Paradise, Passion, Murder

by Terry Ambrose

  I took my phone from my pocket and dialed 9-1-1.

  “Police fire or ambulance,” said a flat female voice.

  “Police.”

  “Is this an emergency?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is your emergency?”

  “I’m at ‘Ālewa Park. A girl here says there’s a … a woman … a woman’s body. In the shrubbery.” I hesitated as I said it, only half believing what Danielle had seen was a dead person.

  I told the dispatcher all I knew, ended the call, and speed-dialed Freddy.

  “You at home?” I said when he picked up.

  “Yeah. I’m finishing that story—”

  “I think you’re gonna want to get over to the park. Bring your camera.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Someone said there’s a body down the trail—”

  “I’m there.” He hung up.

  A patrol car pulled to a stop at the entrance and a uniformed officer got out. The dope smokers slipped out of sight while the rest of the park-goers watched the cop cross the manicured expanse of grass.

  I waved him over.

  “I’m Officer Tuala,” he said when he reached us. His friendly smile radiated calm authority.

  “Louise Golden.”

  “You called in a dead body?”

  “Yes. I was walking my dog when I heard a scream.” I indicated the girl. “Danielle came running out of the path over there. She told me she saw a ‘dead lady.’”

  “Did you see the body?”

  “No. I thought I should stay here with Danielle.”

  Officer Tuala looked in the direction of the trail, then at Danielle, who seemed to be recovering well from the trauma. He crouched so he was eye-to-eye with her. “How old are you?”

  “Seven.” Her sweet smile revealed a dimple in one tear-stained cheek.

  “What did you see?”

  “A lady.”

  “Where?”

  “In the bushes.”

  “What was the lady doing?”

  “Nothing,” Danielle said firmly. “She’s dead.”

  “Okay.” He stood and looked at me. “Let me go check it out. You two stay right here.”

  Alone again with Danielle, I was completely unnerved by the thought of a corpse so close by. Who was the dead woman? How did she die? Was she someone I knew?

  I mentally urged Freddy to hurry and sighed with relief when I saw him park his truck. He got out and scanned the area. When he spotted me, he hurried over, a camera around his neck.

  I stood to hug him. “Thank God you’re here—”

  “Where’s the body?”

  “Back there—”

  He took off at a jog down the trail Tuala had entered minutes before.

  It wasn’t long before Freddy reappeared, accompanied by a grim-faced Tuala who spoke into his cell phone.

  “Did you see it?” I asked.

  Freddy nodded. “Got a few pictures before the big guy noticed me and escorted me out of his crime scene.”

  “Crime scene? She was …” I glanced at Danielle and lowered my voice, “… murdered?”

  He rubbed a hand slowly down his face. “It looks that way.”

  “The lady was wearing rollerblades,” Danielle piped up.

  My hand went to my mouth.

  “You know who it is?” Freddy asked me.

  “Blonde hair?”

  “Yes.” Danielle nodded, having brightened considerably.

  “There’s a blonde woman who rollerblades around the park most evenings. She wasn’t here today. I don’t remember seeing her yesterday, either.”

  Danielle eyed Freddy’s camera. “Are you from the newspaper?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I’m the one who found the body. Do you want to take my picture?” She now seemed unconcerned that a dead body lay just yards from us.

  Freddy winked at me before turning to Danielle. “Sure. Why don’t you stand over there.”

  She dried her face with her shirt before posing with the trail entrance as a backdrop. Freddy snapped a series of photos, then asked her to tell him how she’d found the body. She warmed to her story as she gave him a dramatic rendition of events leading to the gruesome discovery.

  With the arrival of another half dozen police cars, Charlie’s chanting increased in pitch and tempo. “HEY hey hey hey, HEY hey hey hey, HEY hey hey hey …”

  Blue strobes lent a macabre quality to the scene on the normally quiet street. Uniformed officers fanned out across the park. Tuala pointed two of them down the trail where the body lay. Another tied yellow crime scene tape across the break in vegetation, then took up a position to keep people out of the area. The rest of the cops gathered statements from anyone who’d stuck around to watch the commotion.

  Danielle grinned up at the female police officer who’d come to take her home. As they left together, holding hands, the little girl chatted merrily.

  “That kid’s a real ham,” Freddy said.

  Here and there in the distance, downtown office windows glowed yellow. Harbor lights reflected off the calm water. A breeze blew across the lānai, carrying a chill.

  I rubbed my arms.

  “Cold?” Freddy put an arm over my shoulders.

  I nodded and snuggled into him. “I can’t believe they arrested him.”

  “The police seem to think he did it.”

  “But why? What did they find?”

  “Tuala’s a talkative guy but he was careful what he told me. Looks like she was killed about twenty-four hours ago, sometime last night, in the spot where she was found. I got the idea by the time we left they hadn’t found a lot in the way of evidence.”

  “Then why’d they arrest him?”

  “I overheard people talking to the cops. They never liked having him in the park. They’re afraid of him.”

