by Joelle Fraser

      I call the guard at home on Monday evenings, and he tells me about the prison. It is now November; for months weíve talked quietly like this, sometimes until midnight. He has information I need, though I donít tell him why. Not the real reasons. I say Iím working on a writing project, and he accepts this. Through the phone, I can hear the quick inhale of cigarette when he pauses to consider a detail. I imagine he sits before a kitchen window, surveying the dark Nevada desert as he talks of the coming cold. I donít care why he talks to me, perhaps heís lonely. And perhaps itís true, an interview is like a seduction. Tell me more, I say, about the cells. How big are they? What about the food: tell me what they eat.
      The Ely Prison guard tells me that every cell has a window to the outdoors, and in the summer, they are air-conditioned. With good behavior, an inmate will get to play ball at certain times, and those with the most privileges can eat in the dining room instead of their cells. He says the guards are fair, that they only use force when necessary. He says that if someoneís been sent to Ely, then heís done something ìbig.î I hear him drag on his cigarette, ìWe get the hard core here, the bad boys.î
      He doesnít know about John ìKeokiî Martin in particular. There are over a thousand inmates at Ely Prison, and most of them are on administrative segregation or ìlock down,î a common punishment for fighting or possessing contrabandóa toothbrush melted to a point, for example. It would be difficult for him to find anything out about any one individual, he tells me. That would look suspicious. So I combine what he does know with my imagination and invent a life for Keoki, the man who killed my cousin Karyn four years ago, stabbing her 42 times with a 10-inch butcher knife in front of their two small sons, an act that homicide detective Tom Dillard would call the ìworst single crime in Las Vegas history.î
      Iíve been following Keoki for months now, traveling to Hawaii and Las Vegas and Ely Prison, where he will probably remain for another 15 years. Using my skills as a journalistóand trying to suppress my emotionsóI searched newspaper archives and copied court files thick as logs at $1 per page. I tracked down reluctant D.A.s and public defenders, and learned that this case, in which Keoki pleaded not guilty by reason of temporary insanity, has become a legal landmark in Nevada. Because of this case, the plea of temporary insanity is no longer an option for defendants.
      Though Iíve written Keoki twice, heís never answered. Even if he did agree to see me, the warden wouldnít let me interview him. ìIím researching family history,î I told Warden McDaniels, when I finally got through, knowing how strange and irrelevant it must sound. He couldnít understand that I needed to talk to Keoki, to ask him why to his face.
      ìYou will not be allowed to visit inmate MARTIN. It would not be conducive for this type of visit to occur,î he wrote in a recent letter.
      Although the story of Karynís killing began years before, in Hawaii, perhaps even when we were still children, it wasnít until last summer that I decided to tell it. I had finally realized that I could write nothing else. It was the only story I could write, because it was my story as well as hers.
      At first, I only told my mother, who was wary. When my father found out, he said, ìLet it alone.î They may not want to speak of it. They may be able to push it aside, but for me stories that go untold are like ghosts that haunt the living.

      In July, I fly from Reno over 357 miles of reddish desert, an ocean of craggy sand, rock, and alkaline dirt. It could be, as it once was, an empty sea floor. And I recall a word, caliche, the crust of calcium carbonate that forms on the stony soil of arid regions. On the dunes, trees cover the sand like a closely shaven beard. Houses cluster, tiny toys in an otherwise empty sandbox. Walker Lake is the only source of water on our path: I can see the thin wake of a lone white boat.
      After an hour, we bank over the city of Las Vegas. The theme-park casinos look ridiculous: Treasure Island, New York New York, the tiny gleaming sphinxóminiature cartoon structures one could crush with a thumb. I wonder what Karyn thought as she flew in. She always loved adventure, but she loved the ocean more. All her life she lived close enough to walk to it, to hear it late at night. Below, the only water is fenced inóthousands of swimming pools squint at the sky. The only green: specks of lawn, smooth curves of golf courses.
      Las Vegas has become a prime destination for Hawaiiís residents, advertised as ìthe place to play.î Hawaiian Airlines, one of seven major carriers with the Honolulu-Vegas route, brings in more than 300 people a day. One might wonder what the attraction is. The Strip is not much more dramatic than Waikikiís Kalakaua Avenue. The same young men in shorts thrust coupons in your face: LIVE! NUDE! TO YOUR DOOR! CALL 24 HOURS. The same tourists, wearing new sandals and T-shirts, study their maps behind black sunglasses. But there is the gambling, of course.
