Primal Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  Meanwhile, the HPD blithely followed a path that netted several suspects, all of whom had nothing whatever to do with the crime. The HPD districts weren't communicating well on the case, and each area had arrested separate individuals for the scam and the killing, maintaining the two incidents were unrelated, filing separate reports bearing no relation to each other.

  Another body surfaced and this time the FBI, acting on a missing-persons report, got involved. As bureau chief of the FBI, Parry didn't need a formal invite from Scanlon or any of his captains to come in on a missing-persons report, especially if it involved a minor, and Daiporice's own son, aged seventeen, had somehow gotten in the way and been eliminated. The loss of his son brought Ted Daiporice to his knees.

  Parry's take-charge style had been viewed as abrasive by some HPD personnel before Daiporice, and it was likely for this reason he'd been “unaccountably” left out of the loop on the seventeen- year-old's disappearance. Parry charged in and crashed HPD's party anyway, when they couldn't find a trace of the missing young man anywhere.

  Then came the Wilson Lewis case. Parry studied forensic reports and police reports on the case, along with the so-called confessions of those men being held in connection with a string of brutal slice-and-dice mutilations. Those arrested were mental defectives, down-and-outs and PSOs—previous sex offenders. When Parry came in on the case, he immediately saw the links between the victims; wounds to the eyes in particular showed such force as to indicate uncontrollable rage and hatred. Even the bones around the eyes had been damaged by the hilt of a knife; sexual organs too were gutted and turned out, as if the killer had to look and touch inside them, not unlike the Trade Winds Killer in this regard.

  To be fair to Scanlon and his detectives, the bodies were always found weeks later in deserted areas of the forests, far off the main roads, and in the summer heat, that year reaching into the nineties, a cadaver was stripped to skeletal remains within ten days. So Scanlon's people didn't have much in the way of evidence either to identify the victims or to reconstruct the crimes. Like the Trade Winds Killer, Wilson Solomon Lewis, an otherwise mild-mannered insurance salesman by day, didn't leave his victims where he had killed them, so there was no crime scene to analyze per se; all they had to go on was where the bodies were dumped—a stone whodunit, in police parlance, the hardest kind of case to resolve.

  Parry went to work, orchestrating a surveillance, his people watching every drop point for a full month, while he and Tony, spelled by others, watched what ought to be the killer's next and last drop point, according to the computer program tracking the bastard. They got lucky one night when a large vehicle consistent with the tire marks found at the other locations drove calmly off U.S. 61 passing the darkened surveillance vehicle on the far side of the road, placed at some distance away. Parry and Gagliano called for backup and drove into the woods, following at a safe stretch until their headlights hit on Lewis, his arms filled with overstuffed garbage bags, the trunk of his car popped, the light from the trunk setting off his features into a mosaic of contortion.

  For a moment he looked relieved, waving to them as if he'd expected them long before. Still, he stuffed what he'd lifted from the trunk back into the vehicle and slammed home the lid.

  Gagliano turned the spotlight on the man, who was wearing a pullover sweater and jeans, his hands smeared with a red substance that was unmistakable. A body was indeed inside the spacious trunk of his roomy Lincoln Town Car, the one he did regular business in. Wilson Lewis put up no resistance, standing aside like a child staring down at the valuable vase he'd broken, the damage irreparable.

  “Whhhhhh-y'd it take youuuuuu so... so... so long to... to st-st-stop me?” He stuttered.

  “Read him his fucking rights, Tony,” Parry had said, his eyes riveted to the horror encased in the man's trunk, his mind going over the question put to him by the insane.

  Why had it taken them so long to stop him? he wondered. How could they've been so blind?

  All of Lewis's victims had been prospective clients, many taken right from their homes at midday, all of them single and living alone. Records indicated that Lewis had no previous police record, but a careful scrutiny of his life later unearthed the troublesome nature of this man whom no one liked, not his neighbors, not his relatives, not his former bosses, of whom there were many. He had a long list of jobs from which he'd been fired, often for “odd, lewd or strange” behavior in one form or another. He had all his life been building toward vengeance against women, for women were, in his estimation, the cause of all sin on earth, the mothers of ruination, since his own mother and the mother of his children were satanic.

