Death in Hilo, page 28
“Well, we learn more from mistakes than from successes,” Kawika had reassured him. “So welcome to Honolulu. I’m glad to have you.”
Kawika had accepted Rhodes’s account. He’d grabbed at the chance to add a celebrated homicide detective to the force. Now he tortured himself with questions, including whether his ambition to become chief, or some related inattention, might have added to his haste and sloppiness in recruiting this monster. He knew the self-doubt would never go away.
He also found he couldn’t let the matter go. So weeks after Rhodes’s death, Kawika called the head of homicide at LAPD again, the one who’d been Rhodes’s boss and said nothing to warn Kawika off him when Kawika had first inquired.
“I’m sorry about that,” Kawika’s LAPD counterpart told him. “When someone leaves, our lawyers won’t let us do more than confirm his or her rank and dates of employment, so we don’t get sued. But now Rhodes is dead, I’ll tell you this: we never completely believed him about that shooting in Griffith Park. His story sounded too neat. Yet when we looked into it, very quietly, we couldn’t pin anything on him either. It was all murky. Still, some of us suspected Rhodes might have been the serial killer himself. I’m not saying he was. I’m just saying the killings stopped when Rhodes left. The guy he shot might just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
This disturbing information only served to agitate Kawika further. But he could think of nothing more to do, nothing that would offer him any peace of mind.
* * *
An HPD review established that Yvonne had fired in self-defense, since Rhodes had fired twice before the shot that killed him. The forensics team decided to overlook why Yvonne hadn’t kicked Jerry’s gun away once he’d dropped it from his right hand. Dr. Noriko Yoshida—“Three shots, Kyu? Two while he was lying on the ground?”—also required a forceful talking-to from Kyu Sakamoto. When she resisted, Sakamoto reminded Dr. Yoshida that HPD guessed it was she who’d been providing off-the-record information on Keoni Parkes and the Slasher case to Zoë Akona and Bernard Scully.
Yvonne received separate HPD and city commendations for her bravery, her marksmanship, and for bringing the notorious Kapi‘olani Park Slasher case to an end. But Sakamoto advised her privately that she should start thinking of moving on. “You shot and killed an HPD officer,” he said. “Jerry was a bad guy, a serial killer, so you’re in the clear. But people may think, given your marksmanship, that you could’ve wounded him again instead of killing him. In any event, Yvonne, you’re now a cop killer. Everywhere you go, you’ll be the cop who shot a cop.”
Yvonne was despondent at Sakamoto’s statement. The cop who shot a cop. So that’s how she’d be known. Never mind that she had taken out a serial killer. To the public and local officials, she might be a hero. But within the department, she could become an outcast, a pariah. She believed that was what Sakamoto’s words foretold. After thinking it over, carefully considering her options, she reluctantly decided she would probably have to quit the force. But then, over on the Big Island, her circumstances unexpectedly changed.
* * *
Chief Ana Carvalho held a press conference in Hilo. She had, she said, a number of important announcements. Terry Tanaka, hands clasped before him, stood beside her on the dais as she spoke. Both of them were in full uniform, even wearing their hats. Tanaka had what looked like several athletic medals hanging from his neck on aloha-patterned lanyards. Behind them on the dais, poster-sized photographic portraits of two smiling subjects rested on easels. One was Kawika, the other Elle. Elle’s portrait was draped in black tapa cloth.
“What the fuck is this show?” Zoë Akona whispered to her seatmate. “Carvalho has something up her sleeve.”
Once the audience had settled down, the chief announced that detectives from Hilo and Honolulu had determined that Dr. Emma Phillips, maiden name Emma Gray, had killed not only Keoni Parkes and Elianna Azevado da Silva, as previously announced, but also D. K. Parkes, Keoni’s father, in 2002. The motive for the Parkes killings had been revenge in both cases. The father and son had murdered Emma’s father, Thomas Gray of Puakō, back in 2000.
Thus, the chief said, the long-unresolved D. K. Parkes case could now be officially closed at last, and the accidental drowning of Thomas Gray would be reclassified as a homicide. But the sad tale also served as an object lesson, the chief added. Emma Gray Phillips, twisted and consumed by anger and hate, had assigned herself the roles of judge, jury, and executioner, the chief said, and in so doing Emma had destroyed a promising career, the gifts she might yet have brought to astronomy, the lives of three other human beings, and in the end, herself.