      It is the heat where Hawaii and Nevada come together and then most starkly part. The relative humidity in Las Vegas in July, at 5 p.m., is only 14%. In Kailua itís 80%. Dry heat can stress the body, and more moisture is lost than in a humid climate. In the plane, it is cold, the air conditioning too high. I touch my windowó it is warm as a bath.
      The plane glides down and I wonder why Keoki took Karyn and the boys here. I know she felt oppressed by his family; in Kailua they lived in a 3-bedroom house with almost 10 other adults and children. She could not make a move without it being commented on. Keokiís small yard-maintenance business was floundering, and Karyn had gotten a job offer from another Supercuts in Las Vegas. In any case, this move was a chance for a new start, a throw of the dice. Maybe, with just the four of them, life could be good.
      I arrive at 2 p.m. The temperature reads 110ƒ. As if to close itself off, my skin tightens. For the next three days, I feel swollen with unbroken fever; the lotion I put on evaporates like rain on pavement. The heat assaults even my eyelids, dry and heavy where they meet. When I return to my car and sip my bottled water, it burns my lips, and eventually a small fever blister forms. This is a place that will age you, dry you up like old canvas. To protect their skin, before bed, women here seal in lotion with a layer of Vaseline. This is a heat, perhaps, that could drive a person to drink. Or to kill. I walk by a bush and touch the leaves, and they crumble in my hand.

      I keep thinking it could have been me. In some way, it should have been. My father was the drunk, the gambler, the one who couldnít keep a job, who married and divorced on a regular basis. My mother left him when I was two, running from man to man and city to cityóI went to four high schools in four years in three different states. Home to me is the furniture we brought with us from one house to the nextóthe curve of an armchair, the nasturtiums photograph, now faded to sepia, the wooden Buddha with the missing hand. Money was always scarce. All through her childhood, Karyn lived with both parents and her siblings in the same nice house with a pool. Her father, my uncle, was well known in Honolulu as a good businessman and an excellent golfer, placing well at the Oahu Country Club tournaments. People said of him: ìHe was a good family man.î Large, ruddy-faced, he had the look of a man who was well- acquainted with the good life. Though he was only handsome from a certain angle, he was quick to smile and laugh and no one could believe it when he died of cancer so young, not yet 45. So when Karyn ìwent localî and rejected her fatherís white world, it didnít seem right. If anyone had predicted which manís daughter would get into trouble, they would have picked me.

      Reading the newspaper articles, I wonder about the spelling of her name, Karynóthe ìy.î I wonder if she chose that spelling in some small spirit of independence, the kind of gesture only a young girl would make. I shortened my name to Jo when I was 14, liking the crispness of it. Like Karyn, I grew up in small towns by the ocean, hung out with young men who were going nowhere, who drove beat-up cars and smoked pot and played the guitar or drums. The kind of guys who hold you with one hand up high, near the shoulder. Guys with tattoos still fresh on smooth skin. Life is simple with them. You know where you stand; the boundaries are clear. Feminine and masculine become markers of possession. There is no ambiguity, and in that life fights are part of the deal. In that world even a black eye can be a badge of some kind: youíre mine. Itís a simple life, and one she must have clung to.
      Years later, I would watch a film with a man. There was a scene of what some might call violent passion. I remember thinking, yes, I want it like that, rough so I can reach the stage where control is no longer something to hold on to, but something to let go. But it was more than that. I wanted clarity, too, to know how much a man might want me. The evidence is visual: the clenching of hands, the way he looks at my mouth, the pace of his breath. Such a fine line, a manís anger. I have not only been careful, this I know, I have been lucky. The men Iíve chosen do not hurt me. One man put his fist through a cabinet, but he lacked the capacity to direct that punch at me.
      Well into my twenties, I gravitated toward men who wanted to possess me, because I secretly liked their jealousy. I wanted them to fight over me. Nothing could be more thrilling, it seemed to me. My mother and my aunt were involved with this kind of men during my childhood. My mother still has sinus problems from a broken nose. The yelling, the door-slamming, the drama, all of it was commonplace to me. Once my mother and a man fought in their bedroom. I remember the angry footsteps and cursing, the sound of broken glass. Then silence, and then low laughter. Later that night, they couldnít stop touching. And when I heard that Karyn had a possessive boyfriend, even a violent one, I thought I understood why she might stay with him.
