I looked through newspaper files, microfiche, computer databases, and found very little on that incident in the Northern Marianas. It was understandable that Kay, and Mia, and, hell, a few million other decent folks would have grave concerns about young girls being exploited on that tiny island, but would this have anything at all to do with Kay’s disappearance? The files Mia had given me suggested that Kay might have had some inside information. Did she find out something she shouldn’t have? Those redacted names, to whom did they belong? I searched for clues online, first using TLOxp to find connection points between different individuals, then painstakingly searched through the websites of both corporate and alternative media entities and blogs, some of which I had stumbled on through keyword searches. It took me a while, but I finally found, in an online blog, a comment about the bean-spiller going into hiding after talking with authorities. The blogger made reference to some well-connected individuals. Was Kay merely curious or did she have a bigger stake in this?
Late in the day I got an old friend, Mark Migita, to accompany me into the archives of the Honolulu Tribune. Since I had worked for the rival paper, the Star-Gazette, my mug wasn’t as familiar at the Tribune offices and I could do some searching without contending with the curious looks of former coworkers.
Even with unlimited access to both the Tribune and Gazette files, plus the IRE and NICAR databases, it didn’t take me long to find there wasn’t anything that I hadn’t already seen on the Tinian story. I kept thinking, who was talking? Why didn’t the Star-Gazette send a reporter to Tinian to query the resort staff, the local police, etc.? Since when did my former employer stop taking on such juicy, such social-politically and culturally significant stories?
Unfortunately, I knew the answer.
With access to all the print stories at my fingertips I figured I might as well look at what there was on Lino. I had covered the story, so this was a refresher course. Looking back and seeing my name on the byline of some of the follow-up pieces was not only a case of déjà vu, it also reminded me of all the energy I had put into the story before being reassigned.
And boy was it coming back….
Though police questioned a few suspects, they never made arrests. It was now and had long been a cold case. The articles on his murder all suggested that it was gangland related. Lieutenant Ernest Kam, the HPD spokesperson during that era, said at least that much. One article that I stumbled upon referred to an “Atherton J. Sperry, aka ‘Smokin’ Joe.’” Damn! No wonder that name sounded so familiar. He was a champion wrestler back in the 1970s, then spent the next decade getting arrested again and again for petty crimes. The article labeled him an acquaintance of Lino. Said that he was the one who had called 9-1-1. It also noted that he was the first person called in for questioning.
The Sperry name should have rung bells. And it was a resounding gong I heard when I came across an article on a heroin bust, with my name on the byline. It involved another Sperry, Smokin’ Joe’s brother, Curtis. I was a newbie reporter back then, and too much of a rookie to be assigned to any long-term investigating. That was left to the seasoned veterans, like Joseph Danby and Jess Mitsukawa. I’d liked to have dug in more, found out who was running these guys. Lino Johnson’s murder happened right around then. I was one of the reporters assigned to cover that story when it was breaking, but the veterans took over for the follow-up.
After leaving the archives and thanking Mark, I called Captain Norm McMichaels. I had taken a criminology class from him several years ago. He was the one who made the crazy suggestion that I get a PI license when I told him I was done with reporting; I was the crazy person who took him up on it. McMichaels updated me regarding the notorious Sperry brothers, Joe and Curtis. He reminded me that they were a year apart in age, but looked like identical twins. I remembered them as six-foot-four, 300-plus-pound goons with rap sheets a mile long. Back in the ’70s they used to wrestle as a tag team and were World Tag Team Champions for a while, in one of the numerous wrestling federations. Norm said that one of them, he forgot which, was distinguished by his ability to tear a quarter in two.
“They must be in their mid-fifties by now; still, I wouldn’t fuck with them.”
When I reminded Norm about Joe’s 9-1-1 call, he said the only reasons a guy like Smokin’ Joe would call in this murder so soon after his brother’s recent arrest would be that (a) he’s already a snitch, or (b) he’s trying to mitigate his brother’s sentence for the heroin case.
“Could it be both?” I asked.
