Fire and Vengeance

by Robert McCaw

  They labored through the afternoon, but the chart led nowhere, yielding fewer similarities than Koa had hoped. Gommes, Boyle, Witherspoon, and Na‘auao were all about the same age—sixty-four, give or take a year—but Makela was seventy. Gommes, Boyle, and Na‘auao had graduated from UH in 1975, while Makela had finished up at UH earlier than the others before going on to earn her law degree there in 1975. Witherspoon had been an architecture student at the University of California at Berkeley, but strangely Piki could find no reference to his undergraduate education. As for Watanabe, he was only fifty-nine and hadn’t gone to college. Only Boyle had been in the military. Boyle, Makela, and Na‘auao were Democrats, Gommes had switched parties twice, and Watanabe was an Independent. All except Na‘auao and Watanabe had worked in hotel and subdivision development. Koa stared at the pages, but no connection jumped out.

  A little after six in the evening, Basa stuck his head into Koa’s office. “You guys wanna join me for a beer?”

  Frustrated with their lack of progress and needing a break, Koa agreed, and the three of them headed for the Hilo Burger Joint. Piki had a thing for Robyn, a hot young haole waitress, and the two of them bantered as they ordered. She brought bottles of Black Sand Porter and Bikini Blonde Ale for the cops and wiggled her ass for Piki when she retreated to the bar, making Basa chuckle. “That broad’s got the hots for you.”

  “I wish. So far, it’s all tease,” Piki responded.

  They clanked bottles together before Piki said, “I hear Leffler took out Gommes’s dog.”

  Basa groaned. “Terrible to kill an animal like that. Bad as some murder scenes.”

  “You got pics on that fancy new body cam?”

  “Not on the cam, but on my phone.”

  “Can I see?” Piki asked.

  “The pictures aren’t as pretty as your girlfriend,” Basa teased, digging out his phone.

  “Gimme a break,” Piki responded.

  Basa loaded the video and passed his phone to Piki. Both Koa and Basa saw a disgusted look cross Piki’s face when the video showed poor Dante, the Rottweiler.

  “Jesus,” Piki exclaimed, “that’s nasty.” Still, he seemed fascinated, playing the video twice more. “Leffler’s got to be a friggin’ wizard to make that kind of a shot. I mean that’s way more than a thousand yards.”

  Piki’s comment reminded Koa of his own surprise that Leffler had come so close to killing Gommes. “Let me have a look at that video.”

  Piki handed the phone to Koa who started the video and watched the first few seconds before stopping. The camera’s perspective gave Koa the feeling he’d been at an entirely different crime scene. At the time, he’d been focused on the window where Gommes had seen the reflection. “The camera gives me a wholly different feel than I got from being there.”

  “Yeah,” Basa responded, “everyone in the evaluation group’s been surprised by the point of view. The camera gives you a wide-angle, but it’s not like being on the actual scene. And you get little sense of the distractions we face.”

  “Makes you wonder what some defense lawyer will make of body cam video when a case comes to trial,” Koa mused.

  “Your buddy Zeke, he’s on the committee and he’s worried about how the cams will affect trials. No doubt they’ll help the department with training and reducing bad practices, but cameras don’t always tell the truth.”

  Koa restarted the video at the point where he’d opened the front door to confront the carcass of the dog. After opening the door, he thought he’d moved quickly past the foyer, but in the video, the scene seemed frozen. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty seconds. He couldn’t believe he’d stared at the slain animal for that long.

  Then Basa’s video showed Koa’s back as he moved down the hallway into Gommes’s office. Once in Gommes’s study, Koa’s attention had been fixed on Gommes, but the video captured a roomful of details—a credenza on the far side that Koa had never noticed, a colorful Persian carpet he barely recognized, and Gommes’s sport coat hanging on the back of the chair next to his desk, the remaining Rottweiler’s bared teeth, and other details.

