Kay looked over at Captain Nakamuras too rugged countenance and thought how fortunate it was she had not switched on the speaker. Ignoring Corkys sally, she said, “Thanks for following orders. I thought I might need some help, but it turns out I wont. Since I have you on the phone, is there anything new at your end?”
Kay could almost see the knowing expression on Corkys face. “There are a couple of items you might be interested in. Domingo De Rego was found hanging from a haole koa out by mile eleven.”
“Suicide?”
“Nope. Homicide. Hows that grab you?” Before waiting for a reply, Corky went on, “Now for the big surprise. There was one hell of a bad accident at around noon right where the dirt road empties out on the highway. Guess who the car was rented to?! Aw, never mind. Youll never guess. Its Junichi Ushiroda, one of Onos guards. We just finished prying his body out of the wreck an hour ago. Surprised?”
“Very surprised, especially since I saw Ushiroda walking down the hall right here at the Malalani just a few minutes ago.”
Chapter 20
Clyde was bone tired, and he knew his assistant was feeling the same. Even though it was not quite four, he told her to go home. Werner, however, showed no effects of the days activities, which had now included two autopsies. At the moment, he was sitting in Clydes office drinking great mouthfuls of hot coffee.
Between gulps, Werner described the nature and extent of the malignancies they had just finished examining. “Were I to start over, I would an oncological pathologist become.”
Clyde wasnt sure there was such a thing as an oncological pathologist; he was quite certain, however, that anything involving meticulous cutting followed by careful analysis would have been easily mastered by this small, loquacious German.
“ Cancer causes many more murders than human beings. It is fascinating it to study. But enough little talk.” Werner jumped up and drained his cup. “To the body of the wrecked victim onwards.”
Clyde suppressed a groan, rose painfully from his chair and followed his tormentor into the dissection room. As Werner tied on his apron and pulled on plastic gloves, he looked over at the crushed form on the slab. “The last one like that I seen have, was a homicide.”
Clyde shook his head to rid it of the cobwebs. “Homicide? Like that?” “Ya!” Werner nodded, picking up shears and forceps. “A lieutenant in the Bundeswehr. A tank commander had heard his wife with the lieutenant bedding was. Then has the lieutenant a second mistake made. He has in a tent next to the tank field one morning late slept.”
As Clyde began to examine the blood-spattered pieces of cloth Werner was snipping away, he decided the body they were examining might just as well have been run over by a tank. For himself, he had never seen anything quite like it. Carefully emptying the pockets, he placed their contents on an empty gurney he had wheeled in. The pile consisted of a thin leather wallet, some small change, a blood covered, folded sheet of paper, two handkerchiefs and a folding fingernail file. One other item was a piece of plastic the size of a credit card, with a metallic strip on it but no writing to indicate its purpose.
Werner caught sight of the card as Clyde, puzzling over it, held it up to the light. “For a security gate or door. In Germany have we many of them.”
A renewed search of the body produced a small handgun. Much good it did him, Clyde reflected to himself.
Even for Werner the autopsy did not go smoothly. Some bones were crushed beyond recognition. Almost every internal organ was ruptured. Stomach contents were strewn throughout the body cavity along with feces and urine. Finally, Werner called it quits. “Accident no doubt the cause of death.”
Knowing Hank would want to hear the results, such as they were, Clyde picked up the portable phone while Werner completed his wash-up.
“Hank DeMello here.”
“O.K. Hank. We got to it.”
“You sound bushed.”
“I am. Believe me.”
“Anything unexpected this time?”
“Absolutely nothing unexpected. Death was as close to instantaneous as it can ever be. Well list it as due to massive head and internal injuries.”
“You didnt find any ID on him by any chance, did you?”
“A wallet. I havent looked in it yet. Do you want me to check it out, or do you want one your dusters to go over it first?”
“Doesnt seem to be much point to that. Go ahead and take a look.”
