“I’ve requested a copy of Ms. Sutin’s autopsy report, but since you’re not officially a suspect, they’ve ignored my request.”
“We already know how she died, don’t we? What can the autopsy report tell us?”
“You’d be surprised.”
My cell began vibrating somewhere beneath the clutter on my desk. I moved around a few file folders, legal pads, and bills before I finally found it. The caller ID read A.
“Excuse me, Governor,” I said, opening the phone. “I need to take this.”
Slowly he rose from his seat.
“Hold on,” I said into the phone. To Omphrey I said, “Please have Mr. Yi drop off another check by the end of the day.”
The closer we got to finding out who Oksana Sutin really was, the more dangerous this was becoming. At the very least I was going to be paid.
“Very well,” Omphrey said. “Jason will also be dropping off a pair of invitations. I’d like you and Mr. Harper to be my guests at a fundraiser next weekend.”
“Thank you. We’d be delighted.”
I waited until he’d left my office and the door closed behind him before I raised the phone to my ear again. “Sorry for the delay.”
“It’s all right,” Audra replied. “I’ve arranged the meeting for tonight at eleven p.m. at Chinaman’s Hat.”
I was about to thank her when the reality of what she’d just told me finally sank in. “Chinaman’s Hat? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Audra wasn’t kidding. “Come on, Kevin. You’ve lived in Hawaii a few years now. Don’t tell me you can’t swim.”
CHAPTER 23
A half-moon lit the north end of Kaneohe Bay, the immense body of water that surrounds the offshore island commonly known as Chinaman’s Hat. The island earned its unusual name because of its odd cone shape, which resembles the peasant’s hat worn in rural China.
Chinaman’s Hat sits 614 yards offshore from Kualoa Beach Park on the windward side of Oahu, which meant I would have to swim the equivalent of six football fields in the dark of night to meet my whistle-blower, who, for all I knew, might put a bullet into my head and let my body drift off to sea.
But, the way I figured it, I owed Turi at least that.
I stepped onto the empty beach wearing only a pair of swim trunks and a swim mask, not that I’d be able to see anything underwater. Everything beneath the surface would be pitch-black, and I didn’t dare risk bringing an underwater flashlight. If I was followed, picking me off in the water would be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
I had made the swim to Chinaman’s Hat once before. During the day, of course, when I was surrounded by other swimmers and kayakers who might save my life if something went horribly wrong. The bay was normally calm, but strong currents were not unheard of. And they invariably arrived without warning. Tourists often reported sharks in the bay, most frequently in the early morning, which suggested they entered the bay and sought their prey only in the dead of night. A comforting thought as I entered the water.
In the years since I’d arrived in Hawaii, I had indeed become a much stronger swimmer. I had become stronger in general, going so far as to maintain a regular workout regimen, including hundreds of sit-ups and push-ups, and miles of running and jogging each week. It had nothing to do with vanity or even maintaining a healthy lifestyle. But after being shot at, stabbed, and nearly beaten to death, I realized physical fitness could prove vital to my survival as a defense attorney.
Tonight it paid off. I made it to Chinaman’s Hat in under forty-five minutes, even fighting against the current. I was tired, but not nearly as exhausted as I was when I swam here just a few years ago.
When I came ashore, I scrambled up the sharp rocks, wishing I’d worn a pair of reef shoes. I felt along and finally found a trail that led to the back of the island, where a small beach was surrounded on either side by tiny sea caves.
The silhouette of a large man stood against the moonlight.
“Glad you could make it, Counselor.”
I immediately recognized the voice and could have kicked myself for not figuring it out sooner. It had just seemed too obvious. But I could have saved myself a lot of trouble simply by approaching John Tatupu on the streets of downtown Honolulu.
“Detective,” I said, having already caught my breath.
“I’m sorry about the location, Corvelli, but I really saw no other choice.”
“No worries. I swim six hundred yards just about every night.”
“Twelve hundred,” he said. “Unless you don’t plan on swimming back.”
The thought of sleeping on the island had crossed my mind, but I didn’t tell him that. Instead I said, “We might as well get right to it then. What can you tell me about the Narcotics Intelligence Unit?”
Tatupu bowed his head. “The NIU was formed to investigate organized narcotics manufacturing and trafficking in the islands. But in practice, the unit quickly became just another arm of Hawaii’s criminal underworld. The unit shared information with Orlando Masonet’s people, tipping them off to raids and working with them to eliminate competing criminal enterprises.”
“How the hell do they get away with it? From everything I’ve read, the unit reports directly to the chief of police.”
“That’s right,” Tatupu said. “Chief McClusky knew exactly what was going on within that unit. McClusky got a cut just like everyone else. Eighteen months ago I threatened to expose him.”
“Just as the Honolulu Police Commission was about to reappoint him.”
“That’s right. And in his place, we got Chief Edward Attea, a cop who’s been dirty since day one. That’s why I finally went outside the department. The feds assured me that my identity would be kept secret and that no information I provided them would be leaked.”
The trade winds picked up, and I brushed off the chill, trying to decide how to ask Tatupu if he’d testify without scaring him off. But first I wanted to know what the feds were doing to clean up the NIU.
