Poe's First Law: A Murder on Maui Mystery

by Robert W. Stephens

  Unfortunately, I’d never met Oleen so I had nothing to base my approach on. There was also the inconvenient fact that I was working for Mele Akamu, something that I suspected Oleen already knew. It was highly unlikely that she’d be willing to tell us what we wanted to know, and it wasn’t like I could keep going around tying up people with extension cords, no matter how appealing that sounded to my darker side. Come on now, we all have those thoughts. Most of us are just too polite to express them.

  Foxx eventually arrived and he parked his SUV behind my car. We both climbed out of our vehicles and met in the street.

  “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was heavier than I expected,” he said.

  “No problem.”

  “How did your meeting with Bret Hardy go?”

  I laughed.

  “Would you believe me if I told you that I tied him to a column on his front porch and made him tell me what I wanted to know?”

  “Hell no, I wouldn’t believe that. So, how did it really go?”

  “I just told you. I had to tie him up.”

  Foxx looked at me like I was crazy, which I understood.

  “How do you want to play this next interview?” he asked.

  “Let’s see what happens when we introduce ourselves.”

  “I think we already know the answer to that.”

  We walked up to her apartment building, which wasn’t that much larger than Daniel Davis’ complex in Paia. I knocked on the door. In the eight to ten seconds that we waited for her, a vague idea popped into my head.

  Oleen opened the door. She looked at Foxx first. Then she turned to me.

  “You look familiar,” she said.

  “Hello, ma’am. We’re hoping we can speak with you for a few minutes. My name is–” I started to say before she cut me off.

  “You’re that investigator working for Mele. Get the hell away from me. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  Oleen slammed the door in our faces. Foxx turned to me just as that vague idea I alluded to a moment ago took better shape. I knocked on the door again.

  “We know all about Stan Cross. If you don’t open this door right now, we’re going straight to the police and telling them everything,” I said.

  “We do?” Foxx whispered.

  I shrugged my shoulders just as the door opened again.

  “What do you know?” she asked.

  “Really, Mrs. Akamu. Do you expect us to tell you everything now? We haven’t even had a chance to ask our questions first,” I said.

  Oleen didn’t respond.

  “We have just a few questions. No one wants to go to the police. We sure as hell don’t,” Foxx said.

  Oleen hesitated a long moment. Then she stepped back.

  “Come in,” she said.

  We went into her apartment. There were a handful of cardboard boxes stacked against the wall by the door. There was a small, worn-looking sofa pressed against the opposite wall. What was more interesting, though, is what wasn’t there.

  There was no television or a coffee table or even a lamp. No table in the kitchen nook. No pots and pans or even a coffee maker on the counter. It looked like Oleen had only started to move in. I suspected she’d taken whatever she could, and those few items were in the boxes. Everything else was probably still at her home with Tavii and she didn’t have the money to furnish the rest of the apartment.

  “What do you know about Stan?” she asked again, and there was no masking the anxiety in her voice. As far as poker players went, she was a lousy one.

  “We know you cut a deal with him, but judging by what I see now, it’s obvious he hasn’t paid you anything yet, maybe only enough for the deposit on this apartment,” I said.

  Yes, it was a huge gamble to get so specific, but I still thought it was a solid, educated guess. I must have been correct for she didn’t tell me that I was wrong.

  “Who approached who first?” I asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “Our inside man didn’t hear,” Foxx said.

  It was a good line and better than anything I could have come up with at that moment.

  “It was Stan’s idea,” she said.

  I studied her expression when she’d said it and I thought she was probably lying.

  “How much did he offer you to tell the police that you saw Mele Akamu and Samson shoot Eric Ellis?” I asked.

  Oleen didn’t respond.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” I continued. “Our man is going to contact the police and tell them about this little scheme you cooked up. You’re going to jail for perjury and making a false report to the police.”

  “You can’t prove anything.”

  “Can’t we? What do you think is going to happen when Stan Cross realizes the police are on to you? He’s going to cut you loose, and you’ll end up with nothing,” I said.

  “We understand why you’re doing this. We understand what Tavii is like,” Foxx said.

  “How could you possibly know that?” she asked.

  “We were on that yacht with him a while back,” Foxx said, referring to our previous case, the one I called Rich and Dead.

  “You were part of those gambling parties?” she asked.

  “Yes, and we saw how Tavii is. The man is reckless and foolish. I can’t begin to imagine what it was like to be married to him,” I said.

  “You have no idea.”

  “He couldn’t have been that way from the start,” I said.

  “He wasn’t, at least I didn’t think he was. It wasn’t until years later that I realized I just wasn’t seeing him for who he really was.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. I’m guilty of that myself,” Foxx said.

  “Add me to that list,” I said.

  If you’ve read Aloha Means Goodbye, then you know exactly who I was talking about. The woman’s name was Dorothy and she left me for a used car salesman, although I believe I mentioned that in the first chapter of this tale.

  “He thought I didn’t know about the affairs, but I did,” Oleen said.

