by Neal, Toby
“Special Agent Texeira.”
“Lei, it’s Marcella. Listen, Ang came up with something. Both Rezents and Blackman were in high school sports—Rezents played soccer, and Blackman played football. Ang found video clips where they were each interviewed with a sound bite or two by Watanabe on KHIN-2.”
Lei climbed into the SUV after Ken beeped it open and gestured to the phone, hitting speakerphone mode. “Sounds like a pretty strong connection. So maybe that’s why Watanabe got chosen as the go-to reporter.”
“Yeah. Not only that, but we have an early clip of Blackman doing a rant about the one percent. Ang ran voice recognition and it’s a match to the guy in the videos, even with the distorter.” Marcella sounded excited.
“Sweet,” Lei said. “If Blackman’s the one in the videos, he can’t be flying the plane. That leaves the Bandit as Rezents or Matthews, or someone we haven’t yet identified.”
“Speaking of, we ran down Kimo Matthews. He’s acting all surprised, like he doesn’t know anything about anything. We haven’t been able to get anything useful out of him.”
“That’s good, though. That leaves Rezents potentially flying the plane. We’ve narrowed the suspect pool at least. Do you think Blackman will follow him over to Maui?”
“Doubtful he’d come over to Maui given the BOLO at the airports on all those names.”
“We’re headed over to Kahului Station. Can you send a link to Ang’s work on the voice recognition? We’ll share it with the MPD team,” Ken interjected.
“You got it. Waxman is sending us over today to help you guys,” Marcella said. “Matthews has lawyered up, so we’re keeping him in custody but need to take a break on the interviews. Waxman said he’d take over on that.”
“Did Waxman get the gag order for Watanabe and the TV coverage?” Lei asked, trying not to sound anxious.
“He’s trying, but the judge has also had an appeal submitted by KHIN. So he hasn’t signed it yet. Why?”
“Because I mistakenly filmed an appeal with Watanabe for the kid to come in. It turned out to be a setup. The Bureau, and me in particular, look like idiots.”
“Shit,” Marcella said. “Oh, Lei, I’m sorry.” Silence filled the SUV; then Ken turned the key and the vehicle roared into life.
“Call us when you get here.” Lei punched off.
Maui’s version of early-morning commute traffic was in full swing. They entered the flow of pickups, sedans with surf racks, and pineapple trucks to drive the short distance to the police station.
“I bet that bitch runs my interview on the morning news,” Lei said glumly. Ken gave a terse nod.
Chapter 14
Arriving in the conference room for the joint briefing, Lei was dismayed to see a large flatscreen mounted on a wheeled cart filled with her own image. In the newscast, she sat in the rattan chair, her tilted brown eyes magnified by unfamiliar plum eye shadow and the raspberry lipstick that had been pretty in person rendered garish in the portable spotlight. That light seemed to highlight every wrinkle in her jacket and springing curl. Watanabe looked polished and collected in contrast.
They’d reached the point in the interview where Lei stood, told the kid to turn himself in, and then spun and stomped away with a pause to yell “Gag order!”
Lei’s cheeks and neck burned with the blush that had been the bane of her existence for many years. She yanked out a molded plastic chair and sat, unfortunately next to Michael Stevens, who turned to her.
“Reporter’s got game,” he said.
“Yeah. And I don’t,” Lei said, watching herself walk away onscreen, looking temperamental as she jabbed the elevator button repeatedly while Watanabe’s voice-over droned a repeat of the case. The hairs on her arms stood up in response to Stevens’ nearness.
Captain Omura, her sleek bobbed hair and brass gleaming, turned the TV off with a click of the remote. “Good morning, Agents Texeira and Yamada. Hope you slept well after that fun interview.”
“Not really.” Lei looked around the table at the variety of expressions. “I never should have fallen for that. Hopefully, we’ll get the gag order today. We do have some news, though.”
Ken held up his smartphone. “Can I e-mail you some links? Our tech department found some important information.”
“Of course.”
