Fire and Vengeance

by Robert McCaw

  In her kitchen, appointed with the latest premium appliances from Wolf, LG, and Miele, Sally pointed him toward a seat at a glass-top table and offered him coffee. A skilled glass artist had etched intricate architectural drawings of the circular windows of Gothic cathedrals into the glass tabletop. Much time and effort, he realized, had gone into the details of this apartment.

  He watched Sally set out cups and pour coffee. When she brought the coffee to him, tears pooled in her huge green eyes. “Such a beautiful man. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  This woman was more than a part-time clerk. Although Koa pegged her as Witherspoon’s mistress, he started with the information he’d been given. “You worked part-time for Arthur Witherspoon?”

  The tears seemed to evaporate, and the beginnings of a smile at the corners of Sally’s full lips suggested he already knew better. “You’ve been talking to Mrs. Witherspoon.”

  “And I take it, I’ve been incorrectly informed?”

  With unapologetic directness, she said, “Arthur and I were partners.”

  “Professionally?”

  “Professionally and personally. Arthur’s marriage died a long time ago. He wouldn’t divorce her, but their relationship became as empty as an abandoned warehouse.”

  The personal relationship didn’t surprise him, not after seeing her apartment, and her view of Arthur’s marriage shed light on Mrs. Witherspoon’s reactions. She too knew her marriage had died on the vine. Yet, Sally’s reference to a professional relationship surprised him. “Are you an architect?”

  “I have the training, but not the license. I prepared drawings for Arthur’s projects. He always signed off on them, but we worked as a team.”

  “Tell me about Arthur.”

  “A brilliant architect with a passion for detail but born into the wrong century.”

  “Really?”

  “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

  “No, not really.”

  Sally talked with her hands and her eyes in addition to her voice, giving authenticity to her animated manner. “I didn’t—until I met Arthur. Once upon a time, like maybe the fifteenth century, he died before completing the cathedral of his dreams. He wanted nothing more than to go back and finish that church.”

  “Strange.”

  “A bit, but a wonderful man.” She tilted her head. “I loved Arthur deeply.”

  He took a swig of coffee. It was strong, the way he liked it. “You worked together on the KonaWili school?”

  “He drew plans for the school, but he didn’t talk about it. And …” She stopped to gather her thoughts. “While I usually helped on public buildings, he wouldn’t let me close to the KonaWili project.”

  It made sense, Koa mused. Arthur must have known about the vent and kept the knowledge from his mistress to protect her. Still, he wondered if she was trying to shield herself. “Why?” He asked more sharply than he intended.

  “I didn’t know at the time but I now suspect he was trying to protect me.”

  “From what?”

  “The controversy and the risk.”

  “What controversy?”

  She sighed, a long mournful sound. “I don’t know the details, but just after Boyle started preparing the KonaWili site, he and Arthur had an argument. Boyle wanted Arthur to do something, and Arthur got really upset. I heard him yelling, and Arthur never raised his voice.”

  “Yelling about what?”

  “I heard only one word—‘never,’ like a primal scream before Arthur slammed the phone down. It was a handset, and he broke it. And violence wasn’t Arthur’s style.”

  “Did he ever explain what Boyle wanted?”

  “No, he was agitated, but he wouldn’t talk about it. He left the apartment. I think he went for a walk or a drive. I’m not sure, but when he came back, he looked awful, like he’d been beaten down and totally demoralized. A shell of his former self.”

  “Did he explain?”

  “Not really. He just described himself as a slave to the past. At first, I thought he meant architecture—how we’re still creating buildings with Roman and Greek columns—but later I understood he meant something deeply personal.”

  Koa could see Arthur Witherspoon opening his soul with this woman. Something welcoming, profoundly emphatic, lit her face and infected her green eyes. Witherspoon must have found her a good listener. “Did he explain what he meant?”

