Page 3 of Talk Story

“Both,” I said. Lei Texeira was a friend and a homicide detective, a woman who had an uncanny ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and make it count. She worked out of Kahului, but Ohia had a way of calling her back. “Though we probably want to understand what we’re dealing with before we make official calls.”

“Before that,” Uncle Kalani said, “there is something else you should know.” He glanced at the lineup of openly listening customers with the tolerance of a man who had long since stopped expecting privacy in a town this size. “Something bigger is going on in this valley.”

“Can we give ourselves a few minutes?” I caught Pua’s eye. “Let’s take care of folks and then hear Uncle out.”

Pua and I worked in our usual tandem—she handled the front counter with the cheerful efficiency of someone who had memorized every customer’s mail habits and personal drama, and I sorted and logged and generally kept the machinery turning. The customers filtered through with their packages and their questions and their sidelong glances at Uncle Kalani, who waited with the unhurried patience of someone who measured time differently than the rest of us.

When the lobby finally cleared, I flipped the little sign on the door to the fifteen-minute break position and came back to the counter.

My phone buzzed. Keone’s face lit up the screen—a photo I’d taken two weeks ago when he’d flown us over to West Maui in his tiny kit plane, his grin wide against a backdrop of ocean, the feathered warrior helmet charm from his rearview mirror caught in the frame.

Mom wants you at the emergency council meeting. Bringing malasadas. Something big is going down with Sacred Valley.

Chicken skin, as advertised.

I showed the screen to Uncle Kalani. “Looks like Mayor Kaihale is already calling a meeting.”

“She is.” He wasn’t surprised. “There are people with plans for that valley. They may have had something to do with the desecration of the heiau.”

“Development?” I guessed.

“Development.” The word landed flat and final, the way he said things that were already beyond debate. “It must be stopped.”

Rain had begun to patter on the porch roof, building from a murmur to a drumroll. The first of the afternoon showers, right on the mountain’s schedule. The smell of wet asphalt mixed with wet earth drifted through the open windows—not entirely unpleasant once the asphalt got rained down a bit.

“I’ll hold down the fort,” Pua said, already typing on her phone with the determined speed of someone composing a message to approximately forty people simultaneously. She’d no doubt have petition and a full report circulating to her network before I got to my car. Pua was a force of nature that others called when they needed organizational backup.

Uncle Kalani picked up the petroglyph fragment from the counter and turned it once more in his calloused hands. A gecko chirped overhead—Ringo, registering his opinion.

“Your cat understands more than most people,” Uncle Kalani said. “About what was lost and what might still be saved. She brought you this because she wants you to look into the thefts.” He held it out to me. “You keep it for now. This piece of the story belongs with the investigation.”

“Okay,” I said, not entirely sure I was comfortable being the custodian of a piece of stolen sacred rock, but also not in a position to argue with a kahu priest and his reading of cat behavior. I rewrapped the stone in tissue, put it in a ziplock bag, and tucked it into my shoulder bag.

Tiki, from the office, gave a small chirp of what I chose to interpret as approval.

Outside, a rainbow had arrived right on cue—the Hana side of Maui specialized in these, fast-moving colored flags that arched over the bay in full glory for about three minutes and then dissolved back into cloud. Red and yellow hibiscus blossoms shaken loose by the rain dotted the wet road. The new asphalt steamed gently. Somewhere down the beach, the waves kept their time against the shore.

“Ready to face the council?” I asked Uncle Kalani, clicking the car open.

He looked up at the mountains, where thick clouds had swallowed the upper peaks entirely. The ancient stone up there, the stories carved into it, the pieces that were missing—all of it invisible now in the mist. He turned to me with eyes that seemed to be computing several things at once.

“Ready to face the future, Kat,” he said. “That’s what today is really about.”

Tiki had decided to join us. She materialized from the bushes beside the parking lot and trotted toward Sharkey with her kinked tail held high, a fuzzy divining rod pointed at whatever came next.

I followed my cat to the car. The mountains kept their secrets in the clouds. But change was coming to Ohia—I could feel it in the air as surely as I could smell the rain—and from the look on Uncle Kalani’s face, some of it had already arrived.

2

The New Ohia Community Center hadn’t seen this many people since the summer’s Spam musubi cook-off benefiting Rita’s cat shelter.

That event had smelled considerably better than today’s gathering.

Metal chairs scraped against linoleum as residents squeezed in, and the ceiling fans whirled overhead in their perpetual optimistic battle against the tropical heat. The morning’s thundershower had passed but left behind it the thick air of East Maui in summer that had everyone’s aloha shirts sticking to their backs and their hair doing whatever it wanted. The room smelled of rain-damp cotton, several different brands of sunscreen, and the grease on the malasadas that Keone had brought from Artie’s store, currently carried in a paper bag that was developing structural concerns.

I slid into the seat Keone had saved me, and he leaned over to give me a quick kiss that tasted like cinnamon sugar. The malasadas he’d saved for me got a little crushed in transit, but they still carried a scent like a bakery in heaven.

“How many did you eat while you were waiting?” I murmured.