The Lava Witch

Book 3: Dark Paradise Mystery

by Debra Bokur

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

In a remote, mountainous area of a Maui forest near Haleakala volcano, the naked body of a young woman is found hanging from a tree. The devil is in the details: the woman's nostrils, mouth, and lungs are packed with lava sand. Her hands are bound in twine. Her feet are charred and blackened, suggesting a fire-walking ceremony. Detective Kali Mahoe's suspicions are immediately aroused. It has all the signs of a ritual torture and murder.



But Kali's investigation soon leads her down a winding trail of seemingly unconnected clues and diverging paths—from the hanging tree itself, a rare rainbow eucalyptus, to rumors of a witch haunting the high areas of the forest, to the legend of the ancient Hawaiian sorceress Pahulu, goddess of nightmares. Casting a shadow over it all—the possibility of a Sitting God, a spirit said to invade and possess the soul.



Aided by her uncle Police Captain Walter Alaka'i, Officer David Hara, and the victim's brother, Kali embarks down the darkest road of all. One that is leading to the truth of the mountain's deadly core and a dark side of the island for which even Kali is unprepared.

Release date: May 31, 2022

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

The path snaked uphill, hedged in on either side by dense vegetation and endless forest. A heavy, soaking mist cloaked the rim of everything, forming a cloud canopy that blurred the tops of the towering redwoods and pines. The ground was slick with mud, and Detective Kali Mhoe slipped, grabbing for a branch of an ‘a‘ali‘i shrub that jutted into the trail in front of her. The branch of the hopbush dipped as she grasped it, her weight dragging it toward the ground. As she turned, scrambling to keep her footing in the thick muck, her hair, woven into a long braid that reached nearly to her waist, swung out and became entangled in the shrub’s smaller branches.

“Damn this place,” she swore, pulling at her unraveling braid.

“I thought,” said a voice from just behind her, the words punctuated with heavy wheezing, “you were a nature lover.”

“Yeah, but not when there’s a storm system lurking off the coast and everything is soaking wet,” she said. She swore again as a tall, broad man moved up beside her.

“Stay still for a second till I get you loose,” he instructed, his tone businesslike despite the unmistakable hint of breathlessness.

The voice belonged to her uncle, Maui Police Captain Walter Alaka’i. She glared at him, then down at the mud streaking her lower legs, fidgeting slightly as he gently worked at the snarl of hair and branch.

“Don’t pull!” she said, wincing as he separated bits of leaves and the shrub’s thin branch from her braid. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt deeply agitated and out of sorts.

“I’m not pulling. You are,” he said. “And don’t be such a baby. I have three daughters, remember? I know how to untangle hair.”

She did her best to stand still as Walter deftly finished freeing her. As he stepped away, she took a deep breath. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. It’s like this place . . .” She hesitated, then continued, “It’s like this place has something dark pressing down on it. It feels . . . wrong.”

“To me, it just feels cold,” said Walter. “I guess I don’t have your mystical sixth sense, or whatever it is.”

She turned and took a few steps forward. “Let’s just call it intuition.”

They resumed their trek. Kali agreed with Walter about the air. She rubbed her arms, berating herself for not having grabbed a heavier jacket than the light rain shell she wore. Even in Hawai‘i, the higher mountain paths could be chilly. The trail they were on was a segment of a network within Polipoli Spring State Recreation area, part of the greater Kula Forest Reserve in the southwest region of Maui. The wooded slopes approached the summit of Haleakal volcano, soaring over six thousand feet in elevation. The damp, chill air had added to the significant drop in temperature that came with the additional ground height.

“Do you know how much farther we need to go?” she asked, looking up and through the mist-shrouded forest ahead of them. “We’ve got to be pretty close to the summit.”

“Here’s hoping,” Walter responded, clearly winded by the effort of the climb. “The body’s supposed to be about a half mile in from where we turned onto this trail.”

“That’s pretty remote. I think the old caves and the crater cone are just south. Do you know if they’re going to try to land the chopper there?”

