“It’s an advance of a hundred thousand, which is only a drop in the bucket to all the property damage caused by the anarchy movement you launched,” Fernandez said. “I’m arguing that you can only be held responsible for the houses you burgled.”
“Thanks for that,” Consuelo said. “I want a chance to set the record straight. I might have been the one who started something, but I never meant it to end the way it did. I just wanted to draw attention to the gap between the rich and the poor in Hawai‘i.”
“Well, you certainly did that.” Fernandez set his glasses on his little pink bulb of a nose. “But I’d hate for that message to get lost in all that came after. So I think you should do it.”
Lying on the bunk, without so much as a blanket let alone pen and paper, Consuelo felt depression and despair sweep over her. She shut her eyes.
She was never getting out of here.
She’d never be able to tell her story, or do anything to fight guys like Jose Taika, Fai’s gangster uncle. She had a record, now. She was a criminal, just like they were. Just a number in a system that had no reason to do anything but shut her up.
Consuelo closed her eyes and rolled on her side facing the wall. She willed herself to sleep, but that welcome darkness wouldn’t come.
Hours seemed to have passed in the dim half-light that was the perpetual state of things in the shoe, but it might have only been minutes when she heard the metallic grind of the door unlocking and it opened.
Consuelo sat up and looked into the stern face of Raynaldo, one of the CO’s. “You have a visitor.”
“I thought I couldn’t have visitors.” Consuelo’s voice came out a thin rasp.
“Your lawyer isn’t considered a visitor.”
“Thank God.” Consuelo stood, her legs a little wobbly, and preceded the C.O. down the hall. Raynaldo put her in a bare conference room with a battered table, rather than the usual group visiting area. Consuelo sat on one of the molded plastic chairs.
Bennie Fernandez, his white hair standing up in a halo, wasn’t the only visitor. Lei Texeira, her brown eyes worried, followed him in, and right behind them, bright as a parakeet in a teal-green suit, was Wendy Watanabe. Bringing up the rear was a haole man that Consuelo recognized as the warden.
“I’m so glad to see you,” Consuelo told Lei. She had to blink to keep tears from overflowing. Lei sat next to her and touched her arm lightly. Consuelo knew she wasn’t much for hugging.
Not so Wendy.
“Oh, my God, girl. What did they do to you?” the petite reporter exclaimed, swooping in to hug Consuelo in a waft of pīkake perfume.
“She was captured breaching the wall off the property,” the warden harrumphed. “She’s in the isolation unit, standard intervention after an escape attempt.”
“No, sir, I didn’t want to escape.” Consuelo extricated herself from Wendy’s arms. “I was fighting to get away from the other girls. I left a note under my mattress asking for help.”
“That’s why Warden Smith allowed this meeting.” Fernandez straightened his bright aloha shirt. “One of the CO’s, Marcie Porter, found it in your cell.”
“I was hoping someone would find it and know that I didn’t participate willingly,” Consuelo said. Warden Smith’s face looked thunderously angry. She could tell he’d happily keep her in the isolation unit indefinitely. She had to hurry and say what she needed to in front of witnesses before he found a way to do that. “I have information. About Fai’s uncle. He has contacts here in the prison, and he helped her escape.”
“Jose Taika,” Lei said. “I ran background on your roommate Fai already. She’s well connected.”
Smith’s eyebrows drew together. “Well. We didn’t have that information. If we had, I might have taken your concerns more seriously.”
Lei cocked a brow skeptically at him. “I’ve already called a contact at HPD that I’d like to have help with your girl hunt. I just came to verify that Consuelo was unhurt and see if she had any more information for us?” she turned to Consuelo.
“Yes, I do have information,” Consuelo said. She swallowed. “But I’m afraid. Of what could happen. From Fai and her relatives.”
“I am requesting a change of location for you from a judge because of this incident,” Bennie Fernandez said. “And I’m sure Warden Smith plans different accommodations for you in light of all of this?”
