Neil Plakcy - Mahu Fire

“I need keep busy,” she said. “No want think about Uncle Chin.”

“He was a good man.” I felt the tears I had been fighting for so long start to well up again. “I loved him.”

“Oh, Kimo, he love you, too. He love you, your brothers like his own sons.” She started to cry. “Now what I do? How I live without him?”

I reached over and got a paper towel, and used it to dry her eyes. “Come on, now, you don’t want the wontons to burn, do you?”

I stayed there and helped her for a few minutes. Then my cell phone rang and I walked outside to a quiet corner of the yard to answer it. “We may have a lead,” Lieutenant Sampson said. “A sightseeing helicopter going over Wa’ahila State Park saw a small fire, and swooped in for a closer look. He saw a car and a truck there, and though he couldn’t see plate numbers on either vehicle, they match the description of the ones registered to the Whites.”

“He see anybody around it?”

“Not in the immediate vicinity. But he did see two people who looked like they were running away from the fire. A girl who matches Kitty’s description and a skinny boy with yellow hair.”

My heart started to race. “Did he describe the hair at all? Was it gelled up to a point?”

“You know who it might be?” I told him what I knew about Jimmy Ah Wong. “What the hell’s he doing up there with Kitty?” Sampson asked. He didn’t even wait for an answer. “We’ve got to get some men into that park.”

“I’m looking at it now,” I said. “My uncle’s house butts right up against it. You can set up a command post here.”

“Give me the address.” I gave it to him, and told him there were already two officers from Organized Crime stationed out in the street. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Twenty, if too many asshole drivers get in my way.”

I went into the house, found my parents and explained the situation. “I think the boy who ran away is there, too,” I said. “Along with my boss’s daughter, and at least a couple of little kids.”

“I will talk to Aunt Mei-Mei,” my father said. “Uncle Chin’s spirit will be happy if we help you find this boy, and these other people.” He and my mother started circulating among the guests, sending them home.

Lui and Haoa sent their wives and children away but insisted on staying. “We can help you,” Lui said. “You know we know that park pretty well.”

On her way out the door, Liliha stopped and turned to me. “I am a very proud woman, Kimo,” she said. “But I hope that I am not too proud to admit when I have been wrong. And I was wrong about the church. I hope you will forgive me.”

I hugged her and kissed her cheek. “You’re my sister, Lili,” I said. “I’ll always love you, and nothing will get in the way of that.”

For the first time since she’d married my brother, my sister-in-law hugged me back, and I could feel she meant everything she said.

When we pulled apart, I looked up and saw Haoa and Tatiana ahead of us. Tatiana was crying and Haoa was stroking her long, streaked blonde hair. “Be careful,” she was saying. “Just be careful.”

“I will be. Don’t you worry.”

Liliha took control of the situation. “All kids in the cars,” she said, in a voice that reminded me very much of my mother’s. She took Tatiana’s arm, gently prying her away from Haoa. “We’ll all go to my house, Tati,” she said. “I want you to look at this catalogue with me. I’m thinking of changing around the living room.”

I watched my sisters-in-law and my nieces and nephews load up and move out. Jeffrey and Ashley complained; they wanted to stay and help, but they were no good in the face of opposition from their parents, no matter how much they complained that they were teenagers and ought to be treated better than the little keikis.

When the last of the guests had driven away, I went around to the back yard, where Akoni and Tony Lee where talking with my father and brothers. I could smell a faint odor of smoke on a breeze that came down the mountainside. “Somebody needs to evacuate the park,” Akoni said. “Lee and I can do that.”

“I’ll have backup meet you at the entrance to the park,” I said. “Lui, you and Haoa go with them, help them scout the perimeter of the park, then come back here. The fire department should be on their way. You guys will have to coordinate with them, too.”

“I’ve never seen the park so dry,” my father said. “You all better be careful.”

We all walked around to the front yard. My father looked stronger, more energized than he had the day before, and he was able to walk by himself, only touching my mother’s arm occasionally.

Haoa said, “I’ll drive,” and Lui, Akoni and Tony Lee jumped into his old panel van to head down to the park entrance.

My parents stopped at my mother’s Lexus in the driveway, and I said, “Dad, remember those old maps of the park? We’re going to need them.”

He nodded, and my mother said, “Mei-Mei, you and Genevieve come with us. It’s not safe for you to stay here.”

Aunt Mei-Mei shook her head. “No, I stay with Chin. Genevieve, you go.”

Genevieve took her mother-in-law’s hand. “No, Mother. I will stay with you.”

My mother looked at me, and I shrugged. So she and my father got into her car and drove off. Aunt Mei-Mei and Genevieve walked back inside, past the implacable card players, just as Lieutenant Sampson arrived.

“Run down for me what you know so far,” he said.

We walked around the house to the back yard, where we could look into the park, and as we did I organized my thoughts. It was about three in the afternoon then, a hot, dry day with variable winds. Perfect weather for a forest fire.

“This case started when somebody shot that chicken in Makiki,” I said. “I’m only speculating here, but I think both Jeff and Sheila White are wound pretty tight. They must have gotten tired of the rooster crowing every morning, and one of them went out and shot it to shut it up.”

Sampson looked grim. “Go on.”

“The homeless man, Hiroshi Mura, was shot because he saw something. Maybe he saw one of the Whites shoot the rooster. Maybe he knew what they were doing in that shed in the back yard. Either way, the same gun was used in both shootings.”

I paused to think about what to say next. “Ballistics matched the gun to the one used to shoot Charlie Stahl as well. Until we made that connection, we had no idea that the Makiki shootings could be connected to the bombing at the Marriage Project party.”

Sampson’s radio crackled. Akoni and Tony Lee had closed the park and gotten the picnic areas evacuated. No one matching the suspects’ description had been seen, but I knew there was a lot of wild country beyond the public area.

“Kitty said Eli Harding’s family had a cabin somewhere in the park,” I said. “My dad’s bringing over a bunch of old maps which show the trails and locations of cabins. If we can skirt the fire, we can head up some of those trails.”

Akoni said he and Lee were on their way back, and signed off. Sampson turned his attention back to me.

“Mike Riccardi, the fire inspector, was at the rally at Waikiki Gateway Park and he saw the woman who shot Charlie Stahl get away in a dark sedan, and he got a partial license plate,” I said.

“What was the fire inspector doing at a rally?”

I stopped. When I’d first seen Mike, I’d assumed he was there for the rally itself, that my influence was going to gradually move him out of the closet.

But of course, that wasn’t the reason at all. “I think he was worried that there might be another bombing attempt. After all, the rally was organized by the Marriage Project and the Marriage Project had just been bombed. You know that some of the arsons over the last few weeks have been at gay and lesbian businesses?”