Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

dark windows flashed by in the opposite direction. I couldn’t have sworn it was Summer’s “escorts,” but the men in the front seat looked hauntingly familiar. Were they going where I had been? Ke Nui Road? Pupukea Foodland?
    At Surf n’ Sea in Hale‘iwa I stepped into the repair shop in search of a shaper from Oregon named Skipper who surfed occasionally with Cousin Alika. Although not born in Hawai‘i
,
Skipper knew North Shore breaks and boards as well as many local surfers.
    Surfboards in various degrees of ding repair leaned against the walls of the shop. The air was thick with the chemical odor of uncured resin. The floor felt sticky under my feet and was plastered with castoff strips of cotton-soft and resin-hardened fiberglass cloth. Skipper wore a surgical mask beneath his grey eyes and close-clipped hair of peroxide orange. A diamond stud in his left ear lobe glittered.
    While I watched, Skipper squeegeed uncured resin onto the deck and one rail of a surfboard—a gun with a slot-like hole in the deck where another surfer’s fin had apparently dug in. In other words, the board had been “skegged.”
    When he was finished I showed Skipper Corky’s poorly patched board and severed leash.
    “Any idea who might have repaired this candy cane?”
    “Ugly.” Skipper shook his head. “No shop in Hale‘iwa did this. I’d bet it was patched in somebody’s garage. Maybe that guy out in Mokule‘ia? I’ve never met him. He’s military—from Schofield Barracks.” Skipper eyed the board. “How much did you give for it?”
    “Three hundred.”
    Skipper rolled his eyes.
    “I needed the board for a case I’m working on,” I explained, “the death of that California surfer who wiped out at Waimea on Christmas Eve.”
    “I remember that guy,” said the shaper. “Too bad.”
    “You knew him?”
    “Not really. Just to say hello. He brought in his lady once.” Skipper raised his dusty brows.
“Nice.”
    “What was her name?”
    “I don’t know, but I heard they were getting married and all. Then he wipes out at Waimea.” He shrugged. “Foxy lady too—leggy, long red locks. She was older, but nice.”
    “Older? How much older?”
    “Older than him. In her thirties, maybe.”
    “Any idea where I can find her?”
    “Sunset Beach, I think.”
    “She’s not there anymore,” I said.
    “Then I don’t have a clue.” Skipper shook his head.
    As I left Hale‘iwa town I turned west toward Mokule‘ia, beyond which the paved road ends and the Waianae range drops down to a remote stretch of craggy coastline. Luckily, I didn’t have to go that far. On oceanfront Crozier Drive in Mokule‘ia, I searched for a novice
ding-meister
working out of his garage.
    On the
mauka
side of the street in a carport, a crew cut
haole
kid in a surgical mask was sanding a surfboard. He looked barely eighteen, skinny, and red-faced above the mask from too much tropic sun on fair skin. I pulled in front of the carport and removed Corky’s board from my roof racks
.
    “You patch surfboards?”
    He put down his sandpaper and flipped off the mask. A ring of white resin dust circled his mouth and nose like the outline of a goatee. “You bet. You need a ding repaired?”
    I flipped over Corky’s gun to display its mottled bottom. “This board has already been patched. I’d just like to know who repaired it.”
    “It’s not the best repair job.” He observed its wavy contours. “Hold on . . .” The novice
ding-meister
rubbed the freckles on his nose. “I remember that board.”
    “You patched it like this?”
    “She was in a big hurry,” he explained defensively. “She didn’t want it done fancy. She wanted it done
fast.
She said she would pay extra if I could finish in two days, instead of my usual week.”
    “Who was she?”
    “A good look’n babe.” He flashed a salacious smile.
    “Did you ask her what happened to the board?”
    “Didn’t need to. She told me she hit a reef at Rocky Point.”
    “That so?” I replied straight-faced, trying not to betray my disbelief. Rocky Point is a popular winter break between Sunset and Pipeline. Everybody and his dog is out there on a good day. The reefs at Rocky Point could certainly damage a board, but not this one.
    “Hey,” said the teenager, “where did
you
get the board?”
    “I bought it in town at a surf shop on Kapahulu.”
    “Oh.” He rubbed the resin dust around his chin. “I figured she was going to sell it before she went to