Murder at Volcano House : A Surfing Detective Mystery ( Surfing Detective Mystery Series ) Read online

  Other Surfing Detective Books

  by Chip Hughes

  MURDER ON MOLOKA‘I

  WIPEOUT! & HANGING TEN IN PARIS

  KULA

  SLATE RIDGE PRESS

  P.O. Box 1886

  Kailua, HI 96734

  [email protected]

  ISBN: 0982944446

  ISBN-13: 9780982944448

  First Edition, 2014

  © 2014 Chip Hughes. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part in any form or by any means without prior written permission from Slate Ridge Press.

  In the time-honored tradition of fiction writing, the author has taken artistic liberties in the depiction of certain sights, facilities, and geographic features. The hotel of the book’s title is not intended to be the Volcano House of today. The hotel was shuttered when the story was written and on-site research was conducted a decade earlier when flames of the old hotel’s famous fireplace still flickered. And, of course, characters that populate the story are products of imagination rather than actual persons.

  Cover photo: Alan Cressler, Halema‘uma‘u Crater

  “Even from a mile away I can see the smoke—a massive column spiraling into the sunset sky.”

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks once again to my wife, collaborator, and inspiration, Charlene, and to brilliant and extraordinarily generous Honolulu private detective Stu Hilt. Mahalo to Sher Glass, President, Volcano Community Association; to Doug Crispin, National Park Service ranger and long-ago CSU-Chico house-mate; to John Broward, Emergency Operations Coordinator and Eruption Crew Supervisor, Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park; to Christine Matthews, consummate mystery editor and Secretary, Private Eye Writers of America; and to Doug Corleone, whose fast-moving narratives I’ve tried to emulate. For editorial suggestions and proofreading, I’m grateful to Nathan Avallone, Les Peetz, Laurie Tomchak, and Lorna Hershinow. Finally, special thanks to Alan Cressler for the cover photo of Halema‘uma‘u Crater.

  Holmes: “There is a realm in which the most acute and most experienced of detectives is helpless.”

  Watson: “You mean that the thing is supernatural?”

  —The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle

  CONTENTS

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chapter twenty-four

  Chapter twenty-five

  Chapter twenty-six

  Chapter twenty-seven

  Chapter twenty-eight

  Chapter twenty-nine

  Chapter thirty

  Chapter thirty-one

  Chapter thirty-two

  Chapter thirty-three

  Chapter thirty-four

  Chapter thirty-five

  Chapter thirty-six

  About the Author

  one

  It’s Friday afternoon in late March—one of those mild and calm days in Honolulu when coconut palms outside my office above Fujiyama’s Flower Leis barely whisper in the slack trade winds. I’m about to close up shop and paddle out to Pops in Waikīkī.

  My phone rings. Maile?

  No such luck. Caller ID says: TOMMY WOO. Attorney-at-law, jazz pianist, jokester, and friend.

  “Howzit, Tommy?” I answer.

  “Hey, Kai,” he says, “how do you get a lawyer out of a banyan tree?”

  “If I knew, Tommy, you’d tell me anyway.” There’s no stopping him.

  Tommy is quiet for a moment. Then he says: “Cut the rope.”

  “That’s it?” I ask.

  What a mistake. A barrage of blue ones follow.

  When the jokes finally end I say, “What can I do for you, Tommy?”

  “I’ve got a customer for you.”

  “A paying customer?”

  “Absolutely,” he says. “And she needs your services now.”

  “Now? As in immediately? I’m on my way out the door.”

  “You don’t need to start until Monday. But she wants to see you today—to make arrangements.”

  “Arrangements for what?”

  “She’ll explain. She’s here in my office. Well, she just stepped out when I called you. She wants me to come with her.”

  There goes surfing!

  “How soon can you get here?” I glance at the clock on my desk. It’s already four. I want to be in the water in twenty minutes.

  “Give us fifteen,” Tommy says.

