At Play in the Home of her Ancestors

Thanks to your comments a new name for D.T. Rhysing's submarine has been found. Formerly the Hot Runner, a name only a submariner could love, his creation and one of the central characters of The Bones of the King has been changed to DreamWeaver. Let me know what you think.

This chapter is an introduction to Kaiulani. Free spirit and child of the sea.

Please read and comment. Your input is very much appreciated.

Aloha,

Doug

CHAPTER 12

Kaiulani Spencer stood quietly beneath the palm grove at the southern end of the beach at Anaeho’omalu Bay and listened to the trade winds rustling the fronds high above her. The eastern sky was molten silver, heralding the imminent arrival of the sun. Giving thanks to the gods of her ancestors and the spirits of all who went before her for the gift of another day, Kaiulani walked down the gentle slope into the cool water. Small waves broke against her knees and the sand between her toes was rough and pebbly. Kaiulani enjoyed the dawn like no other time. The beach was usually deserted and even when there were people about they seemed to be of the same mind, quiet and contemplative, respectful of the majesty of a new day beginning.

Diving into the low surf, Kaiulani swam down to the sandy bottom and stroked hard for the mouth of the bay. A school of manini parted as she approached, eyeing her warily but sensing that she posed no threat. Surfacing for air like a breaching dolphin, Kaiulani swam with a fluid grace, her sleek frame gliding through the gradually clearing water until she saw the start of the coral reef twenty-five feet below. Once more she dove, clearing her ears as she descended to her favorite spot, a graceful arch of coral growing on a foundation of jumbled basalt fragments.

Cradling a stone block the size of a football in her lap, Kaiulani sat cross legged on the sand and let herself become one with morning in the bay. The dirge like cadence of individual Ulu taking rasping bites of lobe coral sounded on top of a back beat of clicks and chirps of the pod of Nai’a heading to Kiholo for their morning play. The low thunder of the surf at 69’s came faintly beneath the staccato snap of shrimp and merged with the distant sound of a charter boat’s propellers. Each sound spoke to her, telling her about the day and much that was happening in and on the body of water she called home.

The world was peaceful and she sensed it in every cell of her body. Her heart’s lazy throb mixed with the other sounds and she willed it to slow to match the unhurried pace of life beneath the waves. The longest she had ever held her breath at this depth was three and a half minutes. Today she would hit two and half easily. It was a but short time in the morning on the reef, yet starting her day thus always helped to remind her that Hawaii was far more than the Aina. The land was but a dot in the middle of a vast blue world whose inhabitants knew nothing of the empty space above it. Kaiulani counted herself fortunate to be able to visit the ocean with such regularity.

A stirring of cold water brushed against her back. Kaiulani knew that if she had a mask on she would see a distinct swirling distortion created by freshwater welling up and out of the seabed and mixing with salt water. There was a spring behind her, one of many that could be found through careful searching by a patient swimmer. Long ago her ancestors had taken large gourds, called hoewai or ipu, with holes at either end and placed them directly over such outflows. When the more buoyant freshwater had displaced all the salt water from the gourd, they would plug both ends and swim to the surface and then to shore bearing the precious cargo. Through ingenuity and an intimate knowledge of their environment, they were able to make Anaeho’omalu into a thriving community, one that had been continually inhabited for over eight hundred years. Hawaiians were a wonderfully inventive people, children of the land and the sea, and Kaiulani Spencer reveled in being one of them.

When she felt her lungs pulsing Kaiulani put the stone down and slowly floated toward the surface. As the sky drew closer she realized not for the first time that she was as relaxed as it was possible to be without sleeping. Her body seemed to sense this and even her lungs quit urging her to inhale. Pulling with her arms and kicking hard, Kaiulani surged upward, exhaling just before she cleared the surface. Crossing the boundary separating two worlds, Kaiulani inhaled a huge breath and took in the view from her offshore vantage point.

