by Larry Darter
I felt short of breath. My heart was pounding. But, I also felt reassured. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I did it a couple more times. Maybe I wasn’t mental after all.
Nix looked at his watch. I didn’t know it then, but I’d soon learn that was his signal that the fifty minutes were up.
“We can talk more next Thursday, same time if that will work with your schedule,” he said.
“Yes,” I said sniffing. “I can come back then. How long must I see you before I’m able to get past this, doctor?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Nix said. “It will take as long as it takes. That’s the best answer I can give you.”
I nodded. “Would it be better if I came more than once a week?”
“Would you like to?”
“I’m so over feeling like a sniveling reject,” I said. “I must get past this, sooner rather than later. I’m keen to come more than once a week if it helps me do that.”
“All right,” Nix said. “Why don’t you come back at two on Tuesday.”
He wrote out an appointment card for me. I took it and slipped it inside my pant’s pocket.
“Why is this so hard?” I said.
Nix smiled. “We’ll talk about it Tuesday, and we’ll see if we can find out.”
Then he stood and walked me to the door.
Seven
I was feeling a little less broken after my first appointment with Nix as I rode over to Kewalo Basin Harbor to interview Justin Wood at the Moana Dive Shop. Maybe seeing a therapist would help if I gave it a proper go, I thought.
Kewalo Basin Harbor off Ala Moana Boulevard is a mixed-use harbor. It is home to Honolulu’s commercial fishing fleet and to charter and excursion vessels that serve the Hawai’i tourist market. Moana Dive Shop was one of two dive equipment and training operators located there which catered to both residents and tourists.
Moana Dive Shop occupied a long low one-storied cinderblock building painted white with a brown roof. The back of the building fronted on Ala Moana Boulevard, so I rode my motorbike into the drive that led to a car park between the front of the building and the waterfront. I parked and walked toward the entrance, but detoured.
There was a tall, muscular bloke filling scuba tanks at one end of the covered footpath out front. He had dark brown long hair hanging clumsily over a handsome, radiant face. A goatee and three-day beard complimented his square jaw. He wore a bright yellow tank top with the name of the dive shop printed on the front and back in black lettering. As I approached, he straightened and glanced at me. He smiled revealing a full mouth of straight white teeth.
“Can I help you?” the guy asked.
“Possibly,” I said. “If you’re Justin Wood.”
The guy shook his head, feigning a look of sadness. “No, I’m not, unfortunately,” the guy said. “I’m Nick. Nick Bell. Justin is out on the dive boat with some students.”
“Ah, right,” I said. “When is he meant to be back?”
Nick glanced at the flash chronograph strapped on his left wrist. “Justin should be back any minute,” he said. “If you can hold on a second, I’ll walk down to the slip with you. He has an eye on one of his students and might disappear with her as soon as they get back. You better catch him getting off the boat.”
“Yep, awesome, and thanks,” I said.
Nick finished filling the tank he had been working on. Then he coiled the air hose and put the tank with some others against the wall.
“Let’s go,” he said.
I followed him across the car park and out onto one dock that extended out to the slips where an assortment of sailboats and motorized vessels were moored. We stopped at an empty slip. Nick shaded his eyes from the bright sunlight and looked out at the harbor.
“There he comes now,” he said pointing at a large yellow boat trimmed in white with a lot of open deck space.
As the dive boat neared the slip, the pilot of the craft killed the engines and coasted the boat expertly to a stop against the rubber dock bumpers fixed to the wooden pier. A guy tossed a nylon bow line to Nick who secured it to a cleat on the dock. The bloke who had been driving the boat hopped onto the dock with his back to me. He extended a hand to a petite bleached blonde wearing a coral-colored bikini and helped her up onto the dock. When he turned, I saw his face for the first time.
“Fan-bloody-tastic,” I thought. It was the wanker I’d given the good rark up to at the Windjammer Bar & Grill.
The guy said something to the blonde, and they both laughed. Then he looked in my direction and saw me. The cheeky grin told me he recognized me from the bar. He sauntered over.
“You didn’t have to go to the trouble of tracking me down at work to apologize,” he said. “I’m at the Windjammer every afternoon. You could have caught me there.”
“You’re Justin Wood?” I said.
“In the flesh,” Justin said. “Now that you know my name, how about you tell me yours baby, so I don’t have to keep calling you the psycho bitch?”
“Grumpy alert,” I said. “You probably want to be a bit careful here.”
Justin stepped forward until our noses were almost touching. “And, what if I don’t feel like being careful? What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m likely to dismember you for starters,” I said. “Now perhaps we can move on to the reason I’m here. Can I have a word?”
“You can forget it if you came crawling here to beg for another chance,” Justin said. “I lost interest in you the first time we met. I only approached you at the bar because I felt sorry for you. But, feel free to apologize for being such a bitch.”
My fingers twitched to grab for his jugular.
“Not even, arsehole,” I said.
“I don’t have time for this,” Justin said. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I only want to ask you a few questions about Brandi Camargo,” I said. “I understand you’re dating.”
