Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 09

by Damned in Paradise (v5. 0)

  Leisure’s eyes were open wide; then he sighed and began nodding. “Obviously these clumsy fools had no intention of murdering Kahahawai.”

  “They’re as much victims in this as Kahahawai,” Darrow said gravely.

  “I wouldn’t go quite that far, C.D.,” I said. “Mrs. Fortescue and the boys aren’t in the ground.”

  The only sound in the room was the gentle whir of a ceiling fan.

  “I have misgivings myself,” Darrow admitted, sighing heavily. “After all, I’ve never employed the insanity defense….”

  “Sure you did, C.D.,” I said. Was his memory completely gone? How could he forget his most famous trial?

  “Loeb and Leopold, you mean?” He smiled patiently, shook his head, no. “I pleaded those boys guilty, and merely used insanity as a mitigating circumstance, in seeking the judge’s mercy. No, this is a full-blown insanity defense, and we’re going to need experts in the field of psychiatry.”

  Leisure nodded. “I agree. Any ideas?”

  Darrow gazed at the ceiling fan’s blades. “Did you follow the Winnie Ruth Judd trial?”

  “Certainly,” Leisure said. “Who didn’t?”

  “Those alienists who testified on behalf of Mrs. Judd made a hell of a good case that she had to be crazy to have dismembered those two gals, and stuffed ’em in that trunk.”

  Leisure was nodding. “Williams and Orbison. But Mrs. Judd was convicted…”

  “Yes,” Darrow said with a winning smile, “but I wasn’t defending her. I was impressed by their testimony; will you track them down by telephone, George?”

  “Certainly, but I doubt they take charity cases….”

  “Establish their availability and fee. When I confer privately with Mrs. Fortescue and Tommie, tomorrow, I’ll let them know how important bringing in alienists is to their defense. They’ll find the money, amongst their rich friends. Could you start on that right now?”

  Leisure nodded and stood. “I’ll call from my own suite; Anne’s probably wondering what’s become of me.”

  “Be back by four-thirty, if you can, George. We’re meeting with those local fellows for further briefing.”

  Darrow was referring to Montgomery Winn and Frank Thompson, the Honolulu attorneys who had handled the case before Darrow came aboard. Winn had prepared much of the material we’d looked at on the Malolo.

  With Leisure gone, Darrow said, “I think we may have offended George’s delicate legal sensibilities.”

  “Tough finding out your hero has feet of clay,” I said.

  “Is that what I have?”

  “Up to about the knees.”

  He let out a horse laugh. Then he sat forward, putting his cigarette out in an ashtray on the small table by his chair; he rested his hands on his thighs and gazed at me sleepily.

  “Let’s get down to it, son,” he said. “I’m going to be making a lot of noise, with the press boys, about how it doesn’t matter whether Joe Kahahawai and his cohorts were really guilty of raping Thalia Massie or not. That it doesn’t matter a ding-dong diddly damn whether it was some other carload of Island hoodlums, or Thalia Massie’s overactive imagination, or Admiral Stirling and the entire Pacific fleet. What matters is that Tommie Massie and Mrs. Fortescue and those two sailor boys believed Kahahawai to be one of her attackers…the brute who broke that poor girl’s jaw and wouldn’t let her pray. And I will be trumpeting from Honolulu to doomsday that we are not, and will not, retry the Ala Moana case in that courtroom.”

  “That’s what you’ll be saying to the press.”

  “Right. And it’s a boxcar of bullshit. Oh, in a technical legal sense, it’s sound enough, but what we really need to free our clients is proof that they killed the right man. It gives them moral authority for this immoral, senseless act they perpetrated.”

  “Which is where I come in.”

  He narrowed his eyes, nodded slyly. “Exactly. This rape case, this so-called Ala Moana case, I want you to dig into it. Interview the witnesses, naval personnel, local officials, the goddamn man on the street if you have to.” He thrust out his arm and his finger pointed right at me; it was like having a lightning bolt almost hit you. “If you can find new evidence of the guilt of those rapists—and I believe Thalia Massie, I believe her, based upon her words and her demeanor and, if nothing else, that goddamned license plate number that she missed by only a single goddamned digit—then we can make a hero out of the sorry human unit that is Thomas Massie. And we can spring ’em all!”

