“Danny told me what happened the day Evan died,” I said. “He said two men came to the house and argued with his father. Then he heard a shot, and he heard the men leave.”
“So he didn’t commit suicide! I knew it!”
“Don’t jump ahead,” I said. “Evan might still have killed himself, he just might have done it in front of witnesses. Do you have any idea who the two men could be?”
She shook her head. I had an idea myself, but the implications were too scary to think about. Akoni and I had shown the photo of Evan to Derek and Wayne, and they’d indicated he was the cop on Tommy’s payroll. Suppose they had tracked him down?
But how could they have found him so quickly? We’d never identified him by name. I said, “The guy Evan mentioned in his letter, Tommy Pang. Did you ever meet him?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“You’re sure? His wife’s name is Genevieve, and he has a son named Derek.”
“Wait a second. Derek Pang. I met him. He went to Punahou, you know, before Yale. When he got back to Honolulu he was looking for a job in a gallery, and he called up some Punahou alumni to see if anybody could help him. I met him for lunch one day and we talked about art and galleries and Punahou, of course. I gave him a couple of names but I never heard anything else.”
“Did he ever come to your house?”
“No.”
“Did he ever meet Evan?”
“I only saw him that time.” She paused. “I wonder if he knows Evan was my husband.”
He knew, I thought, because he’d seen the picture of Evan and Terri’s wedding. That was how Derek had been able to identify Evan so fast. While Akoni and I were back at the station getting our warrants in order, he and Wayne had come out to Wailupe and found Evan at home with his son. Their lucky day.
SETTING THE TRAP
I wanted to drive right to Derek and Wayne’s apartment and confront them. I paced around, fuming and raging vendettas of biblical proportions against them. But the truth was I had no real evidence that they’d had anything to do with Evan’s death, which Doc Takayama had ruled a suicide. Unless I could do something, that ruling would stand. Derek and Wayne must have thought Evan killed Tommy, then taken their own biblical-style revenge.
With Gunter’s help, I thought I could tie Derek and Wayne to the Bishop Museum thefts that Peggy was investigating, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted to nail them. I wanted to prove that they had killed Evan.
There wasn’t going to be any physical evidence at the house. It had been a week, and no one had dusted the study or the rest of the house for fingerprints or searched for other evidence. There was no evidence linking Derek and Wayne to Evan other than the fact that they’d identified his picture.
What could I do to prove they were guilty? I knew in my heart that they were the two men Danny had heard yelling at his father. If I got pictures of them and their cars and canvassed the neighbors, maybe someone would remember seeing either of them around the Gonsalves house.
But that would only be circumstantial. What I really wanted was a confession. I wanted Derek or Wayne to admit they’d shot Evan. That didn’t seem likely, though.
Or was it? Maybe I was focusing too much on Derek and Wayne as a couple. Divide and conquer. I remembered the bartender at the Boardwalk telling me Wayne had a taste for Asian boys, that he trolled there by himself on occasion. Suppose I offered myself up as bait? I already knew he was attracted to me. Of course, I was attracted to him, too, which was a problem. Maybe I could get him in a situation where he had his pants off and his guard down.
The phone rang. It startled me, bringing me back down to earth. “Hey, brah, just checking in,” Harry said. “Howzit?”
“I’m glad you called,” I said. “I’ve got a lot to talk to you about.”
We met at a pizza place on Kuhio Avenue just after dark. It was just a hole in the wall, a half dozen linoleum-topped tables and a couple of tattered posters of the Italian Riviera on the walls, but the crust was thick and chewy and they topped it with about a pound of shredded cheese. They did a major take-out business, sometimes customers lined up out the door waiting patiently for their pies.
By then I had refined my plan. “I want to be wired up when I get together with Wayne, but I can’t go to Yumuri for the equipment,” I said, when Harry and I were sitting at a two-top in the front window. “You’re the electronics wizard. Can you rig something up for me?”
“I can put the stuff together, but you need a lot of equipment,” Harry said. The waitress came over and we ordered a large pizza with mushrooms and sausage and a couple of Cokes. “A lot of it’s specialized stuff. You can’t just walk into a store and buy it. Some things, I might have to mail order from the mainland. I mean, I could have it Fed Exed, but I still might not get it until the beginning of next week.”
“I don’t want to wait that long. I mean, I wish I could go over there right now.”
I forced myself to calm down and think things through. Okay, we needed electronic equipment. Where else could we get it? We could rent it. There had to be a place on the island that rented that kind of equipment, for movies or TV shows, for example. “Would a TV station have the kind of stuff you need?” I asked.
“Sure. I might have to do some jury-rigging, but they’d have most of the things-you’re going to ask your brother, aren’t you?”
“He owes me a favor, the asshole. He could have called our parents when he knew there was a story on me, but he wimped out.”
“This won’t be easy, Kimo. You might get in a lot of trouble.”
“I’ve worn a wire before. I’ve set up stakeouts. I know, things could get hairy. But I’m prepared to take that risk. I have to. I set all this in motion and I have to bring it to a close.”
The waitress brought the pizza, and we ate. I told Harry about the other things I had to do to prove what Derek and Wayne had done. “Poor Terri,” Harry said. “She was always a sweetheart. I remember when I had a monster crush on Elise Chung and she gave me lots of advice. She even went with me when I got my hair cut and told the barber just what to do.” He sighed. “That was the best haircut I ever had.”
“You’re a sap,” I said. “You got a quarter? I need to make a phone call and I don’t want to use my cell in case they have caller ID.”
“Sure.” He handed me the quarter and I walked to the back of the pizza parlor, where the pay phone was mounted on the wall. I dialed Derek and Wayne’s number, and Wayne answered.
“Wayne, it’s Kimo Kanapa‘aka,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Kimo.” Even his voice was sexy. For a moment I wasn’t sure I could go forward with my plan, but I knew I had to. “Heard about your troubles.”
“Yeah, most of the island has by now. It’ll get to my auntie on Kaua‘i pretty soon.”
“Maybe we can get together,” Wayne said. “I could give you some advice.”
“Who knows? I might see you at the Boardwalk sometime. You do go there, don’t you? By yourself?”
“I can.” He lowered his voice. “Friday night?”
“I think I can be there then.” I cleared my throat. “Can I talk to Derek?”
“Sure, hold on.”
“Hey, Wayne,” I said. “What kind of underwear do you wear?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.”
Derek picked up the phone a minute later. “What’s up? I thought you were suspended.”
“I am. This is more a personal thing. It’s about a mutual acquaintance we have, somebody who knows you through your family. I’d rather talk to you about it in person, if that’s okay.”
“Sure. You want to come by here, or meet at the club, or what?”