by Robert McCaw
Ammunition was another problem. If Leffler had fired from 1200 yards out, he must have been using .338 Lapua Magnum or .50 BMG cartridges. Those were big, heavy bullets and would have ripped a huge hole in a wooden target like the front door of Gommes’s house. Yet, as Koa had seen in person and on the video from Basa’s body cam, the actual hole in the door, while substantial, hadn’t been made with heavy ammunition.
By the time Koa and Basa got to the police evidence room and retrieved the stuff taken from Leffler’s cabin, Koa had convinced himself that Leffler had not shot at Gommes. They found the clincher in Leffler’s stuff. When Koa examined the DesertTech SRS A1 rifle, the only sniper weapon Leffler had stolen, Koa realized it had never been fired. It still had the original manufacturer’s grease in the barrel.
No one shot at Gommes from that pu‘u. Koa suddenly realized no one at all shot at Gommes. The devious bastard staged the whole thing. He’d killed Dante, his own butcher’s dog, to make the police think Leffler was after him. Yet, the truth was 180 degrees different—he’d hired Leffler. What a treacherous douchebag.
Koa wondered if he could get confirmation. An idea occurred to him, making him grin. Perhaps, he could be more cunning than Gommes. They left Leffler sitting in the police interrogation room for nearly two hours.
When they finally returned, Leffler appeared agitated. He jumped in his seat. “Jesus, man, I gotta take a piss,” Leffler shouted.
“Tough shit, Leffler,” Koa said. He sat casually, staring coldly at Leffler. He wanted the killer to be as uncomfortable and emotionally off-balance as possible. He sat still for nearly two minutes watching the man squirm. Judging from Leffler’s reddening face, the man’s blood pressure threatened to go through the roof. Finally, Koa spoke. “We’ve got you by the balls, Leffler.” Koa let those words hang in the air for several seconds before he added, “Gommes ratted you out.”
Leffler bolted up out of his chair, restrained only by the chain holding his cuffed hands to the iron ring in the center of the table. “That rotten son of a bitch,” Leffler shouted. “I’ll kill his double-crossing ass.”
Koa grinned. He had his man. Gommes hired Leffler. No doubt about it.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
KOA AND ZEKE wracked their brains trying to figure out how to get the goods on MJK’s killer. With no statute of limitations on murder, they could charge the person who choked MJK provided they had a witness or other evidence. Witherspoon’s written confession wouldn’t cut it—it wouldn’t even be admissible in court absent his testimony.
The other men in the room that night, as well as Na‘auao, could be charged as accessories to murder and conspiring to submit false reports to the police. Makela and Watanabe became accessories by lying to the police. The statute of limitations on those offenses precluded prosecution unless those crimes were part of a continuing conspiracy. They could prosecute those crimes only if Zeke could prove some act in furtherance of the crime—like a continuing cover-up or payoffs to avoid disclosure—within the past five years.
Beyond MJK’s murder, there were the public corruption charges for those who facilitated the building of the KonaWili school and murder charges for the deaths of the students and teachers. There, too, Zeke needed proof. He couldn’t rely solely on the testimony of Cheryl Makela and Tomi Watanabe. The murder of MJK and the subsequent cover-up had empowered Gommes to exert his will over the others, enmeshing them in the KonaWili conspiracy, but they needed evidence tying the crimes together.
Remembering the urgency in Sally Medea’s voice when she offered her help to bring Witherspoon’s killer to justice, Koa came up with the idea. He’d need her help for his plan to succeed, but he laid out his ideas for the prosecutor.
“Jesus, you have a Machiavellian mind,” Zeke responded. “But it just might work.” They batted the idea back and forth and refined the pieces until they had it right.
Zeke arranged an appointment to see Judge Hatachi, warning the judge they had a criminal matter of enormous sensitivity and would need a couple of hours of his time. The judge saw Koa and Zeke alone in his chambers. There, Koa laid out the history of the KonaWili school project, emphasizing Gommes, Makela, and Na‘auao had all known about the fumarole.