      When my father called and told me she had been stabbed to death, I learned that she was killed on my birthday. I donít even remember that birthday, the day I turned 27. Perhaps I got some books, a photo album, some bath oil. I want to say Iím sorry, but I donít know to whom or for what.

      Just off Paradise Avenue lies Manhattan Street, a tidy road bordered by apartment complexes. Karyn, Keoki, and their two young sons lived in Sunrise Village, moderately upscale condos, gray trimmed in green, with tile roofs. Small palms dot the property. A fitness center stands empty, and the pool is just big enough to swim laps.
      Their existence here must have been tenuous. She worked at Supercuts, where she specialized in short haircutsóshe was good at it; over the years in Hawaii, she had built up a clientele who would pay $12 instead of $8 to have her as their stylist. More than once, she won the ìmost requestsî contest for Oahu. ìShe loved her job,î Karynís sister, Lori, told me. ìIt was the only time she could be social, could be herself.î
      Keoki worked in the kitchen at the Casino Royale. In a deposition, he stated that he worked ìfrom 7 in the evening to 7 in the morning. It was killing me. We never saw each other and I guess we started growing apart. I came home and she would be leaving to her job and I had to watch the kids.î Since the move, he had lost 20 pounds and had been sleeping no more than four hours per day. Under the best of circumstances, he was often drowsy because of the medication he took for a seizure disorder that had been diagnosed in infancy.
      Except for their acquaintances at work, Karyn and Keoki had no friends. They liked to drink rum and cokes and Long Island iced teas and smoke potóthe evidence sheet shows that more than seven of the 71 exhibits are photos of marijuana and paraphernalia: Exhibit 36-B: Blue bowl, ash tray and green leafy substance. Offered and Admitted.
      From the ground, I look up at Apartment 48 and try to imagine the stairs running with blood, the way her sister described it. ìThey donít clean it up for you,î Lori said. An old man comes out with his dog. He tells me he has only lived here a year and a half. Not wanting to upset him, I donít ask questions. The woman downstairs looks me over carefully. She remembers what happened and tells me there have been three other deaths in the complex since thenótwo murders and a suicide. I am not surprised. That dayís Sun had reported that, for the second consecutive year, Nevada ranked number one in the nation for violent crime. I take some photos and move on.

      On May 8, 1993, as I entered graduate school in Washington, Karyn was getting ready to leave Keoki for good. The evidence sheet lists three photos of her packed suitcase. Although sheíd talked of leaving for years, this time she meant it. Keoki had crossed the line: two weeks before, he had struck the older boy, Kimo. The violence would stop with the children, Karyn said. On April 28, she left for her motherís in Colorado, quickly and without telling anyone. Over the next few days, she talked by phone with Keoki frequently; he pleaded with her to come back, promising things would be different. But she knew it was over, that she would return only to clean up her affairs, give notice at work, and go back to her motherís with the children. Keoki didnít quite believe it. A psychiatrist later reported that ìas long as they were talking, sleeping together, and arguing [Keoki] had a hope that Karyn would change her mind.î
      Back in Las Vegas, Karyn often called her mother and Lori; in the background, they testified later, they could hear Keoki yelling that he would kill her if she left. It was an increasing threat that everyone was beginning to take seriously, except perhaps for Karyn herself. Her mother told her, ìFor Godís sake, watch your back.î

      I last saw Karyn and Keoki at my grandmotherís funeral seven years ago. They stood off to the side, leaning against their rusty pickup. He was slight, dark, what people in Hawaii call a ìlocal,î a term referring to any mix of ancestryóHawaiian, Portuguese, Asian, Filipino, Samoan. It was the first time Iíd seen him, and I was taken aback. He was skinny, his face impassive. Next to him, Karyn seemed large and white. They were an incongruous pair. I could see no trace of the mischievous teenager I had known, the girl who would pop her bubble gum in my face, whoíd taught me to do a back dive, whoíd given me a bracelet of shells. I remember the unbidden thought: she had let herself go. She was only three years older than I, but she looked hard and tired. The glance she gave me was both defensive and suspicious, and I steered clear. She had been holding her baby, Kimo, to her chest like a shield. I hadnít even known she was pregnant.
