Motive

by Dustin Stevens

  There was no response.

  In the four years since, there had been no response.

  It took the Coast Guard over half an hour to arrive. By the time they did William’s skin was growing clammy, his pulse falling away to almost nothing. Zall himself was frantic to the point of hysterics, trying to fight the first responders that stepped onboard, threatening them to stay away from his son. It took three of them to subdue him enough to secure William for transport, flying them both to the city before securing the sloop and towing it back to port.

  To Zall’s knowledge, nobody had ever set foot on it again.

  The worst part of all, the part that still antagonized Zall every time he looked at his son, was the random nature of it. It wasn’t that a single accident had sent his wife into a state of despondency that she never recovered from, killing their marriage, causing her to file a lawsuit against him that almost took his freedom. It wasn’t survivor’s guilt, screaming into the night sky, wanting to know why his son was taken and he wasn’t. It wasn’t remorse for all that had happened in the time since, all of the effort, the time, the money, the lengths employed to try and correct the world around him. It wasn’t even the insinuation laden stories or sideways glances he received after the fact.

  It was not knowing. It was having to live with the fact that one moment he and his son were sharing a joke, a corny pun about sailing, and the next his progeny was gone forever. There was no rogue wave that caused the fall. No rough seas or unexplained weather changes that brought it on. Somehow in the six minutes he was below deck, his son, an able sailor with years of experience, slipped, fell, and was never the same again.

  The road to this point had been a long one, fraught with every sort of potential pratfall along the way. Deep within him Zall knew most of what he had done to get there was truly inexcusable, the types of things that would earn him a direct ticket to hell upon his judgment, but he didn’t much care. If there was a chance, however remote, that this could bring his son back, preserve the family legacy, right some bit of the cosmic wrong that had been dealt their way, then it was worth it.

  Every last bit of it.

  “Are you ready to begin, sir?” Saiki asked, standing off to the side, his hands clasped behind his back.

  The sound of his voice drew Zall’s attention towards it, pulling him back to the present, away from the same story he had already bore witness to untold times before.

  “Yes,” Zall whispered softly. “Yes we are.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  It was agreed with much trepidation that the group would have to split. There was no way to visit a house in Hawaii Kai and a home atop Tantalus in sequence without tipping off Zall. Already they were working against the near certainty that he had gone underground, much the same as Mary-Ann Harris. Giving him even the slightest bit of a tip that they were coming would make that a virtual lock. He would disappear and ever finding him again would become a question of if, not when.

  Given the existing dynamics of the cases involved, it was decided that Kalani and Rip would go to Zall’s home address together. Tseng would call on Sturgis and Li to join him for the other location, the hope being that a coordinated strike would give them the best chance of actually catching Zall. While there wasn’t enough hard evidence just yet to nail down charges, there was plenty to justify holding him on probable cause.

  At the very least, they could keep him until Monday, when Mary-Ann Harris was said to be back in town. At that time, they could put them both in the same room and hash things out, but before that could happen they had to bring Zall in, and ensure he didn’t have a chance to warn her.

  Neither side was especially thrilled with the plan, both wishing to arrive with a much larger force on hand. The reality was though they had a ton of conjecture, and nothing concrete. They had been warned innumerable times to keep things quiet, something that would prove impossible if they stormed the home of one of Honolulu’s wealthiest residents without complete certainty.

  Given the acts that had already occurred, it bore to reason that whoever was behind them was working with at least some modicum of firepower. While arriving with a minimal force wouldn’t be ideal if things got ugly, the hope was that by not appearing with a mobilized assault it may keep tensions from escalating quickly.

  Compounding things was the problem of time. Assembling teams and preparing a plan required planning, which needed time to be done properly, time they didn’t have. Instead, both sides would go under the auspice of bringing in Zall for questioning. Whether or not that would work nobody wanted to speculate on, going their separate ways in silence.

  Forty minutes later, Walter Tseng had swapped out his shorts and sandals for jeans and running shoes, but still wore the same t-shirt as he sat behind the wheel of his SUV three blocks away from the targeted house. Free from the trade winds blowing outside he could detect the scent of teriyaki chicken and charcoal smoke on it, his stomach acutely aware that he had skipped out on the festivities before dinner was served.

  A scowl on his face, he watched in his rearview mirror as a pair of headlights approached and pulled to a stop behind him. A moment later they blinked out and two dark silhouettes emerged, both people pausing for a moment before walking to the passenger side of his car and climbing in.

  Taking the front seat was Jake Sturgis, swinging his bulk into the leather chair and slamming the door shut behind him. The combined force of the two movements set the SUV to rocking, the smell of grease and sweat overpowering the scent of barbecue in the car. He rolled his body back in the seat and tugged at his clothes until they no longer pinned him down before settling in.

  His partner, Clayton Li, took the back seat, sliding in a moment later. Different in every way from Sturgis, Li was just approaching his mid-thirties, his hair still dark and thick. Routinely scoring on the higher end of the department fitness reports, he had a short, compact build that was not for wasted motion. He made not a sound as he moved onto the seat and nodded to Tseng watching him in the rearview mirror.

