Moloka‘i Reef
By
Dennis K. Biby
Moloka‘i Reef
Dennis K. Biby
Copyright © 2009 Dennis K. Biby
Cover photo © Alex Bramwell - Fotolia.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or cloned, businesses, companies, events, locales, or organizations is coincidental.
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To Leslie & Al of the sailing vessel Strait Aero.
1
Gybe assumed the sun was up as he stared into the clear water beneath the bow of Ferrity, his forty-one foot sailboat. He assumed that the earth was rotating eastward, carrying along Mt. Haleakalā. If true, in a few hours the sun would appear to rise from the nine-thousand foot dormant volcano, the foundation of Maui.
He didn’t like what he saw swaying from the anchor still more than a fathom beneath the surface. In August, he had sailed to the Hawaiian Islands from San Francisco to escape diversions like this.
Last evening, he had steered Ferrity into the small, abandoned harbor marked on the east by a few pilings once known as Kolo Wharf. Gybe preferred not to enter anchorages at night, but he had been here twice before and had marked the entrance on his GPS. The channel through the reef was narrow, but the wind was calm, the sea nearly flat, and the moon was just past full when Gybe eased Ferrity into the anchorage, dropped the twenty kilo patented Bruce anchor, and fed out fifty feet of chain.
Gybe was alone this morning. He planned to spend the next two weeks - until the winter solstice - anchored on the south shore of Moloka‘i, monikered ‘The Friendly Isle’ by travel agents and tourists. Besides Kolo Wharf, he wanted to anchor at Hale o Lono, an old barge harbor about three miles to the west, and Kaunakakai, the principal city on Moloka‘i.
Maybe the water and light were playing tricks. Gybe’s eyes traced the anchor chain from windlass, over the bow roller, and down to the water’s edge. Beneath the water, the two chimeras wavered like a reflection in a fun-house mirror.
Damn and double damn, he stepped on the button that engaged the windlass. The windlass reeled in another three feet of chain. Gybe stepped off the button and backed away from the bow.
Fifty yards to the east, he scanned the old wharf. The ocean, here behind the reef, was as still as a desert mirage. A tuft of cloud drifted across the water before impaling itself on the broken stub of the nearest piling. Ferrity sat motionless though her anchor no longer tethered her to the seafloor.
What to do? His eyes walked the shoreline from east to west, reaffirming the discoveries of his last visit. No one lived on the shoreline along the west half of the south side of Moloka‘i. When he was here last week, he had hiked an old jeep trail that paralleled the coast – the trail began at Hale o Lono harbor to the west and ended here at Kolo Wharf.
Several kayaks, paddles, and life jackets lay under a kiawe tree seventy-five yards to the west of the wharf. Gybe assumed that the Moloka‘i Ranch outfit that owned most of the west end of the island ran a kayaking operation here. This morning no one was around.
He had writing to finish. Last week he had met the local police. He didn’t like them. Nothing new there, Gybe hadn’t liked the police since… Move on. Stop thinking about the past, he told himself.
Back at the bow, he stepped on the DOWN button. The chain crawled out of the anchor well, over the windlass, and ticked across the deck before disappearing over the bow roller. Unsure, Gybe stepped off the button. Silence.
He heard a whale blow out in the Kalohi Channel that separated Moloka‘i from the neighbor island to the south – Lāna‘i. Like Pavlov’s dog, Gybe scanned the water searching for the fountain of water. Now that December had arrived, the humpbacks were returning in large numbers. Yesterday, he had changed course twice to avoid whales - whales that could grow to forty-feet and forty tons.
Beautiful morning shot to hell. Gybe pulled the restraining pin from the other anchor, a fifty-pound CQR plow, guided it past the hanging Bruce anchor and its catch, and eased it to the bottom.
Confirming his fears, Gybe mashed the UP button on the windlass and reeled in the Bruce anchor – an anchor that he had not baited last night. The windlass, capable of lifting two hundred feet of vertical chain, groaned under the load.
2
As predicted by Copernicus nearly four centuries earlier, the eastward rotation of the earth moved Mt. Haleakalā and the island of Maui far enough for the rising sun to clear the old volcano. Lā, as the sun was called by ancient Hawaiians, had risen from his home (Haleakalā meant house of the sun) and now hovered low in the December sky, due south of Ferrity.
An orange U.S. Coast Guard Rigid Hull Inflatable (RHI), a Maui County Police boat, and two black Maui County SUVs at the wharf surrounded Ferrity and Gybe who hours earlier had rested at anchor alone on the south shore of this tropical island. The whop, whop, whopping of a news helicopter alternated with the high-pitched squeal of the French-built orange Coast Guard chopper orbiting overhead.
Four hours earlier when Gybe had raised the Bruce anchor clear of the water, he found a chain looped across the anchor flukes. Two bodies, one on each end of the chain, dangled from the anchor.
Before calling authorities, Gybe lowered the catch back beneath the surface. He didn’t want anyone to stumble along the shore and see the bodies until he had prepared for the police. For the next thirty minutes, he ticked through a mental checklist as he rearranged and re-stowed aboard Ferrity. With the bodies hanging on the bow, the police might decide to search Ferrity and there were things that he would rather they didn’t find.
Ferrity, a forty-one foot cutter-rigged sailboat, had been Gybe’s home for seven years. A two-inch royal blue stripe ran fore and aft seven inches below the deck on each side of the white hull. The dodger, royal blue canvas stretched taut over stainless steel bows, protected the companionway and front of the cockpit from ocean spray and the sun. He had made sail covers, winch covers, and other canvas covers from the same royal blue fabric.
He had rigged her for single-handing, sailing alone, and that’s how he preferred to sail. When he wasn’t steering by hand, he relied on a Fleming windvane self-steering system that hung from the stern. As a backup, he had an electric Autohelm 4000 mounted on the wheel.
Electronically, Ferrity was minimally equipped with a depthsounder, knotmeter, and GPS. Fighting the growing trend towards electronic charts, Gybe continued to use paper charts. He didn’t have radar. Nor did he have an anemometer.
