by Toby Neal
“Where was this lab located?”
“It’s a simple plastic structure. I’ll show you. Anyway, one day when I was out there working, Cam came out to my lab with my supplies. He was really agitated, said something had upset him on the way and he wouldn’t talk about it. A few days later, I smelled the body of the first poacher and saw what it was, but I was too scared to approach it or report it because I knew I was up there illegally and I worried I would be implicated.”
“So why didn’t you tell us all of this when we first brought you in?” Lei asked.
“I didn’t say anything because I wanted to find a way to get back up to continue my research. I was able to continue while you were investigating the shooting of the first poacher, and I didn’t know Cam had shot that man for sure, or I would have been more forthcoming earlier. Time went on; then I spotted a second poacher. I told Cam about him, and then you guys captured me.”
“You should have come clean about all this the first time we questioned you,” Lei said. “If the accusations you’ve made about Dr. Rinker are true, Jacobsen might not have been killed.”
“I know that now. Cam was protecting me. He hadn’t told anyone about our arrangement. I know how dedicated to the birds he is—but it never occurred to me until later that he was the one shooting the poachers. The thing you have to know is, we kept our bows with us all the time in case we came across any ungulates in the forest. After the first time I almost got caught by Lieutenant Texeira here, I realized what a precarious position I was in. I buried my bow and disposed of my arrows, so when you guys did find me with the dog, I didn’t have them. I didn’t want to get charged—I just wanted to stay in the forest and finish my work.”
“So to clarify: You suspect Rinker of shooting the poachers,” Pono said.
“Yes. But he never said he did, and I never had any reason to suspect him except that he was upset that one day. Don’t even know if that was the day the first poacher was shot.”
Lei and Pono glanced at each other.
“So, according to you, you’ve done nothing wrong but dodge getting deported and help bury a body?” Lei put some steel in her voice.
“I know it was wrong to dodge the deportation, but the research is more important than my visa. It was also wrong to help bury Jacobsen’s body. But I was scared—first of being deported and charged, then of Cam and what he’d do to me if I went to the authorities.”
“So you’re afraid of Rinker.”
“Definitely. He has a way of looking at you, like he really means what he’s saying—and he’s told me nothing matters but the birds. I believe he weighs a human life as less than one of the birds. Don’t get me wrong—I love the birds. I’ve risked everything to continue this research. But I’d never kill someone over them.”
“No, but you’d help drag the body of an innocent young ranger into the forest, bury him where he’d never be found, and allow him to be framed for murder,” Lei said, feeling anger flash heat her cheeks and chest. She imagined how she looked: eyes glaring, skin patchy red. It didn’t matter—Jacobsen hadn’t deserved what happened to him. Lei saw remorse and regret in Kingston’s expression for the first time as color leached out from purple hollows under his eyes, and he covered his face with his hands.
“I’m so sorry,” he muttered. “This has all gotten so crazy.”
“I think you have enough for now,” Shimoda said.
“Yes. We still have some loose ends to tie up. But we are not releasing Kingston. He’s going to be in our custody for a full twenty-four hours, and then we’re going to find something to charge him with,” Lei said. They stood up.
“Hold on. We just signed an agreement,” Shimoda said, his brows snapping together.
“Yeah—but your client’s too much of a flight and safety risk to let out of our custody, so we’re going to charge him with visa violation, trespassing, and whatever else we can think of that we didn’t list on your agreement, to keep him locked up,” Pono said. “All we have at this point is your client’s word that any of this is true, and we need to pick up Dr. Rinker to verify the story. Go ahead and take it up with the district attorney, if you don’t like it.”
“You can bet I will,” Shimoda said, and his narrowed eyes promised a fight as Lei and Pono left him and his client alone.
Chapter Twenty
Lei and Pono took one of the squad cars to go pick up Rinker at his house in Haiku. Even well after dark, time was of the essence. If Rinker somehow became aware they were looking for him, he could disappear.
“He shouldn’t have any idea we’re coming,” Lei said, unfolding the arrest warrant they’d just received for Cameron Rinker, PhD. “As long as the news hasn’t released the story on the body we just found, he should be thinking we’re still chasing Jacobsen and have no idea we’re onto him and Kingston.”
“I hope it will be that easy,” Pono said, rubbing his mustache. A backup unit followed them at Captain Omura’s insistence, but no one had their siren or lights on, and Lei had requested radio silence. If Rinker was monitoring the police band, he wouldn’t be aware of their approach.
“A lot of people have died for these birds,” Lei said. “Be a shame if Kingston’s research really would have helped them.”
“It should still be published. I can’t see why not,” Pono said.
“Well, we have no idea if he might be deported. If he is, we’ll have a hassle getting him back to testify against Rinker.” Lei fiddled with her medallion, frowning.
“Eh, no worries. We’ve got this bird freak. I’m sure once we get Rinker in custody, we can find some physical evidence tying him to Jacobsen’s murder, if not the poachers,” Pono said.
The cruisers swerved back and forth to stay in the narrow lanes of the back roads as they wound up into the jungled beauty of Haiku, smothering and dense in the dark. Lei kept an eye on the GPS for Rinker’s address, and they turned into a narrow mud driveway, bumping up a rocky, slippery slope to pull up in front of a dingy house.