  “What the hell are we doing here?” Sturgis growled, staring at Tseng, making no attempt to hide the disdain on his face. “You know this is our night off.”

  Tseng allowed a long moment to pass, still watching the street. He didn’t bother to look over at Sturgis, checking the street before turning over the engine and rolling forward. “Thank you for coming. There aren’t many people on the force that I can call in on this.”

  “There aren’t many...” Sturgis began to protest before cutting himself off. He rocked his head back, a mocking smile on his face. “Oh, this is about that mess at the beach the other night, isn’t it?”

  Heat rose to Tseng’s cheeks and neck as he stared out the windshield, easing to a stop before making a left. He had no problem bringing in Li, but Sturgis was someone he would have rather left on the sidelines. The precarious position the governor had put him in by demanding secrecy at all times had made it such though that he didn’t have much of a choice. He couldn’t very well approach a house, no matter how safe it appeared, alone. He also couldn’t call on one detective and ask him to take part in something while keeping it a secret from his partner. Those were the sorts of stories that bad television shows were based on, a direct route to bringing dissension into his precinct.

  “I don’t have time to give you the entire backstory right now,” Tseng said, which wasn’t entirely the truth, but all he was going to give. Sturgis had already once gone to the media with the department’s dirty laundry. There was nothing to stop him from doing it again, next time to someone a lot more dangerous than Kimo Mata.

  Looking into the rearview mirror, he added, “Our investigation has shown that this particular address may be directly related to those murders, as well as your case involving the theft of children’s teeth.”

  In the backseat Li’s eyebrows went up at the statement, but he remained silent.

  “Our case?” Sturgis spat, still staring across at the chief, walking a fi
ne line between intrigued and insubordinate. “We’ve seen nothing that would point us this way. And who was doing the investigating? Lewis and her hired hand?”

  The veins on the back of Tseng’s hands bulged as he squeezed the steering wheel, feeling the blood surge the length of his arms. More warmth crept to his face and scalp, his pulse starting to rise.

  Without allowing Sturgis any further opportunity to speak, he aimed the front of his truck at the driveway on the end of the street, the overhead image from Google Earth still fresh in his mind. He didn’t bother looking for a house number anywhere as he approached, his front lights flashing over the gate standing closed across the entrance.

  This was the right house, of that he had no doubt.

  “Just stay quiet,” Tseng hissed, dropping his window and pressing the call button on the speaker system standing alongside the drive.

  The request was met by a long moment of static before being returned by a male voice, sounding irritated and a little anxious. “What do you want?”

  The overt hostility of the question fell in line with what Tseng expected to find, an unofficial confirmation that they were in the right place. Lifting his badge from the middle console, he flashed it at the small camera positioned above the call button and said, “HPD, open up. We have some questions for Thomas Zall.”

  Again the fuzz erupted over the speaker for a long moment before a second voice appeared, this one a bit more articulate, a trace less animosity in his tone. “Come back with a warrant.”

  A second confirmation in as many minutes.

  Tseng glanced into the rearview mirror, watching as Li coiled himself tight, his right hand already reaching for his hip. Feeling the same sense of foreboding within him, Tseng slid his hand up along his thigh, tapping the barrel of his Glock with the tip of his pinky. “We’re not here to search the premises. We’re just here to talk.”

  Sitting in silence, they waited a full minute as no response came. Extending his left arm out through the driver’s side window, Tseng depressed the call button again. “Hello? Hey, you in there?”

  Once more a long pause met his response, followed by the first voice coming back over the air. When he spoke, the overt acrimony from before was gone, replaced by a tone that bordered on amused. He said just two words, but they were issued as a direct challenge, his intentions unmistakable.

  “Go away.”

  Pulling back an inch, Tseng glanced across at Sturgis, who for the first time seemed to be at a loss for words. His eyebrows rose and he drew his chin back, his face relaying he was just as surprised by the directive.

  “Listen, I’m not sure who I’m speaking to,” Tseng said, hearing his own voice rise, “but this is Thomas Tseng, Chief of Police for the Honolulu Police Department.”

  It was the last word Tseng got out, cut off by the sound of metal pinging against metal. A tendril of steam began to rise from the front hood, followed by the hiss of the radiator.

  “Are they shooting at us?” Sturgis asked, his hand pawing at his waist, his body pressed back in his seat, threatening to snap the chair clean in half.

  A rush of adrenaline passed through Tseng as he sat and watched the white mist rise just a few feet in front of him, starting in a narrow cone and rising upward before dissipating into nothing. His entire body went rigid, every nerve on fire as a third shot rang out, caroming off the hood of the car, sparks rising from the paint job. A split second later the bullet slammed into the front windshield, bisecting the space between Tseng and Sturgis, a star pattern stretching across the lower half of the glass.

  “What the hell?” Li yelled from the backseat, drawing his weapon and leaning towards the window.

