Mahu Blood

by Alex Beecroft

  The air was filled with the sound of gunfire, but I couldn’t tell if it was aimed at us or just distracting Dex. I was panting and my heart was racing. I felt sweat beginning to drip down my forehead.

  Kitty began crying, and I put my arm around her. “It’s okay,” I said. “We’re okay.” The hedge didn’t provide us with much shelter, and if Dex wanted, he could get a direct bead on us through the shrubbery. But I didn’t want Kitty to know that.

  “I froze,” she said. “Jim told me to get out of the way, and when I realized how vulnerable I was, I just couldn’t move.”

  Her whole body shook with sobs. “Today was my last day in the FTEP. But I froze. How can I be a cop if I can’t handle the pressure?”

  She was clutching her upper left arm, and I could see blood seeping out between her fingers. “Remind me sometime, and I’ll tell you a few of the stupid things I did when I was on patrol,” I said, unbuttoning my aloha shirt. I pulled it off and made a rough tourniquet for her arm. “Right now, though, you’ve got to pull together. All right? I know you can do that, Kitty.”

  She looked at me. “You’re right,” she said, wiping her hand across her eyes. “I can do that. What should I do?”

  Kitty’s phone buzzed. “For starters, answer the phone, and tell your dad you’re okay.”

  She started to cry again. I took the phone from her and popped it open. Sampson was not only my boss, but also a man I respected. He had taken a chance on me when no one else in the department would, and I owed him. I couldn’t help feeling that I had disappointed him by letting Kitty get hurt. Yeah, he MAhu BLood 281

  was a cop, and so was she. Both of them knew the risks of the job. But Kitty was more to me than just my boss’s stepdaughter; she was a friend, a mentee, another gay person traveling the same road I was.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m with Kitty,” I said into the phone. “She took a hit to her upper arm, but we’ve controlled the bleeding. As soon as the shooter is contained we’ll get her medical attention.”

  “I’m on my way,” Sampson said and disconnected the call.

  I snapped the phone shut and handed it back to Kitty, then looked over at Dex’s pickup. From the street angle, I could see the passenger side.

  “Jesus, Ezekiel, what the fuck are you still doing there?” I muttered, watching him staring into the passenger window like he was at the aquarium watching the sharks.

  Then he opened the door and reached in.

  My phone had stayed clamped to my belt through my run and dive. It buzzed, and I flipped it open. “Can you see what’s going on?” Ray asked.

  “Ezekiel’s grabbing for something in the truck.”

  “The rifle’s pulled back inside,” Ray said. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “He’s got Dex’s foot. He’s pulling him out of the truck.”

  I heard Ray relaying the news to Yamashita. “Jesus, the guy’s an idiot,” I said. Ezekiel kept backing up, dragging on Dex’s leg, as Dex kicked at him. Two of the SWAT cops rushed toward the truck.

  Dex was too close to Ezekiel to turn the rifle on him, but he had his Glock, too. If he got hold of it he could shoot Ezekiel and the SWAT cops. But the cops converged on the truck before Dex could get a shot off. One of them pushed Ezekiel out of the way as the other grabbed Dex. Within seconds, they had Dex on the ground in handcuffs.

  A pair of beat officers helped me and Kitty up. The cool 282 Neil S. Plakcy

  breeze felt good on my bare skin, though I was a little embarrassed to be walking around a crime scene without a shirt.

  Other cops surrounded Dex, and still others converged on the front door of the bank to help Jimmy control the crowd from the inside. The whole area around the bank was blocked with cars and flashing blue lights.

  “Come on, let’s get you fixed up,” I said to Kitty, leading her toward the fire truck where the EMTs waited. “Can you walk okay?”

  “I’m good.” She put a hand on my arm. “Thanks, Kimo. For everything.”

  “You’re going to make a great cop, Kitty.”

  I led her to the wagon, where one of the EMTs pulled off my bloody shirt and began cleaning her wound. The other guy looked at me and said, “You look familiar. Aren’t you Mike Riccardi’s partner?”

  My mouth opened, but I didn’t say anything. Mike had always been so careful at work—how did this guy know he was gay?

