Fresh Water Green Light - Santo murder mystery Part one
Dec 30 2014
Dec 30 2014
There have had been many restless nights in Luganville Santo and for many of those he listened to the night turning to day. He listened to the island dogs fighting and howling, of the roosters beginning their protest of the eventual sunrise. And there is a constant washing machine white noise from the ocean and Saracata River meeting and mix together. He had mysteries to contemplate, like where to get important things, like finding who to contact to get rare shit when everyone seemingly runs out. They were controlled shortages. Controlled by a secret group that he accidentally came in contact with while uncovering the conspiracy. That was when he heard about the disappearances and those involved in nakaemas, black magic.
It was during the religious holiday-camp at Lycée de Luganville when dozens of children were chasing demons around his house at 3 am, another restless night, he saw something funny. It was a group of people going into the patch of jungle near the beach by his house. Of course, he knew it was a bad idea to try and sneak around and look at what was going down but he did anyhow. He saw five people in hoods chanting some spell. When they snuffed out their fire, he inspected their remains and saw fish bones and sticks arranged in a strange way with some sand drawings on palm leaves. It was a hand. No, it was more like a demonic claw. He also found a ring that had either been left on purpose or accidentally. It was silver ring with overlapping line pattern and the initials JC on the inside. Shortly after returning home, he heard screaming from the direction of the student dorms.
A group of 40 people maybe more were circled around someone. Upon closer examination, there was a girl being held down by two older women and the younger girl in the middle. She was flailing around violently and foaming at the mouth. The two in the middle were holding her and directing the rest of the mob to sing and chant religious banter. The stomping of feet and singing began to rival in volume the screams of the girl in the center. The concrete floor of the building vibrated from their stomping.
They said she was possessed and perhaps she was. The next morning her parents brought her home to Blandinier Estate. The next day there was an announcement on the radio. The student was found dead. The news was quickly circulated. He inquired about it, found out her name and where she was from, family data, and he tried to get to the bottom of what happened. It became an obsession. He was getting nowhere fast, until one night when he returned home he found something left for him. In the center of his living room, there was a pile of sticks with a dead poisonous lionfish on top. Inside the mouth of the fish was a necklace. The centerpiece was circular eggshell-white ceramic disk with the picture of a knight’s helmet and the words: Warwick, Made in U.S.A 1943. He had seen this before. It was something he helped Molly make from a shattered mug she found on the beach. Molly lived on Epi and Rich was taking this to her when he went to visit. It did not bode well. He called Rich. There was no answer.
He spoke to many locals and found out more info about the missing girl. If you ask enough people questions, you’ll get answers. Most of the stories were rubbish, but some of them panned out. Her name was Ms. Angelina Tari. She had two boyfriends. And according to some of her closer friend’s Ms. Tari had many secrets. But it was no secret that one boyfriend was not happy about her having another.
He needed a way to get more information and decided to go about it in a very questionable way. A few weeks back when he was attempting to earn his school extra money while giving local tours on their Chinese bus, he had made the acquaintance of several police officers. He was blocked from doing the guided tour because the driver did not have a legal license. However during the almost riot that ensued between rival cab drivers (twenty of them) and his school driver, principal and deputy principal, he talked with one of the police officers. This one he saw many times after the incident. It led to a friendship, which put him in contact with working for Detective Sergeant Tony Berry. He was asked if he could fix some of the damaged computer’s equipment at police headquarters. Being that he was a very skilled with computers in a town that lacked this skill, he accepted. It was also an easy way to view police records. It was while repairing the detective’s computer he hacked into their database. With the stolen information, he began to view police reports.
John James was the primary suspect. He was Ms Tari’s first boyfriend, otherwise known as Jemo. Jemo and Tari had been dating for several years. The other boyfriend’s name is Kilson Touani. They just recently started seeing each other. Kilson was away on a visit to Malakula during all these events and not a suspect.
