Dead Before A Rival

by John A. Broussard

  “Hi, Corky. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got a three o’clock appointment to see Jeff Bentley, and I was wondering if you’d come along—providing you’re still interested in the Cain case.”

  “Sure thing. It works out fine. My afternoon’s empty. I’ll pick you up because I have to get some film I left at the one-hour-development place in the mall. Come to think of it, I’d like to ask Jeff some questions about those photos.”

  Jeff’s law office was perhaps the most sumptuous one on the island. In addition to its resplendent interior, it was located at the opposite end of town from the courthouse. To most clients, it would have meant little. To other attorneys, it signified Jeff’s clients were not ones who needed to make regular court appearances. Anyone knowledgeable would recognize Jeff’s business took place in the rarefied atmosphere of corporation board rooms and executive offices, only occasionally requiring a visit to the courtroom.

  He was visibly pleased to see the two women, ushered them into his large and luxurious office and offered them coffee. Kay declined, but Corky accepted and was sincerely appreciative of the nicely brewed Kona European after the Earl Grey of home and the bitter concoction of the police station.

  “Nice to see you again, Kay. I hope we can go on another cruise without having it end up in disaster. I take it it’s what you wanted to see me about, Sergeant Medeiros, though I told Lieutenant DeMello all I knew about it?” He posed this as a question.

  Corky took out her note pad. “Great coffee,” she said. “What we’re interested in now is the cruise to Honolulu. Could you fill us in on what you and the others did during the trip and after you arrived there?”

  Jeff looked puzzled, but showed no signs of reluctance as he launched off on a quick sketch of the cruise. “Joanna planned to make it a full two day trip. Marshal’s hassle threw something of a damper on things, so we cut the trip short and started back early the next morning.”

  At Corky’s prompting, Jeff described his own day in Honolulu. Looking over her notes later, Corky could see no substantial difference between what he described and what she had learned from the warehouseman and the personnel manager.

  The one item bothering her, Jeff explained away with disarming frankness. “I wouldn’t ordinarily have spent time sitting around a warehouse, but I’m trying to stay away from the booze. Going to Honolulu in the past meant heading for the nearest cocktail lounge. By suppertime, then, I’d have been feeling even less pain than Marshal was. Besides, it actually turned out to be kind of fun to sit around and gab with Dan about the old neighborhood.”

  Corky and Kay had agreed beforehand an exploration of the provisions of Mark Forbes’s will was essential. While the will had long ago been probated and was now a matter of record, the attorney who had drawn up the will had probably been privy to the decisions behind those provisions, which was exactly the information both Corky and Kay were seeking. They also assumed it would be no easy task to pry those details out of Jeff. Kay argued that Corky had police powers and should be the one to do the prying. Corky contended that while she could threaten, she really was in no position to exercise those powers and, besides, Kay knew Jeff far better than she did and should be the one to fish for the information.

  “Besides,” Corky had continued, “there’s the whole business of client-attorney confidentiality. If I try to pressure him, he’s sure to go claiming privileged information.”

  Kay had grinned and replied. “I’ve heard of jail-house lawyers, but now we poor attorneys have to deal with police-station lawyers. OK. You’ve got a point. We’ll have to use a carrot instead of a stick. Just don’t tell Sid if I end up using my womanly wiles on Jeff.”

  “Girl scout’s honor,” Corky had said, crossing her heart.

  Both of the women were surprised, not only at the readiness with which Jeff discussed the will’s provisions, but at how he threw in the bonus of Joanna’s will as well. It was not until much later when Kay began to wonder why the information had been so easily come by.

  “Sure,” he said, in answer to Kay’s question, “it’s all a matter of record. “Mark was like a lot of husbands. He figured his wife couldn’t be trusted with money, so he made sure it was all tied up tight. Which doesn’t mean he was skimping on cash for Joanna. She’s got plenty of liquid assets directly under her control, a lot of it from her father, and she’s handling them as well as any financial specialist could. Under state law she owned half of the assets anyhow.

