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Chapter 4

Makapu‘u Point, Oahu

27 October, 4:00 p.m.

It was said to be a tourist spot: Makapu‘u Point, high cliffs on the northeastern tip of Oahu, with a spectacular view of the ocean in all directions. But once there, Peter was not prepared for the barren desolation of the place. A harsh wind whipped the scrubby green brush at his feet, and tugged at his clothes, forcing him to lean forward as he walked. He had to speak loudly: “Is it always like this?”

The policeman beside him, Dan Watanabe, said, “No, sometimes it’s very pleasant. But the trades kicked up last night.” Watanabe wore Ray-Bans. He pointed to a lighthouse off to the right. “That’s Makapu‘u Lighthouse,” he said. “Automated years ago. Nobody lives there anymore.”

Directly ahead, they looked down the black lava cliffs at surging ocean two hundred feet below. The surf boomed, smashing against the rocks. Peter said, “Is this where it happened?”

“Yes,” Watanabe said. “The boat ran aground over there—” he pointed to the left—“but the Coast Guard got it off the rocks this morning, before it broke up in the surf.”

“So his boat was somewhere offshore when it got into trouble?” Peter looked out at the ocean, which was rough, high swells and whitecaps.

“Yes. He was drifting in the water for a while, witnesses said.”

“Trying to start the engine…”

“Yes. And drifting toward the surf.”

“And what was the mechanical difficulty?” Peter said. “I understand it was a new boat.”

“Yes. Couple of weeks old.”

“My brother was experienced with boats,” Peter said. “My family always had a boat on Long Island Sound, we were out there every summer.”

“These waters are different,” Watanabe said. “You’re looking at deep ocean.” He pointed. “Nearest land out there is three thousand miles away, the mainland. But that’s not the point. It’s pretty clear what got your brother in trouble was ethanol.”

“Ethanol?” Peter said.

“State of Hawaii puts ten percent ethanol into all the gas that’s sold here, but the ethanol screws up small engines. There’s cut-rate gas dealers who put way too much ethanol in their gas—up to thirty percent. It clogs fuel lines, and anything rubber or neoprene can turn to gunk. It’s caused a hell of a mess on boats. People have to put in new steel fuel tanks and lines. Anyway, we think that’s what happened to your brother. The carburetors were clogged, the fuel pump might have failed. Whatever it was exactly, he couldn’t restart the engines in time.”

Peter was staring down at the water below. Greenish nearest the shore; then, farther out, deep blue, with whitecaps blown by wind.

“How are the currents here?” he said.

“Depends,” Watanabe said. “A good swimmer can manage on most days. The problem is finding a place to get out of the water without getting cut up on lava. Ordinarily you’d swim west, try to make it to Makapu‘u Beach over there.” He pointed to a sandy strip half a mile away.

“My brother was a strong swimmer,” Peter said.

“So I heard, but the witnesses said they couldn’t see him after he dived in the water. There was big surf that day, and he disappeared into the foam. They lost sight of him right away.”

“How many people saw him?”

“Two. There was a couple picnicking, right by the edge of the cliff. There were some hikers, too, and some other people, but we haven’t been able to locate them. What do you say we get out of this wind?” He started back up the hill; Peter followed. “I think that finishes our work here,” Watanabe said. “Unless of course you want to see the video.”

“What video?”

“The picnicking couple shot some video, once they realized the boat was in trouble. They recorded about fifteen minutes of tape, including the jump from the boat. I didn’t know if you wanted to see that or not.”

“I want to see it,” Peter said.

They were on the second floor of the police station, looking at a tiny screen on a video camera. It was noisy in the station, and busy, and Peter had difficulty focusing on the screen. The first images showed a man of about thirty, sitting on the green grassy hillside, eating a sandwich; then a woman of roughly the same age, drinking a Coke and laughing, waving the camera away.

“That’s the couple,” Watanabe said. “Grace and Bobby Choy. First part is them horsing around. Goes about six minutes.” He pushed the fast-forward button, then paused the video and said, “It’s time-stamped.” The stamp in the screen showed the time was 3:50:12 p.m. “Now here, you see Bobby pointing offshore—he’s spotted the boat in trouble.”

