CHAPTER 25

When I arrive at the district court in Honolulu, my client Turi Ahina is already on the courthouse steps waiting for me. As usual, Turi is all smiles, his round fleshy cheeks rising like the sun on either side of his lips. “Aloha, Mistah C!”

I stick my hand out for a shake but he grabs me by the forearm and pulls me in for one of his patented bear hugs. When he finally releases me it takes me a long moment to catch my breath, and another ten minutes for me to smooth out my suit.

Inside the courthouse, Turi is subject to a security search, while I flash my bar card and walk right past. We meet at the elevator bank at the end of the hall.

“Same t’ing as usual?” Turi says.

“You bet.”

The prosecutor on Turi’s case is a young attorney named Heather Raffa. In fact, Raffa has prosecuted nearly every drug case I’ve defended over the past year-plus, beginning with a buy-and-bust involving Turi Ahina himself. That case—and every case against Turi since—has been dismissed for want of prosecution, in accordance with Hawaii’s speedy trial statute, Rule 48.

Beat the Speedy Trial Clock is a game I played in New York City with some regularity. Here in Honolulu, Raffa caught on quick. She began driving out to police officers’ houses personally on the day of court to ensure they would appear on every case in which I went up against her. That was no good for business at Harper & Corvelli. So I did what any good lawyer would do under the circumstances: I asked her out.

Heather Raffa demurred, tried to convince me that she was seeing someone, that the relationship was going somewhere, and I relented. Whether she was flattered or felt sorry for me, I don’t know. But ever since I extended my invitation Raffa and I seem to have an unspoken understanding. I cop to reasonable pleas in most drug cases I’m involved in, mostly small-time stuff, charges of possession, occasionally with intent to distribute. Raffa’s conviction rate goes up in exchange for one precious exception. She lays off my friend Turi Ahina.

Since our first case together, Turi has been arrested four times. All minor drug offenses. Each case thus far has been dismissed, thanks to our unwritten contract. Raffa doesn’t know that Turi saved my life—and she doesn’t need to. All she needs to know is that he’s important to me, and that so long as she plays ball with me on Turi, I’ll continue to make her professional life a hell of a lot easier.

“Listen, Turi,” I say in the hallway outside the courtroom after a silent ascent in the crowded elevator, “I’d like you to do me a favor. It has to do with the Kupulupulu Beach Resort arson case.”

“Anyt’ing you need, brah.”

“Keep your eyes and ears open on the street. I’m looking for an empty seat.”

Turi purses his ample lips in thought. “An empty seat, yeah?”

“Someone I can point the finger at, someone who won’t be in the courtroom to defend himself. Ideally a fire buff. Someone who likes to watch things burn.”

“You mean, besides the end of a glass pipe, eh?”

“Yeah, besides that.”

When I step into the courtroom I have Turi take a seat in the gallery, while I head up to the rail to have a brief discussion with Heather Raffa. The judge has not yet taken the bench, but Raffa is already standing at the prosecution table, arranging files and gabbing with her assistant.

“Pssst.”

Raffa turns, her big bright blue eyes bearing into me like a laser. She says something in the ear of her assistant then takes her time approaching the rail.

“What is it?” she says.

In the courthouse hallways, she’s as flirtatious as a Hooters waitress working the tip. But in the courtroom, Raffa’s all business. As anal as any obsessive-compulsive I’ve ever met. And she always dresses the part. Today she’s in a smart navy suit, her light brown hair falling perfectly at the top of her collar.

“We have Turi Ahina on today,” I tell her.

“I know.”

“So you’ll ask for a month?”

“No. The State’s ready,” she says. “The officers are downstairs, waiting to be called up.”

Half my mouth lifts in a smile, thinking she has to be fucking with me. This has to be some sort of joke.

“The State’s ready,” she repeats. “If you need a two-week adjournment, we’ll consent. But that’s all.”

“And in two weeks?”

“The officers will appear again.”

I take a step back from the rail and draw a deep breath. “Did I do something?” I ask.

She shakes her head no, then turns and heads back toward the prosecution table. I reach over the rail to snatch the back of her suit jacket but she’s too quick.

Barbara Davenport and now Heather Raffa.

I officially have another catastrophe to deal with.