Clyde walked over to the gurney where he had placed the victims belongings, cradled the phone against a hunched shoulder, flipped open the wallet with one hand, then said, “Naoki Yamamoto.”
“Ah! That explains a mystery. We just found out the guy who rented the car is alive and well. Naokis a big shot in Ono Electronics. He must have borrowed it. I wonder what for.”
While Hank was talking, Clyde had been surveying the other items, finally opening the bloodied sheet of paper. One glance made him shout into the phone. “You can stop wondering, Hank!”
***
Kay looked at her watch as she unlocked the door to her car in the Malalani parking lot. It was after five. Should she check in at the office before going home? She dreaded the idea. She knew the work she had neglected in the past three days would make her feel guilty. The additional work which had since arrived would give her an aching stomach.
The thought of four office appointments the following day, appointments she could not put off, merely added to her dread. Yet there was no reason to go home now. Sid was not due to call until late. He had phoned earlier in the day to tell her the northeast was getting the rainy tail-end of an Atlantic hurricane, and a bridge had washed out. They would have to wait for rescheduling, a wait which would probably not get them into Syracuse until the wee hours.
Kay knew she was getting close to a solution to Onos death but, as Qual liked to remind her, “„Closecounts only in horseshoes and nuclear attacks.” The De Rego killing happened to fit in nicely with the theory she had developed. Still, there was the mystery of who had been driving the Panthers car.
Maybe Ill eat in town, she thought. And maybe Ill drop by the station first, on the off chance Hank or Corky is still there.
To her surprise, she found both of them were still at the station. When she entered his office, Hank was sitting open mouthed with the phone to his ear. Corky looked up as Kay entered.“Hes talking to Clyde,” she explained, “and it looks like hes in a state of shock.”
As an afterthought, she leaned toward Kay and lowered her voice. “By the way, it was Nick Yamamoto who was mashed up in the wreck.” Kay found it difficult to believe someone she had spoken to just a few hours before was now dead.
Hank reached for the speaker button, saying, “Read the letter again, will you Clyde?”
“Sure thing.” Clydes voice came in loud and clear over the speaker. “I knew youd appreciate it. „I seen you kill Ono. I was in the cold room looking out. You killed him in the kitchen with a butcher knife and drug him over to the washer. I heard you turn on the Hobart. If you dont want me to go to the police, take one hundred thousand dollars in a suitcase to Pole 143 on the Highway going south. Turn on the dirt road and go in one-half mile until it turns north. Park your car at the turn and walk south on the lava flow until you come to a lone keawe. Lean the suitcase against the tree at twelve oclock noon exactly, then go back to your car. Turn around and go back to the highway. This is all Im asking for.
“Im sparing you most of the bad English, and guessing at some of the misspellings,” Clyde added.
“Anything else on the body?”
“Hey. What do you want, Hank? Isnt that enough? Well…lets see…there are a couple of handkerchiefs, a fingernail file, fifty-eight cents in change, a wallet with fortythree dollars in it, a driver's license, three credit cards, and another piece of plastic Werner says may be a key of some sort. Also a small handgun.”
“Thanks Clyde. Ill have a patrolman come right down and pick it all up. Looks like the letter wraps up the case.”
/> “Ill have it all packaged and waiting for him. Werner says pathologists can solve murders the police can never figure out. Looks like hes right again.”
Hanks answer was his usual grunt.
“Phew,” Corky said after he had shut off the speaker, “Ive never seen such a complicated case. And I sure never thought it would be solved so easy.”
“Now you can tell your client shes off the hook, Kay.”
“I dont think she was ever on one, and she certainly wasnt worried. Whats your guess as to what happened?”
Hank shrugged. “Seems pretty straightforward. Yamamoto killed Ono, to begin with. I dont know his motive, but well start looking for it. Shouldn't be hard. Dollars to malasadas he was fiddling the books, and Ono discovered it. Chichi saw the killing from the fridge, where she was probably raiding the pastry rack. Shes terrified and doesnt know what to do. Finally makes the mistake of telling Domingo De Rego. He immediately sees dollar signs and tells her to keep quiet. Says they can clean up with blackmail.
