Mahu Blood

by Alex Beecroft

  “Son of a bitch,” I said.

  weB of coNNectioNs

  Once the patrol car arrived, Ray and I went up to the wooded spot above the shopping center while the officers waited for crime scene techs. We found the place where the shooter had lain flat on the ground, some ferns and a couple of small branches broken under his or her weight. We scoured the area for shell casings but couldn’t find any.

  We finally went inside and asked about our caller, though by that point we were pretty sure she hadn’t been at the Ohana at all.

  The receptionist assured us that no one had spoken to her about expecting the police, and none of the female clients or staff we spoke to matched the accent I had heard on the phone.

  On the way back to headquarters, Ray and I hashed out what we could learn from the incident. “We know for sure now that the Ohana is connected. Otherwise whoever it was that wanted to shoot us wouldn’t have known to call us up there.”

  “The woman had your cell number,” he said. “How’d she get it? Must have been off the back of your card.” He opened his notebook. “Let’s start with who you gave a card to.”

  “Too many, brah. All the old ladies marching with Aunty Edith, the tenants in the building the shooter used, the old people at the community center. And that’s just for starters.”

  “Let’s focus on the people connected to the case,” he said.

  “Dexter Trale, Leelee, Bunchy Parker, Maile Kanuha and Ezekiel Kapuāiwa.”

  “David Currie at the Ohana. The receptionist and the counselors.”

  We worked on the list all the way back to headquarters, but none of the women on the list matched that voice I heard, and it didn’t bring us any closer to finding out who had made the call.

  At our desks, we went back to the pages Harry had given me and our diagram connecting people. When we finished, I 150 Neil S. Plakcy

  said, “We’ve still got those pages Harry printed out in Japanese.

  My mother is half-Japanese, but I’m almost certain she doesn’t understand written kanji. One of her sisters might know more, though, or one of my cousins. I’m going to call her and see if she knows anyone to translate.”

  “Your family’s already in this case up to their butts,” Ray said.

  He’d gotten his cheek patched up, but we were both pretty shaky after getting shot at, both of us spoiling for the fight we hadn’t had a chance at with our unknown shooter. “Your mom helping Leelee, your brother gambling. Let’s try and avoid drawing any more of them in, okay?” I was surprised that he didn’t knock out the idea of using the pages completely. I guess I’m having an influence on him.

  “You have a better idea?”

  “How about we do this the right way, get a department translator?”

  “Okay.” I opened up my drawer and pulled out a requisition form. The department still hadn’t moved far enough into the 21st century to put multi-part forms on line; this one needed signatures from our lieutenant and his boss, as well as the assistant chief in charge of support services. We had to attach copies of all the relevant documents, as well as a detailed explanation of what we needed and how it related to an ongoing investigation.

  “You get to fill out the form,” I said, handing it to him. “Last I heard there’s a three-week backlog for translators. Be sure to indicate that we don’t know where the pages came from. Call it an anonymous source. And maybe by the time we get a translator assigned, we’ll have enough evidence to make the connection between Tanaka and the murders.”

  Ray took the paper from me and looked it up and down. He frowned, then said, “There’s a Japanese guy in Julie’s program. I can get her to ask him.”

  “Make sure you get his name and social security number, so we can run a background check on him before we give him access to sensitive materials,” I said.

  MAhu BLood 151

  “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

  “You want to run everything by the book. Just covering your back, brah.”

  He slid the translator request in his desk drawer. “Call your mother.”

  I asked how she was doing, and she told me she was in the living room, pruning a bonsai my grandfather had created. I knew it; that stunted pine that was older than any of our living relatives. I explained what I needed. In the background, I could hear the TV going, most likely KVOL, Lui’s station. That made me think about my big brother. It was one thing to pull him out of a pai gow game, but if he had a serious gambling habit that was a much bigger problem.

  “Your cousin Ben,” my mother said, and it took me a minute to remember what I’d asked her.

  “Surfer Ben?” The last time I’d seen Ben, I was working undercover on the North Shore, and he was a competitive surfer following the waves.

