by Chip Hughes
The doctor puts his hands on his hips, looking impatient.
“Stay behind me,” I tell Marie. “And keep your eyes on your feet. You should be okay.”
“I can handle myself,” she insists.
As we step off the trail, the view of Moloka‘i across the channel grows crisper.
Dr. Grimes hobbles down the slope—the dark sea far below—heading toward the lighthouse. Kula pulls on the leash. He’s still excited. I turn back and see Marie shaking her head.
“I don’t believe this,” she says again, loud enough for the doctor to overhear.
“Let’s wait and see,” I whisper back.
Dr. Grimes seems to know where he’s going. We follow him at a distance.
As we edge down the cliff, getting closer to the lighthouse, another mongoose darts across the path ahead. Kula doesn’t see it. Good thing. The dog could pull me off my feet. And down the cliff I’d go.
We pass beneath the lighthouse. The cliff gets steeper. One false step and any one of us could tumble.
Dr. Grimes struggles on. He’s a slow and unsteady hiker. After another twenty yards of twists and turns, he steps off the path. There is barely enough room for the three of us to stand, and an ominous view of the ocean far below.
He gestures to a small clearing. “This is the spot.”
“Where’s the shrine?” Marie scans the trail. Then to me, “I told you he was lying.”
On the upslope side of the trail he removes what looks like a camouflage net. Under it, sure enough, is what looks like a makeshift shrine. It’s been several years since Mrs. Ho died and the shrine is looking weathered and beaten. But some artifacts remain.
“This is where she kept vigil,” the doctor says. “And this is where she probably jumped.”
Marie and I step forward, Kula leading the way, to get a closer look. The shrine is the roadside variety with a dusty photo of an adolescent boy in a waterproof frame, some dead flowers and plastic flowers, a miniature toy surfboard, and a few other knickknacks that look like they might have been meaningful to Marie’s mother.
Kula sniffs the shrine. Marie stoops down and picks up something small and faintly gleaming. “That’s my brother’s high school ring,” she says. “And a photo of him with my mom. And another with his girlfriend.”
“I told you so,” her stepfather says.
Marie approaches him angrily. “You killed her!”
I stand between the two of them. “Keep your distance,” I tell Marie and peer down. The drop must be four hundred feet, easy.
Gazing at this craggy cliff from which Beatrice Ho may have plunged sends chills up my spine.
I turn to the doctor. “If you didn’t kill your wife, why did you lie to HPD about coming to O‘ahu that night?”
“I did bring my boat to O‘ahu,” he finally admits. “And I did borrow Kitagawa’s car. But not to harm my wife in any way. I didn’t even see her that night.”
I hear rustling in the kiawe brush. Another mongoose? Kula snaps to attention.
“Then why didn’t you tell Fernandez?”
If I told him the real reason I came, he would have suspected me even more.”
“Another lie,” Marie says angrily. “You killed her.”
“I came to see someone else,” he says.
“Who?” I ask.
Before he can answer Kula takes off after a flash across the trail. I grab for the golden’s leash but it’s already beyond my reach. I make quick eye contact with Marie who’s standing close to Dr. Grimes. She gives me a nod that she’s okay.
I rush after Kula. He finally stops and sniffs the spot where a mongoose was apparently last seen. I catch up to him and grab his leash.
“C’mon, boy,” I say. “Maybe next time.”
Before I can turn and hike back to the cliff-side shrine, Dr. Grimes lets out a shriek behind me and then I hear a little avalanche of pebbles and shards rolling down the cliff. When I pick my way with Kula back to the shrine, Marie is standing alone. She’s shaking. The doctor is nowhere in sight.
“Where’s your stepfather?” I ask her.
She points, her hand trembling, down the steep slope to the ocean. I gaze far below. At first I don’t see him. Then I do. He’s a mere speck in the rolling surf. He’s floating. Face down.
“What happened?”
“He fell,” she says
You mean he just tumbled down?”
“Not exactly. When your back was turned he came for me. I knew not to trust him.”
“And?”
“I gave him an elbow to the side of his head. He keeled over and lost his balance.”