Satisfied that he was ready, Gybe keyed the mic on the VHF marine radio, released it, hesitated, then keyed it again. “Coast Guard, Coast Guard THIS IS the sailing vessel Ferrity, Ferrity – Whiskey Tango Sierra Six Eight Five One – Over.” A mayday required a life-threatening situation. The crabs feeding on the bodies suspended beneath the boats bow were the only threatened lives.
“Vessel calling United States Coast Guard; THIS IS the United States Coast Guard. Over.”
And so the conversation continued, in a terse military protocol not often heard where most boaters had learned radio procedures at the movies.
While waiting for the Coast Guard, Gybe boiled water and poured it through the fresh ground French Roast in the coffee filter. Steaming mug in hand, he climbed the companionway ladder to the cockpit where he sat and opened the ship’s log.
In the log, Gybe noted the time of the discovery, his action to drop the other anchor, and the radio call to the Coast Guard. Maritime law considered the ship’s log an official document that courts could subpoena as evidence. The log of Ferrity showed a truncated timeline between discovery and notification.
He heard the whining before he spotted the dragonfly silhouette of the incoming orange helicopter. Like a bad mantra ‘I don’t need this’ cycled through Gybe’s thoughts.
Anchored in San Francisco Bay a year earlier, Gybe had awakened to a thudding against the hull. Thinking that another boat had dragged down on Ferrity, Gybe leapt into the cockpit, ready to fend off and opine on the anchoring skills of the other vessel. Instead, a human body bobbed against the hull.
Somehow, still not entirely clear, circumstances had dragged him into the case of the bumping body. Never again, he thought.
I’m a writer or at least I’m trying to be a writer. Can’t I anchor in remote location on the uninhabited, leeward side of an island and write? Why are bodies hanging from my anchor, Gybe wondered.
The increasing whine of the orange bird interrupted his self-castigation and drummed out any remaining thoughts of releasing the bodies and setting sail.
In his mind, Gybe enumerated three reasons to be in Hawai‘i. First, he had been on San Francisco Bay too long. Gybe, a life long sailor, had lived aboard and sailed Ferrity for seven years. As a goal, he preferred to spend less than a year in one place. The Bay was large and through circumstance and … Gybe hadn’t left the Bay in eighteen months, until July 19 – almost five months ago. On a full foul-weather morning with the air slightly drier than the bay, the sun cowering behind the hills of Oakland, and the tide ebbing beneath the Gate, Gybe sailed beneath the red-orange wires and girders, under the incessant traffic hum, and into the Pacific Ocean. Seventeen days later, he dropped anchor in Radio Bay – in Hilo, Hawai‘i.
The novel was second on the list of reasons to be in Hawai‘i. For more than a year, he had struggled with the MS Word document that sat in the My books folder on his laptop. He struggled with neither writer’s block nor plot nor character nor action, but with the diversions that dogged his wake wherever Ferrity sailed. As soon as Ferrity’s anchor touched bottom, someone or something would demand his time. OK, sometimes it was a party or a dinghy dangle or a woman.
Most people didn’t need reasons to be in Hawai‘i. Hawai‘i, a tropical paradise with sandy beaches, clear waters, waving palm trees, surfer babes – and for those so-inclined, surfer dudes – beckoned everyone with a ticket or a credit card. But, paradise wasn’t the third reason for Gybe’s trip to Hawai‘i. At least not that he would admit to anyone to whom he reported. Come to think of it, he didn’t report to anyone.
The third reason for the trip was to meet with Andrea aboard her Lagoonabago. When he wasn’t writing or pursuing life as a single, heterosexually active sailor, Gybe maintained the business management software and Web site for Andrea’s business. Between the software and an occasional freelance article, Gybe eked by without contributing to society in the indentured, structured, mortgaged manner encouraged by presidents, preachers, and parents.
“Ahoy Ferrity,” blared the coarse god above, drowning out the background whine of the turbine powered whirlybird.
Gybe, who had been sitting under the dodger that shaded the main hatch, slid below and returned the ship’s log to the navigation station.
A quick glance around the cabin reassured him that he was prepared. He stepped into the cockpit and waved to the helicopter that had dropped lower to hover off his starboard side. The voice from above told him they were dropping men into the water. Would he take them aboard?
To an eighth grade student diagramming sentences, it was a request. Projected through the loudspeaker, it was an order. Gybe hoisted a thumbs up, moved to the stern, and lowered the swim ladder.
Three bodies dropped from the chopper, the first of many to climb aboard Ferrity, enter the harbor, and foul the air, land, and sea of that once beautiful morning.
3
A few minutes after the helicopter, an orange CG RHI arrived. Following the 9/11 attack, Coast Guard RHIs proliferated faster than mosquitoes after a rain. The twenty-some-foot, twin outboard powered boats carried a crew of five with a big-ass machine gun mounted on the bow. Not a very writerly description thought Gybe as he reminded himself that writing was supposed to be his occupation, not a sideline.
Since the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, it seemed that every soldier, sailor, airman, and Coastie came equipped with guns and bullets. Unlike many, Gybe felt no safer with an armed teenager – a teenager who may have selected the military over another trip to juvie hall.
After leading the Coasties to the bow and showing them his catch, they ordered him to return to the cockpit and wait.
Someone had notified the Maui County Police and a little later, two blue-light adorned SUVs kicked up red dust as they loped down the unmaintained jeep trail from Lono Harbor.
As the sun marched through the sky, Gybe repeated his story to successive waves of officialdom, sometimes changing or omitting minor details for their (OK his) enjoyment. He doubted that in the ensuing turf war and confusion, anyone would compare notes.
Each official approached with a similar set of questions. What was his name? What was he doing here? Where did he come from? What did he do for a living? Had he seen anyone when he arrived or later?
Gybe. Anchoring. Lāna‘i. Sushi chef. (As a rule, Gybe told the truth. As another rule, if an official or a pre-printed form asked a question that was irrelevant to their scope of responsibility or need to know, Gybe felt no obligation to fill in the blank accurately.) Nope.
