Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 09

by Damned in Paradise (v5. 0)

“Those Ala Moana defendants,” Crabbe said, “aren’t beach boys. Just typical restless Honolulu kids, drifting through life.”

  He said this with a certain sympathy.

  “Guys in their late teens, early twenties,” I said, “are restless everywhere, not just Hawaii.”

  “Yeah, but a lot of kids here are really adrift. All these different races tossed together here, their cultures, their traditions, in tatters.”

  “Then you don’t think the Ala Moana boys are ‘gangsters’?”

  “No, and I don’t think they’re rapists, either.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Crabbe sighed. The cool wind was cutting through the warmth of the afternoon, making his dark blond hair dance; handsome damn kid—if he wasn’t so affable, I’d have hated his guts.

  His gaze was steady. “There’s an old Island saying—‘Hawaiians will talk.’ But the cops couldn’t get anything out of the boys.”

  “So what? Lots of suspects in all kinds of cases keep their traps shut.”

  He shook his head. “Not Hawaiian suspects. If the cops and their billy clubs and blacksnake whips didn’t get the story out of ’em, oke and curious friends and relatives would. And the word would spread across the Island like the surf rolling over that beach.”

  “And it hasn’t?”

  “Nope. Why do you think support among the colored population is so overwhelmingly on the side of the ‘rapists’? Besides, you don’t have to rape a woman on Oahu. There’s too much good stuff ready for the asking.”

  Maybe if you looked like this kid, there was.

  “That area Thalia Massie was walking along when she got grabbed,” I said, “was a red-light district. Maybe Horace Ida and his pals were riding along and mistook her for a chippie and decided to tear off a free piece.”

  He thought about that. “That’s the best case anybody’s made for the prosecution so far. That’s certainly the way it could’ ve happened. But not by the Ala Moana boys.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Hawaiians will talk! Word around town, among the colored population, is it was another gang of boys. How many dozen convertibles full of Island boys looking for a party d’you suppose are prowling around on a given Saturday night?”

  This kid would’ve made a good lawyer. Maybe after he got this Olympic stuff out of his system, he’d finish up law school.

  “You got the time, Nate?”

  I checked my watch. I told him it was getting close to two.

  He stood; his musculature had the same sinewy rippling quality as the Duke’s. “Guess I better scoot. I’m supposed to be over at the Natatorium by two.”

  “The what?”

  “Natatorium. It’s a saltwater pool over near Diamond Head. It’s where I’m training.”

  “Good luck to you,” I said and offered my hand.

  He shook it and was gathering his towel to go when I asked casually, “Why’d you wanna have lunch with me today, Buster?”

  That was his nickname, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what he told me on the pier after the Malolo docked?

  Must’ve been, because he answered, “Why, I just wanted to repay your kindness on the ship the other day—”

  “You ever met any of the Ala Moana boys?”

  He blinked. “Yeah, uh…I knew Joe Kahahawai. I know Benny Ahakuelo, too.”

  “Local athletes, like you.”

  “Yeah.” Now he gave me an embarrassed grin. “And you caught me at it—trying to put in a good word for my friends, without letting you know they are my friends….”

  “I’m a detective. They pay me for catching people at things.”

  “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to mislead you—”

  “Don’t apologize for trying to help out your friends. Listen, Buster—you didn’t tell me any lies, did you?”

  “No. Just that one little sin of omission….”

  I grinned at him. “That makes you a hell of a lot more reliable than most people I talk to. Thanks for the information. Good luck in Los Angeles.”

  That was the upcoming Olympics site.

  “Thanks, Nate.” He flashed another embarrassed grin, waved, and was gone.

  Darrow was moving up onto the beach. Duke Kahanamoku was heading back out with his pals in the outrigger, probably to duck the reporters. Before, the sound of Darrow’s voice had been muffled in the gentle roar of the waves and the happy chatter of the sunbathers and swimmers, running in and out of the surf, or sprawled on the white sand on towels to broil like lobsters. But now, as C.D. and the reporters moved toward the hotel and the row of tables with beach umbrellas, where we sat, I could pretty well make out what they were saying….