  “It’s got to be a short meeting, Tommy. I have to be somewhere at four thirty.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” he says. He knows my ways.

  “Who is the woman?” I ignore his sarcasm. “She a client of yours?”

  “Never met her before. She lives on Kāua‘i. But I recognized her and you will too. I did some work for her husband a long time ago—before she married him. Anyway, that’s how she found me. Being married to him, she’s got money. And the case will take you to a neighbor island. ‘SURFING DETECTIVE: CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS—ALL ISLANDS,’ like your card says. Eh, Kai?”

  “A case on Kāua‘i?”

  “No, on the Big Island.”

  Now I’m really confused, so I simply say, “I’m already working a case—that Pali Highway crash.”

  “Tragic,” Tommy says, revealing his softer side. “I feel for those girls’ parents.”

  “Me too. Actually, I’m waiting on some things and can spare a day or two. But that’s all.”

  “Perfect,” Tommy says. “A few days are all you’ll need. I’ll bring her over.”

  two

  While I wait for Tommy and the mystery woman whose name he assures me I’ll recognize, I dial Maile’s home number. Maile probably won’t pick up, so I work out a message for her in my head. I’ve given up calling her cell phone. I guess trust is one of those things that’s easy to lose and hard to recover.

  Her home phone rings and then her machine kicks in. “Hi, this is Maile Barnes, tracer of missing pets. How can I help?”

  “Maile, it’s Kai.” I start to spew out my rehearsed message: “I wondered if you wanted me to take Kula surfing again. It’s been a while and I haven’t heard from you—I mean, Kula hasn’t been in the water—unless . . .” I’m wandering, so I try to get back on course. “Well, I can take him Sunday . . . Uh, just let me know. Call me, text me, email me. Whatevahs.”

  I had a crush on Maile in high school. When I was off to college, she married someone else, became a K9 cop, and then, suddenly, a young widow. She quit the force and started a pet detective agency.

  Recently Maile helped me on a case. We hit it off like a house on fire. She warned me never to cheat on her, since she’d been burned before. I didn’t, exactly. But my explanations have fallen on deaf ears. Now she won’t speak to me—except about Kula. Kula is the golden retriever she helped me rescue for one of my former clients. She’s fostering the dog, since my cl
ient is unavoidably detained. He’s spending the rest of his life in jail.

  I gaze out my office window onto Maunakea Street’s lei shops, dim sum parlors, fish markets, vegetable stalls, and art galleries, whiff the sweet odors and reeks wafting up, and wonder why I‘m so stuck on Maile. Is it because the spunky ex-cop and I are so much alike—that old-fashioned romantic notion of soul mates? Or because I’m still haunted by her soft curves and jasmine-scented sheets?

  I don’t come up with an answer before there’s a knock at the door. Tommy steps in, adjusts his tortoiseshell glasses, sweeps back a lock of silver hair, and gestures to the woman next to him. “Kai Cooke, meet Donnie Ransom.”

  I draw a blank on her name. But I do vaguely recognize her face. When Tommy announces—“Miss Hawai‘i finalist”—I know why.

  “My name was Lam then,” she says. “Not Ransom. That was twenty years ago.”

  It’s coming back to me now. Donnie Lam was not just a finalist, but first runner-up. Though she missed the crown by a sliver back then, she strides into my office with the grace and elegance of a reigning beauty queen. Her hair is long, lustrous and black; her eyes sparkle like agates in the sun. She wears more mascara and brighter red lipstick than I’d say is necessary for a daytime meeting with an attorney, but they make her eyes and smile all the more vivid.

  Tommy says: “She has a job for you.”

  I expect to hear what sort of job, but she seems more interested in the locale.

  “On the Big Island,” Mrs. Ransom says, “at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park.” Leaving Tommy standing, she takes the one extra chair in my office. “We’ll put you up at the Volcano House, all expenses paid.”

