Page 23 of Talk Story

“Enough.” Pearl opened the journal to the first few pages. The handwriting inside was small and careful, in both Hawaiian and English, the ink faded to brown. “Hannah Chang was born Hannah Moku. She married into the Chang family in the 1960s, as a young woman.” She paused. “Her brother had died the previous year, killed in an accident that the family always believed wasn’t accidental—because he had been gathering documentation about the land transfers of the overthrow period. Documentation that implicated both the Santos family and the Chang family’s earlier investments in stolen crown land.” Pearl gazed up at me. “Hannah was dating one of the Changs, but she told me she married Victor’s grandfather in part so she could keep investigating what her brother had discovered and protect the documentation, keep it where she could know what the family knew. She hoped she would never have to use the information.”

I absorbed this. Sixty years of strategic proximity. The longest undercover operation I’d ever heard of. “But now that information is needed,” I said.

“Yes. Victor came to see me,” Pearl said. “A month before his project appeared before the council. He made an offer to buy my house, and mainly the Heritage Garden, which as you know is attached to my personal property. When I declined, he said the land held secrets that belonged to his family. Secrets that should stay buried.” Her dark eyes were steady. “He knew his grandmother had given me something, but he didn’t know what.”

“So . . . he’s been trying to get the garden back,” I said.

“The destruction was a warning.” Pearl’s voice held the calm of someone who has received warnings before. “The vandalism was a message to back away. Let resistance to his development go. Stop protecting things that inconvenience powerful men.” She set her jaw and her dark eyes flashed. “I did not back away in 1946 when my family came home from the internment camps to find our property occupied. I did not back away last year when Santos moved against me with poison. And I am not going to back away now.”

“I agree a hundred percent; you’ve fought too hard to let them win. What does the journal say?” I asked.

“Many things.” Pearl found a page near the middle, the letters flowing in Hannah’s careful script. “Most relevantly, it records the location of the original documentation that Hannah’s brother gathered. Not copies. Original documents from the monarchy period through the territorial period, recording transfers, seizures, and the names of families that benefited from all that.” She stroked the cover of the journal. “He hid the records somewhere he hoped they would be safe. Somewhere connected to the valley.”

“Maybe the cave?” I guessed.

“Yes. She describes a place in the lava tube system,” Pearl said. “A particular alcove. Her brother found it; he’d been in the caves as a young man.” She closed the journal carefully. “This is what Victor is really searching for. Not the decree—that’s already public record, and there are plenty of precedents to overthrowing it. No, he’s trying to find his grandmother’s hidden archive. If he finds it first, he can destroy it.”

I sat with that new knowledge for a moment. The architecture of the situation was settling into place: the midnight trucks, the hidden cave access, the petroglyph theft that was really about stripping the site of its protected status—and Victor’s ongoing search for something hidden.

“He must be close, if he hasn’t found the cache already,” I said.

“Which is why I’m telling you now.”

Outside, the chimes had gone quiet. The wind had shifted again as I scrambled to think of who could get out to the caves and search for the archive—and have any chance of finding it.

“Pearl, does Pali Moku know any of this? You said Hannah was a Moku, and that’s his family name, too.”

“I don’t know.” Pearl gazed at me. “Call him. Tonight. Have him come see me, and I’ll share the journal with him.”

I picked up my phone and scrolled to the number Keone had passed on to me.

The right moment in an investigation didn’t always follow a logical path; many times it was a blip of intuition when you were already in motion.

7

“I’m frail, and this house is too open for me to keep this book safe any longer,” Pearl said. She handed the leather-bound journal to me. “Kat, you’re responsible for it now. I’ll go over what we talked about with Pali when he gets here.”

I sent Keone a text about being with Pearl and meeting with Pali. “So sorry, Mr. K. I’ll see you tomorrow, when and if we can connect. Can’t make it over tonight. Love you.”

He sent back a grumpy face emoji.

Well, that about summed things up for both of us.

Pali soon arrived and he and Pearl hit it off; they spent a good half hour “talking story” about all the people they knew in common, yet somehow they had never met each other.

Lani brought in a platter of “heavy pūpūs” (not to be confused with “light pūpūs,” though the distinction was unclear to me.) As they chatted, I loaded up a plate with poke, homemade taro chips, and a couple of skewers of barbecued axis deer meat, an emerging food source on Maui. For dessert, I grabbed half a papaya filled with mango, banana, and guava sprinkled with cubes of haupia pudding, and wolfed that down. “Delicious, Lani.”

She smiled. “Why don’t you photocopy the relevant pages of the journal so Pali can keep them for reference? I’ll help if you like.”

I wasn’t willing to let the little book out of my sight. Chewing on a deer meat skewer, I manned the small desktop scanner/copier, making copies of all the journal pages for Pali.

Afterward, I handed one copy to Pearl and one to Pali and yawned. “I’m beat, guys. Anything I need to be here to discuss?”

“Don’t think so. I’ll go out tomorrow to search for the archive,” Pali said.

“Maybe the surveillance equipment I ordered will be in by then, and I can come with you and install it,” I said.

Pali was already scanning the photocopied pages I’d handed him. “I see the name Emerson,” he said, pointing to a moniker scrawled in the author’s spidery handwriting. “Big missionary family. They own a lot of land here in Hawaii. Speaking of, I’ve been working with my mentor, Dr. Nainoa Emerson, to document and interpret the petroglyphs. He’s a professor at University of Hawaii in my archeology program. I wonder if there’s a connection between his branch of the family and the one mentioned here.”