The Haiku Murders
A Lieutenant Liebes in
Honolulu Mystery
Neil M. Levy
The Haiku Murders
A Lieutenant Liebes in Honolulu Mystery
Neil M. Levy
Copyright © 2012 by Red Oak Tree Press
Smashwords Edition
ISBN 9780985095826
Neil M. Levy is the author of Short Stuff (2012)
CHAPTER I
Lieutenant Izzy Liebes of Honolulu’s homicide division sat and looked at the envelope just placed on his desk. As the years had moved on, e-mail and fax had sharply curtailed the amount of paper mail he received. But this peach-colored, high quality, heavy bond envelope was unlike any mail he had ever received before. He thought it slightly odd, however, that his address on this elegant envelope was not handwritten, but printer generated.
He took his letter opener from his desk, thinking the fine stationery deserved such treatment. The letter simply read:
May 16
The old pond
a frog jumps in,
the sound of water
00001
Izzy sat nonplussed. He rubbed his fingers through his thick, curly salt-and-pepper hair. He thought, why would someone mail me on elegant stationery, an English language translation of this seventeenth-century haiku poem written by Basho, the father of that Japanese poetry form? Surely it must be the best known of all haiku. The elegance of the stationery should have been matched by elegant handwriting or even calligraphy, not by computer print. And why was there a number at the bottom instead of a signature? Many people on and off the force knew of Izzy’s love of haiku, but why mail him this note anonymously?
Izzy looked at his watch. It was 3:30 p.m. on a slow afternoon. There was a three-foot south swell wrapping around to Makapu’u. Izzy was a body surfer and he hated board surfers’ ability to cut off slower moving body surfers. You couldn’t win colliding with a board. But boards were prohibited at Makapu‘u from 9:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m. If he left the office immediately, he could still get in some prime surfing before the boards showed up. He jumped into his car and headed east on H-1, under the soft intermittent clouds drifting over Honolulu. He passed Diamond Head at the end of Waikiki, passed Kahala, a neighborhood for the wealthy and then continued south towards Koko Head. This short distance changed the landscape from lush to desert. He continued on and cast his eyes at the merciless shore break at Sandy Beach. He reached Makapu’u before 4:00 p.m. - a beach in a perfect cove beneath a lighthouse on the high point of the remnants of an ancient volcano.
He found an illegal place to park. He followed his own self-imposed rule: all parking places were permissible, except those that create danger or prevent access for the handicapped. He went to the bathroom to change into his bathing suit. He put his clothes in the trunk of his car and grabbed his Churchill swim fins. With his long legs, he walked with an easy gait down to the waves breaking in the right-hand corner of the cove.
It is important to enter Makapu’u with proper timing. When there is size to the waves, a thick layer of foam builds up inside of where the waves are breaking. Being “trapped inside” at Makapu’u can be a tiring and frightening experience. The water swirls and it can be next to impossible to make it directly back to shore. One must instead get outside, beyond the breaking waves and try to find a wave that can be ridden all the way to shore. At times a body surfer goes out for a pleasant afternoon and all of a sudden it turns into an issue of survival. More than one body surfer has had to work so hard getting outside that the objective then became merely to take one small wave back in. If one falls off the wave, one is once again trapped inside.
But no such problem faced Izzy today. He waited for a lull in the waves and ran out through the shallow water near shore. A small wave appeared before him and he ducked under it, keeping his momentum going forward. He kicked and stroked, his Churchills still on his right arm, until he reached outside of where the larger waves were breaking. He put his fins on his feet and got ready. The face of the first wave he took was about five feet. He popped onto it and leaned his weight forward to take the drop. He dipped his left shoulder to angle around to the left, the direction in which the wave was breaking. He bent slightly upwards to slow himself down and let the wave catch up to him. And there he was -- in the tube, surrounded by water. He held his position for several seconds and tucked out before the wave had a chance to pound him. Makapu’u had a fairly soft and forgiving bottom, but there was no point in tempting fate.
A great day in the water. The waves were big enough for fun, yet not so large as to cause worry. He caught tubes, took long shoulder rides, and even knocked off a couple of spinners. No other activity could so effectively take him outside himself, something particularly necessary after a slow, and therefore boring, day at work. Body surfing was his passion. He liked being able to ride serious waves at fifty-six years of age. Body surfing had kept him in good shape. Izzy was a lean, muscular man who looked younger than his years.
Izzy rode a small wave into shore. He lay down on his towel and wondered on which day God had created surf. Unable to answer the question, he got up, walked to his car and began his drive up the island’s lush Windward side toward his home in Kailua. He knew that at this hour there would be traffic even in the rural areas where there still were stables and plant nurseries. Most of the drive runs beneath the beautiful Ko’olau Mountains. One saw cliffs with trees seeming to grow straight out of rock. The cliffs descended into tropical rainforests at their base. He drove through Waimanalo, a town mainly populated by Native Hawaiians living on Hawaiian Home Lands, property that had been set aside for their ancestors by Congress in 1921.The homes were all similar and certainly not elegant, but all were well kept.
Izzy loved Kailua. He thought its beach to be the most beautiful on the island, with its bay a perfect curve, on one end guarded by an ancient volcano crater that was now part of Marine Corps Base Kane’ohe Bay, and on the other end by the Mokulua Islands. He appreciated Kailua actually having a downtown, old commercial streets existing next to moderate-sized shopping mall He reached Kailua and turned into the Foodland parking lot. He went to the fish counter and bought some ahi poke, lomi lomi salmon, and seaweed. Through the years he had become addicted to these Hawaiian-style raw, marinated seafoods. He thought it might be because of their similarity to the pickled herring and lox he grew up with in his Jewish home in Brooklyn.
