Fire and Vengeance

by Robert McCaw

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  KOA HAD A history with Drake, the Monarch’s owner-barkeep. In his late fifties with stringy yellow-gray hair, Drake presided over one of the sleaziest bars in town in cutoff jeans and a ratty black, beer-stained tee shirt. Serving mostly stevedores, dockhands, and down-and-out fishermen, he somehow managed to stay open despite dozens of health department citations.

  Even though Drake had cleaned up his act after his last run-in with the police, the joint remained a health inspector’s nightmare. Last time, Koa’s threat to bring in the health inspectors forced Drake to cooperate, but the same ploy wasn’t going to work again. Mere threats wouldn’t make Drake fess up to illegal gun sales or running an agency for hired killers.

  Koa sent Bane, an undercover cop, into the Monarch. Bane, like other patrons, dressed in work clothes. An ugly, but artificial, scar on his neck concealed a tiny microphone and transmitter. For the first couple of nights, the undercover cop sat alone at the bar sipping beer and engaging Drake in chitchat. Presenting himself as a deckhand off a fishing vessel operating out of Hilo harbor, Bane talked fish, bitched about the prices of ‘ahi, and whined about the UH Rainbow Warriors football team. He tipped well, but not outrageously.

  On Bane’s third night in the Monarch, Koa sat in an unmarked car up the street listening to Bane’s transmitter. After a couple of beers and more chatter with Drake, Bane laid a Grant, a $50 bill featuring the face of the 18th U.S. president, on the bar. Koa listened intently as the conversation turned critical.

  “I’m looking for a dude who can sell me a piece, preferably a nine, without a legend.”

  A pause followed before Koa heard Drake’s raspy voice. “What-chu want it foah, my man?”

  “I’m going on a cruise carrying some shit, and I gotta have some protection, you get me?”

  “You got the bread?”

  Koa heard rustling noises as Bane gave Drake a brief look at the wad in his pocket.

  “What’s in it foah me, my man?”

  Koa grinned. They’d guessed right. Drake served as a middleman for illegal gun sales, and he’d bought Bane’s story, like a marlin hitting a ten-inch lure.

  “A couple of Grants.” Bane made the deal worthwhile for Drake without offering enough to make him suspicious.

  “Hang foah a while, okay, my man?”

  Bane sipped beer, and Koa waited.

  Half an hour later, Koa heard the scrape of a bar stool and a deep gruff voice. “I hear you’re lookin’ for somethin’?”

  According to Zeigler, Leffler had a deep, gruff voice, but Koa listened carefully for Bane’s next words.

  “Might be.” Bane sounded cautious. Koa jabbed his fist in the air. The word “might” identified the contact as Leffler; any other word signaled somebody else.

  “Let’s take a walk back to the john,” the gruff voice suggested.

  Now came the tricky part, but they’d anticipated it. Leffler wasn’t going to risk selling stolen guns to a cop. Koa heard the john door close.

  “Lose the shirt,” Leffler ordered.

  There was a pause before Leffler said, “That’s some fuckin’ scar.”

  “Knife fight,” Bane said. “The other dude went to the hospital.”

  “Okay,” Leffler said, “turn around.” Unintelligible noises. “Now the pants.”

  Koa heard the rustling of clothing and a clank, like a belt buckle hitting the floor. “Satisfied?” Bane asked.

  Koa tensed as he heard a grunt. Then Leffler asked, “What kind of shit you movin’?”

  “How do I know you ain’t a cop?” Bane asked.

  Koa heard sounds he couldn’t identify before Leffler said, “You ever see a cop carrying one of these?”

  A pause. Then Bane said, “Nice. That’s what I’m lookin’ to buy.”

  Koa felt a rush of excitement. Leffler carried a 9 mm Beretta with a filed-down serial number. Just possessing such a weapon was a felony. Things were moving fast—much faster than Koa had anticipated. He grabbed the radio mike and called for backup with a silent approach.

  The bar sounds increased as someone opened the john door. “We’re busy, man. Shut the fuckin’ door. Use the girls’ if you got to pee,” Leffler growled in a loud voice. The bar noises receded.

  “I asked you what kind of shit you’re movin’?”

  “Butter.” Bane used Hawaiian street slang for marijuana. “But the buyer’s a newbie an’ I ain’t sure I kin trust him.” Bane spun out his cover story.

