Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

crossed himself, then the choir sang like earth-bound angels,
“Al-le-lu-ia! Al-le-lu-ia!”
Parishioners rose one pew at a time and filed forward to take communion. I tapped Maya on the shoulder. “Wait for me at the car after mass.”
    Maya stepped toward the altar with the others. I slipped to the back of the church, then into the foyer adjoining the bell tower.
    “Danger—No Admittance” said a sign on the dark lacquered door leading to the tower. With only my keys and a tiny keychain jackknife so small it passes airport security, I worked the lock, while the communion hymns covered the clinks and clanks of my lock picking. First I tried my keys: Apartment key. Office key. I wiggled each key inside the keyhole. I even tried the rental car key. No luck. Suddenly the choir’s sweet
“Al-le-lu-ia!”
ceased and the priest said: “The Lord be with you . . .“
    I didn’t have much time. Then I tried my Impala’s key—old-style, long and skinny. I heard a promising . . .
click
. . . but that was all. The tiny jackknife was my last hope. I opened the longer blade, slowly inserted it, and moved inside the lock. Another promising . . .
click.
But this one was followed by a louder
. . . Click . . . Click. Yes!
Finally, the lock sprung.
    The bell tower door opened to mustiness and semi-darkness. Rusty folding chairs and card tables layered with dust leaned against two walls. In the center, a spiral of wooden stairs. I mounted the creaky wood that serpentined up into the gloaming. Through the viewing ports above came a brilliant light. With each creaking step, I rose toward it.
    The choir cranked up again, guitars and
‘ukulele
and off-key voices:
    Kindness and truth shall meet;
    Justice and peace shall kiss . . .
    The choir’s voices grew fainter as I climbed, their fading hymn soon blending with another. The hymn of booming surf.
    Waimea.
    When I finally reached the tower’s summit, I saw a bench lining each wall of the empty belfry, just as Corky had said. The benches doubled as storage bins; each could be lifted to reveal an enclosed compartment. In one of these compartments would be the prize. One million worth of methamphetamine ice.
    As I moved toward one wall, I couldn’t help but gaze out the viewing port. The bay was cranking! Swell after swell steaming in. And plenty surfers taking the big drop.
    I tore my eyes away and considered the bench compartments. There were four—four chances.
    I tried the bench opposite Waimea first, facing down the coast toward Pipeline and Sunset. Prying the seat up with my fingers produced cobwebs and a coil of rope. That was it.
    Next I tried the bench facing
mauka
toward the sacrificial
heiau
and Waimea Stream. No. Empty.
    I tried the one facing out to the open sea, where those huge rollers swept around the point into the Bay. More junk: a stack of yellowed copies of the
Daily Missal,
a mousetrap with a decapitated mouse, a cheap screw cap bottle of wine, a used condom.
    That left the last bench facing Waimea Bay, where Corky had faked his wipeout and started this whole mess. I should have guessed. It made perfect sense.
    Slowly I pried up the bench seat. My eyes scoured the empty space.

Twenty-Two

    Nothing.
    Or was there
was
something? I noticed some sparkling dust and reached down and with my fingertips, extracting a gleaming speck. It was almost crystal-clear, like rock candy.
    The ice had been here and now it was gone.
How could Sun have found it before we did?
We had the only map, according to Maya. Had Corky, before he died, revealed the location to the drug lord? If so, why was Sun still following us?
    “It’s gone,” I told Maya in the mission’s gravel lot.
    Her face went blank. “It can’t be,” she said. “It can’t be.”
    “This is all that’s left.” I held in my palm the little crystal of ice. “Somebody got here first.”
    “They lied to me.” Maya’s green eyes darkened to the impenetrable jade of a Waimea wave. “They lied!” The words spilled out as if she were alone and trying to convince herself she’d been had.
    “Who lied?”
    “The men who took Corky.”
    “Took
Corky? You said they
killed
Corky. Remember his slipper and sunglasses, his spilled blood?”
    “They told me to say that . . .” She looked away from me. “To tell you, so you’d think I was the only one left who knew where the ice was.” She ran her long, slender fingers through her hair. “And they did kill a man, right in front of me. But not