by Eric Redman
“So Dad was right.”
“About what?”
“About Slipper Dog. You ought to know.”
“I don’t know. How would I?”
“Oh, come on.”
“We didn’t bug your dad’s place, Detective. We didn’t bug your girlfriends’ places or their phones either. Figured they were entitled to some privacy.”
“But you did bug my place? Tap my phones? Captain Tanaka’s?”
“Well, not your home. Just Tanaka’s. He’s home more than you are. We did bug the meeting rooms at the station, though,” Kimaio added. “We practically tore our hair out, listening to that S&R lawyer. What a bunch of red herrings—bribes, hunters, some old chief.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, well, about Jason Hare: I recruited him here. He knew Thomas Gray.”
“So that was the Vietnam connection.”
“No, Nam was a coincidence. Thomas Gray started Kohala Kats. Jason worked for them for years before this. He really loves cats, knew Thomas Gray well. I persuaded him Ralph murdered Gray, threw him off his own boat, but that we’d never prove it in court.”
“Do you know for a fact Ralph did that?”
“I know it for a moral certainty. Don’t you?” Kimaio waited. “Well, don’t you? C’mon, Detective—you’re the one who told me about Occam’s Razor.”
“Only because you tapped my phones.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. Anything more you want to know?”
Kawika’s unease spiked sharply. He remembered Sam Spade: “Try to keep your man talking.”
“What about Rocco?” Kawika asked. “Did you think he’d survive that drop?”
Kimaio gave a disgusted laugh, and a spasm of coughing followed. Then he spoke softly. “Rocco was a projectile. I was trying to hit Cushing.”
“Why?” Kawika asked. “Couldn’t trust the system to deal with him?”
“That wasn’t it.” Kimaio sounded surprised. “I do trust the system when it works. I just wanted to get away clean. I might have, with Rocco and Cushing both dead. But Cushing’s alive; he’ll dispute the Fortunato part of Rocco’s confession now, just like you plan to. Another thing that went wrong.”
“Why the shore naupaka in Rocco’s pocket?” Kawika asked, trying to keep the conversation from ending, the gun from being used. “What were you trying to tell us?”
“Wasn’t trying to tell you anything. Message wasn’t intended for you. Someone else.”
“Another blackboard boy? Someone who performs autopsies? A way of tipping him off?”
Kimaio didn’t reply, just looked into the forest. They sat again in silence. “More questions?” Kimaio finally asked.
“Yes,” Kawika answered. He couldn’t avoid it any longer. “Why are you telling me all this? You intend to kill me?”
Kimaio chuckled. “Kill a fellow lawman? No, never. I intend to persuade you. Or rather, give you information to persuade yourself. Information, and time to think about it.”
“Persuade myself to do what?”
“To let things be. Your boss has Cushing, he’s got Rocco’s confession, and he’s got lots to corroborate it: Cushing’s spear, Melanie’s body, the rifle and ammo. He’s going to find those distinctive handcuffs at Cushing’s house and mountain naupaka growing in Cushing’s flowerbed. Captain Tanaka won’t want you arresting a retired lawman. Not in these circumstances. Not with Cushing guilty of murder. Surely you must know that.”
“But Cushing didn’t kill Fortunato. Rocco didn’t either.”
“Cushing hired Rocco to kill you, though. You were supposed to be ‘the bones of Hilo,’ remember? He tried to have you shot, whereas—don’t forget—I saved your life.”
This time Kawika couldn’t restrain himself. “You didn’t save my life,” he protested. “Rocco took three shots at me. You didn’t make him miss, did you?”
Kimaio looked puzzled. “No, of course not,” he said. “Not in Hilo. I saved your life here, in Kau.” He pronounced it “Cow.”
“Here?” said Kawika in seeming disbelief, but he knew it must be true.
“Yeah, here,” insisted Kimaio. “That killer you found cuffed to this tree? You were chasing him into this forest, and he was lying in wait. He was going to shoot you dead, Detective. I’m the one who cuffed him, took away his gun. You must realize that, since you knew where to find me today.”