He drove to his home. Beachfront property is enormously expensive in Hawai‘i, but Izzy had scrimped to buy a house near the beach. He also worked extra shifts whenever he could. Ten years ago he found a small broken down two-bedroom, single-wall construction house that was only three houses in from the beach. There was no ocean view, but it was less than one hundred yards from the water. The house was makai (ocean) side of Kalaheo Avenue, the main street paralleling the beach. Izzy pulled into his parking space and entered his home, as always loving the sweet fragrance of his plumeria tree and gardenia bush which flanked the walkway to his front door. He looked around and thought this was an evening for cleaning and laundry. He took a shower, got into his shorts and decided he would first open a bottle of Corona and get started on the food. After knocking off the ahi poke and two Coronas he decided cleaning could wait till another day. He turned on an old Gabby “Pops” Pahanui recording, and lay down on his couch to listen to this Hawaiian master of the slack key guitar. He then played an even older recording of Lena Machado, the Songbird of Hawai‘i.
Before he went to sleep, he took out his notebook and calligraphy set to write a haiku as he did almost every night. Sometimes a haiku would come to him when he was driving or walking. He would try to remember it until he had a chance to write it down. If no haiku came to him by bedtime, he would sit at his dining table until one occurred to him. Usually this routine would put him into a better mood for falling asleep and would ward off his occasional nights of restlessness.
Tonight he wrote:
On this sunny day
a cloud briefly blocks the sun
continues onward
When Izzy wrote haiku, he did not feel compelled to follow the form of three lines, the first having five syllables, the second seven, and the third five again. But he took special delight when a poem seemed to write itself in that traditional form.
- - - - - - - -
At sunrise on May 21 the man who had mailed the haiku to Izzy stood under a coconut palm in the lush Kawainui Marsh behind Kailua. He held a knife in his right hand, his arm hanging loosely down his side. He could see the short, older man making his way on the trail that led passed him. He was certain he could accomplish today’s goal. He felt no fear, nor hesitation, about what he was about to do.
The hiker approached at a steady pace. The man under the coconut palm felt no need to hide. He let the hiker approach him and said, “Good morning. Lovely weather.” As the hiker walked passed him, he grabbed him from behind with his left hand, spun him around, and plunged the knife into his chest, just below his ribcage, and thrust it upwards. The knife went into his heart. Robert Ferguson was dead practically before he hit the ground.
Looking down at the victim, the murderer felt neither regret, nor guilt. Neither did he feel any particular sense of triumph. This was merely one step toward his ultimate objective, an objective that he knew others might find crazy, but which he felt necessary for his own emotional survival. He pulled the knife out of the victim and headed back down the path from which the hiker had come.
- - - - - - - -
During that same sunrise, Izzy got up quickly and walked down the short access lane to the bay. From there he jogged on the beach down to the corner of Kailua Bay, watching the sun rise up from the water. The wave that broke there many called “Kalamas” but Izzy thought of it just as “Kailua Corner.” Though the bay rarely had serious surf, at Kailua Corner there often were small, clean waves.
Izzy entered the water and looked out to see if any waves were coming. It amused and amazed him that even though he needed glasses to navigate the city, his eyes were still good enough to see a slight rise on the horizon of the ocean and instantly be able to judge how big a wave was coming and where it would break. He saw a wave coming in and swam a few feet to the right. It was a small wave, no more than two feet, but clearly makeable. He pushed off and rode the wave to the left. He then turned further and placed his right arm onto the wave so that he could make the turn riding on his back.
Izzy was loosened up both physically and mentally. He walked home, took a quick shower and got dressed. He looked at his watch and saw it was still only 7:00 a.m., still early enough to grab a cappuccino at the Kalapawai Market. This wooden framed market, stands across the street from a traffic island with a large and beautiful Chinese banyan tree. The market was a Kailua institution since 1932, before the Pali tunnels were constructed, when Honolulu was still a two-hour drive away.
Back then Kalapawai had been a country store, not a suburban outlet. The store sold rice, canned food, cigarettes, packaged coffee and after Prohibition ended in 1933, local Primo beer. Today one could get a cappuccino and a macadamia nut muffin. Aloha shirts were for sale and, of course, so was wine from California, Australia, New Zealand and France. It even had a deli. Izzy thought one could write a history of Hawai‘i by extrapolating from the changes in this one market.
Izzy had agreed to take his partner Hoku Kulani to Police Headquarters this morning. Hoku was a Native Hawaiian woman, with a little Chinese and Portuguese heritage thrown in. She was short, stocky and very muscular. It was no surprise that she had been captain of the soccer team at Farrington High School. Nobody complained about this woman being on the force, except some criminals who thought they could tangle with her when she had been a patrol officer. She too lived in Kailua. Detectives in Hawai’i do not ride in blue-and-white police cars. They purchase their own unmarked cars and are reimbursed by the police department, as long as they are American built. She was a rookie homicide detective, having previously spent three years in uniform, two years as a detective in burglary and three more in violent crimes. Her success at each level led to her rapid ascent to detective, homicide division. Despite her prior experience, as the newest detective in homicide, with only four months of service, she was paired up with Izzy, the senior homicide detective. Izzy rode quietly with Hoku.
Two months ago Izzy learned that she was a lesbian. That Hoku roomed with another woman had not raised any questions for Izzy. But about two months ago, he arrived a little earlier than usual to pick up her up. As he approached, he saw her caressing the back of her roommate, Sarah Livingston. Sarah was a tall, willowy blonde a pure haole (white person) who had gotten tired of the L.A. scene. She was in marketing. A year ago, she was given the opportunity by her employer to transfer to Hawai‘i. She jumped at the chance even though she had never been to the Islands before. Soon after arriving, she met Hoku. Their relationship began shortly thereafter.
It was clear to Hoku that Izzy had seen the gesture. Neither had found this a source of embarrassment or a thing of importance. Nothing was ever said about that encounter. Hoku and Sarah continued to be dinner guests at Izzy’s house. The only time Hoku raised the issue of her sexual orientation to Izzy was one evening when she and Izzy had gone out for a couple of beers. They sat at the bar and Izzy began hitting on the woman on his other side. Hoku leaned over and said to Izzy, “You have no chance, bruddah. She da kine, like me. If I never had met Sarah, I might have had a chance.”