      Karyn and Keoki met when they were 19, on Lanikai Beach Park. Karynís sister remembers disliking him on sight: ìHe was scrawny and shifty-eyed. Controlling. And he wore those disgusting mesh shirts.î
      After six months of dating, Karyn moved into his room at his fatherís house, where three of Keokiís siblings, two with families of their own, also lived. In Waimanaloóreal local country, although just over the hill from Honoluluófamilies often extended into the dozens, even hundredsóaunts, uncles, cousins. This was a place a haole, or white person, might want to avoid if he or she were aloneóand certainly at night.
      When I was in college, my friends and I would drive through this area on our way home from Kailua Beach, and as we slowed through the little town, I always felt conspicuous. Sometimes we might stop at the grocery store for a soda. This was a mildly adventurous thing to do, like crossing a busy street against the light, and we did it in that spirit, casually and yet with all senses on alert. It was an unspoken thing. In these stores you could buy Spam and Chinese crack seed and ahi poke by the pound. The cement floors were always grimy with dust, cool against our bare feet. Resting in the shade of the awning, young kids would sit on the bench, swing their slim brown legs and slide glances at us. For the most part, we were ignored. I knew I was being tolerated, that my presence was unremarkable, possibly amusing or annoying. Although we were haoles, we were also kamaainasónot tourists, which elevated us slightly.
      As far as our family was concerned, Karyn had emigrated to another country, with its own laws and even its own language. And so on Easter Sunday and Motherís Day, we gathered without her. It was never clear if she couldnít make it or just didnít want to. But there was always something vaguely shameful about Karyn having ìgone local.î My brother talked about her teeth, how they were ìbad and yellow.î
      ìI was shocked,î he said after seeing her at our grandmotherís funeral. ìShe was a full-on local.î
      My father thinks she decided, on some level, to gravitate toward the local world after she twice failed the entrance exam to Punahou, the best junior and senior high school in Hawaii, and the oldest private school west of the Mississippi. It can cost up to $7,000 a year; the students are mostly haole and Japanese; 60% go to mainland universities. My father and his brother Georgeó Karynís fatherówent to Punahou, and it was understood that all four of Uncle Georgeís children would go, too, even though it meant an hour commute each way from Kailua. Karynís sister and their younger twin brothers all got in. So did my little brother. Because I had only come back to Hawaii for my senior year, I didnít apply. I went to the public high school, Roosevelt, a half mile away. There I was detested as a ìmainland haole.î I spent my time trying to dodge the Samoan girls who wanted to stuff my head in the toilet. Karyn ended up going to Kailua High, where she fared much better with the locals than I did at Roosevelt. Born and raised in the islands, she knew how to fit in. For example, she knew how to speak Pidgin, something her father forbade her to do at home. He knew there was a time and place for itóon the golf course, at the gas stationóbut he didnít want his daughters to speak it anywhere. ìWhy donít you go out with the haole boys,î heíd ask Karyn. Lori said her father was wary of the locals, of what he saw as their possessiveness and their lack of education. She said he meant the ìrealî localsóthe ones who worked blue-collar jobs, because they couldnítóor wouldnítóspeak Standard American English. Many locals, but certainly not all, lived within a more ìtraditionalî system, in which the man is dominant, the woman obedient. ìI donít want to say he was prejudiced,î Lori said. ìHe just wanted the best for us.î
      While George was alive, Karyn stayed away from local boys, for the most part, but she wouldnít stop speaking Pidgin. Pidgin could mean survival, something I knew as well as Karyn. Adopting local ways was the only chance of making it through Roosevelt. I took hula dancing; my brother taught me to surf; I badgered my father into buying me some sundresses and plastic slippers. The key, though, was to speak Pidgin. My nickname was ìstupid haole,î because for weeks I literally couldnít understand people when they spoke to me. I listened carefully, though, studying the quick, lilting chatter of my classmates and local people on the bus, in the stores. At home, in front of the mirror, Iíd try out phrases and intonations, such as ìYou like stay,î the stay dropping down two notes, because in Pidgin, questions do not lift in the end to a higher tone, but fall like stones, the last word left with the weight of an assumption. But it always felt false, as if I were trying on shoes that were not just too small, but made for a completely different shape of foot. One day I tested my Pidgin on my father. For years Iíd seen him use it to ease tension with a certain local or when heíd tell a joke, slipping between dialects like a slalom skier. I wanted this skill, the evidence of which would prove I belonged here, with my father, in these islands. As we drove down Kalakaua Avenue, I came up with an innocuous question; I casually asked, ìYou like go to the movies?î According to the rule, I let movies rest low. Even as I said it, it sounded horribly stupid to me. I had blurted it out of context, clumsily switched into a new, false, identity. My face burned. Suddenly I saw myself as my father then saw me: ignorant.
