I take a pull from my pint. “Who’s that?”
“The night before the wedding,” he says. “Trevor, Gabe, and I came down here to Waikiki for a bit of a bachelor party.”
“And?”
“And Trevor got into a fight outside the Angry Rooster.”
The Angry Rooster is a dive bar a few blocks away from the Bleu Sharq.
“What kind of altercation was it?” I ask him calmly. “Verbal? Physical? Something else?”
“It was verbal but it came real close to becoming physical. Thing is, Trevor was really bombed that night and he did something stupid.”
“How stupid?”
“He pissed on some guy’s leg.”
I suppose it says something about me that I’ve seen it happen before, New Year’s Eve 1999 in an abandoned cathedral-turned-nightclub in midtown Manhattan. “Can you describe the pissee?” I ask.
“Big guy. Dark skin but he didn’t look like he was from the islands. Maybe Latino. Lots of tats. Saw him throwing back tequila shots earlier in the night.”
Not much. But at least I know at which bar I’m drinking next.
“Did this big guy make any threats?”
Isaac nods. “Guy said something about cutting the head off Trevor’s cock.”
I tear a bite out of my orange wedge and wash it down with a slug of Blue Moon. Ironic, I think as I swallow. Cutting off the head of a cock would make for one angry rooster indeed.
Isaac and I stand there a while, like two old friends who found they have nothing in common anymore. We finish our drinks but don’t say another word to each other until I’m ready to leave.
“So Maddox called me a shark, huh?”
“Yeah,” he says.
I can’t help but sigh. “Well, next time you see Luke Maddox, you tell him Kevin Corvelli called him a cocksucker.”
Thou shalt not call the prosecutor a cocksucker to his face.
Nothing in Cashman’s Commandments about having a witness do it for you.
CHAPTER 29
“Kevin, line one.” Hoshi’s voice over the intercom disrupts the perfect silence of the conference room. “New case.”
Jake looks up from the crime scene photo he’d been squinting at. “Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I was beginning to think I’d never hear those two words again.”
I drop the folder I just opened onto the table. “What’s he charged with?” I say, running a hand through my hair, trying to conceal my frustration.
“It’s a she,” Hoshi says. “And she’s charged with Hawaii Penal Code chapter 711, section 1108.5.”
“What the hell’s that?” Jake says. “Abuse of a corpse?”
“No,” Hoshi says. “Cruelty to animals.”
Jake frowns. “All right. Schedule an appointment for this afternoon at—”
“Wait a minute,” I say. “Hoshi, what are the facts of the case?”
Hoshi hesitates as Jake and I stare each other down across the table. Finally she says, “Defendant in Makaha killed a peacock, Kevin. With a baseball bat.”
“A peacock?” I say. “Why in the hell would anyone do that?”
“She said it was constantly squawking. It drove her crazy, so she took a bat and smashed its head.”
I take a deep breath. “Tell her to find another lawyer.”
“What?” Jake shouts.
“We can’t defend someone who did that,” I say. “It’s sick.”
“Sick?” Jake stands and throws his arms up in the air as though the ref just blew a call in a Texans game. “We’re representing a young woman accused of setting fire to a resort and killing eleven innocent people, including two children. Hell, that blaze was a hair away from killing you.”
“This woman took a baseball bat to the head of a defenseless peacock, Jake.”
He stands there, mystified. “And?”
“And we’ve got to draw the line somewhere,” I say.
A solid twenty seconds of silence is interrupted again by a tentative Hoshi. “So, gentlemen, yes or no?”
“No,” I tell her. “Refer her to either Russ Dracano or Mickey Fallon. Their numbers are listed in the phonebook.”
* * *
Ten minutes after Jake storms out of the conference room, I’m in my office on the phone with our investigator Ryan Flanagan.
“Flan, I’ve got a name for you to check out. Javier Vargas.”
