This time his smile was a twitch. “Let’s use the word ‘incident,’ shall we?”
She nodded. “Not long before the…incident…a few days, I think…I went to Judge Steadman—he’d been very kind to us, during the trial. I told him I feared for my daughter’s life. Not only were those five rapists running wild and free, this escaped criminal Lyman was reported to be in Moana Valley.”
“Who?” Darrow asked.
“Daniel Lyman,” Leisure said. “A murderer and rapist who walked out of Oahu Prison with a burglar pal of his on a New Year’s Eve pass. They’ve since ravished two more women, one of them white, and committed numerous robberies. The partner was captured but Lyman’s still at large. It’s been a major embarrassment to the Honolulu police.”
“But a boon to Admiral Stirling,” I said, “in his efforts to shake out the department.”
Darrow nodded, as if he knew what we were talking about. To Leisure he posed: “Was this in the materials Lt. Johnson provided us, before we boarded the Malolo?”
Leisure nodded.
I turned to our client. “Mrs. Fortescue, were you afraid this Lyman might attack your daughter…?”
“No,” she said, with a bitter little smile, “but he would have made a convenient scapegoat, had she been found dead, would he not? And without Thalia, there is no case against those five defendants.” She frowned to herself. “Four defendants, now.”
Darrow leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Tell me—how did your son-in-law hold up under all of this pressure?”
She glanced toward the closed door behind which Lt. Massie napped. She lowered her voice to a whisper and said, melodramatically: “As much as I feared for Thalia’s life, I feared for Tommie’s sanity.”
Darrow arched an eyebrow. “His sanity, dear?”
“I feared he couldn’t withstand the strain—he’d become sullen, he wasn’t sleeping or eating well, he became uncharacteristically withdrawn….”
A knock at the door interrupted, and Mrs. Fortescue imperiously called, “Come!” and a galley gob came in with a silver tray bearing cups of coffee, a creamer, and a bowl of cube sugar.
As the sailor served us, I sat studying this proud, rather dignified society matron and tried to picture her masterminding the kidnapping of a brutal Hawaiian rapist. I could picture her serving hors d’oeuvres; I could picture her playing bridge. I could even picture her, just barely, inside that dusty bungalow on Kolowalu Street.
But picture her party to guns and blood and naked dead natives in bathtubs? I couldn’t form the image.
“You had no intention of taking a life,” Darrow said ever so gently, “did you, dear?”
“Absolutely not,” she said, and sipped her coffee, pinkie poised genteelly. “My upbringing is Southern, but I assure you, I am no believer in lynch law. I cannot state that too emphatically. My upbringing, my family traditions, early religious training, make the taking of another’s life repugnant to me. Like you, sir, I am opposed to capital punishment.”
Darrow was nodding, smiling. He liked the sound of this. I didn’t know if he bought any of it, but he liked the sound.
“Then exactly how did this happen?” I asked.
“Incrementally,” she said. “As you probably know, after the first trial ended in a hung jury, the five defendants were required to report to the Judiciary Building every morning. I think it may have been Judge Steadman’s hope that they would violate his edict, and he could issue orders for their imprisonment…but they were reporting regularly.”
“Who told you this?” I asked.
“Judge Steadman himself. I was also friendly with the clerk of the court, Mrs. Whitmore. She was the one, I’m afraid, who planted the seed.”
“The seed?” Leisure asked.
“Mrs. Whitmore’s the one who told me the second trial was being delayed indefinitely. The district attorney’s office was afraid of another hung jury—and after another mistrial, the accused could not be tried again—those beasts would go free! The prosecution, Mrs. Whitmore said, had made such a mess of things in the first trial, it was going to be impossible to bring about a conviction unless one of the defendants confessed.”
“So you decided,” I said, “to get a confession yourself.”
She gestured with a flowing hand, as if she were explaining why it had been necessary to postpone this afternoon’s flute recital, and substitute a string quartet.
“I had no sudden inspiration, Mr. Heller,” she said. “The notion emerged gradually, like a ship from the fog. I asked Mrs. Whitmore if the five men were still reporting to the courthouse, and she said they were. She mentioned that the big Hawaiian reported every morning.”
“By ‘the big Hawaiian,’” Leisure said, “she meant Joseph Kahahawai?”
Mrs. Fortescue nodded, once. “I lay awake that night thinking about what the clerk of court had said.”
“And the ship,” I said, “emerged from the fog.”
“With remarkable clarity,” she said. “The next day I went around to see Mrs. Whitmore again. I told her I’d heard a rumor that two of the accused rapists had been arrested, over at Hilo, for stealing a motor. She said she doubted that, but checked with the probation officer, a Mr. Dickson, who came out and spoke to me, assuring me that Kahahawai had just been in that morning. I asked, don’t they all come in together? And he told me, no, one at a time, and at specific hours—he couldn’t have them dropping in on him at just any old odd time,”
“So you established the basic time that Kahahawai reported in to his probation officer,” I said.
“Yes. Then I went to the office of the Star-Bulletin to get copies of newspapers with Kahahawai’s picture. I began studying his features in a clipping I carried with me. That evening, I spoke with Tommie about my idea. He admitted to me he’d had similar notions. And he’d heard a rumor that Kahahawai had confessed the rape to his stepfather! I suggested perhaps we might inveigle the brute into a car on some false pretense, whisk him to my home, and frighten him into confessing.”
“And what,” Darrow asked, “was Tommie’s reaction?”
“At first he was enthusiastic—he’d spoken to Major Ross of this newly formed Territorial Police, and to several others, who gave him the same impression I had gotten—that without a confession, there would be no second trial, certainly no conviction. But then he wavered—how, he wondered, might we manage to get the native into our car? I wasn’t sure myself, quite frankly—but I said, ‘Can’t we display at least as much cunning as these Orientals?’ And then I remembered Seaman Jones.”
“Jones?” Darrow asked.
“One of the two enlisted men we’re defending,” Leisure prompted.
“Ah yes. Please continue, Mrs. Fortescue.”
“In December, this young enlisted man, Jones, had been assigned to act as a sort of bodyguard to Thalia, my daughter Helene, and myself, while Tommie was away on sea duty. When Tommie returned, young Jones remained in the neighborhood as one of the armed sentries who patrolled Manoa Valley.”
Part of Admiral Stirling’s efforts to protect Navy personnel and their families against the “hoodlum element” roaming suburban streets.
“Jones became friendly with your family?” I asked.
“Oh yes. When he was guarding us, he’d often provide a fourth for bridge; when he was patrolling, he’d stop in for coffee. Occasionally we’d provide a couch or a chair for him to take a nap. Such a sweet, colorful boy with his tales of adventures in the Far East.”