“Can’t get it in,” he answered. “It’s not safe. They’re going to have to carry her out. We’ve got mountain rescue on the scene to help.”

They continued through the trees. Kali was going to respond, but they’d just reached a slight rise that opened into a clearing, and could hear conversation. She recognized the voice of the coroner, Dr. Mona Stitchard, known privately to her colleagues as “Stitches.”

The conversation came to a halt as Kali and Walter stepped into a small, grassy space beneath a towering rainbow eucalyptus tree. The tree’s trunk was covered with narrow strips of peeling, papery bark that ranged in color from deep orange to purple and multiple shades of green. Several people dressed in white plastic crime scene gear were gathered beneath it, staring upward. Their gazes were held not by the startling natural colors of the massive trunk, but by the lone figure that dangled about seven feet off the ground from one of the tree’s thick branches.

The suspended figure belonged to a young woman. She was naked, and a rope was looped around her neck. Her face was tilted forward, obscured by a mass of curly brown hair. Her lifeless arms hung limp, fastened together with rough twine behind her back at the wrists. The fingertips of both hands were badly scraped. The soles of the girl’s feet, clearly visible from where the watchers stood, were partially charred and blackened.

Kali and Walter walked slowly toward a taped-off area surrounding the suspended figure, glancing at the ground at the base of the tree. A faint impression that might have been drag marks could be seen disappearing into the undergrowth on the north side of the clearing that ultimately led to the edge of a steep slope.

They stayed where they were in order to avoid contaminating the space. Stitches walked up to meet them. Like the others, her clothing was covered by a white jumpsuit and a white cap that confined her hair. She was wearing gloves and holding two packets that contained disposable outfits identical to her own. Two sets of booties rested on top of the packets, and she passed them to Walter and Kali. She said nothing, waiting for Kali to speak.

“A Eucalyptus deglupta,” said Kali, gesturing at the tree.

“Yes,” said Stitches. She removed her glasses, wiping a layer of condensation from the lenses. “The rainbow eucalyptus, though I didn’t think that would be the first thing you commented on.” She looked back at the tree. “Mostly native to the Philippines, I believe. Such an odd thing, isn’t it?”

Kali nodded. “There aren’t that many in Hawai‘i. You kind of have to know where to look for them.”

“Do you think the choice of tree might be significant?” asked Walter.

“Possibly,” said Kali slowly. She looked around, then back at the body. There was no shortage of other trees that would have served equally well, with thick, lower branches. Many of them would have been far easier to access.

Kali and Walter opened the packets and slipped on the thin plastic garments, covering their shoes with the booties. They ducked beneath the tape, moving toward the body. This close, Kali could smell the burned flesh of the girl’s feet and see the scratches that marked the skin of her torso and limbs. There were small bits of twigs and leaves snagged in the thick curls of her hair, as though she may have been dragged. The brown tresses were streaked with golden highlights, and the twigs seemed almost like small earthy ornaments that had been deliberately placed. Reaching up unconsciously to finger the end of her own bedraggled braid, Kali stared at the body, hanging close enough to the tree’s trunk to suggest—from the right angle—that the dead girl was merely leaning against it, poised in exhaustion for a moment of rest.

Kali did her best to remain dispassionate, but it was no good. That the woman had been tortured was clear. Pausing at the body’s side, Kali considered her immediate impressions. The woman’s physique was athletic and toned. The legs and buttocks were muscular, the biceps and shoulders well-defined. A thought flitted through her mind that the dead woman might have been a regular in a local gym, or an avid hiker.

“Who found her?” she asked.

“She was discovered by that park ranger over there,” said Stitches, nodding toward the group of people on the edge of the clearing. “He said he hadn’t been up this way for the past three days, but that there was nothing out of the ordinary in this area the last time he came through. He led us up from the ranger station at the midpoint on the trail.” Stitches stepped away. “I’ll be waiting over there with them while you make your initial observations. We can talk more once they’ve taken her down and I’ve had a better look.”

