A Walk Through the Fire Page 5

  “Glenna, get down!” I yelled.

  She started, dropped to her knees beside Sue. One of the police officers joined them, calling for backup on his walkie-talkie. The other, gun drawn, was scanning the milling crowd for the shooter. I inched around the enclosure to where I could look too. No one that I could see, except the officer, had a weapon of any kind.

  Peter crouched beside me, his face ashen, glasses askew. “You see anybody?” I asked.

  He didn’t reply. His breathing was ragged, and his eyes were focused on the distance. I followed his line of sight to a stand of ironwoods at the southern end of the state beach across the road.

  “You did see somebody.”

  He shook his head as if to clear it. Stood and extended a hand to me. “How could I?” he said. “I didn’t have a chance.”

  I let him pull me to my feet and turned to study the trees. They were dense enough to hide a shooter, but well within the range of a high-powered rifle.

  The hell you didn’t, I thought.

  Reinforcements arrived shortly from the substation at Hanalei, and the police secured and began searching the immediate area. I went over to Sue and Glenna. Kamuela was bleeding profusely from a gash on her cheek that would require stitches and possibly plastic surgery. An ambulance had just arrived, and Glenna said she would ride with Sue to Wilcox Memorial Hospital in Lihue. I agreed to follow in the Datsun as soon as possible.

  When I located Peter, he was in conversation with a short balding man with an extravagant handlebar mustache whom he introduced as Detective Wendell Yamashita. The officer questioned me about what I’d seen, then turned back to Peter and asked, “So, brah, you say a stray bullet, eh?”

  Peter shrugged. “Lotsa hunting on this island, lotsa guns.” He had subtly altered his customarily cultured speech to reflect the rhythms of pidgin, that special language with which Hawaiian islanders of all classes and backgrounds frequently communicate. “Lotsa mokes, too,” he added, motioning at the state beach.

  I frowned.

  “Tough guys,” he explained. “Accident is all, Wen, but mo’ bettah we knock off for today. Okay to get our crew outta here?”

  “Okay, but keep ’em available, eh?” Yamashita turned away and motioned to one of his uniformed men.

  I said in a low voice, “Who advanced the stray-bullet theory? You or him?”

  Peter looked down at me, eyes deceptively innocent. “It’s as good as any other.”

  “I don’t suppose you mentioned the other problems the crew’s been having?”

  He grabbed my arm and steered me over by the pickup truck where the portable generator was mounted. “Look, Sharon, Wen’s a good cop. If this was anything other than an accident, he’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “Unless he swallows your theory whole and back-burners any investigation. That’s what you’re hoping, isn’t it?”

  He hesitated, compressing his lips.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” I asked.

  “All right, let me explain. If Wen suspects this shooting was anything but an accident, he’ll shut this production down. Part—a big part—of a cop’s job in these islands is to make sure they’re safe for visitors, and any situation that looks as if it might result in harm to non-locals is corrected swiftly.”

  “What about harm to locals—like Sue Kamuela?”

  “You better believe Wen cares about her, too. But his primary responsibility lies elsewhere. Tourism is the lifeblood of Kauai, and these days the island is seriously anemic. Our economy’s rotten, and we still haven’t fully recovered from Iniki. We can’t afford negative publicity that’ll drive away visitors and other film companies. So if Glen and I want to go on with this project, we’d better keep quiet about the problems we’ve had.”

  “Then your main concern is continuing with this film.”

  “Yes.”

  “But not with Glenna.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I didn’t think I’d have to spell it out for you. Glenna was standing next to Sue, closer to the place where the bullet smacked into the rocks. Given the other attempt on her life—”

  “Oh, Christ!” A sick look came over his face. “I didn’t—”

  “No, you didn’t.” And that bothered me a great deal. Glenna was in love with this man; she thought he was in love with her. But when a bullet passed within inches of her, he’d thought only of how the shooting might interfere with completing the film.

  He said, “We need security on these shoots. Can Hy arrange for his firm to provide it?”

  A good idea, but it still didn’t make up for the fact that since the sniping he hadn’t gone to Glenna, had instead spent all his time smoothing things over with the police. “I’m sure he can,” I told him, “but you’ve got to realize that security measures aren’t always a hundred percent effective.”

  “It’s the best I can do.”

  The best he could do would be to propose a hiatus until I found out who was trying to stop the project. I would’ve suggested that to Glenna, but I doubted she’d buy the plan. Whether she was filming or not, she’d still have to pay and house the crew, as well as pay the rental on the equipment, and that could put her seriously over budget.

  “Talk to Ripinsky about security,” I told him. “And when you do, tell him I’ve gone to Lihue.”

  12:47 P.M.

  Sue Kamuela’s husband had already arrived at the hospital by the time I got there, and as soon as the doctor had assured us that she was being treated and would be released promptly, we were on our way back to the north shore. I took the wheel while Glenna slumped in the passenger seat, looking totally demoralized.

  “I should’ve seen it coming,” she said as I pulled into traffic.

  “The sniping? How could you?”

  “Not the sniping specifically, but I should’ve known disaster was right around the corner. This has been a badluck project from day one.”

