Dead Before A Rival Read online

  Kulani prison was a relatively open institution. In theory, only the least dangerous of the state’s prisoners, or those soon due to be released, ended up at Kulani. Escapes were rare, except when the strain of crowded accommodations on Oahu forced the state to send some of its poorer risks to the Big Island. The more typical prisoner at Kulani was unlikely to jeopardize his chances for parole by leaving early and against the wishes of the authorities.

  Chauncy Newman was the object of today’s visit. Chauncy still had two years ahead of him out of a five year sentence. As a habitual offender, he wasn’t eligible for parole. With the help of a self-taught prison lawyer, Chauncy had finally found in this issue what looked like a promising basis for appeal. The presiding judge had incorrectly described to the jury the consequences of conviction for a habitual offender.

  Craig had shaken his head over the discovery when Qual described it to him. “You’ve been working on his case off and on for the past two or three years. How come you didn’t spot the erroneous charge to the jury in all that time, but an amateur lawyer—and a convict at that—sees it in less than six months?”

  “I’m not embarrassed. There were hundreds of pages of transcripts, and Chauncy’s case is one out of hundreds I’ve handled in the last couple of years. His con friend had absolutely nothing to do but to sit down with the law books and the transcript. He went over them a letter at a time, checking every punctuation. And, believe me, time is something he has plenty of. He still has six years ahead of him. But part of my problem was my faith in old Judge Schreiber. It must have been one of the days when he was napping.” Qual grinned, adding “I have to admit I must have been napping too.”

  Craig had insisted on making up a box lunch for him. “I know you,” he had said. “If you stop at all to eat, it will be at some drive-in serving greasy hamburgers and even greasier french fries. I’ll never understand how someone who likes good food the way you say you do can eat the swill you get at those fast-food places.”

  While Qual only rarely admitted to himself how much he appreciated the fussing Craig made over him, he still had a feeling of poignancy when Craig drove him to the airport—even though the last plane back would be bringing him home at dusk. He watched from the window with affectionate amusement as Craig spun on his heel and went back to the parking lot. Craig was preternaturally superstitious, and high on his list of precautions was the rule to never watch a plane when it took off with a loved one aboard.

  Waiting for Chauncy to show up in the conference room, it occurred to Qual how over two years had gone by since he had seen the young convict. They had spoken many times over the phone, and Qual had received volumes of correspondence from him, but these had done little to fix the picture of Chauncy in his mind. All he could remember was a vaguely childlike, hapa haole, who at first had resented his court appointed defender, and then had grudgingly admitted Qual seemed to be doing his best.

  Because of the lingering memory, the Chauncy who strode into the room caught Qual unprepared. Wearing tailored jeans hanging fashionably low on his hips, and with a dark blue t-shirt, at least one size too small, cut to expose his midriff and sporting the long outdated slogan, “Born To Raise Hell,” Chauncy showed no evidence of either vagueness or childlikeness. Seeing him, Qual was the one who suffered from vagueness—a vague feeling of something he had not felt in a dozen years suddenly began to stir. At first reluctant to accept his own emotions, Qual was too honest with himself to deny for long Chauncy’s irresistible attractiveness. Recognizing the emotion helped him to resist its impact.

  Chauncy’s near presence hurried Qual through the formalities. He skimmed quickly over the high points of the appeal, obtained Chauncy’s signature on the necessary three copies and excused himself nervously, pleading another appointment, an appointment which he had indeed made but for which he had plenty of time. Leaving the conference room together, Chauncy reached the foot of the stairs first, turned and reached up to shake Qual’s hand. Qual accepted the proffered hand as though it were the wrong end of a firebrand, then hurried off to the parking lot. The mocking expression on Chauncy’s face lingered with him as he drove too fast down the back road to the main highway.

  Less than two hours later Qual pulled up in front of the preparatory school, and only then did he realize he had arrived well over an hour early. Deciding to make the fifteen-minute run to the beach, he sat at a picnic bench overlooking the shore and made an attempt to eat the box lunch Craig had so carefully prepared. A note fell out of the napkin. In the thin spidery hand which Craig affected, it said, “Now isn’t this a lot better than those greasy hamburgers. P.S. Quit staring at all those beach boys.” Surprising himself, Qual looked quickly over his shoulder. The tanned blond young man carrying the boogie board looked baffled as Qual laughed aloud while looking in his direction.

  The spell’s broken, Qual thought.

  He could not have been more wrong.

  ***

  The hotel was an easy matter to cover. Laura asked to see the manager and explained the situation to him. She had been prepared for reluctance on his part, but Hank had supplied her with the name of a friend of his who was a lieutenant with the HPD. “I’ll give him a ring,” Hank said, “and alert him. If the manager or whoever at the hotel gives you any guff, just call this number and ask for Lieutenant Maiava. If need be, he’ll even drop by the hotel, but I doubt it’ll be necessary.”

  As it turned out, the manager had merely asked for identification and then quickly supplied the hotel bill. It was a short one. Denise Rouse had spent two nights at the hotel, used no room service, made two calls to Elima—both to the same number—and paid by credit card. Laura put the bill in her brief case, thanked the manager, and was off shopping much sooner than she had expected or hoped for.

  The shop was just what Laura had thought it would be. It was small, exclusive and expensive. Worse yet, its offerings tempted her. Worst yet, she succumbed. The simple grey suit was perfect. It needed no alterations. She tried it on without looking at the tag. By the time she saw herself in the mirror of the dressing room she knew she had to have it.

  When Laura finally looked at the tag, she began to make quick calculations about her bank account, her credit still available on the various pieces of plastic in her purse and the prospect of an end of the month bonus. She had been hoping to put another certificate of deposit away for a rainy day, but instantly decided rainy days were less important than the suit. To celebrate her sudden and atypical splurge of extravagance, she decided to wear it immediately. Leaving the shop with her old suit packaged under her arm, she felt a lift to her walk she had not had when she entered the store.

  ***

  Tsuruta, Jones and Feinberg were conveniently located one block from the courthouse. Laura estimated the monthly rent of the firm’s quarters was probably the equivalent of half a year’s rent for the entire building occupied by Smith, Chu, Yoshinobu and Correa, even though the actual space occupied by the Honolulu attorneys was far more modest. As she had expected, the office complex was richly appointed. The carpet was thick, the original paintings appropriate, the potted plants well cared for, the walls were of dark stained wood, the receptionist was young, pretty, helpful and polite.

  Stanley Feinberg was not quite what she had expected, however. The name had conjured up a small, dark, intense individual. The expectation could not have been further from reality. Just under six-foot, he was blond and attractive. Maybe not handsome, she thought, but not far from it. He had come out to the reception desk on hearing she had arrived, smiled as he introduced himself, shook her hand warmly and led her off to his office which measured up to the luxuriousness of the waiting room.

  Laura tried to spot items in the office giving hints to his personality, but there were none. There were no sports trophies, no civic awards, no pictures of Stanley Feinberg shaking the governor’s hand, no photos of a spouse and children on his desk. She had the feeling the office had been fully furnished prior to his occupancy
, right down to the expected shelf of the Hawaii Revised Statutes immediately behind his head. She settled back into the standard and satisfactory leather chairs.

  Stan proved to be not only attractive, but also charming and personable. They were soon on a first name basis at his insistence. “So you’ve inherited Marshal Dalquist from us?” The statement was also a half-question.

  “I haven’t,” she answered. “The firm has. One of the senior partners has the good fortune of being in charge of the case.”

  Stan laughed. (That’s nice, too, she thought.) “I see you have some inkling of what it’s like to deal with Marshal. He isn’t the worst client I’ve ever had, but he’s up there in the top five percent. You know, of course, he’s an out-and-out alcoholic.”

  Laura nodded. “I’ve met him only once, in the morning when he was already well on the way to getting sloshed.”

  “That was the worse part of trying to defend him. I’ve run into alcoholics before, so I warned him not to come to court drunk. Naturally, he didn’t listen. I did manage to keep him sober when he was due to testify. Have you seen the transcripts by the way? (He sure has nice eyes.)

