by Toby Neal
“No shit,” he finally said. “Bastard had it coming.”
“Dad. Did you have anything to do with it?”
“Did you?”
“’Course not. I’m a cop, Dad.” She shut her eyes, thinking of Charlie on his knees in front of her, the Glock in her hand—and how close she’d come to pulling the trigger. If she had, she’d never have known if it was an accident. “You, on the other hand, have already killed someone.”
“Self-defense,” he rapped out. He’d never said anything else of his prison killing of Terry Chang, Hilo crime boss. “I think that pervert deserved putting down. I might even imagine killing the man who raped my little girl, but I know better than to get involved with God’s justice. You don’t believe me? I’ll alibi out on this. Been working in the restaurant all day and with your auntie the rest of the time.”
“What about yesterday?”
“Same thing. I’m in California, for Christ’s sake!” His volume climbed, then went low as he seemed to catch himself. “God, give me strength.”
She heard him murmuring. Praying. Lei remembered his fervent Christianity, a “new life” he’d gained in prison. It seemed to have stuck, even two years out. Her father wouldn’t commit murder. Lei envied his certainty, his conviction.
“Okay. Sorry. Must have been someone else.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He hung up.
Lei closed the phone, settled it in her lap. Wondered for a moment if he hadn’t been just a touch too defensive, if that attitude of outrage was to keep her from asking the next question on her lips—had he sent someone else to do it?
She pressed Redial, and this time it went to voice mail. She didn’t leave a message.
Chapter 38
“So ono, Anchara,” Lei said, scraping the bowl for the last of the chicken curry Anchara had made for dinner. “That means delicious, in Hawaiian.”
“Yeah, I could get used to this,” Stevens said.
Anchara ducked her head with a smile. “Thank you.”
She got up as if to clear their places, but Lei waved her down.
“No. Sit. You’ve done enough. We have to show you something.”
Stevens got up and went to the coffee table, picked up the folded photo and brought it to Anchara. He unfolded it in front of her, smoothing the creases. Karen Walker’s green eyes looked up at them, haughty and beautiful.
“Have you seen this woman before?”
The girl’s eyes widened with fear and recognition. “That’s Magda.”
Lei and Stevens exchanged a glance. “When did you see her?” Lei asked.
“She came to look at us when we got off the van the first time, our first time on this island. Celeste and Kimo made us strip at the warehouse. They had us do beauty treatments.” Anchara hid her face behind her hair. Her voice trembled. “When we were all clean and had no hair even down there”—she made a gesture with her hand—“they put us against the wall. Took pictures of our faces and bodies. Then she came in.” She pointed to Walker’s photo.
“What did she do?”
“Looked at us. Said things to do to us to make us prettier. Said to Celeste what kinds of parties to send us to. Then she got out white satin robes and had us put them on.”
“What else?”
“It was the way she did it. Like we weren’t even there. Like we weren’t even people.”
Lei found herself reaching to stack the dishes, clearing the table for something to do as Stevens took another folded color photocopy out of his back pocket. Smoothed it out in front of Anchara.
“What about this woman?”
“No. I’ve never seen her.”
“You sure?”
“No. I would remember.”
Anyone would remember the pale oval of Magda Kennedy’s face, ice-blue eyes contrasting with ebony hair.
“All right,” Stevens said. “We’ve got some confirmation Walker might have been setting Kennedy up. I’ll call Omura with this, and I want to get back over to the jail, see if I can get a confirmation from the purser.” He stood and headed for the door.
“Thanks,” Lei called after his retreating back. “Thanks for understanding.” Her words were rich with meaning, pleading forgiveness. Kwon was still a shadow between them. He strode back and leaned over to kiss her, a little too hard.
“Don’t mention it.”
Those words were a warning.
Chapter 39
Lei sat with the rest of the team the next morning around the big conference table at Kahului Station, a big pink box of sugary malasadas from Komoda’s Bakery as the centerpiece. A whiteboard on the far wall was cluttered with a hand-written timeline, and a series of color photocopies were clipped to the top, beginning with Magda Kennedy. Morgue shots of Jane Doe and Lei’s attempted assassin, deceased in the night, were on the opposite wall. A final, blank sheet ended the row with “THE HOUSE?” printed on it in Stevens’s block writing.
