Chapter 2 On Hallowed Ground
On Hallowed Ground
One hānau: homeland
Big Island, Hawai?i
The Kailua-Kona airport was a little oasis in the middle of black fields of lava. The smell of jet fuel mixed with an onshore
salty breeze and notes of plumeria. Not as hot as Minnow had expected, but that was February for you. Either way, the temperature
was miles warmer than Santa Barbara, and she had left her boots and beanie at home, along with her cracked and cumbersome
wet suit and any expectations of what the coming week would bring.
This was her first trip to the Big Island, and on the approach, she had not been able to tear her eyes away from the many
gradients of blue. Midnight, noonday sky, and sandy shallow turquoise. Outlines of coral reefs stood out like lace, beckoning.
And up the way, coconut trees clumped together along white sand beaches. The island seemed to be making its best attempt at
dazzling her, belying the recent tragedies in these very same waters.
While an undergrad, Minnow had spent some time on O?ahu studying hammerheads in Kāne‘ohe Bay but had never ventured to any of the outer islands.
Now she was thinking what a stupid move that had been.
Uncle Jimmy had always talked up the Big Island and his days there just after college as a dive instructor by day, waiter by night.
But he had never taken her there, too busy running his bakery back home.
Even though she called him Uncle Jimmy, he was more father than uncle, raising Minnow since she was seven.
After gathering her small suitcase and dive duffel, Minnow walked out to the curb where she saw a sunburned man with a shock
of wet red hair and dark glasses walking her way.
“Minnow Gray, I presume?” he said.
She’d purposely worn her Greenpeace T-shirt.
“Dr. Eversole, a pleasure to meet you.”
He held out a hand. “Please, call me Joe.”
In real life, Joe seemed much smaller than he’d looked on television, but when he shook her hand, his grip was as firm as
steel.
“I’m so damn glad you pulled this off. Things are heating up even as we speak.”
“How do you mean?”
“Let’s get you loaded and on the way, and I’ll fill you in on everything.”
He led her to an old Toyota truck covered in patches of rust, its back window lined with faded and peeling stickers. Big Island Love. FBI. Live Aloha. Surfing Sucks, Don’t Try It. The back was full of crumpled wet towels, a mask and snorkel, swim fins, a cooler. All of it dusted in black sand.
“Who else is here with you?” she asked.
“My intern Nalu came over from O?ahu with me. He’s back at the harbor, rinsing off the boat and meeting a friend for lunch.”
“Is anyone else coming?”
He shut the tailgate and opened her door without answering. Minnow climbed in, a funny feeling swirling in her gut.
“No.”
She waited for him to get in and slam the door, then said, “So it’s just us two?”
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Us two and Nalu.” He swallowed hard, then said, “And damn, I hate to do this
to you, but there’s been an emergency and I’m flying back to O?ahu on the six-thirty flight. My wife went into premature labor
and I need to get to the hospital.”
Minnow turned to him and for the first time noticed the puffiness under his eyes. This was most unexpected and not good news,
but she mustered, “I’m sorry, I hope everything is okay.”
“I think so. It’s just a few weeks early, but this is Christina’s first, and they may have to do a C-section, so I need to
be with her.”
“When will you be back?”
“As soon as I can, but it’s hard to say. I’ll connect you with Tommy Warren, head of Department of Land and Water Assets,
better known as DLWA, and Mayor Lum. You can update them both until I return. Tommy’s actually Lum’s nephew.” He handed her
a flimsy ID card with her photo glued on. “Use this if anyone questions you.”
She felt a strange sense of weightlessness. “So what is it exactly that you want me to do in the meantime? I have no authority
here. No one even knows who I am,” she said, second-guessing her split-second decision to hop a plane over here without a
plan. But the allure of a white shark in Hawaiian waters had been too enticing to pass up.
Joe hung a right onto a two-lane road surrounded by old lava flows, the black surface shimmering in the midday sun. “Like
I said last night, the state is under a lot of pressure to do something about these attacks. First and foremost, we need to
maintain a presence and look like we are on top of the situation. Hell, just look like we’re doing something—anything. Having
a white shark expert on the island will help in that department. But this is new territory for all of us. We’ve never had
a cluster of attacks like this. And I know tiger behavior but not white. Not like you do.”