  “He’s odd looking and his behavior is a little … bizarre. But I never thought he was dangerous.”

  “He got up and walked away pretty quick when the cops approached him.”

  “That’s what he does when anyone gets too close. He seems to enjoy sitting in the park all day, but he doesn’t want to interact with people.”

  “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

  “Not really. He doesn’t speak, just stays in that same spot on the bench, rocking and chanting, tossing his ball hand to hand. Someone drops him off at the park every morning. In the evenings I’ve seen a woman pick him up, usually after dark. She pulls up in a white van and he gets in.”

  “Do you know his last name?”

  “No one knows. They call him Charlie, but that might not even be his real name.” I shuddered. “To think how many times I’ve been alone there with him, even after dark, … ”

  Day Two

  Thanks to my being in the right place at the right time, Freddy got his photos in to the Star-Advertiser before any other reporters arrived on the scene. His story made the front page of the morning edition.

  But honestly, it felt more like I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. All day at work, the image of the black body bag, the blonde rollerblader zipped inside, stayed with me. I battled between relief and guilt—relief at knowing I’d been that close to a violent killer and survived, guilt for being so glad he’d chosen someone else as his victim.

  And I thought about Charlie. His actions hadn’t been those of someone trying to flee the police. But as soon as he turned his back on the cops, they’d tackled him to the ground. He was bigger than both of them put together, but he hadn’t resisted. I couldn’t forget the confusion and desperate fear on his face, like a trapped animal, as they led him to the police car.

  People at the park had always given Charlie a wide berth, but he’d never bothered anyone. Area residents had complai
ned to the police, asking for him to be removed from the park. They were frightened by his unusual facial features, paired with his enormous size and obvious strength. His incessant chanting was unnerving. But because Charlie had never done anything wrong, not so much as dropped a piece of litter, the police said he had the right to stay. Had it been a mistake to ignore the public’s concerns?

  While I delivered the mail, I kept the radio in my truck tuned to KSSK. The afternoon news report revealed the identity of the dead woman. Patricia Vargas, age thirty-seven, single, from California, had been a beauty consultant at Macy’s Ala Moana. I’d seen her often in the park, had admired her agility on rollerblades, but never knew her name. The newscaster called Charlie “an unidentified mentally retarded man who frequented the park.” He was being held in relation to Vargas’s death but no charges had been filed.

  When they handcuffed Charlie, they’d made him drop his ball. Surely he could be allowed to have a tennis ball in his jail cell. I speed-dialed my only friend on the police force, Detective Sergeant Henry Nii.

  The frigid air conditioning was a welcome relief from the sweltering afternoon heat. We sat in Henry’s favorite booth at the back of Zippy’s, where he comes most afternoons to enjoy better coffee than he can get at the police station.

  I sipped my glass of ice water.

  He kept his eyes on me as he emptied two packets of sugar into his coffee and stirred. “I saw in the report that you were the one who called in the dead body in ‘Ālewa Park. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  I didn’t reply. It sounded like an accusation, though I wasn’t sure what he could be accusing me of.

  “You knew the victim and the suspect,” he said.

  “Only by sight.”

  He blew on his coffee, took a tentative sip, set the cup down.

  “Why was Charlie arrested?” I asked. “Did they find some evidence he did it?”

  “A number of witnesses felt he’d been behaving in an odd manner.”

  “He’s retarded. His manner’s always ‘odd.’ That doesn’t make him a killer.” I dragged a French fry through the puddle of ketchup on my plate, then set it down. I had no appetite. “The news reports haven’t said how Vargas was killed.”

  Henry seemed to weigh how much to tell me. “She was strangled.”

  My breath hitched. I tried to push away the mental image of Charlie’s hands around the blonde rollerblader’s neck. No doubt about it, Charlie was strong. He could crush a woman’s throat as easily as wringing out a washcloth.

  “There’s more.”

  I waited.

  “This information hasn’t been released. I expect you to keep it to yourself.”

  “Of course.”

  “Your lover is a newspaper reporter.” Henry had never spoken to me in this tone before. No longer a friend, now he was all cop.

  My cheeks burned and he must’ve seen them turning red. I wasn’t sure if I was more angry or embarrassed. “You’ve known me ten years. I’ve never revealed any confidential information to Freddy.”

  Okay. We both knew it wasn’t entirely true.

  “Patricia Vargas was sexually assaulted.”

  I gave a small nod.

  “You knew?”

  “Freddy saw the body.”

  Henry set his coffee cup down a little harder than necessary. “I don’t think I’m even going to ask how that happened.” He took a deep breath, let it out. “So he knows she was found with her clothes partially removed.”

  I felt the need to defend Freddy. “He kept it out of his initial story. Rape hadn’t yet been confirmed. If you don’t want it to get out, you should probably talk to Freddy.”

  “I will.”

  For a minute, neither of us spoke.

  I used the break to do some relaxation breathing. This wasn’t about me. There was no need to get defensive.

  Finally, I shook my head. “It seems almost out of the realm of possibility, Charlie chasing down a woman on rollerblades and strangling her. And rape? I just don’t see it.”

