The Burning Island Page 7

  “Ah. What does your wife do?”

  “She’s a professor in UH-Hilo’s department of astronomy and physics.”

  Jesus, I think. If Lise Nakagawa is anything like her overachieving parents, she must be quite the brainiac. Or was quite the brainiac, until the guy in the woods got his hands on her. I don’t know what tense to use when thinking of her. Don’t know if she has a future to live or nothing but a terrible past to unravel.

  “Sounds like your daughters have big shoes to fill,” I tell Victor.

  “Jocelyn’s up to the task.” He turns his back on me, begins walking briskly toward the HVO building. Lise’s name does not leave his lips.

  * * *

  • • •

  FOR A FIELD that studies the creation of the Earth and the destructive powers of nature, volcanology looks surprisingly mundane in practice. The observatory lobby is as white and clean as a hospital, with gleaming tiled floors and glaring fluorescent overheads. My eyes are drawn to a jumble of monitors set up in one corner—eight on the wall and six on the desk—that depict various graphs and seismic readings as well as live video of the Halemaʻumaʻu crater. I take several pictures of Victor studying the monitors. Outdoor Adventures will eat it up. If I crop out the rest of the lobby, there’s a hint of Hollywood situation room in all those screens that will play well with readers.

  The remainder of the floor, however, boasts little in the way of drama. Most of the scientists at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory are physical volcanologists, attempting to learn about how and where eruptions are likely to occur. They collect samples and map the volcano’s rock formations, Victor explains, hoping to uncover information about its history. Whatever exciting fieldwork transpires outside the observatory, inside it’s all business. People staring at computer screens, gazing at topographical models or charts tracking changes in chemical composition.

  Victor leads us from office to office, pointing out a handful of scientists whose names and specialties I jot down for future reference. Everyone we meet is cordial and happy to talk volcanoes. They joke about Victor’s becoming a celebrity or good-naturedly razz him, which he handles with that odd stiffness.

  None of the other scientists strike me as terrifically athletic. When I ask about their hobbies, I get answers like reading, knitting, and playing guitar. One woman mentions an interest in hiking and kayaking, but Victor and his Ironman accomplishments are a clear anomaly amongst his peers.

  “It must be a lot of training,” a coworker remarks, solidifying my impression that despite two decades at the observatory, his coworkers scarcely know him. And it’s not hard to see why.

  Although Victor has much to say on the subject of his work, he clams up whenever I steer the conversation to his personal life. His office contains a framed picture of flowing magma but not a single photograph of his family. And he hasn’t asked any questions of Rae and me, made any attempt to be conversational. I’m beginning to suspect the man’s social skills are rather limited. Not good news for my article.

  Nevertheless, Rae and I pry facts from him one by one. He was raised in California and came to the Big Island in the midnineties. His mother is dead and his father lives in Japan, but they aren’t in touch. He met his wife, Suzumi, through a work acquaintance.

  “What first attracted you to Suzumi?” I ask.

  “We had an interesting conversation about telescopes,” he replies.

  I want to bang my head against the wall.

  How am I supposed to write an article about a man who makes a habit of not discussing himself? How am I supposed to help his daughter and heal his family if he never reveals his pain?

  The only visible emotion he displays comes when a young woman accosts him in his office with a thin manila folder.

  “It’s not a good time, Jessica,” Victor mutters.

  “I’m sorry.” Her tense smile only barely manages to stay civil. “I need you to sign my internship papers. I can’t get university credit if you don’t sign off.”

  He waves a dismissive hand. “Put them on my desk.”

  “They’ve been on your desk for a week. I sent you email copies as well.” Jessica thrusts the folder at him. “Can you sign them now, please? It’s a few signatures. It’ll take five minutes.”

  Victor stares down at the folder in her hand, the corner of his mouth and eye twitching in that distinctive facial tic. “I have visitors now.”

  “Oh no, go ahead,” I urge. “We’re in no hurry.”

