Kalani raised an eyebrow at the sarcasm but continued. “What happened next?”
“The only thing that popped into my mind was taking out the truck. We were dead meat otherwise. I eased our left front fender into his right rear bumper in a half-assed PIT maneuver,” he added, referring to the “tactical ramming maneuver” police officers sometimes use to stop a fleeing suspect.
Kalani was pecking quickly now on his iPad.
“The road was wet, which helped pull it off. Once his truck broke traction, it started a slow, clockwise spin across our lane and passed in front of us going ass-end first. They left the road and rolled down the embankment, still going pretty fast.” As Marchetti spoke, the sickly, hospital smell of alcohol and whatever else being used started to get to him, and he started feeling nauseous. “I called 911. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, two ambulances and a couple of police cars showed up and brought us here.”
Kalani nodded. “Mahelona Medical Center in Kapaa would’ve been closer and is normally the go-to facility for this part of the island. But its trauma unit is being modified, so they’re understaffed now. Wilcox Memorial here in Lihue is larger, with first-class surgical units and a trauma team on duty 24/7. That’s why they brought Miss Steele here.”
“What happened to the driver of the pickup?” Marchetti asked.
“Still looking for him–and anyone else who might’ve been involved.”
“Hard to believe anyone would survive that crash.” Marchetti thought for a moment. “Any ID on the shooter?”
Kalani checked his notes. “Driver’s license gives his name as Albert Gautreaux from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. NCIC has him with two priors: aggravated assault and second-degree murder.”
“Nice fellow.”
Kalani reminded Marchetti to report the accident to the car rental firm in the morning. He pushed his iPad aside and leaned back in his chair. “The Ford F150 was in pretty bad shape at the bottom of the hill, as you might guess. We’ve got a tow vehicle on its way there now, and they’ll bring both vehicles back to our impound lot tonight. We’ll go over them in the morning.”
“If you’d let me know what you find out, I’d appreciate it,” Marchetti said, although he didn’t expect them to find anything significant, other than three or four bullet holes and a whole lot of blood in the Mustang.
Kalani didn’t reply but asked, “Where are you staying on Kauai?”
“The St. Francis Resort in Princeville.” Kalani knew the hotel and wrote down Marchetti’s contact numbers.
Marchetti checked his watch. “If that’s all you have, Sergeant, I’d like to check on Vicki now.”
“Sure. Just don’t leave the island. Homicide and some other folks want to talk to you, to verify some things about what happened tonight.”
Marchetti glared at him for an instant. As a former prosecutor, he understood how criminal investigations went. But after what’d happened that evening, he didn’t like the way Kalani framed his request about remaining on the island as an order. His patience was running thin, and Kalani picked the wrong time to play “tough cop.”
He folded up his hospital discharge papers and rose from the chair.
“I’ll cooperate as best as I can, Sergeant, as long as I’m getting a fair shake. But you barely got a blip on my blood alcohol reading, an ex-con tries to kill us, and our car is riddled with bullets. I’d say you need to accept my version of events as gospel and find the damn driver.”
3
Marchetti returned to the nurses’ station. The young nurse behind the counter informed him Vicki was still in surgery, and there had been no change in her reported condition since the last time he asked. He didn’t expect a lot of detail because of hospital privacy regulations, but he was hoping she’d at least give him a little more than she had given an hour ago.
He gave the nurses information they needed concerning Vicki’s next-of-kin, power of attorney, and contact numbers while on Kauai. When it came to Vicki’s health insurance, however, he suggested they contact her employer, KWDX-TV in Dallas. With every question they asked, he felt more concern about her condition and frustration over not being able to help.
As he considered whom to notify, he remembered Vicki’s mother had recently moved to Dallas to be closer to her daughter. Most of Vicki’s friends also lived in the Dallas area, one exception being her former college roommate, Janine Nichols, who ran the St. Francis Resort in Princeville where they were staying.
Marchetti found Janine’s number on Vicki’s cell phone. Under ordinary circumstances, he wouldn’t even consider calling her at that hour, but he was sure she’d be hurt, angry, or both if he didn’t contact her immediately.
She answered in a perky voice, which he assumed meant she was still awake. “Janine, this is Mike Marchetti.”
After a brief pause, the name registered. “Oh... hi!”
“Sorry to be calling so late, but I thought you’d want to know. Vicki’s in the hospital.”
She gasped. “My lord... what happened?”
“Long story. She’s in surgery with a gunshot wound. I’ll fill you in on details when you get here.”
“In Kapaa?”
“No–Wilcox Memorial in Lihue. ICU.”
“On my way,” she said, and hung up.
Forty minutes later, an out-of-breath blonde walked into the waiting area and offered her hand. “How’s she doing?” she asked.
“Still in surgery. Don’t know anything more than that.”
“I’m in shock! What on earth happened?”
