Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

“ Well, we'll see.”

“ If you do get her back, I'd like to interview her myself.”

“ I'll see what can be arranged.”

They parted on much better terms than they'd ever enjoyed in the past. “Could've knocked me over with a pillow when I learned the killer was one of us and one of you, hapa haole; in a sense, from the beginning, I guess, we were both right about the racial makeup of the killer,” said Kaniola, walking him out to his car. “I hope it doesn't foretell the future.”

“ I don't possess any crystal ball and I'm no prophet, but I'm sure Oahu hasn't seen the last of Kowona's kind. I just hope your people and mine can cooperate better than we have on this case.”

He nodded. “I welcome that day.”

“ As I've said before, Joe, I'm sorry you lost your son to this maniac.”

“ When you catch him. Chief Parry, just make sure he's put away in the deepest hole you can find at Dillingham.”

Once again Parry privately thought that life in the state pen was hardly appropriate. “We're going to do our damndest on that score.”

“ But you can guarantee nothing, I'm afraid.” Parry shrugged, saying, “What with the intricacies and complications of the system?”

“ A simple justice is all we ask.”

“ A simple justice… sounds like an antiquated idea in our times, Mr. Kaniola-”

“ Joe, call me Joe.”

“- but as I said, Joe, we'll prosecute with everything we have, which is considerable, and we hate this bastard as passionately as you, but that's not for print.”

“ Understood.” Kaniola managed a half smile and slapped him on the back. “I'm confident you will have him in custody within a day or so.”They shook hands and Parry motored off for his house and some much-needed sleep. Along the way, he radioed in, telling Tony about the jungle theory and that the Army should be contacted and asked to help out on a sweep of the mountainous terrain just above and around the Lopaka house. Helicopters might also be dispatched for a wider sweep.

Gagliano thought it a good idea as no evidence that the murdering Kowona had gotten off the island either by plane or boat had surfaced. “Sure,” Gagliano said on the other end, “he hasn't gone anywhere. The creep's up there in the greenery like a murdering ape, ready to take up where he left off as soon as everything cools off. Bastard's become an animal, Jim.”

“ Any luck at the museum and where he worked?”

“ Bus line acts' if he never sat in a bus, as if they'd fired him a year ago.”

“ They fire him?”

“ No, hell; they just want to make out as if he didn't belong to them, get me?”

“ Got it.”

“ Act as if they know as much about him as they do the motors under the hood, you follow? Did some cursing down there.”

“ What about the museum?”

“ Nada, but they were real interested in the sword.”

“ You didn't give them the damned sword, did you?”

“ Hell, no, just a copy of the photo. Tellin' you, Jimbo, they went like nuts for it. Recognized it, too.”

“ Recognized it?”

“ Said it was from the Kowona dynasty, which I ain't never heard of, but then-”

“ Get to the point, Tony!”

“ The point, Jim, is this: It came from an ancient tribal group that once lived on Kahoolawe.”

Kahoolawe, the forbidden isle, the island where even the FBI had no juice; the island that was now protected as a last bastion of Hawaiian culture and religion, supporting a lifestyle that had no room for deformed or maladjusted children, a land truly meant for the ancient rites and simple justice that Kaniola had referred to, a land like remote Molokai which had spawned Lopaka, a land which had spawned this beautifully ornamented, ceremonial sword he'd used on his victims, which the Bishop Museum people might kill for…

Parry next asked Dispatch to put him through to Lau's labs to speak to Jessica to learn what was going on at her end.

In a moment she came on a bit breathless, telling him of her bizarre phone conversation with Kelia Laliiani and the fact that the HPD had been warned years before-and quite recently-about Lopaka Kowona, but that she'd been ignored.

“ Why the hell didn't she contact us?” he asked.

“ I asked her that on a follow-up call.”

“ What did she say?”

“ She was told by a brother that telling the HPD was the same as telling the FBI.”

“ That's some excuse.”

“ She also said she didn't know Hawaii had an FBI bureau.”

“ It's always been a fairly well kept secret, yeah. People!”

“ The important thing here, Jim, and I want you not to go crazy if I tell you… promise?”

“ What?”

“ Promise me you won't go ballistic?”

“ Goddamnit, Jess, out with it.”

“ The guy she wrote to at the time was the captain of a major precinct who'd been working the disappearances.”

“ Scanlon, yeah, I know he was working the original cases. Got that from my own research, but-”

“ She read about him in the Ala Ohana and sent him a letter directing him to check Lopaka Kowona and his place out, but nothing was done, or so she believes.”

“ Something was done, Jess,” he countered.

“ What? How do you know?”

“ It was filed away with every one of thousands of unsolicited letters regarding the disappearances. Scanlon was up for P.C., and the case was a drag on his career and he knew it. He found a drawer and lost the case file for as long as it took. In the meantime, each year since, there've been more disappearances, and Scanlon's been blackmailed ever since.”

“ Blackmailed? Christ, by whom? You don't mean Joe-”

“ Whoa, whoa, I was speaking figuratively, sweetheart.”

“ Jeez, we don't need another complication in this mess.”

'Tell me about it, but Scanlon's running scared now. You saw him at the scene. He's being blackmailed by his own damned conscience, and I can't blame him. Hell, I know he's an airhead politico with ambitions and a finger up his ass, but he's also got a decent side that has to be ripped by all this.”

“ You think so?”

“ Well, yeah, I believe so.”

“ Then hold onto your seat, love.”

“ What's that?”

“ Scanlon was contacted by Kelia again after his two cops were killed out at Koko Head. She tried to revive her earlier complaints against her 'crazy,' estranged husband, but once again Scanlon ignored her.”

“ He didn't completely ignore her the first time around, Jess. According to police reports of the time, he dispatched a squad car to look into Mr. Kowona's doings, but they came back empty- handed. Hell, I saw the same complaint and follow-up myself, but amid the thousands of others… well, it meant very little.”

“ So? What about after Kaniola and Hilani were gunned down? Scanlon ignored her again.”

“ It was no longer his case. He's the commish now, so if anyone was told to look into it, which I doubt, it'd have to be a direct order from him. It was probably handled as just another crackpot call.”

“ Letter… she wrote him from California.”

“ Mail to the police, even addressed to the P.C., goes through thirty steps before it lands on the proper desk, and with a politically involved guy like Scanlon, you're looking at weeks before he opens his mail unless it had a return address to the mayor or the governor. In point of fact, a secretary probably re-routed the letter before he ever had a chance to see it. Still, somebody in the chain must've spoken to him about it and it clicked some tumbler in his memory, because he did in the end send a squad car around to check on Lopaka, and that's how Lopaka's car was spotted. I only learned of it because I was with Ivers when that baby-faced cop Janklow wanted to personally tell Ivers about it. I immediately got HPD to hold off only because Scanlon was away, something about a fund-raiser on Maui.”