Chapter 3 The Other Victim #2
Five minutes after she and Nalu had dropped Joe at the airport, Minnow rode with the window open and hot wind blowing in her face.
The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” played on the radio, fading in and out of static, and Nalu moved his head forward and back along with the music.
For some reason it made her smile. On one side Hualālai rose up, green and sloped and shrouded in clouds.
The volcano’s gentle girth appeared to take up the whole island until they crested a hill where the gentle slopes of another shield volcano came into view and two more in the distance off to the right.
These were even more substantial. Across the channel a fifth peeked above the clouds.
“Haleakalā,” Nalu said. “Maui.”
“Which one is the tallest?”
He pointed, his tan arm remarkably well designed. “Mauna Kea. Almost fourteen thousand feet. Mother of the ?āina—the land.”
“I didn’t realize they’re that high.”
“Taller than Everest when measured from the sea floor.”
“So it gets deep out there. How far out?” she asked.
“Not very. The seafloor drops away pretty quick on this whole island. Aside from a few seamounts southwest of us, and Lō?ihi,
our youngest volcano off the east side, we are surrounded by midnight and abyss. We even have our own trench, and trough.”
The trench she had heard of but not the trough.
“Trough?”
“Kind of like our own moat. The weight of our islands depresses the lithosphere, which is already fragile from the hotspot
below. We’re living dangerously out here,” he said.
“How deep is the trough?”
“About eighteen thousand feet at her deepest. And in her shallows, we have mesophytic coral ecosystems inhabited by many of
our own Hawaiian brands of fish.”
Nalu flipped seamlessly between surfer dude and science nerd.
“So what’s your take on the attacks?” she asked.
The sky had darkened even more, and a fat drop of rain plopped on the windshield.
“I think it’s the same one,” he said, “because our concentration of white sharks is low and all reports mention the extreme
size of this thing. What are the odds of there being two massive white sharks here?”
“Low to none.”
He took off his shades and set them on the dashboard as they drove into a sheet of rain. “You’re the expert. What do you think after talking with Dr. Joe?”
The way he said it made her wonder how he felt about her being here. The pecking order of scientists was a real thing, and
as an intern he was bottom of the rung.
“I would have to agree, and yet I don’t believe we have some man-eating monster here. There has to be a reason the shark is
hanging around,” she said.
“If there is, we’ll find it.”
“I’m surprised there’s been no sign of a whale carcass or something. No big runoff events?”
“Nope. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a carcass of some kind out there. The ocean hides things, you know that.”
She knew it absolutely did. Swallower of boats and submarines and lost souls, keeper of secrets and all kinds of sublime aquatic
life, most of which humans had never seen.
“How did you get into sharks?” she asked.
He sat quiet for a few beats. “When I was in high school—I went to Kahuku on the east side of O?ahu—all the spots we surfed
were big-time sharky. We just kinda accepted it, you know? Then one day my friend lost his foot. Got nailed by a tiger. The
next day, a group of guys went out and caught three big sharks, pulled them into the beach at Hukilau and laid them all out.
One of them was huge—like fourteen feet, and pregnant. They were so proud, and all I could think was how beautiful this animal
was. Seeing her lying there dead with her mouth open just seemed so senseless. It really haunted me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, knowing firsthand the pain of seeing something like that. “About your friend. And the shark.”
He nodded. “I used to love to fish. I never did after that.”
She understood.
“Did you keep surfing?”
“It took a while before anyone went out to that break, except guys from the mainland. But eventually we did, and over time
we forgot.”
“Tragedy happens, but the world keeps on spinning, doesn’t it?”
He nodded. “I still surf plenty, but I pay more attention to my na‘au. When I get that shark vibe or if it feels weird before I go out—murky water, guys fishing—I stay back.”
They shared a few moments of fin-filled silence before she decided to clear the air. “I’m here to help you, you know. Not
to step on your toes or get in your way.”
He tensed. “I never said you were.”
“Just putting it out there.”
They moved out of one deluge toward another, passing a wide-mouthed bay with a black sand lagoon to one side. Beyond that,
they paralleled a longer stretch of cliffy coastline with no trees or foliage and no sign of life. Then they hit an area with
rambling, delicate-leafed trees Nalu called kiawe but Minnow knew as mesquite, growing straight out of the crumbly lava. Inhospitable was the word that came to mind.
