PO Box Honolulu, Hawaii

by Chuck Antone, Jr

  My first thought was that Nadia might have shown him pictures of us with our friends, maybe from our time on Paul’s Island.

  “You mentioned that your friend was murdered a few weeks ago. What happened?”

  He thought about the question. I could tell he was going to be cautious about how he would answer it. “He was an investigator for the law firm I work for. He was here on the Big Island investigating a blackmail case.”

  I was wondering who had hired the law firm to investigate. Then I focused back on Nick Lang.

  “My friend called me two days before he was found dead, and gave me some information he’d found out. He asked me some questions. No need to go on about what they were. It’s kind of personal.”

  My mind wandered off again. Personal? What could the questions have been? Were they about Nick Lang and his mother Dena Davis, or as I knew her, Anita Sinclair? What kind of questions would his friend ask that would have something to do with the blackmail case that Nick Lang supposedly had no connection with.

  Guilty people always seem to slip up in time by giving out too much information. I’m thinking, is that what just happened? Did Nick Lang just say too much? My mind went back to the conversation.

  “His name is Gary Smith. I’d never met him before, but he was an acquaintance of my best friend who was murdered a few weeks ago. I was just trying to find out some information, so that's why I'm here on the island.”

  Before I could say anything, a couple joined us in the tub, and our chit-chat was the normal type you’ve probably done yourself: “How are you? Enjoying your stay? or Where are you from?” – and the list goes on.

  Nick Lang left, and soon I also got out of the tub. I went over to Kat who had a baffled look on her face, and she said, “Nick Lang looked at me as if he knew me. Did you tell him our names?”

  “No I didn’t, but he did say we looked familiar. I thought maybe Nadia had showed him a picture of us with the old gang.”

  “So what do you think about Nick, Nadia’s fiancé with the two names – Lang and Davis?” Kat was smiling while asking.

  “Don’t know yet. Is Nick capable of blackmail? Is he covering up something? Is he capable of murder? Not sure about any of them, but all three are possible. I did like him though, but I definitely feel he’s covering up something.”

  We went back to our hotel room, showered, put on fresh clothes, then drove back to Kailua-Kona town. Not for any specific reason, but mostly to get away and see what we could come up with. It seemed another mystery was strongly overtaking our blackmailing investigation … like murder! We wondered if it was at all possible that there could be another death. And if so, who, and how many more would find death before we were able to close our case for our client, Mrs. Anita Sinclair?

  Chapter 20

  We stopped off at the Fern Grotto Hotel to say hello to Leilani. She was happy to see us, but had no news pertaining to the case. Then we walked through the town again. We got a couple of lattes and sat on a wall watching the beautiful waves as they came crashing and spraying on the rocks below, while talking over the case and getting ideas of what we each thought.

  The murders were intriguing, but we knew we had to concentrate on identifying the blackmailer as that was what we were being paid for. So we started to consider the idea of there being a third person.

  It always came back to Nadia’s fiancé as the third person, the actual blackmailer, and not Chas Baker and Gary Smith who had collected the money. Mrs. Sinclair had failed to identify either men, and was convinced the blackmailer would be someone she had once known. Kat suggested I send a picture of Nick Lang to Mrs. Anita Sinclair, our client, then just wait and see what happened. We headed back to our hotel.

  When we arrived there were police cars and officers all over the vicinity. We had to prove that we were guests at the Paradise Hotel. As I fumbled for the key to show we had a room at the hotel, Pualani came over and assured the officer, who was questioning us, that we were indeed guests.

  As we were walking away I asked our rescuer what had happened. With sadness in her voice, Pualani said, “It’s Mr. Gary Smith. He’s been murdered. Three shots in the chest. Just like Mr. Baker.”

  Chapter 21

  We went to our room and in less than ten minutes there was a knock on our door. I walked over and opened it. Two faces greeted me: a man and a woman.

  “Mr. Jones?”

  “Yes, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m Detective Sally Ann and this is my partner, Detective Jimmy Yamagada. We’re investigating the murder of a Mr. Gary Smith. We have some questions we would like to ask you. Can we come in?”

  Before I let them in, since they were in street clothes, I asked for their identifications and badge numbers to prove they were who they said they were.

  Satisfied, I introduced them to Kat. There was a couch and two chairs with a small table in between. I asked them to sit down. They choose the two chairs.

  “We understand that in the lobby a Mr. Nick Davis and the deceased Gary Smith were having what most observers say was a very heated conversation. They tell us that when Mr. Smith got up and left, you, Mr. Jones, went over and sat with Mr. Davis. Could you please tell us what your conversation was all about?”

  “Yes, of course, and please call me Kit. It wasn’t a big thing, I just felt sorry for him. He was sitting there with his hands folded over his face. I sat down and asked if I could help him. He said his best friend had been murdered a few weeks ago. He didn’t tell me his friend’s name, but you might remember the homicide. He said he wanted to speak to Mr. Smith about it. Smith got angry for whatever the reason was, got up and abruptly walked away from the conversation. That’s all there was. Does this help in any way?”

  Detective Sally Ann said, “We’re examining the hotel security camera recordings. Perhaps they’ll give us a few answers. Did Mr. Davis say why Mr. Smith walked away from the conversation?”

