The man remained standing just inside the door, as though his feet were stuck in cement.
"You Norman Mitchell?" Ridge asked tensely.
"Yeah," he said in a non-threatening manner.
"They're police detectives," Ignacia told him quickly, "investigating the death of Carter Delaney. I told them you were here with me—"
"Now we'd like to hear it from you," Kawakami said, keeping the gun drawn. "We just need to ask you a few questions. Why don't you put that bag down?"
"No problem," Mitchell said, frowning. "I've got nothing to hide..."
Elisea suddenly bolted from her mother toward Mitchell, wrapping her arms around his waist.
"They won't hurt me," he promised. "Take the bag."
She obeyed him. Only then did it become apparent that Mitchell was missing an arm—or three-quarters of it. His sleeve was wrapped loosely below the shoulder. He looked up self-consciously. "I was in a car accident six months ago," he said sullenly. "Lost my arm, but I'm dealing with it. As for Carter Delaney, we had our differences, but I certainly didn't kill him. From what I heard, the way he died would be pretty hard to do with two good arms and it would be damn near impossible with just one—"
No one in the room could argue with that logic, I thought. Especially those of us who knew exactly how Carter had died. Obviously, the investigation into Norman Mitchell had failed to uncover the fact that he was missing an arm, and therefore was not the most likely candidate as Carter's killer. I also saw no reason at this point to believe Mitchell was part of a larger conspiracy to do Carter in.
We left the house essentially back where we started, although there was still follow-up work to do on Antonio Ramirez's alibi.
In the meantime, Carter's killer or killers remained very much at large.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Edwin Axelrod was the third person connected to Darlene Delaney, and indirectly to Carter, to end up dead. Axelrod was found slumped over his desk, a bullet wound to the side of his head. The possible murder weapon was in plain sight. Right now, the police were calling it a probable suicide. I was calling it one damned coincidence too many.
Upon hearing the news, I raced to the scene of the crime. Axelrod's office building was crawling with police personnel. I flashed my private detective credential to get through. Sometimes it worked, other times I was dismissed as a pain in the ass who was playing a game way out of her league.
Fortunately, the young male officer who stood guard at the entry was a sucker for a private investigator with nice legs. Once past him, I was home free. I made my way to Axelrod's office, careful not to contaminate any possible evidence. It looked as if it had been hit by a hurricane. More things were displaced and dispersed than not.
The victim had already been carted off to the morgue. His desktop was splattered with blood, as was his chair, and seemingly half the wall behind the desk. Crime scene investigators were finishing up after the detectives had moved on.
I wondered about Edwin Axelrod's final moments of life. Like Carter, he did not seem like a man who was willing to give up on his life without one hell of a fight. It certainly seemed very possible that a struggle had taken place.
"Do you have business here?" a voice asked from behind me.
I turned to see a red-haired, tall female from the CSI team.
"Used to," I said. After showing my I.D. and stating my name, I continued the lie. "I did investigative work for Mr. Axelrod from time to time. So what the hell happened here?"
She shrugged. "Suicide. Murder. Too soon to tell—"
"Any witnesses?" I asked.
"From what I understand, he was found in here alone," she said.
I looked around the office and told her: "My guess is he had company who left in a hurry, but not before searching and probably finding something worth killing for." If not, I thought, it was made to look that way.
"I'll have to ask you to leave now," the CSI said. "Unless, of course, you have something solid to back up your theories—"
I smiled faintly and said: "Nothing but good old-fashioned speculation."
She seemed disappointed, but let it pass while leading me out of the office.
Down on the main floor, I nearly ran into the reporter Liam Pratt. He seemed just as surprised to see me.
"What the hell are you doing here?" were the first words to come from my mouth.
He half-grinned, putting his hands in the pockets of his trousers. "I could ask you the same thing, Private Detective Delaney."
"You first," I said.
He seemed to think about it, then said smoothly: "Fair enough. But only if you let me buy you a drink."
