Death in Hilo, page 26
“That’s right,” she admitted, “Daddy wasn’t a saint. I don’t think he was ever the same after Vietnam, whatever he was like before. He saw a lot of combat and got pretty badly wounded. But he was always tender with us. He could be very generous too—he founded that cat rescue organization, or whatever it is, and he loved sharing his catch, just like the obituary said. But he was also a risk-taker, a teller of tall tales, and a gambling addict. That boat itself was the only hard asset left when he died, and it turned out he’d even put a ship mortgage on it. I could easily imagine him doing something shady with Mr. Fortunato, who always struck me as a sleazebag.
“By the way,” she added. “My father did not have any Native American blood. That Tom-Tom stuff was pure bullshit. But typical of him, to claim something like that. Still, for all his faults, my brother and I loved him dearly. He was such a caring father, always looking out for us. He raised us alone after Mom died. He put us through school on the mainland. He was our only parent. His killers had never been arrested, and if one of them remained at large, there was no way I was going to let that go.”
When D. K. Parkes and Fortunato were murdered two years after her father’s death, her first thought had been that her brother Kam had killed them without telling her, she said. But he denied it absolutely and had a solid alibi: he’d been on the mainland the entire year. Then Major Tanaka announced publicly that Michael Cushing’s hit man had murdered Fortunato because of a business dispute. There’d been no explanation for the death of D. K. Parkes and no indication the police connected Fortunato or Parkes to the earlier death of Emma’s father, which officially remained an unfortunate fishing mishap.
She’d pretty much given up on the whole thing and immersed herself in her work before she returned to the Big Island for the TMT job, she said. Keoni Parkes was already working for TMT when she arrived.
“It never occurred to me that Keoni might be related to D. K.,” she told Kawika. “I know that sounds strange, but Keoni was Hawaiian and D. K. was as haole it gets. So it never crossed my mind. I liked Keoni a lot, and we had an excellent working relationship.”
But then several thoughts began converging, she said. Being back at the scene of her father’s death caused her to ponder again, after a long hiatus, how her father’s killer or killers had gotten to shore. Of the possible scenarios, it seemed most likely her father had invited Fortunato to go fishing and asked D. K. Parkes to skipper. But then some third person must have taken the two aboard another vessel after the murder.
“That’s when I became obsessed with finding that third person,” she said. “The third person didn’t have to be related to D. K. or Mr. Fortunato. I just became convinced a third person had been involved, and I was determined to discover that person—a bit consumed by the idea, I admit. I bet you think I should have gone to the police, right?”
Kawika blinked slowly three times. And another three times just to stall.
“I did consider it. But the case was more than a decade old, and Daddy’s death had been ruled an accident. The Coast Guard report was uncontested—how could I contest it? D. K. and Mr. Fortunato had been dead for years. What would the police have done at that point? Nothing, of course. Who could you have interviewed? No one. The situation was maddening.”
One day, though, it occurred to her that Keoni Parkes might be related to D. K. He might have a Hawaiian mother, after all, even though D. K. had been a haole. She could find nothing about his parents in his personnel file. She knew he lived in Waimea—most TMT employees lived there or in Hilo—but he said he’d been raised in Waimea too. That and the spelling of his last name seemed too much to be mere coincidence, she thought.
“But I didn’t feel I could just come right out and ask him,” she told Kawika. “After all, if his dad was D. K. Parkes, then his dad was a murderer and a murder victim too. Pretty sensitive topic. And even then, I still wasn’t thinking of Keoni as an accomplice to Daddy’s murder—he was such a nice guy. No, at that point I just wanted to know if he was a murderer’s son—pure curiosity on my part. I couldn’t find anything about D. K. Parkes on the internet, apart from his occupation and how he’d died. Couldn’t locate anything about a Mrs. Parkes or about D. K.’s children, if any. So I started asking around.”