Jemo told the police that he spent the afternoon of Saturday 19th July 2014 in Luganville at the marriage ceremony of his teacher, Mrs. Justine Malalo. He was continuously texting Ms. Tari during such time. At about 8.30pm, the accused left Blandinier Estate for the home of the girl. He was drunk at the time. Upon his arrival at Fresh Water, he conversed with Ms. Tari for a while at the road adjacent to her home and then, upon his request, Ms. Tari went into her room. She locked her bedroom and climbed out of the window then followed the accused to Blandinier. The girl’s mother and her relatives were at Fresh Water Green Light Nakamal at the time. They had had a quick conversation whereupon Ms. Tari ended the relationship with Mr. Jemo.
Mr. Jemo was the last person who spoke or saw Ms. Tari. The coroner’s report was extremely brief: there is no forensic evidence of blood and/or fingerprints from the murder weapon, a bush knife. There is no evidence that certain trace materials (fibers, foraminifera, paint chips and hairs) found on or about the deceased girl that were similar to other trace materials found on or about the accused. The case had no solid leads.
That night he had an extremely vivid dream upon which he discovered a means by which to uncover the hoods of the cloaked figures in the woods... to see their faces. As crazy as it sounds, the dream had told him how. It was critical to know these people because he believed that they were involved in the death of Ms Tari. He setup his bedroom in a very specific arrangement, carefully setting the sticks and sand drawing found at the fire by the beach. Then he made an easel from some remaining scraps of wood and cut, stretched and mounted cotton T-shirt into a painting surface. With oil paints and nickel-plated knives his parents had sent him, he would enter into a induced trance-like state with a healthy amount of kava and whiskey. He used the Christmas lights also mailed from his parents to light the room. He then recorded the names of all individuals he had interviewed, or led to evidence or was suspected of involvement. Once saying these names he also mentioned their relationship to the deceased and mixed this sounds track into the background of her favorite string-band song. He played it on a continuous loop then began to paint. The faces of the 5 hooded figures began to appear. After hours of labor, an extremely clear image of one of the faces emerged. He put the ring on his finger. When he walked past his bathroom mirror, he saw an unfamiliar face staring back. At the moment, a dark feeling of dread overcame him and decided to hide the painting and his notes and evidence… along with constructing a riddle and writing it on the inside door of his cabinet. The riddle would lead a person the key of his safe, where he hid his notes and painting.
It was a little past midnight, and there was a knock at his front door. He knew it was bad, but he opened the door. And there, at last he was staring eye to eye with the face in his painting. Shots rang out... three of them. He fell to the ground. With his last breath, he wrote a note in his blood on the floor; Crack the riddle, solve the crime.
(To be continued)
Part 2: Fresh Water
June 1 2015
-1-
Luganville was a little different from her memories of five years past, when she had visited her friend a Peace Corps volunteer. Not much changes in Luganville, it’s a sleepy town. Many of the same stores were still there but with different names. They gave her a job at the College de Luganville. She learned about the man that was there before her. He had worked on fixing computers and taught a little. But not much was said about him. There was something unusual in the way their stories ended abruptly. They seemed afraid of telling her the details.
-2-
She was doing the same job as him. He was a Peace Corps volunteer, too. It was endless work replacing burned out computer hardware. The heat, humidity, and dirt destroys the components. She grew weary of the tedious work. Her mind began to wander; it was a kind of island curse. Something in the jungle near College de Luganville held a power, a concentration of energy. It was like the saltiness of the ocean air; it simply penetrated your existence. She felt it. At night, she could not sleep because she heard chanting and saw a fire that lit up a small patch of pine trees near the beach. One night she ventured out and watched natives dancing with fire. They wore hoods. She moved in slowly. They chanted in local language.
-3-
Eventually, rumors about how the PCV before her had disappeared became known. There were remnants of his existence. Modifications everywhere: the fold up Murphy bed with the dartboard on the back, the hardwood bench, the three-tier kitchen cabinet and other assorted installations. It seemed strange that it was not all looted when he left. Most of all, she was curious about the contents in the safe she found hidden under the kitchen sink. It was bolted to the wall and locked. A message was scratched into the cabinet door: “Some might think I’ve gone insane, one chance between our worlds. Fire dance with me!”
