“ It was no longer his case. He's the commish now, so if anyone was told to look into it, which I doubt, it'd have to be a direct order from him. It was probably handled as just another crackpot call.”
“ Letter… she wrote him from California.”
“ Mail to the police, even addressed to the P.C., goes through thirty steps before it lands on the proper desk, and with a politically involved guy like Scanlon, you're looking at weeks before he opens his mail unless it had a return address to the mayor or the governor. In point of fact, a secretary probably re-routed the letter before he ever had a chance to see it. Still, somebody in the chain must've spoken to him about it and it clicked some tumbler in his memory, because he did in the end send a squad car around to check on Lopaka, and that's how Lopaka's car was spotted. I only learned of it because I was with Ivers when that baby-faced cop Janklow wanted to personally tell Ivers about it. I immediately got HPD to hold off only because Scanlon was away, something about a fund-raiser on Maui.”
“ How's your friend's eyes?” she asked.
“ Healing, prognosis for recovery is good. Anyway, now we both understand why Scanlon wanted control of the crime scene the other day. Why he was so damned adamant. Now he's running scared; now he really is vulnerable to blackmail, and maybe one day I'll collect on that note.”
“ Let 'im sweat, huh?”
'Teach him to prick around in my cases.”
“ I'm sure he's saying precisely the same about you right now. Better watch your back.”
“ Yeah, I've given that some thought. Remember what happened to my LTD? That bastard ordered his cops to stand down on that. I had a creepy feeling about it when it happened, but now I know.”
“ Jesus, Jim, be careful out there. Where are you now?”
“ Just pulling into my driveway.”
“ Don't leave your car out.”
“ Yeah, next thing you know there'll be a ticking package in the mail for me.”
“ You're joking, right?”
“ Just one favor, dear.”
“ What's that?”
“ Promise me you'll get the evidence on the bastard to put him away if anything should ever happen to me.”
“ Nothing's going to happen to you.”
“ Promise?”
“ Nothing's going to happen to you-”
“ Promise!”
“- 'cause you won't let it happen, not if you… care about me.”
“ So, anything new in the slab lab?”
“ Shore and I were right about the nature of the wounds. She died of bloodletting… accompanying shock, after which Kowona drove the blades through her with enough force to bring down a rhino. You get a sense he gets off on seeing the muscle spasms and the body dance on impact, but first he had to draw his tattoo patterns over the flesh.”
“ Concerned about taboos,” said Parry. “Say again?”
“ The true native doesn't make a move without blessing every this-and-that in sight; the ornamental slashes were to bless the offering, make it as pure or puree as flesh gets, I suppose, for the gods.”
“ Who've you been talking to?”
“ Got some info from a university prof.”
“ Hmmmm… Sounds like Kaniola's great-granduncle.”
“ Yeah, well, Joseph says the streets are stone cold for information on Lopaka's whereabouts. He could be anywhere. Could be in California, going for the real Kelia… could be on another island, or he could be under our noses.” He quickly explained Kaniola's theory that Lopaka was hiding out in the Koolau Mountains.
“ God, from what I saw up there at Lomelea's shrine… hell, the bastard could disappear in a moment if a helicopter passes over. A foot search'll be difficult, time-consuming and costly,” she said thoughtfully.
“ Whatever it takes. Tony's calling out the Army-Navy guys now.”
“ You get some rest,” she told him. “I can hear tired coming through the line.”
They said good night and Parry, having parked in his garage and having cut off the motor, wearily pulled himself from the car. In the shadows, just outside the unlit garage, there stood a man as tall as Jim, staring. Unable to see anything metallic in the man's hand, Jim nonetheless momentarily wondered if he'd be found dead here the next morning, a. 38 slug in his chest. The figure could be only one man, he surmised. “Scanlon? What the hell're you doing here?”
“ Been waiting for you to get home now for some time, Jim. Wanted to apologize for yesterday… at the scene…”
“ Forgotten, old news. Commissioner.”
“ I… I want a truce, Jim, between you and me, I mean. I want our separate agencies to work in better harmony, you know that, you've got to know that.”
“ Sure, sure, I know that.” There was no gun in the man's hand, only a heavy weariness in his voice. He had been sweating, just as Jess had said, in dread fear that his oversights would be tomorrow's front-page story in Kaniola's Ala Ohana.
“ You spent some time with Kaniola today,” he said as if reading Parry's mind.
“ That's right. Look, Scanlon, you want to come inside for coffee or something and we can sit, talk?”
“ I didn't come for coffee. Parry, or any bullshit. I come to say I've been wrong, to say it like a man, to put it on the table. Maybe if I'd been more of a cop and less of a… a…”
“ Ambitious man?”
“… then maybe I'd have seen this creep for what he was the first time around.”
“ Or maybe the second?”
“ Damnit, Parry, there were a thousand leads; you know how many women get battered by their husbands and see a story in the papers and come running to us with some wild story about how her man's a rapist or serial killer or an alien from another friggin' world?” His laugh was hollow, unfelt. “Christ, we do… I did what I could. When I was working the case, I didn't have any help, no task force, nothing, and everybody-and I mean everyone- treated it like a street-sweeper job.”
“ A street-sweeper job?”
“ You know, so many derelicts off the streets, so who's going to miss 'em, right? That was the mentality I was dealing with when Price was P.C. I couldn't get manpower on the thing, and I was fucking inundated, and there were a string of high-rise robberies, a hostage deal and the visit from the damned Pope!”
It all sounded like a series of hollow excuses to Jim Parry, but he raised a hand to Scanlon and said, “Listen, Commissioner, that's all ancient history so far's I'm concerned. I haven't discussed this with anyone.”
He didn't include Jessica.
“ Certainly will never talk to Joe Kaniola about it, especially if relations between your office and mine are kept amenable.”
Scanlon, ever the politician, caught the veiled threat like a pro, his mitt held at just the right angle.
“ Sure, sure, Jim. Just like Shore said when he got back. We can learn from one another, support one another. Anything your office ever needs just-”
“ At the moment I do need every available officer for a sweep of the mountains above Lopaka's house. Whataya say?”
“ I can arrange it, sure. When?”
“ Tomorrow, daybreak. Have them coordinate with Agent Tony Gagliano and the Army.”
“ Not a problem. What else you need, Jim? Name it.”
“ Sleep, I need sleep, so good night, Commissioner.”
“ Yeah, good night. Chief… Jim.”
Parry had moved closer and closer to his kitchen door, and now he zapped the down button on his garage door, which clattered chain-and-drumlike in Scanlon's face. It gave Parry great satisfaction, the entire scene.