Zeke then presented the results of their interview with Makela, revealing the long-standing conspiracy between her and Gommes to hide payments to Na‘auao and Watanabe. Judge Hatachi, a seasoned jurist and keen observer of Hawai‘i politics, had been around the islands his whole life. “You don’t really believe those payments stopped with those two, do you?”
Although Zeke hid his feelings well, Koa saw the gleam in the prosecutor’s eyes. “Well, Your Honor, the payments might have stopped with Na‘auao. She’s a real power in the state, but we already know that Watanabe transferred his interest to a trust that distributed the proceeds.”
The judge nodded. “And they put those children in danger for money … for unrestrained greed?”
“That’s undoubtedly part of it, Your Honor,” Zeke responded, “but as Detective Kāne is about to explain, there’s much more to this story.”
Koa described how MJK had died, the police investigation, the false statements, and the conspiracy to cover up the murder. Then he laid Arthur Witherspoon’s confession on the judge’s desk. The judge read the document and sat silently contemplating Witherspoon’s words for a long time. Finally, he said, “Tell me what you need.” Zeke laid copies of the warrants needed for their eavesdropping operation on the judge’s desk, and Judge Hatachi signed them.
In working out the details of their plan, Zeke bemoaned the fact that Witherspoon hadn’t named the murderer. “This would be a whole lot easier if we knew who actually choked MJK.”
Koa grinned. “Who’s to say that Witherspoon didn’t name names.”
Zeke looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“We could rewrite the confession to put in the murderer’s name. If we get it right, we’ll get confirmation. And if we guess wrong, it’ll smoke out the guilty man.”
Zeke paused, then he, too, broke into a smile. “It’s brilliant, Koa. Where do we stage this little party?”
“The East Hawai‘i Cultural Center would be the perfect place.”
Zeke laughed. “Arthur Witherspoon would love it.”
They timed their operation to occur during the annual Merrie Monarch festival. The festival, held every year in Hilo, featured three days and nights when hālau, different teams of young men and women under the direction of kumu hula masters, competed for the top prizes in traditional and modern hula performances. Hālau came from all the islands and many other places. A who’s who of Hawai‘i society and government would attend.
Koa called Sally Medea. “You still want to help catch the man who ordered Arthur’s murder?”
“Do I ever.”
They met in Zeke’s office to explain step-by-step what they proposed and what they needed her to do. Sally agreed without hesitation. They prepared scripts, and Sally rehearsed her lines until she had them down cold. Finally, Koa asked if she was aware of the risks of going through with the operation.
“I’m not just ready. I can’t wait for revenge against the man who ordered Arthur’s murder,” Sally responded. “I want the bastard.”
They set Sally up in an office with a telephone attached to a recording device. Both Koa and Zeke wore earphones so they could hear both ends of the conversations. Koa watched as she dialed. A servant answered the phone, and she asked for Gommes.
“What’s this about?” the man asked politely.
“Tell him it’s about Mary Jane Kinnon.” That brought Gommes to the phone.
“Mr. Gommes,” Sally began, “I was Arthur Witherspoon’s personal assistant. I have the confession he wrote about the death of a coed at UH in 1975—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” came the interruption.
“Oh, you know exactly what you, Spooner, Boyle, and the man pretending to be Abercrombie did and how you
covered it up.”
There was a long pause before Gommes said, “I’m listening.”
“We need to meet to talk about whether I give Arthur’s confession to you or to the police.”
“You want money?”
“We can talk about what I want when we meet. Tomorrow night at the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center. Eight o’clock sharp, and don’t be late. I’ll be wearing a red jacket.” She hung up.
Sally then made a similar call to Francine Na‘auao, and then to the man Koa had identified as wearing the red wig—Governor Bobbie Māhoe.
