by B K Johnson
He knew Tommy well enough to know that she was remorseful, and told her to just accept the inevitable. “It is what it is,” he remarked. “None of this is your fault, Tommy, and we are just going to pay our respects to Julie’s family.” She nodded gratefully.
The remainder of the trip was uneventful and pleasant. They chatted most of the way about their respective journeys over the last few years. Dave was especially anxious to hear about Tommy’s detective agency and any exciting cases she might be investigating. Tommy was just as eager to hear from Dave about any ongoing criminal cases he was finding particularly challenging. And now he was even teaching law classes at the extension sites. “How our careers have diverged,” Tommy noted.
“And how fast time flies,” added Dave.
Tommy continued to keep her eye on the road, as Highway 12 was still known as blood alley due to the many accidents in spite of improvements over the last year. Still, she exceeded the 50 mph speed limit by several miles per hour. They exchanged opinions about each other’s dilemmas. Tommy was quite surprised when Dave told her she would have to be careful with Geoff Gage when she told him what Samantha was up to. Tommy said, “Well, Geoff assured me he wasn’t worried about any affair, and that he knew he could get Samantha to curb her extracurricular activities.”
Dave responded, “But that was when Geoff was thinking his competition was a male, and from what you are telling me, he could have some women stealing his wife’s affection. That’s a completely different story, and Geoff may not respond predictably to it.”
“I can see how that could be more troublesome, but Geoff seems to me to be so self-assured that I can’t imagine him feeling terribly threatened. At least he won’t have to think he has been cuckolded,” Tommy surmised.
Dave laughed and said, “What would be the proper term for this? Any ideas?”
Tommy burst into gut wrenching laughter as she imagined telling Geoff all of the terms that might be used to indicate cuckolded by a woman. She knew Dave was thinking along the same lines, but neither one of them ventured sharing their imagined but derogatory terminology for Samantha’s indiscretions. They didn’t mean any disrespect to the LBGTQ community in thinking of these odious terms. They were really just laughing about Tommy’s client’s sure-to-be chagrin at learning the truth. Each time they looked at one another, in spite of trying their best to stop, a new bout of the giggles attacked them. Tommy even had to pull off the road at Clements on Highway 88 just to catch her breath and calm down. Finally, she said, “I think the appropriate term is ‘snatched.’” Dave roared out loud at the pun.
Then her mood turned serious, and she said to Dave, “You don’t think Geoff could go off the deep end and do something terrible, do you?”
“Well,” replied Dave, “I haven’t met the guy at all. From what you’ve told me, it seems to me that his major motivations are his money, power and sex life, so I can’t see that he would do anything to jeopardize his marriage without just cause. What’s your take on him?”
“I can see him punishing Samantha pretty severely by withholding a bigger chunk of change from her than if it was just one guy she was dating. But other than that, I think he would take it in stride. For all I know, he might even get a little excited thinking about his wife with another woman. I’ll just have to play it by ear when I face him after I get enough information to put the first report together.”
At last they approached the outskirts of Jackson, and took the turn off to the casino. Tommy had been here a few times before, coming up to gamble for the day. The Indian casino was a lot closer than Reno or Tahoe, and offered the same attractions. No alcohol was allowed on the casino floor, however, so Tommy much preferred the absence of any temptation while playing video poker or slots. Tommy parked in the garage, and she and Dave walked into the hotel part of the casino, following signs that announced Judge Olson’s funeral service. The ballroom was packed with at least 500 people, and although Dave and Tommy were still an hour early for the service, they had trouble finding two chairs together.
They sat down close to the back on the left side of the room. Tommy looked around the audience and nodded at a few people who looked familiar. The Olson family was way up at the front, Julie’s husband and two children, and her mother and father. Tommy felt a shiver crawl up her spine and knew instinctively that someone was watching her. She turned around to see if anyone was behind her, and off to her right in the back was a Hawaiian staring directly at her. Tommy didn’t recognize the stranger, but as soon as Tommy was spied looking in that direction, the Hawaiian turned away and walked down the opposite aisle to the funeral party. Tommy thought to herself that there was something oddly familiar in that carriage. Dave said something, and Tommy turned back to listen to his comments, shaking off her discomfort.