  “We know why you stayed with him. What were you going to do? You gave the guy everything. He promised to take care of you, but he ended up holding that deal against you. It was a blackmail scheme of sorts. Do what I say. Put up with my garbage or I’ll leave you with nothing,” I said.

  “You know more than I thought you did,” she said.

  “We need you to come forward and tell the police that you didn’t really see Mele Akamu shoot Eric Ellis,” I said.

  “I can’t do that. You don’t know what Stan would do to me.”

  “What do you stand to get in a divorce from Tavii?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I get nothing. Mele Akamu made sure of that.”

  “She made you sign a prenuptial agreement?” Foxx asked.

  “Yes, drawn up by that crook of a lawyer of hers, Ruben Dalton,” Oleen said.

  “I have just one more question. Did you really see Mele Akamu and Samson murder Eric?” I asked.

  “What difference does it make? They probably did it, even if I didn’t see it,” Oleen said.

  “You’ve gotten yourself into a big mess, but we’re going to help you get out of it,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because we want to discover the truth and you’re going to help us with that,” I said.

  “Why would I be interested in helping that woman? She’s treated me like garbage ever since I met her.”

  “You have more leverage than you think. You have the winning hand against Mele Akamu and your husband. You just made a mistake in how you played that hand,” I said.

  “What would you have had me do? Threaten Mele Akamu? I would have disappeared and ended up at the bottom of the ocean,” she said.

  “Let us talk to Tavii for you. We’ll make him give you half of everything,” I said.

  “How can you do that?”

  “We can be very persuasive when we need to be,” Foxx said.

  “And what
do I do in return?”

  “You go to the police and tell them the truth,” I said.

  “No, I’m not doing that until I get my money from Tavii,” she said.

  “You never answered my earlier question. Did you really see them shoot Eric Ellis?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t. That doesn’t mean they didn’t do it, though.”

  “We’ll be in touch soon. Give us a couple of days to convince Tavii to see things your way,” I said.

  She said nothing.

  Foxx and I turned from her and exited the apartment. We were almost to our vehicles when he looked at me.

  “Well, she admitted it, but it’s ultimately her word against ours that she said it.”

  “Not quite.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and stopped the recording app. I moved the cursor to the last minute of the recording and hit play.

  “You go to the police and tell them the truth,” I said on the recording.

  “No, I’m not doing that until I get my money from Tavii,” she said.

  “You never answered my earlier question. Did you really see them shoot Eric Ellis?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t. That doesn’t mean they didn’t do it, though.”

  I stopped the recording.

  “What made you think to record our conversation with her?” Foxx asked.

  “I bluffed Bret Hardy when I told him I was recording my interview with him when I didn’t. That made me realize I needed to capture this one in case we got lucky. I started the recording app when you pulled up to the house.”

  “So we don’t need her to admit anything to the police. We have proof of her lie.”

  “True, but I still want to help her,” I said.

  “So do it. Tavii is a jerk.”

  20

  You Give Lawyers a Bad Name

  I said goodbye to Foxx and climbed back into my roadster. It had been a long day and I was anxious to get home. There was a swimming pool with spectacular views with my name on it and I was ready to take a dip. Still, I thought there was one more call I needed to make first. I slipped my phone out of my pocket and dialed Mara’s number.

  “Hello, Mr. Rutherford. I was just about to call you.”

  “What did you need?”

  “An update on your investigation. As you probably guessed, the judge denied Mele Akamu and Samson Opunui bail. I’m about to leave for a meeting with their attorney.”

  “How’s that going by the way?” I asked.

  Mara sighed.

  “Not well. It’s obvious that he doesn’t agree with Mrs. Akamu’s desire to have me on the legal team. The man is used to working alone.”

  “Yes, but her wish has to count for something.”

  “True, but I suspect she only asked me to further entice you to take her case. I’m sure he assumes the same thing.”

  “Is it possible for me to give you that update in person? I’d like to speak with Ruben Dalton as well.”

  “Of course. I’ll text you his address in Kahului. His office isn’t that far from mine.”

  “I’m in Kihei now. I’ll see you shortly.”

  My long day was about to get even longer, but I thought a meeting with Mele Akamu’s attorney couldn’t wait. I’d never met the man, nor had I even heard of him before this investigation. But there was Oleen’s opinion of him to give me some clue as to what he was like. She’d called him a crook, which wasn’t that far off my estimate of how he’d probably be.

  I selected the jazz pianist and vocalist Les McCann for the drive to Kahului. I listened to his songs, “Let Your Learning Be Your Eyes,” “With These Hands,” “Compared to What,” “Willow Weep for Me,” and “The Lovers.”

  I spotted Mara’s car when I pulled into the parking lot. I parked a few spots down from her vehicle and climbed out. Ruben Dalton’s law office was located in a small group of suites, which also consisted of a dental clinic, an ophthalmologist’s office, and a flower shop, which seemed completely out of place.

