Primitive Secrets

by Deborah Turrell Atkinson

  She knelt down to the fiction shelf, where some of Hamasaki’s favorites rested. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur‘s Court and Huckleberry Finn were bracketed by a couple of William Faulkner’s novels. He had used them often, consulted them for inspiration or humor, depending on his mood. The bottom shelf of the old case held what looked like a complete set of Ogden Nash. Storm smiled; these represented Hamasaki’s sense of humor. You Can‘t Get There from Here.

  She picked one off the middle of the shelf, and opened it. It was signed by the author. Storm pulled another out. It was a signed first edition, too. Hamasaki had little bookmarks stuck between some of the pages. She could probably find some of his favorite witticisms here. She felt close to him, in a happy way, for the first time since he’d died.

  Storm reached for Yoa CanTt et There from Here, set it down, and glanced up because the rest of the books on the shelf started to lean. The shifting line of books left a triangular gap, in which Storm saw a metallic glint. She pulled out Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom. A small, stainless steel inset was concealed at the back of the shelf.

  She pulled out a few more books on each side of the gap she’d created and picked up the little key. It fit easily in the hole and turned with the click of modern, well-designed carpentry. The base of the bookshelf glided toward her knees. It was a drawer, its cracks completely hidden in the curved wood of the old case.

  The drawer was heavy, stuffed with hanging files labeled only with initials. There was “S.K.” Storm pulled it out.

  In the folder was a stack of letters from Hamasaki to Sergeant Mendoza in Waimea. Surprise slammed into Storm’s chest. This was the material she’d been searching for. But it was her own history, a chronicle of her own missteps. And now that she’d found it, she was afraid of what she’d see. Chewing a hangnail on one thumb and barely daring to breathe, she began to read.

  Hamasaki, in order to keep her from being tried in juvenile court for the alleged cultivation of marijuana for sale, had filed semi-annual reports to Waimea Police Chief Allen Leong and Sergeant Mendoza. The letters, complete with academic records, stopped after her second year of college.

  She remembered those days. Hamasaki used to harangue her to make the dean’s list. She had bitched and moaned, complained about his nit-picky obsessions, and done it. Now she knew part of the reason he’d bugged her so relentlessly.

  Tucked into her college records was a hand-written report signed by an E.L. Benning. Storm had never heard the name before. Dated the fall of Storm’s junior year in college, the notes documented an affair Mendoza was having with a twenty-year-old woman he’d arrested for shoplifting at Safeway.

  Storm gulped. The woman’s name was familiar. She had been a high school classmate. Wow. Hamasaki had gotten dirt from this guy Benning. And used it.

  She drew a ragged breath and stuffed the file under the stack she planned to take home. Steadying herself, she peeked back into the drawer. “U.” Who would that be?

  Her eyes grew wide when she saw the Unimed logo on the first page. Hamasaki, as a potential investor, had requested an auditor’s report of business at the Hawai’i hospital. The letter Storm read referred him to corporate headquarters in Seattle for the annual report to the stockholders.

  The next pages revealed that Hamasaki had seen this as a brush-off. Several sheets from a legal pad were covered with his hand-written notes, in his own version of shorthand. Lorraine and Storm were among the few who could decipher it. Lorraine was a lot better at it than Storm, but Storm could make out most of the words.

  Hamasaki commented on O’Toole’s reaction to Hamasaki’s questions about the lack of functioning large diagnostic equipment at the hospital. “O’Toole clammed up when I asked him. After March’s incident, he’s hanging by a spider web. They only know about the booze. How many more lives, in addition to our long friendship, do I ruin if I blow the whistle on his addiction to codeine analogs? Two young kids. Poor Arlene.” Hamasaki had written the last five words in an anguished longhand.

  Storm gaped at the notes. So Hamasaki did know O’Toole was incompetent. Her father had been right. Hamasaki had held on for old time’s sake and for O’Toole’s family. His first wife and Bitsy were friends. It was a sad story, but not enough of a reason for creating this file.