  He hesitates for a moment, searching for an excuse. Finding none, he snatches the girl’s folder away and begins signing papers. Jessica waits, her resentment palpable, and eventually collects her materials.

  “Finally,” she says, and leaves without a thank-you.

  Rae watches her go with raised eyebrows. “So. That’s your intern?”

  He grimaces. “Her father works at the university with my wife. I took her on as a favor. What a nightmare. She needs constant supervision. Any time I want something done, I have to train her. It takes so much longer than just doing it myself.”

  “That’s frustrating,” I say, although I fail to see how it’s unreasonable for an intern to expect training.

  I take dutiful notes when he launches into a detailed explanation of the equipment he uses, but I just can’t match Rae’s enthusiasm for geological minutiae. What kind of person does not possess a single photo of his wife or kids at work? My gaze drifts toward his office door, seeking escape. After several arduous minutes, I spot Jessica heading into the ladies’ room across the hall. It’s a chance I can’t miss.

  “Would you excuse me a second, Victor? I need to use the restroom.”

  By the time Jessica emerges from her stall, I’m innocently washing my hands. “Oh, hey.” Cue my sympathetic One of the Sisterhood face. “Did you get your internship papers sorted out?”

  “We’ll see.” She squirts an excess of soap into her palm. “If Victor gives my adviser another crappy report, they could still withhold my credits.”

  “I’m sorry. Sounds like he’s not used to supervising people.”

  She rinses the bubbles from her hands and grabs a paper towel. “You’re a journalist, right? You’re writing some article about him?”

  I give a rueful laugh. “Well, I’m trying to write an article. It’s a little challenging finding my angle. Victor isn’t really . . . communicative. Not about himself, anyway.”

  “That’s an understatement. I’m pretty sure the guy has Asperger’s or something.” She sighs. “He’s really good at his job, don’t get me wrong. I just wish someone else had stepped up to be my supervisor. You’ve probably noticed, people are not Victor’s forte.”

  “I guess he’s had a lot on his mind lately,” I say. “I heard his daughter went missing.”

  Jessica softens. “I know. I’ve been trying to cut him some slack, I really have. It’s not like the guy doesn’t have feelings. But I really need these credits.”

  “You think they’ll find her?”

  “Not alive.” Jessica has dispensed with all her business in the bathroom, but she doesn’t leave. She leans against the sink, only too happy to linger now that she has my ear. “If Victor wants to tell himself she just ran away, then fine. Whatever lets him sleep at night. But that’s wishful thinking.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You don’t know the story?”

  I shake my head. “Just what was in the papers.”

  “It’s pretty cut-and-dried. Lise met up with her boyfriend, Elijah, in the square one night. He admits she broke up with him but says he walked her home. Nice story, except no one ever saw her make it into her house. She hasn’t been seen since.”

  “You think Elijah killed her.” I file his name away; the papers didn’t use it, since he’s underage.

  “Everyone thinks Elijah killed her. He was the last pers
on to see her. Look, I live in Kalo Valley, where all this went down. And that Elijah kid is weird. I’ve seen his older brother around, and he’s weird, too. The whole family is just off.”

  “It’s an open investigation, isn’t it? If he did it, they could still find something to prove it.”

  “No body, no blood. Right now they have no case.” She speaks with the confidence of someone who has watched her share of Law and Order reruns. “The police can’t prove Lise didn’t just run away. He’s gonna get away with it.”

  “That’s gotta be tearing Victor up inside.”

  “Nope. Victor’s in total denial. He bought the whole runaway story hook, line, and sinker, doesn’t think Elijah had anything to do with it. But of course he wouldn’t, given Elijah’s mother. It’s a lot more convenient for him to think—” She stops, turning ashen as she finally realizes who she’s talking to. “Wait, you won’t put me in your article, will you? I mean, you won’t use my name?”

  “No, no,” I reassure her. “I’m not here to write about Victor’s personal problems. Just morbidly curious.”

