Damned in Paradise

by Max Allan Collins

  The enthusiastic Olds was extending a hand, which Darrow took, shook, saying, “Much as I’d like to please you, Lieutenant, I’m afraid I couldn’t quite bring myself to that. This suit I’m wearing is older than you.”

  “Well,” the lieutenant said, folding his arms, grinning, “at thirty, I’m the old man around here—Tommie and the rest, they’re just a buncha fresh-faced kids barely outta college.”

  Darrow’s gray eyes narrowed. “You’re a friend of Lt. Massie’s?”

  “I’m sorry! I haven’t explained myself. I run the Ammunition Depot, out at Pearl. My wife and I have been taking turns keeping Thalia company, making sure the press and any curiosity-seekers don’t bother her here, during the day. We post armed guards at night.”

  Darrow frowned. “The situation’s that severe?”

  He nodded. “There have been bomb threats. Word of gangs of Japs and native trash driving around Manoa Valley in their junker cars…. You know, I’m afraid you have me to blame for your involvement in this, Mr. Darrow.”

  “How is that, Lieutenant?”

  The lieutenant pointed at himself with a thumb. “I’m the one brought up your name. I’m the one encouraged Mrs. Fortescue to hit up her rich friends on the mainland for the dough it would take to get a really top lawyer. And I knew you were the only man for this case.”

  Wry amusement creased Darrow’s face. “You have excellent judgment, young man.”

  “And, well…I’m also running the fund-raising drive, at the base, to raise your fee to cover Lord and Jones.”

  “Who?”

  “The two enlisted men you’re defending!”

  The accomplices to Mrs. Fortescue and Tommie Massie in the killing of Joseph Kahahawai. I didn’t think C.D. had spent much time going over those transcripts and statements back on the Malolo. Leisure was wincing.

  “Well, then,” Darrow said, with no apology for forgetting the names of two of the clients he’d come thousands of miles to defend, “I guess I will have to capitulate to your request…Pop.”

  Darrow introduced Isabel, Leisure, and myself to Pop Olds, who greeted us warmly, glad to see anybody who was part of the great Darrow’s team. He walked us behind the hedge to the front door.

  “We’re friends of the Massies,” he explained. “My wife and I were in a play with Thalia and Tommie, at the local Little Theater.” He grinned shyly. “Actually, Thalia and I are the hams…. I arranged walk-ons for our spouses so we could all spend some time together.”

  So Thalia Massie was an actress; I’d have to keep that in mind.

  Darrow was laying a hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. “I’m grateful for your attentiveness to Mrs. Massie, Pop…but I have to ask you a courtesy.”

  “Anything, Mr. Darrow.”

  “Wait out here while I speak to Mrs. Massie. I view her as a client in this case, and wish to limit the audience for the painful memories I must go probing after.”

  Olds seemed a little disappointed to be left out, but he said, “Certainly, sir—certainly. I’ll just catch a few smokes out here….”

  A maid in a brown uniform with white apron met us as we stepped inside; she was Japanese, petite, quietly pretty, without an ounce of makeup, her shiny black hair in a Louise Brooks bob.

  “Miss Massie resting,” she said, lowering her head respectfully. She was addressing Darrow, who stood at the head of our group, crowding into the little living room. “But she ask I wake her when you arrive.”

  And she went quickly off.

  The place was pretty impersonal; my guess was they’d rented the bungalow furnished—with the possible exception of a new-looking walnut veener console radio-phonograph in one corner. This was dark, functional, middle-class nicked-up stuff whose point of origin was probably Sears—or, rather, Liberty House. They’d dressed it up a little—the wine-color mohair davenport and matching armchair had antimacassars; the occasional tables had doilies but almost no knickknacks.

  On one table were a few family photos, including a wedding portrait of a very young, pasty-faced couple, the pretty bride slightly taller than the fetus of a groom, whose formal naval attire seemed sizes too big for him; another photo, in an ornate silver frame, depicted an attractive, long-faced matron with frozen eyes and a long string of pearls.

