CHAPTER 5

“Kid’s name is Josh,” I tell Jake.

My law partner and I are sitting across from one another in our conference room, his Zippy’s bacon and egg breakfast strewn across the expensive mahogany table as though a bomb just went off. Since Jake was gracious enough to cover for me in court this morning, I don’t say anything. Besides, I can tell he needs the grease. Poor bastard’s hungover as hell.

“Kid’s mother, Katie Leffler, drowned in the Pacific behind their North Shore home just a few weeks ago,” I continue. “Middle of the night. She’d been working on a second bottle of Pinot. Apparently decided it was a good time for a dip. Current took her. Her body was discovered on the rocks the next morning.”

Jake whistles, a morsel of overcooked bacon soaring in an arch across the table. I take a deep breath and hold my tongue.

“Grandma was here on the island to collect the kid,” I say. “To fly him back to the mainland. Nevada or New Mexico, I think.”

“No father?” Jake says.

I shrug and try to keep the emotion from my voice. “According to the kid’s great-aunt Naomi, the father has never wanted much to do with the kid. He’s a confirmed bachelor, a bit of a ladies’ man, and the kid apparently cramps his style.” I watch Jake shovel a plastic spoonful of runny eggs into his mouth. “Anyway, Mom and Dad never married, but she stayed here in the islands so the kid would have a father nearby. Clearly, things didn’t work out the way she intended.”

“How did she wind up here in the first place if the family’s from the mainland?” Jake asks, taking a cautious sip from his coffee.

“She was attending UH,” I say. “Majoring in marine biology. Quit as soon as she got knocked up and moved out of the dorms, rented a small home up North Shore.”

“And the father?”

“The dad’s former military. Joined the Army right after high school in Charlotte, North Carolina. Transferred to Schofield Barracks here on Oahu a few years later. Apparently left the Army in 2003 to avoid the Iraq War, but remained in the islands and took on odd jobs. Think he fixes cars for a living now.”

“Even with the mother and grandmother both out of the picture, the dad still doesn’t want the kid?”

“Aunt Naomi is going to bring in a family lawyer to have a talk with him, but she’s not holding her breath.”

“A shame,” Jake says.

I lower my eyes. A shame. Just saying the words is enough to clear our consciences of just about anything. So long as we express our disapproval of a horrendous situation, we’re off the hook. I see the kid now, trembling and white with shock, with not a single human being itching for the pleasure of watching him grow up, and all I can say is, “It’s been known to happen.”

Jake sets his cup of coffee down and stares up at me. Before he can speak, I glance out at the Honolulu skyline and change the subject.

“So the fire…” I say. Everything I know about the blaze is splattered on the front page of the copy of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser resting on the chair beside Jake, but I elaborate nonetheless. “Nine confirmed dead, five in critical condition at the Queen’s Medical Center, including two firefighters. Police and Fire haven’t released anything yet as to cause.”

Jake pushes his plastic container away from him. “According to the paper,” he says, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, “some witnesses say they heard an explosion. You hear anything, son?”

“I was passed out on rum,” I tell him. “You could’ve fired a cannon across the bow of the bed and I wouldn’t have woken up.”

“You’re a lucky man.”

I grimace, wondering why the hell people always tell you how lucky you are when you narrowly escape a tragedy. I could have lost all four of my limbs, one of my ears, half my jaw, but so long as I were still breathing, albeit with the aid of a Saab-sized ventilator, some son of a bitch would still come by and tell me how goddamn lucky I was. No, I wasn’t lucky, not last night. If I were lucky I wouldn’t have been at the resort in the first place. I would have been home, spread out on my Egyptian cotton sheets, my windows open, a cool breeze blowing in, with my ten-year-old Maine Coon cat Grey Skies curled up at my feet.

Jake lifts the newspaper off the chair and sets it on the table. “Some are thinking terrorism,” he says, squinting down at the print.

“Some are always thinking terrorism,” I say. “It’s the new Journalism 101. Scare people, boost ratings, boost sales.”

Jake runs his hand through his ever-thinning white hair. Seems to me he ages a month every week.

I sit back, cross one leg over the other, and gaze out the colossal conference room windows, swallowing the view. “Thanks for covering for me this morning,” I say without looking at him.

“No worries,” he says.

“So how did it go in court?”

Jake shrugs. “Son of a bitch is charged with his fifth DUI in as many years and still has the balls to accuse me of smelling like booze.”

I don’t say anything but I can smell Jake from here, yesterday’s poison gushing out of his pores like the BP oil spill. “Rough one last night?” I ask.

“Had a long bout with Mr. Daniels,” he says, turning his head toward the ceiling. “Used to be we got along just fine. No more, it seems.”

“Jack Daniels, huh? I thought Alison hates Jack. What happened? You two finally run Whiskey Bar out of Jameson?”

“No Alison last night,” Jake mutters. “Just me.”

I swallow hard, knowing damn well Jake desires me to ask and pitting it against how little I want to. If I don’t fill the silence immediately, he’s going to launch right into a monologue, I know. Not going to wait very long for my prompting. And once Jake starts talking, well …

“Her and I,” he says, “we’ve been on the rocks the past few days.”

Too late, I think. Here it comes. I might as well direct the conversation because I’m going to hear about this one way or another. At least if I ask, I’ll earn some points in the friendship department, maybe get him to cover for me again in court tomorrow, in case I decide to head back to Kanaloa’s this afternoon to tie one on.

“Sorry to hear that,” I say. And I am. Without Alison I’ve little doubt that Jake would have already drunk himself to death. “What’s going on? She leave you?”

Jake looks up at me with watery bloodshot eyes and bites down on his lower lip. Jake first met Alison Kelly, a forensic scientist with the Honolulu PD, last year during our first trial together. I’ll be damned if he didn’t ask her out while she was on the witness stand, testifying to the scientific credibility of lip print analysis. Since then Jake and Alison have done their drinking together as a couple, which, as any alcoholic will tell you, is the only cure for drinking alone.

“Other way around,” Jake says, mid-sigh.

“You left her?” I uncross my legs and lean forward, absolutely shocked and barely trying to hide my surprise. What abominable offense could she have committed to have caused my partner Jake Harper to leave a gorgeous, smart and sexy, utterly understanding woman like Alison Kelly?

There is a long pause from his side of the table, as Jake puffs out his chest and refuses to swallow his pride. “She quit drinking,” he finally says.

There is a light rap on our conference room door, then the familiar squeak that drives me bat-shit crazy but I’m still too lazy to oil. Our receptionist Hoshi pops her head in.

“Kevin,” she says, “you have a call on line three. She says her name is Erin Simms.”

I glance at Hoshi and tell her to please take a message, that I can’t take any calls right now. I turn back to Jake, whose eyes continue to focus on the conference room door. I swing back around and find Hoshi still standing there, her hands clasped together in front of her as though in anxious prayer.

“I’m sorry, Kevin,” she says in a small voice, “but I really think you should take this call. The woman on the phone sounds panicked, and she insists that it’s urgent.”