  “He majored in business at U.H. and minored in Japanese.

  Your Aunt Pua is always saying how he’s going to be a big businessman when he finishes surfing. I think she’s jealous that my sons are all so successful.”

  “Yeah, we’re a bunch of princes. Any idea where Ben is these days? Surf ’s lousy on the North Shore.”

  “I’ll call Pua and ask her. I owe her a call anyway.”

  I wondered how my mother could owe any of her sisters a call, when it seemed like she spoke to each of them every day.

  She was the oldest and Pua the youngest; Aunt Pua was an unreformed flower child, a hippie, far from my prim and proper mother. She was an aromatherapist at a posh resort in Hawai’i Kai and had been married and divorced three times. Ben was her youngest child.

  When I hung up, Ray was pulling pages off the fax machine.

  It was the report we requested on Bunchy Parker’s son Brian, the 152 Neil S. Plakcy

  Army sharpshooter who had gone missing shortly after Edith’s death. “He hasn’t left Oahu by plane,” Ray said. “He could be on a boat, or he could be holed up somewhere.”

  “Or he could be dead.”

  “I called the morgue, but they don’t have any John Does who match Brian’s description.”

  “Doesn’t mean he isn’t dead. Just nobody’s found the body yet.”

  “You’re such a cheerful guy,” Ray said. “I’m going to do some more checking. I still think he’s a good suspect.”

  “While you do that, I’m going down to Vice.”

  I found Akoni at his desk and filled him in on what my brother had said about the other games—fan tan and 13 card, other Chinese gambling games and the video poker machines allegedly in the warehouse on River Street.

  “We’ve been hearing rumors about those,” Akoni said.

  “Nobody would say where they were, though. You get an address?”

  “Just River Street.”

  “You think you could convince your brother to express an interest in them?” Akoni asked. “Get some more information?”

  “I can try. He’s spooked right now. You know, he’s always been number one son, and nothing ever goes wrong for him.

  Last night was a wakeup call.”

  Akoni promised to keep me in the loop if he found out anything that might relate to my case, and I promised the same thing about his. When I got back upstairs, Ray and I ran the cases down for Lieutenant Sampson.

  Behind him, I saw a photo of his stepdaughter Kitty, in her dark green U.H. cap and gown, holding her diploma case against her side, with a collection of leis around her neck. I wondered if her mother, who had abandoned her to Sampson’s care years before, had come to her graduation, and for a moment I lost the thread of our conversation. When I snapped back I realized Ray MAhu BLood 153

  was talking.

  “What we saw last night outside the Wing Wah supports what Stuart McKinney told us—that a guy called Mr. T brought a satchel of money to the warehouse at night. At first we thought it was Dexter Trale, but now we believe it’s Jun Tanaka.”

  Sampson leaned back in his high-backed chair. His polo shirt for the day was an olive green, which looked good with his chocolate-brown slacks.

/>   I threw in what Levi had told us about suspecting Tanaka.

  “Mr. Hirsch is a savvy businessman. I believe there’s something fishy going on.”

  “So you think someone killed McKinney because he blabbed about the money?” Sampson asked.

  We both nodded.

  “And how does this tie into the woman’s death at the rally?”

  “That’s the part we’re not sure about,” I said. “But there are so many links.”

  “Sounds like you’re making a lot of very tenuous assumptions.”

  He sat back at his desk and steepled his fingers, and I felt like a kid who’d been called in to the principal’s office. “Is there a single thing in your file we could take to the DA?”

  I resisted the urge to open my mouth and start talking. Ray didn’t, though. “We’re making a lot of progress,” he protested.

  “How do you even know these murders are connected?”

  Sampson asked. “You have no direct link between the woman who was shot at the rally and the homeless man who was beaten and then set on fire.”