  “Ought not to do business with people you don’t trust,” Leffler said.

  “You got that right. But a dude’s gotta make money where he can.”

  Leffler still wasn’t ready to do business. “Why a nine?”

  Koa and Bane had predicted this question. “The Army taught me to use a nine, so it feels right. Ya know what I mean?”

  “Where’d you serve?”

  They’d picked a place where Leffler had never been stationed and where none of his buddies likely ever served. “The ceremonial guard at Fort Meyer, Virginia.”

  “Fuckin’ pansies.”

  “Yeah, well, I bailed as soon as I could.”

  “It’ll cost you three grand.”

  Leffler asked for more than five times the cost of the comparable civilian model from a legitimate dealer. The price was steep even for an untraceable, stolen Beretta. Bane wasn’t spending his own money, and the police were going to get it back when they arrested the son of a bitch, but Bane didn’t want his eagerness to queer the deal. “Can’t ya give me a break … say twenty-five hundred?”

  Leffler knew a hungry pigeon and had no incentive to bargain. “Three grand.”

  “Okay.” Koa held his breath as he heard more sounds, which he assumed involved counting out thirty one-hundred-dollar bills. Then the bar noise increased as one of them opened the john door. A few moments passed. Bane spoke in hushed tones. “Thanks, Drake. Here’s your bread. Good doing business with you.”

  “Any time, my man, any time,” Drake responded.

  Moments later, Bane walked out of the bar. After making sure Bane was alone, Koa flashed his lights. The cop climbed into the passenger seat and placed a U.S. Army 9 mm Beretta with a filed-down serial number into an evidence bag.

  Satisfied they had the goods on Leffler, Koa wanted to get the cuffs on the man, but not inside the Monarch. With a killing machine like Leffler, Koa couldn’t risk possible collateral damage in a barroom confrontation. They’d wait until Leffler called it a night.

  With an unmarked car and two patrol officers at his disposal, Koa parked two policemen in front. He placed one officer against the wall on the hinge-side of the bar’s front door, where he’d be out of sight behind any patron exiting the Monarch. He positioned the last uniformed officer in the bushes on the other side of the door. Koa had the front door covered but figured a pro like Leffler would sneak out the back. If Leffler came out this back door, they’d have to wait until he stepped outside and closed the door. Otherwise, he could duck back inside and create a possible hostage situation inside the bar.

  A streetlight at the end of the alley provided only dim illumination. Koa spotted two hiding places. He positioned Bane behind a trash container to the right of the bar’s back door. Koa stood in the shadow of ventilation equipment for the building across the alley. Both men checked their weapons. Once in position, they waited.

  An hour passed. All remained quiet, and it seemed as if Leffler would never call it quits when Koa heard a creak from the back door. Koa drew his Glock. Leffler peered out checking for danger. A cautious man even after several beers. Leffler stepped into the alley, and the bar door closed behind him. Perfect.

  Koa, his Glock pointed at Leffler’s chest, stepped out of the shadows. “Police. Hands up, Mr. Leffler.” Bane moved from behind the trash container, his Glock also out and pointed at Leffler.

  Leffler stopped, hesitated, looked from Koa to Bane, and slowly raised his hands.

  “Face the wall,” K
oa ordered.

  Leffler turned.

  “Hands above your head, flat on the wall. Feet spread. Do it, Leffler.”

  Leffler turned, put his hands high on the wall, and spread his legs. Koa signaled to Bane, who holstered his gun, grabbed his cuffs, and approached Leffler without blocking Koa’s line of fire.

  When Bane stepped behind Leffler, the man whirled on one foot, slamming his free leg into Bane’s left knee, toppling him to the ground. In the same instant, Leffler threw a knife at Koa. Koa caught the glint of metal coming straight at his head and ducked. As he did so, his gun hand dropped. He felt the knife slice through his hair missing his head by less than a centimeter. Behind him, the knife pierced the metal ventilation duct with a loud thunk.

  By the time Koa recovered and brought his gun back up, Leffler was twenty feet down the alley, bobbing and weaving, to avoid getting shot. Koa aimed and fired, but Leffler juked right and Koa’s shot missed. Adopting a shooter stance with a two-handed grip, Koa aimed carefully at the fleeing suspect. Just as he began to squeeze the trigger, a woman crossed the mouth of the alley. Shit. He couldn’t risk hitting a civilian. Leffler made it to the end of the alley and disappeared around the corner. Koa turned to check Bane.