It was true. Kawika tried to clear his head. “You were grooming me to handle the Fortunato investigation way back then? Before you killed him?”
“Couldn’t afford to lose you at that stage.”
“And the division chief in Waimea, the one who asked Tanaka to send me to the Mauna Lani in the first place? He was in on all this?”
“No, not all of it. He’s a former FBI special agent, like me. A friend of mine, and a friend of Captain Tanaka. I just offered your name as a suggestion to a fellow officer of the law. But enough of that. The point is, you’re not going to get to Hilo for Captain Tanaka’s press conference. So what are you going to do? Show up later, embarrass him, tell him he’s got just one little thing wrong?”
“It’s not a little thing. You murdered Fortunato.”
“Executed him.”
“Lynched him.”
“Okay, lynched him. But not unjustly—it was vigilante justice. He knew the custom of the country, as my old friend Marshal Hanson might say. And if you arrest me, I’ll make bail and be dead before anyone can try me. Think about it.”
“What’s there to think about?” Kawika snapped back. “Anyway, you had accomplices—the blackboard boys.”
Kimaio took a deep breath. The effort was difficult for him, Kawika could tell. “You’re the guy who reads murder mysteries,” Kimaio said. “What makes a good murder mystery? The detective has to solve the crime. Okay, you did that. Congratulations. But doesn’t the detective have to do more? Doesn’t he have to solve himself?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just this: you’re torn between two women—paralyzed. And you can’t decide if you’re haole or Hawaiian, living that life or this one. If I’ve heard you correctly.”
“You mean overheard me correctly.”
“Right, overheard you correctly. So those are things you’ll try to solve, later today or some other day, now that you’ve solved the killing. But what you’ve got to solve right now, this moment, handcuffed to this tree, is whether you’re such a straight arrow, so powerless, that all you can do once you’ve solved the killing is arrest me, arrest us all. Or whether morality is more important.”
“Morality? Killing people?”
“Killing killers,” Kimaio corrected. “Fortunato and Rocco both. Well, it was justice. You decide what’s moral.”
“It wasn’t moral.”
“Not what I meant. The killings were my decision. I meant you have to decide what’s moral now—whether it’s moral to turn me in.”
“You and the blackboard boys?” Kawika replied. “You’re saying, let you all go? Is that it? That’s the moral choice? Because of your idea of justice—vigilante justice?”
Kimaio took another loud raspy breath, then signed deeply. “Detective,” he said. “I hope you live a long life. But at the end of it, where I am, you’ll find that all you have left—all you’ve got to cling to—is your image of yourself. My image of myself wouldn’t allow Steve Kellogg’s death to go unpunished. It’s that simple. Now, what’s your image of yourself? Tanaka calls you Mister Clean. Is that all you are, Mister Clean? A robot? That automatic, that shallow? Here’s some advice: Always conduct yourself the way that five years from now you’ll wish you’d conducted yourself. Always. Think about that.”
“Looks like I’ve got time to think about it.”
“That you do,” said Kimaio brightly, checking his watch. “Meanwhile, I’ve got some questions for you. What tipped you off, exactly?”
“Little things,” Kawika replied. “Logical things. Mostly my trip to the mainland. Steve Kellog
g’s death, because you hadn’t mentioned it. Jimmy Jack’s business card, his phone number and yours—Joe Crane as the telephone buddy you shared. The Methow Valley filled with blackboard boys—plus two in Wenatchee.”
“Well, the plan was premised on you not going to the mainland, and certainly not to the Methow. You were supposed to figure out that the spear and cord and the naupaka were Cushing’s, that he grabbed Fortunato at the Murphys’ and was trying to frame Peter Pukui. Why weren’t you more culturally literate?” Kimaio laughed, then coughed again.
The question brought Kawika a realization: Fortunato died on Kamehameha’s spear, yet he died for mainland sins, and a mainland haole killed him. So what did his murder have to do with cultural literacy, with race, with anything Hawaiian at all? The whole thing had been a white man’s problem, just as Jimmy Jack had said: a white killer lynched by a white cop. Kawika wanted to think more about this, but at the moment he couldn’t.
