To Catch the Setting Sun, page 17
“What? He’s a racist?”
“A racist, an anti-Semite, he’s a total nutcase. Prison psych records describe him as bipolar, manic, paranoid, you name it, a full fruit salad. How or why he ever got out of prison is a testament to our broken justice system.”
“I’m not surprised. We got lots of these guys walking around, yeah?”
“Yeah. Believe it or not he lives a few doors down from me, moved there several months ago, shortly after I did. If you ever see him at your café, you call me right away. If you ever see him anywhere near your house, you call me, and if he ever tries to get into your house, even if he’s knocking on the front door, you shoot the bastard. You shoot him dead, then call me, and I’ll take care of the rest. You got it?”
She nodded. “Do you think he’s the guy? Do you think he’s been killing those girls?”
“At this point, I couldn’t swear to it in court, but my gut says he is. He’s at the top of my list, and I’d have no problem punching his ticket.”
She stared at the photograph, and he could tell she was shaken.
“I don’t know why, but I feel a little more worried now that I know this.”
“It’ll be okay…trust me. Kaelani’s got a score to settle with him, and we have a couple others who’ve got our backs. It’ll be okay. Now go ahead and get back to work.”
****
Kaelani sat opposite Henry and Maya, not knowing what, if anything, to say. For many months she had only known Maya as Mary from Hokulani’s Oceanside Café, and Mary the waitress had served her many breakfasts, sometimes lunch, occasional dinners, and had become the focus of her fantasies. They’d had coffee together on her days off, talked about their favorite things to do on the island, favorite movies, and especially their relationships. Kaelani had shared personal experiences that she never did with anyone before. And although she would never admit it, she was now experiencing a crushing ache about the waitress who was the motivation for her increased patronage at the café. She now assumed that the special guy “Mary” had often lamented over was actually Henry, and until that moment, she never considered him to be a romantic, let alone someone who had honestly cared about the Hawaiian people. Now she wondered how much of everything else Maya spoke of was true or part of a made-up persona to maintain her cover. She felt betrayed and hurt by the deception while admiring her ability to maintain it for so long.
“I have a lot of questions. I honestly don’t know where to start,” she said while studying the contours of Maya’s face—a face she had caressed and kissed so many times in her dreams.
“Then I’ll simply start, and you can ask any questions that come to you,” Maya replied in a calm, collected voice.
“Before she starts, Hank, please tell me who’s the girl in the morgue wearing Maya’s toe tag?”
“Henry, Leilani deserves to have her full story told,” Maya softly instructed to his nod.
“Wait a minute,” Kaelani said. “You call him Henry?”
“Yes, I’ve always called him Henry.” She smiled at her husband.
“She’s the only one who does. I actually like that she’s the only one. It keeps the cop part of me separate from my personal life,” he said. “When we’re together and she says my given name, it reminds me that I’m human. The poor girl in the morgue was our tenant, and she was also a friend. Please understand that in her death, if it means anything, she has continued to honor that friendship by providing cover for Maya because at the time, I believed, based on the note that was left with her body…I believed the killer thought he was murdering my wife, or he wanted us to believe that was what he thought.”
“What are you saying, Hank?”
“It has been, and it still is, our belief that Maya was the original target. She wasn’t picked at random by a serial killer. When this guy got into our house and found Leilani, he killed her thinking she was Maya. Now, keep in mind that there’s a chance he knew it wasn’t her, and Leilani, having seen his face, paid the price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Wait, stop, let me get this straight. If Maya had been targeted, you’re saying this was a contract hit, yet it’s possible the killer had no idea what she looked like. But if it’s true he was hired, how would he not know his target?”
“Except for the few years’ difference in their ages, Leilani and Maya do look similar to the untrained eye. Same height, weight, hair, and skin color.”
“But it was ritualistic. A contract killer wouldn’t take the time to do what was done.”
“True, but maybe it didn’t start out that way. Maybe the whole thing flipped a switch inside this guy’s brain.”
“And the other four killings?”
“Well, you see, that’s the curveball that’s thrown me for a loop. I’ve also been thinking that this guy has something against me. We discussed this, remember? Every one of those girls were tied to me in some small way. And that’s why I want us to discuss Costa. So, before we get any further on that detour, let me add, if whoever wanted Maya dead had found out the hitman missed his mark, she would’ve still been in danger. It was my decision to let people think that Leilani was Maya. Are you with me so far?”
“Go on, Hank.”
“I enlisted Hoku to help us. We gave Maya a new identity. New name, changed the way she wore her hair, she started wearing glasses instead of her contacts, and Hoku agreed to let her live with her and work as a waitress at the café…just until I was able to find the killer and the person who ordered it,” Henry said, then stood to get a cup of coffee.
“Okay, but how did you get away with using this Leilani person as Maya’s corpse? Who is she? Didn’t people know she lived with you guys? Weren’t you concerned she would be missed?” Her eyes darted back and forth between the two.
“Maya, I’ll let you explain how Leilani Kalua came to live with us.”
