Zero Break

by Neil Plakcy

  “Well, let’s just say she’s flexible,” I said.

  “Look, I don’t know what Zoë’s been saying about me, but whatever it is, it’s not true. I sure as hell didn’t bang her.”

  “You ever go to her house?”

  He looked suspicious once more. “I’m not saying anything more. I want an attorney.”

  Ray and I laughed. “You’re not under arrest, Freddie,” I said. “We’re just asking some questions. But it makes us wonder, you know? What have you got to hide that you need an attorney for? Maybe we should bring you downtown, set you up in an interview room. Ask around among the other detectives, see if any of them have any questions for you.”

  Freddie sneered and started clenching his fists. “Yeah, I went to her house once,” he said after a while. “But I didn’t take anything, and I sure as hell didn’t have sex with her.”

  “When was that?”

  He frowned. Long-term memory looked like it wasn’t his strong point. “At least a couple of months ago. Like I said, last time I saw her was like a month ago. We had sushi.”

  “Simple Sushi?”

  He looked confused, but then it sunk in. “Oh, the restaurant. Yeah, I think that was it.”

  “Where were you on Sunday night?” I asked.

  “Why?”

  “Remember the deal, Freddie? I ask the questions and you answer them?”

  He slammed his hand on the table, and it rocked. “God dammit, what the hell do you want?”

  A couple of other guys in the courtyard looked our way, and two of them got up and left quickly.

  “I want to know where you were on Sunday night.”

  “I was in custody, all right? In Wahiawa. But I was totally innocent. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They didn’t even press charges.”

  He had been at a bar in Mililani late Sunday afternoon, minding his own business, he said, when an airman at Hickam started talking stink. So he’d taken a swing at the guy. Turns out the airman had a bunch of friends in the bar. There had been a brawl, and a half dozen of them had spent the night in holding cells at the station in Wahiawa.

  I called Wahiawa on my cell and talked to the duty sergeant, who checked the records and verified Freddie’s alibi. When I snapped my phone shut, I said, “Somebody killed Zoë Greenfield on Sunday night.”

  I watched Freddie’s response, and noted surprise, and what looked like grief, too.

  “Jesus. She’s dead? Man, I liked her. She was one of the few people who knew the kind of crap we went through as kids.”

  “You knew her,” I said. “She ever say she was worried about anything?”

  I waited. I could see Freddie trying to access brain cells. “She was worried about something,” he said. “Something at work.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t paying attention, you know? It was some kind of accounting shit.”

  We established that Freddie was going to be staying at the shelter for a while. He was trying to get into a training program, he said, selling insurance. A UH alum was pulling some strings for him. “I used to play ball there,” he boasted. “Til I busted my legs.”

  The way he said it, you’d think he’d been hit by one linebacker too many, instead of taking a drunken fall. But I wasn’t going to push him on it.

  When we got back to the Jeep, I plugged in my Bluetooth and called Harry to see if he was making any progress on Zoë’s emails.

  “I’m tracking the addresses, but it’s a slow process. Why don’t you come over in an hour or so and I’ll show you what I’ve got?”

  “Sounds like a plan, man,” I said.

  NENG YUAN

  “What do you think about Freddie?” I asked Ray as we drove back into town.

  “I don’t know. He looks like he’s telling the truth. But if he is, then we’ve got nothing.”

  “Well, maybe Harry dug up something in her email.”

  Neither Ray nor I said much as I drove, both of us trying to figure out where to go next. We grabbed some takeout lunch and made our way up to Aiea Heights.

  Arleen let us in and sent us back to Harry’s office. He was hunched over a computer, punching keys. “Give me a minute,” he said. “Bastard.”

  “Excuse me?” Ray asked, but I knew Harry well enough to know that he was talking to the computer. Arleen brought us a pair of folding chairs and we sat down while Harry typed and cursed.

  Finally he turned his chair around. “I have good news and bad news.”