  Parry's handling of the case effectively threw out several HPD “convictions” and so-called confessions, which both the press and the public had been screaming for. A police detective in any state in the land lived or died by the number of cases he closed, so Parry's victory was not as welcomed as it might otherwise have been by detectives who had followed the other, now patently useless leads. Not only were the detectives below Scanlon embarrassed, but so too were the ranking officers, Scanlon included, who had okayed the arrest, confession and indictment of a partially retarded itinerant pineapple farmer.

  Since then Parry had begun a secretive crusade of sorts, aimed at indolence and incompetence within the HPD. He began with unsolved missing-persons reports, carefully reviewing the case of Sinitia “Cynthia” Toma the year before, which led to Kololia “Gloria” Poni. The trail led to a list of seven missing within a span of a few months. He'd heard of a similar situation on Maui the year before this. In Maui he learned the girls' names: Ela, Wana'ao, Kini, Merelina, Kimi, Lala, and Iolana. Of course, there were other missing persons, even during the period of these vanishings; however, all of these young women were not only natives, but they shared a common appearance, down to the long-trailing black hair and light-filled wide eyes, as well as size, general age and weight. Parry had made it a pet project, reviewing all information authorities had on the cases, searching for any pattern, any link between them. The first obvious such link was that the victims in Honolulu vanished along a trajectory that was bounded by the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific known as the Punchbowl, the University of Hawaii and the Waikiki Beach resort area. Searches among the foothills, along deserted mile markers off the Pali Highway and elsewhere, turned up no clues at the time. The proximity to the air force and naval bases continued to lead Parry to suspect someone in uniform. Whoever he was, this guy left no trace either of himself or his victims. Yet the geography was always the same, that rectangular wedge of island centering on busy Waikiki. The killer must spend a lot of time there, possibly working in the area, living on its perimeter.

  Now Dave Scanlon stopped his lionlike pacing, gave a glance to Dr. Marshal, who'd come in with him, leaned over Parry's desk and got in Parry's face, saying, “We're not going to allow any history between us, Jim, to color what we do here now, are we?”

  “History? History's history,” Parry replied sharply. “All I care about is what we're going to do about this damnable business now.”

  Parry stared down at the Ala Ohana newspaper. He could make out enough Hawaiian to know that everything Scanlon had said about Kaniola and his paper was true—and then some. It was a story so hot it fairly burned the hands to hold it.

  “Just read the crap there about the HPD's not doing a damned thing while two of our own cops are murdered in cold blood.” Scanlon pounded his fist over the newsprint as if to do so could change things.

  “Get hold of your self, Dave,” Parry said, trying to counter the bull's rage. “It's just a pile of innuendo and half-truths gathered up by a grieving father who—”

  “The appearance of impropriety, the mere appearance of wrongdoing, Jim, and we're in the stocks down at HPD. You damned well know that, and so does Marshal here.”

  Dr. Walter Marshal tried to console his old friend. As the U.S. M.E. from Pearl, he had a lot invested in the case as well, but he wasn
't having any luck in calming the HPD Commissioner of Police, so he turned to Parry instead and added kerosene to the fire by saying, “You can bet your ass the mainland'll get this.”

  “Christ,” continued Scanlon, pacing for emphasis. “We've got every uniform, pulled every detective, every sergeant and lieutenant in on this, but old Joe Kaniola makes it sound like we're all sitting around masturbating ourselves! And he's got the inside dope, that top sources with the FBI claim the only man ever to get near the killer was his son who didn't have proper backup! Christ, what a lot of horse shit! And how'd he get information about the blood, Parry, news you didn't even share with me! And what's all this about the supposed killer being most likely a white male? And possibly having some connection with the U.S. military? Christ- a-minny!”

  Parry tried to defuse Scanlon as much as possible by repeating himself. “Kaniola's got nothing. A handful of assumptions and innuendos any number of people've been slinging around, Dave.”