  “He wasn’t sure, but wondered if perhaps Smith thought he was accusing him of the murder of his best friend.”

  They thanked us and got up to leave. But before they reached the door, Detective Sally Ann stopped, turned to face both of us and said, “Oh, by the way, what did you and Mr. Davis talk about in the hot tub?”

  I smiled and said, “You two are very good,” then added, “Nothing much. It was mostly about his friend. He said he came to this island to find out what he could about the murder. Anything else we can help you with?”

  “No, that’s about it. Detective Larry Chen told us that the two of you were okay in his book. So we’ll go along with his observation for the moment. We’re not going to pry into your case. But if anything comes up pertaining to the death and murder of Mr. Gary Smith, we would appreciate any information you can give us. If you work with us, we’ll work with you.”

  I felt like I had to tell them one more thing. “There is something you should know about Mr. Davis. He has another name. He goes by Nick Lang. I believe Lang is his real name.”

  Sally Ann smiled. I wasn’t sure if she knew that already or not. After they closed our door Kat commented, “Now it’s not just two, but three murders. I wonder how many more murders there’ll be before we’re able to tell our client we’ve solved her blackmail case.”

  Chapter 22

  I could have given the detectives more information, but it was still mostly speculation and we didn’t want to get an innocent person caught up in the web of a murder investigation. We both liked our new police contacts, and said we would like to keep on the sunny side of them, and work together as much as possible. Since for the time being they thought we were working on just a blackmailing case, we would just let it be. I emailed Mrs. Sinclair the picture Nadia had given to us of Nick Lang. This time no quick reply.

  Being hungry, we went to one of the restaurants at the hotel for dinner instead of waiting around for our client to answer. We were anxious to hear if Nick Lang or Nick Davis was familiar to her, and since we thought it was very possi
ble that Nick was her son, we thought how great it would be to see her face when she looked at the photo.

  But of course, that was impossible, since the Pacific Ocean separated us.

  Chapter 23

  The next day we finally heard from our client, Mrs. Anita Sinclair. She wrote that neither Nick Lang’s name nor his picture were familiar to her. She said he was much too young to have been blackmailing her for more than thirty years, and her advice was to leave him alone and to keep looking for the third person, the actual blackmailer from her past.

  She wrote, “It is definitely not him.” She also told us that if we insisted on wasting our time and her money investigating Nick Lang, she would take us off of the case.

  Kat and I read the letter over and over and we came to the conclusion that she knew Nick Lang, and from her reaction we were almost positive he was her son. We felt the letter was a desperate plea for us to not get him involved with the blackmail situation. If she didn’t know him, why was she so adamant for us to leave him alone? Why would she care?

  I wrote back and said okay, she was paying the bills, and we would do what she asked about not getting Nick Lang involved in the blackmail investigation. And I told her we would be looking for a third person as she suggested.

  We didn’t mention about Nick’s involvement in the murder case. Since our friend Nadia from Paul’s Island asked us to find out some information on Nick, her fiancé, as far as we were concerned she was our new client, and we would now treat them as two separate cases.

  So that gave us the authority to keep in touch with Nick and to work with the police department here on the Big Island. Any expenses we ran up would be on us, since our new client, Nadia, was a special friend, and our services would be free to her.

  But for now, we had to do what our first client was paying us for. She was insisting we look for that third party, and that’s what we would do. But where to begin? Who could help us find that third party – assuming there was one? We needed a visit to the police station to talk to Detective Larry Chen, our Hollywood movie buff guy who, according to Detective Sally Ann, liked us.

  We called Chen and told him what we were looking for, and invited him to lunch. We told him we wanted to pick his brain about who Anita Sinclair might have dated back when she was an up and coming star under the name of Dena Davis. He said he would look into it and meet us for lunch and talk. We set up a time and of course that meant we had to drive back to Kona and eat somewhere close to the police station.

  We suggested the Fern Grotto Hotel for a buffet lunch, less than ten minutes from the police station. We arrived there a little early so we could say hello to Leilani. She said she missed us and no longer felt like a detective. All three of us got a chuckle out of that. I told her to keep her eyes open, as private detectives don’t know from one day to the next what will happen.

  Detective Chen arrived while we were still talking to Leilani. We introduced him to her and then went in the dining room for lunch. Before we went to get our food, Chen wanted to know all about Leilani, especially if she was married or had a boyfriend. We told him everything we knew about her, which wasn’t much.

  After we got our food we sat down and Chen shared some very interesting news about our client. “There were three young guys that Mrs. Sinclair dated most often in Hollywood. One was very rich and famous in the financial world. We can probably eliminate him. Another became a big Hollywood star. He died about ten years ago of a heart attack. He’s out of the picture … no pun intended. The third I believe could be our mystery man. He was signed to a Hollywood studio contract but never went far. I don’t remember him, although his name is a little familiar. His name was Lance Mann. Does that name ring a bell to either of you?”

  Kat and I shook our heads, no.

  He continued, “Lance Mann was his Hollywood name. His real name is Nicklaus Lang.”

