over every single word Adam Star had said in her office. God, why hadn’t they had the good sense to record that visit? It was something he said. Something that wasn’t in his confession. Dammit, what was it?
Kala reached for the cell phone she was never without and called Jay at the office. “Tell me word for word everything Adam Star said to us in the office. Something is bothering me. Something he said that wasn’t on the DVD.” She listened, her feet tapping the floor of the deck. Shakespeare woke and jumped off her lap, but not before he shot her a withering look.
“That’s it! That’s it! Okay, okay, now call around and see what hospital he’s in or if he’s home. He might even be admitted under another name. Oh, you did that already? He’s in St. Barnabas, room 511. I’m going there right now or as soon as I can get dressed. Call Meg Stallings, the court reporter we use, and tell her to meet me there. If she’s not free, get someone; I don’t care who it is. I want a record of what Adam Star says when I talk to him. If I talk to him. And I want witnesses, too.”
Kala finished her coffee, then poured a second cup in the kitchen as she made her way through the house. She carried the coffee with her to her bedroom, where she stripped down and changed into a pair of white linen slacks with a powder blue shell that showed off her tan. She gave her long black hair a quick brush, piled it on top of her head, finished her coffee, and headed back to the kitchen, where she called for a cab. With four shots of Jim Beam under her belt, she didn’t want to take a chance of getting caught driving while under the influence.
Once Kala arrived at the hospital, it took a solid hour before she could convince the floor nurse and Adam Star’s private nurses that she absolutely had to speak with him, and it was a matter of life or death. Finally, just as the court reporter appeared, the private-duty nurses relented and let them enter the room.
Kala quickly apologized for her impromptu visit and made nice while the court reporter was setting up her little machine. “I just need to ask you something, Mr. Star. You mentioned it at my office, but it wasn’t on the record, and it has to be on the record, Mr. Star. For Sophie Lee’s sake, it just has to be. It’s about what you said concerning Mr. Spenser, the prosecutor.”
Kala looked around at the machines, saw the tubes and bags, and wanted to cry that anyone, it didn’t matter who they were, had to suffer like this. She wondered if the nurses were giving their patient morphine. She asked, and one of the male nurses nodded. How good this statement was going to be would be anyone’s guess if Adam Star was shot full of morphine. She waited while the nurse slipped shaved cubes of ice through the patient’s dry, cracked lips.
“Mr. Star, I need to clarify something you said earlier in my office today.” Quickly, Kala rattled off his admission and his opinion concerning Ryan Spenser. “So what I am asking you now is if everything I just said is a true and accurate statement of what you said in my office a short while ago?”
“Yes, it is a true and accurate statement.”
“Is there anything you would like to add to that statement?”
“No.”
“Then all I can do is thank you. Someone will return in short order with your statement typed out. Will you be able to sign it for a notary, who will also be here, and will your two nurses agree to being witnesses to your signing?”
“Yes.”
“One last thing, is your mind clear even though you are receiving morphine?”
“My mind is as clear as yours right now. Do you want me to describe the furnishings in your office?”
In spite of herself, Kala smiled. “It couldn’t hurt.”
Adam Star rambled on for three minutes, then he sighed and drifted off to sleep.
Kala looked at the stenographer. “I’ll have my partner take pictures of the office in short order to support what Mr. Star just described. Did you get it all?”
“I did. I can have this transcribed and be back here in ninety minutes with a notary and have it dropped off at your home by six this evening.”
“That will be fine. Thanks, Meg.”
Kala wanted to say something to someone but was at a loss. Adam Star was sleeping. Both nurses were busy doing something with bags for IVs, so she patted Star’s hand and left the room. She felt like crying and didn’t know why. Star was paying in the most horrible way imaginable for what he’d done. She had to let it go at that. There was nothing more she could do at the moment.
Chapter 3
MIKALA AULANI LOOKED AT HERSELF IN THE MIRROR, MOVING this way, then that way. She decided she still looked as good today, at the age of sixty-two, as she had at the age of fifty. She hadn’t put on any weight because she ate right, did a modicum of exercising, and had the good fortune to be born Hawaiian, one of an undeniably beautiful people. Well, almost all of them were beautiful. Some were actually ravishing.
She looked at her raven black hair and the streaks of gray running through it. Coloring those pesky gray streaks was something she debated every so often, but Ben said he liked them, insisting they made her look more like a goddess. Like a real goddess had gray hair. She snorted at the thought. One good thing about being Hawaiian was that she didn’t have to worry about makeup. Hands on her hips, Kala played with her reflection in the mirror as she adjusted her minty green blouse and matching skirt. She winked at herself, kissed the air, then laughed out loud as she danced under a spray of perfume. There was just no way one could argue with 115 pounds of curves and double eyelashes at the age of sixty-two. Stupid is as stupid does. She laughed again because she knew she looked more than good for her age. Even a bit sexy. Not that she was even one little bit vain. Not her.
Time to get this show on the road. She was going into the office. To do what, she wasn’t sure. More of what she’d been doing since Tuesday, when Adam Star walked into her office and dropped his bombshell.
The death watch was on, and it was disconcerting to be so excited and at the same time sad to be waiting for someone to die. Still, donor recipients did the same thing, didn’t they? In order to live, someone had to die to donate an organ for the other’s survival. This wasn’t all that different. Adam Star had to die so Sophie Lee could live again. Kala shook her head. She hated thoughts like this. As Jay said, no matter how you looked at it, it was one helluva mess.
Kala tried to shift her thoughts in another direction. What better than her canceled trip and Ben Jefferson? Ben had taken it well and didn’t seem the least bit upset. Either that, or he was hiding his disappointment well.
She loved Ben, she really did. And the success of her thirty-five-year relationship with the retired judge, she felt sure, was because they had never married. He had his own house, and she had hers. They didn’t commingle anything but their bodies, and ooooh, that was heavenly. Neither of them needed money from the other, each had robust brokerage accounts, and neither had to count their pennies or answer to each other about spending those pennies. Independence was truly a wonderful thing, Kala thought. And she planned on keeping it that way.
A time or two she and Ben had actually talked of marriage, then looked at each other and laughed, saying no, it would never work. What they had did work, and neither one of them wanted to jeopardize the relationship. Sometimes, she missed having children, and other times, she was glad she didn’t have any. The world today was a crazy place; she saw it firsthand day after day in court. Ben said he felt the same way.
Number crunching of any kind was not Kala’s forte as she tried to figure out how many hours it would be till Tuesday. Did she count all of today, all of Tuesday? In the end, she had to give it up because she couldn’t concentrate. “Oh, God, make me stop thinking like this,” she mumbled as she climbed into her racy Mercedes convertible. She could have driven to the office blindfolded, but today, she made a stop on the corner of Cedar and Central. She waited for the light to change and made a right turn into the parking lot of St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church.
She was from the old school and reached into the glove box for a scarf to put on her head. She wanted to stamp her feet in fury, shake her fist at something when she found the church door locked. Her shoulders slumped until she saw a young priest headed her way. He smiled and unlocked the door, saying something about vandalism. Kala just shook her head. What kind of upbringing did kids who vandalized churches have?
The church was cool and dim, smelling faintly of incense and smoking candles. Sun streamed through the stained-glass windows, which were so vibrant in color she could only stare at them, mesmerized. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to church in the middle of the day. She made a mental promise to herself to
