A Magic Island Silence

By Thomas Bean

Nash MacKay sets out to find David Kuhio's killer. David is active in Save Our Surf and a university student, murdered on the beach at San Onofre.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543947366

Book preview

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Thick fog rolled onshore as I pulled into San Onofre’s rutted dirt parking lot fronting the beach. It was January, and out in the thick curtain of mist a few diehard surfers scrambled for the early morning waves. After twenty-seven years of surfing, interrupted with moments of responsible work, at forty I was simply happy to be surfing at all. I pulled my wetsuit out of the van and gently eased my nine-foot longboard out, anticipating the glassy morning surf. Only a few other cars were visible nearby.

The sand was damp, cold on my bare feet as I ran down the deserted beach, sliding like a parallel skier down the wall of sand created by last night’s high tide. The cold water stung my feet for a few moments before it warmed against my skin in the tight fitting wetsuit.

A wave formed in the mist outside of where I was sitting and I knee paddled farther out, lined-up perfectly in the gray peak of the wave. I took two hard strokes and dragged my feet to stall the board before cranking a hard turn off the bottom of the wave. A fast winter freight train wall lined-up in front of me. I climbed and dropped to gain speed and then walked foot-over-foot to the nose, cruising on the tip in a classic arch when the gun went off. Not once, but three times.

My left foot slipped off the nose, raking my ankle with sharp pain. Underwater, my board leash yanked at my ankle, hands automatically over my head all the way to the surface. Feeling foolish as I got back on my board, unhurt but shaking.

The shots must have been a backfire on the I-5 freeway above the cliffs and parking lot. But if there was a sniper on the cliff above the break, I wanted to get the hell out of there now. I caught a wave on the inside break without standing up and rode all the way to shore. The lifeguard’s jeep with its blinking red light was faintly visible in the fog near my van. Other surfers were already there on the beach, gathered in a tight circle next to the yellow lifeguard jeep as if warming themselves by a firepit. I put my board down on the sand. Two lifeguards were on their knees attending to an injured surfer.

The surfer lying on the sand was David Kuhio, one of my students at the university. His head, just below where his left eye used to be was caved in and two smaller holes were visible on his chest, matted with blood. I felt a wave of nausea and quickly shifted my gaze from David’s body. His surfboard, a bright yellow and purple Wavetools tri-fin now looked out of place but I fixed my eyes on it to escape the image of David’s shattered face.

Move back.

I felt one of the lifeguards pushing me.

I know him, I said.

The police will be here in a minute. Everyone else can go unless you have some information for the police. I have your names and phone numbers if they need to talk to you later. The lifeguard looked at me.

You stay. The police will want to talk to you.

I sat in the canvas enclosed jeep, shivering but not from the cold. David’s body was now covered and a tan female lifeguard with brown sun-streaked hair was busy cordoning off the section of blood soaked sand surrounding the body. I watched the waves toppling over in the shorebreak in the shadow of San Onofre’s shuttered twin nuclear towers but the image of David’s bloody face kept reappearing. The other lifeguard in the jeep, a husky looking blond with a walrus moustache and sad eyes interrupted my thoughts.

You want some coffee while we’re waiting? He held up a battered thermos with the name Rick printed on it.

Yes, thanks, I replied.

This is the first shooting we’ve ever had here, he said.

I know him.

I’m sorry.. It’s hard to lose a friend. His eyes squinted into the fog.

I sipped the hot coffee, wrapping my hands tightly around the plastic cup.

Not a friend. He was a student in one of my classes at the university, I said.

You’re a professor? He asked, in a slightly startled tone.

By now I was used to this line of questioning from most people. Even at forty I looked like an archetypal California surfer. The deep tan, blue eyes, and two-toned sunbleached blond hair didn’t jibe with the image most people had for a professor. Not even the beard and my ever-expanding beer belly could overcome the surfer image enough to suggest that I spent more time at the university than on the beach. Perhaps that was the reason I’d been stuck at Associate Professor rank for so long. My learned colleagues couldn’t believe I was conducting research rather than squandering my time at the beach.

What are you a professor of? Rick the lifeguard probably expected me to say oceanography or marine zoology.

Literacy, I replied.

Literacy? His eyebrows arched in disbelief.

I teach classes in reading methods for beginning high school teachers from different subject areas. David was a beginning social studies teacher in one of my classes.

By the look on lifeguard Rick’s face it was obvious I’d just added to his wildest suspicions about academe and the flagrant misuse of his tax dollars.

They have a whole field called literacy in college?

At that moment his partner yelled, Hey Rick, how about helping me with this before the police get here, huh?

Gotta go.

Listen, maybe I’ll visit you at the college sometime. I need help with my reading. Where did you say you teach?

State College, I replied, knowing I was on safe ground since I’d had these conversations a thousand times and so far, none of these future students ever showed up at my office door to enroll.

