Murder Pro Bono

by Don Porter

  Maggie already had her nose buried in a romance novel, but she had plugged in the coffeepot. George was, uncharacteristically, in our office ahead of me, the only thing on his desk a cup of the coffee. I drizzled a cup for myself, sat at my desk, and contemplated the evils of hangovers. When the phone rang, it had the piercing quality of an air-raid siren.

  Maggie fielded the call, made some notes on a message pad, and condescended to bring the news into our office. She was wearing heels, but no hose. Secretaries can get away with that in Hawaii, particularly if they're young. Maggie's employment application claimed that she was 23, but I didn't believe that, any more than I believed the prior employment history she had made up. When we hired her, she was a mousy little introvert, with the dark hair suitable for her last name, Capriccio. All of that changed when she did an assignment for us. That job involved her impersonating, in her words, “a rich bitch.” That was also the origin of the blonde bob, and, in her words again, “her bazooms.” The physical changes weren't so remarkable. It was the change those accoutrements made in her personality that was astounding.

  Maggie handed me the note. “That was O'Malley on the phone. He says that since you are working for him now, you should come to his office. Here's the address.” She gave me an I-told-you-so smirk, set the note on my desk, and went back to the world of Harlequin.

  “O'Malley has an office?” George was wrinkling his brow again, either at the improbability of that news, or at the stale coffee.

  “That's what the note says: Three hundred Nimitz Highway.”

  “Dick, there aren't any office buildings in that block. That would be the block between River Street and Iwilei Road. The only thing in that block is the Nuuanu Stream.” George has an amazing stock of information in his head, not the least of which is a complete street map of Oahu.

  I left the coffee and walked over to our window. Directly below me the Fort Street pedestrian mall shimmered in sunshine, then Bethel Street, Nuuanu Avenue, a couple more streets that encompass Chinatown, and a gap in the buildings. I could see the morning traffic still jammed up crossing the bridge over Nuuanu Stream. George was right. That's one of his many irritating qualities, he's always right.

  “Maybe he wants to meet us on the bridge? Shall we walk over, or drive?”

  “We'll drive,” George decided, “but we're taking your car. I'm not parking the convertible on River Street.”

  I didn't park the Jag on River Street because there were no vacant meters within six blocks of Nimitz. We drove back to the highway, crossed the bridge, and found a hundred vacant meters on Iwilei Road. Iwilei Road was there, and named, before Honolulu had streets. In whaling days, its accessibility from the waterfront resulted in a sub-class of prostitutes known as Iwilei girls. One time I was researching the newspaper morgue for a property ownership case we were on and I ran across a headline from December second, nineteen sixteen. A hundred and three Iwilei girls were arrested, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, and were given thirteen-month suspended sentences. That must have been quite a party. They have since been replaced, for better or worse, by the Dole Pineapple Cannery.

  We walked back to the bridge and George was right, of course. There are no buildings of any kind on the three hundred block of Nimitz. George was looking around and made one of his usual helpful observations.

  “Maybe O'Malley and his buddy Pendergast do their morning jogging here.” George was being sarcastic. In addition to no buildings, there was also no sidewalk.

  The bridge was meant for motor traffic only, so we stopped at the concrete abutment, smelled the tide flat, and watched a fishing boat getting underway from the harbor across the highway. I was leaning against the concrete railing and a yellow Post-It note that was fluttering in the breeze caught my eye. The note was block printed: Three hundred. I have seen George smile, but not recently. He scowled at the note, scowled at me, then scowled at the muddy path that led around the abutment, down toward the stream, and disappeared under the bridge. We saluted each other with mutual shrugs, and eased down the path.

  The highway has eight lanes, so the area under the bridge beside the stream is a hundred feet long and thirty feet wide. It smelled like mushrooms and wet dirt, and it rumbled like an earthquake each time a truck crossed. When our eyes adjusted to the gloom, there appeared to be several people in the space. An ancient crone, wearing overalls and a plaid shirt, squatted at the edge of the stream, fishing with a stick and a few feet of leader. Another, wearing several layers of clothes under a blue bathrobe, knelt by a bonfire, cooking something in a can. There were other people, but I was distracted when we spotted O'Malley.

