Turi stared down at the table.
“Ballistics show the bullets were fired from a Glock. Same caliber you were carrying the night we went to Chinatown to see Tam.”
“You think I own the only forty-four Glock ever made, eh?”
“No. But police searched your home in Kailua and didn’t find a gun. They didn’t find a gun in the Nissan Pulsar you borrowed. And they didn’t find one on your person when you were arrested. So if the gun they recovered from the sewer isn’t yours, then where is the gun you had on you in Chinatown?”
Turi finally looked me in the eyes. “Why you asking about that gun when you the only one who seen it? The police don’t know I own it. Tam and his crew ain’t gonna testify. So why you care so much, brah?”
“Because the more you lie to me,” I said evenly, “the more difficult it’s going to be for me to win your case.”
“You think all your clients lie.”
I let silence engulf the cramped room while Turi sat on the hard chair, hands in his lap, indignant.
Finally I asked, “Did you shoot Kanoa Bristol?”
His head shot up. “Fo’ real, Mistah C? I say, ‘Yeah,’ and I’m in Halawa fo’ life. That what you want to see?”
“It was your gun, Turi. The prosecution knows it was your gun.”
“And how they know that, eh?”
I took a deep breath. “Because ballistics tests show that it was the same gun used to kill Alika Kapua.”
Turi remained silent for a long while following the revelation. I remained silent, too. Because what was going through each of our heads was too damned difficult to discuss. Turi’s saving my life three years ago in Kailua could cost him his own now.
“This doesn’t mean a conviction,” I finally said. “It just means a change of strategy.”
Turi’s voice cracked. “How you figure?”
“Kanoa Bristol was armed.”
“Yeah, so? He was one cop.”
“I think there were things you left out during our proffer session with AUSA Boyd and Special Agent Jansen,” I said. “Like how the Honolulu Police Department offered the Masonet Organization protection. How dirty cops sometimes took out Orlando Masonet’s competition.”
Turi’s throat looked as though he were swallowing an egg.
“You didn’t tell Boyd and Jansen about HPD’s dirty Narcotics Intelligence Unit because you were scared the blue would come after you. Isn’t that right, Turi?”
He didn’t confirm. He didn’t have to.
“But they came after you anyway. Bristol didn’t catch you in the middle of a drug transaction, did he, Turi?”
Turi twisted his large neck and shook his head.
“Bristol was off-duty but wearing Kevlar. He was going to silence you. This wasn’t a botched arrest, was it, Turi?”
Turi finally spoke, though his voice was little more than a whisper. “Nah, Mistah C. This was no botched arrest. This was one hit.”
CHAPTER 20
Late that night I was back in my Jeep, again outside Oksana Sutin’s Diamond Head apartment building, this time with Scott Damiano sitting beside me. For the third time in the past half hour he asked if he could smoke a cigarette, and for the third time I said no.
“This is fucking boring,” he said.
“I could use some boring.”
Just as I said it, a long, white limo turned off Diamond Head Road and into the chic building’s parking lot. I lifted a small set of binoculars I’d borrowed from Flan, who’d observed a familiar black Lincoln picking up an exotic brunette a few hours earlier.
This driver exited the limo and rounded the vehicle to greet a young woman dressed expensively and sexily, a lithe blonde with legs that went up to her neck. With the blue eyeliner and scarlet lipstick it took me a moment to recognize her. It was Iryna Kupchenko.
“Gimme those,” Scott said, grabbing the binoculars from my hand. “Holy shit. And here I thought New York was the ass capital of the world.”
I turned over the engine and waited for the limo to roll back onto the road. Then I followed.
The stretch limo didn’t take us far. Just down the road to a breathtaking piece of property sitting right on the ocean in Black Point.
“So much for affordable housing and preserving the waterfront,” I muttered.
I parked the Jeep on the road, and Scott and I crept toward the monstrous property on foot. We watched the limo pull out from behind a colossal yet ornate steel gate and turn back in the direction of Diamond Head. Which meant that Iryna Kupchenko was staying for a while. And who could blame her.