Sunlight sparkled on the water as she floated. A few early risers had made their way down to the beach chairs and were settling in for their morning’s sun worship. She wondered if she would be teaching one or two of them later. Beyond the palms to the south a lone man walked along the lava and sand that formed the shoreline. He had the look of a local; long-sleeved shirt and straw hat to protect him from the sun, surf trunks and tabis, the black rubber split toe reef walkers popular with some shore fisherman. Up by the showers she could make out Chris Pope and Kimo Andrade, two of the staff hired by Noah, her brother, and D.T. Rhysing at the outset of operations of their company. Chris and Kimo were walking a pair of hydrospeeders on their lightweight trailers down to the waters edge. To the north the trade winds had flattened the clouds above the Kohala range and were ripping shreds off of them that were driven downslope and out to sea. Their wispy remnants faded above the black lava flows that surrounded the bay and then regained some of their lost moisture as they sped out to sea. It was going to be a great day for windsurfers and a murky day for snorkelers. The happy medium was going to be SCUBA diving. Kaiulani smiled. She was happiest when she was in the water teaching, swimming, or playing, it didn’t matter which to her.

Kaiulani and her brother had been working as beach attendants when D.T. Rhysing had shown up one day and started drawing diagrams of his submarine in the wet sand. Before the incoming tide erased them all an hour later he and Noah had become friends and many weeks and hundreds of drawings later they had become partners. Noah had given his two weeks notice to the beach shack supervisor and flown with D.T. to California and then to the east coast. He said he was just keeping D.T. company and it was like her brother to not seek the limelight, but she knew he was doing more than that. Noah and D.T. were shepherding the hull of the DreamWeaver, the submarine that D.T. had conjured up out of the sands of Anaeho'omalu, through its creation at a foundry and following as it went to each of the subcontractors for additional work. Noah was gone for two interminable months and Kaiulani had missed him fiercely, but she knew he was involved in a once in a lifetime opportunity and encouraged him every time he called home. When he returned, Noah was a changed person, due in large part to the responsibilities that he had taken on in the partnership with D.T.

At first she had been worried that the strange vessel they had built would claim Noah’s life somehow but in time the fear had receded. On the morning of the inaugural dive, D.T. and Noah had approached her and asked whether she would come and work for them as a pilot. She had been honored and thanked them both, but had declined. Why would she choose to work inside a steel hull when she could spend her days swimming? It was really no contest.

From that day forward Kaiulani had looked at D.T. Rhysing in a different light. She liked him and respected his knowledge and the easy way he shared what he knew with Noah. It was, she reflected more than once, a very Hawaiian thing to do. D.T. was a handsome man, tall and well muscled, but not overly so. His blond hair had a way of falling across his face as he was talking and the way he brushed it absently away always made her look at his eyes. They were a deep sea green, sometimes shifting all the way into blue in the right surroundings. He made her think more than once about what it would be like to engage in the sport of love with him, but despite this attraction she kept her distance, wary but curious at the same time.

Business for the fledgling company had grown rapidly and all had gone well until yesterday’s disaster. Kaiulani had spent a long time at the hospital reassuring herself that Noah was not hurt. He had explained again what they were searching for and told her the sad news of their discovery. How terrible for that young girl to be killed in such a fashion and then dumped into the ocean. Noah had finally convinced her to go home. He knew she would be up early and told her he did not want her over-tired on his account. His reassurances did little to put her fears to rest. The man they suspected, Sid Hart, was on the loose and had already tried to kill her brother once. Would he try again? Kaiulani wondered about this briefly but then put the question behind her.

The day was young and promised to be gorgeous. Chris and Kimo had staged the hydrospeeders and were now attending to the DreamWeaver. Mated to its transporter and looking none the worse for wear from the previous day’s troubles, the sub was entering the water for the first of the morning dives. Kaiulani smiled in anticipation and swam to a spot near a pinnacle on the north side of the bay’s mouth.

Despite declining to join the team at Manta Ray Submarines, Kaiulani had, in her own pleasurable and unique way, done her part to help the business get off the ground. What had started innocently enough in a chance encounter with the submerged sub had turned into a legend of sorts and now seemed to account for the fact that the first dive of the day was the most popular by far. By the time she was in position the DreamWeaver had taken on its two passengers and was motoring on the surface out towards the channel. As she watched, the sleek shape slipped effortlessly beneath the waves, leaving only a smooth patch of water in its now invisible wake.