  “He repeated the phrase about being a slave in relation to my situation. I love my son, and I wouldn’t give him up for the world, but getting pregnant when I did was stupid. Arthur said we were both slaves to the past, but in my case, something good had come of it. Maybe I was reading it through my own lens, but I took him to be saying nothing good had come of his past.”

  “Did you ask him about his past?”

  “Sure. We talked about architecture. He was fascinated with the intricate rose windows of Gothic cathedrals. Every year he traveled to see a different cathedral with a rose window—the cathedrals in Prague, Reims, Notre Dame in Paris, and his favorite, the cathedral at Chartres.”

  With his roots firmly planted on the Big Island, Koa didn’t share Witherspoon’s fascination with European cathedrals and prodded her to refocus on the trouble in the man’s past. “You know what made him a slave to his past?”

  “No. As intimately as I knew Arthur, he never shared that part of his life.”

  Koa turned to his primary interest. “At about the time Arthur died, someone tore his office apart searching for something. I don’t think they found it. Do you have any idea what he might have hidden?”

  “Could it have anything to do with Howard Gommes?”

  He hadn’t expected her question, and his interest flared. “Why Gommes?”

  “Arthur had his private demons, but he wasn’t secretive with clients, except Gommes. Whenever Gommes called, Arthur retreated to his office and closed the door. In all our time together, Arthur got annoyed with me just once—when I accidentally walked in on one of his conversations with Gommes.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “I never understood, and after Arthur vented on me, I never asked.”

  “And he wasn’t like that with anyone else?”

  “No, most of the time he worked with an open door.”

  Gommes had acted strangely at the mention of Witherspoon’s name. “How often did Arthur talk to Gommes?”

  “Whenever Gommes called him. Arthur never sought him out.”

  “So how often did Gommes call?”

  “Hardly ever, until last year. Then Gommes called, maybe three or four times.”

  “Was this while Arthur was working on the KonaWili elementary school?”

  “Yes, about then.”

  “But you have no idea what they talked about?”

  She shook her head.

  “Suppose,” Koa asked, “Arthur wanted to hide something sensitive. Any idea where he’d put it?”

  She ran a hand through her hair. “Gee, that’s tough. It wouldn’t be in a usual place, like a bank vault. It’d be in one of his buildings and cleverly concealed. A man who designs Gothic cathedrals in his mind could create lots of hiding places.”

  “So where should I look?”

  She paused to think. “I don’t know. Let me think about it. Maybe I can come up with some ideas.”

  When Sally walked him back to the front door, he looked into the dining room and saw a great Hawai‘i state seal painted on the wall. He stopped to stare at the emblem originally adopted as the insignia of the Republic of Hawai‘i in 1894. “That’s not your usual dining room decoration,” he remarked.

  “Arthur’s work. One of Arthur’s first commissions. For the renovation of the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center.”

  Koa knew the building well. “The old police station, long before my time.”

  “Yes,” she responded, “police station and courthouse. Arthur supervised the restoration, including the restoration of the great seal mosaic in the foyer. It occupied
a special place in his pantheon.”

  “Why?”

  “I think the great seal reminded him of one of his precious rose windows.”

  As they reached the door, Sally gripped his arm. “Detective.” Her voice became hard, and her eyes blazed with intensity. He sensed strength and passion he’d not seen before. “I want to find the people who killed Arthur. I’ll do anything to bring them to justice.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DETECTIVE PIKI popped into Koa’s office. “We found a gun. Could be the Witherspoon murder weapon.”

  Although extraordinarily industrious, Piki’s quick mind frequently leaped canyons in two bounds. Koa demanded details laid out in logical order. “Who found a gun? Where? And what makes you think it’s linked to the Witherspoon killing?”

  “The gun fell out of an airport trash container. One of the sanitation workers says it smelled like it’d recently been fired. And they emptied the bin last week, so someone chucked it this week. Timing’s right for the Witherspoon shooting.”

  Piki might, Koa realized, be on to something. “What make and model?”