“I’m not answering any questions,” Justin said. He put a hand on my shoulder and shoved me backward. “I’ve got something you can suck on though if you’re ready to apologize. Otherwise, take a hike.”
After regaining my balance, I had set my feet. I punched Justin square in the nose with a straight right. He fell to his knees on the dock, his face a mess of blood, mucus, and tears.
“Suck on that douche bag,” I said.
The blonde who had been standing behind Justin looked at me wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Then she rushed to his side and knelt beside him on the dock. “Oh my God,” she said pulling away his hands to look at his nose.
“You might want to get him to a hospital to have his nose fixed,” I said. “Maybe he will think twice before he comes up rough with a woman again.”
I started back along the dock toward the dive shop. I turned back at the sound of running footfalls on the dock coming up behind me. It was Nick with a big smile on his face. He fell into step beside me. He laughed out loud. “Damn, I would have paid good money to see what just happened back there,” Nick said. “Justin has had that coming for a long time.”
“To be fair, it didn’t get my questions answered,” I said. “But, when he shoved me I sort of lost it.”
“What did you want to ask him about?” Nick said.
“A woman he is dating, Brandi Camargo,” I said. “Someone nicked something valuable from her shop. I wanted to learn whether Justin knew about the item taken and whether he had any idea how valuable it is.”
“Do you think Justin took it?” Nick said.
“Not really,” I said. “I needed to talk with him though to eliminate him from the list of potential suspects.”
“Are you a cop?” Nick said.
“No, a private investigator,” I said. “I’m T. J. by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, T. J.,” Nick said. “From what Justin has told me about Brandi, I don’t think he knows or cares much about her business. He is just using her.”
“Using her?�
��
“Yeah, she signed up for dive certification lessons,” Nick said. “As soon as Justin laid eyes on her, he smelled money. Now they are sleeping together. They aren’t in a relationship or anything. He keeps it going with her because she buys him stuff.”
“What kind of stuff,” I said.
“An expensive dive watch, and a new Camaro for starters,” Nick said. “Brandi has paid Justin’s way on two expensive vacations they’ve taken together too.”
“So, he’s a gigolo of sorts,” I said.
“Pretty much.”
“Thanks for that, Nick,” I said. “I should have talked to you in the first place. I doubt I’d have learned nearly as much from Justin as you’ve told me.”
“Well, you could make it up for snubbing me,” Nick said with a smile.
“What do you have in mind?” I said.
“You could let me buy you a drink or dinner,” Nick said.
“I’ll give it a think,” I said smiling back.
We had arrived back in front of the shop. “If you give me your number, maybe I’ll ring you sometime,” I said.
“Sure,” Nick said. He recited his phone number while I added it to the contacts list on my mobile.
“Thanks again for the help,” I said.
“No problem,” Nick said. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”
“Yep, sure,” I said.
I told Nick goodbye and got on the motorbike. While I put on my helmet, I thought about Justin back on the dock with his broken, bloody nose. Crickey, I thought. He was an arsehole. But, maybe I should come with a public health warning. I started the motorbike and roared out of the car park onto Ala Moana.
◆◆◆
A few minutes after I arrived back at the office, Mike Young rang me.
“Hey, Mike, how’s it going?” I said.
“Okay, I guess,” Mike said. “The medical examiner’s office just sent over the autopsy report on Lee Tran.”
“Anything shocking?” I said.
“There was an anomaly,” Mike said.
“Anomaly?”
“The pathologist who performed the autopsy removed two 22 caliber slugs from Tran’s body,” Mike said. “That part was straightforward enough. The strange part was they don’t look like any 22 caliber bullets anyone around here has ever seen. Our lab checked them against the ATF National Integrated Ballistic Information Network database and couldn’t find a match.”
“And that’s a big deal how?” I said.
“It suggests the murder weapon is possibly unique,” Mike said. “Both 22 caliber handguns and ammunition are common enough. But, if we could identify these slugs, it could very well point us to a specific firearm.”
“But, how is that meant to help? You said the lab couldn’t find a match for the bullets.”
“True, but the lab is sending the slugs to the FBI laboratory in Quantico on the mainland. It is one of the largest and most comprehensive crime labs in the world with resources we don’t have here. The experts there may be able to identify the slugs. That could tell us the type of weapon used to fire them.”
“I suppose you still need to recover the murder weapon to match it to the bullets,” I said.
“Yes, but if we knew exactly what we were looking for, that might be easier,” Mike said. “Hawai’i requires all firearms owners to register them with the county police within five days of acquisition or of bringing them in from out of state. As we develop a list of possible suspects, we can check the registrations to see if any of those individuals own a 22 caliber handgun.”
“Yes, I see how that might help, assuming the killer complied with the law and registered the weapon,” I said.
“Do you have any information to share?” Mike said.
“Not so much,” I said. “I’ve only interviewed my client’s lover since I visited Tran’s employer. I got nothing out of him except a bit of self-satisfaction. I’m certain he didn’t take my client’s property, anyway. I don’t see he would have had any connection to Tran or a motive to kill him.”