  “Go after him,” Bane yelled as he hobbled to his feet.

  Koa raced after Leffler, but by the time he reached the mouth of the alley, the Army supply sergeant had disappeared. Koa alerted the police duty officer, directed dispatch to muster reinforcements, and broadcast an ABP for Leffler. Then he walked back to Bane, who was in obvious pain. “Son of a bitch,” Bane swore as he rubbed his bruised knee and brushed the dirt from his pants.

  Within minutes, emergency vehicles and policemen flooded the area—Sergeant Basa in the lead. “Be damned careful. He’s a trained killer, armed, and as dangerous as they come,” Koa warned.

  Koa now put the second part of his Leffler plan into operation. With Zeigler’s surveillance records showing Leffler a frequent nighttime visitor to his girlfriend’s apartment, Zeke Brown had obtained a search warrant for Linda Huang’s place. The woman, a recent immigrant from Taiwan, lived legally in the U.S.

  Figuring Leffler was too smart to risk returning to his girlfriend’s place, Koa executed the warrant. Koa and Bane, flanking either side of the door, knocked loudly and announced themselves as police officers. Linda Huang opened the door. A small woman with long black hair and tiny eyes, she offered no resistance while the two detectives combed through the one-bedroom rental. Bane searched the living room and tiny kitchen. Koa headed for the bedroom closet where he found a pair of jungle combat boots and a large safe.

  Leading Linda Huang into the bedroom, he pointed to the safe. “Can you open it?”

  “Bù.” She spread her arms, palms upward, and shrugged.

  Again, he pointed to the safe. “Who installed it?”

  “Him put,” she responded.

  “Leffler?”

  “Shi.”

  Koa called Benny Kuhio, his go-to lock and key man. While he waited for Benny, Koa called an interpreter to help him question Linda Huang. She told them she’d met Leffler at the Monarch, and they’d been living off and on together for the past month. A week after he moved in, Leffler installed the safe in her apartment, but never gave her access. She confirmed Leffler had been with her the night before the Witherspoon shooting, but left at 4:30 a.m.—just an hour before Witherspoon had been killed less than a mile and a half away. And, he’d been wearing jungle combat boots. “Him always wear boots,” she told the interpreter in Chinese.

  Just when they’d finished interviewing Linda Huang, Sergeant Basa called with bad news. Leffler had disappeared like the Hawaiian mists. They agreed to distribute Leffler’s picture to the entire force. Koa also asked Basa to alert the airlines and post lookouts at each of the island’s three commercial airports.

  Benny drilled the safe three times to get it open. Koa put on plastic gloves before removing eight packages wrapped in oilcloth; each held a stolen 9 mm Beretta M9A1 handgun bearing U.S. military markings, but none had visible serial numbers. The police would hold the weapons until they could capture and try Leffler, but Jerry Zeigler would eventually get the Army’s property back

  Next Koa removed a thick envelope containing four bundles of U.S. currency—crisp new hundred-dollar bills banded in straps with mustard-colored bands. Koa knew from previous bank robbery cases the mustard-colored bands meant ten thousand dollar bundles. Where, he wondered, had Leffler gotten forty thousand dollars? A payoff for killing Arthur Witherspoon?

  The picture from Zeigler’s slide show flashed into his mind: Leffler sitting in the corner of the Monarch with Tomi Watanabe. Maybe Watanabe had hired Leffler to kill Witherspoon. But why? Watanabe played no part in the county planning process and had nothing to do with public schools. Could, Koa wondered, the mayor’s spin doctor have been a secret partner in the Hualālai Hui?

  The last item in the safe—a piece of paper folded in thirds, like a letter—shot Koa’s Watanabe theory to hell. He unfolded the top third of the paper to find four names. The first two names—Hank Boyle and Arthur Witherspoon had been lined through. Koa felt a rush—he’d found Leffler’s hit list. The third name was Cheryl Makela. The fourth name—Tomi Watanabe—was a shocker, but it seemed to let Watanabe out as a suspect.

  As he focused on the name, Koa noticed two question marks and the word “confirm” following Watanabe’s name. Was Watanabe a target or not?