  “Mark put most of his share into three separate trusts. Lee Ann has complete control over her portion. Francis gets some income off of his, more than enough for a school kid, and will get control over the trust when he reaches twenty-five. Joanna’s trust is tied to her not marrying again. She gets the income off of it for as long as she doesn’t remarry. At her death, the trust will go equally to Lee Ann and Francis. I told Mark at the time the no-marriage provision was a shaky one. It’s been broken in some states, though never in Hawaii. Of course, it wouldn’t have kept Joanna from trying to break it if she wanted to badly enough.”

  “Did he give any reason for wanting the clause in the will?”

  “Not directly, but I have a suspicion it had something to do with David Rouse. Even before Mark died, David and Joanna seemed to be friendlier than might appear seemly in some people’s eyes, especially in David’s wife’s eyes. Most people don’t know this, but she’d already started divorce proceedings prior to Mark’s death, even though she hasn’t gone through with it yet. Rumor has it she was naming Joanna as correspondent.”

  He paused. Kay was not sure whether Jeff was trying to decide whether or not to give them the information he was thinking of, or if he was merely trying to decide how he should phrase it.

  “You know,” he said, slowly, “Mark for sure didn’t want the Dalquists to lay their hands on any of his money after his death. If anything, doing so was more important to him than keeping Joanna from getting married again and passing Mark’s money on to a new husband.”

  Jeff then volunteered the information that Joanna’s will, while leaving the bulk of her money to her children, included a sizable sum for David Rouse. It was probably as much as a dentist in a small Hawaiian town could earn in a lifetime.

  Kay continued to explore the background of the wills, but the subject seemed to have been exhausted. She then leaned across Jeff’s desk and showed him a wide-angle photo looking forward down the stateroom passageway. “I talked to Captain Silva about who had which stateroom on the trip, but he couldn’t help much. Can you identify them?”

  “I think so. Let’s see. This is the starboard side, isn’t it?” He pointed to the doors on the right of the passageway.

  “Yes.”

  “First one is Sam’s. She says there’s less motion near the middle of the ship. Rouse had the next one. I had the one next to his. The last one is Captain Silva’s, close to the ladder. First one—one nearest this end—on the port side was Marshal’s. Next one was Joanna’s. Then Francis. Bart and Dolph shared the last one. I think Bart moved into Francis’s stateroom when we unloaded here at the marina.”

  While he was talking, Kay quickly sketched out a rough plan of the staterooms and the passageway, labeling each one. “Is this right?” she asked, showing it to Jeff.

  He nodded.

  On the way back to the station, neither Kay nor Corky said much. Corky looked at Kay and could see the wheels turning. Having long ago learned from Sid about Kay’s reticence in discussing her discoveries, she did not bother to ask. Instead she went over Jeff’s answers as she had copied them on her pad to see what Kay had suddenly become concerned about.

  So far as Corky could see, there was nothing there.

  Chapter 20

  “There, now, don’t you think I did a good job of keeping my promise?” Kay was nestled under Sid’s chin and had one arm thrown across his chest. The streetlight outside of their bedroom window was casting a dim light through the curtains.

  “What promise?”
Sid had almost dozed off.

  “My promise to make up for your not seeing the house site. Or would you rather have seen the house site?”

  Sid grinned. “I’ll settle for you keeping your promises.”

  Kay kissed him just under the chin. “You know, there’s an occupational hazard to being an attorney.”

  “What’s that?” Sid asked, making no connection between her statement and what they had been talking about. Since Kay sometimes made jumps between topics having no relationship to each other whatever, Sid didn’t rack his brain to find the missing link.

  “We tend never to believe anyone.” She rubbed her cheek along the side of his chest.

  Even though he suspected there might be some tenuous relationship between the quality of attorneys and the nature of promises, Sid decided to remain silent and let the current carry him along.