  Kat said, “Lang? You’ve got to be kidding?” And I agreed.

  “No I’m not kidding, but here’s the surprise: today he still goes by the name of Lance Mann.”

  Chapter 24

  As soon as we got back to the hotel I called Nadia. I wanted to find out how much she really knew about her fiancé, whom she knew as Nick Lang.

  When she answered, I said, “Hi Nadia, this is Kit and Kat. I have you on conference call so we both can hear you.”

  “Hi guys, are you having a nice time on the Big Island? I’ve seen on the local T.V. news that there have been a couple of murders over there since you arrived. I hope they have nothing to do with your case.”

  Kat replied, “Hi Nadia, we’re fine. This is a great island. Have you heard from your fiancé again?”

  “Yes, he called a half hour ago and said he was fine, and hopefully will be back home within a few days. What’s up? Why the phone call?”

  “Well, we’ve been thinking about you and wondering if you’ve ever met Nick’s parents?”

  “Don’t worry, you two. Nick’s parents are great. Nick was adopted when he was just a few days old with the help of the doctor who delivered him. Nick feels they’re his real parents and loves them very much. They have a great relationship, and his folks love him just as much as he loves them. I’ll introduce you to them when you return to Oahu. I hope you’re planning to stay here longer, not only to meet them, but to also get to know Nick.”

  I answered this time. “We’d like that very much. Does Nick know who his birth parents are?”

  “No, at times he’s curious, but he always says there’s no need and that he feels blessed. As far as he’s concerned, he says his adoptive parents are his real parents.”

  Kat asked, “What do they do? Are they retired, and how long have they been living in the islands?”

  I wanted to interrupt and ask what their names were, but thought I would wait a bit.

  “Yes, retired for a long time I think. At least ever since I’ve known them. I guess they have investments. Not sure. I’ve never asked them. I know the last couple of weeks Nick’s father’s been flying back and forth to the Big Island. He says it’s for business.”

  It was my turn to ask a question. “Have they ever said anything about Nick’s birth-mother?”

  “Sorry, Kit, they don’t talk about it much. It’s like Nick is their one and only child. Why all the questions about Nick and his family?”

  Kat said, “Just curious. We love you and are concerned about you and your upcoming marriage. We just want you to be happy. After all, you’ve waited a long time to find the right guy.”

  “Don’t worry about Nick and me. He’s the right one. But thanks for your love and concern.”

  “One more thing,” I said. “I know Nick’s parents’ last names are Lang, but what are their first names? Maybe we’ll run into his father some time, since you said he’s been flying back and forth from Oahu.”

  “Glad you asked, Kit. Just in case you do run into him, you wouldn’t know him by his last name. Even though Nick’s last name is Lang, his father’s name is M-A-N-N … Mann. His first name is Lance, and his mother’s name is Susannah – like the song. I’ve never met a real Susannah before. Her name is spelled with the last letter being an ‘H’. As far as Nick’s last name. there was some kind of a mixup at the hospital on the birth certificate. Rather than change it and cause confusion, and get publicity, they just let it be. Nick’s father started out in movies, but didn’t get real big, so he left the Hollywood scene and went into investments. Great name, don’t you think? I can just see it on a marquee, ‘Starring … LANCE MANN.’”

  Chapter 25

  Kat and I wondered if there was really a mix-up on the birth certificate, or did Lance Mann want his son to carry the family name of Lang. We also wondered if his wife Susannah knew about it. We were pretty sure she must have known, otherwise why didn’t she fuss over it and insist that her son have their last name? After all, all throughout his growing up years, school gatherings, birthday parties and so on, their friends and neighbors must have asked her a dozen
times or more why their son’s last name was different from theirs. We were very curious what her answer would have been.

  Something else we wondered: was Mr. Mann, Nick’s most likely birth-father, as nice as Nadia said he was. And if so, was it then a date rape as our client, Anita Sinclair, so boldly and emotionally told us, or was it consensual?

  We both agreed this case was getting more and more confusing, but yet very challenging and mysterious.

  Now we had two suspects for murder and blackmail. How far would a father and son go to cover up their true identity? Would they commit murder to save face?

  Chapter 26

  I called Detective Larry Chen to see if he could possibly check the only two domestic airlines in Hawaii to see what dates Lance Mann flew over to the Big Island within the last two week period. I emphasized dates … with a big “S”!

  He said he would, and get back to us as soon as he could. He also said he talked to Leilani and they had a lunch date the next day.

  We thanked him and wished him good fortune on his date, reminding him that Leilani was a very special lady.

  “We’ll be waiting for your call. Thanks again, Detective Chen. Sure do appreciate it.”

  “I’m glad to help. That’s why I’m here. And if I’m to call you both by your names of Kit and Kat, please call me Larry.”

  “Will do. Will we hear from you tomorrow after you have lunch with Leilani?” I added. “We’d like to hear all about it.”

  The next day, just as Larry Chen said he would, he called and set up a time to meet him here at the hotel. He said he and Leilani had the day off and wanted to ride out here together. She also had some news for us that she thought might pertain to our blackmail case. “Besides,” he said, “she wants me to meet her sister who works there. Have you met her yet?”