Page 20 of Talk Story

I talked through what had happened step-by-step: the petroglyph walls in the outer chambers, the marked up and missing areas, the sound of water running somewhere deeper, and the rockfall that had appeared between our arrival and our exit.

“I need more details about the rocks that came down the slope,” she said.

“That should be Pali. He knows the area, and was first outside to investigate,” I said.

Pali filled in his impressions of the size of the rocks and the order they fell. “We were damn lucky not to be trapped inside the cave. I think a small charge under the rocks caused them to come down while we were inside.”

“Did you see any evidence? Scorch marks, the like?” Malia asked.

“No,” Pali frowned and crossed his arms. “But there was a loud cracking sound that seemed to set them off.” Keone and I nodded in agreement with this.

“But in fairness, that could have been the rocks banging against each other as they fell. There was a lot of rain recently,” I said.

No one replied.

Malia made a few notes in precise shorthand, a system I’d never been able to read and that probably kept her notes more confidential. “Here’s my situation. Hana PD has the vandalism and the petroglyph theft. The federal angle with NAGPRA goes to the cultural crimes unit on the continent. I made two calls today and I’m expecting callbacks. Now I have more details and your photos.” She tapped the survey note Keone had submitted. “This gives me something concrete—markers at the scene, documented and photographed. That’s evidentiary.”

“It’s not enough on its own,” Keone said. “We have no one to tie them to.”

“No. But it’s a thread.” She sat back. “What I need to understand is the connection between what Chang is trying to do and what Pearl found. Right now we’ve got two parallel tracks: the development story and the historical document story. I don’t see where they meet.”

“They meet in the land records,” I said. “Victor Chang believed for years that there were royal-era documents that could change the ownership picture for East Maui parcels. What nobody seems to have known except Pearl’s husband is that Pearl had one of those documents—the Kalākaua decree. If that decree is authenticated, it not only protects Sacred Valley from development, it might also implicate a chain of transfers going back to the overthrow period. And if the wealth of your family—such as the Santos family, the Chang family . . . if it rests on a false premise . . .”

“Then the decree is an existential threat,” Pali finished. “To both of them.”

Malia gazed at me. “You think Santos and Chang are working together?”

“I think they might have discovered that they needed each other.” I flashed to Pua’s words that morning—what she’d said and what she’d chosen not to say. “Chang needs to develop the land and suppress the cultural protections. Santos needs to suppress the same historical record that could unwind his family’s other land claims. Different motivations, same documents to destroy.”

“And the petroglyphs were part of that documentation,” Keone said. “The cave carvings especially. Pali said they recorded the guardian families, the land history. If they disappear . . .”

“NAGPRA and history cannot prevent the development,” Pali finished.

“Yes. The physical record of the people is gone,” Malia said. She tipped her head, quiet for a moment with the quality of someone doing a private calculation. “I’ll try to get a couple of officers to go investigate the rockfall and determine if it was foul play.” She stood. “I’m also going to have a conversation with the county land office about the 1887 decree authentication process. That needs to move faster than the standard queue, which is about the speed of a honu in deep sand.”

“What about the threatening note I received at the post office?” I asked.

Keone glanced sharply at me; had I remembered to tell him about that?

She frowned. “I got your message, Kat. Someone delivered a warning to your workplace. That’s personal.”

“I know.”

“Which means they’ve identified you as a problem to be managed.” She said it matter-of-factly. “Be aware of that.”

“I’m very aware,” I said. Keone shifted beside me; I was going to have to deal with his ire for not being informed of the threat. That had become an old argument as we’d been through it so many times.

Malia picked up the evidence bag. “I’ll be in touch and let you know what our team finds when we go out to the cave.”

She said her goodbyes, as did Pali.

The shack settled back into its ordinary nighttime sounds: the rustle of the young palm tree we’d transplanted from the roof to a spot beside the porch, Tweedledum or Tweedledee chirping, a smell of old wood and coffee, and the faint salt air blowing through the screened window Keone had added beside the door.

Keone got up and turned off the coffeepot. “When were you going to tell me about that threatening note?”

It continued to be hard for me to remember to include Mr. K in “must inform” status on incidents; I was too used to handling everything on my own. All sorts of comebacks and minimalizations clogged my throat, but they’d have been things I’d said about other situations like this, on other cases.

This time, I swallowed down the rationalizations and defenses because they’d never served me in the past. “I’m sorry. You should’ve been my third call, after Lei and Malia.”