The Yoshinobu Mysteries: Volume 2

by John A. Broussard

  She found her voice, but she knew it was barely audible above the sound of the wind and the chugging motor.“You left some glue from the tape sticking to the edge of the open-door button.” Wayne rested his left hand on the gunwale, steadied himself, leaned over her, and slammed his right hand across the side of her face. The pain, the tears streaming from her eyes, the sudden loss of hearing in her left ear, the feeling her cheek bone had been crushed, combined into a sudden picture of the solemn blonde girl announcing she had seen blood on the tall man's sleeve before the elevator door opened. Kay knew death was moments away. She also knew she would never mention Patricia to the figure hovering above her poised for another blow. It came, backhanded across the other cheek.

  “That won't work,” Wayne said with no trace of emotion in his voice. I cleaned off the button. Thoroughly. Try again.” Her mind roamed through the packet on the killing, the phone calls she had made, the people she had talked to. She started to talk, at first incoherently, and then slipped into asking questions, the inevitable replay of her role as attorney. “You turned the clock back at your office, didn't you?”

  “I wondered if it would be noticed. Who told you? The receptionist? It must have been. She was the only one there. Flaky as she is, I thought she'd never notice.” Kay shook her head, then realized he could not see the gesture in the darkness. “No. No. She didn't know you'd changed the clock. I thought you must have, since you couldn't have killed Anton if you'd left the office when you said you did. You were early. Ten minutes early.” She knew this was no explanation for how she knew he had stabbed Anton in the elevator, but it was all she could think of to say. As she spoke, she detected some signs of interest in the flat and unemotional voice answering her.

  “Fifteen minutes, actually. It was easy to turn the clock ahead when the receptionist went off to the can.” Kay pushed him to keep talking. “Then you set it back on the right time when you came back to the office.” Looking up at the figure dimly silhouetted against the overcast sky, she thought she could see him nod. “Why did you kill Anton? I'm still not sure. Do you have hepatitis? You must have. I couldn't understand at first why you wanted him dead so badly. I found out Rissa has it.”

  The moon broke through a sliver of cloud. Now higher in the sky, it threw a bright beam across Wayne's face. His expression was indecipherable as he swayed with the motion of the boat, but the voice carried all of his feeling, as much feeling as he was capable of. For the first time, the tone of indifference was now tinged with anger.

  “With Rissa gone, maybe I would have forgotten about it…eventually. When I found out about the hepatitis, I had to kill him. I had to see him die.” The hint of anger slipped away. “I had to do it with my own hands.”

  The words were less terrifying than the deadly calm with which they were spoken.

  Chapter 22

  Five minutes to eleven. Hank had called Corky and summoned two of the patrol cars. Sid had no idea where to start. Hank was still showing the effects of sleep. Corky had been reading and not yet thinking of bed when the call came through.

  “What did she tell you when she called?” Hank asked.

  Sid tried his best to recall the conversation.

  “If she knew who killed Anton,” Hank said, “then the killer is who we'd better start looking for. Just possibly someone knew she knew.” Sid shook his head. “You know how Kay is. She wouldn't even give me a clue. God! How could he have found out? If it's some hit man, in spite of what she said, she may be in real trouble.” Neither Hank nor Corky pointed out what the real trouble likely consisted of, and neither voiced the opinion the worst of the trouble had more than likely already happened.

  “Who did she talk to? Did she say?” Hank asked. Sid tried to recall exactly what she had said. “I'm not sure, but earlier in the day she told me she was going to go by and see Wayne's girlfriend, Karen Schwartz, and she figured on talking to the other woman who was standing by the elevatorthe woman with the kid.”

  “Margaret Bowan,” Corky filled in.

  “Right. Yeah. Now I remember. When she called me this evening she told me she'd talked to Karen and to the Bowan woman and her kid.” Hank picked up the phone as Corky opened the file cabinet and ran down the phone numbers. As he punched in Karen Schwartz's number, Hank said to Corky, “Call the field and have them get the copter ready. The desk sergeant has the pilot's number. Get him out there right away, and keep those two patrol cars handy.”

