CHAPTER 5

I arrived at the Federal Detention Center early the next morning. The FDC stands adjacent to Honolulu International Airport, and after I parked and popped a few Percocet, I sat in my Jeep listening to Eddie Vedder and watching the planes take off from the Hawaiian Airlines terminal. I could do it, I thought. I had enough money to pack it all in and start over somewhere else. In a small town maybe. Just buy a two-family house out in the sticks and set up shop downstairs, drafting wills, reviewing contracts. Maybe run for mayor someday.

I stepped out of my Jeep and slammed shut the door. First I had a job to do.

Turi Ahina first waddled into my office about three years ago, while I was defending a young New Jersey man named Joey Gianforte, who was accused of stalking and killing his ex-girlfriend Shannon Douglas on Waikiki Beach. Turi had been caught up in a simple buy-and-bust operation set up by the Honolulu PD in which he’d sold an undercover officer a $40 bag of crystal methamphetamine, otherwise known as ice. Thanks to some creative lawyering on my part, all charges against Turi Ahina were ultimately dismissed. But that was just the beginning of our relationship. As a gesture of appreciation, Turi sent me a steady stream of criminal clients—in other words, his associates—which aided me in building the successful law firm Harper & Corvelli eventually became. Later, during the Gianforte murder trial, Turi Ahina shot a man dead in order to save my life. Since then I had successfully represented Turi in at least a half dozen other matters, but as far as I was concerned, my debt to Turi wasn’t paid. I still owed him. No matter what it took, I promised myself as I entered the Federal Detention Center, I would extricate Turi from the DEA’s dragnet in this case.

Forty-five minutes after signing in, I spotted Turi carrying his wide load across the packed cafeteria toward the tiny Plexiglas cube in which I had been scanning a copy of this morning’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser for news about Oksana Sutin’s death. Nothing yet. Fortunately, the local media sometimes operated on aloha time.

As Turi Ahina squeezed through the door to the Plexiglas cube, I stood and braced myself for what was coming next: the patented Turi Ahina bear hug. Only Turi didn’t move to hug me, didn’t even attempt to shake my hand. He simply sat down.

The wide smile that was all but painted on Turi’s face was absent, possibly confiscated during the raid. For the first time since I’d met him, Turi Ahina appeared scared.

I sat across from him as the Plexiglas door closed, sealing us in. I angled my metal chair slightly so that I wouldn’t be distracted by the goings-on in the cafeteria: the wives and girlfriends, sisters and mothers, sitting, talking, weeping, with their loved ones; young children—sons, daughters, younger siblings—running around the tables and playing on plastic chairs, undaunted by their surroundings, acting as though this were simply a theme park, a carnival, some sad, chaotic county fair.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s begin where we left off yesterday.”

Yesterday Turi described for me the early-morning raid by the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Turi and two others were working at a clandestine meth laboratory in Waialua at exactly 6:00 a.m. when agents busted through the door. The lab was a simple one-bedroom home set off a distance from its neighbors, not only to protect its privacy but because the chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine are toxic, flammable, and explosive. Explosions and fires at meth labs are common and deadly. Thus, at least two workers charged with damage control and cleanup remained on-site at all times.

“We called the lab the Tiki Room,” Turi said in pidgin English. His t’s sounded like d’s, his r’s often disappeared completely. “Biggest lab on the island, maybe in all of Hawaii because of the flyovers over the Big Island.” Turi was referring to the recent crackdown on marijuana fields on the Big Island of Hawaii.

“Aside from the product itself,” I said, “what were the agents able to seize?”

“Everyt’ing,” Turi said, eliminating the h as always. “We didn’t have time to dispose of nothing, Mistah C.”

“Specifically?”

Turi took me through a laundry list of chemicals, which included ephedrine and pseudoephedrine—ingredients extracted from cold tablets and diet pills. Kerosene, lye, anhydrous ammonia, lithium from batteries, drain cleaner, red phosphorous from the heads of matches and flares, and iodine.

I leaned forward and told Turi to cover his mouth. We were visible to other inmates, and although lip-reading wasn’t a common talent among the criminal crowd, you could never be too careful. We were about to enter extremely dangerous territory.

“I need you to tell me about the organization, Turi.”

My client’s thick lips folded in on themselves and his eyes seemed to close of their own accord as he drew in a colossal breath.

“There’s no getting around it this time,” I told him. “This isn’t like getting caught with a gram of ice or an unregistered handgun. If getting popped for simple possession were the common cold, this is a heart attack, a stroke, and a positive HIV test combined.”

My analogy didn’t seem to ease Turi any.

“Turi, I’ve been in this game long enough to know and understand the rules. ‘Keep your mouth shut and take your medicine like a man.’ But not this time. I can’t play Beat the Speedy Trial Clock or ask the prosecutor on a date to get you out of this one. And we’re not talking six months in Halawa if you plead guilty. We’re talking fifteen, twenty years minimum at a maximum-security pen on the mainland.”

“What do they got me on?”

“If they can prove everything set forth in the complaint—and, believe me, Turi, the feds don’t move on a suspect until they’re absolutely sure they can get a conviction—then they have you on racketeering and everything that comes with it.”

“And there’s no chance at trial?”

“Turi, the feds in this case are going to parade photos, wiretaps, chemicals, corpses, and testimony from your cohorts in front of the jury. You’d have a better chance of escaping the FDC than walking out of federal court with an acquittal. No pun intended, big guy, but this is much larger than you.”

“Awright,” he said grimly. “What do we gotta do?”

I glanced past the Plexiglas again, covered my lips when I spoke. “There’s only one way to handle this, Turi. And I think you already know exactly what I’m about to tell you.”

Turi wouldn’t look at me.

“You’re going to have to flip.”

Turi started sobbing and shaking his head before I even finished the sentence, but I continued nonetheless.

“You’re going to have to offer the US Attorney’s Office something they don’t already have. You’re going to have to sing about everything and everyone you know, and you can’t hold anything back.”

By the time I finished speaking, Turi’s head was on the table, his enormous shoulders shaking up and down like mountains in the midst of an earthquake.

“No way, Mistah C,” he mumbled into his fleshy forearms. “No can.”

“You can, Turi. You saved my life a few years ago. Allow me now to save yours.”

A long while passed before Turi finally looked up again, his cheeks bright red mounds, the whites of his eyes encased in thin, red spiderwebs. “I need some time to think.”

I shook my head. “I wish I could grant you that time, Turi, but it’s not mine to grant. The two others who were arrested with you are going to be having this same conversation with their own lawyers soon, if not already. Then it’s a footrace to the US Attorney’s Office, and the first one in the door wins. The two who are left behind can get nice and comfy in their cells.”

Turi turned his head and eyed the guards, the inmates, on the other side of the Plexiglas. Then he stared at me. “You’re looking at a dead man,” he said.

Maybe, I thought sadly. But it wouldn’t be the first time.

And it sure as hell wouldn’t be the last.