“Maybe De Rego tells her the killer is a yakuza wholl have her rubbed out if she talks. The story he got from her explains why he gets snockered so early in the day. Hes just celebrating the fortune hes going to get. Then she calls him later, or maybe he calls her. She says she cant do it. Which fits with what Mary Ann told us about her. He soft- soaps her. Probably he tells her he wants to see her before she talks. Says hes willing to go to the police too, maybe even tells her hell go to the police alone and claim he saw the killing so the yakuza wont know shes involved.
“Whatever his scheme, he asks her to meet him. Since he cant go to the Malalani, he sets up the gulch as a rendezvous. Once hes got her out of the way, he sends the blackmail noteto Yamamoto, who isnt about to pay off. Yamamoto goes out to the drop site and makes sure there wont be any more blackmail notes. His one big problem is he remembers hes in the US and he looks the right way when he pulls out on the highway. If hed been watching the wrong way, he might have seen the drunk crossing the yellow line and barreling down on him.”
“It sure fits,” Corky said, but her face showed her doubts. “I dont suppose well ever be able to fill in all the holes, since everyone who knows about them is dead.”
“Like what holes?”
“Like how did Yamamoto ever get close enough to De Rego to strangle him? De Rego wasnt especially bright, but he knew what he was doing when he wrote the note. I know the area, and its a great drop site. Its out in the open, and theres a ridge a couple of hundred yards away where Ill bet De Rego was squatting, watching the whole scene.
“From there, he could not only see the drop, but he could watch Yamamotos car go out to the highway. He wouldnt come out until Yamamoto had left the suitcase and taken off. He sure as hell wouldnt have broken cover if Yamamoto didnt leave!”
“Oh, hell,” Hank said, “he probably did leave and then crept up on De Rego.”
“Nope. It wont work, Hank. How could Yamamoto know about that ridge? All he could see from where he left the money, if he did leave it there, was a view of some high ground off in the distance.”
Kay, still shaken by the news of Nicks death, and startled by the sudden hundred- and-eighty-degree turn in the case, reacted to the comment, saying,“I have the explanation. Nick lived here until he was twelve and came back several times when he was in his teens. So he probably knew this area better than the local Sierra Club chapter.
“It still wont work,” Corky said.“The ground all around there is littered with dead kiawe branches from an old burn. Not even an Indian could creep through them without sounding like a string of firecrackers. And wheres the money Yamamoto was supposed to bring out to drop site?”
Whileshe was talking, a patrolman at the door was trying to catch Hanks attention, pointing to a suitcase and light cord he was holding.
“Yeah?” Hank asked.
“They came out of the car wreck, Lieutenant.”
Hanks face broke into a large grin. “Looks like weve got a plug to stuff into one of those holes, Corky. Ill bet whats in the case kept De Rego occupied long enough so a dinosaur could have crept up on him.”
Chapter 21
“ Stick around,” Hank said to the patrolman while fumbling with the latch of the brief case, which he had set on the small table. “You may have to help with some counting.”
The lid flipped open and the audience surrounding the table gasped. Twenties, fifties and hundreds in neat bundles filled the case almost to overflowing.
“OK, Corky, you and Les can count it. Then call larceny and have them seal it and put it in the safe. Well need your signature as a witness, Kay. Can you hang tough for a few minutes?”
“Sure can. Remember, Im single and fancy free these days. Theres no rush to get home.”
Corky and the patrolman had drawn up chairs and were attacking their task with enthusiasm. After a few bundles, Corky let out a yelp. “Hey Hank, look at this.” A hole had been carved out of the center of one of the bundles and a small black plastic box nestled in the space. “Any idea what this is?”
The patrolman was the one who answered her question. “Its a transmitter. The instructor at the police communications school I went to last year in Honolulu showed us one. They tie them on the collars of their dogs, so they can keep track of them if they have to let them loose to go after someone. Only this ones a lot smaller.”
