No Time for Death: A Yoshinobu Mystery Read online

  Boson Books by John Broussard

  Death and Near Death

  Dead and Gone

  Dead Before a Rival

  Dear Diary, I’m in Love

  Expect the Unexpected

  Fifty-Minutes Flaherty

  Mana

  Mayhem, Mystery and Murder

  Murder at Milltown Junior College

  No Time for Death

  The Yoshinobu Mysteries: Volume I

  The Yoshinobu Mysteries: Volume II

  _________________________________

  NO TIME FOR DEATH

  A Yoshinobu Mystery

  by

  John A. Broussard

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  BOSON BOOKS

  Raleigh

  Published by Boson Books

  3905 Meadow Field Lane

  Raleigh, NC 27606

  ISBN 1-932482-16-4

  An imprint of C&M Online Media Inc.

  © Copyright 2004 John A. Broussard

  All rights reserved

  For information contact

  C&M Online Media Inc.

  3905 Meadow Field Lane

  Raleigh, NC 27606

  Tel: (919) 233-8164

  e-mail:[email protected]

  URL: http://www.bosonbooks.com

  Cover art by Joel Barr

  Chapter 1

  I should have known it was going to be a bad day, right from the minute I stepped out of the house that morning into the pouring rain and an ankle-deep puddle. Not that I have any real complaints about Hawaii, or about the island of Elima. Up until that day, things were pretty good. At least, most things were.

  The reason I came here in the first place was because of a woman. Wouldn't you know! I met Irene Young in Seattle. We lived together for a while. And then, one of those long and rainy Puget Sound winters got to be too much for her. So she headed back to Hawaii where she was born. I didn't know too much about the islands back then. In fact, it had even surprised me to hear Irene, with her long blonde hair and blue eyes, calling herself Hawaiian. She missed me when she got back here. Or, at least, that's what she said in her e-mails. She said she wanted me to come out here to live. About that time, commercial aviation and the demand for new airliners were crippling along on government subsidies. I could see the handwriting on the wall, and decided there wasn't much of a future for me as sales rep and PR man for a small Boeing sub-contractor.

  The long and short of it is that Irene's siren call lured me over here. And, as I said, there aren't many Americans who know less about Hawaii than I did back then. Even though I'd been a history major, the Pacific was mostly a blank as far as I was concerned. History was still American and European History when and where I went to college. You had to be either eccentric or Asian to study Far East History. And, to this day, I'm not sure if that subject includes Hawaii or not.

  So, even though I can name every one of Henry the Eighth's wives, I guess it isn't too surprising I thought Elima was a suburb of Honolulu, and that Honolulu was on the island of Hawaii. I knew enough not to expect hula girls to meet me at the airport, but I did count on finding a balmy day with the sun shining. Well, the rain was coming down in sheets when I got off the plane, the wind was howling harder than I'd ever felt it in the Pacific Northwest, but I'll be darned if there weren't hula girls at the airport.

  None of all this would have meant much one way or the other, if I hadn't arrived with just twenty dollars in my pocket and a topped-out credit card. I never was one for saving money. And the fare to Hawaii had cost me twice what I'd figured on. I'd expected to catch a bus to Irene's as soon as I got to Honolulu and to start looking for work the next day. So, needless to say, I wasn't too happy to find out Elima was an entirely different island, and it would cost me another fifty-five dollars to get there. And the long-distance call to Irene from a pay booth was as much as if I'd phoned her from the mainland. It ate up three dollars and seventy cents of my twenty dollars.

  Irene was eager to see me. She was also broke. But I'm a resourceful guy. I told her I'd get a job on Oahu, which I discovered was the name of the island I was on, and get some cash together for the flight to Elima and for an aloha weekend. (I catch on to language fast.)

  I like selling and I'm good at it, so that's where I started after checking out the help-wanted ads in the newspaper. I didn't know beans about gates and fences but, with what the company called a three-day training course under my belt, I hit the pavement. I was working on a commission basis and thought I'd have my fare and aloha money together in a week. Was I ever wrong! By the time I went in hock for an old wreck to get me around, I was working my way up from a minus figure.

  And then there was the complication of the office secretary. Jeannie was no raving beauty. And her idea of serious conversation was watching the Miss America contest and commenting on the evening dresses. I'd been out to pasture for a long while, though. We both knew the relationship wasn't serious, and I didn't plan on staying on Oahu. But the weeks dragged on. Finally, when I made the break and got off the plane at Napua Airport on Elima, I found Irene had gotten tired of waiting. The Japanese fellow she'd acquired looked like a sumo wrestler. Not that I would have argued with anyone she'd picked up with, and I'm not saying I wasn't disappointed, but “live and let live,” is my motto.

  Besides, Elima was a big relief after Honolulu. It's still pretty much all-rural, so it was nice to see cows again, and they made me almost homesick for the foothills of the Cascades. Best of all, I fell into a good job without really trying, and that kept me so busy, I didn't have much time to think about my love life, or lack of it. The job was selling real estate. It seems like every other person on the island is a real-estate agent. In fact, that's a standard joke around here—for identification you can produce either your driver's license, or your real-estate agent’s card.