  She turned to the next page. More notes, in different handwriting. Storm flipped to the end. The last page was signed by E.L. Benning, apparently Hamasaki’s spook.

  The man had written his conclusions in a four-page summary with an invoice attached. According to his report, Unimed filed requisitions two years ago to fund large equipment expenditures. They did it again in January of this year. As before, they requested eight and a half million dollars for an MRI scanner, two CT scanners, and salaries for five technicians. Benning found by checking the diagnostic radiology department and talking to several hospital staff members that the hospital had never received any new machinery.

  Over eleven million dollars had been deposited in one of Unimed’s accounts in February, after the most recent membership drive for the Hawai’i branch of the health maintenance organization. Corporate headquarters had kicked in another five million, designated for the purchase of hospital equipment. Benning noted that Unimed used several accounts.

  He related that of the recent deposit, all but $12,000 had been transferred to Unimed’s purchasing department. According to hospital records, the money was then wired to manufacturer’s accounts, but when Benning checked with the equipment manufacturers themselves, they claimed to have never received it, neither in February of this year, nor two years ago.

  The last page reported that Benning couldn’t find the money. His instincts told him that it had been wired out of the country, possibly to Hong Kong, but he had no proof of this having happened.

  The money was missing. And it was a staggering amount. Storm stopped to think. So many people close to Hamasaki needed money. His older son, stressed about keeping his restaurant going. But how could David have had anything to do with Unimed? Same for Martin. He urged a major investment in Unimed stock, wanted his father to be forced to admire his acumen, but where did Martin fit with some kind of purchasing scam?

  Someone at the office? What about Wang and his twin obsessions: keeping his mother at home, giving her dignity, and his jade collection. Both drank up dollars. Wang could have pulled this off, could have drugged Hamasaki quite easily.

  But maybe the money was merely a distraction. Martin had another reason for anger toward his father, his relationship with Chris DeLario. If Hamasaki had his own private investigator track her life, wouldn’t he have turned Benning loose on his own children as well? Setting the “U” folder aside, Storm thought for a moment, then turned back to Hamasaki’s desk.

  Chapter 36

  There was a quicker way to track Hamasaki’s actions. Storm pulled open the pencil drawer again and withdrew the checkbook she’d seen. The checks were printed with only Hamasaki’s name. Chances were good even Aunt Bitsy didn’t know about this account, though Lorraine probably did.

  Storm thumbed through the balance record. The account wasn’t new; the checks went back fifteen years. He didn’t use it often, and E.L Benning’s name appeared again and again. She’d been right. Storm went to the most recent entries and looked for Benning’s last bill.

  Surprise checked her next breath. The check for $1375.06 was made out to the Hualalai Resort and dated June twentieth. The $500 was to cash, as she’d suspected, but there was another check, made out to Benning for $616.88 and marked “expenses.” It was dated June twenty-second, the day before Hamasaki’s death.

  She sat back in Hamasaki’s chair. Hamlin was correct. Hamasaki knew about Martin and Chris. In fact, he had sent Benning to spy on them during their stay at the Hualalai Resort. Even as Bitsy went to help Martin and Chris confront Hamasaki with their “news,” Hamasaki was ahead of them.

  Storm sat unmoving, listened to the hum
of the air conditioner, and shivered. The office seemed very cold. She ruffled the check register numbly and thought, not for the first time, that Hamasaki should have let his children live their own lives. He had taught her the value of information and getting the scoop in business, but he hadn’t separated work from family. He hadn’t learned to trust his children’s decisions, to allow them to make their own mistakes and recoup their own losses.

  Of course, his intervention had probably saved her from doing time in some juvenile home. But according to Michelle, their father was harder on the three of them than he had ever been on her. Storm had come to the family as a teenager with a well-developed personality. One which, according to Aunt Maile, Hamasaki felt was similar to his own.

  Michelle was right. After his children left the house and started to pay their own way, their father should have backed out of their affairs. Storm sat back in the deep leather chair. With a flash of insight, she was struck with one of the enigmas of parenthood. How does one learn to let go? He was a manipulator by nature. And he wanted the best for his children.