We silently climbed a hill opposite the property, and Scott held the binoculars to his face.
“Can’t see shit. We’re gonna have to go ring the doorbell.”
He was right. Iryna wasn’t talking, and I didn’t want another blade pressed against my kidneys. If my suspicions were correct, we needed to identify the man she was visiting in order to get some answers. But ringing the doorbell probably wasn’t the best way to do it.
I took the binoculars. “Over there.” I pointed. “Think we can get over that part of the fence?”
“We don’t have to. There’s a door in the gate over there.”
“I saw it. It’s probably locked.”
Scott shook his head. “Not locked enough.”
Right again. Because after a mere three minutes of fiddling with the lock with some small tools Scott carried in his pocket, he had us in.
Quietly we skirted the edge of the property. We stopped behind the cover of some tropical bushes and scanned the windows for some sign of life.
Scott motioned to the back deck. “There’s an easy way in right there.”
I shook my head. “We’re already trespassing. We’ll wait for the woman to leave then—”
I never finished my thought.
I couldn’t.
The cold barrel of a handgun was being pressed to the back of my head.
* * *
Scott and I stood facing the ocean with our hands raised high above our heads. Behind us two men shouted questions at us in Japanese. I couldn’t understand the questions, but their tone was universal. They sure as hell weren’t inviting us in for Kona coffee.
I summoned what Japanese words I could. “Watashi-wa bengoshi-desu,” I yelled over the sounds of the Pacific washing onto the rocks.
Scott looked at me, startled. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Means, ‘I am a lawyer.’ It’s the only Japanese phrase I know besides ‘the sushi was delicious.’”
Scott shook his head. “We can’t just stand here, waiting for one of these assholes to get jumpy and accidently set his gun off.”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
Scott pursed his lips as though he were contemplating his next chess move. “How many men did you see?”
“Two.”
“They both have guns?”
“Yeah.”
Scott gave me no warning, so when I heard the words emanate from his mouth, I nearly pissed my pants. Literally.
“Hey, fuckheads,” he said.
My stomach instantly dropped into my pelvis. Two men with guns pointed at our backs, and here was an unarmed wiseguy egging them on in a language they didn’t understand.
“Hey, fuckheads,” Scott shouted again.
I chanced a glance back and saw one of the men approaching us, pistol raised. I swung my eyes back onto the ocean and listened to his footfalls crush the grass behind us. I took deep breaths.
When the armed man was all but on us, Scott swung around, grabbed the man’s wrist, twisting it quickly until it snapped. The man went to the ground, screaming in pain.
Scott raised the gun on the writhing fellow’s friend as he rushed toward us.
“Whoa,” Scott shouted. “Where the fuck you think you’re going?” From the side of his mouth, Scott said, “Kev, tell this fucker to drop his gun.”
“I don’t know how,” I reminded him, my pulse racing,
my arms still slightly raised.
Scott shrugged. “Then tell him the sushi was delicious. I don’t care. But if he doesn’t drop his gun in the next five seconds, I’m gonna drop him.”
Suddenly, on the upstairs deck, a Japanese man in a colorful silk robe appeared, unarmed. “Taku,” he shouted down, followed by something I couldn’t make out.
Immediately the man standing directly in front of us dropped his weapon.
Scott backhanded the guy with the butt of the gun he was holding. The man dropped to his knees as blood spewed from his broken nose.
Scott pointed his index finger at the man on the upper deck. “We got questions for this guy?”
I glanced to the left and saw Iryna Kupchenko staring out at us from a high window. She looked scared. Sirens sounded in the distance and they were getting closer and closer.
I shook my head. “Let’s save the questions for another night.”
We darted off the property and made it safely back to the Jeep. I turned the key in the ignition, and we took off before the flashing lights came into view.
I sped back into Diamond Head, slowing only after we passed the building clearly occupied by at least two of Oksana Sutin’s surviving associates.
