"Creed. I've sworn an oath to uphold the moral and ethical standards of the funeral arts community and to practice my craft with dignity and respect. That's called a 'creed' and maybe you're prejudiced against me for it."

"Trish, I can assure you one-hundred percent I'm not discriminating against you. I'm totally onboard to do your December wedding, but I simply can't meet with you today. If you could stay over for a day or two maybe we could meet tomorrow."

"I've already got departed loved ones stacking up in my embalming room back home. There's no way my boss will let me take more time off."

"Well, I understand your time constraints since you only have a little over a month, but-"

"You think I'm getting married this Christmas?"

"Yes, I thought you said-"

"No, silly. Buddy proposed for us to get married next year. I'm going to need at least a year to figure out everything I want and make sure it's absolutely perfect. Who in their right mind would have a wedding in only a month?"

I could've told her I could fill a book with stories of crazy brides wanting hurry-up weddings, but I chose to simply stick with the subject at hand. "Well then, we have plenty of time. How about I send you a really nice wedding planning album, where you can start writing down all your ideas and paste in pictures of the things you love? I'll also get you subscribed to Hawaii Bride. It's a beautiful magazine dedicated solely to brides doing destination weddings in the islands."

"Okay. I was hoping to meet with you before I go, but I guess that'll have to do."

"Don't worry, this is actually a good thing. In the wedding industry we see so many changes from year to year. What's trendy this Christmas will be passe by next. We should meet no earlier than six months out from your wedding date. That way, you can be assured of having only the freshest, most up-to-the-minute trends and styles."

"Hmm. I guess that makes sense," she said.

Once again, I'd BS'd my way out of a tight spot.

"Great," I said. "Send me an email when you get home with your street address and I'll be sure to get that wedding album and magazine subscription on their way to you right away."

"Okay. So, I guess I'll see you next summer."

"Looking forward to working with you, Trish."

"Me too. Oh, and Pali?"

"Yeah?"

"Please try real hard to stay out of jail. At least until after my wedding."

"Will do." I gave her a half-hearted chuckle and hung up.

I got out of the car and listened. I strained to hear screams-either ancient or modern-but the only sound was the brisk valley wind rustling leaves on the trees. I got back inside and checked my watch: I still had forty minutes to go.

I turned the radio on to my favorite station, KPOA-FM, and they were playing a goofy song about partying all weekend and dreading work on Monday. I thought about Beni singing the beer bottle song and it hit me: I should use my time waiting for Ono to figure out how long it had taken Beni to get to the campsite.

I pulled out my cell phone and punched through the menu until I got to the stop watch feature. I started singing. I sang the song slowly, like Farrah had demonstrated. It took me fifteen seconds to finish one stanza. If Beni went from ninety-nine to thirteen, that meant he sang eighty-six stanzas, more or less. I then found the calculator on the cell phone and punched in the numbers. Assuming Beni hadn't stopped singing while he was hiking, the calculator gave me an answer of twenty-one and a half minutes. He'd probably taken a few breaths between stanzas so that could've added a minute or two. So, a rough estimate was it should take us between twenty-one and twenty-five minutes to get to the campsite. Less than half an hour? I was glad I'd taken time to figure it out-it lifted my spirits a little. I mean, how hard could it be to find a place that was only a half-hour away?

I was daydreaming when Ono came up and rapped on the window. He'd looped a khaki canvas daypack over one shoulder and was wearing camo print cargo shorts and a black tee-shirt. I considered giving him some grief over his 'Rambo-style' get-up, but let it go. After all, it was early Sunday morning; if I hadn't called, he'd probably still be snug in his bunk.

I got out and he gave me a quick hug. "How ya doin'?" he said.

"As well as can be expected, I guess. What's the idea you were working on before you came up here?"

"It's not a done deal yet. I'll let you know if it pans out."

We trudged up the road to the park entrance and I looked around. It was not yet eight thirty, but a smattering of visitor cars were already parked in the lot.

The park was densely wooded, so it was hard to tell where the tourists were, but most visitors head directly for the steps leading up to the vantage point for the 'Iao Needle. The needle isn't really a spike-like rock formation-it's more an optical illusion. From the overlook it looks like a single spire of rock but it's really the thin end-piece of a massive rock ridge that runs along the valley. From the viewing platform you can see beautiful views of the stream as it winds its way up into the valley. Turn around and you're looking down slope into the mouth of the valley as it opens out to the flatlands beyond Wailuku.

Ono and I took the trail to the left. It was a rather steep paved walkway down to fast-rushing 'Iao Stream.

"Water looks pretty deep," he said.

"Yeah, well as my Auntie Mana used to say, 'You're not sugar-you won't melt'."