  Anyhow, the first guy I talk to in the airport bar tells me the real-estate exam is a cinch. He's making a bundle selling houses. Or so he says.

  So while I'm holding down a security job at the Malalani Resort Hotel, I take a real estate course and study for the exam. And I pass it first time around. I always was good at taking tests. That's when I went to work for Dale Matthias, the owner of Royal Elima Realty. Now, I really must have a knack for selling, because I'm soon making that bundle I'd heard about. And, better yet, I find myself a nice house right near my work for a few dollars down and centuries to pay, just because it needed a little fixing up. So everything's going great, until someone uses a number five iron on Dale's skull.

  That was the day I stepped ankle deep into the puddle. That was also the day a big Portuguese lieutenant named DeMello from homicide came up to my house with this cute lady-sergeant and read me my rights.

  ***

  Leilani routed the call directly to Qual. That evening she told her husband, John Pak, “When someone calls and says, 'I need an attorney,' I pass the call right along to Qual. Sid and Kay just get too fussy sometimes—Sid, especially. But Qual can usually convince one or the other of them to take cases they probably wouldn't even consider if I let them do the choosing.”

  Leilani was a heavy-set, mostly native-Hawaiian woman, who had joined the firm back when Quality Smith was the only name on the door. After almost nine years of handling everything from bookkeeping to reception at the firm, Leilani had become indispensable. And, with her own children grown and gone, she now mothered the three attorneys instead.

  Qual was in his forties. A thin man, with a nervous habit of adjusting his glasses with both hands, his appearance and his evident good humor hid a person of strong opinions. Early in his legal career he had decided to follow his in
terests, and his major one was criminal law. So the firm he'd established accepted only cases in that field. Shortly after beginning his practice in Napua, Elima's largest city, he found he had more work than he could handle. Sid Chu joined him and took on part of the burden. Sid, a tall and handsome Chinese in his early thirties, soon built up a deservedly good reputation as a trial lawyer.

  Kay Yoshinobu became part of the firm a few months after Sid. As Leilani told John Pak many times, “That Kay is not only a beautiful woman, she's a real sharp one. Believe me.” After several years of turbulent courtship, Kay had finally accepted Sid's reiterated proposals of marriage, much to Sid's satisfaction and to Leilani's relief.

  Following the marriage, and in spite of Leilani's disapproval, the name of the firm—Smith, Chu and Yoshinobu—remained unchanged. Leilani protested that Kay ought to have taken Sid's last name, as a good wife should. Kay's answer was she couldn't see spending her life having people saying 'gesundheit' whenever she was introduced.

  Chapter 2

  Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be minding your own business and suddenly have the police descend on you, charge you with murder, slap on the cuffs, and haul you off to the slammer? Think about it!

  Maybe someone who's been in trouble with the police already wouldn't be all that upset. But, me, I've had one traffic ticket for running a stop sign, and three parking tickets, one of which was because of a faulty meter. And all that was back in Washington State more than ten years ago. That's it! That's all of it! And here a desk sergeant hands me the Elima telephone directory, grins, and says, “Make it a good one, because it's the only one you're going to get.”

  I kept my head, even though I thought I was having a bad dream, and picked the attorney firm I did on an educated hunch. They can say what they want about Hawaii, but I wasn't in the islands long before I realized there's prejudice here aplenty. If the judge is Japanese, it makes good sense for you to have a Japanese lawyer. So, not taking any chances, I go for a company that has haole, Chinese and Japanese attorneys.

  And an hour later, when my lawyer shows up, I figure my luck is already changing. She's a real looker. I'm not much for Asian types, but Kay Yoshinobu is alright for my money. She's tall, and dark, and slender, and looks like what I thought Hawaiian women are supposed to look like. Best of all, I hear the judge at my arraignment is a woman. So it won't hurt to have Kay speaking up for me. Besides, Kay really seems to know her stuff. And pretty soon she's calling me Ron, and I'm calling her Kay, like we were old friends.

  She takes her time and doesn't try to brush me off. I tell her I'm innocent. But then I expect all her clients tell her that. And she fills me in on what's going to happen at the arraignment on the following Monday. I wasn't happy with the thought of spending two nights behind bars, but she told me there was nothing we could do about it. Judges don't work overtime just to decide on bail, at least not for the likes of Ron Crockett.

  ***

  “He seems like a nice enough guy,” said Kay, in answer to Sid's question. “He's about thirty-five or so, a real-estate agent. He's been on the island for almost a year. He says he can pay our fee and handed me a retainer without blinking. The way real estate is going around here these days, I imagine he has a good size nest egg.”

  “What's he look like?” Sid asked. The two of them were sitting in Qual's office discussing the case with the senior partner. Craig Thomas, Qual's house partner who lived two short blocks away, was listening closely to the conversation. Since Craig's and Qual's home was so near, Craig was a frequent visitor at the office, so much so he was almost regarded as being a fourth member of the firm.