“And then he fell?”
“Yes, that’s how it happened.” Then she says, “I know I promised you, but it was either him or me. And it wasn’t going to be me this time.”
I stand there not knowing what to think, much less what to say.
She reaches her trembling hand into her purse, pulls out a cigarette and lights it. “God, if I ever needed a smoke, it’s now.”
I gaze at her, speechless.
Then she says, “He killed my mother. He killed Pierre. And he molested me. He would have spent the rest of his life in prison. So maybe this isn’t the worst thing that could have happened to him.”
“Maybe,” I say. And wish I felt more convinced.
thirteen
Friday, April 12. 8:25 a.m. I’m sitting across from Frank Fernandez in his office at HPD headquarters on Beretania Street. He’s already interviewed Marie Ho. Now it’s my turn.
I've never met with Frank this early in the morning. He's kind of a night person. But this is a special occasion. A dead man was found floating yesterday at the foot of the Makapu‘u cliffs. The dead man happens to be my former client and Marie’s stepfather. We happened to be hiking with him on the cliffs when he plunged to his death. So naturally Frank wants to chat with both of us as soon as possible.
Frank looks not quite so upbeat as the last time I saw him. Considering he’s marrying the pet detective, I’m surprised. His dark moods are nothing I want to deal with this morning.
“Okay, Kai.” He peers at me with tired and brooding eyes. “I want to know what happened up there yesterday on the Makapu‘u cliffs. Marie has told me the same story over and over. Can you corroborate? Can you shed some light?”
“I wish I could, Frank,” I say. “I was twenty yards away. My back was turned. I was chasing Kula who was chasing a mongoose.”
“That’s another thing we need to talk about, Kai.” Frank gives me a stern look. “We’ve got to get that yellow dog back to Maile. She’s beside herself. It’s already affecting our relationship.” He frowns.
“Sure, Frank.” I try to mollify him, wondering if he spent last night on her couch. I know that couch well. “We can talk about Kula. Maybe after all this business with the late Dr. Grimes.”
“Let’s do that,” he replies. I doubt he personally cares whether the dog returns or not. Frank just wants to keep his fiancée happy.
“Like I said, I saw nothing except the doctor floating in the ocean below.”
“C’mon, Kai. We’ve known each other a long time. We haven’t always agreed on everything, but I’ve always been straight with you. And I’ve always expected the same from you.”
“Frank, I heard him shriek and I heard some rocks rolling down the slope. But by the time I turned around he was gone. And she was standing there alone.”
“Any words pass between them?”
“Not that I heard.”
“Wouldn’t you think, Kai, if the two of them—Marie and her stepfather—had an argument there would have been some shouting, some name calling, some threats that you would have overheard?”
“She said he came for her, she felt threatened, and she gave him an elbow. Her stepfather might not have said anything. And she—based on her past experience with him—may have sprung into action without saying a word.”
“Could be,” Frank says, but he doesn’t sound conv
inced.
“Did Marie tell you what happened when she was a teenager?”
“She did.”
“Okay. Well there you have it. The man harmed her before and she had every reason to suspect he would harm her again.”
Frank scratches the stubble on his chin. "Funny thing," he says. "I looked up Marie Ho's birthday, February 29. She's a leap-year baby, you know. Guess who was born on exactly the same day? Aileen Wuornos—one of the most notorious female killers in the annals of American crime. All her victims were men known to her—if you get my drift.”
"So?" Fernandez seems to be grasping at straws.
"Aileen had a background similar to Marie's: orphaned, sexually abused, and mad as hell about it."
"I doubt Aileen was an heiress," I say. “And I can’t believe Marie had anything to do with the deaths of her two boyfriends. Directly, that is.”
“What about the two boyfriends?” Frank’s tired eyes open wide.
“It’s not worth going into,” I say. “I’ve been over that ground myself.”
“Let’s talk about them later. Right now I want to know what happened on the cliff yesterday.”
“If I could help you, Frank, I would. I’ve told you everything I witnessed. I’m in the same boat you are—I can believe her story or not. But hers is the only story we have.”
