Steve Winsom explained that Matt had contacted him more than a month ago regarding Tinian. After some cursory investigating he said he wrote a brief article for The Weekly that was more tantalizing than substantial, more suggestive than conclusive. Then he began getting calls. Lots of calls. Calls saying this guy or that guy was behind it. Calls that were vague threats. Calls that were outright threats. He knew he was onto something, so he tried to contact Matt again, seeing if Matt could point him to more sources. He couldn’t reach Matt.
Winsom paused, took in some water, and swallowed hard. He said Gerard called him. Told him he was a friend of both Matt and Kay and that he had something. They arranged for a meet.
“The rest you know.”
“Why did you choose to meet by the tunnel?” I asked.
“He told me that the materials he had to give me were in his office. You know, at the theater. He sounded a bit drunk and it was really late. Like around midnight. I had told him it could wait till tomorrow, but he … he seemed to have this urgency. Now I think he knew he was being followed.”
“His body was found at his house,” I said. “In Mānoa.”
“That’s what really fucks me up. I tell you, I freaked when I figured out later that somebody came by after the fact, somebody who might have been lurking when I was there, and moved him to his house.”
I looked at Rian. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I’m thinking it was the cops,” he said.
“Thought you were a cop,” Steven said to Rian.
“I’m deeply offended.”
“He’s what I would call an independent contractor,” I said to Winsom. “Right?”
“Close enough.”
“Been reporting for ten years,” Winsom said. “Never had a night like that one.”
“And you don’t want too many more,” I told him.
When he picked up his coffee, his hands shook. He couldn’t handle much more.
“You guys having any luck finding Matthew and Kay?”
I shook my head. “They’re as missing as they ever were.”
“Dead, you think?” Winsom bit his thumb.
I looked at Rian. What did he know?
Classic poker face. That alone told me he knew more. He’s the one I needed to be interrogating.
We left Winsom to his coffee. He got a refill while my cup and Rian’s cup were still half full. And we both had to pee. We went into the restroom and stood side by side.
“I know what you’re thinking, Rian. Just say it.”
“Win some, lose some.”
50
I met with Richards later that evening. Same place, outside the tunnel, this time in the cover of darkness. It seemed an ideal place for a rendezvous. I was telling him about Rian, trying to convince him that my harbor mate was trustworthy and might be useful, when I saw a red dot on his chest just as he must’ve seen one on mine and we both dove for cover, kissing blacktop and rolling toward the side of the road. Shots rang out. Richards pulled out his gun—mine was in my car—and I followed him as we went scrambling, ducking, and diving for shelter amongst the kiawe while Richards fired off a few shots. This was followed by the sound of a screeching car, a car with no lights on. A car we couldn’t get a good look at.
While Richards wasn’t about to call it in or declare the area a crime scene—not yet, at least—he had the presence of mind to hand me a pair of gloves and a flashlight, and together we managed to find a couple of bullet fragments, which Richards put in an evidence bag. Based on what he saw, Richards suspected a fellow cop.
“Who could possibly know we were meeting here?” I told Richards. I didn’t even tell Rian.
“Whoever it was, they were trying to scare us off, those motherfuckers.” He spat, angrily.
“Sure they weren’t trying to hit us?”
“I go with scaring us off. Last thing they need is more corpses. More suspicions aimed at them.”
“Just gotta figure who ‘them’ is, exactly, huh?”
51
(Day 17—Wednesday, June 6) I was still calling and Mia still wasn’t answering. What’s happening? Maybe her phone was dead. Maybe she was. I tried getting in touch with Les, and learned that he was back on location in Arizona and didn’t want to be interrupted. I told his assistant, or whatever she was, that if he didn’t call me by day’s end he was gonna be in a shitload of trouble. Her reaction was so blasé it suggested to me that she heard this all the time.
I cased the different places I knew to be Mia’s main training areas—Lanikai, Kapi‘olani Park into Kahala, the Heartbreak Hill area in Hawai‘i Kai, the backroads of Waimānalo … no clues, nothing. I went to all the bike stores, showing them her picture. They recognized her at every store. At McCully Bicycle I talked to a couple of salesclerks and they said Mia usually came in a couple times a month but they hadn’t seen her lately.
Mia: Missing in Action.
Donny’s texted warning was scarily prophetic. Things were getting more and more crazy.
When I heard on my car radio that fire rescue people had pulled out a drowning female victim from the shores of Kailua Beach, my first thought was Please, don’t let it be her.
I called Angela Sareta, Honolulu City and County’s chief medical examiner.
I’d known her for a few years. We dated briefly, after my breakup with Brenda. Though we seemed to hit it off, and had developed a good working relationship due to a past case, one day she told me bluntly that she wasn’t rebound material. I was not in a good place, and it probably showed in ways I wasn’t aware of, so I took her words for granted. Later on I surmised that she simply feared commitments. She had two elderly parents to deal with, and that was more than enough for her to handle. Bizarrely, I think I was attracted to her lab coat, the same way I’d be attracted to a nurse or anyone offering care. But this woman cared for the dead. And the dying.
