I had a couple of reports from beat cops in the district, but only one seemed interesting. Around the time the Marriage Project had been shit-bombed, an officer named Frank Sit had seen a dirty pickup truck with a couple of guys in the back, without a license plate. He’d called it in, but no units had been able to respond. He did remember the back gate had been broken in a distinctive way. That was quite possibly the truck the receptionist had seen outside the Marriage Project’s office.
One of the secretaries picked up a plate lunch for me from a vendor outside and I sat at my desk and ate. I was just finishing when Kitty Sampson walked in. She wore a blue UH T-shirt, a pair of cargo shorts and huarache sandals. On her right arm jangled half a dozen bracelets, some set with gemstones, others carved in intricate patterns.
“If you’re looking for your dad, he’s not here,” I said. “He went to some kind of statewide police conference in Hilo. The secretary out front might know how to reach him, though.”
“I know he’s not here.” She sat next to my desk. “That’s why I came in today. I wanted to talk to you, and he’d kill me if he knew.”
“That doesn’t sound good. What’s the problem?”
“I’m a lesbian. Jim and I don’t talk about it, but I’m sure he knows.”
I was surprised, more by the fact that she called him Jim than by her revelation. Since I came out, gay people have become very open with me. It’s like, they know I am, and they want to level the playing field right from the start.
“And you’re here because…”
“I want to help you investigate the bombing Wednesday night.”
“Whoa,” I said, holding up my hand. “Let’s take this one step at a time. You didn’t witness anything, did you?”
She shook her head. “But I’ve been pumping Jim for everything he knows about the case, and I have an idea. You know that Reverend White and his wife? The ones who are preaching against gay marriage all the time?”
I nodded. “We’re looking into them. Investigating everybody who’s expressed opposition to the lawsuit.”
“They came to preach at UH last week,” she said. “A friend and I went to hear them, just to know what they were saying. And I can’t say exactly how, but I know they’re involved.”
“I appreciate the advice. I’ll take a good look at them.”
“You won’t be able to find anything out. They know you’re gay.”
“The whole island knows I’m gay. Sometimes I think the whole state. But that hasn’t stopped my investigation yet.”
“You need someone on the inside.” She waved her arm, and the bracelets clacked against each other. “Nobody knows I’m gay, not really. I want to volunteer to help them, get into their circle. I’m sure I can find out what’s going on.”
I shook my head. “I just can’t let you do that.”
“I want to be a cop,” she said. “I’ve been watching Jim since I was a little kid, seeing what it is that he does. And I can be good, too. I can pass every physical test the academy gives already, and I’ve got my marksmanship certificate. But I know that when people see me they think of me as Jim’s daughter. I don’t want anybody to think I’m crawling along on his coattails. I’ve been working on this paper, on the relationship between religious cults and violent activity, and if I can tie the Church of Adam and Eve to the bombing then I can win the essay prize in criminal justice, and nobody can say I did that because of who my stepfather is.”
“I can see you’re serious. But you’ve got to recognize that if somebody in that church is responsible, then it’s way too dangerous for you to get involved.”
“It’s too dangerous to sit back and let them keep on killing.” She leaned forward. “I can’t do that. I’m going to join up with them, whether you help me or not. I have to do it.”
“Your father would kill both of us if he knew.”
“I’m not going to tell him. You’re not either, are you?”
I sighed. “You’re putting me in a terrible position.”
“They’ve got a worship session Sunday at that storefront they use for a church. I’m going to go and talk to people.”
I thought about it for a minute. Sampson would kill me with his bare hands if I let something happen to Kitty. But she had a point; somebody needed to get into the Church of Adam and Eve and see what was going on.
“I’ll go with you.”
When she started to protest, I held up my hand. “There is no way I’m letting you do this by yourself. These people are malihinis, after all. They think all islanders look alike. I’ll get myself enough of a disguise to pass. And it’ll be easier for you to blend in if you’re my wife, than if you’re a single girl.”
She thought about it. Finally she nodded, and we agreed to meet on Sunday morning before the church service. “But you know,” she said, “you don’t have to worry about me. I know how to keep a secret. After all, I’m gay, aren’t I?”
I had to admit she had a point.
HERE’S THE AIRPLANE
Harry called me late that afternoon to report in. Brandon was better, but Arleen was keeping him at her mother’s for the weekend, just to be extra careful. He’d finally caught up on his sleep, and then he’d spent some time surfing the Internet looking for people and groups that were opposed to same-sex marriage.
“Way more than I expected,” he said. “I mean, it’s amazing. Don’t these people have lives? Like those people who were out protesting on Wednesday night. Don’t they have anyplace better to be?”
“I don’t know, brah.” He had printed out a lot of stuff for me, he said, and I told him to fax it over to the station. “I’ll read it. Sometime.”
“I’ll keep looking. I just wanted to get you what I found so far.”
The fax spewed out pages for a depressingly long time. I started reading, taking notes, making piles based on how crazy the people seemed to be. Some of the arguments were clear and well-reasoned, though they all failed to change my mind. There were a couple of arguments from libertarians, who said that government shouldn’t regulate any interchange between private individuals. There was a group of bitter, divorced men who said that nobody should get married because marriage was an institution, and who wants to be confined to an institution?
A few made pseudo-scientific arguments, saying that men had a biological imperative against monogamy. Most of them were ungrammatical rants that strayed into religion and fear of pedophiles. Those writers seemed to believe that once men were allowed to marry each other, the next step was guys marrying their Labradors, or women copulating with donkeys in church. The writers hid behind screen names or pseudonyms, though when I found an actual name I ran it through the computer.
I was surprised, though probably I shouldn’t have been, how many of those who made religious arguments had criminal records. They were my most promising suspects, including a guy in Makiki Heights with a record of felony assault, a woman in Aiea who’d served time for graft, and a guy from Red Hill who had a string of misdemeanors for disturbing the peace, public drunkenness and indecent exposure. None of them had any record for bombings, arson or deadly assault.
Lidia called in at the end of her shift. The only item on the list that was unusual was potassium chlorate, and only the Long’s on University had sold some within the last month. “I found the clerk who sold it, and he recognized the sketch.”
“Lidia, you’re a gem.”
It was after seven when I finally gave up and left the station. I walked down the street to The Queen’s Medical Center, rubbing my arms against a chilly breeze that swept down South Beretania, skittering trash along the deserted sidewalk. The small cafes and convenience stores that service the downtown population were closed and the line of parking meters were all available and showing red expired circles in their windows, like a long row of tombstones at an unattended cemetery.