“A man! A man! A man!”
“A man was with your mommy?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“And what did you see that man do, Josh?”
Sobbing so hard, Josh nearly falls off his chair on the witness stand. Maxa rises to her feet but I hold up a hand.
I lean in to the witness stand. “We need to hear your secrets,” I tell the kid softly. “You have to tell us your secrets.”
Josh shakes his head, says something inaudible before crying out, “Then they wouldn’t be secrets anymore, would they, Kevin?”
Using my own words against me. I lean in again, whisper, “Tell me your secrets, Josh, and I’ll tell you mine. We’ll trade.”
“No,” he shouts. “No, no, no, no, no!”
“Your Honor,” Maddox says, “please!”
“Okay. Mr. Corvelli, I have no choice…”
I lean into the witness stand one last time, take Josh’s head in my hands, and whisper in his ear. “Please, Josh. If you don’t want to do this for me, then do it for your mommy.”
“Okay,” Josh cries, turning to the judge. “I saw him hit her. He pushed her into the ocean!”
I take a step back, raise my voice again. “So it wasn’t an accident? Your mother was murdered, wasn’t she, Josh?”
“Y-yes! Yes! He killed her! Drownded her right in front of me!”
I step to my left so that I’m no longer obstructing Josh’s view of the prosecutor. “Do you know this man?” I say, pointing at Luke.
Josh nods, tears flying off his face. “Yes!”
“How do you know him, Josh?”
“Objection!”
“He was dating my mommy when she died.”
You’re a defense lawyer, Kevin, I remind myself. All you have to do is place someone—anyone—in that empty chair just long enough to win an acquittal.
“And he was there, wasn’t he?” I say urgently. “Luke Maddox was at your house on the night your mommy was murdered, wasn’t he, Josh?”
“Yes!” Josh shrieks. “But—”
“It’s all right, Josh,” I shout as Maddox jumps out of his seat again. “Not another word! You’ve told us everything we need to know.”
“OBJECTION!” Maddox shouts as he moves past the podium in the direction of the bench.
I stand, my back to the witness, taking deep breaths, clenching my fists, prepared to take on Maddox if he comes at the kid.
Standing, slapping the gavel with all her might, Maxa howls, “Both lawyers! In my chambers! Right NOW!” She turns to her court officer. “And call security to my chambers. One of these lawyers—and I’m not yet sure which—is spending the night in jail.”
CHAPTER 59
“What in the hell is going on here?” Judge Maxa wants to know as soon as we enter her chambers. Guards stand at the ready just outside her door. “Mr. Corvelli, you know better than to attempt an ambush in my courtroom. If this is nothing but an attempt to give the jury a show, I’ll have you in lockup tonight. This is not New York, Counselor, and you sure as hell are not on Broadway.”
“Your Honor,” I say, “several things have come to light during the course of this trial, and only today has everything added up.”
“You have five minutes to do the math, Counselor! Or else I intend to issue you a contempt citation and to revoke your client’s bail!”
I slip my hand inside my suit jacket, remove the envelope, pull out a photograph, and drop it onto Maxa’s desk.
“What is this?” she wants to know before looking at it.
“It’s a photograph of Mr. Maddox and Katie Leffler, Your Honor, taken at a staff picnic for the prosecuting attorney’s office two days before Katie Leffler was murdered.”
“This is the boy Josh’s mother?” she says, lifting the photo off her desk.
“Correct, Your Honor.”
“And you and the boy are accusing Mr. Maddox here of murdering her?”
“Your Honor—” I say.
“No, Mr. Corvelli. Before you continue, I want to know how the hell this relates in any way to the case against your client.”
“Your Honor, the police were operating on a faulty assumption,” I say, “specifically that Trevor Simms was the target of the arson at the resort.”
Still standing behind her desk, Maxa says, “You’re saying that he wasn’t?”
“No, Your Honor. Trevor Simms’s death was incidental. The target of the arson was Josh Leffler.”
“The boy? Why?”
“Because Josh was a witness to his mother’s murder, Your Honor.”