      I sat tensely, while my father considered the implications. A future presented itself to him: his daughter, falling into the local world, sleeping with muscled local boys with tattoos of Hawaiian warriors stretched over massive brown backs; going not to the University of Hawaii, but to a beauty school in Kailua, like Karyn; getting married and living in hot, dry Aiea; cooking saimin for dinner and having dozens of cousins, aunties, uncles over for Sunday barbecues on the back patio. Getting fat and slapping around two hapa- haole (half-white) kids.
      All this he calculated in seconds. He could have answered my question and said, ìYes, letís see a matinee,î which might have been a surrender to that glimpse of the future. But he said only, ìSo, I see you know how to speak Pidgin.î I shrugged, mortified, and didnít speak for the rest of the ride. It seemed the worst thing I could do was become like Karyn.

      I think she wanted to leave the white world long before the Punahou rejection. She was the middle child, sandwiched between a pretty blonde older sister and her handsome younger brothersó twins no less, so attractive they were final candidates for a Doublemint commercial. Karyn, always overweight, seemed the odd one out even as a child. In one family portrait, when Karyn must have been 11 or 12, her sister stands over the twins, hands comfortably on their shoulders, and Karyn is separated from them by several inches. Against their blondeness and perfect smiles, she looks like a distant relative, a cousin. I doubt Karyn chose to go local in the way one might choose to change her identity, the way I didóunnaturally and desperately. It must have been the easiest course for her, a rhythm she stepped into. In the local world she was a haole, and a local boy with a white girlfriend was granted grudging respect, often outright admiration. Being haole was a complicated identity: it could be dangerous, but it could also be a great advantage. I know I wanted that power. So Karyn was a prize, she was always noticed. If she werenít educated or pretty, it would not matter nearly so much.
      As a teenager, I envied her easy movement in that world, but I wonder now if she was aware that her world was narrowing, like a lens closing in, concealing more and more until only a tiny opening remained. Did she ever think of what was hidden? Was she content with what was left? Did she ever feel as if she had no choice, that it was too late? Iíve often invented lives for her. I knew she loved horsesóshe could have managed a stable and given riding lessons. She could have owned a small shop and sold scented candles, notepaper, and ceramic bowls. Sometimes, I confused what I imagined to be her dreams with mine. When Karyn was in her early twenties and I was studying journalism at UH, she would come over once a week to wash and set our grandmotherís hair and paint her nails a bright coral. We all tried to contribute something to our grandmotheróColleen took her grocery shopping and out to weekly dinners; Lori and the twins would read to her; I went to church with her now and then; my brother came by just to talk with her, to hold her soft hands with bones so fragile they seemed they would bend. But we never saw her together, except on holidays, and so she became the conduit for the family. I would hear of Karyn through my grandmotheróthe $20 tip she made at work, the babyís first wordsóand she of me, I suppose, in the same way. As the years went by, Karyn visited less and less, and we would avert our eyes from my grandmotherís matted hair. ìHave you seen Karyn?î she would ask.
      During college I heard rumors from my father. He told me of the endless threats, the beatings, of how Keoki would park outside her work and watch her through the window to make sure she wasnít ìchecking out guysî in the parking lot. She wasnít allowed to wear shortsóand never a bathing suit. At the beach, sheíd roll her pants up before going into the water. My father told me of the time Karyn and her Supercuts co-workers locked themselves in the back of the store, while Keoki threw himself at the plate-glass window, again and again, and finally with both hands hurled a giant rock, shattering the window into a thousand pieces. But Iíd quickly put it out of my mind. It was as if we were discussing something remarkable but distasteful in the newspaper. As Iíd learned all my life, I knew this was another of those problems that is to be whispered about, but to which there is no solution.