“Please,” the chief said. “Let’s learn from this. Always remember: leave law enforcement to the professionals, all right?”
Next, she announced that she’d conducted a top-to-bottom review of the 2002 Ralph Fortunato murder investigation. That investigation had been led by the then captain Teruo “Terry” Tanaka and the then Hawai‘i County homicide detective Kawika Wong, now the chief of homicide detectives for HPD. And her official review had conclusively determined that the confessed and convicted murderer Michael Cushing, acting through his hired hit man Roger “Rocco” Preston, had indeed been responsible as charged for Fortunato’s murder, despite suggestions to the contrary in the press and from ex-convict Cushing himself. The physical evidence against Cushing, in addition to his guilty plea in court, was overwhelming, she said, and nothing in the voluminous record of the investigation suggested any other individual was the killer.
It was unfortunate, Chief Carvalho remarked as an aside, that public resources had needed to be devoted to an internal review of a twelve-year-old case at a time when two high-profile murders, those of Keoni Parkes and Elle da Silva, demanded the attention of the county’s detectives, including the highest-ranking one, Major Tanaka. Nonetheless, she said, a thorough investigation had been compelled by the accusations and warranted in order to assure public confidence in the county’s police.
“I can’t fucking believe this,” gasped Zoë Akona to her seatmate. “She’s covering up the cover-up! There’s no way she can get away with this. No fucking way!”
Chief Carvalho continued. “Next,” she told the audience, without pausing or inviting questions, “I spent the day yesterday in Honolulu with the mayor of that great city. She has authorized me to announce here today that beginning next month, I will become the new chief of police for the City and County of Honolulu, where I was deputy chief until I came here. Leaving the Big Island, which in a short time I’ve grown to love, is painful for me.
“But,” she went on, raising her hand and one finger, “the mayor appealed directly to my sense of professional duty. She made clear that had Major Kawika Wong not been seriously wounded in a shooting, from which he is recovering slowly, and had he not also had to deal with the tragic death of his dear wife and my close friend Elle da Silva, whose beautiful photo you see here behind me, the mayor would’ve named Major Wong, pictured here in happier days, to become the new chief in Honolulu.” She paused, turning to the two portraits and extending a hand toward them briefly, palm upward.
“Unfortunately,” she continued, “as you know, Major Wong is now unavailable, and the position must be filled. I’m deeply grateful and honored by the mayor’s trust in me, especially since I was not her first choice. I intend to make her proud, and to welcome Major Wong, my former longtime detective partner at the Honolulu Police Department, to join me again at HPD, this time as deputy chief, as soon as he’s recovered.”
At this news, the stirring of the audience and the flashes of the photographers intensified. The chief raised her voice in order to be heard. “Hold on,” she implored. “I’m not done yet!” The crowd quieted a bit. “I also want to announce,” she continued, still having to raise her voice a little, “that the mayor of our own County of Hawai‘i, here in Hilo, has authorized me to announce that he has agreed with my recommendation and has chosen Major Tanaka to replace me as interim chief of police for Hawai‘i County.”
Chief Carvalho paused to look at Tanaka with a warm smile before turning back to the microphone. “Major Tanaka is our department’s most senior serving officer,” she went on, “and he is still just as smart and effective as ever. As you all know, by quick thinking he recently saved the life of Major Wong, with assistance from Detectives Tommy Kekoa and Ku‘ulei Wong, an action for which all three have received well-deserved decorations from the governor, the county, and our department.” She reached over and lifted the medals hanging down from the neck of Tanaka, who looked slightly embarrassed.
“Major Tanaka will be a superb leader of this department,” the chief concluded. “I could not leave it in better hands until my permanent replacement is found.” This time she shook hands with Tanaka and held the pose in a photo-worthy tableau. But she didn’t ask him to speak. After they’d smiled for the cameras, the two left the dais without taking questions and walked down separate hallways to their respective offices.
Tanaka closed his office door and called Kawika, who was in Puakō recuperating. Kawika was astonished at the news.
“I can’t believe this,” he said. “I mean, the outcome seems great for you and me, better than we could have hoped. But why did she clear us?”