For the first time I glance at Maddox, who is standing slightly behind me, hands clasped behind his back. He looks back at me from behind two mounds of puffy black-and-blue flesh but remains silent.
“Not a word, Mr. Maddox,” Maxa says as though he needed to be reminded. Her eyes dart back to me. “I assume you have evidence of this, Mr. Corvelli.”
“Of course, Your Honor. There was plenty of physical evidence left at the scene.” Again I count off on aching, gnarled fingers. “One, the exterior door to the adjoining room—Josh Leffler’s room—was left wide open. Two, the point of origin was just outside that door rather than on or near the bed. Three, the accelerant trailed under that door—that locked interior door that led to Josh Leffler’s room—for no other discernable reason. Four, the pennies outside Josh Leffler’s room—the boy testified neither he nor his grandmother had any coins; the pennies were used to trap Josh and his grandmother in their own room during the blaze.”
“What?” Maxa says. “How so?”
“It’s done in college dormitories all the time, Your Honor. Students penny other students in their own rooms, stuff coins between the door and the door jamb so that whoever is inside the room cannot get out. I’ve done it myself on occasion.”
“Assuming all this is true, Counselor,” Maxa says, “what evidence points to Mr. Maddox as the perpetrator?”
“Your Honor,” I say, “it should have been clear to me at my client’s initial arraignment. Mr. Maddox requested bail in an amount exactly equal to my retainer, which was in an amount exactly equal to everything my client’s parents had on hand. Mr. Maddox did this to have me taken off the case, figuring I wouldn’t continue if I didn’t get paid. It caused plenty of contention between me and my law partner, but we agreed to take on the bail assignment, and it’s crushed us financially. Mr. Maddox’s backup plan was to have me removed by motion, by pretending he intended to call me as a material witness at trial.”
Maxa looks at Maddox but says nothing. She turns back to me. In a low angry voice, she says, “I hope to hell for your sake, Mr. Corvelli, that that is not all you have.”
“It’s not, Your Honor. Mr. Maddox attempted to block my investigation at every turn. He warned every one of his witnesses not to speak to me. He went as far as to hide Mia Landow and to help Lauren Simms and Gabe Guidry get off the island before my investigator and I could interview them. He turned the entire prosecutor’s office against me. He made certain that the deputy prosecutors assigned to my other cases stuck tough and fought for convictions, mainly against my client Turi Ahina, knowing damn well Turi would wind up in Halawa.”
“Sounds to me as though Mr. Maddox was doing his job, Counselor.” Maxa is growing impatient.
“Let’s fast-forward to the trial, Your Honor. The testimony of Dr. Noonan—the ME playing fast and loose with his words in a murder trial, suggesting the exact size of the blade used on Trevor Simms. Izzy Dufu, assistant chief of resort security, clearly lying about what he observed when he went to the Simms’s honeymoon suite. They were coached, Your Honor, fed everything they needed for Maddox to obtain a conviction, so that he could walk away clean.”
Maxa continues to cut holes through me with her eyes.
“Then, of course, there is Detective Tatupu’s testimony,” I say. “Mr. Maddox tried to feed the defense Corwin Pierce as a suspect. Maddox had Pierce transferred from the OCCC to Halawa so that Pierce could
get in my client Turi Ahina’s ear. Then Maddox fed all the information he could about the crime to Corwin Pierce in order to convince me to point to Pierce at trial. Only Mr. Pierce was nowhere near Ko Olina that night and Mr. Maddox knows it. If I went for the bait, I would have assured that Erin Simms was convicted on all counts.”
Maxa shakes her head emphatically. “Mr. Corvelli, you are making a case for a mistrial, something I offered to you days ago. You are insinuating that Mr. Maddox used trickery to obtain this conviction, but you have not provided me one iota of evidence that Mr. Maddox in fact committed this crime!”
“Your Honor, Mr. Maddox’s reasons for leaving California are officially buried, but my investigators have discovered why he’s no longer a prosecutor in the Golden State. He’s had a previous arrest for domestic violence in L.A. County, and it was suggested that he obstructed justice in several cases in which he was involved as a prosecutor.”