  He was seated on a wooden box, sewing a rip in his jeans. The irreverent description that came to mind was of a dark dandelion. He consisted of a slender stalk, topped by a round bush. His hair stuck up and out a foot, with no demarcation between hair and equally unkempt beard.

  He seemed to be smiling. At least, there was a row of teeth visible in the mat, and I grudgingly noted what Maggie meant about his eyes. They were bright blue and sparkling, the only clean thing about him.

  “Gentlemen, come in, come in. Welcome to my humble abode and office. Make yourselves comfortable.” He indicated that we should sit on the bank beside him. We hesitated, but sat. The ground was hard and dry, so it would probably brush off. O'Malley waved an inclusive hand at the other occupants of the cavern. “These are my family. I'll introduce you later. How is the murder investigation coming?”

  “Well,” George was on his good behavior, “it would help the investigation if we knew just who was murdered.”

  “Oh, him.” O'Malley stuck the darning needle into his pant leg and left the thread dangling. “He's over here.” He stood and led the way under the bridge toward the boat harbor. We passed the woman who was cooking.

  “Gentlemen, Rose. Rose, my detectives.” She waved and smiled, showing several teeth. I didn't recognize the odor from the cooking can. We passed two guys, one normal size, one large economy, who were busily taking aluminum cans out of bags and stomping on them. “Willie and Bruno.” O'Malley's wave was inclusive, so it didn't indicate which was which. We didn't stop, and they didn't look up. We came out into the sunshine at the downstream edge of the bridge. O'Malley pointed.

  The body was caught in the weeds at the edge of the stream, bumping up and down in the little waves from the boat harbor. It was wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt, Armani slacks, and Gucci loafers, but a very vacant stare.

  George said several things that are not printable. I said, “How long has he been there?”

  “Since yesterday. He wasn't there when the family went to bed the night before; then when we got up in the morning, there he was.”

  “And you haven't called the police?”

  “No. The family talked it over and decided we'd better not. See, the police don't like people to be free. You're supposed to be a slave, making payments on cars and stuff, and struggling to pay the rent. If you're free, they want to put you in jail. Besides, Willie is our legal eagle. He used to be a crime reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. He pointed out that whoever reports a murder is the prime suspect. That's why we hired you guys. You solve the murder, and we don't get involved.”

  It wasn't my first reaction, but when I thought a moment, I had to admit that O'Malley had some good points there. If the five people we had seen, who were apparently living under the bridge, were the family, I wouldn't want to be defending them in court. The words of an old Janice Joplin song did come to mind: “Freedom's just another word for nothin’ left to lose …” On the other hand, George and I spent the occasional week worrying about how the heck we were going to pay the rent. The same would be true of a jury, and I'm not absolutely sure that some of the distaste we feel for the bridge dwellers isn't envy.

  George was leaning over the corpse, leaving me the hard part of dealing with O'Malley. “Okay,” I said, “Willie gave you good advice, but the police do have to be called. We can't leave the body fl
oating around there while we solve the murder. I suggest that you and your family move down to the Salvation Army shelter for a couple of days. We can probably keep your family out of it, but your name is going to come up. Why the devil did you beat up those cops?”

  O'Malley was scuffing at the dirt. He had a tennis shoe on his left foot, but was using the brogan on his right foot to scuff. “I was expecting the cops to come after me, so when I saw those two skulking down the mall, I just figured that the best defense is an offense.”

  “Well, in this case, you got that exactly backward. When they come back for you, stick your hands out for the cuffs and say, ‘yes sir’. What did Pendergast have to say?”

  “Who's Pendergast?”

  “Your lawyer.”

  “Oh, was that his name? He never said a word to me. When we came out of the cop shop, he climbed into his Mercedes and drove away.”

  It was my turn to nod. “We'll give you an hour to clear out before we make the call.”