  “Worried you’re gonna get a racially mixed jury, Judge?” one reporter asked. The newshounds tended to call Darrow “Judge,” even though he’d never been one; it was a way to kid and compliment him at the same time.

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt we’ll have a racially mixed jury, and no misgivings about it, either. I would embrace that as an opportunity in establishing a bridge between white and brown and yellow.”

  “I don’t think you can use the same tactics you usually use, Judge,” another reporter chimed in. “If the court tells a Hawaiian jury that shooting a man is against the law, and the jury thinks your clients did the shooting, well that’s all there is to it: they’ll find ’em guilty.”

  “That’s the damned trouble with trials,” Darrow growled. “Everybody thinks about the law and nobody thinks about people! Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, that’s all for today….”

  Darrow answered a few parting questions as the reporters and their photographers slowly withdrew, and he sent me a tiny glance that said “Stick around” as he went to the table down a ways from me, where Ruby, Mrs. Leisure, and Isabel were sitting. He joined them and began chatting amiably.

  No doubt in anticipation of possible press pictures, Mrs. Darrow’s pleasantly stout frame was decked out in a sporty white-trimmed blue dress and hat, Mrs. Leisure attractively casual in belted beach pajamas—beige blouse and blue trousers—and blindingly blond Isabel a knockout in her white skirt with blue polka dots and a matching hat; her blouse was actually the nicely filled upper half of her white swimming suit. Isabel wasn’t speaking to me, but I intended to mend that fence—when I got around to it.

  George Leisure wasn’t present—somebody had to prepare for the coming court case.

  “Excuse me, suh.”

  The voice was mellow, male, not quite a drawl, but nonetheless touched by Southern inflection.

  I turned. Straw fedora in hand, his white linen suit immaculate, a pleasant-featured man in his thirties, his brown hair touched lightly with gray at the temples, sharp eyes under lazy lids behind wire-framed glasses, half-bowed to me. His manner was almost courtly.

  “You are Nathan Hellah?”

  “Yes,” I said, somewhat warily; despite the cordial, civilized bearing, this guy could after all be a reporter.

  “Mr. Darrow requested ah speak with you. I’m Lt. Commander John E. Porter. I’ve been assigned by Admiral Stirlin’ to be at Mr. Darrow’s disposal. May ah sit down?”

  Half-standing, I gestured to the chair Crabbe had vacated. “Of course, Doctor. C.D.’s mentioned you. You two seem to have hit it off.”

  “Clarence is easy to like.” He placed his hat on the little table as he sat. “And it’s an honor bein’ associated with such a great man.”

  “I notice you’re out of uniform, Doctor.”

  “Since ah’m spendin’ so much time, bein’ Mr. Darrow’s personal physician, Admiral Stirlin’ decided it might not be wise.”

  Might not be the best press relations, at that, Mr. Darrow being seen in the ongoing company of a naval officer.

  “If we’re going to discuss the case, Doctor,” I said, “do you mind if I take notes?”

  “Not at all.”

  But before turning to a fresh page in my little notebook, I was first checking to see if a memory the doctor’s name h
ad jogged was correct: yes. Here he was in my notes from the Alton interview with Mrs. Fortescue and Tommie Massie: Porter was the doctor who, before the first trial, had advised Tommie to take Thalia and leave the Island.

  “What’s your normal duty, Doctor?”

  “I’m a gynecologist, Mr. Hellah, assigned to the care of dependent wives.”

  “Gynecologist—isn’t that a doc that gets paid by women to look at what they won’t show just any ol’ man?”

  “Quaintly but accurately put, yes.”

  “So you were Thalia’s doctor, before the rape? For female problems?”

  “Yes, suh, and general health concerns. And after the incident, Admiral Stirlin’ asked to look after Lt. Massie, as well, suh.”

  This pleasant-looking professional man had tight, troubled eyes. It was the look of somebody who knew things he’d rather not.

  “I attended Mrs. Massie the night of the incident, as well. I can give you the details if you like, suh.”

  I noticed he never quite used the word “rape.”

  “Please,” I said.