“What’s his name?” Mike said. “I might talk to him, anyway.”
“Justin Wood,” I said. “He works at the Moana Dive Shop on Ala Moana.”
“Why did you want to interview him?”
“In theory at least, he could have accessed my client’s key to her shop, although she says not,” I said. “I intend to interview all her close associates who realistically could have accessed a key to the shop and had a locksmith copy it.”
“Did any of those individuals know Lee Tran?” Mike asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” I said. “But, as said so far I’ve only talked with Justin Wood.”
“Let me know if you learn anything important,” Mike said. “If we get anything from the FBI lab, I’ll let you know.”
“Sweet, thanks,” I said.
“I’ll be in touch,” Mike said. Before I could answer the line went dead.
I wondered whether Mike would ever get past the breakup. He was a lovely, good guy. I hated to think we’d never be friends again.
Eight
My brain had developed an annoying habit of drifting to thoughts of Malone rather than the investigation of the theft of Tiger Ying. That I struggled to stay focused, to draw a clear line between my personal issues and professional responsibilities left me feeling brassed off. Maybe some people weren’t cut out to separate the two, and I was one. Maybe some personal issues were too deep to ignore.
The good news was I felt heaps less like I’d lost the plot after talking with Dr. Nix. Maybe some direct action would get me back on track and improve my mood. With that in mind, I rode my motorbike back to Makana Antiques and Treasures instead of going straight home from the office. I wanted to get Salina Clark’s address from Brandi Camargo. Then I could call on Clark at her flat Saturday morning.
It was past five when I rode into the car park out front of the antique shop. I hoped Brandi hadn't already closed for the day. Approaching the front door, I found I was in luck. Through the glass window, I saw Brandi chatting to an older gentleman at the front counter.
Opening the door, the tinkling bell greeted me once again. As I walked toward the shop front, I overheard the guy say, “Of course, I’m upset. As a longtime client, I feel slighted at not receiving an invitation to the private auction.”
“William, I apologize for any upset,” Brandi said. “You are a deeply appreciated client. But, as I’ve explained the consignor set the number of invitations and supplied the list of names of those they were to be sent out to.”
As I neared the counter, they both stopped talking and turned toward me. Brandi looked puzzled at seeing me.
“T. J., what a surprise,” she said. “What brings you here?”
“I need something from you before the weekend,” I said. “But, please don’t let me interrupt. I can have a look around the shop until you’ve finished your business with this gentleman.”
The man gave me an appraising look. He had a narrow face with a sallow complexion and a lacework of fine broken veins on his cheeks when you looked closely. He had a widow’s peak with snow-white hair receding substantially on either side of the peak. His hair was cut short with sideburns extending to mid-ear. He wore a tan sports jacket over matching trousers and a pair of brown loafers without socks.
Brandi introduced us. He was William Chambers, described by Brandi as a collector of cultural artifacts and a valued client. Chambers shook my hand for a moment or two longer than felt comfortable.
“Are you interested in antiquities young lady?” Chambers said.
“No, actually,” I said.
“No?” Chambers seemed perplexed by my answer.
“T. J. is helping me with a special project, William,” Brandi said.
She smiled brightly at Chambers and was silent. Chambers stared at her and was silent. I was silent. It felt awkward, so I spoke up.
“Please don’t mind me,” I said. “Sorry for the interrupt
ion. Please carry on, and I’ll have a look about until you’ve finished.”
I turned and walked away, pretending to admire the hideous old dust-covered things on the shelves nearby. Something seemed curious about Chambers. I was careful not to get beyond earshot.
“As I was saying, William, there were only a dozen invitations sent out,” Brandi said. “All were sent to collectors designated by my consignor. It was out of my hands. Besides, I’m sure there isn’t a single piece in the consignment that would interest a discriminating collector like you.”
“Nonsense,” Chambers said testily. “Someone has told me there are several pieces from the Western Zhou dynasty, including a rare water vessel. You are well aware I have a keen interest in artifacts from the period.”
“Who told you that?” Brandi said, sounding somewhat alarmed.
“A mutual acquaintance, someone who did receive an invitation to the auction,” Chambers said. “I’ve seen the invitation and the descriptions of the pieces to be auctioned.”
“I see,” Brandi said. “There was no intent on my part to slight you, William,” Brandi said. “Nevertheless, I’m still unable to invite you to attend. The decision isn’t mine to make.”
“Who is the consignor?” Chambers said. “Perhaps I can sway him or her if I appeal to the consignor directly.”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” Brandi said. “The consignor has insisted on complete anonymity.”
“Preposterous,” Chambers said. “Seems a damn fool way to conduct an auction.”
“I am sorry, William, really I am,” Brandi said. “Can’t you please try to see things from my position? My hands are tied.”
“If you refuse me the name of the consignor, then I require one of two things,” Chambers said. “Either get me an invitation to the auction or convince your consignor to allow me to view the pieces here before the auction. If it’s the latter, you can assure him or her I’ll pay top dollar for anything I deem desirable. That’s my final word on the matter.”