Kaiulani took several deep breaths and counted slowly to thirty, then jackknifed and propelled herself gracefully down to the side of the coral pinnacle below. Once in position she quickly removed the top and bottom of her bikini and stuffed them into a crevice. She could hear the high-pitched note of the DreamWeaver’s thrusters long before she saw the sub gliding toward her through the sunlit water. Kicking hard, Kaiulani set out for the bottom and then turned on her back and watched as the DreamWeaver approached twenty feet above her. She saw the blurry visage of Chris Pope wave from the center view port and imagined with satisfaction the open mouthed astonishment of the two men on either side of him. Then the perfect symmetry of the manta shape passed overhead and she rose beneath it and positioned herself. Trailing behind the body of the sub was the manta’s tail, a thin, stiff whip-like appendage. With a surge of speed Kai reached out and grabbed the tip as it went by. Holding tight with one hand, she hitched a ride for an eternal few seconds beneath the blue bowl of the sky, a creature of delight at play in the home of her ancestors.

The noose tightens

Dear friends, followers and #teasertuesday readers. Thank you all for the time you've spent reading D.T. Rhysing's story. He would be pleased. Many of you have expressed concern about Kaiulani and whether she'll make good her escape. Rather than leave you hanging I thought I'd post this chapter so you can learn a bit more about Abdul bin al Shar and see for yourselves the growing peril D.T. and his extended family face.


The Bones of the King - CHAPTER 80 - The noose tightens

Kaiulani entered the water cleanly and allowed her momentum to carry her deep. When she saw the bottom of the Saracen she tucked under the dark overhang, exhaled some air to reduce her buoyancy and swam for all she was worth. She didn’t waste time or energy turning over, choosing instead to use the vessel's bottom as a reference as she passed beneath it. When she cleared the port side she angled up, still stroking powerfully, extending the distance between her and the yacht until finally, lungs urging her to inhale, legs and arms burning with fatigue, she surfaced using a powerful backstroke fifty feet inshore of the Saracen.

A quick glance in the yacht’s direction told her that al Shar had guessed her intent. He was standing at the port side rail watching her make good her escape. Kaiulani rolled over into a crawl and pulled hard for shore a thousand feet away. She didn’t bother to look to see how far she had to go. The bottom shelving up from the reef would tell her exactly where she was. All she had to do on this, her most important swim ever, was pour on the speed and hope.

On board the Saracen al Shar watched calmly as Kaiulani swam. She was going to be truly satisfying to take apart. He would spend a long time on her, looking for that spark that made her so much more of a woman than all the other cows he had sent to meet their maker.

“Go and fetch our guest,” Al Shar said to Ibrahim and Safwan. They disappeared aft and al Shar resumed watching Kaiulani, thinking of the blissful nights he would have with her on the long passage to Kuala Lumpur. He left the rail and went below to get dressed. After breakfast he was going to make a few calls. The first was to Darjeeling, India, to an operative they had in that city, telling him to make preparations for a kidnapping. The second was to Mr. Daniel Braddock, inquiring as to the availability of the note on the construction loan for Manta Ray Submarines. Both calls would serve to let Mr. Rhysing know that the noose was tightening and that he was dealing with someone who could not be trifled with.

As al Shar entered his stateroom, two jet skis were lowered into the water at the stern of the Saracen and dispatched after Kaiulani. She had covered more than six hundred feet before they came abreast of her just outside of the boat moorings. Kai dove once and swam as far as she could, but they were on her when she surfaced. One of the riders managed to land a glancing blow to her head with a leather cosh and Kaiulani was knocked senseless. Her inert body was easily hoisted over the gas tank of one of the nimble craft and less than a minute later she was once more aboard the Saracen.

On the bridge of the yacht the captain observed the rundown and interception of Kaiulani with relief. He secretly pitied the poor girl, but was immensely glad that they had been able to recapture her. Her life was effectively over now; she just didn’t know it yet. He had scanned the beach with binoculars during the two minutes it took to retrieve her and saw no one who might have seen what transpired. He set the binoculars down and went aft to personally supervise the transfer of the girl to the hose room. As he walked the length of the vessel the sun rose and bathed the Saracen in warm golden light.

Those who are at sea

Those of you close to me know that I have been working on a manuscript with a former submariner named D.T. Rhysing and that I have been out of touch with him for many months. While this is not out of the ordinary I have been concerned because of requests I have received for information about him from several government organizations. I am quite sure my e-mail has been compromised and that my phones are tapped, but because I was told to expect this if I came on board with the project, I've soldiered on. As my source notes are from extensive interviews conducted at various locations around the Hawaiian Islands during the past two years I know that nothing in my communications will shed any light on Mr. Rhysing's present wherabouts.

