Surfing Detective 04 - Hanging Ten in Paris

by Hughes, Chip

  Ryan knew the answer. But he was no longer alive to tell.

  fourteen

  Later that afternoon I paddled back out to Pops—Ryan’s favorite break. The waves were rolling in three to four feet. Traffic was light. It was a weekday and the regulars hadn’t gotten off work yet. I got a couple of rides. Then I waited between sets—and tried to put together the pieces I’d gathered on the case.

  Kim had told the truth about the cheating. But she had failed to mention that not just one person was cheating—the entire class was cheating. Herself included. If Professor Van couldn’t see it, he was blind. Or had he turned a blind eye?

  All seven students had lied. Their professor had, at minimum, withheld information and abdicated his responsibilities to them and to the college. Were they covering for each other—all of them involved in Ryan’s death?

  fifteen

  Back in my Waikīkī apartment that night I checked the mail program on Ryan’s laptop. Oddly, I found no personal messages from early February before he had died, only generic and junk emails. What puzzled me more was that I found not even the emails between Ryan and his mother that she had mentioned. These personal messages might have revealed Ryan’s state of mind—and also contributing factors to his death. In other words, they were essential.

  Then I realized that since Ryan had been a long way from home—in Paris, not in Honolulu—he would have used webmail rather than his laptop’s mail program, connected no doubt to a Honolulu server. With a little searching I found his webmail link. The inbox looked identical to the other. No personal emails. All had apparently been deleted. Then I remembered that deleting messages from webmail doesn’t necessarily remove them. Deleted emails go to a trash folder where they remain—unless or until they are expunged.

  I opened the trash folder. Bingo! The missing emails had been deleted but, fortunately, not expunged.

  The first was an email sent by Ryan to his mother after Marie had moved from Rue des Écoles—the email Mrs. Song had told me about.

  I’m OK, Mom. Paris is cool. I’m seeing the sights with a girl named Meighan . . .

  I had to agree with Mrs. Song that he didn’t sound too shook up about Marie. I scanned further until I found one sent to Scooter dated February 24th—five days before Ryan died.

  Scooter, I know you and Brad have the answers to Professor Van’s exams. That’s not fair to the rest of us. Do the right thing, brah.

  “Not fair to the rest of us” suggested that at this point only Scooter and Brad had the exams, which was corroborated by Van’s grade sheet. I checked Ryan’s inbox for an answer from Scooter. None. But I found one from Brad dated February 26th.

  If you know what’s good for you, Ryan, you’ll mind your own fucking business.

  I looked for more emails between Ryan and the two guys, but found none. If the battle of words had escalated, it must have been through verbal exchanges rather than emails.

  Next I checked Ryan’s laptop for documents. If the suicide note had been printed from his computer, the document still might be there. But I couldn’t find it, of course. Until I clicked the trash icon on his desktop. There it was: Au Revoir, Marie

  The document had been created on March 1st at 2:13 am, Paris time (to which the laptop was still set). That was several hours after Ryan reportedly died. He couldn’t have printed the note himself. And whoever had trashed it afterwards had neglected to empty the trash.

  No wonder the Paris police had failed to mention these documents in their report. They may have given Ryan’s laptop a cursory look, but found nothing.

  The emails and the suicide note provided circumstantial evidence that Ryan had been murdered because he threatened to expose cheating in Van’s history class. That the cheating had become more widespread, involving every student except Ryan, meant all had a motive to cover up. What I needed was specifics—who did what and when. What I needed was somebody to talk. I didn’t expect Brad or Scooter would implicate themselves. And I didn’t expect Heather would let Kim talk to me again. With Marie accessible only by email, that left Meighan.

  Serena had given me her address: the Marco Polo, a once swanky seventies-era condo on Kapiolani Boulevard overlooking the Ala Wai Canal and Waikīkī. I drove there hoping to find her at home.

