His mouth twitched; his hawkish face remained otherwise blank, though his eyes were sharp as needles. “I do my job. Gather evidence. Report what I see. It’s not up to me who gets prosecuted.”
“Would you have prosecuted the Ala Moana boys?”
Another twitch. He exhaled smoke. “Not without a better case.”
I sipped my coffee; it was hot and bitter and good. “Do you think they did it?”
A shrug. A deep suck-in on the cigarette. “I don’t know. There are some pretty persistent rumors floating around town that another gang was roving around that night.”
“Any leads on who they might be?”
Jardine shook his head, no. “But then we didn’t pursue any.”
Frowning thoughtfully, Chang said, “Something puzzling. There is saying on Islands—‘Hawaiians will talk.’”
“So I hear,” I said. “But nobody’s even whispering about who this second gang might be. What do you make of that?”
Jardine shrugged again, taking a sip of his coffee. “Maybe there is no second gang.”
Chang lifted a forefinger. “Confucius say, ‘Silence big sister of wisdom.’”
“You mean, anybody who knows who this second gang is,” I said, “is smart enough to keep quiet about it.”
“What happened to ‘Hawaiians will talk’?” Jardine asked grouchily.
I lifted a forefinger. “Capone say, ‘Bullet in head little brother of big mouth.’”
That made Chang smile. Smoke from the cigarette between his fingers drifted up like a question mark before his skeletal, knife-scarred face.
“Well,” Jardine said, “somebody took Thalia Massie to the old Animal Quarantine Station. I don’t know who it was or what they did to her, but she was there.”
“How do you know?”
“We found things of hers.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering, “some beads.”
I had dismissed this, knowing how easily they could have been planted.
“A string of jade-colored beads,” Jardine said, “and some Parrot matches and Lucky Strike cigarettes Mrs. Massie identified as hers.”
“Her purse was found, too, wasn’t it?”
“A green leather purse, yes, but not by us. The Bellingers, the couple that Mrs. Massie flagged down for a ride after it happened, found the purse on the road, later, when they were on their way home.”
I sipped my coffee, said casually, “Weren’t you one of the first detectives to talk to Thalia? Weren’t you there that night, at the house in Manoa Valley?”
Jardine nodded. “She didn’t want to get medical attention, refused to go to the hospital, really put her foot down. Of course, I knew in a rape case how important a pelvic examination was. But she wouldn’t hear of it. Finally I convinced her husband, and he convinced her.”
“What sort of shape was Tommie in?”
“Pretty well in his cups.”
Chang said, “Tell Detective Heller about Lt. Bradford.”
Jardine frowned. “You read too much into that, Chang.”
“Tell him.”
I knew Bradford’s version of the “mix-up,” but was eager to hear the cops’ side. Strangely, Jardine seemed hesitant to get into this.
“Lt. Massie corroborated Bradford’s story,” Jardine said. “Bradford spent the evening at the Ala Wai Inn in Massie’s company. He’s not a suspect in the rape and beating.”
“But you did arrest him that night,” I said.
Jardine nodded. “For mopery. He was drunk, he had his fly open, he told us to go to hell when we pulled alongside him.”
“That gets you more than arrested in Chicago,” I said.
Jardine was stabbing his cigarette out in an ashtray that sat on one of the dragon’s limbs. “He told us we should leave him alone, he was an officer with the Shore Patrol. We told him if he was in the Shore Patrol he should know better than to give another cop a hard time.”
“Tell him,” Chang said.
Jardine sighed. “When I brought Mrs. Massie out to drive her to the hospital, Bradford was being shown to a patrol wagon. They spoke. I heard her say to him, ‘Don’t worry, Jack—it’s going to be all right.’ It was…it was like she was comforting him.”
Chang looked at me with both eyebrows raised. The ceiling fans whirred above us. Jardine might have been a cigar-store Indian in a fedora, he was sitting there so motionless, so expressionless.
“Is there anything else about the case,” I asked, “you can share with me?”