"Not a good idea," I told him. I had a firm policy against making the same mistake twice.
"Just one drink is all I'm asking," he pleaded. "No harm in that." He looked me over as if my clothes were too loose. Or maybe too tight. "What do you say? There's a little bar just down the street—"
Just how familiar was he with the area? I wondered. Did he live around here?
It seemed like a harmless enough outing, I told myself, even if he reminded me of some of the creeps I dated after Carter and before Ridge. Not bad looking, but too cocky and conceited for their own good. Besides, I was curious as to what business, if any, Liam had in the building where Edwin Axelrod had bitten the dust. Could he have known Axelrod?
"One drink," I told Liam. "And one drink only!"
He chuckled as though merely to placate me. "Yeah. I hear you."
We walked to the bar on Bishop Street called NiteSpot. I can't say it was a place I could get used to. There was a creepy element about it and a musty scent in the air. Cheesy Hawaiian music was playing in the background as we sat at a table against the back wall.
We both made beer our drink of choice.
"So why were you there?" I got right to the point, having no desire to socialize with the man merely for the sake of it.
"I heard an attorney was found dead in his office under suspicious circumstances," Liam said evenly. "It's my job to follow the news—"
If that was all, and I had no basis to believe otherwise, I was not about to fan the flames. I tasted the beer and leaned back in my chair.
"Why would a private eye be at the scene of a routine murder?" he asked, and then answered himself. "Unless it had something to do with a case she was working on. Am I right?"
He seemed to know the answer ahead of time, making me a little uncomfortable. "Guilty," I pled, but saw no reason to share any more than that.
Liam stared at me. "Well...did you find what you were looking for?"
Wouldn't you like to know, I thought, wondering if this was idle curiosity or inquisitiveness with a purpose.
"I found all I needed to—" I said simply.
"Which was?" he pressed with those reporter's eyes looking back at me.
"A prominent attorney is dead and the cause is still under investigation," I responded. "Why don't we just leave it at that, Liam?"
"If you say so, detective..." He drank more beer and studied me thoughtfully.
I put the onus back on him. "So what do you plan to write about regarding Edwin Axelrod's death?"
"I'm not sure yet," Liam said. After a moment, he said: "How about a headline that reads Crooked Attorney Edwin Axelrod Dead—Was it Self-Inflicted or Murder?"
I raised a brow. "That's a bit over the top, don't you think?"
"You tell me," he said with a catch to his voice. "Is it?"
I put the mug to my mouth and then asked curiously: "What makes you think Axelrod was crooked?"
"That's easy," Liam said flatly, "because he was. Everybody knows Axelrod was on the payroll of some of Honolulu's top crime assholes, making it almost impossible to keep his own hands clean."
"You mean like Kazuo Pelekai?" I couldn't help but ask.
"Who's bigger?" he confirmed.
I met Liam's eyes. "Then you do think Edwin Axelrod was murdered."
"Don't you?" His mouth hung
open. "The poor bastard probably knew way too much—"
Knew too much about what? I wondered. Or who? Had Edwin Axelrod gotten in so deep that he had become more of a liability than an asset to Pelekai? I could imagine one of his muscular cronies doing the honor of snuffing out Axelrod, making Pelekai's life a little easier.
Suddenly, I could see some scary patterns emerging. If Edwin Axelrod had been in Pelekai's hip pocket, it could be connected to Axelrod's affair with Darlene. Maybe Axelrod had been using her to get information that could help Pelekai in a criminal proceeding in which Carter's consultant work with the prosecuting attorney's office could have been compromised. Or, at the very least, I mused, a mistrial would have been a given, had the defense shown a conflict of interest on the part of the State's case, considering that Carter's wife was having an affair with Kazuo Pelekai's defense attorney. That Carter and Axelrod were now dead could be all Pelekai needed to walk away scot-free from his troubles. It was a lot for me to digest.
