5 Murder at Volcano House Read online

  twelve

  Wednesday morning, I’m awakened by a call. I was wrong. Donnie does need my services. She says her husband insists on walking the Crater Rim Trail again before breakfast. For his health, she tells me. And he’s going alone. She doesn’t say why. No worries, I reply. I’ll be waiting for him by the trail.

  Same drill as before. I hide behind the corner of the hotel when Ransom appears. The old man hobbles out the side door, makes his way awkwardly across the lawn with his cane, and sets out even more slowly than before—with no one now to support his feeble progress. I let him get ahead of me, far enough so he won’t think he’s being followed, but not so far that I lose sight of him.

  The air is chilly and thick with mist. The sky is ghostly white. Visibility is even worse than yesterday. We’re walking in a cloud. Double exposures, odd outlines, and shrouded images distort even the most familiar objects. I stick close to Ransom. He shouldn’t be left alone in this murk.

  I look behind me. No Touch of Grey in the parade. To track Ransom today he’d have to be close. He’s not. Why go to so much trouble to follow a man and then just quit?

  Not me. I’m still on the case. I follow Ransom, just the two of us, alone on the trail. Not even any other tourists at this hour. We leave the Volcano House behind and head into the tree ferns. The old man is under those green umbrellas when he puts his cell phone to his ear. He talks briefly, and then hangs up.

  He hobbles on. Finally he reaches The Steaming Bluff, the goal of his solo hike. He stops at the first gaping vent and leans against the top guardrail. The steam, billowing thick with sulfur, still appears to be the most visible threat to his wellbeing.

  A young woman approaches him from the opposite direction. Even through the steam I can tell she’s oddly dressed for the trail: flowing crimson gown, shimmering black hair, flame-red lipstick, and eyes vivid with dark shadow and liner. She’s attired more for a prom than a hike. Ransom sees her and they appear to lock eyes briefly.

  Who is this woman? She looks hauntingly like a well-known kinolau of Pele. Donnie mentioned this guise of the goddess in my office—the seductive young woman in red. My client didn’t describe her in detail. She didn’t need to. Like most people who grow up in the islands, I know. That kinolau and this woman on the trail appear to be one in the same.

  Can’t be. I scratch my head. Is she why the old man insisted on walking alone? Was the call from her? Or has she merely bumped into him by chance?

  Now my own phone rings. It’s Donnie. “Kai!” She sounds hysterical. “I’m so afraid!”

  “What’s wrong?” I say. “Where are you?”

  “I’m running toward you on the trail.” She’s breathless. “Now I can just barely see you through the mist.”

  I turn around and see the vague outline of a person, motioning rapidly toward herself.

  “I’m so afraid!” Her voice is lower now, but still on the verge of hysteria.

  “Wait there.” I run to her. I don’t like leaving Ransom behind, but he’s not so far away that I can’t return to him quickly. I keep glancing back as I move further from him and the woman.

  When I reach Donnie she’s clutching a piece a paper in her trembling hands. She grabs my arm and pulls me a few steps off the trail into the tree ferns, out of sight of her husband.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This.” She hands the paper to me. The words on it are cut and pasted from a newspaper.

  as you value your health and your life keep away from Pele

  Deadly

  “Where did you get this?”

  “It was slipped under my door just after Rex left,” Donnie says, still trembling. “What does it mean?”

  “You tell me. You know your husband and his enemies better than I do.” I step back onto the trail to catch another glimpse of Ransom. The air is thick and I can barely see the shadowy outlines of two people.

  “Maybe it’s Rex’s ex-wife?” She shrugs.

  “What motive would his ex have to produce a note like this? Just to make him, or you, uncomfortable?”

  “I don’t know.” Donnie shakes her head. “I’m so scared, I can’t think straight.”

  I believe her.

  Donnie tries again. “Maybe the insane woman who escaped from the mental hospital?”

  “No matter who delivered the note,” I say, “we can’t do anything about it now. I better get back to your husband.” I fold and put the note in the pocket of my aloha shirt and start with a quick stride toward Ransom. Donnie’s next words stop me.

  “I warned Rex already,” she says.

