Moana's Secrets (Detective Reef Kahili Mystery, #2) by J.M. Calverley

Author:J.M. Calverley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: multi-racial, murder mystery, murder mystery hawaii, murder mystery romance, detective murder mystery, suspense mystery, mystery thriller, paradise hawaiian mystery, wired toby neal, police procedure hawaii, hawaii mystery
Publisher: J.M. Calverley
Published: 2018-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

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Kalani’s a certified PADI diver, and we take another police diver with us. Armando and I will man the boat and provide dive support.

“You don’t go diving, Armando?” I ask him.

“Nah, too wet for me.” He grins.

The trip up the Hamakua Coast is gorgeous, the day clear, with little wind. The seas always a little rougher on this side, and not the sparkling tropical turquoise in the deeper waters compared to the island’s west side. But the scenery’s spectacular. Intense green gulches, old sugarcane fields, narrow river valleys lined with tropical orange flame trees, lush-looking palms, and philodendrons climbing host trees to the heavens. It’s wild and untamed-looking, pure old Hawai’i.

But it also hosts an ever-changing number of fruit and vegetable farms. I still remember when there were a ton of papaya and banana farms. Now sweet potato and ginger are grown here. Along with tea.

Mum makes a gingerbread cake with about a pound of young, fresh ginger grated into it. God, it’s good. Drunk with a cup of locally grown tea, it’s perfect. It’s only been since I was a kid that Hawai’i started producing its own tea in bigger quantities, although it’s still a boutique product and not nearly as big as the Kona coffee industry. Surprisingly the climate on the east coast at elevation is ideal for tea growing.

Onomea Tea Company is up this way at Papaikou, and Big Island Tea’s at Mountain View, south of Hilo. They handpick all their leaves and the higher elevation produces a slighter sweeter black tea which I like. I’ve always been fascinated by Sri Lanka. It’s a romantic idyll—once called Ceylon under British rule—it reeks of days gone by at a much slower pace with tea plantations in the cool, green, hill country districts of Kandy, home of Ceylon tea.

“Reef. Reef?”

“What?” I come back from my romantic travels with Kalani trying to get my attention.

“Where did you go? he asks, waving a hand in front of my face.

“Ceylon for a nice of cup of tea and a biscuit.”

He grins.

Damn, I was enjoying that. It gave my brain some respite from the relentless churning it’s been doing the past few days. Please let us find something, anything, up here.

We make fairly good time, and once we’re past Waipi’o Valley, the long velvety green fingers of the towering pali’s with almost vertical cliff faces stretching down to the sea loom above us. Waipi’o to Polulu Valley is largely uninhabited virgin, unspoiled land. Narrow ribbon waterfalls with long drops into small, clear pools and tiny secluded beaches make this look like the lost Shangri-la or the mythic Bali Hai.

I line the photographs up with the current view, and we have the old buoy dive spot fairly accurately placed. Kalani and Dave suit up and prepare for the chilly plunge over the side. At this depth, it will be a bit cool.

Armando makes us a hot drink, and I stare, mesmerized up at the cliffs, as if they’re about to reveal their secrets to me.

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