Ken forwarded to the links from Ang to Omura, who hit the projector button and rolled down a screen behind her head. A screen shot of the voice recognition software came up, with matching points highlighted. “Agent Ang says these matching points identify the video messenger part of the Smiley Bandit as Tom Blackman, within a seventy-five-percent certainty.”
“So who’s flying the plane?” Omura asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee from a white plastic carafe and pushing it toward Ken and Lei.
Lei picked it up, poured some into a Styrofoam cup. She never used to be this addicted to coffee. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? We think there’s a good chance it’s Tyson Rezents because Ang also found video where both Blackman and Rezents, as high-school athletes, were interviewed by Watanabe. So that’s a connection, and they both worked at Paradise Air and are young and angry. We think it’s a strong assumption.”
“Something you missed,” Stevens said. Lei could feel his presence beside her, raising the hairs on her arms with his nearness. “Watanabe called some child advocates and told them the kid is armed and we are preparing to use deadly force against him, and they’ve been calling our station. If it’s Rezents, that could be a problem since he’s still a minor. Blackman is at least over twenty-one.”
“Yes.” Omura punched a few buttons on her computer, and a series of messages from advocacy groups scrolled up the screen. “These are from Twitter and e-mail. The Maui News has already called wanting comment on our plans to take down the Bandit, how we’re going to avoid using deadly force. The kid’s got his own fan page on Facebook, for godsake. He’s being touted as some kind of modern-day Robin Hood.”
Lei felt the ambivalence she’d been struggling with all along rise up. Did she really want to capture this brave boy, flying a tiny plane across the ocean to steal from the rich and give to the poor? Good thing her job was clear—catch a lawbreaker. How and why were for a court to decide, she told herself firmly.
“We’ve got to remember something the general public has forgotten. Even a twelve-year-old with a loaded gun is somebody who knows the difference between right and wrong. If he’s a threat to me or other people who should go home at the end of the day, he needs to be stopped. That’s the mentality we have to have. I’m not going to try and reason with a bullet.” Stevens’s jaw was set, blue eyes intense under those dark brows.
“That’s certainly true,” Ken agreed. “But given the PR nightmare and publicity of this chase, my SAC is calling for beanies and SWAT for the final takedown. We’re all to carry rubber ammo just in case.”
“The Robin Hood thing isn’t helping us. I’m sure that’s exactly the image he intended when he began feeding information to Watanabe.” Lei held the disc under the table, where Stevens couldn’t see it. “Of all the mistakes I made, leaking the gun thing to Watanabe is the most damaging. I expect to face disciplinary action when I get back to Oahu.”
“Let’s move forward with what we have to do today.” Ken’s averted, stony face confirmed that he’d already heard from Waxman to that effect. “Two more agents, Scott and Rogers, are on their way over, and we are all to switch to rubber ammo. Capture is the goal.”
“Good. I’m glad to have something to say to the press and those child advocates,” Omura said.
Just then, the triangular phone in the center of the table rang. A tinny voice came through when Omura punched the Receive button. “Captain, this is Dispatch. The aircraft has been spotted in West Maui, near Kaanapali.”
“Any other details?” Omura asked.
“No, ma’am. It was flying over Lahaina, headed for Kaanapali. That’s all we have at this time.”
&nbs
p; “Send all available units to try to apprehend. Beanies only,” Omura said, as Ken and Lei stood along with Bunuelos and Stevens. “Get on the road, everyone.”
“Ken, let me drive. I lived here, you know,” Lei said as they trotted through the station behind Bunuelos and Stevens, with a stop to pick up department-issued rifles and boxes of beanies. He nodded, tossing her the keys as she speed-dialed Ang.
“Agent Ang, do you have any idea how he’s choosing his targets?” Lei asked as they reached the SUV and she beeped open the vehicle, getting behind the wheel, Ken climbing in the passenger side.
“I’ve been working on that,” Ang replied. Lei put her phone into the cupholder and set it on speakerphone. “I’ve got a couple theories based on the houses the unsub has hit.”