  “The Volcano House?” I say. “There’s nothing like sleeping on the edge of an active crater.”

  Tommy smiles and so does Mrs. Ransom. I look at her more closely. She has that harmonious blend of Hawaiian, Asian and haole, or Caucasian, we call local girl. There are only a few visible hints of the two decades that have passed since she almost became Miss Hawai‘i: faint lines around her eyes and mouth, and a little fullness in her neck and figure.

  “Like I told Tommy, Mrs. Ransom, I’m working another case at the moment and can spare only a few days.”

  “Please call me Donnie,” she says. “And don’t worry, we’ll have you back on O‘ahu by Tuesday evening. Wednesday morning, at the very latest.”

  “That might work,” I say.

  “I’m so glad.” Her youthful complexion glows against her black silk dress. Tommy, also in black, as usual, looks rumpled by comparison.

  “Now just what is it exactly you’d like me to do?” I ask.

  She perks up. “I want you to come with my husband and me to the Volcano House. To—sort of—chaperone him.”

  “That’s it?” Did I miss something?

  “Let me explain. My husband is Rex Ransom. You may have heard his name. Rex was founder and CEO of Ransom Geothermal, a drilling operation on the Big Island in the Wao Kele O Puna rain-forest. Rex pulled out of there years ago and sold the company.”

  “I remember him,” I say. But I don’t like what I remember. I’ve got nothing against geothermal energy—and other alternatives to burning foreign oil—but what this man did was something else.

  “Rex and I are going to the Big Island for the funeral of his former corporate attorney, Stan Nagahara. Stan died recently in the national park and his service will take place at the military camp chapel there. He’s the second from Rex’s company to die there in as many years. Stan’s death was no accident. Neither was Karl Krofton’s two years ago. They were both killed by Pele.”

  “Excuse me,” I say. “Do you mean Madame Pele, the goddess of fire and volcanoes?”

  “Exactly. Pele’s going to take revenge on Rex, just like she did on the other two.”

  I try to keep a straight face, but it’s tough, because behind Mrs. Ransom, Tommy is cracking a smile. So I say: “Why do you think Pele took revenge on those two, and plans to do the same to your husband?”

  “Pele’s followers believe that by drilling in the rainforest Rex and his company violated and desecrated her. They believe what Ransom Geothermal did amounted to rape. I’m afraid they’re right. And if Rex puts himself in Pele’s domain, she will strike him down.”

  “What makes you think those other two were killed by Pele?”

  “There’s no doubt. Look at these.” Mrs. Ransom hauls out two newspaper clippings, one slightly faded, the other newer, whiter. She hands me the faded one first—from two years ago in the Hilo newspaper.

  I read it aloud, in case Tommy also needs bringing up to speed.

  Clues Sought in Volcano Accident

  Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park: Park Service rangers are asking residents and visitors in the Volcano area to provide information about an accident that left former Ransom Geothermal executive Karl Kroften dead. Kroften’s crushed BMW was found Thursday morning by a park visitor. The car had apparently careened off Crater Rim Drive near the Halema‘uma‘u Crater, flipped, and landed on its roof in a hardened lava bed. Speed may have been a factor. Kroften had no prior accidents, traffic citations, or arrests. He was known to friends and former coworkers as a quiet man who lived alone, enjoyed motor sports, and did not drink.

  Earlier that evening a park visitor reported seeing a grey-haired woman smoking a cigarette climb into a silver BMW sedan like Kroften’s with a white dog. When the wrecked car was recovered, no trace of the old woman or her dog was found. Volcano residents familiar with the legend of Pele say that what the park visitor saw was the fire goddess in one of her many kinolau or guises.

  “You see,” Mrs. Ransom says, “Karl Kroften’s death was the work of Pele. It couldn’t be clearer. Pele has the mana—the power—to take many forms. That’s what kinolau means. Kino is Hawaiian for body and lau for many.”

