Free Rip Tides by Toby Neal Page B

given, and both of them resided on Oahu.
    “Too many average-height men with black hair and brown eyes, medium build, and no visible tats or facial hair,” Lei muttered to herself. That was the general description Shayla had given Kevin, the sketch artist, of the suspect’s overall appearance.
    She inspected the photos more closely. One of the suspects, Freddie Arenas, listed an address in Kahuku, a town near the North Shore where the pro surfers hung out this time of year. The other, August Jones, had a downtown Honolulu address.
    Lei flipped through her file folder for the artist’s sketch. Holding it carefully next to the photos, she tried to see which one most matched the pictures.
    It was really hard to tell. Freddie Arenas had a mustache and one of those chinstrap beards in his photo, and August Jones wore a goatee that covered the center of his chin. The man Kevin had sketched had been clean-shaven.
    Stumped for the moment, Lei put the pictures and sketch away and pulled out the reference file she’d begun on the Triple Crown of Surfing and Makoa Simmons’s sponsors and career. She’d hurriedly printed some references on the event.
    According to the website, the Triple Crown was won by a scoring system that went across three events: the Hawaiian Pro held at Haleiwa, the World Cup of Surfing held at Sunset Beach, and the Pipeline Masters held at Ehukai Beach Park. Events were held when surf was judged good enough, between November and December of any given year. Participation in the contests was by invitation only, and those invited were considered “big wave masters” of surfing. The contests were a part of the main American Professional Surfing circuit of contests, but were also scored and managed separately from the bigger roster of worldwide events.
    Reading up on it, she found Makoa’s talent and drive even more extraordinary. To have achieved such a level at his age, and from Maui, where there wasn’t as well developed a surf scene as some other islands, was remarkable.
    Lei flipped to the bio she’d found on Makoa. He’d attended a private school, Paradise Preparatory Academy, and graduated in the top of his class. According to interviews, he’d said, “I made a deal with my parents: if I didn’t make a living within my first year out of high school on the pro surfing circuit, I’d go to college.”
    He’d secured a host of sponsors within his first few months of turning pro, chief among them Torque, an international surf and skateboard company with subsidiaries in motocross and snowboarding. He lived during the winter season at the Torque surfing team house on the North Shore of Oahu, famous for its regular, excellent surf during that time of year.
    Lei had a business summary about the sports brand, which made clothing and “incidentals” for surfing, including wax, leashes, neoprene pads for surfboard decks, backpacks, and board bags. Torque was a division of a much larger sportswear company, NeoSport, and even Lei, who only browsed an occasional surf magazine, was aware of their successful ad campaign, “Be Amazing . ”
    The “Be Amazing” campaign showed athletes at the peak of their sport: oiled beach volleyball bodies flying through the air, football players crashing like rams in rut, and a shot of Makoa Simmons doing a reverse off-the-lip air on a wave much too thick and intense for that kind of freestyle maneuver. According to the blurb, he’d stuck the landing and had been able to end his ride successfully—and he’d only been at the beginning of his career.
    The more Lei studied Makoa Simmons, the more tragic his death seemed. Lei traced the photo of Makoa flying with her fingertips, remembering her last glimpse of him as they’d zipped up the body bag to carry him off the beach, accompanied by the sound of the girls crying. Their grief echoed in her own heart. Her losses were never far from the surface.
    The phone rang, startling Lei out of her dark thoughts. “Sergeant