  I was sitting forward, loosely clasped hands draped between my open knees. “What do we do with this new evidence, should I find it?”

  He winked. “Leave that to me. I’ll make sure the jury hears about it, and the papers. Of course, I will in this trial be retrying the Ala Moana case, because it speaks to the motivation and the mental condition of Tommie Massie. No prosecutor can keep that out of the record…. Now—I’m going into court tomorrow morning, and I’m going to ask for a week to prepare my case; the judge’ll give it to me, too.”

  “Of course he will. You’re Clarence Darrow.”

  “And that’s about all the consideration I expect my fame to get me in this case, but I’ll damn well take it. Then I expect it’ll take a good week to select a jury…I intend to make sure it does.”

  “So you’ll buy me two weeks.”

  He nodded. “I would expect, during the trial, you’ll be at my side, at my table. That’s where I’ll want you, and need you, not running around chasing girls down some snow white beach.”

  “Is that how you figure I’ll spend my time?”

  “Some of it. Of course, you’ve already landed this Bell girl. Fine-looking young woman. You bagged that filly the first night aboard ship, didn’t you?”

  “Admitting that wouldn’t be gentlemanly.”

  He tilted his head; his eyes had a nostalgic cast. “Does she look as good out of a bathing suit as she does in one, son?”

  “Better.”

  Darrow sighed with pleasure at the thought of that, then hauled his weary body to its feet; quite a process, sort of like reassembling himself. He was fishing for something in his baggy pants pocket as he motioned for me to rise, and I did, and he walked me to the door. He slipped his arm around my shoulder. With his other hand, he pressed some keys in my palm.

  “There’s a car waiting for you in the hotel garage. Mrs. Fortescue’s provided it.”

  “Any special car, or do I just start trying keys in ignitions?”

  “A blue Durant roadster. It’ll get you in the mood of the case: it’s her own car, the one she drove to the courthouse the day they snatched Kahahawai.”

  I grunted a laugh. “At least it isn’t the car they hauled that poor bastard’s body in.”

  He moved away to pluck one of the envelopes off the table by the door. “This is for you, too, son—it’s your temporary private investigator’s license, and permission to carry a firearm in the Territory of Hawaii.”

  “What the hell,” I said, having a look at the document, signed by the chief of police. “I’m legal.”

  He patted my shoulder. “I’ll be holed up here, mostly, working with George. Check in with me by phone and we’ll meet every day or so. Now, I want you to stay away from this hotel—I don’t want the reporters getting after you.” He dug in his pocket. “Here’s some expense money….”

  I took the five tens he was offering, and said, “Whose idea was it, hiring me? Yours or Evalyn Walsh McLean’s?”

  “Does it matter where a great notion first rears its head?”

  “Don’t tell me she’s paying my expense money….”

  He touched his caved-in chest with splayed fingers. “Now that injures me, it really does. You know I dote upon you—as if you were my own son!”

  “Is having me around costing you anything?”

  “Certainly, Nate. That was my pocket you saw me reach into, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know whose money you dug out.”

  His g
ray eyes were impish. “Why, your money, Nate. Your money, now.”

  I grunted another laugh. “I’d put you under oath, but what difference would it make?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What good’s it do, having an agnostic swear on a Bible?”

  He was chuckling over that as he closed the door behind me.

  The top was down (and I left it down) on the Durant, a two-tone blue number with wire wheels that was surprisingly sporty for a society matron like Grace Fortescue, even if she was an accomplice to murder. The buggy handled nicely and the three-and-a-half-mile drive from Honolulu to Waikiki—straight down King Street, right on Kalakaua Avenue—was a pleasant combination of palm-shaded drive, strolling locals, and budding commerce. I tossed my fedora on the floor on the rider’s side, because the motor-stirred breeze would have sent it sailing, and it felt good, getting my hair mussed. The steady stream of traffic was divided by a clanging trolley, and halted occasionally by Polynesian traffic cops with stop-go signs—no traffic lights in Honolulu, though they had street-lamps. Pretty soon the coral-pink stucco spires of the Royal Hawaiian began emerging up over the trees, like a mirage playing peek-a-boo.

