Restless Waters Page 9

  But Sammy looked at me grimly and shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. The truth is, I’ve been warned to keep my mouth shut.”

  I’d been told the same thing many times. However, it was always when I’d gone against my boss’s wishes while in the midst of a case.

  “And why would they do that?” I asked, wondering if he was an inveterate complainer.

  “Because there’s too much money at stake. Or is that so difficult for you to comprehend?” he said bitterly. “It’s gotten bad enough that I’ve even been threatened.”

  Sammy annoyed the hell out of me, yet his body language seemed to suggest he was telling the truth. His shoulders drooped and he looked nervously around, as if checking to make sure that we hadn’t been followed. His facial bruises further intensified his glowering expression. I didn’t know whether it was the situation, or Sammy’s demeanor, but I was definitely beginning to feel on edge.

  “Do you have any idea who’s threatening you?” I questioned.

  “It could be anyone,” he responded with a tense shrug. “I’ve been receiving anonymous phone calls. Why else do you think I’m here? You’re my last hope.” He emphasized his desperation with a short, mirthless laugh.

  I might have believed him more if he’d narrowed down the list. But “anyone” took in a whole lot of people. Surely the entire world wasn’t against him.

  “Sorry, Sammy. But I’m having a hard time buying this,” I told him.

  Kalahiki’s stare was icy as a New York City sidewalk on a cold winter’s day.

  “Then you obviously don’t know much about Hawaii. This place is corrupt to the bone. I’m talking every single agency, from the local police department on up.”

  I was beginning to think that Sammy was more than a little paranoid; he was pretty much whacked. But it was also evident that he was scared for his life.

  “Oahu’s like a fishbowl where everyone knows everyone else. The sleaziness, networking, and payoffs are rampant and in your face,” he ranted. “Not only that, but the politics here are brutal. The intent is to keep the public fat and happy, while making sure they know as little as possible about what’s really going on.”

  “Don’t you think you’re getting carried away with all this?” I suggested, trying to inject a note of reality.

  “You’re sadly mistaken if you don’t believe that people are being bribed and paid off,” he warned, a note of hysteria edging into his voice. “It’s probably even going on within your own office.”

  I chose to brush off the comment. Norm Pryor might be a lot of things—such as a lazy, bureaucratic numbskull. But that didn’t make him corrupt. Hell, I didn’t think he even had the smarts for it.

  “This is the federal government you’re talking about,” I pointedly reminded him.

  “Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And since when did the federal government become so squeaky clean that they’re above deception?” Kalahiki’s eyes blazed as he glared at me. “For chrissakes, why won’t anybody listen?” he asked in frustration.

  “Probably because what you’re saying sounds crazy. Believe me, I know there are plenty of problems. But how can you accuse entire agencies of being corrupt?” I calmly questioned.

  “Okay. So maybe it’s not entire agencies,” he admitted gruffly. “Just a few key players in Oahu. But that’s more than enough.”

  “Those are serious charges,” I responded.

  Kalahiki picked up a stone and threw it into the sea, where it instantly disappeared.

  “That’s what I feel like, you know. A tiny worthless pebble. Look, I understand that if you want something done, you usually have to do it yourself. But I can’t. Not with this. It’s too big.” Kalahiki’s voice cracked, and his eyes welled up. “Why am I putting my own life at risk if someone like you doesn’t even care? This is unbelievable. It’s as if I’m one of those sharks that’s gotten caught in a net that it can’t get out of.”

  With that, Kalahiki turned and began to pound his fist on the coral rock.

  “Okay, then. Convince me,” I suggested. “Tell me why anyone in National Marine Fisheries would secretly decide to ignore the shark-finning ban.”

  Sammy rubbed his hands against his pants and took a deep breath.

  “Think about it. What department does the National Marine Fisheries Service fall under?” he challenged.

  “It’s a division within the Department of Commerce,” I automatically said, and then caught myself.

  Damn! My mouth fell open as I began to realize what Kalahiki might be getting at.

  “That’s right,” he verified with a tight smile. “And just how does the Department of Commerce make its money?”

  “Through the exploitation of natural resources,” I responded.

  Which is exactly what the National Marine Fisheries Service is supposed to protect, I thought, filling in the blanks as a mental lightbulb went on.

  “Exactly. Now you’re beginning to get the picture,” Sammy confirmed. “We’re talking about one very schizoid agency. What do you think would happen to a senior-level manager who went to his boss and said, ‘Excuse me, sir. But turtles, birds, and sharks are being caught in longliner nets. We’ve kept a lid on it so far, but we don’t want to continue to hurt the poor things. Something will have to be done about it.’”

  I laughed to myself, having a pretty good idea.

  “He’d be out on his ass so fast that your head would spin,” Sammy said, not waiting for a response. “No way is the Department of Commerce going to let anyone ruin a multi-million-dollar business. In other words, the commercial fishing industry.”

  Sammy was right about one thing. Industrial fishing had been strip-mining the oceans for years, essentially wiping out ninety percent of large fish, and imperiling commercially valuable species. Even so, they continued to be protected, and suffered very little consequence.

  “That does present one hell of a conflict of interest,” I agreed.

