Surfing Detective 00 - The Making of Murder on Molokai

breaking top to bottom. Despite the crowds, I got some nice rides.
    When the sun’s amber arcs faded into a pearly twilight, it was time to head in.
Pau.
The next set looked promising, but I let the first wave go by. Several surfers paddled for it. The second wave came and lured those missed the first. I let the second one go by too.
    Only a pair of us remained for the third wave. I stroked hard and dropped in, feeling my board scoot forward in a rush. Rising to my feet, I noticed I had company. The other guy suddenly dropped in right in front of me.
Hey, you!
I had every right to knock him off his board. Instead I gave him stink eye and turned into a broken section of the wave. When I glanced back he was walking the nose when his board pearled and shot tail-first
–Look out!–
into the air.
    The wave was mine. It reformed and I rode it all the way in.
    Longboard dripping under my arm I stepped with light feet up Waikiki Beach–
stoked
from my last ride–toward the grand, white-columned Moana Hotel, home for forty years of radio’s “Hawaii Calls.” All along the beach, oceanfront bars and restaurants were hopping. The aromas of rum and coconut milk and pineapple filled the air. Slack key guitars twanged. A Hawaiian singer crooned in falsetto that classic kitsch tune still haunting me from my breathless evening with Adrienne:
“Moonlight and you in blue Hawaii . . . .”
    The song’s effect was different now. Melancholy, it made me feel. And lonely.
    Returning to my flat at the Waikiki Edgewater, I took Niki’s photo in her string bikini at Sunset Beach from the night stand and slid it face down into the drawer.
My California blonde . . . .
I wasn’t angry anymore. I just preferred not look at her.
    “Good-bye, Niki,” I said. “We had fun.”
    My eyes moistened a little, but not for long . . . . Later, as I mechanically went through my ritual of reading Honolulu’s two daily papers, a story caught my eye. Missing Fisherman’s Tackle Found.

X: Chapter Twenty-Four: North Shore Surfing

    Before his fateful interview with the prime suspect in Sara Ridgley-Park’s murder, Kai says: “With six hours until the interview with Dr. Goto, I did something not every detective would understand. I drove to the North Shore and went surfing.” The next line puts Kai in an elevator to the doctor’s office. No further mention of the North Shore or surfing. In earlier drafts Kai recounts his surf session in detail and tells us about his Hawaiian cousin Alika, his surfing mentor. Alika plays a more prominent role in
Wipeout!,
where his knowledge of big wave riding aids Kai in solving the case. Here Alika appears in an interlude, rather than in the central action.

(cut from)
twenty-four

    With six hours until the interview with Dr. Goto, I did something not every detective would understand. I called cousin Alika, grabbed my longboard, and headed for the North Shore.
    Someone might reasonably ask, “Considering all that hung in the balance, how can you paddle out into the blue?”
    My answer: “This is how I survive.”
    At Sunset Beach Alika and I stroked hungrily into the lineup. A shoulder-high swell was forming up nicely into hollow, right-breaking peaks. Not bad for October.
    I don’t usually trouble Alika with the details of my cases. He is a tall, sinewy, soft-spoken Hawaiian whose focus on surfing is nearly complete. Like his father, my namesake Uncle Kaipo, Alika is a born waterman. He has managed to live his entire thirty-eight years on the North Shore, working as a life guard, coral diver, chef, spear fisherman, and surfing instructor. He and his wife, Malia, and their two
keiki
still reside with the Kealoha
‘ohana
who, as I said, first adopted me when my parents died.
    Alika knows all the North Shore breaks as well as anyone, but Sunset Beach is his special place. Out here he is my mentor. And on
these
waves, sometimes you need one.
    Sunset can be a very intense, complex break with a quickly changing lineup, wicked rip currents, and a dangerous shallow coral reef. You don’t want to go out here unless you really know what you’re doing. Too often I hear surfers from town or the mainland boast, “I’m going to ride Sunset (or Pipeline or Waimea) just to say I did it.”
    My response is always the same: Sit on the beach and watch the veterans. Where do they paddle out? Where do they sit in the lineup and take off on the wave? How do they battle the soup and deal with the rip? And when their