CHAPTER 24

The rear door to Oksana Sutin’s apartment building in Diamond Head wasn’t locked enough. Neither was the front door to Iryna Kupchenko’s fifth-floor apartment. By 1:00 a.m. Scott and I were both inside, sitting in the darkness in perfect silence.

In New York, an apartment as lavish as this would surely have been protected by an alarm. But not here. Not in paradise. Here people felt safe, shielded. Even though just weeks ago a young woman was violently murdered in this very apartment building.

A few minutes after 2:00 a.m., as Scott and I were taking in the magnificent view of the night Pacific, we heard a key turn in the door. We both stood and took our prearranged places in the apartment. We didn’t want to frighten her. And if she wasn’t alone, we didn’t want to get ourselves killed.

As soon as she entered, Iryna Kupchenko flipped on a lamp and locked the door behind her. We waited for her to drop her handbag onto the couch, then I—the less imposing of the two of us—stepped forward.

“Don’t be scared,” I said softly. “We just want to talk.”

Iryna started like a cat whose tail just got stepped on. She spun toward the door.

“Whoa,” Scott said, moving toward her. “Easy now. This isn’t the way it’s going to go.”

She faced us again, a tear trickling down her cheek. “I will call the police,” she said, her accent every bit as thick and smoky as it was outside the spa.

“I don’t think you want to do that,” Scott said with a patronizing smile.

“We saw you in the window at Yoshimitsu Nakagawa’s house at Black Point,” I added. “Unless you want to spend the night downtown explaining to cops what you were doing there, I suggest you take a seat and answer our questions.”

“These questions, what are they about?”

I pointed to the couch. “First, you sit down.”

Iryna stepped tentatively toward the couch, then straightened her short skirt and sat, careful to keep her knees closed. “Now you tell me. What do you want to know about?”

“Your friend.” I watched her eyes dance as I said it. “Oksana Sutin.”

“She is dead.”

“We know she’s dead. We want to know why.”

Iryna appeared perplexed. “How should I know this?”

“You worked together.”

“I am unemployed.”

“Maybe as far as the State of Hawaii is concerned, but not as far as we’re concerned.” I took a step toward her, placed one foot onto the couch next to her. “You don’t have to tell us anything about yourself or your business. We only want to know about Oksana. Let’s start with this. In the four weeks before her death, how many men did she see?”

Iryna responded without hesitation. “One.”

“One? And who was that?”

“Her boyfriend. Mr. Omphrey.”

“The governor,” I said.

“Yes. He was the only man she had seen in months.”

“Was he paying her?”

“No.”

“She was seeing him for free?”

“I did not say that.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying only that as far as Mr. Omphrey knew, they were a couple. I do not know any more than that.”

Scott suddenly piped up. “So you’re saying while she was seeing this guy, she wasn’t hooking? Wasn’t doing any other guys on the side?”

“No. She remained faithful.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because she told me so. And because she would not lie to me.”

“She confided in you?”

“What is confided?”

“She told you things about herself, about her relationship, that she wouldn’t tell anyone else?”

“Yes, if that is confided, then she confided me.”

“Was she using drugs?”

“Not at the time she died, no. Not for at least the last three weeks.”

“But before that?”

“Before that, yes. She used cocaine every day.”

“Why did she stop using cocaine three weeks before she died?”

Iryna looked from me to Scott and back, then gulped and said softly, “Because she was pregnant with Mr. Omphrey’s child.”

A chill suddenly ran up my spine. Before I could utter another word, a beeper went off somewhere in the room.

“It is in my purse,” she said. “If I do not look at it, my driver will know something is wrong. He will come up here and he will kill you both.”

I picked up her handbag and tossed it to her. She opened it and retrieved a pager. Then she turned back to me. “It is a client.” She placed the pager back in her bag and removed a small brown vial. She twisted the cap off and dumped a small pile of white powder onto her fist and inhaled it. After one more bump, she recapped the vial and placed it back into her handbag and stood up. “If you gentlemen will excuse me now, I have to go to work. I expect you will not be here when I return.”

She stepped to the door, opened it, and left without looking back.

“What do you think?” I said to Scott.

“A gorgeous prostitute with a gram of coke? If it’s up to me, I say we stay.”

“It’s not up to you, Scott.”