A squint at the sun suggested that it was noon, yet the bodies remained hanging from his Bruce anchor. Designed to hold North Sea oil rigs, the patented Bruce appeared to work equally well supporting two chained together, non-obese bodies.
The CG had rafted their orange boat to his starboard side while the dingy gray Maui Police boat tied to the port side. Neither police nor Coasties had complied with his request to remove their black boots. Scuff marks led from amidships to the bow.
With all the attention focused on the bow, Gybe went below; made himself a peanut butter and onion sandwich, pulled a cold amber ale from the reefer, and returned to the cockpit. With the bottle held aloft, he saluted the news helicopter.
“We’re ready to remove the bodies, Captain.” The Coast Guard Lieutenant motioned Gybe to the bow.
At their direction, Gybe stepped on the UP button and watched the bodies rotate once as they swam lifeless towards Ferrity’s bow.
The Maui police officers maneuvered their boat underneath the corpses. With the aid of the divers in the water and officers in the boat, Gybe used the windlass to lower the remains into the police boat.
As Gybe watched the police boat accelerate out of the harbor, the senior CG officer spoke. “Captain, we’ll escort you back to Kaunakakai Harbor. The Maui Police have taken over jurisdiction since it doesn’t appear that the deaths occurred on a vessel or in federal waters.”
“Wasn’t planning to go there. Tell them I’ll be in Hale o Lono harbor if they need to talk with me.” Gybe’s words were lost as the boat’s coxswain fired up the twin outboards.
4
“Permission to come aboard Captain.”
Only one other anchor competed with Ferrity’s anchor as it rested on the bottom of the small harbor.
With neither sense of humor nor sense of respect, the Coast Guard had suggested – strongly – that Gybe comply with the Maui Police request to return to Kaunakakai Harbor.
Taking his time getting underway yesterday afternoon, Gybe stowed the fate-altering Bruce anchor, retrieved the CQR anchor, and motored away from Kolo Wharf. Feigning engine problems, he raised sails and tacked upwind to Kaunakakai Harbor. The frustrated CG crew tagged along for thirty minutes before receiving a call to search for a missing windsurfer off Kihei on Maui. They motored alongside Ferrity which was sailing southeast on a port tack at six knots, and reminded Gybe that he was required to sail to Kaunakakai Harbor. With both throttles hard forward, the CG crew sped off towards Maui.
By the time the sun had dropped to within two diameters of the horizon, Ferrity rode to anchor in Kaunakakai Harbor; her sails stowed; and her hatches open. Gybe sat in the cockpit, cold amber ale in hand, and reviewed the day while watching the sun close on the distant sea.
Shoreward of Ferrity, music drifted from Mongoose’s schooner - Makani. Windward, or to the east, lay the half-mile long causeway connecting the town to the only commercial pier on the island. There was room for an interisland barge to tie alongside the west side of the pier. The interisland ferry terminal occupied a corner of the pier near the causeway. From his previous visit, Gybe knew that there were a dozen or so sailboat slips on the far side. Shoreward of the pier, on the near side of the causeway, fishing boats rocked in their slips. A small floating dinghy dock rested between the fishing boats and a launch ramp for trailered boats.
“Aboard Ferrity, permission to board.” The voice projected over the idling outboard of the Maui Police boat, now less than five yards away.
“Come aboard.”
Gybe hung two ten-inch diameter inflatable fenders from the lifelines as a cushion against the police boat. The officer on the bow handed him a line and Gybe wrapped it around the midship cleat.
Choosing cooperation over confrontation this morning, Gybe offered coffee to the two officers who now sat in the cockpit. From yesterday, he knew the younger officer.
“Gybe, this is Detective Kai Kane of the Maui Police. Murders are very rare on Moloka‘i, so Detective Kane has come from Maui to lead the investigation. As you know, the island of Moloka‘i is part of Maui County.”
Gybe nodded to the detective.
“Gybe, I know you’ve told your story several times. I’ve read the reports and I have some questions. But, it is important for me to hear it directly.”
The mantra was cooperate. He must cooperate.
Detective Kane began the questioning by asking about his name. Gybe told the officers that Gybe was Gaelic for ‘the place where one breeds horses.’ The small talk continued for a few minutes.
“And your last name?”
Gybe’s “Don’t have, don’t need one” met arched eyebrows of Detective Kane.
During the first half hour of the police interview, Detective Kane listened intently as Gybe answered his questions. The questions mirrored, more or less, the ones Gybe had answered yesterday.
“Gybe, yesterday you listed your occupation as sushi chef. Care to elaborate on that?”
Gybe shrugged.
Detective Kane retrieved a folder from a daypack that he carried. “According to our records, Gybe of no last name, you have worked as a computer programmer and have sold freelance articles to several magazines.” Detective Kane looked up from the folder. “When did you become a sushi chef?”
Gybe explained his theory about answering don’t need to know type questions. Besides, he could be a sushi chef. When a mahimahi latched onto the hand-line fishing rig that he trailed behind Ferrity, he often carved off a piece of sashimi, dipped it in shoyu sauce, added a dab of wasabi, and downed it while the remainder of the fish lay trembling on the cockpit sole.
“Gybe. It is a serious offense to give false information to a police officer. I suggest that you bear that in mind as we continue our conversation.”
The interview continued for another hour as Detective Kane created, revised, and re-checked his notes against Gybe’s responses.
Gybe learned that both victims worked in the biotechnology field. The male victim worked for SynCorn, Inc. and the female victim worked for GeNesRus, Inc. Like a calf in a steer-roping contest, he felt the rope land around his neck. Less than two weeks ago, he had accepted an assignment to write an article about the genetic research activities on Moloka‘i.
“Any suspects?”
“It’s early, but I have a couple of ideas. The coroner thinks the bodies had been in the water between one and two days when you found them. When he runs more tests, I suspect he will narrow it to the night before you arrived.”
“I think that’s all for now, Gybe. We would like you to stay in the area for the next couple of days.”
“Are you ordering me to stay?”
“It’s not an order. Here’s my card.”
Gybe nodded.
Detective Kane turned to the other officer. “Wait for me in the boat?”