“Good, because he’s headed toward Kaanapali, and there are a lot of rich houses out there.”
“Okay, I’ll get right on it and try to send you some likely addresses.”
“Thanks.” Lei pulled the vehicle out behind Stevens’s Bronco.
Cop lights on, weaving through town—it brought back memories, some of the happiest times of her life in hindsight. She wondered where Keiki was and missed her dog with an ache that felt physical.
They were on the Pali in no time, roaring along a two-lane highway around swooping cliffs above the ocean on the way to Lahaina. Wide-open vistas of cobalt sea marked by the lavender smudges of Lanai and Kahoolawe Islands and punctuations of whale spume might have distracted her on another day—but she was too busy focusing on driving at well above the speed limit on a road famous for accidents. Ken spent the drive on the phone with Waxman, bringing him up-to-date.
By one in the afternoon, Lei was hot, bothered, and hungry from fruitless searching when they rendezvoused with Stevens and Bunuelos at a little Mexican place in a strip mall outside of Kaanapali, still unable to locate the Hummel.
Lei tossed her Kevlar vest into the SUV as they went into the cantina. “Supposed to keep that on,” Ken said.
“I can’t handle how hot it is. The Bandit is not going to come in here for a burrito,” Lei snapped. Inside the dim and slightly cooler interior decorated with dusty piñatas and embroidered tablecloths under glass, Stevens and Bunuelos were already perusing laminated menus.
“We’re waiting on a list of possible targets from our tech agent, Agent Ang.” Ken sat down in the booth across from the detectives, Lei beside him.
“Okay,” Stevens said. “As you know, even with a full BOLO out and all our patrol cars on alert, no one’s spotted the Hummel since it made an initial pass in this direction. Must have landed already.”
“Probably ripping off a mansion as we speak,” Lei said. “Not that I can blame the kid.”
“You sound like you want him to get away,” Stevens said as he looked at her. “Kid’s a thief, plain and simple.”
She hid behind her menu, wincing at hearing her own words come back to bite. “Nothing’s ever plain and simple. I can’t help liking this kid. He’s brave, he’s following his convictions. I’ll do my job, but I don’t have to like it. What’s good here? We should eat fast and get back on the road.”
“The enchiladas are good,” Bunuelos volunteered.
They ordered, and Lei sucked down half her glass of iced tea, wishing it were a Corona and wondering what was in store for her when she got back to Oahu and met with Waxman. Some sort of write-up was likely the least of it.
Lei and Ken’s phones toned at the same time, and they looked at them to see the list from Ang, along with a brief message: “The unsub appears to be looking for wealthy off-islanders with a history of bringing in nonlocal help and no record of contribution to the community.”
Those were the kind of people Lei and so many locals resented. Lei’s fish tacos and the rest of the orders appeared at that moment, and they dug in quickly as Ken forwarded the list to the two detectives’ phones.
“It’ll go faster if we split up and hit these addresses,” Ken said. “I think we should keep the interagency partnership thing going, so Bunuelos, you’re with me. That’ll help me navigate a little better.”
Lei sneaked a look at Stevens’s face, dark lashes down over his eyes as he focused on his plate. “Stevens, I’ll drive since I left my vest in the SUV we’re using.”
“Thought you were supposed to keep it on,” he said without looking at her. “Still taking risks, I see. Thought FBI procedures were stricter.”
“I’m her mentor, and I’m trying.” Ken grinned, a glimpse of humor. “But as you know, the girl doesn’t like protocol.”
“That hasn’t changed, then.”
“Hey,” Lei protested. “I made it through the Academy. I made it through probation. Remains to be seen if I’ll make it through this case, though.”
They wrapped up the meal and divided the list of addresses. Lei felt Stevens’s eyes on her back as she practically ran to the SUV and hopped into the driver’s seat.
He got into Ken’s side. “Put your vest on.”
“Shut up. You’re not my mother.” She felt childish for rising to the bait even as she complied, tugging the confining Kevlar down and Velcroing it into place. He was already programming the nearest address into the GPS.
