Excerpt from Angel Hero, Murder in Hawai’i

Sunday clouds blotted out the sunrise, leaving a gray and overcast dawn. I couldn’t bear to stay in my condo’s silent rooms and think the same agitated thoughts over and over.

My plan had been to drive up Allele Heights Drive and walk along streets canopied with golden shower trees, past stately homes bordered by crimson hibiscus flower bushes. But the lack of sunshine sent me to a nearby nursery instead, to search for a plant to replace the marigolds dying on my patio despite my best efforts to revive them.

Rain poured through the nursery’s open ceiling, spattering off my rain bonnet, flowing in little rivulets down my neck. I retreated to the perimeter of the courtyard of plants, where a tin roof protruding from the building’s brick walls shielded me as I walked around the outskirts of the courtyard.

A brunette with a yellow nametag approached me and asked if she could help me find anything.

“Just looking.”

She returned to her cash register, leaving me alone with my thoughts, the only customer in the large building.

I savored the colors and shapes and smells filling the nursery. The hypnotic dripping of raindrops on leaves soothed me, serenity overtaking me as I ambled along. Then I spotted it—a plant six inches high with green leaves and clusters of fuzzy purple flowers. A twin of the one I had given Vic when I visited him in the hospital.

Memories overtook me of Vic joking and laughing with me, teasing me, standing up for me, confiding in me. At the same time, I felt Vic as energy. I had sensed his presence before, his joyful essence like sunlight on water, sparkling and free, but this time was different. This time, his soul cried out as if his heart had been hit by a cannonball. Was this really happening, me feeling his grief, and it instantly becoming mine?

I sobbed uncontrollably. Was I having a nervous breakdown? Was this what insanity felt like? I tried grabbing onto something concrete to rescue me from this grief. Not knowing what else to do, I bowed my head and asked God to point a way out of this storm.

The answer came immediately, like an indictment from heaven, like an inner voice. But this voice did not sound like the jagged self-talk I often heard inside my head. No, this deep voice spoke slowly and sounded like Vic’s voice saying, “You didn’t tell the whole truth for me.”

I gasped as the implications of those eight words washed over me. Oh, God. Vic would never have allowed fear to stop him from telling the whole truth for me. Jet was right. I should have told him everything.

A hand on my shoulder made me jump. I spun around to face the cashier’s worried frown. “Are you all right, Miss?”

I nodded, speechless, and ran quickly from the nursery through the drenching rain. After flinging my front door open, I rushed inside and immediately dialed Homicide.

Against all odds, Jet was there, tidying up paperwork, he said. “What’s up, Liz?” His manner was conversational, friendly.

I trembled, anticipating his anger when he learned my testimony had been less than complete. Fear seized me, and my mind flailed around for some convincing excuse to hang up. I wished I could at least hint at the stupendous event that had transpired in the nurser,y but the only words spilling out of my mouth were, “I didn’t tell you everything.”

His tone of voice changed instantly. “Like what?” he demanded.

In one long breath, I said, “Jaku told me he cut Deputy Chief Henderson’s brake lines, that he had the soldier’s family beaten up, that he set fire to his car in the cane fields for the insurance money, and he told me things he might do in the future: set fire to the station, put a bomb in the chief ’s office.” I gasped for air and felt relieved I’d gone through with it.

“The defense attorney will say you came to us four times, that you are not a credible witness.” Jet’s voice was stiff with anger.

Ashamed of my cowardice and chastised by his anger, I whispered, “I am terrified of being the only one to testify. Jaku told those stories to everybody.”

Some of the anger faded from Jet’s voice. “I can’t see you today.”

“I’m off tomorrow until 3 p.m.”

“Nine o’clock Monday, then.” Jet banged the receiver down.

I searched my bookcases for enough blank paper to hold all I had to say about my three and a half years working with Vic and Jaku.