Minnow squinted out into the glaring sun and felt the backs of her thighs melting onto the car seat. The last thing she wanted to be was a pawn. “Am I here just so you can check a box?”
“Look, none of us want this to end up with another shark-culling event, which is a real possibility. So first of all, I’m
hoping you can get a read on what’s happening to cause these attacks, and then also help sway the powers that be to prevent
a culling event. Maybe talk to the press, too, as a voice of reason. Mass hysteria is not something we need.”
That, she understood. “I’ll do what I can and collect as much information as I can, but you know sharks are unpredictable.
What if we find no reason?”
“Just do the best you can. I’ve already done a preliminary report on the first attack, and I can show you what I have back
at the hotel. Yesterday the fire department and navy divers gave up the search for Hank Johnson, the missing swimmer, but
I want to keep looking for any sign of him. As for yesterday’s attack, the victim is still in and out of consciousness, so
you’ll want to interview her when she comes to. Or maybe I should say if.”
So the victim was a woman. For some reason Minnow had expected a man. She had seen the dramatic headline in the paper this
morning—Man-Eater Still on the Loose in Hawai‘i—along with a few facts from the article. Less than two miles from where the first attack happened. Critical injury. No other
details. The headline was wrong, though. White sharks did not discriminate between men and women.
“What can you tell me about the sharks? I know you believe the first one was a great white, but is there any reason to believe
yesterday’s was also one?”
“Yes. There have been several sightings this last week, so you can talk to those guys too.”
“Haven’t you already spoken to them?”
“To all but one, and you might glean something more. I also want you to keep combing the area, and keep an eye out. Sounds like there have been more tiger sharks around, too, if you talk to some of the fishermen. Something seems out of whack.”
“What are you doing about it?”
“We have shark signs up at the beaches near the incidents, but not everyone listens.”
“Will I have access to a boat?” she asked.
“Yep, and I have a stipend for you. Seventy bucks a day. It’s all I could get.”
Not much but better than nothing. “I’ll need a car.”
“I’m leaving this for you and Nalu. He can drive you around. My buddy lent it to me, it’s his farm truck.”
She got the feeling he was leaving something out but knew he had other things on his mind. Still, she planned on pressing
him as soon as they got to the hotel.
On the way into Kailua-Kona town, they passed a boat harbor and a historic fishpond before turning down Ali‘i Drive, where
they met up with the ocean. A short pier jutted out, and tourists cruised the sidewalks scantily clothed and burned pink from
the sun. A manicured green lawn spread out around several old houses and a stone church. The setting was beach-town-touristy
vibe meets old Hawai‘i.
At his hotel, a spaceship-shaped building, Joe took her to a late lunch. They sat at a table off by itself and he ordered
a pint of beer right off the bat. Minnow stuck to lilikoi juice, which the waitress told her was passion fruit and that she swore by it. Joe excused himself and returned with a stack
of manila folders. When he finally took off his dark glasses, she saw he had sea-blue eyes with a pronounced pterygium on
one––too much time in the sun and salt water. He surveyed the ocean, a stone’s throw away, dark and choppy now from an onshore
breeze and a blanket of clouds.
“These waters are hands down the most beautiful in Hawai‘i. All the way from South Point up to Māhukona area. You have this incredibly unique coastline that is mostly lava and little sand. That makes for clear water and burgeoning reefs. Plenty of fish. And plenty of sharks. Not as many as Maui, mind you, a veritable tiger pupping ground, but Hawai?i Island has its fair share.” He paused to gulp down half of his beer.
“Have you ever seen a white shark in Hawai?i?” she asked.
“Never. Historically, there are accounts, but they are few and far between,” he said, then added, “as I’m sure you know.”
She did know. Anything there was to know about white sharks in the Pacific, she had made it her business, her life.
“Can I see the photos?” she asked.
He slid her a file. “We don’t have much, other than what the emergency room staff took. I’ll warn you, they are gruesome.”
Minnow made sure the waitress was nowhere around, then opened the file with Stuart Callahan scrawled on the front. The first photo was a close-up of a thigh with a clean, half-moon-shaped bite mark that spanned from
hip to knee. Each tooth left a gaping red hole. She fought back the bile rising in her throat.
“Oh my God, the shark has to be huge,” she whispered.
“What’s your guess?”
