“ That's one mugger, and two hit men,” Qual said. “I'm more inclined toward a third party, someone with reason to kill Anton, someone who followed him to the Nikko Arms.”
“If nothing else, that's novel,” Sid said. “Now it's your turn to answer the big question. Why the elevator?”
“Anton was just getting off and recognized the person who then hit him on the head, pushed him back in the elevator and stabbed him.”
“So the scene of the crime was just accidental?” Sid made the statement into a half question. Qual nodded, and Kay disagreed. “No,” she said. “I'm convinced things went wrong, but I'm even more convinced the elevator is exactly where the murderer intended the murder to happen.”
***
“What did the head honcho have to say?” Corky asked as Hank came back to his office after having been summoned to the chief's presence. “ Actually, I think you and I gained ground. He was impressed with all the evidence we've suddenly piled up. So he's given us an OK to send someone over to Oahu to interrogate Surrette as soon as the Honolulu PD picks him up.”
Corky made no comment.
Hank grinned.“Corky, you're going to have to get over your fear of flying sooner or later.”
“How can I, when the planes I'm on keep making emergency landings?” “ That's only been twice.” “So how many times has it happened to you? I talked to an interisland stewardess who's logged over ten thousand flights, including a slug of trips to the Mainland, and she's never once been on a plane that made an emergency landing. Here I keep away from the damn things as much as I can, and I already have two on my record. God's trying to tell me something. The third one could be it, Hank. You know stuff like that comes in threes.”
“OK. OK. Relax. We'll worry about it when they find him. They should be getting back to me any minute.” As he spoke, the phone rang.
Answering it, he nodded toward Corky, indicating it was the expected call.
“That was quick.”
“When?”
A long pause followed.
“When you check out his apartment, look for something indicating he wrote the note I sent you a copy of.”
“Yeah. I guess that's it. Not much else we can do about it.
“Thanks.”
Hank was looking thoughtful as he put down the phone. “Surrette's dead.”
Corky's mouth dropped open.
Hank continued. “It has nothing to do with Wayne Harlan. Surrette was already on a slab in the morgue when I called this morning. They just hadn't identified him yet.”
“What happened? How do they know it has nothing to do with Wayne?” “ It looks like Surrette was carrying out a contract on one of the leaders of a Taiwanese gang in Honolulu. He walked into a Chinese restaurant where the guy was eating, put an automatic to his head and blew him away. What Surrette didn't realize was the guy had a bodyguard who'd just gone to the can. Surrette was cut in two by assaultrifle fire. The sergeant I talked to says the guard emptied the whole clip into Surrette.”
Hank began to look grouchy, as he added, “Damn! What rotten luck.”
“Tough on us, and even tougher on Surrette. Probably tough on the restaurant, too.” As Corky was speaking, her face brightened. “But it's not all bad news, Hank.”
Hank grunted. “Yeah? What's good about it?” “I don't have to fly over to Oahu.”
*** Norman was definitely not happy to see Laura, and Laura sympathized with him. Corky had repeated Norman's description of all of his disasters and it had lost nothing in the retelling. As Corky had said, “Norman thinks the gods are against him,” and, putting herself in his position, Laura could see why he felt the way he did.
“When is this going to end?” the nervous little man asked in a pleading voice, as Laura sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“Soon, I hope,” Laura replied. “Believe me, there are other cases I'd much rather be working on. In fact, this case isn't even mine. I'm just helping out.” Her answer did little to mollify Norman, but he began to forget some of his troubles as he described his business arrangement with Wayne Harlan. “It was the one bright spot in a horrible year when Wayne came into my office and offered to handle the sales and rentals at the Nikko Arms. It was my greatest fear the fire would seriously interfere with that aspect of my business, and I certainly was in no position to mount an aggressive sales campaign. Those color photos on the front page of the Chronicle were simply awful. Why the editor would want to blow the story of the fire all out of proportion is beyond me.”
“When did Wayne make this offer?”
“It was just a few days after the fire. His commission was very reasonable. I must say I was pleased. He even rented one of the vacant condominiums for himself.”
Laura was surprised at the answer. “Did you do any bargaining with him?”
“Oh my, no. Wayne is a pleasure to do business with. His offer was quite generous.”
“Did you lower the rental on his condominium?”
Norman looked puzzled. “Why, no. It never occurred to me to do so or even to offer to do so. He never suggested I should.”
Laura was busy taking notes, since Norman had objected to having the interview taped.
“Did you know Anton Figueroa?” Norman slapped his hand against his forehead. “How many times do I have to answer that question? No! No! No! The first I even heard of him was the morning he was killed…after he was killed. I only wish I'd never set eyes on him.”
“Who's doing the painting on the floors damaged in the fire?”
Norman seemed surprised at both the shift in questioning and at the question, itself. “I have no idea. The repair work is being taken care of by the insurance company. I imagine the contractor is the one who decides who to sub-contract it to. Maybe he does it himself.” Norman shrugged and then managed to look as fierce as his nervousness would allow. “I really have nothing to do with any of it, except the finished product had better measure up to the quality of the rest of the Nikko Arms.”
