Honolulu Blues

by Larry Darter

  “Good morning to you too, Rhonda,” I said. “I’m doing well, thanks for asking.”

  “Did you agree to take the Great Western Marine and Casualty case?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said, “that’s the good news.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “They are only willing to pay me two-hundred-seventy-five a day. Sorry, but that means I must cut expenses to the bone. You’re adaptable, so I’m sure you will enjoy rest home living once you get used to it. The food can’t be as bad in those places as people claim it is. And, you will make lots of new friends among the other old folks.”

  “Humph,” Rhonda snorted. “Promises, promises. Like you could run this place without me. You can’t even make decent coffee. And, to be honest, about half your usual rate is more than you’re worth anyway, Malone.”

  I burst out laughing, and Rhonda joined in.

  “Your coffee is on your desk,” she said.

  “Thanks, sweetheart,” I said. “I need you to do something for me.”

  “Okay, sugar, shoot.”

  “I need to you to get the criminal records on a Kyle Murray. Murray is a white male in his late thirties, but I don’t have a date of birth. His last arrest was in Los Angeles in 2003 on a 211 beef. Murray was part of a crew that robbed a diamond dealer on South Hill Street.”

  “All right,” Rhonda said. “What kind of info you looking for?”

  “He made parole a few weeks ago, and then disappeared,” I said. “I need to find him, and I need a place to start looking. What I need to know is which California prison he served his sentence at.”

  “No problem, I should have that for you in about 15 minutes, 20 minutes tops,” she said. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, once you find out which prison they confined Murray, I could use the phone number and the name of someone I can talk to there about arranging an interview with his former cellmate.”

  “I’m on it, sweet cheeks,” Rhonda said. “I’ll give you a shout when I’ve got the information.”

  “Thank you, Rhonda,” I said. I turned to go to my office.

  “Oh, and Malone,” Rhonda said.

  “Yes?” I said, turning back to face her.

  “If you were on the level about not getting the usual rate, you can owe me my salary until you clear the case. I’m in good financial shape, and I don’t need a paycheck every two weeks.”

  “Thank you, Rhonda,” I said. “That’s very generous, but won’t be necessary. We’ll take in enough to pay your salary and the office rent. I might just have to cut back on my bar bill for a while. No big deal.”

  “Yeah, like that will happen,” Rhonda said with a smirk.

  “I wish T. J. were still here, churning out those divorce cases while I’m tied up with this case,” I said. T. J. O’Sullivan was my former associate. She had quit a few months back to move to Honolulu and had started her own private investigations agency there.

  “Yeah, I still miss T. J.,” Rhonda said. “And not just because she brought in enough money to make this place profitable for the first time since Jack died. She is a class act and a damn good investigator. I’m still pissed at you for losing her, boy genius. What the hell were you thinking?”

  It was my fault in a way that T. J. had left. I was busy at the time on other cases I couldn’t drop when an old acquaintance in Honolulu called and asked me to come to Hawaii to find his missing daughter. Instead, I’d sent T. J. The case went sideways from the get-go, but she had adapted and handled things better than most anyone else could have. The downside was once she was in Honolulu, she stayed there instead of coming back to Los Angeles.

  “There is no way I could have predicted she would meet a guy over there and stay in Hawaii,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Rhonda said. “Now get out of here and let me do my work. I can’t get anything done with you yakking at me all morning.”

  “Okay,” I said smiling. “Let me know when you find out something.”

  “Will do,” Rhonda said already pounding on the keyboard again.

  I sat down behind my desk and sipped coffee from the cup Rhonda had left on the desk for me. I didn’t know how she did it. There was always a hot cup of coffee on my desk when I arrived at the office. And, as she had observed, I never made it into work on time most mornings. I was sure Rhonda had a snitch living at my old apartment complex that kept me under surveillance and reported to her when I left the apartment. But, even since I’d moved, nothing had changed. I was only about halfway through the cup of coffee when my desk phone rang. I answered it. It was Rhonda. I looked at my wristwatch. Impressive, it had only taken her 14 minutes.

  “Kyle Murray finished his 15-year sentence at California State Prison, Los Angeles County in Lancaster,” Rhonda said. “He did the first eight years of his stretch at San Quentin, but the corrections department transferred him to Lancaster in 2012.”

  “Great, I had guessed San Quentin since he went up for armed robbery,” I said. I wasn’t looking forward to the six-hour round trip up there and back. “Did you get a number for a contact there?”

  “Yeah, I have the warden’s office on the other line,” Rhonda said. “Hang up your phone, and I’ll transfer the call to you.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said. I dropped the receiver back on the cradle. A second later the phone rang.

  “Malone,” I said.

