Mahu Blood

by Alex Beecroft

  A place he could hide out?”

  “I never met no family. He said his parents die long time ago.”

  “Where did he live before he moved in here?” Ray asked.

  She looked as if we’d asked her one of those analogy questions from the SAT, the kind that used to boggle my mind.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Come on, Leelee, you’ve got to give us something,” I said.

  She started to cry again. “Don’t know. He just show up. I think he work with Uncle Amos on some job. He come over one day, and then he move in.”

  I heard my mother’s car in the driveway and went to meet her. “Your father’s pressure is up so I left him at home,” she said, kissing my cheek. “How’s Leelee?”

  “Getting better.” I led her into the kitchen, where she looked around.

  “At least she has some diapers and some formula. So things haven’t fallen apart completely.” She shook her head. “After we get organized I’ll see if I can talk to the neighbors about helping her.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

  Ray and I drove around the neighborhood looking for information on Dexter Trale. Everybody we found, though, was glad that he was gone. One old lady at the community center called him a pilau moke, a dirty crook.

  “Is he why nobody helps Leelee?” I asked.

  “Dat girl babooze to stay wid him. But now he gone, I make her some sticky rice.”

  “That would be very nice of you, Aunty.”

  I figured it was up to us to make sure that Dexter stayed gone.

  tRANsMissioNs

  “Sticky rice,” I said, as we walked away from the old lady and climbed into the Jeep. My stomach grumbled. “What do you say we stop for some lunch on our way back to work?”

  Ray was all for that plan, so I swung past a Zippy’s, where we both ordered bowls of chili. We stood around in the tiled lobby of the restaurant, hovering like everyone else until the server called our numbers.

  “Edith Kapana was a nosy old woman,” I said. “She knew about Ezekiel’s stay at the mental hospital, and that could destroy the foundation of KOH. Who’s going to choose a crazy man as king of Hawai’i?”

  “Dex worked for Tanaka at the Kope Bean. He told Tanaka about Edith, and Tanaka hired him to kill Edith, to protect his investment in KOH. And when Stuey started talking to us about the money being sorted at the warehouse, Dex killed him, too.”

  The server called our numbers, and we carried our food to a table by the window.

  “A skinny guy with tattooed arms picked up Adam O’Malley at The Garage,” I continued as we sat down. “That was Dexter Trale. Dex has been picking up extra cash posing for naked pictures and rolling gay men he picks up in bars. He went home with O’Malley, slit his throat, then staged the scene to make us think it was a sex crime.”

  Ray sighed. “We still don’t have any concrete proof we could take to a DA.”

  “We need to connect Dex to Jun Tanaka, because Tanaka is the one who benefits from the murders,” I admitted. “It’s not enough that Dex worked for him and that my brother heard Dex talking about his marksmanship skills at the pai gow game. But with Dex in the wind and Tanaka with the FBI, we don’t have any place to go.”

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  My phone rang as we were leaving the restaurant. I looked at the display and saw it was my mother’s cell. “Hi, Mom, what’s up?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, I heard voices in the background, as if she’d dialed my number accidentally and I was overhearing her conversations.

  I was about to hang up when I heard someone say, “Please, Dex.” It sounded like Leelee’s voice.

  I turned the phone so Ray could listen. We walked to a shady spot by the side of the building, away from the noise of traffic.

  “Stupid damn bitch,” a man’s voice said.

  The idea that Dex was anywhere near my mother was pretty scary. The sound faded, and I pressed the phone to my ear, trying to hear more. Ray handed me his phone and mouthed, “Call your father. Where’s your mother?”

  He took my phone from me and walked a few steps away.

  My father answered, yawning as if I’d woken him.

  “Dad, where’s Mom?”

  “Still at that girl’s house, I guess. My blood pressure was up this morning so she made me stay home. What’s up?”

  “Nothing, Dad. I’ll call her cell.”

  “You and Mike should come by for dinner,” he said.

  “Yeah, Dad, we will. Gotta go. Bye.”

  I switched phones with Ray. Still nothing on my mom’s end.