I was relieved to be alone to think before a police detective grilled me with questions about David Kuhio. Not an easy task since I knew very little about David. In fact, until this morning, I didn’t even know he surfed.

I saw two uniformed police and a detective coming toward the jeep out of the fog. Behind them in the mist a group from the county medical examiner’s office headed toward David’s lifeless body. The detective got into the jeep on the driver’s side and introduced himself with a strong handshake.

Detective Hewlett, he said. Matt Hewlett.

He looked out of place on the beach in a blue blazer and tie. His close-cropped black hair, carefully trimmed moustache, and strong square jaw brought an air of military formality to San Onofre that made me uncomfortable.

But mostly it was his eyes. Hazel, clear, and dead serious. Detective Hewlett worked in homicide.

Nash MacKay, I said, wishing I’d just had a normal day of surfing instead of volunteering myself as some sort of expert on David Kuhio, a person I barely knew.

Tell me, Mr. MacKay, what is it you do?

I repeated what I had already told Rick the lifeguard.

David Kuhio was a student who sat near the back of the room in my Reading 402 class.

Detective Hewlett nodded.

David’s class last fall semester had forty-eight students in it so I really didn’t know him well at all. You see it’s a lecture course. David did indicate on his personal data form that he planned to student teach in social studies at Grove High School this spring semester. He’s been an intern there this fall. I think he planned to return to Hawaii to teach once he completed his credential.

I was again struck by how little I knew about most of my students, especially David, now lying dead on my favorite surfing beach. Detective Matt Hewlett looked questioningly at me, clearly hoping for more substantive information than I had given him so far.

Can you tell me anything about David’s family, friends, jobs, who he lives with?

I think David is from Honolulu. He’s a hapa-haole, only part Hawaiian. I’m not sure where he lives in Orange County and until today I didn’t’ know David surfed. He was a quiet student.

Listen, I just remembered something. What I can do is go back to my office and check the file for last fall’s 402 class. I have a database in my office with David’s personal data form and a digital photo. David’s personal data form should give his home address here and phone number if that’s helpful, I offered, hoping to end this interview.

We’d appreciate that Professor MacKay," he said, looking amused at my faded Snoopy surfs up towel with Snoopy and Woodstock riding a wave. My four year old daughter gave it to me for Christmas before the divorce. Now she lives in Colorado with her mother and step-father, a dentist. For the past year, I’d been living with Kathy, a recreational therapist.

Thanks for your help Professor.

Look, I said as we stood outside the Jeep. Could I call you and find out how David died after the medical examiner has completed the evaluation?

Sure, no problem. I’d appreciate getting that address. He moved off in the direction of the body, David’s dazzling yellow and purple surfboard looking like a lost pet on the sand nearby. It would be collected and examined for any clues to David’s past, then sold at auction to some surfer who would be thrilled to ride it, not knowing about it’s former owner’s last grim trip to the beach.

Was David into drugs? Gambling? Twisted political or cult groups? If so, why go into teaching, a profession that was at times psychically rewarding but certainly not financially lucrative.

How little I knew about most of my students, hundreds over the years tolerating my classes, bolting out the door, faceless, indistinguishable because I hadn’t bothered to get to know them. Maybe now was the time to do something about it. To change. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first resolution I’d made only to break a week later.

I retrieved my board and walked up the beach toward the van. I wedged my board in against the side panel, dropped my wetsuit on the plastic mat and slammed the cargo door shut. The captain’s chair never felt better. I didn’t feel much like surfing now. I just wanted to go home. The engine kicked over on the first try and I switched the stereo from hard rock to some soft jazz.

The fog had thinned somewhat as I pulled out onto I-5 heading north past San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, the subdivision glitter of Mission Viejo and Irvine, on into the older north Orange County towns, past Disneyland’s Matterhorn and home to West Fullerton.

Chapter 2

West Fullerton is light years away from the newer suburban Orange County neighborhoods of earthtone stucco houses and community swimming pools. It’s a part of the city always targeted for some ambitious redevelopment plan to wipe out the small family restaurants and businesses. Those aging and individualistic structures presumed to be eyesores have been replaced with McDonald’s, Taco Bells, 7-Elevens, and Dominos Pizza. My neighborhood, tucked away behind the sprawling Hunt’s tomato factory to the west and the Southern Pacific railroad tracks to the east defies the town planners’ dreams of high density homogenized housing.

My house is an old tan frame and stucco tract home built for the returning veterans of World War II. They were just able to afford a VA loan to swing the payments on one of these eleven thousand dollar cracker boxes. Nothing much has changed. Now these houses cost over one hundred thousand dollars for decaying plumbing and a view of the Hunt’s tomato factory to the west. In the spring and summer the pungent odor of tomato soup drifts across the neighborhood. But it has a big back yard for growing vegetables and picking fruit off the nectarine and apricot trees and the price is almost affordable on my professor’s salary. The neighbors are friendly people who like nothing more than to come home, drag the lawn chair out on the front lawn, get a cool Budweiser out of the refrigerator and shoot the breeze. On a Saturday like today they were out enmasse, mowing lawns, washing cars, and watching the new baby. But I wasn’t in a very congenial mood.

