The Fire Thief Read online

  He shrugged, losing interest. His eyes played across her T-shirt again, deliberately lingering, as though he was challenging her to react. She made direct eye contact with him and stared at him without blinking. He smiled.

  “Depends, right? Bigger the house, the more energy it needs to run. Some of these babies are over six thousand square feet, not counting the pools, terraces, and outdoor buildings. Course, a lot of them in some of the smaller developments average only around twelve hundred square feet. So a wide range. But not all of them are solar homes—that’s an option offered to the buyer at an additional cost. You understand?”

  She felt her stomach tighten with distaste. “Yes, I understand.”

  He grinned. “Great!” He pulled himself out of his chair. “Care for a cocktail? I was going to mix up my afternoon margarita, and I’d be happy to whip one up for you, as well.”

  “Thanks, no. I’m on the clock.” She smiled, her lips tight. “You understand?”

  He laughed, slapping his thigh. She speculated about how annoyed he’d be if she asked him to document all his purchases, and decided it would be worth it just to inconvenience him.

  But when she asked, he merely smiled in agreement.

  “Happy to help. I use suppliers in Minnesota and Japan. They all give me a great discount based on sheer volume. As for installation, they go up after the framing and roofs are complete.”

  He poured ice from a bucket into a blender resting on a small table, where bottles of expensive liquor were displayed on a glass tray.

  “Sure I can’t talk you into a drink? My margaritas are pretty famous in these parts. Small-batch artisan tequila here, better than sex.” He held up a sparkling glass bottle. “Men give their lives for beauty like this.”

  Once again, she ignored his attempts to control the conversation. “What about used panels?”

  He paused in the act of pouring the tequila into the blender. “I don’t follow.”

  “Surely there would be significant cost savings if there were a reliable source of used panels.”

  “You’re saying customers wouldn’t notice? Besides, I don’t think I’ve even heard of a supplier dealing in used panels. Have you?”

  “What about your competitors?”

  “What about them? The only builders I’m aware of who are offering renewable-energy homes are small-scale contractors. A few houses a year. Nothing like what I’ve got going on.”

  “I see. Building empires?”

  His smile turned suddenly cold. “If you like.” He switched on the blender, and the noise prevented her from making an immediate reply. He lifted a glass and turned it upside down, deftly spun the rim in a plate of salt, then poured the frosty contents of the blender into the bowl of the glass. Gazing at her over the rim, he took a long sip from his drink. “I must say, this is beginning to feel a little bit like harassment.”

  “My sincere apologies, Mr. Shane.” She returned his gaze. “You’re not from Hawaii, are you?”

  “Don’t mistake me for a malihini, please. I’m no newcomer. I’ve been in these islands for twenty years.”

  She noted his use of the Hawaiian word for “recent arrival.” He watched her, smiling slightly, a look of satisfaction on his face. After turning away, she walked toward the shelves along one wall, where a few books and photographs were displayed. She stopped in front of a framed photo of an expensive-looking sailboat. A young woman stood on the deck, her unsmiling face obscured by sunglasses and the brim of a large, soft sun hat. Beside her stood a slender man in swim trunks and a white T-shirt. The man was clearly Hawaiian and wore a strained look on his face, as though the photographer had caught the couple on the edge of an argument.

  Shane followed her with his eyes. “Late son-in-law. Untimely death, but he managed to teach me just enough Hawaiian to annoy the locals.”

  She kept her voice neutral. “Where are you from originally?”

  He raised his glass in a toast. “Why, the fine state of Texas, since you ask. But the real estate market is here. I’m a businessman, Detective. I go where the business is.”

  “And to date, none of the panels from your new homes have gone missing?”

  He raised the glass to his lips haltingly and turned to her, a look of surprise on his face. “Well, now.” He looked suddenly thoughtful. “Heavens. Actually, that’s an interesting question. Can’t say that anyone on my team does any sort of formal assessment on whether or not the houses have the same number of panels we install as they do at the point of sale.”

