Having turned into a side street, Kaulawaha Road, Olive slowed the car in front of a chain-link perimeter fence, a black dog head-butting it and making it rattle. The dog yelped and slavered, speaking to Sharkey in accusatory barks.

Industrial fencing and a guard dog, but the house was lovely, two stories faced in redwood, in contrast to the bungalows, small behind their faded paint, that lined the street near it, the big house like a symbol of a powerful man towering over the poor.

The fence was recent—shiny, out of character in the funky unfenced neighborhood. A covered lanai on the second floor faced the sea, allowing a view of the town, the ocean—sunsets, waves, the green flash.

“He lived here in the 1980s,” Olive said. “When he bought that house for his mum.” She slipped out of the car and, sensitive to Sharkey’s hesitation—the barking dog, his fatigue and anxiety—said, “Come on, mate. I need you.”

Just as they got to the edge of the fence, they saw a man striding from the house in the direction of the barking dog. He did nothing to calm the dog, allowing it to leap at the fence, making the chain links clang against the steel posts.

“You want something?”

He was dark, local, Hawaiian or Tongan, with black slicked-back hair and a wet jowly face, in a sweatshirt with cut-off sleeves that showed his beefy arms. He carried a thick wooden club in one hand. He wore shorts that came below his knees and flattened flip-flops on his tortured-looking feet. The dog gnawed at the club, coating it with slobber.

“Nice house,” Olive said.

But this pleasantry seemed to anger the man, and his anger was highlighted by the perspiration on his face. Still holding the club, he lifted the front of his sweatshirt with his free hand and mopped it, showing his belly, a four-inch appendix scar upraised like a purple welt.

“Nevvamine.” He flexed his big jaw; he had dog teeth and a scummy tongue. “You selling stuffs? Something like that?”

“We just have a few questions.”

“What department you from?” The man put his head against the fence, facing Olive.

“Take it easy,” Sharkey said.

“Eh!” The man’s grunt rumbled from his belly. “Bodda you?”

Olive said, “We were wondering about a previous occupant of this house, that’s all. Someone we’re researching.”

“I stay here ten-plus years!”

“What’s your name?” Sharkey said.

“Who wants to know?”

“Me—I’m Joe Sharkey.”

The man shrugged, and went on poking at the dog, goading it to growl and nip at the wooden club. “You don’t need to know any names, okay, haole?”

Sharkey stepped back, not because of the man’s rude reply but because the dog had tired of gnawing the club and had leaped, thumping the fence with his front paws and opening his mouth wide to bark.