  “He wasn’t homeless, just crazy.” I started ticking things off on my fingers. “Stuart McKinney worked with Dexter Trale, who shared a house with Edith Kapana. Stuey lived at the Ohana, in Kaneohe, and the day before she died, Edith went up there to ask about Ezekiel Kapuāiwa. Ezekiel lived at the Ohana for a while and worked at the Kope Bean—where Stuey and Dex worked and which is owned by Jun Tanaka. Tanaka is the backer 154 Neil S. Plakcy

  behind the Kingdom of Hawai’i, which Ezekiel leads and which sponsored the rally where Edith was killed. And somebody who knows the Ohana is involved in this case thought we were getting close enough to call us into an ambush this morning.”

  Ray jumped in. “Bunchy Parker runs a rival group to the Kingdom of Hawai’i. His son Brian was a sharpshooter in the Army. He could have shot Edith. And Stuey’s murder could be tied into money laundering at the Kope Bean warehouse, money that could be funding KOH. Maybe Stuey told Brian or Bunchy about the money.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Sampson said. “You guys are all over the place. So essentially you’ve got nothing. However, you have gotten somebody scared enough to take some pot shots at you, which means you must be getting close. You have two more days to show me some progress, or I’m putting you back in the rotation.”

  “Two days,” Ray grumbled, as we walked out of Sampson’s office. “How much are we going to figure out in two days? We’ve had a week and a half so far, and we still don’t have a strong suspect or a smoking gun.”

  “Then we’ve got work to do.”

  Night VisioN

  My cell rang as I reached my desk. Jimmy Chang was a beat cop I’d known for a while, who had recently been transferred downtown from Mānoa.

  “Aloha, brah,” he said. “We’ve got a visual on that Dodge pickup you were looking for. Plates match the BOLO.”

  It took me a few seconds to realize he meant Brian Parker’s truck. “Where are you?”

  “Across from a convenience store two blocks ewa from Ala Moana Mall.”

  “On our way.” We got there about five minutes later, pulling up next to Jimmy’s cruiser. He was leaning against the car, talking to an officer in uniform I recognized as Kitty Cardozo, Lieutenant Sampson’s stepdaughter.

  I met Kitty soon after I started working for Sampson, and she came out to me as a lesbian a few months later. The lieutenant wanted her to go to law school after she graduated from U.H., but Kitty was determined to go to the police academy. I knew from the lieutenant that she had graduated at the top of her class, but I’d never seen her on patrol before.

  “Kimo!” She kissed my cheek and hugged me. “It’s great to see you.”

  Jimmy looked at me. “You two know each other?”

  I looked at Kitty. “He doesn’t know?”

  “I didn’t want to tell anyone,” she said. “I didn’t want anybody to think I was riding on my dad’s coattails.”

  Jimmy was looking confused, though I had an idea that Ray recognized her from the pictures in Sampson’s office. Kitty turned to Jimmy and said, “Lieutenant Sampson in CID is my stepfather. Sorry. I guess I should have told you.”

  Jimmy did not look happy. “Cardozo’s in the FTEP,” he said 156 Neil S. Plakcy

  to us. FTEP stands for Field Training and Evaluation Program; newly graduated recruits were partnered with experienced officers so they could apply the theoretical knowledge they gained at the academy to hands-on field training.

  I understood why Jimmy wouldn’t be happy. He was young, in his late twenties, though he’d been on patrol long enough to qualify as Kitty’s supervisor. If I were him, I’d worry that every screw-up, every shortcut, would end up filtering back to Sampson.

  “Congratulations,” I said to Kitty. “And you, too, Jimmy. You won’t find a smarter, more dedicated trainee.”

  “And I don’t tell my dad anything that happens on the job,”

  she said.

  Jimmy seemed to relax. “You see who was driving that pickup?” Ray asked, pointing to the truck we thought belonged to Brian Parker. Just as he did, though, a guy who matched Brian’s description exited the convenience store and headed for the truck.

  Ray and I cut him off. “Mr. Parker?” I asked, showing him my shield. “Honolulu PD. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Brian looked around as if mapping out an escape route and saw Jimmy and Kitty behind us. “What’s up?”

  He had a super-sized soda in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. I wondered if he’d been smoking pakalolo, but his eyes weren’t red. “We’ve been looking for you for a couple of days,” I said. “What have you been up to?”