  Kay shrugged at Sid's question. “It's hard to say. I guess he's just average, six-foot or so, blond-brown hair, washed out blue eyes. Generally pleasant looking.” She smiled at the hint of possessiveness in Sid's voice, and added. “Don't worry, Sid. There's no torrid affair looming.”

  Sid appeared miffed. “I just wanted to know what he was like. Do you think he's guilty? Or maybe I shouldn't ask that?”

  “That, you're allowed,” Kay answered as she flipped through her notes. My answer is, 'I don't know what to think.' He says he's innocent, naturally. Hank was the arresting officer, and he was just leaving when I got there, so I didn't have much of a chance to talk to him about Ronald Crockett. The gist of the story is Ron was heard quarreling with Dale Matthias in Matthias's office at eleven this morning. Ron was also heard slamming the door and stomping out of the building a few minutes afterwards.

  “At two o'clock, the same witness comes back into the office and walks right into Ron holding one of Matthias's golf clubs in his hands. Matthias's skull is crushed, and it looks like the club is what did the dirty work. A preliminary check by the pathologist using a temperature chart puts time of death right at two o'clock, give or take ten minutes. Ron admits to being there that morning and admits to the quarrel. He says he left in a huff, but eventually cooled off. He came back to his own office at about quarter-to-two. He was in the building for a while, and finally decided to try and patch things up with Matthias. That's when he found the body, and that's when the witness found him. So, what with a witness, with motive and with perfect timing, Hank figured he had more than enough reason to charge Ron, and did.”

  Craig was the one incensed by the story. “How could Hank DeMello possibly do that? You said there was a witness. How can Hank be sure the witness isn't really the killer?”

  “The answer to that is simple. The witness was in a serious auto accident, just last week. This was his first full day back at the office. Hank checked his story, and it bears out. With his broken arms and battered hands, the witness can barely lift a coffee cup. For sure, he couldn't swing a golf club.

  Chapter 3

  And Kay is thorough. She taped the whole interview, and went over my story twice. She doesn't show much emotion in her face but, by the second time around, I had the feeling she was beginning to believe at least some of what I was telling her. But the bad part is the more I talked about it, the blacker it all began to look to me. I know I'm innocent, but it sure wouldn't look that way to most people. And the funny thing is, I still can't convince myself what happened in Dale's office really happened.

  I told Kay how I'd gone to work for Dale about nine months ago, right after I got my license. I said I was happy working there, made several great sales in short order, and never had any problems with Dale until the day of the murder. When I first met Dale, I figured him for being an overweight, good-natured slob. It didn't take me long to find out I wasn't dealing with a jolly, fat guy. He was a real hardnose. If I hadn't produced, and fast, he'd have dumped me without thinking twice about it.

  As I told Kay, Dale was OK to work for, but I sure would never have bought any real estate off of him. One of the first things he told me was I could promise the buyer anything, providing I didn't put it in writing.

  He walked me through a couple of sales sessions with him and some customers, and those sessions were sure eye openers. Royal Elima Realty has an exclusive on the first phase of the Fenton Project. That's the Fenton International Development that filed for Chapter 11 a while back and finally got bought out by a big Japanese conglomerate. It's only in the early stages of being built and, already, the international advertising they've been doing is overwhelming—three golf courses, tennis courts, riding academy, a marina with your boat in a slip right outside your condo, and on and on.

  But the ads couldn't hold a candle to what Dale promised the buyers. They were going to get all of that for practically no fees, along with twenty-four hour security protection. He even had me convinced the place would be guarded like Fort Knox. And he knew all the time he was talking there wasn't a word of truth to what he was saying.

  The first buyers liked the idea of helicopter service to the resort, so Dale assured them there'd be a helipad smack on top of each building in the complex. The second buyer talked about getting away from noise. Dale picked right up on that an
d made the completed project sound like a chalet in the Swiss Alps, with the sound of an occasional muffled cow-bell in the distance.

  And, after promising both sets of buyers everything they asked for—even before they asked for it—he piled the covenants and contracts on them, all five hundred pages plus. The small print allows the developer to ignore everything said by the real-estate agent and just about everything said in the advertising, but the buyer would have a tough time finding out where it says that, or figuring it out if he ever did locate the disclaimer.

  Between Dale and the Philadelphia lawyer who drew up all the papers, the buyer doesn't have a chance. But as Dale said, so long as the bubble doesn't burst, the buyers will keep thinking they've found a mother lode. And they have, if they don't figure on living there, and if they resell fast enough. As I told Kay, I'm no Sunday school teacher, but I draw the line at outright lies to these Japanese tourists and wide-eyed mainland haoles who come through the real-estate office with their wallets bulging. And it really isn't particularly necessary to do any lying. I just give them the brochures, and they do the rest.

  That's what got me into the hassle with Dale. It'd been a quiet morning at the office. Weekends can be pretty hot for moving real estate, especially during tourist season. But this is the lowest tourist month of the year. Besides, all of the agents try to get away by noon on Saturday, even when it's busy.