Detective Jim Lee walked up to a taco stand nestled in an alleyway off the main strip downtown. He ordered three fish tacos and a bottle of water. Pulling up a chair at an empty table, he sat down under a giant orange umbrella to eat. He looked out over the shoreline watching the waves break perfectly on the sand. It was mornings like this that made life on the island an easy choice.
Detective Jim Lee was forty-two years old and in solid shape. He attributed this to his daily runs on the beach. Lee was well built with a brick-shaped chin and short hair, giving him a jarhead appearance. Lee hadn’t served in the military, but everyone figured him for it. He carried himself like a soldier — stoic and honorable. He was hard-wired for life in law enforcement and had an impeccable track record to back it up. Despite his Chinese ancestry, Lee was kamaʻaina — which meant he grew up on the island and was accustomed to Hawaiian traditions. He was well educated too. Lee went to college and graduated from UCLA on the mainland then earned his stripes at the Hawaii Police Academy. He had been serving as a detective on the Big Island for the past eight years.
Lee finished his tacos and sat under the umbrella sipping on his water. He noticed his reflection in the side of the taco stand; blue polo shirt, chino shorts and cross-trainers.
His phone rang.
Lee pulled his phone out of his pocket and answered.
“This is Lee.”
“Hey Jimmy.” Lee knew right away it was his chief, Terry Sullivan.
“Where are you?” Sullivan inquired. Lee knew something was up. Terry was getting straight to the point.
“I’m downtown catching lunch before I drive down to Keaukaha Park. I was going to follow up on the Keawe lead.”
“Ok. Change of plans. I need you on something else. Over on the north end of the Hakalau Refuge…someone reported a possible homicide. Apparently a farmer was found dead a few miles away.”
“Homicide? Did I hear you right, Ter?” Lee was genuinely shocked to hear it.
“I don’t know the details yet, I just need you to go take a look. I want to get you there first before the other boys show up.”
“You got it, I’m leaving now. I should be there in thirty,” Lee said.
“Good. I’ll forward the brief to you.”
Lee hung up his phone and slid it into his pocket. He got up from his table and made his way along the waterfront toward his jeep. Lee wasn’t accustomed to getting calls like this. Not homicide calls. The Big Island didn’t have much crime at all; in fact it is one of the safest places to live anywhere.
Lee stepped into his jeep, made his way out of downtown and sped along the Hawaii beltline toward the farm.
CHAPTER 2
An expanse of black lava rock flashed past Detective Lee from the windows on both sides as he drove up the belt. White coral rock peppered the landscape along the highway and provided a sharp contrast from the blanket of black along the road. The locals use the white coral pieces as a means of temporary graffiti — lining their names and the names of their special someone along the road.
Joe + Malia, was written inside a large coral heart shape. ALOHA K + W, done neatly in large letters.
Lee pulled off the highway and drove inland another ten miles along a jeep access road. The bumpy path bordered the northern perimeter of the Hilo Forest Reserve and ended at Mana Rd. Lee turned right on Mana and followed it a few miles until he spotted a gated entryway snaking back into farmland.
He pulled onto the dirt driveway and parked his jeep next to an ambulance in front of the house. He stepped out and looked around. No press vans had arrived yet, just the ambulance and a few other cars — most likely family members. Lee noticed a heavily trafficked trail of footprints, freshly pressed into the mud. It led down a winding path. He followed the path down until it opened into some fruit fields. As he approached the bottom of the path he came across what was the obvious scene of the crime. There was a large taped-off area on the ground, zoned by the medics who had arrived first. A man’s body lay facedown in the mud, arms out to the side, and legs slightly bent outward. It appeared to be an older man. The first thing Lee noticed was how far the body was pressed into the ground — deep enough to create large folds of displaced mud around the entire body, similar to how a crater forms a mountainous range along its perimeter. Whatever had compressed the body into the ground had to have been heavy.
Lee snapped some photos making sure to detail the scene as it was. He laid out a small platform, which acted as a bridge to the body. It was a raised, foldable walkway with legs that reached down into the mud, stabilizing the bridge and suspending it above the ground. This contraption allowed for the body to be inspected without disturbing the surrounding terrain. Lee walked out and bent down to get a closer look.
The body was half submerged into the ground. Mud curled up around all sides of the body obstructing any view of the man’s face. It looked as if he had fallen from a high distance and embedded himself into the soft earth. A moment later Lee spotted a young paramedic walking by and flagged him over.
“Was this body moved?” Lee asked.
“No, we didn’t touch him. He was dead when we got here. We called it at ten thirty. Looks to have happened early morning, though,” the medic responded.
Lee moved in closer to the man’s mud-caked face. “And he was facedown when you found him? Just like this?” he asked.
The young medic nodded.
Lee snapped more photos — a close-up of the face plus some detailed shots of the positioning of the man’s limbs. Lee pulled out a ballpoint pen from his pocket and gently pulled back the collar of the man’s shirt. The skin revealed a round bruise between the man’s shoulders, along the spine. He lifted the shirt further and saw additional bruising.
“That’s an odd bruising pattern,” the medic observed.
Lee used his pen to pull up the backside of the man’s muddy shirt. The dark skin beneath the shirt revealed four round bruises — roughly three inches in diameter, about the size of silver dollars. The bruising was concentrated to the areas of impact but each one was accompanied by a dark ring, spreading outward. The pattern was fairly symmetrical leading Lee to believe that the impact happened all at once as opposed to resulting from multiple blows. His spine appeared to be crushed as well.
Lee scanned the body, his mind running through possible scenarios as to what could’ve caused the scene before him. The bruises indicated that he had received topical trauma, which had pressed him into the ground. That likely ruled out him falling from the sky. It was clear that forced impact had killed him. There were no signs of a struggle — which meant he was likely dead as soon as he hit the ground, if not before.
What could cause that kind of impact, though? It looked as if he had been run over by a car. However, Lee saw no visible tire tread marks of any kind around the body.
Lee stood up and began to look around. He scanned along the tree line and out over the rows of plants in the field. He walked along the direction from which the man had come, being careful to stay outside of the scene. The man’s footprints were still visible in the mud. The spacing between the footprints indicated long strides.
He was running — the man was chased.
Lee bent over close to the ground to get a better look at the prints. That’s when it stood out to him — right in front of his eyes. Clearly displayed in the mud along the man’s footprints was another set of prints. An arrangement of holes in a repeating configuration accompanied the man’s footprints, leading up from the pineapple fields.