  “That was you who called him?” There goes my theory about the woman.

  “He told me I was worrying about nothing. Then he hung up.”

  From the direction of The Steaming Bluff I hear what sounds like a thud and a groan. Donnie seems too out of it to notice.

  “Why don’t you go back to your room now and let me handle this?” I say. But I’m not waiting for an answer. I’m already moving through the mist.

  I start running. I race through the fern grove. I can hardly see my own feet. But I keep going.

  I hear my shoes pounding the trail. Soon I reach The Steaming Bluff. But I don’t see him or the woman in red. The vapor is so thick now I can’t even make out the caldera below. I approach the vent where I left Ransom. The closer I get, the hotter and more rotten-smelling the steam rising from the cavernous hole. Pele’s at it again.

  “Mr. Ransom?” I call his name, abandoning my cover.

  I doubt the old man could have made it much beyond the vent in the short time I’ve been gone. But he’s nowhere in sight.

  I lean against the guardrail, like he did, and peer in. The smell of sulfur suddenly combines with a more noxious odor. The stench of burning flesh.

  My eyes follow my nose down into the abyss, blinking to avoid the reeking steam. About a dozen feet down, lodged on an outcropping, lies a man. His skin is lobster pink. His lips are puffy. His eyeballs bulge like poached eggs.

  He isn’t climbing out on his own. He’s been boiled alive.

  thirteen

  It’s him. The man I was hired to protect.

  No doubt about it. His cane, already discolored by the searing steam, is wedged in a crack just a few feet below his body.

  The woman in red—a dead ringer for Pele—has vanished.

  Unreal. My brain rebels. But I have to admit what I saw. And it seems I saw Pele, in the flesh.

  Maybe she had nothing to do with it? I rationalize. Maybe Ransom just got too close, succumbed to the fumes, and stumbled into the vent?

  I shake my head. I walk in slow circles, trying to figure out what to do. Then I get a grip on myself.

  Survey the scene.

  I’m the first one here and presumably nothing has been touched. It’s not often a PI gets first crack like this. It may sound cold, since the old man is lying in the vent, but there’s nothing I can do about that. What I can do is try to find out why he died. And what, if anything, the woman in red had to do with it.

  I scan the trail near the vent. The hard-packed dirt, trodden by countless park visitors, reveals no discrete shoe- or footprints. Neither Ransom’s nor the young woman’s. Just off the trail I notice a broken ‘ōhelo branch and small depressions in the vegetation that suggest someone scrambled through the brush toward Crater Rim Drive, about fifty yards away. The woman? Unlikely, given her attire.

  My first look gets me nowhere.

  When I’m satisfied I’ve combed the scene the best I can in short order, I dial 911. I’ll wait to inform Donnie until the Park Service arrives.

  Within minutes a smoky-the-bear hat shows up. It’s Ranger Crisp. He peers into the vent. He asks me the expected questions. He’s calm and deliberate. I give him my card and explain that I’ve been following Mr. Ransom incognito and why. Then the ranger calls in emergency services.

  Seconds later, A Touch of Grey shows up. He sees the former CEO at the bottom of the vent, looks at th
e ranger and me, and asks, “What happened?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” Ranger Crisp says. “Do you know this man?”

  “I know who he is,” he replies. “I’m with Puna Security.” He also hands the ranger a card. “I’ve been shadowing Mr. Ransom.”

  “On whose orders?” the ranger asks.

  “A former exec of Mr. Ransom’s company—an old friend of his—hired me to follow him because of what happened to Mr. Nagahara and Mr. Kroften.”

  “With the victim’s blessing?”

  “He didn’t know.”

  “So that makes two of you tailing him?” The ranger says. “And neither of you saw what happened?”

  “I almost did. The old man was approached by a woman.” I describe her and her resemblance to Pele. “Then Mrs. Ransom, my client, called me away for a moment.” I save the warning note until I can discuss it privately with the ranger. “When I returned, the woman was gone and he was in the vent.”

  The Puna Security man chimes in just as my cell phone rings. It’s Donnie.

  “Kai,” she says, “Where’s Rex? He should be back from his walk by now.”

