Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

Still, Jessica couldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, so she thanked the Navy representatives who'd come bearing these questionable forensic gifts, apologizing for not being able to do more. And with Dr. Lau's help, she went instantly to work over the new specimens.

“ God, what I wouldn't give for a skull,” she now told Lau, her exasperation apparent.

The little man silently nodded his understanding, picking about the sad assortment of bone fragments, and clearing his throat, he added, “It would be too easy.”

She knew what he meant. With a skull identification could be far more rapid and sure, with its teeth intact, for then extractions, scars and other features unique to an individual could be “hit” points on an I.D. chart. All they'd need were comparison X-rays showing faulty tooth occlusions and corrections, and a good forensic orthodontist to tell them what they were looking at. But as Lau said, nothing came easily.

Photographs of the cleaned and dried artifacts brought up by the Navy divers had to be made, but not before cleaning in bleach, soap and ammonia and then a thorough drying. Some of the bones were in a fragile condition, flakes peeling away. It would take time to air-dry them for a day or two before they could safely be handled, but who had that kind of time? She knew they'd have to allow time its due nonetheless. The waiting was one of the more maddening aspects of the work.

Like hef, Lau was anxious, wanting immediate answers and so vulnerable to wrong interpretations as a result. They must do as her father had always said, “Bow to the wisdom of time.”

But even so, even with the naked eye and the encrusted femur, Jessica could read the fact it bore an injury, an injury that looked like the painful rent of a powerful metal object like a cane cutter or even a sword. Lau, looking from the femur to her and back again, saw the same indelible fracture.

As soon as the bones were air-dried and photographed they'd go to work with the Butvar, a granular, dry adhesive mixed to a gel-like consistency and applied liberally to the porous bone fragments to permanently fix them. After this dried, the fragments could be newly photographed and the photos so tagged.

For any of the pieces that might be found to fit together, they'd use Florentine Red Wax to re-invent the structure. It was the same wax used by archaeologists to reconstruct pottery pieces. The process promised only tedium without any further guarantees, but Jessica was saved from this purgatory when a lab tech called out that a phone call had come for her.

“ Tell 'em we're busy here!” she countered, not wanting to leave Lau alone with the unsavory work.

“ It's Chief Parry.”

She frowned and Lau, with a funny little gesture of the fingers in a miniature horse race, indicated for her to run. “Chop, chop,” he said.

“ I won't be long,” she promised.

'Take whatever time is necessary, Dr. Coran. We here can manage with these paltry bones.”

She nodded and moved off at once, going for the office that'd been turned over to her. Closing the door, she took Parry's call. “Hello, Jim?”

“ We got an interesting cross-reference on a lead that could pan out to be our killer. You interested?”

“ Damn straight, I am.”

“ I talked with Ivers. He gave me a name, a first name, Lopaka.”

“ Lopaka?” She repeated it, realizing that it was the same as that given by Lomelea, Kaniola's great-granduncle, when she had visited him at the shrine. “Robert,” she said into the phone.

“ Hmmmmm, your Hawaiian is coming along,” he replied curiously. “Anyway, seems when Paniolo Ewelo was shown the police sketch we put together and the tapes were played for him, he instantly came up with Terri Reno's would-be protector and provider.”

“ That's great.”

“ And get this, the name's Lopaka. Ewelo calls this guy a creep, if you can imagine that.”

“ Our boy scout pointing a finger? Imagine that. Of course, you know how impressed a jury will be with Ewelo.”

The sarcasm and truth of what she was saying wasn't lost on Parry, who continued. “Well, I think we can nail this bastard without cutting any deals with Ewelo.”

“ Really? Do you have another avenue?”

“ Yeah, our fat friend. Professor Claxton, came up with the same name when Tony questioned him with the new information. Seems the creep is on one of his old class rosters, but had dropped out prior to completion.”

“ So now Claxton's memory is jogged. Convenient. You sure he isn't just reacting to events?”

“ Sure he's reacting to events. Claxton got shit scared out of him when Ewelo and his boys killed Oniiwah; don't let the man's bravado in front of female cops and tough guys like me fool you. He seems also to have remembered someone he slept with once, someone Paniolo fixed him up with.”

“ Really? He slept with Linda Kahala like Oniiwah said, but not for a grade change?”

“ And Kia before Linda. Seems the relationship between Claxton and the cowboy goes a lot deeper.”

“ Patron of the prostitutes and benefactor, I get it.” She leaned back as far as the office chair would take her, interested, listening intently now while her fingers idly played with a paperweight in the shape of the islands, an odd object to say the least. “The guy's full name is Lopaka Kowona,” Parry said.

She repeated the name slowly as if doing so would exorcise all demons. She had a sense, a purely instinctual feel about the name, that it belonged to the Trade Winds Killer, Linda Kahala's murderer. “And you say Ivers picked up on the same name?”

“ Nate heard the abducted girl call her abductor Lopaka. I had Gagliano check with the registrar's office at the university, and he found that there was a Lopaka Kowona registered part-time at the same time that both Kia and Linda Kahala were enrolled. Nate also wrote down half a license plate number and a check with DMV shows it registered to a Lopaka Kowona. Enough to get a warrant? Probable cause? You bet it is, and now we've got a door to kick.”

“ I'll be damned,” she said, a feeling of relief washing over her. It was probably too late for the pretty little girl she'd read about in the Union Jack that morning, but this could mean an end to a seven-year reign of terror about the islands. The series of lucky strokes was almost too much to believe. “I want to be there,” she demanded.

“ If we can nail this guy Kowona, and Ivers and Claxton both I.D. him, we put the lid on his coffin without cutting any deals with Ewelo. That'd be the crowning glory.”

She pushed aside the paperweight and realized how like a dragon the series of humps that made up the islands were.

“ Don't get your hopes up too high, Jim. It sounds like we'll still need Ewelo as corroborating-”

“ To hell with that.”

“ What?”

“ Try this. A maroon sedan's sitting in this guy's driveway as we speak, and it stinks of a gasoline rupture. HPD has had an APB on the description of the car all night, and with one of their own hospitalized, they look that much harder.”

“ Damn, then maybe we do have the bastard dead to rights after all? I want in.”

“ You realize this girl, Hiilani, could well be in that house?”

“ Let's hope she is. Otherwise, she's at the bottom of the ocean, and if that's the case, we'll have a hell of a time proving our case.”

“ Not if we can find enough trace evidence inside the car and the house.”

“ I'm with you.” And she was. Many cases today were being solved even in the absence of a body by virtue of the magic of DNA, blood, and serum typing, fiber and trace evidence.”Meet me at the garage, and bring your bag, and I've got an ambulance on standby,” Parry said. “I got a bad feeling about this one… think we're going to need a lot of plastic bags.”