Three days ago, on June 31st, I had my first contact with him in a long time. When I asked him where he was he replied only that he was at sea and that he wanted to begin sharing the story with the outside world. To that end, here in this simple blog, I will be posting chapters while searching for a better outlet.

I thought at first that I knew what D.T. Rhysing intended when he set out to make this story known, but I'm no longer sure. I thought I knew how it ended, but that, too, is in doubt. Though this book does have an ending, I think D.T.'s story is just beginning and the only thing I'm sure of is that it will end, as it started, at sea.

Douglas M. MacIlroy

THE BONES OF THE KING - CHAPTER 2

D. T. Rhysing owned Manta Ray Submarines, a small business that took passengers on one hour long submerged tours through the seascape of the Puako reefs. On occasion their services were chartered by corporations or by individuals able to pay for custom tours to anywhere along the coast of West Hawaii, but, Monday through Friday, their bread and butter was regular dives for regular people. On Saturday mornings they ran a half-day of short duration dives just outside of Anaeho’omalu Bay, their base of operations. The Saturday dives were for children selected through a program of scholastic achievement or specific need as decided by teachers of every school on the island. On Saturday the company made no money but was paid in good will and reaped the dual benefits of publicity and a great deal of hands on contact with people on the beach. Some of them were usually interested enough to schedule a dive during the week and D.T. figured it all came out even somewhere along the line. The Saturdays were shorter than the weekdays, long on fun, and the entire crew got a lot of satisfaction from them.

Today’s dive off the coast south of Kealakekua and two days of imaging the bottom from their surface craft were something like the Saturday dives in that they were being donated for free to the Hawaii County Police Department. Normally D.T. would have made them pay like everyone else, but this once he had been persuaded to do otherwise by a good man in a tight spot.
D.T.’s persuader and sole passenger was quiet; taking in details and checking the alignment of the video camera he was aiming through the starboard view port. Most passengers became effusive beneath the surface, wanting to share their amazement at the view, but not this man. He was working a crime scene and D.T. was doing his best to help him.

The somber convergence of his passenger’s job and D.T.’s had begun at Anaeho’omalu Bay two weeks earlier at the end of the last dive of the day. The night technicians were mating the sub to its transporter when D.T. noticed a man standing off to the side watching the ballet and checking out the operation as the crew worked. They got a lot of that and mostly just let people watch without pushing information on them. If they wanted to know what was going on, they usually asked.

Their observer was a tall man with broad shoulders and a trim waist, strawberry blonde hair and a hint of freckles. An old pair of Vuarnet sunglasses hid eyes that nonetheless seemed to take in every detail. He wore a bamboo print aloha shirt, khaki slacks and held his shoes with the socks tucked neatly into them in his left hand while the right stayed in his pocket. He looked like a tourist just down from the hotel to check out the beach, but something about him told D.T. different. D.T. waited; content to watch the crew perform their well-practiced duties. After a while the man walked over and got right to the point.

“Evening,” he said as D.T. turned to face him. “My name’s Mike McCoy.” D.T. shook the proffered hand and then read the no frills business card McCoy handed to him. Under McCoy’s name were the words ‘Detective - Hawaii County Police Department’.

“How can I help you, Detective?” D.T. said as he pocketed the card.

“Mike, please,” McCoy said.

“Okay, Mike,” D.T. replied. “What's up? You don’t actually want a submarine ride, do you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he said, with a grim little laugh, “but there’s more to it than that.”

“There usually is,” D.T. said. “Tell you what, Detective, let us get this baby put to bed for the night and we’ll scare up some cold ones and you can tell me your sea story. I haven’t heard a good one in quite a while.”

“You got it,” McCoy said, “But, I’m buying. Where should I meet you?”

D.T. looked out past the mouth of the bay to where the breakers were being stripped of foam by the rising wind. Tomorrow was probably going to be a wash. The sea was too rough for passenger transfer and thus all dives would most likely be cancelled, which meant they could perform a thruster change out and still have time to clean up shop and go play golf in the wind. Most people he knew hated that last part, but high winds usually meant peace of mind for him because none of his gear or crew was on or under the water. As a result, he played some of his best golf in bad weather.

