“We don’t know—we’re not sure.”

“You don’t know who you looking for? Is insane,” the woman in the ball cap said from her creaking chair. She shrieked at the children, yelling for them to be quiet, and the children sank into the darkness of the car’s interior.

In that moment of distraction, Sharkey looked around and saw the fat man leaning against a tree, his arms folded on his potbelly.

“The man died,” Olive said. “We think he was staying here at the time.”

“Ask ’em what they got for us,” the fat man called out.

The woman in the baseball cap stepped forward. “You hear him. What you got for us?”

“If you have any information, we’ll help you,” Olive said. “The man was riding a bike and got hit by a car just over a month ago on Kam Highway at Waimea.”

“He wen’ make?”

“Yes.”

“I know dis buggah.”

“What’s his name?”

The woman smiled. She put her hand out and twitched her fingers. Olive folded a dollar into the woman’s hand and she made a fist, enclosing it.

“That Jeff. Haole guy.”

The children in the car began to scream in the backseat, kicking the seat back, one beating the other and pulling his hair.

The other woman spoke up, not whole words but denying noises, a kind of whinnying, as she sidled close to Olive. “He not Jeff. I know the guy wen’ make.”

Olive held out a dollar. The woman took it and held it to her face in two hands, examining it. “He name Oncle Mack.”

“Did he have a bike?” Olive asked.

Watching Olive closely, the woman said, “He have one bike. He ride dis bike.”

“This Uncle Mack,” Olive said, “was he a haole?”

“Jeff da haole,” the first woman said. “She a bull liar.”

“Oncle Mack, he a fucken haole too.”

“Dis all kapu!” the fat man shouted from beneath the tree, and gestured, spreading his arms. “Time to go.” He pointed to the path. “Show’s over.”

Before Sharkey could react there was a commotion in the dense grass and four children emerged, walking into the clearing, a girl and three boys, all of them neatly dressed, wearing small backpacks. Seeing them, Olive smiled, feeling somehow reassured by their solemnity and neatness, the way they nodded at the strangers as though showing respect. Just as quickly the children became shy, averting their eyes, awkward in the disorder of the camp.

“We not homeless,” the fat man called out, protesting. “We houseless. Big difference.”

“Who is this Uncle Mack?” Olive asked the woman who was fluttering her dollar bill.

“This our home. They try to kick us the hell out. How you can kick people off their own ‘aina?”

“Uncle Mack not the man. Jeff the man,” the woman in the baseball hat said.

“All kapu!” the fat man shouted, waving his arms, his gesture taking in the whole camp.