“I heard that. Damn shame too. I really liked the kid.”
“Do I need to ask if you had anything to do with his death?”
“Me?” Popcorn asked, and he sounded offended.
Alana didn’t respond.
“First, it hurts that you’d even consider that I’d be capable of such a thing,” Popcorn continued. “Second, how could I get my money back if he was dead? And third and most importantly, Daniel had already paid me back.”
“All five thousand?” Alana asked.
“Yep, every last penny.”
“How did he get that kind of money stocking shelves at a grocery store?” I asked.
“Daniel had a bit of a gambling problem. I assumed one of his bets finally hit big,” Popcorn said.
“Who did he gamble with?” Alana asked.
“You’d have to ask Daniel. Oh, I forgot, you can’t.”
“Did Daniel ever mention being afraid of anyone?” I asked.
“Why is this guy asking me questions? Is he a detective too?” Popcorn asked Alana.
“Just answer his question. Was someone out to hurt Daniel?” Alana asked.
“Not that I know of. Besides, I have a strict rule. Keep it professional. I don’t want to hear about their personal lives. Everyone who comes to me has some sob story.”
“I’m sure,” Alana said.
“When Daniel came to you, was he alone or did he bring a woman with him? Maybe a woman with short, blonde hair?” I asked.
“No, he was alone.”
“Thanks, Popcorn,” Alana said, and she stood.
Popcorn looked me up and down again.
“You really married that guy?” he asked.
“Yes, I did,” Alana said.
“Huh, he must have a big–“
I shoved him hard and almost knocked him off his stool.
“Watch your mouth around the lady, Popcorn,” I said.
“And a bad temper too,” he said.
“He can be a tad overprotective sometimes, but I wouldn’t press your luck with him,” Alana said.
“Sure thing. Have a good day, Detective. You too, Mr. Detective.”
“Enjoy your day and try to stay out of trouble,” Alana said.
We walked outside the bar and headed for our cars.
“You really think I get overprotective sometimes?” I asked.
“Without question. Don’t worry. It’s a trait that’s always scored points with me.”
“That Popcorn sure is a charmer.”
“He has a certain humor about him. It’s how he keeps himself out of jail. That and the fact he’s provided valuable information in the past.”
“Now I get it. But you were right about him. He doesn’t seem like the murdering type,” I said.
“I know. So, we still haven’t answered our big question. Who forced Daniel Davis’ head under the water? I better be getting into work. You heading home?”
“Not yet. I do have a question for you before you leave. When Detective Parrish opened that safe in Mele Akamu’s study, was there someone in your department with the expertise to do that?”
“No, there’s a locksmith we bring in for jobs like that. I’ve never seen a safe he hasn’t been able to crack. His office isn’t far from here. Why do you ask?”
“Can you give me his name?”
“Of course.”
“Also, any chance you can get some birthdates for me?” I asked.
“Birthdates for who?”
“The Akamu family, specifically Mele, her late husband and son, and Tavii.”
“Why do you want those?”
“I want to test a theory.”
31
The Rule of Three
I said goodbye to Alana and made the short drive to the locksmith. His office wasn’t that far from Lee Walters’ jewelry store. I found a parking space directly in front and entered his shop. It was a small space filled with various safes, doorknobs and locks, and a large assortment of blank keys hanging from a board behind the counter.
There was no one to be seen, but I heard a grinding noise from a room in the back.
“Hello?” I called out.
The grinding stopped a moment later, and an elderly gentleman with a thin rim of white hair around his head walked into the customer area.
“Hi there. How may I help you?” he asked, and he pressed his black-framed glasses up on his nose.
“Yes, I’m working with Detective Hu on a case and she referred me to you.”
“Ah, Alana, how wonderful. She’s a delightful person.”
“She certainly is. She told me that you help the police when they need to open a safe,” I said.
“I do.”
“Were you the one who recently opened the safe at Mele Akamu’s house? It was that home in the upcountry.”
“Yes, I did that one.”
“I’m hoping you can answer a few questions for me about that day.”
“Of course. What would you like to know?” he asked.
“First off, how difficult was the safe to open?”
“Not hard, if you have the right tools.”
“Are those tools easy to find?” I asked.
“Not the ones I use. Some are custom-made by me. That safe was a digital one, high-end and expensive.”
“Who else on the island has similar tools?”
“No one that I know of. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some safecracker out there who hasn’t been caught yet. Alana would be the better person to ask about that.”
“Did you have to drill the safe open?”
“No, that would have destroyed it. My job is to open it without damaging the safe.”
“You were able to break the code?” I asked.
The man’s eyes lit up.
“What can I say? I’m good at what I do. That’s why the police call me.”
“Was there any sign the safe had been tampered with?”
“No, it looked brand new. Of course, it would look that way since it was protected behind that bookcase. Very clever hiding space.”
“After you opened the safe, did you see what was inside?” I asked.
“I saw a gun sitting on top of some papers and a couple of passports. Then that detective told me to back away.”
“You mean Detective Parrish?”
“I believe that was his name. It’s the first time I’d worked with him. He wasn’t the most pleasant fellow.”