-4-
It was in her dreams that it, that dark energy she felt, finally reached her. In the dream she was inside a room with darkened walls. A lantern lit a small area. Two red worn out leather chairs faced each other. Out of nowhere appeared a kid wearing a smile and a college uniform. His left arm was half as long as his right. He gestured for her to enter and sit down. He leaned in toward her, and grabbed the right arm of her chair. His voice was distorted, “You are the one they seek. The screams are yours and mine.” Next an island dog entered the scene and neatly folded up by her feet. The kid spoke again, “You were with him before, and now you’re back again. Take this and find its mark.” The kid then handed her a little box. When she woke up, she felt like there was someone in the room. She leaped out of bed to discover the box from her dream laying on her night table. She studied it momentarily and then opened it. Inside the small box was a dart. It occurred to her that on the backside of the Murphy bed was a dartboard. She flipped the bed up and removed it, then pierced the board over and over with the dart and found a secret panel. Inside was a key.
-5-
The key was for the safe. Inside she discovered a notebook, photographs, and a ring. The notebook held information about the murder of Ms. Tari. The photos were of the crime scene. The notebook also mentioned a painting exposing the killer. The ring was no ordinary thing, it was hers. When she had visited Santo five years ago with her friend Molly a teacher on Epi, they helped finish a world map at Sarakata School, and then took a boat south to help complete a library project. The ring was a gift from a villager from south Santo. It has these intricate line patterns. In return she gave him something she was going to make into a necklace. It was a fragment of ceramic from the bottom of a coffee mug with a knight’s helmet and the words: Warwick, Made in U.S.A. 1943. How was it inside the safe? She put the ring on. It fit perfectly, sending a surge of energy up her arm. She decided she must continue the investigation. A visit to Fresh Water Green Light Nakamal seemed the best place to start.
-6-
For a few days, she was up at Fresh Water. It was hard to find people willing to talk to her about the case. At the Green Light Nakamal, she bought shell after shell of kava to get the locals to talk. It just made them talk quieter. The Nivans she met at the kava bar said she looked familiar. That made her nervous. An older man with a no shirt and a pig tusk necklace asked her about her ring. He said it did not belong to her. That's when she decided to leave. Several of them followed her. It soon turned into a chase. She tried to lose them in the jungle. The trees and bushes were wet and dense, the ground muddy from all the recent rainfall. She came across a steep rocky ridge. She panicked. Then a cloud of bats poured out of the ridge wall. She climbed up the rocks and found an opening to a cave. She fished out her zippo, lit it, and headed down. The cave was cathedral-like, with a large pool of standing water in the middle. The walls were smooth and there was a smoldering stack of wet logs in a fire pit. Nearby were used match sticks, a matchbook, and a plastic water bottle with gasoline inside. On top of the logs was a painting, partially charred from fire that apparently would not light. She looked for a place to hide.
-7-
She heard their voices as they entered the cave. They found her. That's when something took over her; she was no longer was in control of her own person. She turned and approached the fire pit. She took the bottle of gasoline, doused the logs, and tossed her lighter inside. Flame roared to life. The walls were now displayed; full of line patterns like her ring. The hooded men uncovered their faces. The painting on top of the logs was exposed and before the flames consumed it. She saw herself in the painting standing the middle of the fire dancers with a bush knife held pointed down in her right hand, dripping red from recent violence. Her voice was not her own, and she smiled at them, shouting, "Fire, dance with me!"
-8-
There were news reports of her disappearance: "Peace Corps Volunteer Vanishes without a trace." Friends, family, and locals were all searching everywhere. However, she was not lost; she had found the others. The one that disappeared before her, he was with her now, and the shrunken armed boy was there too, but he was like a ghost; there but not there. They were pulled into this place. Their voices died, and something other took over. Call it evil but it was that power she felt in the woods. It controlled her. When inside this void, it was like being trapped in a wakeful dream. She spoke with him, this concentration of dark power, asking what it was, what it wanted, and if she was dead. It spoke in riddles and broken verses. All that seemed clear to her was, "Through you, I will kill again."