“Once again, Mr. Corvelli, I am hearing nothing relating to the Kupulupulu Beach Resort fire. What makes you so damn sure Mr. Maddox here committed this crime?”
“Because, Your Honor,” I say, finally allowing myself a few slow deep breaths, “this past July, three weeks into this case, three weeks into my friendship with Josh Leffler, Mr. Maddox tried to have me killed.”
CHAPTER 60
“Maddox has already lawyered up,” Jake says as I enter the conference room.
I step over to the windows and gaze out at the night sky.
“Can’t say I blame him,” I tell Jake. “He’s facing a dozen counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, not to mention obstruction of justice.”
“According to the news reports, Maddox is at the station on South Beretania now, refusing to talk.”
“Who’s his lawyer?” I ask.
“Russ Dracano. He’s all Maddox could afford.”
“That’s what you get for working for the State.”
Jake laughs. “Guess so.” Then he turns serious. “Where’s the kid?”
“Chelsea picked Josh up and took him home after court. I’ve already told Tatupu that no cop will be allowed to question him until after Erin’s formally acquitted. And, even then, not without me present.”
Suddenly the door to the conference room swings open, squeaking and scaring the hell out of me.
“Congratulations,” Flan shouts, slapping his palms together.
Following him is a girl of about seventeen, slender with curves in all the right places, a smile that hits you hard in the chest.
I nod to both of them. “Couldn’t have done it without you, Flan.”
“Gentlemen, I’d like you both to meet my daughter Casey.”
She sets her purse down on one of the plush conference room chairs and shakes Jake’s hand, then holds it out for me. I think of the used condoms, the footprints on the ceiling of Flan’s jalopy, and say, “Sorry, I think I’m coming down with something.”
“Maybe swine flu,” Jake says.
Casey covers her mouth with her hand. “Is that still going around?”
We all look at her.
“I’ve had a sore throat and fever,” she says. “And it burns like hell when I pee.”
Flan’s shoulders slump. He puts an arm around her and says, “We’ll pay a visit to the doctor in the morning, honey.”
“Two murder cases, two acquittals,” Jake says to me to break the silence. “Son, you’re on fire.”
“Poor choice of words, old man,” I tell him. “Damn poor choice of words.”
“Well…” he says, standing from his chair. “What do you say we all head over to Whiskey Bar to celebrate?”
“You guys go on ahead,” I tell him. “I’ll meet you there.”
As soon as they leave I’m on the conference room phone dialing Erin’s number. Although we’ve had no opportunity to discuss it at length, I know she’s upset over the hot tub footage. Not because she’s embarrassed by it, but because of how it might affect our future together. Along the same lines, she is fiercely concerned that the end of the trial will mean the end of our relationship, something I have never once hinted at.
I wait five or six rings, then hang up without an answer. Technically, her trial is not over and at least for the time being, Erin remains out on bail. Still restricted to her home. I wonder briefly whether she’s sleeping. Whether she’s sleeping alone.
I remove my suit jacket and set it down on the conference room table, then head to my office to shoot Erin an e-mail.
“Sandy,” I say softly as I pass my favorite oil painting. “Of course, Sandy.”
I sit behind my desk and pop the top on a Red Bull. Then I open my e-mail account. Six new e-mails appear in bold, one from Ryan Flanagan. The subject line reads DIGITAL COPIES—STATE VS. SIMMS. I immediately open the e-mail and download the attachments.
There are just a few photos, a half dozen in all, those in which the subjects’ eyes had looked like the devil’s. But their eyes are all clear now.
What the fuck is this?
I zoom in on the first photo. The guy with the Boston Red Sox hat suddenly seems familiar. Thin as a rail and without the red eyes I can see that one iris is blue, the other brown. A condition known as heterochromia. I looked it up on the Internet a while back, but now for the life of me I can’t remember why.
I pull my cell phone from my pants pocket. I open the clam shell and speed-dial the number to Flan’s cell. He doesn’t answer; I leave him a voice mail and tell him to call me back right away at the office. Then I toss the cell on my desk and head back to the conference room.