As the officer moved to the police boat, Detective Kane stood and motioned for Gybe to follow him to the bow. Lowering his voice, the detective continued. “Gybe, I know about the business in San Francisco. I’m sorry. There is no excuse for what happened between you and that officer. But, you are in Hawai‘i now.”
Gybe nodded.
“I also know how you, shall we say, irritated a couple of officers here on Moloka‘i last week. I have only their side of the story. As a fellow police officer in the same department, I tend to support them. However, there have been other incidents with one of those officers. I operate on evidence and reason.”
“What are you saying Detective Kane? Those officers last week were way out of line. If I hadn’t stepped in when I did, I hate to think what they would have done to Mongoose. They shouldn’t be on the force.”
“Mongoose a friend of yours?”
“He’s over on that schooner.” Gybe tilted his head towards Makani. “I met him ten days ago. Co-worker or not, your steroid enhanced, IQ-challenged officer needs to be shutdown.”
“That a threat?”
Gybe shrugged. “No threat, just feedback from a citizen.”
“OK, noted. Back to my earlier comment, you saved an innocent man’s life in San Francisco from an overzealous enforcement coalition. I respect that. Now, I’m asking you to respect me. Give me a call if you think of anything else.”
Gybe watched the police boat motor back towards the launch ramp. A large pickup, maybe a Ford 250 with crew cab, backed a trailer down the ramp and prepared to load the police boat.
A buzzing noise to his left drew Gybe’s attention to the incoming dinghy. Red and blue light beams reflected from the mouth of Mongoose sitting at the throttle. Gybe waved him alongside.
Ashore, the other officer – Gybe had forgotten his name – stood alongside the ramp and scanned Mongoose’s approach with binoculars.
5
Still closed eyes sensed the emerging light of dawn while his subconscious mind scanned for unusual sounds. Gybe awakened in the vee-berth. Ferrity rode at anchor in Kaunakakai Harbor. He heard more splashing. Refracted sunlight streamed into one cracked eyelid as he peered towards the portlight above the berth.
Like a newly energized GPS receiver acquiring satellites, he felt the warmth of the tropics, saw the light that marked the end of one day of life and the beginning of another, heard splashing about the boat, but he couldn’t smell the coffee. Must have coffee.
As the water heated, Gybe pulled the Maui French Roast beans from the reefer and ground enough for a full pot of coffee – he had a guest. Unlike the average tourist, the high priced Kona coffee of the Big Island held little interest to Gybe or his budget. Besides, most of it was Kona Blend, which contained at most fifteen percent Kona beans. That is, if he could believe the barista who worked at the Coffee Gallery in Hale‘iwa. Scarred by too many jalapeños, his tongue could not distinguish the unique flavor. While the aroma filled the cabin, Gybe replayed the events of the last evening.
Late yesterday afternoon Gybe had been sitting at the Hotel Molokai Lanai Bar washing down a bowl of tortilla chips with back-to-back Fire Rock Ales when a travel-weary woman dropped anchor on the adjacent barstool. Actually, upon closer inspection, Gybe heaved the anchor metaphor.
In Gybe’s mind, the Lanai Bar represented the stereotypical South Seas beach bar. Similar to many tropical structures, a thatched roof deflected the sun and rain while the persistent trade winds, or trades, blew through the room, a room unburdened with walls.
Throughout most of the year, the northeasterly trade winds cool the islands. Trade winds, known since ancient sailing days, blow towards the equator between the horse latitudes and the doldrums – northeasterly above the equator, southeasterly below the equator.
The trades were a natural air-conditioner to the tropical islands of Hawai‘i.
Waves, always gentle after crossing the fringing reef, lapped the sandy beach at the edge of the bar. The coral reef lay between 50 yards and a half-mile offshore along most of the south coast of Moloka‘i. In front of the bar, the reef was two hundred yards offshore.
Beyond the reef and about nine miles across Kalohi Channel, Gybe could see the island of Lāna‘i. From his barstool, he watched humpback whales spout and sometimes breach near the reef.
Attired in winter clothes of surfer shorts, aloha shirt, and sandals, Gybe raised his bottle to the woman, “to winter.” It was December 11 across the Hawaiian Islands.
The top of the brunette’s head was level with his nose and she weighed maybe one twenty. She wore shorts with a sleeveless chambray shirt and was barefoot. Iridescent blue toenails, if dipped in the ocean’s edge, would send Nemo into a mating frenzy.
“Have some chips.” Gybe moved the chips basket and salsa bowl towards the newcomer.
A few weeks earlier the bar had begun offering complementary chips and salsa. Every day since then, guests and locals had packed the bar during happy hour. The holiday green colored tortilla chips and bright red salsa lent a festive atmosphere. In the tropics one seldom smelled roasting chestnuts, skated at the winter rink, or saw a dishwater gray sky through barren tree limbs. In the tropics, one noticed the little things like the green and red of chips and salsa or the seasonal return of humpback whales.
She started with the small talk and soon introduced herself, “I’m Kara.”
“Gybe. Nice to meet you. What brings you to this little island?”
Kara was from Mendocino – in Northern California. “It’s about a hundred and fifty miles north of San Francisco.”
“Yeah I know. Beautiful town. I used to live in the Bay area. One of my favorite road trips was the drive north along the coast. You here on vacation?”
Less than an hour earlier, Kara had checked into a room after a tedious two-day trip from the mainland. She told him that she was on Moloka‘i to help her friend Susan. They had been friends for several years and Susan worked for the organization that Kara founded.
“Susan is in jail. She’s in the Moloka‘i Police Station. They think she murdered two people.”
The noose around his heck tightened as he felt the cowboy flick the lasso. Walk away. Walk away now. Pretend you have to be somewhere else soon. Gybe took a second scan of the pretty young woman and signaled the bartender for another beer.
“She murdered those two scientists that were found a couple of days ago?” Gybe asked without revealing that he had found the bodies.
“NO! She didn’t murder them. She didn’t murder anyone. Susan would not, could not, murder anyone.”
