Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

“ You trust it?”

Without answering Tony, he said, “Look, you think you can manage with the mountain search? We've got no choice now but to see it through, and it'll give Scanlon something to do, and since we've already called out the goddamned U.S. Army…”

“ Sure, sure, but what're you going to be doing, Jim?”

Parry had climbed from bed and was pulling on a pair of trousers, balancing the receiver between neck and jaw. “I'm going to make arrangements to get to Molokai.”

“ Good move, Jim.”

“ I hope everyone else thinks so.”

“ Hell, you can get clearance, if that's what you're worried about. Now that this thing's cracked open, you ought to be able to write your own ticket.”

“ You'd think so, Tony, but the bureau can move very slowly and in mysterious ways at times, especially if we don't have compelling evidence.”

“ You got clout on your side, Jim. You're the chief here. You call the shots.”

“ Wish it were that simple, Tony.”

“ Nothing's like the old days.”

“ No, no… nothing is.”

They hung up and Parry wondered how best to deal with his suspicion that Lopaka Kowona was off the island of Oahu, possibly on Molokai, possibly elsewhere. It occurred to him that the information picked up by Gagliano was not so random and lucky as they might think; that it, too, could have been planted to throw them off Lopaka's trail.

Suppose the murderer did board an old island vessel at Kaneohe Bay. Who would know the boats better than Ivers? Ivers knew every scum-bucket and lowlife on this and all the islands. He'd made it his life's work to know, since he loved the old vessels and he hung about the wharves more than any man Parry knew.

Skipping breakfast, Parry rushed from his place to drive across the city to see Nate Ivers in his hospital bed, to wake him up if necessary. This morning, he'd pick the other man's brain on this score, see what popped out…

Meanwhile, the County Sheriff's Office on Molokai had to be put on alert, and although it was likely too late for them to screen every boat in every harbor of that island, he made the call anyway, getting Dispatch to put him though to the other island officials, beginning with the area FBI field operative there. Parry would also have to convince his superiors that the venue of the case had shifted from Oahu to the outer islands. This would not be so simple as it appeared on the surface, because every other law- enforcement agency, plus the U.S. Army, was currently on alert that the killer had been contained on the island of Oahu and was most likely hiding somewhere in the vast Koolau Range.

The island wisdom and island mentality that still prevailed locally in many sectors also stretched all the way to D.C. when it came to Hawaii. D.C. still thought that getting away from the Honolulu Police Department and FBI was an impossibility given the fact all escape routes were bounded by ocean.

“ It's a goddamned island, Parry!” his superiors had kept repeating long distance. “Why can't you find and stop this motherfucker!” Certainly an island by definition, no matter its size, and Oahu-third largest of the Hawaiian chain with 608 square miles-held eighty percent of Hawaii's population, with seven hundred thousand people in Honolulu alone. Add to this three million tourists swelling her population annually, and it became clear that this was no Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket or circular seacoast isle with only a certain, limited number of hiding places. Never mind the shifting terrain, that areas of the landscape were lunar, mountainous or rain forest, never mind that a man could disappear here as easily as he might in the northwest Rocky Mountains, even more effectively actually, given the lush, year- round vegetation here. Still, the only means of leaving the islands was by flight or ship, and since all steamers, pleasure craft, fishers, and cruise ships had been covered along with all flights out, it followed with syllogistic logic that it must be inevitable that Lopaka Kowona would have by now fallen into their net.

Parry wasn't so sure. Lopaka was the son of a chieftain, and perhaps the people protecting him for their own misguided or perverse reasons were more cunning than most non-natives were willing to give them credit for. Lopaka knew the islands far better than any of his pursuers. Parry feared he could well have escaped Oahu, and that he might hold out indefinitely against modern law enforcement by returning to the wilds of Molokai, if not some even more remote island in the chains, say Kahoolawe, where they weren't even looking for him. Then he recalled that Joseph Kaniola had indeed suggested Molokai as a possible place where Lopaka might seek help.

Kowona had as yet to meet his yearly quota of victims. Molokai, Maui and the largest of the chain of islands, Hawaii, were all favored tourists islands where the population and bustle would help him fade into the more urbanized areas. He had harvested human lives on Maui before. He knew the terrain there. He had worked on a ranch there, subsisting as a cowboy, and a cane cutter before that. There were no major metropolitan centers to rival or even come close to Honolulu, and yet he'd managed in his grim calling there for four years. And Maui's population since he'd left had swelled to one hundred thousand, and the island remained the most popular tourist attraction alongside Oahu and Honolulu, playing host to two million visitors annually.

The other islands, and especially his homeland, would not grant the Trade Winds Killer the sort of anonymity that he required. Besides, he'd had ties before in Maui, so he could possibly take up where he left off, working and earning enough to put a down payment on a used car until voila, he was back in grisly business.

The local expression on Maui was Maui no ka oi, meaning that in everything Maui was the best. The old expression took on new meaning for Parry as his best choice for an explanation of the disappearance of their chief suspect in the mutilation murders on Oahu.

Parry imagined the monster hiding there on Maui, changing his name and appearance as well as his habits-if he could-which could mean his total disappearance, especially if no one pursued.

Major crimes had seldom occurred in the islands in the past because there was limited access to escape, but now that was no longer true. Still, what better way to hide than in plain sight?

Parry punched the buttons to his Oahu headquarters again and asked they patch him through to Maui County authorities, getting an old friend on the line and warning him to alert all officers patrolling the island to be on the lookout, particularly the harbor patrol. Even as he said it, Parry sensed the alert had come too late. He had been in touch earlier with Maui's Mike Ulupo, who was the FBI's contact man on the island. Ulupo had researched Lopaka's background and the time he'd spent on Maui, forwarding the information to Parry the day before. This came after Hal Ewelo, owner of Paniolo's, began finally to open up about what he knew regarding Lopaka Kowona in order to save his own neck, little knowing they'd filed separate charges of murder in the Oniiwah case which precluded any deals being made. Paniolo's proprietor was going down for his part in Oniiwah's death, hopefully a life sentence. Sometimes Parry wished there was a death penalty in his state, and this, along with the Trade Winds case, was one of those instances where such a penalty was more than warranted, he felt.

He broke off with Maui now and silently cursed Joe Kaniola, whom he could no longer understand. Why would he help a man who had killed his own son? Was he that warped by his own political views? Could the man actually be harboring this monster merely because Lopaka's blood was “royal” Hawaiian? And because any apprehension of Lopaka Kowona on such atrocious charges would prove an embarrassment to the rising kanaka power base, the new establishment?