  Sid made out enough of the conversation between Hank and Karen to be sure it had produced little. Hank hung up and started to punch in another number. “She has no idea where Kay is. The interview was around three-thirty. All they did was to talk about Harlan.” As he spoke, Hank was listening to the phone ring in Margaret's apartment.

  Sid's face lit up. “Kay mentioned the daughter. I can't remember what she said, but it was something to the effect the kid was really helpful.”

  Hank had been listening to Margaret and asked, “Could I speak to your daughter?”

  “I know it's very late, but this is an emergency.” There was a long pause, and Hank scanned the worried expression on Sid's face.

  A sleepy child's voice came over the phone.

  “Hi,” Hank said.“I'm Lieutenant DeMello, the policeman you spoke to the day the man fell out of the elevator.”

  “I remember.” The voice was already sounding more alert. “ Kay Yoshinobuthe woman who talked to you this afternoonis missing. We thought maybe what she talked to you about might tell us what happened to her. Could you tell us what she asked you and what you told her?”

  “Uh-huh. We talked about what happened at the elevator. She asked me to tell her about it all over again?”

  “Did she talk about anyone especially?”

  Hank could almost hear the puzzlement in the silence at the other end but did not want to lead any more than he was doing.

  “She talked about the man who died.”

  “Anyone else?” “ She talked about the short man, but mostly we talked about the tall man. She was really interested in him, especially about the blood on the sleeve of his coat and how it was there before the doors to the elevator opened.”

  *** Wayne seemed to be shaking himself out of a reverie. “There's a storm coming up. That's enough wasted time. We might as well get this over with.” Then, matter-of-factly, he added, “Just a bit further out beyond the ledge, the water's over six-thousand-feet deep there.” He turned, steadied himself on the cabin roof and, spreading his legs against the rocking of the boat, stepped back once more toward the motor at the stern.

  Kay decided this would be her last chance to influence her fate. She had no real expectations of accomplishing anything. Even without her hands tied behind her back, and in spite of the years of tennis playing which had kept her in excellent physical condition, Kay was certain she could never have been a match for the tall and powerful man. She also knew she had to make a gesture.

  The moon was moving through a thin layer of clouds, giving more than enough light for her to follow the figure. Her legs pained with the effort as she stood. Her ribs ached. Her face felt as though it was aflame. The moon disappeared once more, and she could just make out the outline of the figure which hesitated as a heavy swell caught the boat broadside. She spread her legs and somehow managed to survive the motion.

  The next moment, she threw herself head first against the dim figure as she saw it turn. Even as she felt the impact, she knew it was too weak to have any effect. Wayne grunted and turned just as another swell rolled the boat. Kay leaned against him as he swayed and clutched at her, catching her hair with his right hand. The two of them toppled and he went overboard, crashing her face against the gunwale as he did so. The pain almost drove her into unconsciousness, but she fought the agony and tore away from the hand, leaving a fistful of hair in it.

  Once more the moon slipped out in time to reveal fingers clutching at the gunwale. Kay rolled over onto her back and slammed a foot against them. They hel
d firm, and another hand joined the first one. Again and again she stamped against the fingers. One hand slipped off, came up again, clutched at her feet and then disappeared. She concentrated all of her energy on the other hand. Again the moon glided behind the clouds. Kay continued blindly slamming her feet against the gunwale.

  Then, hardly believing her good fortune, she rolled onto her side and struggled up. The boat was rolling more than ever. There was no way she could guard the sides, and she wondered if the bow was low enough for Wayne to climb up there. It seemed unlikely, especially with her own weight at the stern. Did her weight make enough difference? She shook loose from the thought. She had to get to shore.

