The Haiku Murders

By Neil Levy

Izzy Liebes, a Jew from Brooklyn, would up as a lieutenant in the homicide division of the Honolulu police force. His passions are body surfing and haiku poetry.

But he begins to receive a series of haiku from an anonymous source. He soon realizes that they are from a serial killer who gives him clues about murders he is about to commit. Thus, Liebes and his Native Hawaiian partner, Hoku, must take those clues and try to prevent the next murder.

The book is filled with descriptions of the land, food and customs of O‘ahu. It is probably the first book in which Haiku poetry helps carry the plot of a murder mystery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neil Levy
• Release date: Jan 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985095826

Neil Levy

Neil M. Levy has led an eclectic life. Born in Brooklyn, he has made the Bay Area his base ever since he first arrived there. He has mixed a life of being a legal service attorney a law professor, a legal publisher, a travel writer and a creative writer and poet. But travel has always been his passion. His honeymoon was a nine month drive with his wife Jane from California to the Panama Canal. He worked many summers in Hawaii on the legal problems of Native Hawaiians. He wrote three editions of the Micronesia Handbook, spending many months on those remote islands. He is near the end of his career as a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and is planning to spend even more time travelling and continuing his fiction writing.

Book preview

The Haiku Murders

A Lieutenant Liebes in

Honolulu Mystery

Neil M. Levy

The Haiku Murders

A Lieutenant Liebes in Honolulu Mystery

Neil M. Levy

Copyright © 2012 by Red Oak Tree Press

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 9780985095826

Neil M. Levy is the author of Short Stuff (2012)

CHAPTER I

Lieutenant Izzy Liebes of Honolulu’s homicide division sat and looked at the envelope just placed on his desk. As the years had moved on, e-mail and fax had sharply curtailed the amount of paper mail he received. But this peach-colored, high quality, heavy bond envelope was unlike any mail he had ever received before. He thought it slightly odd, however, that his address on this elegant envelope was not handwritten, but printer generated.

He took his letter opener from his desk, thinking the fine stationery deserved such treatment. The letter simply read:

May 16

The old pond

a frog jumps in,

the sound of water

00001

Izzy sat nonplussed. He rubbed his fingers through his thick, curly salt-and-pepper hair. He thought, why would someone mail me on elegant stationery, an English language translation of this seventeenth-century haiku poem written by Basho, the father of that Japanese poetry form? Surely it must be the best known of all haiku. The elegance of the stationery should have been matched by elegant handwriting or even calligraphy, not by computer print. And why was there a number at the bottom instead of a signature? Many people on and off the force knew of Izzy’s love of haiku, but why mail him this note anonymously?

Izzy looked at his watch. It was 3:30 p.m. on a slow afternoon. There was a three-foot south swell wrapping around to Makapu’u. Izzy was a body surfer and he hated board surfers’ ability to cut off slower moving body surfers. You couldn’t win colliding with a board. But boards were prohibited at Makapu‘u from 9:00 a.m. till 5:00 p.m. If he left the office immediately, he could still get in some prime surfing before the boards showed up. He jumped into his car and headed east on H-1, under the soft intermittent clouds drifting over Honolulu. He passed Diamond Head at the end of Waikiki, passed Kahala, a neighborhood for the wealthy and then continued south towards Koko Head. This short distance changed the landscape from lush to desert. He continued on and cast his eyes at the merciless shore break at Sandy Beach. He reached Makapu’u before 4:00 p.m. - a beach in a perfect cove beneath a lighthouse on the high point of the remnants of an ancient volcano.

He found an illegal place to park. He followed his own self-imposed rule: all parking places were permissible, except those that create danger or prevent access for the handicapped. He went to the bathroom to change into his bathing suit. He put his clothes in the trunk of his car and grabbed his Churchill swim fins. With his long legs, he walked with an easy gait down to the waves breaking in the right-hand corner of the cove.