“Was there anyone else in the room?”
“There were two other police officers. I don’t know their names,” he said.
“That’s all of my questions. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Say hello to Alana for me.”
“I will.”
I left the locksmith, marveling once again at how mentioning the name Alana Hu opened doors across the island. Mele Akamu might be known as the godmother of Maui, but Alana was the queen.
I hopped into my car and drove to Mele Akamu’s house. I didn’t bother calling Tavii or Oleen to let me inside. Instead, I relied on my trusty lock picking kit. I was a bit out of practice, and it took me over three minutes to get past the deadbolt.
I walked past the mess that was the living room and entered the study. The bookshelf was still open. The door to the safe was also open and everything that was inside had been cleaned out. I closed the safe and pressed the lock icon. I then walked over to Mele Akamu’s desk, sat down and phoned Alana.
“Hello.”
“Your locksmith friend says hello.”
“That’s nice. He’s a great guy. I’ve never met a lock he couldn’t get past.”
“He said he made some custom tools to get into safes,” I said.
“He’d never admit this, but I’m pretty sure he was a burglar back in the day.”
“That makes sense. Hey, I’m at Mele Akamu’s house and I was wondering if I could bother you for those birthdates now.”
“How did you get inside?” Alana asked.
“The door was unlocked.”
“Right. Why did I even bother to ask? What’s this theory of yours that requires these birthdates?”
“Your locksmith friend said this is a high-end safe, but I bet I can get inside it in under five minutes.”
“I’ll take that bet. What does the winner get?”
“Loser pays for dinner at the winner’s restaurant of choice,” I said.
“Deal. Give me a few minutes and I’ll text you the dates.”
I ended the call, and true to her word, the birthdates for Mele Akamu, her husband, her son, and Tavii appeared on my phone in short order.
I found a piece of paper on Mele Akamu’s desk and wrote out the dates. Most people pick numbers that mean something to them when they devise security codes. So, I took some of the numbers Alana had sent me and combined them with others until I had around thirty possible codes for the safe. For example, I took the month of Mele Akamu’s birth and combined it with the month of her husband’s birth.
I stood and walked over to the safe. I started typing in code combinations. The safe opened on my fifth attempt. It was Mele’s birth year combined with her husband’s birth year. As with everything else in this case, things came down to two possibilities. Either Mele Akamu had put the gun in the safe since she and Samson had been the ones to kill Eric Ellis, or the real killer had done it.
I’d just proved that it was possible to figure out the code and I’d done so in under ten minutes. Unfortunately, that also meant I’d lost the bet with Alana, which didn’t bother me since I would have insisted on paying for the dinner anyway.
I went back over to the desk and grabbed another piece of paper. In past cases, I’d made a list of things I knew or thought I knew about the case. Sometimes seeing the list in black and white helped my mind process things.
I wrote the headline, “Facts of the Eric Ellis Case,” on the top of the paper.
Fact. Eric Ellis worked for Mele Akamu until he decided he wanted more. He tried to blackmail her with information he stole about her business. He then tried to sell that information to a man named Stan Cross.
Fact. Mele Akamu stated that Samson couldn’t find Eric, yet Eric’s girlfriend, Gracie Ito, contradicted that with a photo of a battered and bruised Eric Ellis. Mele Akamu ultimately admitted that she lied to me about that.
Gracie Ito also claimed Samson threatened her if she went to the police. Was she lying about that?
Oleen Akamu, Tavii’s soon-to-be ex-wife, claimed to have been an eyewitness to Eric’s murder, only to later admit that she made it up so she could be paid by Stan Cross to help implicate Mele Akamu in the crime.
Tavii Akamu pointed to Lee Walters as a suspect, claiming Lee was mad that Eric blew up their business relationship with the Akamu family.
Tavii seemed happy that his grandmother was in jail since it freed him up to take over the family business, especially after his failed political career. Was this a strong enough motive to have framed his grandmother?
Lee Walters denied hurting Eric Ellis, but he admitted that he wanted to. He pointed to Tavii as a possible suspect and said that he might have gone behind his grandmother’s back to order the hit on Eric.
Gracie Ito mentioned that a man named Stan called Eric and that Eric argued with him the day he vanished.
Samson confirmed that Stan Cross was a rival of Mele Akamu and may have killed Eric.
Samson also stated that Lee Walters offered to murder his friend, Eric Ellis, in order to get back on Mele Akamu’s good side. What was that saying? There is no honor among thieves?
Daniel Davis found Eric’s remains with his dog, yet he’d clearly bought the dog for the purpose of finding the body. Who told him it was there? Or was he the one who buried Eric’s body five years ago?
Daniel owed a substantial amount of money to a loan shark, yet he somehow came up with the money to pay it back. Was he paid that money to pretend to find Eric’s body? Was he killed because of my interview with him?
Stan Cross said that he turned down Eric’s offer because he didn’t trust Eric. He was worried that Mele Akamu was setting him up.
Stan revealed that Eric was having an affair. The affair was confirmed by Gracie Ito.
