“No chance of suicide?” “ You'd really prefer that wouldn't you? Too bad! I would say the possibility of suicide is so close to zero it's not worth considering. He didn't seem to be a physically powerful individual, and his damaged rib indicates a lot of force behind the thrust. In fact, if it hadn't been for the rib, the blow would probably have penetrated right to and through his back, muscles and all. The angle of the blow would make it unlikely, too. It was an overhand thrust, probably by a right-hander standing up close. Don't hold me to the righthanded business, though. This was no lunging blow, and it was almost straight on. If the victim had done it to himself, it would most likely have had a sharper downward angle.”
“Any guess as to the height of the assailant?”
“It's strictly a guess, but he was probably no more than four inches taller or four inches shorter, more likely taller than shorter. The victim was five foot nine.”
Hank grunted. “So now we're looking for a murderer who may be right handed and may be as short as five-five or as tall as six-one.”
“That's always assuming my guess is somewhere in the ballpark.” “ That's cheerful. Anything else?” “Not much. There may be more when we get the lab results back. He'd been drinking, just minutes before he was killed, but not muchmaybe part of a beer. Definitely not a full glass. His liver was in really bad shape and couldn't have been functioning much. Maybe it's because of booze, but it could be something else. I didn't have time to examine it closely, but I sent it off to the lab along with the usual samples.”
“ Looks like an easy one for you. We know the time of death was right around 12:25, so you don't have to be concerned with that. I'll take your word for it about how he hadn't been staggering around more than a minute or so before he died. Maybe that'll make it an easy one for me too, but I'd feel a hell of a lot more secure if the killer had taken Anton's wallet. Even so, I'm still settling for a mugging. Some dope-head must have come prepared to pick off the first likely looking prospect and got scared off before he could shake down the body.”
“At high noon in an occupied condominium complex?” Clyde made no effort to hide his skepticism. “ That's why I'm assuming it's a-dope head. They'll do anything for a few bucks and never think twice about it. All we have to do now is to see if anyone there saw any suspicious characters hanging around about noon. Anyhow, thanks for getting back so soon. I might as well get started.”
“Where are you starting?” “The Nikko Arms. There are only three hundred people living on those ten floors.”
Chapter 4
Wayne surveyed the three attorneys who were silently waiting for him to elaborate. He sighed and continued, “I suppose I'd better start at the beginning. I'm from Nevada, originally. I lived in Utah for a while when I was a kid, and then my family moved back to Nevada. Las Vegas. That's where I went to high school. I joined the army right from school. I had it pretty safe though, since I was an MP during most of the time I was in the service, and we were between wars. The most dangerous thing I had to face were drunken GI's. When I got out of the service I went to school at Nevada State. I met my wife there while I was doing some graduate work. That was in Business Administration. I quit at the end of the first year to go into real estate.”
He smiled a rather humorless smile. “You might say Rissa's the reason I'm here today. Marriages are supposed to be made in heaven. Well ours was made in hell. I don't know if you'll get to meet Rissa. She's living on Oahu. We lived together for about five years, and we had more than our share of problems even then. Part of the reason we got married was I hoped it would make things better. It made things worse.”
Wayne seemed to be looking around for help in telling his story. Qual picked up on the unspoken suggestion.“OK. Let's start with that. Where does you wife figure in, in all this?”
“ Maybe you do have to meet Rissa. She's one of those women who attract men, including me, and I'm a jealous person. It took three different therapists and family counselors to convince me of that. The courts were convinced the year after I got married. We were living in Las Vegas, and I found out Rissa was having an affair with another man, a casino operator. I bought a gun and shot him.”
The matter-of-fact statement had a visible impact on the listeners. “I didn't kill him, fortunately. Though, at the time, I considered it unfortunate I hadn't. My attorney did a superb job of defending me. Even so, I was found guilty. I was sentenced to five years in prison, but my attorney appealed. The conviction was thrown out. There was no retrial, mainly because Hanfordthe guy I shotrefused to testify a second time. So the charges were dropped.”