Several trucks were parked in front, and light spilled out into the darkness through a screen door. Lei jumped out with the backup officers and was right out in front as they sprinted up onto the porch and pounded on the door.
“Police! Open up!”
A worn-looking woman in her sixties, hair to her waist, came to the door. She wore a tank top and a pair of tie-dyed Lycra pants.
“What’s this about?” the woman exclaimed, eyes wide.
“Cameron Rinker. Where is he?” Pono asked, pulling the door open and marching in.
“Cam Rinker? He hasn’t lived with us for months,” the woman said, hand to her throat.
They searched the house and the small, surrounding illegal rental units on the property, everything from a yurt to an old school bus having been made into rental space, and finally Lei circled back to the woman who’d answered the door. “So when did you last see Cameron Rinker?” she asked.
“At least six months ago. He rented one of our units, but not for a while now,” the woman said.
Lei and Pono dismissed the backup unit. “Went off the grid, I bet,” Lei told them.
Pono backed perilously down the slippery driveway as Lei hung on to the sissy handle. “Drop me off at my house,” she said, glancing at the dashboard clock. It was eleven p.m. She had only until four p.m. the next day, and with the case taking this turn, they’d need every minute of it. “We’ll get back on this early tomorrow.”
“I’ll call in a ‘be on lookout’ for Rinker and his known vehicle,” Pono said, “but I’m guessing he decided to make it harder for us to find him once he killed someone. Putting out a BOLO might alert him that we’re looking for him. He could be monitoring the police band.”
“We can just put it out via fax to the commanding officers. Any of our people might be able to bring him in if they come across him. Let’s do the BOLO and hope someone scoops him up. Otherwise, I’m guessing the easiest way to pick him up is going to be through the Hawaiian Bird Cons
ervatory and his job there. I bet he shows up for work tomorrow.”
They called in the BOLO, and Pono drove her to her cottage nearby. Keiki barked and leaped frantically at the gate of the dark little house, and Lei realized she’d been hoping Stevens would be waiting for her, the house alight, food cooking. Her shoulders sagged. Her eyes felt gritty, her stomach hollow, and her ribs ached.
Pono patted her shoulder. “I won’t remind that you could be on your honeymoon right now.”
“Thanks, partner, for the support.” Lei got out and slammed the door. Her heartache and disappointment made her voice hard, even as she knew her hope had been unreasonable. “See you bright and early tomorrow. Be prepared to work until the last minute.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Pono said, and roared off.
Lei turned and unlocked the gate, walking up into the dark house. Her hand on Keiki’s smooth head was the only good thing in the world.
Chapter Twenty-One
Morning came too early with the buzzing of Lei’s cell phone beside the bed. She lifted it sleepily to her ear. “Texeira here.”
“Lieutenant, good morning. This is Ben Cantorna. We picked up your person of interest, Cameron Rinker. He was trying to get on a plane.”
“Glad we put out that BOLO,” Lei said, sitting up and swinging her legs off the side of the bed. “Did you get ahold of my partner?”
“He’s on his way in.”
“See you soon. Thanks for the call.” She hit Off and stood up, glancing at the clock. It was four a.m. She had twelve hours left.
Rinker blinked pale eyes and frowned. A sandy-haired man of medium height, Lei had hardly paid attention to him when he came in to be interviewed with Dr. Snelling regarding the bodies of the dead birds. Now, seated at the steel table in Interrogation with cuffs on his skinny wrists, he still looked completely unsuited to the role of criminal.
Pono sat beside Lei, holding the pad and pen they were hoping to use for a confession.
Lei decided to start off gentle. “Can I get you some coffee?”
“No, thanks. What’s this about? I was pulled out of line at the airport. Quite an embarrassing scene. No one has even told me what I’m being charged with.”
“Relax.” Pono smiled, man-to-man. “We’ve had some developments in our shooting case in Waikamoi, and we just wanted to get ahold of you to talk about them, but not over the phone. Sorry for the drama; we went to your last address, and they told us you’d moved out six months ago, so we had no way to find you but to pick you up on a BOLO.”
“Oh.” Rinker dropped his shoulders, relaxing. This is what they wanted, to lull him into some admissions since they didn’t have anything but Kingston’s testimony tying him to the crimes.
“Yeah, bummer way to start the day,” Lei said, sipping from her Maui Police Department coffee mug. Her eyes still felt gritty, the two Advil she’d taken for the headache she woke up with churning uneasily in her stomach. Her phone was off in her pocket. She’d listened to messages from her family and Marcella on the way into the station, and they’d just made her feel guilty. She should have deleted them. There was nothing from Stevens, and she clung to the memory of their brief conversation. “Let’s get some things cleared up quickly. What can you tell us about what’s been going on with research into the birds on Haleakala?”
Rinker blew out a breath and wriggled his wrists in the handcuffs. “Since you just need to ask me some questions, are these necessary?”
“Oh, sorry,” Pono said, flipping through a bunch of keys for the handcuff key he carried and unlocking the cuffs. “Standard procedure.”
