Mahu

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “You freak,” Akoni said, jumping up.

  I jumped up, too, holding him back, just as Derek Pang entered the room. If he’d heard anything, he didn’t let on. “You have jewelry that belonged to my father?” he asked.

  We sat back down, Wayne putting his arm protectively around Derek’s back, and I showed them both everything, in plastic bags. Derek nodded. “It was all his.” He seemed to swallow hard. “You think the man who pawned this stuff is the one who killed him?”

  “We don’t know yet, but it’s a good chance,” I said. “Listen, Derek, there’s just one little thing we need to clear up. Would you tell us again what happened after you left the Rod and Reel Club the night your father was murdered?”

  He relaxed back into Wayne’s embrace. “It’s like I told you,” he said. “Wayne and I wanted to fool around, and we weren’t comfortable doing it where my father might find us. So we went up to Mount Tantalus and parked.”

  “You stayed in the car the whole time?” I asked.

  Derek blushed. “Is that important?”

  “Just checking the details,” I said.

  Derek reached over and squeezed Wayne’s knee. “We made out in the car for a while, and then Wayne asked me to get out and pull my pants down.”

  “Okay,” Akoni said. “That’s all we need.” He stood up. “You’ll be able to get this jewelry back after the investigation’s over.”

  I didn’t say anything until we were in the elevator. “What was that all about?” I asked. “Derek was in the middle of his statement.”

  “Yeah, and you know as well as I do the two of them rehearsed the whole thing,” he said. “They were baiting us, Kimo. I didn’t need to hear the details all over again.” He looked over at me, and I was sure he’d seen what was in my heart when I looked at Wayne Gallagher. “And you didn’t either,” he said.

  * * *

  We were on our way back to the station when we got a radio call, that a man’s body had been found in Kapiolani Park, on the Diamond Head end of Waikīkī. When we arrived, we found Lidia Portuondo keeping traffic away from the spot and Alvy Greenberg standing over a body, which had been discovered by a young haole woman out walking her dog. The body was in an advanced state of decomposition, so much so that we could not even determine, at first glance, whether it belonged to a man or woman.

  Apparently the body had been buried, at the far end of the park near the Dillingham Fountain, and recent wind and rain had uncovered it. We waited for the coroner to come out and take the body away, but it was clear we wouldn’t have much to investigate until Doc had a chance to do some analysis.

  The girl whose dog had discovered the body was pretty upset, and we took a statement from her there, along with all her information, in case we needed to get back to her. “Dis one not get solved,” Akoni said. “Not without lucky break.”

  “No argument from me, brah,” I said. We couldn’t even search missing persons reports back at the station until we found out if the body was male or female and got a race and approximate age. This one certainly wasn’t getting solved quickly, probably further adding to Lieutenant Yumuri’s unhappiness with us.

  GIRAFFE

  We didn’t even bother to go back to the station, but instead headed over to the DA’s office to go over the evidence we had collected on Tommy Pang’s murder. When we arrived, the receptionist told us Ms. Kaneahe was waiting for us in her office.

  Peggy had met Akoni a couple of times. The three of us shook hands, and then he and I sat down in old-fashioned wooden chairs across from her desk. The room was spare and professional—a bookcase filled with impressive legal volumes took up one whole wall, and the other was decorated only with Peggy’s framed diplomas, including one from Punahou. There was nothing personal about the room, no knickknacks or photos on the desk, no attempt made to overcome the institutional sterility of the bland white walls and lay-in acoustic tile ceiling. I wondered how she could spend every day there. I’d have gone crazy before my first coffee break.

  “Why don’t you tell me about the case in your own words.”

  I looked to Akoni, but Peggy said, “No, you first, Kimo. Since you seem to play a larger than usual role in this case.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said. “It started the night that black tar bust failed.” I told her about drinking with the other cops, and then going to the Rod and Reel.

  “So you weren’t just in some bar in the neighborhood, you were in that bar,” she said. “I don’t understand. What were you doing there?”

  I should have told her then, but I knew it was something I had to talk to her about in private, as a personal thing, nothing related to work. “You know we’ve had a number of gay bashings outside that club over the last few months. I guess I had a couple of beers, and I got to thinking of myself as a neighborhood cop. The place is only a few blocks from my apartment, you know. So I decided I would stop by there on my way home, make sure everything was all right. I had another beer, and saw that things were fine.”

  I looked at Akoni, but he was very carefully staring at the wall of Peggy’s diplomas. “I was about to leave when a guy came up to me.” I told her about the giraffe, about leaving the club and standing in the alley, seeing the guy drag Tommy’s body. How I’d called 911, and then gone home.

  It made me feel worse every time I had to tell it. There was no way to explain how desperate I’d been feeling, how every instinct I had said get out of there. In retrospect, I wished I’d never touched Tommy Pang’s body, never called 911, just run the minute I heard something being dragged down the alley. But that would have been even more wrong.

  Peggy didn’t say anything, so I continued. I told her about our fruitless attempts to tie in Tommy’s tong connections, and about retrieving his jewelry from Lucky Lou. “The man Lou described might be a cop,” I said. “Derek and Wayne told us, that Tommy had a cop on his payroll, that the cop had been there that night.”

  “You have any ideas who that cop might be?”

  “We’ve been doing some research,” I said. “But I don’t want to say anything until we have some proof. I’m sure you can understand how damaging it could be to an innocent man’s reputation if we’re wrong.”

  “You’ve got to wrap this one up quickly,” Peggy said. “You know your lieutenant isn’t happy with your progress, and neither is my boss. But first you’ve got a problem. If you find a suspect, you’re the only one who can tie him to that truck, that alley, that time of night,” Peggy said. “You’re also the investigating detective. Not very convincing.”

  “How do we make it convincing?” Akoni asked.

  Peggy kept looking at me. “We have to independently establish your presence at that bar, that night, at that time. We’ve got a recording of the 911 call; we’ll try to do a voice print and prove you made it. Now go on. What happened the next day?”

  I explained about going surfing, and she frowned. I’d broken many dates with her when we were in high school because I was out on the waves and lost track of time. Akoni started then, telling her about the crime scene, and then the two of us alternated describing the rest of our progress.

  “At least your investigation is well-documented,” she said at last, throwing us a little bone. She directed us to go back to the Rod and Reel and see if we could find the giraffe, get him to sign an affidavit that he’d seen me at the club that night. “And I don’t want you going alone, or acting like some neighborhood Rambo either,” she said. She turned to Akoni. “Detective, I expect that any reports will read you were there, too. You’re in this almost as deep as Kimo is.”

  “Understood,” Akoni said.

  “I could do it myself easier. We have no idea when this guy will be back at the club, if ever. I live nearby, so I can stop in randomly. That’s a big imposition on Akoni.”

  “It’s his job.” Peggy gave us a short lecture about minimizing personal connections with cases. “You should have stepped away as soon as you recognized the scene,” she
said. “That was what, your third or fourth mistake on this case?”

  I told her I got the message.

  She closed the folder on her desk and put it to the side, in a neat pile of similar ones. I could see that the seeds of her personality had been there even back in high school, when her textbooks were crisply covered in brown paper, her penmanship perfect and her locker always tidy. We shook hands on the way out, and she said she’d call me.

  Akoni waited until we were out of the building to ask, “When you want to go back, look for this guy who blew in your ear?”

  “We could try happy hour again.”

  Akoni shrugged. “You’re starting to like this part of the investigation aren’t you?”

  “Hey, you got the lingerie shop. I get the gay bar.”

  At the Rod and Reel Club, Fred the bartender was on duty again. “I’m trying to track a guy I saw here two weeks ago. About six-two, really thin, blond hair shaved down to a stubble. You recognize him?”

  “Sure, Gunter,” he said. “Comes here two or three times a week, usually late, after eleven or so. I think he works a late shift somewhere. What do you want with Gunter?”

  “Just want to ask him a question or two,” I said. “He didn’t do anything. I talked to him two weeks ago, and I just want to see if he remembers.”

  “Gunter talks to a lot of guys,” Fred said, laughing. “Some of them talk back. You didn’t talk back, he might not remember you.”

  “Gee, and I thought I was unforgettable.”

  Fred said, “Maybe to some,” and looked me straight in the eye.

  I said, “Mahalo,” and took a pair of Big Wave Golden Ales out to Akoni on the patio, flattered and smiling.

  “I guess we’ll have to come back later,” I said, explaining about Gunter.

  “Just what I wanted to do,” Akoni grumbled. “I better call Mealoha.” He stood up. “Don’t let anybody take that beer. I’m going to need a few more before this evening’s over.”

  I sat back in my chair and looked around. The Rod and Reel wasn’t that scary in the light of day. It was just a bar, after all. There were gay people there and straight people, and nobody seemed to care who was who. That was nice.

  Akoni went home for dinner with Mealoha, and I went back to my apartment. I couldn’t eat, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I kept watching the clock, until finally it was ten and Akoni called to say he would be at my apartment in a couple of minutes. He parked out front, and we walked back down Kuhio Avenue toward the Rod and Reel.

  From a block away, we could hear the music and noise coming from the club. We walked in together, and for a minute my heart seized up the way it had when I’d gone in there two weeks before. But then I looked around, and I realized it was still just a bar.

  We circled slowly around the main room. Akoni was careful not to establish eye contact with anyone. I thought his unease was kind of funny. So what if a guy came up to him and asked him to dance, or blew in his ear? If he wasn’t interested he shouldn’t have been threatened. “No” worked pretty well if you weighed over two-thirty.

  Gunter wasn’t in the main bar. I headed toward the back bar, wondering what Akoni’s reaction would be when he saw the explicit videos being shown there. The one playing was a little wild even for me, a close-up shot of one guy humping another’s butt. They’d lit it so that the lube and the sweat glistened in the light, and there was a thumping beat behind it establishing a rhythm.

  Akoni looked away almost as soon as he saw the screen. Then I saw Gunter sitting at the edge of the bar, nursing a shot glass of something clear.

  I showed him my ID and explained. Gunter said, “I don’t think I remember you. You said I walked up to you?”

  “And blew in my ear.”

  “That sounds like me,” he said, laughing, “But you don’t look like my type.”

  “I’d been working undercover, I was a little grungier, a little more like…”

  “Rough trade,” he said, and I nodded. He stared at me for a minute, and I had the feeling he was trying to envision me without my clothes on. It was a weird feeling. “I remember. You ran away!”

  I nodded. “Out towards the alley.”

  “And I followed you to the door, but then I came back inside.” He nodded. “I met the most delightful boy after you left. A fraternity brother from Illinois, I think. He just wanted a beer, he didn’t realize what kind of place this was. But he was happy to let me suck his dick.”

  Akoni winced. “They like it, you know, straight boys,” Gunter said to Akoni. “Their girlfriends won’t suck their dicks for them. Does yours?”

  “My partner’s married,” I said. “So Gunter, would you come down to the station and give us a statement?”

  “A statement? Of what?”

  “Of what you just said. That you saw me here, two weeks ago, around three a.m.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Just that. I need some proof that I was here, then.”

  “What ever for?”

  “I witnessed a crime, just after I left here. I need to establish I was in the area.”

  Gunter nodded. “The body they found in the alley. You saw it?”

  I nodded.

  “I work from three to eleven,” he said. “I sleep in the mornings. I like to sleep in, particularly if I have a guest. Can I come in tomorrow afternoon, before work?”

  We agreed, but before we let him go I got his full name, home address and phone, and his work address. He was a security guard at a fancy condo tower. He was thin, but wiry, and you could see he was strong. With his evident muscles and his no-nonsense haircut, you wouldn’t want to mess with Gunter.

  “Hallelujah,” Akoni said when Gunter had walked away. “We can go home. And never come back to this place.”

  “Never say never,” I said.

  LIDIA’S LISTENING

  We had to table Tommy Pang’s murder the next morning, because Akoni and I had to attend a training session at the downtown station. Neither of us wanted to go, but since the case wasn’t going anywhere we didn’t have much of an excuse. We spent the morning watching videos and hearing speakers about diversity training, sustainability and community policing. I was interested to note that the diversity training included a section on the rights of gay people.

  Akoni called in for messages when we broke at one. “Our buddy Melvin called and said he found a bunch of the receipts from packages Derek and Wayne sent. We ought to swing past his place on our way back and find out what that’s all about.”

  “We’ve got Gunter coming in this afternoon for a statement,” I reminded him.

  “Why don’t you go back and do that interview yourself,” he said. “I’ll go back to the pack and ship place. We can compare notes later.”

  I was back at the station by two, and a little later Gunter showed up. I pulled Lidia Portuondo in with me to take his statement, so that there was somebody else there. Knowing how Peggy Kaneahe and the lieutenant felt, I wanted to be extra careful. And besides, I thought that since Lidia had her own secrets, namely her relationship with Alvy, she ought to be able to keep mine.

  Gunter looked a lot more presentable in his work clothes than he did in the torn t-shirt he’d worn the night before. He wore a pressed white shirt with epaulets and a nametag and khaki slacks, and even his buzz-cut head looked more normal in the light of day.

  Lidia and I took him into one of the interview rooms. There was a coffee maker on a table against the far wall. “Coffee?” I asked. I poured one for myself.

  “I can’t take caffeine,” Gunter said. I motioned him to sit down at the table. “What do you want from me?”

  “Just what we told you yesterday. Just write down what happened to you at the Rod and Reel Club on the night of Tuesday the sixteenth.”

  “You want me to write down how I blew in your ear?” He leered at me, and I shivered a little. I thought a night with Gunter was more than I was willing to get into.

  “You can leave that par
t out.”

  Lidia had just come in from her shift, and her uniform made her look tougher than she did in street clothes, especially with her long brown hair pulled into a bun. She leaned against the wall across from the coffee maker, crossed her arms and listened.

  “I think I cruised you for about an hour before I went up to you,” Gunter said, looking up from his writing. “That sound about right to you?”

  I held up my hands. “You write it the way you remember it.”

  He went back to writing. He finished and then pushed the paper over to me. He wrote in a neat, careful script, crossing his sevens and his Z’s. I had a momentary flash of Gunter as a small boy with the same haircut, painstakingly practicing his penmanship, and then he didn’t seem frightening at all. I picked it up and read through it. It was just as he’d said the night before, and corresponded pretty closely to what I remembered. He wrote that he had first seen me at the bar at about two o’clock or so, and described the couple of times we’d made eye contact. He ended by noting he’d looked out the door of the club and seen me duck into the alley.

  I signed the bottom, and then handed it to Lidia for her signature as witness. She read it, and then signed next to my name.

  “All right, you can go now,” I said. “Thanks for coming in.”

  He stood up. “So, you hang out at the Rod and Reel a lot?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Shame,” he said. “You’re cute.” As he walked past me he casually ran a hand over my chest. “I’m there most nights. If you change your mind.”

  Lidia didn’t say anything until Gunter had left the room. “Were you on a stakeout or something? At that club.”

  I shook my head. “I just wanted to go there. Kind of dipping my foot in the waters, you know?”

  She nodded like she understood and left to sign out. I didn’t say anything specific to her, but I was sure she’d respect my privacy and not spread any gossip.

  I went back to my desk. It was time to think about Evan Gonsalves, much though I had tried not to. He fit the description Lou had given us. I knew he had money problems, trying to support Terri in the style she was accustomed to, and I remembered Terri’s suspicions. And he’d known about the black tar bust and could have tipped off Tommy. The other connections we’d made were fuzzier, but possibilities, too.