wallet. It belongs to that man who fell. I took it.” Quentin did his best, but he couldn’t help himself. He began to cry. The old man reached out and pulled the boy closer, then wiped his tears.
The old man was puzzled. This was not like his grandson. The boy was dreamy and fanciful, yes, and he often acted in ways that were difficult to understand, but he was not greedy. He was not a thief.
“Why did you take it, Quentin?” he asked. “And why didn’t you tell the men in the helicopter that you had it?”
The boy stood silently in the darkness. For almost a minute he said nothing.
“I don’t know, Grandfather. I don’t know.”
Almost since birth, Quentin had been an enigma. He was very smart. By the age of three he could read a newspaper. At five he could multiply large numbers and do long division in his head. The teacher at the reservation school said he had a gift.
Quentin also heard voices, though, and he saw things no one else could see. His grandfather was afraid that the boy’s gift had come at a price.
“Sometimes I do things I think are bad,” Quentin said, “but I do them anyway, even though it makes part of me hurt. Like now.”
“Come lay down beside me, Quentin,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll find the man and give him back his wallet.”
Quentin climbed into bed next to his grandfather, his back to the old man’s stomach. His grandfather placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“I thought about the circle of events today, Grandfather,” he said.
“You did? How?”
“I thought about how losing the chickens led me to the man in the ravine. The chickens got lost, but the man got found.”
“Ah,” the old man said. “I see.”
They lay still in the darkness for several minutes. From far away the cry of a lone coyote drifted over the desert and into their cottage. Quentin turned around and faced the old man. There was no moon, but the boy’s eyes had grown used to the darkness and he could see the old man’s wrinkled face clearly.
“Grandfather?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think that keeping the man’s wallet might be like losing the chickens?”
“What do you mean?”
“Could it be a bad thing that leads to a good thing?”
“Perhaps, Quentin,” said the old man. “I don’t know. Go to sleep now. We’ll talk more later.”
