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dripping from the sill to the floor. The twin mattress was bowed in the middle and smelled like generations of men had jerked off into it. The water in the bathroom was rusty and the bulb in the overhead light flickered like something from a bad movie. But it was home, at least until I earned the right to go back to Waikiki.
     
    The next morning I went back to Pipeline, but before I got into the water I visualized the scene, based on what I’d read in the case dossier. Someone had been able to bring an M4 carbine to the beach, take careful aim, and shoot a surfer off his board. An M4’s not the kind of gun you can stash in the waistband of your shorts; it can be close to three feet long, and can be fitted with a dizzying array of scopes, lights, magazines and other apparatus. How the hell could you bring something like that to a beach and set it up?
     
    After strolling casually up and down the beach a couple of times, making occasional eye contact, smiling and saying aloha, I saw a guy pulling his board out of a foam-lined neoprene bag, and had one of those Eureka! moments. Lots of surfers actually transport their boards in bags; with a little creativity you could probably fit a rifle in there, too.
     
    So you could bring a rifle to the beach, pretty much undetected. But how do you set it up? Looking around, I figured the only solution was to hide behind a dune, using your surfboard to shield you from curious onlookers. There were a couple of likely prospects; if you were careful you could hunker down, letting only the top of your head and the barrel of the rifle peek above the sand.
     
    Standing at the water’s edge and looking back, I could see you’d be protected. But you’d still be vulnerable from the street. It wasn’t until I saw an amateur photographer begin to set up his gear that I realized how the gunman had completely avoided suspicion. Bring enough gear with you, a couple of cameras with big lenses, some umbrellas, coolers and other paraphernalia, and everyone on the beach would assume you were there to shoot pictures, not surfers.
     
    Once I figured that out, it was time to get wet. I hadn’t tackled big water for a long time, and I knew it would take a few days before I looked like I knew what I was doing. I stuck to Pipeline, because Mike Pratt had been killed there, and because both he and Lucie Zamora had been tournament-class surfers. At Pipeline, I’d be likely to meet up with other surfers who knew them.
     
    Pipeline is actually a series of three reefs, meaning it can generate a variety of swells, from small to monster. You almost never get a wave to yourself there: if the surf is low, then every surfer and bodyboarder is out, fighting for those few precious feet at the top of the swell. Even when the surf is high, there are daredevils all around, dropping into your wave and pushing you out.
     
    The potential for disaster is everywhere, and maybe that’s what makes Pipeline so much fun. The drops can be so high that you get giddy with exhilaration—yet that reef is waiting for you when you fall. You may have mastered a tall wave, but watch out for that guy cutting across in front of you. With every tube you face the possibility of getting sucked under the water.
     
    Pipeline requires the most basic skills: getting in early and placing your turn just right. Those were things I knew I could do, if I worked at them long enough. I took the small and medium waves, often sharing them with other surfers when the beach was busy, and I let the really big ones go. If you aren’t prepared for those, you can end up hurting yourself on the rocky, coral bottom.
     
    I alternated between Pipeline and Backdoor, a perfect right only about 150 feet away, and though every muscle in my body ached by the time I dragged myself back to my little room, I was starting to feel like a real surfer again. But all the time, I was thinking about the case, too, trying to come up with ways to learn about the dead