Jardine shook his head, no. “I got pulled off the investigation, when Daniel Lyman and Lui Kaikapu broke out of Oahu, New Year’s Eve.”
Chang Apana’s tone was almost scolding. “How can prisoner break out of cage with no door?”
“What d’you mean?” I asked.
Chang said, “Most guards in Oahu prison, like most prisoners, are Hawaiians. Big on honor system. You in jail but have urgent business on outside, just ask for pass. You want to know how murderer Lyman and thief Kaikapu ‘broke out’? Chang will tell you: guards send them out to get big supply of okolehao for prison New Year’s Eve party.”
This reminded me of Cook County jail, who let the likes of the bootlegging Druggan brothers in and out at will, and neither the jailers nor the Druggans were Hawaiians.
“But the trustees didn’t bother to come back,” I said.
“Once they got out,” Jardine said, “they decided to split up and take their chances on their own. We caught Kaikapu the next day.”
“But Lyman’s still at large.”
Jardine’s mouth twitched again. “The bastard mugged a couple out parking, tied the guy up to a fence with fishing line, raped the woman, took a buck and a quarter out of her purse, and then drove her home.”
“Thoughtful fella.”
“And he’s been leading us a goddamn merry chase ever since.”
“You’re still on the case?”
Jardine sipped his coffee. “Sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
Jardine dug in his pocket for a pack of Lucky Strikes—presumably not the ones found at the crime scene. “The governor appointed Major Ross to head up a Territorial Police Force.”
“Just to track this jailbird down?”
“No.” He lighted up the Lucky, exhaled smoke through his nose, echoing the dragon on the table. “We’re in the middle of a departmental shake-up here, most of it due to the screwups in the Massie case. Heads are rolling daily. This Territorial Force is supposed to pick up the slack.”
“Who are these temporary coppers?”
“Major Ross has a group he’s picked from his National Guard members plus some Federal Prohibition Agents and a few American Legion volunteers.”
Funny. Joe Kahahawai had served in the National Guard under Major Ross; it had been Mrs. Fortescue’s fake summons from Ross that summoned Big Joe to his death.
Jardine continued, “I’m liaison between Major Ross’s group and the PD.”
I grunted a laugh. “Only all the king’s horses and all the king’s men haven’t found this raping murderer.”
Jardine nodded. “But we’ll get him.”
“Any sightings? Any other crimes?”
“Enough sightings to believe Lyman hasn’t left the Island. No more rapes, no major thefts credited to him. He’s gone way underground. Probably in the hills.”
“Well, if you’re off the Massie case, does that mean I can’t ask you to chase down a lead for me?”
Jardine’s eyes flashed. “Not at all. What’d you come up with?”
I sat forward and smiled just a little. “Are you aware that right before she went out the Ala Wai door, Thalia had a little chat with a kanaka?”
Jardine frowned in interest. “New one on me. Where you’d get this?”
“I’m a detective.”
That amused Chang; at least, he smiled a little.
“His name’s Sammy,” I went on, “and he’s some kind of musician with a band on Ma
ui.” I got out my little notepad and read off the name: “Joe Crawford’s band. Are there any coppers on Maui you can check with?”
Jardine was nodding, getting out his own notebook to write down the names.
“Excuse me,” a male voice intoned from behind us; it was deep and rang with authority.
The big man standing in the doorway of one of the glassed-in offices behind Jardine had the leanly muscular frame of a football linebacker and the pleasant, patient smile of a parish priest. Angularly handsome, kindly features rode a bucket skull, Brylcreemed black hair touched at the temples with gray. Whereas most of the detectives wandering through the Detective Bureau were Hawaiian, their ill-fitting wrinkled Western suits looking like costumes they were uneasily wearing, this guy was strictly Anglo-Saxon, and his dark brown suit looked neat and natural.
Both Chang and Jardine scooted their chairs back and stood, and I followed their lead.