-9-
She was watching things as though from the passenger seat of an impending disaster. It was the beginning of night when they finally arrived back in Luganville. They parked by the kava bar by the Millennium Cave tour, and emptied out from the flatbed of the truck. They walked along the edge of the Sarakata River until they reached her house. The men pulled the hoods of the raincoats over their heads as they walked towards the small fire pit she had spied on months before. This time she led the dancing, holding her own torch, and at the end of the ritual she was given a bush knife. They told her a new volunteer had taken took residence in her home. A house built on their stolen sacred land. Anyone that lives there must die. Time to do what must be done. Outside her old house she took the keys she hid above the porch light and snuck inside. She stood above an unconscious man snoring. She stood there holding her two-foot long knife up high like a guillotine ready to strike after a brief moment of ceremony.
-10-
She felt a strange, ethereally poetic pageantry of the splendid movement, the ostensibly free rhythms of the blade doing its vigorous work, full blast for three long minutes. She attempted to protest against the grand opera-chaotic melody of slicing being conducted on this poor soul but she was still under the control of the other. It was at the conclusion of her third act when, in an outburst of sheer gratuitous vulgarity, a chorus of crazed island dogs—barking their song of foul temper—burst into the room and savagely tore the flesh from her body, refusing to flee even when she swung the bush knife in defiant yet utter defeat.
Hemi lukem yu
It was five AM when my host papa and I went walking in the bush to check the pig trap. He teased me by saying if a pig was out wandering near the trap it would charge. Hem say, “supos won pig lukem yumi, hemi tink… hmm wan black man mo wan waet man, hmm mi wantem kakae waet meat.” It was his joke he kept telling me over and over that the pig would eat me over him. The thought of being attacked by a wild pig went through my mind when we neared the trap, but we saw no pig that day. It was a bit of a disappointment.
The next day while cooking in the outdoor hut-kitchen an ex-pat neighbor Derrick told me about the times he went hunting, about the hundreds of pigs and dozens of buluk (wild cow) he killed in the bush. He told about demons that haunted him from all his kills. Derrick cracked me up. Derrick cursed every other word, and he is British, so it sounded fantastic they way he spoke using Bislama and English. But since this is being read by a wider audience I will bleep out the swear words. Derrick told me, “One time I heard some f*ing noises outside mi haos, a f*ing buluk was wandering around knocking over shit. So mi gat mi muskat blong mi, won (one) 22, and shot it in the head. The bastard shook it off, and charged me. I hid behind a tree and reloaded my shoty, then blasted fucking bastard point blank. BUT it was no good. It charged again!!! And just as it was 'bout to run me through and slice mi (me) with its tusks, the *F*ing PIG disappeared.”
It was hard not to laugh at his story. But Derrick was not kidding. He said the island was haunted with all kinds of strange evil spirits. Of course, I thought that was bullshit until it bit me in the ass. It was nasty bug bite for sure.
The next morning I woke dripping in sweat frantically reading the medical handbook. When I took the malaria test, it showed negative. My host family said a demon mosquito that bit me. Whatever it was I felt like hell. I was afraid as the sickness took hold of me. It felt like my bones were shattering. Dengue fever I suspect (the break bone disease) but we have no tests for that. During the next few days, I fell into what felt like a void. Then the craziest thing happened I escaped my body and watched myself rise above my bed.
The next morning I woke dripping in sweat frantically reading the medical handbook. When I took the malaria test, it showed negative. My host family said a demon mosquito that bit me. Whatever it was I felt like hell. I was afraid as the sickness took hold of me. It felt like my bones were shattering. Dengue fever I suspect (the break bone disease) but we have no tests for that. During the next few days, I fell into what felt like a void. Then the craziest thing happened I escaped my body and watched myself rise above my bed.
My host Mama and Papa cried and shook my body. The local priest tried to revive me. But it was like I died yet I was right there watching it all and able to think. I was pulled or maybe compelled is a better word for it, to find a home for my consciousness like a hermit crab finding a new shell. Like smoke swirling in the wind but not dissipating, I was soon over the ocean. I can only guess because before I knew what was going on, I rushed into the water and was inhaled through gills entering the skull of a yellow finned fish. It felt great having a body again, flying through the warm water, and tasting the saltiness as I filled my gills. I could tell the other yellowfin knew something was wrong about me, probably because I was swimming oddly clumsily bumping into the others. As silly as it might sound the first thought I had was to see if I could speak to a fellow Peace Corps friend, to tell them I am not dead, I am inside a fish. I still had human consciousness so maybe there was a chance I could talk.