Dr. Phillips gave a rueful laugh. “After your wife and I talked a bit, she asked whether I knew about an ‘insurance lady from Maui’ or a ‘tax lady from Honolulu’ who’d been asking people whether D. K. Parkes had children. Unfortunately, that pretty much tipped the balance about what I had to do with her. I mean, look what she already knew: She’d discovered I was Emma Gray. She knew from you that my father had been murdered and that D. K. Parkes was one of the killers. She knew Keoni was D. K.’s son. She’d guessed there’d been a getaway boat. Now she suspected I’d made those calls myself—I could just tell. So you see, Major Wong, your wife knew too much. She was getting too close. Ironically, the calls themselves were fruitless. But anyway, after I made them, something extraordinary happened.”
The extraordinary thing, she explained, was that Keoni unexpectedly came to her office one day and said he needed to confide in someone about something—something that had been tormenting him for years, he said.
“I told him he could confide in me,” she said. “I was flattered he’d consider me for that. I assured him we were good friends and excellent colleagues, which we were. I promised I’d keep his confidences. So what was bothering him? I asked. I honestly had no idea what he might reveal. It didn’t occur to me that it might involve my father’s murder. I didn’t even know yet, not for sure, that Keoni was D. K.’s son, much less suspect him of killing Daddy.”
What Keoni confided, she told Kawika, was that his father had been murdered and that the murder had never been solved.
“A perfect opening!” she exclaimed. “I told him my father had been murdered too, and that his murder had also never been solved. Keoni asked about the circumstances, but by then I had an inkling of where this was headed between Keoni and me. So I told him I found it too painful to talk about. I said that perhaps after he told me about his father, I might be able to tell him about mine.
“At that point he went further. He said his father had been involved in killing someone, and he believed that’s why his father had been murdered. Worse, he said, he wasn’t entirely innocent himself.
“It was a eureka moment for me, after so many years. And such an unexpected one. Keoni was starting to cry. At that point I told him, ‘Look, this is just too dangerous to talk about here or anywhere in Waimea. People might wonder what’s going on if they see us talking together and you—understandably—trying not to cry.’ So I suggested meeting in Honolulu on the weekend. Start at a restaurant, and then, depending on where the conversation led, maybe continue at his place.”
She paused and put down her notes. “You can guess where it went from there. You’d like to ask questions about the actual killing, I know. Or you would in different circumstances, anyway. Yes?”
Kawika blinked three times, then blinked three times again after a pause. Anything to keep her talking.
“Let’s just say I intended to shoot him with this gun, the one I’m pointing at you. It’s not traceable. My husband bought it years ago at some swap meet in Arizona—you know, a place where you pay cash and no one asks questions. He’d been saying we should keep a gun in the house for security, and there it was, an impulse purchase. But I didn’t want to shoot Keoni while he was unconscious and tied to his kitchen chair. That would seem more like murder than execution. You don’t execute someone who’s unconscious. Now don’t pretend to black out on me, Major Wong!”
She laughed, but it was a weak laugh, a tired one. Kawika felt sleepy, as if trying to think his way through balls of cotton; his adrenaline was running out. He could tell she was tiring too. Which was not a good sign.
“Anyway,” she said, “I was looking for his laptop and anything that might suggest he intended to tell me, Emma Phillips, about his having helped murder someone—especially if he’d used the name Thomas Gray. I was surprised to find a gun in Keoni’s nightstand. But I figured, what the heck, better than using this one. So when Keoni finally came to, I explained that the man he’d murdered had been my dad—only helped murder, he then began to beg me to understand, immediately after an hour of confiding that he felt as guilty as his father and Ralph Fortunato. Yeah, an hour earlier he’d told it all. He’d known exactly what D. K. and Mr. Fortunato intended. They’d shared their plan with him; his role as getaway driver was essential; they could never have carried out the killing if he hadn’t agreed to bring the second boat; and so forth. But now, when he was crying and pleading for his life, suddenly he’d just been a naïve college kid who’d committed a misdemeanor at most.”
She paused, but only briefly this time. Kawika could tell she was beginning to hurry.
“Then I shot him,” she said, “and you know the rest. As I said in the beginning, I thought that would be the extent of it. Keoni’s death would go unsolved—just like it will now—and we’d find someone else to take Keoni’s place at the TMT, although I doubt we’ll find anyone as good.
