Kona Hawaii
There’s nothing like a hot-blooded Filipina with a bad attitude pointing a butterfly knife at you first thing in the morning to get your adrenaline pumping. That wasn’t Mike Murphy’s preferred way to start the day. Once again, Simmy had accused him of cheating on her with another woman. And he was sick of it. It was 6:30 a.m. as the sun rose over Hualalai Mountain and turned the puffy white clouds above Kailua Bay cotton candy pink.
Mike paddled his one-man canoe over the reef, heading toward Kaiwi Point. Most days he paddled south toward Keauhou. But that morning there was a fishing tournament about to start in Kona. There were twenty-five boats entered, they jockeyed for the best position near the Kailua Pier, and he didn’t want to get tangled up with them.
Those rich guys were trying to get the jump on the other boats at the start of the tournament. They could be cutthroat as they raced off to the fishing grounds. A canoe, versus a forty-five-foot Cabo fishing yacht, doesn’t get any right-of-way. But what the canoe might get was flipped by the wake. And it was too early in the morning to huli the boat as far as he was concerned.
Mike used his time on the ocean every morning to think about life in general and whatever he had planned for the day. Today, he had two pressing issues. One of them was a woman who loved him in an unhealthy jealous kind of way. And the other, a billionaire neighbor who wanted to buy his small resort, Aloha Village, so it could be bulldozed and replaced with a casino mega-resort.
Mike tried to quit thinking about his crazy girlfriend and just be at one with the ocean while he dug his paddle deep into the water with each stroke. His canoe moved fast through the light swells when the first dolphin exploded out of the water. It cleared his head by mere inches as it crossed over to the starboard side and drenched him with seawater spray that flew off its body.
“Damn it, Koa!” Mike yelled at the dolphin as it circled the canoe. He was on guard now. He knew Kiki wasn’t far behind and expected her to leap out of the ocean any second. Hopefully not over his head, as Koa had just done. That behavior was not typical of dolphins in the wild. But these two were not wild, or normal. They were highly trained, and they belonged to his brother Jack. According to the government, they belonged to the US Navy and were only in Jack’s care. But, in reality, they were Jack’s.
Mike made a mental note he needed to call his brother after he paddled and ask him if he could look into the problem neighbor. Jack had the resources to run a background check even though he had technically retired six months earlier from NCIS in Honolulu. Jack had moved to Kona to start a sport fishing business, but still worked part-time for the government doing contract work.
Mike felt there was something rotten about his neighbor Mr. Lau; it was a nagging feeling that just wouldn’t go away. But he knew Jack would find out if there was anything to be worried about.
Mr. Lau owned the Ming Resort next door to Mike’s property and had made several offers to buy Aloha Village. Most people took no for an answer. Not Lau. The word no didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary. Not even after Mike had told him, for the third time, that he was not interested in selling at any price. And certainly not so Lau could expand the Ming into a casino.
As Mike’s canoe rounded Kaiwi Point, he decided it was time to paddle back to the pier. He needed to call Jack to see if he was back from Hong Kong yet.
After putting the canoe on top of his Tundra, he drove to the Old Kona Airport to chill at the beach while he called Jack. He parked by the first palm tree near the water and walked to the picnic table on the sand. He sat down on the bench and took a couple of minutes to watch the waves before he made the call.
After a few minutes of watching the waves, a thought popped into his head that maybe he should hedge his bet and email his daughter Jessica, since it seemed he could never get her on the phone. The email was short, he only asked her to call him when she had time. The more cops the better he thought as he clicked the send button on his phone.
Mike dialed Jack and got the answering machine. “Hey, Jack, call me when you get in. I need to talk to you.”
A few seconds later his phone rang. He glanced at the number on the screen, he hoped it was Jack, but it wasn’t.
“Aloha, Mike speaking.”
“Howzit, Mike, this is Kimo, returning your call. You left a message yesterday. Are you still interested in the dive boat I have for sale on Craigslist?”
“Yeah, is it still available?”
“It is, but I got one guy that says he’s coming to look at it later this afternoon. But you know how that goes. If you want to check it out, I’ll be here all day today.”
“Where’s the boat located?”
“Hilo,” answered Kimo.
“Okay, text me your address, and I’ll leave right now.”
“Shoots, brah, I send’m.”
Mike needed to replace the resort’s dive boat right away because it had a blown engine. Every day the boat didn’t operate cost him income he couldn’t afford to lose.
Kimo’s boat was over ninety miles from Kona. Mike decided it was better to fly his plane to Hilo instead of driving. He could get there faster and check it out before the other potential buyer. He got up from the picnic table and dialed Kona Air Services as he walked across the beach back to his truck.
Kai Santos picked up the phone right away.
“Air Services, Kai speaking, how may I help you?”
“Howzit, Kai. Mike Murphy here. I need to banzai to Hilo real quick to check out a boat. Can you fuel my plane?”
“Shoots, brah, no problem. It’ll be ready to go by the time you get here.”
“Mahalos, Kai.” Mike hung up the phone and headed to the Kona airport.
On the way to the airport, Mike’s truck got a flat on the highway.
“Oh damn!” Mike said, as he realized he’d forgotten to put the lug wrench back in the truck after loaning it to a friend.
He waited for an hour for someone with the right size wrench to stop and help. That put him an hour behind schedule and in a huge rush to get to Hilo. He arrived at the airport and thanked Kai for having his plane fueled and ready to go.
After a thorough preflight, he sat on the taxiway, and waited for clearance, from the tower, as the Gulfstream jet in front of him roared down the runway.
A minute later he heard through his headset, “November Hotel Juliet 224, cleared for takeoff.”
“November Hotel Juliet 224 cleared for takeoff,” Mike copied back to the controller and then applied full throttle and sped down the runway. The Beechcraft Bonanza lifted off and climbed above the lava field. At a little over three hundred feet, the engine died, and the plane stalled. There wasn’t enough altitude to recover from the stall, and the small plane plunged straight into the lava rocks below. Mike Murphy died instantly in the crash.
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