On her way down the aisle, the Watcher sagely nodded and said quietly, “It’s not your turn yet, Tommy O’Malley. But it will be soon.” With that, the Watcher disappeared into the mourning morass.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Planner left Judge Julie’s funeral after expressing condolences to the family and friends gathered together in the ballroom. Bleeping open the silver Toyota Corolla parked in the casino garage, the Planner left the premises and drove leisurely with a reflective smile, heading toward Sacramento. In the trunk were three suitcases, including one carry-on. Humming all the way to the northern outskirts of Sacramento, the Planner mapped out the rest of the day.
Of first importance was to sell the car, then collect the $7500 in cash agreed upon over the internet with Gary at his Toyota Auto Sales. After that, have someone at Gary’s arrange for the business shuttle to come, and transfer the luggage from the Toyota into it. The flight from Sacramento to Honolulu, non-stop, would leave within 3 hours of the sales transaction. That should leave plenty of time to get to the airport, which was only 3 miles from Gary’s, check the luggage, get through the security line, have a cup of plain black coffee (no extra calories for this body-obsessed murderer), and be at the departure gate with at least an hour to spare.
All went according to plan. The owner-boss, Gary, had wispy, thin blonde hair which blew gently away from his ruddy face in the afternoon breeze. He smiled his shark’s smile and handed the Planner a packet of papers and a clipboard, pointing to the places where signatures and initials were required. The cash was handed over, and all 75 hundred dollar bills accounted for. At the conclusion of the sale of the Toyota, the shuttle was called, arrived, and luggage transferred. This whole process only took 45 minutes, and then the Planner relaxed, now on the way to the airport in the shuttle.
Hesitating on the way to the security gates, having already checked the luggage, the Planner went into the newsstand to purchase a Time Magazine and some mints. The coffee would taste bitter. The Planner could hardly wait to get back to Hawaii for some real Kona coffee, fresh off a Big Island plantation. And then indulge in real Hawaiian food - Filipino, Japanese, Chinese and Hawaiian. Fantasizing about the taste sensations so missed, the Planner began to salivate. There were many steps to be taken to insure that everything could go according to plan. Walking to the waiting area of gate number 6, bitter mainland coffee in hand, the Planner settled in with laptop opened, and furiously typed up all of the requisite actions, and then placing them in the order to be achieved.
At 5:15 precisely the Hawaiian Airlines stewardess with a nametag of Kalei announced the departure of Flight 117 for Honolulu. Passengers lined up according to the row listed on their boarding passes, while the children and handicapped were given first entrance onto the 767. The Planner, having a ticket for the aisle seat in Row 12, was among the last to board. Hawaiian Air always considered it a convenience to its passengers to load the back of the plane first prior to take-off, and unload the front of the plane first on arrival. Chatting amiably with other people in line, the Planner acknowledged Kalei upon being shown to the ticketed seat. The carry-on was not stowed in the luggage rack above the seats, but shoved under the seat in fro
nt of 12A.
Out came the Times Magazine. Continuing to read until several minutes after take-off, the Planner waited until the “unfasten seat belt” sign came on. Then the laptop came out, and review and rearrangement was accomplished. Consciously choosing not to engage the quiet teenager sitting in 12B in conversation, the Planner then listed all resources required. And lastly, went on-line to access the obituary of Judge Julie Olson, published in the Amador Ledger Dispatch. Most of the facts were already known to the Planner, but this obituary and the reading of it was the culmination of a well-thought out, planned, and executed murder.
Judge Olson had been born on May 15, 1968, in Ione, California. She showed promise in the legal arena even as a high school student, taking part in the debate society and acting as Judge and attorney in several moot court trials. She attended Sacramento State University for her undergraduate degree in Political Science, and graduated summa cum laude in 1989. Her Juris Doctor was obtained from Hastings School of Law in San Francisco in 1992. She had served on the Law Review, and had written several law review articles on juvenile offenders and the justice meted out to them.
