The print from the guy’s throat was a clear match. Detective Kimo Kanapa‘aka, Waikiki Station. More important, though, was the match to the dead guy’s prints. We now had a name to go with our stiff: Thomas Pang. He had a couple of minor arrests in the past, nothing for the last few years. He was suspected of tong activity, but nothing was ever proven.
I dutifully made notes for the case file, then turned back to the computer and punched in a few keys. After a minute, a list began scrolling down the screen.
Tommy Pang had a long record, from possession of illegal weapons to armed robbery. It was clear he had been a low-level jack of all trades for one of the tongs, the kind of guy who takes the rap for whatever goes down. But he had served remarkably little jail time given all his time in court. He’d often been acquitted, or charges had been dropped, and the few times he’d actually been convicted he had paid fines or served at most a few months behind bars.
I pulled up Tommy Pang’s address, then looked at the clock. It was just after three. “You want to take a ride up to Maunalani Heights with me, break the news to the widow?”
Akoni shrugged. “Can’t let you out of my sight,” he said. “Only this time, you drive.”
Tommy Pang had lived pretty nicely, on a ridge overlooking Diamond Head, Black Point, and the Pacific Ocean. We stopped at a wrought-iron fence, and I identified myself through a speaker phone. The gate buzzed and we drove up a curving driveway to a sprawling one-story house, part ranch and part Chinese pagoda, with a blue tile roof curved up at the ends.
A very beautiful woman opened the door as we drove up and stepped out. She was about forty-five, perfectly dressed and made up, with a kind of China-doll beauty that made her seem like she was belonged in a magazine. On her best days, when she was dressed up for a party or special event, it was the look my mother strove for. On this woman, however, it appeared effortless.
“I am Genevieve Pang,” she said, extending a tiny, manicured hand to me. I introduced myself, and Akoni, and then the two of us stood there with Tommy Pang’s widow, rocking a little back and forth, neither of us knowing quite what to say.
She smiled. “You don’t have to be shy, detective. You can tell me. Have you arrested my husband again?”
The air around us was still, and I heard the chirping of birds and a slight rustle in the underbrush. The driveway and yard were as perfectly manicured as the woman before us, the gravel raked, the bushes carefully pruned.
“I’m afraid not,” I said. “Your husband was killed late last night, outside a bar in Waikiki. We’d like to talk to you about him, if you think you can.”
Genevieve Pang didn’t look surprised. Rather her face hardened a little, like this was something she’d expected for a long time. “Of course,” she said quietly. “Please come inside.”
She turned and led us into the house. We sat in a formal living room, on elaborately carved mahogany chairs, in front of a Japanese lacquered screen that probably belonged in a museum. There was a display of Javanese puppets on a mahogany table, and on the wall above it was a collection of what looked like Balinese masks. The room was elegant and tasteful, much like Genevieve Pang herself. I found it hard to imagine the man whose body we’d seen on the autopsy table, the man with that long record, there in that house. “When was the last time you saw your husband?” I asked.
“Let me tell you about our house, detective,” she said. “You are in the south wing now. That’s my part of the house. My bedroom is behind us. To your left is the kitchen, and beyond there the family room. On the other side of the family room is my husband’s part.” She smiled. “He has his privacy there. If he wishes to have company for the evening, he can do so.” Her smile hardened again. “I don’t have to know about it.”
“Do you know that your husband was here last night?” Akoni asked.
“We are not total strangers, detective,” she said, turning to him. “We had dinner together last night at a restaurant in Waikiki. Then he brought me home and went on to what he said was a business meeting. I don’t know if that was correct. I was reading until midnight, and if he had come home before then I would have heard his car come through the gate.” She looked at me. “You may have heard, when you drove through, that the mechanism needs oiling. My bedroom window faces in that direction. I hear it often. I suppose now I can have it repaired.”
“Do you know anyone who might have had reason to kill your husband?” I asked.
Genevieve Pang laughed lightly. “I am sure there are many people who wanted to kill Tommy,” she said. “But he was careful to keep his business dealings secret from me, and I was careful not to pry. You see, in many respects I am a good Chinese wife.”
“I’m sorry to have to ask this, ma’am, but it’s routine,” I said. “Do you know if Mr. Pang had a will?”
“We made wills a long time ago, detective. If my husband hasn’t changed his, then I inherit everything. I can have his attorney call you, if you’d like.”
“That would be good of you,” I said. “Is there anyone you would like us to call for you? Children, a sister or a brother?”
“I have a son, Derek. But I will call him myself.”
“May we have his number?” I asked. “Perhaps he knows more about his father’s business.”
Genevieve Pang laughed, and I saw that she was still a very attractive woman. “My husband was even more careful with Derek than he was with me,” she said. “He was determined that Derek would have all the advantages he did not have, that Derek would become a respectable person. He is going to run an art gallery, as soon as he gets himself organized.” She smiled. “He just graduated from Yale in May.”
“We’d still like to talk to him,” Akoni said.
She looked at her watch. “You can probably reach him now,” she said. “He has a friend staying with him, from college. They are both such lazy boys, late sleepers. Not like my husband and me. But then, Derek is different from his parents in many ways. Very American.” Then she straightened her back in a mocking kind of way. “Very Yale,” she said. “But then, it’s what we wanted for him, isn’t it? To be American?”
I didn’t know what to say. After a minute, Akoni said, very gently, “Your son’s phone number?”
“Of course, detective.” She took a pen and a pad from the gilt-covered stand by the phone and wrote the number down, then stood. “My husband’s…remains?”
“The medical examiner’s office will release the body,” I said. “If you contact a funeral home they’ll take care of the arrangements for you.”
With Genevieve Pang’s permission, we searched Tommy’s part of the house, but he was very meticulous, and we could find nothing that indicated any illegal dealings, and certainly nothing that gave anyone a motive for murder.
She thanked us again, and stood on the front step of the house until we had driven out the gates. I heard them squeal as they closed behind us.
I dialed the phone number Genevieve Pang had given me, but got her son’s answering machine. I left a message.
Akoni was quiet for a minute, as I negotiated the entrance to the Lunalilo Freeway. Finally he said, “It’s just after four. They have a happy hour at that bar?”
“The Rod and Reel? I think so.”
“And fortunately our shift is over. I could definitely use a beer.”
“I’ll second that emotion. You’re sure you want to go there?”
He frowned at me. “Don’t think we really have a choice. We’ve got to find out who owns the bar, what Tommy Pang was doing there.”
I parked back at my apartment, and we walked the couple of blocks to the club. It was funny, but I felt none of the tense expectation I’d felt the night before. Now it was just business, just me and my partner going in to a bar to ask some questions. Yeah, right.
The Rod and Reel was a different place in the afternoon. Liquid sunlight dropped down through the trees overhead, and mixed couples, tourists, and guys in tank tops sat at the plastic tables in small groups. The testosterone level seemed to have dropped about a thousand percent, and there were no restless, horny guys circling the room. The back room, where they showed X-rated videos on big-screen TVs, was closed.
Akoni and I sat down at a clean table right underneath a big overhead fan that moved the warm air around, and ordered a couple of beers.
