CHAPTER 28

“Tough man to get ahold of,” I say as I sidle next to Isaac Cassel at the Bleu Sharq. Together we lean on the wooden ledge, he with his bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, me with a pint of Blue Moon.

“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?”

He is. And that’s to his credit. Getting charged with homicide is perhaps the easiest way in this world to lose friends. With the exception of Tara Holland, all initial calls to witnesses in this case have, until today, gone unanswered.

“I was told to stay away from you,” he says. “Prosecutor says you’re a shark.”

From our open-air spot on the second floor we have an unobstructed view of Waikiki Beach. As the Pacific laps against the white sand and the Blue Moon works its magic, it’s easy to forget why we’re here. Yet not quite easy enough.

“Erin finally convinced me to call you,” Isaac says. “But that prosecutor, Maddox, he’d have a shit if he knew we were talking.”

I shrug, speak slower and softer than usual. “The prosecution doesn’t own you, Isaac, whether you intend to testify against Erin or not. We have every right in the world to be speaking to one another. So don’t let Luke Maddox push you around.”

Isaac reaches into his pocket, pulls out a crushed box of Marlboro Reds, and sets them on the ledge, along with a mustard-colored Bic lighter.

“So Maddox called me a shark, huh?” One of Cashman’s Ten Commandments is Thou shalt not call the prosecutor a cocksucker to his face. But this guy Maddox, he’s getting into my head like no prosecutor has before. I’ve already broken two of Milt’s Commandments in this case, so I’d better watch my tongue, lest I break a third.

Isaac bows his head then says, “So, what do you want to know, Counselor?”

“Why don’t you start by telling me about your relationship with Erin Simms.”

It’s Isaac’s turn to shrug. “Not much to tell,” he says, scratching the back of his neck.

Small talk, tics—it’s all currency in my field. A witness trying to buy himself some time. I try not to aid a witness by keeping silent; the less I talk, the more he has to. In this case, the longer the pause, I figure, the longer Isaac will likely gabble following it. Compensation for the time wasted.

“Erin and I were together a few months,” he says. “Three, I’d say. Two years ago. Then, well…” He fiddles with his crushed cigarette pack, his eyes never leaving the ocean. “Then I introduced her to my best friend Trevor.”

“If Trevor was your best friend, why did it take you three months to introduce him to your girlfriend?”

“Trevor had been away, out on his boat when I met her. Traveling the California coastline with his father.”

Isaac has a couple days’ worth of stubble but he’s got the kind of face that wears it well. I’m picturing him with Erin, can’t help but see him lying with her, that stubble moving up and down her long, lean body, leaving light scratches along her flesh. I clench my teeth and push the image away. This is why you don’t fall for a client.

“Trevor and Erin hit it off right away,” he says, finally looking me in the eye. “And that was that.”

“And you?”

“I moved on.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“No strain on your friendship with Trevor?”

“None,” he says a little too quickly. “We were best friends. We stayed that way. Neither of us was willing to let a girl come between us.”

“How about things between you and Erin?” I say. “Awkward?”

“Sure, at first. But time took care of it.”

Isaac drains his bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, sets the empty down hard on the ledge, and resumes his glare at the calm ocean. “So what does she need?” he asks finally. “An alibi?”

“Doesn’t work that way, Isaac. I read your witness statement. You were nowhere near her at the time the fire started.”

“Earlier I was.”

“Earlier doesn’t help.”

“I could retract my statement, say I misspoke.”

I shake my head. “Maddox would have you for lunch.”

“So what can I do?”

“You can tell me why you’re flitting the bill for Erin’s luxurious digs over in Kaneohe.”

Isaac stares down at the swimsuited passersby crossing Kalakaua Avenue, silent. “She told you that?”

“She didn’t have to.”

“I care for her still,” he says softly. “I admit it. I just told you, I’ll do anything I can to help her.”

“Like commit perjury.”

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to.

“You think she did it?” I ask him.

“Do you?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think, Isaac. My job is to create reasonable doubt.”

“And how do you do that?”

“Well,” I say, scoping out the crowd, making sure no one can hear us, “when the circumstantial evidence is stacked up against a client as it is in Erin’s case, I look for other suspects I can feed to the jury. Try to show those twelve people in the box that it’s reasonable to believe someone else could have committed this crime.”

He bows his head but doesn’t look at me.

“Know anyone like that?” I ask.

“Like what? Someone that could’ve killed Trevor?”

“Someone with a motive to, yes. Someone I can place at the Kupulupulu Beach Resort at around two A.M. on the night of the fire.”

“You can point at me. I can take the Fifth.”

“That’s chivalrous. Only I’ve got a credit card receipt with your name and signature on it, along with a date and time stamp that says you were drinking at the Ali’i Bar at the Meridian until twenty after two.”

Isaac steps away without a word and I watch him move slowly toward the bar. When he returns, he’s got another bottle of Mike’s and a pint. He slides the Blue Moon over to me as I finish the last of the first.

“It was Erin’s lighter?” he says. “Erin’s knife?”

“I can’t discuss the physical evidence with you, Isaac. You’re still a witness for the prosecution.”

“I know. My point is, it wasn’t her lighter fluid. Trevor bought that himself for a barbeque we were supposed to have the day after the wedding.”

“But Erin had access to it.”

“So would anyone else who stepped into that room.”

“That’s right,” I tell him. “But who?”

“There’s someone,” he says as his eyes drop to his feet. “Someone I didn’t mention to Maddox or the cops because I didn’t realize it was relevant until now.”

I take a pull from my pint. “Who’s that?”

“The night before the wedding,” he says. “Trevor, Gabe, and I came down here to Waikiki for a bit of a bachelor party.”

“And?”

“And Trevor got into a fight outside the Angry Rooster.”

The Angry Rooster is a dive bar a few blocks away from the Bleu Sharq.

“What kind of altercation was it?” I ask him calmly. “Verbal? Physical? Something else?”

“It was verbal but it came real close to becoming physical. Thing is, Trevor was really bombed that night and he did something stupid.”

“How stupid?”

“He pissed on some guy’s leg.”

I suppose it says something about me that I’ve seen it happen before, New Year’s Eve 1999 in an abandoned cathedral-turned-nightclub in midtown Manhattan. “Can you describe the pissee?” I ask.

“Big guy. Dark skin but he didn’t look like he was from the islands. Maybe Latino. Lots of tats. Saw him throwing back tequila shots earlier in the night.”

Not much. But at least I know at which bar I’m drinking next.

“Did this big guy make any threats?”

Isaac nods. “Guy said something about cutting the head off Trevor’s cock.”

I tear a bite out of my orange wedge and wash it down with a slug of Blue Moon. Ironic, I think as I swallow. Cutting off the head of a cock would make for one angry rooster indeed.

Isaac and I stand there a while, like two old friends who found they have nothing in common anymore. We finish our drinks but don’t say another word to each other until I’m ready to leave.

“So Maddox called me a shark, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says.

I can’t help but sigh. “Well, next time you see Luke Maddox, you tell him Kevin Corvelli called him a cocksucker.”

Thou shalt not call the prosecutor a cocksucker to his face.

Nothing in Cashman’s Commandments about having a witness do it for you.