The Presence (13 page)

Finished mopping, Ken Richter turned his attention to the equipment, wondering if Nick had even looked at it, let alone made sure it was all in perfect condition. He was just starting to inspect the fins and masks when the back door opened and Nick himself appeared, along with Al Kalama, who was going to be helping Nick with the dive.

“Am I asking you to do too much around here?” Ken asked, his voice tight. “Because if I am, just tell me, and I
can get someone else.” His eyes fixed angrily on Nick. “That would be instead of you, though, not in addition to you.”

Nick glanced uneasily at Al Kalama. “What’re you mad at me for?”

Ken Richter’s eyes swept the storage room. “Does this place look the way it should? I already cleaned up the mess you left on the floor.”

“What are you talking about?” Grieco asked. “There was no mess!”

“Didn’t I ask you to check all this stuff out before you left last night?” Ken demanded, ignoring the other man’s question. “What did you think—I was kidding?”

“I did check it out,” Nick Grieco insisted. “Fins, masks, regulators, tanks. Everything!”

Ken Richter’s gaze shifted to the five tanks that he himself had lined up on the third shelf yesterday. “You checked all of them?” he asked.

His tone was enough to make Nick Grieco’s eyes follow his boss’s, and as he saw that four of the tanks were registering empty, he felt a flash of uncertainty.

Had
he checked the tanks?

He tried to think back.

It had been pretty quiet most of yesterday afternoon, and he’d closed the shop up maybe half an hour after the last of the rental equipment had been returned.

And he’d had a couple of beers with his dinner. Better not mention
that
to Ken. But he’d come back after dinner and opened up again, just like he was supposed to.

He’d even sold a couple of bathing suits, and a snorkel set.

Then, around seven, he’d closed up for the night, but
not until he’d inspected the equipment for this morning’s dive, just like Ken had told him to.

But had he actually checked every one of them, or—His thoughts were interrupted by a loud banging on the front door.

“That’ll be the bunch Yoshihara set up. Go let ’em in, and see if you can stall ’em for a little while. Maybe sell ’em some sunglasses or something, while Al and I take care of these tanks.”

“I can do it—” Nick protested, but Ken cut him off.

“Yeah, right. That’s what you said yesterday, but it didn’t happen, did it?”

As Nick Grieco went into the front of the shop, Al Kalama swung one of the tanks off the shelf and took it over to the air compressor. “You know,” he said cautiously, not certain quite how angry Ken was, “it might not be Grieco’s fault. If the tanks are faulty—”

“Four faulty tanks?” Richter cut in. “Get real, Al. One maybe, or even two. But not four. Not from Yoshihara. Everything he’s ever sent down has always been perfect. Face it—Grieco screwed up.”

“But—”

“Can it, Al,” Ken said. “Let’s just get these tanks filled and checked, and get these kids going. The last thing I need is having them go whine to their folks that they had to wait around for an hour because there was something wrong with the equipment.” When the first one was filled, Ken nodded toward the barrel of water that stood just outside the back door. “Sink it in there for a minute, just in case. I’ve never sent a leaky tank out yet, and I’m not about to start now.”

Taking the newly filled air tank to the barrel, Al
Kalama lowered it into the water, then searched for any sign of air bubbles that would betray a leak.

Nothing.

He repeated the process with the other three tanks after Ken had finished filling them. All four tanks checked out perfectly.

There were no signs of leakage, and all the gauges now read full.

“Take them,” he said. “Who knows? The guys up at Yoshihara’s probably sent them over empty, and Nick just didn’t notice.”

The tanks were packed into the van, the van departed for the beach, and Kihei Ken proceeded with the business of the day. But he’d still have it out with Nick Grieco later on, because whatever else he’d done last night—or not done—he should have made damned sure of the condition of those tanks.

Faulty tanks could kill people.

Michael knew something was wrong the minute he got on the school bus that morning. “What’s going on?” he asked, sliding into the seat next to Jeff Kina.

Jeff glanced around uneasily, and when he spoke, he kept his voice low enough that only Michael could hear him. “Kioki didn’t make it home last night.”

“What do you mean? Wasn’t Rick going to drop him off?”

Jeff shrugged. “Didn’t happen. Rick said it was gettin’ so late, Kioki didn’t want to wake up his ma. So Rick dropped him at the corner instead of taking him all the way home.”