When Laura had come into the manager's office, she had made no guesses concerning what kind of response she might get to her questions. As she left, she reflected it was just as well she had made none, since she could never have anticipated the answers she finally got.
Chapter 16
Anton's office was in a turmoil. Two people, obviously much at odds with each other, were emptying the two desks and the accompanying file cabinets. Sid had checked with Hank and discovered the seal had already been removed by the police, so he wasn't at all surprised to find he had been preceded by others. He introduced himself and managed to finally sort out the players.
The woman, a middle-aged graying Japanese, had been Anton's bookkeeper. On discovering Sid was an attorney, some of Shirley Yamasaki's hostility swung over in his direction. The short, heavy-set Portuguese who identified himself as Hector DeMatto, “Anton's assistant,” reacted rather differently to Sid's presence, looking upon him as a potential ally or, at the least, as an impartial referee in the battle.
“ Anton told me long ago if anything was to happen to him I was to take over the business,” Hector said almost immediately, continuing to pack a cardboard box with catalogs of paint supplies while looking at Sid as though for confirmation of his claim. “I've been with him for over five years,” Hector added, making it sound as though this settled the argument.
“You've never done a single thing in this business but paint houses, and Anton had to watch you every minute while you did,” Shirley interrupted. “ He wouldn't have the least idea about running this business,” she said, turning to Sid, her anger pushing her voice up in tone and volume. “I've managed the books for years.” Pencils, and pens and rubber bands were being stuffed violently into envelopes.
“ A painting business is painting,” Hector said with emphasis, as he pulled another cardboard box off of a pile of empties and began to load it down with the contents of the file cabinet behind what had evidently been Anton's desk.
> Sid decided he would have to move fast if he was going to rescue any useful information from the depredations of the two determined antagonists. “Do either of you know if Anton kept an appointment pad?”
Shirley sniffed. “Of course he did.” She indicated Hector with an upward movement of her head and a jutting out of her chin, “He's probably already packed it away.”
“I haven't touched a thing on his desk. You were here first. You probably took it.”
“Don't be ridiculous. What would I want with a used appointment calendar?”
“Mind if I check?” Sid asked, not waiting for an answer from either of the combatants. Paper was strewn across Anton's desk, something which Sid knew the meticulous contractor would never have tolerated. Moving them aside, Sid found a desk calendar with single sheets for each work day. The calendar was open to the Monday after the killing, and nothing was written on the page. Since the imprecations around him were mounting steadily, he decided to pick up the pad and step out of the crossfire. Sid flipped back to the previous Saturday. There were several cryptic notes on the page ending with a memo in the same small, precise hand. It read, “Twelve noon. Nikko Arms.”
Sid interrupted a rather detailed description of Hector's ineptness which Shirley was presenting in the most graphic terms. “Do you remember Anton making this appointment?” Sid asked her. The bookkeeper shook her head without taking her eyes off of Hector, pausing only momentarily in her comments.
“ Sitting here behind a computer is not running a paint business.” This from Hector as he emptied the last of the file cabinet drawers and took advantage of an opportune moment for the remark, while Shirley was taking time out for breath.
Shirley momentarily allowed herself to be distracted from the battle and squinted at the appointment calendar which Sid was still holding up for her to examine. “That was the day he died.” Her voice had an accusing tone to it, one seeming to imply Sid was somehow responsible for her employer's untimely demise. “I was here when he left to keep the appointment.”
Sid hoped he could hold her attention, but lost it and then managed to get it back momentarily after she had taken time to hurl another barb at Hector. “Just try running any kind of business without a computer these days. You'll sing a different tune if you do.” With no break in her speech, she went on while glancing at the appointment pad. “He left around eleven-forty-five,” she said to Sid with no change in the tone of her voice. “He said it was an important appointment, and he didn't want to be late.”
Sid decided he had heard enough, but one last volley fired at the bookkeeper by Hector reverberated through the office as Sid was closing the door.
“I want to watch you trying to paint a house with a computer.”
*** Ramon Santiago proved to be far more interesting than his appearance had first indicated. As he told Qual after they had talked for a while in the coffee shop where they had agreed to meet, his deceptive appearance was an advantage in his business as a private investigator. He grinned as he explained, “It pays to look like a Filipino from right out of the cane fields. You'd be surprised how many people talk in front of me about things they figure I wouldn't understand, just because they think I'm fresh off the boat.”
It had taken only a few minutes into their conversation for Qual to realize Ramon was neither a newly arrived immigrant nor a product of the local schools. There was not a trace of pidgin in his English. Before leaving, Qual learned Ramon's grandparents had settled in Chicago, and Ramon had a master's in Political Science from Northwestern. Ramon's explanation for his current employment, far removed from the substance of his academic training was, “I found out during the year after I got my MA that a master's degree in Political Science and a dollar would get me a cup of coffee.”
Ramon's reaction to the note from Wayne Harlan had added to Qual's positive estimation of the small, middle-aged Filipino. “Sorry,” he had said, “I can't just go by this,” he tapped the note with the back of his hand. “I'll have to get clearance from Mr. Harlan first.”