- - - - - - - -
That morning Peggy Ferguson, as usual, slept in till 9:00. She had to be in Honolulu for a routine doctor’s appointment at 11:00. Robert had not returned from his daily walk by the time she left. This was somewhat unusual, but since he would occasionally rest and relax on the beach after his walk, it did not concern her. She went to her appointment and then drove to Manoa Valley to have lunch with an old friend at the Waioli Tea Room, a converted old mansion constructed out of local materials and set in a tropical garden.
They then went shopping at the Ala Moana Center, once the world’s largest shopping center. They hit Nieman Marcus, the Japanese emporium Shirokiya, and Hilo Hattie to see if any interesting new patterns had arrived. They even made some purchases. By the time they had finished up, it was almost 4:30, and rather than fight rush hour traffic back to Kailua, they decided to have margaritas and pupus (Hawaiian appetizers) at lively Kincaid’s overlooking Kewalo basin. Peggy called Robert both at home and on his cell, getting no answer on either. Assuming he was on the beach or kayaking, she still was not particularly concerned. They left Kincaid’s at 6:00 p.m. and headed back to Kailua after the worst of the traffic.
When she arrived home, shortly before 7:00p.m., Robert was not home. This was unusual. She looked around the house and she saw no telltale signs that he had been home during the day: no dirty glasses in the sink, no clothes strewn about. She was concerned. She called several of Robert’s friends, but none had seen him today. She called her next-door neighbor, Vivian Liu, who heard the tension in Peggy’s voice and came right over. Peggy made several more calls to no avail. Though Vivian tried to keep Peggy calm, she became more and more frantic. At 9:00 p.m., Peggy decided to call the police at the substation in Kailua.
“Can I speak to someone? My husband has been gone since early this morning. I have no idea where he is. He never does this. I’m afraid something has happened to him.”
“Ma’am, usually we don’t consider anyone missing until he’s been gone for at least twenty-four hours.”
“Look, my husband is sixty-six. He doesn’t run out for the evening very often and never without telling me where he’s going.”
“When did you last see him?”
“He was gone when I woke up. He goes for a walk through the Kawainui Marsh almost every morning. He hadn’t returned home when I went into town at about 10:00.a.m. this morning. The house looks like he hasn’t been home all day.”
“Have you called his friends?”
“Yes, but no one has seen him.”
“Can you tell me what he looks like? I’ll tell our squad cars to be on the look out for him. But we really can’t search the marsh until sunrise.” Peggy Ferguson described her husband, after which the police officer told her to keep calling friends and to call back if she located him.
Peggy made calls for the next several hours and then gave up. She was too nervous to fall asleep till the early morning. Vivian slept over and tried to comfort her.
CHAPTER II
The next morning, Izzy and Hoku drove into town in his three-year-old Chevy whose interior was filled with sand he always meant to clean out. Hoku had gotten used to it. They rode on the Pali Highway, crossing the central cliffs to downtown Honolulu. Even in traffic, he loved this road, especially on a day like today: sunny, but after a heavy night rain that left waterfalls flowing down mountainsides to the floor of the Nu‘uanu Valley floor.
Izzy thought of a haiku:
On the Pali ridge
Difficult slippery trail
Ate a sweet mango
Downtown Honolulu had begun to look more and more like any other glass tower American city, but it was saved by its location between the ocean and tropical mountains. Izzy turned left on King Street and followed it to the Honolulu Police Department’s parking lot, behind Headquarters, which fronts on neighboring Beretania Street. Headquarters was an attractive red tiled stucco building, constructed in 1992. It had four stories above ground and two underneath. There was a large courtyard in the middle of the building on the second floor that kept much of the building light and airy.
Since things had been slow in homicide. Izzy had spent his time looking over old cases to see which ones should be stricken from the active list. It was always depressing to admit to himself that someone committed a murder and he couldn’t do a thing about it. But this morning, Izzy got a call from Captain Richard O’Rourke, head of the homicide division, with even more depressing news -- someone had been murdered. “Liebes, there’s a stiff in the Kawainui Marsh behind Kailua. Forensics is on its way. Take charge. Take Hoku with you.”
“I’m off Captain,” he said, putting the old cases back in his file cabinet. Izzy went to Hoku’s office, two doors from his. Hoku looked up and said, “Howzit, Loo.”
Izzy said, “We have work. There’s been a murder in Kailua.”
As they buckled their seatbelts, Hoku asked Izzy, “What we have ovah there?”
“Let’s get the big picture first and then stay out of the way of the forensics team. We don’t want to contaminate evidence before they have a chance to go over it. We’re all on the same side. We investigate as soon as they finish up.”
Izzy left the parking lot and headed back up the Pali Highway. He thought the view even more beautiful heading toward the Windward side, first climbing the valley and then going through the tunnel. Coming out of the tunnel was a breathtaking view, of 1,000-foot cliffs going down to a floodplain and beyond, the ocean. As many times as he took this trip to Kailua where the highway ended, he marveled at the sight.
“This is some view, isn’t it?”
“No mo’ bettah,” answered Hoku. slipping into Hawaiian pidgin as she often did when talking with Izzy.
Izzy turned left on Kihapai Street after passing the marsh and parked opposite the trailhead that began from the parking lot of Kawainui Neighborhood Park. Hoku said, “I tink I see forensics.”
Izzy answered, “Yeah, I see them, too, by the edge of a pond, under that coconut palm.” They followed the path down to where the body lay. It was incongruous to be walking through this lush grass marsh, with its beautiful bird life, in order to see a murder victim. Red headed cardinals had gathered round the scene, seemingly curious about the commotion.