The following morning, for the third time, I sat on the hard wooden bench across the hall from the Homicide Division. The door beside the reception counter opened. I returned Jet’s unsmiling stare. Neither of us spoke. I followed him down a narrow hallway to a tiny interview room.

We faced each other across a vinyl card table, his gaze as cold as the icy temperature of the room. I shivered. As before, a tape recorder rested on the table between us. Without a word, I handed him ten handwritten, legal-sized pages of lined yellow notebook paper.

“What’s this?” he snapped.

I answered softly, “I wrote it all down.”

He quickly thumbed through the pages, counting them, noticing they were written on front and back. “We won’t need this, then,” he said, nodding at the tape recorder. His voice was gentler, and I imagined he appreciated not having to interview such a difficult witness.

He started reading my statement:

I’ve gotten my fear under control now. The worst thing that can happen is Jaku sending his criminal friends after me when he hears what I have to say about him in court. Like he did to Ed Jones’ family after Ed turned him in to the Security Police for smoking pot in the bunkrooms.

I am part of the triangle of Jaku, Vic, and me because I was attracted to Vic, Jaku was attracted to me, and the two of them were friends. Even if you draw lines between our three apartments, it forms a triangle, each of us only a few blocks from the other two.

Jet pursed his lips, nodded, and continued reading.

Sometimes Jaku invited me over to his apartment. I used my boyfriend Billy as an excuse not to go. Jaku thought I was cool to have a local boyfriend.

Jet asked, “Did Jaku and Billy know each other?”

“No.”

He resumed reading.

I had written about every significant incident occurring between Jaku, Vic, and me during the three and a half years we worked together. How Jaku told sexual lies about me, and Brian Smith warned me not to confront him. How I pretended to be Jaku’s friend and listened, wide-eyed, to his true crime stories. How Vic and Jaku were pals, but Vic seemed blind to Jaku’s dark side. How Jaku’s stories changed from true crime to graphic sexual conquests after the news of Vic’s and my double date circulated through the station. How I had Jaku kicked out of the alarm room during his temporary promotion to captain. How, ten days later, before Thanksgiving, management permanently promoted someone else to Captain. How my last conversation with Jaku occurred on December 30th, the day before he took leave for two weeks. How Jaku called in sick for four more weeks. How the day he shot Vic was the day he either had to come back to work or be fired.

I wrapped up my statement with these words: In those last six weeks before he was killed, while Jaku was on leave, Vic seemed to shake himself free of Jaku’s dark influence. Vic and I laughed until our sides ached. We talked long and intensely. I’m grateful for those times we shared, but I miss him terribly.

I sat quietly, my chin resting in my hands, watching as Jet read page after page of my written words. For the first time in a long time, I felt relaxed, my conscience finally clear.

A sudden loud thought popped into my head, like a radio broadcast but spoken in Jet’s utterly authoritative voice:

This man wanted to rape Liz.

The voice was so clear I looked at Jet to see if he had spoken the words, but his attention was riveted on the pages.

Had I really picked up Jet’s thought, or was stress making me hear voices existing only in my mind? Shivering, I said, “It sure is cold in here.”

“It sure is.” Jet didn’t look up. After reading the last page of my statement, he placed the sheets of paper on the table beside him, raised an eyebrow, and said, surprise in his voice, “This is what you wanted to tell the police?”

I nodded and wondered what he had expected.

“Your statement is very complete. Some of this you told me before, but that’s all right.”

“I wanted to tell you everything this time.”

“It’s in the hands of the police now, Liz.” Jet’s voice was kind. “Now, I’d like you to initial each page.”

Jet placed the sheets of paper in front of me one page at a time. As I wrote LH on each one, I felt his intense gaze boring into me. When I finished, he said, “I’ll hold onto these, if I may. Thank you for coming down.”

“You’re welcome.”

I followed him down the narrow hallway to Homicide’s front door. Neither of us spoke as I turned and walked away.

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