  “Malone, Carl James here. I’m the warden at CSP-LAC. What can I do for you?” I couldn’t believe I had the prison warden on the phone. I’d expected a secretary, some low-level civil servant type, or at most an assistant warden.

  “Hello, Warden James,” I said. “Thank you for taking my call. I’m an investigator working for Great Western Marine and Casualty an insurance company. I’m looking for a parolee, Kyle Murray who got his release from your facility a few weeks ago. He has since disappeared, and my employer wants to find him.”

  “Yes, I’d heard Murray skedaddled a few days after his release,” James said. “His parole officer called me.”

  There you go, Sara Bernstein, I thought. I had proof the word skedaddled was still in common usage. There was no shame in using it.

  “I guess you boys are still chasing those diamonds after all these years,” James said.

  “Well, this is confidential information warden, but I’ll level with you,” I said. “A short time after Kyle Murray’s release from prison, and after he disappeared, one of the missing diamonds surfaced. That seemed a little too coincidental, so we’d like to find Murray and talk with him.”

  “I’d say so,” James said. “It doesn’t surprise me one bit. Murray was a model inmate the whole time he was here, and I know from his records it was the same story during the eight years Murray was at San Quentin. Murray always impressed me as a man determined to do his time without getting into any trouble, a man who knew he had something waiting for him on the outside that was too important to jeopardize.”

  “No doubt you’re right, warden,” I said.

  “I understand you want to interview one of our inmates?” James said.

  “Yes, I’d like to speak to Murray’s former cellmate, to see if maybe Murray mentioned where he intended to go when he got out of prison, that sort of thing,” I said.

  “That would be Bobby Lee Norton,” James said. “But, unlike Murray, Norton is not the model inmate type. It would surprise me if Norton would tell you anything, assuming he even knows anything that would be useful.”

  “I’d still like the chance to ask him about Murray,” I said.

  “Sure, I have no problem with allowing you to talk to Norton,” James said. “But, there is something you need to know. Murray and Norton only shared a cell the last three months before Murray got his parole. It’s doubtful they bonded well enough in that length of time for them to share any secrets with each other.”

  “Who was his cellmate before Norton?” I said.

  “That was an inmate by the name of Daryl Dawson,” James said. “Dawson was Mu
rray’s cellmate from the time the department transferred Murray here from San Quentin until a few months ago. Dawson completed his sentence about three months before Murray finished his. When Dawson got out, Norton had come along. We moved him into Murray’s cell.”

  “Any idea where I can find Daryl Dawson?” I said.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I know where he is with no doubt,” James said. “As part of the terms of his parole, Dawson had to agree to take part in a 12-month supervised release program. He lives in a transitional housing center, a halfway house on North Vine Street in Los Angeles. The terms of Dawson’s parole require that he complete vocational training and get a job to support himself before the corrections department discharges him from supervised release.”

  “Sounds like Dawson is who I need to talk to,” I said.

  “That’s my opinion,” James said. “But, you’re welcome to come out and try to talk to Bobby Lee if you want to. I’d start with Dawson first though if I were you.”

  “Thanks very much for the help, Warden James,” I said. “I’m sure you saved me a lot of time.”

  “No problem, Malone,” James said. “You know what they say, I’m with the government, and I’m here to help.” We both laughed at that one.

  “And say, if you don’t find it necessary to come out to Lancaster to visit us, call me sometime and tell me how it all turned out. While I was just a kid when it happened, I still remember that diamond heist from back in 2003. It was all over the newspapers and television back then. I’d like hearing how this all turns out.”

  “Sure, I’ll do that,” I said. “Thanks again, warden.”

  After the goodbyes, I hung up the phone feeling I’d made a little progress the first morning I was on the case. It might not be necessary for me to bother with a trip to Lancaster to attempt an interview with a recalcitrant con. As a bonus, Murray’s longtime cellmate was right here in Hollywood, not more than a 5-minute drive from my office.

  I thought about having Rhonda find me the phone number of the transitional housing facility Dawson lived at, but then decided since it was close by, I’d just drive over there. I might accomplish more showing up unannounced in person, instead of calling ahead first. Most of the employees who ran those programs aimed at rehabilitation and helping an ex-con reintegrate into society were social worker types. Not to knock them, but social workers were often far more concerned about the rights and welfare of the ex-cons given into their charge than they were about helping cops and people like me who wanted to interview one of the ex-cons they supervised. In my experience, social worker types were best dealt with face-to-face, rather than over the telephone which made it too easy for them to stonewall.

  I gave Rhonda a fist bump and thanked her for getting me the information I needed. Then I was out the door on my way to North Vine Street.

  End of Free Sample