The deepening aroma of fresh coffee snapped Gybe’s thoughts back to the present. He stepped up through the companionway and into the cockpit, favorite coffee mug in hand. From long habit, Gybe took visual bearings to confirm Ferrity’s position. Makani rested at her anchor shoreward, the pier rested at the end of the causeway to the east, the island of Lāna‘i lay to the south, and to the west, the ocean was open to the horizon.
In the distance, Kara turned and backstroked toward the boat.
“Want some fresh coffee?” Gybe hollered.
“Absolutely.”
Just as he thought, she wasn’t wearing a suit.
As Kara stepped over the lifeline, he handed her a fresh towel emblazoned with a boat under full sail in front of a setting sun. Or was it a rising sun? “Any additives for your coffee?”
He hoped that she didn’t require something exotic like half-n-half. Aboard Ferrity, he carried unrefined sugar. And somewhere he had seen a pinkish block that once upon a time might have been individual sweetener packets. If necessary, he could break off a piece and toss it in the coffee grinder.
“No thanks.”
He handed her a steaming mug with “Foggy’s” stenciled on the side. His mind wandered back to the little café near San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. He halted that train of thought before it derailed into the swamp of past loves and heartbreaks. Each of his eleven coffee mugs had a story to tell if only mugs could tell stories.
“How’s the coffee?”
“Thick.” She grimaced. “This isn’t Kona, is it?”
“Nope, Kona is on the Big Island.” He said without explanation. “How about some cereal?”
Entertaining women on the morning after involved coaxing them into his inflatable dinghy, Aweigh, for a quick and preferably silent ride ashore. Kara had shattered his routine with her wakeup splash. She had slid from his berth, then into the water without awakening him. How?
Trapped, he ducked below for cereal. Into a bowl, he mounded four-grain granola from a Honolulu health food store. The granola was the least sweet and contained the least fat of the several granolas available. Why, he wondered, had the granola manufacturers felt obligated to add sweetener and fat? If he wanted fat and sugar, he was capable of adding them himself.
To each bowl, he added two shakes of whole sesame seeds, a generous topping of flax seeds, and six almonds – cut into thirds. An island grown apple banana sliced onto the mixture expanded the meal into the fruit group.
In the reefer, there was low-fat milk, and under the settee, he had several cartons of soy milk. “Do you want moo juice or bean squeeze on your cereal?”
As expected, she opted for the bean squeeze.
He passed Kara the cereal and a glass of orange juice before re-joining her in the cockpit. To the east, the sun had yet to scale Mt. Haleakalā on Maui. To the south, a two-foot swell broke along the reef on either side of the narrow channel into the harbor. Shoreward, the town of Kaunakakai lay silent beyond Mongoose’s Makani.
“So tell me more about yourself Gybe. And you can start with your name.” Kara asked as she handed him the empty bowl. “And don’t think I didn’t notice that you served my cereal in a dog bowl!”
“Back at you syrup girl!” Aboard Ferrity, Gybe used dog food bowls for cereal, salads, soups, and anything else that wouldn’t stay on a plate tilted at thirty-degrees. The high sides and non-slip bottoms of the bowls were perfect for use either underway or when the boat rocked at anchor.
“Syrup is C-A-R-O not Kara.” She spelled.
Trying to recover while wondering why she was still aboard, he began his story. “Gybe, it’s German for the man who shoes horses.”
“And why would your parents name you after a farrier?”
Last night at the Lanai Bar, after three amber ales, or were there more, Kara agreed – a little too quickly he recalled - to come back to the boat with him. Back aboard Ferrity with the moon four days past full, they stripped one another and dove over the side. Their intent was to swim off the alcohol. Nude, inebriated, and adrift near Ferrity, they attempted sex. They tried, laughed, and tried again. However, unlike astronauts who don taxpayer funded, two hundred thousand dollar, Velcro and bungee cord mating harnesses – the male with loops, female with hooks – Gybe and Kara could not engage locks and keep their heads above water. After several efforts to hold their breath, they returned to the inflatable dinghy where they coupled with ease, without grace, and with considerable noise.
After her swim this morning, Kara had failed to dress. The woman sitting across from him with a towel around her waist was five feet seven. Using his own features as a reference, Gybe had perfected a technique for determining a woman’s height. When writing, he often modeled a character after a street acquaintance or someone at the mall. For accuracy, he developed a technique for estimating the height of strangers. Since he was six one, he determined that if the top of her head came to his eyebrows, she was five nine, to his nose, she was five seven, and so on. As a sportsman, he supported tag and release for those women whose stature failed to reach his chin.
Kara wore her brunette hair short and manageable. Her large round eyes were of some color and she was physically fit. Her skin suggested that one or more of her ancestors had fornicated somewhere near the Mediterranean. The light almond skin would soon glow in the tardy sun still struggling to rise above Mt. Haleakala. Like a ripening fruit on the tree of love, she was at that yummy age – firm, sweet, juicy, and delicious.
Ignoring her comment about his name and anticipating her next question, Gybe continued.
“As to the rest of the story, I’m a sailor or more accurately a cruiser. I sail about the world from port to port with neither destination nor terrestrial home. The boat is my home; each new port becomes my yard; the waterways - my streets. In most ports and anchorages, I stay from one night to a fortnight. Sometimes when I like the port or the women or need to replenish the cruising kitty, I may stay up to a year.”
Having heard enough, Kara interrupted. “So how long will it take you to sail around the globe?”
“Around? I don’t know. I’m sailing ABOUT the world.”
“And for money?”
“Bit nosy are we? Now, tell me about yourself?”
Kara told him that she was the founder and president of the activist organization called Oceans Now. She had founded Oceans Now six years earlier modeling it somewhat after the environmental groups Earth First and Earth Liberation Front. Like those groups, Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang had served as inspiration. Kara was quick to point to the A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, Silent Spring by Rachael Carson, and more recently Sea Change by Sylvia Earle. Like the bibliography to a thesis, she rattled on with names including Roszak, Traven, Dillard, Lopez, Berry, and Jackson before Gybe held up his hand to signal her to stop.