  “If you feel that way, this might be the time to put the film on hold.”

  “I can’t do that! The expense… If I do, I might as well give up entirely.”

  “And you feel the film’s worth risking people’s safety—including your own? That shot was probably intended for you.”

  She shook her head in confusion, as if the possibility was occurring to her for the first time.

  “Peter’s hiring RKI to provide security,” I added, “but we all know that’s not a magical solution. Not if someone’s determined to do you harm. And whoever it is seems damned determined.”

  “As determined as Peter and I are to get this film made.”

  “I understand why you are, but why is he? Not just because it’s to be his memorial to his father?”

  “Well, it’s all tied up with his feelings for Kauai, I think. It’s almost as if he wants to make amends for staying away so long.”

  “He’s that deeply attached to the island?”

  “I guess so. When you’re born in a place like this, when your family’s been part of the fabric of its society for generations, you can’t help but feel a fundamental attachment.”

  “I suppose,” I said, but doubt was apparent in my voice. I’d never felt that way about San Diego, even though my family had lived there for generations. “D’you feel attached to Australia?”

  “No, but that’s different.” Her tone was clipped.

  “How so?”

  Silence. I waited.

  “Look, Sharon, I don’t like to talk about Australia. I never felt I belonged there.” She sighed deeply. “My home life was… I don’t know if you could call it difficult, or merely nonexistent.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “My family were all takers. They didn’t give anything to society the way the Wellbrights have. My father made his money in construction, mostly by bribing government officials. My brothers would’ve followed in his footsteps, but they were both killed in an accident on one of the job sites. I loved my mother, but she
was never home. She was a photojournalist and traveled a lot, so I was raised by nannies and then shipped off to boarding school in England. When I was at UCLA, Mom ran off with another man, and Dad bought himself a trophy wife. I never met her. By the time he died last year, she’d already left him. I had to go back there to settle the estate, and I felt like a foreigner. And the ironic thing is that after all my father’s taking and taking, what was left was the house and a stack of unpaid bills. I sold the house to settle them, packed up a few mementos, and left. I’ll never go back again.”

  There was unresolved anger behind her words—conflict, too. She’d turned her back on her family home and her native country, but she’d still carried away those mementos.

  I said, “It sounds like a lonely childhood.”

  “It was, but it made me creative, because I was forced to fall back on my own resources. And it made me want to promote a sense of community in my work, to make the world a place where people understand and respect each other. If I own any artistic vision and purpose, that’s it. So you can see why I’d hate to give up on this film when it’s so near completion.”

  “How many more shoots do you have scheduled?”

  “Two major ones tomorrow—during the day and at night—and then a lot of retakes and some little stuff. Plus I’ll have to find another Pele and reshoot Sue’s scenes. And of course I may see something else I need as it’s edited.”

  “And the whole process will take…?”

  “A couple of weeks.”

  Going forward seemed too big a risk to me, but I’d already counseled her, so I said, “Well, talk it over with Peter.”

  We reached the congested area near the Coconut Marketplace at Kapaa, and I took advantage of the creeping pace of traffic to call Hy.

  “Peter told me what happened this morning,” he said when he heard my voice. “We’ve worked up a plan, and three of our best people’re on their way from Honolulu. The crew is moving out of the B-and-B’s where they’ve been staying and into the compound here.”

  “What did the technician say about the house’s security system?”

  He laughed wryly. “He’s already gone back to Oahu. Nothing for him to do here. Seems somebody restored the sensors to their normal function while we were away this morning. The tech did confirm that they can easily be modified for audio and video monitoring.”

  “So whoever it was suspected you’d spotted them.”

  “Right. When d’you plan to be back here? I want to go over the security plan with you.”

  I considered. “That depends. D’you know where Tanner is?”

  “He had a charter at noon, should be back by one-thirty.”

  “Then I think I’ll stop in to see him. Glenna’ll drop me there. I’m going to have a busy day, so I’ll see you whenever. Glenna can give you her impressions of what happened at the shoot when she gets to the house.”

  The shoot.

  The shooting.

  I glanced at Glenna. The irony of it hadn’t been lost on either of us.

  After Glenna dropped me at the shopping center, I went to the shed that served as the office for Ace Tanner’s Tours and got directions to the helipad from a young Filipina who was minding the store in the boss’s absence. Then I bought a sandwich and a Coke and took them to a bench in the parklike grounds of the shabby church across the street. After I ate, I called my office. All was running smoothly, Rae told me. I asked to speak with Mick, found he’d taken time off for a dental appointment, and dictated to Ted a long list of details that would get my nephew started on some background checks I wanted. Then I set off on foot down a sandy side road to the helipad.

  It turned out to be in the backyard of Tanner’s small brown bungalow. The house, an A-frame with a lanai extending across its front, stood in a clearing surrounded by tall palms. The red chopper was on the pad, and Tanner was on the lanai, his bare feet propped up on the railing.

  “Hey, pretty lady!” he called. “If you’re here for that lesson, can’t do. My noon charter got put off till two.”