Tanaka chuckled. “Well,” he said, “consider the position she found herself in after you were shot. Suddenly you were in no shape to take the job in Honolulu, and she decided she wanted it. I don’t know what she did to get it, but she must’ve had some powerful leverage with the mayor, who’s apparently known not to like Ana very much.” Kawika let Tanaka continue, deciding not to reveal Ana’s leverage over the mayor. J. Ana Hoover after all, he thought to himself.
“But even so,” Tanaka explained, “she couldn’t very well become chief in Honolulu if she trashed you and me in her report. We’re both heroes at the moment—and you especially, over in Honolulu. You solved the notorious Keoni Parkes murder and nearly got killed for your trouble. And I led the posse that saved you.”
“Sergeant Preston of the Yukon,” Kawika murmured.
Tanaka didn’t pause. “Plus, of course, everyone is still mourning Elle, so Ana would’ve run up against a lot of sympathy for you if she’d done anything else. But in order to clear us, Ana couldn’t leave the D. K. Parkes matter hanging. Either you and I covered up for the killer or we didn’t. That was Ana’s problem. Pinning D. K.’s murder on Emma solved the problem. Fortunately for Ana, it turned out Emma actually was on the Big Island at the time of D. K.’s death, clearing up some matters of her father’s estate.
“And Emma was a powerful woman—powerful physically. Remember what you said when you met her, that she looked like someone from the U.S. Olympic team? She dumped Keoni’s body in Kapi‘olani Park, and she carried Elle’s body into that jungle here in Hilo. So Carvalho had no trouble suggesting that Emma was certainly strong enough to throw D. K. off Shark Cliff. Emma had a habit of making her victims look like somebody else’s, Ana decided to say. You know: Emma copied the Shark Cliff killers with D. K., and she copied the Slasher with Keoni. So Ana was able to tie up everything with a bow.”
“Amazing,” Kawika said.
“Plus, I have to tell you,” Tanaka went on, “Ana really despises that reporter Zoë Akona. She told me, ‘It’s my investigation, and I’m not going to give that woman even one crumb.’ Of course, Ana used a different word than woman.”
Kawika was still disbelieving. “But she was so harsh about what you and I did.”
Again Tanaka laughed, and then exclaimed, “Right! And I told her to her face, ‘You realize, Ana, that what you’re doing to Emma Phillips, pinning a murder on her that she didn’t commit, is no better than what I did to Michael Cushing—an act you were going to fire me for, remember, years after the fact?’ And you know what she said? She said, ‘It’s no better, but it’s no worse either. Emma’s not suffering any consequence, just like Cushing didn’t. And just like Cushing, Emma actually was a murderer too.’”
“Wow,” Kawika responded. “I don’t know what else to say, Terry. I never expected any of this. It’s still hard for me to comprehend.”
But Tanaka did know what else to say. “Kawika,” he began, “I know it’s early still. But I’ve talked to our mayor here in Hilo, and even though Ana announced my post is just temporary, in fact the mayor’s going to make me chief permanently, once Ana’s off the island. Permanently, that is, until I retire, which is still about five years away.”
“That’s great, Terry. Really great. You deserve it, and there’s no one who’d be better.”
“Mahalo,” Tanaka said, “but that’s not why I’m telling you, Kawika. I know you might decide to hang it up, being a cop. And no one would blame you if you’re sick of homicide. I also know what I can offer you is nothing compared with being chief of police in Honolulu, or even deputy. But I’d like you to come to Hilo and join me anyway. Join me and your cousin Ku‘ulei. I’d like you to become chief of detectives for Hawai‘i County, take the job I’ve got now. You don’t have to decide right away. I’ll keep the spot open as long as you like.”
In his weakened emotional state, Kawika found something wet on his cheek. That had happened a lot since Elle’s death, as if his eyes had a small leak. “Terry,” he replied, with forced composure. “You don’t have to make me chief of anything. Just let me come work for you again. I’d like to come back, Terry. I want to come home.”
Days later, having thought about it, Kawika called Tanaka and added a condition: “I need to be able to bring my Honolulu trainee with me. I need Yvonne Ivanovna.”
“Of course,” Tanaka replied. “I’d be delighted. She and Ku‘ulei can talk story about shooting bad guys, maybe teach us some things.”