“Whoa wahine. Just e-mail me your card file. I’ve read some of those and looked at the pictures in others. But, what does Oceans Now do?”
He learned that O.N., as Kara referred to it, believed that the ocean was the life of the planet. Not just the source, the original primordial soup of high school science classes, but the life that recognized every sunrise. Kara believed that the ocean was more important than the land, hence Oceans Now before a literal Earth First. Misanthropic as he, she believed that the third major rock from the Sun was misnamed. The ocean covered seventy one percent of the surface of this marble, and that number grew as the glaciers melted.
Kara bragged that the organization had chapters in every coastal state, Canadian province, and most Mexican states. Kara’s now jailed friend, Susan, lead the Hawai‘i chapter. Hawai‘i was the only U.S. state in the Tropics. When the two hundred nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone was included, Hawaii was larger than the state of Alaska.
“I need help.” Kara said as they finished second cups of coffee.
6
He hated it when women used him. Gybe was independent, freethinking, beholden to no one, yet here in his cockpit sat Kara – the woman who like many of her ilk wielded species propagation desires more efficiently than Zorro swung his sword.
She knew exactly who Gybe was. Last evening at the bar, she had made an excuse to return to her room. Like many single men and women, she used her favorite Internet search engine to vet Gybe. When she discovered his involvement in the San Francisco case, she hatched the plan that led to breakfast aboard Ferrity.
Recalling the San Francisco situation, the police had done their job within the limits of budget and caseload. The circumstantial evidence that they developed convinced the District Attorney to proceed with the indictment.
Like the police, Gybe subscribed to Occam’s razor, which said something to the effect that when deciding amongst several possible solutions to a problem, one should select the one that requires the fewest assumptions or leaps of logic. Occam, a fourteenth century medieval philosopher took credit for Aristotle’s law of parsimony, proposed several centuries earlier. But in fairness, Occam didn’t have the Internet or even the printed book for that matter. On the other hand, there was no justification for the twentieth century plagiarizing by the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) crowd.
In the San Francisco case, Gybe discovered that the simplest solution from the prosecutor’s point of view was incorrect. The result had been the arraignment of an innocent person.
If he chose to help Kara, then Gybe would have to find another plausible solution to the crime. Why should he help her?
True, he had found the bodies. It was also true that he had considered dumping them back in the ocean and sailing away. He wanted to work on his novel. His article on the genetic engineering industry of Moloka‘i was due in two weeks. While he had completed most of the background research, he hadn’t begun the interviews for the piece.
“So last night was not due to my rugged physique, charming personality, or witty conversation? I was the seducee?”
Kara’s eyes rolled upward and to her starboard. Gybe suspected that her silence was an effort to shield his fragile male ego.
He explained to Kara that he was not a private investigator by either training or experience. He liked solving puzzles but in this case, Susan’s future was at stake. She could spend the rest of her life in prison if he failed.
“Why don’t you hire a real PI?”
“I’ve already checked. The sole PI on Moloka‘i chases errant spouses. Ick. I’d have to bring someone over from another island. There would be travel and lodging expenses. She would be as much of an outsider as you are.”
“So I’m cheaper. I’m flattered.”
“Gybe, I need help. I know that you believe in justice and I know that you can look at sides of the problem others will never see. I’ve read some of your Op-ed columns. You think - to be trite - outside the cubicle.”
“Susan didn’t kill anyone. I’m sure of that. We need your help. Will you help?” She leaned forward, breasts ajiggle, and laid a hand on his thigh.
Gybe’s feral reaction didn’t relate to her question. Breathe, ignore this creature, write, sail away were the thoughts he sought.
Detective Kane had told him that the victims were research scientists working in the field of genetic engineering. Could there be a tie-in with his article? Could there be a hot novel just waiting for publication? Could I get laid in the next five minutes? Oops, thinking had migrated south.
“OK, I’ll do what I can. But, remember I’m not a PI and I make no promises. I don’t know if a PI needs a license here, so you’re hiring me as a writer. I’ll write the story; let’s see, I know, I’ll call it Wayward Wench Whacks for Whales.”
“That’s not funny asshole. Susan is my friend.”
“You hire me; you get the package – no extra charge for humor or satire.”
“How much?”
Gybe didn’t answer immediately. This was yet another opportunity to get away from this mess. Could he? He decided to quote a high figure for his help.
“Two hundred.”
He watched panic flit across Kara’s eyes as she calculated the daily cost.
“Two hundred per hour?”
Could he be a real bastard? Could he walk away? He could say that his rates were two hundred per day; surely, she could afford that. Then, the thinking shifted to the big head as he told ole one-eyed winky to settle down. “Two hundred per half day.”
“Two hundred per half-day? That’s the weirdest rate I’ve ever heard.”
“That’s my rate. Any half-day or part thereof is two hundred. Plus out of pocket expenses and exclusive rights to Susan’s story or any related story that I develop.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“You haven’t seen my bar tabs. Do we have a deal?”
7
While Kara dressed, Gybe performed his daily check of the dinghy. Kara had accepted his rates, so he suggested the first step should be a visit to Susan at the jail.
The dinghy was a four-chamber inflatable built by Zodiac. He had painted Aweigh on each bow. Two sixteen-inch inflatable tubes connected at the bow to form the hull. A high-pressure inflatable bladder created a semi-solid floor. The fourth air chamber was an inflatable keel, mostly worthless, under the high-pressure floor. When sailing, Gybe deflated the dinghy, rolled it into a cylinder, and stowed it in the port sail locker. A 9.9 horsepower Nissan outboard motor sat on the transom. Just below the motor on the inside of the wooden transom, Gybe had stenciled ‘T/T Ferrity’ – Tender To Ferrity. Sailors referred to the small boats as dinghies, dinks, inflatables, or tenders.
Dinghies had a way of disappearing, but the resale value decreased as the amount of personalization increased. To deter the theft of the outboard, Gybe had stripped the manufacturer’s paint and logo then repainted it a bright John Deere yellow. Onto the yellow, he stenciled Aweigh on each side.
He topped off the fuel tank and re-stowed the jerry can aboard Ferrity just as Kara emerged from below. “Ready?”