  “You damn well better believe it. So now tell me. How can National Marine Fisheries protect marine life and defend the fishing industry at the same time? I’ll answer the question for you. They don’t. Whatever information I give them goes right into a black hole.”

  “I think you’re overstating it,” I responded. “Certainly there are biologists within NMFS who care about the resource.”

  “Yeah. Except they’re working for an agency that’s skewed toward industry,” Sammy countered. “They also get pressured by Hawaii’s high-powered politicos.”

  If that were true, then it was the same old story. It all came down to a matter of job security. And it was well known what happened to whistleblowers.

  “My bosses don’t want to hear about any protected species interactions with longliners. Why?” Sammy held up a hand to stop me from interrupting. “Because the last thing they intend to do is cause the fishing industry any more harm. Longliners raked in well over a million dollars a year in Hawaii when shark finning was legal,” Kalahiki revealed. “Why do you think that even NMFS fought against the ban?”

  “But I’d always heard that fins were given to the crew as a bonus, and that their sale amounted to little more than beer money,” I responded.

  “Sure. That’s exactly what the industry wanted the public to believe. But the truth is a far different story. As for those boat owners who did give the fins to their crew? It was only because they’d hired illegal Filipino workers who were being paid almost nothing. Shark fins were how their salaries were subsidized without money coming out of the owners’ pockets,” Sammy revealed. “However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to what’s really going on in the trade.”

  “Maybe so. But you just said it yourself. All of that took place before finning became illegal,” I once again pointed out.

  “Yeah, you’re right about that,” Sammy agreed. “Things have certainly changed. The trade has now gone underground and turned far deadlier.”

  “In what way?” I asked, my cur
iosity becoming even more aroused. Maybe there actually was something to what Sammy was saying.

  Sammy bit off a hangnail and spit it out. “Okay, I’ll give you an example. Do you remember hearing about a guy who was found off Pier 32 the other day?”

  I nodded. How could I forget? It’s what had prompted me to take an unplanned drive along the docks yesterday.

  “Well, that was Charlie Hong, owner of Pacific Catch Products. Except the only product he ever dealt in was shark fins. And I can assure you that he didn’t go for a swim in his business suit. The other thing I’m convinced of is that Charlie didn’t commit suicide. He was a victim of the shark-fin wars.”

  “Do you want to explain what you mean by that?” I asked, having never heard the term before.

  “Listen, shark fins are precious as gold. Charlie knew that better than most. After all, he’d been dealing in the stuff for years. In fact, the ban only made his business all the more lucrative.”

  What Kalahiki said made sense. It was a well-known fact that the price goes up when a resource becomes rare.

  “The thing was that it also made him more greedy. Word has it that Hong tried to corner the market by undercutting another dealer. That bit of sticky business was resolved by giving Charlie the old heave-ho.” Sammy gleefully swung his arms as though he were tossing a fish off a boat.

  The shark-fin trade had to be worth big bucks, if people were willing to kill for it.

  “But I thought he’d been eaten by a shark,” I responded.

  “Who? Charlie? Yeah, he was—once he’d been lying in the water for a couple of hours,” Kalahiki said with a grin.

  Funny what brought a smile to his face. This was the happiest I’d seen Sammy since we’d met. I filed away the information to be checked later on. Right now, I wanted to press Kalahiki on more personal matters.

  “Tell me. Why was the crew so angry with you yesterday?” I questioned.

  Sammy’s eyes grew stormy as a pair of thunder clouds.

  “I was an observer on their boat for a couple of weeks. Lots of things went on during that time. I was caught taking pictures they’d rather I hadn’t. Some of the crew got pissed.”

  “Pictures of what?” I prodded.

  “Oh, of dolphins and sea turtles that were snagged in their lines. Stuff like that,” Kalahiki revealed, in a deliberately nonchalant voice.

  The fact that he purposely kept his tone so blase sent up red flags. Something else was going on.

  “Is that how you got those bruises?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that was part of it,” Sammy admitted, remaining maddeningly vague.

  “Then maybe the crew members were also responsible for making those threatening phone calls,” I proposed.

  But Kalahiki promptly rebuffed my suggestion. “No. The calls began a few days before this last trip.”

  So much for trying to be helpful. I steered the topic back to the bomb that he’d just dropped.

  “All right, then. What about the camera and film? Do you happen to have those with you?” I asked, eager to see if any such photos really existed.

  “No. They found the camera in my knapsack and threw it away,” Sammy replied, dashing my hopes.

  Damn! I needed some hard-core proof that Kalahiki’s claims were actually true, and he wasn’t just jerking me around. Otherwise, we were back to square one.

  “Or at least they thought they did,” he revealed, with a conspiratorial grin.

  If the guy had been a Big Mac, I would have pounced on him.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, verbally lunging.

  “Here’s the thing. Observers are only allowed to take one camera on board. And it has to have been issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service. It’s always one of those cheap disposable jobbers. Well, that’s easy enough to get around,” he disclosed. “I just went out and bought myself an identical model. That way I not only have their piece of junk, but also my own personal click-and-shoot for catching those special Kodak moments. The camera they snatched from me was the authorized version that I use for NMFS’s dog-and-pony show.”