* * *
Kawika gave up the job and condo in Honolulu. He didn’t give up being a detective, and he didn’t give up homicide. He found a small apartment in Hilo and kept the Puakō house for weekends and occasions when work took him to the other side of the island.
He also spent a lot of time with his recovering colleague Tommy Kekoa up in Waimea. And one day Kawika sat down with Tommy and told him who’d killed Ralph Fortunato and D. K. Parkes, and why. It wasn’t Thomas Gray’s children, as Tommy had guessed that evening in Puakō. It wasn’t even just one of them—the late Dr. Emma Gray Phillips—as Ana Carvalho had said publicly.
“I can’t explain why I didn’t tell you when I was twenty-nine,” Kawika said. “You were my best friend and the one person in the world I could have told. God knows it was no fun carrying the secret around with me until Elle made me tell her. I apologize, Tommy. I’m so sorry. Truly.”
Tommy appeared moved. “Kawika,” he said, “I forgive you for having been young. You should forgive yourself too.”
At the spot where Elle had lain in a shallow grave, Kawika built a small cairn with rocks he’d selected from the slopes of Mauna Kea and the beach at Puakō. He didn’t know what else to do. He attached no sign to the cairn, leaving it with no indication to others of its significance, although he cut and maintained a narrow path through the jungle to reach it. He visited it whenever he was in Hilo, almost ritually and always alone.
Kawika finally staged Elle’s memorial service in Honolulu, and was even able to join the many other speakers in celebrating her life. Afterward, he and Ku‘ulei, sitting astride surfboards, scattered Elle’s ashes at sea in a simple Hawaiian ceremony, casting flowers on the water and reciting the Lord’s Prayer together in Hawaiian, Kawika intoning the soothing and sonorous words Ku‘ulei had taught him in preparation for their somber little voyage. As Kawika paddled back to shore, he resolved to resume surfing again, just to be with Elle on waters now imbued with her spirit.
Shortly after he’d done all that, Kawika took a final step. He tracked down Sammy Kā‘ai in retirement and suggested they go have a beer. “Time we made up, don’t you think?” he asked Sammy. Overcome, Sammy collapsed against Kawika and clutched at him, startling Kawika by beginning to sob.
Tanaka, for his part, finally got the records from Elle’s phone—about two weeks after Emma Gray Phillips was already dead. The only unexplained call had come from a pay phone outside the KTA grocery in Waimea on the afternoon Elle had disappeared. Tanaka could guess who’d placed it. He saw no point in trying to dust the phone for prints.
* * *
A month or so after Ana Carvalho’s last press conference in Hilo, Zoë Akona was surprised to be offered, unsolicited and out of the blue, an eleven PM television news anchor job in Sacramento by a local network affiliate. Despite the dizzying salary and benefits the station proposed, even hinting they might listen if she asked for more, Zoë was undecided about leaving Hawai‘i, about giving up her just-launched profession as a print journalist and particularly as a reporter—something she knew a TV news anchor job, especially the eleven PM slot, didn’t offer in the modern era of talking heads.
Her indecision lasted until the TV station manager, in his effort to persuade her, told her she’d been suggested for the job by an old friend from his Honolulu TV days, the new chief of police, Ana Carvalho. Chief Carvalho had called him, he said, after watching the late-night news on his station when she happened to be passing through the city a few weeks earlier.
Hearing this, Zoë called Chief Carvalho and, to her surprise, readily got through to her. “Why did you tell a Sacramento TV station they should hire me?” she asked. “I mean, it’s a remarkable opportunity, and I’m grateful. I’m just surprised you told them about me. You didn’t even tell me.”
“They need more racial diversity, Zoë,” Ana replied evenly. “And the Star-Advertiser has plenty of Hawaiian reporters already. Plus, at the reception after my swearing-in, I had a nice chat with Bernie Scully. Bernie’s an old friend, and it’s great for him professionally, of course, that someone he knows personally is now chief. He was also a good friend of Elle da Silva’s, like me. Spoke to Elle’s journalism class and all that; maybe you first encountered him there? Anyway, Bernie and I talked about your career, and he suggested you need a little more experience. A few days later, he called to say that the managing editor’s taking you off the police beat, maybe moving you to high school sports for a bit.”