  “My mom’s at Leelee’s” I whispered.

  “I’ll call for backup. Let’s roll.”

  We ran for my Jeep. I popped the flashing light up on my roof and burned rubber. It was a good thing I excelled at the defensive driving class at the police academy, because I used every trick I knew to swerve around slow-moving cars, take curves at high speed and generally drive like a maniac for the next twenty minutes.

  MAhu BLood 273

  I lost the connection to my mother’s cell phone when we went through a dead zone, and I didn’t want to call her back because I didn’t know what was going on at the house.

  I turned onto Wyllie, narrowly missing a soccer mom in a minivan plastered with decals of kids dancing and playing soccer.

  “Watch the flashing lights, asshole!” I said as I slewed around her.

  “Take it easy, Kimo,” Ray said, grabbing the passenger door.

  “It won’t help if we smash up on our way there.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, jumping onto the Pali Highway and accelerating. We were lucky that there wasn’t much traffic; I was able to dart around the slower-moving cars. We took the first exit we could and climbed the narrow streets to Leelee’s house in record time, blasting the horn at a convertible full of clueless tourists and narrowly missing a garbage can that I swear jumped out at us as we passed.

  One thing you’ve got to say about our SWAT teams, they mobilize fast. A block from Leelee’s house. I pulled up beside a black SUV I knew belonged to one of the SWAT team leaders, a crusty Nisei named Yamashita. He stood in front of it, with three other guys in bullet-proof vests checking various pieces of weaponry.

  All around us I saw neighborhood residents clustered on porches and lawns, watching the action. “We passed a white pickup going fast as we were heading up here,” Yamashita said.

  “The license plate was covered with dirt, so we couldn’t get a clear ID on it and didn’t want to initiate a chase without knowing what was going on in the house.”

  “Did it have one of those “Welcome to Hawai’i—Now Go Home” bumper stickers on it?”

  “Yeah. I saw that.”

  “That’s Dexter Trale’s vehicle. Any passengers in the truck?”

  Yamashita shook his head. “Not that we could see.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I know what’s going on,” I said, and drove on, pulling up in front of Leelee’s ramshackle house.

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  I jumped out and raced up to the front door, Ray right behind me. My mother was sitting on the sofa with her arm around Leelee when I burst inside. Leelee held the baby on her lap. I hurried over and kissed my mother’s cheek.

  “I’m sorry I got you caught up in this,” I said.

  Her black hair was still perfect in its black bouffant, her white sleeveless blouse a crisp contrast to her tanned skin. With her pink cotton skirt and black ballet-slipper flats, she could have been on her way to lunch with one of her friends, instead of confronting a man who might have killed three people. She shivered, but then she smiled and hugged Leelee.

  “It’s okay. He just left. That boy, that Dexter.” Her voice was shaky. “Leelee was very brave.”

  “He was so mad,” Leelee said. Tears stained her cheeks, but she had combed her hair and was wearing a clean T-shirt and a pair of denim cutoffs.

  Ray called dis
patch and put out an APB—an all points bulletin—for Dexter Trale, and I tried to calm down, so I wouldn’t show my mother how upset I’d been. It was one thing to worry about a witness or a hostage in a dangerous situation—

  and another thing entirely when it was your own mother.

  Between them, my mother and Leelee told us what had happened. “I think he might be on drugs,” my mother said to me in a low voice. “He looked crazy.”

  Dex had ranted and raved, yelling at Leelee, while he had packed up some of his belongings. That’s when my mother dialed my number, keeping the phone in her pocket.

  “That was very smart, Mom. You’ve got a cool head in a crisis. Maybe you should have been the cop, not me.”

  “No, thank you. I nearly fainted when Dexter started waving his gun and yelling at Leelee. She stood up to him, and he hit her in the mouth.” She took a couple of deep breaths. “He wanted all the money Leelee had in the house, which wasn’t much, and then he took the cash from my wallet.”

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  The anger kept bubbling up inside me, and I struggled to rein it in. Nobody messes with my family—especially not my mother.