  “So then, you don’t hand all the photos over to your boss?”

  Sammy looked at me as though I were exceptionally slow. “What, are you kidding? Of course not. I already told you. I learned long ago that any pictures I gave them would never see the light of day. They’d either be dumped in the round file, or buried where no one would ever find them.”

  My pulse picked up speed. If what Kalahiki said was true, then he definitely had proof.

  “Instead, I’ve collected my own stash of highly sensitive material,” he continued. “It catalogues everything that’s been going on over the past few years. I’ve just been waiting for the right time to release it.”

  “And what makes you think this is it?” I asked, barely able to hear over the pounding of blood in my ears.

  Kalahiki paused, and coolly observed me. His almond-shaped eyes crinkled in merriment, nearly disappearing beneath their lids, as a smile once again pulled at his lips.

  “Maybe I’m hoping that a Fish and Wildlife agent has finally been stationed here with enough balls to look into what’s really going on. ’Cause God knows, the special agents at NMFS are totally hog-tied. I guess I just didn’t expect a woman to have bigger ones than a man.”

  I decided to take that as a compliment. After all, far worse things had been said about me. I also chose not to mention one little fact: that I was considered highly radioactive within my own agency. This case certainly wouldn’t enhance my reputation. Far from it. Instead, it could spell big trouble all around. There’s an unspoken rule within the federal government: You never go against a sister agency. Stepping into this would blow that maxim sky high. But it also wouldn’t stop me.

  “There’s something else far more valuable on that roll of film than just a few dead animals, though,” Sammy interjected, breaking into my thoughts.

  “What’s that?” I asked, eager for all the ammunition I could get.

  “First, why don’t you tell me exactly what you plan to do with the information that I’ve given you so far?” Kalahiki questioned me with the cunning of an attorney.

  I wished he hadn’t asked me that quite yet. Exciting as this was, I needed time to figure out what measures to take. Delving into another agency’s business was foreign territory for me. Not only was it highly irregular, but it would require extreme caution. If Sammy was correct, the shark-finning law existed in name only, while in reality it was still going on. That could mean just one thing: NMFS officials were being paid to turn a blind eye, a practice that went directly against their mission.

  I now realized something else as well, the implication of which hit me like a Mack truck. The Fish and Wildlife Service was involved with protecting both fish and marine mammals on the mainland, be it sturgeon, paddlefish, manatees, turtles, or walrus. However, that wasn’t the case in Hawaii. Rather, I’d specifically been instructed that our policy was “hands off” as far as NMFS was concerned. It made me wonder if perhaps there was an ulterior motive at work.

  What better way to protect the fishing industry than for National Marine Fisheries to claim absolute authority over those critters that impact fishermen and can cause problems? In that sense, NMFS were like bouncers at the door. They adamantly kept Fish and Wildlife agents from entering their realm. Fishermen couldn’t be controlled if we didn’t know how many albatross, turtles, whales, or dolphins were being killed. It was one more lesson on the workings of politics and endangered species. In this case, big business was being given free rein to continue on as usual.

  Then there was that other little tidbit that Sammy had mentioned, the “shark-fin wars.”

  “I need a lot more information than you’ve provided so far, as well as evidence to back it up. But if what you’re telling me is true, then I fully intend to do whatever’s necessary to bring this matter to an end,” I swore, meaning every bit of it.

  Sammy nodded, taking me at my word
. “Trust me, you don’t know the half of it yet. What I’ll tell you for now is that it leads directly to a high government official in Oahu, and all the way over to Hong Kong. You’ll understand more once you’ve taken a look at my files.”

  “Something else,” I said, not wanting to forget this last request. “Who’s the other shark-fin dealer that you were talking about? The one who you believe got rid of Charlie Hong?”

  Kalahiki kicked at the ground with his sneaker.

  “I’m not totally sure yet. But I’ll try to get the information for you,” he promised.

  “Good. I’ll need it if we’re going to make this case fly,” I replied, figuring that should add the necessary pressure.

  Sammy bit his lower lip and seemed to think about it. “Okay. What say we meet at this same spot tomorrow around sunset? That way, you won’t have to worry about your haole skin getting burned.”

  I looked at my arms. He was right. I was beginning to resemble a lobster.

  “I’ll bring some information along to back up what I’ve told you so far,” Sammy added.

  I wanted it all right now, but knew better than to push. Kalahiki would hand everything over soon enough.

  “I can give you a ride back to Honolulu if you’d like,” I offered.

  I don’t know why I assumed he lived there. Probably because that’s where I’d first seen him.

  “Thanks, but I came in my own vehicle. Besides, I’m staying with my mom over in Makaha on the West Coast right now,” Sammy replied.

  “In that case, I’ll see you tomorrow at sunset,” I said.

  Kalahiki turned and walked in the opposite direction from which I’d come.

  “Aloha till tomorrow then,” he responded over his shoulder, and raised his hand in farewell.

  His star sapphire lassoed a beam of light. The ring glowed so brightly that it nearly blinded me. I looked away for a minute. When I glanced back again, Sammy Kalahiki was gone.