  O'Malley turned around and trotted back under the bridge. When he passed the two guys with the cans, they grabbed their bags and followed him. I joined George.

  “How was he killed?”

  “Garrote, professional job. He didn't even have a chance to fight back.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Might as well have.” George had waded out a couple of feet to inspect the other angle. He hadn't noticed that his shoes and pants were getting wet. “Look at that manicure. This guy never worked a day in his life, and no broken fingernails, so no fight.” George completed the circle and came back to terra firma. “His clothes are off the rack, but at Macy's, and the watch is a gold Rolex Cellini. This guy earned over a hundred thousand a year, but not in any usual profession.”

  “How the heck do you know that?”

  “Look at his hand, between the first and second fingers. No smooth spot from holding a pen.”

  I looked at my own right hand and saw what George meant, then tried a look at the corpse's right hand.

  “Not his right hand, dummy, his left.”

  “How do you know he was a southpaw?”

  “Elementary, my dear Watson. His watch is on his right wrist. Something really strange here, though. Notice the shirt is buttoned wrong? He missed with the next-to-last button. Why would a natty dresser like him do that? Will you stop tracking up the mud? The cops are going to wonder how your footprints got all over the crime scene.”

  “Speaking of cops, maybe we should make the call?” We turned back toward the bridge. There was no sign of any occupancy.

  Chapter Three

  “Cochran? Payne here. You remember that murder that O'Malley didn't commit? Well, the body is under the bridge at Pier 16. Have a nice day.” I hung up the phone. Cochran would have a few questions, but there was no point in rushing things.

  George was sitting at his desk, wearing the faraway expression that either meant he was thinking about the murder, or he was already thinking about meeting Monica at the beach house. He does spend a lot of time thinking about Monica, which is understandable if you like the tall, slender, overly busty, strikingly blonde movie star type. Think the blonde Cher with Lonnie Anderson's original figure. I have a vague recollection that Lonnie had her figure reduced because she didn't want to be stereotyped. I doubt that Monica has any such intentions.

  George had dripped a little puddle that was spreading on the carpet, so he wasn't going to put his feet on the desk. Maggie had dumped the stale coffee and made a fresh pot, probably the moment we had stepped out the door.

  I tried to direct George's thinking. “The first question is, was he dumped off the bridge, or one of the boats?”

  “Off the bridge, they just missed the stream. He wasn't ripe enough to float yet.” George went back to thinking, so I left him alone. He was, apparently, thinking in constructive channels.

  I knew it was useless, but I called Pendergast, just in case I caught him off guard.

  “Hello, Pendergast? Dick Payne, of Payne and Clark. Say, I was just wondering if you could tell us who arranged to have O'Malley bailed out?”

  The string of “hee hee hees” and “ho ho hos” that came out of the phone was like the canned laughter during a David Letterman monologue. Suddenly Pendergast stopped laughing and sounded very serious. “That's my legal opinion. Where shall I send the bill?” I hung up the phone.

  It rang, and it wasn't as piercing as the morning call. Maggie picked it up and immediately jerked it away from her ear. I could hear Cochran shouting all the way from her phone. She transferred the call.

  “Payne, if you're hiding O'Malley, I'll have you in solitary until your beard is longer than his.”

  “O'Malley?” I said. “Doesn't ring any bells. Are you sure that you have the right number?”

  Cochran hung up on me. Under the circumstances, that was the best thing he could have done.

  The outer door burst open. The apparition who stalked in was the woman we'd seen fishing by the stream under the bridge, and she still had some mud on her cheek to prove it. The woman stopped in Maggie's office and looked around. Maggie ushered her straight into our office and went to open a window.

  George looked up. He was in danger of developing permanent scowl lines. “Don't tell me there's been another murder?”

  “No, but there's going to be if you guys don't get off your duffs and do something.”

  I rushed around the desk, pulled up one of our client chairs, and gestured for her to sit. After all, a client is a client, and if we were going pro bono, we might as well go all the way. She sat. Rather dignified, actually, if you got past the trappings to the body language. I guessed her age at between forty and a hundred. I perched on the edge of my desk.

