When she’d woken on the concrete sidewalk that night it was just moments before backup finally showed, but a long five before the paramedics arrived. For that length of time, a full three hundred seconds that she counted off in her mind, she’d been forced to lay flat, the combined blood of herself and her partner painting the area around her. Together it created a smell so strong she doubted she would ever forget it, a mere whiff bringing a Pavlovian response over her.
Beside her Rip worked with uncanny efficiency, his dress shirt rolled to the elbows, blood stains dotting the front of it and dribbling down onto his slacks. His jaw set, he worked in near silence, Kalani picking up that he no more wanted to be dealing with the scene than she did.
Her own time on the force had provided precious few contacts with such things, having worked as many scenes in the last few days as she had in as many years. She could only feign to guess how many he had been forced to cover in his career, no doubt bringing about their own set of evoked responses, some maybe even worse than hers.
“You ready?” Rip asked, finishing the last of his assessments, positioning himself by the head of the victim.
Kalani finished arranging the black polyethylene bag beside them, the zipper open. A gaping opening ran the length of it, the sides sagging wide, waiting to accept its payload. “Yeah.”
Taking up a post at the opposite end from Rip, she wrapped her hands around the ankles and together they lifted the girl from the steps and into the bag, positioning her thin body before pulling the flaps up around her. Starting at the bottom, Kalani tugged the zipper a few feet before handing it off to Rip, his blood-stained fingers clasping the brass tag and pulling it the rest of the way.
Leaning back on her haunches, watching the girl disappear from view, Kalani felt a stab of sorrow deep within her. This young woman looked to still be a teenager, a girl of Korean descent with smooth skin and a pretty face, just like the others probably on the verge of giving birth. The single gold band on her left hand meant that somewhere on the opposite side of the Pacific someone was anxiously awaiting word from her, ready to see his new child for the first time.
Much closer to home, just six feet from her was a man that four days ago was minding his own business, going for an afternoon session on the North Shore. Afterwards he would have most likely hit a shrimp truck or stopped off for some shave ice before heading home, eager to get up and do it all again the next day.
Even herself, someone who hadn’t slept through the night in a very long time, who despite the grueling physical therapy she’d gone through still felt the stiffness in her chest at least once a day. Seventy-two hours before she had no real interest in returning to the force at the moment, unsure if she had the desire to ever put on a uniform again. Her partner’s memory was still fresh in her mind, evoked by something as simple as a smell.
Now, all three found themselves together in the middle of the night, tucked away in the artificial darkness surrounding the Iolani Palace. Somewhere in the city was an evil that was pulling the strings on all of this, interfering with so many lives, doing so for whatever reason they seemed to believe warranted it.
Watching the zipper slide shut over the girl’s face, Kalani knew that no matter what that reason was, whether it be a personal slight, political gain, or any of a thousand things in between, it wasn’t good enough. Nothing was. Not for what they’d done to this girl, or the previous three, or Rip, or even herself.
In the end they might get whoever was behind this, but they would never be able to get even.
Drawing Kalani from her thoughts, a pair of headlights pierced the darkness to their right, square-shaped and set up high. Pushing herself to a standing position, she watched as they moved in a circular path around the building. As they drew closer the shape of a police SUV came into view, stray bits of light from the street nearby reflecting off the windows. It came to a stop with a slight squeal of the brakes, the engine left running while a pair of men climbed out.
“You guys call for us?” the driver asked, the dome light of the SUV illuminating a large Caucasian man with a shaved head and a goatee.
The feeling of sorrow lingered in Kalani as she stared at the man, the words to respond not finding their way to her throat.
“We did,” Rip said, standing and peeling his gloves off, the spandex giving way with a loud snap.
The sound was what Kalani needed to hear, the noise shaking her awake, her hands moving to clear her own gloves as well. The night air felt cool against her palms as it hit them, the latex coverings causing her hands to sweat. A bit of fine powder from them had worked its way into the creases of her hand, the mixture resulting in a thin paste. She rolled it between her fingers into small balls as she watched the men approach, moving slowly.
“Headed to Tripler?” the driver asked, climbing the stairs, staring down at the bag spread across the top landing, giving the strong impression that he had no real interest in picking it up.
“Yes, please,” Kalani said, her voice just a decibel above a whisper. She shuffled herself a few feet to the side as the men positioned themselves in the same places she and Rip had assumed a few moments before and hefted the bag into the air, the girl’s slight frame proving no problem for them at all.
Kalani waited in silence as they loaded her in the back of the truck and drove away, nothing more than a wave from the driver to seal the transaction before his door shut, blinking out the overhead lamp, the world again going dark.
“Come on, let’s go,” Rip said, putting a hand against the small of Kalani’s back, helping to steer her down the steps. At the bottom they lifted the crime scene bags Tseng had given them, each dropping a strap over their shoulders.
Side by side they descended the front walk towards their cars parked along King Street, both lost in their own thoughts. As they grew closer the harsh orange specters of the streetlamps grew brighter, the gold plated statue of King Kamehameha coming into view on the opposite side of the road.