Sid and Kay looked at each other. Both knew it was extremely unlikely a murder attempt would be so readily dismissed by the courts, and both of them resolved to look more closely into the matter.
“ Rissa and I were reconciled. I knew it wasn't exactly a good idea to stay in Nevada…for a variety of reasons. We'd been here on vacation in Hawaii, and both of us liked Elima. So we came over and looked around. I'd done pretty well in Nevada real estate, and that's what I figured on doing here. I took the Hawaii real estate exam and passed it, then sold real estate on my own for several years. I built up a good business. Finally, I bought out Elima Real Estate Corp about a year ago. I got a pretty good deal, since the husband and wife who owned it were on their way to getting a divorce.”
It was Kay who decided the narrative was moving too quickly.“Could we go back a way. Who is this Hanford, again?”
“Pete Hanford. He's manager of the Shoshone. It's a small night club and casino in Vegas. He was part of the reason we left, as you may have guessed.”
“So what happened after you got here and started selling real estate?” Kay asked, actually probing to see if Wayne would volunteer other marital problems. “ Things looked pretty good for several years. I worked my tail off, and did a lot better than I would have back on the Mainland. About six months ago, I had a mild heart attack. At least the doctor called it mild. It was damn severe as far as I was concerned. The doctor told me to slow down, and I got to thinking it over. I figured it out, all on my own, that I wouldn't be able to take it with me. So I hired a manager, and pretty much retired. It wasn't long afterwards I found out my wife was having an affair with Anton Figueroa, the guy who fell out of the elevator this morning.”
***
“I hope your desk is clear,” Hank said as Corky entered his office.
“Yup. I'm all set to go. I take it the next order of business is to find whoever it was who put the knife to Anton Figueroa?” “ Yeah. I can't say he's any great loss. He did a lousy job on my house last year. Toni says his workers went out of their way to paint the hibiscus and pikake she'd planted along the walls. Sure as hell they didn't knock themselves out getting paint on the house. I know there are places where they never put on the second coat the way they were supposed to.”
“Too bad, Hank. You can't complain to him now. Is there any late breaking news from Victorine?”
“Yeah. Clyde surprised me and did the pm almost as soon as he got the body down to the morgue.” Hank described the pathologist's findings in some detail.
“So now we're left with deciding what floor he was stabbed on.”
“That part seems simple enough. Since Harlan and Quincy and even the little kid agree it was stopped at the third floor, it must have happened there.” “ Not necessarily. Harlan and Quincy said it came down from the fourth floor. Someone could have stabbed Anton on the fourth floor, punched the button for floor three, then got off there.”
“ Yeah. I suppose that's possible. Just about everyone seems to be agreed the elevator was hung up for quite a while on the third floor. Makes more sense that whoever did it pushed the door-open button, killed him and took off on the third floor. It would be risky business killing someone in a moving elevator. You'd never know but you might be caught red handed at the next floor.”
Corky nodded. “The third floor does make more sense, I agree. I'll go over to the Nikko Arm
s and check out what I can this afternoon.”
“Which reminds me. I have news for you.”
“I don't like the tone of your voice. Break the news gently.”
“Did you know Chief Yamada's wife's maiden name was Kurohara?” “ I have to admit such a startling piece of information has somehow managed to escape my notice up until this moment. I take it you're going to enlighten me as to its significance.”
“I sure am. Norman Kurohara, the owner of the complex, is her brother.”
“Whoopee, and so what?”
“So the chief is taking an extra special interest in this case and is willing to pay out some precious overtime to help solve it in a hurry.”
“I'm beginning to have some glimmerings I don't like. We work Sunday. Is that what it means?” “ Very close. Hanging around me has vastly improved your deductive powers, but you still need practice. What it really means is you work Sunday. Toni's made plans to take the kids on an educational tour of the volcanic eruption on the Big Island, and I have to go along.