"I wasn't worried about melting," he said. "What worries me is if you lose your footing on one of these boulders, I'll probably have to go down and fish you out of Kahului Bay."

"Me? I'm the one with the black belt, remember? I can balance on the head of a pin."

"Great. But let's see how well you balance on a slippery round rock with a hundred gallons of water rushing around it. You want to take my hand?"

"No, I think we'll both have a better chance going it on our own."

"You first, or me?"

"Are you stalling, Kingston? 'Cuz it sounds to me like you're the one worried about getting wet."

With that, he hopped onto the first rock-balanced for a few seconds-and then hopped onto the next. I followed. At first I focused on the dirt embankment on the other side of the swiftly-moving stream, but I soon figured out it was easier to focus on the next rock-and then the one after that-in order to plan my next move.

About halfway across, I balanced on a steeply sloped boulder with an uneven top. I tried to maintain my footing as I watched the flashing stream roar around me. The din of the rushing water swept away all other sound. I felt suspended in an alternate universe of enveloping white noise, a swiftly shifting landscape of blue-black water, and bracing clear air.

I heard someone yell above the roar and I looked to the opposite side. Ono had already made it across. His face was pinched and frowning. He held out his hand as if reaching to pull me forward. I could just barely hear what he was shouting at me.

"You okay? You need me to come back and get you?"

I shook my head, and in doing so I lost my balance. I felt my foot sliding-almost as if in slow-motion-off the boulder and then into the stream. In a split second I was thigh-deep in the frigid water. I quickly grabbed onto the misshapen rock and pulled myself up, but my pants and sneakers were soaked.

"I'll come-" Ono started to say, but I cut him off.

"No! Stay there. I'm fine."

I hopped across the rest of the rocks and grabbed Ono's outstretched hand to hoist myself onto the bank.

"You okay?" Ono said. "How about your phone? Is it still working?"

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket. It wasn't damaged, but it showed no service in the area.

"My phone's fine. And I'm good. We're both a little damp, but as my Auntie Mana would say-"

"Yeah, so I've heard. Why don't you give me the phone and I'll put it in my backpack. That way it can't fall out of your pocket."

We slipped through the bushes and small trees that grew thick along the bank. It was slow going, since there was no trail, only dense foliage and basketball-size rocks we had to maneuver around. The terrain was steep and I couldn't imagine Beni singing-even silently-as he made his way through this dense thicket while trudging up the sharp incline.

I checked my watch: four minutes to ten. If we were on the right track we should come across the campsite at about twenty after ten. I wasn't in any hurry to see what waited for me there, but I was eager to get it over with.

Every now and then the thick brush and trees would open up to a small area with flat ground covered by thin clumps of grass. We'd move through the flat area quickly and be back to hacking through foliage in less than a minute. The brilliant green of the valley was almost hard on my eyes. I'd learned in school that 'Iao Valley is in a rain forest which gets nearly four hundred inches of rain per year at the top of the Pu'u Kukui summit. Most of the rain drains into the 'Iao Stream, but a lot of it soaks into the ground making it possible for the thousands of bushes and trees to grow tightly packed together.

We didn't talk much. Ono kept looking back to check if I was still in sight but then he'd move on. It almost seemed as if he had a schedule to keep, but maybe he felt like I did and just wanted to get this whole wretched ordeal over with.

My soggy cropped pants stuck to my legs and my sneakers squished with every step but the air temperature was warm. The exertion of the constant uphill climb stoked my body heat. I kept checking my watch. At ten after ten I slowed down and started checking out the landscape, looking for recently disturbed soil. Ono turned to look back, saw I'd fallen behind and stopped. He didn't look too pleased with my dallying, but I didn't care. If we overshot our destination we'd end up hopelessly lost.

At a quarter after ten, the terrain flattened out. We'd entered a small meadow about the size of the lot my house sits on in Hali'imaile. Trees framed the sides of the meadow, but in the center the ground was level, with soft red soil covered by a thin layer of grass.

Ono reached into his daypack and pulled out my cell phone. He used it to take a few pictures of the meadow, then turned and snapped one of me. He didn't need to tell me to smile because I already was. Thanks to Beni's silly drinking song we'd safely arrived at the perfect place to dig a grave.

CHAPTER 26.

Except there was no grave. Nor was there a single shred of evidence that a former campsite had been anywhere near there. We scoured the area like two people searching for a lost contact lens but we came up short on all counts.

"Did we make a wrong turn?" I said.

"How could we make a wrong turn?" said Ono. "There was only one way to go."

"Except we crossed the stream at the low point in the park and then headed up the valley from there."

"Yeah, so?" said Ono. He looked like he was waiting for me to smack my forehead and admit I'd just remembered Beni hadn't said 'Iao Valley, but rather Waihe'e Valley, which is miles away on the north shore.

