Then we asked the detective if he was free to tell us who J. Doe was.
He smiled, thanked us for being patient, and then said, “What do you know about a Mr. Bartholomew Sinclair?”
Kat and I looked at each other, as Bartholomew was the one we thought might be the mystery J. Doe. We told Chen again what we knew, but this time going into more detail. We then related all of our information about our questions and answers from the people we had interviewed, and gave Chen our information on Anita Sinclair and our conversation with her on the phone about her son, Bartholomew.
At that time we were talking about the four suspects, but this time we told him all about our conversation with our former client.
Larry Chen thanked us for the information. He said he also had checked out a few things about Anita Sinclair’s son, but didn’t know all of the information that we had given him. One thing Chen knew that we didn’t, was that Bartholomew was on the island the day Oliver, Nick Lang’s best friend, was murdered. Chen was hoping we would be able to put some light on the Bartholomew situation. He did lighten up when we told him that Anita Sinclair said her son had told her that he vowed to get even for putting her in such misery for the last thirty years.
Chen was thinking that maybe Bartholomew had seen Chas Baker and Oliver talking at the bar that night, and thought they were blackmailing his mother together. And then he had ended up killing both of them, and even Gary Smith. Chen reminded us that he was only considering this, but was coming to the conclusion that it was indeed possible. In fact, we all agreed it was.
Kat took out her notebook, telling us, “I want to write down our suspects’ names. Let’s see, we all agree that for now, they are…
“Nick Lang, Lance Mann and Bartholomew Sinclair.
“Why don’t we focus on these names? Kit and I can talk again to Lang and his father. Maybe you, Larry, can focus on Bartholomew Sinclair. Is this alright with you?”
Larry Chen smiled. “It sounds great to me, but don’t forget to put down our fourth suspect.”
We looked at him, and wondered what he meant by a fourth suspect.
Kat asked, “Who would that be, Larry?”
“How quickly you forget. Our J. Doe of course!”
“But we thought Bar——”
Before we could finish the name, our detective friend interrupted. “Sorry, I guess I did lead you astray, but I never said Bartholomew was our J. Doe suspect. You just took it for granted.”
Of course, he was right. Kat added the fourth name.
J. Doe
Chapter 46
Kat and I wondered what new questions we could ask Nick Lang and his father, Lance Mann.
We had already asked them many questions during our time with them. Now we needed questions that might indicate their innocence – or lead us to prove one or both of them were guilty of the two murders.
So we came up with the idea to ask each one separately to tell us everything they knew about the murdered victims, and invite them to convince us that they had nothing to do with the murders.
Nick Lang was first. He told us he knew about Chas Baker because of what his friend, Oliver, had told him about meeting Baker in the bar that night.
He said that after Oliver was found murdered, he came over to the Big Island to see what he could find out. Whatever he found out he was going to turn over to the police department, and no way was he planning to get even for his friend’s murder.
He said that his conversation with Baker in the lobby was fruitless, as Baker got angry and left him sitting there alone. Nick reminded us that was when I came over and talked with him. He had never met with Chas Baker again, as not too long after their talk, Baker was murdered. Nick Lang said at the time of both murders he was alone in his room, and there was no one who could verify his alibi. He also told us he had never met Gary Smith, and knew nothing about him. We asked him if there was someone who he thought could have murdered his best friend Oliver.
He said he’d thought it over many times and came to the conclusion that it was Baker who had murdered Oliver. Then someone else killed Baker and his partner, Gary Smith. Lang couldn’t think of any other person who had something against Oliver, except Baker. And that he felt that way according to his conversation on the phone with his friend. Chas Baker had told Oliver too much, and the only way for Baker to save himself was to murder him. Nick Lang said Oliver was well liked by just about everyone, and if we checked around we would find that out for ourselves.
I remembered my call to the law firm Nick Lang worked for, and recalled my conversation that the two people I talked to both said what a nice guy Nick was. We asked him why he hadn’t told Nadia about our investigation, and him being a possible suspect. Nick said he knew he was innocent and didn’t want to worry her.
After our conversation with Nick Lang, Kat and I both agreed that as much as we were hoping to remove Nick from our list, it just wasn’t going to happen at this time.
Yes, we both agreed that Nick Lang was very nice. He loved his friend like a brother, and revenge could still be a motive for murder. Besides, he had no alibi. We showed Nick’s picture around the hotel where he stayed, but no one recognized him either in the hall, the elevator or room service. No one saw Nick Lang the day both murders took place. We found that a little hard to believe. No doubt Detective Larry Chen could get hold of the hotel’s security camera recordings and check that out for himself.
As far as Nick Lang’s statement that he knew nothing about Gary Smith, Chas Baker’s partner, and the other blackmailer, that could be a lie. Only he knew what the deceased Oliver told him on the phone. It was possible that Baker might have mentioned he had a partner, and that partner was Gary Smith.
No, we were not ready to take Nick Lang off of our suspect list!
Chapter 47
Our next suspect to interview of course was Nick Lang’s adoptive, but real life father, Lance Mann.
