Free Mahu Blood by Neil Plakcy

valuable?”
    She shook her head. “I took a class at the Bishop Museum.
    They stopped doing this kind of repair before 1900. That means these are very old, in addition to being very large.”
    “So how much did you give her?” I asked. “For the three of them.”
    “I didn’t buy them. I said I would take the bowls to the museum, then come back and tell her what they’re worth. She’s just a child. And she said that boyfriend of hers spends every penny, drinking and playing pai gow.”
    “We took her shopping,” my father said. “To Costco.”
    “I’m confused.”
    “We bought her diapers, formula. Some clothes. Food. I showed her how to change the baby. Apparently that poor woman who died took care of the child.”
    “Wow. That was so nice of you. I didn’t expect you to do so 58 Neil S. Plakcy
    much.”
    My father grumbled.
    “You have to help where you can,” my mother said. “It’s ohana.”
    Although the strict definition of ohana is family, in Hawai’i it means more—things like the way that a community comes together to take care of those in need. I wondered why the people of Papakolea had not been taking care of Leelee when she was one of their own. I asked my mother that.
    My father grumbled again.
    My mother sighed. “It sounds like the boyfriend treats her badly, and he’s rude to the neighbors. And the girl, well, you saw her. She doesn’t seem to care about anything.” She stood up. “I’m going to take the bowls to the museum tomorrow. If they’re as valuable as I think, they’ll want to talk to her.”
    She asked if I wanted to stay for dinner. I called Mike, who was on his way home. “Want to detour up here?”
    My parents have liked Mike since the first time I brought him home, and even when we were broken up, they never said a word against him.
    “What’s for dinner?”
    “Like you care. As long as somebody else cooks it.”
    Mike laughed. “You’re right. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”
    the Book of ezekieL
    The next morning, I called Maile Kanuha again. “You never called me back yesterday, Maile. We really need to speak to Ezekiel. If he won’t come in we’ll come out and get him.”
    “I can bring him over to you around noon. It’s my lunch hour,” she said, like that was supposed to make me feel bad.
    While we waited, I checked with my friend Ricky Koele, who works at the Division of Business Licensing. Even non-profit groups were required to register, and I asked him to pull up any records he had on Kingdom of Hawai’i.
    Ricky was two years behind me at Punahou, and I did him a favor a couple of years ago when his brother was murdered.
    Since then, he’s been happy to help when I need something from his department. After leaving me on hold, he returned to the line and said, “I’m printing the records. I’ll fax them to you.”
    “Thanks, brah. I owe you.”
    “No, Kimo,” he said. “I’m always going to owe you.”
    The pages came through the fax a couple of minutes later.
    Kingdom of Hawai’i was registered as a 501(c)(4) organization, a charitable non-profit, able to collect tax-deductible contributions but also allowed to lobby for legislative change. One of the main distinguishing factors between it and the more common 501(c) (3) was a restricted membership—in their case, limited to those people who could trace at least partial ancestry to the original inhabitants of the islands. The Hawaiian term is kanaka maoli, and I’d seen that on posters in the background of the video of Bunchy’s demonstration at the Wizard Stones. It was often used among Hawaiian sovereignty groups.
    The incorporation documents didn’t list anyone with the organization; the contact of record was the Honolulu law firm which had filed the paperwork in 2005 with the Hawai’i Secretary of State’s office, Fields and Yamato.
    60 Neil S. Plakcy
    I sat back in my chair. Adam O’Malley, whose business card I found on Edith’s desk, worked for that firm. Had