  Turning right off Kalakaua into the hotel driveway, I was swept into lushly green, blossom-dabbed, meticulously landscaped grounds along a palm-lined gentle curve of asphalt that wound around to the Pink Palace’s porte cochere, where my rubbernecking damn near ran me smack into one of the massive pillars at the entry way.

  The doorman, a Japanese, wore a fancier white uniform and cap than Admiral Stirling. When he leaned his smooth round face in, I asked him where the parking lot was, and he told me they’d park “the vehicle” for me.

  I left the motor running, grabbed my bag out of the back, took the claim stub (imagine giving an automobile to somebody like you were checking your damn hat!), tipped the doorman a nickel, and headed inside. A Chinese bellboy in an oriental outfit tried to take my bag as I bounded up the steps, but I waved him off; I only had so many nickels.

  The lobby was cool and open, with doorless doorways letting in lovely weather, chirping birds, whispering surf.

  The massive walls with their looming archways and the high ceiling with its chandeliers dwarfed the potted palms and fancy lamps and wicker furnishings, not to mention the people, who seemed mostly to be staff. There were enough bellboys—some in those oriental pajamas, others in crisp traditional red jacket and white pants, all in racial shades of yellow and brown—to put together a football team; and room enough to play, without stepping off the Persian carpet.

  But there were damn few guests. In fact, as I moved to the registration desk at left, I was the only guest around at the moment. As I was signing in, a honeymooning couple in tennis togs strolled by arm in arm. But that was about it.

  Even the fancy lobby shops—display windows showing off jade and silk and high fashions, for the moneyed man or woman—were populated only by salesclerks.

  An elevator operator took me up to the fourth floor, where I found a room so spacious and beautifully appointed, it made my cabin on the Malolo look like my one-room flat back home. More wicker furniture, ferns and flowers, shuttered windows, and a balcony that looked out on the ocean….

  It was late afternoon, and the sunbathers and swimmers were mostly indoors; a spirited game of surfboard polo was under way, but that was all. No outrigger canoes in sight; no surf-riding dogs.

  The day was winding down and I was, frankly, exhausted. I dropped the sort of immense window shade that was the only thing separating the balcony from the room itself, and adjusted the shutters till the room was as dark as I could get it, stripped to my shorts, and flopped on the bed.

  Ringing awoke me.

  I turned on the bedside lamp. Blinking, I looked at the telephone on the nightstand and it looked back at me, and rang again. I lifted the receiver, only half-awake.

  “’Llo.”

  “Nate? Isabel.”

  “Hi. What time is it?”

  “Eight-something.”

  “Eight-something at night?”

  “Yes, eight-something at night. Did I wake you? Were you napping?”

  “Yeah. That old man Clarence Darrow wore me the hell out. Where are you? Here in the hotel?”

  “No,” she said, and there was disappointment in her voice. “I’m still at Thalia’s. She’s not moving out to Pearl Harbor till tomorrow, so I’m staying with her, tonight.”

  “Too bad—I could use the company. I seem to have this whole barn to myself.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. I hear business at the Royal Hawaiian is terrible since the Crash.”

  I sat up. “Listen, I’d like to talk to Thalia again—without C.D. and Leisure around. There’s hardly anybody at this damn joint—maybe you and she could come around for breakfast. I don’t think there’ll be too many gawkers.”

  “Let me ask her,” Isabel said. She was gone for a minute or so, then came back: “Thalia would love to get away. What time?”

  “How about nine? Just a second, let me look at this…” There was an information card on the nightstand with room service and other restaurant info. “We’ll meet at the Surf Porch. Just ask at the desk and they’ll shoo you in the right direction.”

  “This sounds delightful, Nathan. See you tomorrow. Love you.”

  “Back at ya.”

  I rolled out of bed. I stretched, yawned loudly. I was hungry; maybe I’d put my pants on and go down and charge a great big fancy meal to my room. That was one way to stretch fifty bucks a week expenses.