“Every step they’ve taken thus far has failed,” Tatupu said. “The unit is smart, tough, and extremely careful. The feds tried placing an undercover agent in the unit, and he disappeared. They tried recruiting criminal informants with sweetheart deals, but everyone’s too scared. Better to live in prison than die on the street, they say.”
“What about Internal Affairs?”
Tatupu shook it off. “Counselor, this corruption runs far deeper than just the NIU and the chief of police.”
“You’re saying the entire department, including IA, is on the take? Forgive me, John, but I find that hard to believe.”
“Let me put it this way, Counselor. Ice is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in the Hawaiian Islands. A billion dollars a year. And that’s not counting money from prostitution, gambling, or selling guns and other drugs. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you, I don’t know a single cop on Oahu besides myself who has ever turned down an envelope.”
“How do you know all this? You have to have some concrete evidence I could use to corroborate your story. Where’s your proof?”
Tatupu frowned. “Counselor, you see a carton of milk in the refrigerator that expired three months ago, you don’t need to open it up to know that it stinks.”
“So there’s nothing to back you up?”
“The feds hinted that there was a dirty cop who had recently decided to come clean and cooperate, but I don’t know who that cop is. For all I know, the feds were blowing smoke up my ass so that I’d keep talking.”
I sighed. “What do you know about Orlando Masonet?”
Tatupu shook his head. “Same as you, Counselor. I’ve heard hundreds of stories and read dozens of different descriptions of him, but I don’t know anyone willing to say they’ve actually met him. The feds have a voluminous file, complete with a sixty-page psychological profile, but not a single photograph. He’s a ghost.”
I gazed out over the calm waters. “Kanoa Bristol,” I said quietly. “Was he one of the bad a
pples?”
Tatupu nodded. “Rotten to the very core.”
It was time for the moment of truth. “Will you testify, John?”
He hesitated. “Without finding Masonet I’m useless to you at trial. No one’s going to take the word of a washed-up cop with not a single friend in the entire department.”
“But we can try.”
Tatupu took a step forward and looked me in the eyes. “I’ll feed you any information I can, just as I’m doing tonight. But I can’t go any further than that. Corvelli, it’s common knowledge around the department that you already have a target on your back. I can’t let you put one on mine, too. I have a family, Counselor. I have kids.”
“And is this the Hawaii you want to see your keiki grow up in, John?”
“If I do anything more, Corvelli, I may not see them grow up at all.” Tatupu turned toward the water and started walking away.
“Is that why you’re not working the Bristol homicide case, Detective? Because you’re scared?”
Tatupu spun back around. “I’m not working the Bristol homicide case because I’m not assigned to the Homicide division anymore. After your little press conference for the governor, Corvelli, in which you mentioned my name and stated that I provided you information on a pending investigation, I got transferred to the Auto Theft division. So if someone steals your Jeep Wrangler, Counselor, you be sure to let me know.”
CHAPTER 24
The rear door to Oksana Sutin’s apartment building in Diamond Head wasn’t locked enough. Neither was the front door to Iryna Kupchenko’s fifth-floor apartment. By 1:00 a.m. Scott and I were both inside, sitting in the darkness in perfect silence.
In New York, an apartment as lavish as this would surely have been protected by an alarm. But not here. Not in paradise. Here people felt safe, shielded. Even though just weeks ago a young woman was violently murdered in this very apartment building.
A few minutes after 2:00 a.m., as Scott and I were taking in the magnificent view of the night Pacific, we heard a key turn in the door. We both stood and took our prearranged places in the apartment. We didn’t want to frighten her. And if she wasn’t alone, we didn’t want to get ourselves killed.
As soon as she entered, Iryna Kupchenko flipped on a lamp and locked the door behind her. We waited for her to drop her handbag onto the couch, then I—the less imposing of the two of us—stepped forward.
“Don’t be scared,” I said softly. “We just want to talk.”
Iryna started like a cat whose tail just got stepped on. She spun toward the door.
“Whoa,” Scott said, moving toward her. “Easy now. This isn’t the way it’s going to go.”
She faced us again, a tear trickling down her cheek. “I will call the police,” she said, her accent every bit as thick and smoky as it was outside the spa.
“I don’t think you want to do that,” Scott said with a patronizing smile.
“We saw you in the window at Yoshimitsu Nakagawa’s house at Black Point,” I added. “Unless you want to spend the night downtown explaining to cops what you were doing there, I suggest you take a seat and answer our questions.”
“These questions, what are they about?”
I pointed to the couch. “First, you sit down.”
Iryna stepped tentatively toward the couch, then straightened her short skirt and sat, careful to keep her knees closed. “Now you tell me. What do you want to know about?”
“Your friend.” I watched her eyes dance as I said it. “Oksana Sutin.”
“She is dead.”
“We know she’s dead. We want to know why.”
Iryna appeared perplexed. “How should I know this?”
“You worked together.”
“I am unemployed.”