First I asked her about Gerard. Told her I had some investment in finding his killer. She told me that Gerard had been hit from behind, and the blow brought on a traumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage—in layman’s terms, bleeding at the base of the brain. He was dead long before he was shot.
This confirmed what both Richards and Winsom told me: Plotkin was moved after being killed. This new information suggested to me that whoever took the dead man back to his house shot him there to make it seem like he was killed there. Now why would the killer or killers do that?
Then I told Angela I had called for another reason, that I was afraid that I might know the Jane Doe. She must have wondered what the fuck was going on.
She put me on hold for a good two minutes, giving me time to consider that I may have approached this the wrong way. When she returned to the phone she said, very softy, like she didn’t want anyone else to hear, “Can you come over now?”
No one asked any questions when she, after noting my very obvious bruises, let me into the Iwilei facility. She was clearly the person in charge.
“What happened? To your face, I mean.”
“You should see the other guy.”
She noted the cut over my left eye. “I should take a look at that.”
“It’s nothing.”
As we walked down the corridor, she turned to me and said, “Before I let you look at the body, I need to tell you that the police think it might be that Watanabe woman. You know the case?”
“It’s been all over the news.” Police had charged a guy named Lankford with murder after they found her blood in his pickup truck. “You think it’s her?”
“This one drowned, so my guess is no. My guess is the Watanabe woman was killed and dumped somewhere. And even if she had been dumped in the ocean, there’d be some indication that she was killed prior. To put it in crass terms, this one drowned and she’s fresher.”
Fresh corpses; quite the oxymoron. I wondered how anyone could deal with the freshly dead on a day-to-day basis. Angela looked like she handled it well.
We stepped into a room that wa
s separated by a window from the autopsy room. Some guy was washing up in there. I nodded at him. He nodded back. Then he went up to the covered corpse.
“Hope you’re ready for this,” she said as she nodded at the guy and he pulled down the sheet to reveal her face.
I took in a long breath, for some reason remembering what Mia said about her role in that horror flick directed by Les: Of course, I get killed off real quick.
I couldn’t tell. It sure looked like her, with the life gone out. But she also looked like she had put on thirty pounds.
I shook my head. “I’m not sure. Is it common that they, ah, get bloated?”
“Yes. They do. Do you need to see the whole body?”
That sounded sick. With my closed hands pressed against my forehead I nodded. The smells, antiseptics, and other chemicals, perhaps formaldehyde, and something rotting, compost-like, were starting to get to me. Angela signaled for the assistant to pull the sheet all the way down.
The dead woman had trimmed pubes, just like my girl. “Is it her?” Angela was being gentle.
“I—I can’t tell.” I felt like I would throw up. I swallowed spit, trying to think clearly, trying to remember if Mia had any telltale marks, scars. Then I remembered: “She has a tattoo.”
“Where?”
“Lower back. Looks like … wings.”
She signaled for the assistant to turn the body onto the side. He delicately turned the body on its side.
No tattoo. Cautious relief.
“When did you last see her?” Angela said.
“About a week ago. She could have gotten it removed, couldn’t she? I mean the tattoo.” It was highly unlikely; I just needed reassurance.
“It’s possible.”
“Could I get a closer look at her face?”
Angela signaled and the assistant wheeled the body toward the window.
I looked at her puffed up eyes, the angle of her nose, her lips, her chin.
The face was too much a mess. I couldn’t tell. The absence of a tattoo was my best hope.
“Though I don’t wish this upon anyone else, any family, I do hope this is someone else.”
She must hear that all the time.
“Well, we’re going to get confirmation in a few days, if not by dental records, then a little later, when we get the DNA results.”
At that moment I had a clear vision of Mia in the bathroom, naked, beautiful, alive. And three-toned.
Damn it, she’s three-toned! This woman has no tan lines!
“Tan lines don’t just disappear, do they?” I explained to Angela that Mia had some pretty extreme tan lines—a result of exposure to the sun during her recent triathlon.
She signaled for her assistant to cover the woman’s head. “Well, it’s now somebody else’s grief. Glad it’s not yours.”
“How’re your parents?” I asked when we stepped into her office.
“Buried both last year.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m kind of relieved, actually. They lived long, fruitful lives; I think they were ready.”
I thought about Agnes. Was her life still what she’d term fruitful? Don’t I owe her a return visit, if only to say all is good? If only to hum along to a song?
Angela wouldn’t let me leave until she dressed my wounds. And she did so quite tenderly.
As I was leaving a homicide detective that wasn’t Richards arrived. Sergeant Jimmy Jones.
“What da fu—?”
“Sorry. Gotta go.”
He wouldn’t let me. Instead he pulled out his gun, told me to spread, and began to frisk me.
“Easy. I got a couple of cracked ribs.”
He backed up and kicked me right in my tailbone. “Feel better now?” Then he cuffed me and accused me of being the murderer of one “Gerald Plotnik.” When I told him It’s Plotkin, you fucking idiot, he shoved me into the back seat of his blue and white and drove me to the main station about two miles away. When we got there he had me exit the car and he pushed me hard toward an interrogation room.
