Koa remembered Christina’s words—“Na‘auao’s got some hold over the governor. Maybe it’s some kind of campaign finance irregularity. Maybe it’s something else.” Although Māhoe had accumulated a huge campaign war chest, Koa had been skeptical of Christina’s vague allegations, and Zeke hadn’t yet found evidence of illegal contributions. Still, how else could he explain the governor’s behavior?
Koa watched the handsome governor sweep around the room, shaking hands, telling jokes, and slapping friends on the back. A pol in his element. As Māhoe moved from one group to another, he stopped to chat with Howard Gommes. Almost the whole KonaWili cast of characters had turned out for the senator’s birthday. Only Cheryl Makela was missing. Koa wasn’t surprised Māhoe and Gommes knew each other—both were public figures—and, given Māhoe’s pro-development platform, Gommes was undoubtedly a big contributor to the governor’s campaign.
As the governor and Gommes ended their chat and drifted apart, Mayor Tanaka, followed by his aides, slid into the group surrounding Gommes. With a half-smile, Koa realized that Māhoe and Tanaka were avoiding each other. When Māhoe moved right, Tanaka moved left. Koa admired the skill with which the two political rivals shunned each other, like similar magnets repelling one another. The tension in their dance mirrored their fight over control of the investigation, leaving Koa a pawn in a political game he didn’t yet understand.
Koa moved closer, discretely trying to catch a snippet of the mayor’s conversation with Gommes. Although he caught the word “KonaWili,” he lost the rest of the sentence. Still, from the tone, he could tell the mayor was agitated. Koa caught phrases … “Goddamn it, Howard … fucking mess … out of control … Hank and Spooner …” in the mayor’s distinctive military voice. Witherspoon’s nickname rolled easily off Tanaka’s tongue.
Koa tried to assess what he’d heard. Tanaka had railed against the KonaWili mess just as he had previously complained to Koa. Nothing new there, and no surprise that the mayor would bitch to the developer. Yet, the mayor’s tone and his causal use of Weatherspoon’s nickname bothered Koa. He’d wondered if the mayor wanted control of the investigation simply to protect Makela, but now, he thought, maybe the mayor might be in even deeper.
Nālani put her hand on his arm and leaned close. “There’s a star-struck woman in the room,” she whispered.
“I have that effect on you?” he quipped.
“Of course.” She grinned mischievously. “But I was thinking of Sarah Witherspoon.”
Koa snapped around to stare at the woman. Sarah Witherspoon and Ben Inaba, the mayor’s political aide, had their heads together, and Koa didn’t need his girlfriend to know the couple was engrossed in each other.
Nālani gripped his arm. “Don’t be so obvious,” she hissed. Koa’s mind shifted into high gear as he turned away. He’d assumed Arthur Witherspoon had distanced himself from his wife before Arthur got personal with Sally Medea, but now it looked like both parties had wandered. He needed to look at Sarah Witherspoon as a suspect. That was the problem with assumptions. He’d assumed Witherspoon’s death had been related to the KonaWili school, but maybe the murder arose out of jealousy and lust. Most murder victims died at the hands of friends or relatives, frequently spouses. According to Sally Medea, Arthur wouldn’t divorce his wife, but maybe she’d found a permanent way to end the relationship. But what about the break-in at Witherspoon’s office? Could that, he asked himself, have been a diversion? It seemed unlikely.
Trumpets blared and the room fell silent. All heads turned toward the stage where the mayor stepped to a podium to begin the birthday speeches for Senator Kenoi. Koa barely heard a word. His mind raced through the tangle of new relationships. The mayor’s warning … Governor Māhoe and Francine Na‘auao … Mayor Tanaka and Gommes … Sarah Witherspoon and the mayor’s aide … what did it all mean?
Suddenly, the mayor himself had become a player in the investigation he’d chosen Koa to lead. Sure, Tanaka sought to embarrass the governor by blaming the DOE, and Māhoe would undoubtedly be happy to cast a political rival in a bad light by going after Makela. Just the kind of gutter politics Koa hated. But what if one or the other had ulterior motives, like a hidden investment in KonaWili?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
KOA HAD A history with Drake, the Monarch’s owner-barkeep. In his late fifties with stringy yellow-gray hair, Drake presided over one of the sleaziest bars in town in cutoff jeans and a ratty black, beer-stained tee shirt. Serving mostly stevedores, dockhands, and down-and-out fishermen, he somehow managed to stay open despite dozens of health department citations.
Even though Drake had cleaned up his act after his last run-in with the police, the joint remained a health inspector’s nightmare. Last time, Koa’s threat to bring in the health inspectors forced Drake to cooperate, but the same ploy wasn’t going to work again. Mere threats wouldn’t make Drake fess up to illegal gun sales or running an agency for hired killers.
Koa sent Bane, an undercover cop, into the Monarch. Bane, like other patrons, dressed in work clothes. An ugly, but artificial, scar on his neck concealed a tiny microphone and transmitter. For the first couple of nights, the undercover cop sat alone at the bar sipping beer and engaging Drake in chitchat. Presenting himself as a deckhand off a fishing vessel operating out of Hilo harbor, Bane talked fish, bitched about the prices of ‘ahi, and whined about the UH Rainbow Warriors football team. He tipped well, but not outrageously.
On Bane’s third night in the Monarch, Koa sat in an unmarked car up the street listening to Bane’s transmitter. After a couple of beers and more chatter with Drake, Bane laid a Grant, a $50 bill featuring the face of the 18th U.S. president, on the bar. Koa listened intently as the conversation turned critical.
“I’m looking for a dude who can sell me a piece, preferably a nine, without a legend.”
A pause followed before Koa heard Drake’s raspy voice. “What-chu want it foah, my man?”
“I’m going on a cruise carrying some shit, and I gotta have some protection, you get me?”
“You got the bread?”
Koa heard rustling noises as Bane gave Drake a brief look at the wad in his pocket.
“What’s in it foah me, my man?”
Koa grinned. They’d guessed right. Drake served as a middleman for illegal gun sales, and he’d bought Bane’s story, like a marlin hitting a ten-inch lure.
“A couple of Grants.” Bane made the deal worthwhile for Drake without offering enough to make him suspicious.
“Hang foah a while, okay, my man?”
Bane sipped beer, and Koa waited.
Half an hour later, Koa heard the scrape of a bar stool and a deep gruff voice. “I hear you’re lookin’ for somethin’?”
According to Zeigler, Leffler had a deep, gruff voice, but Koa listened carefully for Bane’s next words.
“Might be.” Bane sounded cautious. Koa jabbed his fist in the air. The word “might” identified the contact as Leffler; any other word signaled somebody else.
“Let’s take a walk back to the john,” the gruff voice suggested.