CHAPTER 19

The next morning, after visiting the Trials Division of the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office for a brief sit-down and exchange of discovery with Hawaii’s best-dressed prosecutor, Donovan “Dapper Don” Watanabe, I shot over to the county jail to meet with Turi Ahina.

“They treating you all right?” I asked him once we were safely seated in the confines of the concrete tomb they called an attorney-client conference room.

“Yeah, Mistah C. Fo’ now.”

I had petitioned the powers-that-be to keep Turi in a cell by himself for his own safety. But what Turi was implying—and what I knew to be true—was that eventually the wrong guard would be on duty at the wrong time. A simple “mistake”—a cell door left open, for instance—and Turi could get shanked in the gut while he slept. A tray of food that passed through the wrong set of hands and Turi could end up with a fatal food poisoning. And there was always the fallback: a shot through the back of the head, followed by the words “The prisoner tried to escape.”

As long as Turi was inside, he wasn’t safe.

“I’m not going to waive speedy trial,” I told him. “I just informed Dapper Don and I sent a letter to Judge Narita. We need to get you in front of a jury as soon as possible and win you an acquittal. Stay in here too long and you’re—”

“A dead man.”

“Technically, the prosecution has six months to take this to trial. But Dapper Don said he’ll be ready to go by October. That means you have to hang in and watch your back for another sixty days or so. It’s the best we can do under the circumstances. Narita’s not going to budge on bail since you were already out on bail on the federal drug charges when you were arrested.”

Turi bowed his head.

I pulled his file from my briefcase and told him that it was time we discussed strategy. “If we’re going in October, I need to get my witness list together now. So I’m going to ask you again, and I expect a straight answer. Who did you go to see in Pearl City on the night of the shooting?”

Turi shook his head in apparent frustration. “I already gave you one answer, yeah?”

“But I’m not buying it. And a jury’s not going to buy it either. Some motherfucker on the street owes you five grand, and you don’t know his name or where to find him? Bullshit.”

Turi looked away from me.

“And you went looking for this son of a bitch who owed you that kind of money without going strapped? Knowing the entire Masonet Organization was gunning for your ass? Come on, Turi. Who the hell do you think you’re fooling?”

Turi stared down at the table.

“Ballistics show the bullets were fired from a Glock. Same caliber you were carrying the night we went to Chinatown to see Tam.”

“You think I own the only forty-four Glock ever made, eh?”

“No. But police searched your home in Kailua and didn’t find a gun. They didn’t find a gun in the Nissan Pulsar you borrowed. And they didn’t find one on your person when you were arrested. So if the gun they recovered from the sewer isn’t yours, then where is the gun you had on you in Chinatown?”

Turi finally looked me in the eyes. “Why you asking about that gun when you the only one who seen it? The police don’t know I own it. Tam and his crew ain’t gonna testify. So why you care so much, brah?”

“Because the more you lie to me,” I said evenly, “the more difficult it’s going to be for me to win your case.”

“You think all your clients lie.”

I let silence engulf the cramped room while Turi sat on the hard chair, hands in his lap, indignant.

Finally I asked, “Did you shoot Kanoa Bristol?”

His head shot up. “Fo’ real, Mistah C? I say, ‘Yeah,’ and I’m in Halawa fo’ life. That what you want to see?”

“It was your gun, Turi. The prosecution knows it was your gun.”

“And how they know that, eh?”

I took a deep breath. “Because ballistics tests show that it was the same gun used to kill Alika Kapua.”

Turi remained silent for a long while following the revelation. I remained silent, too. Because what was going through each of our heads was too damned difficult to discuss. Turi’s saving my life three years ago in Kailua could cost him his own now.

“This doesn’t mean a conviction,” I finally said. “It just means a change of strategy.”

Turi’s voice cracked. “How you figure?”

“Kanoa Bristol was armed.”

“Yeah, so? He was one cop.”

“I think there were things you left out during our proffer session with AUSA Boyd and Special Agent Jansen,” I said. “Like how the Honolulu Police Department offered the Masonet Organization protection. How dirty cops sometimes took out Orlando Masonet’s competition.”

Turi’s throat looked as though he were swallowing an egg.

“You didn’t tell Boyd and Jansen about HPD’s dirty Narcotics Intelligence Unit because you were scared the blue would come after you. Isn’t that right, Turi?”

He didn’t confirm. He didn’t have to.

“But they came after you anyway. Bristol didn’t catch you in the middle of a drug transaction, did he, Turi?”

Turi twisted his large neck and shook his head.

“Bristol was off-duty but wearing Kevlar. He was going to silence you. This wasn’t a botched arrest, was it, Turi?”

Turi finally spoke, though his voice was little more than a whisper. “Nah, Mistah C. This was no botched arrest. This was one hit.”