“Inspector McIntosh,” Chang said, “may I introduce honorable guest from Chicago Police, Nate Heller.”
Never losing the kindly smile, he ambled over to me, held out his hand, as he said, “You’ve wandered off your beat.”
We shook; his grip was surprisingly soft, though his hand was like a catcher’s mitt.
“I do that from time to time,” I said. “Actually, Clarence Darrow is an old family friend. He’s come out of retirement for this case and doesn’t have an investigator on staff anymore, so I’m helping him out.”
“I’ll bet Mr. Darrow had to pull some strings to arrange that.”
“He knows how. I’m pleased to meet you, Inspector. I mentioned to Detective Apana that I hoped to speak with you.”
“Chang said as much. Isn’t the trial getting under way? I’d figure you to be at Mr. Darrow’s side.”
“Jury selection began Monday. I’m still doing leg work till the trial proper begins.”
“Ah.” He gestured like a gracious host. “Why don’t you step into my office, Detective Heller.” He cast his benignly beaming face upon Chang and Jardine. “I’ll speak to our guest privately.”
The two detectives nodded and sat back down.
Moments later, door shut behind us, I was taking the seat across from McIntosh’s big desk; other than filing cabinets, the oversized cubicle was bare: no photos or diplomas on the wall, only a few personal items on the desk to tide its occupant over till these temporary quarters were behind him.
McIntosh settled his rangy frame into the wooden swivel chair behind the desk and sat nervously rubbing his forefinger against one graying temple as we spoke.
“I wanted to speak to you one on one,” McIntosh said. “Chang Apana is a living legend around here, and Jardine is one of our best, most dogged investigators. But they’re Chinese and Portuguese, respectively, and I wanted to be able to level with you.”
“What does their race have to do with anything?”
The patient smile widened condescendingly; the lids of the world-weary, worried eyes went to half-mast. “Everything in Honolulu has to do with race, Detective Heller.”
“Well, then…how, specifically, in this instance? We have more than one race in Chicago, by the way. I’ve seen colored people before.”
“I didn’t mean to patronize. But even the sharpest detective from the biggest city force is going to find himself, well, frankly, in over his head in these waters.”
“Maybe you can toss me a life buoy.”
He chuckled mildly, even as he continued rubbing his temple nervously. “Let’s start with the Honolulu Police Department. We’re under terrible political pressure right now, and are in the midst of a reorganization. Our authority is being chipped away at, with this Territorial Force under Major Ross. And do you know why?”
“I have a hunch, but I don’t really want to seem impertinent.”
“Speak frankly.”
“It would seem you screwed up the Massie case.”
He swallowed; rubbed his forehead. “Race and politics, Detective Heller. Some years ago, white and Hawaiian political factions here threw in together, to keep the Japs and Chinese from dominating local government. Part of the deal was, the whites tossed lesser governmental jobs to Hawaiians. There are two hundred and eighty men on the force, Detective Heller—and two hundred and forty of them are Hawaiian, or of mixed Hawaiian blood.”
“What’s the difference, as long as they’re good men.”
McIntosh nodded, bringing his hands before him, folding them prayerfully. “Most of them are good men—they’re just not good cops. For most patrolmen and even detectives, no other qualification is needed but Hawaiian blood. Oh, and an eighth grade education.”
“Isn’t there any kind of testing, training…”
“Certainly. Cops here are trained to be able to give tourists directions. They have to be able to spell the names of the outer islands, and recommend points of interest.”
“Are they cops or tour guides?”
McIntosh’s mouth flinched. “I don’t like to bad-mouth my men, Detective Heller. Some of them—like Chang and Jardine—could rival any cops you could find anywhere. My point is that there are political pressures on this Island that undermine the department’s performance.”
“And how would you rank your performance on the Massie case?” I purposely used “your” ambiguously.
“Under the circumstances, we performed well; there was the blunder at the Quarantine Station, with the tire tracks, that simply can’t be excused. But there was pressure to prosecute, even though the case was weak.”
“You admit it’s weak?”