  Koa then unfolded the rest of the paper, revealing a fifth name—one that hit him like a rogue wave—Detective Koa Kāne. He, himself, was on Leffler’s hit list! Someone desperately wanted to stop the investigation of the KonaWili school disaster. But who would plan to kill the contractor, the architect, the planning director, the mayor’s press aide, and the investigating detective? And what awful secret were they hiding?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  MICA OSBOURNE’S FACE filled half the TV screen. Her daughter’s picture—a darling little girl in a pink dress with a pink ribbon in her hair and a teddy bear in her arms—appeared opposite. The grieving mother’s red eyes and haggard appearance haunted viewers. Koa couldn’t imagine the depth of her despair. “The Education Department is supposed to protect our children. Instead, they took my beautiful daughter, my beautiful little angel. How could they …” Her voice broke … “How could they build a school over a volcanic vent?” The picture changed to an aerial view of the wrecked school with the roof ripped off, the walls collapsed, and clouds of steam and noxious gas billowing upward in a mushroom cloud.

  The TV switched back to the original mother-daughter split screen, and Mica Osbourne resumed speaking. “They’ve known about volcanic risks on Hualālai for decades, yet the DOE put an elementary school on top of it. They murdered my daughter, my beautiful baby daughter. We as parents—as the people of Hawai‘i—must hold them accountable … accountable!”

  Mica Osbourne’s tortured face disappeared, and the announcer reported Mica Osbourne, together with other parents, had filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Department of Education, its senior leadership, and everyone else involved in the planning and construction of the school. Koa saw Mica Osbourne as a powerful spokesperson for the parents of school-age children throughout the state. The death of her child transformed this ordinary mother into the face of tragedy. Powered by her anguish, public outrage reached a crescendo. Parents called for inspections of their local schools. The state legislators fell all over themselves talking about the importance of school safety. All the while, the rising wave of public anger grew stronger.

  Every day the newspapers carried more complaints about unsafe conditions in public schools. On Kaua‘i, a survey reported 10 percent of the school-age population afraid to attend classes for fear of violence. The roof of Waimea High School on Kaua‘i leaked allowing black mold to grow in its classrooms. A salmonella outbreak hit students at Maui High School due to unsanitary conditions in its cafeteria. Administrators let racia
l tensions at Kealakehe High School on the Big Island escalate to the point of open warfare. Students described Cooper High School on O‘ahu as a “cinderblock oven” without air conditioning. Teachers, students, and their parents blamed every fault in every school building on the State Department of Education.

  No one felt the fire of public condemnation more than Francine Na‘auao, the head of the DOE. The Honolulu Star Advertiser and other newspapers questioned Na‘auao’s leadership. She’d been in the job for more than a decade, and like any administrator with a giant workload—the DOE oversaw two hundred ninety-one schools with nearly one hundred eighty thousand students—she’d accumulated a long list of enemies. They had their pahi hahau, their knives, out.

  Unnamed sources alleged Na‘auao spent more time on personal investments than running the department while others leaked more dirt. The department had fallen more than a year behind on school safety inspections with the Honolulu Fire Department citing one school three times for the same fire code violation. The press reported Na‘auao’s spending of more than twenty thousand dollars in taxpayer money on a lavish outing for the top officials in the DOE. The allegations went on and on.

  While public pressure escalated exponentially, politicians did what they always do; they formed a committee: a special investigating group with a broad mandate to “investigate the KonaWili disaster and all other reported safety problems within the state’s public schools.” Letters and emails poured into the committee’s offices, and soon its members faced months of legwork and public hearings.

  Francine Na‘auao might have fared better but for the investigative journalists at the Honolulu Star Advertiser. The Star Advertiser and its predecessor, the Star Bulletin, had a history of game-changing articles, stretching back to its opposition to the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II. The first of its DOE exposés asserted that Boyle Construction had known about a volcanic fumarole beneath the building. A statement from Tony Pwalú described how he’d uncovered the vent and reported it to the general contractor. The article never closed the loop by establishing Boyle had informed the DOE, but the reporters wrote the article so the public would assume so. Tony apparently hadn’t told the reporters, as he had Koa, that Boyle “showed the haole lady from Honolulu.” Or maybe the reporters were saving Tony’s bombshell for another blockbuster story.