"Some of my sources tell me Axelrod was a womanizer," Liam said as he refilled his mug. "You got an opinion on that?"
"Not really," I said with a straight face. "I didn't know the man." Which, of course, was only a half-truth. What I did know left me less than impressed with Axelrod as a husband and attorney, as far as faithfulness and ethics went.
"I thought private eyes had a sixth sense for that sort of thing," Liam said, favoring me with steady eyes.
"Only in the movies," I responded dryly. "Real detectives aren't psychic." Was he toying with me? I wondered. Or viewing me as a toy he could wind up whenever he wanted to?
"Well reporters are, in a sense," he declared. "And my vibes tell me that Axelrod was definitely a ladies' man, except where it concerned his wife—"
"I don't see what any of this has to do with—" I argued.
"Maybe Axelrod was murdered by a scorned woman," Liam suggested, "if he was murdered at all. Point is, you can't rule out anything."
"I suppose not," I responded nonchalantly. Was he insinuating that Edwin Axelrod's mistress killed him? Could he know that Axelrod had been involved with Darlene?
I was obviously not bosom buddies with Carter's widow, but making her out to be a vindictive murderess seemed like a stretch, especially since I was under the impression that things had ended between her and Axelrod. But had they? Though I realized Darlene still had not been officially eliminated as a suspect in Carter's death, I somehow convinced myself that there was a distinction between killing one's no good lover and one's cheating, gambling husband.
I finished off my beer and decided I had better quit while I was ahead or at least on neutral ground.
"Thanks for the drink, Liam."
"Thanks for the company," he said with a boyish grin. "It's hard to find people to have an intelligent conversation with these days."
"Maybe you're looking in all the wrong places," I said sardonically.
"Maybe," he said, eyeing me as though that was about to change.
Liam insisted on walking me back to my car. I insisted that it went no further than that.
"See you around," I told him routinely after starting my car, but not meaning it.
"That a promise?" he asked eagerly. I couldn't tell if he was serious or not. In fact, there was a lot about him that left me uncertain and uneasy. Maybe I was making too much of nothing. Could be he was simply a damned good reporter given to some harmless flirting. Problem was I found myself buying into it to some degree.
I hated to burst his bubble, but there was no interest on my part in engaging in such conversations with him when there was nothing else on the table. I was more than satisfied with Ridge where it concerned intelligent conversing and otherwise spending time together.
I drove off without answering his question.
* * *
I ran some of Liam's theories and innuendoes about Edwin Axelrod's life and death by Ridge during dinner that evening. More specifically, the part about Axelrod being on Kazuo Pelekai's payroll.
Ridge listened with interest while chewing on barbecued chicken right off his own grill. "I knew that," he said as if no big deal.
"How long have you known?" I asked.
"Since you first had me run a check on Axelrod's license plate," Ridge answered.
I wasn't sure whether to be angry or wait until I heard his explanation. "Did it ever occur to you that I might be interested to know that the man Darlene was having an affair with just happened to be the attorney for Kazuo Pelekai—a man Carter spent years trying like hell to send to prison?"
Ridge nodded. "Yeah, it occurred to me—"
"And—?" I asked, assuming there had to be more.
He drank some wine and seemed to consider his words carefully. "I didn't want to involve you in this case any more than necessary, Skye. Hell, if I'd told you about the connection between Axelrod and Pelekai, you might have ended up way over your head in something that may have had nothing to do with Carter's death, but everything to do with putting you on someone's hit list." Ridge sipped more wine, and then said: "As it is, we haven't been able to tie Delaney's murder to Pelekai or Edwin Axelrod—"
I nibbled on a dinner roll. My disappointment was tempered by the fact that Ridge was a cop first and foremost, bound by cop rules. He also made a judgment call of a personal nature. I had to respect that, given our personal relationship and his wanting to protect me from harm.