  In that moment, Tseng had to make a choice. He could drop the gear shift into reverse and flee into the night. He could withdraw a few blocks, call for backup, and storm the place. Doing so would alert Zall of what was going on, allow whoever was behind the gate to regroup and hunker down, and though he found himself caring less and less by the moment, incur the wrath of the governor for making it a public spectacle.

  Most importantly, doing so allowed anybody that might be at the other location to plan an attack, potentially hanging Kalani and Rip out to dry.

  It was the kind of choice nobody should ever have to make, let alone the Chief of Police.

  “Hold on,” he muttered, stomping the gas pedal down, aiming the nose of the SUV towards center mass of the gate in front of them.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Growing up as the child of a migrant worker, Danilo Cruz was never accustomed to having a lot of material possessions. The first twelve years of his life, everything he owned could be stuffed inside a pillow case. More than once such packaging was put to the test as he was awoken in the middle of the night and forced to do just that, tossing it over his shoulder and fleeing into the darkness.

  While not quite the type of idyllic childhood that many others might have had, it imparted him with certain lessons he had carried with him well into adulthood. The first was to never have any non-animate object that he couldn’t leave behind at a moment’s notice. As much as he loved his new truck, both for what it symbolized as much as the item itself, there would be no qualms about leaving it behind if need be.

  Second, it had showed him the upside of traveling light. There was no need to obtain a home and fill it to the brim with clothes and furniture and knick-knacks. He was more than capable of living a fulfilling life with a meager supply of goods.

  Perhaps a bit more now than just a pillow case, but not far from it.

  The thought filled his mind as he carried his second box of possessions into the guest house and dropped it on the bed, everything he owned in the world now sitting on the driveway outside or inside the matching pair of crates resting side by side. White and square, their original purpose had been for moving copier paper, the total cumulative size little more than a couple of square feet.

  More than ample room.

  There was no way to know how long he would be staying in the guest house, and no need to continue paying rent on a room he wasn’t using, so rather than splitting his things between the two locations he told his landlord he was done and vacated entirely. If his stay ended up being shorter than expected he could find another place easily enough, a city as transient as Honolulu almost bursting with them.

  For the time until that eventuality became a reality, Danilo was quite content where he was. While he didn’t relish the idea of Zall being able to look in on him whenever he chose, he had been in the man’s employee long enough to know that it wouldn’t be an issue. The only reason he had lasted for so long when many of his colleagues had fallen by the wayside was because he got things done. Provided that continued to be the case, there would be no need for Zall to ever come calling.

  Besides, it was hard to argue with the fact that it was by far the nicest home he had ever stayed in.

  Tucked away in the back corner of Zall’s spread, the place was almost completely hidden from sight, thick groves of palm and macadamia nut trees obscuring it from view. Constructed in the old Hawaiian plantation style, it had an open floor plan that allowed natural sunlight to pour in, the breeze to pass through unencumbered. In the few months of the year when it was hot enough to warrant it, a cooling system sat at the ready behind the house, a four ton unit capable of forming frost on the windows in under an hour.

  Outfitted in a design of tans and greens and yellows, the carpet underfoot was soft and plush, the sofas and bedspreads throughout made in a fabric to match. In the living room sat an entertainment center with the largest television Danilo had ever seen and the kitchen resembled something found on the set of a Food Network program.

  The first time he walked through the place, Danilo could do little besides shake his head at the opulence of it all. Never before had he been past the front room of the main house, but if this was how Zall outfitted his guests, he could only speculate at the decadence of his own accommodations.

  Holed
up in the back bedroom, the last of the daylight filtered in as Danilo lifted his items from their boxes, dark shadows starting to spread across the bed. With little regard for wrinkles or creases, he tossed his bit of clothing into a single drawer in the bureau. Grabbing the empty box they had come from, he pulled open the closet door and chucked it into the bottom.

  Halfway back for the second box, a dull buzzing sounded out through the room, an unnatural green light refracting up from the bed. Leaving the other batch of items where they sat, he lifted the phone and pressed it to his ear, a scowl already growing on his face from simply seeing the name sprawled across his caller ID. For a moment the incident at the laboratory house the night before played out in his head, the same acrid taste rising into his mouth. He envisioned the young men in their matching suits all scurrying past him, none appearing to have ever thrown a punch, let alone fired a bullet, in their lives.

  “What?” Danilo snapped, not wanting the conversation to take more than a minute. He relayed that exact sentiment with just a single word, letting the man on the other end feel his animosity.

  “They’re here,” the man replied, a voice Danilo didn’t recognize, but could tell seemed nervous and sounded like it was panting.

  “Who’s there?” Danilo asked, the scowl growing deeper, his eyes narrowing. He raised his gaze out through the window towards the darkening world outside, his grip on the phone tightening.

  The man on the other end continued panting a long moment before returning, sounding distracted. “The police! And we’ve got shots fired!”

  Time slowed for Danilo as he ignored the second box and paced back into the living room, cutting a path for his truck. Based on just two sentences he could feel his pulse pick up, the tension in his body increase.