“That’s about the size of it,” he says. “Even if I wanted to charge her, I’ve got nothing to stand on. And could you imagine her telling a jury about her stepfather’s abuse?”
“The prosecutor could try to exclude that information from the trial. Or include it and make it look like a motive for murder.”
“Yeah, but Marie Ho has millions to buy the best defense attorneys in the country. They’d find a way to get her off. So we’d spend a lot of tax payers’ money to try her and we’d lose.”
“That’s the way it looks to me too.”
"Of course, with him gone she gets back the Ho family estate in Portlock," Frank says. "He was legally entitled to live there until the end of his life. Which came abruptly yesterday."
"I suppose that could be another motive," I reply, "in addition to the years of abuse."
Frank shrugs. “The man wasn’t exactly an eagle scout. A psychiatrist abusing his own teenage stepdaughter?”
“No. He wasn’t an eagle scout,” I agree. “And I like him for murder too. Maybe two murders—one in Hawai‘i, one in Paris.”
“He was no doubt a molester,” Frank says, “but he wasn't a murderer.”
“No? Not here or in Paris?”
“I got another call from Lieutenant Monet.”
“Monet, like the painter?” I smile.
“Yes, Kai. Monet like the painter.” Frank doesn’t smile back. “Anyway, Lieutenant Monet advised me that I could cease my investigation of Dr. Grimes and of you, by the way, because they have arrested and charged their prime suspect in the hit-and-run death of one Pierre Garneaux in Paris. The suspect’s name is Gustave Beauchamp of Lyon, France. Lieutenant Monet tells me the evidence is iron clad.”
“Iron clad?” I remember the story Pierre’s sister Nicole told me about Beauchamp and his vendetta against her father that Beauchamp took out on Pierre. It seemed farfetched at the time, but apparently not. “So Dr. Grimes didn’t hire me to find Pierre in order to have him killed?”
“Right,” Frank says. “Grimes may have even had his stepdaughter’s best interests at heart. Sometimes when we get older, we regret things we did in our past and try to make amends.”
“It’s hard to believe,” I say.
“The two guys Beauchamp hired to kill Pierre were apparently already watching your French professor guide, hoping she would lead them to Marie and her boyfriend. Then you arrived and steered them to their target. Completely unawares, of course.”
Frank may unfortunately be right. I remember that grey Citroën following me around Paris. Not hired by Dr. Grimes, but by Gustave Beauchamp. In any case, I guess I became their unwitting spotter.
“So Dr. Grimes is clear of the murder in Paris,” I reply, “but what about the murder on the cliffs of Makapu‘u?’
“It wasn’t murder, like I told you in the beginning, Kai. It was an unattended death. She either fell or jumped.”
“But you didn’t know Dr. Grimes was on O‘ahu the night his wife died. You didn’t know she had asked him for a divorce, after Marie told her about Grimes’s abuse.”
“You’re right,” Frank grudgingly admits. “We didn’t know those things at the time. But we came to the right conclusion anyway.”
“Then how do you account for the doctor being on O‘ahu that night when he claimed to be on Moloka'i?”
“Remember I told you about the Ho’s former dog walker named Krystal who was at a Yes concert that night at Blaisdell Arena?”
“Yes, I remember. The British band.”
“Right,” he says. “I just spoke with Krystal this morning. She broke up with Grimes a while back after a second patient accused him of sexual assault. That second case is apparently still pending. Anyway, Krystal finally admitted that Grimes was with her the night Mrs. Ho died. Krystal explained that she and the doctor usually spent weekends together on Moloka‘i.”
“I knew that,” I say.
Frank rolls on. “This particular weekend was not only the Yes concert but also Krystal’s birthday. So Grimes snuck away from Moloka‘i after dark and under almost a full moon and piloted his boat in calm conditions to Hawaii Kai Harbor.”
“To Dr. Kitagawa’s extra boat slip,” I add.