“Mind if I smoke a cigarette?” Scott said, holding up a crumpled pack of Camels.
I glanced at him as shadows played across his hard face, one eye clearly smaller than the other. “Go right ahead. Be my guest.”
CHAPTER 21
“Choice of evils,” I said. “That’s the technical term for the defense. Section 703 of the Hawaii Penal Code.”
Jake closed the door to the conference room and slowly took a seat across from me. “Justifiable homicide?”
I nodded. “Self-defense.”
Jake appeared skeptical. “Killing a police officer?”
“Killing a hitman who happened to work as a police officer.”
“You think a jury here in nirvana is gonna buy that, son?”
“With the right sales pitch, yes. If I can expose the corruption in the Honolulu PD from top to bottom and convince the jury that Kanoa Bristol set out to kill Turi Ahina in order to silence him, then they’ll have no choice but to acquit.”
“That’s a tall order.”
“Not if I can find me a whistle-blower.”
Jake arched his brows. “Penetrate the blue wall of silence?”
“It can be done. Trick is to do it without ending up in a body bag.”
“Well, where do you start?”
I pursed my lips. “AUSA Audra Levy-soon-to-be-Karras. She knows about the corruption and she doesn’t seem to give a damn what Boyd or anyone else at her office thinks of her. If she doesn’t know who the whistle-blower is, she’ll be able to find out.”
A rap on the conference-room door was immediately followed by the hellish squeak of its opening. Flan stepped inside with a file folder in his hand.
“I have a name for you,” Flan said as he sat. “The john you saw at Black Point is Yoshimitsu Nakagawa. Forty-eight years old, owner and chairman of the Nakagawa Retailing Group, which boasts thirty billion dollars a year in sales.”
Jake whistled. “Thirty billion a year? What the hell does he sell?”
“Slim Jims and slushies.”
“Say again?”
“Slim Jims and slushies. His company owns eight thousand convenience stores in North America and twice as many in Japan.”
“You mean—”
“Yes, I do,” Flan said. “We have two dozen of ’em right here on Oahu.”
“I’ll be damned,” I said. “We are in the wrong fucking business, Jake.”
“You just figuring that out now?”
Flan said, “Mr. Nakagawa is a family man. A wife back in Japan, with six children, ages six through sixteen.”
I sighed. “So we’ve got a glitzy Diamond Head building filled with Eastern European women who could easily pass as supermodels. And we’ve got Lincolns and limos transporting these ladies to five-star resort spas and to the summer homes of some of the world’s richest and most powerful men.”
“Which means?” Flan said.
I rose from my chair. “Which means it’s time to have another talk with the governor.”
* * *
After placing a call to Jason Yi and setting up a meeting with Governor Omphrey in the morning, I dialed Audra Levy’s home number from my cell. I told her we needed to talk.
“About what?” she said.
“Not over the phone. Give me your address.”
Ten minutes later I was in my Jeep on my way to her rented home in Ewa on the leeward side of the island. I made certain I wasn’t tailed and I parked six blocks from her place, dodging the streetlights and creeping through the shadows before rounding her house and knocking on the back door.
“This is risky” was her only greeting.
“And much appreciated,” I said, stepping past her.
Looking around Audra’s modest apartment, at the typical wicker furniture and framed Walmart paintings that adorned most small island dwellings, it suddenly struck me: this was the first woman’s home I’d been in since Erin Simms’s. Well, aside from Oksana Sutin’s, of course, but that didn’t count because by then she’d been a corpse. And before Erin Simms’s rented place of confinement in Kaneohe, the last woman’s home I’d visited more than a handful of times was Nikki Kapua’s. Nikki, who was now doing twenty-five to life on the mainland for murder.Aside from one-night stands in hotels and a brief fling with an artist in Kahala, in the past few years I hadn’t gotten close to anyone who wasn’t either dead or locked away in prison.
I sat on a rattan chair in the living area. “I need your help.”