I tell Flan all about my visit last night to the Angry Rooster, about my chat with the bartender who served a heavily tattooed Hispanic man the Monday of Trevor Simms’s bachelor party. The bartender Ken Walls was kind enough to sift through that evening’s receipts to identify the target of Trevor’s impromptu pissing match. Walls then introduced me to a bouncer named Brent, who remembered ID’ing the guy at the door. Brent remembered that Javier Vargas and his two pals each flashed California drivers licenses. Two of the three had addresses in Los Angeles.
“Flan, I also need you to find Lauren Simms and—”
“No,” he says.
“What?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Not you, Kev. Sorry. Casey, I said no.”
When Flan returns to the line he tells me how Casey has been borrowing money from him every day for the past week. “And with nothing coming in…” he says.
“What do you mean ‘nothing coming in’?”
“Money. You know, to the firm.”
“How the hell does that affect you? I pay you a salary.”
“Yeah, but Jake says that the coffers are going to dry up sooner rather than later, and—”
“Listen to me, Flan. Your job is secure, I promise. Jake’s had a cattle prod up his ass ever since he dumped Alison, and he thinks he’s pissed at me for taking on the Erin Simms case. Pay no attention. Hopefully, we’ll have the old Harper back before the start of trial.”
“If you say so, Kev.”
“I say so. Now let me run. I have a meeting set up with Tara Holland back in Ko Olina, and I don’t want to be late.”
I hang up the phone and consider knocking on Jake’s office door, offering up an apology. I consider telling him to have Hoshi call that new client back to set up an appointment.
But no. There have been plenty of days in my life when I wouldn’t have cared if someone set the whole world on fire just to watch it burn. But I can’t recall a single moment in thirty-two years when I would’ve sat back and abided some so-called human being purposefully taking a baseball bat to the head of an innocent bird.
CHAPTER 30
The photographs I’ve seen of Tara Holland don’t do her justice. She’s a ravishing young woman with light chocolate skin and smoldering eyes. We’re seated now in her hotel room at the Meridian in Ko Olina, each on a plush chair in a well-appointed room, the curtains open, allowing in the worst of the midday sun. But if Erin has told Tara everything that has transpired between the two of us—and I’m willing to bet she has—then I can’t do something as simple as close the drapes or remove my suit jacket, or else Tara may think I’m putting on the moves. And under just about any other circumstances, she’d be right.
“Tell me how you met Trevor,” I say.
“I didn’t,” she says. “Well, at least not in the beginning. In the beginning Erin and I met Isaac and Gabe.”
“Where was that?”
“At some nightclub—I think it was called Sorbet—in San Francisco.”
“Like the dessert?”
She nods. “It’s shut down now. I mean, you know how long nightclubs last in the city. This was about, say, two and a half years ago.”
“So the four of you hooked up?”
“Nah, it wasn’t like that. Isaac, he came up to Erin, started dancing with her. Then when Erin and I sat down—you know, Sorbet was kind of a nightclub-slash-lounge, pretty exclusive. Anyway, Isaac came over with his friend Gabe and they brought drinks. Isaac was driving hard to the hoop for Erin, but Gabe, even then he was engaged. So Gabe just played wingman and we
let Erin and Isaac get a bit cozy.”
“And after that?”
“They went on a few dates. Gabe and I joined them on the first one or two, until they felt comfortable with each other. Then they started flying solo—baby got wings—and that was that.”
“Until Trevor came along.”
Tara bows her head once. “Until Trevor came along.”
“Let me ask you something a little strange,” I say, leaning forward as though the walls have ears. “Isaac, I met him in Waikiki yesterday. He’s a good-looking guy.”
Tara smiles. “I’m sure he’d be happy to hear you say that.”
I grin, nod my head slightly. “Well, let’s you and me keep that between the two of us.” I shift in my seat as I change direction. “I also saw plenty of pictures of Trevor.” I don’t mention that I saw him in the flesh at Kanaloa’s on the night of the fire. “So, my question is…”
I’m hoping she’ll finish the question for me, just come out with an answer so that I can escape this verbal dance. But she just looks at me. Don’t women see it? Or is it just us men? Is there not an aesthetic hierarchy? Some sort of unwritten law that prevents women from trading down in the looks department, same as men?