I swam near shore during the day looking for my friends popping my head above the water to spot them. One of my Peace Corps colleagues liked hanging out near the point to take photos of the sunrise and sunsets. I swam there and searched for him all day but no luck. When the sun went down and it got dark I saw some human legs in the water because he was using a flashlight. I noticed too late that he also had a spear gun. I swam slowly and saw a white guy in the water with annoyingly tone six pack stomach and all his stupidly perfect muscles. I knew it was my Peace Corps friend Dane. He probably does not even know I am dead. Well, technically dead. I opened my jaw and tried the best I could to yell Halo. But only a bubbly noise came out. Then I felt a white hot piercing pain of the spear enter my torpedo body. I should have thought this through more before trying to talk to a man with a gun. My fish body bled and flailed around uncontrollably. I died fast. I was tossed out of my scaly-rental-body like an idiot coach getting tossed from a baseball game for cursing out an umpire. That was embarrassing. And again I was adrift looking for a new place to dwell.
It is hard to gauge time when you’re dead. You can’t see anything. I think a couple days passed. It felt like forever all scattered in the wet Vanuatu air. But eventually I was pulled inside another animal this time a wild pig. Let me tell you, the first thing you can’t help but be impressed by is a pig's sense of smell. It is both a powerful gift and a horrible curse. The curse is that his animal body stunk like holy-hell. First thing I had to do was to find some river water and try and clean up a bit. I found a pool of stagnant water and rushed in immediately. After a small spell of cleaning myself, I left the water and my amazing nose picked up the scent of coconuts… I could smell everything from long distances. I guess that is their gift. I came across some coconuts that were cracked open. My ravenous hunger got the better of me, and my wild boar appetite took over I began devouring them. Then I/it found another and another. They dotted the ground like breadcrumbs. Before I could regain control of my beastly animal hunger, I saw I was inside a room walled in two inch thick sticks. Then I heard a sound behind me. There was a guillotine styled gate the slid down behind me and stuck into the muddy ground. I was stuck in the same freaking trap I had set up with my host-papa the few days before I died. I sighed a deep breath; I’m not doing such a great job at being a wild beast. But it’s not like I had much time to practice.
I was stuck there all night. I tried to kick and smash through the walls, but it was impossible. When morning came I saw my papa, name blong hem Able. He and one other fala tied ropes around my legs and flipped me on my back and slid a long pole between my legs and the ropes. They heaved me up on their shoulders using the pole to carry me away. They hauled me into town against all my shrieks and groans. I saw my Peace Corps friends as they paraded me through the village. I remember my papa telling me that they would have a feast if we caught a pig. Turns out they will feast on me. I was brought to the chief’s house in the middle of town. There was a bunch of people gathered in a circle, and The chief looked me in the eye and shoved a spear right into my skull.
Again my body died, and I drifted for a long time I think. The feeling of hopeless started taking over. It’s not that much fun being an aimless ghost, inhabiting animal forms. I missed coffee, being able to scratch my back, the way my friend Bryan laughed when I said numba wan (cuz that's what the local Nivan's seem to do) to the most absurd things. I missed being human. At just about this moment I was lamenting my lot in life, I again was pulled into another living thing. This time it was a tree, a coconut tree. I could not see anything, but I knew I was tall. I remembered a kastam story my host-papa told me about a boy who had a snake for a mother. His mother warned him to stay away from the town because if he were caught, they would force him to show them where he lived. And if they saw her they would kill her. But if this came to be, his mother told him to take her decapitated head and bury it in the ground, for if he did, he would see her face again. The boy was eventually caught because he could not help but venture too close to the village. The chief forced the boy to show him his mother and then he killed her. So the boy took his mother's head and buried it. A few months later a coconut tree grew from her grave. Many years later the tree produced its first crop of coconuts, and they fell to the ground. He split the coconut husk open, and the boy saw his mother's face... He looked at the shell and saw her big round eyes and mouth in the contours of the coconut.