“Wait for me at the pool bar,” said D.T. “It’ll take us about half an hour to tuck her in.” Then he thought about which waitresses were working the pool and added, “Detective McCoy, are you married?”

“Ten years now. Four kids, two cars, one house and a mortgage through the roof. My wife works for Cameron Real Estate. Why do you ask?”

“Well,” D.T. said, smiling. “If I send you over to the pool bar you’ll get asked that and more. I don’t want to be the one to have steered you in that direction if you didn’t want to be there. We’ve got some beers back at the barn. Why don’t you walk along with us?”

McCoy did a little deduction on his own and laughed. “Maybe I should be mad at you for steering me away from the pool bar.”

“There is that possibility,” D.T. replied. “You can let me know which is which if you get that sub ride you’re going to try to wheedle me out of.”

They set off for the access road at the southern end of the beach, following the shallow impressions made by the huge balloon tires of the transporter as it wended its way through the tall coconut palms, headed unerringly toward the distant maintenance facility.

“We’d like you to help us find a body.”

They were sitting beneath the open night sky, watching the stars come out as the last red glow of the day faded in the west. Behind them, suspended from the overhead crane by four nylon slings, the Hot Runner gleamed, freshly washed and polished, illuminated by a bank of high intensity halogen lights. The battery pods had been removed and were charging in their racks. A lone high-pressure air hose and a small systems monitoring cable connected her to the maintenance suite computer and the air storage tanks buried deep beneath their feet. In the offices the lights burned brightly as Bob Knowltonn and Noah Spencer downloaded data from the onboard sensors.

D.T. remained quiet. Detective McCoy could not know it, but his opening sentence had brought D.T. up short. Like breathing at depth on a regulator that suddenly stops feeding air, it had gotten his attention and stirred memories. Images from not so long ago and always close at hand played out in his mind. A sun shot sea filled with light. D.T. descending, knowing all along that the sea would reveal only tangled metal and debris swaying in the gentle currents far below, wreckage once a triumph of engineering.

McCoy spoke again and D.T. surfaced from his reverie as the detective described the events that had led him to the bay that afternoon.
“Her name is Charlotte Gerber and she is thirty years old. Born in Naalehu, the only daughter of the town doctor. Married once here on the Big Island and then divorced a few years later. No children, thank God.” McCoy seemed to be telling this tale from long experience, as though he had briefed others in his search, or had lived with the information until it had become a part of him.

“Two years after her divorce she met the man we think killed her and began to date him.” McCoy pulled an object from his pocket and tossed it over. It was a USB memory storage device. He would download its contents to their computer system later. “That contains everything the papers have published on this case. The parts of the articles where their reporters have to think for themselves are mostly bullshit, but we supplied the chronology of events and pertinent facts. Keep that because if you do decide to help us you’ll need to know what you’re getting into.”

“Thanks,” D.T. said.

“Our suspects name is Sidney Hart. He used to live on the coast south of Kona in a house he built on family land. He’s a tropical fisherman, but from what we’ve gathered he doesn’t need to work. He’s inherited enough from his folks, including the twenty-two acres he lives on, to keep himself in food and beer money. Seems to be a loner. The house used to get electricity from a diesel generator he ran a couple of times a week. There were several neighbors, but only one really close by and their house is over a quarter mile away. Hart dabbled in martial arts and drives an older model Humvee. He probably grew a little dope for himself, maybe sold a little, but we’re not sure. Some days he would tinker in his shop that was next door to his house. Says he’s an inventor, and he may be, but he hasn’t got any patents and there’s no income that we know of associated with that claim.”

“You said the house used to get electricity from a generator and that his shop was next door to his house. Why the past tense? D.T. asked.

“I’m getting to that,” McCoy said

“How often does he fish?”

“Maybe twice a week as far as the neighbor can tell.”

Tropical fishermen collected reef fish for sale to local distributors who in turn shipped them to wholesalers. Ultimately, if they survived the journey, the fish ended up in aquariums around the world. A productive tropical fisherman could make a nice living and, if done responsibly, there was minimal effect on the environment. But D.T. had only met two who fit that bill. Most of the ‘trops’ he had experience with were reef rapers who destroyed habitat and fish to make a profit and were little better than a mongoose crawling around inside a road kill carcass in search of an easy meal.

