nuts.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So you’re back and you’re smug. Well, that explains a lot of things. Come in, both of you. You’ve flown a long way with whatever theory you’ve got. Let’s hear it.’
They followed him down a long hallway with a light-colored bamboo floor, Casey walking with a slight limp, his shoe clicking with each step. The limp she hadn’t noticed when he greeted them. He must have hid it. He took them to the lanai Raveneau had told her about and moved three wicker chairs over to a low white-painted iron table.
‘Sit.’ He pointed a finger at Raveneau. ‘I know you like beer, but what about you, Elizabeth. What are you drinking?’
‘I just had coffee but thank you.’
‘What kind of beer, Commander?’
‘Whatever you’ve got.’
‘You don’t care as long as it has alcohol, right? I once knew that feeling.’
He popped the caps off two Coronas and put the bottles down on the table.
‘Now just cut to it,’ he said, ‘I don’t need the roundabout bullshit or have time for it today. You’re here because you think you’re on to something.’
‘Before anything else why don’t you give us the name and phone number of the Hawaiian artist,’ la Rosa said. She said this quietly. She didn’t feel Raveneau’s earlier attitude was smug and she read Casey’s attitude as bullying. She knew now was the best time to get the phone number from him and she wasn’t surprised he resisted.
‘I wrote it down on a piece of paper and I don’t know what I did with it. It’s somewhere in here.’
La Rosa stood. ‘I’ll help you look for it.’
For a long moment Casey didn’t answer. He stared at her then got to his feet and went over to the bar, stood behind it looking down, and la Rosa caught Raveneau’s alertness. She registered what it was about and unzipped the small purse she carried her gun in.
‘Here it is,’ Casey said, and then brought it to her. As she thanked him she pulled her phone from her purse and Casey said, ‘Don’t call her yet.’
La Rosa smiled at him as the phone rang, saying, ‘We don’t have much time. We need to set up a meeting with her.’
A woman answered and la Rosa introduced herself and asked if she was speaking to Aolani Ito. She was and la Rosa’s first impression was that Ito was unafraid and curious. She asked Ito how long it would take to get there and then agreed on a time.
‘So you’re going to do lunch,’ Casey said, as she hung up. ‘Well, it’s a long drive. You’ll have to hurry. You’ll have to cut short whatever you planned here. I think you’re getting ahead of yourselves. I think you’re making guesses you can’t support. You don’t really see what’s evolving, do you?’
Raveneau was soft spoken, holding the beer bottle but not drinking from it, gesturing slowly with his free hand.
‘What’s evolving, Tom? What are we missing?’
‘Let’s get to why you’re here first. What have you got?’
‘We’re here about the Glock you’re missing.’
‘The Glock the boy protected himself with when you were breaking into Jim’s house is a new model and the boy owns it. It’s registered to him but you know that by now. I don’t have any Glocks registered to me, but you’ve learned that too by now. Are you asking about the Glock 17 I’ve kept in that glass case over there and that’s gone missing very recently?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that what he did, he sent it to you?’
‘We have the gun. We’ve tested it. It’s why we’re here.’
Casey didn’t seem surprised. He must have gotten there on his own already, or maybe it was part of a plan she didn’t understand yet.
‘Jim Frank bought that gun in Austria when they first came out. He asked me to hold it for him and it has sat in that cabinet there on and off for decades. Sometimes he’d take it back to the house with him or loan it to somebody. The boy will tell you the same thing. The boy learned to shoot with it. It’s why he loves Glocks. I’m sure he can remember Jim carrying it back up the trail or loaning it out. Sometime later it would reappear in that case. That was the way it worked. Jim wanted access to it, but he didn’t want it in his house.’
‘How many years has it been in your possession?’ Raveneau asked.
‘Since Jim brought it back.’
‘When was that?’
‘It was-’
La Rosa saw the moment it happened. She watched the change and thought a heart attack was possible. The color drained from Casey’s face faster than she had ever seen.
‘Don’t tell me AK was shot with it. Don’t tell me that.’
‘He was. We have a ballistics match. Your gun was the murder weapon.’
‘The gun went out there and killed AK?’
‘What do you mean it went out there?’
‘Jim loaned it out.’
‘Why would he loan a gun to people?’
‘You’d have to ask him.’
‘Since we can’t interview a dead man I think you had better tell us.’
‘Are you suggesting I had something to do with AK’s murder? Of course that’s what you’re suggesting.’
‘Who had the gun when he was killed?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Then it comes back to you, Tom.’
‘No, no, it doesn’t come back to me. It was never my gun. I would have killed myself before killing Alan.’
La Rosa had a hard time not believing he was sincere.
‘You can see where we’re at,’ Raveneau said. ‘It’s the murder weapon. You need to convince us.’
‘The gun went out on its own. Someone had a drink with Jim and then it got borrowed. It was only used to do good. But Jim loaned it out so much it got to be a running joke. If someone complained too much about a boss or a wife he’d get the gun and tell them either go take care of it or quit complaining. He didn’t like complaining. Other people borrowed it to learn to shoot and that’s what I mean when I say used for good. Like the boy learning to shoot so he’ll be ready when the time comes.’
‘When what time comes?’
‘Change is always coming, Ben. One event can trigger a historical convulsion. The Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were shot in their car on a side street in Sarajevo early on a summer afternoon on the twenty-eighth of June in 1914 by a young man with a Browning. 32 exactly the same as the one in the case behind you.’
He pointed. He wanted Raveneau to turn to look and she looked but Raveneau didn’t. Raveneau took a drink of beer.
‘You have to understand, anything he had Jim would loan out. It wasn’t about guns and as I said earlier he didn’t like to be around guns. I have to remember. I have to think back. I just can’t get my head around what you’re saying, that he was killed with the Glock. Are you sure about the ballistics test?’
‘We are and we may be taking you back with us.’
Casey reacted immediately to that. The look of pain left his eyes. A bright hardness replaced it.
‘Oh, I can guarantee that you won’t be doing that.’
‘Then you need to convince us.’
‘That’s what I’m thinking about right now. I’m considering a way to irrevocably convince you.’
La Rosa felt a prickle along her spine and as Raveneau continued to meet Casey’s gaze, she asked, ‘Are you in some way threatening us, Mr Casey?’
Casey turned to her.
‘The idea of you speculating I murdered Alan or assisted in any manner is repulsive. It fills me with disgust