“All right, everyone, let’s begin.” Omura pulled the group to order, and Abe Torufu set down a malasada he’d been about to consume in one bite. Lei scratched under the foam collar and, suddenly frustrated, pulled the Velcro open and eased it off into her lap, earning a sharp glance from Stevens.
Captain Corpuz turned on the video screen on the opposite wall, adjusted the volume on the triangular pickup feed on the table, and in a moment Marcella and Rogers appeared via videoconferencing, nursing Starbucks cups and looking FBI in white button-downs and black jackets.
That outfit must get hot in Hawaii. Lei chalked up the outfit on the mental tally of minuses she was keeping on a move to the FBI.
Omura stepped up to the whiteboard. She used a laser pointer to put an unnerving red dot in the middle of Jane Doe’s forehead. “Let’s do a recap. It all started here. This girl is still unidentified except for a stage name, Vixen, and her Albanian nationality, which she shared with Anchara, our witness in protective custody. We’ve sent inquiries through the INS and Interpol to Albania to see if anyone comes forward to identify her, but so far no-go.”
Lei felt a deep tug of compassion for the anonymous girl who’d died trying to be free.
“Jane Doe’s murder investigation led us to this man.” The red dot bloomed on Silva’s greasy-looking mug shot. “He identified her as one of several ‘escorts’ provided by this man, John Wylie, at a construction job wrap party.” The dot found its next target. “Wylie led us to this woman, gallery owner Magda Kennedy. We brought her in, but we didn’t have anything on her but a business card and Wylie’s say-so, and she’s well protected. Silva also implicated the House.” The dot moved to the blank paper. “That brought in the FBI, who have been working to bring down the House’s crime organization. They were hopeful we could help make a connection, and we began working together.” Omura seemed to have an easy time taking credit for Lei’s work, with a royal “we.” Lei pinched the web of her hand to help stay calm.
“Around that time, attempts were made on Texeira and Stevens’s lives by this man.” The dot pinned the gray face of the dead assassin. “We still don’t know who he is or who he worked for—he never woke up from that coma, and his prints aren’t in the system—but we suspect he’s an agent of the House, who must have decided they were getting too close. Torufu and Bunuelos are heading up the John Doe assassin case.”
The hypnotic dot moved on, zeroing in on Anchara. “Anchara Mookjai, the runaway that escaped with Jane Doe, resurfaced. Her intel gave the go-ahead for the coast guard sweeps that have turned up a cache of girls and money on the Rainbow Duchess in Kahului Harbor and two other ships on the other islands. Texeira was able to capture the ship’s purser, Farrell, who has turned out to be the key to making a connection to the House and to Magda Kennedy, the gallery owner on Maui who ran girls and laundered money for him.”
Omura paused to glance around as if for input or questions, but no one chimed in. She aimed the red dot at the photo of Walker. “When Kennedy was apprehended, she implicated her business manager, Karen
Walker, who’d skipped earlier. Walker appears to have set Kennedy up to take the fall, by conducting all her business with the House and his connections under Magda’s name.
“In fact, when we apprehended Celeste Anderson and Kimo Emmanuel, they identified Walker as Magda, their boss. Rodney Farrell and Anchara also both identified Walker’s photo as the Magda they knew,” Omura concluded.
“Celeste and Kimo also led us to the warehouse in Haiku where the girls originally escaped. We found the current crop of girls there. They’re being processed by INS. The key Texeira found at the original crash scene fit the door and confirms Anchara’s story,” Marcella said, voice tinny in the feed.
“So is Magda Kennedy involved or not?” Captain Corpuz asked.
