Most of all, Kimo’s personality had changed in the intervening years. The change had been all for the better as far as Laura was concerned. Even with the disaster of the accident hanging over him, Kimo was an adult and a self-composed one. Laura hoped he would appear as a responsible one as well to the judge who would be deciding his fate.
Laura punched on the tape recorder. “Let’s start at the beginning. What’s happened since you left high school?”
Kimo had thought the interview would deal only with the accident, so the question caught him by surprise. He gave a rueful grin. “High school wasn’t all that great for me, as you probably know already. I graduated from Napua. Must have been the year before you finished up at Wanakai.
“Leilani used to tell me how well you were doing. She hoped it would shame me into doing my school work. I guess you know that didn’t have much effect on me. Nothing did. It was girls and cars, as far as I was concerned. More cars than girls, really. The school just graduated me to get rid of me. My social science teacher said the student parking-lot would be a lot quieter with me gone.” Kimo laughed at the memory. “I didn’t tell him I’d already sold my twin-pipe pickup to one of the juniors.”
Laura was pleased both by his articulateness and his lack of any pretense at glossing over his bad school record. It was nice to see him so relaxed and at ease after the first few tense moments. It must have been quite a shock to him when he found out who his attorney was, she thought.
“Roger Kekua and me couldn’t wait to get out of school. We took off for the Mainland, and a job with his uncle’s construction company, the same day we finished school. I learned a lot working there, and I guess there are worse jobs. After Roger decided to come back home, I went into the service. I ended up in Texas. God! What an awful place. Sage brush, and flat as far out as the eye can see. We even had dust storms.
“If you think it gets dry around here, you should see the land around that miserable, godforsaken camp. Then I got stationed in Panama. I liked that. It was sure nice to see the ocean again, and the people were great. And Panama City wasn’t all that bad compared to Los Angeles and Fort Worth. Then my group suddenly got picked up and shipped off to the Gulf. Phew! It was even worse there than Texas, and we were being shot at besides. That’s what decided me to get out as soon as my enlistment was up. The army’s got a few things to recommend it in peace time, but war’s not my bag.”
“How was your record in the service?”
Kimo shrugged. “No problems. I came out clean. I even picked up three stripes along the way.”
“Do you have any record on the outside?”
“Uh-uh. Nothing to speak of, anyway. Couple of speeding tickets in California. One in Texas. That’s all.”
“I’ve checked with the police, here. They have nothing on you prior to this accident. Are you sure there isn’t anything hanging around they may have missed? It’s important for us to get such stuff out rather than to have the prosecution do it for us.”
“Nothing. Maybe I was lucky, but I’ve never been arrested for anything, up until now.”
“OK. Let’s move on to the night of the accident. Where were you coming from? How much did you have to drink?
“I was at Roger’s house. Kevin Laramie was there, too. I don’t know if you know him. He’s a big haole guy–—been on Elima for the past fifteen years or so. He came from the Big Island originally. He’s a truck dispatcher out at the plantation. He’s done a lot of construction, too. Same kind of work Roger and I did on the Mainland. We sat around and talked story until after eleven when Kevin had to go to work. I drove him home, and then I took him out to the plantation office. >From there I came back and got lost in the new subdivision. That’s where the accident happened.”
“How much did you drink?” Kay reminded him of her question.
“I drank about a six pack, but it was spaced out over five or six hours, and I’d eaten one of Auntie Leilani’s big meals just before that. I didn’t feel drunk, not at all.” Kimo moved along to a description of the accident.
“Are you sure he was dead?”
Kimo acted annoyed. “The police kept after me about that. Hell, I was on grave detail in Iraq. We were stacking bodies up like ratoons the first day we crossed the border. I know a corpse when I see one. His head was off at an impossible angle.” Kimo tried to lay his head flat down on his right shoulder to illustrate. “His shirt was soaked with blood. The bumper must have caved in his chest, or maybe that’s where the wheels went over him.”
Laura winced inwardly at the image Kimo had conjured up. “How fast were you driving?” Laura was checking the police report as she asked the question.
“No more than ten or fifteen miles an hour. I was trying to wipe the rain off the windshield, because I couldn’t hardly see out. The wiper wasn’t working. That’s why I was going real slow. Besides, I was trying to figure out where I was.”
“How long was it before you got in touch with the police?”
“About ten minutes, I’d guess. I can’t be sure. I went to the nearest house and knocked, but no one answered. I was near the end of the block, so then I went around the corner to the next house. It took me a while to get anyone up there. Some old guy showed up, finally. He didn’t want to let me in at first.
“I can’t say as I blame him. I must have been pretty wild-eyed by then. He made me stay on the porch while he put in the call to the police. When he got back from phoning he let me in, and I tried to dry off. He seemed to be a real nice guy. I didn’t have time to dry off much, because the cops showed up in about five minutes or so. We went back to my pickup, and that’s when I saw the body was gone.”
“Did the police believe your story?”
“You mean, did they believe I’d hit someone? Yeah, they believed I’d hit someone or some animal. There were plenty of signs I did. The right fender on the rig is all bashed in, and the headlight is busted. The rain had about let up, so there was still some blood on the street and under the truck.. I think they suspected I was drunk because they couldn’t believe I’d actually seen a dead body lying there. That’s part of the reason they ran the drunk test on me.”