“Okay. Well, then, there’s some really promising research being done. We’re racing against the clock with the malaria; the birds have to be able to develop antibodies before global warming allows mosquitoes to be able to survive at higher elevations. So I’m personally doing all I can to facilitate projects that will move us in the direction of permanent solutions.”
“Would any of these solutions involve a young man named Edward Kingston?” Lei asked.
Rinker blinked rapidly. His sandy-blond eyelashes gave his light blue eyes a vulnerable, innocent look. “I thought Kingston’s work showed promise, yes.”
“Tell us what you know about him.”
“Well, what do you want to know? Why has his name come up?”
Rinker was fishing. Lei kept her face flat. “We’d like to know everything you know about him.”
“He has a promising theory. He pitched it to me and Dr. Snelling when he was trying to get permission to stay in Waikamoi and continue his research after his internship finished.” Rinker glanced back and forth between them. “Dr. Snelling turned him down.”
“And you?”
“I’m not in a position to grant such permissions.”
“Really? Even if you could see the merit of his project?” Lei asked. So far Rinker wasn’t volunteering anything useful. It had already occurred to her that Kingston could be playing them, and until they found hard evidence, it was all a dance of lies with these two men.
“I might have wanted to do what I could to facilitate his research, yes.”
“And what was that?”
“I turned a blind eye when I suspected he dodged his visa expiration and was continuing the research project. In fact, I think he might be the mysterious camper who built the blinds for bird-watching.”
“Really?” Lei said excitedly, to goad him into saying more. This was such old news that it was hard for her to pretend. But as she’d hoped, he took the bait.
“Yes. When the rangers were concerned about who could be camping out there, I was pretty sure it was Kingston.”
“What about when the poachers were shot? Didn’t you also think that might be Kingston?” Pono asked.
“Well, now that you mention it, it seems likely,” Rinker said. His blinking had slowed to an intermittent flutter.
“So why didn’t you volunteer any of this when we conferenced with you earlier?” Lei asked.
“I wanted Kingston to complete his research. It’s very important. It might save the birds.”
Lei switched gears. “What can you tell us about a young ranger named Mark Jacobsen?”
“He was a fine young man.” Rinker’s eyes were back to rapid blinking.
Lei pounced. “Was? You refer to him in the past tense.”
“I just meant—hey. Do I need an attorney?”
“Do you?”
A long beat. Lei could almost see Rinker’s mind turning over his options. She decided to tip it in the direction of confession. “We picked up Kingston yesterday.”
“Oh.” Rinker’s shoulders drew up as he blinked.
“Yeah. Said you were his inside man, keeping him supplied so he could keep going with his research, but then you made him help bury the ranger’s body and set him up to get popped for the murders.”
Rinker opened and closed his mouth, and finally he spoke. “I’d like an attorney.”
“So you don’t deny these accusations?” Lei said.
“Yes. No.” Rinker frowned. “You’re trying to confuse me. Yes, I deny these accusations! I didn’t do these things. Okay, I admit I knew Kingston was back in the forest. I even helped him out a little here and there, left some supplies for him and such. But I certainly didn’t shoot those poachers or, God forbid, that ranger. Did you hear me ask for an attorney?”
“We did.” Lei and Pono stood up. “Who would you like us to call?”
“Shawn Shimoda.”
“Hmm, that could be a problem because Kingston has already retained his services. Any other names?”
“That bastard,” Rinker said, his eyes narrowed and mouth tight. “He set me up and took the attorney I told him was good. Okay then, call Greg Santos.”
They left the interview room, leaving Rinker to stew. Lei had Cantorna call the man’s attorney. Back in the observation room with Captain Omura, Lei put her hands on her hips. “We can’t let either of these guy
s out. They’ll run.”
“Agree. So we have twenty-four hours to make a case against Rinker or Kingston, or both, and charge them. Lei, you have less than twelve hours to be involved.” Omura quirked an eyebrow at the clock on the wall registering six a.m.
“I’m wishing we hadn’t made a deal with Kingston. I thought Rinker looked really shocked, like he didn’t see it coming—that he’d been set up.”
“Either or both of them could be acting. For all we know, they’ve done everything together,” Captain Omura said. “We need to find something hard now. Something tying either of these men to the victims, and keeping Kingston in the country to testify or be tried is a big concern with how long these things take. Still, that’s the DA’s problem. Your job is to find something. Go search everything you can find on either of these guys and bring something in so we can charge one of them for these murders.”
Lei and Pono headed back to their cubicle.
“I think things will go faster if we split up,” Lei said. “I’ll take Cantorna and find where Kingston’s been camping, and you take Bunuelos and search Rinker’s place. He’ll have to give you an address. Do we have all the warrants we need?”
“Yes. Sounds good.”
“Okay. Be a chance for me to help Cantorna with his searching skills.”
“Trouble is, you don’t know where Kingston’s been living or where his lab is. I mean, he’s been living rough.”
“I have hopes we’ll find his lab out in the forest and will find something there. He told me he’d tell me where it was and where he buried the bow and arrows he had on him before we picked him up.”