Marchetti let out a deep breath and gestured toward a bank of chairs. Once they sat down, he began, “After dinner someone started tailing us on the Kuhio Highway. Eight or ten miles down the road, the two men pulled alongside us, and the passenger started shooting. Vicki got hit bad–left side of her chest.” Janine leaned forward, as if making sure she’d heard him right. “In hindsight, as soon as I realized they were following us, I should have turned around, made my way around them somehow, and hightailed it back to Wailua Beach–not tried to make it to Princeville.”
She shook her head. “Nonsense. How could you have known something like this would happen? They could have fired at you head on.”
They talked awhile longer, and then she gestured to her right. “Let’s go back by the nurses’ desk again. They might have more news by now.”
They walked over to the station, and Janine handed the nurse on duty her card. “I’m manager of the St. Francis Resort in Princeville and a close friend of Ms. Steele’s. Can you give us an update on her condition?”
The nurse set a prescription bottle she’d been examining off to the side and punched keys on her computer terminal. “She’s still in OR... expected to be there at least another hour. As soon as we hear anything further, we’ll let you know.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“Sorry, I don’t have that information.”
“All right, thank you,” she said, disappointed though not surprised by the nurse’s response. “Perhaps you could page us in the coffee shop when you hear something?”
“Certainly.”
Janine led Marchetti down the hallway to the hospital café. “Sorry we’re meeting just now and under these circumstances,” she said. “I was on the Big Island on business when you and Vicki checked in.”
“Of course.”
“All we can do now is hope and pray. They have a good trauma center here; I’m sure they’ll do all they can. We can talk over coffee until they call us.”
Marchetti wasn’t in the mood for talking, but hot coffee sounded good. He felt certain it was going to be a long night.
They walked into the tiny café on the first floor, filled foam cups from an urn near the cashier’s station, and took seats at a small wooden table off to the side.
Janine idly stirred her cream and coffee while they talked about Vicki and how worried they were about her. “She’s a fighter; I’m certain she’ll make it.”
Marchet
ti nodded. “I think so, too.”
“Any thoughts about what you’ll do while she recovers?”
Marchetti thought it an odd question but considered it nonetheless. “Stay with her for as long as necessary–here on Kauai or wherever else her doctors recommend–and then take her back to Dallas when she’s able to travel.”
She nodded. “You can certainly remain at the St. Francis as long as you’d like. Vicki is top priority for both of us. What about work–your law practice and such?”
“My partner’s buying me out and taking over my cases, so for the first time in ages there’s nothing I need to rush home to.”
After several moments of silence, she said, “I wanted to talk to you about something once you and Vicki got here and had a few days to relax. But this might be a good time to bring it up, while we wait to hear from the doctors.”
“Sure,” he said, having no clue about what was on her mind.
“I’m guessing you’ll be here awhile, and this episode tonight could be relevant.”
“In what way?”
She paused a few moments, wondering how her proposal would go over with Marchetti under the circumstances. “I’ve lived on the island five years now and feel it’s a wonderful place to put down roots–wouldn’t trade it for anything. But it isn’t the peaceful, idyllic atmosphere it appears to be–or used to be.”
Could’ve fooled me, he thought. In the two days he and Vicki had been there, they’d seen nothing but gorgeous scenery and a laidback atmosphere suggesting only relaxation and pleasure.
“We have problems on the island,” she continued, “and I’m very worried about where things are headed.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Some are mainly nuisances: ‘goon gangs,’ for example, attacking Caucasian tourists for money or simply to be obnoxious. But with tourism our main source of revenue, business leaders on the island are rightfully concerned, myself included.”
“Of course.”
“It’s more than that, however. We’ve got numerous unsolved murders for one thing.”
Marchetti shrugged. “Nearly every place does.”
She shook her head, emphatically. “Far more than you’d expect on an island this size, out in the middle of nowhere. After a lot of begging and arm-twisting at the governor’s office, we finally got a cold case unit assigned to our police department, including two experienced prosecutors and a few senior investigators. But the cold cases are no closer to being solved, and I don’t see much progress.”
“Have a theory?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Not really. Some think we have a serial killer on the island, and while I’m not ready to go that far, I don’t have an alternate explanation, either.”
“Could be any number of things.”
She shook her head again, as if she’d given it a lot of thought. “We’ve also had tourists go missing, and you’d think that would be one of the state’s highest priorities. But relatives have come to the island and given detective sergeants names of locals the missing persons may have known–even offered rewards in some cases–and so far they’ve come up with a big fat zero. A few have publicly accused the Kauai police of ‘bureaucratic indifference’ or worse. And while I defend our police department whenever possible, I can’t disagree with that opinion, either.”
Marchetti nodded in sympathy. “I would think tourists simply going missing would be pretty unusual–especially on a relatively unpopulated island like this.”
She took a sip of coffee and leaned back in her chair. “We’ve also had several unexplained deaths the past few years: experienced hikers suffering supposed ‘cardiac events’ on easy hiking trails; violent deaths ruled suicides by the medical examiner with no credible evidence offered.”
Janine was starting to sound convincing, Marchetti admitted. His experience as chief felony prosecutor suggested incidents like the ones she’d mentioned might be more than just accidents or unexplained occurrences, given no other rational explanation.