  He put his glass down and walked to a small desk in the corner, then leaned over a computer while he pulled up a spreadsheet on the screen. “However, it sounds like something I should maybe be doing.”

  “Let me know if your numbers don’t add up, Mr. Shane. So far all reported thefts have been on Maui, but with all the second and third homes spread across the islands, it’s highly likely some owners may not be aware yet that anything’s gone missing from their roofs.”

  He nodded, still looking preoccupied. “It will take me a few days to compare our installation records with a visual check of roofs.”

  She smiled and turned to leave. “We’ll have someone do it for you. I’ll need copies of all your records, of course, going back to your first purchases. Unless you’d like to go a more official route and have them subpoenaed. I’m sure you understand.”

  He looked up from the screen. “Touché, darlin’. I’ll have them sent over first thing tomorrow. E-mail okay for you?” He focused his gaze deliberately on her chest. “Or I can hand them over in person. Maybe over breakfast?”

  She placed her business card on the glass coffee table and turned and left without a word. Sometimes, she reminded herself, saying nothing at all was all that needed to be said.

  CHAPTER 12

  A trio of seagulls settled on the rail of the lanai, squawking noisily. Kali rolled out of her porch hammock with great reluctance and placed the sand-toughened soles of her feet onto the scratched, worn floorboards of the lanai. She’d missed the sunrise again.

  Looking across the wild, overgrown lawn toward the ocean, she considered with some disgust the undeniable fact that even though she hadn’t been awake to perform the morning sunrise chant, the sun had nevertheless managed to make it into the sky without her assistance. Just as well, she thought. If it were up to her to get the day started, the world might have to exist in perpetual darkness. She closed her eyes, letting out a small sigh. Her mood grew even gloomier as she considered that she’d made an equal lack of progress moving forward in the murder investigation.

  The light across the surface of the ocean changed, and the sky grew increasingly brighter. The view was good from here, exactly as she’d intended it to be. When she’d decided to make some renovations to the small house that her grandmother had left to her, her first project had been to repair the long, wide lanai, deliberately positioned to make the most of both the sea views and the shade provided by the tall palms and dense fruit trees that grew on the property.

  The lanai had quickly turned into the place where she spent the majority of her time when she was home. There was a hammock on one end, where she frequently slept; several comfortable, well-worn chairs that allowed her to stretch her legs out to their full length; and an old, polished table made from koa wood, where she could eat her meals and enjoy the views of the sea. She considered the indoor table and bedrooms to be the equivalent of storm quarters: a dry place of retreat, but only when absolutely necessary. In truth, she loved the storms that periodically swept through the islands, and could often be found outside in the rain, walking the steep paths into the uplands, wet leaves clinging to her clothes, Hilo at her side, and a peaceful expression on her face.

  She preferred her solitude and was used to living alone. None of her long-term relationships to date had lasted, though she’d tried to find a reason to invest in them emotionally. Mike Shirai had been the only exception. She’d met him after earning her degree from the University
of Hawaii and had decided to change gears and train at the police academy in Honolulu. Still a rookie, she had been called in to help with a case involving a series of assaults that seemed to be rooted in an old Hawaiian legend, and had met Mike, the detective inspector in charge of the investigation.

  She’d known, without doubt, that this was love. Mike was smart and kind and funny, and they’d been instant friends. Eventually, they’d moved in together, and she’d done her best to establish a positive relationship with his sullen teenage daughter, Makena, his only child from a brief previous marriage.

  Kali looked across the surface of the sea, now glittering in the growing sunlight, and remembered the feeling of being absolutely content, and of being deeply loved. She believed that she and Mike would have been happy together, but the universe had intervened. On an evening filled with starlight, after a morning that had begun with making love, Mike had been shot and killed during a police raid on one of the growing number of meth labs being established on the island.

  Kali closed her eyes. It did no good to feel guilty.

  No one held her responsible for him being in the line of fire. No one, that is, except herself.

  Perhaps because of the details surrounding the event, or maybe because of how the future had changed with the abrupt cessation of one single, singular heartbeat, she’d found herself living in a kind of limbo. Without Mike, the wide beaches and the tall, swaying palm trees had felt judgmental: Who was she to enjoy their beauty, when Mike’s soul had been so brutally wrenched from the world?