They got on the road with just the lights on and in no time were pulling up to a lovely wrought-iron gate decorated with carved metal birds-of-paradise. Lei rolled down the window and pressed the button on a speaker next to the keypad. “This is the FBI. Open up your gate, please.”
Excited squawks from the speaker, denials of a problem, but Stevens and Lei insisted on checking the grounds. Eventually, the artistic gate swung inward to admit them to a gracious estate, plantings lining a curving driveway that ended at a house doing a good imitation of a Japanese temple.
Lei suppressed her annoyance as they tramped around the estate, escorted by a caretaker, verifying that there was no evidence the Bandit had landed anywhere on the grounds. Looking out at the stunning view of Molokai and Lanai, separated by ten miles of open, sparkling ocean, she could feel a tiny bit of the anger at the world the kid lived in—a world light-years away from this one.
Lei wondered if she’d ever have had the courage to do something about that anger, like this kid was doing. At the same time, she knew that, in her way, she was trying to make the world a better place—even if it meant bringing the Bandit down.
They got back into the SUV. Lei loosened the vest again, glanced over at Stevens. “Where next?”
“We have two more addresses to check.” Stevens punched the next one in. “So. You said you wanted Keiki back.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Turn left in six hundred feet,” the GPS intoned.
“Want to see her? We can swing by the house on the way back to the station tonight.”
Lei’s hands went sweaty on the wheel as she tried to concentrate on the road. “’Course I want to see Keiki. But I don’t want to see your wife.” She tried not to choke on the last two words.
“She’s not there.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s visiting a friend.”
“What?” Bumps on the median had her swerving back into the proper lane. She glanced over at him and noticed what she’d ignored so far—dark shadows under his eyes that just made them bluer, beard stubble, tufts of misdirected hair from his habit of running his hands through it when stressed.
“Yeah.” He stared out the windshield. “We’re working some things out. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“No way. You have to tell me what’s going on.” Black spots swirled around the edges of Lei’s vision, telescoping it down—a return of PTSD symptoms she hadn’t had in months.
“Turn right in three hundred feet,” the GPS intoned. Lei yanked the wheel over and pulled up under a kukui nut tree on the side of the road. She tore off her seat belt, smothering in the tight, hot Kevlar vest. She wrestled out of the vest, gasping for air as she got it off her head. The black spots of incipient oxygen depri
vation receded and tunnel vision opened up as she tried not to let herself hyperventilate.
“Still having panic attacks, I see.” Stevens’s voice was carefully neutral as Lei did her relaxation breathing: In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. She put her head as far forward as she could, given the steering wheel.
“Obviously. They were better though, until today.” She felt her heart rate coming down and turned to him. “What’s going on with you two?”
“You’re the last person I should be talking to.”
“I’m the first person, since you never should have married her.” A desire to hurt him like he’d hurt her made the next question burst out. “Did you hit her or something?”
“No. God no. I can’t believe that’s where your mind goes.” He picked up the department-issued Remington 870 twelve-gauge, cracked open the loader, and checked that the beanie cartridges, marked hot pink, were loaded. Ratcheted the gun with a sound that instinctively raised her heart rate again. “She’s upset since I’ve been in touch with you.”
“What do you mean? It’s the case. It’s all business. It’s obvious you wouldn’t have anything to do with me if you could help it.” She tried not to sound bitter and was pretty sure she’d failed as he narrowed those blue eyes at her.
“Apparently I ‘haven’t been myself’ since we’ve been on this case. She said she needs some space to think about things and wants me to do the same.”
He wasn’t himself. He still felt something for her. Lei wanted to think on what this meant but her cell toned, and she grabbed it out of the cupholder. “Agent Texeira here.”
“Lei, it’s Ken. We aren’t finding anything so far.”
“We aren’t either.” She started the vehicle and hit her Bluetooth, pulling them back onto the narrow side road. “We’ve only been to one of the addresses, though. This is kinda inefficient.”