  I entered Dalton’s office but didn’t see a receptionist. The little bell on the door must have alerted Ruben Dalton, at least the person I assumed was him, for a short man in his sixties entered the lobby a few seconds later. He had tanned skin, which somehow made the deep lines in his forehead seem more prominent. Unfortunately, my eyes went straight to his hair. It was jet-black and I was fairly confident that it was a hairpiece. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I have a hard time not staring at those things once I’m convinced that they’re fake.

  “You must be Edgar Rutherford,” he said in a deep voice.

  “That’s right.”

  “Mara is already here. Come on back.”

  I followed him into his private office. It was set up differently than Mara’s. Whereas she had a separate area with a comfortable sofa and matching chair for clients, Ruben Dalton had an oversized wooden desk with a large leather chair that somewhat resembled a throne behind it. On the other side of the desk were two wooden chairs that looked about as comfy as something you’d find at a boarding gate in a crowded airport.

  Mara was already seated on one of the chairs. I took the other as Ruben Dalton sat on his throne. I already had an instinctive disliking of the man and he’d only said a couple of sentences to me. This wasn’t good.

  “What do you have to report?” Ruben said.

  “I’ve conducted several interviews already.”

  “And have you learned anything that can actually help me?” Ruben asked.

  “Unfortunately, not much. They all point toward Mrs. Akamu. They also contradicted some things she told Mara and me on our initial meeting, things that Mrs. Akamu ultimately admitted to.”

  “I don’t care about any of that,” Ruben said.

  “I also met with Oleen Akamu,” I said.

  “She actually agreed to speak with you?” Mara asked.

  “Yes. It turns out she’s the eyewitness to the murder, at least that’s what she claimed,” I said.

  “That’s nonsense. She’s lying,” Ruben said.

  “Based on what?” Mara asked.

  “Based on the fact that I’ve worked with this family for years. I know these people. You can’t believe a word Oleen says.”

  “Were you able to get anything out of her?” Mara asked me.

  “Not much, although I suspect I know a way around that,” I said.

  “Which is?” Ruben asked.

  “Oleen has moved out of her home and into an apartment in Kihei,” I said.

  “I’m well aware of that. I was also already aware of the fact that she’s the eyewitness, so you’ve told me nothing useful so far. I even drove by her new place yesterday. It’s not much to look at,” he said.

  “She told me that you drew up a pre-nuptial agreement that left her with nothing,” I said.

  “That’s right and that’s exactly what she’ll get, nothing,” Ruben said.

  “Might I suggest a different course of action? Convince Tavii to amend the agreement,” I said.

  “Why would I ever do that?” Ruben asked.

  “Because the last thing the Akamus need right now is another enemy. Oleen will be very persuasive on the witness stand,” Mara said.

  “You don’t know her like I do. She’ll fall apart under cross-examination,” Ruben said.

  “You could make her look very sympathetic to the jury if you go at her too hard,” Mara said.

  “Which is why you’ll handle the cross,” Ruben said.

  “There’s no need to get to that point. Make her a deal and she’ll recant her testimony,” I said.

  “No deal. Not now. Not ever. She had her chance to do the right thing,” Ruben said.

  “With all due respect, Mr. Dalton, Oleen’s testimony is the only evidence the police have that connects Mele Akamu to the crime. If that goes away, then everything falls apart,” I said.

  “Tell me something. Did Mele Akamu place you in charge of her defense and she forgot to tell me?”

&n
bsp; I said nothing.

  “I thought as much. So keep your mouth shut and let me handle strategy for the courtroom. All I need from you is another plausible suspect,” he said.

  “You want me to point the finger at someone else to create reasonable doubt?” I asked.

  “Exactly. Give me dirt on one or two others, even more if you can.”

  “And if I can’t find anything?” I asked.

  “Then make something up. I don’t care.”

  It was the response that I expected him to say, but I still wanted to hear it from his own lips before I made my final decision. It was one that I’d been debating on the way to the meeting. Ruben Dalton’s abrasive attitude gave me the not-so-gentle push that I needed to make the final leap.

  I stood and turned away from the desk. I’d only made it a few paces when he called out to me.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

  “Home,” I said without slowing down my stride.

  “I’m not finished with you.”

  I stopped by the door and turned back to him.

  “But I’m finished with you. I find you to be an obnoxious, little man and I have better things to do with my time,” I said.

  “You can go to hell.”

  “By the way, you’ll have to let me know how things go when you explain to Mele Akamu how you lost her best chance to get out of jail. Enjoy your trial, Mr. Dalton.”

  I looked at Mara.

  “Have a good day, Mara. Sorry I can’t stay.”

  “Hold on a second. I’ll go with you,” Mara said.

  “You’re quitting too? Good. I never wanted you on this case,” Ruben said.

  “You’re right. It was a mistake for me to join your team, but it’s one I’m correcting now,” Mara said.

  I was tempted to offer the man some departing advice, mainly that I thought he should buy a better hair piece. But I didn’t say it.