Maya thought for minute, turned to Henry, and asked for a glass of water.
“I was a teacher at the Prince Kuhio Academy in Manoa. There was this girl, a young woman actually, and she was homeless. That was Leilani. She said she was twenty-eight and had been living on the streets since she was twenty-one. I’d see her every morning when I arrived at the school. How and why she chose that location I can’t tell you; she never said. She’d be in the parking lot, and some of the academy staff would bring her breakfast each day. Sometimes they’d bring her a new blouse, some old tee shirts, a pair of slippas, stuff like that. Day after day, month after month, she was there in the parking lot waiting for breakfast. She never spoke to any of the staff, and they never really made any attempt. They would just leave the stuff for her and go about their business. One day during lunch break, I noticed she was still out there, so I brought her a lunch from the cafeteria and asked if she’d mind some company. She really appreciated the contact, the human connection. It became a regular thing. She looked forward to it…and so did I.
“She was nice, I liked her and, to be honest, I felt bad for her. She was all alone in the world…no family, no friends, no partner, nothing. She wasn’t even born in the islands. Her parents were, they were Kanaka, but had moved to Vegas because they couldn’t afford to live here anymore.”
“That’s a familiar story,” Kaelani said. “That’s happening more and more these days. Go on, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“She told me both her parents were addicts and had died within weeks of each other from overdosing. She ended up on the streets, started hanging around the casinos, and started selling her body just so she could buy food. After having been beaten a few times, she figured if she was going to die, she didn’t want to do it in a seedy motel room on the strip. She wanted to do it here, her ancestral home.”
“One day Maya comes home from work and starts telling me all about Leilani and how she wanted to help her,” Henry said, returning to the table with coffees for all of them. “I ran a background check with the information I had. Las Vegas PD confirmed the girl’s story. She had a record for petty theft…food from a convenience store, stuff like that. We did a search to try and find family of any kind. She had a grandmother who lived windward side, but she died years ago.”
“I began bringing her sack lunches and sometimes took her out for dinner…even brought her home one night so she could have a hot bath and get a good night’s sleep. That’s when I asked her if she would like to live with us. Henry looked at me like I was nuts, but we had an extra bedroom, and I figured if she had a safe place to stay, healthy food to eat, and people who cared about her, she could find work, find purpose in life, and get back on her feet…ironic now that I think about it.”
“Ironic? In what way?” Kaelani asked.
“I thought I was giving her a safe place to live. If I had left her on the street, she’d still be alive.” She looked at Henry.
“Oh, Maya, that’s not on you at all,” Kaelani offered. “So, she had no family, no friends, just you two.”
“That’s right,” Henry continued. “Leilani lived with us for about a year, right, Maya?”
“Yes, that’s right. She was the perfect tenant. Quiet, clean, respectful, and she became a friend. Henry and I would go off to work, and she took it upon herself to clean for us, do laundry, and she even cooked. She was a fantastic cook. She would have been great at the Oceanside Café. She said it was the least she could do to repay our hospitality and friendship.”
“The night she was killed, Maya and I had gone out for dinner and a movie. When we got back, we found her bound, gagged, partially naked, and sliced up…just like the girls who followed. Maya went into shock. I think I did too. I read the note several times, and something came over me. All I could think about was protecting my wife. I realized the killer had no idea what she looked like and thought he had the right target. I called Hoku since she lived a couple blocks away, told her what happened, and asked her to let Maya come over. Then I called HPD. I’m sorry, Kaelani, I’m sorry I deceived people, I’m sorry I deceived you, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“So you’re telling me Hokulani is an accomplice in this coverup?” she asked and waited for a response. Henry and Maya were momentarily silenced. She continued. “Don’t worry, I’m not telling anyone. That story stays in this room for now, until we find this guy, and then the truth will have to come out…you both know that, right? So why do you think you were targeted, Maya? Who would want you dead?”
“I believe this began when I was a little girl…I was nine years old. My mother brought me to Oahu to meet family. Uncles, aunties, cousins. They lived here on the Waianae Coast. One day the whole family went to this big harvest party at one of the farms in the valley. All the adults and most of the children who were there were sent out into the fields to gather a wide variety of fruits and vegetables to be sold at the farmer’s market. And everybody got to take home a basket of produce for free. At sunset, we gathered under the stars for a big luau in celebration of a successful harvest.”
“I’m sorry, but what does this have to do with anything?”
“The man who sponsored the event was famous among the people. They honored him with leis and tributes. He walked around as if he were King Kamehameha himself. People lined up to talk to him, little children sat on his lap as if he were Santa Claus, and we each got a dollar from him. And his wife was so young and so beautiful. She too held court among the women who were there. They all knew her and were so proud of her. I remember the women would want to have their picture taken with her, and they kept saying she was ’O kā mākou pono’ī. Am I saying that right?”
“One of our own. Yes, you said that correctly.” Kaelani smiled.