As soon as I enter the conference room I notice Casey’s purse sitting on one of the chairs. I hesitate to touch it, but it’s drawing me in like a magnet, covered as it is with capital F’s performing 69 on one another.
Just as I pick it up, the office phone rings. I lift the receiver, still studying the handbag, and flatly mumble the words, “Kevin Corvelli.”
It’s Flan. “Hey, Kev, you called?”
“Yeah,” I say, sounding as though I’m in a trance. “Casey left her handbag here.”
“Just leave it on Hoshi’s desk. I’ll pick it up in the morning. Unless you want to carry it with you to Whiskey.”
I shoulder the receiver and turn the purse over in my hands. “You buy this bag for her, Flan?”
“No,” he says. “It was a gift from one of her two dozen boyfriends.”
The little leather Fendi is a bit worn but not all that old. I hold the handbag to my nose. It smells harshly of soap.
“Which boyfriend?” I say.
I hear Flan call over to Casey. “Hey, sweetheart, which one of your boyfriends gave you that handbag?”
I can’t hear her answer. Then Flan is back on the line. He says, “Kev, you still there?”
“I’m here,” I tell him as I snatch my suit jacket off the conference room table.
“The handbag was a gift from some grease monkey named Dominic.”
CHAPTER 61
The headlamps of my Jeep burn a trail through the night as I head west on H-1 toward Waikele. The black sky remains open, thick droplets of rain carrying out their kamikaze missions, targeting my windshield and roof. My right foot presses against the accelerator as I fish around in my pants pocket for my cell phone, but nothing. I left the fucking thing on my desk.
I’m on my own.
The Ho’Omalu Village, a middle-income apartment complex off Lumiauau Street in Waikele, is where I picked up Josh for our last playdate. When I fly past the abutting park I realize I’ve gone too far. I throw the Jeep in reverse and tear backward down the dark, empty street.
Killing the lights, I pull into the complex and park the Wrangler in the first spot I find. I then step out into the downpour and sprint in the direction of Building H.
When I spot it, I bolt around back. It’s pitch-black in the back lot, not a single light brightening the lined blacktop. Mercifully, Chelsea’s apartment is on the first floor. I pinpoint her lanai in the darkn
ess by recognizing the cheap plastic outdoor furniture dripping with rainwater. The vertical blinds remain closed. No lights are visible inside.
Slowly, I approach the lanai, then quietly push a plastic chair aside to get by. Holding my breath, I try the sliding glass door and to my incredulity, it slides.
I push aside the blinds and step inside.
My entire body tingles with a feeling I barely recognize. It isn’t fear. Not the fear that ran through me last year in Kailua when I was being chased by Alika Kapua and a loaded Smith & Wesson. This is something more like anger, like hatred, like rage.
And it’s about damn time, I tell myself.
My suit is soaked to the skin, my hair plastered to my skull. I push away the rain from my eyes and hurry forward quietly through the living room, the carpeted floor squeaking ever so slightly under my feet.
Then someone rounds the corner.
In the bleak moonlight entering through a curtained kitchen window, I can barely make him out. Just a thin man with a ball cap and gloves, but it’s enough. Before a second thought flashes through my mind I’m darting at him, leading with my clenched right fist.
I hear the crack as my knuckles connect with his temple, knocking the cap off his head. His body slumps to the shag carpet and then I’m on top of him, nailing him again and again in the face.
He’s screaming something but I can’t make it out, so I stop punching and grab him by the throat instead.
I stare into his bloodied face.
“Where’s the boy, Dominic?” I say through clenched teeth.
All he does is choke.
“Where’s the fucking boy?” I say again.
Something like “gone” emanates from his broken throat.
I loosen my grip, smack him hard on the side of the head, and spit in his face.
That’s when I feel the pinch in my stomach.
As I lift my torso, Dominic pushes the blade in farther, twists it, turns it, searches for a vital organ in the right upper abdomen. With my left, I strike him in the face again and try to stand up, simultaneously pulling the stiletto from my gut with my right.
Night on Fire Page 24