We asked him to tell us all he knew about the murdered victims, and try to convince us that he had nothing to do with the homicide.
He said he didn’t know either Chas Baker or Gary Smith. He’d found out about the blackmailing from his son, Nick, after he received the phone call from Nick’s friend, Oliver. Mann said he’d been detached from Dena Davis, or rather Anita Sinclair, for over thirty years, and had no connection with her over all that time. He said she was someone in his past, and they had never communicated with each other again. He never believed Anita Sinclair knew that he and Susannah had adopted Nick.
Lance Mann said, “We had a relationship with each other for about six months, like I said. It wasn’t love, but an attraction, if you know what I mean.”
Kat asked, “You’re saying that the two of you had an affair that lasted six months, and the relationship produced a son. You were both in agreement to put the baby boy, Nick, up for adoption. Is that correct?”
“Yes, without going into more details, that is correct.”
Kat said, “Anita Sinclair gives us a completely different story. To make her story short and to the point, she told us she was drugged and date raped, and didn’t know who the baby’s father was. She said the studio had her going out with different men for publicity sake, and someone put some kind of drug in her Margarita. She passed out and doesn’t remember who she was with that night. What do you think of that?”
“What do I think of that? It’s all a lie. What I told you about Anita and me is the truth. I’m sure there’s someone from the studio, bigwigs or starlets who can confirm my story about our affair. Did you happen to ask her if she reported it to the police?”
I answered his question. “We did. Mrs. Sinclair said she didn’t report it because she was too embarrassed. She had never drunk hard liquor before, and when she got drunk, someone took advantage of her.”
“Another lie. She held her drinking better than most people I knew. She definitely didn’t come from a teetotaler family.”
“So where were you when the two murders wer
e committed here at the Paradise Hotel? What’s your alibi, if you have one?”
Lance Mann smiled. “I have a great one. I was in my hotel room.”
“Were you alone in the room when the crimes took place?”
“I was alone of course. I hope you’re not suggesting I would be cheating on Susannah. We happen to have a very good marriage.”
“I’m sorry, but these things happen. I wasn’t suggesting anything. You had a great alibi? What is it?”
“I was on the house phone with Nick as my cell battery was dead. I had borrowed his and wanted to return it to him. I picked up my phone in my room and asked for his room number. That was the time when Mr. Baker was murdered. So you see we were both in our hotel rooms and on the phone together. Therefore we both must be innocent. Whoever killed Baker must be the same person who also did away with Smith. It couldn’t be either Nick or me. I remember we talked for a very long time. The phone call will be in the hotel records.”
Chapter 48
Just as soon as Lance Mann left, we phoned Nick Lang. We wanted to confirm this new information right away. We wondered why Nick didn’t mention it when we talked with him.
The first thing we did was to ask Nick if he remembered the phone conversation with his dad, and how long the call was.
He said, “Yes, I remember the call. My dad likes to talk a long time on the phone. I was ready for a nap, but he was ready for a long conversation, so I let him talk.”
“How come you never told us about the call?”
“I didn’t think it was important, or that it had anything to do with the case.”
“Do you remember what day he made that call to you?”
“Not offhand. Why is that so important? Is my dad in any trouble over the call? Is he the number one suspect now?”
I ignored the question. “Your dad said the day of that call was the day Gary Smith was murdered. Do you recall that? He said his alibi was that on the day of the first murder, he was talking to you. Do you remember the time of the call and the day?”
“I remember the call of course, but I’m not sure of the time or the day. But if he says it was on the day and the time of the murder, and it gives him the perfect alibi, then I guess it was. My dad is definitely not a liar.”
With that, he said goodbye and ended the call. People seem to do that a lot when they don’t want to answer any more questions!
We needed to check into the phone call. We were sure there must be some kind of hotel record on the date and time of the call, as Lance had suggested.
Chapter 49
Our next step was to call Detective Larry Chen and give him our report and receive his report on Bartholomew Sinclair. At that time we mentioned the phone call.
He said he would for sure check on the call made by Lance Mann to Nick Lang’s hotel room, and on the date and time. He told us he would let us know as soon as he could.
Larry Chen gave us some information on Bartholomew Sinclair. It appears he and his mother had been on bad terms for a lot longer than the two years his mother told us. He had told Chen that Anita Sinclair was a terrible mother and made his growing up years miserable. When he was twenty-one he moved out of the house. His father, Donovan, Anita Sinclair’s husband, without her knowing it, financed him through college where he received a master’s degree in business finances. He moved to New York, found a great job, moved up very quickly and was now making lots of money. He still worked there and he said he had paid back every dime he owed his father, years before he died.
When he heard Donovan Sinclair was dying, he returned home and did what he could to make his father’s remaining time on earth as peaceful as he could. He thought maybe his mother, Anita, had changed somewhat. They had some nice conversations. His mother asked for forgiveness, which he gave her. He also said he knew nothing of the blackmail, so had never said anything or made any vows to get even with the blackmailer. Then he said that perhaps his mother hasn’t changed after all.