"Well, the 'Iao Stream splits down by the park," I said. "Maybe Beni was talking about a different fork of the stream-like down by the footbridge. If he went up into the valley from there, he would've ended up in a totally different place."

Ono stared up at the sky for half a minute before answering. "Remember when I told you I needed a couple hours to check out an idea?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I've got a buddy who owes me a favor. I think it's time to call it due."

We made our way back down to the park in no time. It always seems that way; it takes forever to go someplace and then you can get back in a flash. We crossed the stream at the same place we had earlier and this time I didn't dally, and I didn't fall in.

"You want to go up that way-into the other side of the valley?" I said, pointing at the other branch of the stream as we crossed over the footbridge.

"Nah. Let's just go on down to my car. I need to make a call."

We walked down the road and he stopped next to an ancient VW van. It was two-tone, red on the bottom and dirty white on the top. It looked like it'd been up on blocks for at least a couple of decades-lots of rust damage and a sun-bleached paint job that made it look pink in spots.

"Wow, dude," I said. "I'm glad to see there's someone on this island with a sadder-looking ride than mine."

"Hey," he said, "these wheels are classic. Nineteen sixty-four VW bus, nearly one-hundred percent stock-inside and out. Even the color's stock: sealing wax red and beige grey. It's hard to come by one of these babies that's still running."

"Well, I gotta admit, I've got a girlfriend up in Pa'ia who'd go absolutely pupule over your little hippie bus. Where'd you get it?"

"Bought it off an old auntie up in Makawao. She said her husband hung on to it after their son got killed in the war."

"Iraq or Afghanistan?" I asked.

"Nah, way back in Vietnam. Seems the son bought it new and his father couldn't bear to part with it. But now the old guy's dead too . I rebuilt the engine. It runs great, but I'm not so good with body work. It's quite the conversation piece wherever I go. I had a guy come up to me at Costco a few weeks ago and offer to trick it up like a 'hippie love wagon'-you know, throw on some peace signs and doves and stuff. I told him the faded paint and rust holes were hippie enough for me."

"My folks were hippies," I said. "Real hard core. In the '70's they lived up in the trees at Taylor's Camp on Kauai. I wonder what they'd have thought of the stuff we have now-you know, cell phones and Internet dating."

"Your folks are no longer around?"

"No. I was 'little orphan Pali' at a pretty young age."

"That's too bad. But if they were anything like my folks I can give you a hint how they'd be now. Back in the day, my folks were hard-core hippies too. Free love, organic everything, a couple of 'special plants' under grow lights in the basement. Now they live on an Arizona golf course, take country-western dance lessons, and typically eat dinner around four o'clock in the afternoon."

He pulled out a huge wad of keys and unlocked the passenger door. I crawled up onto the cracked leatherette seat. The van even smelled hippie-like a gunny sack full of mangoes that'd been left outside on a hot day.

He got in on his side and pulled a cell phone from under the driver's seat. He flipped it open and hit a speed-dial number. "Gordon? Yeah, it's me again. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to fire it up." There was a pause and then he said, "Mahalo. We'll be down in a flash."

He snapped the phone shut and turned to me. "You think you can handle going out to the airport? I hear your name's been added to the no-fly list, so if you wanna skip it, just say the word." He laughed. I didn't.

The VW van seemed to have a maximum speed of about forty. Cars zipped around us as we headed down out of Wailuku into Kahului and then out onto the airport road. Ono was conscientious and chugged along in the right lane, even pulling onto the shoulder if people tried to pass when there was oncoming traffic.

"Are you going to fill me in on why we're going to the airport?" I said.

"We're gonna do some reconnaissance. 'Recon' that will probably save us time and sweat." He turned right at Old Haleakala Highway.

"I thought we were going to the airport," I said. "You turned too soon."

"No, we're going to the other side of the runway."

I didn't question him. I'd been to that side of the airport earlier in the year. It's where the private planes land.

"We're going to the private terminal?"

"Close. We're going to the heliport, where the choppers are based."

I perked up. I'd flown countless hours in commercial jets as a federal air marshal but I'd never been up in a helicopter. "Are we going for a ride?"

"Yep. I've got a friend who's offered us a flyover of 'Iao Valley. I want to see if we can spot anything from the air."

"I suppose under the circumstances it's kind of tacky to say 'yippee'."

"Regardless of the circumstances, I think 'yippee,' is in order," he said. "I can never decide which I love more: sailing Tomika's cat or flying in one of Gordon's birds."

"You ever wish you could own something like that yourself-you know, a catamaran or maybe a little private plane?"

"You know, I've thought about it, but it never pencils out. The maintenance, the insurance premiums, the fuel cost. At this point in my life I'm content being the sidekick-the friend with benefits."