  She had thought about leaving, had spent countless hours perusing ads for jobs on the mainland. Instead, she had stayed on in Honolulu, with its bustle and lights and its year-round masses of tourists. The calm southeastern shores of Maui spooling out along the coast had seemed to be part of a dream—a memory from someone else’s life. The rhythmic break of ocean waves rolling ashore had receded in the noise of traffic, becoming no more than a half-remembered story played out in a distant childhood.

  From her vantage point on the lanai, she recalled the feeling of disconnection that had followed the shooting, how it had grown stronger each day, as she had struggled for sleep in her small city apartment. She realized now that she’d been waiting for a sign, something to tell her it was time to move on.

  Finally, one had arrived. As she was drifting off into another night of restless sleep, her phone had rung. It was her grandmother, insisting that she come home to help with a healing ceremony. It was high time, her grandmother told her, that she accepted her place as kahu in her own community.

  “Who is the ceremony for?” Kali asked, a sudden wash of apprehension descending on her.

  “It’s for me,” her grandmother had answered, and then, before Kali could respond, she’d simply hung up the phone.

  CHAPTER 13

  After her grandmother’s call, she’d arrived back on Maui, racked with guilt. Walter had met her at the airport, and they’d made the long trek along the narrow, winding road to Hana, trying not to express their mutual annoyance at the slow crawl of sightseeing drivers, who had seemed to find nothing wrong with leaning out of their rental car windows to take snapshots.

  The road had more twists and turns than Kali had recalled, punctuated with narrow bridges, which forced the cars into a single, disgruntled lane. It had taken over four hours to reach the small town of Nu‘u, and she had been sick at the thought that she might be returning home too late to be of any use.

  By the time they’d reached the dirt driveway sloping up from the sea to her grandmother’s house, years had fallen away. Suddenly, it seemed that Honolulu was the dream; Maui was the only reality. Everything was exactly as she’d last seen it: the thick, tall grass; the old mango tree at one end of the yard, bent beneath its load of heavy fruit; the faded yellow paint peeling away from the house’s exterior. She took the five sagging wooden steps leading to the front door with a single leap and then stopped. The main door was open, with the old interior screen door on its crooked hinges closed to keep out the sun-warmed, sleepy flies. She took a deep breath, then gently pulled open the door and walked across the kitchen.

  “You took your time,” came a voice from the single bedroom.

  Pualani Pali lay in her narrow wood-framed bed near an open window in her book-filled room, propped up against the headboard by a half-dozen soft pillows. She looked up as Kali leaned over and kissed her forehead.

  “So,” she said, her eyes looking over her granddaughter carefully. “This is what it takes to bring you home, is it?”

  And then she laughed, a deep, happy laugh, like the one Kali remembered from the days they’d spent traipsing slowly up the mountainsides while her grandmother taught her how to locate the healing herbs and plants that grew in abundance on the island. She’d taught her the protocol for their use and instilled the importance of honoring the spirit of each plant, teaching Kali how a plant’s living energy was an essential component of its ability to provide healing.

  “What’s this, child?”

  “Noni, Grandmother.”

  “And what is it good for?”

  “To make a tonic when you don’t feel hungry for a long time.”

  “And what about the ripe fruit?”

  “It makes a poultice to put on cuts and bruises.”

  “And the bark?”

  “It helps when your muscles hurt.”

  “And what do we ask of the plant before we take it from the earth?”

  “We thank the living spirit in the plant and ask it to sacrifice itself to help someone heal.”

  “Good, child. You must remember this.”

  “Yes, Grandmother.”

  There had been many such lessons as Kali memorized the hundreds of plants that made up the Hawaiian pharmacopoeia. Most of them had multiple uses and more than one recipe for their proper preparation, all depending upon the specific needs of each case. She’d memorized them all, and the ceremonies that were part of their use. She had learned by heart the creation myths of the Hawaiian culture, the genealogies of the sun and moon, the sacred chants and songs that called the day and night into being. Eventually, it was this extensive knowledge of Hawaiian lore and botanic life that had earned her top honors at the university.