“When did you talk to Rick?”

“Just before I left for the bus stop. Kioki’s ma called his ma, and he called me right after they hung up.”

“What happened to Kioki?”

“Don’t know,” Jeff replied. “But it’s only like half a mile from where Rick dropped him to his house, and there’s nothin’ out there.”

“Maybe he got caught doing a drug deal,” a voice from the seat behind them said.

Jeff Kina turned and glared angrily at the boy in the seat behind them. “Kioki? No way.”

“What if he ran into some other people doing a deal?” the other boy pressed.

Jeff scowled. “Get off it, Jimmy. Just because you’re always out there doesn’t mean everybody else is.”

“I never did—” Jimmy began, but Jeff stopped him.

“Don’t give me that crap. Everybody knows you’re the biggest dealer in the school. But you never sold anything to Kioki, did you?” Jimmy glowered angrily, and Jeff rose out of his seat, turning around to tower over the boy behind him. “Did you?” Jeff demanded.

“Sit down back there,” the bus driver called, glaring at Jeff in the rearview mirror. As the bus slowed, Michael pulled Jeff back into his seat.

“Forget it. He’s not even as big as Josh!” Jeff sank reluctantly back into his seat, and the bus sped up again. “Maybe Kioki was going to meet someone,” Michael suggested. “Does he have a girlfriend?”

Jeff shook his head. “Never had one. He’s always real shy around girls.”

As the bus pulled into the parking lot, Michael and Jeff saw Rick Pieper waiting for them, his face ashen. A crowd of kids had gathered around him. Michael could see them whispering nervously among themselves.

“Shit,” Jeff said quietly. “Come on.” Rising from his seat, he wriggled past Michael and surged down the aisle, with Michael right behind him. “What happened?” he asked Rick as he stepped out of the bus.

Rick seemed dazed as he looked at Michael and Jeff. “His mom found him,” he said. He hesitated a moment, then spoke again, his voice breaking. “He’s dead.”

Michael and Jeff stared blankly at Rick.

Though neither of them spoke a word, both of them were experiencing exactly the same thing: an oddly sick feeling, which spread through them, numbing their bodies as well as their minds.

It wasn’t possible—they’d been with Kioki only a few hours ago, and he’d been fine.

And now he was dead?

Instinctively, Jeff, Rick, and Michael drew closer together as they began moving slowly toward the school. The whispering voices of their classmates swirled around them, and though nearly every person who whispered the news to someone else had an explanation for Kioki’s death, none of them knew the truth.

Michael walked to his locker as if in a trance, and stared stupidly at the lock, its combination having vanished from his head. Then, from behind him, he heard Josh Malani’s voice.

“We gotta talk,” Josh said. “All of us.”

Michael turned and gazed at his friend. “What happened?” he said. “What happened to Kioki?”

Josh Malani’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know,” he said. Then he quickly looked around, as if checking for anyone who might be listening. When he spoke again, his voice was barely more than a whisper. “But it’s got nothing to do with us,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

Michael stared at his friend for a long time, wishing he could believe him.

Deep down inside, though, he couldn’t.

Katharine was genuinely annoyed with herself. The bones of the skeleton, fully exposed now, were laid out in precisely the position in which they’d been found. She’d had to move a few of them as she’d cleaned away the sediment that covered them, but in addition to the endless rolls of 35mm film she’d shot, there were dozens of Polaroids as well—a complete photographic record of the excavation and an essential aid to reconstructing the skeleton in situ. Now, as she stared down at the skeleton, her impatience with herself grew.

She should know what she was looking at.

In fact, she should have known what she was looking at yesterday, right after the skull and mandible had been fully excavated. But no matter what came to mind—chimpanzee, gorilla, gibbon, or any of a dozen other apes and primates—there was always something wrong: the skull not prognathic enough, or the mandible too wide, or the teeth showing the wrong configuration. The devil, she decided, was definitely in the details on this one, because it was the details that didn’t add up.

“So, have you decided what it is?” Rob Silver asked, emerging from the rain forest to stand next to her.

“Well, I’m absolutely certain it’s an anthropoid,”
Katharine said, attempting to mask the crankiness she was feeling, but failing to fool Rob. “And I’m fairly certain it died from a blow to the head.”

