by Frankie Bow
“Yah, Dad really wanted me to check on you,” Davison said, to the ceiling. “Make sure you okay and everything.”
“Oh. Your dad. That’s right.” I hurried over to the upholstered chair next to the bed. I scooted it back until it touched the wall and then sat down. “How is your dad doing?”
“Young, single woman, all alone. That’s what he said, Aunty. My dad acts like you one delicate little doll. Kinda funny, cause mosta your students think—”
“Your dad,” I interrupted. “What’s going on with your dad? How is he?”
“Cannot tell you, Aunty. Not supposed to say nothing to no one.”
I wanted Davison off my bed and out of my room. But I really wanted to find out how Donnie was doing.
“I understand you need to respect his privacy,” I said. “Is there anything you can tell me?”
“He’s working wit’ his lawyer. He said everything’s gonna be okay. That’s all.”
I thought about the paper I was going to present the next day. Rapport and Relationship Building. I had never tried the techniques in real life. But this was my only chance to find out what was really going on with Donnie.
I remembered from my review of the literature that one method used by police interrogators was to make sure the suspect was sitting in an uncomfortable chair. Unfortunately, Davison was already sprawled quite comfortably on the hotel bed. Another tactic was to offer the suspect a glass of water. This established the interrogator as sympathetic and trustworthy.
“Uh, Davison. Um, can I get you a glass of water?”
“Nah,” he said to the ceiling. “I’m good.”
Well. That didn’t exactly unleash a flood of information. The overall goal was to get the target talking. The idea was that once you start talking, you tend to keep on talking. The topic didn’t matter, as long as the words flowed. “Davison,” I said, “you know, I meant to ask you. Let’s see. That smoked meat that you brought to my office was very good. Could you tell me how that was prepared?”
That turned out to be a good opening, as it allowed Davison to brag about his pig-hunting prowess. From his supine position on the bed, Davison lectured me on the superiority of the bow and arrow to firearms, which he considered noisy, dirty, and unsporting. (He didn’t actually use the word “unsporting,” but that was the idea.)
I saw no physical signs of stress. Davison wasn’t tapping his fingers, moving his feet, or anything like that. Those kinds of movements would indicate that he was uncomfortable and wanted to leave. No, Davison seemed very comfortable indeed. I had apparently succeeded in coming off as nonthreatening—an objective I feared was made all too attainable by my Hello Kitty pajamas.
Davison went on and on about his powerful truck, his favorite hunting bows, and the music he listened to as he made the long drive up to the hunting areas and back. (I didn’t recognize any of the musical artists he mentioned. I probably wouldn’t like any of them.) Finally, I decided we had done enough bonding. Time to move to the next stage.
“Davison,” I said. “Your dad travels a lot?”
“Sometimes.”
“Right before Jimmy Tanaka was murdered, your father drove to the airport and flew to Honolulu. Remember that?”
Davison struggled to a sitting position on the edge of the bed.
“Aunty. I like that glass of water, yah?”
Now we were getting somewhere. It was working! I returned from the bathroom and handed him the glass. He sipped and made a face.
“San Francisco tap water.” I shrugged. “I think it’s supposed to taste like that.”
I sat back down in the chair. A few strands of my hair, still stuck in Davison’s earring, glinted in the fading light from the sliding glass doors that led to the tiny balcony.
“Davison,” I said, “Let me ask you something.”
Here it was. The big bluff. I prayed that alcohol and travel fatigue had lowered his defenses.
“You know, Davison, people talk.”
“Yeah.”
“Can you think of any reason why people might say that they saw your father’s car driving around? While he was supposed to be in Honolulu?”
I saw Davison’s feet jittering on the floor now, as if he were running in place. He was nervous. He stared at his lap. “I dunno.”
“If there’s anything you know about this, you should tell me. Now is the time to tell me.”
More than three out of four suspects waive their right to remain silent. The urge to unburden is stronger than the drive for self-preservation. The fact that Davison had indulged in unlimited business-class booze could only help. Or so I hoped.