The previous hours had held such an emotional cocktail, from the heated exchange with the governor to the sadness of seeing the girl taken away, Kalani was content for the time being to put her mind in neutral. There was still innumerable questions to be answered, a plethora of things to be followed up on, but for the time being, at such a late hour, she was content just to focus on the few things that stood between her and going to bed.
Unfortunately, just as it had the night before, that list included Kimo Mata.
The same red Focus he had driven to her house was now parked behind her Jeep on the curb, his frame leaning against the front hood. He had swapped out his khakis for a pair of shorts, still wearing the same aloha shirt and slippers. With his backside resting just above the driver’s side tire, he waited with his arms folded in front of his torso, his legs crossed at the ankles.
“Figured you guys were going to come looking for me in the morning anyway,” he said as a combination explanation-greeting, staring back at them. “Didn’t really want to wait that long.”
“Nervous about something?” Rip asked, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and matching Kimo’s pose, his arms across his chest.
“Not at all,” Kimo said, shaking his head. “I have witnesses than can vouch to giving me every piece of information I’ve uncovered thus far. I just thought each of our respective times tomorrow could be better spent looking somewhere besides each other.”
Exhaustion rested deep inside Kalani, the end result of a marathon week capped onto the end of months without proper rest. The number of things she would dread doing at the moment more than having this discussion with Kimo could be counted on one hand.
Still, she couldn’t argue with the logic of his response. Despite his knack for obtaining more information than she or Rip would like, he was not a suspect in any way. If her day could be spent looking into people that actually were, she might have a chance of figuring things out and retreating back to her life on the opposite shore.
“How did
you find us here?” Kalani asked.
An instantaneous snort shot out from Kimo, his right nostril rolling up, his head rocking backwards an inch. “You kidding me? This was the worst kept secret at that little party tonight, even worse than the internal polls having Harris and the governor in an even race right now.”
Kalani glanced over to Rip, who met her gaze for a moment before shrugging. There was no way to verify the response, but it bore to reason he was telling the truth. Seeing the Chief of Police and the governor’s security staff buzzing about had to have turned the rumor mill up to full speed.
“I’m surprised they even went ahead with the thing,” Kalani muttered, shaking her head at the dastardly way the governor had handled the entire case.
“Couldn’t afford to cancel it,” Kimo said, shaking his head. “He’s in a dead heat with Harris, and the unions are expected to come out and endorse her any day now. He needs the cash, badly.”
Beside her Rip shook his head from side to side, a loud puff of air escaping through his nostrils. “Asshole.”
Kalani felt her nod go up and down in agreement. She wasn’t an especially political person, something that was easy to become in a state as one-sided as Hawaii. Prior to a week before she’d never thought much about the governor, having not even voted in the last election, ambivalent to the office in general.
Now, she would vote for a dog if it was on the ballot against Randle.
“You mentioned Mary-Ann Harris,” Kalani said, the last line of Kimo’s response catching in her mind. “Let’s start there. What is her angle in all this?”
Kimo nodded, as if agreeing that the questions should begin right there. “She called first of the week and asked me to come by her campaign office, said she had something for me. I assumed she was either going to ask me to write an endorsement piece for her or try to smear Randle, but I went anyway.”
“Candidate for the biggest seat in the state calls, you find the time,” Rip interjected, his voice relaying exhaustion without sounding bored, still standing with his arms crossed.
“Pretty much,” Kimo said, again nodding. “I showed up and she didn’t do either, exactly. Said she had it on good authority that a body had been found over there the other night, not two hundred yards from where we’re now standing.”
Out of pure reflex, Kalani felt herself rotate at the waist to glance back towards the capitol. Any sight of it was blocked by the darkened hulk of the palace, though the image of it still resonated in her mind. “She say where she’d gotten the information?”
“No,” Kimo said, shaking his head. “And I asked, too. She claimed she wasn’t at liberty to divulge.”
“And you let it go at that?” Rip said, leaning his head forward a couple of inches, his eyebrows rising.
“At that point? Yeah,” Kimo confessed. “I’m a journalist, I know all about protecting sources. Besides, until I had a chance to corroborate it, I wasn’t buying a bit of it anyway. Thought it was just some bullshit story being fed my way as part of the usual election season run-up.”
“Usual election season run-up?” Kalani asked, her eyebrows tracking a little higher on her forehead. “This sort of thing happens every time?”
“Nothing like this,” Kimo replied. “But there’s always mudslinging, anybody with a television knows that. I assumed that was all she was after.”
Trying to avoid the television ads every election was one of the few things Kalani’s father had ever bemoaned about living in Hawaii. She knew all too well what Kimo was referring to, and that he was right. If she had been placed in his position, she probably would have held the same assumption.
“So you checked it out?” Kalani asked, choosing her words carefully, not wanting to confirm or deny anything.
Kimo paused a moment, staring back at them, before the right side of his mouth curled up in a smile. He seemed to sense exactly what was going on, the two of them pressing him to see how much he knew without giving up anything.