“ I'll be in, first thing in the morning, but after eight o'clock you're in full charge of the investigation. Even if it is Sunday, you may be able to run down witnesses on the other floors. Be sure to go back to see Norm today. The poor bastard is going to have a nervous breakdown at the rate he's going. Give him all sorts of assurances we're not going to descend on the Nikko Arms with a TAC squad and gas grenades.”
“Yeah! We sure don't want him to tell his brother-in-law he's being persecuted by the homicide division.”
Hank grunted. “Spare me your sarcasm. Good public relations never hurts.” Corky was weighing the loss of a precious Sunday against the significant overtime involved, then said, “What's with Norman, anyway, Hank? I know it isn't exactly the best advertising in the world to have a corpse fall out of one of your elevators, but living space is so scarce in Napua these days he sure isn't going to lose any renters as a result.”
“ I'm not going to tell you what's bugging him, since you're going to hear it all from Norm, himself, probably several times over. The main thing is to assure him you're investigations will be discrete. Remember who he's related to.”
Corky grinned as she started for the door.“You know me, Hank. Always the soul of discretion.”
A snort of disbelief followed her out of the office.
***
“How long ago was it you found out about the affair?” Qual asked. “ It was just about four months ago, and that's why I know the police are going to be after me. If I'd been working, I probably would never have caught on. After I started staying home a lot more of the time, I began to wonder why Rissa had to be gone as much as she was. I got especially suspicious because she kept coming up with all sorts of excuses to be someplace other then where I was.”
Kay watched closely as Wayne continued with a calm recital of his wife's behavior, behavior which had presumably enraged him at the time. “ Now there are just so many times a month a woman can go to the beauty parlor or to the dentist or to the doctor. I checked on a few of those appointments and there just weren't any. I'd suspected her before, since we'd been on Elima, but I never knew for sure she was chasing around. This time, it wasn't just suspicion, so I hired a private detective to find out who the man was. The detective didn't have to work hard at it. He must have had a tap on our phone, because he showed up at my office with dates, times and placesdown in detail. He had a long list, not only of meetings that had already happened, but even some being plannedincluding a dinner engagement that night at the Malalani.”
“ I think I heard something about that,” Qual said. “Sure, now I remember. There was a fight at the Malalani. It happened a few months back, and it was quite a fracas. The paper said two businessmen were involved, but they didn't mention any names.”
“ That was me, and it was pretty dumb. I saw red and nothing else when I found out it was Anton Figueroa Rissa was two-timing me with. Here I'd given him dozens of jobs on my rentals, and he's screwing my wife behind my back. The Malalani incident is why I'm worried. I walked into the restaurant and damn near killed Anton with my bare hands. The waiters hauled me off and called the cops.
“ I'm going to have at least a half-dozen people, including the two patrolmen who showed up, testifying I threatened to kill Anton, and that's really a mild report of what I said. I didn't just threaten. I told him he was going to be a dead man, and I would officially preside over his demise. I'm sure I would have killed him right then and there if I'd had a weapon with me, or if they hadn't pulled me off of him.”
“ What about your wife?” Kay posed it as an indefinite question, while wondering if the enraged Wayne had engaged in any wife battering in the aftermath of the confrontation with Anton. Wayne's answer didn't clarify the matter.
“ She left the same night for Oahu. She's living with a friend of hers over there. I haven't seen her since the night of the fight. In a way, things turned out for the best. The spell's broken. I've really gotten over her. We've talked over the phone, and we've got a divorce settlement pretty well worked out. She's going to get an attorney. We should be able to wrap up the divorce in five or six months.”
“Why did you invite Anton out to your apartment?” Kay asked. “ He's a fast worker, and his rates are reasonable. I told myself it was stupid not to do business with him, since I'm through with Rissa.” Wayne paused, a trace of a grin spreading over his face.“I don't know. Maybe I was feeling guilty for being so damn stupid, and thought this might make it up to him.”