The outboard started on the first pull. Kara climbed over Ferrity’s lifelines and stepped into the boat.
“Cast off the painter.” Gybe directed. “It’s the line holding the dinghy. Unwrap it from the cleat.”
“Got it. Painter. That makes sense. More cliquish male jargon, I suppose.”
“Every line, sail, direction, and function has a specific name on a boat. The syntax is clear so that the sailors know what to do and when. When sailing, there is no time to waste explaining unclear terminology. If they know the jargon, as you call it, they know what to do.”
“Aye, aye mon capitan.” Kara smirked and smart-assed a salute.
Before departing Ferrity, Gybe maneuvered the dink to the anchor chain where he checked the snubber lines for chafe. They were fine. Then he guided the boat over the anchor where he looked down through the clear water. On the bottom, he could see the anchor chain disappear into the sand. The anchor lay under the sand. Satisfied that the anchor was set, Gybe spun the dink around and aimed the bow for the dinghy dock next to the causeway launch ramp.
Kara sat in the bow surveying the anchorage that she had not seen last night during the raucous trip from the hotel to Ferrity.
At the floating dock, she looped the painter around a cleat, then stepped onto the dock. The dock was barren of any other craft.
A taxi was waiting for the arrival of the morning ferry. Gybe and Kara climbed in.
“To the police station and step on it.” Gybe said.
Kara rolled her eyes.
8
Gybe couldn’t read the driver’s expression in the rear view mirror but he suspected it was not a sign of respect. The police station was less than a mile away. There were no traffic lights, only two stop signs, and they couldn’t have made a rush hour if they had collected every car on the island.
The Rainbow Taxi crunched across the coral gravel in the parking lot of Moloka‘i’s sole police station. Kara handed the driver a twenty, who returned a ten and three ones along with his business card. A scan of the card showed that he was the owner and operator of Rainbow Taxi, “The best taxi on the island,” he gloated.
He failed to mention that there were only two taxi companies with combined assets of five vehicles. No one had seen all five vehicles running simultaneously.
Across the street, Kara noticed a little league softball game and recognized one of the teams from yesterday’s ferry trip from Maui. “Little league must be a challenge when the teams compete from different islands.”
Nine new Ford Expedition SUVs and five older Ford Crown Vics each bearing the logo of Maui County Police Department, sat in the parking lot. With fourteen in the lot and presumably more patrolling, “how much crime is there on this small rural island?” Gybe wondered aloud.
In profile, the island of Moloka‘i resembled a running shoe. The toe was to the east towards Maui, the heel to the west towards O‘ahu. To the north, Kalaupapa Peninsula – made famous by Father Damien and his leper colony - protruded as the tongue of the shoe. Kaunakakai harbor and town lay near the instep on the south side of the island. Like most island towns, Kaunakakai rested on the flat coastal plain only a few feet above sea level.
The island of Moloka‘i was one of the least visited islands of Hawaii. It lay fourth from either end of the seven populated Hawaiian Islands. These islands lay generally along a line from northwest to southeast. Geologically, the oldest islands were in the northwest with the newest island – Hawai‘i or “the Big Island” – at the southeast end of the chain. From northwest to southeast, Niihau, Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, Moloka‘i, Lāna‘i, Maui, and the Big Island formed the populated Hawaiian islands.
Rural it was, because on the Internet Kara had found one operating hotel, a disconnected phone number to a second hotel, and reference to a bankrupt resort. Fewer than seven thousand people lived on Moloka‘i.
Inside the station, Kara identified herself and asked to see Susan. The desk sergeant, Hawaiian in appearance, gave her da stinkeye. The quaint cultural custom, a decidedly sneering look, is a sure way to start a fight thought Gybe.
No doubt, the coconut telegraph had signaled her arrival in town. Another officer led them to a small room where he took Kara’s purse and asked Gybe to face the wall.
Attired in aloha shirt, surf shorts, and sandals, Gybe had few places to conceal a weapon. In lieu of the pat-down, he lifted his shirt. The guard was unimpressed, so he dropped his shorts too. “OK?”
The guard grunted and turned to Kara. “Face the wall.”
“You lay one paw on me and my lawyer will see that you spend the rest of your career picking pineapples in a sugar cane field.” Kara threatened.
The standoff held for a full minute. Then Kara lifted her shirt, pirouetted, and dropped the shirt. “Unlike the animal over there, the pants stay.” Kara glared at the guard whose non-digital mind was still processing the images. He glanced down at Kara’s tight shorts, which couldn’t conceal a weapon let alone the mounds and crevices of her buff female anatomy.
Gybe watched as the guard left the room, probably still trying to determine what he had seen or what he thought he had seen. Kara’s motion had been too unexpected and too quick.
By the clock on the wall five minutes passed before the door opened and a female officer led Susan into the room.
The two women greeted each other with hugs and tears while Gybe watched. This was their first meeting since Susan’s call to Kara after the arrest. Kara introduced Gybe and told Susan about his background.
After a minimum of pleasantries, Gybe began the interrogation.
“Susan, Kara has hired me to help get you out of this fix. As I’ve explained to her, I’m not a private investigator nor do I have a license to be one. Hell, for that matter, I don’t know if you even need a license in Hawai‘i. Anyway, my official capacity is writer. I’m writing a story of what happened to the victims.”
Susan, skeptical, looked at Kara who shrugged.
“There are two obvious ways to proceed. First, we can establish an alibi for you on the night of the murder. Or, the much more difficult method is to find out who committed the murders. Let’s hope you have an alibi.”
Gybe waited, hoping Susan would take the cue. In the long silence he wondered if it was too late to walk away. Remember, there might be a paying story here. “So Susan, tell me what you do and where you were that night?”
“I left the harbor around 1900 – just after sunset.”
“What harbor?”
“I keep a work boat here on Moloka‘i at Kaunakakai Small Boat Harbor. It’s the only marina on the island. I went out that night and came back a few hours later.”
“Avast ye swabbie.” Gybe interjected in an attempt to shock Susan into a detailed answer. “Details, give me the details.”