  The wind was picking up, and she remembered Uncle Nate saying, “Don't let the seas catch you broadside.” Barely managing to maintain her balance, she fell into a sitting position next to the motor which was protesting every time the propeller broke the surface of the water as each new wave rolled the boat. She could feel warm blood on her face, and the spray was making the cut on her forehead sting.

  It was then Kay realized she knew virtually nothing about outboard motors.

  *** “ You have reached the home of Wayne Harlan. I'm not near the phone at the moment. Please leave your name and number after the tone, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  Hank slammed the receiver down on the recorded message. “Let's go,” he said to Sid and Corky. Passing the desk sergeant he said, “Call Karen Schwartz at the Nikko Arms and try to find out where Wayne Harlan might be spending an evening. Call me every five minutes or even sooner if she has anything significant to offer. Keep in touch with the helicopter pilot.”

  The security man at the Nikko Arms protested feebly at Hank's request for the master key. His protests died almost immediately when Hank, without raising his voice, changed the request into an order.

  Sid decided as long as he could keep moving he would not collapse. Corky reacted to his obvious despair by keeping him talking. He knew he was almost incoherent as he tried to answer her questions. The apartment was empty. Hank's beeper sounded, and he reached for the phone. “She wasn't much help,” the desk sergeant said. “He has a boat, but seldom goes out at night.”

  “ Boat!” Hank screamed the word into the phone. “Get the helicopter into the air. Have him sweep out from the marina looking for a small pleasure boat. Get a complete description of it from Schwartz. I'm going out to the car radio, and I'll give the pilot more instructions from there. Send the second patrol car out to the dock.”

  A feeling of total helplessness came over Sid, as they raced in the patrol car toward the marina. Hank made contact with the helicopter at the moment they were pulling up before the marina office. The security guard approached when he saw the three of them burst out of the car.

  “ Wayne Harlan's boat?” The security man repeated part of the question in answer to Hank's query. “Sure. Right down this way.” He began to amble down the corrugated steel walkway of the dock. Hank prodded him into a run.

  “It's gone.”

  “Was it here earlier?”

  “Can't say for sure, but I think so.”

  “Could it have been taken out tonight?” “ I suppose so. I was around, but the phone rang. No one answered when I got there. I suppose someone could have taken it out then. It's not likely to have been any other time, since I've been out and around most of the night,” he added, defensively. Hank went back to the radio phone and called in a description of the boat to the helicopter. After finishing, he looked at the ashen Sid and said, “I've alerted the Coast Guard. There's not much else we can do.”

  It was then Corky called them over to the parking lot. Kay's empty car was sitting in one of the spaces.

  *** Kay knew the tiller steered, but she could not even remember what direction it should point to get her where she wanted to go. Hitching herself sideways so her back was toward the motor, she lifted her bound hands to the tiller and tentatively moved it to her right. The boat began to swing to the left. She quickly moved it in the other direction, and the boat responded sluggishly, then went too far to the right. Gradually, she corrected her hand movements in response to the boats actions, and eventually had it facing the dim lights of the shore. The swells were increasing. The moon was now completely obliterated, and she decided not to think about hands which might somewhere be attempting to get a purchase on the gunwale.

  She tried to remember where the throttle had been on Uncle Nate's motor. Knowing the boat was making no headway against the increasing wind, she struggled to recall those days off of Honolulu Harbor. There was something welling up out of the past. It had to do with the handle. That was it! Uncle Nate used to turn it to change the boat's speed. She remembered watching him. He had never explained it to her. She had never wanted to learn. Now she recalled her younger brother sitting proudly in the stern, holding on to the tiller, and increasing the speed of the boat by turning the handle.

  Did he turn it clockwise or counterclockwise? There was no way she could remember, but this was no time to make a mistake. The motor was barely running. If she reduced the flow of gas even slightly, it would stall, almost for sure. With her hands tied behind her, there would be no possible way for her to start it again.