  “Just chilling.” He was a skinny guy, a couple inches under six feet, with what looked like military tattoos on his arms.

  “You still pretty good with a rifle?” Ray asked. “You were some kind of marksman in the Army.”

  Brian shrugged and took a drink of his soda. “I get out in the country and practice sometimes. No law against that, is there?”

  “How do you feel about Hawaiian nationalism?” I asked.

  “Your dad’s pretty involved in it. How about you?”

  “What’s this all about? Is my dad in trouble again?”

  MAhu BLood 157

  “We’ll ask the questions for a while, how’s that?” Ray said.

  “We ask, you answer.”

  Brian took a long sip from his soda, then said, “The whole nationalism thing, it’s my dad’s gig. Me, I could care less.”

  I nodded. “Want to tell us where you were on Statehood Day, eleven in the morning?”

  He bit his lip. “You won’t tell my father, will you?”

  I knew from his army records that Brian Parker was nearly thirty. Old enough that his father’s opinion shouldn’t matter. I wondered what he was hiding and why. “Not unless we have to,”

  I said.

  “I have a girlfriend,” Brian said. “She’s haole, though, and my dad don’t like us to mix. So I haven’t told him.”

  “You were with her that Friday morning?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I’ve been working private security at night, off the books, for this rapper dude over from the mainland to work on an album. Days, I’m at her house.” We got her name and address, and Ray stepped away to call her and verify the alibi.

  “You know anybody involved with your dad’s group, or any group for that matter, who might have had a reason to disrupt the KOH rally, kill that old lady?”

  Brian relaxed and leaned back against his truck, tearing open the bag of chips. He offered it to me but I shook my head.

  “My dad’s got a temper, you know that,” he said, grabbing a handful of chips from the bag. “But he’s not the kind of guy to plan out killing someone, certainly not an old lady.”

  He chomped noisily and then drank some soda. I stood there in the sun, my patience wearing, as Kitty and Jimmy stood at ease in the background.

/>   “Most of the people in my dad’s group, they’re the same way,”

  Brian said, crumpling the top of the chip bag. “More interested in culture than violence. You ask me, the real nuts are the guys from KOH. You ever seen that Ezekiel dude, the one who says he’s descended from Kamehameha? He’s seriously crazy.”

  158 Neil S. Plakcy

  “Yeah, I got that idea myself.”

  Ray came back to us, and I could see from the disappointment on his face that Brian’s alibi stood up. And after talking to Brian, I thought he wasn’t involved, but I took his cell number, in case we needed him again.

  “Doesn’t mean she isn’t covering for him,” Ray said, as we got back in the Jeep. “Brian’s girlfriend.” But I could hear in his voice that he had given up.

  We were frustrated. We had only two days to solve two murders, and no leads. And yet, we must be getting close, or why would someone shoot at us?

  By the time we got back to headquarters it was time to clock out, and we had no reason to stick around and rack up overtime.

  Mike was already home by the time I got there, and he’d walked and fed the dog. They were sitting on the sofa in the living room reading the newspaper. At least Mike was; I think Roby was just looking at the pictures.

  Mike suggested we go out to dinner, to the little Italian place down the hill that we’d developed a fondness for. We talked out our current cases, and some of my frustration eased just being with him and being able to share what was going on in both our lives. When we got back home we ended up in bed, and I felt pretty good about the way things were working out between us.

  RottiNg BeANs

  I overslept, and by the time I woke up Mike had already left for work. There was a note on the kitchen table—“I fed and walked the dog”—with no signature. Since we had no menehunes, little Hawaiian elves, living with us, I figured it had come from him. There was a happy face at the end of the note.

  When Ray and I met up at headquarters, he said, “I’ve been thinking. This case keeps coming back around to the Kope Bean.”

  “Yeah,” I said, sitting down at my desk and leaning back in my chair. We’d been to the distribution center where Dex and Stuey worked, the branch in Kaneohe where Ezekiel had been a barista, not to mention various places we’d gone just for coffee, like the Chinatown store on Hotel Street, where we’d talked with Akoni and then with my brother Lui.