  Fatigue hit Storm like a rogue wave. She felt flattened; her temples pounded and her limbs moved like cast iron. She dragged herself back to the bookcase drawer and flipped through the tabs on the files. There was one labelled “M.” Must be either Martin’s or Michelle’s. Storm sighed. More stuff that she probably didn’t want to know about. She was going to have to pull out the whole bloody drawer and take it home.

  She sighed. Reading through this was going to be no fun at all. Maybe she should burn the stuff without ever looking at it. With a sigh dredged from the bottom of a melancholy heart, she knew that she couldn’t do that. The key to Hamasaki’s killer lay here. It was time to pack them up and go tell Hamlin that they could leave.

  Storm stood up, certain that she’d heard footsteps in the hallway. She’d left Hamasaki’s door partly open in case Hamlin checked on her. She didn’t want even him to see this file, though. Shoving the drawer closed and locking it, she checked the floor for anything she might have dropped, and went back to the desk. She crammed the checkbook back into the pencil drawer and locked it, too.

  Of course, it could be Meredith, coming by to do some moving after office hours. According to Hamlin, she loved to work nights. Too late to close Hamasaki’s office door, she sat under the bright lights at the desk and decided on the excuse she would give Meredith for having the keys to her new office.

  She squinted in surprise at the swaggering approach of a broad-shouldered shape in the dark hallway. Definitely not Meredith, or even Hamlin. Tight jeans, black leather jacket. What in the world was Christopher DeLario doing here?

  With a jolt, she realized that she still held not only the key to the desk, but the two keys to the bookcase. She shoved them into her shorts pocket.

  “Chris, what are you doing here?”

  “Did you find it?”

  “Find what?”

  DeLario looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week. His face was grim and pale and no longer held the handsome warmth she’d noticed merely two days before. The tremor in his hands was even worse. Strands of hair had come free from his ponytail and fell in unkempt strands across his forehead. His bloodshot eyes darted around the room, then fell on the mahogany file cabinet, where Storm had left the bottom drawer open.

  “Let’s get Hamlin. He’s right down the hall.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He turned away and knelt before the file drawer. “He hasn’t told you?”

  “About what?” Storm walked over to him. “Hey, Chris, those are client files. They’re private. What are you looking for?”

  DeLario stood up and faced her. His jaw muscles were knotted with anger and his powerful shoulders hunched under his jacket. Storm tried not to back up.

  “Maybe the same thing you are. The files Hamasaki used to make everyone dance to his chosen tunes.” His voice shook with barely controlled fury.

  He squatted again and ruffled through the bottom drawer, then stood and opened the top drawer.

  “Stop.” Storm put her hand on his arm.

  DeLario recoiled as if she’d used a cattle prod on him. He swung at her hand, batting it away with a smack.

  Storm lurched backward. “C’mon, you wouldn’t want someone going through your private things.” She tried to keep her voice calm.

  “Get out of my way, Storm.”

  “Look, Chris. I have to move his stuff out of this room. If I find them, I’ll call you or Martin.”

  After the last entry in Hamasaki’s checkbook, she didn’t doubt that DeLario had a file. It was probably in the “M” folder, which she’d just crammed back into the hidden drawer. Maybe she should just give the file to him. But then he’d see the rest, the information on Unimed and incriminating details she hadn’t even read through yet.

  He turned back to the file drawer, shrugged out of the leather jacket, and threw it to the carpet. The armpits of his tee-shirt were stained with perspiration and the acrid odor of stale, unhealthy sweat saturated the room.

  “Chris, I won’t show it to anyone else. I promise.”

  He turned back to her and stared. “He hated me. Why should I believe anything you say?”

  “Because I like you and I love Martin. And I don’t agree with some of the things Hamasaki did, even though I, well, I loved him, too.”

  DeLario locked his bloodshot eyes on hers. Storm swallowed hard. His hands shook as he reached down to pick his jacket up from the floor.

  Hamlin’s voice caused both of their heads to turn. “She means it, Chris. Let’s go, I’ll call Martin to come get you.” He leaned against the doorframe, his face pale and miserable.