  “For example,” Kay walked her fingers across his chest, “I just took it for granted either Kemp was lying or the other boat owner was lying.”

  Since the topic had become more concrete, Sid ventured to pass an opinion on it. “If they’re both telling the truth, than a third party vandalized the boat on the same day Kemp stumbled into it by mistake in the dark. That’s too much of a coincidence, so we have to almost assume one or the other of them is lying.”

  “That’s my point,” Kay continued, stretching to give Sid’s ear a gentle nibble. “Whenever we’re faced with choices, we assume someone’s lying. Now, even when a farfetched possibility isn’t the alternative, we still assume someone’s lying. Like in the case of David Rouse and the oxygen bottle.”

  “Same thing. Either he’s lying about the oxygen bottle or Dolph is.”

  “Suppose they’re both telling the truth?” she asked, tracing the outline of Sid’s chin with her finger.

  “Why, then it’s…it’s someone else. Is that what you think? You figuring someone planted the bottle in Rouse’s cabin? Now, we’re back to the Kemp caper again, much too farfetched in my opinion.”

  “Why?”

  “Because anyone who did would have to have been sure the bottle was going to be seen by a third party, know afterwards a third party had seen it, and then they had to come back to the cabin and take it away again. Wouldn’t you say that’s farfetched?”

  Kay pulled herself back up to Sid’s ear. “Definitely. Unless Dolph follows a regular routine of cleaning the cabins. Or, better yet, unless someone was in their cabin and listening for Dolph, or was maybe even watching him from one of the cabins across the passageway.”

  Sid sat up and turned on the bedlamp. “Where’s the diagram you said you drew from what Jeff told you?”

  “Over on your nightstand. I thought you might want to look at it. Marshal, Joanna and Francis were on the side opposite David Rouse’s cabin. So were Bart and Dolph, but I think it’s safe to eliminate them as watchers.”

  “Which way do the doors open?” Sid asked, looking at the rough sketch. “Inward, of course. Do they swing toward the bow or toward the stern? I can’t remember.”

  “Toward the stern. So the only one who could have actually observed Dolph going in and out of Rouse’s cabin was Francis. If he cracked his door, just a little, he had a full view of the door to Rouse’s cabin.”

  “Before we go wild with this new suspect, we’d better talk to Dolph again. If he did follow a routine, then anyone could have timed it right. Even if he didn’t, someone listening close from any of the other staterooms could probably have heard him going from one room to the other.”

  “There are a couple of other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “I know how badly you missed going to the house site today, so maybe I should try to make it up to you again.”

  Sid grinned. “Fine with me, but what’s the other thing?”

  “Could we leave the light on this time?”

  ***

  Kay had insisted on getting to work early the following morning. Sid was amused at her impatience. “Are you going to drop everything else and go out to Cliffhouse?”

  “You bet. But there are a half-dozen items to get out of the way first.”

  “You better. Qual’s going to start getting upset at all the time you’re spending on a case we aren’t getting a cent for.”

  “I doubt it. He seems more involved than we are. We sat and talked over his interview with Rouse for at least an hour, yesterday. I guess Qual’s as fascinated by the case as I am.”

  Ten minutes after they’d arrived, Kay came into Sid’s office with a paper in her hand. “Look. Here’s my excuse to go out to Cliffhouse. Want to come along?”

  “You didn’t need any excuse. You would have gone out anyway. What have you got there?”

  “It’s an affidavit Marshal has to sign, which makes my visit much more plausible. Do you or don’t you want to come along?”

  Sid looked dubiously at the stack of work in his in-basket. “Can you give me about an hour to work through the mess?”

  “Sure. I’ve got plenty of stuff of my own to clear up before I go, and I want to wait until Qual gets in to make sure there are no emergencies hanging around.”

  “Can we go out to the house site on the way.”

  Kay laughed. “Of course Sid. I promise we’ll stop by, and remember, I keep my promises.” Saying that, she came around the desk and gave him a kiss.