  A painting over the stuffed horsehair couch depicted the sun setting over Diamond Head, but the frame was ornate European, and nothing else in the room was remotely Hawaiian, not even the faded pink floral wallpaper, or the well-worn oriental rug on the hardwood floor.

  From the living room, through a wide archway, was a dining room with more dark nondescript furnishings; I could catch a white glimpse of the kitchen, the next room over. The bedroom must have been off the dining room, to the right, because that’s the way the pretty bride in the wedding portrait—Thalia Massie—came in.

  She wore black—black dress, black beaded necklace, black sideways turban—as if in stylish mourning for her normal life that had died late last summer. Blades of blondish-brown hair arced around the round smooth contours of her oval face; the faint outline of a scar touched her left cheek, near her mouth, trailing to the jawline. She looked quite a bit like Isabel, the same cupid’s-bow mouth, small well-formed nose and big blue eyes, but Thalia’s were what unkind people in the Midwest call cow’s eyes—wide-set and protuberant.

  Still, the overall effect was a pretty girl, and with a nice shape, too—a little pudgy, perhaps. And her shoulders were stooped—she was rather tall, but it took you a while to realize it. Had she always had that uncertain gait? She almost shuffled in, as if in a perpetual state of embarrassment. Or shame.

  And yet those clear eyes met us all directly, blinking only rarely, the result being a languid, remote expression.

  Isabel rushed forward and took her cousin in her arms, gushing words of sympathy; but as they embraced, Thalia Massie looked blankly at me over Isabel’s shoulder. Thalia patted Isabel’s back as if her cousin were the one who needed comforting.

  “I should have come sooner,” Isabel said.

  Thalia twitched her a smile in response as Isabel took her cousin’s hand, and the two girls stood there side by side, Isabel looking like Thalia’s blonder sister.

  Darrow stepped forward with a fatherly smile and clasped one of Thalia’s hands in both of his big paws; Isabel receded, giving Thalia center stage.

  “My dear, I’m Clarence Darrow,” he said, as if there were any doubt, “and I’ve come here to help you and your family.”

  “I’m very grateful.” Her smile seemed halfhearted; her voice low, throaty, but barely inflected. She was twenty-one—married at sixteen, according to what I’d read on the Malolo—but I’d have guessed her at least twenty-five.

  Darrow introduced Leisure (“my distinguished co-counsel”) and me (“my investigator—he’s just returned from working with Colonel Lindbergh”), and Thalia granted us nods. Then Darrow led her to the couch under the Diamond Head painting. Isabel sat next to her, close to her, taking Thalia’s hand supportively.

  Leisure drew the couch’s matching armchair around for Darrow, so that he was facing Thalia. I found a caneback wing chair—by the way, was a more uncomfortable chair ever invented?—and pulled it to one side of Darrow. Leisure preferred to stand; arms folded, he watched the unfolding scene through those all-seeing narrowed eyes of his.

  Thalia drew her hand away from Isabel’s, doing so with a little smile, but her cousin’s hand-holding clearly made her uncomfortable. She folded her hands primly in her lap and looked at Darrow with the big languid eyes. There was weariness in her gaze, and distaste in her tone.

  “I’m more than willing to talk to you, of course,” Thalia said. “I will do anything to help Tommie and Mother. But I hope it won’t be necessary to…dredge up all that other unpleasantness.”

  Darrow sat forward in the chair; his smile, and tone, remained fatherly. “Would that I could spare you, child. But if we’re to defend—”

  “This is a differen
t case,” Thalia said, almost snippily. “Those rapists aren’t on trial and, for that matter, neither am I. This is about what Tommie and Mother and those sailors did.”

  The smile turned regretful. “Unfortunately, dear, the two cannot be separated. What they did flowed out of what was done to you…. And without an understanding of what happened to you, a jury would view what your husband and mother did as, simply…murder.”

  Her forehead furrowed in irritation, but the eyes remained wide. “Who’s better aware of that than I? But you were provided transcripts of what I said in court. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No,” Darrow said firmly. “My staff and I need to hear these words from your own lips. We need to ask our own questions. There’s no stenographer, here, though Mr. Heller will take some notes.”

  I took that prompt to get out my notepad and pencil.

