Surfing Detective 00 - The Making of Murder on Molokai

Airlines, and in a
double issue of
Hawai‘i Review: A Special Tribute to Ian MacMillan
(Vol. 28-9; No. 1-2; 2008). Note that in this early draft Kai was not merely
hanaied
, as in the published version, but is part-Hawaiian. And that his attorney friend is named not Tommy, but Harry.

o n e
(1998 draft, revised)

    Wednesday, October fourth. Six a.m. Ala Wai Yacht Harbor.
    I was on a stake out by Waik i k i ’s famed Ilikai Hotel, atop whose aqua towers Jack Lord posed for the opening sequence of
Hawaii Five-O
. In my memory I could almost see the famous cascading wave that started the show and hear the drum roll and twanging guitars of The Ventures, as Lord’s character, Detective Steve McGarrett, turned steely eyes to the camera.
    My assignment this morning lacked the glamour of most of McGarrett’s. (Glamour would arrive later in the day.) I was tracking a deadbeat dad named Leonard Souza. Souza and his seventeen-year-old girlfriend, a high school truant named Lei, were shacking up in a fishing boat called the
Hokulani.
A friend of the truant girl aboard had told me she was pregnant. That’s why she didn’t return to school.
    Wackos.
Where do they all come from? And slimy deadbeats. The
H
o
k
u
lani,
it turned out, wasn’t even Souza’s. From what I could gather, the dilapidated boat’s absentee owner allowed him to live on board in exchange for making repairs. He and his seventeen-year-old baby-sitter got themselves a love nest, though a foul one, rent free. I could see no evidence from my stakeout position of any repairs to this rust bucket.
    In my lap lay the manila envelope I had come to put into Souza’s hands. It contained a court order–more precisely, a “Motion and Affidavit for Post-Decree Relief”–compelling him to appear at Family Court. A year behind on his child support payments, Souza had violated the terms of his divorce decree.
    Several days of turning over rocks led me here to the yacht harbor at this ungodly hour, hoping to catch Souza off guard and deliver the affidavit. I was being cagey because his former wife had warned me in pidgin: “Leonard like
beef.”
Meaning: If provoked, he could get nasty.
    Mrs. Souza, his ex, was my client. I should never have taken her on. She couldn’t afford my hourly minimum. She called me daily, sometimes twice a day. But how could I not feel sorry for her? She and her three kids were about to lose their home. So I made my habitual mistake.
    “Avoid getting emotionally involved,” all my P.I. training taught me. Trouble is, I’m a soft touch. My father’s missionary ancestry and my mother’s Hawaiian
aloha
compel me to lend a hand to every hard luck case that knocks at my door. Though my parents died long ago, their influence remains. Thus, I’ve helped my share of penniless clients and gotten sucked into some unprofitable, not to mention dangerous, cases.
    Serving papers on hostile deadbeats like Souza can be a dicey business. My favorite strategy is to play dumb: I don’t mention what’s in the envelope until it’s safely in the bad guy’s hands.
    Though I’d never admit to deliberately misleading anyone, sometimes my subjects get the mistaken idea that they’re about to win the lottery or receive a check from an anonymous benefactor or a reward for a good deed done long ago but not forgotten. Once the court order has been duly served, I mention this disagreeable fact on my way out. By the time any tempers flare, I’m heading for the surf.
    Aside from an occasional glitch, this strategy works.
Usually.

two
(1998 draft, revised)

    Soon the rising sun cast its mango hue on two snapshots Mrs. Souza had given me: one of her ex-husband, the other of the baby-sitter.
    Leonard Souza was a scurvy looking fish with
salt-n-peppa
whiskers and shadowy circles under his charcoal eyes, the kind of scum you’d want to keep miles from your sister or daughter or girlfriend. Lei’s picture, autographed in her feminine teenaged hand “To Mr. & Mrs. Souza,” must have been taken at her junior prom. She wore an orchid corsage, frilly mauve dress, and an innocent smile. On her beauty-shop bun perched a rhinestone crown.
Queen for a day.
She was girlishly slim, with the telltale curves of a blossoming woman. Her pimple-faced boyfriend stood two inches shorter than his queen. From the nervous look in his eyes, she was obviously too much for him. Way too much.
    I looked up. Nothing doing on Souza’s boat. To stave off hunger and tedium I sucked on