Izzy walked down to a uniform standing off to the side. “You find the body?”
“Yeah. His wife, Peggy Ferguson, called him in as missing last night. I went to the marsh shortly after sunrise. The body matches the wife’s description. We haven’t called her yet. Thought you might take care of that.”
“I take it you waited for forensics before approaching the body?”
“He was laying head into the pond. I didn’t need to approach him to know he was dead.”
“Hoku. See if you can get in close to the body. If so, take some photos. The camera is in the glove compartment.”
“I’ll get them, Loo.”
Hoku approached Maureen Nakamura, the Medical Examiner. She had beautiful features, but also the hardened look of those whose work keeps them in contact with violent death. “You ready for talk?” asked Hoku. The M. E. said she had gotten as far as she was likely to get in this environment.
“Can I take picture?” Hoku asked
“Sure.”
“You got his height, weight, age, race?”
“The vic is about five foot six, 150 pounds. Bald with some white hair. Probably in his mid-sixties. Haole. Is that enough info until I work him up in the lab?”
“Plen’y. Mahalo.”
Hoku asked the uniform for the address of Peggy Ferguson. It was on Mokolea Street in nearby Lanikai. Hoku brought the news to Izzy. He said, “Hoku, there’s no worse part of being a homicide detective than having to tell someone that a loved one has been murdered. Are you ready for it?”
Hoku thought and said, “I don’t tink I ever gonna be ready fo’ dat job, so I might as well start now.”
“All right, you have the address. Get a lift from the patrolman and head on over.”
As Izzy approached Nakamura, he looked at the dead body and froze. His mind emptied, and his body became paralyzed.
“Lieutenant, what’s the matter?” She called to him several times before he answered.
“Nothing.” Izzy replied.
But Nakamura was a doctor. Though she worked mainly with the dead, she was observant and never forgot what she had learned in medical school about the living.
“Don’t give me ‘nothing.’ I’m still a doctor.”
Izzy felt that he had to answer, “I had a flashback to the time I almost drowned in a swamp after I’d been shot in Vietnam. I’m O.K. now. These attacks aren’t frequent and don’t last long.”
She asked, “Does the brass know about them?”
“Yeah, it’s in my personnel file.”
She answered, “O.K. Izzy. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. I’m ready to wrap it up here. Let’s talk. Everything is tentative until I examine the victim in the lab.”
“What was the cause of death?”
“Death was from a knife wound to the chest. The knife went in cleanly below the ribs and up into the heart. The assailant knows how to use a knife. Strong. Probably a man. We found footprints associated with the killing. The killer wore size 10 flip-flops which indicates he was probably of average height.”
Great, thought Izzy, that leaves us a quarter of the island as suspects. The M.E. guessed the time of death as early yesterday, May 21. She said,” From the blood that was spilled, it seems clear that the killing took place at the site where the corpse was found.”
Izzy looked around at the marsh, usually such a peaceful spot, where the only noise one heard was the croaking of coqui frogs, a loudmouthed animal that was an accidental import from the Caribbean that seemed to find the Kawainui Marsh a perfect habitat.
- - - - - - - -
Hoku pushed the doorbell of the Ferguson home. She knew that in this toney neighborhood even this modest two-bedroom home built in the Sixties would sell for well over a million dollars. When a woman came to the door, Hoku announced she was a police officer. Peggy Ferguson, in her early sixties, looked extremely distraught, her face puffy from crying. Her clothing looked slept in. Hoku asked if she was Mrs. Ferguson. When she nodded yes, Hoku said, “I know your husband is missing. I’m sorry, but I gotta show you a picture of a man dat was murdered.” Hoku brought out the picture and from the reaction of the woman there was no doubt that the picture was of her missing husband. Peggy Ferguson’s eyes went blank and her knees buckled.
“My God, my God. It can’t be.”
“I’m real sorry, ma’am.”
Peggy Ferguson began to cry. At that moment, Hoku saw another woman, in her early forties, enter the room. She introduced herself as Vivian Liu, a neighbor of the Ferguson’s. She went over to console Peggy, hugging her, but to little avail. She at least got her to sit down on the couch.
Hoku realized that it would be hours before Peggy Ferguson would be in shape to be interviewed. She told her, “When you feel bettah, we can talk. I’ll come back later dis afternoon.” She then talked to the neighbor to assure that she would be available to keep Peggy company. The neighbor said she would remain with her or get another neighbor to do so.
Hoku said, “Take her to a doctor if she is willing. Dis my card. The faster we get info from Mrs. Ferguson, the better the chance we find da killah.”
When Hoku returned to Izzy, she described the visit. In reply to Izzy’s question of how she was feeling she answered, “Loo, trus’ me. I’m ready to work homicide.”
Izzy said, “O.K. I’m going to call it a day. Do you want me to take you home now? Hoku thanked him and said that she would go back to interview Mrs. Ferguson later that afternoon.
After Izzy dropped Hoku off, he continued on down to Waimanalo Beach and spent an hour body surfing, gathering and cleansing himself. As he lay on the beach, catching his breath, he thought of the panic attack he had at the crime scene and he thought of the circumstances that had brought on these occasional attacks.
- - - - - - - -
In early 1973, near the end of the war in Vietnam, Private Izzy Liebes was the point man for his platoon on a routine mission on the outskirts of Saigon. Aerial surveillance does not always show enemy troop movement, so ground surveillance was also necessary. Izzy’s platoon was led by a twenty-four year old graduate of the R.O.T.C. program at the University of Connecticut. He had sandy colored hair and his skin didn’t do well in the sun. He was the oldest man in the platoon. Izzy was twenty and one of the few soldiers in the platoon who actually had volunteered.
Izzy had been raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York and he had been ready to do almost anything, including enlisting, to get out of the three-bedroom apartment he shared with his mother and father, three sisters and four brothers. Growing up, all of them seemed basically happy with their lives, except for him. He seemed to always feel confined.
