Those “adventures,” of course, had to do with the attempt the conspirators had made to dump Kahahawai’s sheet-wrapped naked body; they’d been caught by the cops with the corpse in the backseat of the rental Buick on the way to Hanauma Bay.
It seemed the other native, the “little guy” who’d been walking across the Judiciary Building grounds with Joe Kahahawai when the fake summons was served, was Joe’s cousin Edward Ulii, who had been suspicious about Joe getting shoved into that Buick, and immediately reported it as a possible abduction. When a radio car spotted the Buick speeding toward Koko Head, shades drawn, Mrs. Fortescue’s jig was up.
“I’d be delighted, Mr. Darrow,” Mrs. Fortescue said.
And soon we were walking along the old gun deck of the cruiser, past empty weapon ports; up ahead Darrow was walking along with his arm around Mrs. Fortescue, Massie following like a puppy.
“This may be the most straightforward case of felony murder I ever encountered,” Leisure whispered to me. “Premeditation all the way…”
I let out a short laugh. “Why do you think C.D. pulled that temporary insanity rabbit out of his hat?”
“I have to admit I was shocked,” Leisure said, shaking his head. “He stopped just short of suborning perjury. I’ve never witnessed a more blatant display of questionable ethics in my career.”
“Come to Chicago,” I advised. “We got plenty more where that came from.”
“You’re not offended?”
“Hardly.” I nodded up toward Massie and his mother-in-law as they walked with Darrow. “Do you think those two misguided souls deserve life in prison?”
“They probably deserve a good thrashing, but…no.”
“Neither does C.D. He’s just doing what it takes to give them the best goddamn defense he can muster.”
We followed echoing laughter to where Jones and Lord were playing a spirited round of Ping-Pong in a room that could have handled ten times as many cots as the two unmade ones on its either side. No guard was watching them. Both were short, muscular, good-looking gobs in their early twenties.
Jones was a wiry wiseguy with his brown hair slicked back on a square head, and Lord a curly-headed Dick Powell type with a massive build for a little guy. Seeing us enter, they stopped their game and doffed their seamen’s hats.
Mrs. Fortescue rather grandly said, “Allow me to introduce Mr. Clarence Darrow.”
There were handshakes all around, and Darrow made our introductions as well, and informed the sailors he wasn’t here to talk in depth about the case just yet, merely to say hello.
“Boy, are we glad to see you,” Jones said. “I feel sorry for the other side!”
“It’s an honor meeting you, sir,” Lord said.
“Show them your memory book!” Mrs. Fortescue urged Jones.
“Sure thing, missus!” Jones said, and dragged out a thick scrapbook from under one of the unmade cots. “I just pasted in some more today.”
Lord and Massie were off to one side of the room, lighting up cigarettes, chatting, laughing, kidding each other. I found a chair to sit on while Leisure leaned against a bulkhead, silently shaking his head.
And Clarence Darrow was sitting on the edge of the cot next to the grinning Jones, who turned the pages of the scrapbook, already overflowing with clippings, while Mrs. Fortescue stood with hands fig-leafed before her, watching with delight as her savior and one of her servants conferred.
“I ain’t never got my name in the papers before,” the proud sailor said.
I wondered if sports star Joe Kahahawai had kept a scrapbook, too; he’d made the papers lots of times. Mostly the sports page. He’d make it again, in the coming weeks.
Then it was pretty likely to taper off.
7
You might have found the Alexander Young Hotel—a massive block-long brownstone with two six-story wings bookending a long, four-story midsection—in downtown Milwaukee or maybe Cleveland. Like so many buildings built around the turn of the century, it straddled eras—stubbornly unembellished, neither modern nor old-fashioned, the Young was a commercial hotel whose only concession to being located in paradise was a few potted palm plants and occasional halfhearted vases of colorful flowers in an otherwise no-nonsense lobby.
The reporters were waiting when we arrived midafternoon, and they swarmed us in a pack as we moved steadily toward the elevators in the company of the hotel manager. The mustached little man had met us at the curb not only to greet us, but to let C.D. and Leisure know the numbers of the suites where they would find their wives.
“I’ve spoken to my clients,” Darrow said to the reporters as we moved along, “and have heard enough to decide upon my line of defense. And that’s all I have to say about the subject at present.”
The overlapping requests for further clarification were pretty much unintelligible, but the words “unwritten law” were in there a good deal.
Darrow stopped suddenly, and the reporters tumbled into each other, like an auto pileup.
“I’m down here to defend four people,” he said, “who have been accused of a crime that I do not think is a crime.”
Then he pressed on, while the reporters—stalled momentarily by that cryptic comment—lagged behind as the old boy deftly stepped onto a waiting elevator. And Leisure and I were right there with him, while the hotel manager stayed out, holding back the press like a traffic cop.
One newshound yelled, “The Hawaiian legislature must agree with you—they’ve just made rape a capital offense.”