It is important to enter Makapu’u with proper timing. When there is size to the waves, a thick layer of foam builds up inside of where the waves are breaking. Being trapped inside at Makapu’u can be a tiring and frightening experience. The water swirls and it can be next to impossible to make it directly back to shore. One must instead get outside, beyond the breaking waves and try to find a wave that can be ridden all the way to shore. At times a body surfer goes out for a pleasant afternoon and all of a sudden it turns into an issue of survival. More than one body surfer has had to work so hard getting outside that the objective then became merely to take one small wave back in. If one falls off the wave, one is once again trapped inside.

But no such problem faced Izzy today. He waited for a lull in the waves and ran out through the shallow water near shore. A small wave appeared before him and he ducked under it, keeping his momentum going forward. He kicked and stroked, his Churchills still on his right arm, until he reached outside of where the larger waves were breaking. He put his fins on his feet and got ready. The face of the first wave he took was about five feet. He popped onto it and leaned his weight forward to take the drop. He dipped his left shoulder to angle around to the left, the direction in which the wave was breaking. He bent slightly upwards to slow himself down and let the wave catch up to him. And there he was -- in the tube, surrounded by water. He held his position for several seconds and tucked out before the wave had a chance to pound him. Makapu’u had a fairly soft and forgiving bottom, but there was no point in tempting fate.

A great day in the water. The waves were big enough for fun, yet not so large as to cause worry. He caught tubes, took long shoulder rides, and even knocked off a couple of spinners. No other activity could so effectively take him outside himself, something particularly necessary after a slow, and therefore boring, day at work. Body surfing was his passion. He liked being able to ride serious waves at fifty-six years of age. Body surfing had kept him in good shape. Izzy was a lean, muscular man who looked younger than his years.

Izzy rode a small wave into shore. He lay down on his towel and wondered on which day God had created surf. Unable to answer the question, he got up, walked to his car and began his drive up the island’s lush Windward side toward his home in Kailua. He knew that at this hour there would be traffic even in the rural areas where there still were stables and plant nurseries. Most of the drive runs beneath the beautiful Ko’olau Mountains. One saw cliffs with trees seeming to grow straight out of rock. The cliffs descended into tropical rainforests at their base. He drove through Waimanalo, a town mainly populated by Native Hawaiians living on Hawaiian Home Lands, property that had been set aside for their ancestors by Congress in 1921.The homes were all similar and certainly not elegant, but all were well kept.

Izzy loved Kailua. He thought its beach to be the most beautiful on the island, with its bay a perfect curve, on one end guarded by an ancient volcano crater that was now part of Marine Corps Base Kane’ohe Bay, and on the other end by the Mokulua Islands. He appreciated Kailua actually having a downtown, old commercial streets existing next to moderate-sized shopping mall He reached Kailua and turned into the Foodland parking lot. He went to the fish counter and bought some ahi poke, lomi lomi salmon, and seaweed. Through the years he had become addicted to these Hawaiian-style raw, marinated seafoods. He thought it might be because of their similarity to the pickled herring and lox he grew up with in his Jewish home in Brooklyn.

He drove to his home. Beachfront property is enormously expensive in Hawai‘i, but Izzy had scrimped to buy a house near the beach. He also worked extra shifts whenever he could. Ten years ago he found a small broken down two-bedroom, single-wall construction house that was only three houses in from the beach. There was no ocean view, but it was less than one hundred yards from the water. The house was makai (ocean) side of Kalaheo Avenue, the main street paralleling the beach. Izzy pulled into his parking space and entered his home, as always loving the sweet fragrance of his plumeria tree and gardenia bush which flanked the walkway to his front door. He looked around and thought this was an evening for cleaning and laundry. He took a shower, got into his shorts and decided he would first open a bottle of Corona and get started on the food. After knocking off the ahi poke and two Coronas he decided cleaning could wait till another day. He turned on an old Gabby Pops Pahanui recording, and lay down on his couch to listen to this Hawaiian master of the slack key guitar. He then played an even older recording of Lena Machado, the Songbird of Hawai‘i.