“Hart and Gerber hit it off pretty well. They were engaged for a while but something soured the relationship. Two weeks prior to the appointed day Charlotte decided to call off the wedding. Hart, who had apparently been a less than ideal prospective partner, further demonstrated that fact by threatening both Charlotte and her father with bodily harm. This behavior called a lot of attention to Hart and Miss Gerber had a TRO placed on him. Hart eventually violated it and landed in Hilo jail for three months.”

“How did he violate it?” D.T. asked. Temporary restraining orders were virtually useless when it came to protecting someone from abusers. It was like using a jellyfish to ward off a barracuda. They might look effective to someone who didn’t know any better and might even work half of the time. But it wouldn’t stop a barracuda and the barracudas knew it.

“Hart visited their house one night.” McCoy finished his beer and absently began to crimp the sides of the can with his thumbnails. “Charlotte had gone to live with her father while she figured out her next move. Hart was caught leaving their property by an off duty cop who happened to be driving by at the time. The boys in Naalehu know everybody and everything that happens there and they were on the lookout. It was a lucky break.”

“How so?” D.T. asked.

“The officers who picked up Hart called Dr. Gerber and his daughter to come down to the station and verify Hart’s identity and possibly press charges for trespassing. While the Gerbers were there a fire totally razed their home. Investigators suspected arson because of the speed of involvement. A search of the site yielded a very stylish little timing device attached to the inside of what used to be a can of accelerant. Gasoline, to you and me. The can had been placed on the upwind side of the house and was split wide open. There had been a small explosive charge inside. When it detonated the entire side of the house was engulfed in flame. The wind took it from there. Two neighbors tried to get some garden hoses on it but that was a lost cause. House was a total loss. If Hart hadn’t been caught, the Gerbers might easily have been killed and Hart would probably have gone to Kulani Prison for murder. So there was good luck all around, it seems.” McCoy stood and stretched. “You got anymore of these?” he asked, holding his thoroughly crushed beer can.

“Coming up.” D.T. said.

D.T. walked into the maintenance bay and over to the offices. Noah looked up as he entered.

“What’s McCoy want with you?”

“You know him?” D.T. asked?

“We went to school together at Punahou.” Noah Spencer was young and athletic, five feet ten inches of lean muscle and Polynesian good looks. He had straight dark hair that he kept trimmed short, high cheekbones and piercing brown eyes and mouth full of dazzling white teeth. He looked like the Cheshire cat sitting there in his chair and D.T. suddenly realized that Noah knew perfectly well what the detective and he were talking about.

“He talked to you first?”

“Only to see if it was possible. I figured it was but told him he had to talk to you. It’s your kuleana.”

His responsibility. D.T. should not have been surprised that Noah knew the detective. Since he had met Noah and made him a partner in Manta Ray Submarines D.T. had never known him to be more that three phone calls away from the man who could get the job done in the islands. Noah pushed back from the desk where he sat and laced his hands behind his head.

“You have a say in this, Noah,” D.T. said, slightly irritated that his partner felt he did not.

“I know, D.T., but this is something you’ve got to decide on your own.” Noah gestured with his arms to include the building and its contents and, D.T. felt sure, the bay and the entire entity they had given life to. “When you first showed up here,” Noah continued, “drawing blueprints in the sand and talking a blue streak, I thought you were lolo, really nuts. But you sold me and I decided to give it a chance, and I have to tell you that your ideas made real have totally blown me away.” Noah stood and put both hands on D.T.’s shoulders and looked into his eyes, making sure he connected. “You asked me to be your partner and I appreciate it and have busted my okole to make you believe you did the right thing.” And he had. Noah was a hard worker and a true believer in their vision for the company. He never stopped when there was a project in progress and his tremendous energy had carried the day many times. D.T. was disturbed that he would not include himself in the decision the detective was asking them to make.

“D.T.,” Noah said gravely, “I am your partner. But this,” he gestured around them again, “this is all yours.” Noah could see D.T. was about to object and shook his head.