  “Did you notice what kind of gun it was?” I asked.

  “It looked like your father’s Glock. But I’m not sure.”

  My father had raised us all around handguns; his favorite was the Glock 9 millimeter. He had given us each one when we graduated from college. I still kept mine oiled and polished, in case he ever asked to see it. I didn’t want to endure a tongue-lashing about the care of firearms. I realized a couple of years into my career that everything I’d learned as a cop was just reinforcement of what my father had taught me. And that goes for a lot more than weapons.

  “When he left, he took a rifle with him too,” my mother said, balancing the baby on her hip as if he was one of her own grandchildren. “There are some neighbors outside, I’m going to go out and talk to them.” She patted Leelee’s shoulder. “You’ll see, things will be better now.”

  “Where do you think Dex might have gone?” I asked Leelee.

  By then she was calmer, drinking some herb tea. “He say he want money. He say Ezekiel know where there lots from that group, da kine KOH.”

  “Ezekiel Kapuāiwa?”

  “Yeah, he used to drive him places.”

  The front door opened, and soon the living room was filled with women comforting Leelee and offering her help. It seemed like Leelee’s ohana was finally pitching in now that Dex was gone.

  A police car was going to sit outside the house, in case Dexter came back, and it was time for Ray and me to get moving.

  I walked my mother out to her car. “Dex didn’t take your wallet, did he? Or any of your ID?”

  She shook her head.

  “Good. So he doesn’t know who you are or where you live.”

  She beeped open the door of her car, and I could see in her 276 Neil S. Plakcy

  eyes that she was glad to be going home.

  “I don’t think we should tell Dad about this,” I said, “if his blood pressure’s up. But you should stay away from Leelee until we know that Dexter’s in custody.”

  “That poor girl,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Mom.”

  “I know, I know. I just hope those women will help her.”

  “You saw how they were talking. Like you always say, it’s ohana.”

  We drove the few blocks to the house where I’d seen Tanaka drop off Ezekiel, but no one was home. Ray called Maile Kanuha to see if he was with her.

  “Ezekiel doesn’t carry cash,” he said to me, after he hung up.

  “But she admitted that there’s a safe deposit box with some cash in it, though she wouldn’t tell me where the cash came from.”

  “Where’s the box?”

  “A bank called Hawaiian People’s. Apparently there’s only one branch.”

  “I know it. Let’s get a car out there.”

  We started back down the twisting, narrow streets. I drove a lot slower now that my mother was out of danger and no garbage cans or other obstructions jumped in our way. We were about halfway to the Hawaiian People’s Bank when dispatch called.

  “We have a radio car at Hawaiian People’s Bank that reports a truck there matching the description you put out,” the dispatcher said.

  “On our way. Make sure all units know the suspect is armed and dangerous.”

  hAwAiiAN PeoPLe’s

  The bank was on Iolani Avenue at the foot of Tantalus, and we were there a few minutes later. When we pulled up in front of the single-story whitewashed building, Jimmy Chang and Kitty Cardozo were directing traffic away from the bank. It was late afternoon, and the sky was the color of a purple bruise behind the looming mass of the mountains.

  “Sorry, the bank is temporarily closed,” I heard Kitty tell a woman in a pickup.

  “I just saw someone come out,” the woman argued. “It’s only 3:40.”

  “Please move along, ma’am,” Kitty said. Standing there in her uniform, hands on hips, she had a “don’t fuck with me” attitude, and the woman, grumbling, continued on past the bank.

  I figured about forty-five minutes had passed since Dex left his house for Ezekiel’s, giving him enough time to pick Ezekiel up and drive down the hill to the bank.

  The SWAT team was assembling again. Yamashita had one hand on the gun in his belt holster and was communicating by headset with someone when Ray and I walked up. He held up his index finger while whoever it was finished talking.

  “There’s a disturbance in the vault,” he said to us. “Apparently there wasn’t any cash in that safe deposit box.”

  “I didn’t think Tanaka would give Ezekiel a key to a box full of cash,” I said.