Laura nodded. “According to the report, it was definitely human blood. They’ve found pieces of cloth and blood on that smashed fender. They’ve checked all the residences in the area, and there’s no one hurt or missing. Unless they find a body somewhere, the only charge against you is a DUI.”
“What if they do find a body?”
“Then it will be negligent homicide in the first degree, and an awful lot of questions about how a corpse could have gotten up and walked away.”
***
It was Sid who volunteered to go along with Laura to the accident site. Laura would have much preferred to have had one of the other attorneys go with her, but Qual was at the courthouse filing an appeal on an earlier case. Kay was closeted with a client.
“I sure don’t recognize any of this,” Laura said, looking around as they pulled into the subdivision.
“It’s not surprising. It all went up almost overnight about three years ago. From what I hear, it’s a really shoddy job. The roofs have blown off of a couple of the houses. The ground was never treated under most of them, and the termites are already taking over. I saw a couple of buildings tented just last month. Bill Kuroyama is representing some of the other owners who must have gotten double doses of termicide to make up for the houses which didn’t get any. They claim the sub-contractor just poured the poison all over their property. Bill says his clients are getting sick as hell as a result and can’t even stay in the houses.
“Between cutting corners and just generally screwing up, the original developer left behind a real mess. Even so, the prices are godawful according to Ron Crockett. He’s a friend of ours who’s in real estate. Ron says there’s a waiting list for housing, and the developer who’s taken over is going to be putting up more of the same.”
“They sure do look like a new variety of ol
d coffee shack.”
“Here we are,” Sid said, turning into Wiliwili Circle. “This is the street Kimo was on. The report identifies the spot of the accident as nine feet east from pole 32. Kimo said it was in front of the last house before the south end of the loop. This must be it.”
Sid pulled up to the curb in front of a box-like structure with an attached carport. The building with the unpainted metal roof differed from the others on the street only in the color of its walls. It was a dull gray. A tall cyclone fence surrounded most of the grounds and included the walk leading up to the front steps. Only the carport and its driveway were open to the street. The grounds behind the fence were dotted with two-foot high A-frames, stretching out almost to the front door. Each of the miniature structures had its own tethered rooster giving out occasional crows as though to liven up life on a rope. Hens roamed casually among them, scratching at the barren soil and chasing various insects unfortunate enough to have strayed into the yard.
“It’s not hard to figure out who lives here,” said Sid.
Laura nodded. “Filipinos.”
Sid grinned. “The Portuguese are into cockfighting too, you know.”
Laura returned the grin and agreed. “I had an uncle who spent all his waking hours training his roosters.” Saying that, she walked over to the fence and looked through the mesh at the fowl. “Whatever their ethnic group, they’ve got a small fortune in fighting cocks there. I’m sure glad I don’t live next door to them. Can you imagine what it must sound like at five in the morning?”
Wiliwili Circle was in a relatively isolated part of the subdivision. The road’s sharp curve paralleled a deep gulch running through one edge of the project. The gully separated the buildings on one side of the street from the cluster of similar dwellings on the roadway to the west. On the east side of Wiliwili Circle, an empty field of fountain grass and kiawe trees stretched out to the arterial a half-mile or so away. Five houses had been built on the outside of the loop. Another identical house was located immediately around the south corner. Weathered survey stakes, with shreds of orange ribbon attached, indicated four more of the boxes had at one time been planned for the field on the inside of the loop across the street.
Laura surveyed the surroundings. “It’s a blind curve and there’s no crosswalk,” she commented.
Sid was skeptical. “How can that make any difference? All he’s being charged with is a DUI?”
“So far, that’s all he’s being charged with. I’ve got a four o’clock appointment with the prosecutor to be sure. They could add the charge Kimo was involved in an accident.”
“That’s going to be kind of tough for them to do, what with no witnesses, and no accident victim. Even the way the truck is damaged could mean someone ran into it rather than the other way around.”
“It’s best to take no chances,” Laura said, as she took out a yellow pad and began to draw a diagram.
Sid smiled. “You’re already sounding like Kay. That’s a good sign. She never leaves anything to chance. Is there anything else you want to do here?”
“I’d like to go over to there,” Laura gestured with her note pad in the direction of the building around the corner. “That’s where Kimo found someone to call the police. I want to talk to the people there.”
“OK. We’ll still have plenty of time to get to the station. One nice thing about being here on Elima is we get a lot of cooperation from the police. And we do a lot of cooperating back.”
Laura was immediately aware there was an implied though unnecessary warning in Sid’s remarks. What contact she had had with lawyers and police in Honolulu had shown her the worst side of police-attorney relationships. It was a side which was probably typical of metropolitan areas. Here, on Elima, those relationships sounded as though they were far more friendly and informal. Laura was not about to jeopardize that rapport.
“I want you to meet Sergeant Corky Medeiros and Lieutenant Hank DeMello,” Sid continued. They’re in homicide, so if there is a corpse around here somewhere, they’ll be involved.”