He was quiet for such a long time that I wondered if he had passed out in a sitting position. But then he said, “Okay, Aunty. I tell you. You cannot tell nobody, but.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
“You know Jimmy Tanaka was suing my dad?” Davison said.
“Yes,” I said. “I read about that.”
He jerked his head up and looked at me. “We woulda lost everything.”
Davison was wrong about that. Donnie was only at risk of losing assets from the business. His personal property would be shielded. That’s the whole point of limited liability. Davison would have known that if he’d paid attention in class.
But I said none of that. I listened.
Davison’s voice trembled with suppressed fury: “My dad, he was just gonna lie down and take it. He was gonna let that—”
He breathed hard, struggling to get himself under control. “He was gonna let Jimmy Tanaka destroy us.”
I hadn’t seen Davison lose his cool before. It was a little scary. I gave a noncommittal nod and glanced at the door. It must have closed by itself. I was about to get up and prop it open but then Davison said, “I saw the invitation.”
He was about to tell me something important.
“The invitation?” I prompted.
Davison gulped the last of the water, got up, and refilled his glass from my open bottle of wine. He walked back over, sat on the edge of the bed, and leaned close enough for me to get a whiff of hair gel, body spray, and sour alcohol sweat.
I glanced at the closed door again. For the first time, it occurred to me that I might be in danger.
“I told my dad, don’t go!” he said. “I said to him, eh, where’s your pride?” He chugged the full glass of wine and went for a refill. “An invitation to a breakfast in honor”—he mockingly stressed the word—“of Jimmy Tanaka. How could he honor Jimmy Tanaka?”
Davison sat back down on the bed, splashing wine on the sheets as he gestured. Good thing I’d chosen a white.
“And you know what Dad says, Aunty? He says”—here Davison deepened his voice in imitation—“this is a small community, Davison. We all have to work together.”
Davison drained the glass a second time and set it down on the floor.
“You know what?” I started to rise from my chair. “I’m going to go downstairs and get some bottled water. It’ll just be—”
Davison reached out and grabbed my hands. “No, Aunty. Don’t go.”
I looked down at the huge, tattooed hands grasping my own. This was a bad surprise. Did this ever happen to real police interrogators? I suspected not.
“Why don’t you come with me?” I suggested. “A walk will be nice. Won’t it?”
“Don’t leave me, Aunty!” He blinked. His eyes were shining.
I glanced at the closed door again. Davison’s grip tightened. He leaned forward and held me in my chair.
“Listen to me, Aunty.”
“Oh, I’m listening,” I said.
“It was like fate, yah?” Davison stared into my eyes.
I had not intended to build this much rapport. I wondered if I could dial it back somehow.
“ ’Cause Dad had to travel off island right when Jimmy Tanaka was coming! And I knew exactly where Tanaka was gonna stay too. Inside the invitation, was one paper, a list of everything Tanaka was gonna do and what times.”
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“An itinerary,” I suggested.
“It was all there. So. Was up to me now.”
I considered snatching my hands away and bolting for the door, but Davison was holding on too tightly. He was angry now, but at Jimmy Tanaka. Or his father. So far the anger wasn’t directed at me, and I wanted to keep it that way.
“So what happened?” I asked, to keep him talking.
“So I get Dad’s spare keys,” he said. “Then me and Isaiah park at the commuter lot, you know the one? Right next to the airport. And then we walk over to the airport lot. On the way in I press the button to get a new ticket. We find Dad’s car. Small lot, yah? Doesn’t take too long to find it.”
“Why your father’s car?” I asked. “What about your truck?”
“Eh, everyone knows my truck. Dad’s Lexus, it’s a businessman car. Nice ride, low profile, yah?”
I nodded. Where had I set down my phone when I answered the door? If I could get to my phone . . .
“So we drive out, pay the parking. Not too expensive ’cause it looks like we was there less than one hour. ’Cause I got the new ticket when we walked in.”
He hesitated, as though he regretted telling me about his parking stub scam.