  “Hi, I'm Dick Payne, that's my partner, George Clark, and you are?”

  “Call me Dallas.”

  “Okay, Dallas, and just who is in danger of being murdered this time?”

  “O'Malley, for sure. Who knows, maybe the rest of the family, too.”

  “And why would that be?”

  “Well, see, O'Malley didn't tell you the whole truth. The family usually goes to bed at the same time. It isn't safe to be wandering around the Iwilei area after dark, so we gather in around sunset, cook our dinner over a campfire, and go to bed. Only O'Malley was real late. He came tearing down the path after dark and jumped into bed, but he didn't say nothin’, and he was shivering, like.”

  George came around to perch on the edge of his desk, too. We weren't threatening, just making the gathering intimate. “Dallas, do you think O'Malley killed that guy?”

  “Course not. Now looky here …” Dallas stopped to scrutinize us, and there was fear in her eyes—not of being murdered; of us. “You guys aren't cops, right? I mean, you're working for O'Malley, so he gets client privilege, right? I mean, I wouldn't say nothin’ that might get him into trouble.”

  I tried to sound reassuring. “That's right, Dallas. Client privilege refers to lawyers, not detectives, but we're on O'Malley's side, so anything you tell us will be safe with us. We're not cops, and we're definitely not stool pigeons.”

  “Yeah, that's what I hoped.” Dallas swiped a few strands of saltand-pepper hair out of her eyes. That was the first time I noticed that she was wearing gloves with no fingers to them.

  “So, you were saying that O'Malley came in late,” George prompted. “How can you be so sure when he came in?”

  “Well, we all sleep together, see? We have a big chunk of cardboard and some blankets and stuff, and we sort of huddle. It's warmer that way, and Rose and I sleep in the middle so it's safer. Don't get no scrummy ideas about sex nor nothing, we're just family, see?”

  “Of course.” I tried to sound as if it was the most natural arrangement in the world.

  “So, Bruno was sleepin’ on the outside, then Rose, then Willie, then me, only I was kind of cold, so I wasn't really sleepin’ until O'Malley came in. He sleeps on the outside next to the trail, so if anybody comes in, he
'll hear them first. See, O'Malley was a middleweight boxing contender, and people don't mess with him.”

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “He pretty nearly wiped out a station full of cops. But, why do you say he's going to be murdered?”

  “Well, we walked over to the Salvation Army shelter, only they don't like a bunch of people coming in together, so O'Malley went in first to be sure it was all right. He no sooner goes through the door than a big black car pulls up and two guys with pistols under their jackets jumped out and asked us if we'd seen him. Willie says, sure, we seen him, crossing the bridge toward town, so the car screeches away. Rose went in and told O'Malley. He walked out the back door and ain't come back yet.”

  George had quit frowning, but he still had a skeptical expression. “Dallas, are you sure the guys had guns under their jackets?”

  “Oh sure, I know a shoulder holster when I see one. I used to be a police firearms instructor back in Texas before I got tired of hustling to pay the bills and all that.”

  “I don't suppose you got the license number of the car?” George went back to sit at his desk, ready to write, but no such luck.

  “I would have, but the car didn't have plates, just one of those cardboard things with this month's date on it, like the car was brand new.”

  “Was it brand new?” He still had his pen poised.

  “Maybe. It was a Cadillac Seville, could have been new, but it had some serious mud and scratches on it. So, how you gonna protect O'Malley?”

  George got up and paced over to the window, but he didn't pace back. He just stood there looking down, and I realized that from there he could see the back of the Salvation Army shelter across the stream. “First thing we're going to do is move you guys out of that shelter. Dick is going to drive you back, you get the others out of there, and Dick will get you some rooms in a motel. The bad guys know that you know O'Malley, so when they don't find him, they'll be back. Don't worry about cost. We'll take care of it.” George turned back from the window. “How about the Thunderbird Motel out by the airport?”