The Bone Field by Debra Bokur (top e book reader txt) 📕

deep valley to the past where so much blood had seeped into the ground beneath the trees, feeding their roots.

Tomas’s voice interrupted her thoughts, bringing her suddenly and firmly back to the field.

“Here we go,” Tomas crooned with satisfaction, climbing from the hole and passing a small metal object to Kali.

Kali lifted it with her fingertips, peering at it closely, and then placed it in the palm of her left hand. A wave of familiarity washed over her. It was a tiny anchor, the arm at the bottom of the shank flattened out into a straight bar, and a small round hole where the top bars met. To all appearances, it was identical to the one that had been found in the pocket of the headless man.

“Here we go indeed,” repeated Kali softly. The possibility of mere coincidence, or that two random burials had taken place in the same location, vanished. She surveyed the huge sweep of pineapple field. The majority of it had been turned over, but there were areas that still needed to be searched. Her eyes followed the line between the first grave and the second. Though there was considerable distance between them, they appeared to be roughly aligned with the edge of the service road that bordered the field. She turned to Tomas, who stood waiting for direction. “Ask the crew to concentrate on the field’s perimeter where it’s accessible by the service road,” she said.

He nodded his assent, and headed off to speak to the backhoe operator. She texted Walter, receiving an almost immediate reply that he’d take a launch over to meet her early the next morning.

Kali sat back on her feet, wondering how many other lonely things the ma‘o hau hele roots might have brushed against as they reached downward in their search for water and nutrients. She looked at the shrubs scattered across the landscape, imagining their flowers filled with the souls of the nameless dead.

CHAPTER 9

Kali spent the night at the Hotel Lna‘i, rising early to meet with Tomas for a quick breakfast in the small dining room. Walter had already texted that he’d arrived at the command center and was waiting for them to make their way there.

Their coffee cups had just been filled by a quiet, shy waitress when there was a crackle from the radio that was secured within a pouch in Tomas’s duty belt. At almost the same moment, Kali’s cell phone began to vibrate, jiggling slightly on the table where she’d placed it. They exchanged glances as each answered, and Tomas signaled to the waitress that they needed to leave. She hurried over with two paper to-go cups, transferring their coffee from the mugs on the table. As they made their way to the door, the same waitress met them, thrusting a large paper bakery bag into Tomas’s hand.

“Coconut donuts.” She smiled. “For the road. I put in extra.”

Tomas nodded, accepting the bag with gratitude. “Mahalo, Claire.”

Kali looked at him as they crossed over onto the lanai. “Let me guess,” she said. “You let her off a speeding ticket.”

“Not even close,” he said. “Her kids are on the softball team I coach. One of her daughters is having a hard time, so we’re working on her batting technique.”

They stopped on the bottom step, out of earshot of the staff and guests. Kali turned to Tomas.

“I’m guessing that we got the same message,” she said.

“Another body. They’re still uncovering it.”

“That’s three. What do you make of this?”

He shook his head. “Who knows? Creepy as hell, though.”

“Makes you think. All those stories about the monsters on this island. Man-eating fiends that hunted the living.”

“They were conquered, remember? Banished a long time ago.”

She looked at him quizzically. “You’ve been in this business a long time now. There are always plenty of monsters to spare. And not all of them are found in the shadows of old stories.”

He made no response as they walked to the street where the patrol car was parked. They climbed inside, and Tomas pulled away from the curb. The sky was clear and bright, and Kali watched the morning shadows slip by along the road’s verge as Tomas drove toward the pineapple field. The old legend that he’d referred to painted Lna‘i as an island haunted by malevolent spirits. In the traditional tale, it was the wayward son of a powerful Maui chief who finally vanquished and expelled the evil forces that had taken up residence among the sloping valleys.

As though he’d been thinking about the same details, Tomas turned to her.

“It was Kaulu‘au, right? The chief’s son who did the housecleaning here? I forget why he was in trouble.”

“For pulling up all the breadfruit trees on Maui,” she said.

“Kaulu‘au’s father sent him here as punishment, but he eventually redeemed himself by casting out the evil and making the island safe again.”

“I wonder . . .” said Tomas, his voice trailing off.

“Yeah,” said Kali. “Seems like he might not have checked under all the rocks.”

They’d reached the turnoff that led down a gentle slope to the investigation assemblage area. By the time Tomas had set the parking brake, Kali already had one foot out of the door. Tomas followed her as she hurried to the edge of the field, past the site where the refrigerator had been discovered and the second body had been found, and onward another two hundred feet to where Stitches, Walter, and a few of the SOC crew were waiting. The volunteer diggers stood silently behind them.

Kali stopped next to Walter.

“Good timing getting here,” she said.

“Yeah. Most of another skeleton has been uncovered, but digging’s on hold.” He looked at the white bakery bag in Tomas’s hand. “What’s in that bag?”

Tomas passed over the pastries. Walter reached inside, removing a large donut covered in toasted coconut.

Stitches looked up at Kali. “Glad you’re still on-island,” she said. “We can’t get a Burial Council official here until about noon, but they said if you’re