Wendy whipped a small recorder out of her pocket and turned it on, extending it toward Smith. “This is Wendy Watanabe with KHIN-2 news. I’m here with Warden Smith of Ko‘olau Youth Correctional Facility, doing a follow up story about Consuelo Aguilar. This notorious folk heroine was recently involved with a breakout and is now cooperating with authorities in the capture of the escapees. Warden Smith, what can you tell us about how the facility plans to assist in the capture of the runaways?”
“Ah. Well.” Smith smoothed his shirt and sucked in his paunch. “Every resource will be deployed to assist in the capture of the criminals at large.”
“And what is being done to protect Aguilar, a witness in this case?” Watanabe was relentless as she held the microphone of the recorder close to Smith’s sweating face.
“We’ll—move her to a protected site,” Smith said, getting redder. “We appreciate law enforcement’s prompt, coordinated effort in recovering the escapees.”
“You heard it here, first, folks.” Watanabe clicked Off on the recorder and smiled, a twitch of shapely scarlet lips. “Thrilled to hear it.”
Lei made a shooing motion with her hand. “Fernandez and I need to speak to Consuelo alone regarding the case. The rest of you can wait outside.”
Consuelo’s heart rate was still galloping as Wendy and Smith filed out. “Please. Get me a notebook,” she whispered. “I want to write while I’m in isolation.”
“Done.” Lei said. She drew the girl’s notebook out of her backpack, along with a plain Bic ballpoint. “The pen sucks, but it passed regulations.”
Consuelo clasped the notebook to her chest. “Thanks so much.”
“You’re welcome. Now tell me everything.”
Consuelo did. She felt much lighter as she was led back to the isolation unit half an hour later, the notebook concealed under her shirt.
Lei strode out of the youth facility, Bennie Fernandez trotting in her wake. “Like I said, I’m filing for a change of venue to move Consuelo to a locked therapeutic group home,” Bennie said. “It’s a lot homier than Ko‘olau.”
“Great, Bennie. You’ve done good by her. But don’t let me find you defending any of these scumbags,” Lei admonished, shaking a finger at him. “I’ll cite conflict of interest on you in a heartbeat.”
“All’s fair,” the little defense lawyer puffed as they reached the parking lot. “In love, and in defense law. But don’t worry. I checked with my office. No Taikas or Afas on the client list.”
“Keep it that way.” Lei beeped open her truck and jumped in, peeling out of the lot.
She put her light on and picked up her radio, checking in with Marcus Kamuela, detective in charge of the breakout’s manhunt.
“Got some new information from a witness,” she told the big Hawaiian detective. “Rendezvous in five minutes.”
She met Kamuela and the other HPD operatives at the Kaneohe police station. There, she shared the intel Consuelo had gathered.
“We need the Coast Guard in on this,” Kamuela said. “And SWAT. Making the calls.”
It wasn’t long before the multi-agency group approached a rusty steel warehouse down at the harbor area, an industrial zone of grubby older buildings draped in power lines, contrasting with the sparkling turquoise ocean in the distance.
Lei stayed well back, aware of her ‘consultant’ role, as SWAT burst in the warehouse entrance with a handheld metal door cannon. There was a mad scramble inside the warehouse, the rattle of gunfire, and a b
urst of yelling. The roar of engines added further chaos, and a twin-engine speedboat zoomed out of the side of the warehouse butted up against the water.
Lei hadn’t entered with the team, and she ran along the outside of the building, her weapon in low-ready position to track the fleeing boat.
Looking back at the shore, faces pale with fright, were a heavyset girl with black hair and a slim blond. Driving the boat was a suspect in a black ball cap. In the stern, taking a shot at Lei with a shotgun, was another male suspect.
Lei ducked out of the way as a hole blew open in the corrugated metal wall near her. She swung back around and shot, aiming for the big twin diesel engines. She hit one, she could tell, as Fai Afa gave a cry and jumped back, grabbing the blond Jadene in her arms. Lei fired again, and hit the other engine, but the boat kept going, hitting surf and bouncing high, a tough target on a wide-open sea.