She hadn’t seen a bite so big. Ever. “At least eighteen. Probably twenty? I’d need to measure it to be sure.”
“I was thinking the same. According to my measurements, the shark would be twenty feet long,” he said somberly.
“Only one bite?” she asked.
Joe nodded. “His father used his surf shirt as a tourniquet and got him to shore alive, but by the time he went for help and
returned, Stuart had bled out.”
It would have been impossible to stop the bleeding from such a wound on his hip.
But a father would have to try. Her heart went out to him, and she suddenly felt woozy.
The thought of a father witnessing his son’s brutal death brought to mind her own story but in reverse.
Only, Minnow had no recollection of the morning her father died. Perspiration beaded on her forehead.
“Is Mr. Callahan still on the island?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level.
“Yes. He and his wife own a home at Koholā, and they spend their time between here and Palo Alto. They’re loaded, from what
I gather. Private jet and the whole nine yards.”
“Did he get a good look at the shark?”
“When I interviewed him, he was still in shock and still sedated, so I tried to make it brief. You might want to hit him up
again. He told me he saw his son and the surfboard go skyward and a huge dark mass launch up, displacing a ton of water. There
was a brief thrashing, and then the water turned red.”
Her blood ran cold picturing it. “Terrifying.”
Joe took another swig, finished the pint and set it down hard on the table. A small amount of froth remained on his lip. “To
put it mildly. But we know tiger sharks don’t generally jump out of the water like that, so that was our first clue that we
were dealing with a different beast.”
Tiger sharks were nothing to be messed with, and they were responsible for the most shark-related fatalities in Hawaiian waters.
Even Minnow knew that.
“Were any teeth or fragments found?”
“Not with this one. That’s why I kept looking for the board, but it still hasn’t shown up.”
“Do we have a description of the board?”
“Orange shortboard, shaped by Dick Brewer.” He pulled out a small digital camera and offered it to her. “I still need to get
to Longs to print out the pics. As you can imagine, I haven’t had a second. They’re in chronological order.”
There were more photos of the injuries. The evidence pointed to a classic great white attack, the animal coming from underneath with enormous force and stunning its prey, then biting.
But humans weren’t on the white shark menu, so after a bite or two, the shark would have swam off without actually consuming Stuart.
Beyond the injury shots were pictures of a point break with perfect peeling right-handers, a surfer’s dream, allowing them
to ride the waves all the way into the bay. Minnow kept flipping through the photos. Turquoise water and roping blue lines
of surf. Then another of a boulder-strewn cove. Joe narrated as she looked through them.
“That’s where the Callahans were surfing. It takes twenty minutes to hike in from where they parked. Mr. Callahan had a tough
choice to make: stay with his son while he died or leave Stu alone and go for help. Stu was a big guy, around one eighty,
so there was no way Mr. Callahan could carry him all that way.”
Minnow felt for the father. Felt for the son, who had been left on a bed of sea-smoothed coral and lava rock under a small
heliotrope tree. This was her second time in as many years investigating an incident, and it reminded her why she preferred
the business of studying shark behavior and observing them in their natural habitat, far away from any people.
“So, what about yesterday’s incident?” she asked, after Joe had shown her the rest of the photos, which were purely location.
He scratched his head. “I’ll tell you something that’s been nagging at me. Two years ago, a white shark was reported in these
waters by fishermen, and we had a diver disappear. And two years before that, we had another missing person, a boogie boarder.
He was never seen again, but his shorts washed up ashore shredded the following week. What do you make of that?”
The two-year timing was interesting because it followed the white shark migration pattern. “White sharks have a two-year cycle.
Especially the females. Their gestation period is sixteen months.”
“So this could be the same one returning?”
“Not necessarily. They aren’t always that predictable.”
But one was, she knew.
He pushed the other file toward her, but when he saw the waitress coming, he quickly pulled it back. He ordered another beer and Minnow took another glass of the ice-cold, tart lilikoi juice that tasted like summer and winter shaken together.
When the waitress left, Joe shoved the folder back her way. “I’m surprised this hasn’t leaked already. Hold on to your bikini.”
Minnow glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we are well and properly screwed. There literally could not be a worse possible victim and the press is going to be
all over this in the next day or two.”
A victim was a victim was a victim. But when she opened the folder and saw the first photo, she immediately knew what he meant.