“Yes,” Harry said.
“The only thing I’ve got on Charlie Stahl’s killer is a partial license plate. It could take forever to pull up every match and analyze them.”
“You ought to be able to automate that a little,” Harry said. “Eliminate the vehicle types that don’t match. Eliminate cars registered on the other islands.”
“Our system isn’t that sophisticated. You have to do all that sorting by hand.”
“I can write you a program that’ll do that. You just get me the data file.”
“You can?”
“Sure. The data must have VIN numbers in it, right? And addresses, including zip codes? It’s a simple sort. How soon can you get the data?”
“Let me make a call.” I hung up from Harry and called our computer tech. I explained what I needed and gave him Harry’s phone number. He said he’d take it from there.
I hung up. There was something dancing around the edges of my brain, a connection between Hiroshi Mura and Charlie Stahl. But what was it?
Lieutenant Sampson loomed above my desk in black polo shirt and black slacks. “In my office. Now.”
I didn’t like that tone. What had I done now?
“Shut the door behind you.” He stood next to his desk, and from the way his jaw was clenched and his eyes narrowed, I figured he was plenty mad. I saw his eyes dart across to the picture of Kitty-and then I knew.
“I’m sorry,” I said, before he could blow up. “I didn’t know what else to do. She was determined to go to the Church of Adam and Eve on Sunday, and I knew that she would, no matter what I said. So I went with her.”
“Do I need to remind you that my daughter is not a sworn officer?”
“You know Kitty a lot better than I do. But she strikes me as the kind of girl who follows through on what she says. Can’t convince her to change her mind.”
Sampson’s shoulders relaxed a little. “I’ve been trying to convince her not to become a cop since she was twelve. No matter what I do, she just does what she wants.”
“Did she tell you about the picnic on Thursday?” I asked.
His eyes were wary again. “No. Tell me.”
“This couple we met at the church.” I closed my eyes, searching my brain for their names. I have this trick I use sometimes, connecting a name to something else as a way to remember. I can’t use it that often, because of the wild ethnic soup we have in the islands, but I’d connected that couple to a president. Out loud, I started reciting any presidents I could think of. “Carter, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Nixon, Roosevelt, Coolidge, Harding, Taft… wait, Harding. That’s their name.”
I opened my eyes to see Sampson staring at me with something like a grin on his face, which disappeared almost immediately. “Fran and Eli Harding.” I shrugged. “They seemed nice enough.”
“It’s that kind of insight that makes you a great detective,” he said dryly. “Tell me about this picnic.”
“I don’t know much. They called to invite Kitty, and she accepted. I told her that if she didn’t tell you by tomorrow, I would.”
“So that’s why she called me this morning,” he said. “If I hadn’t spoken to you, she’d probably go on this picnic Thursday, and then Friday she’d say, ‘I told you, Jim. You just don’t listen to me.’”
“I’ll bet you listen to her a lot more than she realizes,” I said.
“Obviously, she is NOT going to this picnic,” he said. “At least not alone.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, lieutenant. I’m taking some personal time Thursday afternoon. My dad’s best friend passed away. The wake’s a command performance.”
His lips set in a grim line. “I’ll talk to Kitty. If necessary, Thursday will be take your daughter to work day.”
I went back to my desk, trying to remember what I’d been thinking about before the confrontation with Sampson, and my phone rang.
“Hey, brah, long time no hear.”
“Akoni! Geez, man, this is a surprise. What have you been up to?” Akoni and I had gone through the police academy together, and we’d been detective partners in Waikiki for three years, before my transfer downtown. “How’s Waikiki?”
“Not there any more. As of yesterday, I’m in the same building as you.”
“No shit? What’s up?”
“Yumuri is losing it,” he said. I could tell he was lowering his voice in order to speak about the lieutenant who had supervised us in Waikiki. “Ever since the business with you, he’s been acting weird. Rumor has it they’re moving him soon, maybe somewhere out in the country where the stress isn’t so bad. I heard about this opening in Organized Crime, they needed a detective for a special project, I figured I’d come over here for a while, see what happens back in Waikiki.”
“Wow. I had no idea.”
“And you know what else sucked? He had me partnered with Greenberg, and the guy’s a real asshole. Thinks he knows which way the sun rises and sets. I just couldn’t take it any more.” Alvy Greenberg had been Lidia Portuondo’s boyfriend, and the one who’d outed me to the rest of the squad. Though he’d been my friend once, I didn’t feel bad hearing that he’d turned out to be a jerk. “Listen, reason why I’m calling? A name came up I know you’re familiar with. Chin Suk.”
“Uncle Chin. You know he died on Monday?”
“Yeah. They sent us the autopsy results, I thought you might want to know. What we all want-massive heart attack. Took him right out.”
“They think he might have been awake at all?” I explained about the table, the spilled bottle of pills.
“Possible. But there was nothing anybody could have done to save him. This was the big one.”
“Thanks, brah.” It felt good to know that Jimmy Ah Wong couldn’t have been involved. “We’ll do lunch sometime, all right? Now you’re here in the building.”
“Yeah. You gotta tell me the good places to eat. I got heartburn from yesterday like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I’d believe it. Nobody told me where to eat, the first couple weeks I was here. Listen, brah, I gotta go. I’m in the middle of a big case. But we’ll talk.”
I stared at the phone after I hung up. It took me a while to get back to work; I kept going back to the idea that Uncle Chin had died peacefully. Then why had Jimmy run away?
Now all I had to do, while finding the bomber and whoever shot Charlie Stahl, was find Jimmy Ah Wong and let him know he was off the hook.
HARMLESS MISCHIEF
I tried to let my mind relax, see what kind of connection I was missing, but all I kept coming back to was the name Ed Baines had given us. I raised Mike on his cell, out in the field ruling out arson at a house fire in Mo’ili’ili. “I want to go over and talk to our buddy Jeff White. You want to come with?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I gave him the address, and he agreed to meet me there.
A half hour later, I pulled up at the shopping center on Wai’alae Avenue and parked in front of Puerto Peinado, the hair salon owned by Tatiana’s friend Tico, where Mike was leaning against the wall in a square of shade. The air was still, not a hint of a breeze to carry the exhaust fumes and traffic noise up to the mountains or out over the ocean. It was incredibly hot and I understood why Mike was waiting in the shade. “You realize this salon is run by a known homosexual,” I said.
“You know him?”
“Not in the biblical sense.” I explained about his friendship with Tatiana.
“Like your friendship with Terri,” he said.
“Gotta have a gal pal,” I said. “Every gay man needs one.”
We walked up to the door of the church and peered inside. It looked pretty much as I remembered from Sunday, though there was only one person inside, a man in a short-sleeved shirt sitting at a table writing something.
When we opened the door, he looked up. It was the minister himself, Jeff White, though I still wasn’t sure if he was also the sweaty guy I’d seen at the party.
“Welcome,” White said. “Are you interested in the church?”
We introduced ourselves and showed our credentials, and I could see the man become wary. Mike hung back and let me take the lead. “Mr. White, we’re here because your name has come up in an investigation,” I said, “and we’d like to give you the opportunity to set the record straight. Tell us your side of the story.”