  “Stay where you are,” I say. “I’ll be right there.”

  I hang up and tell the two men I’m going to inform the deceased’s wife. That’s normally the job of the official investigating agency, but since the ranger isn’t about to leave the body, he does not object. I hike back to the Volcano House. On the way to her room I stop at the front desk and ask Pualani to photocopy the note.

  Pualani glances at it and is comfortable enough with our friendship to read it silently. I watch her lips move as she reaches last word and whispers Pele. She gives me a look as mysterious as her earlier wink, places the note on her machine, and then hands back the original and copy.

  I say, “Mahalo,” and put both in my shirt pocket.

  I knock on Donnie’s door and she lets me in. From the look of concern on her face I can tell she already knows something is wrong. No sense beating around the bush.

  “I’m sorry to inform you,” I say, “that your husband is dead.”

  She buries her face in her hands and starts to sob. “I knew we shouldn’t come here! I knew Pele would get him!”

  I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m very sorry.”

  She keeps her face buried in her hands. She seems resigned rather than shocked. She doesn’t ask how it happened or where. She just sobs.

  “Your husband wasn’t well,” I say. “He might have had another heart attack, even if he didn’t come to the Volcano House.” I don’t mention the woman in red. Donnie doesn’t need to hear about her now.

  “I want to go to him,” she says. “I want to be with Rex.”

  “It’s not a pretty sight. I’ll take you if you want, but it’s not a pretty sight.”

  “I don’t care.” She goes into the bathroom and rinses her face.

  Then we walk the Crater Rim Trail to where Ranger Crisp and the Puna Security man have now been joined by a dozen onlookers, a state sheriff, and an emergency staff in rescue garb resembling space suits. They’ve got ropes and pulleys and other equipment. Ransom is still down in the vent. He’s not going anywhere.

  “Are you sure you want to see this, Donnie?”

  “I don’t want to,” she says. “I have to. Rex is my husband.”

  “Okay.” I take her to the edge of the trail. She peers over the railing and into the vent. “I knew it would happen!” she cries. “I knew it!”

  “We better go,” I say.

  “I need to talk to her,” the ranger says to me. “The sooner the better.”

  “She’ll be in her room. This is no place for her now.”

  The ranger nods and looks at me. “I need to talk more to you too.”

  “Whenever you’re ready,” I say and lead the widow of Rex Ransom back to the Volcano House.

  fourteen

  “You should show this to the ranger when he interviews you.” I hand Donnie the original note when we return to her room, keeping the copy in my pocket. She scans it once again.

  “Once the ranger is through with us, would you like me to accompany you back to Kāua‘i?” I ask. “Sorry to say, your husband’s body may have to stay here with the medical examiner for now.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” she says. “I’ll manage, but can you wait while I make a call?”

  “No problem,” I say, assuming she’s going to inform family members of her husband’s death.

  When she takes her cell phone from her purse, I excuse myself. “I’ll be out in the hall.“

  “Stay here,” she says. “I’m just calling our renter, Jeffrey Bywater. I don’t want him to be shocked when he watches tonight’s news on the cruise ship.” She punches in a number she seems to know by heart.

  “Hello, Jeffrey? This is Donnie.”

  She pauses. I hear a male voice on the other end of the line, but I can’t make out his words. She whispers to me, “He’s aboard the Pride of Aloha.”

  “Are you and Byron enjoying the cruise?”

  He responds in more words I can’t decipher.

  “I’m glad,” she says. “Jeffrey, I’m afraid I have some bad news. Rex apparently had another heart attack while he was walking a trail by the Volcano House. He was found in a steam vent.” She pauses. “Jeffrey, he’s dead.”

  I overhear Jeffrey telling someone what Donnie just said. The other person, I assume, is Byron, Jeffrey’s friend.

  Donnie starts to sob again. “I’ll be okay,” she says into the phone. “I just wanted you to know.” Another pause. “That’s not necessary. I’ll be fine. I’m with the private detective.”

  She puts her hand on mine. I wonder what’s going on.

  “Okay, do what you like, but it’s not necessary. Goodbye, Jeffrey.”

  She puts down her phone.