Upon her graduation from law school, Julie took both the California and Hawaii bars, passing both of them on her first try. She began her legal career with the Sacramento law firm of James, Johnson, and Jubera, where she met her mentor, Bernard James. Julie concentrated almost exclusively on defending juvenile offenders, amassing a record 80% closure of cases in her clients’ favor. When Bernard chose to establish an office in Honolulu, Hawaii, Julie easily agreed to run the Hawaii office, returning to Sacramento to take over that practice each time he’d come to Oahu for his extended vacations.
She loved both the foothills of Amador County, the metropolitan areas of Sacramento and San Francisco, but adopted Oahu as her home away from home. When she was only 40 years old, she obtained a gubernatorial appointment as a Judge in Amador County. It was a temporary appointment to serve out the remaining few years of a judge that had passed on. In California, judges are elected, not like in Hawaii where they were appointed. Judge Olson served with distinction and was respected by prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims and defendants for her temperate dispensation of well-reasoned justice. The obituary closed with a listing of her family members and the fact that she would be sorely missed. As no finding of homicide, suicide or accidental death had not yet been determined, no mention was made of cause of death other than to note it was as a result of an overdose of insulin.
No one had even come close to suspecting the Planner of any involvement in the Judge’s death. Everyone was still on the lookout for the mysterious tall, skinny young blond man sighted by several people in the courthouse not long before the discovery of the Judge’s body. That truly was a stroke of good luck, thought the Planner. Minimizing the article, the Planner then accessed a secure file which held a series of other obituaries. Judge Olson’s was added to the macabre document, which included all of the crimes leading to those deaths, and looked through the rest of the obituaries contained therein.
Retired Judge Hisao Yamamoto died at the age of 71, victim of a hit and run in 2005 only a few blocks from his home in Hawaii Kai. He had served on the bench in Honolulu for 31 years.
The next article was an apparent suicide, Willi Akau, who had been a guard at the youth facility in Koolau for 15 years. His death was in 2003 and it had been established that he had held a shotgun between his knees with the barrel under his chin prior to its exploding his head off. Only his fingerprints had been found on the weapon, which laid at his feet in the living room of his simple cottage in Wailua.
Then on to the very first article in the obituary album. It was short, and about Maile Kaulili, who died in 2001 at age 58. She’d been found by her sister, Loke Cabotaje. Maile had been strangled with a rope that had unidentified prints and skin cells all over it. No suspects had ever been located and no one had been seen entering or leaving her home in Kailua in the three days prior to her sister’s visit. Auntie Maile, as she had been known by numerous relatives, had raised several children in her family in the sacred custom of hanai, even though she had never borne a child herself. She had been the oldest of five children, 4 girls and one boy.
The Planner closed the binder and allowed the numerous images to blend with each other. Willi Akau’s eyes had been filled with fear when the trigger was pulled on the shotgun, hands having been covered in silicone gloves. After he died, Willi’s own fingers were placed around the handle of the weapon, insuring that the left-handed Willi’s trigger finger appeared to have squeezed the trigger. The gloves were kept on while Willi’s legs and arms were untied from the chair he had been restrained to, which allowed his body to slump forward.
Now the Planner heard again the resounding crunch as the old, rusted white 1970 Buick was slammed into Judge Yamamoto’s body, seeing the hit lift him up and fly his limp corpse several feet to the side of the road. No one had been watching, and at night several miles away the murderous car was set on fire.
The Planner had felt the recrimination in Maile’s sad eyes, as she yielded her struggle for life while her own sibling pulled the rope taut against her throat. A fisherman had used the rope to tie his catch to his car while he went back out for more. The Planner had stolen it, leaving the fisherman’s fingerprints and cell tissue on the rope. Gloved hands had been held higher up on the rope to prevent obscuring his. “You will never speak ill of the dead again, Maile,” was repeated while the sister’s body was straddled by her murderer.