She left Kali with Walter by the body and walked away to where a small team had assembled with a stretcher, a ladder, and the necessary equipment for getting to a point in the tree that would allow them access to the girl. A gust of wind blew through the clearing, and the body swayed slightly as the branch from which it hung moved in the current. As the air shifted, the scent of death and charred skin swirled, renewed. The wind briefly lifted the hair off the woman’s face, and Kali stepped back, unable to look away from the open, staring eyes, their pale blue fading, no longer registering the surrounding world. Marks around the eyes and lips suggested that birds had already discovered the body and begun to take advantage of the soft tissues. She felt a wave of irritation that on top of everything else this person had been through, she was now being slowly and meticulously picked apart.

Walter edged closer. “You okay?” he asked. “You’ve suddenly got that intense look on your face that shakes everyone up. Kind of unnerving.”

She turned to him. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She gazed up at the tall tree and its peeling, multicolored bark. “I wonder if she got to see this tree. It’s magnificent.”

Walter shook his head. “What?”

“It’s extraordinary,” said Kali, her voice thoughtful. “I just hope that she got to see it. You know—maybe her view was filled with something beautiful as she took her last breath.”

“Now you’re just being weird.” Walter looked at her sideways. “You worry me sometimes.”

Her eyes swept the clearing and the surrounding forest, taking in the giant Cook pines whose crowns rose above the other trees, and the wondrous layers of greens that swept in leafy, undulating waves down the slopes into the valley below the clearing’s edge. She could hear the rush and tumble of water from a nearby fall, just out of view, and myriad gatherings of birds engaged in song. The girl in the tree had clearly died an agonizing death. Was it too much to hope that the beauty around her had offered some small measure of solace?

Kali could feel Walter’s stare. “Feel free to piss off,” she said.

“That’s no way for you to address an elder family member, who also just happens to be an officer who outranks you.”

“Nevertheless,” she said.

Walter looked up again at the lifeless body. “Noted,” he said, his voice quiet and suddenly serious. “At any rate, it’s time to get her out of here. If you’re through, I’ll give the go-ahead.”

Kali nodded her assent. “Okay.” She looked in the direction where the drag marks seemed to have led from. Several officers she recognized from the scene-of-crime crew were visible just beyond the border of the clearing, also looking at the ground. “I’ll go see if they know where she was brought here from, then catch up with you for the trek back down.” She watched him as she spoke. “I know the downhill part of a path is always your favorite direction.”

“Only you could make that sound like some kind of a character flaw,” said Walter. He turned away toward the waiting crew, gesturing for a ladder to be brought forward.

Kali no longer felt cold. Her mind was racing. She looked again at the girl, at her scratched body and disfigured feet. She was far higher off the ground than would have been necessary to cause death by hanging. Someone had gone to a lot of effort to get her into that tree. As Kali stepped away across the clearing, she made a silent, fervent vow to find out who that someone was—and what had made them do it.

The girl’s body was lowered carefully to the ground. Kali watched, her expression solemn, as Stitches stepped forward and placed her medical bag on the ground beside the rescue litter that was being used as a stretcher, and began a cursory examination. After a few moments, she signaled to Kali and Walter to join her.

“First, while she was hanging, she wasn’t hung,” said Stitches. “You understand the distinction?”

Both Kali and Walter nodded.

“Next, while it will take an autopsy to sort out the details, I think it’s clear she was dead before she was hoisted into the tree. Look closely at her nostrils. They’re packed with something dark, like thick dust. And,” she continued, opening the girl’s mouth slightly, “the same substance is filling the oral cavity, all of which suggests asphyxiation.”

Kali moved to the end of the stretcher, bending slightly to peer closely at the girl’s scorched feet. “What about these burns?”