  When Basa moved deeper into the room, the video view shifted, now focusing on the meeting with Gommes. Koa watched his exchange with the wealthy developer, picking up a curl of the lip and the rapid blinking of Gommes’s eyes that he’d missed during the actual questioning. He became fascinated with the differences between the pictures and his recollection, replaying the video four more times, cataloging the details he’d missed in confronting Gommes.

  On his fourth pass through the video, a tiny detail caught his eye. He paused the playback and spread his fingers across the screen to enlarge the picture of Gommes’s sport jacket. What had been a flicker of reflected light resolved itself into a gold lapel pin. Enlarging it still further, Koa saw a triangle, a skull with crossbones, and three white pearls atop a banner inscribed with the letters “TKE.”

  Gommes had been a TKE frat boy at UH. Koa remembered the TKE certificate and fraternity pictures he’d seen in Boyle’s upstairs hallway. And according to Boyle’s friend Forret, something terrible—“something a hell of a lot worse than acid, much darker and more dangerous”—had happened to Boyle during his senior year as a TKE member. Koa suddenly wondered about Witherspoon. He’d gone to college somewhere, and Koa had a hunch where.

  “C’mon,” he said to Piki, “we’re going back to the office.”

  “Tonight?” the young detective asked.

  “You afraid of the dark? Or maybe you were gonna ask Robyn out?” Koa responded.

  From the look on Piki’s face, Koa realized he’d guessed right. “Her shift doesn’t end for a while. You can come back later.”

  At police headquarters, Koa sent Piki back to the internet, while he called Sally Medea, Witherspoon’s partner and mistress. She answered on the second ring. Koa identified himself and came directly to the point. “Where did Arthur Witherspoon attend college?”

  “UH, Mānoa. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s not on his website, his Facebook page, or his LinkedIn profile.”

  She made a sound like a sigh. “Arthur never talked about his time at UH. If anyone asked about his education, he talked about his days in Berkeley.”

  “Why? What happened to him at UH?”

  “I don’t know. I asked him once, and he just said he didn’t much care for UH.”

  “Was he in a fraternity there?”

  “What’s this about?”

  He didn’t have an answer, so he said, “I’m just collecting information right now.”

  “I don’t know anything about a fraternity. Like I said, he never talked about UH.”

  “Thanks.” He hung up and dialed Sarah Witherspoon’s number. She answered and informed him that she’d met her husband at a fraternity party at UH—a Tau Kappa Epsilon party. Koa wanted more. “Did anything unusual happen to him at UH?”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “A dispute, a fight, anything out of the ordinary?”

  “I wouldn’t know. He never talked about his days at UH.”

  “Why?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  Gommes, Makela, Boyle, Witherspoon, and Na‘auao had all been at UH at the same time, although Makela had been in law school, not college. Gommes, Boyle, and Witherspoon had been TKE fraternity brothers. Something bad had happened to Boyle, and Witherspoon had hidden his connection to UH. Koa’s intuition told him to follow up on the TKE connection.

  He called Piki into his office. “You’ve just won an all-expense-paid trip to Honolulu.”

  “Huh?”

  “Go to the big city, dig around the 1975 newspaper morgues, check out the old-timers at UH, maybe one of the guys in security. Find out everything you can about this TKE connection involving Gommes, Boyle, and Witherspoon. And while you’re at it, keep an eye out for any contact between them and Makela, who was in law school at the time.”

  “You want me to go tonight?”

  “Yeah. You�
�ve got two hours before the last flight, and then you can get an early start in the morning. Robyn’ll still be working the burger joint when you get back.”

  “You really know how to hurt a guy, don’t you?” Piki said as he headed out.

  Suddenly, another connection hit Koa like hardened cement. He loaded Facebook on his computer and checked. He could hardly believe his eyes. Mayor Tanaka, UH class of 1975, had been a member of the TKE fraternity. Right there in his campaign biography, big as life. In a flash, Koa understood the jurisdictional tug of war between Tanaka and Governor Māhoe over control of the investigation. Makela wasn’t the only one the mayor was protecting. Koa had never imagined he’d be in such a jam, investigating the man who’d appointed him to conduct the inquiry and who’d just ordered him to end it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  AT THREE THE next afternoon, Koa’s cell phone rang, and the screen flashed Piki’s name. Maybe he’d found out something about the TKE boys. “What’s up?” Koa answered.