“So my question is, what did Erin see in Trevor that she didn’t see in Isaac?”
This time Tara doesn’t hesitate. “Money.” She smiles. “I realize that sounds harsh. I mean, Isaac, he’s loaded. But Trevor was on another level. He was being groomed by his father to take on the family business.”
“Which is?”
“SimmsWare. You probably heard of it; it’s a big software company in Silicon Valley.”
“Sims like the computer game? The role-playing game?”
Tara shakes her head and laughs. “No, it’s nothing like that. But SimmsWare does play a large role in the gaming industry.”
“So, money?” I say, lightheartedly. “That’s how you ladies choose your men?”
“Not me,” she says defensively. “But, yeah, I suppose lots of girls are attracted to that.”
“And Erin’s one of them?”
“Sure. What do you think we were doing at a club like Sorbet to begin with?”
Tara’s beginning to get comfortable. She’s speaking to me naturally as she would to a friend. This is how she’ll need to speak to me when she’s on the witness stand. Though we clearly have a lot to work on in the way of substance.
“Okay,” I say. “So Isaac is rich, but Trevor is filthy rich, so Trevor gets the girl.”
“Was,” she says.
“Was what?”
“Was filthy rich. I mean, in the past tense.”
“Well, of course,” I say, “now that he’s dead—”
“No,” Tara says, crossing her legs. “I mean, even before he died he was no longer filthy rich. His father cut him off.”
“Cut him off?”
“That’s the irony, see? Isaac picks up Erin, Erin dumps him for Trevor because Trevor’s father is Daddy Warbucks, but then Trevor’s father cuts him off for—guess what?—proposing to Erin.”
I follow, but I don’t want to disrupt the flow, so I tell her, “I don’t follow.”
Tara frowns. “Well, as you probably know by now, Erin isn’t exactly what you’d call…” She searches the room for the right word. “Well, sane.”
“Sane,” I say.
“Again,” she says, “I realize that sounds harsh, but you know, the girl’s got troubles. It’s not her fault.”
“It’s her mother’s,” I say, almost to myself.
Tara places an index finger on her nose but keeps silent.
“So that,” Tara says, “coupled with the fact that Erin doesn’t exactly come from money, made her a poor choice—no pun intended—for marriage into the Simms family.”
“All right. So Trevor’s father cuts him off as soon as Trevor proposes to Erin. But she sticks with him?”
“She stuck,” Tara says. “But she didn’t realize what she was sticking to for about the next ten months.”
“Trevor went from filthy rich to dirt poor and Erin didn’t realize it?”
“Trevor hid it pretty damn well,” she says. “I mean, from what I heard, he liquidated everything in his name and then started his own business. Never lost a step.”
“Then how did Erin eventually find out?”
She slides a silver charm up and down the silver chain around her neck. “Yours truly,” she finally says.
“And how did you find out?”
“Who else? Isaac.”
“Isaac blabbed to you.”
“Yup.”
“Knowing it would get back to Erin.”
“Isaac knows there are no secrets between me and Erin.”
I flush a little from the look she gives me following that statement. “And Mia?” I say. “How does Mia fit into all of this?”
“Mia just likes to sleep around.”
I give her a doubtful look and she backpedals. “I mean, sure Mia had a thing for Trevor, probably all along. But she played it cool—you know, went out with all of us, fucked other guys. But there was always something there. Both ways, I think.”
“And then one of them finally acted upon it,” I say.
“That would be Mia. She was the one who asked Trevor to take her out on his boat on a day she knew Erin couldn’t be there.”
“Who told you that?”
Tara stalls. “Mia.”
“Here in Hawaii, on the day of the wedding?” I ask.
Tara shakes her head and all of a sudden her eyes are wet. “No. Mia told me a few days after it happened.”
“But you didn’t tell Erin.”
“No.” She reaches for a tissue in the box on the table and dabs her eyes.