Detective Jimmy Jones had had it in for me since we took Criminal Justice 375 at Chaminade together several years ago. He was the type that never got the answers right without someone’s help, and the someone was often me. Now he acted like he didn’t know me, though he sure knew me when he couldn’t find his own ass in a room full of mirrors.
“We’re supposed to be on the same side, you fuckhead. I was hired to investigate the disappearance of an acquaintance of Plotkin.” I still couldn’t get over that he had said Plotnik. What was that, the second satellite the Soviets launched into orbit?
“You were the last person to see Plotkin alive. At Indigo. The valet, the cocktail waitress, the bartender—they all put you there. He was taken from his car to his house and shot. We found your gun. We’re gonna see if the bullets match…. Samatter, he didn’t give good enough head?”
“Not as good as you, from what I’ve heard.”
“You’re fucked, Apana. Two of our guys identify you as being near the scene of the crime. A kid in the area saw someone with your face entering Plotkin’s house through the rear window.”
Shit. “If I were involved, you think I’d be dumb enough to go back to the scene of the crime?” As I said this I knew I was fucked, because a good percentage of killers do just that.
“Sounds like a guy who needs to lawyer up.” He folded his arms.
Detective Richards walked in.
“What the fuck’s going on?”
“We got our suspect on the Plotnik case.” He got the name wrong again, the idiot.
“You know I didn’t kill him,” I said to Richards. “I spent one evening with him. Followed him home only to make sure he got there all right. Following a guy to see that he gets home OK versus killing that same guy, two very different things.”
“And you’re equally capable of both,” Jones said.
“I’ve never killed anyone. Ever. Hook me up to a polygraph. Let me prove it so I can get the fuck out of here and solve cases you’re not capable of solving.”
I should not have said that.
“Uncuff him,” Richards ordered.
“Why?”
“Just uncuff him. And get the fuck out of here. This is my case.”
Jones took one look at Richards, did some kind of calculation, and unlocked the handcuffs, giving me a Give me an opportunity and I will kill you dead-eye gaze as he turned the key. I showed him two of my favorite fingers, one from each hand.
“It’s on you,” he said to Richards as he threw down the key and left. He slammed the door.
“See the shit I gotta put up with?” Richards said after Jones left.
“Fucker kicked me.” I was angrier now than when it happened. “What the fuck’s going on here?” I assumed we were not on camera.
“Look, I know you’re not the killer. For one thing, you’re not dumb enough to leave tracks all over the place. You have to be naïve or just plain stupid to do that, and you ain’t either.”
“I’m flattered,” I said testily, “but I’m also greatly troubled. People are getting killed. And/or disappearing.”
“Think you have a problem? The corpse you looked at. The one that wasn’t Mia? That’s who you’re looking for, right? Well, she’s my case now. Plotkin is my case. The Watanabe woman is my case. Three new additions to an already heavy caseload. As if I’m not swamped as it is.”
“Sounds like you need some help.”
“I’m gonna let you go,” he said, ignoring my comment, “but keep in mind, you’re still a suspect in some people’s eyes. Don’t leave the island.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Not without your permission.” Right.
• • •
I was pissed when I walked out of there, pissed enough to walk with no clear destination in mind. I must have realized at some point that my car was back at the medical examiner’s office on Iwilei, because I was headed in that direction.
&nbs
p; 52
A two-mile walk gives you a lot of time to think. A lot of time to figure things out. Figure out the play you had to make.
By the time I got to the medical examiner’s office I had blisters from the sandals I wore. I was thirsty, angry, hungry, and, when I didn’t see my car, righteously pissed. I went in to confront Angela. She said the cops took it. She looked sorry. I started thinking she was in cahoots, that she treated my bruises as a way to stall me. She followed me out, said it wasn’t her, said it was her assistant who sicced the cops on me.
“They took my car,” I kept saying, oblivious to her entreaties.
“Look, I can leave work in an hour. I’ll take you wherever—”
“Can’t wait an hour. Look,” I said as I grabbed her shoulder and looked right at her, “it’s not your fault.” She appeared overworked. Forlorn too, the way Gerard described Kay back at Indigo so many days ago. Days? Seems like years. I had to get going.
“Sorry about your girlfriend. Hope she—”
“She’s not my girlfriend, Ange. Gotta go.”
I was walking back toward town. Sally’s Tavern wasn’t too far away, but it wasn’t where I needed to go. I stopped on King near A‘ala Park and pulled out my cell. The phone needed charging and the warning light was on. Fuck!
I was about to call a cab, but realized I was low on cash. I opened the phone and scrolled through my contact list, thinking maybe I could get a ride from my narrowing list of acquaintances. I tried Sal. No answer. Would like to have called Rian, but I didn’t have his number. Besides, he didn’t have a car. I looked at the names of former clients, reporters, and cops I had worked with. I saw Amber, Brenda, Mia, Minerva, North Shore Willie….
I called Brenda. If she was at work, she was the closest.
“David,” she said as soon as she picked up, “what have you gotten into? Your name keeps coming up.”
“Yeah, I’ve gone from investigator to suspect. How’s that for a career change?”
“Oh, David.”
“Look, Bren, I could use your help.”
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