“Sure. Of course.”
“If he were an informant,” I asked Norm, “who would he be giving information to?”
“It would be someone in le bureau général de stupefiants.”
“What?”
“Pardon my French. Been watching too many Pink Panther movies on Netflix. Narco squad.”
“But who in Narco?” And why is everybody speaking French to me?
“You want me to ask?”
“Aaah, not just yet.” I had learned the hard way that you had to tread carefully. Corruption was rampant in the HPD, and I could be giving a heads-up to the wrong people.
As I hung up I wondered if Smokin’ Joe was still around. I had interviewed him once, more than a decade ago. Our paths had crossed a couple times after that, and while we weren’t exactly acquaintances, he was always friendly.
I retrieved my car and headed back to my boat.
13
I’d been using the boat as a crash pad more than anything. I kept it clean but knew next to nothing about boat maintenance. I never turned the motor on; it was just a house on the edge of land. So when I saw the guy over in the next slip working on his hands and knees, sanding away at the shiny plank flooring, I figured maybe I could learn a thing or two.
“Mind if I ask what’s the purpose of that? That thing you’re doing?”
He looked up. “Oh, sorry, mate. Is the smell bothering you?” That accent. An Aussie? He was wearing working gloves, shorts, and no shirt. He held a paintbrush. He was hairy-chested, a mix of dark and white hairs in sharp contrast to the blond-white blend that topped his head. I stepped out of the shade and onto the landing between our boats. Next to him lay a pan of what must have been varnish—which emanated only the faintest of smells from my position several feet away, and was far more pleasant than diesel—and squares of sandpaper of varying degrees of coarseness.
“No, man, I don’t mind the smell at all. I’m a novice and thought maybe I could watch and learn some maintenance tips from you.”
“Sure, why not? But let me know if the smell, or the fact that you might see a naked girl running around here on occasion, bother you.”
“Now that I would object to.”
“Thought ya would, ya horny bastard.”
I watched him coat a section of the boat deck with elegant brush strokes.
“I just moved in a couple weeks ago,” I said after a solid minute, hoping I wasn’t being too interruptive. “Been using the boat as a house, a place to sleep. I don’t go fishing. Not sure if I want to.” He seemed so intent on his work, I didn’t know if he had heard me.
He looked up again. Aimed the brush toward the bow of my boat. “Well, you need to run the engine, at the very least. And, I tell ya, the struggle against galvanic corrosion is eternal.” Leaving one knee on the deck, he got up on one foot. “You see, salt water’s an electrolyte. It mixes with the metals of the boat. Hinges, railings—anything that’s chrome or stainless steel—you gotta spray off the salt with fresh water—”
“That includes the salt air?”
“You got it. Salt’s in the air too. Then you apply marine wax on the chrome. Keeps it nice and shiny.”
“Check.”
“And if you’re gonna take the boat out—you have the DLNR’s rules and regs, by the way?”
“That thick book—”
“Gotta read it. Utterly boring and badly written, but there’s some important information in it, like how to get through
the channel so you don’t hit coral. Important stuff about the bilge. I tell you what. Honestly, I’d rather eat those pages than pore through all that shit, so why don’t we take a run-through? Let’s take your boat out, soon as our schedules allow us. You’ll steer, and I’ll advise. Just a short run.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“You’ll like it so much you’ll kick yourself for not having done it already. By the way, you some kind of private eye?”
Uh-oh. I nodded. I hadn’t even hung my shingle out yet.
“Some dame’s come by—twice.”
“Young or old?”
“Depends what you consider old, my friend. Not quite thirty, is my best guess. Damn good looking, and stacked too. A face and body made for the movies.”
Too young to be Minerva. Maybe this was the blonde that Karl Lemon had mentioned. “You sure she’s not older?”
“Hard to tell these days. And if she’s older, I want the number of her plastic surgeon.”
“Ethnicity?”
“She’s a haole gal. Redhead. Rita Hayworth red. Maybe even darker.”