Kay's voice clearly indicated her skepticism. “Even though you're semi-retired, it seems to me business meetings make more sense at your office.” “ Ordinarily, yes. The business I wanted to talk to Anton about had to do with the Nikko Arms. Norman's been unhappy with the way the repair work's going on, and he hasn't contracted out the painting yet. I knew I could get Anton to do it for less than Norm had been quoted by the other contractors. That's when I told him I'd see what I could get in the way of a bid from Anton. Norm was pleased as punch at the thought of saving a buck or two. So I made an appointment with Anton for twelve-fifteen. That's why I was in a hurry to get there, and why I got so impatient at the elevator not coming down.”
“ I guess we've come around full circle,” Qual said. “If I were doing the police investigation, your invitation to Anton would sound suspiciously like a set up. The first thing I'd be looking for is motive, and you certainly seemed to have one for killing Figueroa. It's lucky for you you've got about a half-dozen witnesses ready to testify Figueroa had already been stabbed when the door opened in front of you, and…”
“As I said,” Wayne broke in, “I'm not worried about that but, after the restaurant scene, won't Lieutenant DeMello just assume I hired someone to kill Anton?” “He might,” Kay said, “but there's one good reason why he's not likely to.”
“What's that?” Wayne looked puzzled, and his expression was matched by both Qual's and Sid's as they turned to look at Kay.
“Well,” she continued, “if you had hired a hit man, where would you not have been at the time of the killing?”
Chapter 5
Norman Kurohara was upset and nervous. There was no denying that. The small, middle-aged Japanese insisted on making Corky the recipient of his long and painful tale of woe, centering entirely upon the Nikko Arms.
“ You remember, it used to be a hotel,” he said, with little in the way of preliminaries. “I was one of those in the hui who bought it from the original developer. We should have known that, in a day of destination hotels, something like the Nikko Internationalthat's what we called it back thenjust doesn't work. People want to be near a vast array of shops and right by the beach. We tried to accommodate them.”
Norman sounded aggrieved at the fickleness of people in general and of tourists in particular. “We remodeled the first floor and leased space out to some first-class stores, but it was all too little and too late. It was going to be Chapter 11 for us if I hadn't bought the othe
rs out. I knew I would never make it if I kept it as a hotel, and I even looked around for a buyer, which was hopeless. I did a lot of thinking about it and decided finally the Nikko International had real prospects as a condominium complex.”
He paused and waved in the direction of the office door. “When I did that, I got some good tenants on the first floor. Some accountants and escrow companies and a nice cafeteria. I had to buy out some of the store leases, but it was worth it. Everything seemed to be going pretty well. I was making enough to meet most of the loan payments. Almost all the apartments were either sold or rented, and I thought for sure I'd be in the black by the end of this year.”
Kurohara's voice broke. “Then we had a fire four months ago. The second floor was gutted because those old fashioned sprinklers didn't work right. And there was all that smoke damage on the third floor.” He sighed. “I suppose I should be thankful the water damage on the first floor was minimal.”
He held up his hand. “I know what you're going to say. (Corky had, in fact, not planned on saying anything.) 'What about insurance?' Yes, I had insurance, but it took two months to settle the claim, and it will still be another month before the damage is all repaired. There's no compensation for the renters who moved out. Besides, several of the individual condominium owners have gotten nervous because of the fire and have put their apartments on the market for much less than they're worth.”
He shook his head in pain and disbelief. “Then, on top of everything else, this murder.”
Corky decided this was an appropriate place to interrupt the disaster recital. “I wonder if you could answer a few questions for me.” “ Of course. Of course.” Kurohara shook himself out of the contemplation of his own misery. “I'm so grateful Lieutenant DeMello didn't send out a uniformed policeman to investigate. Please do ask anything. I most certainly want this terrible thing solved.”
The Yoshinobu Mysteries: Volume 2 Page 19