      But late at night, ashamed almost to admit it even to myself, Iíd wonder at the passion of a man who would hurl himself through a window for you. To see a man lose such control, that idea haunted me. I wondered what it would be like. I never thought he would kill her, but then I didnít see the daily arguments. She didnít run to my house, as she did to her sisterís, in the middle of the night. I didnít hear him crashing through the bushes crying, ìI love you, Karyn!î I didnít see any of it, but I take no solace from that now.

      This killing had been a long time coming. ìThe saddest thing,î Lori told me, ìis that it didnít surprise us.î Our family is thus steeped in shameófor her, for ourselves. This was not a random death, for which we would rightfully feel a deep rage, but one in which we all felt implicated, as if it were not just Karyn and Keokiís story but our whole familyís. In fact, Iíve often thought of the grammar of the phrase ìKarynís murderî as if it were somehow something she owned, something that was hers. Other languages lack this implicit accusation; in French you would say, ìthe murder of Karyn.î But in the end itís still the same. Sheís gone.
      Over time, Iíve come to understand the mechanism of shame, which has within it a dark seed of self-recognition. Even when I was young, how could I have envied her life? Did I need love so much? And with the shame comes guilt, for how can you fault another for taking a path you might have taken yourself? Then later, when I saw her with Keoki, what right did I have to disapprove? I wonder where this judgment came from, that he was not good enough for her, that Karyn was not good enough for us.
      When Karyn was murdered, our family died, too. We had never been close. There had been too many secrets and wounds, many stemming from events decades old. I thought of our family as a wilderness, with canyons and rivers and mountains. But no one needed a map, because we all knew this country so well, which areas were safe, and which were best not to travel. We could maneuver through any conversation. We gathered for occasional holidays and the children sent school pictures. But when Karyn was killed, we came apart still farther, instead of coming together. I didnít see my father or brother for several years, and we talked on the phone only once or twice a year. No one spoke at all to Karynís familyóher mother, sister, and brothers. It was as if they no longer existed. My brother didnít send any wedding invitations to them: it wasnít intentional; he just didnít think of it. Neither my father nor I ever called or wrote them. Weíd heardófrom neighbors? (I donít even remember)óthat the twins and Karynís mother had moved to Colorado, and that Lori was now somewhere in Oregon with her husband and children. It was as if the wilderness had grown thicker and was now impassable, and there was no longer any path home.
      It took me six months to tell Karynís family about my research. I was afraid they would be horrified at worst, resentful at best. On Christmas Day, 1997, I called Lori. She talked for an hour, telling about the 2 a.m. phone call from the police, about the grueling trial, about her years of therapy, the Prozac, the sleepless nights, about how sheíd promised Karyn sheíd protect her. I talked to Colleen, Karynís mother, and listened to her cry. She has custody of Karynís boys, who are doing well under her care. But many people prefer not to know about their past, and some ignore it. No one wants to talk about it, Colleen said, and it is clear she is often frustrated. ìIf you bottle it up, thatís when it does harm.î
      Lori and Colleen thanked me profusely for reaching out to them, for ending the silence. I only wish I had done it sooner. Lori said to me, ìWhat if your brother had been murdered and no one called you?

      The evening of May 8, Maria Jordan, a police officer with the Clark County School District, was watching TV with her nine-year-old son and two of his friends. Around 7 p.m., she heard a violent banging on the floor above her, coming from Apt. 48. She would testify later that it sounded like two sumo wrestlers. In his opening statement, the Deputy D.A. quoted her as saying it was ìvery, very violent, and a pounding, pounding noise.î
      Jordan was fed up with the months of fighting, which had intensified during the last few days. Putting a coat over her nightgown, she went upstairs to tell them to shut up. When she got there, she heard children screaming and a manís voice yelling. There was no response to her first series of pounds on the door. After the second, Keoki opened the door. He was covered in blood. He said to her, ìI snapped. I screwed up.î
      Behind him, through the front door, she could see Karyn lying on her back in the middle of the kitchen floor, a butcher knife sticking from her throat. Jordan ran downstairs, yelled to the boys to get under the bed, and grabbed her off-duty gun. Back upstairs, she leveled the gun at Keoki and told him that she was going to take the children. The two-year-old boy had blood on him and was crying hysterically on the floor. She grabbed the boy and ran downstairs, commanding her son to ìget this kid under the bed with you.î She then returned upstairs, pointed the gun at Keoki, who stood motionless, and grabbed the six-month-old boy.