  Counterclockwise made more sense. You turn bulbs clockwise to screw them in, but you turn faucets counterclockwise to let more water out. Clockwise tightened things. She wanted to loosen something, to open something. She moved her hands to the end of the handle. With her back turned to it, she could not be sure which way was counterclockwise. She had to envision the handle. Slowly, very slowly, she turned the knob counterclockwise. She could make out no response one way or the other. Again she moved it ever so slightly. Had the sound increased? No way of knowing for sure. She knew it had not decreased. Again, a little more. Yes, definitely, it was increasing. Another slight turn and she was positive. The boat responded by accelerating slightly, pounding itself harder against the steepening swells.

  Kay gave it a quarter turn. The boat lurched forward and slammed into each successive wave, almost tearing her away from the tiller with each impact. Kay, expecting the boat to break apart at any moment under the pounding, turned the handle back slowly. Too dark to see the spray, she could still feel it drenching her following every bone jarring crash into the steadily growing swells. The only thing left now was for her to find out where she was going.

  ***

  “There's Hawk Helicopters, Hank,” Corky said. “They've flown at night. We may be able to get them out.” “ Right, and there's the other police helicopter at Wanakai. Get on the phone and see what you can do. I'm going to keep in touch with J-11.” As he spoke, J-11 swooped low over the marina and moved out to sea, its searchlight looking pitifully inadequate in the vast expanse of darkness stretching out to the west.

  The radio phone crackled. Sid was in agony. “Can't we take another boat out?” he said, knowing the answer ahead of time. Hank shook his head. “Even on a clear night, we wouldn't be able to see more than a hundred feet in any direction. If he's out there, he doesn't have any running lights on, that's for sure. With this storm brewing, we'd be blind as bats.”

  Sid's next reaction was anger at Kay. Damn her, he thought. Why couldn't she have told me who she suspected? She probably actually confronted Harlan. Damn, damn her! Corky hurried out of the security building toward the police car. “The Wanakai copter will be here in an hour. I got the manager at Hawk. He's going to see if he can roust out some of his pilots. He'll keep in touch with the desk sergeant.

  The security man, who had just made his rounds, came walking toward them. “That's a hell of a squall coming up,” he said.

  That's all we need, thought Corky looking at Sid's strained expression, eerily distorted by the yellow light of the sodium lamps.

  *** Kay had been on several cruises of one kind or another which had started from the marina. She scanned her memory for the details and came up with little besides a rocky coast. Napua was off to her
left in the distance. She could tell it was the town because the low lying clouds reflected the lights. With the swell turning into white caps, she was uncertain whether she should risk turning even slightly broadside to the now giant waves. Where else could she head for?

  She surveyed the lights along the shore which she could see when the boat crested. It was then she realized she was using only one eye. What she recognized as blood was blinding her left eye, she was almost certain it was closed anyway. One cluster of lights stood out, almost straight ahead. What was it? She racked her brain to remember what was south of Napua. Small beaches were scattered along the shore, but she would never find any of them in the growing storm.

  The irony of her plight struck her. After an impossible escape from Wayne Harlan, she now faced the likely prospect of being smashed to bits on the rocks of the coastline. Should she chance turning the boat in the now raging water and try for the shelter of the breakwater? There was no estimating distances, but she was certain the shore directly ahead was only moments away, the marina many times that.

  It was then it struck her. The cluster of lights must be the Fenton Project. The illstarred development had stumbled along after long delays complicated by bankruptcy court. The first phase was now finally well underway. It included the broadening of the beach and the importing of sand to cover the rocky shore. The single high light which now stood out from the rest must be on top of one of the cranes used in construction.

  Kay made up her mind, moving the tiller slightly to the right, she headed directly for the light. Her left eye was now completely useless. The spray was blinding her other eye, and her hands had lost all feeling. The waves turned to surf. She felt the grinding, smashing crunch of something under the boat. Only her two handed grip on the tiller kept Kay from pitching forward. The boat hesitated, rose up on an enormous wave, then surged toward the light. Kay closed her eye, turned the handle counterclockwise as far as it would go. That was it.