Rob squatted down. “May I pick it up?”

“Be my guest,” Katharine said, crouching down next to him. “I have to tell you, right now I’m thinking you’re wasting a lot of Takeo Yoshihara’s money on me. Either that, or I’m missing something that’s staring me right in the face.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Rob told her. “If this was going to be an easy one, I wouldn’t have needed you at all, would I?” He held the skull up, rotated it, then stuck a finger through the hole that had been pierced in the left parietal bone. “What do you think caused this?”

That, at least, was something she felt confident about. “A spear. I’ve seen exactly the same kind of wound in hundreds of skulls in Africa. And you can see by the position of the skeleton that while this head wound appears to be the mortal blow, the body was moved.”

“You
can see that,” Rob countered. “Explain, please?”

“For one thing, it’s lying on its back. If you assume someone threw the spear that killed it, it would have just collapsed.”

“So whoever threw the spear pulled it out.”

Katharine nodded. “But someone also laid the body out,” she went on. “See how the arms are? They’re not just lying at its sides.” With a forefinger, she traced along the right humerus, which lay parallel to the spine. But the arm bent at the elbow, with the radius and ulna angling inward toward the center of the pelvis. The bones of the left arm mirrored their counterparts on the right, and the small bones that had made up the hands and fingers were
jumbled together, as if one hand had been placed on top of the other.

“Like it was laid out for burial,” Rob suggested.

“Exactly,” Katharine said.

“Sounds as if we have a murder mystery on our hands,” Rob said, laying the skull carefully back in the exact position in which it had been resting. “Someone killed this guy, and then his family brought him up here and buried him.”

Katharine shook her head. “Doesn’t add up,” she said. “First, he wasn’t buried. Everything I scraped away was natural debris, the kind of stuff that builds up in a hurry in rain forests. I don’t find any evidence of burial. Just laid out, and then left here. And the Hawaiians didn’t do that, did they?”

“Absolutely not. They have a great respect for their dead. The burial grounds are sacred, no matter how old they are. And bodies were always buried.”

“So what went on here?” Katharine asked.

“Whoever killed this guy laid him out, then walked away?”

“Maybe,” Katharine agreed, straightening up from her crouch, but keeping her eyes fixed on the skeleton. “But that’s not my biggest problem.” Rob looked up at her. “My biggest problem is that I can’t figure out what it is.”

“It’s human, isn’t it?” Rob asked.

“Not from what I know of humans,” Katharine replied. “It’s barely four feet long, which makes it awfully small for a full-grown Homo sapiens.”

“Maybe it’s a child.”

“The skull doesn’t look like a child’s skull. It seems to be fully developed.” Stooping again, she traced her finger along the seams between the parietal and occipital plates.
“See? The bones are fully fused, which means the head is pretty much full size. Yet it’s no larger than your average six-year-old’s. Also, look at the forehead—way too sloped for Homo sapiens. The mandible’s all wrong, too.”

“So it’s some kind of primate,” Rob suggested.

Katharine fixed him with a withering look. “First, there are not now, and never were, any primates on these islands, except for the ones in the zoo in Honolulu. But more important than that, when a chimpanzee or a gorilla dies, you don’t lay it out as you do a human.”

Rob chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. “If it was a pet—”

“Forget it,” Katharine interrupted, her annoyance toward herself now widening to include Rob. “Believe me, I’ve thought about that. This was no pet.”

“So what is it?” Rob asked, deciding to ignore her annoyance. “Come on, you’ve got to have some idea.”

Katharine took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “Since it’s just you and me, I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to laugh.” Rob’s brows rose in a noncommittal arch, which Katharine suspected was as far as he’d commit himself. “What it looks like is utterly impossible. You won’t believe it any more than I do.”

“Try me,” Rob suggested.

“Early man,” Katharine said.

Rob shook his head. “You’re right. Not possible. Aside from the fact that there was no such thing as early man in this area, these islands weren’t even formed when early man was poking around the planet. Even if Maui was here—which I seriously doubt—what we’re standing on wasn’t. This is a volcanic island, Kath. Layer after layer of lava. I’ll bet the layer we’re standing on isn’t more
than a couple of thousand years old, and probably a lot younger than that.”