Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

Parry called to the others who'd remained outside daring only to poke their heads beyond the perimeter of the broken door. He called for field generators and to have Dr. Lau dispatch all the evidence-technician support he could muster.

The men outside fought over who'd get to do this chore. Along the narrow street outside, nearby residents had begun to assemble, stare and point.

Jessica thought of the old man on the mountain, Kaniola's great-granduncle, and his predictions. How true to form was this? she wondered. Had he been speaking in symbolic epigrams? Was the red path that led to the sun here on the caked and bloodied floor of this awful place that led to the sunlight outdoors? Had he foreseen this? Hadn't he called the killer Lopaka? Had he known this Lopaka Kowona all along? Was Lopaka Kowona the child in the story the old man told of a chief who had killed one son for his deformities while another watched? Serial killers were bom of man and woman, many bom of much less pain than this Lopaka suffered on seeing his crippled brother destroyed in a dark wood by his father, and later burned in the village pyre-slash-garbage dump, his bones unceremoniously dumped in the ocean where the sacrilegious and demonic were cast out.

She wondered how much of this “legend” and ancient history had to do with the real killer. She wondered how much-if any-of her visit to Kaniola's seer she wished to share with Jim; wondered whether now it had any relevance or not. All Parry and company need do now was to locate the whereabouts of Lopaka Kowona. As soon as the Hawaiian community learned that one of her own had been at bottom of the Trade Winds killings, as soon as Lopaka's name was made public throughout the islands, he would either be cornered by the authorities, or murdered quietly the way George Oniiwah had been. She had no illusions anymore about Joseph Kaniola's agenda. She knew that he would be, if given the chance, the one to ram the spear through Lopaka Kowona's heart, to end the life of this vampire who preyed on young Polynesian women.

Had Kaniola known of Lopaka, suspecting him for some time now? If the university professor Claxton and the lowlife Ewelo both knew of Lopaka, then the all-knowing, nosey newsman must've had some inkling, especially after Lopaka's police sketch and description were handed to him. Joe Kaniola was among the first in Hawaii to get this description, and his very next move was a friendly visit to his great-granduncle's shrine? Had he simply been using Jessica to loosen the old man's tongue? Perhaps and maybe, she thought, recalling the tape recorder at Kaniola's side.

Kaniola had been shrewd throughout, shrewd and determined to see that his son was avenged. Revenge was best served up cold, the old saying went, and it would seem that Kaniola's every move since his son's death had been quite cool, quite calculated.

“ Jim, I've got to tell you about something,” she finally said, while Parry, evidence bags in hand, was scooping up the dismembered hands of each victim of the Trade Winds Killer.

“ What's that, Jess?”

She quickly surprised him about her early morning visit to the guru on the mountain.

“ I've heard of the old man, but I didn't know he was related to Kaniola,” Parry finally said. “Explains your new look.”

She stared, her shoulders rising, her eyes questioning.

“ Your cane. I noticed earlier that you were liberated from it. I was just naive enough to think that maybe I'd had something to do with its… disappearance.”

“ Yeah, well… maybe you did. Anyway, I had to give the old man something.”

“ In return for a handful of fifty-fifty generalizations any palm reader might've handed you?”

“ He was extremely close to Lopaka Kowona's description, Jim. Pouting, large lips, flame-red hair, dysfunctional.”

“ But he couldn't give you a name and address…”

“ No, but he may very well have given it to Joe Kaniola.”

“ Whataya' mean?”

“ I think Kaniola went there hoping the old man would verify his own suspicion that you and I were wrong about Ewelo being the killer, and that the old man would confirm his conviction the killer was not in custody.”

“ So, you think Kaniola's going after this guy Lopaka?”

“ If he finds him before we do, we'll be trying Joseph in a court of law instead of Lopaka,” she said with certainty. “And as for the cane, Lomelea needed it more than I did.”

He nodded, understanding. “I'll see where Kaniola is and put a tail on him.”

“ Good idea. Meantime, I'll do what I can here.”

Watching Parry lift the bag of hands to give to Gagliano before he stepped back out into the light made a powerful image in her mind. This side of the door was like being in the looking glass; this side of the door was some rung in the spirals of Hades described in Dante's Inferno; on the other side of the door there was light and paradise waiting. She wondered what was hardest, stepping out or staying in. In Jim's case he'd go out to his car now, make some calls on his radio, feel the ocean breeze and God's warm hand in the form of sunlight against his brow, but he'd have to climb back into this red hell a second time. She and Gagliano remained this side of the mirror, in the bleak shadow world of evil and death and madness.

Her bag was passed through to her as if she and Gagliano were down inside a deep hole and those outside were providing a source of hope and sustenance from above. Still, none of the others wanted to climb down into the hole, content to watch from the other side of the looking glass.

Gagliano reached out to her, placing his meaty paw on her shoulder, and said, “Doc, I have to admit… you've got some grit.”

“ My father called it sand.” She was privately pleased that Jim's best friend had finally accepted her.

Jessica now forced all annoyances, images, sights, sounds and odors and her own encroaching fears and phantoms from her consciousness; she pushed Jim and Tony and the racket of the others from her mind. She snatched open her valise and pulled forth her white lab coat and gloves. She searched next for the necessary tools of her trade. It was time to do her part.

Dr. Asa Holcraft and others at the academy had taught her that there was no such thing as the ideal crime scene, but here in Lopaka Kowona's murderer's den, she and Parry had come damnably close to perfection. With the help of the FBI's Major Crime Scene Unit and ident techs from the HPD, the hours-long search now under the blindingly bright lights went ahead. Through-out the lair they uncovered much that would insure that Kowona would go down quickly and efficiently, unless defense counsel saw the fantastic opportunity presented him, deciding the Kowona case would mean a major leap forward for anyone capable of proving Kowona innocent by reason of insanity. She imagined some hotshot lawyer calling in his shrinks-for-hire one atop another, to attest to Kowona's inability to know right from wrong, good from evil or pain from pleasure, muddying the waters just enough forjudge and jury with sad tales of civil-rights violations to the defendant, stories of childhood molestation, split-personality syndrome and a hundred other euphemisms for animal behavior. They'd done exactly that in the Matisak case and countless others. An eager young F. Lee Bailey could make Kowona out to be the victim, leave a jury believing that the real victims here-Lina Kahala, Kia, Hiilani and countless others-didn't much matter in the grand scheme of jurisprudence. Like the photos taken by the killer himself, which would likely be labeled as inflamatory and prejudicial and therefore inadmissable. Didn't matter, she kept telling herself, struggling to do her part to counter all the possible scenarios that lay ahead of them.