  Would I be outing him by saying anything? Then I caught a look at the guy’s face, and I knew it was okay.

  “Yeah.” I shook his hand. “I’m Kimo.”

  “Nice to meet you. You and Mike are doing good things for all of us.” He reached back into the wagon and handed me T-shirt with the Honolulu Fire Department logo on the front and the saying “Firemen do it with big hoses” on the back.

  I pulled it on as Lieutenant Sampson rolled up, the blue light on his car blazing in the bright sun. I could see him holding back, though, walking, not running, toward us.

  “Everything under control here?” he asked us.

  “The scene has been secured, sir,” Kitty said to him. She had a bruise on her cheek and some smudges of dirt on her uniform, but otherwise, she looked just like she was—a good cop, who’d gone through her first trial by fire.

  “You joining the Fire Department, Kimo?” Sampson asked MAhu BLood 283

  me, half smiling.

  “Detective Kanapa’aka used his shirt as a tourniquet,” Kitty said. “I’ll owe you a shirt, Kimo.”

  “I’ll give you a tip, Kitty. Mix a little laundry soap with some hydrogen peroxide and blot the blood before washing,” I said.

  “This won’t be the first time you get blood on your clothes.”

  I left Kitty and Sampson at the EMT wagon and walked over to Ray. The SWAT guys had Dex in cuffs, and Ray and I arranged to have a pair of uniforms deliver him to a holding cell at headquarters while we conducted interviews at the bank. I was glad that the incident had been resolved without anyone else getting killed, but I knew that our work wasn’t over yet. We still had to nail Dex for the three murders, using evidence that would hold up in court. That wasn’t going to be a slam dunk.

  too BAd he wAs cRAzy

  Sampson took Kitty to Queen’s Medical Center to get her arm checked out, and I called Mike and let him know I was going to be home late. It was after six by the time Ray and I set up at the manager’s desk inside the bank and began taking statements from customers and employees.

  Outside, a couple of uniforms managed the traffic on Iolani Street. The SWAT team cleared up, including having the damaged cruiser and Lexus towed away. Ryan Kainoa and another evidence tech showed up to collect the bullets and casings, in case we needed proof of who shot where and when.

  Our next-to-last statement came from the manager, a sallow-faced Indian named Pradeep Singh. “Mr. Kapuāiwa is one of the registered signers on a box rented by his organization, the Kingdom of Hawai’i. He had his key with him, so I had him sign our log, and I opened the vault for him.”

  “Did you recognize the man with him?” Ray asked.

  Singh shook his head. “But Mr. Kapuāiwa always has someone with him when he comes to the bank. As I understand it, he doesn’t drive.”

  “As you’ve probably heard, the man with Mr. Kapuāiwa was Dexter Trale, who is under suspicion for numerous crimes. Did Mr. Kapuāiwa appear to be under any pressure from Mr. Trale?”

  I asked.

  “It is not really my business to pay attention to such things,”

  Singh said. “I opened the vault and used my key to unlock the box, after Mr. Kapuāiwa had inserted his. Then I returned here, to my desk.”

  “And what happened next?” Ray asked.

  “This Mr. Trale began yelling,” Singh said. “Things like,

  ‘where’s the money?’ He was very loud, and I got up to ask him to be more quiet. When I reached the door to the vault I saw that 286 Neil S. Plakcy

  he had a handgun, and I backed away before he saw me.”

 
He took a breath, and his teeth chattered a little. “I was very frightened, but I came back to my desk and pressed the emergency alert, just as I have been trained and according to bank policy. I notified the tellers and the other bank officers, and we were beginning to escort the customers from the lobby when Mr. Kapuāiwa and Mr. Trale came out of the vault.” Singh’s breath was coming in short bursts, and I worried that he might have some kind of attack.

  He pulled an inhaler out of his jacket pocket and used it, then relaxed. “I’m sorry,” he said, between pants. “I have asthma.”

  “Take your time,” I said.

  “Mr. Trale began waving his gun and yelling. We were all very frightened. But Mr. Kapuāiwa spoke to him, and then suddenly Mr. Trale took his arm and yanked him toward the front door.

  That is when I looked outside and saw the police.”