“Her feet may have been held over an open flame,” said Stitches, her voice thoughtful. “Or some other devilry, such as a blowtorch, was directed at her. Exceptionally unpleasant, I’m sure. I highly doubt the damage was self-inflicted, though it’s also possible she was burned after she was no longer alive. I would suggest that at least some of the scratches and other marks on the limbs and torso may have been the result of an unsuccessful attempt to defend herself—or escape.”

Walter looked up at the tree, considering the thick branch. One of the more athletic members of the scene-of-crime team was stretched partially across it, one hand grasping the bark surface as he searched for any possible clue, his feet anchored on the rungs of the ladder.

“Then why all of this?” asked Walter. “If she was dead already, why the effort to get her into this tree?”

“Theater, perhaps,” said Stitches, still moving slowly around the stretcher. “A killer with a sense for staging.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Kali. “There may have been an element of that, but this feels more like a warning, or a statement of some kind—as though whoever it was who killed her wanted her to be seen.”

“This path isn’t one of the more commonly frequented ones,” argued Walter. “And, as you may have noticed, it’s ridiculously high. As far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no reason in the world to be here unless you’re a bird—especially when there are plenty of perfectly good paths at lower elevations. Those paths are where the tourists usually head, so if someone wanted maximum exposure for their work, it seems like this spot is a little bit out of the way.”

“Plenty of visitors come up here,” said Kali. “A lot of people actually enjoy hiking, you know. And who’s to say that someone wanted her found by a tourist? There may be a very local aspect to this.”

“Yes. Early days,” said Stitches. She turned to them, grasping the handle of her medical bag. “I’m going to estimate time of death as having occurred within the last thirty-six hours. We’ll all know more once we have her safely in the lab. It’s still early, so I’ll be in touch this afternoon or sometime tomorrow morning.” She glanced away, waving briefly to the mountain rescue team who were waiting silently at the edge of the clearing. She walked over to join them. “All yours, gentlemen. Let’s be careful with her, shall we?”

Kali’s eyes briefly met Walter’s. It struck her as unusual for Stitches to add such an addendum. She saw Walter shrug his shoulders almost imperceptibly in agreement. They stood, watching as the body was covered and strapped into place and carried into the mist along the lush trail. Stitches stepped onto the path, following close behind in the cheerless parade.

Another exhaustive search of the ground in and around the clearing picked up in momentum. Numerous soil samples were gathered to examine for evidence of the same dust that filled the girl’s mouth and nostrils. Kali and Walter moved away from the tree and joined Senior Scene of Crime Officer Ren Santos where he stood waiting at the point where the drag marks disappeared into the underbrush.

Ren gestured toward the path. “The girl was brought through here. Whether she was conscious, unconscious, dead, or alive is anyone’s guess at this point, of course. There’s no clear sign of a struggle, but since her hands were bound, that would be a tough call to make. We’ve got some footprints, and we did find this.”

He lifted a branch and held it out of the way as Kali and Walter walked past him into a small glade next to the larger clearing, separated by a swath of thick bushes and tall grass. It was about thirty feet from the tree where the nameless woman had been left. In the center of the glade was a firepit that had been crudely constructed of irregularly shaped stones. Burn marks marred the surface of the circle’s rim. From its edge, a narrow path of flat stones led away for a distance of about ten feet, then stopped abruptly. The surface and sides of the flat stones were blackened. Crime scene tape had been stretched along either side of the stone path, about three feet out from either side.

“This looks like someone staged a firewalking ceremony,” said Kali to Walter. She knelt beside the tape, peering at the ground and the surface of the stones. On each side, she could see a line of footprints running parallel with the line of rocks.

“If she was made to walk on the surface, these footprints were probably made by two people, each holding on to her from either side so that she had only one way to go,” said Kali. She looked up at Walter and Ren. “Do either of you see anything here that contradicts that theory?”

“Nothing,” said Walter.

“It’s what I’m thinking as well,” said Ren. “But why do you suppose someone made a path of stones leading away from the main pit?”