Rita Hayworth? I think I’ve seen her in some film, but in black and white. Anyhow, that in no way describes Minerva.
“Wish I knew you a couple years ago,” he continued, “when some fella stole my laptop and a stack of cash. Shit, the bloke even took my Maui Jim shades. Bloody freakin’ Maori.”
“You got something against Maoris?”
“Only those I’m related to. I’m a quarter myself.”
He looked all white to me. “How’d you know it was a Maori that stole your laptop?”
“For one thing, I was docked in Auckland. Not too many Mexicans there, so they’re off the hook. Two, some people saw—how did they put it—a dark-skinned male running off with what looked to be a laptop. And three, I know who the fuck it was. It was me damn cousin-in-law, Apera. I caught the damn bastard wearing my shades, though to this day he’ll insist he found it in a trash can.”
“So you’re a quarter Maori. What’s your other three-fourths?”
“My English-German dad used to insist it was four-fifths. He wasn’t so good at math. Or at being a father, for that matter.” He chuckled grimly. “Me mum’s an Ulster Scot. I believe that’s Scotch-Irish to you Americans.”
So he’s a Kiwi, not an Aussie. “Well, anything I can do to help? As long as it doesn’t involve your family.”
He put the brush in the pan, got up slowly, wiped his hands on his trunks, came up to me and offered his hand. “The name’s Rian. Spell it with an ‘i.’”
“I’m Kawika,” I said to him. “Spell it with an ‘i’ too.” Like Minerva, his skin suggested too much sun adoration.
“Hawaiian for David.”
“Yep.”
“I only know ’cause my son’s name is David. When he came to live with me a few years back, he got into Punahou—you know, where the tuition’s like a mortgage—and suddenly he wanted to be known as ‘Kawika.’ Still does. Maybe it’s a phase. I don’t know.”
“He still there? At Punahou?”
“No, he’s done with all that, thank god. He’s gone over to the California coast. Claims he’s working on a degree at Santa Cruz. Working on getting laid is more like it. Surf City, USA.”
“I thought Huntington Beach was Surf City.”
“According to David there’s some friendly dispute going on, a North/South war, with each city laying its claim.”
“You’d need a wet suit in Santa Cruz.”
“Is that what they’re calling them nowadays? You know that Santa Cruz was the first place in the U.S. to test that medical marijuana law?” He closed his eyes. “God, why did I let him go there?”
“Where’s his mum?”
He looked at me. “Oh, that girl’s up to no good in Wellington. She’s a teacher. Grew up there. Chose to stay there and remarry. Not too fond of the boating life.”
Rian wiped the sweat off his brow.
“Want a Heineken?” I asked. “I don’t have any Foster’s—” I caught myself.
“Steinlager’s our brew, brah. Actually, I’m not much for beer. What I prefer is a good chardonnay, of French or Italian vintage, with not too much in the way of sulfites. Other wise I get a miserable fuckin’ headache.”
“Sorry, I don’t have any wine—”
“Not a problem. Got a chest full down under. In the cabin, I mean.” He reached behind the gallon can of wood stain and pulled out a can of Diet Pepsi. “This is for when I’m workin’. The good stuff is for after the job’s done.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“But a poor plan if you don’t accompany me. Say, I got an idea. If you don’t mind the naked-girl-running-around thing—actually she’ll probably have a bikini on—why don’t you dine with me and Megumi tonight? We’re not big eaters, but I’m sure we can dig something up.”
“Tonight? Jeez, I’m on a case.”
“You gotta eat. Can’t solve cases without eating.”
“You got me. How about if I join you two for an early dinner? Before it gets too wild.”
“That sounds quite doable. I guess you don’t want me to ask Meg to bring along a lady friend of hers.”
“I wouldn’t be much fun. Not tonight anyway. ’Preciate the offer, though.”
“When was the divorce?”
That obvious? “Finalized last year.”
“Took me about that long to recover. Having the time of me life now.” Rian stretched. “Well, break’s over. Got to pretty up the boat for tonight.” He started to sing, softly, as if to remind himself, I’m havin’ the time of my life…. No, I never felt this way before….
