Back at the office I find Jake in the conference room, the contents of the Gianforte file and an empty six-pack spread across the long cherry table.
“I thought you were too old for this shit,” I say. “I am,” he says, taking a last swig from his Sierra Nevada. “Still, there’s something about this case that draws me in like a moth to a flame. The victim is as complex as any I’ve ever seen or even heard of. A law student, working undercover for the Justice Department, dating the son of a Mafia underboss. She’s a beautiful brunette, clearly intelligent, yet promiscuous as all hell. She has sex with a local on the beach the night before she’s supposed to meet her law school professor for a two-week-long fuckfest. She drinks like a fish, she does drugs.”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupt him. “What did you just say?”
“About the fuckfest?”
Jake scans the table. The file I kept so well organized looks as if it were hit by a tornado. I don’t see a Doritos bag in the room, but orange fingerprints are all over my meticulous notes. He has clearly used the pleadings as a coaster and the retainer agreement as a place mat for his Doritos and pale-ale snack. He finally finds the document on the floor under his feet.
He tosses it to me. Despite the footprint I can see that it’s a toxicology report.
“Shannon tested positive for marijuana,” Jake tells me.
“Son of a bitch. How did I miss this?”
“Actually, you didn’t. I noticed the toxicology report wasn’t attached to the autopsy records. I figured you being so organized and all, if you had it, it wouldn’t dare be anyplace else. So I telephoned the prosecuting attorney’s office. A secretary faxed it over to us an hour ago. They must have forgotten to give it to you when you picked up the file.”
“I wonder what else they forgot to give me.”
“Like a shiny new pair of Nike sneakers?” he says.
I nod. Defense attorneys typically have to fight tooth and nail with prosecutors to obtain discovery. I was naïve to think it would be any different in paradise. Just because Barbara Davenport handed me some preliminary discovery with a smile on her face doesn’t mean they’re not holding back the good stuff. Law enforcement can utilize many tactics to keep the defense lawyer in the dark. If police found the footwear, they may have had it analyzed, then neglected to hand it over to the prosecuting attorney’s office. The police are under no duty to provide us with discovery. Only the prosecuting attorney is. Thus, the police and prosecutors usually have their own little “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
Back to the marijuana. The pakalolo. Immediately, my thoughts turn to Palani.
“Palani has already admitted to police that he bought marijuana at the Waikiki Winds after he left Shannon on the beach,” I say.
“Don’t forget, son, the weed could have been in her system for up to thirty days.”
“It could have. But remember, Jake, she worked for the FBI. She wasn’t calling it a day and rushing home to smoke a joint. The Justice Department tests its employees on a regular basis.”
“Another fine reason not to become a Fed.”
“Practically speaking, I’m sure we could also elicit testimony from Shannon’s mother, who would assure us all that her darling little girl never touched the evil weed in her entire life.”
“Okay, son, let’s assume, then, that Shannon smoked the ganja the night she arrived in Waikiki. Where does that leave us?”
“Well,” I say, “let’s assume she didn’t smoke it at any of the bars. Even though Palani says he smoked a joint in the bathroom at the Bleu Sharq, I’m sure the owner and manager of the bar will call him a liar and say that sort of stuff doesn’t go on in there. The same goes for Margaritaville.”
“That would mean she smoked the weed sometime after she left the Bleu Sharq.”
“Exactly.”
“But Palani has the video surveillance camera at the Waikiki Winds as an alibi, son. Even assuming he was able to get back to the beach, kill her, and return to the hotel in the fifteen minutes or so that he left his post, he sure as hell didn’t have time to sit down with her to puff on a joint.”
“Right,” I say. “But what about his buddy, the other doorman? This J. J. Fitzpatrick. The guy who gave Palani the weed.”
“I hope you’re not talking about a coincidence, son. Juries don’t buy into coincidences.”
I shred some skin off my thumb and wince at the pain.
“No, Jake. No coincidences. Perhaps Palani was in a giving mood after his buddy J.J. lit him up. Perhaps Palani told his friend and colleague that there was a drunk, horny, half-naked girl down on a deserted stretch of Waikiki Beach.”
“You think you’ll be able to sell a jury on that, son? That the local boy wanted his friend to have a go at her?”
“As fucked up as it sounds, there’s precedence, Jake. Think about it. If Palani told his friend about the girl—which he probably did given the scratches on his face—then, at the very least, we have another suspect, one who doesn’t have an alibi in the form of video surveillance.”
“So what you’re surmising is that this friend of Palani’s walks down to the beach, finds Shannon, has a chat with her, smokes her up, then hits her with a reef rock when she won’t put out?”
“That’s one possibility,” I say, rising from my chair.
I walk down the narrow hall to my office. I step inside and close the door behind me. I step out of my shoes. I remove my suit jacket and pants, hang them neatly on the hook atop the cherry door. I remove my tie and my button-down shirt and fold them over my chair. I change my socks. I throw on a T-shirt and shorts, slip on a pair of sneakers.
On my way out of the suite, I pop my head back into the conference room and say good-bye to Jake.
“Where are you heading off to, son?”
“I’m going for a run. And I have a sudden urge to try to score some pakalolo.”