  Yanking the cord, I lifted the big window shade and let the night air roll in off the balcony. Then I wandered out there in my shorts and socks to drink in the night. The sky was purple and scattered with stars; the moon, full and almost golden, cast glimmering highlights on the ebony ocean. Diamond Head was a slumbering silhouette, barely discernible. I drew in the sea breeze, basked in the beauty of the breakers rolling in.

  “Please excuse intrusion,” a quiet voice said.

  I damn near fell off the balcony.

  “Did not wish to disturb you.” He was seated in a wicker chair, to the left, back away from the ledge of the balcony, a skinny little Chinese guy in a white suit with a black bow tie, a Panama hat in his lap.

  I stepped forward, fists balled. “What the hell are you doing in my room?”

  He stood; he was no more than five foot. He bowed.

  “Took liberty of waiting for you to wake up.”

  His head had a skull-like appearance, accentuated by his high forehead and wispy, thinning graying hair. His nose was thinly hawkish, his mouth a wide narrow line over a spade-like jaw; but his most striking feature was his eyes: deeply socketed, bright and alert, and the right one had a nasty scar above and below it, the entire socket discolored, like an eye patch of flesh. Knife scar, I’d wager, and he was lucky he didn’t lose the eye.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Detective First Grade Chang Apana. Care to see badge?”

  “No thanks,” I said, letting out a half-laugh, half-sigh. “It would take Charlie Chan to sneak in here and not wake me. Any special reason you dropped by unannounced?”

  “Roundabout way often shortest path to correct destination.”

  “Who said that? Confucius?”

  He shook his head, no. “Derr Biggers.”

  Whoever that was.

  I asked, “You mind if I put on my pants?”

  “By all means. You mind if I smoke?”

  We sat on the balcony in wicker chairs. As we spoke, he chain-smoked. That wasn’t a very Charlie Chan-like thing to do; and, as I recalled, the fictional detective was roly-poly. But maybe Chang Apana and his storybook counterpart had other things in common.

  “What are you doing here, Detective Apana?”

  “You’re working with famous lawyer—Clarence Darrow. On Massie case.”

  “That’s right. But I haven’t even started poking around yet. How did you know…?”


  “Chief of police showed me paperwork giving you permission to carry weapon and investigate, here. You’re Chicago policeman?”

  “That’s right. I took a leave of absence to help Mr. Darrow out. We’re old friends.”

  A tiny smile tickled the line of a mouth. “You’re not old at all, Mr. Heller. I have been detective for thirty-seven years.”

  That surprised me, but looking at the crevices on that skeletal mug, I could believe it.

  “You still haven’t told me what brings you here, Detective Apana.”

  “Please. Call me Apana, or Chang. I am here to offer aid and information to brother officer.”

  “Well, then, why don’t you call me Nate, Chang. Why do you want to help me? Where do you stand on the Massie case, anyway?”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Depends which case. Tommie Massie and his mother-in-law and sailors, law is clear. Man they kidnapped was killed.”

  “It’s not quite that simple….”

  “Not simple at all. Heavy cloud hangs over this island, Nate. Will we be stripped of self-government? Will dream of statehood burst like bubble? Outcome of trial will determine these things…and yet these things have nothing to do with law, or justice.”

  “Where do you stand on the other case? The Ala Moana rape case?”

  “I stand in embarrassment.”

  “Why?”

  “Because department I serve for thirty-seven years have disgraced self in committing many blunders. Example—Inspector McIntosh arrest five boys because they were involved in another ‘assault’ same night…. That assault was minor auto mishap and scuffle. Not rape. But McIntosh arrest them on this basis, then he build his case. This is same inspector who drives suspect’s car to scene of crime to examine tire tracks, and wipes out tracks in process.”

  “Yeah, I read about that in the trial transcript. That does take the cake.”

  “Cake taken by Thalia Massie when her memory makes remarkable improvement. Night she was attacked, she tell police she leave Ala Wai Inn between twelve-thirty and one A.M. Later, when Inspector McIntosh cannot make this work with suspects’ strong alibis, Mrs. Massie change time to eleven-thirty. Night she was attacked, she tell police she can’t identify rapists, too dark. Tell police also she didn’t see license plate number. Later, memory miraculously improve on all counts.”