  Tommy raises his brows.

  I say something vaguely neutral like, “Uh-huh.” And then, “Or maybe he was driving too fast?”

  “Rex says Karl was an excellent driver,” she goes on. “Rex rode with him many times to job sites. No, it was Pele.”

  Then she hands me a week-old clipping from the Honolulu daily.

  Volcano Attorney Found Dead in East Rift Zone

  Hilo: Big Island attorney Stanley Nagahara, who once represented Ransom Geothermal Enterprises, was found dead yesterday in an inactive lava tube in the East Rift Zone in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. A search and rescue effort began late Tuesday evening when Nagahara, who had been hiking alone, failed to return home. His body was discovered early Wednesday morning in a crevasse of nearly one hundred feet into which he had apparently tumbled. Family members and friends were at a loss to explain the accident. Nagahara was an avid and experienced hiker who often explored lava tubes and caves in the area. He is the second former Ransom Geothermal executive to die accidentally in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park in as many years. Two years ago drilling engineer Karl Kroften died in a single car accident near the Halema‘uma‘u Crater . . .

  “It’s a pattern,” she says. “Rex would be the third. Bad things come in threes. He’s Pele’s next victim.”

  “A car accident . . . a fallen hiker . . . two years apart,” I reply. “How is that a pattern?”

  “Pele makes the pattern. She’s behind it all. Both deaths happened in her domain—on her ‘aina. Both involved high-ranking people in Rex’s company. This is her revenge. But the one she wants most is Rex. He was the head of the whole operation.”

  “Two high-ranking officials from your husband’s company have died, out of how many?” I try to be the voice of reason. “Isn’t it just a coincidence?”

  “I’m not willing to take that chance,” she replies. “I wish Rex wouldn’t attend the funeral, but Stan was his friend as well as his corporate attorney. They endured a lot together. Rex says he must go and pay his respects.”

  “I have to admit,” I say, “I was sympathetic back then to Hawaiians who opposed drilli
ng in their rainforest.” Images surface in my memory from the news coverage of Ransom’s crews and their machinery ripping and scarring the fragile forest. The ongoing protests could do nothing to stop the devastation.

  “I was sympathetic too,” she says.

  “In good conscience,” I hear myself say, “I don’t see how I can go with you.”

  Tommy frowns.

  I’m hoping the conversation will end here.

  three

  The conversation doesn’t end.

  Donnie Ransom’s beauty queen smile tightens. She pushes on, sounding desperate now.

  “I promise you—Rex is a changed man. He’s beginning to feel his own mortality. He had a heart attack back in September. And two days of tests last month at Wilcox Hospital confirmed he could have another. It’s been so hard.”

  “It must be difficult for you.” I try to be sympathetic.

  “I went to Lāna‘i while he was in the hospital. Caregivers have to take care of themselves, you know.” Donnie keeps going. “Rex has developed a fear of Pele. He has nightmares about her in her various guises—beautiful young woman in red, old lady in white, and so on. He wakes up screaming. Believe me, he’s not the hard-charging conservative from Montana he was thirty years ago. He’s even renting our guest quarters to an openly gay man.”

  “Why don’t you have your renter escort you and your husband?” I say, still looking for a way out.

  “Jeffrey? Oh, I don’t think Jeffrey could protect anyone. He’s a lovely, sensitive man, but . . .” She hesitates. “He’s boarding the Pride of Aloha this Saturday with his friend, Byron, for a week-long inter-island cruise.”

  “Why don’t you hire a Big Island PI?” I try again. “You won’t have to pay travel expenses.”

  “Money is no object,” she says. “Besides I don’t know anybody on the Big Island. And Mr. Woo says I can trust you.”

  Tommy winks. I know what that means. The Ransoms could bring him more business, if I do well. Plus I owe him. Tommy helped me recover Kula, the golden retriever Maile is now fostering. I glance at my attorney friend again and see the writing on the wall.