  “You just tell that Dr. Coran of yours to keep her mouth shut, or we'll have a full-blown race riot on our hands in the south central quadrant,” Scanlon hotly replied. “I thought she was a pro! I thought she knew what she was doing. I thought you knew what you were doing when you called her in on the case, Jim.”

  “Scanlon, Dr. Coran's remarks to Kaniola were off the rec—”

  “Not any fucking more!” Scanlon paced anew. Parry went instantly to Jessica's defense. “Dr. Coran did not disclose anything to Kaniola intentionally, and so far's I know not a word about the arm, the racial makeup of the killer, or that he could be military. We don't any of us know that.”

  “Bullshit! Then who did?”

  “I don't know.” He privately wondered about Tony, but instantly ruled him out. “Kaniola's just canny, that's all.”

  “Christ, she ought've known you don't expose yourself to an experienced—”

  “She took him to be the bereaving father.”

  “Son of a bitch is bereaving all right—bereaving right down our throats, Parry. He's got nothing kind to say about your bureau either. Read on!”

  Parry shook his head, remaining calm. “He's blowing smoke and he knows it. There's no evidence the killer's a white man or that he's from the naval base, none whatever.”

  “But every Hawaiian thinks so now,” challenged Dr. Marshal. “There doesn't have to be any real evidence, not with these types who're just looking for an excuse to torch this city like L.A. in '92.”

  “It isn't going to happen here.”

  “You want to make bank on that?” shouted Scanlon. Jessica Coran pushed noisily through the door, her cane thumping out a requiem, Parry's secretary chasing gooselike after her, quite unable to stop her. The secretary was making excuses over Jessica's words:

  “I'm so sorry, Chief Parry, but this woman —”

  “Chief Parry, gentlemen,” Jessica began, “I believe I should be in on this roundtable since I am the guilty party here and—”

  “—-I tried to stop her, but she's so rude and—” Parry motioned his secretary off and the woman stepped back, without turning, obediently closing the door in front of her, leaving Jessica Coran in the center of the big office full of men.

  “All right, Dr. Coran, please join us,” Parry said, trying not to show his displeasure and the dark circles around his bloodshot eyes. “Have a seat.”

  She remained standing. “I'm sorry for my ill-timed words of yesterday to Kaniola. I won't be surprised to hear from Quantico, perhaps find myself replaced.”

  Parry realized now that she thought she was doing the valorous thing, that she'd come to his rescue, somehow learning of the meeting.

  Dr. Marshal cleared his throat and said, “Gentlemen, Dr. Coran, of one thing you can be assured, all leaves to servicemen will be temporarily canceled and every man confined to base at least until the news simmers down.”

  “Good thinking,” muttered Scanlon. “Now whata we do with all of the other white males living in the city? I'm telling you, Jim, your car the other night was just the beginning.”

  “If the newspaper leaks came from within my organization”— Parry fell short of admitting it—”I'll deal with the problems at this end.”

  “And from here on out, I want full cooperation, Jim. No more behind-the-back shit, like alia this crap about how the killer maybe is using the Blow Hole as a dumping site and maybe he's using a U.S. regulation-sized bayonet or machete on his victims.”

  “I said nothing of the kind to Mr. Kaniola,” insisted Jessica.

  “Joe's just feeding his people a pile of kukai, as they say, huh?” asked Scanlon. “For what reason then?”

  “Who knows,” Parry fired back. “To make his son look less like the asshole your department painted him for getting himself killed in the line of duty, maybe?”

  “Or maybe it's become a political thing with Kaniola. Everything's political with him,” suggested Dr. Marshal when the two lawmen had locked gazes. “Now everyone in this room has got to be supportive of each other, gentlemen. We have got to cooperate and stick together on this.”

  “I'll keep my hands on the table if you will,” Parry relented.

  Scanlon at first said nothing, then frowned and said, “It becomes clearer the longer this thing goes on, Jim, that we need each other. To pool our resources.”

  “I realize that, Dave.”

  “Good... good...” Marshal, acting as referee, seemed delighted—missing something here, Jessica thought. There was bad blood between Jim Parry and Scanlon. She'd sensed it from the first moment she walked in, and now it was ripe and odorous.