“And that’s where it would have ended, if I hadn’t run into Jarvis and your wife at the market, if he hadn’t recognized me as Emma Gray. What bad luck that was. Apart from your dad, I haven’t run into anyone since I got back here who ever knew me as Emma Gray. That didn’t surprise me. I left Hawai‘i as a girl, after all. I didn’t really get my growth spurt until I was in college, by which point I was gone—for good, I thought at the time. That’s also when I decided to become a blonde. And all that was years ago. But Jarvis did recognize me, and it was a no-win situation at that point.
“I pretended we hadn’t met, because that seemed like the least bad choice in the moment. But Jarvis kept making noise, like he was protesting. That’s what made your wife curious, once she’d somehow gotten my maiden name from Jarvis; I didn’t know she’d be able to do that. She hadn’t put it all together, though—she didn’t know Keoni had anything to do with Daddy’s murder, for example. She wasn’t particularly suspicious, I don’t think, just curious. But she was getting warm. And by the time she went home, the two of you would’ve figured it out together. So I had to act.”
Even in his semi-foggy state, Kawika was screaming inwardly: If only Elle had called! If only she’d told me Emma Phillips was Emma Gray!
“By the way, before I taped her mouth and when she was begging for her life, she told me she was pregnant,” Dr. Phillips added, in a tone suggesting she was nearly done. “I don’t know if that was just a desperate ruse. But if it was true, I’m even more sorry about this. However, now I’ve confided in you fully. It’s done. My confidences will be locked away with you forever—not with your body, not in that ancient cattle pit. I prefer to think of you carrying my confidences with you into a black hole in space. And who knows? Maybe you’ll be reunited there with your wife. I mean it, though—I really am sorry.” She paused. “Well, that’s all, I guess. Can’t think of anything else. So, good-bye, Major Wong.”
She stood slowly and extended her arm, pointing the gun at Kawika as he lay at her feet. He began to roll desperately to avoid the shot.
At that moment, three figures wearing oxygen masks and enormous bulky jackets, looking like some species of alien, burst through the control room door. Seeing Dr. Phillips holding a gun on the tightly bound Kawika as he rolled on the floor, all three froze momentarily, then moved to surround Dr. Phillips on three sides.
“Dr. Phillips!” Tommy shouted, ripping off his oxygen mask and facing her. “Put down the gun, Dr. Phillips!” Tommy made downward gestures with his lowered hands, one empty and one holding the oxygen mask.
Tanaka followed Tommy’s lead. From the opposite side, also having removed his mask, he offered calming words. “Dr. Phillips. You’re a smart person. You can see the situation you’re in. Shooting Kawika can’t help. Drop the gun. We’ll arrest you, you’ll get a good lawyer, and who knows if we can convict you for the murders? You’ve covered your tracks pretty well, and your lawyer will know all about creating reasonable doubt for the jury. But if you shoot our colleague right before our eyes, we’ll convict you of that for sure.”
Dr. Phillips kept her gun trained firmly on Kawika. He hoped his colleagues wouldn’t risk shooting her; her gun might still discharge if they did.
Then Ku‘ulei spoke up, standing directly behind Dr. Phillips and aiming her service pistol right at her. “Dr. Phillips,” Ku‘ulei warned loudly, “you shoot my cousin and I’ll blow your head off.”
Emma Phillips, née Gray, seemed to weigh briefly what the three detectives had said. So did Kawika. He stopped rolling, riveted at the miraculous arrival of his colleagues, wondering like a spectator how all this would turn out.
Suddenly Emma reacted. She shot Kawika where he lay, sending him spinning in agony, then swiveled rapidly to her left and shot Tommy straight on, blowing him backward against a wall. She wheeled toward Ku‘ulei and dropped into a crouch to fire again.
At that point, just as she’d warned, Ku‘ulei squeezed the trigger.
39
North Hawai‘i Community Hospital, Waimea
Dr. Terrence Smith, who through seniority had become the dean of the physician staff at North Hawai‘i Community Hospital, no longer performed autopsies. After the Fortunato case, in which he’d performed several autopsies suspiciously, Dr. Smith had understood the police would never trust him again. Better to stay out of their way. But he’d gone right on performing surgeries.
“Oh no,” Kawika mumbled as he looked up from the gurney into Dr. Smith’s face, locking eyes with him for the first time in twelve years but unable to say anything more as the oxygen mask went on and the anesthesiologist began delivering a magic cocktail intravenously.