  I leaned up against the pressed-wood console that held the printer. “Let’s start with the good. We could use a dose of good news.”

  “I got into her email account, as you saw. She was very methodical, saved all her incoming and outgoing messages and archived them in folders.”

  “That is good. Anything interesting in them?”

  “Well, that’s part of the bad news. There is stuff there, but it’s all very cryptic. She never comes right out and says what’s going on.”

  Ray crossed his arms over his chest. “Give us a hint. Or an example.”

  “She uses a lot of initials. ‘I talked to M today. Her numbers don’t add up either.’ But I haven’t figured out who M is or what the numbers are.”

  “M is for Miriam,” I put in. “Her friend at work.”

  “Then there’s a friend, a guy called W,” Harry continued. “They have dinner together. There’s another guy named F.”

  “F is for Freddie,” I said. “But who’s W? Maybe Miriam knows.”

  I pulled out my phone and called the Office of Business and Economic Development. When Miriam came on the line I asked, “Did Zoe ever mention a male friend whose name begins with a W?”

  “Oh, yeah, she did. But what was it? Willy, Wiley, Wyatt. That’s it, Wyatt. I don’t know his last name. She met him online, and she really liked him. He moved here from the mainland, and she was trying to help him get settled.”

  “Help him get a job, you mean? At Néng Yuán?”

  “Gladys told you that, didn’t she? She’s always nosing around in everyone’s business.”

  “She didn’t know his name. You think it was this Wyatt?”

  “Yes. Do you think that’s who killed her?”

  “We’re just asking questions right now, Miriam. Thanks for your help.”

  I hung up and turned to Harry. “See what a good team we make? We turn your bad news into a lead.”

  “You find anything else, Harry?” Ray asked. “Bad or good.”

  “I figured out she used an online backup server,” he said. “It looks like she backed up all her files at least once a week. The problem is I haven’t been able to crack the system yet, because they generate a random number key as a password, and those are a bitch to break. If you lose the security code, you’re supposed to go back to the computer you used to set up the account. There’s some kind of buried key there.”

  He looked at us. “I don’t suppose you have access to her computer?”

  “Stolen.”

  “Probably already cannibalized for parts.” Harry sighed. “I can do it, but it’s going to take some time. And Arleen’s mom has a big party planned for Sunday, so we’ll be tied up all weekend helping out.” He laughed. “I wish I could get out of it, but Arleen has already spelled out the consequences if I try.”

  It was early afternoon, so we had enough time to drive all the way back across the island to Néng Yuán’s office in Hawai’i Kai, in a modern two-story building with a hipped roof, big windows, and underground parking. We showed the receptionist our IDs and said we were there to see Wyatt. She was a beautiful young Chinese girl, with long black hair and porcelain skin, and she didn’t speak much English. I handed her my card, which had my office and cell phone numbers on it, and by pointing to the card and repeating Wyatt’s name, we got the message through, and she buzzed someone.

  The guy who came out to the reception area was a haole in his mid-thirties. He had short brown hair that could use a trim, and he wore a long-sleeved plaid shirt, so we could
n’t see if he had any tattoos.

  “I’m Wyatt Collins,” he said. “You’re looking for me?”

  “Can we talk someplace?” I asked.

  “I could use a cigarette. Let’s go outside.”

  The building backed on a canal. A forty-foot powerboat called the Wave Walker was tied up there, but I couldn’t tell if it was better or worse than Levi’s. I don’t know much about boats except that they cost a lot more to run than a guy on a cop’s salary can afford.

  From the butts stamped out on the concrete lanai beneath a round table with an umbrella, I figured it was a common smoking area. “Do you know a woman named Zoë Greenfield?” I asked, as Wyatt was lighting his cigarette.

  He stopped, with the unlit cigarette in his mouth, and the match went out. “Zoë? Is she all right? I’ve been calling her all week and she hasn’t answered.”

