Mahu Surfer (2 page)

“Why are you involved in this case?” I asked. “I thought you ran District 1.”

“I do. Let’s just say it’s an internal matter and leave it at that.” He looked at me. “Tell me what you know about surfers and cops.”

I laughed. “They don’t get along that well. Especially the ones who are mad to surf. They’ll go anywhere for a wave and don’t care who owns the beach where the wave lands. Surfers don’t trust cops, and I don’t think many cops trust surfers either—particularly not if they have long hair, no visible means of support, and the faint aroma of marijuana lingering around them.”

“Exactly why the original detectives have had trouble getting people to talk, and exactly why the department needs somebody who can go in there and talk to surfers who might shy away from speaking to a cop.” Sampson leaned forward. “I need somebody who can hang out on the North Shore and dig deeper in this case than the original detectives could. I need you.”

I was baffled. “But anybody on O’ahu who reads a newspaper or watches TV knows that I’m a cop, thanks to all the media attention my coming-out story and my suspension got. Even though I’ve been surfing my whole life, nobody who’s a serious surfer will trust me.”

Sampson looked me straight in the eye, something I admire him for. “Actually, all they know at present is that you
were
a cop, until you were suspended. The department hasn’t made a public announcement of your reinstatement, and I know you haven’t either.”

It took a minute for Sampson’s words to sink in. “You want me to go undercover?”

Sampson nodded. “Who have you told about the deal we made with you?”

I started ticking people off on my fingers. My parents, my brothers and their families. Harry Ho, my best friend since high school. Terri Clark Gonsalves, my best female friend. I didn’t know if any of them had told anyone else, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I had been in the news, and that made me fair game for anyone’s gossip, even those who were near and dear to me.

Sampson’s expression was grim. “Well, I can’t blame you. If I were in your shoes, I’d want the world to know, too.” He paused. “Unfortunately, that leaves us with a problem. In order for this to work, the world has to believe that you’ve left the force, and that includes your family and friends.”

Sampson put his hand to his cheek and thought for a minute, while I looked up again at a photo where he was being commended by the mayor. I had known guys in Vice who were allowed to tell their friends and families that they were undercover, just not the specifics of the investigations. I wondered why I couldn’t do the same. It’s not that I had gone into police work for the glory, but it would be nice some day to get my name in the papers for something that would make my parents proud of me. Something that reflected my skill as an investigator, not some sleazy investigation into my personal life.

Sampson steepled his fingers and looked at me. “You’ll have to pretend that you’ve decided that this job offer just isn’t what you need at this time of your life. You need to think about who you are, where you’re going from here, that sort of thing.” He released his fingers and motioned with his right hand. “Being who you are, you’ll want to do that kind of soul-searching near a big wave, so you’ll head up to the North Shore and plunge back into surfing. That’ll be a good cover to get you up there, where you can get to know people, ask questions, and find out who’s behind this.”

“Why can’t I tell my parents and my brothers?” I noticed my back had gone stiff again, that I was clutching the arms of the chair. “Why do I have to lie to them?”

“Your oldest brother’s the station manager at KVOL, isn’t he?”

I clenched my teeth and nodded. KVOL was the scandal-mongering station of the islands, with the slogan “Erupting News All The Time.” KVOL had broken the news of my suspension from the force, and though my brother had been able to tone down and eventually stage manage the coverage in my favor, he and his station were in large part responsible for how big the story had become.

“You may trust your brother, but I don’t,” Sampson said. “I know what these media types are like. And if you tell him a different story than you tell your parents or your other brother, he’ll figure it out. I can’t have this investigation compromised.”

By the time he was finished, I was shaking my head. “I can’t do it. You’re asking me to lie to everyone who matters to me. I can’t do that, not after what I went through just to be able to tell the truth.”

The fact that he didn’t trust my brother Lui stung me. Sure, I didn’t have the best relationship with him and my other brother, Haoa, when we were kids. They were eight and ten years older than I was, and they picked on me mercilessly. But as adults, we’d become friends, and both my brothers had stood by me during that time—only a few days before, though it seemed like a lifetime—when I had been suspended from the force and needed their help to reinstate my good name and get my job back. Hadn’t Lui shown that family mattered to him?

But then again, he had run the story about me without telling me in advance, without letting our parents know that their youngest son’s life was going to be splashed across the evening news.  Did that prove that he couldn’t be trusted, when there was a story at stake?

“There is a greater good here, Kimo,” Sampson said, leaning across the desk. “I want you to remember that. There’s a murderer killing surfers on the North Shore, and you’re the only one who can get in there and find out what’s going on.” He paused. “And you know the only way you can do that is by pretending that you’ve left the force.”

I didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t asking me to step back into the closet, as God knows I couldn’t. But after all the hurt I’d caused my family and friends, I couldn’t imagine tearing everyone up yet again. “But…” I began.

“No buts.” He handed me a pile of folders. “Take these home and read them. Don’t tell anyone we’ve had this conversation. Think about it. Then come back here tomorrow morning and we’ll talk again.”

“What if I say no?”

Sampson sat back in his chair and stared at me for a minute, and in that show of confidence I had an inkling of why he had received so many of those commendations. “You’re a good cop, Kimo. I need you on this investigation.  If you can’t do it, well, we’ll talk about that when we have to.”

When I left Sampson’s office, I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I’d prepared myself to begin work again that morning, and that clearly wasn’t to be. I walked to my truck, turned the engine on and started to drive, not knowing where I was going.

