Mahu Blood (8 page)

The incorporation documents didn’t list anyone with the organization; the contact of record was the Honolulu law firm which had filed the paperwork in 2005 with the Hawai’i Secretary of State’s office, Fields and Yamato.

60 Neil S. Plakcy

I sat back in my chair. Adam O’Malley, whose business card I found on Edith’s desk, worked for that firm. Had she come in contact with him through her volunteer work for the organization?

I called his office again and left another message for him. “Please tell him it’s regarding an ongoing police investigation.”

“I will, Detective,” his secretary said. “But it’s a very important case, and with the time difference between here and Washington, DC he probably just hasn’t had a chance to get back to you.”

“Does this case involve Kingdom of Hawai’i?” I asked.

“You’d have to talk to Mr. O’Malley. It’s our firm’s policy not to discuss clients or ongoing litigation.”

I did a quick Google search on Adam O’Malley and Fields and Yamato, trying to figure out what sort of case might have taken him to Washington. The firm specialized in land use issues, but I couldn’t pull up anything on a specific case that was going on in DC at the moment.

When I saw Ezekiel up close I was surprised to see that he was older than I’d expected, or maybe it was that life had treated him harshly. Although he was only in his forties, his hair was graying, there were bags under his eyes and his left eye twitched.

He wore a faded blue polo shirt and cheap jeans, the kind that always look too shiny no matter how much you wash them.

“Thanks for coming in,” I said.

“I don’t have much time,” Maile said. She treated Ezekiel as if she were his mother, though I doubted she was much older than he was. Maybe I just got a motherly impression from her dowdy clothes and old-fashioned pin curls. “My boss is coming down on me for the time I’ve been spending on KOH.”

“You can wait out here,” I told her. “We’ll try and get Mr.

Kapuāiwa in and out as fast as we can.”

“I’d rather stay with Ezekiel.”

“Sorry, that’s not the way we do things here.” I put my hand on Ezekiel’s shoulder and turned him toward an interview room.

We sat down across the table from him, after he’d declined our MAhu BLood
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offers of coffee or soda.

“We’ll make this quick,” I said. “Mr. Kapuāiwa, did you know Edith Kapana?”

He nodded. “Growing up, on the Big Island. Aunty Edith lived in our village.”

“That would be Opihi?”

“Yes. Madame Pele was not kind to us, and our houses were destroyed by Kilauea.” From the casual way he talked about the goddess of fire, whom ancient Hawaiians thought controlled volcanoes, you’d think she was a neighbor back in Opihi just like Edith Kapana.

He spoke in an oddly stilted way, as if he were reading a script and didn’t understand the words himself. “Did you and Edith both move here to O’ahu at the same time?”

He shook his head. “I had already left Opihi some time before.”

“But you had been in touch with her recently?”

He looked down at the table. “Aunty Edith was a volunteer for Kingdom of Hawai’i,” he said, in his strange monotone.

“She was very kahiko, a great reservoir of information about the Hawaiian people.”

“This information. Was it written down? Records of some kind?”

He looked back up. “Not that I know of. It was more like history and lore than actual records.” His eye twitched rapidly, and he clutched the edge of the table. His fingernails were ragged, and his knuckles were scarred.

“Do you know any reason why someone might want to kill her?”

He pursed his lips together and blinked his eyes rapidly. “No, not at all.”

“How about why someone might break into her room and tear it apart?”

62 Neil S. Plakcy

His hands started to shake. “No, no,” he said.

I looked at Ray. I was afraid Ezekiel would have some kind of nervous breakdown or epileptic fit if we kept going. Ray nodded, and we both stood.

“We may have some more questions for you later, Mr.

Kapuāiwa. Thank you for coming in.” We led him back to the reception area, where Maile glared at us and took charge of him, hustling him out.

“The guy’s a little squirrely, isn’t he?” Ray asked after they’d left. “And what’s she, like his keeper?”

“Don’t know. There is something strange going on, though.”

I remembered that Israel at the community center had said sometimes he thought Ezekiel was babooze, stupid, and sometimes lolo, crazy. I wondered which it was. I was surprised that someone so odd could be the leader of an organization and a public figure, but perhaps he looked better on TV or behind a podium.