I thought I should either offer to help with the sanding, accompany his voice with some harmony, or take my leave, but I had one more thing to ask. “Say Rian, do you happen to own a dark gray army blanket?”
He stopped singing. “You mean the one I threw over your shoulders? Man, you were shivering.”
“Thanks.”
“You’d a done the same. I like how you tied it to the mast. Pretty symbolic.”
“Symbolic of what?”
He shrugged. “Symbolic of something. It had that look.”
“Let me help.”
Rian looked at me like it was a bewildering phrase; he needed a moment to decipher. Then he nodded.
As Rian showed me his sandpapering technique—very light touch, an even back and forth, a meditative style, really—he talked again about how the salty air could do quite a bit of damage if you weren’t vigilant. On my knees, scraping, I quickly broke out in sweat. He went to his cabin and came back with a Pepsi. Not diet. He handed it to me. I stood and watched as he poured some varnish on the plank.
“Nothing like hard work to keep you honest.”
“Speaking of hard work, I just met a woman who does triathlons. She wants to do the Kona Ironman.”
“Imagine a woman in that kinda shape? God, how could a guy keep up with that? Double up on the Viagra?”
“She can run me into the ground, that’s for sure.”
“Any romantic notions? Or is she weird looking from all that exercise?”
“Nah, no romance. Just someone peripheral to a case. And not weird looking at all.”
“You got life in you yet, mate. How the fuck do they do it, huh?”
“You mean train?”
“Yeah. Would have to be a full-time job. Swimming, biking, running all the freakin’ time. No time to do the down and dirty.”
“Yeah, talk about misplaced priorities … I suppose it keeps ’em honest, though.”
“Honest, roit. A man who claims he’s honest is inevitably hiding something.”
“Sounds like you’ve had a few encounters.”
“Oh, don’t listen to this ol’ fart. I say things I don’t mean and—”
“Mean things you don’t say?”
“Yeah, mean things.” He paused. “That’s it, exactly.” He folded the sandpaper like it was origami. “Say, you
ever read The Maltese Falcon? You must have, in your field.”
“It’s our bible.” Why’s everyone so interested in what I read? I had a flash of that awkwardly staged scene where Bogart/Spade takes the gun away from Peter Lorre. I guess I knew the film better.
“I read it every now and then, mate. Jaded detective, duplicitous women, and they’re the good guys. I read that stuff to calibrate.”
“Calibrate?”
“Yuh. A moral compass is adjustable, you know. When I feel I’m getting too saintly, I pick up my Hammett, or Chandler. Then, when the devil and I start being drinking partners, I pick up some Gandhi. Actually, I watch the movie version. Quicker. That’s how I find my happy medium.”
I lifted my Pepsi. “Here’s to that … happy medium.” He reached for his drink and we clinked cans.
14
TWO CASES AND A GUITAR TOO
In the late afternoon I tried calling Les Biden again, and again the call went straight to voicemail. I had to find a better way to reach him. I made a quick call to Minerva and shared what I had learned from my encounters with Connie and Mia. She voiced some surprise that this Mia person was as close to Kay as she appeared to be. What this told me was there may have been some disconnect between mother and daughter these last few months.
After talking with her, I ran from my boat to Ala Moana Beach Park just to chase down that feeling I had rediscovered, that of a nicely revved up body. When I got to the beach, I removed my t-shirt and shoes and jumped in the water. I swam to the breakwater and back, practicing breathing every fourth stroke to build up my lung strength. I did a few short sprints on my return trip, walking to catch my breath after each leg. When I returned to my boat, I undid all the good I had accomplished by lighting up a smoke. I cursed my habit with each inhalation, throwing the cigarette away after a few drags. I stepped off the boat to go shower at the public restroom facilities, preparing for an evening venture into Chinatown, and returned to a gorgeous sunset, coral pink hues above deep blue water, and what appeared to be a possible client. I welcomed her onto my deck.
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