  “Jeffrey and Byron have decided to cut their cruise short,” she explains. “They’re going to leave the ship when it docks at Nāwiliwili Harbor on Kāua‘i tomorrow morning, pick me up at Lihue Airport, and drive me back to Hanalei. I told them it wasn’t necessary. But they’re such caring guys.”

  “Sounds like you’ll be in good hands,” I say, but am frankly relieved she no longer needs my services.

  “I’ll be fine to fly a-back to Kāua‘i by myself tomorrow morning,” she explains, “since both of them will meet me there.”

  She barely gets out her words when there’s a knock at her door. I open it to Ranger Crisp. He wants to interview Donnie first. Alone. So I step into the hall. The ranger tells me, “Don’t go far.”

  “I’ll be in the lobby,” I say.

  Soon I’m warming my bones by the perpetual flames of the famous fireplace. Time passes. I’m not thinking about Rex Ransom. Maybe his death is too gruesome. The crackle and piney scent of the fire makes my mind wander—back to the Pali case and those unreturned calls, back to Blossom and her abusive ex-boyfriend, back to Maile and Kula. I drift off into a reverie that’s suddenly interrupted.

  “I’m ready for you,” the ranger says.

  We walk into the hotel dining room, empty at this time of day, take a table, and the interview begins.

  Ranger Crisp proceeds to ask me more expected questions, this time to corroborate what he’s been told by Donnie. How long I’d been working for her. What my duties entailed. Who I was protecting Mr. Ransom from. And how I went about it. The ranger also asks about the last time I saw Ransom. He seems to assume I’m the last person to see the victim alive. But I know I’m not.

  I mention again the young woman in red. “It may sound crazy, but this woman looked amazingly like Pele in one of her guises. It’s probably just a coincidence.“

  “Stanger things have happened,” the ranger says. “Some people will say Pele has claimed another victim, because of Mr. Ransom’s role in the geothermal operation at Wao Kele O Puna. His death makes three. And three looks like a pattern.”

  “And then there’s the note,” I say. “I ass
ume Mrs. Ransom showed it to you.”

  “She did,” the ranger says. “We’ll follow up on it.”

  “Pele wasn’t Mr. Ransom’s only enemy—real or imagined,” I say. “He had mortal enemies too, but you probably know that.”

  “We know about some others. Who did you have in mind?”

  I tell him.

  He nods in agreement, as if we have the same list. Then he says, “Park Service personnel just removed the body.”

  “I bet his wallet was found on him,” I say, “with no evidence of theft.”

  The ranger nods. “We’re going on the assumption, suggested by Mrs. Ransom, that her husband had a heart attack. The autopsy will determine the exact cause.”

  “I would have been there,” I say, “but she was hysterical about that note.”

  “It’s a sad coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, she hires you to protect him. You follow him everywhere and nothing happens. And then you leave him alone for barely a minute—to comfort her—and he turns up dead.”

  Before long the interview is over. I walk back to Donnie’s room to express my sympathy again and say goodbye. She’s not there. Just as well.

  Minutes later my overnight bag rides beside me in the yellow Boxster, heading down the Volcano Highway to Hilo Airport.

  fifteen

  Thursday I get in early to my office with a copy of the morning paper. The front page poses a provocative question: “Pele’s Third Victim?” Below is a photo of a younger Rex Ransom in his geothermal days. And below that, instructions to turn to the local section for the full story. I do.

  Pele’s Third Victim?

  Another Former Ransom Geothermal Executive Dies

  Hilo: Big Island geothermal developer Rex Ransom was found dead yesterday morning in an active steam vent at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. The former CEO of Ransom Geothermal Enterprises apparently fell into the vent after being overcome by fumes. He was walking by himself on the Crater Rim Trail near the Volcano House when he fell.

  Ransom and his wife were staying in the park while attending a funeral for attorney Stanley Nagahara, who once represented Ransom Geothermal. Nagahara’s body was discovered recently in a crevasse in the East Rift Zone after a solo hiking accident. Nagahara was the second former Ransom Geothermal executive to die in the park. Drilling engineer Karl Kroften died nearly two years ago in a single car accident near the Halema‘uma‘u Crater.