      When Keoki was taken by the Metro officers, he told them to ìshoot me.î And he told them, ìIím sorry.î
      Karyn had been stabbed 42 times: four to the front of her neck, seven to the back of her neck, five to her back, ten to fifteen to her chest. The strikes to the chest cut her larynx, so she could not scream. There were five slashes on her face and mouth. One in her side was delivered with such force that it pulled a portion of her viscera back out through the hole. On her hands and arms were numerous ìdefensiveî wounds.
      An expert in forensic evidence testified that Karyn fought for her life, and was first stabbed as she stood. There were at least two, possibly three, attacks, three different series of blows. Based on the position of her body and the blood, she was at one point standing or leaning against a wall with her cheek down facing the wall, and either by her own physical movement or by the action of others, she was rolled onto her back and the knife driven into her neck, where it remained.

      I look at these documents and exhibits numbly, feeling sick with it. What I have is a list of photographs, a gallery of her death, spread out on my living-room floor. But I also feel an unnerving sense of relief. Here is the proof. This is like finding the body, perhaps, that has been missing for years, in the war, out at sea, kidnapped. Until it is found, you live with a quiet anxiety, on the edge of minor insanity even, because it is just too unreal to comprehend. This couldnít have happened in my family; itís all some kind of sick joke. But then the evidenceódocuments, transcripts, lettersóthe evidence you have ordered comes in the mail to your home. The language so simple and clinical, handwritten by a clerk: Exhibit 51-A control sample, blood-like substance. All in black and white. There is the body, you think. Now I can go on. But of course you donít, not really.

      What I know of Keoki is very little, and most of it has come from the court file. I learned that he is five foot nine and 140 pounds, the eldest of six children. Heíd lived all his life in Hawaii, until he and Karyn left for Las Vegas in April 1992. Born with mild jaundice and asthma, Keoki spent time in an oxygen tent as an infant. He was colicky until eight months old, and didnít sit up alone until almost 11 months. He had recurring anemia and air-borne allergies. Medical history indicates that he was clumsy as a child, exhibited ìodd behaviors,î and banged his head on the floor. He began having seizures before he was two, which became much worse during adolescence. For these he took Dilantin, Tegretol, and Phenobarbital. Described as a nervous, hyperactive child, during preschool years he developed motor tics, including eye blinking, shoulder shrugs, and arm jerks, along with gurgling, sniffing, and spitting sounds. He has been diagnosed for several things, including temporal-lobe epilepsy, seizure disorder, agoraphobia, and organic hallucinosis.
      Although he was raised around violence, he thought he had a ìhappy childhood.î His father, whom the psychiatrist described as emotionally distant, used his fists to dole out punishment; when he was three, Keoki was brought to the hospital for an edema on his eyelids and cornea. During the trial, his father said that, when Keoki misbehaved, he would ìgo bangíem with da car!î Meaning he would try and run him down with his car. Keoki became violent himself. When he was 13, he hit his sister so hard that he was treated for a hand injury. Medical-history reports state that he had been ìphysically aggressive in the past, as he destroyed walls, doors and pictures.î
      Keoki, known as a brat, was favored by his grandparents. He attended Star of the Sea, a private school, about which he was very proud. He liked school until tenth grade, when he started to use drugs and alcohol. It was at this time that his seizures, about which he knew virtually nothing and which embarrassed him deeply, got worse. According to Keoki, these seizures had a ìflaring, slashingî quality, which ended quickly and left him stunned and horrified. He says, ìItís like I blink and time goes by.î His IQ, 112 in high school, is now 84, apparently due to the number of seizures he has suffered. His lawyer testified that in 1986, Keoki had a 24-hour electro- encephalogram, in which probes were put around his skull to measure the emission of electrical discharges. During this period, he had 53 abnormal electrical spike-events focused on his left temporal area. Although an occasional spike is probably non-pathogenic, meaning it doesnít cause epilepsy or convulsion, 52 spikes an hour is very unusual. It shows ìepileptiform activity,î an irritable focus in the brain. A medical handbook states that ìviolence ends as abruptly as it begins with the perpetrator returning from peaks of rage to calm behavior within an instant. In between outbursts, individuals do not seem angry, irritated or agitated but often show embarrassment and deep remorse.î This behavior contrasts with sociopathic disorder, in which individuals rationalize and justify their violent acts. His lawyer stated to the jury, ìI think you will see that [he] is completely at the opposite end of the scale from some sort of conscious murderer or sociopath that the state would have you believe.î