  “Right. Sure.” She smiles, cautious now, and edges toward the bathroom door.

  I try to reel her back in. “You said Victor knows Elijah’s mother?”

  Hesitation, followed by an uneasy laugh. “He’s known her for years. They’re . . . close.” She sees my questioning look and explains. “Kalo Valley is a small town. You hear things.”

  “Victor’s married, isn’t he?”

  “Sure is.”

  “So maybe these are just rumors?”

  Jessica gives me a pitying look. “Naomi’s a nice-looking woman, her husband’s been dead for ages, and Victor goes over to her place on the regular to ‘help out.’” She finger-quotes the words “help out,” lest I mistake Victor’s visits for actual helping. “You fill in the blanks.”

  “Naomi . . .” A chill runs up my spine as I repeat the woman’s name. “You mean Naomi Yoon?”

  “Yep. That’s Elijah’s mom.”

  I remember what Victor said earlier, that he had a friend who lived out by Koa House.

  Is Jessica right? Is Naomi Yoon really his mistress? Rae is going to love this.

  “So, if I have this straight, Victor and his daughter Lise were both involved with members of the Yoon family. That’s a little . . .”

  “Gross?” Jessica supplies. “Yeah, no kidding. But you can see why Victor refuses to believe Elijah Yoon killed his daughter. It would put him at serious odds with his lady.” She moves to the door, done with our little gossip session. “Good luck with your article. I don’t know how much you’ll get out of Victor, but no one can say that man lacks stories.”

  Alone in the bathroom, I stare at my reflection in the mirror. My dark hair is puffing out in the humidity; my green eyes have that glazed, glassy look I get when I’m thinking hard. Isaac’s cunning plot to land me smack-dab in the middle of another missing-child case has been more successful than he ever could have imagined: I am literally living next door to Lise’s suspected killer.

  A coincidence, or cosmic opportunity? Does it matter?

  For the next six days, I am uniquely positioned to figure out what happened to Victor’s daughter. Whether he wants me to or not.

  seven

  After a couple of hours of following Victor around the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, I’m getting impatient. On another day, perhaps I’d be as enthralled as Rae by the file cabinets of seismographic reels, the boxes of lava samples, the panoramic view from the observatory tower. Today, however, it all seems beside the point. Victor is hiding behind science, speaking in that condescending tone about geological history when what I really want to know about is the man himself, his family, his child.

  “I’d love to get more outdoor photos for the magazine,” I tell him, trying not to fidget. “Any chance we could accompany you on some fieldwork today?”

  “Fieldwork?” He looks taken aback. “I’m primarily working on a computer model right now, I don’t see how . . .”

  “Please,” I beg. “I want Outdoor Adventures to run this story. Great photos sell magazines.”

  Victor thinks this over. Whatever failings he has in the emotional intelligence department, he’s become rather invested in my profile of him. Being the subject of a feature article appeals to his ego. “I suppose I could take you out to see the park,” he says. “Have you seen the steam vents yet? Or the Thurston Lava Tube?”

  Rae shakes her head.

  “Come on, then. We’ll get the photos you need. We don’t want your editor canceling the whole thing.”

  Rae and I exchange amused glances. This man likes attention.

  Outside, the sun has come out and the vog has all but vanished. Victor slips into the passenger seat of our rental and directs Rae down Crater Rim Drive to the lava tube. Unlike the scrubby, rocky land around the HVO, the lava tube is situated in a full-on rain forest. Everything seems coated in green, be it moss or leaves or twisted vines. Tree ferns rise up from the dark earth, tall as a house. The air feels heavy in my lungs as Victor explains what, precisely, a lava tube is: the underground tunnel that magma travels through. This particular tube was emptied of magma hundreds of years ago, he says, but its stability and size—twenty feet high in some areas—makes it quite the tourist trap.