  “And,” Darrow continued, pointing at her gently, “you need to be prepared, young lady—because it’s very likely you’ll be taking the witness stand to tell your story yet again.”

  Her sigh was a rasp from her chest, and she looked toward a side wall, away from Isabel, who was watching her with sympathy but also confusion. Finally Thalia turned her head back to Darrow.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I do want to help. Please ask your questions.”

  But her face remained an oval mask, devoid of emotion, marked only by that white line of scar down her jaw.

  Darrow leaned forward and patted her hand. “Thank you, dear. Now, I’ll try to make this as painless as possible. Let’s begin with the party. You didn’t want to be there, I understand?”

  The cow eyes went half-hooded. “When these Navy men get together, they drink too much, and embarrass themselves, and their wives—though the women drink too much, too. And I didn’t really care for that tawdry place, anyway.”

  “The Ala Wai Inn, you mean?” I asked.

  She glanced at me noncommittally. “That’s right. Loud music, frantic dancing, bootleg liquor…I found it in poor taste and depressing, to be quite frank about it. Every Saturday night at the Ala Wai is ‘Navy Night’—the managegment give the Navy boys the run of the place, and it can get wild.”

  “Did it that night?” I asked. “Get wild?”

  She shrugged a little. “Not really. Just dreary. Boring.”

  “Then why did you go?” I asked.

  “I only went because Tommie and Jimmy…Lt. Bradford…and another officer had made a reservation for a table for their wives and themselves, and how would it look if Tommie went alone? But once I got there, it didn’t take long for me to get tired of all that nonsense.”

  Darrow asked, “What time did you leave, dear?”

  “Shortly after 11:30. But I wasn’t leaving, really. I just decided to go for a walk and get some air.”

  “Was someone with you?”

  “No. I was alone. I walked along Kalakaua Avenue and crossed the canal and I turned down John Ena Road, walked a block or so down, toward the beach.”

  “How far did you walk?”

  “To a spot within, oh, twenty feet of where the road turns into Fort De Russey. I was just going to walk a little ways down the road, then turn back and stroll back to the Ala Wai Inn.”

  “Just getting some air,” Darrow said, nodding.

  “That’s correct.”

  “What happened then, dear? I’m sorry, but I have to ask.”

  She began twisting her fingers in her lap, as if she were trying to pull them off; her gaze drew inward, and glazed over.

  “A car drove up behind me and stopped, a Ford touring car. Two men got out and grabbed me and dragged me toward it. I was struggling, and the one called Joe Kahahawai hit me in the face, in the jaw. Hard.”

  Next to her, Isabel gasped, drew a hand to her mouth.

  But Thalia remained emotionless. “The other one, Henry Chang, placed his hand over my mouth and pulled me into the backseat. I begged them to let me go, but every time I spoke, Kahahawai hit me. Chang hit me, too.”

  “Was the car still parked,” I asked, “or was it moving?”

  “Moving,” she said. “As soon as they dragged me in there, they pulled away; there were two or three other boys in the front seat.”

  “What nationality?” I asked.

  “Hawaiians, I thought at the time. Later, I learned they were a mixed-race group.”

  According to the materials I’d read, the motley crew of young island gangsters included Joe Kahahawai and Ben Ahakuelo, pure-blooded Hawaiians; Horace Ida and David Takai, Japanese; and Henry Chang, Chinese-Hawaiian.

  “Go on, dear,” Darrow said.

  “I offered them money, I told them my husband would give them money if they would let me go. I said I had some money with me they could have. I had my purse, and I said, ‘Take my pocketbook!’ One of them in the front seat, Ahakuelo, turned around and said, ‘Take the pocketbook,’ and Chang took it from me. I got a good look at this Ben Ahakuelo—he turned around several times and grinned at me. He had a gold tooth, a big filling about here.” She opened her mouth and pointed.

  “How far did they take you?” I asked.

  “I don’t really know. I know they were driving along Ala Moana Road, heading towards town. Maybe two or three blocks. They drove the car into the underbrush on the righthand side of the road, and Kahahawai and Chang dragged me out and away from the car and into the bushes and then Chang assaulted me….”