  It was late. You can’t get into the Marco Polo at night without a pass card, so I followed a resident in. Meighan lived on the 27th floor, in a studio apartment facing the mountains, rather than the water. I knocked. The blonde opened and didn’t look surprised to see me.

  “Meighan, I know now Ryan was murdered,” I said. “I’m here to give you one last chance to clear yourself. Some of your classmates already have.”

  She didn’t even blink. “Come inside.”

  Meighan led me into her tiny studio apartment. We sat on the edge of her bed, which also served as a couch.

  “Tell me everything,” I said. “And don’t leave anything out this time.”

  “Okay, I was telling you the truth when I said I found Ryan hanging in his room naked. I couldn’t believe he’d do that.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “I know he didn’t, but I didn’t know it then.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “Later that morning. When Heather, Kim and I got Brad and Scooter, they all acted shocked, like I told you, but I could tell they were faking. They were saying phony stuff like, ‘Oh, it’s so sad.’ None of it seemed real.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I finally said ‘I don’t believe this. Ryan wouldn’t hang himself.’ Then Brad snarled, ‘You better shut your face. You’re involved as much as we are.’ Brad could get violent when he was angry. I’d already seen that.”

  “What did you see?”

  “About a week before, Heather came to class one day with a black eye. She said she fell on the stairs. We all knew she was sleeping with Brad and we all figured he just went off on her, for whatever reason.”

  “She didn’t confide in you or Kim about it?”

  “Not me. Maybe Kim,” Meighan said. “But Heather usually defended Brad—made excuses for him. You know how it goes.”

  “Unfortunately,” I said, “the cycle of domestic abuse.”

  “Anyway, that’s why I was scared of him,” Meighan confessed. “That’s why I went along when he said we all had to stick together. He said if Ryan’s death looked suspicious, the cheating might come out. If it did, Brad might not graduate and his rich dad would cut him off. Brad was freaked about that.”

  “Did you already have the exam answers when Ryan died?” She bowed her head and lowered her voice. “Yes. They gave them to me a few days before. But I didn’t use them—”

  “Until afterwards.” I completed her sentence.

  She nodded slowly. Her eyes moistened.

  “Why did you cheat? Aren’t you on scholarship?”

  “That’s just it. I have to maintain an A-minus average to keep my scholarship. I wanted to have fun in Paris and I thought— stupidly—that the answers would give me a little more time. I had no idea any harm would come to Ryan. Honest!”

  “How did harm come to him?”

  “When he found out Scooter and Brad had the exam answers and wouldn’t stop cheating, Ryan told the rest of us. Then Heather went straight to Brad.”

  “Brad wasn’t sharing the exams with her already?”

  “I don’t think so,” Meighan said. “But he gave them to her then. And to Kim and to everyone else.”

  “To Ryan?”

  “He tried, but Ryan wouldn’t take them.”

  “Who hanged him?”

  “I never asked. It was too horrible. And too stupid. Ryan was hanging there naked. So unlike him. That’s why I slipped the board shorts on him—before I knew what really happened. Later Heather put the photo of Marie under him. And Kim typed the suicide note on Ryan’s laptop. She didn’t know much French, but she did know au revoir.”

  “Was Marie involved?”

  “No.
She still thinks Ryan hanged himself. And she still feels guilty. Like it was her fault—because she moved in with Pierre.”

  “Then why did Marie cheat?”

  Meighan looked surprised. “How’d you find out?”

  “We detectives have our ways,” I said. “Anyhow, wasn’t Marie a brilliant student?”

  “Yes, but when she moved in with Pierre she sort of flipped. She’d never been off the island before and she’d never had a lover. Suddenly she’s living in Paris with a French guy. All she wanted was to spend time with him. She let her coursework slip. Being with Pierre was more important to her than anything.”

  sixteen

  The next day I called Professor Van and told him I knew Ryan Song had complained to him about cheating in his history course. And I knew that Van had concealed this information from the Paris Police, from Paradise College, and from me. I asked him why.

