“I’m afraid not,” I said. “Your husband was killed late last night, outside a bar in Waikiki. We’d like to talk to you about him, if you think you can.”
Genevieve Pang didn’t look surprised. Rather her face hardened a little, like this was something she’d expected for a long time. “Of course,” she said quietly. “Please come inside.”
She turned and led us into the house. We sat in a formal living room, on elaborately carved mahogany chairs, in front of a Japanese lacquered screen that probably belonged in a museum. There was a display of Javanese puppets on a mahogany table, and on the wall above it was a collection of what looked like Balinese masks. The room was elegant and tasteful, much like Genevieve Pang herself. I found it hard to imagine the man whose body we’d seen on the autopsy table, the man with that long record, there in that house. “When was the last time you saw your husband?” I asked.
“Let me tell you about our house, detective,” she said. “You are in the south wing now. That’s my part of the house. My bedroom is behind us. To your left is the kitchen, and beyond there the family room. On the other side of the family room is my husband’s part.” She smiled. “He has his privacy there. If he wishes to have company for the evening, he can do so.” Her smile hardened again. “I don’t have to know about it.”
“Do you know that your husband was here last night?” Akoni asked.
“We are not total strangers, detective,” she said, turning to him. “We had dinner together last night at a restaurant in Waikiki. Then he brought me home and went on to what he said was a business meeting. I don’t know if that was correct. I was reading until midnight, and if he had come home before then I would have heard his car come through the gate.” She looked at me. “You may have heard, when you drove through, that the mechanism needs oiling. My bedroom window faces in that direction. I hear it often. I suppose now I can have it repaired.”
“Do you know anyone who might have had reason to kill your husband?” I asked.
Genevieve Pang laughed lightly. “I am sure there are many people who wanted to kill Tommy,” she said. “But he was careful to keep his business dealings secret from me, and I was careful not to pry. You see, in many respects I am a good Chinese wife.”
“I’m sorry to have to ask this, ma’am, but it’s routine,” I said. “Do you know if Mr. Pang had a will?”
“We made wills a long time ago, detective. If my husband hasn’t changed his, then I inherit everything. I can have his attorney call you, if you’d like.”
“That would be good of you,” I said. “Is there anyone you would like us to call for you? Children, a sister or a brother?”
“I have a son, Derek. But I will call him myself.”
“May we have his number?” I asked. “Perhaps he knows more about his father’s business.”
Genevieve Pang laughed, and I saw that she was still a very attractive woman. “My husband was even more careful with Derek than he was with me,” she said. “He was determined that Derek would have all the advantages he did not have, that Derek would become a respectable person. He is going to run an art gallery, as soon as he gets himself organized.” She smiled. “He just graduated from Yale in May.”
“We’d still like to talk to him,” Akoni said.
She looked at her watch. “You can probably reach him now,” she said. “He has a friend staying with him, from college. They are both such lazy boys, late sleepers. Not like my husband and me. But then, Derek is different from his parents in many ways. Very American.” Then she straightened her back in a mocking kind of way. “Very Yale,” she said. “But then, it’s what we wanted for him, isn’t it? To be American?”
I didn’t know what to say. After a minute, Akoni said, very gently, “Your son’s phone number?”
“Of course, detective.” She took a pen and a pad from the gilt-covered stand by the phone and wrote the number down, then stood. “My husband’s…remains?”
“The medical examiner’s office will release the body,” I said. “If you contact a funeral home they’ll take care of the arrangements for you.”
With Genevieve Pang’s permission, we searched Tommy’s part of the house, but he was very meticulous, and we could find nothing that indicated any illegal dealings, and certainly nothing that gave anyone a motive for murder.
She thanked us again, and stood on the front step of the house until we had driven out the gates. I heard them squeal as they closed behind us.
I dialed the phone number Genevieve Pang had given me, but got her son’s answering machine. I left a message.
Akoni was quiet for a minute, as I negotiated the entrance to the Lunalilo Freeway. Finally he said, “It’s just after four. They have a happy hour at that bar?”
“The Rod and Reel? I think so.”
“And fortunately our shift is over. I could definitely use a beer.”
“I’ll second that emotion. You’re sure you want to go there?”
He frowned at me. “Don’t think we really have a choice. We’ve got to find out who owns the bar, what Tommy Pang was doing there.”
I parked back at my apartment, and we walked the couple of blocks to the club. It was funny, but I felt none of the tense expectation I’d felt the night before. Now it was just business, just me and my partner going in to a bar to ask some questions. Yeah, right.
The Rod and Reel was a different place in the afternoon. Liquid sunlight dropped down through the trees overhead, and mixed couples, tourists, and guys in tank tops sat at the plastic tables in small groups. The testosterone level seemed to have dropped about a thousand percent, and there were no restless, horny guys circling the room. The back room, where they showed X-rated videos on big-screen TVs, was closed.
Akoni and I sat down at a clean table right underneath a big overhead fan that moved the warm air around, and ordered a couple of beers.
It was a typical Waikiki happy hour. Keola Beamer was playing on a stereo behind the bar, and around us people compared sunburns and drank fruity frozen drinks. When the waiter brought our beers, I showed him my badge and asked, “Do you work the late shift here, too?”
He said, “Sometimes. Why?”
I held out a picture of Tommy Pang. “Recognize this man?”
“Sure. He owns the place. Mr. Pang.”
I nodded. “He here last night?”
“He comes by almost every night. I think he was here last night. But not at closing. Fred and I had to close up ourselves.”
“Fred the bartender?”
The waiter nodded. “Look, I got customers. Can I take care of them?”
“Sure.”
The waiter walked away. “That was easy,” Akoni said.
“Too easy. You wait here. I’m gonna talk to Fred.” Akoni looked distinctly uncomfortable, and the idea that a guy his size would worry about anything made me laugh. “Don’t worry, anybody comes over to talk to you, you just tell them you’re my bitch.”
“Keep it up, you’ll see what a bitch feels like,” Akoni said, but he sat back in his chair and picked up his beer.
I carried mine with me to the bar. It took a couple of minutes for Fred to finish with a gaggle of pretty young boys at the far end of the bar, but eventually he came over to me. Up close, he was older than he looked from far away, the kind of guy who spent too much time in the sun when he was younger and too much time in the gym now. I showed him my badge and said, “Tell me about Mr. Pang.”
He shrugged. “What do you want to know?”
“Anybody ever threaten him?”
Fred laughed. “No, my guess is that Mr. Pang does all the threatening.” He leaned close to me. “What’s this all about? He in trouble? I’ve seen his tattoo.”
“Yeah? You know what it means?”
“Tong,” Fred said. “He’s some kind of gangster. But he only comes out here for a minute at a time-he doesn’t particularly like our clientele. And I only go back to his office to lock up the receipts for the night.”