They got into their car and went home, into the dying light, not saying what was on their minds, the thought they shared, that a place so near and so familiar, just a few miles from their house, close to Hale‘iwa and the main road, not far from the beach, some of it visible—the woodsmoke, some patches of plastic tarp and laundry on some of the branches of the bigger trees—here was a place that was unknown and maybe dangerous, like a jungle village in Indo, away from the beach.

But these people were poor, they were homeless and unemployed and ragged; they were the filthy bearded men and gaunt women that drivers saw crossing the bypass road at that point, hurrying on dirty feet, slipping into the muddy rut of a path, elusive and seemingly desperate, clinging to the edges of the town, crouched in the tall grass. They washed, if they washed at all, in the sinks in the changing rooms at the beach park and scared the tourists. They didn’t panhandle, they didn’t beg, they were reputed to be thieves yet were seldom caught in the act. Their overwhelming intention, it seemed, was to remain hidden, anonymous, out of reach, and in the uniformity of their raggedness they preserved a kind of anonymity—no one could name them, they looked alike in their poverty, they were a constant presence. Yet they were unknown.

And that was odd in a beach community where everyone had a name, or at least a nickname.

On the night of the accident the policeman had said, “We seen him near the homeless camp on the bypass road.” Stickney too had said, “Homeless. I can always tell by da kine dirt.”

Without saying so, both Sharkey and Olive had avoided going to the place, but they knew—once they had stopped on the road and studied it—that they were committed to paying a visit. Stickney had said he’d found no personal possessions other than the man’s rags, the policeman had found no ID. But there was more to know, more to uncover, which might lead to their learning the man’s name.

So after that first tentative assessment of the place—their glimpse of the smoke, the path, the junk pile—they went again, heartened by a sunny morning and fewer cars on the road. The passing traffic the previous time had made them conspicuous and self-conscious, standing by the guardrail. They were embarrassed to be seen there by passersby, raising suspicions, and they felt awkward too, being in a place where they didn’t belong and—since kapu meant forbidden—were not welcome.