      It was during one of his seizures, according to the defense, that Keoki murdered Karyn. The plea was not guilty on the grounds of temporary insanity. Jack Jurasky, M.D., examined Keoki for the prosecution and said it was the ìheat of passionî and not ìpsychosis or temporal lobe epilepsyî that provoked the murder: ìWhen her abandonment of him became a reality in his mind, he could not cope with that and under the stress and frustration and threat of a major loss he was unable to contain himself.î
      Keoki is now 34. He will be in prison for another 15 years at least. His mother, who has written the governors of Hawaii and Nevada, as well as President Clinton, wants him transferred to a medical facility, or at least to a prison in Hawaii where his family can visit him. At present, he takes 400 mg of Tegretol to control seizures. His mother is afraid heíll commit suicide. In a letter to Keokiís public defender, she said, ìHis blood test sometimes shows that he is not receiving enough oxygen. For inmate safety reasons because of numerous stabbings going on at Ely Prison, all the inmates have been on lockdown for months. Keoki requires medical attention, fresh air, exercise. He is a good son and we love him very much!î Nevertheless, Keoki will remain at Ely. A reply from Hawaiiís department of public safety states that Hawaii ìis experiencing a major problem with prison overcrowding. Therefore, we are in no position to enter into such an exchange program with the State of Nevada.î

      Highway 50 cuts across Nevadaís middle like an erratic slash. Most travelers take the more convenient Interstate 80, a few hours north. Entering the two- lane highway just east of Reno, the sign proclaims it ìThe Loneliest Road in America.î After only an hour, I was inclined to agree. One can drive a 60-mile stretch without sight of another car, and across the vast desert there is only the occasional house nestled against the low rise of the Toiyabe Range. Mines can be seen far off, looking futuristic and unnaturalópostmodern structures rising from dust and rock. The richness of this land is found below the surface: the rhyolite, garnet, silver, copper, and gypsum.
      Signs of life, because they are so few, pulled my attention and I stared, grateful that I was not alone. Forty-five miles past the last crop of buildings, I saw a black horse. Later still, two dead cows.
      This drive across Nevada to Ely State Prison takes almost seven hours. Ely, one of the three most secure maximum-security prisons in the country, is also the most remote, 245 miles fromótake your pickóLas Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Twin Falls, Idaho. Fortunately for the staff, the guard told me, both spouses can work at the prison, something usually prohibited at other prisons. Still, employee turnover is 60%. In the town of Ely, which local folks say is ìthe big middle of nowhere,î two mines have shut down recently, making the townís dependence on the prison even more significant. At the Jailhouse Lounge, where you can play super-loose slots after a 99¢ breakfast of ham and eggs, the plucky waitress told me sheís grateful for the prison. ìItís brought a lot of jobs here. And no one can escape from it.î
      From Highway 50, I drove west on 93 a short bit to 490, which took me about nine miles out to the prison, located in Steptoe Valley. There the highways ends, and, beyond and around, only desert remains. About a mile before the prison, the road cuts through a narrow canyon, with walls 200 feet high, like a natural gate, an entrance to a world where only a select few are welcome, a world surrounded by rolling razor wire and 15-foot-high concrete walls. Even if it were possible, a prisoner who escaped from Ely would do well to head east rather than try to make it across Nevada. After heavy rain in the mountains, there are creeks, and, in some places, hot springs. But in the main this is a dry place, with only eight inches of annual precipitation. The creatures who survive here like it that way: the Northern sagebrush lizard, the Panamint rattlesnake, the coyote, the raven.
      I walked into the gatehouse, with its plastic chairs, like some waiting room in which the news is always bad, and picked up some brochures and fact sheets. It was important to me to go the distance, to exhaust all avenues. It felt as if I had at last come close enough to Keoki. The weight of his guilt or innocence, whether he was mentally ill or temporarily insane, no longer mattered to me. Itís not for me to forgive or judge, although itís also not for me to forget.
      As I drove away, I saw a swath of rain over Battle Mountain. It evaporated long before it hit the earth.

Joelle Fraser is currently waiting on tables at Pacific Blues CafÈ in Yountville, before heading back for a final year in the Nonfiction M.F.A. program at the University of Iowa. This is her first essay in print. Some of the names have been changed. E-mail: jfraser@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu