Damned in Paradise

by Max Allan Collins

“Evalyn?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

  “Evalyn Walsh McLean,” she explained. “She’s one of my dearest friends. In fact, if I may be frank…”

  “You’re definitely among friends, Mrs. Fortescue,” Darrow intoned with a smile.

  “…Mrs. McLean is helping finance my defense. Without Evalyn’s help—and Eva Stotesbury’s—I honestly don’t know where I’d be.”

  “You didn’t tell me…” I began to Darrow.

  Darrow shrugged. “Didn’t seem pertinent.”

  Here I’d thought the idea to use me on this case had been purely C.D.’s. In Washington, D.C., recently, I’d encountered Evalyn McLean—whose (estranged) husband owned the Washington Post, and who herself owned the Hope Diamond; Evalyn had been involved by a scam artist—knowing of her sympathy for Colonel Lindbergh (Evalyn having lost a child by tragedy herself)—in one of the numerous dead-end ransom schemes that plagued that case.

  Evalyn was a very attractive older woman, and we’d hit it off famously. So famously, it had apparently gotten around….

  “Evalyn suggested I inquire of Mr. Darrow if he was acquainted with you,” Mrs. Fortescue said, “seeing as how you’re both Chicagoans and in a criminal line of work.”

  That was the best description of the common ground between lawyers and cops I’d ever heard: a criminal line of work.

  “And imagine my surprise and delight,” she continued, “when Mr. Darrow said he’d known you since you were a lad.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever been a “lad,” and I just kind of gave her a glazed smile. One thing about working with Clarence Darrow: the surprises just kept coming.

  “Tommie is resting,” she said, gesturing to a closed door. “Should I wake him?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Darrow said, “just yet.”

  “Please sit down,” she said. “Would you gentlemen like some coffee, or perhaps tea?”

  We settled on coffee, and she went to the door and called out, “Oh, steward!”

  A mess hall sailor approached her and she asked him to fetch four cups of coffee with sugar and cream. He responded with a nod, and she shut the door. We all half-stood as she took her place at the round table.

  “Now, Mrs. Fortescue,” Darrow began, getting his shipwreck of a self settled in his chair, “my associate, young Mr. Heller here, is going to take some notes. He’s not a stenographer, mind you—just some informal jotting down of this and that, to back up this feeble old memory. No objection?”

  She beamed at me, fluttering her lashes. “That would be just fine.”

  I wondered how much her friend Mrs. Walsh had told her about me.

  “And just how are you bearing up, Mrs. Fortescue?” Darrow asked gently.

  “Now that the worst is over,” she said, “I feel more at ease than I have in months. My mind is at peace. I’m satisfied.”

  “Satisfied?” Leisure asked.

  “Satisfied,” she said stiffly, sitting the same way, “that in our efforts to obtain a confession from that brute, we weren’t breaking the law, but attempting to aid it. I’ve slept better since the day of the murder than I have for a long time.”

  A frown had tightened Darrow’s face on the word “murder,” but now he affected a benign, almost saintly smile as he patted her hand. “We’ll not be using that word ‘murder,’ Mrs. Fortescue. Not amongst ourselves, and certainly not to anyone with the press.”

  “You must have read that interview in the New York Times,” she said, putting a hand to her chest, her expression mildly distressed. “I’m afraid I was indiscreet.”

  His smile was lenient, but his eyes firm. “You were. I don’t mean that unkindly…but you were. No more talk of ‘murder.’ Or of your only regret being that you ‘bungled the job.’”

  “That did look…clumsy in print, didn’t it?” she asked, but it was an admission, not a question.

  “Are you really sleeping better now?” I asked her. “Pardon me for saying so, ma’am, but I would think the stress of this situation would have to take its toll.”

  She raised her chin, nobly. “It’s much better with everything all out in the open. They suppressed my daughter’s name, in the first case, but that only made it worse. Rumors ran rampant. People would stare at her poor bruised cheek, and whisper and wonder.” Her face tightened, pinched; suddenly she looked sixty. “Lying gossip, filthy stories—a campaign calculated to drive my child out of Honolulu, or short of that, defame her character, and prejudice jurors if she dared to prosecute a second time. Not long before the…what shall I call the murder, Mr. Darrow?”

  This time his smile was a twitch. “Let’s use the word ‘incident,’ shall we?”

  She nodded. “Not long before the…incident…a few days, I think…I went to Judge Steadman—he’d been very kind to us, during the trial. I told him I feared for my daughter’s life. Not only were those five rapists running wild and free, this escaped criminal Lyman was reported to be in Moana Valley.”

  “Who?” Darrow asked.

  “Daniel Lyman,” Leisure said. “A murderer and rapist who walked out of Oahu Prison with a burglar pal of his on a New Year’s Eve pass. They’ve since ravished two more women, one of them white, and committed numerous robberies. The partner was captured but Lyman’s still at large. It’s been a major embarrassment to the Honolulu police.”

  “But a boon to Admiral Stirling,” I said, “in his efforts to shake out the department.”

  Darrow nodded, as if he knew what we were talking about. To Leisure he posed: “Was this in the materials Lt. Johnson provided us, before we boarded the Malolo?”

  Leisure nodded.

  I turned to our client. “Mrs. Fortescue, were you afraid this Lyman might attack your daughter…?”

  “No,” she said, with a bitter little smile, “but he would have made a convenient scapegoat, had she been found dead, would he not? And without Thalia, there is no case against those five defendants.” She frowned to herself. “Four defendants, now.”

  Darrow leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Tell me—how did your son-in-law hold up under all of this pressure?”

  She glanced toward the closed door behind which Lt. Massie napped. She lowered her voice to a whisper and said, melodramatically: “As much as I feared for Thalia’s life, I feared for Tommie’s sanity.”

  Darrow arched an eyebrow. “His sanity, dear?”

  “I feared he couldn’t withstand the strain—he’d become sullen, he wasn’t sleeping or eating well, he became uncharacteristically withdrawn….”

  A knock at the door interrupted, and Mrs. Fortescue imperiously called, “Come!” and a galley gob came in with a silver tray bearing cups of coffee, a creamer, and a bowl of cube sugar.

  As the sailor served us, I sat studying this proud, rather dignified society matron and tried to picture her masterminding the kidnapping of a brutal Hawaiian rapist. I could picture her serving hors d’oeuvres; I could picture her playing bridge. I could even picture her, just barely, inside that dusty bungalow on Kolowalu Street.

  But picture her party to guns and blood and naked dead natives in bathtubs? I couldn’t form the image.

  “You had no intention of taking a life,” Darrow said ever so gently, “did you, dear?”

  “Absolutely not,” she said, and sipped her coffee, pinkie poised genteelly. “My upbringing is Southern, but I assure you, I am no believer in lynch law. I cannot state that too emphatically. My upbringing, my family traditions, early religious training, make the taking of another’s life repugnant to me. Like you, sir, I am opposed to capital punishment.”

  Darrow was nodding, smiling. He liked the sound of this. I didn’t know if he bought any of it, but he liked the sound.

  “Then exactly how did this happen?” I asked.

  “Incrementally,” she said. “As you probably know, after the first trial ended in a hung jury, the five defendants were required to report to the Judiciary Building every morning. I think it may have been Judge Steadm
an’s hope that they would violate his edict, and he could issue orders for their imprisonment…but they were reporting regularly.”

  “Who told you this?” I asked.

  “Judge Steadman himself. I was also friendly with the clerk of the court, Mrs. Whitmore. She was the one, I’m afraid, who planted the seed.”

  “The seed?” Leisure asked.

  “Mrs. Whitmore’s the one who told me the second trial was being delayed indefinitely. The district attorney’s office was afraid of another hung jury—and after another mistrial, the accused could not be tried again—those beasts would go free! The prosecution, Mrs. Whitmore said, had made such a mess of things in the first trial, it was going to be impossible to bring about a conviction unless one of the defendants confessed.”

  “So you decided,” I said, “to get a confession yourself.”

  She gestured with a flowing hand, as if she were explaining why it had been necessary to postpone this afternoon’s flute recital, and substitute a string quartet.

  “I had no sudden inspiration, Mr. Heller,” she said. “The notion emerged gradually, like a ship from the fog. I asked Mrs. Whitmore if the five men were still reporting to the courthouse, and she said they were. She mentioned that the big Hawaiian reported every morning.”

  “By ‘the big Hawaiian,’” Leisure said, “she meant Joseph Kahahawai?”