“Apparently, she was more of a socialite than a businesswoman and let Walker run most of the day-to-day operations. Walker, or Kennedy, encrypted the computers that would have led to the money trail. Farrell, the purser, indicated ‘Magda’ was the money launderer for the House. We have IT division trying to reconstruct something, but it doesn’t look good—and Kennedy is doing a good job of pleading ignorance. We’re still digging.” Omura’s sniff indicated what she thought of the gallery owner, and she went on. “Then, to top it off, Walker stole Kennedy’s Escalade and ran Texeira off the road with it.”
“How do you know it was Walker?” Lei asked.
“We recovered the Escalade, abandoned downtown with trace on it from Texeira’s Tacoma and prints from Walker inside. We’re beginning to wonder if Walker’s just another alias as well,” Omura said.
“Why would she bother? She was on the run; her cover was already blown,” Lei said.
“Don’t know. Maybe she’s just a sore loser,” Pono said. “She should’ve known you’ve got more lives than a cat.”
Lei shook her head. “Been hearing that too much lately,” she said.
Omura clicked off the pointer and gestured to the monitor. “Agents, what’s up on your end?”
“We brought in Ken Taketa, House’s money man.” Marcella’s voice was amplified oddly by the feed, and wavy lines emanated from her dark hair like a demented halo. “He gave us an identity on the House—a prominent businessman in Honolulu, Joseph Millhouse. We did a raid on his mansion last night, but Millhouse had skipped.”
Silence met this bald statement.
“Maybe he and Walker ran off together,” Bunuelos said, and the room erupted in tension-breaking chuckles.
Stevens added, “Probably on Duchess Cruise Lines,” and the chuckles erupted into guffaws.
Omura clapped manicured hands for order. “Not a bad idea. Did we do a BOLO for passengers matching their descriptions for all the cruise ships?”
“Just the airports, I think,” Stevens finally said, and just like that the meeting was over as Captain Corpuz bellowed, “Get the word out to the coast guard NOW!”
The feed cut to the FBI as the agents disappeared. The other detectives scattered.
Lei, still on admin leave for the investigation of her accident, was left sitting at the table contemplating the malasadas with Pono, who had his Oakleys down and a line between his brows.
“Shit. I think they’re going to fucking get away with it all. Probably got a fortune banked in the Bahamas.” Lei sighed and put the foam collar back on.
“Looks that way, but the Feds are after them, coast guard, Interpol…Someone could still bag them.” Pono rubbed his bristling mustache with a forefinger. “When you coming back to work? We got other cases, you know. I miss my partner.”
“I know. Doctor I saw at the hospital said at least a week off work. They’re worried about complications from the concussion I had and then the whiplash. I’m also supposed to start looking for another house for us.” Lei couldn’t put into words how that depressed her and made her head ache. Setting up a home from nothing while Stevens got to go to work seemed like the height of unfair. She’d picked up the morning paper on the way into the meeting and tapped the classifieds. “This is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“Have fun with that. I’ll run you back to the safe house.”
They got up and headed down the bustling hall through the bull pen together. Lei blinked as they emerged into the unrelenting Maui sunshine of the parking lot. Pono led her to his truck. She hopped up into the cab with the help of the chrome step.
“What’s going to happen to Anchara now that the case isn’t going to trial anytime soon?” Pono asked, turning on the engine with a roar.
“I’m working with Omura on a special circumstances visa application. I think she deserves to stay in the States after all she’s been through and how she’s helped with the investigation.”
“I hope she gets it. Poor girl deserves a break.”
“Yeah.”
He dropped her at the gate of the safe house, classifieds in hand. Keiki bounced with happiness to see her. She had just enough energy to walk over to the step and sit down. She worked the dog for a while, practicing various commands.
Anchara came to the door, carrying a knotted T-shirt. “Can I throw this for dog?”
“Her name’s Keiki,” Lei said. “That would be great, tire her out a bit. I can’t throw right now with my neck like this.”
Anchara threw the T-shirt, and Keiki bolted after it. “I like your dog. I scared of her at first.”
“I like her too.” Eventually Keiki flopped down on the top step, tongue hanging as they petted her.
“What’s going to happen to me?” Anchara folded her arms around her knees, her chin resting on them, big doe eyes worried. Lei had to remind herself the girl was twenty-three.