“What happened next?” I prompted.
“Isaiah and me, we wen’ drive down to the Cloudforest to wait for Jimmy Tanaka. I wen’ park behind one bamboo stand, across Tanaka’s cabin. I know the dean’s taking him to dinner, ’cause it said on the, uh . . .”
“Itinerary.”
“Yeah. So we go right after sunset an wait. Around ten o’clock a car drives up, and Tanaka gets out of the car.”
I spotted my phone on the night table. Well out of my reach.
“I see his bald head and his skinny monkey body and right away I know it’s him. Then the car drives away. He gets to his door and looks like he had a few drinks ’cause he’s fumbling his keys. I’m already out of the car, all set up, waiting. So I call out, kind of medium yell, not too loud: ‘Mr. Tanaka!’ He turns his head and looks right at me but he cannot see me ’cause I’m in the shadows. But his body still sideways, cannot get a good shot. So I call again, just a little louder. ‘Mr. Tanaka!’ This time he turns his body all the way, swinging his head around but cannot see nothing, like one blind dog. So I pull back . . .”
Davison mimed pulling back an arrow, drawing my left arm toward him.
“An boom! First shot. The arrow pin him to the door, just for a second. He kind of slumped down a little, yah? Then pop! His weight pulls the arrow out of the door and he falls down. Clean shot.”
I shuddered, remembering the tiny, splintered divot in the door that had caught Mercedes’s attention. Davison’s wolfish grin made me feel a little sick.
“Isaiah, he’s in the car the whole time. I never tell him the plan in advance. So Isaiah helps me move the—move everything to the back of Dad’s car, and we go back to my house and take care of things.”
“Take care of things?”
“Yeah. We done the butchering in the shed. Like we do with the pigs. Ku an the boys, you know my dogs, happy to help us get rid of the evidence. Give ’em a few hours, they grind up one whole pig. You seen my dogs, yah?”
My vision wavered and went gray around the edges. Take a deep breath, I told myself.
“Your dogs. Yes. I have seen your dogs. Very impressive.”
“Yeah! So then Isaiah and me, we cleaned up the Lexus and drove it back to the airport.”
“And you pulled another parking stub to get your dad’s car back into the lot?”
“Yah, but we just threw that one away. Dad could use his original one. That way he’d never know nothing. So then we just walked back to the commuter lot, got in my truck, and drove away. Dogs took care of Jimmy Tanaka. What was left of him. Well, except one thing. The skull. Someone walks by, sees chewed-up bones in the backyard, there’s dogs, eh, no big deal. But a human skull in the backyard, too promiscuous.”
I decided not to question his word choice. “But how did you get the skull so clean overnight?” I asked.
“Easy. You gotta boil it for one hour at least, soften things up, then use one power washer to blast everything off the bone. Make sure you wear safety glasses when you do that. You don’t want none a that junk shoot you in the eye.”
“That’s handy to know,” I said, feeling quite ill.
“So Aunty, after me and Isaiah was done, was early morning, yah? So I bring the skull into the prop room. I know it’s never locked so I walk right in, see one fake skull on a shelf, grab it and hide it in my backpack, then I put mines down where the other one was, yah? Like switch ’em, no one gonna know. I get outta there quick, still get one skull in my backpack, except this time it’s one plastic one.”
“What did you do with that one?” I asked. “You threw it away in the classroom?”
“Yah, was me. Dad told me about how someone found it the day he talked to your class.” He smirked. “I hadda try act surprised.”
“But you didn’t put the skull in the food tray,” I said. Honey Akiona and her comrades must have raided the prop room later that morning, after Davison’s switcheroo but before the breakfast.
“Nah!” Davison frowned. “Wasn’t me. I didn’t have nothing to do with that. Terrible, that thing. Waste of good food.”
“Right. What kind of sicko would do something like that. So what about Isaiah? What happened to him?”
Davison’s grin faded. He took a deep breath.