  “I think I’m on to something, boss.” Par for the course, Piki sounded excited.

  Koa didn’t like guessing games. “Don’t make me guess.”

  “I started poking around the UH security department. There’re mostly new guys, too young to remember the 1970s.”

  Piki relished describing his exploits step by step, and Koa could never be sure where things would end up. It made him impatient, and he made a come-on gesture with his fingers, even though he knew Piki couldn’t see it.

  “One of them put me on to an old-timer, guy named Hicky, who remembered a scandal back in the mid-’70s involving frat boys and some coed who committed suicide.”

  “Which fraternity?” Koa asked.

  “Hicky wasn’t sure but remembered a police investigation and a lot of concern by university bigwigs. One of the kids came from a family of big-time donors to the university.”

  “One of our development types?” Koa asked.

  “Yeah. One Howard Gommes.”

  Koa whistled. “What else did you get from this Hicky guy?”

  “Not much, but he remembered press coverage.”

  “You follow up?”

  “Yeah, boss. I started with the university records, but I didn’t find anything. After that, I hit the newspaper archives at the old Star Bulletin. I’ve been going through microfilm archives. It’s slow as shit, but I found an article. The headline reads: ‘Coroner Rules Student Death Suicide.’

  Koa didn’t see the connection. “Is that all?”

  “Bear with me, boss. The text doesn’t add much to the headline, except for the name of the deceased, a coed named Kinnon.” Piki paused. “Then I found another related news story. According to the second story—headlined ‘Police Question UH Fraternity Boys in Woman’s Death’—the police investigated the suspicious death of a pregnant coed. Unnamed sources reported the woman partied with the college fraternity crowd. She hanged herself after some kind of sex party. Police questioned several TKE fraternity brothers.”

  “What were their names?”

  “The story doesn’t say, but based on what Hicky said, I’m betting on Howard Gommes.”

  Koa turned it over in his mind. A coed’s death ruled a suicide. Sort of like Hank Boyle’s death. “Did you check the police file?”

  “Funny thing. The police can’t find the file. It shows up on the log of files transferred to the county records center, but no file.”

  “Shit.” Old police files disappeared all the time, but the disappearance of this one might not be a coincidence. Koa thought for a moment. “What about the investigating officers? You check with them?”

  “It was forty years ago, boss. They’re all retired.”

  “You get names?”

  “Yeah. The lead guy, a cop named Konane Kahaka, is quoted giving no comment in the second news article. He retired six years ago.”

  “You find him?”

  “I got a phone number, but there’s no answer.”

  Koa didn’t believe in roadblocks. “You check out his address?”

  “No. Not yet, and I’m going to have to stay over again if you want me to try running him down.”

  “What, you got a hot date in the big city?”

  “I wish.”

  “I’ll approve the expenses, just find this old cop. See if he remembers anything.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “YOU’VE GOT TO come to Honolulu.” Piki spoke rapidly, and Koa’s cell crackled with the young detective’s excitement.

  “What did you find?”

  “Just get on a plane. You’re not going to believe it.”

  “What is it?” Koa demanded.

  “It’s complicated. I can’t do justice on the phone. You really need to be here.”

  Koa thought about ordering Piki back to the island but thought better of it. Even in his most uber-excited state, Piki wouldn’t insist Koa come to O‘ahu unless he’d nailed something big. So, Koa flew to Honolulu, rented a car, and drove out to the address Piki had given him in Hawai‘i Kai, east of Diamond Head.

  He parked in front of a modest house in a working-class neighborhood. Someone had trimmed the yard and cut the grass, but the place needed a coat of paint. As he went up the walk, an older man—one Koa immediately pegged as a cop, or more likely a retired cop—opened the screen door.