  “Beretta M9A1.”

  Koa whistled. The Beretta M9A1, an updated version of the 9 mm combat pistol used by the U.S. armed forces since 1990, was also widely carried by police and other law enforcement personnel. It wasn’t a cheap street gun, and Koa found it odd that one would be discarded.

  “Serial number?”

  “Gone. Ground off, but Cap Roberts in tech support is working on it. Says a professional did it, but he may be able to bring the number back.”

  Koa had judged the Witherspoon killing to be a professional hit and professionals used untraceable guns. “Where’s the trash truck?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Find it and impound it before they dump its contents.”

  “Why?” Piki asked, looking confused.

  “The shell casings. If the killer discarded the gun, he probably tossed the casings. Get a move on.”

  Koa, now infected with Piki’s enthusiasm, walked downstairs to Cap’s laboratory. Sixty-year-old Cap Roberts was a serious scientist with a wide knowledge of forensic procedures dealing with everything from fingerprints to guns. At six-foot-six, he’d been a star on the UH Rainbow Warriors basketball team and could still handle a basketball like a Globetrotter. He now spent much of his free time teaching the game to Hilo high school students, both men and women.

  Cap had just subjected the gun to a powerful magnetic field and sprayed the area where the serial number had been obliterated with tiny magnetic particles suspended in oil. “I typically use the magnaflux test first because it’s non-destructive, but it doesn’t work a lot of the time,” Cap explained. He subjected the gun to high-frequency vibrations, hoping the magnetic particles would line up with the compressed metal beneath the serial numbers stamped into the gun. Unfortunately, the test failed to produce a readable serial number.

  Cap removed the gun from the vibrator and cleaned away the oil. “There’s one thing I can tell you. It’s a military weapon.”

  “How can you tell without the serial number?” Koa asked.

  Cap flipped the weapon over and pointed to the markings on the slide: U.S. 9mm M9A1 Beretta U.S.A. “It’s definitely a military weapon.”

  “What’s next?” Koa asked.

  “I’m going to use hydrochloric acid to see if I can raise the serial number.”

  “Good. Let me know if you get anything. Also, test fire the weapon and do a comparison with the slug the Honolulu ME took out of Witherspoon’s body.”

  “You think I wasn’t going to do that?”

  “Sorry, Cap. Just being anal.”

  Back in his office, Koa put the pieces together. A military weapon—most likely stolen from an Army storage facility. Hawai‘i hosted several military reservations, but none closer than the U.S. Army Pōhakuloa Training Area. Koa figured his friend Jerry Zeigler, the commander of the military police detachment at Pōhakuloa, would know if weapons had gone AWOL.

  Koa had worked often with the ferret-faced military police first lieutenant during previous cases and joint Army-county disaster recovery operations. Although Jerry was a good deal younger, they had a lot in common, including their humble beginnings and their love of sports—heihei wa‘a, outrigger canoe racing, for Koa; and ice hockey for Jerry, who grew up in rural South Dakota. Ice hockey had left its mark on Zeigler, giving his crooked nose a distinctive left twist after several unsuccessful repair jobs.

  “Hello, Jerry, how’s life in the saddle?” The Pōhakuloa Training Area, the largest U.S. military installation in the Pacific, occupied 109,000 acres in the mile-high saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the two 14,000-foot mountains that made up the bulk of the island.

  “Fine,” Zeigler responded, “but somehow I’m guessing you’re about to make it worse.”

  “You missing any guns?”

  Zeigler hesitated, and Koa sensed he’d hit a nerve.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “We just found a U.S. Army Beretta M9A1 in a trash bin out at Hilo airport. Any chance you’re missing one?”

  “You got a serial number?”

  “Not yet. Cap Roberts in technical support is working on it.”

  Another long pause followed before Zeigler said, “We need to meet. I can’t talk about this over the phone.”