“So I figure, since you may be here on the island a while, I’ll bring you up to speed on our problems, and you can take your time thinking about my proposal.”
He nodded, appreciating her directness but not ready to commit to anything... whatever it might be. There were a hundred reasons not to get involved in anything Janine might suggest–the most important of which was ensuring Vicki’s complete recovery.
“Vicki’s told me a lot about you,” she said. “I feel I know you well already.” She placed her hand on his bandaged arm for just a moment. “She adores you, incidentally.”
Marchetti nodded. “The feeling’s mutual, I assure you.”
She continued, “Based on what she and I have talked about the past few months–how you and your friend put your lives on the line to stop those potential disasters in Dallas–I have a great deal of respect for both of you.”
“Thank you.”
“And I was planning to talk to you and Vicki about this over dinner, but I think she’d be okay with me discussing it now.” Marchetti was increasingly curious about where this conversation was headed but didn’t interrupt. “One of the suspicious deaths I mentioned was particularly devastating to me.”
He figured there had to be a personal angle. “Who was it?”
“A friend of mine. Perhaps you’ve heard of him: Bradley Vaughn, a reporter with the Washington Post.
“Sure, his series of columns brought the revered and respected General Thomas O’Neil down in flames. Seems the married general admitted having a long-term relationship with a female junior officer on his staff and was relieved of duties.”
“Right. But it wasn’t simply the affair that got him in trouble. She was one of his closest aides at the Joint Chiefs, so the close relationship presented blackmail opportunities, unauthorized access to classified information, that sort of thing.”
“I remember.” In fact, he’d read the whole series of articles and wondered how a respected three-star general who’d commanded US forces in the Middle East and other notable assignments had managed to screw up his career so badly over a junior officer, no matter how attractive she’d been.
“And while the columns certainly got Brad the national attention he deserved, they may also have led to his death.”
“How’d you get to know him?” he asked.
She paused to grab a tissue from her purse. “I first met him the day he checked into our hotel. We started talking about hiking the different trails on the island, hit it off, and began dating a week or so later. You can guess the rest– ‘swept me off my feet,’ as they say. He planned to stay on Kauai beyond his original itinerary, even had a place picked out to rent just west of Princeville, when everything changed.”
“So you two were serious.”
“Very much so.” She turned away when he saw the tears in her eyes.
“How’d he die?”
“The official cause given was severe trauma to the head and torso as the result of a high-speed automobile crash. Seems he hit the side of a bridge and then a power pole on a deserted stretch of road southeast of the missile base.”
“What missile base is that?”
“It’s called Barking Sands–on the west side of the island.” Subconsciously, perhaps, she placed her palms together, prayer like. “I swear to you, I’d been on the road with him many times, and he never drove fast. In fact, he was always super-cautious. I often joked with him about us being passed up by Vespas.”
Marchetti shook his head. “Then it doesn’t make sense, unless he was running late for a meeting or something else important. Was he on his cell phone at the time?”
“The police say he wasn’t.”
“Alcohol or drugs?”
She shook her head. “Toxicology showed nothing.”
“Where’s the car now?”
“At our storage facility near the hotel. It was a car we didn’t use much, so I lent it to him for a few weeks. We’ll probably just sell it for p
arts now.”
“Well, don’t do that just yet, in case an investigator wants to look at it.” He thought for a minute and continued. “The unexplained deaths and crime problems you mentioned, is there an issue with the Kauai police relevant to Brad’s death?”
“Absolutely–maybe the issue. We have a dysfunctional police department, in part because it’s seriously undermanned, based on the number of personnel authorized in the budget.”
“How’d that happen?”
“The high cost of living here has a lot to do with it. We’re unable to hire new officers because of the comparatively low salary, and the officers we already have can’t make it on what they’re being paid, which makes some of them susceptible to attractive offers of outside income, not always legit.”
Unfortunate, he thought, but Kauai wasn’t the only police department in the country with that situation. “What else?”
“We also have a serious drug problem. Meth and cocaine, mostly, thriving industries on the island and no one willing to do anything about them. So bad, in fact, a few of our officers have been disciplined for complaining about alleged ties between their own vice squad members and local organized crime figures.”
The comment took him by surprise. “Organized crime on Kauai?”
She nodded. “And that’s not supposed to happen on a peaceful, beautiful island. As just a few examples, seems the son of a Las Vegas mob figure and his cronies continue to use a local mortgage company as their personal piggy bank. Two of our police officers were recently accused of misusing the National Crime Information Center database to tip off drug dealers. We’ve got judges and city council members on the take. More than many other places, money talks here, and threats of harm talk even louder.”
Marchetti didn’t know whether to believe her or not. They were serious allegations. She didn’t seem like the type to over-hype a story, but people do tend to exaggerate local problems when affected in a personal way.
“And some agency hasn’t looked into all this by now?”
She shrugged. “The mob guys argue they’re just simple, honest businessmen trying to turn around a troubled company or two. So I don’t know if a grand jury will ever indict.”
The Omega Covenant Page 2