“Accident,” he said. He shook his head as if he were refusing something. “He wasn’t cool with what we done. Isaiah, he always had my back when we was kids. But wasn’t like that no more. He said he was gonna tell someone. He said he wanted to tell you, Aunty.”
“Oh,” I said. I wished I hadn’t put Isaiah off until my Monday office hours. Monday was too late.
“So we was arguing about it, and it turned out bad. I cannot remember all the details.”
Davison’s bulky shoulders sagged a little. “Wasn’t supposed to end out li’ dat,” he said.
I nodded and glanced over at my phone. The red battery warning light was blinking. It was going to shut down in a few seconds.
“So anyway, I thought everything was cool, yah? But then, one day I come home, my dad, he’s all mad. He wen tell me the police found blood in his car. I say eh, not possible, cause we cleaned it up real good. Then he jus snap and starts yelling and grilling me.”
Davison scowled.
“So I got mad too. I told him what I did. He didn’t do nothing to protect us from Jimmy Tanaka, so I had to step up. Me. And you know what, Aunty? No gratitude.”
Davison was squeezing my hands so tightly I could feel my bones sliding around.
“After all that, and Isaiah gone and everything, he doesn’t think about my feelings or nothing, he told me just shut up and don’t say nothing to no one. He can’t tell me to shut up!” Davison was shouting now. “He can’t tell me what to do!”
“Your father took the blame for you,” I said quietly.
Davison opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard: loud banging on the door and shouts of “Police! Open up!”
I realized that Pat and Emma deserved as much Sonoma wine and sourdough bread as I could carry, baggage fee or no baggage fee.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
I’m going to be department chair (sorry, interim department chair) for a while. The university auditor found that Bill Vogel had falsified records, and then retaliated against the student worker who reported him. Vogel resigned and accepted a position with a small college in the Midwest. Our administration sent him off with enthusiastic recommendations. Getting rid of Vogel probably saved our accreditation. Good luck with your new Chief Integrity Officer, tiny heartland college.
Rodge Cowper didn’t get the teaching award, but the mere fact that he was nominated was an affront to our two most senior professors. I keep explaining to Hanson and Larry that I
can’t force Rodge to “maintain academic standards worthy of our university” (Hanson’s words) or “teach a real college class and knock off that feel-good bullshit” (Larry, naturally). In the end, the teaching award went to my coauthor Betty Jackson in the psychology department. I told her how happy I was for her. She didn’t seem very happy for herself. She said that this just meant that she was going to keep getting stuck on those “work–life balance” panels to serve as a role model for the rest of her natural life.
Stephen Park looks healthy and well rested after his Southern California rehab. His skin is smoother than I’ve ever seen it, especially around the forehead. He claims it’s because he cleaned up and adopted a healthy diet, but I noticed when I was talking to him that his eyebrows were strangely immobile.
Emma’s husband Yoshi still doesn’t have a full-time job, but he’s started doing freelance artwork. He had been sitting in Kahuna’s Coffee down on the bay front, waiting for Emma to finish her shopping. She hadn’t wanted him to get bored while he waited, so she left him there with an old Student Retention Office publication she had found in her bag. A local clothing designer who was sitting at the next table spotted the embellished picture of a horned and flaming Bill Vogel, and immediately offered Yoshi a commission for a t-shirt design. As Yoshi had been adding a blacked-out tooth to the picture at the time, he didn’t see the point of denying authorship. It turns out that Yoshi is a decent artist, and Emma is thrilled that he’s working.
Pat and Emma had not only heard Davison’s confession over the phone, they had had the presence of mind to record most of it. So you’re probably thinking at this point that Davison Gonsalves is serving two consecutive life sentences in some maximum-security prison. That’s not quite how things worked out. Donnie hired a hotshot legal team, which included a jury selection specialist. Davison was convicted only of the involuntary manslaughter of Jimmy Tanaka (although it seems pretty clear to anyone who was paying attention that there was nothing involuntary about it) and got a suspended sentence. Island Confidential ran a photo of the jury foreman, former police officer Nehemiah Silva, reading the verdict.