“Corky Medeiros? I know her. I’m related to her.”
Sid laughed. “Here I thought Leilani was the only person around who had relatives all over the island.”
“I guess there are advantages to being related to everyone, but there are disadvantages too. It gives people an excuse to pry into everything you do.” Laura paused. “I’ll still take Elima over Honolulu any day.”
Chapter 4
Emil Bautista was finally getting used to his job. It had been a change, a big change, from being in private practice. There were drawbacks, but there were significant advantages too. The best part was not having to chase down business. That had not been his forte. He had heard of established law firms where prospective clients searched them out. That was a dream he knew he would not have attained for years, if ever. At least now, as prosecutor, the work would come to him.
The drawbacks were harder to define. He was in his second month on the job before finding out what was going on. Peter Albrecht, the prosecuting attorney’s law clerk, had seemed cold and distant. It had taken a while to break through the barrier, but Emil finally got him to talking while they sat at the bar in the Law Office Tavern. Emil was drinking coffee, and Peter had a glass of dark ale in front of him.
“If Ikeda hadn’t left, I would have,” Peter said, “and I really mean it. He hit the ground running when he was appointed prosecutor, running for office. That was all he cared about. He’d spout off law-and-order crap at the drop of a hat to impress potential supporters. In the meantime he alienated just about everyone in the courthouse, starting with me. The big mistake he made was crossing the judges. Raines and Wong were patient with him for longer than most judges I know, and sure as hell a lot longer than I would have been.” Peter shook his head at the memories.
“What did he do that was wrong? You don’t get much Elima news over on Maui.”
“What didn’t he do wrong? He started off by protesting Wong’s decisions in open court. Old Owl Eyes tried to stare him down, but Ikeda has a skin like a rhino. He kept at it, and with no justification at all. Christ, but I was embarrassed to have to sit behind him. Raines had a list of eighty-two objections Ikeda raised at one, single homicide trial which lasted less than a week. Her report to the court master was devastating. She showed how ninety-percent of the objections had no substance whatever. She knows her law, and she didn’t pull any punches.
“Both judges pointed out Ikeda’s favorite trick was leading prosecution witnesses and being argumentative with defense witnesses. Actually, he was a lot better at being argumentative than at leading. The way he talked, the witnesses must have wondered where in hell he was leading them to. Half the time I couldn’t understand him myself. He never used a simple word if he could substitute a long and complex phrase for it.” Peter shook his head again and took a deep drink, finishing off his beer.
Emil waited for him to go on, signaling the bartender for a refill while doing so.
Peter passed the back of his hand across his short blond mustache. “It’s funny, you know. He isn’t stupid. He just has incredibly bad judgment. I don’t know. Maybe he figured even bad publicity was better than none. Not that he needed to worry, since his uncle owns the only paper on the Island.”
Peter took a mouthful of beer from his replenished glass before continuing. “I sure missed old Hal Christiansen. He wasn’t the most brilliant guy in the world, but he had the old fashioned notion the job of the prosecutor was to see justice should be done. I don’t think Ikeda would have understood the meaning of such a concept, and I sure couldn’t figure out why Hal recommended him for the job when he retired.”
Later, back in his office, Emil pondered over what Peter had told him. I’m not sure I know what it really means to see justice is done but, from everything I’ve heard about my predecessor, it’s going to be hard to do less in promoting justice than he did.
***
While Sid wandered off th
rough the police station in search of Hank DeMello, Sergeant Corky Medeiros welcomed Laura with an enthusiastic, “Sure I remember you. I was real sweet on your brother.” Wistfully, she added, “He never had the time of day for me.”
He would now, thought Laura. Why is it all the young women I’ve met since I got back to Elima look like movie stars?
Corky might not have actually passed for a movie star, but the slender sergeant had a personality which added a special burnish to her looks. There was a warmth about her radiating out from the fire inside. Whatever else, Corky was a positive personality.
The two of them chatted about relatives who made up the kin connection and about other people they both knew. “I’ve got to warn you about the lieut,” Corky said. “He’s basically a nice guy, but he’s still living back half-a-century. Kay calls him a chauvinist to his face. I will say one thing for him. What she says just rolls right off his back. He never gets sore about it. He’s not going to change, though, no matter what. I finally figured it out. Kay hasn’t.”
Sid came back with the tall, dark haired lieutenant. The small touch of graying hair suited Hank DeMello well. Even the slight paunch added to the aura of maturity which Laura instantly admired. Hank shook her hand warmly and insisted on a first name basis. “It’s great to have nice looking women lawyers. They add just the right feminine touch to the court system.”
Even though not looking directly at her, Laura was still able to see Corky rolling her eyes upwards. Despite herself, Laura appreciated Hank’s comment, though she was convinced he did not believe it for a moment, at least not the part about her looks. When they had settled down in Hank’s office, the projection room of the old theater which the Napua police had taken over as their “new” station, Sid elaborated on the reason for their visit.
“Laura’s in charge of the Kimo Stanner case. We thought you folks might have been called in on it.”
“What a bummer,” Corky commented.
Hank broke in. “The desk sergeant gave me a call because of the possible homicide.”
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