“This is your heart and soul. Look, I know what Mike’s been telling you, okay? He told me the whole sad story. That man, Doctor Gerber? His house is gone. You thought about that? It’s gone. All his life, his things, the works. Gone. And now, after all this time, maybe his daughter is gone, too. There’s a lot at stake. I’m on board either way and I’m pretty sure what you’re going to say, but on this one the call is yours.”

D.T. understood only too well what might be involved but the possibility of danger, other than the type they encountered each time they went to sea, seemed remote. On the flip side, D.T. knew what Noah was talking about and appreciated his candor. It confirmed that D.T. had made the right choice in making him partner. Noah was the salt of the earth and D.T. was glad they were in things together.

Noah smiled. He had seen the understanding register with D.T. and knew he had gotten his point across.

“Okay, Noah,” D.T. replied, “I understand. And now that you know that, why don’t you find Knowltonn and come over and join us in this pow-wow. Sounds like we’ve got some interesting days coming up.”

“You got it, D.T.”

D.T. took two beers from the reefer and rejoined Detective McCoy who was running his hand over the sleek lines of the Hot Runner. He popped the tab and handed the detective one, then opened his and knocked back a few swallows. There was nothing quite like a good beer at the end of a long day.

“I talked to Noah,” D.T. said. “He tells me you guys went to school together. Are you still friends?”

McCoy took a drink and replied. “We did and we are, Mr. Rhysing. I’ve known about you and this outfit for a while. Watched you get started and take on Noah. When he told me he was going to be a partner in some submarine company I did a little digging to see who you were, and whether you were on the up and up. What I found at first was a lot of nothing, but I’ve got access to a few lines of inquiry that most people don’t so I dug a little deeper. There are a lot of holes in the records but there was enough to convince me you’re a stand up guy. And you’ve shown it by what you’ve built.” McCoy tapped the wing of the sub and looked around. “I’m glad you and Noah hooked up. He’s really happy here.”

Mike,” D.T. said, “Noah had a big hand in all of this and I’m glad he’s on board. I’ve gotten more out of our partnership than he has. Now, why don’t you finish the story and we’ll see whether you get that sub ride.”

They walked back to the chairs and sat and sipped thoughtfully on their beers. Bob Knowltonn and Noah joined them and after a moment of reflection, Detective McCoy continued his tale.
“After the fire Charlotte Gerber moved to the mainland and worked as a physical therapist for a sports medicine clinic in San Diego. She never remarried. Doctor Gerber rebuilt his home and office and continued his practice until his death in a traffic accident two years ago.”

“Was it really an accident?” asked Noah.

“It happened on Oahu while Dr. Gerber was attending a convention. His rental car hydroplaned on H-1 freeway near Pearl City in a sudden rainsquall. He was caught broadside between a truck that had managed to slow down and one that couldn’t. Hart’s neighbors said Hart was home at the time so I don’t think there was a connection.

“Gerber was a decorated veteran. Riverine patrol boats. He was buried at Punchbowl with full military honors. Charlotte Gerber attended the funeral, visited friends and relatives for a week then returned to California.

“Four months ago she moved back to the Big Island to work at The Four Seasons as their resident physical therapist. She bought a small condo in Kona and joined the Kai Opua Canoe Club. Seemed to be settling in nicely and then one day, out of the blue, she failed to show up at work. Her supervisor tried to phone her for two days but got no answer so she went to talk to her building manager. They tried to open the condo but couldn’t. Someone had broken a key off in the lock. The manager thought he saw blood on the concrete near the door and that’s when we got the call.”

Bob Knowltonn got up and detached the air hose from the subs air charge manifold. D.T. found himself mentally checking off the security measures they had in place and wondering how he would breach them if he were on the outside looking in.

“Was it blood?” Noah asked.

“O positive, which matches Miss Gerber’s but leaves us right where we started,” Mike replied. “We don’t know how it got there or when.

“Our initial investigation into her disappearance introduced us to Mr. Hart and the history between them. We found that he still had the same address and as a matter of course we went out to his residence to look around and ask him a few questions. Hart wasn’t home so we walked the property line and took some pictures.

“The house sits on the northwestern corner of his land, smack up against the ocean on the top of an old a’a flow. His shop is closest to the boundary and there's a bunch of junk all over the area between the shop and the sea. Looks like he’s even got a homemade boat ramp.