“Working on getting you an emergency green card. I don’t think you need to stay here much longer.”
“I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Well. That makes two of us.” Lei gave a short bark of a laugh. She shook out the rolled-up newspaper. “Let’s check these out together.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Omura’s doing some paperwork for you to get a stipend through Victim Assistance. It’s going to be okay.”
Lei was surprised to feel the Thai girl’s arms reach over the sleeping dog to hug her. “Thanks. You do so much for me.”
“You’re welcome.” Lei’s cell bleeped, and she cleared her throat and detached herself. “Excuse me. This is Texeira,” she answered.
“Lei? Hello, dear. This is Dr. Wilson.”
Her therapist from the Big Island. Lei’s pulse picked up with the combination of tension and anticipation the unconventional therapist evoked in her, even after a year in therapy. “Dr. Wilson, what a surprise! What’s this about?”
“MPD flew me over to do some seminars and I heard you’d had an attempt on your life. Your commanding officer asked me to do your debrief, since I was in town.”
“Wow, that’s great!” Lei said with fake enthusiasm.
Dr. Wilson laughed, the unladylike belly laugh Lei had grown to love. “You bullshitter,” she said. “I’m in a cab on my way.”
“Okay,” Lei said, and closed the phone. “Anchara, I’m going to need some privacy.”
Chapter 40
Dr. Wilson looked the same—ash-blond hair, petite figure in polo shirt and twill skirt, sensible Naturalizer sandals on legs that looked like they played a lot of tennis. She’d added a gold Hawaiian bracelet to her tanned arm, the only change Lei could see. The psychologist sat in the overstuffed recliner and concerned sea-blue eyes took inventory of Lei as she sat on the tweedy couch—an echo of their many sessions in Hilo.
“You look like you’ve been through a war.”
“It was a bad case,” Lei said. “We think there was a hit on me. There were several attempts—hit me with a car while I was out jogging, burned our house down, and ran me off the road in my truck.”
“Oh my God. That must have been horrible.”
“It’s been a lot, yeah.” Tears welled. She got up, began to pace, reached into her pocket and missed her black worr
y stone for the hundredth time. “This foam neck thing is from the last attempt. One of the suspects, Karen Walker, stole a car from her employer, and as part of her ‘scorched earth’ departure, ran me off the road.”
“Jesus,” Dr. Wilson said. “Just when it seemed like things were settling down for you and Stevens.”
“About that. He wants to get married. Gave me the ring again, and you know that’s what freaked me out and sent me to Kaua`i last time. I said I’d wear it on a chain until I knew what to do with it, and I had taken it off in the kitchen when the house burned down.”
Dr. Wilson inclined her head.
Lei swiveled, paced back. “I’ve been trying not to deal with this, but Marcella Scott, my agent friend, has been trying to recruit me for the FBI. I have to make a decision soon. And now I have literally nothing but my dog and my boyfriend stopping me from going.”
“So you feel like all the things that might hold you back have been severed.”
“Not all. I mean, Stevens and I…We’re good.” She felt a blush roar up to prickle her scalp, and she rubbed her head, smiling. “We’re really good. He’s—amazing.” She knew her grin was the sappy lovesick type. “He’s done more to heal me than all the therapy in the world.”
“I can see that. Nothing like the love of a good man to restore what a bad man took.”
“Oh. And about that.” Lei took a breath, blew it out. “I tracked Kwon, my molester.”
“You told me his name. I saw in the news he was shot. Part of why I came here—I wondered if you had anything to do with that.” Calm blue eyes seemed to see into her soul. Lei felt a tingling like heartburn under her sternum. That visit to Kwon could still ruin her life.
“How much of this interview is confidential?” she asked.
“All of it except suicidal or homicidal confessions.”
“Well, I’m bummed you think I could do something like that—but I guess it’s a fair question. The answer’s no. I went over there, gave him a piece of my mind and a taste of the butt end of my pistol, but I left him alive. I’m worried someone’s going to connect me with that, but so far they haven’t.”