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DETECTIVE KA`IMI MEDEIROS was dressed in what appeared to be his Sunday best, an expansive green aloha shirt with a magenta monstera design. On a man of his size, it was quite a lot of color.
“Good morning, Detective. My attorney has specifically instructed me not to talk to you. Sorry. Would you like a quiet cup of coffee?” I unlocked my front door, and he followed me in.
“It’s okay. I like talk to you, Professor. We got Scott Nixon.”
I turned around and raised my eyebrows.
“Yeah, figured you might be interested.” He eased his bulk down onto my leather couch, the affordable one I had bought at Balusteros World of Furniture. It bowed alarmingly under his weight.
“No need coffee,” he said. “Too hot out.”
“Let me call my lawyer.”
Honey wasn’t picking up her phone, so I left a message.
“Detective Medeiros is here,” I said after the beep, loud enough for Detective Medeiros to hear. “Please come and join us. I won’t say anything until you get here.”
I had no idea whether Honey was going to get my message or not, but I wanted Medeiros to see I was acting on the instructions of my lawyer, and not being rude of my own accord. Also he should know I wasn’t born yesterday.
“You get summer off, ah?” he said.
“I get summer unpaid.” I figured I could say that much without incriminating myself.
Medeiros nodded. “Scott Nixon too. So he blows outta town, leaves his lovely wife all alone in Mahina, but he hasn’t broken any laws. He hasn’t even violated his employment contract.”
“Melanie had evidence Scott Nixon plagiarized one of his publications. Don’t you think his running away had something to do with that?”
Technically I wasn’t supposed to be talking to Detective Medeiros, but I was simply stating the obvious.
“We’ll ask him about it when we get ’im. We’re working with the Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Department right now.”
“Good.”
“But you’re still our suspect. Nixon is just a person of interest.”
“Oh.”
“You familiar with the work of Barry Staw? Escalation of commitment?”
I nodded.
“‘Knee Deep in the Big Muddy’,” Medeiros said. “Nineteen seventy-six. Hard to turn the ship around too quickly, Professor. If you’ll forgive my mixing metaphors.”
My phone rang.
“I’m in a meeting right now,” Honey warned me. “Don’t say a word.”
“Detective Medeiros is telling me about Scott Nixon,” I said, so Medeiros could hear. “Scott is a person of interest, not a suspect.”
“Hang on,” she ordered.
I waited, and then:
“I got two minutes. Put me on speaker.”
“Okay. Here you go.”
“Hello Detective,” my phone squawked, in Honey’s voice. “What’s so urgent you had to speak to my client without me?”
“Counselor,” he replied mildly. “Glad you could join us. What’s urgent is Superintendent Pereira’s so mad he like pop outta his skin. How come some babooze wit’ a blog seems to know more about our case than we do?”
“You’re referring to Patrick Flanagan, who shared with you a photograph he found on a publicly accessible social network?” Honey asked.
“Yeah. An’ after Island Confidential ran it, the County Courier picked it up. That was salt in the wound.”
“Oh, you mean ‘New Twist in Brewster House Death.’” Honey’s voice held a note of satisfaction.
“I believe Superintendent Pereira took exception to the subheadline. ‘Police inaction in wake of developments.’ Now Pereira telling us we gotta put a lid on these leaks. Professor, you saw it?”
I shook my head no. I had subscribed to the County Courier for a while, but my unread copies kept piling up. Taking the papers all the way down to the recycling station in a car that gets eleven miles to the gallon and leaks oil hadn’t seemed like a net positive for the environment. The decline of the newspaper industry was probably caused by people like me.
“How exactly would the Mahina Police Department put a lid on news outlets doing their job?” Honey’s voice asked acidly.
“On that point, I agree wit’ you, Counselor. You get First Amendment and all da kine. And anyways, the music festival photograph was a big break for us. I don’t know if we woulda found Scott Nixon without it. So if you get anymore brainstorms, insights, whatevers? Send ’em my way. I’m always open to whatever new information.”
“You didn’t have to ambush my client,” Honey said.
“Not ambushing. Just stopping by to say hello, ah? I thought Professor Barda might have some insight into my conundrum.”
“What conundrum is that, Detective?” Honey’s voice asked. Even on my tinny little phone speaker, Honey Akiona had quite a presence. I was glad she was on my side.
“It’s like this,” Medeiros said. “We need means, motive, and opportunity. Those are necessary but not sufficient conditions, ah? And it’s obvious, even to us knuckleheads in Mahina PD, Scott Nixon has a motive. Much more so than whatever catfight kine thing allegedly motivated Professor Barda.”
“Catfight!” I exclaimed, forgetting I wasn’t supposed to speak. I could almost feel Honey Akiona glaring at me over the phone.
“It’s the opportunity part where I’m kinda stuck,” Medeiros continued, “Melanie Polewski jumped June ten, ah?”
I nodded agreement.
“So my problem with Scott Nixon as a suspect is this.” Medeiros placed his hands on his knees and pushed himself slowly into a standing position. “Scott Nixon left the island June eight. Two days before.”
“Detective,” Honey said through my phone, “I am asking you to discontinue this unauthorized search and leave my client’s property. And in the future, please refrain from contacting my client directly.”
“On my way,” Medeiros said amiably. “But you should know, I wanna get to the bottom of this as bad as you do.”
“When will you interview Scott Nixon?” Honey asked.
“Soon as can. There’s a complication, though. When the LA Sheriffs found Scott Nixon, he was in bad shape. Someone had beat him up between when the picture was taken an’ when they found ‘em. We gotta wait till he’s recovered enough to be interviewed.”
Detective Medeiros touched his forehead as if he were wearing a cap, and let himself out.
“Are you still there?” I said to my speakerphone.
“Yeah,” Honey said.
“How awful about Scott Nixon getting beaten up.”
“I’m not sure I believe Medeiros. They’re allowed to lie to you if they think it’ll get you to talk. Or it could be a case of plain old police brutality. You got any more ideas, Professor?”
“Nicole Nixon was there with me at the Garden Society meeting. Do you think she might have been working with Scott to prevent Melanie from ruining his career?”
“But Scott had just left her,” Honey said. “Why would she help her cheating husband by getting rid of his blackmailer?”
“Unless Scott’s leaving, the note and everything, was a ruse to throw the police off.”
“In that case, Nicole Nixon deserves an Academy Award. Anyway, I gotta get back to my meeting. You make it through those printouts?”
“Of course. I’m practically done.” In truth, I had barely begun reading through the printouts, and it was already time to meet Leilani Zelenko for my real estate tour. I dropped the two thick stacks of paper into my bag and rushed out.