Chapter 33: As the sun began its descent, casting long shadows across the verdant expanse of Waimalia, Kent left the cottage to the crime scene team and the medical examiner. He would begin door-to-door inquiries accompanied by the young officer he’d requested.

The two got into Kent’s truck. Mahuiki still wore his uniform. His brown eyes were bright with excitement, his muscular neck flushed against the tight blue collar of his shirt. “Thanks for asking me to work this case with you, Detective. I won’t let you down.”

“You better not. And since you’re my partner on this, you can call me Kent. Your job is to be there. Watch and witness. No talking, got it?”

“Yes, sir. I mean, Kent.”

They drove down the road in Kent’s vehicle, systematically stopping at each house to ask the same questions: had anyone seen any vehicles come past since Friday morning? Hear anything, see anything?

“Just your truck, coming and going, Detective,” was the answer. “Maybe an ATV but get plenty kine down here.”

“Anyone else, for sure?”

“No.”

Responses about Manny Abalo’s demise were almost uniform. Shock, but not surprise. No one had much good to say about the man. Residents described him as someone who kept to himself but was suspected of beating his wife, who was well known in the Valley as Kimo Garcia’s pretty, popular daughter Ella.

Kent flashed to Koa’s abusive childhood at the back of the Valley and what she’d said about the community knowing but not intervening. The same “not my business” attitude prevailed about Ella and Manny’s relationship.

One of their stops was at a taro farm nearer the beach. Kent and Mahuiki pulled into the narrow driveway separating a lush expanse of the plants growing in their watery beds. An older woman was finishing up the day’s work with the help of two young men in the waning light. The trio paused in sorting a pile of harvested taro corms on a raised wooden table as Kent and Mahuiki approached and identified themselves. Anna Leahi introduced herself and her grown grandsons, Maka and Makana.

“What’chu cops doing down heah?” Ms. Leahi wore a coconut frond hat and a canvas apron over an old muumuu. She wiped mud from her weathered hands on a piece of old sacking.

After a brief explanation of Kent’s investigation, Ms. Leahi frowned. “Manny? Yeah, that guy. Not many fans around here, Detective. Rough to his wife, rough to everyone.” Her voice was tinged with disapproval. “You wanna talk to Kimo Garcia, Ella’s father. Lives out on the side road. If anyone knows what’s been going on with Manny, it’d be him.”

“Rumor has it, Manny’s a gambler. Kimo too. That’s how Ella ended up with him,” Makana chimed in. “But we don’t know for sure.”

“What’s for sure is it’s a real shame,” Maka said. “Ella’s a sweet girl. Deserves better.”

Makana elbowed his brother. “You always had a crush on her.”

Maka elbowed him back. “No start rumors, brah.”

“Thanks. Anything else?” Kent persevered.

“Go see Kimo. He’ll have more for you,” Ms. Leahi reiterated.

Kent jotted down the directions given by the Leahis, though they were vague—a couple of turns on an unmarked road with a rock wall on the left. He made a note to return and interview the family members separately—they seemed to know more than they were telling.

With the sun setting and the valley roads growing dark, Kent and Mahuiki navigated with difficulty until they found Kimo Garcia’s small tumbledown cottage on the far side of a taro patch.

Pulling up, Kent killed the truck’s engine and cut the lights—but not before they’d spotlighted an ATV with a cargo platform parked in the lean-to garage beside the shack.

Kent’s pulse picked up—ever since the case began he’d been looking for a way, other than Abalo’s truck, that the man could have been transported to the valley’s rim when he was mutilated.

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