“Now we have an explanation for how Nick planned it all,” Kay said. “He put that in there, had a receiver in his car, and just followed De Rego to wherever he went with the money. Greedy as he was, De Rego probably didnt go far, maybe to one of those caves out in the lava field, where he could sit and count out his loot. Nick slipped in, threw the cord around his neck and then took the body out to the tree.”
Hank nodded. “It was probably even easier than that. Nick had a gun, so he probably just held him up first, made him turn around, then…” Hank used a flourish of his hands to demonstrate the flipping on of a noose and the way it had been tightened. “Werner says it was a professional job.”
Kay grimaced.
***
Corky and Les were packing the last of the bills back into the suitcase and Hank was saying,“I like days like this. Lots of pleasant surprises,” when the intercom blared and the desk sergeants voice announced, “Theres a Captain Nakamura of the Tokyo Police out here, Lieutenant. He wants to see you. Shall I send him in?”
Kay grinned. “The biggest surprise of all is about to show up, Hank.”
She had not exaggerated the extent of the surprise. It took several minutes for Corky and Hank to fully comprehend how a minor figure in the employ of Ono Electronics was in fact what he now represented himself to be, an important undercover agent for the Japanese equivalent of the FBI and CIA combined.
Once he had convinced the two officers of his identity, Captain Nakamura moved on to the reason for his visit to the station. “I just heard Naoki Yamamoto was killed in an automobile accident. If that is correct, it closes my assignment. I have to be sure, so may I please look at his body?”
“Sure,” Hank said magnanimously, “but it may not help you much. From what the pathologist says, its totally unrecognizable.”
Nakamura smiled. “I would not trust just visual identification, anyway. After all, I have direct experience with how substitutions can be made. I contacted Tokyo and got a copy of his fingerprints and five or six other identification marks. I can compare them with what is left.”
“So he was the one you were stalking,” Kay said.
Nakamura nodded.“We were sure he was trained yakuza operative. His position in this large and international company made him ideal for their purposes. He traveled all over the world for legitimate business. Which made it possible for him to keep many channels open for both drug trafficking and money laundering.
“He even made use of diplomatic pouches to move the funds. We have already placed four members of various Japanese legations under arrest. There will be other arrests too.”
“We may never know exactly, but most likely Mr. Ono discovered his illegal activities. As a respectable businessman, there could be few things more serious than discovery a yakuza was his close confidant and important employee.”
“Lets go out to the morgue and get the identification over with,” Hank said, then added, “Corky, why dont you take off? Your electrician husband will blow all his fuses if you keep him waiting for you to get home to cook supper.”
Corky guffawed. “Me make supper? But maybe it would be a good idea to get home soon. Alans had Juni out to the shop all day. By now hes probably stretched out exhausted on the couch with the young „un crawling all over him. Who knows? Maybe I will have to cook a meal for a change.”
The four of them went off to the front desk, Corky waved her good-byes, and Hank became engrossed in talk with the desk sergeant about the disposition of the money from the wreck.
Kay and Nakamura strolled ahead out of the building, talking about the possible methods Nick had used to move money into and out of Hawaii. Nakamura was noncommittal, as Kay had expected he would be. So she switched the topic to something she was much more interested in. “Do you think he had anything to do with the plane crash in which Masas daughter was killed?”
“We were suspicious at the time, and we interviewed every one of the members of the review board. The hit-and-run death of a mechanic who worked on the plane seemed to be a too great coincidence, but that is what it turned out to be. Our conclusion was the plane crash, even though it is unexplained, could not be because of sabotage.
“When a consultant made a slightly different explanation, we questioned him at length. It turns out he was not saying it was sabotage, but he was simply pointing out a possible defect which could explain the crash. It then became a quarrel between him and the plane manufacturer which, I think, is still not settled.”
The Yoshinobu Mysteries: Volume 2 Page 48