Damned in Paradise

not to anyone with the press.”

“You must have read that interview in the New York Times,” she said, putting a hand to her chest, her expression mildly distressed. “I’m afraid I was indiscreet.”

His smile was lenient, but his eyes firm. “You were. I don’t mean that unkindly…but you were. No more talk of ‘murder.’ Or of your only regret being that you ‘bungled the job.’”

“That did look…clumsy in print, didn’t it?” she asked, but it was an admission, not a question.

“Are you really sleeping better now?” I asked her. “Pardon me for saying so, ma’am, but I would think the stress of this situation would have to take its toll.”

She raised her chin, nobly. “It’s much better with everything all out in the open. They suppressed my daughter’s name, in the first case, but that only made it worse. Rumors ran rampant. People would stare at her poor bruised cheek, and whisper and wonder.” Her face tightened, pinched; suddenly she looked sixty. “Lying gossip, filthy stories—a campaign calculated to drive my child out of Honolulu, or short of that, defame her character, and prejudice jurors if she dared to prosecute a second time. Not long before the…what shall I call the murder, Mr. Darrow?”

This time his smile was a twitch. “Let’s use the word ‘incident,’ shall we?”

She nodded. “Not long before the…incident…a few days, I think…I went to Judge Steadman—he’d been very kind to us, during the trial. I told him I feared for my daughter’s life. Not only were those five rapists running wild and free, this escaped criminal Lyman was reported to be in Moana Valley.”

“Who?” Darrow asked.

“Daniel Lyman,” Leisure said. “A murderer and rapist who walked out of Oahu Prison with a burglar pal of his on a New Year’s Eve pass. They’ve since ravished two more women, one of them white, and committed numerous robberies. The partner was captured but Lyman’s still at large. It’s been a major embarrassment to the Honolulu police.”

“But a boon to Admiral Stirling,” I said, “in his efforts to shake out the department.”

Darrow nodded, as if he knew what we were talking about. To Leisure he posed: “Was this in the materials Lt. Johnson provided us, before we boarded the Malolo?”

Leisure nodded.

I turned to our client. “Mrs. Fortescue, were you afraid this Lyman might attack your daughter…?”

“No,” she said, with a bitter little smile, “but he would have made a convenient scapegoat, had she been found dead, would he not? And without Thalia, there is no case against those five defendants.” She frowned to herself. “Four defendants, now.”

Darrow leaned forward, brow furrowed. “Tell me—how did your son-in-law hold up under all of this pressure?”

She glanced toward the closed door behind which Lt. Massie napped. She lowered her voice to a whisper and said, melodramatically: “As much as I feared for Thalia’s life, I feared for Tommie’s sanity.”

Darrow arched an eyebrow. “His sanity, dear?”

“I feared he couldn’t withstand the strain—he’d become sullen, he wasn’t sleeping or eating well, he became uncharacteristically withdrawn….”

A knock at the door interrupted, and Mrs. Fortescue imperiously called, “Come!” and a galley gob came in with a silver tray bearing cups of coffee, a creamer, and a bowl of cube sugar.

As the sailor served us, I sat studying this proud, rather dignified society matron and tried to picture her masterminding the kidnapping of a brutal Hawaiian rapist. I could picture her serving hors d’oeuvres; I could picture her playing bridge. I could even picture her, just barely, inside that dusty bungalow on Kolowalu Street.

But picture her party to guns and blood and naked dead natives in bathtubs? I couldn’t form the image.

“You had no intention of taking a life,” Darrow said ever so gently, “did you, dear?”

“Absolutely not,” she said, and sipped her coffee, pinkie poised genteelly. “My upbringing is Southern, but I assure you, I am no believer in lynch law. I cannot state that too emphatically. My upbringing, my family traditions, early religious training, make the taking of another’s life repugnant to me. Like you, sir, I am opposed to capital punishment.”

Darrow was nodding, smiling. He liked the sound of this. I didn’t know if he bought any of it, but he liked the sound.

“Then exactly how did this happen?” I asked.

“Incrementally,” she said. “As you probably know, after the first trial ended in a hung jury, the five defendants were required to report to the Judiciary Building every morning. I think it may have been Judge Steadman’s hope that they would violate his edict, and he could issue orders for their imprisonment…but they were reporting regularly.”

“Who told you this?” I asked.

“Judge Steadman himself. I was also friendly with the clerk of the court, Mrs. Whitmore. She was the one, I’m afraid, who planted the seed.”

“The seed?” Leisure asked.

“Mrs. Whitmore’s the one who told me the second trial was being delayed indefinitely. The district attorney’s office was afraid of another hung jury—and after another mistrial, the accused could not be tried again—those beasts would go free! The prosecution, Mrs. Whitmore said, had made such a mess of things in the first trial, it was going to be impossible to bring about a conviction unless one of the defendants confessed.”

“So you decided,” I said, “to get a confession yourself.”

She gestured with a flowing hand, as if she were explaining why it had been necessary to postpone this