  Yamashita listened again. “They’re coming out.” He positioned his sharpshooters around the parking lot. Into his microphone he said, “Suspect about to exit the building with a hostage. Hold fire unless you have a clear shot.”

  Ezekiel walked out first, with Dex right behind him. “Dexter Trale!” Yamashita’s voice boomed through a megaphone. “Put your hands up.”

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  Dex grabbed Ezekiel and held him as a shield. “I’ve got a gun!” he shouted. He took off at a run, dragging Ezekiel with him.

  “That’s his truck,” I said to Yamashita, pointing to the white pickup a few hundred feet away. I felt impotent standing there—

  this was my case, and I couldn’t do anything more than watch the SWAT team and see how things would play out.

  “Take out the white truck,” Yamashita said into his headset.

  Almost immediately, a series of shots rang out. I looked at the truck and saw the tires on the side facing us start to deflate.

  Dex made it to the truck, though, using its body as a shield. As he ducked in, Ezekiel pulled away from him. Instead of running away, though, Ezekiel remained at the side of the truck, peering in the window. We couldn’t see what Dex was doing.

  “He took a rifle with him when he left the house,” I said to Yamashita, as the barrel of the rifle poked out the driver’s side, Dex staying low.

  Ray and I both had our hands on our guns, though at such long range neither of us would have a decent shot. It was instinct, I guess.

  “Why doesn’t Ezekiel get out of there?” Ray asked. “Is he that stupid?”

  “According to all reports.”

  Dex fired the rifle and a blast shattered the window of Jimmy Chang’s police cruiser.

  “Does anybody have a shot?” Yamashita asked, the frustration evident in his voice.

  Jimmy Chang was at the front door of the bank, keeping the patrons from spilling out onto the sidewalk. There were SWAT

  officers poised behind vehicles and one on the roof of the bank.

  A couple of EMTs from the fire station down the street were on hand in case there were injuries.

  Kitty Cardozo was in the middle of Iolani Avenue, yelling at people on the street to get down and motioni
ng cars to move MAhu BLood 279

  away. It looked like she was so busy doing her job that she didn’t realize that she was right in the line of fire. But she was a rookie, after all; this was probably the first real police action she’d been involved with.

  I didn’t want to call attention to her by yelling her name, and I didn’t have her cell phone number. But I knew someone who did: her stepfather.

  I pulled out my cell and pressed the speed dial for Lieutenant Sampson. When he answered I said, “Call Kitty right now and tell her to get out of the street.” One thing I love about working for Jim Sampson is that he has the innate ability to react in a crisis. He disconnected from my call, and I slapped my phone shut. Then I watched.

  I could hear sirens of other patrol cars approaching. I figured Dex could, too, because he took out the windshield of a Lexus parked close to the street entrance. I watched as Kitty reached down to her belt and picked up her cell phone. She scanned the display, then popped the phone open.

  She stood there frozen. It was clear that Sampson had gotten through to her—but she didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t blame her; most cops don’t get into serious trouble while they’re still in the FTEP. The point of the training program is to get them some street knowledge under the supervision of a seasoned officer.

  Unfortunately, Jimmy Chang was too far from her to get her out of the way.

  Dex kept shooting, blasting at cars passing by on the street.

  Suddenly I saw Kitty grab her upper arm and fall to the ground on the median strip. A few feet from her, there was a hibiscus hedge that could shelter her from further fire—if she could get there. But she wasn’t moving.

  “Shit. I’ve got to get her out of the way,” I said to Ray.

  “Sampson will kill us both if anything happens to her.”

  Ray pulled his Glock and assumed a shooting stance, focused on Dex in the truck. “I’ll cover you.”

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Yamashita yelled, as I took 280 Neil S. Plakcy

  off across the open parking lot.

  I heard Ray start shooting toward Dex, hoping to distract him. I sprinted as fast as I could, pumping my arms. I reached Kitty, lying on the grass clutching her arm, with her face turned toward me, her mouth open in surprise. I grabbed her under the arms and dragged her behind the hibiscus. I collapsed on the ground beside her, one of the bright red blossoms in my face.