As a child, beginning at age seven, he went to Hebrew school every weekday afternoon, while non-Jews and non-observant Jews would be out playing ball. As he grew older, he hated being allowed to do almost nothing on Saturday, the Sabbath, other than pray and eat.
When he turned twenty, his life remained much the same as earlier, except instead of going to school, he had to work eight hours a day --only four hours on Fridays -- in his Uncle Shlomo’s jewelry store. Izzy was not anxious to go to Vietnam, but he knew he had to leave home, and with some luck, the war would be over before he finished basic training. He had no such luck.
He was halfway through his one-year tour of duty on the day he was shot. His platoon was patrolling an area of alternating rice paddies and tropical jungle with tall green trees growing out of the swamps. The platoon walked down a raised trail, rifles at the ready. With Izzy in the lead, he walked around a bend in the trail and suddenly he was in open country. Enemy rifles fired at him. Izzy felt the searing pain of a bullet going through his left thigh. He collapsed and fell into the muck at the edge of a swamp. He lay in it face down, in too much pain and too much shock to move. He could not tell how much longer he could keep his head high enough out of the swamp to be able to breathe. He felt near suffocation.
The next thing he remembered was being in a field hospital. Once he was stabilized, he was flown to Tripler Army Hospital, on O‘ahu in Hawaii
- - - - - - - -
Izzy never understood why body surfing cleansed him of his panic attacks. Particularly in big waves there were times when he was trapped under water, unable to breathe. Yet these real life bouts of being unable to breathe did not take him to his panic. It was the fear of filth, rather than fear of being unable to breathe, that set off today’s attack in the marsh. As the years went on, he had gained the ability to better control these panics. He could use his mind, his will, to take a step back from the feeling level, the feeling that death was imminent. The attacks became less frequent, less severe.
Hoku drove to Peggy Ferguson’s at 5:00 p.m. Peggy looked more in control than earlier. Yet the bitterness went deeper. She asked the detective to sit.
Hoku said, “I know ’dis is not easy, but we have to look fo’ da killah. I gotta ask you some questions. Do you know what your husband was doing out dere?”
“He walked through the marsh almost every morning. I think he got out of bed a little earlier than usual yesterday. About 5:00 a.m. I fell back asleep.” Peggy began crying, “He won’t be walking there any more. He was sixty-six. He wanted to keep exercising and his main exercise was walking from home around the marsh and back. He was very proud he could walk six miles a day.”
“Who knew he did dis?”
“All our friends. He really knew the marsh and would bring friends along and point out the beauty of it.”
“Half of Kailua. He often stopped for coffee at the Kalapawai Market on his way home.”
“I need to ask one hard question. Had he had trouble in business or with the family or a neighbor?”
“Jerry? He’s retired. We have plenty of money. We have two children and four grandchildren. They loved Jerry. Detective, this has to have been a random killing. He had no enemies”. Peggy began to sob again. When she slowed down, Hoku asked her to give a call if anything else occurred to her. Hoku headed home and called Izzy to report. They agreed to meet at the Kalapawai Market the next morning. Izzy would go at 5:45 a.m. when the market opened. At 6:00 the benches in front of the market would fill up with the “regulars.” Izzy thought it best that he tackle this group by himself and said to Hoku, “Sleep a bit later and show up at 7:00, when other people begin to straggle in.”
Usually Izzy went to his haiku group on Thursday evenings. These meetings took place in Auntie Yamaguchi’s home in Kailua. They were the highpoint of his week. But tonight an early trip to bed seemed in order.
Izzy thought again about his panic attacks. Luckily for him, the police psychiatrist reached the conclusion that these minor episodes were unlikely to interfere with his functioning as a police officer.
Before going to bed, as he did most nights, he picked up his calligraphy pen and wrote a haiku:
Kailua marshland
an egret stands in the grass
a body nearby
Writing didn’t help him get to sleep this night.
When he awoke in the morning after too fitful a night’s sleep, Izzy shaved, showered, dressed and walked to the Kalapawai Market. He wanted to get there before “The Bench.” These were the regulars who came for their coffee when Kalapawai opened and sat on the benches out front, from which the group got its name. They were primarily a group of older men, but the group included a few women and younger folk. They also referred to themselves as the “Piss and Moan About Everything Club.” There was little discourse, but much banter. The tailgate of Ralph’s station wagon served as a podium for joke telling. No race, religion or ethnic group was immune from barbs.
As Izzy approached, Randy, the usual joke teller, was reading a joke handed him by Louie:
“Why did Hawai‘i take so long to adopt the 911 emergency number? The Portagee couldn’t find the eleven on the dial.”
This brought laughter and mock complaints, such as, “Hey you no like my Portuguese ancestors?” And “What you gonna do now? Ask how many Portagee it take fo’ change a light bulb?”
But these folks had the pulse of Kailua and Izzy thought it the best place to start to gather information about Jerry Ferguson. Ferguson seemed to be universally known and liked. The group confirmed what Peggy Ferguson had told Hoku about his daily walk being known to many. He would sometimes have coffee with The Bench before he went on his walk through the marsh. Yesterday, no one had seen him.
Izzy asked if they had seen anyone or anything odd two days ago. Ralph was the first to answer, “With this bunch, how could anyone else seem odd? No, only kidding. I didn’t see anyone I didn’t know. The Bench meets too early in the morning for tourists to show up.” The others chimed in with similar answers. Nobody remembered seeing Jerry that morning. Some speculated that he might have gone for his walk a little earlier than usual yesterday.
Hoku drove up at 7:00, just about when The Bench was beginning to break up. For the next three hours, she and Izzy asked those arriving whether they knew anything about Jerry Ferguson or any unusual people they might have seen hanging around two days ago. They gathered no useful information. Those who knew Jerry, liked him. Word had gotten out. Most people they spoke to already knew about the murder. But they were unable to give information about any stranger being in Kailua on the morning of the death. At 10:00, Izzy decided that this was getting nowhere and told Hoku that it was time to get back to Headquarters.