Susan glared at Gybe then turned to Kara.
“Avast ye swabbie? Kara, you’ve hired fucking Popeye to help me?”
Kara spent the next ten minutes explaining Gybe’s involvement in the San Francisco case to Susan.
Susan still skeptical, sat cross-armed. To Gybe, she seemed frightened behind the angry façade.
“I know you don’t want to hear this Susan, but we – Oceans Now that is – can’t afford anyone else. If we had the money I would hire a fleet of investigators, but we don’t. Back at the office, the staff is working with all of our chapters to raise money to hire you a good attorney. Until we do that, you’re going to have to work with the public defender.”
A tear slid down Kara’s cheek. “Susan, you’re my best friend. We’ll work something out. I promise.”
Gybe let the emotion needle swing back towards center before he spoke. “Susan. I met you ten minutes ago and Kara less than a day ago. Kara has asked me to help. If you don’t want me here, say so.”
Gybe returned Susan’s stare as she scanned his face for her answer. She looked at Kara who sat with a pleading, somewhat helpless look on her face. “Gybe, what kind of a name is Gybe?”
Susan told Gybe that she owned a small marine construction company. Her company specialized in coastal work anywhere in the Hawaiian Islands. She repaired piers, built new docks, and occasionally picked up some salvage work. The company was three years old. Between contracts, she kept her workboat at Honokohau Harbor on the Kona coast of the Big Island.
“Isn’t that an odd line of work for an environmentalist?”
“Not really,” Susan explained. “Our society always places the environment second to development. The only way for me to minimize construction damage and ensure compliance with the existing, loophole ridden laws is for my company to do the work.”
“I can spend all my energy fighting the construction of a new pier. And lose.” She sighed. “Or, I can win the contract and build the pier in the most environmentally sound manner that I know.”
“If I don’t build the pier, then some low-bidding no-neck with a gill net behind his truck seat will. This is the only sure way to protect the ocean until society wakes up and realizes the fish, coral, octopi, whales, and birds are all gone.”
Gybe thought about Susan’s comments. She might be right. It seemed that everyone was for or against the environment. Sure, many people talked about the environment. Hell, they even slapped Sierra Club bumper stickers on their SUVs, but they did little beyond pay their club dues. Business wanted to provide a product to the consumer. Often the product came at a high cost to nature. The consumer with the bumper sticker wanted to pay the lowest possible price for the product. Each side said they were for the environment, but their actions reflected the opposite.
Environmental organizations differed little from profit-driven businesses. Didn’t the management of the enviros aspire for the same large buildings, staff, and influence more often ascribed to the corporate world? Membership or profit driven, each entity aligned the other as its polar opposite. Each was loathe to compromise. Each hired expensive lobbyists. Each converted forests into junk mail. Each must expand to survive. The resulting stalemate satisfied no one. Susan’s approach might be a compromise.
Returning from his wool gathering, Gybe spoke. “OK Susan. The coroner believes that the murders occurred on Monday night. Where were you that night?”
“Like I said, I left the harbor around 1900 – just after sunset. I motored around for awhile and returned.”
“How long were you gone and where did you go?”
“I got back to the harbor around midnight.”
“Where did you go?
Susan told them that she had motored out into the channel between Moloka‘i and Lāna‘i and drifted.
“You just drifted? What were you doing?”
“I drifted. I didn’t do anything.”
“Were you alone?”
“I was alone. I didn’t do it. I am not a murderer.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
“Great.” Gybe turned to Kara. “My job is done. Just tell the DA that she didn’t do it.”
Gybe heard the tick of the clock on the wall behind Susan. Though the clock was electric, the manufacturer had designed it to tick. Ticking clocks were as anachronistic as dial phones. Did the ticks increase the tension like drops in water torture or decrease tension like a Hindu’s mantra? Over a hundred ticks entertained the three before Gybe changed the subject.
He glanced up from a spiral notebook. “Did you know Dr. Ray Wilson and Dr. J. Splicer, the victims?”
“No, I didn’t know them.”
She had hesitated and her body language didn’t support the answer. “You never met either one of them?” He repeated the question.
“No. I hate what the genetic engineers are doing to the environment. Why would I want to know them? They are destroying the environment. They’re killing the reef.”
“Strong statement. How are they killing the reef?”
Susan looked to Kara with a look that asked where she had found this bozo. “It’s obvious. They remove genes from algae, fish, god knows what, and stick the genes into a plant that nature has perfected over thousands of years to produce corn.”
“Tell me Gybe, the last time you ate a roasting ear of sweet corn, did you look at that ear of corn and say gee wouldn’t it be better if this corn were pink or wouldn’t it be better if it tasked like shrimp or why can’t we make the corn self-buttering?’”
Gybe held up both hands as a signal to stop. “Point taken. I don’t know what they are doing or why, but why do you think their work is killing the reef?” In fact, over the past two weeks, Gybe had learned a lot about what the genetic engineers of Moloka‘i were studying. This was the background research for his article, the article that he should be writing instead of playing PI.
Susan’s voice drew him back to the room. “Because. The reef is dying at the same time these bio-nerds are shaking their test tubes.” She folded her arms as a signal of proof.
Perhaps sensing that Gybe wasn’t convinced, Susan, sometimes assisted by Kara, argued for several more minutes. Gybe could see that emotions and rhetoric dominated the argument. She didn’t have facts to connect the state of the reef with the research of the seed corn companies. It didn’t mean that someone couldn’t prove a connection. It only meant that Susan had established the connection in her mind. She believed it. Ergo, her beliefs drove her actions. Whether science or logic supported the belief was irrelevant.
After referring to his notebook, Gybe directed the conversation away from the reef. “According to Detective Kane, you’ve been arrested several times during protests here on the island.”
Continuing her defensive posture, Susan said, “It is my right to protest. Free and peaceful demonstration is guaranteed by the Constitution.”
“Agreed. What did you protest and against whom did you protest?”
9
Susan confirmed that she had picketed several biotech companies on the island. Gybe felt that she was evading some of the questions and he was ready to leave. He stepped outside and told the guard they were finished.