Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

lightning fast. Rides are brief and intense. Though compared to the liquid mountains I had scaled at Waimea Bay, these small swells were tiny anthills.
    But today I had them nearly to myself—one pristine swell after another—since most dedicated surfers were still haunting the North Shore. At the first glimmers of sunset, the sweet strains of an
‘ukulele
and the twang of a slack key guitar from the Halekulani echoed across the water. The spendthrift setting sun painted the sky with more gold than all the kings and queens of the world ever owned.
    Out here I felt immeasurably rich. Out here I felt at peace. But back on shore trouble was brewing.
    Friday morning I flew to Maui for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. On the plane in first class sat a pale, white-haired man in dark glasses looking eerily similar to Sun’s albino. I watched him disembark at Kahului Airport, then waited until he had claimed his luggage and hailed a taxi before I picked up my rental car.
    Find Corky first.
That’s what ran through my mind as the grey Nissan climbed twisting Baldwin Avenue into the cool upcountry. I glanced again and again in the rear view mirrors. Nothing but winding road.
    Soon the eclectic town of Makawao came into view. Today I bypassed the general store and the New Age book shop, and drove straight to the yellow cottage. It hadn’t changed since yesterday. The overgrown cane field—stray stalks bending forlornly—still climbed the sloping hillside beyond it. I knocked on the screen door.
    “Anyone home?”
    No answer, though the inner door was open and what I saw inside didn’t look right.
    “Hello?” I knocked again and waited.
    No reply.
    The screen door made a chilling squeal when I pulled it open. The cottage was in shambles. Either Corky and his lady friend lived like pigs, or they had been visited by pigs. Papers and magazines were scattered on the floor. A waste basket was overturned. Unwashed dishes filled the sink. On the dining table, breakfast sat uneaten: two bowls of cereal soggy in milk, a glass of orange juice in which floated a drowned fly, and a full cup of coffee. One of the chairs had been turned over on its side; another, pushed back far from the table, tilted rakishly against the sink counter. From the look of this barely touched breakfast, someone had evidently split in a hurry.
    I walked to the one and only bedroom, where a similar disorder prevailed. A double bed with sheets and blankets ripped off revealed a naked mattress stained in suggestive places. Dresser drawers lay open and emptied onto the floor. Bikini panties and jockey shorts were strewn and draped about
.
    I peered out a back window. After the mayhem in the cottage, the tidy rows of young salad greens in a vegetable garden struck me as odd.
    “Anybody home?” I said a little louder than before.
    Still no answer.
    I wandered out into the yard and toward the overgrown cane field. And there, at the edge of the property where a split-rail fence separated a shaggy lawn from the field, stood a tall redhead whose hair glowed like copper wire in the morning sun. Her long slender arms were spread wide on the top rail resembling wings. She was gazing straight down at her feet. Her stance almost cut the figure of a crucifix: forlorn, solemn.
    “Hello?” I edged toward her.
    Her head slowly rose and turned in my direction. She had the face of a boy—a handsome, animated, sad boy. Grey-green eyes contrasted her copper hair. Rainbow-colored love beads hung around her neck. She wore faded denim bellbottoms and a scarlet tie-dyed T-shirt that revealed the silhouette of bare breasts.
    “I’m looking for a Charles McDahl.” I moved in for closer inspection. “Have you seen him?”
    Her sad face, up close, was lightly freckled and a little less boyish. Fine, delicate lines around her eyes recalled Skipper’s observation that Corky’s “lady friend” was several years his senior. Maybe she actually
was
a child of the Sixties.
    “You’re looking for Corky?” she replied in the high, husky tones of an adolescent whose voice is changing. “He’s out there.”
    She pointed to the fallow field. There was a faraway look in her eyes. “They just left. They took him into that field. Except the older man. He stayed in the car.”
    “Frank O. Sun?”
    “I don’t know.” She glanced away. “They kept me in the cottage. I heard a pop. Then they drove off.”
    She turned her distant eyes on me. “I’m Maya,