  He didn’t have to consult his notes: “I found a double fracture of the lower jaw so severe her jaw had been displaced and her upper and lower jaws could not meet. Three molars on the right side of her jaw were in such proximity to the fracture, extraction was necessary. Both her upper and lower lips were swollen, discolored, and her nose was swollen. I also found small cuts and bruises about her body.”

  “All of this supports Thalia’s story that she was beaten and raped, wouldn’t you say, Doctor?”

  The raising of one eyebrow was barely perceptible; his gentle Southern-tinged voice was hardly audible above the rolling surf and beach noise.

  “Mistah Hellah, that is the fact. However, it is also a fact that her clothes were not torn, nor was there any trace of semen on her dress or undah-garments. And my examination of her pelvic area indicated no abrasions or contusions. She had douched when she arrived home, which could be the reason there was no indication that she had been raped.”

  I sat forward. “Is there some doubt that she was raped at all?”

  “Let us say that there is no doubt she was beaten. Her jaw will probably never be the same; it will always have a little lump, there. And there is certainly nothin’ to indicate she was not raped. She is a married woman, Mistah Hellah, and her vagina, uh, opens quite a bit.”

  “In other words, you could drive a truck in there and not leave any tire tracks.”

  His eyes widened behind the wire frames. “I might not have put it quite so…colorfully…but ah believe you have grasped my point.”

  “Why did you advise Lt. Massie to take his wife and leave the Island?”

  That surprised him. “I wasn’t aware you were aware of that, Mistah Hellah. I did so advise the lieutenant. I even offered to go to Admiral Stirlin’ and advise a transfer on grounds that he and Mrs. Massie’s health was sufferin’. I felt the publicity would be harmful to both the Navy and the Massies, and ah could see no useful purpose bein’ served by that trial.”

  “No useful purpose in putting some vicious rapists away? If Mrs. Massie was raped—and your examination neither confirmed nor ruled that out—she and her husband might quite naturally want to see justice done.”

  His expression was dismayed, but then as the eyes behind the wire frames studied me, his face blossomed into a knowing smile. “You’re goin’ fishin’, aren’t you, Mistah Hellah?”

  I grinned back at him. “They do that around these parts, I understand. Look, Doctor—Darrow asked you to talk to me, and you obviously want to share some things with me. What is it that’s creasing your patrician brow?”

  Now he sat forward; and his voice was so hushed I had to work to filter out the beach noise and discern the troubled words in his tranquil tone.

  “I mentioned ah attended Mrs. Massie as her physician, prior to this incident. Only because Mrs. Massie’s attorney has requested ah share this knowledge with you am ah doin’ so, and then only reluctantly.”

  “As Mr. Darrow’s paid and licensed investigator,” I said, “I’m bound by the same client confidentiality code as he is. And as you are.”

  Dr. Porter sighed, swallowed, spoke. “Mrs. Massie had a preexisting condition when ah first began attendin’ her—preeclampsia, which manifests itself through hemorrhages in the liver and kidneys. Left unattended, eclampsia is often fatal. The symptoms are rapid weight gain, high blood pressure…and secondary hemorrhages in the retinas.”

  “The eyes, you mean?”

  “That is correct, suh. This generally leads either to blindness or at least badly impaired vision.”

  My grunt was sort of a laugh—an amazed laugh. “Are you saying Thalia Massie is blind as a bat?”

  “No. No. But her…visual acuity is drastically reduced. Specifically, her eyesight has been impaired by preeclamptic toxemia. She is particularly impaired in low-light situations.”

  “Like at night. In the dark.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Christ. She identified these guys, and she’s fucking blind?”

  “You are overstating, suh. Somewhat. There is a question whether she could recognize these people in the dark, since she practically couldn’t see in the daytime.”

  “Jesus. You testified in the first trial, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “But not to this.”

  “No, suh. I would have had ah been asked—but ah was not questioned on this subject.”

  And as a loyal naval officer, under Admiral Stirling’s thumb, the chance of Porter volunteering this information was unlikely, to say the least. But now that Joseph Kahahawai had been killed, Porter’s conscience was clearly bothering him.

  “There is somethin’ else, Mistah Hellah.”