  “You must be Koa Kāne. I’m Konane Kahaka.”

  Konane, in his late sixties, had the olive-brown complexion and near-perfect white teeth of a pure-blooded Hawaiian. His hair, receding a bit, was still black and his eyes seemed to register every detail, almost like a video camera. Konane might be too old to be active, but Koa could see the former detective scanning him with the alert eyes of an experienced cop. Now a retired detective, he’d investigated the UH coed’s suicide in the 1970s. They shook hands, exchanging nods of mutual respect.

  “Your young colleague’s inside.” He led Koa into the dining room where Piki sat at a rickety round table. The room had a neat, but shabby, quality. Koa guessed Konane lived alone. The place had the retired-detective-living-alone quality Koa had seen when visiting other men who had devoted their lives to routing out crooks, murderers, and rapists. “Have a seat.”

  Koa slid into a chair across the table from Piki.

  “Want some coffee?” Konane asked.

  Koa wanted a cup of java, but he also needed a moment alone with Piki. “That would be great.”

  While Konane went into the kitchen, Koa turned to Piki. “What’s this all about?”

  “Let him tell you. It’s better that way.”

  Konane came back into the dining room with an old percolator, dented from many years of service, and three ceramic mugs. He poured each of them a cup of coffee. He obviously drank it black because he offered them neither cream nor sugar.

  “You investigated a coed’s death in the ’70s?” Koa asked to get the conversation started.

  “You know, there are some cases, they stay with you for years and years. They come back to you at the strangest times, like long-lost friends. You turn the evidence over and over in your head. You think about them when you can’t sleep and wonder what you missed. Those cases drive you nuts.”

  Koa nodded. He had been haunted by cases and knew the truth in Konane’s words. “And this coed’s death haunted your dreams?”

  “Yeah.” Konane scratched his chin. “MJK still haunts my dreams.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Konane’s eyes took on a faraway look, like he might be back at the crime scene. “She was in her bedroom hanging by an electrical cord from a light fixture, naked as the day she was born. From day one, the coroner thought she’d hung herself and ultimately ruled it suicide.”

  “But you didn’t think so.”

  “No, it wasn’t a suicide, not in my book, but I couldn’t prove it, and the university wanted the case closed. Wanted it closed real bad, like somebody with serious juice was on their case. The coroner, well, we had a political hack back in those d
ays.”

  Koa understood. Anyone who’d dealt with Shizuo Hori, Hawai‘i County’s miserable excuse for a coroner, understood an incompetent medical lightweight. “Tell me why it wasn’t suicide?”

  “She supposedly did it right after having sex. There were multiple semen stains on the sheets. Had to have been from more than one guy. We didn’t have DNA back in those days.”

  Koa knew of cases where young women killed themselves after being raped. “Was she raped?”

  Konane shook his head. “Not likely. According to her girlfriends, she was a wild one, dancing naked at parties, sleeping around, mini-orgies, into kinky sex. You could have opened a porn shop with the leather goods and sex toys we found in her apartment.”

  “What made you suspicious?”

  “The crime scene.” Konane scratched his chin again, making Koa wonder if he had a rash. “Let me show you something.” Konane left the room and came back a minute later with a thick folder. Koa guessed he’d “borrowed” the police file when he left the force. That would explain why the police couldn’t find it. Konane thumbed through the file, found the set of photographs, and handed them to Koa.

  The first wide-angle shot showed a bedroom. Six small conical evidence markers sat on the ruffled, unmade king-size bed. Just to the right of the bed, a blond woman dangled naked on an electrical cord attached to a light fixture on the ceiling. The next series of pictures depicted stains next to the evidence markers on the sheet. Other shots showed a red vibrator on the bed, a negligée, and panties discarded on the floor. The last few pictures documented the position of the body relative to the bed. MJK’s feet hung just below the level of the mattress no more than six inches from the edge of the bed.

  “She supposedly stood on the bed, put the noose around her neck, and stepped off,” Konane said with a touch of sarcasm.