“Ezekiel couldn’t have shot her, because he was in the parade.

But she did know him, and he seems nutty enough that he could have taken a dislike to her and gotten somebody from his group to kill her.”

“I don’t see him having that kind of power. I mean, all you have to do is talk to the guy for a few minutes to see that he’s off his rocker. Maybe he’s some kind of figurehead. They just trot him out to wave at the crowd.”

“Possible. He has the lineage, but there could be someone else behind him pulling the strings.”

“Maile Kanuha?”

I shook my head. “I think she’s just a volunteer. We should request the tax records for KOH, see who’s funding the operation.”

“You’re going to need a subpoena for that,” Ray said. “You have anything to show a judge?”

“You’re a real party pooper, you know that?” I sighed.

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“Well, then, let’s see what we can find out about Ezekiel. Maybe something in his background will lead us to whoever is pulling his strings.”

We got some takeout for lunch and did a full search on Ezekiel Kapuāiwa. He had no criminal record, and the only information we could find about him online was either in news articles or at the KOH website. He didn’t appear in any databases not even in the division of driver’s licenses.

“How can he live without driving?” Ray asked.

“Maile Kanuha.”

“Nice to have that kind of service.”

“Hey, I drove you around for months before you and Julie got a second car.”

“If Edith knew his family, she might have known something shady in his background that could be embarrassing for people to find out,” Ray said. “Maybe there’s something he was hiding.”

It was like a light bulb went on over my head. “All those clippings and records Edith kept. Maybe there was something about Ezekiel there, something he wouldn’t want public.”

“You think Greg Oshiro could tell us anything more?” Ray asked. “He’s been writing about KOH for a while.”

“Maybe you. He wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire.”

“Ah, but that’s your stellar interpersonal skills.”

Ray called Greg, and I listened in from another phone.

“Maybe we can share some information,” Ray said. “You know, a real give and take with the fourth estate.”

“You’re full of shit, Detective,” Greg said. “But my job is to cover the police beat, so if you want to talk, I’m happy to listen.”

“That’s what I like about you, Greg,” Ray said. “That cooperative spirit.”

He arranged to meet Greg at the Kope Bean near the
Star-Advertiser
office in twenty minutes. “Have fun,” I said.

Ray shook his head. “I’m not going alone. You’re my partner.”

64 Neil S. Plakcy

I started to protest, but Ray interrupted, “Besides, you’re buying the coffee.”

Thunder boomed as we drove out of the headquarters parking garage, and a lightning strike lit up the gray sky over the Aloha Tower. The palms on South Beretania flapped as a steady rain beat down. By the time we reached the Kope Bean, the shower had passed, though the parking lot was flooded, and a trash can had tipped over, spilling paper cups, napkins and stirrers onto the pavement.

Greg Oshiro’s attitude turned cold as soon as he realized I was behind Ray. “Detectives,” he said, nodding. I took his order and Ray’s and went up to the counter, while the two of them settled in comfy chairs in the corner. Slack key guitar played through the speakers, and though I couldn’t identify the artists, I got into the groove of the music.

I ordered us all the chain’s signature drink, the Macadamia Latte, in the Longboard size, their largest. By the time I brought the coffees over, Ray and Greg were laughing like old friends, but that dried up as I pulled up a wooden chair and sat down.

“What have you got for me?” Greg asked, turning all business.

I resisted the urge to open my mouth and let Ray do the talking.

“You know that somebody broke into the house of the woman who was killed at the rally?”

Greg pulled out a notebook and flipped it open to a clean page. “When?”

Ray gave him the details.

“You think it was related to her death?”

“We’re looking into her background,” Ray said. “On the surface, it looks like she was an innocent victim. But we’ll see.”

He sipped his coffee as Greg took notes. When the reporter looked up, he saw both of us watching him. His body language eased, and I had the feeling he was ready to give us something.

“What can I tell you?” Greg asked. “You must have read my MAhu BLood
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profile in the paper. She came up clean. Just an old woman who was dedicated to helping Hawaiian people.”

“How about the group?” Ray said. “Kingdom of Hawai’i.

You know who’s behind it? Can’t just be Ezekiel Kapuiawa.”