Kat and I had to remind ourselves that this was Bartholomew’s version, and people will say anything to make themselves look innocent. It would be his word against his mother’s word.
Detective Chen had said Bartholomew had been to Hawaii many times, especially here on the Big Island, as he had married a local girl from Hilo. They lived in New York where his work was, but they came here often to visit her family. Bartholomew told neither of his parents that he was married, in fear that his mother would cause nothing but trouble for him and his wife, and their three kids. He was here on the Big Island when the murders took place, but he hadn’t seen his mother since his father’s death.
It appeared that we had more lies, and maybe some of them were by our ex-client Anita Sinclair. Our job now was to find out who the truthful ones were, and which ones were the liars.
We believed that when we found that … then we would find our killer.
BEFORE YOU READ ANY FURTHER
WHO DO YOU THINK IS THE MURDERER?
Chapter 50
Back in our room we looked over the whiteboard with the four names: Nick Lang, Lance Mann, Bartholomew Sinclair, and of course our mystery person, J. Doe.
We decided to go over the notes Kat had written in her little red book about our conversations with Lang and Mann. First, we both agreed that there must be two different murderers. We were sure that either Baker or Smith killed Oliver, Nick’s best friend. But someone else then killed them, probably for blackmailing our ex-client Anita Sinclair, or for revenge. But who and why? And was it one of the names we had on our whiteboard? We wondered again if J. Doe was possibly someone we knew or even someone we had talked with.
With all of these questions on our minds, Kat opened her notebook. Starting with Nick Lang, she began reading all the information we had on him.
It was likely Nick had not given us the complete information he said he had received from his friend Oliver on the phone. We were thinking perhaps he’d left something out that he might have forgotten, or didn’t want us to know. He hadn’t been completely honest with Nadia whom he was supposed to be in love with, so chances were he was not honest with us, whom he hardly knew.
We surmised that Nick Lang was a little over the top in niceness. For instance, accepting so readily that his birth-father and his adoptive father was one and the same. Also, accepting who his birth-mother was, and asking no questions. And we wondered why he wasn’t surprised or even curious when he found this out. It was like he already knew about it. How much was he involved? Did he know about the blackmail?
Did Nick come over to the Big Island to find out who murdered Oliver, or was he here to reprimand Chas Baker for talking too much? If he was in cahoots with the two murdered victims, maybe he thought Baker had incriminated him somehow, so he did away with him. And when Gary Smith found out Nick was on the island the day Baker was murdered, he might have threatened Nick about going to the police, being afraid for his life. Maybe then Nick did away with him too.
All of these thoughts kept going through our minds. How much did Nick Lang know about his real mother and father? We had a lot of “maybes” to work through.
So far we had just a few answers to our many questions. But one thing we knew for sure: Nick Lang was still a suspect and his alibi was not concrete enough to take his name off our list.
Chapter 51
Next, Kat read out loud her notes on Lance Mann.
We were still puzzled by the two different stories of the relationship between Anita Sinclair and Lance Mann. Was the affair consensual as he said, or was it a date rape as she claimed? One of them was definitely lying, but which one?
It was hard for us to believe it was Anita Sinclair. We could think of no reason why she would lie to us about her relationship with Lance Mann. What would it prove? She had hired us to find the blackmailer, not the father of her child.
On the other hand, we were thinking that maybe Mann had never told his wife, Susannah, the whole truth about his involvement with Anita Sinclair. If
Mann had come clean and told Susannah the true story, maybe he knew she would not have married him, and would certainly not have adopted the child.
High on our list was to ask Lance Mann to tell us again what happened between him and Mrs. Sinclair. We would assure him that whatever his true story was, it would be completely confidential and would go no further than the three of us.
Also on our list was to find out about the solid investments Lance Mann said he’d made that had quickly paid off. But yet he had needed Anita Sinclair and her parents’ help to pay off the doctor who was handling the adoption. Wasn’t that his responsibility, especially since he led us to believe he’s such a nice guy?
We were thinking that perhaps the investments paid off quickly at the beginning, but phased out after a while, which meant he could be the third party in the blackmail scheme. Susannah, his wife, probably thought that over these thirty years they had been living off of his “investments” which allowed them to live very comfortably.
We were definitely going to meet with Lance Mann one more time to clear these things up. Until then, you guessed it … his name was also going to stay on our board, right under his son’s name.
I picked up the hotel phone and asked for the room of Lance Mann. The operator said Mr. Mann had just checked out. I asked if Pualani was there by any chance, and was told she was and to hold for a second.
“Aloha, this is Pualani. How may I help you?”
“Hi Pualani, this is Kit Jones. I’m wondering if you checked out Mr. Lance Mann a short time ago.”
“Yes, I did, Mr. Jones. Mr. Mann didn’t actually check out, he just wanted to stay in Kona town for a night or two. He said it was business. I called Leilani, my sister, and made reservations for him at the Fern Grotto Hotel. He’s kept his room here, but his wife checked out of this hotel at the same time and said she was going back home to Oahu.”
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