Dr. Smith laughed. “Don’t worry, Major,” he said. “I won’t let you die.” And he didn’t. He didn’t let Tommy die either.
Now, a few days later, Dr. Smith stood between the beds of Kawika and Tommy in one of the hospital’s semi-private rooms. The doctor faced an attentive group: Kawika’s mother and father, stepfather, cousin Ku‘ulei, and Terry Tanaka. Tommy’s family had visited earlier. Speaking in a soft voice to avoid waking the wounded men, Ku‘ulei quizzed the doctor about their conditions and prognosis. A nurse divided her attention between the two patients, checking a measurement here, adjusting a sheet or blanket there.
“Good thing Dr. Phillips was a bad shot,” Dr. Smith joked quietly, after assuring everyone the patients were out of danger. Kawika had been shot through the upper right chest while lying down, the bullet exiting higher on his back, shattering two ribs and his scapula and just missing his spine. Tommy had been shot through the diaphragm and stomach; several internal organs had been damaged. But again, although the bullet had pulverized some ribs, it missed the spine.
“And it’s a good thing you weren’t,” Dr. Smith added softly, smiling at Ku‘ulei. “A bad shot, I mean. You must be traumatized,” he suggested, sounding sympathetic. “It’s not a common experience. Most officers go their entire careers without firing their gun at anyone, don’t they?”
“I’m not traumatized,” Ku‘ulei insisted, in a voice just above a whisper. “I’m mad I didn’t figure it out the minute Elle went missing. Or even earlier. It seems so obvious now.”
“It was never obvious,” Tanaka assured her.
At that moment a diminutive blonde haole, well-groomed and modestly dressed, walked into the room carrying two small vases of flowers, the vases bearing satin ribbons. “Is it okay to visit Major Wong and Detective Kekoa?” she inquired softly. “If not, I can just leave the flowers.”
“Oh, yes,” the nurse assured her, making no apparent effort to speak quietly. “You come right in, sister. They’re just restin’. All outa danger. Little crowded here, though. Kawika’s papa’s in that wheelchair, you got his mama and her husband over there, along with Miss Ku‘u and Major Tanaka. Plus Doc Smith and me.”
The room was large enough that despite the beds and the wheelchair, all ten people could just fit. Kawika and Tommy lay attached to various tubes, drips, and rhythmically beeping monitors, while oscilloscopes shone reassuringly with steadily advancing waves. Above their aloha-patterned coverlets, Kawika and Tommy both looked bruised and yellowed. They were resting, as the nurse had said. At the moment it seemed their rest consisted of deep sleep.
Five people had turned to regard the newcomer. Jarvis, the sixth, couldn’t turn, but she walked over and lightly kissed his cheek. “Aloha, Jarvis,” she said softly, before straightening up to face the others. “I’m Patience Quinn,” she whispered.
Fuh-fuh-fuh, Jarvis intoned in his version of a whisper. Fuh-fuh-fuh.
Patience smiled. “Normally I’m Patience Quinn,” she corrected herself quietly. “To Jarvis, I’m Flea.” Then, after a pause, she said, “How are they doing? How are you all doing?”
Everyone stood speechless. Only Jarvis and the two unconscious patients had ever met Patience. But the others certainly knew about her, and she’d heard a lot about them. The room remained awkwardly silent except for electronic beeps from the monitors.
Lily spoke first, in a whisper too. “I’m Lily, Kawika’s mom,” she said, shaking Patience’s hand. “I always hoped to meet you, Patience. We talked about you so much with Kawika, back in the day. He had such affection for you.” Then Lily introduced the others.
“Major Tanaka, I’m glad to meet you at last,” said Patience softly, shaking his hand in turn. “Although I’m very sad it’s in these circumstances. Kawika spoke so highly of you when he was young. And Ku‘ulei—I can hardly believe it, meeting you when you’re already grown up and in uniform. Wow. You were just a girl when Kawika got shot. Got shot the first time, I mean. You were with him, right? How old were you then?”
“Almost twelve,” Ku‘ulei replied quietly, sounding a bit standoffish, as if she considered Patience an intruder in this family scene. “I’m twenty-four now. I work with Major Tanaka as a detective.”