“I went to the mainland because someone shot me,” he finally responded. “It wasn’t planned. Everyone thought a Hawaiian did it, that I wasn’t safe here.”
“Everyone but you.”
“Well, I thought so too—at first. And if I hadn’t gone to the mainland, I might never have learned the formula for getting away with murder.”
“Ah. You mean do it yourself, don’t rely on anyone, use some ordinary weapon, make sure your alibi can’t be broken even though it won’t be believed—that formula? The one Rocco taught Fortunato? The one Fortunato followed, and I didn’t?”
“Yeah, that formula. I realized Fortunato followed it, but in the end, I realized he made a big mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“He thought the formula applied even if the person you murder is a federal prosecutor.”
“Oh.”
“But it doesn’t apply if you murder a federal prosecutor, does it?”
“No,” replied Kimaio. “No, it doesn’t.”
“If you murder a federal prosecutor, you end up dead. Right?”
“Right. One way or another, you end up dead.”
“Dead in a way that sends a message?” Kawika continued. “Revenge is ours—that sort of thing.”
“Right.”
“So you needed Fortunato to know who was killing him, and why. And you needed to signal your colleagues back in Washington, in Winthrop and Wenatchee, that the deed was done.”
“You are culturally literate,” Kimaio said. “At least in our culture.” He smiled, as if they were good friends sharing a joke.
Kawika didn’t smile back. “You needed to get away with it too. Is that why I’m here? So you’ll get away with it?”
“Not exactly. It’s as I said: you’re here so you can make a decision. I’ll get away with it no matter what. I’m dying faster than expected.” Kimaio looked at his watch again. “I’ve still got a little time,” he said cheerfully. “And you’ve still got a while to wait.”
Kawika shifted position, trying to get more comfortable. “Then what shall we talk about?” he asked. “The Shark Cliff case? That haole who’d been handcuffed?”
“Let’s not,” Kimaio said. “Different bad guy, that one. Different cuffs too.”
They both fell silent. Then Kimaio added briskly, “And before you ask, I have no idea where Peter Pukui is, just so you know.”
“I’m surprised. You seem to know everything.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Detective,” Kimaio said. “And now I need to go lie down for a bit. Happens to me these days. I’ll leave you the water,” he added, handing Kawika a bottle carefully, at arm’s length. This time Kawika took it. He’d be able, barely, to get it to his mouth on it around the slender tree trunk. “Don’t worry, Detective—I’ll be back before too long; I won’t die and abandon you. Meanwhile, there’re nothing scary here. No more killers in the Fortunato saga lurking about. You caught the last one.”
“Yeah, but not before the last one caught me,” said Kawika, giving his cuffed hands a shake.
PART EIGHT
HILO
The Discovery anchored off Waikiki, and in or near that place three natives were arrested and charged with having had a part in the killing of the English officers. After an extended inquiry, the three accused men were pronounced guilty and were shot to death with a pistol in the hands of a native executioner in a canoe alongside the Discovery. Vancouver was fully satisfied of their guilt, but there is much testimony indicating rather conclusively that they were innocent and that the guiltiest person of all, a minor chief, wholly escaped punishment.
—Ralph S. Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom (1938)
73
Hilo
Terry Tanaka went ahead with his press conference. Kawika’s absence irritated him—he assumed Kawika was in bed with Patience Quinn in South Kohala. Pretty irresponsible, Tanaka thought, especially since she could’ve been a witness, if not a suspect. Anyone but Kawika, Tanaka thought, I would’ve had the guy up on misconduct charges. But there could be no delay of the press conference. The story was out, the media had assembled. Lights and cameras were already set up. Police Chief Haia Kalākalani was here, hands folded beneath his substantial belly and smiling for the photographers. It remained only for Tanaka to step to the microphone.