Lei didn’t want to hit one of the girls, and she was already out of range for anything but a wild card shot. She kept an eye on the boat as Marcus arrived beside her, panting with exertion. “Interior secure. Looks like the girls got away.”
“How far out is that Coast Guard cutter?” Lei asked. “I did get off a couple of shots. Tried to hit the motor. Seemed like I did, but it’s still moving.”
As if in answer to her question, they saw the smaller of the Coast Guard’s intercept boats moving in on the speedboat, which had slowed significantly.
“Maybe I winged it,” Lei muttered, sheltering her eyes with a hand against the glitter of sunshine on the ocean.
“Looks like you did.” Marcus lifted his rifle in burly arms and looked through the scope at the distant, bobbing boats. “They’re taking it in tow.”
They turned away. The big Hawaiian’s stern face split in a grin as he high-fived Lei. “Tell that girl of yours nice work. We scooped up some major Boyz today.”
Consuelo sat on the floor of the isolation cell and used the bed as a desk.
“It all began with a drunk driver,” she wrote. “Just a guy who’d been laid off, had a few, and didn’t even know what he was doing when he jumped a curb in his old Pontiac.”
As Consuelo wrote, she felt the pressure of locked-up pain begin to drain away.
Nothing could bring her mother, mowed down beside Consuelo on the sidewalk, back to life. Nothing could change the fact that her father had been drawn down into the hell of cancer, never to return. Nothing could save the people murdered by others in her name.
But Consuelo could tell her story, and she knew that, with the friends she had, it would be heard. It would help make things right.
There were other kinds of freedom than taking to the air in flight.
Toby Neal
Toby Neal grew up on the island of Kaua‘i in Hawai‘i. After a few “stretches of exile” to pursue education, the islands have been home for the last sixteen years. Toby is a mental health therapist, a career that has informed the depth and complexity of the characters in her books. Outside of work and writing, Toby volunteers in a nonprofit for children and enjoys life in Hawai‘i through beach walking, body boarding, scuba diving, photography and hiking.
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Danny’s Tale: the Untold Story From the ‘Ohana
C.W. Schutter
Honolulu – 1978
Governor Dan Myers knew it was time to tell the truth. His son, Gerry, sat in the soft butter leather barrel chair in the sitting room adjoining his office with his head in his hands sobbing.
Being labeled a liar could end any chance of my being re-elected, he thought.
Gerry raised his head. “Dad, she’s my baby. We have to find a match for a bone marrow transplant before the cancer progresses too far, even if it means tracing our ancestry back to Portugal, Germany, the Philippines, and China. And we’ve got to find all the Hawaiians related to us here.
“I remember very little of my mother. You rarely talk about her. Kathy and I figured her memory must have been painful because you always change the subject when we ask. All I remember of my mom is a soft-spoken lady, who told us Bible stories and smiled a lot. I don’t ever recall a time when she yelled at us or hit us. I only know what she looks like because of the old picture album.”
The Governor got up from his chair and went to the Koa wood console table where pictures of his family were scattered on the smooth, golden brown top. He was proud of the way his family turned out. He picked up the 11 x12 frame with his wedding picture and marveled once again at how he, a poor boy from Kalihi and Pālolo, somehow married the richest, most beautiful woman in Hawai‘i who was a kama‘āina haole, to boot. Of course, he had no idea who she was when he fell in love with her. That was the beauty of it.
Sighing he put the picture back down.
Truth had consequences. But he didn’t have a choice now.
He turned and faced his son.
Honolulu - 1930-1942
Danny Myers was born in Kalihi, one of the roughest neighborhoods in Honolulu. In 1930, at the age of fourteen, his family moved to a better neighborhood across town in Pālolo. The quiet, shy boy stayed out of trouble by keeping his nose in books, shutting his mouth, and never looking at people too long. Giving stink eye meant getting beat up in the rough streets he grew up in. And stink eye was defined by the accusers and in most cases, a complete mystery to the victims who were charged with the dubious offense.