The camera panned to show the ocean. The white hull of the Boston Whaler bobbing against the blue horizon. The boat was still a hundred yards offshore, too distant for him to make out his brother. The camera panned back to Bobby Choy, who now was looking through binoculars.

When Peter next saw the boat, it was much closer to the shore. Now he could make out the figure of his brother, bent over, intermittently appearing, then disappearing again. “I think he was trying to clear the clogged lines,” Watanabe said. “That’s what it looks like.”

“Yes,” Peter said.

The camera now showed Grace Choy, shaking her head, trying to place a cell phone call.

Then it panned back to the boat, closer now to the white surf.

Then back to Grace Choy, shaking her head as she talked on the phone. “You don’t have good cellular reception up there,” Watanabe said. “She called 911 but couldn’t get through for a while. The call kept breaking up. If she’d gotten 911, they would’ve called the Coast Guard right away.”

The camera work was jerky, but Peter saw something that—“Hold it!”

“What?”

“Pause it, pause it,” Peter said quickly. As the image froze, he pointed to the screen. “Who’s that in the background?”

The screen showed a woman, dressed in white, standing on the hill a few yards above the Choys. The woman stared intently offshore, and seemed to be pointing at the boat.

“That’s one of the other witnesses,” Watanabe said. “There were three joggers as well. We haven’t been able to identify any of them yet. But I doubt they would give us more information than we already have.”

Peter said, “Does that woman have something in her hand?”

“I think she’s just pointing at the boat.”

“I don’t know,” Peter said, “I think she has something in her hand.”

Watanabe said, “I’ll get the AV evidence guys to look at it. You might be right.”

“What does this woman do next?” Peter said.

The tape started again.

“She leaves right away,” Watanabe said. “Goes up the hill and out of sight. You see: there she goes now. She’s hurrying, looks like maybe she’s going for help, but nobody ever saw her again. And there were no more calls logged to 911.”

Moments later on the tape, Eric jumped from the Boston Whaler into the roiling surf. It was difficult to be sure, but he appeared to be about thirty yards offshore at the time. He didn’t dive, but rather jumped feet-first, vanishing into white foam.

Peter watched closely to see if he emerged, but he did not seem to. And Eric had done something jarring, even disturbing: he had not put on a life jacket before he jumped. Eric knew enough to put on a life jacket in an emergency. “My brother wasn’t wearing a life jacket,” Peter remarked.

“I noticed,” Watanabe commented. “Maybe he forgot to bring it on the boat. It happens—you know—”

“Did he send out a mayday call on the radio?” Peter asked the police officer. Eric’s boat had certainly been equipped with a VHF marine radio. Eric, as an experienced boater, would have sent out a distress call on channel 16, the channel always monitored by the Coast Guard.

“Coast Guard didn’t hear anything.”

That was very strange. No life jacket, no distress call. Had Eric’s radio broken down? Peter continued to stare at the heave and pulse of the blank ocean in the video…an ocean that showed no trace of his brother. After another minute, he said, “Turn it off.”

Watanabe stopped the camera. “He was lost in the boneyard.”

“The what?”

“The boneyard. It’s that churning wash after the waves break. Where all the foam slick is boiling. He may have hit rocks in the boneyard. There are some outcrops that are only five, six feet below the surface. We just don’t know.” He paused. “Do you want to see any of it again?”

“No,” Peter said. “I’ve seen enough.”

Watanabe flipped the screen shut, turned the camera off. “That woman on the hill,” he said casually. “Do you know who she is?”

“Me? No. She could be anybody.”

“I wondered…You had such a strong reaction.”

“No, sorry. I was just surprised by—it was like she just suddenly appeared, that’s all. No idea who she is.”

Watanabe was very still. “You’d tell me, if you knew,” he said.

“Sure, of course. Yes.”

“Well, thanks for your time.” Watanabe gave him his card. “I’ll get one of the detectives to drop you at your hotel.”

Peter said little on the drive back. He wasn’t inclined to talk, and the detective didn’t press him. It was true the images of his brother vanishing in the surf were disturbing. But not as disturbing as the woman on the hill, the woman in white pointing at the boat with some object in her hand. Because that woman was Alyson Bender, the CFO of Nanigen, and her presence at the scene changed everything.