When they arrived, Izzy asked for an immediate meeting with Captain O’Rourke. O’Rourke was free and he Izzy and Hoku met in his office. O’Rourke and Izzy sometimes joked about an Irish Captain and a Jewish Lieutenant heading Honolulu’s homicide division. A few years younger than Izzy, O’Rourke was of mid-height and possessed a very definite beer belly. O’Rourke was a dedicated and intelligent police officer. Many in the department thought he would wind up becoming Police Chief.
He asked Izzy to fill him in on the investigation so far. When Izzy finished, he asked Hoku whether she believed that Mrs. Ferguson could be involved. Hoku shook her head and said, “I’d bet my life she was not involved.” O’Rourke said that the M.E. had called him early that morning and told him that the time of death was likely about 6:00 a.m. Lab work had not turned up any evidence such as skin or blood other than Ferguson’s. They were continuing to work, but were not optimistic.
O’Rourke continued, “Let’s canvass all the houses around the marsh. In particular, ask whether anyone noticed any parked car that did not belong to a neighbor. The killer probably did not walk there. There are a good number of houses to cover. I’m going to put Sid Chun on the case with you. If you need more personnel, Izzy, let me know.” Izzy told Hoku to meet him in his office at 4:00. He called Sid and told him he had been assigned to the case and that they would leave for Kailua at 4:00. Sid was ethnically Chinese, born in Hawai‘i. He was very good looking, maybe too good looking, With his looks, he thought he should be able to go out with every beautiful woman on Hawai‘i. He had already made a good start on this goal.
Izzy knew that the residential area surrounding the marsh was a neighborhood of commuters to Honolulu. Izzy wanted to arrive as people returned from work. Two hours into canvassing, Hoku hit pay dirt. A resident on Kaha Street said that he was wakened by a car that drove up and parked at 4:00 a.m. in the Kawainui Neighborhood Park’s parking lot. His home overlooked the lot. Hoku asked him if he could recognize the car and he said it was a late-model green Honda Accord. With a touch of embarrassment, he added that he had looked at and memorized the license plate: 245 HLR.
The Department of Motor Vehicles was already closed for the day and would not open until 8:00 a.m. the next day, so Izzy knew he had to wait to follow up. He sent Sid off for the day. Hoku invited Izzy over for a glass of wine. Hoku used her cell phone to call Sarah and when they arrived at the house, Sarah had some poke and guacamole and thick Maui potato chips ready. She poured them each a cold glass of Coppola Blanco wine. Hoku was usually a beer drinker, but she was trying to broaden her horizons. Sarah and Hoku each made adjustments to each other’s cultures.
Sarah asked how it had gone. Hoku said, “Murdah nevah good to see.”
Izzy added, “I’ve seen many murders. I hated every one.”
Sarah asked them, “Then why are you both homicide detectives?”
They answered almost in unison, “To prevent murders and to catch murderers.”
Sarah said, “That sounds like a pretty productive use of your hatreds.”
They chatted some more and when the pupus and wine were polished off, Izzy headed home. He read for a while and then sat down to write his haiku.
good wine and good food
and good talk -- altogether
in the end, alone
In the morning, Izzy called the DMV and was able to locate someone working in records on this Saturday morning who was able to fax him a copy of the driver’s license of the owner of 245HLR . He was Scott Anderson with an address in Kane’ohe, aged 35, 5’9” 150 lbs, appeared Caucasian and was required to wear glasses to drive.
Izzy called Hoku and Sid and told them to meet him at his house. They would drive together to the Kane’ohe address. Sid, who owned a BMW, could never understand how Izzy could live with a car that was always filled with sand. As they approached the address, they saw a man matching the description leaving the apartment building.
Izzy pulled over and said, “Nothing rough, but we could have a murderer here. Use care.”
They approached the man, Izzy going straight towards him, Sid to his left and Hoku to his right. When he reached the man, Izzy showed him his badge and said, “I’m from the Honolulu police. We need to ask you some questions.”
He responded, “Have you found my car?”
“What?” Izzy asked
He answered, “Isn’t this about my car? I reported it stolen three days ago.”
“Are you Scott Anderson?’
“Yes.”
Izzy stepped aside and said to Sid, “Use your cell phone to check that the car was reported stolen.”
Izzy then said to Anderson “Your car may have been involved in a very serious crime. We need to talk to you.”
Sid came back a few moments later. As Anderson had stated, he had reported the car stolen three days ago. Izzy asked him if he had ever been to the Kawainui Marsh. He answered no.
Izzy asked, “Do you have any suspicions as to who stole the car?”
Anderson answered, “If I had, I would have reported it to the police.”
Izzy realized that he was unlikely to receive any useful information and said to Anderson, “Can you give me your place of employment and its phone number? I’d like your home phone number, too”
He said, “I work in the State’s Department of Land Management.” Izzy gave him his card and said, “If anything occurs to you, give me a call. It really is quite important. If the car shows up, don’t get into it or even touch it. Call my number and we will go over it looking for any possible evidence.”
After Anderson drove off in his rented car, Izzy asked Hoku and Sid, “What do you think?” Sid said he doubted Anderson was involved. Hoku agreed. Izzy said, “I think you are both probably right, but let’s check out a couple of things. Hoku, on Monday check his office to see if there was anything unusual about his behavior the day of the murder. Sid, check to see if there were any phone calls between him and the deceased. If nothing appears interesting, I think we can forget him.”
CHAPTER III
On Monday, neither of the investigations by Sid or Hoku carried out turned up anything suspicious. The three detectives got back together that afternoon.