  Leilani, who had just come by the open door at the moment, beamed and said, “Now isn’t that much nicer than fighting?”

  ***

  Corky could not remember when she had last seen Hank DeMello looking so gloomy.

  “Cheer up, Hank, nothing could be that bad.”

  “That’s what you think. You haven’t just been in to see Chief Yamada. This is the first time I can remember when he’s held me personally responsible for not solving a crime. He’s still prodding me to move on Rouse.”

  “Well, why don’t you? There’s enough evidence to justify it.”

  “I just can’t do it.”

  “Why not.”

  “Because I’m convinced Rouse is the murderer, that’s why.”

  “Hey. Wait a minute Hank. Are you saying you can’t arrest him because you know he’s the murderer? What kind of silly reasoning is that?”

  “Because Emil doesn’t think there’s enough evidence, and he’s not going to be eager to prosecute. Also because he happens to be right, and any defense lawyer could probably take the case we have so far to pieces on the first day of the trial—to say nothing of what Sid and Kay could do to it if they represented Rouse.”

  “That’s Yamada’s headache, then, not yours. Just put your cards face up on the table. If he’s willing to let you arrest Rouse with insufficient evidence, then let him bear the responsibility if the case falls apart.”

  Hank smiled in spite of himself. “That’s the problem with you women. You’re all emotion. If I get pissed at Yamada and move now, Rouse will get off scot free. I don’t care who gets the blame for messing up the case. I don’t want Rouse to get away with murder.”

  “Well, in spite of your unnecessary slur on womankind, I guess I have to agree with you. What alternative do you have? Rouse sure as hell isn’t going to walk in here and confess. He hasn’t budged from his position for either you or Qual. So what do we do now?”

  “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and I wonder if we shouldn’t do exactly the opposite of what we’ve been doing.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like instead of pressuring Rouse, let up completely.”

  Corky made no effort to disguise her bewilderment. “Do you mean we’re going to just write him off?”

  “I mean we’re going to act like we’re writing him off.”

  Corky’s face cleared. “Maybe you have something there. We could just give him the impression we’ve given up, and he might get caught off guard. It’s a long, long shot, though.”

  “Maybe we can shorten the odds. Suppose we not only let up on him, but suppose we also let hi
m know we have evidence showing he couldn’t have done it?”

  “That’s not bad, Hank. You’re getting to be as devious as the stereotype of women you have. You mean we’ll be seeing to it Rouse hears he’s completely off the hook. Of course, you still have the minor problem of how he’s going to be suspicious if you tell him that?”

  “Of course. So I’m not going to tell him. I going to have him just hear about it. Maybe the firm of Smith, Chu, Yoshinobu and Correa will help me to spread the word.”

  “By gosh, you are devious. They’re bound to be seeing Marshal, off and on, and I get the impression he’d be no slouch at spreading the word a lot further. I know once Samantha Dalquist knows about it, it might as well be in the newspapers. Want me to approach someone at the firm?”

  “I was hoping you’d offer. You can be more subtle than I am about such things.”

  “Why, thanks. You didn’t even claim it’s because I’m a woman. Congratulations. I suspect you’re letting me do it because you figure they might not go for it. Right?”

  Hank grinned. “They’ll go for it, all right. Just use your feminine powers of persuasion.”

  Chapter 21

  It was actually almost three before Sid and Kay could get away. Even then, only Laura’s volunteering to appear in court with one of Kay’s clients made the trip possible for them.

  “How could the court clerk have messed up so badly?” Sid asked as he got behind the wheel.

  “It was one of those things. He put the appearance down for the wrong date on his calendar and didn’t notice it until this morning. We were just lucky to be able to catch the client. Judge Wong wouldn’t have been happy at the screw up, even if it wasn’t our fault. Anyhow, it’s just as well we didn’t get away earlier. We’d have missed Joanna if we’d gone there this morning.”