  “Uh-huh. From the sounds of his testimony, you probably wouldn’t have been any worse off if he’d been drunk.”

  “That’s the biggest problem with Marshal: his absolute and complete denial of his drinking. When I first spoke to him, I thought he was kidding. He really believes that: first, he doesn’t drink much and; second, his drinking has no noticeable effect on him. (Must be hazel, but I’ve never really figured out what hazel is.) Those traits are hard for an attorney to cope with. Tell whoever has to go to court with him to keep Marshal under lock and key when his next trial comes up.”

  “Do you think there’ll be another trial.”

  “Definitely. I heard about the addendum you folks sent in to my appeal. Whoever spotted the all-Japanese jury is all right in my book. (Should I tell him?) It was really careless of me not to catch it when the prosecutor used his perempts. Once it was in the transcript, I know I would never have noticed it. When it comes to filing an appeal, it’s a case of nit-picking the judge’s rulings. I never would have even thought of looking at the front page…but I don’t have to tell you this.”

  “My first appeal is still ahead of me. I’ve only been in practice for about a year.” Laura had to shake herself to get on to Hank’s concerns. “There’s more going on than just the DUI.” She described Bart’s death and the fact Marshal was at least a suspect though not high on Lieutenant DeMello’s list.

  Feinberg smiled an unbelieving smile. “Hey! I thought you were an attorney. What are you doing working for the cops?”

  Laura returned the smile without the disbelief. “We trade off. The Napua PD is really cooperative with us, so we do a lot for them.”

  “Sounds like another planet. The Honolulu PD would rather trade with Saddam Hussein than to give any help to an attorney who might have a defendant coming up into court some day.”

  “That’s why I like working where I do. No one’s afraid to bend the rules if it seems like a reasonable thing to do. Even the prosecutor is friendly. (I’m not about to tell him how friendly!) Laura paused then returned to the topic she’d broached. “So shall I tell Lieutenant DeMello Marshal is more than just a slim possibility?”

  “It’s hard for me to picture Marshal whipping up much energy or enthusiasm for anything as serious as a murder,” Stan said following the description of the crime. (He also has a nice mouth,) “From what you’ve said, this seems to have required devious plotting. That’s just not part of Marshal’s makeup.”

  “Did he ever mention Bart Cain?”

  Stan thought back. “I guess it’s no violation of attorney-client confidentiality to tell you about that, since it had nothing to do with Marshal’s own case. (I wonder what he thinks of me.) I’m not really sure what the connection there is to the killing, either. Anyway, we were up in his hotel room the night before the trial discussing his case. As you can imagine, by then Marshal was pretty much out of it. Just barely coherent. I had one drink, knew it was hopeless to try and get him to do any serious thinking, and was just about ready to leave when he said something about blackmail.”

  “Blackmail?”

  Stan nodded. “That’s another reason why I don’t mind telling you what he said, because from what I could make out, the blackmail didn’t involve him. He said a friend of his was being blackmailed.”

  For a moment, Laura forgot how glad she was she had worn the perfect gray suit. “Did he say who the friend was?”

  “It was someone named Rouse.”

  “David Rouse?”

  “Nope. It was Denise Rouse.”

  Chapter 16

  If Corky ever had any qualms about her relationship with Alan, those qualms were most apt to appear first thing in the morning. Alan shared her enthusiasm for the late evening hours but, unlike her, he awoke cheerful and alert after five hours sleep. Try as she would, even a breakfast prepared by Alan at six-thirty held little appeal. After all these months, she was still reluctant to tell him she much preferred coffee to the pot of Earl Grey he carefully prepared every morning. Why can’t every day be Sunday? she asked herself. On Sundays, neither of them went to work, and the two of them stretched the morning out with lovemaking and dozing.

  Hank did not look up as Corky sat down heavily in a chair in front of his desk clutching the last dregs of coffee which she had coaxed from the police station percolator. A grunt indicated he knew she had arrived.

