hours passed for Levon and Barbara, and I felt helpless to ease their despair. The news shows
were running the same old clips when I went to bed that night, and I was somewhere, deep in a troubling dream, when the phone
rang.
Eddie Keola spoke to me, saying, “Ben,
don’t
call the McDanielses on this. Just meet me in front of your hotel in ten minutes.”
Keola’s Jeep was running when I jogged out into the warm night, then quickly climbed up into the passenger seat.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“A beach called Makena Landing. The cops may have found something. Or somebody.”
Ten minutes later, Eddie parked along the curving roadside behind six police cruisers, vans from the Special Response Team
and the coroner’s office. Below us was a semicircle of beach, a cove that was bounded by fingers of lava rock before tapering
out into the ocean.
A helicopter hovered noisily overhead, beaming its spotlight on the scramble of law enforcement people moving like stick figures
along the shoreline.
Keola and I made our way down to the beach, and I saw that a fire department rescue vehicle had backed down to the water’s
edge. There were inflatable boats in the water, and a scuba team was going down.
I was sickened at the thought that Kim’s body was submerged there and that she had disappeared to get away from an old boyfriend.
Keola interrupted my reverie to introduce me to a Detective Palikapu, a heavyset young cop in a Maui PD jacket.
“Those campers over there,” Palikapu said, pointing to a cluster of children and adults on the far side of the lava-rock jetty.
“They saw something floating during the day.”
“A body, you mean,” said Keola.
“They thought it was a log or garbage at first. Then they saw some shark activity and called it in. Since then, the tides
took whatever it is under the bubble rock and left it there. That’s where the divers are now.”
Keola explained to me that the bubble rock was a shelf of lava with a concave undersurface. He said that sometimes people
swam into caves like this one at low tide, didn’t pay attention when the tide came in, and drowned.
Was that what had happened to Kim? Suddenly it seemed very possible.
TV vans were pulling up on the shoulder of the road, photographers and reporters clambering down to the beach, the cops stringing
up yellow tape to keep the scene intact.
One of the photographers came up to me, introduced himself as Charlie Rollins. He said he was freelance and if I needed photos
for the
L.A. Times
he could provide them.
I took his card, then turned in time to see the first divers coming out of the water. One of them had a bundle in his arms.
Keola said,
“You’re with me,”
and we skirted the crime scene tape. We were standing on the lip of the shore when a boat came in.
The bright light from the chopper illuminated the body in the diver’s arms. She was small, maybe a teenager or maybe a child.
Her body was so bloated that I couldn’t tell her age, but she was bound with ropes, hand and foot.
Lieutenant Jackson stepped forward and used a gloved hand to move the girl’s long, dark hair away from her face.
I was relieved that the victim wasn’t Kim McDaniels and that I didn’t have to make a call to Levon and Barbara.
But my relief was swamped with an almost overwhelming sorrow. Clearly another girl, someone else’s daughter, had been savagely
murdered.
Chapter 42
A WOMAN’S HIGH-PITCHED scream cut through the chopper’s roar. I turned, saw a dark-skinned woman, five feet two or so, maybe
a hundred pounds, make a run toward the yellow tape, crying out,
“Rosa! Rosa! Madre de Dios, no!”
A man running close behind her shouted,
“Isabel, don’t go there. No, Isabel!”
He caught up and pulled the woman into his arms and she beat at him with her fists, trying to break free, the cords in her
neck stretched out as she cried,
“No, no, no, mi bebé, mi bebé.”
Police surrounded the
were running the same old clips when I went to bed that night, and I was somewhere, deep in a troubling dream, when the phone
rang.
Eddie Keola spoke to me, saying, “Ben,
don’t
call the McDanielses on this. Just meet me in front of your hotel in ten minutes.”
Keola’s Jeep was running when I jogged out into the warm night, then quickly climbed up into the passenger seat.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“A beach called Makena Landing. The cops may have found something. Or somebody.”
Ten minutes later, Eddie parked along the curving roadside behind six police cruisers, vans from the Special Response Team
and the coroner’s office. Below us was a semicircle of beach, a cove that was bounded by fingers of lava rock before tapering
out into the ocean.
A helicopter hovered noisily overhead, beaming its spotlight on the scramble of law enforcement people moving like stick figures
along the shoreline.
Keola and I made our way down to the beach, and I saw that a fire department rescue vehicle had backed down to the water’s
edge. There were inflatable boats in the water, and a scuba team was going down.
I was sickened at the thought that Kim’s body was submerged there and that she had disappeared to get away from an old boyfriend.
Keola interrupted my reverie to introduce me to a Detective Palikapu, a heavyset young cop in a Maui PD jacket.
“Those campers over there,” Palikapu said, pointing to a cluster of children and adults on the far side of the lava-rock jetty.
“They saw something floating during the day.”
“A body, you mean,” said Keola.
“They thought it was a log or garbage at first. Then they saw some shark activity and called it in. Since then, the tides
took whatever it is under the bubble rock and left it there. That’s where the divers are now.”
Keola explained to me that the bubble rock was a shelf of lava with a concave undersurface. He said that sometimes people
swam into caves like this one at low tide, didn’t pay attention when the tide came in, and drowned.
Was that what had happened to Kim? Suddenly it seemed very possible.
TV vans were pulling up on the shoulder of the road, photographers and reporters clambering down to the beach, the cops stringing
up yellow tape to keep the scene intact.
One of the photographers came up to me, introduced himself as Charlie Rollins. He said he was freelance and if I needed photos
for the
L.A. Times
he could provide them.
I took his card, then turned in time to see the first divers coming out of the water. One of them had a bundle in his arms.
Keola said,
“You’re with me,”
and we skirted the crime scene tape. We were standing on the lip of the shore when a boat came in.
The bright light from the chopper illuminated the body in the diver’s arms. She was small, maybe a teenager or maybe a child.
Her body was so bloated that I couldn’t tell her age, but she was bound with ropes, hand and foot.
Lieutenant Jackson stepped forward and used a gloved hand to move the girl’s long, dark hair away from her face.
I was relieved that the victim wasn’t Kim McDaniels and that I didn’t have to make a call to Levon and Barbara.
But my relief was swamped with an almost overwhelming sorrow. Clearly another girl, someone else’s daughter, had been savagely
murdered.
Chapter 42
A WOMAN’S HIGH-PITCHED scream cut through the chopper’s roar. I turned, saw a dark-skinned woman, five feet two or so, maybe
a hundred pounds, make a run toward the yellow tape, crying out,
“Rosa! Rosa! Madre de Dios, no!”
A man running close behind her shouted,
“Isabel, don’t go there. No, Isabel!”
He caught up and pulled the woman into his arms and she beat at him with her fists, trying to break free, the cords in her
neck stretched out as she cried,
“No, no, no, mi bebé, mi bebé.”
Police surrounded the
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