“The next day he was home and volunteered to come in for questioning. The results were troubling but inconclusive. Mr. Hart had a deep gash on the back of his left thumb that he claimed to have inflicted while working in his shop the day before. He denied even knowing that Charlotte was back on the island. He was helpful and cooperative to the point of letting us to take a blood sample for testing. Turns out his blood type is the same as hers, but the blood at the scene was not his.

“We questioned Charlotte Gerber’s neighbors and one of them reported hearing a scuffle outside her door around seven thirty in the evening the day before Miss Gerber failed to show up for work. The neighbor said she saw a man fitting Hart’s description in a Blue Ford pickup with a white camper top leaving the parking lot at high speed shortly after seven-thirty. No license plate number was recorded. On the strength of the witnesses report we set up an observation team in the living room of Mr. Hart’s nearest neighbor, a retired sugar plantation worker by the name of Clyde Togawa. Three days later Hart’s house suddenly burst into flames. It was totally engulfed within minutes, and completely razed long before the fire department could get there. Hart was out fishing at the time and has since moved to Hilo where he lives to this day. He’s trying to collect insurance money on the house and he’ll probably get it, but I’m sure he set the fire himself to destroy evidence.”

D.T. thought there were too many loose ends in the detective’s story. Nothing was clicking. How did he know there was a body to be found, why did he need a submarine to find it and why was he so sure it was recoverable at all after all this time?

“Evidence of what?” D.T. asked.

In reply, the detective pulled out two photographs and handed them to D.T.. “One of these pictures was taken the day after Charlotte Gerber went missing. The other was taken two days later during the stakeout, after we had questioned Hart about her disappearance and one day before his house went up in smoke.”

The first picture was a view of the makai, or seaward, edge of the house and included the back of the shop structure and a low knoll of lava. Two rails extended down toward the sea from the shop area. They stopped just short of the water and appeared to be rusted and derelict. Other unidentified machinery parts were scattered around helter-skelter and a dozen or so fifty-five gallon drums were stacked next to the shop building, which was made of tin roofing crudely bolted to a metal framework.

The second picture had been taken at almost the same angle, but apparently from much farther away. The same details were visible as well as the knoll of lava that formed the base for the house pad and shop foundation. The house was a ramshackle single story post and pier box with a tin roof, tiny windows and a large lanai that commanded a sweeping view out over the cobalt blue Pacific.

Detective McCoy had obviously found his answer in the pictures so D.T. knuckled down and started studying them carefully. A life at sea and not a little beneath it had taught him that God really was in the details. You just had to keep looking until you saw them.

The boat ramp told him that Hart was resourceful and not afraid to try to figure a way to put a boat into the ocean from his backyard. He probably realized very early that the angle of his ramp required a serious winch and that the sea would not be cooperating as he tried to guide his vessel onto the parallel rails. It was a ramp that you would only be able to use once in a blue moon, but it existed, and that alone was evidence of Sid Hart’s inventiveness. The shop would have been a place to putter and fabricate, a haven from the stuffy house and whatever life he had had there.

The photos showed only the metal walls but all D.T. had to do was look around their maintenance facility to see a sampling of the type of equipment Hart would have had in his shop. What was in the pictures that he wasn’t seeing? It was a puzzle and the solution was in his hands, but he couldn’t find the missing piece.

And then, like the dim outline of a sunken vessel slowly appearing out of the gloom, D.T. saw the answer. There was just a ghost of it at first, but with every second the outlines became increasingly substantial. In the end it was as though floodlights had been turned on to illuminate the scene. The missing details snapped into bold relief and with them in place he knew without a doubt why the detective had sought them out.

McCoy must have sensed D.T. had crossed over to his side because when D.T. put the photos down and looked up, the detective was smiling knowingly. Knowltonn and Noah immediately reached for the photos, aware that D.T. had seen something in them that had made all the difference.

For his part, D.T. knew with a cold certainty that Charlotte Gerber was dead. Nothing was going to change that, but what they could do for her in the here and now was recover her body and help bring her killer to justice. The prospect of the search excited him. D.T. felt sure they would find Charlotte's remains and the evidence needed to prosecute and ultimately, convict and incarcerate Sidney Hart.

“Mike,” D.T. said with a wry grin, as the detective sipped his beer contentedly, “Looks like you’ve got yourself a submarine ride.”