“They’re a lot like many of the groups. Although Ezekiel is the front man, volunteers set up the events, generate the publicity, raise the money. You’ve met Maile Kanuha, right?” We both nodded.

“She’s dedicated, and there are a few more like her.”

“How about the money?” I asked. “Just small contributions?

Or anything bigger?”

“There’s something shaky about the foundation of the group.

I looked up all their contributors, and a lot of the money comes from a bunch of businesses. The Kope Bean is one of them.”

He motioned with his cup toward the café’s logo, a coffee bean on a surfboard. “But figuring out who’s behind those corporate donors is another story.”

“What do you mean?” Ray asked.

“The Kope Bean is owned by a corporation, Mahalo Coffee, LLC. But who owns Mahalo Coffee? Another corporation, out of Japan. The other big corporate donors are the same—owned by another corporation, which is in turn owned by another. I haven’t been able to track them back to real people.”

Ray made some notes, getting Greg to spell out all the corporations he hadn’t been able to track. “Anything else?” I asked. “Anything that hasn’t made it into the paper yet?”

Greg chewed on his bottom lip for a minute. “You know they advocate genetic testing?”

We both shook our heads. “They haven’t gone public with it yet—I have a source who told me about this program they’re going to start. They want to identify people who have as close to 100% Native Hawaiian genes, and then encourage those people to marry others with the same genetic profile.”

“Sounds like the Nazis and racial purity,” Ray said.

66 Neil S. Plakcy

“They say they’re trying to protect the native people. But Ezekiel’s own background is cloudy. There are these big gaps in his history. Was he out of the country? In hiding? Everybody’s got records these days. Job history, driver’s license, bank records.

Kapuāiwa doesn’t have a lot of that. Maybe it’s that Ezekiel himself is kind of weird. I have a feeling he’s hiding something.”

“I had that feeling, too, when we talked to him.” I remembered how nutty Ezekiel had appeared and wondered again if there was something between him and Aunty Edith, something that had caused her death.

“Ezekiel says the birth records from his little town were destroyed when Kilauea erupted, so he can’t prove that he’s 100%

Hawaiian himself,” Greg continued. “And he doesn’t have a wife or kids to keep his line going—so it sounds like a case of do as I say, not as I do.” He eyed us both. “Cops can get into places reporters can’t. You might find something I haven’t been able to.”

“Thanks. We’ll take a closer look at him,” Ray said, making a note.

“And let me know what you find?”

“Within limits,” I said. “The guy’s got a right to privacy, after all. If what he’s hiding isn’t germane to his cause or our investigation, we can’t just hand it out.”

“I understand.” He stood up. “Thanks for the coffee.”

Without offering to shake hands or even give us a goodbye salute, he turned and walked out.

“I wish I knew why he’s so cold to me,” I said, as Ray and I stood up. “And before you say anything, I already know about my winning personality.”

“He’s jealous,” Ray said, opening the door to the street. “You get to be out and proud, and he’s stuck in the closet.”

I looked at him. “You think he’s gay?”

Ray laughed. “Dude, where’s your gaydar? How come I can spot gay guys better than you can?”

“That’s something you should take up with your wife.”

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He knocked into me with his hip as we walked down the sidewalk. “I told you about my cousin Joey,” he said.

“The gay one you grew up with?”

“That’s the one. I spent a lot of time with him. I got to know the signs.” He looked over at me. “Seriously? You don’t get that vibe?”

I thought about it. What did I know about Greg Oshiro, after all? I’d never seen him at the Rod and Reel Club, my favorite gay bar on Waikīkī. I had run into him at a couple of police functions, but he never had a date of either sex. And I’d never heard Gunter, the biggest gossip queen on the island, say a word about him. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t gay.

I’d known Greg for a few years before I came out of the closet, and we’d gotten along fine. I’d even thought we were friends, of a sort. Then after I came out, he gave me the cold shoulder. I’d figured him for a homophobe, especially when he covered any of my cases that had a gay context.

But what if he was gay, and closeted? That put a whole new light on things. I didn’t think it had anything to do with the case, but if I could figure Greg Oshiro out, I could make him into a useful source again.