Eric went to see his lover, Tiana Wise, the night he disappeared. He left in the middle of the night after receiving a call from Mele Akamu. Why would he have been so foolish to have done so? Or was the call from someone other than Mele Akamu? If so, why would Tiana lie about that?
Tiana Wise lived down the hall from Daniel Davis, yet she said she didn’t know who he was. This was directly contradicted by a co-worker of Daniel’s who saw Tiana in his apartment. What is their connection?
The police claimed to have found Mele Akamu’s safe on their own, yet they hadn’t trashed the study like the rest of the house. It’s possible that both Tavii and Oleen Akamu separately told the police in advance about the safe. If so, why had Detective Parrish lied to me about that? Probably because he was bragging about his ability to find the well-hidden safe.
According to the locksmith, the gun was in the safe when he opened it in the presence of Detective Parrish and the other police officers. Did someone figure out the combination to the safe like I had and planted the gun beforehand?
I put the pen down. I then folded the piece of paper and shoved it into my pocket. I had a long list of information, but none of it pointed to a guilty party beyond Mele Akamu and Stan Cross, who had been my main suspects from early in the case.
I was still at a dead end, so I decided to drive home and take a run or a swim, which was another tried and true method to free my mind and think about the case. I was almost home when I received a call from Alana’s mother. God only knows what caused me to answer.
“Good morning, Ms. Hu,” I said in my best cheery voice.
“I need to see you.”
See me and not talk to me? That was weird.
“I’ll be home shortly. Is there a specific time and place you’d like to meet?”
“I’m at your house now. I’ll see you soon.”
She ended the call before I had a chance to fake a medical emergency.
I parked my car on the street so I wouldn’t block hers in the driveway. She was leaning against the outside of her car with her arms folded. This wasn’t going to be good, and I tried to figure out what manner of crime she was about to accuse me of.
“Is everything all right?” I asked as I climbed out of the car and walked up to her.
“I don’t appreciate you encouraging my daughter to see her father, especially after I confided in you what he did to me.”
For those new readers, Ms. Hu had told me a few years back that her husband had beaten her, which was the true reason she’d kicked him out of the house. She asked me to keep our conversation a secret, which I had.
“I didn’t know Hani had seen him until she told me,” I said.
“Then why didn’t you try to talk her out of future meetings?”
“I’m not Hani’s caretaker. Besides, I thought she mainly needed someone to listen to her.”
“I need you to make me a promise. You need to at least keep Alana away. I can’t have both of my daughters brainwashed by that terrible man.”
“Ms. Hu, I don’t know what to say. I can’t stop them from doing anything. It’s their decision, not mine.”
“Then I guess everyone is turning against me. You got your wish.”
“What wish is that?” I asked.
“You won.”
“I won what?”
“You’ve always tried to compete with me to be number one in Alana’s life. You see this as an opportunity to push me out.”
“Ma’am, I know you’re under a lot of stress. I also know that seeing Sora has put you in a bad place, but I’m not conspiring against you. I want to help you.”
“No, you don’t. You just told me that you won’t forbid Alana from seeing her father,” she said.
I wasn’t tempted to laugh at t
he notion of me forbidding Alana from doing anything. Here’s a question for the male readers. You think you could forbid your wife from doing anything? I didn’t think so. I can also now hear all the wives laughing at that question.
“You have no idea how fragile Hani is right now. Getting dumped a few days before her wedding by that pipsqueak.”
“Yuto isn’t a pipsqueak,” I said.
“If you say so.”
Ms. Hu opened her car door.
“I don’t care what preposterous story Sora gives my girls. There’s nothing he can do that makes up for the pain he caused, even if it was decades ago.”
She climbed in the car, started the engine, and then raced onto the street at a speed that would make a Hollywood stuntman cringe with worry. I could only stand there and shake my head.
I turned and walked into the house. Maui greeted me by the door like he usually does. He performed a little happy dance for me and then rolled onto his back. After scratching his belly, I walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a Negra Modelo. I then picked up my iPad and walked outside with Maui hot on my heels. I thought what my brain needed was a little diversion, so I logged onto an entertainment website and started reading the celebrity news.
I know, with all the drama going on in the world, who cares about celebrities? But Alana’s tendency to distract herself with meaningless gossip had rubbed off on me. I was shocked to see that a particular actor had died, which marked the third celebrity death during this particular week.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the Rule of Three, which states that bad things often happen in groups of three. In this case, it was specifically referred to as the Celebrity Death Rule of Three. Do I believe in such nonsense? Of course, not. But the mind often looks for patterns in things, and it’s not hard to create them even when they don’t exist.
That said, something popped into my head as I read about the latest celebrity to die. I had my own set of threes, but I’d missed it because I was too busy trying to figure out who was lying to me and about what. Almost every person I’d met with had told me at least one lie or had omitted an important piece of information.
Mele Akamu had told me a lie on our first meeting when she’d stated that Samson had been unable to find Eric Ellis. Gracie Ito had failed to disclose her knowledge of Eric’s affair with Tiana, and Tiana had lied about knowing Daniel Davis.
Poe's First Law: A Murder on Maui Mystery Page 23