  “Why would you help me?” DeLario’s voice cracked.

  Hamlin gazed back at DeLario and Storm could feel a current pass between the men. She had ceased to exist for them at that moment.

  “Chris, some people would find your actions merciful,” Hamlin said softly.

  “Not you.”

  “You’re right. I couldn’t do it.”

  Storm looked back and forth, openmouthed, from one man to the other. What the hell was this about?

  “You called me a murderer,” DeLario whispered.

  “I was wrong, Chris.” Hamlin’s voice shook. “Forget it, please. He was dying. What was a day or two? We’ve both got to go on from here.”

  “I can’t.” DeLario made a choking noise. “I came here last Sunday to talk to Martin’s father, to explain about Neil. The old man’s mind was closed. He only saw what he’d guessed as a means of turning Martin away from me. He wouldn’t listen, hardly seemed to hear me. Maybe he’s succeeded anyway.” DeLario, voice cracking, stumbled out of the room.

  “Chris,” Hamlin called out. The door down the corridor banged closed and Hamlin sagged against the wall.

  “Jesus,” Storm said. “He told you he killed Neil. And Hamasaki knew it?”

  Hamlin nodded. “With an overdose. It would have been so easy to do. Neil was on enough morphine to finish off any of us.” He wiped his face with a shaking hand. “I should have guessed, but I didn’t want to know. What difference would it have made, anyway?”

  Storm couldn’t answer. It might have made a difference. It might have saved both Hamlin and DeLario a lot of suffering. And now Martin.

  Hamlin looked sick. “Storm, I need to go home. Can we leave soon?”

  “Sure, give me ten minutes. I need to gather up all these things to carry to the car.”

  “I’ll be back to give you a hand. I’m going to phone Martin and tell him Chris is in a bad way.”

  A flash of understanding hit Storm. “What’s he using?”

  Hamlin looked at her with gloomy, shadowed eyes. “Probably crystal meth. Who knows?”

  “Does he do it often?” She was sure she’d seen him when he was perfectly straight.

  Hamlin’s shoulders slumped. “Often enough, especia
lly if he’s depressed. Maybe that’s in Hamasaki’s file, too.” He gave a sigh that was almost a moan. Storm watched him leave the glow of light from the office and head down the darkened hall.

  Chapter 37

  Storm paced around the office, her thoughts whirling. Why would DeLario lie? Could he in fact lie in his present shape? So, rule out DeLario and the family. Who killed Hamasaki? He’d written S.O. in his daily planner for the meeting the night he died. Maybe Hamasaki had confronted Sidney O’Toole about the effects of his drug addiction on his patients and family. God knows, O’Toole had access to barbiturates.

  O’Toole didn’t strike her as organized enough to cover his tracks after murdering his life-long friend, though Storm could see him doing it as an addled act of desperation. But what would O’Toole have to do with fraudulent purchase orders? Plus, she didn’t think he would have been able to sit and commiserate with Aunt Bitsy if he’d done the killing. His grief and confusion seemed genuine the morning of Hamasaki’s death. Still, Storm reminded herself, he hadn’t wanted an autopsy. Maybe she wasn’t giving him enough credit for deviousness.

  She rubbed her temples. A headache was probing the back of her eyeballs and moving across the crown of her skull. Contemplating the motives of people she’d once trusted was making her nauseous.

  It was easy to get drugs on the street if one had the contacts and knowledge. Anyone could have gotten hold of the pills. She didn’t know about Meredith, but Wang, O’Toole, and Sherwood Overton were all familiar with drugs and their administration. For that matter, David Hamasaki knew about injectable drugs, too, and was desperate for the trust fund he thought was due him. Even Hamlin knew how to use a needle. And Bebe had said he was hiding something. But now she knew what it was.

  She was missing an important piece of information. Like Benning, she still needed to follow the money. Unlocking the desk drawer again, she reviewed the checks written to the P.I. Then she walked over to the hidden files and reopened them. Where were his P.I.’s notes? Right, in the file marked “U.”