Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

Looking back along the path they'd followed, far in the distance she could see the city of Honolulu stretching out like a serpentine creature, the skyscrapers like its knobby and horned backbone where they stood in a row along the coastal waters several hundred feet below.

If she squinted, she could make out the enormous crater called the Punchbowl, Puu-owaina, Hill of Sacrifice, where the remains of American soldiers, sailors and marines and famous Hawaiian nationals reposed in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Closer to her, she made out the man-made canals created in the 1800s by engineers to take the mountain rains to the sweeping flatlands of the coasts on either side, land which would otherwise be in a constant state of drought. She could see from this vantage that the islands were a playground for nature, which had created broad paint strokes of every hue.

Kaniola stopped in his tracks just ahead of her, bowed before the entrance to his great-granduncle's home and stepped through the humble little cottage door. It was cool and damp inside, a natural form of air-conditioning, and candles lit their way to the rear where the old man, all skin and bones, lay in a cot that was little more than a rickety hammock. A Hawaiian Ghandi, she thought on seeing him. He wore the same wire-rim spectacles that Ghandi had worn.

On hearing their approach, he sat up. Bare-chested, he quickly placed a muumuu over himself the way a woman might. He didn't bother tying the baggy dress and his shape and tiny arms were lost in its billowy folds and flowered print, only the small brown face and white head showing at the top.

The models at Hilo Hattie's five-and-dime shops in Honolulu had nothing to fear from this competition, she told herself, stifling a smile at the wizened old creature.

“ Forgive appearance of old men,” the wheezing voice that came out of the prune face said. The man had obviously lost all his teeth and could not bother with dentures, as attested to by the sunken gums and the empty apple-sauce jars that littered his home.

“ You are Kaniola's great-granduncle?” she asked, feeling a bit uncomfortable with her surroundings.

“ Lomelea”-he pointed to himself-“I… am…” He spoke at a snail's pace and was hard to decipher. “And I… did… see you.”

“ Yes, in a newspaper maybe, or on television?”

He only laughed. “I live here. Do you see TV? Don't have it. Won't allow it. Western pilau!”

He put as much emphasis into the word pilau as his frail form could muster. Kaniola hadn't lied about the probable age of the old man.

“ How can I help you, Mr. Lomelea?”

“ It is… the killing one… You are close, but you see only his shadow…”

The old man had no idea how accurate that sounded, but she did. “We're getting closer,” she simply said.”You be near. I see you both… in my red dream.”

“ You've seen us both?”

She tried not to sound too disappointed in having come all this way for nothing.

“ He is… one of us.” The old man's head shook sadly, independent of his body, like that of a marionette, the strings moved by the wind flowing through the open-air back room where he slept.

She silently wondered how many times the 'old man's shrine, over his lifetime, had been demolished by the angry island gods, only to be painstakingly rebuilt like the proverbial house of straw.

“ A cathedral it is not…” he said in shaky English as if reading her thoughts, “but ground is sanctified, and me… a holy man.”Wishing she hadn't come, and wishing to get this behind her, she said, “What can you tell me about the killer, Mr. Lomelea?”

“ He has fire hair.”

“ Fire hair?”

“ Red, rusty-colored, natty hair of many of our people,” Kaniola explained for her. She recalled Terri Reno's description, and the police sketch, and it fit. She realized that by now Kaniola and every other newsman in the islands had a copy of both the sketch and the description. Could Joe have cued his old relative with the information?

“ You have… healthy doubt. Good, I respect,” said the old man. “More I tell you. With heart you listen.”

With that the old man squatted and called on his trance state to enable him to reveal more about the monster roaming his island. His gibberish was in Hawaiian, however, and she did not understand until Kaniola translated.

“ Laulima…”

Kaniola said, “Community food patch, cooperation, working together.”

The old man continued on, unstoppable. “A'ohe launa ka make 'u…”

“ No fear, friendly, sociable, yet there's no limit to the fear that is no fear,” explained Kaniola.

“… Keiki lawehala… lawe kahili…”

“ What's he saying?”

“ Sin, no… sinner, evil sinner, delinquent son of'-Kaniola hesitated-”of bearer of the feather standard.”

“ What does that mean?”

“ Royalty…”

The old man seemed in another realm now, his eyes rolled back in his head so that all she could see were the whites. His speech was being taped by Kaniola, and for the first time she realized this fact.

“ Can you be more specific?” she asked, wondering how she could possibly use what the old man had had to say so far. His glazed-eye trance routine had been perfected over time.

“ Lawehana,” he continued.

Kaniola engaged the old man in their native tongue. “Lawehana? “

“ A me lawe hanai, eia ho 'i lawehana.”

“ Both?”

“ What?” asked Jessica.

'The killer, he says, is both a grown man and a child, a common laborer and an adopted child.”

“ Adopted?” she asked.

“ Halfway so, yes.”

How was someone halfway adopted? she wanted to scream. Still, she patiently listened as the old man continued.

Over the old man's head hung an ancient set of leis, one a lei palaoa, ivory pendents from whale's teeth suspended by two coils of braided human hair the texture and color of which matched the alleged killer's. Alongside this was a lei of rosary beads, known as a lei korona for the crown of England. A dog-tooth necklace, called a niho'ilio, dangled nearby as well. As she stared at these museum pieces in wonder, the old man spoke as if in her brain, saying, “Killer fashions cords from human hair,” but it was Kaniola, translating, breaking into her thoughts.

“ Lehe luhe, lehelehe.” The old man's mouth creased in a smile over his own words.

Kaniola remained grim, saying, “The killer's lips are fat like those of the vagina, pouting lips.”

“ Lei palaoa, niho 'illo mahine. “

Kaniola visibly stiffened.

Jessica pressed him to translate the words.

“ He… the killer makes leis from their teeth and hair. He has them in his house. He knows the ancient ways and he knows the modem ways.”

“ I lawa no a pau ka hana Ku, ho 7 ho 7 kaua, “ continued the old man.

“ He says that as soon as the work is finished for Ku, the ancient god, then the killer will leave.”

“ Will leave for where?”

“ To be with Ku.”

“ Aelo, aewa,” continued the old man.

“ Says your killer has no backbone, weaves back and forth like seaweed, that he is like the infertile egg that smells of rot from within.”

The old man continued rambling. “ 'A'ohe Ahahui Mamakakaua.”

“ He says this man is no son or daughter of Hawaiian warriors.”

“ What, now we're back to it's a white man?”

“… ahiwa, ahewa… 'aihue kanaka, ai kanaka, aikane, 'ai kapu, ai kepa, 'ai noa, ai pa 'a, aiwa…”

“ What's he saying?”

“ He's not making much sense, I'm afraid.”

“ Tell me.” She was impatient.

“ Well, I'll try. He says the kidnapper is a man who seeks to find guilt and administer scorn, and that he is a cannibal, a man-eater, yet friendly or a friend…”