Surfing Detective 04 - Hanging Ten in Paris

two floors, which only they had access to?”
    “Correct. The floors were also connected by a stairway, but only these two floors. Ryan and Marie both started in single rooms on the third. Until she left, of course.”
    “Convenient,” I said.
    Serena shrugged. “Two other students, Kim and Heather, close friends and English majors from O‘ahu, shared a double on the third floor.
”
    “And on the fourth?
”
    “Three more: Meighan, a French major on scholarship from Michigan, in a single room and Brad and Scooter, business majors and football mates from California, in a double. The two mates weren’t stellar students, but did well in Russ’s French history course, and have since graduated. Actually, all the students did well. I wasn’t surprised. We’ve found studying abroad motivates even less-than-stellar students, and the program tends to draw serious students to begin with. I have Russ’s grade records if you’d like to see for yourself.”
    “Maybe later,” I said. “For now, I’d just like to talk to the professor.”
    “He’s beastly busy right at present, but I’m sure he’ll oblige,” she said. “He’s applying for the Hilo Hattie Chair. It means more money and less teaching. He’s competing against his bitter rival, Professor Blunt from American Studies.” She raised her brows. “High stakes.”
    “I’ll wish Professor Van luck,” I said, but wondered about a teacher who didn’t want to teach.
    “Do me a favor, Kai. When you talk to Russ and the students—and especially to Ryan’s parents—tread lightly. We’ve had enough sadness already.”
    I repeated her admonition: “Tread lightly.”
    We talked about Ryan for a few more minutes. Then I walked back to my car in the blazing summer sun.

two

    From Serena’s office I drove through Waikīkī and saw some nice sets rolling in. Before long I had my board in the water and I was paddling to Pops, or Populars, about a quarter mile offshore from the Sheraton. Pops was cranking—typical of a summer swell. The right-breaking curls seemed to sweep from here to eternity. You can tuck into those curls and ride your cares away.
    Suicide wasn’t my favorite kind of case, especially when the deceased was so young. I didn’t relish the prospect of meeting Ryan’s parents later that afternoon. That’s why I couldn’t pass by Waikīkī. Besides, Serena had mentioned that Pops was Ryan’s favorite spot in town. Could surfing here give me insights into his character? And into the case? I hoped so. The facts I’d been given so far made me doubt I could tell the Songs much more than they already knew.
    A wave on the horizon caught my eye. I stroked into position and took it—a nice one about shoulder high. I tucked into the curl and screamed along.
    Paddling back to the lineup, I thought about Ryan. Serena told me he’d been sweet on Marie since high school and apparently hoped their friendship would blossom into romance in Paris. But a few weeks after they arrived for the spring term, Marie met a student at the University of Paris. In what seemed to her friends like a very short time, she and Pierre were living together. Ryan was stung. Far from home and family—Hawai‘i was half way around the world—he succumbed to his despair.
    The night he died was February 29, Marie’s twenty-first birthday. She was a leap-year baby. And it turned out she and Pierre had been far from Paris when it happened, celebrating at his parents’ home in Lyons. That was the official version of the story, anyway.
    I wondered about Ryan killing himself by hanging. No surfer I knew of had ever done that. Surfers who die before their time usually get swallowed by a wave or a shark, or by the drugs that have invaded surfing culture. Wave riders go down doing what they love. Or they just go down. A surfer hanging himself would be rare. But Ryan was in Paris when he died and had no waves to chase his blues away. Would a landlocked surfer in despair take his own life?
    As many waves as I rode at Pops that morning, none gave me an answer.

three

    I showered at Queen’s Surf Beach, toted my board back to my car in the Honolulu Zoo lot, put on my street clothes, and headed up Kapahulu Avenue to St Louis Heights. The Songs’ home was near the top of the sloping ridge overlooking Waikīkī’s skyline. The air up there was cooler. And the sky bluer. I pulled up in front of their island-style bungalow, squeezed between two McMansions that made their place