Before he went to sleep, he took out his notebook and calligraphy set to write a haiku as he did almost every night. Sometimes a haiku would come to him when he was driving or walking. He would try to remember it until he had a chance to write it down. If no haiku came to him by bedtime, he would sit at his dining table until one occurred to him. Usually this routine would put him into a better mood for falling asleep and would ward off his occasional nights of restlessness.

Tonight he wrote:

On this sunny day

a cloud briefly blocks the sun

continues onward

When Izzy wrote haiku, he did not feel compelled to follow the form of three lines, the first having five syllables, the second seven, and the third five again. But he took special delight when a poem seemed to write itself in that traditional form.

- - - - - - - -

At sunrise on May 21 the man who had mailed the haiku to Izzy stood under a coconut palm in the lush Kawainui Marsh behind Kailua. He held a knife in his right hand, his arm hanging loosely down his side. He could see the short, older man making his way on the trail that led passed him. He was certain he could accomplish today’s goal. He felt no fear, nor hesitation, about what he was about to do.

The hiker approached at a steady pace. The man under the coconut palm felt no need to hide. He let the hiker approach him and said, Good morning. Lovely weather. As the hiker walked passed him, he grabbed him from behind with his left hand, spun him around, and plunged the knife into his chest, just below his ribcage, and thrust it upwards. The knife went into his heart. Robert Ferguson was dead practically before he hit the ground.

Looking down at the victim, the murderer felt neither regret, nor guilt. Neither did he feel any particular sense of triumph. This was merely one step toward his ultimate objective, an objective that he knew others might find crazy, but which he felt necessary for his own emotional survival. He pulled the knife out of the victim and headed back down the path from which the hiker had come.

- - - - - - - -

During that same sunrise, Izzy got up quickly and walked down the short access lane to the bay. From there he jogged on the beach down to the corner of Kailua Bay, watching the sun rise up from the water. The wave that broke there many called Kalamas but Izzy thought of it just as Kailua Corner. Though the bay rarely had serious surf, at Kailua Corner there often were small, clean waves.

Izzy entered the water and looked out to see if any waves were coming. It amused and amazed him that even though he needed glasses to navigate the city, his eyes were still good enough to see a slight rise on the horizon of the ocean and instantly be able to judge how big a wave was coming and where it would break. He saw a wave coming in and swam a few feet to the right. It was a small wave, no more than two feet, but clearly makeable. He pushed off and rode the wave to the left. He then turned further and placed his right arm onto the wave so that he could make the turn riding on his back.

Izzy was loosened up both physically and mentally. He walked home, took a quick shower and got dressed. He looked at his watch and saw it was still only 7:00 a.m., still early enough to grab a cappuccino at the Kalapawai Market. This wooden framed market, stands across the street from a traffic island with a large and beautiful Chinese banyan tree. The market was a Kailua institution since 1932, before the Pali tunnels were constructed, when Honolulu was still a two-hour drive away.

Back then Kalapawai had been a country store, not a suburban outlet. The store sold rice, canned food, cigarettes, packaged coffee and after Prohibition ended in 1933, local Primo beer. Today one could get a cappuccino and a macadamia nut muffin. Aloha shirts were for sale and, of course, so was wine from California, Australia, New Zealand and France. It even had a deli. Izzy thought one could write a history of Hawai‘i by extrapolating from the changes in this one market.