  “Are you going public with this?” he asked.

  “Depends,” I said.

  “Ryan is dead,” he replied. “That can’t be changed.”

  “But you might have saved his life. I guess you were more concerned about your reputation—about how it might look if so many of your students got caught cheating.”

  “Ryan brought me accusations, not proof.”

  “I saw your grade record, Professor,” I said. Van was quiet.

  “A scandal like this,” I said, “and you could kiss the Hilo Hattie Chair goodbye.”

  “Are you going public?” he asked again.

  seventeen

  I called Scooter’s cell phone after talking to Van and asked if I could see him one last time to wrap up my investigation. I could barely hear him over the blare of hip-hop music, but he said, “Didn’t find anything, eh?”

  “How’d you guess?” I replied.

  “Too bad, man!” He sounded pleased, rather than sorry. “I’m at the Z Lounge. Brad’s with me.”

  “Hang on,” I said. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  “Uh, we’ll hang on. We’re not going anywhere.”

  I hopped in my car and was there in less than ten. The Z Lounge was a hostess bar and strip joint on a seedy block of Kona Street. The odor of stale beer and cigarettes hit me as I stepped into the darkness. Hip-hop blared. You can’t smoke there anymore, but before the law was changed the dark paneled walls got saturated. The proprietor, a former Madame named Michi, knew how to keep customers coming with exotic dancers and happy hour specials. It was too early for either, so there weren’t any customers except Brad and Scooter who sat alone at the bar with their beers. Take that back—a young woman from the establishment had her arm around Brad and a drink in front of her.

  I took the stool next to Scooter and ordered a beer. He turned to me.

  “So you’re wrapping up, huh?” he asked.

  “You bet,” I replied.

  “Don’t tell Heather.” Brad gestured to the woman with her arm around him and winked.

  “My lips are sealed,” I said.

  “We feel really sorry for Ryan’s parents,” Brad continued, “but they should have saved their money. Oh well, at least you got a gig.”

  “That I did,” I said.

  “So what’s left to wrap up?” Scooter asked.

  “Oh, I just wondered who put the rope around his neck.” I sipped my beer. “Was it you or Brad?”

  “Huh?” Scooter clinked his bottled on the bar. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ryan,” I said, “which one of you handled the rope?’

  “Hey, man,” Brad said in a menacing tone, “can’t you see there’s a lady present?” She smiled. “Anyway,” he continued, “Ryan committed suicide.”

  “He didn’t,” I said.

  “He didn’t?” Scooter put on a dumb look.

  “You guys had it all planned. But what you didn’t plan on was somebody talking. Or somebody checking Ryan’s laptop.”

  “This is bullshit, man!” Brad fumed. “What do you think you’re doing, coming in here and saying this kind of crap to us? Do you think you’re funny? Or are you just a complete asshole?”

  “Point is, Brad, you and Scooter hung Ryan because he found out you had answers to Professor Van’s exams. First you tried to shut him up by threatening him and then by giving him the answers. But that didn’t work because Ryan wouldn’t take them. He refused to cheat. That pissed you off even more. And it put you in jeopardy—because if Ryan told Van, you two would flunk the course and not graduate. And if you didn’t graduate, Brad, your dad would cut you off. So you cooked up a scheme to make Ryan’s murder look like suicide. You coerced Kim and Heather and Meighan into helping and kept them quiet by threatening to implicate them if they talked. It was a halfway decent plan. And it worked—for a while.”

  Brad and Scooter glanced at each other. I put a five on the bar, stood, and turned toward the door.

  “So what happens now?” Scooter looked bewildered.

  “Did you guys like France?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “It was cool. Why?”

  “Because that’s where you’ll probably do your time.”