  Zeigler’s response puzzled Koa, but he agreed to meet at the Pōhakuloa compound. Koa drove up the Saddle Road until the dense vegetation gave way to a mile-high plateau where ancient lava flows from Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa overlapped each other. Zeigler had a pass ready for him at the gate to the military compound, and the MP officer, dressed in desert camos, greeted him at the door to the military police building. He took Koa to a conference room with audiovisual equipment already set up.

  “Sorry to make you come out here,” Zeigler apologized, “but what I’m about to tell you is classified. I have authority to share with local law enforcement, but I’ve got to ask you to maintain confidentiality. Okay?”

  “I’m okay with confidentiality. What’ve you got?”

  “The Army suffered a series of small-scale weapons thefts—a few guns here and a few there—but it adds up and it appears to be coordinated.”

  “You’ve had thefts here at Pōhakuloa?” Koa asked.

  “Yeah. Here, Fort Sill, Fort Benning, and a half-dozen other installations, but let me give you some background.”

  “Okay,” Koa agreed.

  “The inspector general first discovered a series of thefts from Bagram military base in Afghanistan. The CID guys investigated and isolated the thefts to a group of potential culprits but couldn’t make the case. All were quartermaster types, and all were reassigned to different bases. That was supposed to be the end of it.”

  “But it wasn’t?”

  “Nope. Isolated thefts started popping up, and when the CID boys reviewed the records, they discovered a connection. Each of the new thefts occurred in a supply depot where one of the suspected guys from Afghanistan got reassigned.”

  “And you’ve got one of the culprits here?”

  “Supply Sergeant Ralph Leffler.”

  Koa’s cell phone rang, and he answered Cap Roberts’s call. “I’ve got plain news, good news, and bad news,” Cap began.

  “Give me the news.”

  “It’s the Witherspoon murder weapon. A solid ballistics match.”

  Koa had a sinking feeling. “And the bad news is no serial number?”

  “Correct. I couldn’t raise the whole number, but I did get four digits. That’s the good news.”

  “Read ’em off.”

  Koa jotted them down as Cap spoke. “Eight, four, nine, zero, in that order. Those numbers are in the middle of the sequence—not the first number and not the last.”

  “Thanks, Cap. I guess that makes you a partial genius.”

  “Aren’t you the clown.”

  After ringing off, Koa turned to face Zeigler. “The M9A1 was used
in a recent homicide. We’ve got a partial serial number.” He passed the note with the numbers to Zeigler, who compared it to the serial numbers on the missing handguns.

  “Got it. These numbers match one of our stolen guns. What are the odds of a four-number match?”

  Koa struggled to recall his college statistics course. “I think it’s one in ten thousand, but the fact the gun was stolen here and found here must up the odds.”

  “Okay. But doesn’t finding it in an airport trash bin suggest it was dumped by someone leaving the island who couldn’t risk walking it through TSA security? That wouldn’t be Leffler’s because he’s still here,” Zeigler questioned.

  “Good point, but the killer acts like a pro. A pro would most likely get a gun locally, and a pro leaving the island wouldn’t dump the gun at the airport, not with a thousand other places to lose it. On the other hand, a pro might dump it at the airport to mislead us into thinking he’s left the island.”

  Zeigler paused, and Koa could almost see his mind working. “Let’s make this a little more complicated.” He stood up, retreated to the door, and killed the lights.

  The room went dark before Zeigler turned on a projector, and a large face filled the screen. “That’s Leffler. He’s twenty-six and one angry man. Born and raised in Naoma, West Virginia. Worked in the coal mines at sixteen and lost his father and most of his friends in the 2010 Upper Branch coal mine explosion. Quit being a miner and joined the Army so he could kill people. I’m not kidding.”

  Koa studied the big oval face with deep-set eyes atop a thick, football center’s neck. The man had a nasty scar across his right cheek—the kind you get in a knife fight. Koa wondered if he was looking into the eyes of the man who sold the gun to Witherspoon’s killer.