Perhaps this too is now my fate. All I know is that the local medicine man sits near the base of my trunk and listens to the wind blow through my leaves. He speaks to me or maybe he is just thinking out loud. Who knows! I have yet to learn his local language. But it often feels like he can hear my thoughts. I remember hearing that in my Greek mythology class that once people believed the gods spoke through the blowing leaves of trees. If you ever visit Suni village on Moso island, north of Efate, look for a large coconut tree near a mangrove cluster past the kindi school by Able Joyle's house. Sit there patiently on a windy day and see if you can hear me story on.
Running Man
The air is oppressively hot, and his sweat is like a river, pouring out of him from running. But it's not a good river feeling like that cool stream without a name, in Epau, that he sat in after a long day of training... of mind-numbing monotony. He is running, and he hates running. Well, that’s not completely true. He hates running just to run. He loves to run like when he was a kid. When there was a reason to run, like to get away from his older brother for messing up his Legos. Running when he was a teenager meant being chased by the po-po for breaking into abandoned buildings to drinking with his friends. That kind of running meant something. It was my rebellion. But times changed and now he was past college, working, responsible. Whatever that means. He was part of the system not against it.
The jungle was all around him, and the branches were hitting him in his arms and face. The ground was an uneven dirt path, with deep ruts sliced into it from heavy rains. Not the best of conditions for running and worse yet in flip-flops. They were cheap Chinese-made crap that cut into your skin like a dull rusty bush knife. Not the worst pain he ever felt. He was cut before. He could vividly remember that knife fight in Doc’s Billiards parking lot with that moron Kiel for talking to a girl he liked. Getting sliced in the arm from Kiel’s stiletto was unforgettable. The sharp piercing pain and how it pissed off he was about letting his favorite leather coat get all tie-dyed with blood. It pissed off enough to disarm him and beat that guy up within an inch of life, only to have his victory interrupted, running for his life after the flashing lights and sirens approached.
He could hear it behind him following down the same path. He feared it was gaining on him because he is not in the best of shape. He kept making empty promises to himself to quit smoking, cut back on deep fried foods, to work out. And now he was paying the price for breaking them. He wished he was running towards his old car so he could hop into it and take off. It was a smashed faced junker. On the outside, its original red paint of his 72' Chevy impala was partially rusted but under the hood it had a beautiful engine a 350 small block V8 with a Corvette racing cam, Holly 4di throttle body fuel-injection carb and aluminum headers. It was his millennium-falcon. It could go 120 mph for as long as there was fuel in the tank. He would race it against all takers on a quarter mile strip near Totem Pole Park near the trailer park in New Brighton. And when the cops showed up to pull him over he’d ditch them on the back roads of the residential streets. Those were amongst his sweetest escapes.
There was no way out of this mess. No Escaping. It was a strange, unfamiliar land, Santo, past Luganville. He is out of the city and with no one to help him. No car to jump into, no weapon to fend off the wild beast that was about to slice him to pieces. He searched around him looking for a tree to climb, something not too low to the ground or one to weak that it would snap from sitting in until the beast wandered away. But He feared the moment was too late. Then suddenly the wild pig slashed its tusks into his right leg, and he tumbled to the ground in agonizing pain. He reached down to his leg to stop the flow of blood. He closed his eyes and waited for the impending second wave of the attack.
When he opened his eyes and looked up he saw Jen standing over him offering her hand to help him back to his feet.
“You took a nasty fall. You OK?” She asked.
“I’m fine."
“Yeah, you have to be careful. The sidewalks in Vila are not that great to run on.”
“I see that. I’m late for the morning sessions and thought I’d run. Guess I will just catch a bus.”
“Ok well, see you in a couple days at the swearing in ceremony.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and waited till Jen continued on with her morning run. And then he got up and continued to run to government building for training. He felt the jungle close back in on him and looked behind him to see if the wild pig was still chasing him to make it urgent enough to continue to run to class. But the wild pig was gone.