  “Kaniola's facts are wrong and his story's full of shit, like you say, Scanlon, and I think most thinking people, white and Hawaiian alike, will see it for what it is.” Parry held tightly to a heavy paperweight in the likeness of a pair of handcuffs, squeezing hard as he spoke. Despite his words to the contrary, even the new girl on the block, Jessica Coran, knew that the newspaper story was partially accurate: that thanks to men like Scanlon at the top, the HPD nourished a certain amount of inbred prejudice against its own Hawaiian and minority cops, cops who'd been hired to fill quotas fifteen years before, cops who'd never see promotion in the ranks. Nor was Joe Kaniola far from the mark when he suggested that Scanlon's department wasn't pulling its weight in the investigation, that at best they'd fallen into familiar patterns of organizational behavior by arresting derelicts, the homeless, previously known sex offenders, all without the slightest clue as to who the Trade Winds Killer might be. She could almost hear Jim's seething thoughts below his painted smile: Hell, the HPD brass hadn't seen the strange pattern of disappearances of young women of Hawaiian and Oriental extraction over the past two years here in Oahu... nor the link with the missing Maui women before this.

  Marshal cleared his throat and spoke up. “Jim, I've heard you call this killer the Cane Cutter, and now Kaniola himself says his favored instrument of death is a huge machete of the type used in cane cutting. We all know that information, leaked properly to the press, can lead to only one conclusion: that our killer is a field worker, one of them”

  That information, thought Parry, had been confidential, held in abeyance for the day when a suspect could be brought in and presented with the facts, hopefully to press the man into a confession. Men were known to break during long interrogations when the interrogators had a series of facts in evidence that a killer could not ignore, facts which might cause a guilty man to gasp, fidget and raise an eyebrow. Interrogation only worked if the investigators could carefully walk a suspect along an inexorable path lined with the truth; only such overwhelming evidence might push a recalcitrant sociopath into a corner, awed by the light shone on his actions and secrets. A good interrogation meant laying out all the pieces of the case along the table, in full view of the suspect, like an archaeologist looking over the day's cache of relics and artifacts, but the artifacts of murder didn't lie silent on the table, at least not to the killer or the hunter who had cornered the killer; no, th
e artifacts of murder literally screamed out at them both.

  Now the information regarding the killer's favored weapon, or at least what he'd used on Linda Kahala, was rendered weak and ineffectual by virtue of the fact it'd become part of the public domain, useless as an interrogation tool. Every madman in the city who chose to confess to the crimes could now state that he was the Cane Cutter, that he used a cane knife. Many would bring a weapon in, wasting hours of lab time in which each instrument had to be checked against Linda Kahala's wounds along the one arm.

  At the moment, thanks to Kaniola, who no doubt believed in his heart that his news story could only help and never hinder the search for his son's killer, any nut with a big knife might walk into a station house and turn himself in.

  Scanlon was right on this score. Joseph Kaniola's story ultimately meant more false leads, more trails to nowhere.

  “I didn't say a word about the weapon, Jim,” Dr. Coran swore.

  “Kaniola says the source of that information came from someone extremely close to the investigation, so if you didn't reveal the fact, who did?” Scanlon persisted.

  Her eyes widened at the accusation, the fact the commissioner of police would not accept her word. “Dr. Marshal, here for one—”

  Marshal was outraged at the suggestion, shouting, “You can't for a moment believe that I had any—”

  “Elwood Warner, the County M.E., any number of lab techs, cops and agents who are notorious gossips,” she continued, “and now Dr. Harold Shore, your own Oahu M.E.”

  “Dr. Shore? That's preposterous,” countered Marshal, defending the absent M.E.

  “He's been sitting up in his hospital bed, demanding the details of the autopsies done on Hilani and Kaniola, as well as the pathology workup on Kahala's arm. I submit to you, gentlemen, that all these people have had access to the information. Information leaks come from any number of directions and sources, and no one's more skillful in getting someone to verify suppositions and filling in half-truths than a crafty, experienced newsman like Kaniola.”