Ramon returned from his phone call and reported, “He says fine…to go ahead and tell you whatever you want to know. So fire away.” Ramon confirmed Harlan's description of the services he had requested of the detective. “I think I measured up to his expectations but, then, I had plenty of time to do the job right. The agency doesn't have much work for me here on Elima, so I made it a full time job while I was on the island. My territory includes Maui, and that's where I do most of my investigating.”
“Did you tap his phone?” Qual asked. Ramon nodded. “Of course. The first thing I did. He didn't give me explicit permission to do so, and I didn't ask, though the contract he signed with us allows it. It's always a good idea not to go giving plans away. Husbands sometimes get remorseful. A lot of them have the bad habit of confessing the wrong things to their wives, especially after the lights are out.”
“Did you record the phone conversations?” “ Definitely. I've destroyed all the tapes. That's company policy. Once the job's done, all the evidence is erased or shredded and burned. They're strict about that. They've got a good reputation, and they aren't about to take chances.”
“You mean blackmail?” “ Right. You can probably guess at what a phone tap uncovers. Even then, you're most likely underestimating what goes on. I not only get rid of the stuff, but I try to forget it as well. As long as I get my check at the end of the month, that's all I ask.”
Qual was inclined to believe him, but hoped he still had a few morsels of information filed away from the work he had done for Harlan. “I'm interested in some general impressions you may have had about Wayne and Rissa.”
“ I'm not sure the note covers that,” Ramon said with a smile, “but I'll tell you what I can anyway. Rissa Harlan qualifies as an A-number-one cock teaser. There's no question but she's a successful one, if being successful means being able to get men to drool over her. She also doles out a little, every so often.
“ Anton knew he was playing with fire, but he was as caught up with her as Harlan was. Harlan didn't need me to find out what was going on. On this island, it's just a matter of time before the spouse gets the word about the partner's playing around. But Harlan wanted exact times and places. Incidentally, I assumed it was all for purposes of a divorce, not for what Harlan was planning.”
“Do you think he killed Anton?” “ There's no question about it in my mind. If you've ever seen Harlan mad, there'd be no question in your mind either. When I turned in the final report, the one with the coming Malalani dinner listed on it, I could actually see a vein throbbing in his forehead. I'd heard about such things, but I never saw anything like it before. He was so mad he could hardly speak.
“ I was feeling like the messengerswhere was it, back in Rome?the ones who got themselves killed if they showed up with bad news. My impression of Wayne already was that when he gets mad he's liable to strike out in any direction, and with whatever he has handy. So I wasn't exactly astonished when I heard about the battle in the Malalani dining room. One thing did surprise me though.”
“What was that?” “Why he didn't succeed in killing Anton right there instead of later.”
Chapter 17
Sid and Kay had decided to make it a discrepancy session. “He's got a lot of explaining to do,” Kay said, as they sat in Sid's office waiting for Wayne to arrive. Kay had decided Sid would do most of the questioning while she observed Wayne's reactions to the questions. “Qual's waiting at the coffee shop across from Wayne's office. As soon as Wayne shows up here, Leilani will give him a call, and he'll pay the office staff over there a visit. If he runs into anything spectacular, he'll give us a ring.
“ We've already got the can of worms Laura opened up. Wayne's going to have his hands full explaining away the real business relationship he had with Norman, but their twelve o'clock appointment is going to take the most explanation of all. I only hope Qual comes up with something from his trip to Wayne's office. I have a feeling Wayne's really
not going to help much in resolving any of those discrepancies, but Qual might find out something which will.”
Sid agreed with Kay's evaluation of Wayne. “We've got other clients who are willing to level with us and who deserve more of our time than Wayne Harlan does. I'm not enthusiastic about stumbling around in the dark when he's carrying a flashlight he refuses to turn on for us. If I were you, I'd tell him to go find some other…”
Leilani's voice interrupted, announcing Wayne's arrival over the intercom. He's completely relaxed, Kay thought as she surveyed the tall, neatly dressed male sitting in the chair beside her on the side opposite the desk from Sid. It's hard to believe he could have hired someone to do a killing for him.
Sid led off after punching the record button on the small tape recorder. “Could you run through the times again, Wayne, from when you left your office to when Anton was discovered in the elevator?”
Wayne obliged without hesitation. Neither Kay nor Sid checked their notes, nor had they expected they would need to. Wayne was consistent, if nothing else. Kay forgot her original decision to have Sid do the questioning and voiced a growing feeling. “Do you think there's any possibility someone is trying to make it look as though you did it?”
Damn, but his face is hard to read, Kay thought, as she saw him slowly turn the question over in his mind.
“What makes you think that?” he asked finally in return. He knows why I'm thinking what I'm thinking. He's just stalling. “The keys in Anton's pocket, your missing knife, killing him in the building where you live…many things. You ruined it by having an alibi for the time when the killing happened. You were just lucky.” Kay paused as another idea struck her. “Or maybe you weren't. Whoever did the killing managed to make it look like you hired a hit man, even if they couldn't pin it directly on you.”
The Yoshinobu Mysteries: Volume 2 Page 27