Tanaka, roused from sleep, listened to Kawika’s confession, which was unsparing. But Kawika could see that Tanaka was angry—very angry. Kawika knew Tanaka didn’t completely absolve him of Joan Malo’s death. He worried that this time Tanaka might conclude he’d erred irredeemably.
But Tanaka didn’t act immediately, not in the night. Punishment, he told Kawika, could wait till morning. Instead, having listened long, he offered words Kawika knew were meant to help him.
“I’m not surprised you let yourself be provoked,” he said. “You’re human. Cushing pushed your buttons. But you haven’t asked why he provoked you. He isn’t a suspect, and he’d just entertained you in his home.”
Kawika started to answer.
“Shh,” Tanaka admonished him. “Don’t answer. Not yet. Get some sleep first, then think about it. It’s not a trick question. But I think the answer matters.”
“Thank you,” replied Kawika as politely as possible. “I was just going to say: you’ve taught me that what’s true is more important than why it’s true. What’s true is, he did provoke me.”
“Ah,” said Tanaka. “Hoist with my own petard—isn’t that what your fictional detectives would say?”
“Sherlock Holmes maybe. No one more recent.”
“Well, Dr. Watson,” Tanaka concluded, “in this particular case what’s true may not be more important than why it’s true. But this case is an exception.”
45Hilo
Tanaka took command. He asked Tommy instead of Kawika to question the recently returned Murphy couple. He also asked Tommy to have his Waimea colleagues keep trying to track down Jason Hare, who’d vanished from the shoulder of the Queen K. He pressed Sammy to locate Peter Pukui, whom they’d released, and find Melanie Munu. He placed another call to Shimazu in Japan. And when a call came from Cushing’s lawyer—a Waimea lawyer Tanaka didn’t know—Tanaka handled it himself.
“My client demands that Detective Wong be suspended and that disciplinary proceedings be instituted to terminate his employment,” the lawyer declared. “Further, my client demands that the County initiate prosecution of Detective Wong for criminal assault. Finally, my client demands that the Department not defend Detective Wong or pay his legal fees in the criminal case or in the civil suit my client intends to file against him.”
“Is that all?” Tanaka asked.
“My client is a reasonable man,” the lawyer said. “He blames Detective Wong, not the Department. Assuming you agree to his demands, my client will not sue you personally as Detective Wong’s supervisor, nor file a criminal negligence complaint against the Department or name the Department as a defendant in the civil suit.”
“You done?”
“Depending on your response, yes.”
“Here’s my response,” Tanaka said. “Detective Wong will apologize to his colleagues for his loss of self-control. He will do so at a meeting I will call for that purpose. Your client is welcome to attend. Or I can send him a tape. Detective Wong will also be suspended from the case—not from the force. His suspension will last for five working days. In a murder case, working days include the weekend.”
“Five days! You’re joking.”
“The suspension is not to punish Detective Wong,” Tanaka continued. “The suspension is to protect your client. Detective Wong needs to cool off. We don’t want him to hurt your client.”
“He’s already hurt my client.”
“I mean really hurt your client.”
Cushing’s lawyer grew incensed. “Captain Tanaka, Detective Wong didn’t just hurt my client, he assaulted my client. The assault was brutal, and it was completely unprovoked.”
“Completely unprovoked?”
“Yes,” the lawyer said. “My client merely expressed disagreement with Detective Wong’s statement that a Mr. Peter Pukui could be ruled out as a suspect in the Fortunato murder case.”
“That’s what your client tells you? Well, here’s what Detective Wong tells me,” replied Tanaka, beginning to lie—he recognized the irony—to protect Mister Clean. “He says your client accused him of covering up for fellow Hawaiians—specifically, for Peter Pukui and his group, HHH. You understand the significance of such an accusation?”
“Of course, but what my client actually—”
“That’s not all,” said Tanaka, lying some more. “Detective Wong says your client also called him—let me get the exact quote, I’ve got it right here—a ‘typical lazy incompetent kanaka.’ And here’s another quote: ‘a shiftless, good-for-nothing, Hawaiian piece of shit.’ You’re a lawyer. You understand the significance of those words?”
“Captain—”
“Those are fighting words.” Tanaka had read the phrase in Kawika’s report of his Frank Kimaio interview, done some research. “Fighting words are racial slurs so insulting and provocative that the law considers them an assault. When your client shouted those words, he assaulted Detective Wong. Detective Wong was entitled to defend himself.”
“You can’t be—”
“It’s a matter of degree,” Tanaka said. “If I call you a haole, you might not feel insulted. If I call you a shyster, you’ll take offense. If I call you an ambulance-chasing shyster, you’ll get angry. And if some Japanese American cop called you a pinko-gray ambulance-chasing shyster, which could happen, you might punch him. You see my point?”
“Captain Tanaka, my client did not employ any racial slurs.”
“Go ask him. Ask what he really said. Watch his eyes. See if you believe him.”
“I believe him already.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Tanaka said. “You know the hardest job of any lawyer is getting the truth from his own client.”
“Captain Tanaka, these are scurrilous falsehoods.”
“Terrible lies, you mean?”
“Yes, terrible lies. You would not dare assert them in any court of law.”
“You don’t know me very well,” Tanaka responded. “I wouldn’t wait to assert them in court. If I hear one more peep out of your client, I’ll assert them to Mr. Pukui, his friends at HHH, and the folks over at Sovereignty & Reparations. They’re entitled to know what your client says about Native Hawaiians, don’t you think? Pukui and HHH—I