  As she gazed at her frail elderly grandmother, resting so patiently in the tiny room, Kali knew instinctively that there wasn’t a single plant that would restore her to health. Another failure, she thought, to add to her ever-lengthening list.

  “What seems to be the trouble, Kali? You don’t have much to say. Did you leave your tongue behind in Honolulu, or did the drive here give you a headache?”

  Kali exhaled slowly, surprised to realize she’d been holding the air in her lungs. She smiled wryly, reaching out to squeeze her grandmother’s hand. “It was a long trip. But you know I’d swim across the ocean just to be beside you.”

  That amused Pualani. She laughed again and then patted the soft, worn quilt beside her, gesturing for Kali to sit down.

  At first, Kali was hesitant, not wishing to tire the older woman. But Pualani began to ask questions, and Kali’s answers came flooding out: Mike’s death, the loneliness she’d felt in the city, the deep lost feeling of being separated from who she really was. They talked for hours, until the shadows grew long across the sloping green of the yard. Eventually, Kali heated a pot of fish stew, then sat in the chair beside the bed while she and Pualani slowly sipped the smooth, rich broth.

  They were silent as they ate. When they were through, Kali collected the bowls and rose to take them to the kitchen. Her grandmother reached out, took Kali’s elbow, and gently held her. She smiled.

  “There is a beautiful proverb in our culture, Kali,” she said. “It is said that the lehua blossom unfolds when the rains tread on it.”

  Outside, the coastal wind kicked up a notch. Kali heard the scratch of tree branches on the outside of the house. She regarded her grandmother solemnly, with respect. “I wonder sometimes if I will simply drown i
n the rains instead.”

  Pualani’s eyes swept over Kali’s face, and she perceived the remnants of sadness and longing. “Never forget who you are, granddaughter. You are the next kahu, and someday you will be a great and much-loved healer. Your struggles and disappointments, they’re just rain. Only rain, necessary for the flower to be born.”

  Kali sighed and shook her head. She forced a smile. “I don’t know what’s true and what’s not.”

  “You know. It’s inside, where no one can take it from you, deep in your bones.”

  Pualani laughed again, this time very softly, sounding for a second like a young woman. Then she told Kali to find something to do outside, so she could sleep.

  The next morning Kali asked her grandmother to describe her illness, hoping that she might offer some relief. Pualani merely shook her head and smiled.

  “You’ve been living in the big city too long, breathing in all that dirty air. It’s eaten a hole in your brain. What does being cured have to do with being healed? Nothing. If I have a heart attack and you perform surgery, does that make me well? Not if my heart is filled with anger, jealousy, or grief. Maybe those are the very things that caused my heart to fail. Remember, Kali, it’s not the quelling of symptoms that should be the goal. It is true spiritual balance, the state of pono, that we should strive for. Now that you are here, I am whole and in harmony, and ready to join my ancestors when they come to take me with them.”

  Kali was startled. She noticed now the thinness of the skin stretched across the backs of Pualani’s hands, the crepe beneath her eyes and along her neck, the fine white strands of hair. Surely this kind, powerful woman was not going to die for long years. Kali felt her heart lurch, suddenly desperate to do something, anything, to keep that from happening. She would arrange a particular ceremony, called Ho’oponopono, which meant to “make right,” “to restore the essential equilibrium to one’s existence.”

  Silently, she made a list of details, remembering what had been involved in conducting the ceremony during the times when she had accompanied Pualani on her healing rounds to homes in the surrounding community. The ancient ritual was intricate and involved and would take some time to arrange. There were prayers and chanting, and the members of the ailing person’s family were all asked to attend. As part of the ceremony, they would be asked to release any feelings of anger or ill will they may be harboring against others from past or current transgressions, whether imagined or real, in order to clear all negativity from the setting. It was a tall order, and Kali felt overwhelmed at being thrust into the role her grandmother believed she was destined for.