Enlisting the aid of Cap Roberts, Koa and the tech services chief spent the day at the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center. After they shooed the staff away and placed a CLOSED sign on the door, Koa looked around the current exhibition in the lower gallery. The photographs of Kīlauea’s Halema‘uma‘u crater glowing at night, coastal scenes with giant red steam clouds above lava pouring into the ocean, and pictures of rivers of molten rock setting fire to the forest and houses in Puna provided just the right apocalyptic tone for the evening’s festivities. After all, they were, in Tony Pwalú words, talking about Pele’s revenge.
They hid pinhole cameras in the frames of the photographs, and microphones in the light fixtures. Koa then checked the monitors they’d set up in the projection booth in the theater on the second floor. The screens gave him a good view of the main room below.
Although confident in his plan, Koa worried about the possibility of violence. He and Zeke would hide in the projection booth for the night’s festivities, but he placed Basa and three patrolmen behind locked doors just outside the main room, ready to respond to the first sign of violence. Koa also positioned an unmarked police van and a plain-wrapper police SUV in the parking area behind the historic building.
Concerned one of the invitees might try to scope out the place before entering, Koa positioned his troops by six o’clock. Basa and the patrolmen stood ready to spring out in the event of trouble. Koa stationed more cops in the windowless van parked outside. Koa and Zeke, behind locked doors in the projection booth at the back of the second-floor theater, watched the feeds from their cameras and listened to the hidden microphones.
Francine Na‘auao arrived first. She entered through the unlocked front door and peered around nervously. Governor Māhoe arrived second. Koa noted the surprise and alarm on his face when he saw Na‘auao. “Frannie, why are you here?”
“I got a call from some woman claiming Spooner left a confession. What about you?”
“Same thing. Did Spooner really write something?”
“I don’t know, but the caller had Mary Jane’s name.”
“This can’t be good.”
Gommes arrived last. He looked around at the others. “You all get calls from some strange woman. Something about a confession?”
The others nodded affirmatively.
“Is she here?” Gommes asked.
“No one’s here except the three of us.”
“Has anyone checked upstairs?” Gommes asked.
The governor looked at Frannie before responding, “No.”
“Everybody hold tight.” Gommes headed for the stairs. Gommes made a circuit of the second floor, checking the locked doors before returning to the group. “We’re alone. There’s nobody upstairs.”
“I don’t like this,” the governor said.
“Don’t panic,” Gommes responded. “I don’t know what this bitch wants, probably money. Just let me handle it.”
“Like you’ve handled everything for the last forty years?” Frannie asked.
“I kept your ass out of trouble, haven’t I?” Gommes responded.
Koa pumped a fist into the air. Zeke grinned and made the okay gesture with his thumb and forefinger. They had all three of the surviving witnesses to Mary Jane’s murder in the same room. Now they just needed to see if Sally Medea could extract a confession.
Showtime. The room below went silent as the microphones picked up the sound of the back door opening. The cameras showed a poised and confident Sally Medea, dressed in a red jacket over a white blouse and black slacks, enter and face her three protagonists. “Good evening. My name is Sally Medea. I was in love with Arthur Witherspoon, and he loved me. You all knew him as Spooner.”
“What’s this all about, Miss … Miss Medea?” Gommes sought to assert control.
Not at all intimidated, Sally responded, “It’s about the crime the three of you committed forty years ago—the murder of Mary Jane Kinnon.”
“That’s bullshit,” Gommes shouted.
“Let’s hear her out,” the governor responded.
All three of them looked to Sally, who withdrew a piece of paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and began reading: “May the Lord forgive me for I have sinned.”
“Oh, my God.” Na‘auao’s hand flew to her mouth.
Sally ignored the interruption and continued reading: “It has haunted me all my life … what we did that night … the six of us.
“I was high. We all were. The girls were naked, swapping partners, competing for the best climax, each goading the other on. Mary Jane was so beautiful, so sexy, so wild.”
Sally paused for effect. Koa had rewritten Arthur Witherspoon’s confession, and she started to read the first altered paragraph: “Howard Gommes was on top of her, fucking her, choking her, she was gasping, begging for it, playing a deadly game …” Again, Sally paused.