Izzy said, “This murder was premeditated. The murderer stole a car in order that his own car couldn’t be connected to the crime. But was the victim chosen at random? Did the killer want to kill Ferguson or do we have some psycho who just wanted to kill someone and Ferguson happened to be the most convenient victim? If the murderer picked Ferguson to kill, it is likely that he lives in the vicinity and knew of Ferguson’s daily walk. I’ll ask Records to see if they can run down the names of car thieves with records of also committing violent crimes.”
Records came up with a list of two hundred and forty, a long list to work. If no further clues, showed up and homicide stayed slow, he would have Hoku and Sid work the list. Izzy called O’Rourke and brought him up to date. Izzy asked that all police officers be placed on the lookout for Anderson’s stolen car. He also asked O’Rourke to arrange for the Division of Motor Vehicles to duplicate the licenses with the drivers’ pictures of the two hundred and forty violent car thieves on the Windward side.
Izzy used the rest of the day to clean-up his paperwork. He had a premonition that this was not a killer that would commit only one murder. He wanted to clear things to be able to work full time on the case if another murder occurred or if a break occurred in the Ferguson murder.
Izzy had a slow evening at home. He walked on the beach, cooked himself an ono fillet with Korean-style local watercress and watched some television. When he was ready for bed he took out his calligraphy set and wrote a haiku that had occurred to him while walking on the beach:
leaf blowing across
the narrow white sandy beach
no destination
- - - - - - - -
When Izzy looked at his mail in Headquarters the next afternoon, he immediately noticed another peach-colored envelope. He opened it and read:
May 27
sliver of a moon
sliding into the ocean
behind the Sunset
00002
The frozen, panicked feeling came over him, but he snapped out of it within seconds. What so frightened him was his intuition that the Ferguson murder, near a pond with frogs, was related to the earlier haiku he had received in the mail:
The old pond
a frog jumps in,
the sound of water
00001
If that was the case, then this second haiku might be announcing a new murder. Was there a psychopathic, serial killer on the loose? There hadn’t been such a serial killer in Hawai‘i in decades, but that hardly guaranteed there would not be one now.
Izzy stared at the two letters. He had wondered about the first one he received being dated May 16. It was the date he received it, so it couldn’t have been written on that date. He realized that Ferguson’s murder was five days after the date on the haiku. The body was found on May 22 but according to the autopsy, as well as the discussion with Peggy Ferguson, the murderer struck a day earlier, on May 21, five days after that date. If this were done purposefully, then perhaps the next attempt at a murder would occur seven days after the date on this second haiku, June 3, as in the rhythm of traditional haiku, 5-7-5.
Izzy threw his arms behind his head and leaned back in his chair, debating whether to go with this to O’Rourke. He was often teased at Headquarters about his devotion to haiku, usually by obscene haiku being left on his locker. Since he was a lieutenant, it was always done surreptitiously. But the poems he received in the mail he thought had a malevolent purpose. He could not allow his fear of embarrassment to prevent him from sharing his thoughts with O’Rourke. Izzy realized the force did not have the resources to cover the whole island every day. As usual, Izzy trusted his intuitions. He would stick with the date of June 3, as the date the next murder would be attempted.
But what other clues did the haiku contain? Certainly the killer could not consider it a clue merely to tell the police that a murder would occur after sunset. He looked at his nautical calendar and saw that on June 3, as on most days, the moon would set after the sun. But why was “Sunset” the only word in the haiku spelled with a capital letter?” What flashed through Izzy’s mind was that this might be a reference not to the sun setting, but to Sunset Beach on the North Shore, often simply called “Sunset.”
Izzy barged into O’Rourke’s office, his energy overcoming his usual deference to his captain. He said, “Please hear me through.” O’Rourke put down the report he had been reading and listened without interruption.
When Izzy finished, the captain responded, “What do you plan to do? What do you need from me? I think your conclusion is far-fetched. I know you hope the same. But I agree with you that we can’t take the chance of ignoring this haiku. Your conclusion as to where and when it will occur seems more logical than any I can think of.”
Izzy said, “I want a taskforce of four Homicide detectives. I will be their leader. I don’t want the killer scared off by a force too large to hide effectively. He might give us no clue next time. I’d like Hoku Kulani, Sid Chun, Carlos Machado and Amy Matsuda. I respect all their work.”
The next morning, Izzy decided to drive up to Sunset Beach on the North Shore. He picked up Hoku to accompany him. Sid, Amy and Carlos would continue to work on the list of car thieves.
In no particular rush, Izzy drove slowly. Leaving Kailua, he went through Kane‘ohe and turned north onto Kamehameha Highway. Most of the road was on a narrow coastal plain separating the ocean from steep green mountains. The ocean is in view of the highway on most of its route along this windward side of Oahu.
The Windward side is usually overcast and frequently rainy. This creates a tropical rainforest in which Izzy often hiked. He loved the bamboo, the elephant ears and ferns, but he did not think he could live in that climate. Kailua had more sun, enough to keep him happy. But he loved spending time in the rainforest, accepting that you can’t have a tropical rainforest without a lot of rain. He and Hoku continued up past the small towns of the windward side: Kahalu‘u, Ka‘a‘awa, Punalu‘u and Hau‘ula.
Past Hau‘ula, Izzy pulled over into a small parking lot in front of a park officially named La‘ie Beach Park, but which everyone calls “Pounders”. Izzy asked Hoku to please leave the car and turn around. He got into his swimsuit and took his fins from the trunk. As he approached, Hoku she said, “Hey boss, you no tink we gotta work today?”
And Izzy answered, “Just a short set.”
Hoku answered, “You tink, you still one surfah boy? You too old to fool ‘round like dat.”
“Just watch” said Izzy, “I’m too old not to surf while I still can.”
Izzy crossed the narrow grass strip behind the white sand beach. He walked on the beach to the right, towards the ten-foot high rock that attached to the point over which the waves broke. He dove into the water to get behind the waves and put on his fins.