There was a lot of traffic in Honolulu as I circled past the Aloha Tower, that old 1920s building where people used to gather to watch the cruise ships go in and out. Past the Iolani Palace, the only royal palace on American soil, guarded by the tall gold statue of King Kamehameha. Around and around, through downtown, along Ala Moana Beach Park and the Ala Wai Yacht Basin, where Gilligan and the Skipper left with their boatload of tourists for their three-hour tour.

I ended up at the top of Mount Tantalus, overlooking Honolulu. It was a real tourist office day, temps in the low 70s, trade winds off the ocean, just a few puffy white clouds floating across the sky to add interest to what otherwise would have been an unbroken expanse of light blue.

From up there, I could see all the way from the extinct volcano of Diamond Head to the naval base at Pearl Harbor. It was only about a dozen miles, but it was a trip that ran from the origin of the island all the way to the latest innovations in military technology. I looked out at the city for a while, saw the line of surf where waves broke against the shore, planeloads of tourists landing and taking off from Honolulu International, the steady traffic of tiny cars along the ribbon of the H1, the highway the federal government requires us to call an interstate. I guess subconsciously I’d hoped that coming up there would allow me to put all my troubles into perspective, see myself as just one of those infinitesimally small people below me, going about their daily lives.

I’m not sure it worked, but I did get out of the truck, sit on a bench, and start to read the dossiers, as Sampson knew I would.

Though there was a lot of paperwork—crime scene reports, interviews with witnesses, friends and relatives—there wasn’t much information. There was no thread that tied together all three victims other than the fact that all three were surfers. Michael Pratt was
haole
, or white, a mainlander who lived in Hale’iwa when the surf was high, traveling around the globe to compete, from France to Australia and Costa Rica to South Africa. He usually finished in the money in surfing championships, and supplemented his income by teaching surfing at clinics and exhibitions.

Nineteen-year-old Lucie Zamora was a Filipina who had moved to Honolulu at age ten when her mother, a maid at a Waikiki hotel, sent for her and her younger brother. She had been living on the North Shore for the last two years, working as a clerk and waitress while struggling to become a professional surfer. She had a couple of high finishes in local tournaments, but was nowhere near Pratt’s caliber.

Ronald Chang was twenty-five, a computer technician and weekend surfer. Born in Hong Kong, he had grown up on Maui, where his parents ran a Chinese restaurant. Like me, he’d been surfing most of his life, and like me, too, he had a full-time job. But he’d never placed in the money at a surf competition.

Though Zamora and Chang knew each other, neither seemed to know Pratt. Zamora and Pratt were shot with the same gun, and Chang had disappeared earlier on the day that Zamora was shot. There had to be a connection between these three that had led to their deaths, but the detectives on the case hadn’t been able to find it. Did I think I was better? No. I knew I was good, but almost every detective I’d met on the force was as smart, or as dogged, or as lucky, as I was. Sampson believed that because I was a surfer, I’d have some special entrée to the world of North Shore surfing that would provide the missing clue. But was it worth lying to people I cared about—and the general population as well—and putting my life on hold to find out if he was right?

That phrase struck me.
Putting my life on hold
.

Michael Pratt’s life, Lucie Zamora’s life, and Ronald Chang’s life had been put on permanent hold. How many others would suffer the same fate if I didn’t do anything?

I closed the dossiers and looked out at the landscape again. Those big puffy clouds had multiplied and were massing over Diamond Head. O‘ahu is an island of microclimates—it can be gloriously sunny in Kahala, but rainy in Manoa, just a few miles away. Partly sunny in Pearl City, windy in La’ie, cool in Hale’iwa. And yet, they say if you just stay where you are, the weather will change soon.

I felt as unsettled as the weather, and equally vulnerable to being blown one way or the other. So I decided to get my father’s advice.

Telling Lies

My dad has spent most of his career as a general contractor, building the homes, stores and offices where the people of our island live and work. He has always impressed upon me and my brothers the honorable nature of hard work, the need to put others before yourself, the importance of remaining true to your ideals no matter what pressure is brought to bear on you.

When I was born, he was working as a construction supervisor for Amfac, one of the “Big 5” companies in Hawai’i. At night and on weekends, he was building a small house on a piece of land his friend Chin Suk had given him. When the house was finished, he planned to sell it, and use the money to start his own construction business.

But it was tough providing for a family of five on a superintendent’s salary, and he often had to wait weeks before he could afford to buy the materials he needed. One day, a man from a mainland company offered him a thousand dollars to approve a lucrative contract that would have been very costly to Amfac. That thousand dollars would have been enough to buy the rest of the materials my father needed, and get his business launched. But he turned the money down, and reported the bribe to his boss.

The house wasn’t finished for another six months, but my father made up for it by working harder and working smarter, avoiding waste and watching every penny. He has always held that up to us as an example of how a man must listen to his conscience and not take the easy way out.

Now, toward the end of his career, he worked out of an office above a small shopping plaza he owned in the industrial neighborhood of Salt Lake, near Pearl Harbor, and I knew if I hurried I could make it there just in time for lunch. I pulled into the parking lot just as he was descending the exterior stair.

He has lost a little height, the osteoporosis compressing his spinal column in tiny increments, and his hair is flecked with silver. As my mother often points out, though, he is still as handsome as he is in their wedding picture, framed in our living room. She keeps him on a strict diet, but he’s a big man, broad-shouldered and a little paunchy in the gut. If I age as gracefully as he has, I’ll be glad.