Tanaka announced that Michael Cushing had been arrested and charged with the murders of Ralph Fortunato and Melanie Munu and the attempted murder of Detective Kawika Wong. Tanaka explained that Cushing had hired a California contract killer named Roger Preston, or Rocco, for all three crimes, and that Rocco had left a confession, which someone—not the police—had extracted before dropping him, fatally, from a helicopter into Cushing’s convertible.
“Has the confession been corroborated?” someone shouted.
“Yes,” Tanaka explained, “the confession has been corroborated in key respects. Melanie Munu’s body was found where Rocco indicated, along with the baseball bat he’d used to kill her. The rifle and ammunition found in his motel room matched those in Kawika’s shooting. Cushing admitted owning the spear that killed Fortunato, and Fortunato’s hands had been tied with a piece of ancient fishing line from Cushing’s home. This, too, fits Rocco’s confession.”
“What about motive?” someone called out. Fortunato and Cushing were defrauding their investors, Tanaka responded. They’d had a falling out. Munu was killed to prevent her exposing the fraud. Detective Wong was targeted because Cushing believed Detective Wong had cracked the case and would soon arrest him.
“Had he cracked the case?”
“No,” Tanaka answered. “Detective Wong had not solved the crime at the time of his shooting, when he was evacuated to the mainland for his own safety. But he would certainly have cracked the case otherwise.”
“Did Rocco’s abductors botch a plan to drop him into Cushing’s car alive?”
“We don’t know,” Tanaka said.
“Who were his abductors?” a reporter asked.
“We don’t know that either,” Tanaka said.
“What’s your best guess?”
“We think,” Tanaka said, “that Rocco may have been abducted by a particular Hawaiian native group—one I won’t name, since we don’t know for sure.” Tanaka knew the news media would figure it out; they had S&R’s press releases.
“Why would they do that?”
“Maybe it was cultural self-defense,” Tanaka suggested. “This particular group—sorry, it wouldn’t be right to name it—took offense at Cushing trying to frame ethnic Hawaiians for Fortunato’s murder. Of course, perhaps the group’s motive was different. Some individuals opposing KKL had been getting paid under the table by Fortunato—pretending to fight a developer while secretly conspiring with him in a fraud.”
“So could Rocco’s death have been a revenge killing?” another reporter called out.
“Sure,” said Tanaka. “After all, this particular group, which I’m not naming—well, some members relied on Fortunato for cash. Fortunato’s death cut that off. Maybe
it made them angry enough to kill the hit man. Who knows? Unless someone talks, we don’t have much to go on.”
“Is anyone talking?”
“No one from this particular group,” Tanaka said. “They refuse to cooperate with the police.” Then he added, “To me that means they’re lawless.”
Tanaka told the assembled reporters nothing about the Methow Valley or anything related to it. Despite requests from the media, he declined to make the text of Rocco’s confession public. He told Chief Kalākalani he didn’t want the Cushing arrest story complicated by a separate story about a federal prosecutor’s murder on the mainland. The Feds had the confession now.
“Let them deal with that part,” Tanaka told his boss. “It’ll be big news in Washington—both Washingtons, actually.”
74
Hilo
So it went. Kawika heard a replay on the radio as he drove through the night, very late, to reach Hilo. For a second time in the case, he got Tanaka out of bed, and for a second time he was worried as he did.
“You’re safe,” Tanaka said coldly on the doorstep, not even letting Kawika inside. “That’s what matters tonight. I don’t care about your love life. See me tomorrow.”
Kawika hadn’t mentioned Kimaio or the Ka‘ū Forest Reserve. He hadn’t had the chance before Tanaka closed the door. Kawika wasn’t sure he would have mentioned them anyway.
By the time Kawika got back in the car, it was far too late to call Carolyn about the missed dinner, much less call Patience, who—despite Tanaka’s assumption—was still on the mainland. And circumstances could not be worse. By confirming horrors Kawika might choose never to divulge—and confirming, too, that Kawika’s phone calls weren’t private—Kimaio had effectively put Kawika’s love life out of its misery. He’d have to change his phone number, at least. But even so, Kimaio and Joe Crane would find a way to keep monitoring him. And the things he couldn’t divulge would make any normal phone conversation impossible anyway.