I pulled the van into the drive and removed my soggy wetsuit and board. The van belonged to Kathy. She used it to haul around clients in her recreational therapy practice. For the last year, I had been her sole client so she was in early retirement taking care of my physical and mental well being after my wife left me for the Colorado dentist.

I took my time washing the wetsuit and hanging it up to dry in the garage. I thought about how I would explain what happened to David Kuhio to Kathy.

I walked inside. Kathy was in the middle of an aerobics routine, hard rock blasting out of the stereo speakers. She turned off the stereo and grabbed a towel. I hugged her warm, sweat soaked body and kissed her full lips. At thirty-eight, Kathy looked more like twenty-eight. She had blonde hair, tan radiant skin, and at five-foot-two, a compact, heat charged body.

How were the waves, Nash?

I didn’t surf much. There was a murder at San Onofre. He was one of my students. He’s a Hawaiian named David Kuhio. He was shot this morning.

Kathy starred at me.

Why would someone kill one of your students?

I don’t know. Until today I didn’t even know he surfed. The police questioned me and I realized I knew next to nothing about David. Anyway, the police detective asked me to look-up anything I have in my files on David. I’m going to shower and go to the college.

I opened the refrigerator and searched my beer collection for a brew to soothe my dark mood. Some people collect stamps as a hobby, others butterflies. I collect unusual beers. What I usually do is buy a six pack of exotic beer, drink one or two and save the rest for the holidays to share with friends. Kathy isn’t too thrilled with my hobby because the beer takes up limited refrigerator space. When it gets too cluttered I oblige her and drink some of my collection.

I settled for an Anchor Steam, a rich creamy amber beer brewed in San Francisco. I took out some sliced chicken, mayonnaise, lettuce, and Clausen pickles. I found some Orowheat bread, made a sandwich and sat down in our tiny living room to eat before showering. The Anchor Steam beer had the distinctive molasses taste of home brew I’d had at parties in college.

I finished eating, made sure the washing machine wasn’t going out in the garage, and took a soothing hot shower. Our water pressure is so bad that if two faucets are on at the same time both only release a trickle of hot water.

I dressed in jeans, a long sleeved tee shirt advertising Robert August surfboards, and some old scuffed Nike running shoes. We live just four miles from the campus so I could ride a bicycle but I usually have too many books and papers to lug along. Today I just wanted to get into my office and see what I could find out about David Kuhio’s background.

I said good-bye to Kathy and got the keys for my old bomb, an Audi sedan. It had two redeeming features: a sunroof that opened and sometimes closed and a Blaupunkt stereo cassette deck. The engine turned over reluctantly and I swung the dial to FM 88, KLON’s Nothin But the Blues. Bernie, the DJ was spinning an old Jimmy Reed song, Baby What You Want Me to Do? A thumping twelve bar blues punctuated by Reed’s high note harmonica riffs. I pulled a harmonica in the key of A out of the glove compartment and played along, driving past the old Fox theater in downtown Fullerton and on out to the east end of town and the campus. A few cars dotted the parking lot but ours was a commuter campus and most of the scholars preferred to stay home, especially on a Saturday.

A few familes roller bladed and skateboarded around the concrete walkways linking our modern high rise buildings. I rode the elevator to my fifth floor office in the deserted building. On a clear, Santa Ana wind day I could see the snow capped San Gabriel mountains from my window. Today they were invisible in the afternoon haze.

I switched on my Apple Mac computer and found the file for last semester’s class and personal data forms. David’s form had his address, phone number, age, current job, work phone, undergraduate degree, and a listing of past teaching experiences. David’s address on College Boulevard was a student apartment house. His form also listed his home address in Honolulu but no phone. David graduated from the University of Hawaii in political science and his high school diploma was from Punahou, a private college preparatory school in Honolulu. He was twenty-four.

David’s brief biography got me thinking about my own family’s move from California to Hawaii when I was in junior high. After a short stint in a local public school that didn’t believe in homework, my family had me transfer to Punahou. As a Hawaiian, David might have had a scholarship there, or less likely, his family had money. Punahou was not cheap.

Where the form asked for teaching experience, David listed environmental awareness seminars he conducted while in college for a group called Save Our Surf. In my day, the Hawaii surf spots were uncrowded and unspoiled. I hadn’t been back in years but apparently even Hawaii’s pristine surf spots were in need of saving.

I took digital photos of my students so I could get to know their names easily. But once the semester got underway I rarely consulted these files so my good intentions were largely wasted. Now David’s photo might be helpful. It showed a solemn young man