Danny had no feelings whatsoever for the people in his neighborhood. By the time he was ten, he felt like an alien dropped into an environment with people he had nothing in common with. He even refused to speak pidgin English.
“Hey Danny, who you think you are talking like one haole?” the kids at school, his cousins, and even his brother, Tommy sometimes teased.
Maybe God had played a joke on him. But being different had its advantages. Knowing he wasn’t like the others kept alive his hope of a bright future. On the other hand, violence in his family kept him motivated.
Instead of feeling defeated and bitter like so many of the housing kids, who found their identity in violent gangs, he chose to focus on dreams of a better future no matter how impossible they seemed. However, he was one of them—like it or not. Success would be sweeter knowing where he came from.
“You think you betta than the rest of us cuz you make good grades?” His German-Hawaiian-Chinese father sneered. A massive brute with a crew cut, narrow hazel eyes, and a cruel mouth set in a lantern jaw, Danny’s father had an iron fist he used liberally on his children. “You one loser. You nevah goin’ be anything in dis life. You nuthin’ but one loser. You gotta be like your brudda Tommy. You gotta be tough to make it in dis world.”
“Danny, you gotta lift weights, get tough. Play football or something,” Tommy advised. “Dad picks on you ’cause you let him. He’s a bully. He like pick on the little guy, and you his scapegoat. So you gotta get big. Spend mo’ time lifting weights with me then reading books all the time.”
“Making good grades is how I’m going to get out of the housing,” Danny told him. “I’m not going to live like this the rest of my life. I’m going to be somebody. A lawyer, a doctor, something where I can have a nice house and quiet family life.”
Tommy laughed and patted his younger brother on his shoulder. “Okay, brah. Big dreams sometimes make big people. Me, I’m going to join the army and get outta here because I’m not a brain like you. Make it for all of us, okay? And remember your bruddah when you do.”
Danny admired his big brother, who was his polar opposite. Tommy was everything he was not—athletic, strong, and protective of his brother and sister.
“I love you, bruddah,” Danny said.
Tommy looked embarrassed for a moment. “Feel the same. You my only bruddah.”
&nbs
p; “What about Jolene?” Thirteen-year-old Jolene squeaked as she walked into their bedroom. Frail like their mother with curly light brown hair, golden skin, thick, long-lashed brown eyes, she had a promise of beauty far surpassing anyone in the family.
Tommy went up to her and patted her on the head. “Hey shrimp, we going keep all the boys away from you. Make sure you end up an old maid.”
Jolene frowned and began hitting Tommy who pretended to be scared of her. He yelled while laughing at the same time. “Owee. Owee. You’re hurting me.”
Their dad strutted around his turf in a perennial bad mood because he drank. Danny suspected it was to stop feeling like a man beaten down by circumstances and poverty. Their apartment was his kingdom where he let out the aggression ground out of him day after day doing menial labor. When he was sober and feeling melancholy, he would tell his boys, “Don’t be like me. My life is no good.”
The three siblings were close because they shared a common bond. They didn’t like their abusive father, who lashed out at his family when he was in a bad mood. Unfortunately for the family, he was in a bad mood most of the time. The target of his rage was often their frail Portuguese mother. Her mere existence seemed to bring out the worst in him.
The only time his mother fought back was when he was about eight-years-old. She had walked in the front door carrying bags of groceries in the middle of an especially bad whipping. Dropping the bags when she saw blood on their legs and arms, she cried out, “Stop. Stop. What are you doing?”
Tommy turned. “Why are you hitting us? We didn’t do nuthin’.” His father punched him in the face.
Their sister ran out of her bedroom when she heard her mother’s voice. Running to her, Jo clutched her waist and shook with fear.
Paradise, Passion, Murder Page 29