“Maybe as far as the State of Hawaii is concerned, but not as far as we’re concerned.” I took a step toward her, placed one foot onto the couch next to her. “You don’t have to tell us anything about yourself or your business. We only want to know about Oksana. Let’s start with this. In the four weeks before her death, how many men did she see?”
Iryna responded without hesitation. “One.”
“One? And who was that?”
“Her boyfriend. Mr. Omphrey.”
“The governor,” I said.
“Yes. He was the only man she had seen in months.”
“Was he paying her?”
“No.”
“She was seeing him for free?”
“I did not say that.”
“What are you saying?”
“I am saying only that as far as Mr. Omphrey knew, they were a couple. I do not know any more than that.”
Scott suddenly piped up. “So you’re saying while she was seeing this guy, she wasn’t hooking? Wasn’t doing any other guys on the side?”
“No. She remained faithful.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because she told me so. And because she would not lie to me.”
“She confided in you?”
“What is confided?”
“She told you things about herself, about her relationship, that she wouldn’t tell anyone else?”
“Yes, if that is confided, then she confided me.”
“Was she using drugs?”
“Not at the time she died, no. Not for at least the last three weeks.”
“But before that?”
“Before that, yes. She used cocaine every day.”
“Why did she stop using cocaine three weeks before she died?”
Iryna looked from me to Scott and back, then gulped and said softly, “Because she was pregnant with Mr. Omphrey’s child.”
A chill suddenly ran up my spine. Before I could utter another word, a beeper went off somewhere in the room.
“It is in my purse,” she said. “If I do not look at it, my driver will know something is wrong. He will come up here and he will kill you both.”
I picked up her handbag and tossed it to her. She opened it and retrieved a pager. Then she turned back to me. “It is a client.” She placed the pager back in her bag and removed a small brown vial. She twisted the cap off and dumped a small pile of white powder onto her fist and inhaled it. After one more bump, she recapped the vial and placed it back into her handbag and stood up. “If you gentlemen will excuse me now, I have to go to work. I expect you will not be here when I return.”
She stepped to the door, opened it, and left without looking back.
“What do you think?” I said to Scott.
“A gorgeous prostitute with a gram of coke? If it’s up to me, I say we stay.”
“It’s not up to you, Scott.”
CHAPTER 25
Sitting along the north shore of Pearl Harbor is Pearl City. Tourists won’t find any lengthy descriptions of the city in a travel guide nor any elaborate brochures touting its beaches or nightlife. Pearl City is simply a middle-class town with a diverse makeup, thirty thousand souls with a median income of $60,000. Pearl City’s greatest claim to fame is its Little League team, which won the Junior League World Series a few years back.
But Flan and I weren’t in Pearl City to catch a baseball game this morning. We were here to investigate the crime scene in the case of State versus Turi Ahina.
I pulled my Jeep to the curb and told Flan, “This is the street.”
Kolohe Street was lined with average ranch-style houses and ended in a cul-de-sac. A dead end, so to speak. As I exited the Jeep, I grabbed a file folder full of photographs from the backseat.
“Turi claims Kanoa Bristol shot first,” I said. “But nothing in discovery corroborates that fact.”
“You think he’s lying?”
I shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time Turi’s lied to me.”
“Did he tell the police that Bristol shot first when they arrested him?”
“He told them nothing. I taught him well.”
We walked down the street, side by side, Flan examining one of the photographs I�
��d just handed him.
“Turi claims Bristol’s bullet struck a car parked in the cul-de-sac,” I told Flan. “A navy Honda Civic with a Jesus fish on the bumper and a KEIKI ON BOARD sticker in the rear window.”
Flan shook his head. “There’s nothing like that in these pictures.”
“I know. And I showed Turi the photographs, but he insists.”
“It’s not possible. These photos are time-stamped. They were taken just a few minutes after the shooting, as soon as police arrived on the scene.”
“That’s what I told him. But Turi’s not budging on this.”
“How about Bristol’s gun? Did Ballistics run tests?”
“Of course,” I said. “Bristol’s gun came back clean. At least that’s what it says in discovery.”
“But our forensics expert has the right to examine the weapon himself, right?”
“Right. But if what Turi suggests is correct—if police went so far as to alter the crime scene—what chance do you think there is that the weapon they hand over to us will be the same weapon Kanoa Bristol was holding the night of the shooting?”
“Where does that leave us?” Flan said, once we’d reached the end of the street.
“We have to find a navy Honda Civic that once had a bullet lodged in its bumper.” I pointed to the house Turi claimed the Honda was parked in front of. “And that’s where we have to start.”
The man who answered the door was in his midfifties and didn’t seem too pleased to see us. His face was long, his head topped with a buzzcut. When he barked, “What can I do for you?” I pegged him as former military.
I introduced myself and Flan.“We’re trying to gather some facts about the shooting that occurred here a few weeks ago.”
“Well, you’re going to have to gather them somewhere else, Mr. Corvelli. I wasn’t around here that night.”
“May I ask where you were that night?”
“I was in Waipahu, visiting a lady friend.”
“And your lady friend,” I said, glancing back at his mailbox, “what is her name, Mr. Guffman?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
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