“Right. Grimes didn’t arrive soon enough to make the concert. And I don’t see him as a Yes groupie, anyway. He met Krystal later that night at the Kahala Hotel. They spent the night together, she now claims, and he left her before dawn and took his boat back to Moloka‘i. She says he didn’t tell us back then because their relationship would look too much like a motive to want his wife dead.”
“Grimes was about to tell me yesterday at Makapu‘u,” I explain. “He said he had come to O‘ahu that night to see someone, but not his wife. Marie didn’t believe him. But before he could tell us, Kula took off after that mongoose and that was the last I saw of the doctor. Well, I did see him again, in the surf below.”
“Too bad he wasn’t able to tell you.”
“What about Davidson Loretta, Mrs. Ho’s estate attorney? Could he have gone to the cliffs and pushed her?”
“No chance,” Frank says. “I spoke with Loretta again after our lunch at The Wharf. I was curious. Turns out, he now admits he was entertaining a lady in his room all night at the Halekūlani.”
“A lady?” I ask.
“Yes, a lady not his wife. That’s why Loretta put his male friend up to providing the alibi. Bottom line: There’s no way Loretta goes to the cliffs of Makapu‘u that night.”
“How much time would Dr. Grimes have served if Marie brought abuse charges?”
“That’s not my department,” Frank says. “At minimum he would become a registered sex offender, which might ruin his practice. But it’s hard to say.”
“You were right about Mrs. Ho’s death,” I say.
“That’s not what her daughter wants to hear. But we still have no reason to suspect foul play.”
I shake my head.
“None of us are right all the time,” Frank says. “Not even me.”
“Not even you,” I echo his words.
“By the way, would you make sure Marie sticks around? I doubt we will charge her, but I don’t want her leaving the island until we finish our investigation.”
“Sure,” I say. “I wish you and Maile the best.”
He frowns. “Now about that dog—”
“Give me the weekend, would you, Frank? I’ve got a lot to think about. Plus Kula and I are going to hit the waves.”
“Okay, Kai,” he says. “But Monday I want that dog back.”
I rise. “So long, Frank.”
fourteen
On Saturday, April 13, I
take the day off. I drop by Vivienne’s home in Kailua in the afternoon, visit with Marie, and then take Kula surfing. Afterward I return him and remind her not to leave the island until Fernandez gives the okay. Then I spend the evening at the Waikīkī Edgewater.
Later that night I receive a voicemail from the pet detective. It may seem callous, but I don’t listen. I know the subject: Kula. And I’ve told her already, I’m going to keep him as long as she keeps Blitz. Once she gets used to the idea, I’m more than willing to let her visit Kula. Without Blitz.
The weekend goes by and first thing on Monday, April 15, I head into Chinatown. I say good morning to Mrs. Fujiyama, who stands in her customary spot by the cash register, and climb the stairs to the second floor. I part Madame Zenobia’s psychedelic bead curtains and peer into the incense haze. Shirley sits in her wicker throne—flaming red hair, thick mascara, beads and bangles jangling—hovering over her crystal ball.
“Here’s your postcard from nowhere.” I hand her the Eiffel Tower card. “Your crystal was right,” I admit. “I did take a long journey.”
“How about another fortune, Kai?” She moves her hands over the glinting orb. “On the house.”
“No time,” I say, my eyes smarting from the incense. “I've got taxes to mail off by the end of the day.”
I slip into my office. As I try to massage the numbers on my returns, my mind wanders back to the cliffs of Makapu‘u. Frank Fernandez had been right. Beatrice Ho did, in fact, slip or jump. She wasn’t pushed by her second husband, or by anyone else.
Fernandez’ investigation had been flawed—he wasn't at his best—but his conclusions were as correct as we are likely to get. I was able to prove that Dr. Grimes brought his boat from Moloka'i to O'ahu on the night his wife died and borrowed his partner's car, both of which Fernandez entirely missed. The doctor's movements on that evening provided strong circumstantial evidence, along with a presumed motive, that he killed his wife.
Had I interviewed his former girlfriend, Krystal, I might have discovered, as Frank belatedly did, that Grimes made the trip to spend the evening with her on her birthday. In my defense, my client insisted I investigate her stepfather only.