Chapter 13 The Press
The Press
Hopena: destiny, fate, consequence, result, conclusion
After an early lunch of cheese sandwiches, Maui onion potato chips and crunchy homemade pickles care of Woody’s wife, Minnow
and Nalu went to the DLWA office in Kawaihae, next to the harbor. She was hoping to meet the director, Tommy Warren, face-to-face
and share their findings and also see if their team had any updates. But from what Woody had told her, the DLWA guys were
overworked and underpaid so she shouldn’t expect a whole lot.
They parked in front of a small wooden one-room building equipped with several loud air-conditioning window units and surrounded
by shipping containers and vehicles in various states of disrepair. As soon as she got out of the truck, Minnow was hit by
waves of heat coming off the asphalt. Inside were four desks and a secretary with mounds of files on her desk. The place smelled
like cigarettes.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked.
“We’re looking for Tommy Warren.”
“Not here today.”
“When will he be in?”
“Mr. Warren spends most of his time in our Hilo and Kona offices, so I’m not sure. What you need?” she asked.
Minnow explained, then asked, “Has your team found anything new?”
“You’ll have to talk to Tommy or Chad, but I doubt it. Once Search & Rescue calls off the search, we’re out too.”
“But what about the shark hunt Mayor Lum is talking about? Who will be in charge of that?”
“We would probably hire out local fishermen. Plenty of guys just waiting for the green light.”
“Are people already out there fishing for sharks?”
“People can fish for whatever they want, but they won’t get paid for it. The state pays these guys well. And as long as they
aren’t in fisheries management areas or taking summer crab.”
A plaque on the woman’s desk read Janet Pahia.
“Summer crab?” Minnow asked.
Nalu said, “Lobster.”
“Four years ago on O?ahu, they took fiftysomething big tigers after an attack and a bunch of sightings,” Janet said. “So,
people gonna do what they need to.”
Nalu nodded. “It was pretty much hysteria. The sharks had no chance.”
Janet shrugged. “Better get them than they get you. At least that’s how I see it.”
There was no point in arguing. Everyone had their own theories about sharks, and yet they really had no idea what they were
talking about. Taking out fifty apex predators from a relatively small area would have huge repercussions for years to come.
And the shark who had done the biting was probably already on Moloka?i or Maui. Tiger sharks moved.
As soon as they pulled up into the hospital parking lot, Nalu said, “Oh shit.”
There were vans and people all clustered around the entrance, and several photographers holding cameras with long telephoto lenses, as though going on a wildlife shoot.
“It was bound to happen,” Minnow said.
“You sure you want to go in there right now?” he asked.
“I’m not sure of anything.” Minnow was in no mood to be interviewed, nor was she prepared to make any statements to the press.
He nodded at a tall white-haired man dressed in an aloha shirt and wearing shades. “Look, there’s Mayor Lum.”
Wind blew a light rain sideways and the temperature was easily fifteen degrees colder than down on the coast.
“Let’s just wait here for a minute and figure out our game plan,” she said. “I would like to talk to the mayor.”
Two black-shirted security guards stood in front of the sliding glass doors, arms crossed. A woman in a tight red dress stood
off to the side with Lum, holding a mic up to him. If Lum got airtime, Minnow wanted airtime too. No matter that she was in
jeans and a tank top and a borrowed flannel shirt of Woody’s, or that her hair had coiled into a tangle from the brackish
water shower.
“Let’s go,” she said, opening the door.
Nalu followed her, and as they approached he nodded to the two guards, one of whom was the one from yesterday. In his surf
shorts and trucker hat, he looked like he could have been her son. No one else paid them any mind as Minnow walked near to
where the mayor and newswoman stood and waited for them to wrap it up.
“So, in light of this new development, with Angela Crawford as one of the victims, will you be handling the case any differently?”
the woman in the red dress asked.
Nalu whispered to Minnow, “That’s Linda Moore. Channel nine.”
“Not at all. I can assure you we will be organizing a shark hunt along the entire Kohala and North Kona coast if that’s what
our Shark Task Force decides is necessary.”
Minnow’s ears perked at the term Shark Task Force. Was there one she didn’t know about?
Linda’s hair whipped into her mouth. “Who makes up this Shark Task Force?”
“Scientists, DLWA members, a shark expert from California, fishermen, the Fire Department’s Search & Rescue, Hawaiians. I’m
assembling it as we speak, to determine our next course of action. We want to assure everyone that our waters are safe for
swimming.”
