Page 55 of Talk Story

“That’s just Tiki.” I was already moving, grateful for my ridiculous cat breaking the standoff. I fetched the carrier and brought it out onto the lanai and set it on the floorboards between the two men like a referee dropping a ball at center court. “She got left out of the action and she’s letting everybody know she does not appreciate it.” Tiki yowled again, lower now, a tapering aria of grievance, and pressed her one-eared face against the carrier mesh, fixing Pali with an unblinking yellow glare of pure accusation. “I better let her calm down a minute before I open the carrier or she’s liable to draw blood. Ask me how I know.”

Keone huffed something that was half a laugh and scrubbed a hand down his face. Pali stared down at the furious tortoiseshell glaring at him, and the fight drained out of his shoulders and left him tired. He shook his head.

“This cat is the one who brought you that petroglyph fragment.”

“Yep. She started this whole thing.” I nudged the carrier with my foot. “So in a way you owe her an answer too. Sit down, Pali. Please. Nobody’s recording anything, but I want to know what’s going on.”

He gazed at the cat, then glanced at Keone, who’d stepped aside. The doorway was now clear, and a choice was handed to him.

Pali Moku sat heavily in the rattan chair near the railing, put his elbows on his knees, and let his head hang for a moment.

“The archive is back in the caves,” he said. “Up the valley in a different area. Deep in the dry lava tubes where no one will find it. It’s drier there.” He lifted his head. There wasn’t any defiance in his gaze, only a kind of bone-deep certainty. “I sealed it the way I found it. Wrapped, protected, up off the floor. No water gets in there. It could lie there a hundred years and be fine.”

“Pali. That’s evidence in an important case—“ I said.

“I read through the documents, and it’s a lot more than that.” For the first time his voice had heat in it. “That’s what nobody understands. You think it’s a bundle of papers that puts the Changs away, takes away their claim on the Valley. It’s more than that.” He spread his work-scarred hands. “There’s much more in there that affects many more families. Land grants, lease lines, who paid who, going back a hundred and fifty years. Some of those papers could affect the Changs, sure. But others could reopen claims on half this side of the island. Secret deals. Lost deeds taken from Japanese families during the Internment.” He shook his head slowly. “It’s a huge disruptor this island doesn’t need. I am advocating that Awawakapu Valley gets protected status from the State of Hawaii. But the minute that archive goes into an evidence room, its contents go on record. If it gets used in court it becomes public record, and once it’s in that record, every lawyer and developer and long-lost heir from here to the mainland can pull on those threads and tear this whole side of the island apart. There’s money—and blood—in those claims.”

I sat abruptly in a chair facing Pali. I was starting to see the double edge of what that archive could mean.

“I made a judgment call from a cultural and archaeological point of view, and put it back,” Pali said. “Where it’s safe, and it can’t be used by anyone.” He scrubbed a hand across his face. “Including me and my family. The valley gets to rest. Nobody can fight over what they don’t know.”

“And if it’s needed, it’s accessible,” Keone said quietly. “Tell her that part.”

Pali nodded. “I thought about burning it. Getting rid of the danger once and for all. But I couldn’t do it. My great-uncle gave his life to protect it. It’s not mine to erase.” He stared out into the dark. “So it’s sealed up where only I can find it. And now I’ve told you—and if anything ever happens to me, or it’s needed, I created a map and put copies in a safe deposit box.” He turned back to me. His brown eyes were somber. “That’s the whole of what I did. You do what you have to about it.”

The night lay heavy and warm around the three of us. Below, the waves kept rhythm on the rocks. Tiki had gone quiet in her carrier, her point apparently made, she washed one paw with great unconcern now that the humans had stopped being stupid.

I chewed my bottom lip, thinking.

Only the five of us—me, Pali, Keone, Lei, and Malia—knew about the archive, that it had been found, and that Pali had it. Now, Keone and I knew what he’d done with it, and only Pali knew where it was.

The federal investigator in me knew what regulations were in place about concealing evidence. But what, other than providing a motive for Victor Chang’s decisions, did the actual contents of the archive have to do with the current case?

Nothing.

I thought about belonging, and about who got to decide what was worth protecting in a culture that wasn’t mine, on land with ancestral ties and a chain of ownership that had become blurred and was in danger. I hadn’t known anything about Hawaii until a couple of years ago. Who was I to pass judgment? Pali was one of the only people I could imagine that was qualified to make the decision he’d made, for the greater good of the land and the Hawaiian people.

“You renounced your own family’s claims to the Valley too, if there are any in the archive. You put those records where nobody could ever use them—including you,” I said slowly.

Pali’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “This wasn’t ever about me. It’s about the greatest good for all.”

“I’m starting to get that.”

Keone moved to stand beside me; his hand lowered to rest on my shoulder, warm and strong as he squeezed. I reached my left hand up to touch his; our fingers intertwined. His thumb moved over the ring, stroking the orb of the pearl. He let out a long, slow breath—and so did I.

“I’m not going to pretend I can unknow this,” I told Pali. “But I understand it. And for whatever it’s worth from a haole girl who ‘flew here, not grew here’—as they say . . . I believe you did right by the Valley. I will speak to Lei and Malia on your behalf if you like.”

Something eased in Pali’s face. He stood slowly, his joints creaking—this was a man who’d climbed in and out of a lava tube multiple times on a rope in the last forty-eight hours. “I’m going to Hana PD in the morning myself. I’ll talk to Malia and Lei then. I don’t care what they charge me with; I won’t tell them where it’s hidden.”

“That could go badly for you,” Keone said. “They could charge you with obstruction. Evidence tampering. They could make an example of you.”

“Yes. Are you sure you don’t want me to talk with them instead?” I frowned, worried.

“It might not hurt to have you prep them for my visit,” Pali said. He tilted his head as he met my eyes. “People talk, you know. They say the postmaster’s pono. And I know those two cops respect you.” Pali shrugged; there was a peace in his attitude that I admired. “You do you. I’ll do what I have to. And so long as Awawakapu’s safe, I don’t care what happens.” He bent and peered into the carrier, where Tiki regarded him haughtily. “Thanks, Tiki,” he said gravely. “For getting Kat and Keone to take the case.”

He let himself out through the screen door and went down the lanai steps and out into the dark. A few minutes later, we heard his truck cough into life and grind off up the road—and then it was the two of us and Tiki.

I bent and let the cat out of her carrier at last; she walked into the house radiating offended dignity.