On the title page of the deaths document, was the picture of a 16-year-old young man, naturally tan, lithe, handsome, athletic and strong. The Planner broke down at this image, but stifled the choking sobs it elicited.
CHAPTER NINE
Tommy and Dave enjoyed the sumptuous banquet after the memorial service for Judge Julie. The hotel-casino had gone all out and put together the gourmet spread without charge to the Judge’s family. There had been a number of instances when the Dalton family, who constituted the major portion of the branch of Miwok Indians who owned the reservation land, relied on the Judge’s discretion and favorable rulings. They had always been able to work with her and she with them in reaching settlement agreements that benefited the county of Amador and more specifically the city of Jackson while furthering the expansion and interests of the casino. Hundreds of thousands of dollars found their way from the gambling center to the city and county services, including the police department, highways and roads, and emergency services. The casino was also the largest employer in the county.
Once fed, they decided to try their luck at the casino itself. Dave was flying straight back to Honolulu on another red eye flight, but this one was from Sacramento. That left Tommy with quite a chunk of time before she would pilot Dave to the airport a few hours ahead of his departure, as Sacramento was just 1 ½ hours away. Both of them made their way back through the hotel, garage and into the casino, stopping at the ATM to avail themselves of a little stash for betting. Dave got $200 and announced to Tommy that he wanted to play his favorite games – Pai Gow and Black Jack. Tommy only took out $100 and had no trouble at all deciding where she would spend her cash. She loved video poker and could sit for long stretches of time emptying her mind of any other thought but what cards to hold.
Only fifteen minutes after putting a $20 bill into a nickel machine playing 5 hands at a time, Tommy was dealt four aces and a jack. She checked out the winning amounts and saw that four aces with a 2, 3 or 4 would give her $100 each hand, while the four aces alone would only net her $40 each hand. She tossed the jack and prayed Lady Luck to bring her a 2, 3 or 4 on the re-deal. A 4 of clubs did come up, but only on two hands. That meant Tommy made $300, after discounting for her initial investment.
She was ecstatic. It wasn’t so much the money, although it was always great fun to take more from a casino than it took from you, but more so having done so well choosing the cards that finally resulted in the deal of 4 four aces. This gave her a r
eal feeling of accomplishment. She printed her ticket and went to the cashier to exchange it for three hundred dollar bills, which she would stash. After all, Tommy still had eight twenties left. The cashier, a lovely Filipina named Anna, patted the money while saying, “Lucky, lucky money.” Tommy took it smilingly, figuring she could gamble the twenties and still be way ahead, so she stuck the hundreds in the zippered pocket of her purse and decided to see how Dave was doing.
It didn’t take her long to spot the handsome Chinese man looking cool and confident at one of the Black Jack tables. He had a stack of twenty-five dollar chips in front of him and was betting $50 a hand. Tommy had no trouble finding an empty seat next to Dave. The $5 and $10 dollar tables were all packed but this particular $25 table only had three players. Tommy settled in and put up her own $25 bet, telling Dave how much she had won at poker. Dave said he was already up $500 and had hit a Black Jack twice when he was betting $50 dollars. The dealer was a lovely young Asian woman with long black hair, huge deep black eyes, and a pleasant smile. Her nametag said Pham, so Tommy guessed she was from Thailand. Chatting with her through the next few hands she confirmed her earlier take on Pham’s nationality. She also learned that Pham had a 7 year-old boy and a 5 year-old daughter.
Tommy lost two of the three hands she played, breaking even on the third. That meant she was now down $50 in just 10 minutes, nothing at all like being able to play video poker for over an hour on one $20. Dave continued his winning streak, while she cashed out her chips and told Dave she was going to check out the slots. Strolling through the several sections of the casino, she was waiting for any machine to call out to her, “play me, play me.” No such call came, but when she meandered through the section devoted to penny games, she spied one she had only played once before. It was called Olympus, and had torches, and coins, and men holding other torches, and iron-clad women. It was mesmerizing.