“It’s the ocean, Mayor. Could you ever really say that with certainty?” Linda asked pointedly.
“Of course, but we want to assure anyone coming for spring break or the roughwater swim that this is no Jaws scenario. There’s no cause for hysteria.”
The guy was lying out of his ass, and Minnow felt a burning need to step in, but she’d have to wait.
“Did you bring in the mainland expert because the shark is a great white?”
“Yes. The shark that killed Stuart Callahan is believed to have been a great white.”
“Why delay the hunt any longer?”
“A shark hunt is a serious matter, not one we take lightly. You know, the Hawaiians have a relationship with sharks and we
don’t want to step on any toes. It’s a touchy subject among some circles.”
“So you’re weighing stepping on toes with losing toes—or more. Is that right?”
Lum cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable. “You could say that, yes.”
As soon as they wrapped up filming, Minnow walked up. “Excuse me, but I’m Dr. Gray, the white shark expert you were just talking
about,” she said, words blown this way and that in the wind.
Lum half smiled. “Yes, Dr. Gray, I’m glad you’re here. And is this your colleague?”
Nalu laughed. “I’m just the intern.”
Linda waved the camera guy back. “Oh, this is perfect. Do you have time for an interview, Dr. Gray?”
“Yes, I do.”
Lum looked like he wanted to drag her out of there, but to do so would have made him look bad. A patch of blue sky opened
up overhead, but the wind continued to howl. Linda seemed not to care, so neither did Minnow.
Linda introduced her and then got right to the point. “In your opinion, Dr. Gray, are we looking at the same shark in these
three incidents?”
“I can’t say for sure yet, but so far the evidence points to two of them being the same shark. And yes, it’s a large white
shark.”
“How large?”
“Close to twenty feet.”
A gasp. “And the third?”
“We have no body and no teeth or teeth marks, so it’s hard to say about that one—or if it was even a shark and not a drowning.
We’re still looking, though.”
“What are your thoughts on a shark hunt?”
“It would serve no point other than to decimate the shark population here.” Minnow looked toward the camera. “So I strongly
advise anyone who wants to take matters into their own hands not to.”
“The waters would be safer, though, wouldn’t they?”
“Not necessarily. Other sharks would likely move in. These large sharks are migratory. They travel.”
“So why is the same shark hanging around?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
“It’s not normal behavior?”
“No, it’s not.”
“People aren’t usually on the menu, is that right?”
“We are not part of the white shark diet. Tigers are a bit less discerning, but this was not a tiger shark.”
A cloud moved over the sun, casting a dark shadow across the pavement, and Minnow realized she was chilled to the bone.
“Do you have any advice for people who may want to go in the water?” Linda asked.
“I would suggest that if you happen to be along that coastline, swim close to shore and with others. All of these incidents
happened farther out in deeper water. But I would suggest choosing other places to surf for the time being. Sharks live in
the ocean, so there’s never any guarantee that you won’t encounter one. But keep in mind that most of the time when sharks
see humans, they usually just swim away. Sometimes they’ll move in for a closer look, but the chances of a bite are slim.
You’re far more likely to be struck by lightning.”
Linda paused, as if she were done. But she wasn’t. “Tell me this, Dr. Gray. Would you be willing to swim in the roughwater
swim in two weeks?”
Minnow wanted to say yes, but she paused. Would she? “I’m not a long-distance swimmer.”
“But if you were?”
“Yes, I would do it. As far as I know, no one has been attacked during an ocean swim race here or anywhere else in the world.
Sharks shy away from all that activity. Groups of swimmers, boats, Jet Skis.”
“I guess most of us are hardwired to think of the movie Jaws when we think of sharks.”
The words scraped hard against Minnow’s cold skin. “Jaws did sharks a huge disservice. And they are still paying for it. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel terribly for the victims and
their families—of course my heart goes out to them. But the answer is not a shark hunt, I promise you that.”
Linda nodded. “Thank you, Dr. Gray.”
Mayor Lum was nowhere to be seen.
On the way in to see Angela, Minnow stopped in the bathroom.
In the mirror she looked less like a scientist and more like a woman who’d been adrift at sea for a week.
But that didn’t bother her. What bothered her most was the fact that right now, regardless of what the state was doing, anyone could be out there hauling sharks out of the water.
Senselessly, ruthlessly, brutally. For some reason she had assumed everyone would wait until an official hunt was called.
The inside of her cheek burned when she thought about it, and her skin crawled.