“Does he scuba dive?”
“Good heavens, no! I’ve tried to teach him how to swim, but the water really frightens him. He can dog paddle a little and that’s it. Joanna even got him excused from compulsory swimming classes at the prep school.” David shook his head at her intransigence. “Somehow she always manages to do the worst thing possible for him. I was much opposed to that, but I’m not his father, even though I’ve tried to take Mark’s place after he died.
“I was Francis’s first and only dentist. He inherited his Dad’s crooked teeth, and it was a big job straightening them out. I did a darn good job of it, if I say so myself. He got to be a regular visitor here, and was always curious about what I was doing rather than being terrified. That was a pleasant change from the way most children react to the dentist’s office. I joked about it and asked him if he ever wanted to be a dentist. He actually seemed interested, but it’s always hard to tell what he’s really thinking. He’s like Samantha in that way.”
“What about Jeff?”
“I never thought about him at all, but then I really don’t know him particularly well, certainly not the way I do Francis. Again, I can’t see what Jeff would have had to gain by killing Bart. He seemed to get along with him fine on the cruise. If I’d have had Miss Filipino along, I wouldn’t have taken so kindly to Bart’s openly lusting after her. I guess I’m the jealous kind. Jeff didn’t seem to mind at all.”
“Kerwin?”
“Kerwin? You mean the new hand on the Jomark.” David shook his head. “That’s the first time I’ve seen him. Come to think of it, I didn’t even talk to him on the whole trip, so I can’t tell you anything about him. He seems to be a pleasant enough young man. I know his father. I’m sure the lieutenant must have told you I was taking lessons at the dive shop, but I never did see Kerwin there. I was amazed at how quickly he got his gear out and on, the day Bart drowned. It was almost as though he expected something like that to happen and was all prepared for it.”
Chapter 18
“Well one of us is going to have to go to Oahu to visit the pharmaceutical warehouse,” Hank said to Corky.
“One of us is a lieutenant who can’t be spared from his duties and who’d be missed, if him and his seat blew out of the plane,” Corky commented wryly, “while the other is a lowly sergeant who’s expendable.”
“You know Corky, you catch on quick. Now most people would be only too happy to get a free trip to Oahu. We really can’t ask Laura to go over there again. Look at it this way, the county will even pick up the tab for your lunch.”
“Thanks. If the plane crashes, the county will also provide a free burial. I’m touched.”
“Corky. When are you going to come into the twentieth century and get over your fear of flying?”
“If God meant me to fly, I’d have wings sprouting out of my shoulder blades. Every time I look out the window and see the water thirty-five thousand feet below me, I wonder what the hell I’m doing there. I have absolutely no business being up there.”
“Look at it this way. When your number’s up, your number’s up, whether you’re on the ground or up in the air.”
“Maybe, but I don’t want to be flying when the pilot’s number comes up.”
***
Corky would have taken a Xanax, but she knew her head had to be clear for what was waiting for her on the other end. Somehow she managed to arrive alive, and she did her best to forget she would have to make the trip back.
Honolulu Pharmaceuticals was a much larger concern than she had expected to find. The several buildings making up the complex occupied an entire block in the city’s industrial area. What’s Jeff Bentley doing representing an outfit like this? was her first thought as she rode to the sixth floor and the personnel manager’s office, and then she wondered how there could be enough business in the Hawaiian Islands to support a pharmaceutical business of such proportions. The manager’s explanation helped to clear up most of the two mysteries. The company not only served the state but had sales offices all over the South Pacific.
“We have a sales representative on each of the Neighbor Islands,” the manager said, in explanation of Jeff’s relationship to the company. “There have been some problems with the records being kept by our Elima rep, and some queries from our customers. After a quick check by our accountants, it seems the matter is going to necessarily involve legal action. Jeff Bentley has done some work there for us before, and that’s why he came over. Our regular legal council is a local firm without any branch on Elima.”
“Did you ask him to come over, or was it his idea?”
“He got in touch with me earlier and said he had a chance to sail over. It did make it easier for us to take care of some of the paper work.”
“You told Lieutenant DeMello Jeff went off to the warehouse after talking to you. Do you know why?”
“He said Dan Herlihy, the warehouse manager, is an old acquaintance. Jeff said he thought he’d drop by and see him. He told me he had the whole day to kill.”
***
Dan Herlihy was a small, wiry Irishman. His office was a glass and metal cubicle in the warehouse near the massive doors on the loading dock. A truck and trailer had just pulled away. The two forklifts, which had been loading it, disappeared among the cartons and boxes piled ceiling high on pallets in the vast warehouse.
Corky absently refused the proffered cigarette as they sat down in Herlihy’s office. She was prepared for questions about her questions, but Herlihy had evidently been briefed sufficiently by the personnel manager to satisfy his own curiosity.
“Yeah, I’ve known Jeff for years. I was surprised to see him show up here. He’s out of my class, these days. We lived in the same block in La Haina on Maui. We started off to college over here at the same time and used to run into each other every so often. I joined the air force in my sophomore year. Then we kind of lost track of each other. When I came back, he’d finished law school and was working for a firm here in Honolulu.” Dan smiled, and added, “Big time lawyers don’t travel in the same circles as warehousemen.”
