CHAPTER 50

The next day, a Saturday, I called the Honolulu Police Department and reported my Jeep stolen from in front of my office building. Twenty minutes later Detective John Tatupu arrived on South King Street to take my statement. Scott Damiano greeted him downstairs and led him up to my office.

“What the hell is this?” Tatupu said as soon as he stepped into reception.

“Sorry, John,” I said. “But I didn’t feel like taking a swim to Chinaman’s Hat tonight.”

Once Scott left, Tatupu and I stepped into the conference room. We sat next to each other, a copy of the Hawaii Penal Code resting on the table between us.

“The answer is no,” he said before I asked. “I can’t testify. Maybe you can pack up and leave these islands after the trial, but I can’t. I have a family to think about.”

“You stood up in the face of corruption during the last federal probe, when Kamakana sued the department. Why won’t you stand up now?”

“Things were different then, Counselor. Then if a cop stood up, he risked getting shunned, maybe a broken leg. But now…” Tatupu shook his head. “They won’t just kill me. They’ll kill my family. They’ll kill my friends.”

I sat back in my chair and regarded him with a look of disdain. I respected John Tatupu, respected him more than any other cop I’d ever met, here or back East. He was one of the few cops I feared facing on the witness stand. During the Gianforte murder trial, I’d treated him with kid gloves for fear that the jury would turn on me if I hammered away at his experience. During the Simms arson trial, I’d counted on his doing the right thing, telling the truth, even if it burned the prosecutor, Luke Maddox. And he had.

“What good is being a good cop if you’re afraid to take on the dirty ones?”

Tatupu leaned forward till he was inches from my face. “Don’t you try to guilt me, Corvelli. Remember, I know you. I know what you are. You think this is a fucking game.”

A fierce anger immediately swelled within me. The anger had been building, an anger fueled by dirty cops, by political corruption, by self-righteous sons of bitches who looked down on me because of what I did for a living.

“A game?” I said, rising from my seat. I ripped open my collared shirt, buttons arching across the room, a few skittering onto the table, making a sound like loose change. I pointed to the upper-right section of my abdomen. “Does this scar look like something I got playing a fucking game, Detective?”

Tatupu stared up at me silently.

My chest heaved. “Nikki Kapua’s locked away in a mainland prison. Erin Simms is dead. That’s my life. That’s what comes with the business I’ve chosen. I could have walked away from the law after Brandon Glenn. After Nikki. After Erin. But I didn’t. Because there’s too many fucking injustices in this world. Because people like you, John, make too many fucking mistakes.”

I turned away from him. “Don’t make another one,” I practically begged. “Don’t let an innocent man spend the rest of his life in prison for killing a cop who should’ve never been on the streets to begin with.” I kept my back to him, unable to face him.

“If I had the power to stop this, I would,” Tatupu said calmly. “But I don’t. The jury will never believe one man’s word against an entire department’s. I did my job, Corvelli. I went to the feds. I told them the NIU was accepting protection money from Masonet. I told them there were cops acting as couriers between here and Mexico. I told them everyone from the chief on down was getting his dick sucked in exchange for looking the other way when they could have made a bust. I told them that money and drugs and guns went missing from the evidence locker every month. I told them the NIU acted more like a hit squad than a unit of the police department, taking out witnesses and competing gang members as if they were the goddamn Sicilian Mafia. I told them everything.”

I finally turned to face him.

Tatupu jumped out of his seat. “So I’m sorry, Corvelli, if what I’ve done isn’t enough for you or your client. Because it’s enough to clear my conscience.”

“What about the dirty cop the feds told you might cooperate? Do you have any idea who he is?”

Tatupu shook his head. “I told you, Counselor, I don’t even know if he really exists. The feds knew I couldn’t keep talking unless they found someone to back me up. For all I know, this dirty cop was no more than a figment of their imagination.”

We stared at each other in silence. Here was an opportunity for a cop and a defense attorney to team up on the side of right, to seek the truth through a cloud of corruption. And John Tatupu was content to allow that opportunity to pass us by. But I wasn’t.

I had made plenty of mistakes in my ten years as a criminal attorney. Back in New York, I’d put my career before my clients. I’d determined retainers based solely on how much my clients could pay. I’d needlessly adjourned cases in order to collect additional fees. I’d advised clients to plead guilty in cases I knew I could win. I’d taken shortcuts, manipulated witnesses, pointed my finger at innocent people solely to hear the words not guilty. There is a fine line between being a criminal lawyer and being a criminal. Sometimes it was easy to decide the next course of action, to determine what was wrong from what was right. Other times, such as now, it was nearly impossible.

Detective John Tatupu finally turned from me and opened the conference room door.

“Be ready,” I said calmly to his back. “Because I’m going to call you to testify on Monday.”

“Don’t,” he said, looking back at me from the doorframe. “You’ll be making a big strategic mistake, Corvelli. One you might not be able to come back from with this jury.”

I lifted the Hawaii Penal Code off the table and held it up in front of him.

“The only mistake,” I said, holding the heavy book, “would be you not telling the jury the truth on Monday.”

I opened the hollowed-out code book and allowed him a glance at the running microcassette recorder inside.

“Because, Detective, I have every goddamn word you just said on tape.”

Tatupu took a step toward me, eyes blazing, fingers curling into fists.“So help me, Counselor, if any harm comes to my family, you are going to wish you never even heard of these islands.”