  Thalia said all this as calmly, and detachedly, as if she were reading off a laundry list; but Isabel, next to her, was biting her fist and tears were streaming down her face, streaking her makeup.

  “I tried to get away, but I couldn’t. They hit me so many times, so hard, I was dazed. I couldn’t imagine that this was happening to me! I didn’t know people were capable of such things…. Chang hit me, and the others were hovering around, holding my arms.”

  Isabel gasped.

  Thalia didn’t seem to notice. “Then the others…did it to me. I was assaulted five or six times—Kahahawai went last. I started to pray, and that made him angry and he hit me very hard. I cried out, ‘You’ll knock my teeth out,’ and he said, ‘What do I care? Shut up!’ I asked him please not to hit me anymore.”

  Isabel, covering her mouth, got up and ran from the room.

  “There were five men,” I said. “You think you may have been assaulted as many as six times?”

  “I lost count, but I think Chang assaulted me twice. I remember he was standing near me, and he said, ‘I want to go again.’ That was all right with the others, but one of them said, ‘Hurry up, we have to go back out Kalihi way.’”

  “They spoke in English?” I asked.

  “To me, they did; sometimes they talked to each other in some foreign language. They said a lot of filthy things to me, in English, which I don’t care to repeat.”

  “Certainly, dear,” Darrow said. “But you heard them call each other by name?”

  “Yes, well, I heard the name Bull used, and I heard the name Joe. I heard another name—it might have been Billy or Benny, and I heard the name Shorty.”

  “You must have got a good look at them,” I said.

  She nodded. “Kahahawai had on a short-sleeved polo shirt, blue trousers. Ahakuelo, blue trousers, blue shirt. Horace Ida, dark trousers, leather coat. And Chang—I think Chang had on dark trousers.”

  This was the kind of witness a cop dreams of.

  “Now, dear, after they’d had their vicious way with you,” Darrow said, “what happened next?”

  “One helped me to sit up, Chang I think. He said, ‘The road’s over there,’ then they bolted for their car, got into it, and drove away. That’s when I turned around and saw the car.”

  I asked, “Which way was it facing?”

  “The back of the car was toward me. The car’s headlights, taillights, were switched on.”

  “And that’s when you saw the license plate?”

  “Yes. I noticed the number. I thought it was 58-805, but I guess I w
as off a digit.”

  The actual license, belonging to Horace Ida’s sister’s Ford touring car, was 58-895. Easy mistake, considering what she’d been through, confusing a 9 with a 0.

  Darrow said, “Dear, what did you do after the attack?”

  “I was very much dazed. I wandered around in the bushes and finally came to the Ala Moana. I saw a car coming from Waikiki and ran toward the car, waving my arms. The car stopped. I ran to it, half blind from their headlights, and asked the people in it if they were white. They said yes, and I told them what had happened to me and asked them to take me home. They wanted to take me to the police station, but I asked them to bring me here, which they did.”

  Darrow asked, “What did you do when you got home?”

  “I took off my clothes and douched.”

  No one said anything for several long moments.

  Then, gently, Darrow asked, “Did this procedure prove…successful?”

  “No. A couple of weeks later I found I was pregnant.”

  “I’m very sorry, dear. I understand your physician performed a curettage, and eliminated the, uh, problem?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  Isabel, on shaky legs, reentered the room; she smiled embarrassedly and sat on the couch, giving Thalia plenty of room.

  Darrow said, “Returning to that terrible night…when did you next see your husband?”

  “About one o’clock in the morning,” Thalia said. “He called me from a friend’s, looking for me, and I told him, ‘Please come home right away, something awful has happened.’”

  “When your husband returned home, did you tell him what these men had done to you?”

  “Not at first. I couldn’t. It was too awful, too horrible. But he sat with me on this couch and kept asking. He knew something was terribly wrong. Even though I’d cleaned myself up, my face was all bruised and puffy; my nose was bleeding. He begged me to tell him.”

  “And you did?”

  She nodded. “I told him everything—how they’d raped me. How Kahahawai broke my jaw when I tried to pray. How all of them attacked me….”