“If this was set up for firewalking,” she said, “which is what it looks like, then the stones leading away from the pit would have been heated in the main fire, then laid out as a route that the firewalker would travel across.” She moved to where the last stone had been placed, slightly out of line with the others. The drag marks began there, and the ground on either side of the marks was beaten down as though it had been trampled by multiple feet. “I’d say there were more than two people here,” she said.

Ren nodded. “We’ve identified four sets of footprints leading here, and three sets beyond the last stone, separate from the drag marks. None of those three sets is of bare feet, like the girl. Thanks to all this rain, they’re too indistinct to get accurate tread marks or trace them back to where they began on the path; but based on their size, my first guess would be three people of various sizes who dragged or carried her. We’ll analyze the prints further to see if there’s a chance we can determine height and weight ranges.”

Kali took a deep breath, looking from the small clearing in the direction of the larger space where the rainbow tree stood. She got up slowly, considering the surroundings and wondering why a murderer—or murderers—would choose to make the difficult climb when other options must surely have been available.

She turned to the two men. “Okay. I’d like to talk to the ranger now.”

Ren nodded. He led her to where a short, fit-looking man dressed in a park ranger’s uniform was waiting.

“This is Ranger Mark Shore,” said Ren. “Mark, this is Detective Kali Mhoe and Police Captain Walter Alaka’i. You up to answering some questions for them?”

Mark nodded. He stood awkwardly, holding his hat in his hand. He looked ill at ease.

“Hello, Ranger Shore,” said Kali. She gestured to the clearing. “Thanks for your help. Can you tell us if this is an official campsite?”

He shook his head. “It’s just Mark, please. And no—this is definitely not a sanctioned camping spot. This entire area, from the ranger station to the peak, is off-limits for campfires. It’s too difficult to get assistance up here if a fire breaks out.”

“So this fire pit was deliberately constructed,” Walter said.

“Yes,” said Mark.

Kali looked closely at Mark Shore. She guessed him to be in his early fifties. His uniform shirt was smeared with mud and grass stains.

“I expect you know this park pretty well,” she said.

He nodded. “Twenty-two years here.” He looked around at the thick, damp undergrowth. “Seen a lot of things. Couple of suicides, one from a gunshot. Pretty messy. One death by exposure from someone who got lost during a storm and fell into a ravine. He’d been there weeks by the time we found him. And there have been two hikers—different times—who crashed to their deaths on the rocks along the slope. One was just a kid.” He looked back to where the body had been left. “But this? I’ve never seen anything like this.” He looked directly at her. “I guess maybe cops get used to it?”

Kali considered his question. She looked at Ren and Walter, and then back at Mark. “No,” she said. “You never get used to it. You learn to manage it, but . . .” She chose her words carefully. “I think it’s the kind of thing you should never allow yourself to become unaffected by.”

He nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense.”

Walter sighed. “I remember that young hiker case, you know. High school kid. Turned out later he was having a rough time at school, getting bullied. He’d put himself on a physical training program to make himself stronger—all his own idea—and used to come up here to run the trails.” He shook his head at the memory.

“Yeah. It’s when you hear those details that it becomes more than just a story,” added Ren. He turned to the ranger. “You’ve been a big help so far, Mark, and if you could think a little bit about what you’ve noticed up here lately, it might be vital information that helps us track down the people involved in this girl’s death.”

Kali chimed in. “For instance, if you’ve noticed the same people coming up to this area, or onto the paths, during the past few months—or if you’ve heard anyone say anything that sounded even the least bit suspicious or odd. Anything that struck you as out of the ordinary. And the same goes from this point onward. If you can just pay attention to what you notice, and let us know, that would be truly helpful.”

“Sure. Of course. Nothing occurs to me right now, but my small staff and I have been up to our ears with clearing paths from that last storm. There were branches down everywhere, blocking the trails.”

“How many people are working with you?” asked Kali.

“Three.” Mark looked rueful. “I could use two dozen, but I’ve got one community volunteer and two part-time rangers.”

“Please check with them to see if they’ve noticed anyth. . .