  He looked right at me, which was interesting. Often, if someone’s lying, his gaze will flicker away for a minute, indicating he has no faith in what he’s saying. But Wyatt Collins appeared genuinely worried.

  “When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.

  His gaze flickered back and forth from me to Ray. “I’m not sure.”

  “How about Sunday? Sunday ring a bell?”

  His eyelids fluttered a couple of times. He lit his cigarette, stalling for time, and looked out at the canal, where a small powerboat was heading out to sea. Finally he said, “Yeah. We had dinner.”

  “And sex?” I asked.

  “Listen, man, tell me what’s going on? What’s Zoë saying?”

  “Zoë’s not saying anything. She’s dead.”

  Both Ray and I watched him. He showed all the signs of surprise—raised eyebrows, widened eyes, open mouth. He even stepped backward, as if he could get away from the news.

  “What happened?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” I said. “Tell us about Sunday night.”

  He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “It was Anna’s week for the girls. I spent the weekend at Zoë’s place. And yeah, we had sex on Saturday night. But I left her after dinner on Sunday and went back to my own place. She said she had some work she wanted to get done before Monday morning.”

  “Where did you have dinner?”

  He thought for a minute. “Sushi place she liked.” He grimaced. “Back home in Tennessee, they call that stuff bait, but she liked it. She liked anything Chinese, anything Japanese.”

  “And you went back to her house after dinner?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No, like I told you. I went back to my place. I don’t have a car yet, so she dropped me off after dinner.”

  “You don’t have a car?” I asked. “How do you get around?”

  “The bus. There’s a stop right outside the office, takes me into the city. I have an apartment about a mile away from Zoë’s. Sometimes I walk over there, sometimes she picks me up.”

  “How did you two hook up?” Ray asked.

  “I read this article she published in an accounting journal and I emailed her. We got to be friends online, and things went on from there.”

  “So you’re an accountant?” I asked. Another boat came by, this one revving its engines, and we had to wait until it passed.

  “Not really. Accounting clerk, more like.”

  “She helped you get this job?”

  He looked back and forth between us. “She put in a word for me. No law against that.”

  We went back over Sunday a couple of times, in different ways, but his answers were always the same. He’d spent the weekend with her, had sex on Saturday night, dinner on Sunday, then gone home. He didn’t know what happened after that.

  He had no alibi for Sunday night, since he lived alone. Eventually he said, “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work. They don’t like you to take your break too long.”

  We got his cell phone number and said we’d be back in touch.

  “What do you think?” Ray asked, as we drove back to headquarters.

  “I believe him. Which means we still have nothing.”

  It was nearly the end of our shift by then, and after we reported our lack of progress to Lieutenant Sampson, we decided to call it a day. I drove home, where I spent some time hanging out with Roby, brushing his golden coat and pulling off enough hair to knit a sweater with.

  While I was walking him, I plugged in my Bluetooth headset and called my mother to check in on her. “I’m walking your granddog,” I said when she asked how I was. “I may have to put the phone down in order to pick up his poop.”

  My brother Lui’s daughter Malia was twelve, and getting ready for her first boy-girl dance – escorted by her cousin Alec, who was thirteen. “Liliha and I picked Malia up when she got out of school and we went shopping for a dress,” she said. “When Alec finished basketball practice we made him come over so we could teach them both to dance.”

  “Alec must have loved that.” I remembered my mother teaching me to dance at around the same age and how embarrassed I had been. “You still have those same slow dance records?”

  “It’s all on CD now,” my mother said. Roby stopped to sniff a hibiscus hedge and it looked like he was preparing to squat. “And Liliha had a video for them. It was silly—footsteps dancing across the screen. But they seemed to like it.”

  I watched Roby do his business. “How’d they do?” I asked, as I stooped to scoop.

  “It was so sweet. They both go to Hawaiian school, you know, so they both can do some hula. They were okay on their own, but Alec kept stepping on Malia’s toes.”

  There was a wistfulness in her voice. “Alec, he is so much like Haoa. And Malia, you can see Lui in her face. I wish you had children, Kimo.”