“Could you describe the visit?”
“We sat around and gabbed about old times, but it was a busy morning, and I had to supervise a half-dozen shipments. Some containers were going out on the Matson Lines.”
“What did Jeff do while you were busy?”
“He wandered around the warehouse. If I remember right, he said something about getting familiar with what his client had to offer.”
“When he first came into the warehouse, was he carrying any kind of a package?”
“Uh-uh. All he had was a briefcase. He left with only that, too, in case you’re wondering.”
“I guess that about does it, then,” Corky said, closing up her notepad. “Mind if I take a look around.”
Dan grinned. “Be my guest. If you have any questions, holler.” The warehouse was enormous. Corky estimated it ran the length of the city block and occupied half its width. One of her original questions to herself about how there could be so much demand for drugs in the islands had been partially answered by the personnel manager. From the labels she could see on the boxes ready for shipment, it was clear Honolulu Pharmaceuticals served virtually all of the islands in the Western Pacific.
The rest of the answer was in the variety of products she saw in the course of her tour. Drugs were only a part of the merchandise. Surgical and dental instruments, optical supplies, prostheses, and what she was specifically looking for—small air-tanks used in scuba diving. The brand differed from the one Bart had used, but Corky made a note of their presence.
A collection of a half-dozen nitrous oxide bottles occupied a rack containing a variety of other gases under pressure and packaged in heavy metal containers. In Corky’s estimation, they hardly looked accessible to someone strolling through the warehouse.
“Nothing I can help you with?” Herlihy asked when she stopped by his cubicle to thank him for his help.
“Just one t
hing. What’s behind the heavy steel door at the north end of the warehouse?”
Herlihy grinned. “That’s where we keep what you cops call ‘dangerous drugs.’ It’s crisscrossed with burglar alarms, and I can’t get in there without a corporation executive being there with me. It takes two keys to unlock it. I have one. The other’s kept in the main office, in a locked safe. So if you suspect Jeff of raiding our supply of morphine, forget it.”
***
“Let’s go out to the house site at noon. We can grab a hamburger and fries at the drive-in and eat on the way out. I don’t have to be back until two, but I won’t be able to get out later because I have a client coming in at three and another at four. The last one has more problems than she knows what to do with, so I may be here late.” Sid had settled himself down in a chair in front of Kay’s desk after the departure of her most recent client who had hobbled out of her office on crutches.
Kay’s eyes were focused on a distant object and had to readjust to Sid. “What?”
“Wake up! I said let’s go out to see the house site at noon. Gil called and said they’re starting to frame the building.”
“Yeah. OK. Sure. Let’s go by the marina on the way. We just picked up a client who has problems of his own down there.”
“It looks like he mesmerized you. What was it all about?”
“His name’s Melvin Kemp. He and his wife moved here from the Mainland a couple of months ago. He has a boat down at the marina, and he has the wildest story to tell.”
“Yes?”
“He was arrested this morning for criminal trespass on a boat docked near his. His story is he got into a fight with his wife last night and headed for the local tavern to drown his sorrows. When the place closed, he wasn’t about to head back home. Instead, he decided to sleep on his boat. Well, he was pretty far out of it, if he’s telling the truth. Next thing he knows the police are shaking him awake, and he’s on the wrong boat, one that looks just like his and tied up in the next slip.”
“Sounds innocent enough. What was all the fuss about?”
“That’s what has me puzzled. The boat happened to belong to a guy he’d had a hell of an argument with. It was some kind of boater’s quarrel about the right of way. From what I can make out, they were both trying to get out of the marina in a hurry because there was a report of some billfish running.”
“Even so. It sounds like it would just have been grounds for continuing the quarrel. Why the police?”
“Because the boat had been vandalized. The owner apparently showed up early, saw Kemp and the damage, then tiptoed out without waking him up and called the police.”
“Kemp swears he didn’t do any of it?”
“Unequivocally. Of course, the owner swears it wasn’t that way when he left the boat the day before. So Kemp now has a criminal trespass and a vandalism charge hanging over him.”
“What does he say about the condition of the boat when he got there?”
“He says he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t find the light switch. Since the bunks are in about the same place on both boats, he just flopped and went to sleep. I’m going to check with the station and see if they’ll send a patrolman down there to give us a chance to photograph the damage.”
“Then, can we go out to the house site?”
Kay smiled. “Then, we can go out to the house site.”
***
“A big fat zero, and I had the living daylights scared out of me.” Corky was still showing the signs of her discomfiture. She had found Hank talking to the desk sergeant when she came into the station after her trip back from Honolulu. “We’re circling to land, and I’m just beginning to breathe again, when the pilot announces his instruments are reporting an engine on fire. I was sitting by the window, and it looked as though every piece of fire apparatus on the island was waiting for us, to say nothing about ambulances. See, Hank! God’s trying to tell me something. That’s the second time I’ve been on a plane making an emergency landing.”
Hank grinned. “I heard the emergency call, but it never occurred to me you were coming back so early. Look at it this way. It added a little spice to your life.”
“That kind of spice I can do without.”