  We asked a few more questions, clarifying details, then thanked Singh for his time and told him he could go. “Oh, no,”

  he said. “I must remain to lock up the bank.”

  “We’ll try and get out of your way soon, then,” I said. We nodded to Jimmy, who came over and escorted Singh back out to the lobby.

  We left Ezekiel for last. “You were quite a hero today, Mr.

  Kapuāiwa,” I said, as Jimmy returned with him.

  “Oh, no,” he said, sitting down.

  “Sure you were,” Ray said. “You pulled Dex out of the truck, kept him from hurting anybody else.”

  “I had to do it. It is in my blood, you see. The blood of the kings of Hawai’i. I am responsible for my ohana.”

  I nodded. Ezekiel was so earnest, it was clear that he believed his own publicity. Too bad he was crazy; he might have made a great king.

  He didn’t look half as squirrely as he had the day Maile Kanuha brought him to headquarters, and I wondered if his MAhu BLood 287

  behavior was controlled by medication—or just affected by being around Maile.

  “Why don’t you tell us what happened today?” I asked.

  “I was at my home when Dexter came to visit,” he said.

  It was an odd choice of words for the appearance of a guy with a gun, but that was Ezekiel. “You knew him?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I often visited Aunty Edith at the home she shared with Dexter and Leelee. And sometimes Mr.

  Tanaka asked Dexter to drive me to events. I do not drive myself, you know.”

  I nodded.

  “Dexter said he needed money very quickly. I only had a few dollars to offer him, and that made him angry. He hit me in the head with his handgun and demanded that I come with him, here, to to this bank.”

  “So he already knew about the safe deposit box?” Ray asked.

  “Yes. I tried to explain that the box was only used to protect important papers, but he would not listen. He believed there was much money here.”

  “What happened when he found there was no money in the box?” I asked.

  “He began speaking of robbing the bank. I knew that would be a terrible thing. Many Hawaiian people trust this bank with their money. So I told him that he should not do such a thing, that we could go and speak with Mr. Tanaka, and he would give Dexter the money he wanted.”

  “That was good thinking,” Ray said.

  I disagreed; if we hadn’t gotten to the bank when we did, Dex and Ezekiel could have slipped away. Ezekiel would still be in danger, and Dex would still be on the loose. But I didn’t say anything.

  We went back over Ezekiel’s statement, confirming the time Dex had arrived at his house. It was only a few minutes after he 288 Neil S. Plakcy

  had left my mother, Leelee and the baby at his own home and made sense when compared to the time he and Ezekiel arrived at the bank.

  By the time Maile Kanuha arrived to take Ezekiel home, the sun had set, and the crime scene techs and SWAT team were gone. Jimmy stayed behind until Pradeep Singh could lock the bank up, and Ray and I grabbed some fast food on our way back to the station.

  The blood had dried on my aloha shirt, and I put it back on before we went into the interrogation room with Dex, who’d waived his rights to an attorney. Sampson and Francisco Salinas watched from behind a two-way mirror as Dex explained how it had all started.

  “That nosy old Aunty Edith. She had these records showed Ezekiel had been in the mental hospital. She was bragging about it to me and Leelee one night. I knew that the boss was backing Ezekiel, so I told him about it.”

  “The boss?” I asked.

  “Mr. T. Mr. Tanaka.”

  “That would be Jun Tanaka?” I showed him a photo of Tanaka and he nodded.

  “For the tape, could you please identify this picture?”

  “That’s him. Mr. T. My boss.”

  He said that Tanaka had paid him ten grand to kill Aunty Edith. It was Dex’s idea to do it at the rally, making it look random, like one of the other groups was trying to disrupt KOH.

  “He never gave me no money, though,” Dex said. “I owed him from the pai gow game.”

  He explained that periodically Tanaka would send him to retrieve cash from the video poker machines in the warehouse off River Street or other fan tan or pai gow games. Then, while Stuey stood guard, thinking he was just watching the coffee beans, Tanaka would divide up the cash into separate deposits for each Kope Bean store and prepare a bag of cash for his safe MAhu BLood 289

  deposit box. Dex had heard Ezekiel talk about a box once, and he figured Ezekiel had access to the box that Tanaka had been using.