  I mounted the steps and took the lawn chair he motioned at. He was dressed in the same type of camouflage-cloth jumpsuit as the day before—his professional trademark, I supposed—and sipping at a can of Diet Pepsi. Through the screen door behind us I could hear the familiar mutter of a scanner.

  Tanner saw me glance that way. “I’m one of those nosy folks who need to know what’s going on all the time, so I monitor the air traffic. You want a soda, help yourself.” He jerked a thumb at the door.

  “No, thanks. You hear about the sniping at the shoot this morning?”

  “Yeah, from the police chopper pilot. Tough for Sue. Will she be okay?”

  “The doctor says so. Peter’s hiring guards from Ripinsky’s firm for the remaining shoots.”

  “Should’ve done something like that when the whole business started. So you want to schedule that lesson?”

  “Not now.”

  “Yeah, Ripinsky told me you don’t like choppers. You’ll get over it.”

  “… Maybe.”

  “No maybe. Ripinsky took the controls on the way back from Lihue this morning, handled her like a pro. And he claims you’re the better pilot.” He glanced at his watch. “They’re late. Korean developers checkin’ out a piece of property they’re interested in. I can’t afford to lose this charter. Business has been the pits lately.”

  “How come?”

  “Not much film work this year, except for this gig with Glenna and Pete. A lot of my other business was with Asians, both corporate and tourist, but with the collapse of the financial markets there, that’s slacked off. Happening all over the Islands. Waikiki, they overbuilt hotels and shopping centers for the Asian tourists and now they’re not comin’. Or they’re comin’ but not buyin’. I tell you, you go into one of those malls and there’s nobody in the stores. It’s kinda creepy.”

  A car appeared at the edge of the clearing, moving slowly as if the driver was unsure he was in the right place. Tanner stood up and waved. “Better late than never. Hey, you want to come along? There’re only three of them, and I seat five. We can talk while we fly.”

  “Won’t they want commentary from you?”

  “Not that kind of charter. These guys want to go to the site, set down for a look-see. You and me, we’ll have us a good time.”

  Good time my ass, I thought as I belted myself into the chopper. The three Koreans were already in back, briefcases open, comparing site drawings and other papers. Tanner handed me a headset and I adjusted it so it fit comfortably.

  “Don’t go gettin’ nervous,” he told me. “I’m not gonna do anything tricky with paying customers on board.”

  “Good.”

  “Christ, what a wuss!” He winked, then turned to the passengers and asked them a question in what I assumed was their native language. They nodded and returned to their discussion.

  “You speak much Korean?” I asked.

  “Speak a little a this, a little a that. You got to, in this business.” He started the engine, checked his gauges, tuned the radio to 122.7. “We’ll take the long way, give you an overview of the island.”

  As he engaged the rotors, I leaned forward, ready for liftoff. The land began to fall away through the transparent wall at my feet. This was my favorite moment of any flight, breaking free of the earth. As Tanner hovered, then swept the chopper forward, I smiled.

  “You could get to like it, huh?” he said.

  “Okay… I could get to like it.”

  He turned the big bird and headed out toward the sea.

  For a few minutes we rode in silence. Because of the lower speed and altitude, I could make out more detail than on takeoff in an airplane. I looked down at the sea, studying the configuration of the coral reef, then stared at the cloud-draped peaks that crowned the island. Glenna had said that the summit of Mount Waialeale was the source of Kauai’s seven rivers and the wettest place on the face of the earth.

  Tanner said, “
So tell me about yourself. You live in San Francisco, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And Ripinsky lives on a ranch in the high desert, but the two of you are building a house on the Mendocino coast.”

  “He told you that?” Normally Hy wasn’t so forthcoming with relative strangers.

  “Male bonding. Or maybe it was pilot bonding. You guys’ve got an interesting arrangement.”

  “Well, we both value our independence.”

  “Last woman I had who valued her independence tried to make off with all my money. You like being a private detective?”

  “Yes, I like it.”

  “Why?”

  He seemed genuinely interested, so I replied, “It makes me feel valuable, that I’m helping people. I suppose if I were of a scientific bent, I’d’ve gone into medicine. Or if I dealt well with authority figures, I’d’ve gone into law enforcement. As it is, I’ve found the perfect niche.”

  “Kind of a maverick, huh?”

  “I suppose. Often I don’t do the acceptable thing. I don’t like routine, find things funny that most people don’t, like skewed situations, oddball people.”

  “Mahalo. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He changed course, heading out to sea. “This is your typical route for tour operators, in order to avoid wind shear along Kilauea Point. You should take a look at a sectional for the island; you’ll see the word ‘warning’ more times than on practically any other chart.”

  “What else besides wind shear?”

  “High-volume traffic, military operations, national defense operations, even electromagnetic radiation.”

  “Sounds like an interesting place to fly.”

  “It is. You know, I never did get at your reason for stopping by my place.”

  “I hoped you might be able to answer some questions. It’s difficult trying to investigate when you don’t know the territory or the people.”

  “Fire away.”

  “First of all, d’you know anyone who might want to stop this film from being made?”