CHAPTER 21
“Choice of evils,” I said. “That’s the technical term for the defense. Section 703 of the Hawaii Penal Code.”
Jake closed the door to the conference room and slowly took a seat across from me. “Justifiable homicide?”
I nodded. “Self-defense.”
Jake appeared skeptical. “Killing a police officer?”
“Killing a hitman who happened to work as a police officer.”
“You think a jury here in nirvana is gonna buy that, son?”
“With the right sales pitch, yes. If I can expose the corruption in the Honolulu PD from top to bottom and convince the jury that Kanoa Bristol set out to kill Turi Ahina in order to silence him, then they’ll have no choice but to acquit.”
“That’s a tall order.”
“Not if I can find me a whistle-blower.”
Jake arched his brows. “Penetrate the blue wall of silence?”
“It can be done. Trick is to do it without ending up in a body bag.”
“Well, where do you start?”
I pursed my lips. “AUSA Audra Levy-soon-to-be-Karras. She knows about the corruption and she doesn’t seem to give a damn what Boyd or anyone else at her office thinks of her. If she doesn’t know who the whistle-blower is, she’ll be able to find out.”
A rap on the conference-room door was immediately followed by the hellish squeak of its opening. Flan stepped inside with a file folder in his hand.
“I have a name for you,” Flan said as he sat. “The john you saw at Black Point is Yoshimitsu Nakagawa. Forty-eight years old, owner and chairman of the Nakagawa Retailing Group, which boasts thirty billion dollars a year in sales.”
Jake whistled. “Thirty billion a year? What the hell does he sell?”
“Slim Jims and slushies.”
“Say again?”
“Slim Jims and slushies. His company owns eight thousand convenience stores in North America and twice as many in Japan.”
“You mean—”
“Yes, I do,” Flan said. “We have two dozen of ’em right here on Oahu.”
“I’ll be damned,” I said. “We are in the wrong fucking business, Jake.”
“You just figuring that out now?”
Flan said, “Mr. Nakagawa is a family man. A wife back in Japan, with six children, ages six through sixteen.”
I sighed. “So we’ve got a glitzy Diamond Head building filled with Eastern European women who could easily pass as supermodels. And we’ve got Lincolns and limos transporting these ladies to five-star resort spas and to the summer homes of some of the world’s richest and most powerful men.”
“Which means?” Flan said.
I rose from my chair. “Which means it’s time to have another talk with the governor.”
* * *
After placing a call to Jason Yi and setting up a meeting with Governor Omphrey in the morning, I dialed Audra Levy’s home number from my cell. I told her we needed to talk.
“About what?” she said.
“Not over the phone. Give me your address.”
Ten minutes later I was in my Jeep on my way to her rented home in Ewa on the leeward side of the island. I made certain I wasn’t tailed and I parked six blocks from her place, dodging the streetlights and creeping through the shadows before rounding her house and knocking on the back door.
“This is risky” was her only greeting.
“And much appreciated,” I said, stepping past her.
Looking around Audra’s modest apartment, at the typical wicker furniture and framed Walmart paintings that adorned most small island dwellings, it suddenly struck me: this was the first woman’s home I’d been in since Erin Simms’s. Well, aside from Oksana Sutin’s, of course, but that didn’t count because by then she’d been a corpse. And before Erin Simms’s rented place of confinement in Kaneohe, the last woman’s home I’d visited more than a handful of times was Nikki Kapua’s. Nikki, who was now doing twenty-five to life on the mainland for murder.Aside from one-night stands in hotels and a brief fling with an artist in Kahala, in the past few years I hadn’t gotten close to anyone who wasn’t either dead or locked away in prison.
I sat on a rattan chair in the living area. “I need your help.”
Audra remained standing, her arms folded across her chest. It was the first time I’d seen her dressed down, wearing anything other than the uniform of a government lawyer. In faded jeans and a yellow tank with bleach stains, she looked like someone else entirely, someone who could sit on a lanai and watch the sun set while holding a frosty bottle of Corona to her lips.
“In case you forgot,” she said, “we’re on different sides.”
“No, we’re not. Not us. Not now. You made it clear to me last month when we were at Sand Bar. We both want the truth to come out.”
She smirked. “You’ve got to be kidding, Kevin. You think I’m going to help a cop-killer? You must be out of your goddamn mind.”
“Maybe. But that’s not the point here. The point is, Turi didn’t murder Kanoa Bristol. It was justifiable homicide.”
“What? How can you say—”
I stood and raised my palms. “Hear me out, Audra. Kanoa Bristol didn’t happen upon a drug deal while he was off duty. He sought Turi out. Bristol was strapped and he was wearing a Kevlar vest. This wasn’t a botched arrest. This was a hit on Turi Ahina. Turi shot and killed Bristol in self-defense.”
Audra gaped. “The shooting took place a block from Bristol’s home. What the hell was Turi Ahina doing in Pearl City to begin with?”
“I don’t know yet. Turi won’t tell me. But I intend to find out.”
“This is ludicrous, Kevin. I need you to leave my apartment. Right now.”
“I will. But first I need a name from you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How did the feds find out the HPD was dirty?”
Audra backed away from me. “No way. Get out.”
“There was a whistle-blower, wasn’t there? There had to be. Someone passed through that blue wall of silence, and I need to know who.”
“You know I can’t tell you that. I wouldn’t only be risking my career, I’d be putting a man’s life at stake.”
My eyes bore into hers. “There is already a man’s life at stake.”
It was Audra’s turn to freeze up.
“Please,” I begged.
Her chest heaved in and out. “I’ll put him in touch with you,” she finally said. “I’ll give him your number. But whether he calls you or not, that’s up to him. That’s the best I can do.”