  “What do you know about Jeff Bentley?” he growled.

  Corky was sufficiently awake to recognize something or someone had gotten to one of Hank’s sore spots in the hours between her departure from the station the previous day and the time of her arrival. She shook herself into a semblance of alertness and started down the list. “I know he’s a corporation lawyer. He has some off-island customers, but I think most of them have branches here on Elima.”

  “Did you know he represents Honolulu Pharmaceuticals?”

  “Uh-uh. Does he? And if so, so what?”

  Hank looked up at her and glared. “So they sell dentist supplies, that’s so what!”

  “Aw, c’mon Hank. So they sell laughing gas. He’s just their lawyer, not one of their retail clerks. How can his being their lawyer possibly have anything to do with Bart Cain’s death?”

  “Remember Marshal saying Jeffrey had business to attend to in Honolulu? He told Laura and Kay the same thing.”

  Corky was rapidly waking up.

  “So Jeff had business with Honolulu Pharmaceuticals?”

  “Yes. He spent only a half-hour or so with the personnel manager. The rest of the time, almost an hour, he was down at their warehouse.”

  ***

  This time she would have something substantial to take back to Hank. Laura got nothing more of value from Stan, at least nothing which Hank would have considered to be of value.

  The talk shifted from business to pleasure. “You going back to Elima tonight?” he asked.

  “I’d planned on it, but I don’t have to be back until morning.”

  “How about dinner? It’s a brand new restaurant, and our firm’s gotten complimentary first night privileges. (His smile’s getting better all the time.) I can be chintzy and treat you to a first class dinner all at the same time.”

  “OK. I’ll call and let the office know I’ll be in on the first plane in the morning.”

  They laughed over the first-night gaffes of a first-class restaurant. Someone had forgotten to order the butter and, because they could not spare any of their employees, a taxi driver had to be recruited to go purchase some. The air-conditioning jammed at an uncomfortable sixty-five, and had to be manually turned on and off during the evening. No one could find the credit card machine. In spite of it all, the evening unrolled pleasantly.

  Stan was as charming at the restaurant as he had been in his office. Laura was relaxed and thoroughly enjoying herself. By nine,
the small orchestra which had been assembled for opening night, began to play danceable tunes. Laura wished she were a few inches taller, but the dancing with Stan was still pleasant. No expert, he was still competent, and she had never thought of herself as any Ginger Rogers needing a Fred Astaire. She contented herself with enjoying the music and his male nearness.

  She was the first to suggest they leave as the eleven o’clock hour loomed. “I have to catch the eight o’clock back to Elima, which means I’ll have to be up by six to make it through the traffic.”

  She felt it was quite natural for him to invite her to stay at his apartment overnight. Later, in bed, sleepy from the long evening and pleasantly tired from the sex they had engaged in, her last thoughts before she slipped off into sleep were about Dorothy Eng, and she briefly wondered why she should suddenly think of her.

  ***

  Qual’s second stop in the preparatory school’s parking lot found him more observant of his surroundings. There was no similarity to the summer camp of his adolescence. While out of place in their Hawaiian setting, the two-story brick buildings did give the institution an aura of academia. Someone had even induced strangler figs to imitate the English ivy clinging to the walls of the originals, back in the college towns of the Mainland’s East Coast. Qual easily found the well-marked administrative offices and was directed to Francis Forbes’s dorm.

  Even at the moment of meeting, Qual could not understand how he could possibly see Chauncy in Francis. Where Chauncy’s skin had a permanent deep tan, Francis was fair. Where Chauncy was short and slender, Francis was tall and much more robust. Their faces were remarkably different. Chauncy’s had a slenderness matching the rest of his body. Francis, at eighteen, already had a granite-like quality to his squarish face. It was the eyes where they differed most. Chauncy had inherited the pale blue eyes of his haole parent, and these contrasted sharply with his dark skin. Those shifty, wary, impudent eyes of Chauncy’s mirrored his inner self. Francis’s deep brown eyes, undoubtedly Mark’s legacy, were enigmatic, giving no clue to what was going on behind them.