  Although the gaping entrance is draped in greenery, the inside is all rock, with dripping walls and a dim, puddly path. The lighting gives everything a strange yellow hue. I get several photographs of Victor, who seems to enjoy posing in a space once occupied by two-thousand-degree magma. And the camera loves him. If he reads as peculiar in person, his face and bearing communicate depth, intelligence, and mystery in photographs. I still have a shot at making the cover.

  On our way back to the HVO, we stop at the steam vents. No rain forest here, just gashes in the craggy land that release warm plumes of steam. I stand at the edge of one such crevice, letting the moisture gather on my face, inhaling its earthy odor.

  “Feels kind of like a facial, huh?” Rae jokes. “You could stick your face down there and open all your pores.”

  “A park ranger tried something like that once,” Victor says. “It didn’t end well.”

  “What happened?”

  “She lost her footing and fell about twenty feet down. It was too muddy to climb back out. When they found her the next day, her body had essentially been cooked.”

  I withdraw from the edge of the crevice. “It doesn’t feel that hot.”

  “Twenty feet down? It’s hot.” He steps onto the concrete path. “Come on. I’ll show you my favorite place.”

  Victor leads us down a trail that runs parallel to the rim’s edge. There are no railings out here, nothing to prevent people from plunging four hundred feet off the side except common sense, and the shrubs are tall and thick enough in places that the line between land and air isn’t entirely obvious. I stop when I see a delicate purple blossom quivering alongside the path.

  “Is that a wild orchid?” Even my plant-loving fiancé has probably never seen one of these.

  Victor nods. “They survive off the moisture from the steam vents.” But he has more on his mind than the park’s horticultural wonders. He leaves the footpath and begins winding through gaps in the grass and shrubbery, a clear destination in mind.

  A few minutes later, I see what he’s after. Just inches from the perilous caldera cliff, two large stones are embedded in the dirt, each dipping in the center to form a natural seat. Victor settles himself in one, cross-legged, his knees jutting out into space.

  Rae takes the rock beside him, terror and delight playing across her face in equal measure as she surveys the vertical drop before her.

  Something shifts inside me. I feel my hands buzzing, my spine tingling as I move closer.

  “Best view in the park.” Victor gazes out at some distant point deep i
n the caldera. “I used to take my daughters here. This was our special spot.”

  It’s the most intimate thing he’s shared today, and yet I scarcely register his words. My body has turned hard and leaden. The buzzing in my hands rises to a stinging crescendo. For a few terrible seconds, my vision blinks out and there is nothing, nothing but a chilly breeze and the sudden pressure of two hands on my back, fingertips pressing, pushing, urging me toward the edge. Fall, they tell me. Fall. I scramble backward, adrenaline surging as my sight returns.

  “Did someone die here?” My question is a blight upon the peaceful scene, terse and ugly, but I need to know the answer.

  Victor glances over his shoulder at me. “No deaths here that I know of. We don’t get many fatalities in the park, just the occasional idiot chasing lava into dangerous places. The ranger that died, that was an unusual exception.” He hesitates, as if worried that he’s being too boring. “There are stories, of course, if you think your readers would be interested. I’ve heard there was a lover’s leap into the crater back in the 1930s, some mixed-race couple that couldn’t be together. And in the sixties, a man rappelled—”

  “It would’ve been a child,” I cut in. “A teenager, maybe. Someone young.”

  “No deaths at this spot since I’ve been working in the park,” Victor says matter-of-factly. “If someone fell, we’d know it. The results would be hard to miss.”

  My stomach lurches at the picture that conjures up. I try to shake it off. I must be picking up traces of something very old, something that predates park records. Or I could be sensing an event that hasn’t happened yet.

  “This place is dangerous,” I murmur. “Don’t bring your girls here, Victor. Someone could get hurt.”

  He prickles at the unsolicited parenting advice, but I don’t care. I hurry back toward the path, anxious to escape the sensation of someone looming behind me, the feeling of fingertips guiding me suddenly over the edge.

  * * *