“ Lawehana,” he continued.
Kaniola engaged the old man in their native tongue. “Lawehana? “
“ A me lawe hanai, eia ho 'i lawehana.”
“ Both?”
“ What?” asked Jessica.
'The killer, he says, is both a grown man and a child, a common laborer and an adopted child.”
“ Adopted?” she asked.
“ Halfway so, yes.”
How was someone halfway adopted? she wanted to scream. Still, she patiently listened as the old man continued.
Over the old man's head hung an ancient set of leis, one a lei palaoa, ivory pendents from whale's teeth suspended by two coils of braided human hair the texture and color of which matched the alleged killer's. Alongside this was a lei of rosary beads, known as a lei korona for the crown of England. A dog-tooth necklace, called a niho'ilio, dangled nearby as well. As she stared at these museum pieces in wonder, the old man spoke as if in her brain, saying, “Killer fashions cords from human hair,” but it was Kaniola, translating, breaking into her thoughts.
“ Lehe luhe, lehelehe.” The old man's mouth creased in a smile over his own words.
Kaniola remained grim, saying, “The killer's lips are fat like those of the vagina, pouting lips.”
“ Lei palaoa, niho 'illo mahine. “
Kaniola visibly stiffened.
Jessica pressed him to translate the words.
“ He… the killer makes leis from their teeth and hair. He has them in his house. He knows the ancient ways and he knows the modem ways.”
“ I lawa no a pau ka hana Ku, ho 7 ho 7 kaua, “ continued the old man.
“ He says that as soon as the work is finished for Ku, the ancient god, then the killer will leave.”
“ Will leave for where?”
“ To be with Ku.”
“ Aelo, aewa,” continued the old man.
“ Says your killer has no backbone, weaves back and forth like seaweed, that he is like the infertile egg that smells of rot from within.”
The old man continued rambling. “ 'A'ohe Ahahui Mamakakaua.”
“ He says this man is no son or daughter of Hawaiian warriors.”
“ What, now we're back to it's a white man?”
“… ahiwa, ahewa… 'aihue kanaka, ai kanaka, aikane, 'ai kapu, ai kepa, 'ai noa, ai pa 'a, aiwa…”
“ What's he saying?”
“ He's not making much sense, I'm afraid.”
“ Tell me.” She was impatient.
“ Well, I'll try. He says the kidnapper is a man who seeks to find guilt and administer scorn, and that he is a cannibal, a man-eater, yet friendly or a friend…”
“ Ahonui!” shouted the old man.
“ That he has infinite patience.”
“ He's a stalker,” she agreed, “and he knew those he killed, and it's possible they were cannibalized to some degree.”
“ Says he eats by using cutting blades and sometimes tears with teeth, and that he eats under taboo, yet he eats freely, ignoring taboo, without observing them.”
The old man muttered in his native tongue.
“ What else is he saying?” Jessica asked.
“ Either that Great Uncle wants a present of cooked taro in ti-leaf bundles, or that you face a difficult problem, a mystery.”
“ He's got that right.”
“ Aka' ula… akiu ala kai…” continued the old man in a monotone.
“ He is speaking now of you,” said Kaniola.
She exchanged a look with Joe Kaniola, who said, “You search for answers, seek, probe, a medical person, but what you seek is a red shadow like the sunset. You can not touch it though you see it before you.”
“… alaula ala'ula… aloalo. 'ale'ale ho'i alelo.”
“ He says a canoe will take you to a flaming road in a land filled with hibiscus where no one will know your tongue-a land of kings.”
Was he describing the Rainbow Tower where I'm staying? Jessica wondered, surprised at her own jaded and suspicious nature. Still, she'd become captivated by the old man's “second sight,” predictions and native charms such as they were.
Kaniola listened intently for his great-granduncle's next words. There was a long silence and the old man looked faint, about to give in to his fatigue when he bellowed out yet another stream of words.
“ 'Au ho'au. Doctor… 'auamo, 'au'a.”
Kaniola was reluctant to translate, but Jessica insisted he do so.
“ He asks you a direct question, about your cane.” Kaniola indicated the cane at her side.
“ What about it?” She feared he was asking after it as an offering, a gift for his services. She hadn't seen a basket to toss folding money into.
“ He says you are a strong swimmer in the sea, that you need no handle or staff or stem, that it is a burden to you, but you are stingy and won't part with it.”
She gripped her cane tighter and asked Kaniola to ask the old man one question.
“ Yes?”
“ Ask him how many times will the red shadow kill?”
“ Ehia. Great Uncle, ehiaV
“ 'Ehiku,” came the quick answer.
“ Don't tell me,” she said, raising a hand, “seven?”
Kaniola nodded. The old man said, “ 'Ehu, 'eho kino, nuinui kino.”
“ What's that?”
“ He says all the bodies are below the spray, stacked like stone markers, many, many bodies.”
“ How many years has the killer stalked victims?”
“ 'Ehiku.”
“ Seven again.”
The old man then told a tale of a chief whose son was bom with many problems, from asthma to diseases that left the child crippled and deformed. The child looked like an old man who'd had a stroke. The chief adopted a foster child, a well-formed child, and had this child take the place of his only male child. With the new child in place, the chief brooded and feared that the evil-looking, obviously cursed son would infect his new son. When the sickly boy grew ill in a new bout of suffering, the chief drunkenly took hold of him and carried him out in a storm into the forest, where he destroyed the child, using a ceremonial blade. Later, telling his people that the boy had wandered away and had been mangled by the beasts of the forests, he had the body taken to the village dump, claiming it to be cursed, and had it burned in a ceremony to defeat the devils that plagued his royal house. The bones were cast into the sea, an act of disdain, an ignominious end for a Hawaiian soul. He did so before the eyes of his adopted child.
Over the years, as the adopted child grew, it became more and more apparent that while this well child did not show any physical signs of disease, he was morally and spiritually crippled in ways unapparent until one looked into his cold blue eyes.
Kaniola added, almost as an afterthought, “This child was banished from the life of the commune when his father discovered that he had killed a girl child younger than himself.”
Jessica now stared from Joe to the old man, who was slowly climbing from his trance state.
“ Are you saying that our killer is this same child? Or is this a quaint Hawaiian parable?”
“ I cannot say,” replied Kaniola. “I have heard this tale in many guises. It is possible it may be just a parable, as you say.”
She asked the old man outright, and Kaniola put it to him in Hawaiian.
“ It is truth at least in one eye,” whispered the old man in English.
Whose eye? she wondered. His or the killer's?
“ This child… today he is a ho 'o-haole ia as his people say, and they banished him.”
“ A ho 'a-what?”
“ He apes the white people, became Americanized by the white schools and books,” said Joe, “kina like me, hey, Great Uncle?”
“ I don't suppose you have a name for this boy?” she asked.
“ Lo-paka.” The old man spewed the name with spittle.
“ Lopaka?”
“ That is how it come to me, yes.”
“ It is what you Americans and English call Robert,” said Kaniola.
“ He once on Maui lived… cowpuncher,” said Lomelea. Here was another clue that Terri Reno's Robert and Ewelo were connected. Joe pursued this. He spoke to his great-granduncle for a moment in native Hawaiian, leading him toward Ewelo, Jessica recognizing only the name.