Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

“ 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.”