  “But there was nothing in the one at Hawaiian People’s,” Dex said. “Nothing but a bunch of papers.”

  We asked him about Stuart McKinney. “Screwy Stuey,” Dex said, shaking his head. “He started to mouth off about the money that Mr. T sorted at the back of the warehouse. I told Mr. T, and he paid me another ten grand to take care of things. That paid off the last of what I owed from pai gow. I even had a little extra, picked up some fine pakalolo from the Campbell brothers.”

  He smiled, and then his eyebrows went up. “Hey, maybe I can do a deal with you guys. Be one of those informant types. I could get you the Campbell brothers easy.”

  “We’ll talk about that later,” I said. “What about Adam O’Malley? How’d you know he was going to be at that bar?”

  “Mr. T, he told me about this lawyer, said he had some papers he shouldn’t have. He told me to get hold of the guy and collect the papers. He showed me the dude’s picture, and I recognized his face, knew I’d seen him at this māhū bar, The Garage, on hard hat nights.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Some of these māhūs, they’re like shooting pigeons at the park,” he said, shaking his head. “When I need cash I go to The Garage on Thursdays. The guys there love me. The tattoos really turn them on.” He leaned forward again.

  “Only on Thursdays, though. The rest of the week it’s more of a pansy crowd.”

  He told us about picking up guys at The Garage, letting them suck him off, sometimes tying them up or hitting them, then stealing their cash and jewelry. “So it was real lucky it was Thursday afternoon when Mr. T came over to the warehouse,

  ‘cause I was pretty sure this O’Malley guy would be at The Garage that night.”

  Not so lucky for Adam O’Malley, I thought.

  Dex flexed his shoulders like a rooster strutting. “I went over there looking for him, and sure as shit, he was right there at the 290 Neil S. Plakcy

  bar.”

  Ray and I shared a glance. Premeditation was always good to have on the record.

  “I went up to the bar, chatted him up,” Dex continued. “He was all over me. It was easy as pie to get him back to his place.

  And once we were inside, he was all mine.”

  Dex grinned broadly, remembering. “I made him take all his clothes off, and I tied his wrists and ankles to the bed. The dude was squirming, he was so eager for it. But I told him he was going to have to cooperate with me if he wanted my dick.”

  “Cooperate how?�
�� I asked.

  “I told him I needed those papers for Mr. T. That if he was a good boy and gave me what I wanted, I’d give him what he wanted. But he got all crazy on me. Said I didn’t know who I was messing with, that he’d drag my ass to jail.”

  “That must have pissed you off,” I said.

  “You bet. I went into the kitchen and got a knife from the drawer, and when I came back I held it to his balls. He caved like a little baby. Told me all the papers I wanted were in a folder on his desk.”

  He looked at us. “After that, I couldn’t just let him go. I mean, what if he did try to drag me to court? Mr. T wouldn’t be happy about that. So I grabbed him by the hair and sliced his throat.”

  Well, there went our premeditation. But it was still murder.

  “I mean, if he’d cooperated, I’d have fucked his ass, grabbed the papers and walked out. But not after those threats. Anyway, I was pissed by then. So I dug around his drawers and found that big black dildo, and I rammed it up his ass so you guys would think it was just a sex thing.”

  I felt bile rising in the back of my throat. I wanted to see Dex get locked up for a good long time, preferably with a big tough cellmate who’d make Dex his bitch.

  It took us hours to get everything down on tape and to get the warrants issued for Dex and Tanaka for all three murders.

  MAhu BLood 291

  We booked Dex, but Tanaka remained in federal custody while Salinas assembled his money laundering case.

  It was after midnight by the time I got home. I was exhausted, and I wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and go to sleep. Mike, however, had other plans.

  When I came in he was sitting at the kitchen table with a pad of paper, making lists. Roby was sprawled at his feet and barely looked up at me as I walked in.

  “What happened? Where’s that blood from?” Mike said, looking at my shirt.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not mine.” I thought it was pretty cool to have someone to come home to who cared about me. I leaned down and kissed his stubbled cheek.