  Wasn’t this bombshell enough?

  “After ah performed a curettage, my analysis of the uterine scrapings did not indicate pregnancy.”

  I blinked. “You mean, Thalia didn’t get pregnant by her rapists?”

  “Or by anyone—despite what she said on the witness stand.”

  And to her attorneys and their investigator.

  “You might find it illuminatin’, as well, to know that the figures Admiral Stirlin’ and others have consistently provided to the press, regardin’ the high incidence of rape in Hawaii, are grossly inflated.”

  I nodded. “I’d kind of come to that conclusion on my own, Doc. They’re mostly statutory rapes, right?”

  “Yes, what the law refers to as ‘carnal abuse of a minor.’ With the exception of Mrs. Massie, the only rape of a white woman here in the past year is an unfortunate incident involvin’ an escaped prisoner.”

  I thumbed through my notebook; hadn’t Mrs. Fortescue mentioned something abut this? Yes.

  “Daniel Lyman,” I said.

  “That is correct, suh,” Porter said. “And ah believe this miscreant is still at large, further inflamin’ public indignation.”

  “Well, I certainly appreciate you sharing this information with me, Dr. Porter.”

  “I only hope ah’m not required to take the stand in this second trial. If ah have to get up and tell everything ah know, it’d be awful—it’d make monkeys out of everybody.”

  A familiar raspy voice to one side of us said: “No fear of that, Dr. Porter.”

  Darrow, his potbelly like a beach ball he was hiding under the top of his black bathing costume, pulled up a third chair and sat.

  “In the first place,” Darrow said, “I’ve already suffered through one ‘monkey’ trial. In the second, I would never dream of calling you to the witness stand—you’re one of the two honest physicians I’ve ever met.”

  I said to Porter, “And how many honest lawyers do you know, Doc?”

  Porter’s only response was a little smile.

  We kept our voices down; the continuing beach noise created privacy in this crowd.

  Darrow asked, “Can I assume you’ve filled my young friend in on what you kn
ow, Doctor?”

  Porter nodded.

  Darrow fixed his gray gaze on me as he jerked a thumb toward Porter. “John here has provided some remarkable insights not only into the Ala Moana case, but the psychology of the various racial groups on Oahu. I’d imagine we’d be hard pressed to find another naval officer with the doctor’s intimate knowledge of Hawaii’s social strata.”

  “You flatter me, Clarence,” Porter said.

  Darrow turned his gaze on the doctor. “Now I must risk insulting you, John, because I need to ask you to withdraw from this little gathering—I need a few moments alone with my investigator.”

  Porter rose, and in one graceful gesture swept his straw fedora from the table even as he gave a little half-bow. “I’ll be in the Coconut Grove, Clarence, enjoyin’ an iced tea.”

  “Be sure to ask for sugar,” I told him. “It’s not automatic in this part of the world.”

  Porter snugged on his hat and smiled. “Whereas a slice of pineapple, rather than lemon, is. These Island customs are curious. Good afternoon, Mistah Hellah.”

  And Porter strolled inside.

  “After hearing the doc’s story,” I asked, “have you changed your opinion about Thalia?”

  Darrow’s smile was a wavy crease in his rumpled face. “I still find her a clever girl.”

  “You just don’t believe her story.”

  A grand shrug. “It’s not important that I believe her; it’s important that her mother and her husband believed her.”

  On the phone, I had told Darrow about my encounter last night with Horace Ida and company.

  He leaned back in his chair, folded his hands on his round tummy. “You weren’t the only one that spent some time yesterday with Island luminaries. Know who Walter Dillingham is?”

  “Somebody important enough around town to get a street named after him.”

  “That’s his father’s street. Walter Dillingham is the president of a dozen companies, an officer or board member of a dozen or so more. He had me for luncheon yesterday at his home on Pacific Heights. Speaking for not only himself but the entire so-called haole elite, Dillingham expressed his belief in the guilt of the Ala Moana boys.”

  “So what?”

  “So,” Darrow drawled, “if all those important rich white people think those boys are guilty, I figure there’s a damn good chance they aren’t.”