  I stepped from the reek and darkness into the afternoon sun.

  eighteen

  When I crossed Kona Street and walked to my car, I heard my name called from behind. It was Scooter, pushing opening the door of the Z Lounge and following me. He jogged across the street and came toward me. Instinctively I popped open the trunk and retrieved my Smith & Wesson—in case Scooter got nasty.

  “Kai, wait,” Scooter stopped a few feet from me. He didn’t look angry. Just kind of confused. “You’ve got it wrong.”

  “Got what wrong?” I stood by my open trunk, gripping the revolver. “You guys are going down for what you did.”

  “I didn’t do it,” he said. “It wasn’t me in Ryan’s room with Brad. It was Heather. She put the rope around his neck.”

  “Who are you trying to kid?” I said, dumbfounded at his stupidity. “Heather was at the pharmacy, complaining of a sore tummy. But actually she’s pregnant, if you don’t already know.”

  “I knew she was pregnant. We all knew. But she wasn’t at the pharmacy when Ryan died—like she told Kim and everyone else. The pharmacy on Rue des Écoles closes at eight. She was in Ryan’s room with Brad. She went to talk with Ryan and asked Brad to go with her, because she was scared about getting caught cheating. They didn’t intend to kill Ryan at first. Just to talk. But Brad got pissed off, like he always does, and knocked Ryan down. His head hit the floor really hard. They didn’t wait to find out if he was passed out or dead. They got a rope from the utility closet, stripped off his clothes, and strung him up. They hung him naked over a photo of Marie to make it look like he killed himself because of her.”

  “Where were you when all this was happening?” I asked, my question inadvertently lending credibility to his story.

  “Asleep in my room. I’d had a few too many already that night and was sleeping it off.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “It’s the truth, man!” Scooter insisted.

  I almost believed him, but said, “It will all get sorted out back in Paris. Better pack your bags.”

  He turned, looking dejected, and walked back to the Z Lounge. Before he got there, the door swung open again. It was Brad. He waited for his friend to reach the door and then punched him in the face. Scooter didn’t go down. He swung back. Before long it was a brawl. Michi came out and screamed. Then she flipped open her cell phone.

  No honor among thieves ...or murderers, I thought as I watched the brawl unfold. Then I heard sirens and saw two HPD cruisers pull up in front of the lounge. Before long the brawl was over and each man was inside a cruiser.

  I followed the cruisers to police headquarters on Beretania Street. When the officers unloaded Brad and Scooter, I would be there. And then I’d catch up with my old pal Fernandez in homicide.

  On the way to the station I remembered Meighan telling me Scooter looked like he’d been
drinking the night Ryan died. Then I became more convinced Scooter was telling the truth. And I kicked myself for not checking out Kim’s story that Heather had gone to the pharmacy that night. An internet search could have easily pulled up addresses and hours of pharmacies near 44 Rue de Écoles.

  The case was not about the two buddies ganging up on Ryan. I had missed some subtle clues. But I’d put the big pieces of the puzzle together. Soon all the little pieces would fall into place too.

  epilogue

  I wish this case had a happier ending. My finding the killers of Ryan Song did not bring him back to his grieving parents. But the torment left their faces when I told them their son did not take his own life—that he had paid with his life for standing up for what he believed in. I assured them that his heartless killers would be brought to justice.

  I met with the Songs over a quiet dinner at their St. Louis Drive home. During the meal they thanked me.

  “When we heard about you from the college,” Mrs. Song said, “we knew that if anyone could prove Ryan didn’t take his own life, it was you.”

  I thanked them for their confidence in me.

  But what especially pleased me was the change in Mr. Song. When he rose from the table to say goodbye, he stood erect with a look of self-assurance in his eyes. He smiled through his pain with a smile that seemed to come from deep within his heart. Nothing could ever compensate for his loss, but he was no longer a broken man. His pride in his son, and himself and his family, had returned.

  Mrs. Song stood at his side when I bid them aloha. She too managed a faint smile as she waved goodbye.