Five minutes later, Nalu slowed the truck and they bounced off the pavement onto a narrow rocky shoulder. One spindly bougainvillea
with a few pink leaves stood alone in the black, looking forlorn and out of place. Rain bucketed down and Nalu turned his
wipers on high, swishing guppy-sized drops.
“I think this is it,” he said.
The barely perceptible road down to the house swung back the way they’d come and ended up at a thick, one-bar gate built into
a mound of lava. He stopped and they looked at each other, neither making a move to get out.
“Is this kind of rain usual? I thought this was supposed to be a legitimate desert,” she said, as the windshield began fogging
up.
“Afternoon convection. Not uncommon,” he said.
She reached for her door latch. “I’ll get the gate.”
He opened his door and jumped out, fast like a ninja. “I got it. What’s the combo?”
“Six-seven-six-six.”
When he climbed back in, he was dripping. The truck rattled through the a?a lava, what Nalu said was the crumbly, slow-moving kind, and they crunched their way toward a hazy gray ocean. The truck rattled,
squeaked and scraped over the lunar terrain, and Minnow was just waiting for a tire to go flat.
“It would be nice if I could see something,” she said.
“You will in the morning.”
“Speaking of tomorrow, I’d like to get on the water early to see where the attacks happened and get a sense of the area, then
go to the hospital later to check on Angela. What time is sunrise here?” she asked.
“Almost seven.”
“What time can you be back here?”
Judging by the trip today, the drive here from the hotel, without stops, would take forty minutes give or take.
“Depends on how late I stay out tonight,” he said with a goofy grin.
“Sounds like you have your priorities straight.”
“Joke,” he said. “I’ll be here bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at six thirty. Will that work for you?”
“Perfect.”
They came upon a sharp fork in the road.
“Turn left,” she said. “Woody says the right goes to the Kiawe. Do you know how far it is from here?”
“If we had kept going on the highway, we would’ve hit the turnoff anytime. Too bad you aren’t staying there, the place is
legendary.”
“I could afford to stay there for about half an hour, if that,” she said.
He laughed. “Yup, sounds about right.”
A little farther on, Minnow could just make out a hand-painted sign on a coconut tree that said, KAPU! No trespass. She cracked the window and saw the ocean next to them, gray and choppy. No beach, just lava up to the edge of the water.
And then a house appeared, flanked by coconut trees. Red roof, brown wooden siding, thatched fronds over an extended porch.
No other cars were in sight.
“Where is everyone?” Nalu asked.
“Woody said he’ll try to make it down tomorrow or the next day. He sent me detailed instructions on how to open up and get
the generator running since there’s no electricity.”
He seemed surprised. “So it’s just you?”
“For now.”
“What are you going to eat tonight?”
The clouds had obliterated any sign of a sunset, other than a hazy orange out over the ocean where she imagined the horizon
must be. Everything else was draped in a monochromatic gray.
“I had a late lunch with Joe, so I’m still full, and I have an apple and trail mix. I’ll be fine.”
She grabbed her bags from the back and climbed out. The rain had slowed to a featherlight drizzle and felt refreshing on her
skin. Not icy cold like California rain, this felt like a caress, a welcome. Something about the place felt vaguely familiar,
almost as though she’d been here before. Maybe Uncle Jimmy’s old photos were now coming to life. In all honesty, she was happier
to be here than she thought she’d be.
“Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, then shut the door and moved toward the house.
Walking on crushed lava and bleached-white coral fragments, she made her way around to the back, following Woody’s instructions.
Behind the house, hidden earlier by trees that could have come from the pages of a Dr. Seuss book, a large network of ponds
meandered toward another red-roofed house. She could still hear the truck idling. Nalu, she guessed, was debating whether
to be a good human and help her or do the bare minimum required.
In her mind this was exactly what separated the bad interns from the good ones: a willingness to do the most mundane and unforgiving tasks without being asked. Anything from scrubbing nine months’ worth of bird shit from the picnic table to volunteering to help pull up
the anchor in frothing ten-foot seas, where a rat pack of white sharks circled below.
On a narrow back porch, she set down her things and pulled out a flashlight so she could see the numbers on the lock. It was
so rusty, it felt like it would crumble in her hands, but eventually she slid the combo into place and the lock popped open.
She pressed the door, but it didn’t budge, so she pushed with her shoulder before finally resorting to kicking. The door swung
open into musty blackness.
Where the hell were the windows?