“Thought there were no secrets between you and Erin,” I say.
She shrugs. “I figured it could only hurt her, you know. Nothing good could come of it. She wanted to marry Trevor and that was it. And I knew it was Mia who initiated shit with Trevor; she told me so. So I figured Trevor wouldn’t do it again. I mean, Mia seduced him. What’s that called in the law? You know, it was like entrapment.”
Not exactly, but okay, close enough that I can see her logic. “And then here in Ko Olina on the wedding day, it all came to a head,” I say. “Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“Why do I think Mia finally told Erin that she slept with Trevor?” I shrug. “How should I know?”
“Someone suggested Mia tell Erin,” she says, “and I can assure you it wasn’t me. So who do you think it was, Mr. Corvelli?”
“Kevin,” I say. “Call me Kevin.”
“All right. Who do you think it was convinced Mia to tell Erin she’d fucked Trevor when Erin was already done up in her wedding dress?”
Someone in the wedding party who didn’t want the marriage to move forward. “Isaac,” I say.
“Now you’re the Batman.”
CHAPTER 31
Even with a pair of retro, oversize Jackie O sunglasses hiding the top half of her head, I recognize Mia Landow the moment she steps out of the taxi. I tip the brim of my Panama Jack hat low over my eyes and raise a copy of yesterday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser to hide my face. It’s nearing eight o’clock at night, and the number of travelers loitering outside the Honolulu Airport in Aiea is few. Enough to fill a red-eye or two, but not nearly as bustling as I usually find it.
Mia is alone, just as I anticipated. She’s got a 9:45 flight to San Francisco and she checks two large pieces of luggage curbside, carrying with her only a small purse and a light blue duffel bag. Mia has been on the island for a full two weeks, and this is the first shot I’m getting to speak to her. Maddox has been hiding her well.
She’d checked out of the Kupulupulu Beach Resort the day after the fire and we had been unable to locate her since. Yesterday, Flan’s connection at Continental Airlines informed him that she’d canceled her flight back to the mainland scheduled for Monday. It took some more phone calls,
a few hundred dollars, and some false promises, but Flan eventually learned she’d be catching the red-eye tonight.
I follow her through the automatic doors. She stops at a machine and performs an electronic check-in. Then she starts toward her gate with her boarding pass.
“Excuse me, miss,” I say from behind her. “You dropped something.”
Mia turns on her heels and looks down at the floor. As her eyes come up, I lift the brim of my Panama Jack, exposing my face. No question about it—Mia Landow instantly recognizes me as well.
Her thin frame shudders and her wide mouth falls agape. Her short chestnut hair accentuates a small cutie-pie face and a neck as long and sexy as a great pair of legs.
“Don’t be frightened,” I tell her. “You’ve done nothing wrong. All I want to do is have a brief talk.”
“I’m not allowed to speak with you,” she says, emphatically shaking her head.
“That’s not even slightly true.”
She looks at her watch without reading it and tells me she has a plane to catch.
“You’ll make your flight,” I say. “I just want ten minutes of your time. If you’d like, we can talk on your way to the gate.”
Mia removes her Jackie O sunglasses, turns, and starts walking. I take that as an invitation, remove my hat, and move right alongside her.
“In the interest of saving time,” I say, “I’ll tell you what I do know and then I’ll ask you to fill in the blanks. One, you confessed to sleeping with Trevor just prior to the wedding at the behest of Isaac Cassel, who presumably wanted to put a stop to the nuptials. Two, by the time you made said confession, your friend Tara had already known about you and Trevor, yet didn’t share the news with Erin. Three, after the wedding reception, you paid a visit to Trevor when he was alone in his honeymoon suite to apologize and ask for his forgiveness for upsetting the ceremony.”
Mia comes to a dead stop. “Wait. What?”
At least she was listening.
“I did not see Trevor at any point after the wedding reception. Certainly not in his hotel room!”
“When you slept with him on his boat, did you know Trevor was going to go forward with the wedding?”
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