Izzy had agreed to take his partner Hoku Kulani to Police Headquarters this morning. Hoku was a Native Hawaiian woman, with a little Chinese and Portuguese heritage thrown in. She was short, stocky and very muscular. It was no surprise that she had been captain of the soccer team at Farrington High School. Nobody complained about this woman being on the force, except some criminals who thought they could tangle with her when she had been a patrol officer. She too lived in Kailua. Detectives in Hawai’i do not ride in blue-and-white police cars. They purchase their own unmarked cars and are reimbursed by the police department, as long as they are American built. She was a rookie homicide detective, having previously spent three years in uniform, two years as a detective in burglary and three more in violent crimes. Her success at each level led to her rapid ascent to detective, homicide division. Despite her prior experience, as the newest detective in homicide, with only four months of service, she was paired up with Izzy, the senior homicide detective. Izzy rode quietly with Hoku.

Two months ago Izzy learned that she was a lesbian. That Hoku roomed with another woman had not raised any questions for Izzy. But about two months ago, he arrived a little earlier than usual to pick up her up. As he approached, he saw her caressing the back of her roommate, Sarah Livingston. Sarah was a tall, willowy blonde a pure haole (white person) who had gotten tired of the L.A. scene. She was in marketing. A year ago, she was given the opportunity by her employer to transfer to Hawai‘i. She jumped at the chance even though she had never been to the Islands before. Soon after arriving, she met Hoku. Their relationship began shortly thereafter.

It was clear to Hoku that Izzy had seen the gesture. Neither had found this a source of embarrassment or a thing of importance. Nothing was ever said about that encounter. Hoku and Sarah continued to be dinner guests at Izzy’s house. The only time Hoku raised the issue of her sexual orientation to Izzy was one evening when she and Izzy had gone out for a couple of beers. They sat at the bar and Izzy began hitting on the woman on his other side. Hoku leaned over and said to Izzy, You have no chance, bruddah. She da kine, like me. If I never had met Sarah, I might have had a chance.

- - - - - - - -

That morning Peggy Ferguson, as usual, slept in till 9:00. She had to be in Honolulu for a routine doctor’s appointment at 11:00. Robert had not returned from his daily walk by the time she left. This was somewhat unusual, but since he would occasionally rest and relax on the beach after his walk, it did not concern her. She went to her appointment and then drove to Manoa Valley to have lunch with an old friend at the Waioli Tea Room, a converted old mansion constructed out of local materials and set in a tropical garden.

They then went shopping at the Ala Moana Center, once the world’s largest shopping center. They hit Nieman Marcus, the Japanese emporium Shirokiya, and Hilo Hattie to see if any interesting new patterns had arrived. They even made some purchases. By the time they had finished up, it was almost 4:30, and rather than fight rush hour traffic back to Kailua, they decided to have margaritas and pupus (Hawaiian appetizers) at lively Kincaid’s overlooking Kewalo basin. Peggy called Robert both at home and on his cell, getting no answer on either. Assuming he was on the beach or kayaking, she still was not particularly concerned. They left Kincaid’s at 6:00 p.m. and headed back to Kailua after the worst of the traffic.

When she arrived home, shortly before 7:00p.m., Robert was not home. This was unusual. She looked around the house and she saw no telltale signs that he had been home during the day: no dirty glasses in the sink, no clothes strewn about. She was concerned. She called several of Robert’s friends, but none had seen him today. She called her next-door neighbor, Vivian Liu, who heard the tension in Peggy’s voice and came right over. Peggy made several more calls to no avail. Though Vivian tried to keep Peggy calm, she became more and more frantic. At 9:00 p.m., Peggy decided to call the police at the substation in Kailua.

Can I speak to someone? My husband has been gone since early this morning. I have no idea where he is. He never does this. I’m afraid something has happened to him.

Ma’am, usually we don’t consider anyone missing until he’s been gone for at least twenty-four hours.

Look, my husband is sixty-six. He doesn’t run out for the evening very often and never without telling me where he’s going.

When did you last see him?

He was gone when I woke up. He goes for a walk through the Kawainui Marsh almost every morning. He hadn’t returned home when I went into town at about 10:00.a.m. this morning. The house looks like he hasn’t been home all day.

Have you called his friends?

Yes, but no one has seen him.

"Can you tell me what he looks like? I’ll tell our