Gommes broke the silence. “That rotten son of a bitch. I should have known he’d squirreled away something like this. Fuckin’ Spooner always was the weak link.”
Koa watched their faces. Na‘auao, pale as an albatross, stared wide-eyed. The governor bore a grim look. Gommes radiated anger.
Sally continued reading Koa’s insert: “Gommes killed her, he choked the life out of Mary Jane—”
“That’s a goddamned lie. Bobbie choked her. He killed her!” Gommes screamed.
“Shut up, you fool,” Governor Bobbie Māhoe ordered.
Undeterred, Sally kept reading: “We should have gone to the police, but we didn’t. Howard fixed the whole thing, the fake suicide, the lies, the false witnesses. He got Frannie to lie. He paid Babylips and that little Japanese bartender to say we were at the KitKat. I should never have gone along. The worst mistake of my life. I was scared. We all were.
“Howard screamed at us. He wouldn’t let some slut ruin his life. He had money and knew how to fix it, how to set up the alibi, how to get to the coroner, how to make everyone believe Mary Jane committed suicide. Poor Mary Jane. I didn’t believe it would work, but it did.”
Koa stared at Gommes’s image on the monitor as Sally recited Arthur’s indictment of the developer. He had a hard, determined look. Koa could almost see his mind hunting for a way out of the disaster unfolding before his eyes.
Sally continued, once again, adding Koa’s words to Arthur’s confession: “We became his puppets, richly rewarded pawns in dirty deals, locked into a lifelong trap. We did his bidding at KonaWili. He used Makela and money from the change order to bribe me, Boyle, and the governor—”
“Jesus, you told Spooner about the bribes?” Francine Na‘auao pointed accusingly at Gommes.
“Don’t be stupid. Why do you think Spooner and Boyle went along in covering up the vent?” Gommes snapped.
Koa and Zeke high-fived each other. They had their confessions. Bobbie Māhoe had killed Mary Jane, and Gommes had bribed Witherspoon, Boyle, and the governor, to build KonaWili atop the fumarole. They had enough, but Koa knew that Sally was going for more. She wanted each of them in a noose, like they’d put on MJK.
Still, Sally continued to read: “Those poor children, dead because we built a school on top of a volcanic vent, covering it with concrete—”
“Give me that!” Gommes demanded.
Sally let the paper fall from her hand to the floor. “Take it. It’s a copy. The original will go to the police unless I stop it.”
“How much do you want?” Gommes demanded.
Sally calmly flipped the question back. “How much do you think it’s worth?”
“A million dollars,” Gommes responded.
“And the others? What are they offering?” Sally asked.
Na‘auao and Māhoe looked at each other, trying to decide what to do. Then the governor turned on Gommes. “This is your fault. You said you had taken care of both Boyle and Witherspoon and destroyed anything tying us to that night in Mary Jane’s room. You fucked up, Gommes. You pay the bill.”
“That won’t cut it,” Sally said softly. “Either everybody pays up or you all go to jail.”
Koa marveled at her poise. He couldn’t imagine how she could play this high-stakes poker with such skill and determination. But then Sally had a powerful personal motive.
“Alright … alright,” Māhoe gave in, “a half million.”
Sally nodded. “Frannie?”
“Half a million.”
Zeke gave Koa the high sign. They had a lock on Mary Jane’s murderer, the killings of Boyle and Witherspoon, the bribery of state officials, and murder of the children at KonaWili. And there’d be no statute of limitation issue. Mary Jane Kinnon’s death connected everything and the participants were still offering huge sums of money to cover up their crimes. Now all the cops had to do was go downstairs and make the arrests.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
SALLY MEDEA’S SCREAM screeched through the speakers. On the monitor, Koa saw Gommes take Sally in a headlock putting a 9 mm Beretta to her ear. “Listen, bitch,” he said, “you tell us where the original is or you die right now.”
“Code red. Code red,” Koa gave the emergency signal. “Gommes has a gun to Sally’s head.”