  “Why is it hard to believe? He’s an adult male. Psychologists have classified him as profoundly retarded, but his IQ has nothing to do with his sex drive. He may have been acting purely on biological instincts he didn’t understand.”

  “Like an oversized kid getting too rough with a toy.” My throat was dry. I took a drink of ice water. “There must be DNA evidence, then.”

  “The assailant was careful. He used a condom. Apparently he also wore gloves when he strangled her. We didn’t find any DNA or fingerprints on the body or at the scene. We don’t know if Vargas was the intended victim. It may have been a random killing. But the assailant came prepared to commit a crime.”

  “That definitely doesn’t sound like Charlie.”

  “Doctors are trying to determine whether he’s capable of this kind of planning and premeditation.”

  “In the meantime, a rapist and murderer might be out there stalking his next victim. Are you even looking for other suspects?”

  Henry tensed.

  “Sorry,” I said more gently. “I didn’t mean to imply you don’t know your job.”

  “At this point we’re keeping all avenues of investigation open,” he said tersely.

  “How long can you hold Charlie with no evidence?”

  “People in the neighborhood are outraged. They’ve reported his suspicious behavior in the past and nothing’s been done to protect them. Now a woman’s dead.”

  “Is he going to be charged with murder?”

  Henry rested his arms on the table, folded his hands around his mug. “Between you and me, I doubt it. It’s very likely he doesn’t have the mental capacity to know right from wrong. For now, he’s being housed in the psychiatric ward at Queen’s.”

  “Housed. That sounds so much more comfortable than incarcerated.”

  “It’s partly for his protection. If we released him, he’d head back to the park. You know he wouldn’t be safe there now.”

  I nodded. Henry was right about that.

  “The cops who tackled and handcuffed Charlie made him drop his ball,” I said. “Do you think someone could find it and take it to him?”

  Day Six

  It was appalling to think someone I knew, even just by sight, had been brutally murdered so close to my home. After Charlie’s arrest, the neighborhood remained peaceful. The public seemed satisfied that he had raped and strangled Patricia Vargas. In a way, I wanted to believe it too. He’d always seemed like such a gentle soul. An innocent. But as Henry had pointed out, the innocents have the same physical urges as the rest of us. The difference is, they don’t always have the capacity to grasp the social complexities of man/woman relationships. They may never learn to keep their biological impulses under control.

  Believing in Charlie’s guilt made life easier. But in the back of my mind there was still a niggling doubt. The killer had been too organized. I couldn’t see Charlie doing such meticulous planning to avoid leaving trace evidence at the scene. I couldn’t see him engaging with another person in any way. Certainly not in an aggressive, much less violent, manner. One part of me was sure the police had the wrong man. If that was true, it meant a killer was walking free.

  In the evenings, I stayed home. Any time Freddy was out, I kept the doors locked. Sage went into a deep funk, spending most of her hours with her nose wedged against the bottom of the screen door. I tried to interest her in indoor games, but she missed her walks.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I snapped the leash to Sage’s collar and we headed out.

  Freddy looked up from his laptop. “You aren’t going back to the park, are you?”

  “I’m tired of being locked up in this house, and so is Sage. Wanna go with us?”

  “I would, but I’ve got a deadline. You got your pepper spray?”

 
; I held up the little canister.

  “Your phone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I’ll be back before dark.”

  The basketball court was filled with boys, some shooting hoops, some smoking. Girls clustered on the sidelines, eyeing them. Were they even aware a woman had been murdered right here just a few days ago, or did their raging teenage hormones make them completely oblivious to the world around them?

  The park was noticeably empty of children and young families. Dog walkers had either stayed home or taken a different route. The only other dog in sight was a Chihuahua named Roscoe, chasing a ball in the field.

  “Want to play with Roscoe?” I asked Sage in my most enthusiastic voice.

  She tilted her head and sniffed the air. When she caught Roscoe’s scent, she gave a happy woof and wagged her tail so hard her whole body wagged with it. I unsnapped her leash and she took off after him.

  I stood by Roscoe’s owner, hands on my hips, watching the dogs. “It’s so good to see her play like this. She doesn’t usually get the chance to have an all-out romp.”

  “I figured with no other dogs around, it was okay to let Roscoe off the leash.”

  Roscoe’s owner, a petite Japanese woman in her sixties, was one of my favorite people to talk to in the park. She was an elementary school teacher by day, and in the evening seemed to crave adult conversation. She chatted with everyone she came across on her walks, making her the best source for neighborhood scuttlebutt.

  “You feel safe coming to the park alone?” I asked her.

  She took a quick glance around, as if reassuring herself. “I guess so.” She pried the ball from Roscoe’s teeth and threw it. Roscoe sped after it, with Sage at his heels. “I mean, he’s in custody, right?”

  “Everyone seems satisfied it was Charlie who killed her.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think so?”

  “I just don’t know. I mean, he never seemed dangerous.”

  “Who else could have done it?”