  “Come on, Mom, you’ve got your hands full with the grandchildren you already have.”

  “But they grow up. Even Akipela, she’s not a baby anymore.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, Mom, neither Mike or I has the right plumbing for kids.” Roby saw another dog and took off at a gallop, and I struggled to rein him in.

  My mother made a little noise. “You can adopt. Or hire a woman, what do they call them?”

  “A prostitute?”

  “A surrogate.” Roby was doing a dance with a white Lab, and I struggled to keep the leashes from tangling while listening to my mother. “Don’t you think about it sometimes?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said, pulling Roby away. “But you know, Mom, having a kid is a lifetime commitment. I’m not sure Mike or I are ready for that.”

  “You’re never ready. But then the baby comes and you figure it out.”

  “Thanks for the advice, Mom. Right now, I’ve got my hands full with Roby. Kiss Dad for me, all right?”

  I was saying goodbye to her as we turned the corner toward our house, and Roby saw Mike getting out of his truck, and took off again. This time I just gave up and let him go. Sometimes you have to do that, with kids and with dogs. But I wasn’t sure that was a lesson my mother understood.

  DEFENSIVE TACTICS

  Mike brought home take-out barbecue with him, and we sat at the kitchen table, him slipping Roby bits of pork when he thought I wasn’t looking. My mom’s words were still in my head, but I wasn’t sure how to start the conversation I knew we had to have at some point.

  Finally I said, “Do you think Roby is the only kid we’ll ever have?”

  Mike looked up. “Whoa. Where did that come from?”

  I shrugged. “A bunch of things. This case. Talking to my mom tonight.”

  “Let me guess. She wants more grandchildren.”

  I broke off a piece of cornbread and fed it to Roby. “Yeah. Don’t your parents feel the same way?”

  “You know my dad. He thinks I’m still a big kid myself. And I don’t think they’re as liberated as your folks. They probably can’t conceive of me having kids.”

  “Can’t conceive,” I said, laughing.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I
do. But do you feel like we’re missing out on something by not being parents?”

  He pushed his empty plate away from him. “I like being part of your family, and hanging out with your nieces and nephews. But I also like being able to walk away from them.”

  “Me, too. But my mom says it’s different when it’s your own kid.”

  “It shouldn’t be about what your parents want, or mine. Do you want to have a kid?”

  I started to say something, then stopped. “I don’t know. I mean, I see so many bad parents, and so many kids in trouble. Could we do any better?”

  Mike stood up and picked up his plate. “I do think about having kids, sometimes,” he said. “But it wouldn’t be easy for us. And we’d have to really want a kid to go through everything—adopting or finding a surrogate or some lesbian who needs a baby daddy. I don’t think I feel strongly enough to go through all that—no less raise a kid. Do you?”

  I had to say I wasn’t sure. We talked around the topic as we cleaned up the dinner dishes. Then it was time for us to head down to Waikiki for the gay teen youth group I mentored. Mike came with me when he was free; we thought it was good for the kids to see a successful partnership, even if we did bicker sometimes.

  My friend Cathy Selkirk, who ran a drop-in program for gay teens out of a church on Waikiki, had asked me to put the group together right after I came out of the closet. Working with them had been therapeutic for me, and I hoped I’d helped them deal with the problems they faced. I had lost a few in the four years I’d been working with them, but had had some success stories, too. Jimmy Ah Wang was studying at UH, and two kids, Frankie and Pua, had graduated from high school and started taking courses at Honolulu Community College.

  I shared the mentoring duties with Fred, the cute, brainless bartender at the Rod and Reel Club; he took the kids bowling and to the movies, and I taught them self-defense and talked about feelings and self-empowerment.

  We met in a big room at the church where dance and yoga classes were held during the day; there were mirrors on the walls and a bunch of mats we could pull out to sit on. When Mike and I walked in that evening, there were already a half-dozen kids there, including two who were new.