“Alright,” he said, “I’ll play along.” He pushed up a couple inches off the hood of the car and readjusted himself, smoothing his shirt out and shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
“I talked to an old friend that used to work for gov’s security detail. No, I won’t say who because he’s no longer active and it’s not important.” He glanced to Rip and added, “Protecting sources.”
Shifting back to Kalani, he continued, “He more or less told me what I’d heard was true. It was being kept very hush-hush and there weren’t a lot of details available, but it had happened.”
All things considered, the report was better than Kalani had any right to hope for. There wasn’t an explicit level of detail given out, about the scene itself or the people involved. There was just enough to make someone curious, dredge up a lot of questions without allowing for any answers.
She glanced over to Rip, who gave her the slightest nod of the head. She drew in a quick breath, arranging the facts in her head, before pushing forward. “This is going to sound like we’re giving you the runaround, but there isn’t a whole lot more to it than that. The body was found around midnight, the governor had his staff cordon the area off and wait for Chief Tseng. He then had to process it himself and the whole thing was wiped clean by sunrise.”
An elongated whistle slid out from Kimo’s lips as he pursed them together. “Ballsy. Any reason to think the governor was involved?”
“Nothing we’ve uncovered so far,” Rip said.
“What about the other girls?” Kimo asked. His statements to Kalani the night before had already confirmed he knew about the Ala Moana dump, his presence now displayed he was well aware of the third one as well.
“Sturgis?” Kalani asked, wanting to know how he had known about the second one before moving ahead.
Three times Kimo moved his head up and down in an exaggerated nod, answering Kalani’s question without saying a word. Only once his response was clear did he add, “I’m sorry, but I can’t divulge my sources.”
A crack of a smile formed on Kalani’s face as beside her Rip muttered, “Asshole,” again. At the sound of it the smile grew even larger, a matching one springing to Kimo’s visage.
“No,” Kalani said, raising her voice a half-decibel, using it to push them back to the main line of questioning. “All three women have been quite low level, with no known connections between them. Even if the governor had been involved somehow with the first one, there’s no way he would have brought in the chief, or messed with his own gala tonight.”
“True,” Kimo conceded, nodding his head at each of her points.
Silence fell among them for a long moment, all three chewing on the new information, trying to find some tendril that might connect everything they knew. As a whole, there was plenty of data for them to work with, each bit partitioned into its own unique silo. There had to be some way to bring them together, it just wasn’t quite yet visible.
“So how did you guys get pulled into this?” Kimo asked, pointing a hand at Kalani before moving it over to Rip. “Sturgis said you still weren’t active duty, and the same friend of mine tonight said he recognized you as a retired MP.”
There was another exchange of glances between Kalani and Rip, the latter giving another nod of the head. The situation they were in wasn’t a true police investigation, so it didn’t have to be handled strictly like one. That meant they were free to speak with anybody that might be able to assist them on it, even if they did draw a paycheck from someplace that reported news for a living.
“Governor told the chief to bring me back,” Kalani said, her gaze still on Rip, her voice almost detached. “Because I’m not active duty and could fly under the radar. I brought him in as a personal favor.”
There was no response from Kimo, not of confirmation or surprise, as he accepted the information. “And where do things stand now?”
“Who’s asking?” Rip said, his eyes narrowed just a touch.
“Easy now,” Kimo said, r
aising his hands by his side. “I’m an investigative journalist, not a newspaper reporter. I have no deadline to meet, and as far as I can tell, nobody else is even aware this is going on.”
“Meaning?” Kalani asked, waiting for him to clarify before she answered the question.
“Meaning yes, I’m here because of work ambitions, but they aren’t time sensitive,” Kimo replied. “I won’t get in the way and screw anything up for you guys, but I would appreciate not being cut out entirely.”
Kalani met Rip’s gaze as they turned to face each other, neither one certain how to respond. Sharing a bit of common knowledge on the curb had seemed harmless, but actually partnering up could be a disaster in the making.
Conversely, after the events of the night, the governor would be putting even more pressure on them for a timely turnaround. There might even be a call to take them off it altogether. If working with Kimo could in any way help that, they needed to at least explore the option.
More than anything, if his assistance provided a way to make the entire thing go away that much faster, Kalani was all for at least considering the proposition.
“You realize we can’t tell Tseng, or anybody else, about this?” Kalani said, still focused on Rip.
“Wasn’t planning on mentioning it to anybody,” Kimo said.
“And that we might ask you to do some digging too, earn your keep,” Rip said, the words issued as a statement, his tone relaying no hint of a threat.
Another deep snort rolled out of Kimo, drawing both of their stares towards him. “Trust me, I was going to be doing that anyway.”
A feeling Kalani couldn’t quite define settled in her stomach as she stared at Kimo. Part of her wanted no part in forming a makeshift partnership with the man that had showed up at her house uninvited the night before, kept her from getting more than a few fitful hours of sleep.
Motive Page 21