  Mrs. Fortescue nodded, once. “I lay awake that night thinking about what the clerk of court had said.”

  “And the ship,” I said, “emerged from the fog.”

  “With remarkable clarity,” she said. “The next day I went around to see Mrs. Whitmore again. I told her I’d heard a rumor that two of the accused rapists had been arrested, over at Hilo, for stealing a motor. She said she doubted that, but checked with the probation officer, a Mr. Dickson, who came out and spoke to me, assuring me that Kahahawai had just been in that morning. I asked, don’t they all come in together? And he told me, no, one at a time, and at specific hours—he couldn’t have them dropping in on him at just any old odd time,”

  “So you established the basic time that Kahahawai reported in to his probation officer,” I said.

  “Yes. Then I went to the office of the Star-Bulletin to get copies of newspapers with Kahahawai’s picture. I began studying his features in a clipping I carried with me. That evening, I spoke with Tommie about my idea. He admitted to me he’d had similar notions. And he’d heard a rumor that Kahahawai had confessed the rape to his stepfather! I suggested perhaps we might inveigle the brute into a car on some false pretense, whisk him to my home, and frighten him into confessing.”

  “And what,” Darrow asked, “was Tommie’s reaction?”

  “At first he was enthusiastic—he’d spoken to Major Ross of this newly formed Territorial Police, and to several others, who gave him the same impression I had gotten—that without a confession, there would be no second trial, certainly no conviction. But then he wavered—how, he wondered, might we manage to get the native into our car? I wasn’t sure myself, quite frankly—but I said, ‘Can’t we display at least as much cunning as these Orientals?’ And then I remembered Seaman Jones.”

  “Jones?” Darrow asked.

  “One of the two enlisted men we’re defending,” Leisure prompted.

  “Ah yes. Please continue, Mrs. Fortescue.”

  “In December, this young enlisted man, Jones, had been assigned to act as a sort of bodyguard to Thalia, my daughter Helene, and myself, while Tommie was away on sea duty. When Tommie returned, young Jones remained in the neighborhood as one of the armed sentries who patrolled Manoa Valley.”

  Part of Admiral Stirling’s efforts to protect Navy personnel and their families against the “hoodlum element” roaming suburban streets.

  “Jones became friendly with your family?” I asked.

  “Oh yes. When he was guarding us, he’d often provide a fourth for bridge; when he was patrolling, he’d stop in for coffee. Occasionally we’d provide a couch or a chair for him to take a nap. Such a sweet, colorful boy with his tales of adventures in the Far East.”

  “So you enlisted his aid in your plan?” I asked.

  “I merely reminded Tommie,” she continued, “that Jones had often said he wanted to help us, in any way. I knew we could trust this boy. I suggested to Tommie that he confide in Jones, seek his ideas, his assistance.”

  “Go on, Mrs. Fortescue,” Darrow said kindly.

  “Well, the next morning I continued exploring the lay of the land, as it were. I parked in front of the Judiciary Building on King Street, at eight o’clock, and watched the hands of the clock creep to ten. I would open my purse, to peek in at the clipping of Kahahawai I had pinned, there. I wanted to make sure I would recognize him. Much as it disgusted me, I sat studying that brutal, repulsive black face. But at ten-thirty, there had been no sign of him, and I was forced to leave.”

  “How so?” Darrow wondered.

  She shrugged. “I was expecting guests for a little luncheon party.”

  Darrow, Leisure, and I exchanged glances.

  “My little Japanese maid wasn’t up to making the preparations all by her lonesome, so I gave up my vigil, for the moment, and—”

  “Excuse me.” The voice was male—soft, Southern, unassuming.

  We turned our attention to the doorway to the adjacent cabin, where Lt. Thomas Massie stood in shirtsleeves, hands in the pockets of his blue civilian trousers in a pose that should have seemed casual but only looked awkward.

  Short, slender, dark-haired, Massie might normally have seemed boyishly handsome, but his oval face—with its high forehead, long sharp nose, and pointed chin—showed signs of strain. His tiny eyes were dark-circled, his complexion prisoner pallid, his cheeks sunken. And his mouth was a thin tight line.

  He was twenty-seven years old and looked easily ten years older.