"So what do you make of Axelrod's death?" I asked. We were sitting at a picnic table in Ridge's backyard. "Don't you find it strange that he wound up dead when he may have known who killed Carter—possibly burying his secret with him forever?"
Ridge ate more chicken before responding. "Having an affair with the wife of a former prosecutor doesn't mean it was part of a greater conspiracy against Carter Delaney," he said. "More likely, Axelrod took on one crook too many and paid the ultimate price. That said, I'd say suicide is still a damn good possibility. I heard the suicide rate is unusually high for attorneys. Must have something to do with job stress—"
Was he returning to the theory that Carter's death might have been a suicide, in spite of the evidence to the contrary? I wondered. Carter had not practiced law in years when he was killed, which would seem to debunk such a theory where it concerned him. Yet I could not deny that he was under a great deal of stress from more than one source. But, in my mind, this still did not add up to suicide. I was sure that Ridge and I were on the same page here; whereas the circumstances surrounding Edwin Axelrod's mysterious death were still very much up for debate.
My thoughts turned to Liam Pratt's suggestion that Axelrod's death was related to his cheating ways. It made me wonder if Darlene had, in fact, resumed their affair and the wife found out. Perhaps it was she who decided to pay her husband back by putting a bullet in his brain. Admittedly, it seemed farfetched, but it was totally plausible in this day and age where murder amongst married intimates occurred much more often than one might imagine.
Ridge's cell phone rang. He grabbed it from his jacket pocket and gave me one of his excuse me smiles before answering.
I watched as he listened mostly to the caller. Ridge hung up with a grim look in his eyes.
"What is it?" I hesitated to ask.
Ridge swallowed hard as he muttered: "Kazuo Pelekai was just found in his Lexus with half his face blown off—"
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
He kissed her breasts. They were soft with hard nipples.
His lips moved to her mouth, which was waiting for him, attacking it with hot kisses as they had sex.
It was over in about five minutes. He spent another half hour listening to her tell him how great it was.
Not for him. He could think of any number of women he'd rather be with and who could satisfy him. One in particular. But he could only play the hand dealt him, which at the moment was putting up with the one he was with.
While she dozed off, the alcohol and sex apparently making her tired, he grabbed the remote and cut on the T
V. He recognized the face that filled the screen.
He sat up and listened as the reporter said: "Reputed crime boss Kazuo Pelekai, also known as Chano, was found dead in his car last night. He was shot in the face at close range. So far there are no leads or suspects—"
He grinned. No leads? No suspects?
Good, he thought. Keep them guessing.
As far as he was concerned, it was one less person to pollute the streets of Honolulu.
Rest in a million pieces, Pelekai, he thought gleefully.
Suddenly, the one he was in bed with looked inviting again. He woke her up and was all over her like a cheap suit. He put his imagination in high gear and pretended she was the sweet, sassy and sexy private investigator named Skye Delaney.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
With Kazuo Pelekai dead, I was quickly running out of suspects. At least living ones.
Not quite sure which direction to turn, I showed up at Edwin Axelrod's home to pay my last respects. As might be expected for a high-priced, shady lawyer, he lived in style. The waterfront place on Diamond Head Road was two stories of slate cement stucco with large, gabled windows. Unfortunately for Axelrod, he couldn't take the elegant digs, expensive car, or money with him. Presumably, that left it all to the wife.
I rang the doorbell. It was the lady of the house herself who answered the door. I believe Ridge had told me last night during our heated debate that her name was Isabella and that she was indeed a fashion model, as I had once imagined. She certainly fit the bill: beautiful, tall, and sleek. She was wearing an outrageous floral print sheath and platform slides. Her long red hair was draped over one shoulder and her bold blue eyes looked swollen from tears.
She glared at me. "You! How dare you show up at my house!"
My guess was that she remembered our brief meeting at her husband's office. And yet I sensed there was much more to her hostility.
"I think there's been a mistake..." I told her and waited to see what came next.
Murder in Honolulu: A Skye Delaney Mystery Page 19