“We needed more time, we weren’t ready for trial. There were too many damn chinks in the government’s case that hadn’t been filled.”
I presumed he didn’t mean “chinks” in a racial sense, but it was an interesting choice of words.
“All we had was Thalia Massie’s story,” he said, ticking items off on his fingers. “Then the supporting story of Eugenio Batungbacal that he’d seen a woman dragged into a car at about twelve-fifteen. Then, Mrs. Massie’s identification of the suspects, and her recollection of the license number. Plus the discovery of her necklace and other items at the crime scene, and then there’s the police records of Ahakuelo and Kahahawai.”
“Every one of those points is, to some degree, vulnerable,” I said, ticking them off on my fingers. “Thalia could be lying, witnesses other than Batungbacal seem to contradict him, Thalia originally said she couldn’t identify the assailants or remember the license plate, finding Thalia’s beads and such at the scene doesn’t place the suspects there, and Ahakuelo and Kahahawai’s ‘records’ are minimal at best.”
“Do you expect me to disagree? But I will say this, the fact that Mrs. Massie initially said she couldn’t identify them—when she was half-hysterical, in shock, or under sedation—bothers me not in the least. Those boys did it, all right.”
That sat me up straight. “You really believe that?”
The world-weary eyes tightened. “Absolutely. Look at it this way—when we picked Ida up, he lied through his teeth. He said he hadn’t driven that car when in fact he’d been out all night in it. Then, without prompting, Ida blurted out that he hadn’t attacked the white woman—before anybody had told him about the Massie rape!”
I frowned in thought. “So how in hell did he know about a white woman being attacked?”
“Precisely. Belated or not, Mrs. Massie did identify four of the five boys, and she came up with that license number, just one little digit off. I don’t know how you do it in Chicago, Detective Heller, but in Honolulu, once a man lies to me twice, I don’t have to take his damn word for anything.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“No, those are guilty boys. We just didn’t have proper time to build a case.” He sighed, smiled tightly. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No. No, you’ve been generous with your time.”
“I’ve instructed Detective Apana to make himself available to you
as needed. While we are technically on the side of the prosecution in the Fortescue case, we have great admiration for Mr. Darrow and a certain sympathy for his clients.”
“Thank you.”
We shook hands again, and I found my way back to Chang and Jardine, who stood as I approached. McIntosh was shut back inside his office.
“Doesn’t surprise me the inspector wanted to talk to you privately,” Jardine said glumly.
“Oh?”
“There’s a faction of the force—Hawaiian and Portuguese, mostly…and I’m Portuguese myself—who were suspected of leaking information to the defense, in the first trial. And to the Japanese-English newspaper, the Hochi, which was sympathetic to the Ala Moana boys.”
“I see.”
The dark eyes under the brim of the George Raft fedora were mournful. “Just disappoints me the inspector doesn’t trust me.”
“He spoke highly of you, Inspector Jardine.”
“Good to hear. You need any backup, Chang knows where to find me.”
We shook hands again, and Jardine sauntered over to a desk and got to some paperwork.
Chang, who was on his way home to his wife and eight kids on Punchbowl Hill, walked me downstairs and out onto King Street, where a balmy breeze kissed us hello.
“McIntosh seems like a good man,” I said.
“Good man,” Chang agreed. He snugged on his Panama. “Poor detective.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He arrested Ala Moana boys on hunch, then stubbornly stuck with it.”
“He says Ida lied to him. That Ida blurted out something about not attacking the ‘white woman.’”
“Ida lied to protect self over other, minor assault when he and friends bump bumpers with kanaka gal and haole husband. And Ida was in station house, when he said that about not attacking white woman. He could easy have heard about Mrs. Massie by then…station was jumping with the news.”
“I see.”
Chang laughed humorlessly. “McIntosh is like carpenter who build straw house on sand: first strong wind bring disaster.”
“Who said that?” I asked.
“I did,” Chang said, and he tipped his Panama and went his way.
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