“Between the food and the music and the fireworks, it was like Christmas, New Year’s, and the Fourth of July all rolled up into one big party. Anyway, this man who walked around as if he were the king took a fancy to my mother, but I could tell she was uncomfortable around him, so she kept trying to avoid him. The more she did, the more he pursued her and showered her with compliments. I kept trying to follow, but there were too many people, and it was getting dark. I lost sight of the two of them, and it seemed as if they were gone for hours, but it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes. Eventually I saw him coming out from a heavily wooded path. He had scratches on his face and a bloodstain on his shirt. People came running to help him. He said he had gone for a walk and tripped in the darkness, falling into a culvert of some sort. I ran down the path to look for my mother…and I found her. Her clothing had been torn off, her face was beaten and bloody, and my relatives learned later on that the doctors said she had been raped. At the time I didn’t know what that meant. She was beaten so badly that she was in a coma for several weeks. My father flew out here so he could bring her home to the rez, the reservation where we lived. She never fully recovered and had many health problems during that next year…eventually she died. I knew that man was responsible for what had happened to her, and he and his wife had known I was aware of what he had done. They acted so surprised and sad that she was so badly injured, and they insisted that she too must have taken a walk in the dark and fell into the culvert.”
“What did the police say?”
“No one called the police. There was no ambulance, nothing. The old man ordered somebody to put her into the back of a pickup truck like she was cattle, and she was driven to the hospital in Honolulu. The wife volunteered to pay the hospital bills and pay for us to fly back home to South Dakota. I was told that the local news ran a story of her bad accident and the generosity of this man and woman. They were celebrated by everybody. Later on, after my mother passed, my father tried to talk to the doctors or get records from the hospital, but he was told there were no records of her ever being there.”
“Maya, who was the man that did that to your mother?” Kaelani asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? Ernesto Mendoza. He was the one who raped and beat my mother. He killed my mother, but I have no proof, and who is going to believe my suspicions all these years later? Henry, water…please, I need some water. For many years I suppressed the memory, and for many years I had nightmares and dreams of my spirit guides coming to counsel me. I kept a journal of those dreams.”
“That’s the leatherbound book I saw on Hank’s nightstand, the one next to your picture.”
“When Henry and I moved here after college, I wanted to live in Nanakuli, close to those cousins of mine. But it wasn’t until last year when I volunteered at a food bank that I ran into Noelani Mendoza. I didn’t recognize her at first, but when I watched the way she talked to little children, handed them dollar bills saying that it was her deceased husband’s tradition, the memories flooded back. I must’ve said something, I don’t remember, but she suddenly turned in my direction. That’s when I saw the recognition in her face. She looked horrified and angry all at the same time. A cold chill ran through me. I didn’t know what to do. The next thing I know, she’s rushing to her limo, and she was gone.”
“Are you saying that she’s the one who wanted you dead?”
“Help me with this, Henry…I’m a little light-headed.”
“Hank, this is crazy. A woman of her wealth and position?”
“Think about it. A woman whose deceased husband’s name and reputation still opens doors for her. A man whose existence, corrupt or not, lifted up impoverished people better and more consistently than any politician ever did and as such has buildings, high school athletic fields, and streets named after him. Maya’s story can take it all away. This woman has wealth and social standing that she wants to desperately protect, and she’s not gonna let someone from the past destroy that life.”
“Did you ever question her?”
“Several months ago, I was going to. I set up an appointment to meet with her, and the next thing I knew, I was transferred to Waikiki, got purposely bogged down with more crap than you can imagine. Anytime I tried to pursue her as a lead, I was conveniently derailed. I had to work this case when I was off the clock, and of course, her secretary could never find an opening on her calendar. Doesn’t it make sense that her son was the one who got me transferred?”
“So you let it slide?”
“No, not exactly. I got Freddie Becerra to do it for me. He dropped in on her unannounced. And while she was polite to him, by the time he got back to the station, he got called in on the carpet and took one hell of a rip for doing that.”
“And what did he find out, anything?”
“Are you kidding? She had to have known that a day would eventually come where she would be questioned. She was well rehearsed, and without having the actual killer to say ‘yes, she’s the one who hired me,’ with her legal team and connections to police brass, politicians, and judges, I’d be the laughing stock of the island. I need the killer. Without him, that woman will never see the inside of a jail cell. I know Nicky Costa is your uncle, and I’ll bet anything he’s the guy.”
“We’re not blood.”
“Exactly!”
“Why do you think he had anything to do with this?”
“Why are you protecting him? You know as well as I do he’s responsible for the disappearance of your auntie. You know his history. You’ve seen his rap sheet. How long are you going to let him get away with it?”
“That’s my issue and my issue alone.”
“No, not anymore. If I didn’t know any better, you’re waiting for an opportunity to take him out. Believe me, I understand that, and I don’t wanna take that away from you, but I want…I need that waste of a human life alive. I need him to give up Noelani Mendoza. You’re calling the DA, and I’m driving you in to town so we can get that search warrant. Please, you know we gotta do this.”
Chapter 15
There are times when I wake,
it is the middle of the night,
and I feel lost.
I panic, and then like magic
I feel my mother with me.