Audra remained standing, her arms folded across her chest. It was the first time I’d seen her dressed down, wearing anything other than the uniform of a government lawyer. In faded jeans and a yellow tank with bleach stains, she looked like someone else entirely, someone who could sit on a lanai and watch the sun set while holding a frosty bottle of Corona to her lips.
“In case you forgot,” she said, “we’re on different sides.”
“No, we’re not. Not us. Not now. You made it clear to me last month when we were at Sand Bar. We both want the truth to come out.”
She smirked. “You’ve got to be kidding, Kevin. You think I’m going to help a cop-killer? You must be out of your goddamn mind.”
“Maybe. But that’s not the point here. The point is, Turi didn’t murder Kanoa Bristol. It was justifiable homicide.”
“What? How can you say—”
I stood and raised my palms. “Hear me out, Audra. Kanoa Bristol didn’t happen upon a drug deal while he was off duty. He sought Turi out. Bristol was strapped and he was wearing a Kevlar vest. This wasn’t a botched arrest. This was a hit on Turi Ahina. Turi shot and killed Bristol in self-defense.”
Audra gaped. “The shooting took place a block from Bristol’s home. What the hell was Turi Ahina doing in Pearl City to begin with?”
“I don’t know yet. Turi won’t tell me. But I intend to find out.”
“This is ludicrous, Kevin. I need you to leave my apartment. Right now.”
“I will. But first I need a name from you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How did the feds find out the HPD was dirty?”
Audra backed away from me. “No way. Get out.”
“There was a whistle-blower, wasn’t there? There had to be. Someone passed through that blue wall of silence, and I need to know who.”
“You know I can’t tell you that. I wouldn’t only be risking my career, I’d be putting a man’s life at stake.”
My eyes bore into hers. “There is already a man’s life at stake.”
It was Audra’s turn to freeze up.
“Please,” I begged.
Her chest heaved in and out. “I’ll put him in touch with you,” she finally said. “I’ll give him your number. But whether he calls you or not, that�
�s up to him. That’s the best I can do.”
CHAPTER 22
“A prostitute?” Wade Omphrey said.
“To be perfectly honest, Governor, I’m not inclined to believe that you didn’t know.”
“I don’t give a damn what you believe, Mr. Corvelli. The fact is I had no idea, and even as I sit here, I still have my doubts.”
“So you never paid her a dime?”
“Of course not.”
“And if the feds trace all of her assets, they won’t find a link to you or Mr. Yi or any of your people.”
“Certainly not.”
My private office grew silent as the governor and I stared each other down across my desk.
Finally he said, “Where do we go from here?”
I leaned back in my chair. “Special Agent Slauson has been tight-lipped about the FBI’s investigation since our meeting with him. We have to assume the FBI knows everything we know at this point. Which means they’re undoubtedly looking into her johns and her handlers.”
“That is, if Oksana was what you say she was.”
I ignored the insinuation. “Lok Sun is presumably still atlarge. Or else his arrest would be all over the news. Which leaves us pretty much where we started. If you think Oksana’s murder is going to haunt you politically these next two months, my office will continue its independent investigation.”
“I don’t think it’s going to haunt me, I know it is. You’ve seen my opponent. He’s eleven points behind in the polls and growing more desperate by the hour.”
The part of me that handled my practice’s finances had hoped the governor would ask me to continue my investigation. The other part of me—the part that desired to live a long, full life—had wanted Omphrey to call the whole thing off and walk out of my office for good.
“This prostitution thing,” Omphrey said, “this isn’t going to wind up in the papers, is it?”
“I can’t predict the future, Governor. And I can’t control what other people do. If the issue arises, we’ll exercise damage control. Remember, no one’s yet exposed any concrete evidence of your affair.”
The governor sighed. “Of course not, Counselor. This is politics. Timing’s everything. If the other side has anything, they’ll hold onto it and use it as their October surprise.”
Last Lawyer Standing Page 8