  We rose and he came over to us, introduced himself, and Darrow made our introductions; we shook hands. Massie’s grip was firm, but his hand was small, like a child’s.

  He took a seat at the table. “I am embarrassed,” he said, “sleepin’ through my first meetin’ with my counsel.”

  Darrow said, “I instructed Mrs. Fortescue not to wake you, Lieutenant.”

  “Tommie. Please call me Tommie. Just because we’re Navy doesn’t mean we have to stand on ceremony.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Darrow said, “because we need, all of us, to be friends. To trust each other, confide in one another. And, Tommie, I let you sleep because I thought it best to hear Mrs. Fortescue’s version of this incident.”

  “Judgin’ by what I overheard,” Tommie said, “you’re pretty well into it.”

  “We’re up to the afternoon before,” I said.

  “That was when I brought Jones and Lord around to the house on Kolowalu Street.” Massie’s speech was an odd mixture of clipped and casual, his staccato delivery at odds with his Southern inflection.

  “Lord is the other enlisted man?” Darrow asked Leisure, and Leisure nodded.

  “Out at the base that mornin’, while Mrs. Fortescue was stakin’ out the courthouse,” Massie said, “I called Jones over…he’s a machinist’s mate, we were involved in athletics on the base—I used to be a runner, and I offered my services helpin’ him train the baseball team? Anyway, I called Jones over and said I’d heard Kahahawai was ready to crack. And Jones said, ‘But he just needs a little help, right?’ Kinda winked at me as he said it. I said that was so; was he willin’ to help? He thought it over for a second, then he said, ‘I sure as hell am.’ If you’ll excuse the language, Mrs. Fortescue, that is what he said.”

  Mrs. Fortescue nodded regally, her smile benign.

  “I asked Jones if he knew of anyone else who might help, somebody we could count on. And he said, ‘Yeah, let’s go up to the gym’…that was on the third floor of the barracks? ‘Let’s go up to the gym, I’ll introduce you to Eddie Lord. He’s all right. If you think he’s all right, too, well, hell—we’ll br
ing ’im along!’ Sorry about the language.”

  “I’m the wife of a military man, Tommie,” Mrs. Fortescue said with a ladylike laugh. “I’m not easily shocked.”

  “Lord was in the ring,” Massie continued, “sparrin’ with another gob. A strappin’ specimen for a lightweight; you could see right away he could handle himself. Lord—that’s Fireman First Class Edward Lord? Jones called him over, and we chatted a little bit. He seemed like a regular guy.”

  “Did you fill Lord in, on the spot?” I asked.

  “No. I talked to Jones first, said, ‘Can he be trusted?’ And Jones said, ‘Eddie and me was shipmates for five years.’ That was all I needed to know. Jones said he’d fill Lord in, and we arranged to meet at Mrs. Fortescue’s, no earlier than three.”

  “After my luncheon,” Mrs. Fortescue explained.

  “We stopped in town, at the YMCA,” Massie said, “and changed into civilian clothes. Then we drove to Kolowalu Street, where we introduced Mrs. Fortescue to Eddie Lord, and she told us of this idea she had to use a false warrant from Major Ross, to lure Kahahawai into the car.”

  “My little Japanese maid was still in the kitchen,” Mrs. Fortescue said, “so I paid her her weekly wages a day early, and gave her the next day off. And then I suggested to Tommie and his boys that we drive down to the courthouse.”

  “To case the joint,” Massie said, with a wry little smile. It would have seemed flippant if his eyes hadn’t been so haunted.

  “That night,” Mrs. Fortescue said, “I sent my daughter Helene to Thalia’s, to spend the night, and we reviewed our plans, the four of us. Kahahawai would be brought to my house. We would get a confession from him. We would make him sign it, and take it to the police.”

  “What if the police dismissed the confession as coerced?” I asked. “Nothing came of it when those Navy boys grabbed Horace Ida.”

  “Then we’d take it to the newspapers,” Massie said. “They’d surely print it, and at least that way these damned rumors about my wife’s honor would be put to rest.”

  “Who rented the blue Buick?” Leisure asked.

  “Jones and Lord,” Massie said. “I went on home, and they returned to Mrs. Fortescue’s, where they slept in the livin’ room, on the couch, on the floor. So we’d be ready to go, bright and early.”