It was with good reason that this break was called Pounders. The waves were short but powerful and very steep. Get onto a wave a little too late and you will take a pounding. Izzy knew that to be body surfing at fifty-six, he had to know his limitations. But he also knew that one of his limitations is that he no longer always knew his own limits. He looked out to sea and saw a wave forming. He swam to where it would peak, turned around and gave a powerful stroke with his two arms while pushing off the bottom. The wave was about four feet high. Izzy pushed his weight forward, till he lay on the wave’s surface. The wave was breaking to the right, so he leaned in that direction. Just before the wave was about to close out in front of him, he let himself free fall to the bottom and tucked out, punching through its back to the surface.
The tension flowed out of him. Izzy had a mind that was always working–sometimes productively, sometimes not. When he body surfed, however, his mind slowed down. There was nothing but him and the wave. His decisions in the water were made by his body, not his mind. For him it beat meditation, maybe it even beat sex.
After half an hour, his body tired, but relaxed, he decided he would ride one more wave into shore. He caught a small one, as always marveling at the speed he could generate on a wave. He came up to the beach and saw an annoyed looking Hoku. “Tink we got all day, surfah boy? Wat wit’ you guys an’ waves?” Izzy didn’t try to explain.
He jumped into the car, his trunks still wet. They passed through the town of La‘ie, a town primarily populated by Mormons. In it were the Brigham Young University-Hawai‘i Campus, the La‘ie Hawai‘i Mormon Temple and the Polynesian Cultural Center. The Center, run by the Mormons, contains model villages from many of the Pacific Islands. Mormon students from those islands attending the university put on exhibitions of the arts and crafts of their homelands.
North of the Center, in the corner of La‘ie Bay, was Hukilau Beach. Formerly an important fishing ground for Native Hawaiians, it is now a recreational beach. It doesn’t have waves too often, but today there were perfectly clean three-foot waves. Izzy said to Hoku, “There was a reason I left my trunks on.” He dashed out before Hoku could get down on him again and took a short set. He asked her to turn around and got back into his street clothes, which, of course, got soaked when he sat down in his wet seat. Izzy told Hoku, “Don’t worry. No more surfing today.”
As Izzy drove on, he looked out at a field containing a number of monkey pod trees, with their majestic, symmetrical, umbrella like canopies. Near one he spotted three white egrets on the back of a cow. Popular wisdom is that this is an omen of good luck.
The highway continued around O‘ahu passing the old plantation town of Kahuku with its wistful traditional Japanese burial ground. It then traveled down the northwest coast, always simply called the North Shore. In winter by surfers it’s also referred to as the “Main Arena,” having some of the best waves in the world during that season, a Mecca for surfers. But in summer it is quiet, just year-round locals and occasional house renters. Houses sat on the rear of the beach, many on stilts so that large wintertime waves would go under the house, rather than through it. Behind the houses was a narrow, poorly maintained street called Ke Nui. There was then a twenty-foot stretch of kiawe and other small trees and scrub brush as well as some banyan trees and plumeria. Through this strip was a recently built walking and biking trail. Hoku was aware of this. But Izzy was not until today. Further still from the beach was Kamehameha Highway, which everyone simply calls Kam Highway, up here a two-lane road.
Izzy still was not sure whether this was a good use of police resources. Could the murder of Jerry Ferguson be coincidental to the first haiku he received? And even if there was a psychotic murderer on the loose, could he justify using four detectives to stake out a site based on one capital letter in a haiku? Izzy concluded using four detectives was an appropriate number, though he also worried that perhaps a heavier police presence was called for to protect the locals.
Izzy asked Hoku, “Where do you think we should position ourselves to best protect Sunset?”
Hoku answered, “We put Sid, Carlos an Amy spread out in da brush behind Ke Nui. With da path in now, its gonna be hard to find good hidin’ places, but still enough unda da trees inside da brush. Me and you can pretend to sleep on da beach.”
Izzy said, “I think that’s a plan.
They took one last look at the terrain and Izzy asked, “Why don’t we call it a day? I’ll treat you to lunch at Haleiwa Joe’s.”
Hoku said, “Thanks, Loo.”
Hale‘iwa is the main town on the North Shore, about a ten minute drive passed Ke Nui. Despite the presence of shopping malls, it had kept much of its plantation era architecture and feel from the early twentieth century, Izzy asked for a table on the patio overlooking the boat harbor.
Hoku said to Izzy, “I know you Jews don’t eat pork. O.K. I order ribs?”
“Why would it bother me? You’re not even Jewish.”
“How come you don’t eat pork?”
“I grew up
in an observant household. The Bible commands Jews not to eat pork,
so we didn’t eat pork. At this point, I no longer follow all the
rules the Bible lays down for Jews. But some habits die hard. Just
the thought of eating pork makes me queasy. But you’re a Christian
Native Hawaiian. Enjoy your ribs.”
Izzy ordered grilled mahi, which he enjoyed immensely. They split a slice of chocolate cake for desert.
Filled to the top, they drove back to Kailua. Izzy stopped at a farmer’s stand to pick up some fresh Kahuku corn, the sweetest variety he ever had tasted. After the big lunch, a couple of ears of corn would make a fine dinner.
When Izzy reached Kailua, he called Headquarters to find out if there had been any developments. The M.E. had come up with nothing significant. She just confirmed what she had said in the marsh. Sid, Carlos and Amy had followed up on thirty of the car thieves and had found nothing they considered to significant. Amy had also taken the driver license photos to Nancy Ferguson but she had not recognized anyone.
Izzy dropped Hoku off just as Sarah was getting home from her job in Honolulu. Sarah invited Izzy in for a drink and he said, “Just for one.” Sarah opened a cold bottle of Pinot Grigio. They talked about local politics and found their views in accord. Izzy returned home, read a bit and knocked off the two ears of the Kahuku corn. He sat down to write the night’s haiku.
Clean wave, cutting left
a wall, a tube, a shoulder