“What happened, anyway? I know they canceled the emergency as soon as the plane landed.”
“It was a faulty instrument light. It bothers the hell out of me to think how a piece of tungsten filament no thicker than a hair on my head took ten years off of my life.”
“Now that you’ve recovered, what did you find out? Sounds like not much.”
“Not much, is right.” Corky began to describe what she had learned about Jeff Bentley’s activities at Honolulu Pharmaceutical.
Hank grunted acknowledgment.
“Do you think it’s worth going to see him?” Corky asked.
“Might as well. Get his version, and check for discrepancies. You can sound him out about Rouse?”
“So you’re still convinced Rouse’s it, are you?”
“More than ever now, since we’ve pretty much eliminated Bentley.”
“OK. I’ll give Bentley a call.”
“Before you take off, you might give Qual a ring too. See how his interview went with Rouse, and tell him I’ll get in touch later. I’m due in court in a few minutes. You know where Bentley’s office is?”
“I sure do. It’s on the other side of town, but I don’t mind the trip at all. It just feels great knowing I don’t have to leave the ground to get there.”
Chapter 19
The boats involved were next to each other on the inside of the floating T-dock, almost directly across from the Jomark moored on the outside of the T. The two twenty-footers did look alike, but it was Sid’s judgment that Kemp would have had to have been awfully drunk to have mistaken one of the boats for the other, even in the dark.
The police officer accompanying them watched as Sid photographed the outside of the two boats and the inside of the complainant’s craft. Damage seemed relatively slight. A mirror was broken. Curtains had been torn down from the two sets of portholes. A cabinet door was hanging by one hinge, but none of its contents seemed to have been disturbed. The officer informed them the owner was reasonably certain nothing was missing. When they had finished, and the policeman had left, Kay ventured the opinion the complainant might be persuaded to drop the charges.
“I doubt the police will want to pursue them if the owner won’t testify. Kemp claims he doesn’t have a police record. If that’s true, he can probably get by with paying for the damages and adding something to sweeten the pot.”
A familiar voice called to them as they were about to walk back down the dock to shore. “What are you folks up to?” It was Captain Silva leaning on the rail of the Jomark with the unlit and inevitable pipe in his hand. “C’mon aboard and have some coffee. I just put the pot on.”
Kay accepted before Sid could protest how they had another stop to make. Now, almost resigned to not seeing the house site as promised, he followed Kay up the gangplank.
The perking coffee gave off a delicious smell. The captain opened a metal canister of almond cookies and placed them on the fold-down table where he had pulled up some chairs. “These are a weakness of mine. It goes back to my kid days, when I could never have enough of them.”
Kay gave him a quick sketch of their reasons for being out on the dock.
The captain gave a loud laugh, throwing his head back. “Leave it to Kemp. He’s a class A, number one screw up.”
“Why do you say that?” Sid asked.
“He wasn’t here but a month or so, when I saw him working on his engine with a lit cigarette in his mouth. You don’t have to be any kind of a sailor to know it’s a damn fool thing to do. He set off a gas explosion, caught his clothes on fire, and jumped over the side. I grabbed an extinguisher and ran over. I didn’t realize he couldn’t swim, so I’m busy putting out the fire while he’s trashing around. Someone on one of the other boats fished him out after he�
�d gone down for the third time.
“Then, when we get him standing up, and he says he’s all right, he stumbles off the dock and back into the water. This time he breaks his leg on one of the logs in the boom, and we have to fish him out all over again. It’s like something out of a Charlie Chaplin comedy. And that’s not the end of it. When he’s coming back home from the hospital, he goes clumping up the stairs on crutches and wearing a cast. His dog doesn’t recognize him, comes charging out and chomps down on his good leg. Kemp has to go back to emergency the same night to have stitches taken. So I’m not surprised to hear he’s in trouble again. He was born to have trouble.”
Sid laughed, but Kay shook her head in discouragement at the thought of the inept client she had acquired.
Still hoping there might be time for a quick dash out to the house site, Sid stood up after finishing his coffee. Kay got up, also, but her thoughts were elsewhere. “Captain,” she asked, “could we take some photos of the inside of this boat?”
He shrugged. “I can’t see why not. I’m sure Mrs. Forbes wouldn’t care. Is there anything special you want to photograph?”
“Yes, the passageway going by the staterooms. I wonder if you’d tell me something about those rooms?”
Kay showed Sid how she wanted him to take the photos. Afterwards, while he was talking to the captain and waiting impatiently for her in the lounge, she carefully went in and out of each of the staterooms. Driving back to their office, Sid grumbled, “What was that all about? Now, we barely have enough time to get back for my two o’clock appointment.”
Kay gave an absent smile. “Let me think about it for a while.” Her smile broadened, and she reached over and kissed him on the nose. In spite of himself his frown disappeared.
“I promise I’ll make it up to you tonight for your missing visit to the house site,” Kay said.
***
Leilani had the phone to her ear as they stepped into the office. She pointed at Kay and gestured toward the phone. “She just got in, Corky. Here she is.” Leilani handed Kay the phone. Sid’s client had been waiting for him, and the two of them disappeared into Sid’s office.
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