Chapter 10

I hoped Ginny told as much of the truth as she could without incriminating herself or me for that matter. Kept separate, we faced an hour of mostly repeated questions and stuck to our story about a perhaps ill advised but lusty tryst caught by Ginny's stepson who had a probably ill advised but legally valid affair with his step mom and went nuts. About the gun he packed, neither one of us had a clue.

The chief arrived, a tall slim middle aged white guy with leathery over tanned skin and a wry sense of humor, disarming and dangerous. He let Ginny and I sit together in the small interview room.

"About Harvey's gun," he said. "It seems to have kept company with a shipment sent to an LA gun dealer which never arrived but miraculously appeared in the hands of a couple dead Italian American gentlemen about to use one of them to extinguish the life of a young unfortunate man who along with a couple of his friends sit in the sheriff's cell having been accused of murdering Marnie Johnson, your niece."

"My daughter, Chief," said Ginny mournfully but with a touch of satisfaction she couldn't quite hide.

"But legally your niece. I know, the legal truth and the real truth sometimes make strange bedfellows so to speak.

"Now Joe, Captain Nakamoto speaks highly of you. I respect the captain, but his choice of friends I'm afraid I'm not so sure about. The load of crap you've been spouting for the past hour just rubs me wrong. Let's get things straight okay Mr. Detective. I don't know if you put the idea in Nakamoto's head about surveilling the shack instead of letting the sheriff do his job and interview the unfortunate young man, saving the lives of a couple of, well, we know who they are. Things fortunately didn't escalate. My officers came out unscathed except for dealing with our psychologist having had to end two men's lives.

"Then there's your cabin if you're also Candice Sacher."

"It's a name I use in movies."

"Movies. Movies. You're an actress?"

"Yes sir."

"Are you involved with..." he checked his notes, "'Beautiful Revenge'?"

"No."

"But..."

"My ... Marnie was, and Roger West."

"But not you?"

"No sir."

"And Detective Solomon, you aren't involved with 'Beautiful Revenge'?"

I wanted to turn the tables and ask him what he knew, but of course I couldn't. He sure hated PIs.

"I am very much involved, Chief. I'm investigating the various snafu's the production has suffered."

"Such as..."

"Uhm, if you don't mind it's still ongoing and..." the Chief looked ready to throttle me, " ... but the disappearance of Marnie and Roger definitely numbered among the problems."

"Have you known Ginny long?"

"No Chief. We met through the producer of the movie," I replied

"Mutual friend?"

"I've known Bern Forough many years," said Ginny. "We had an affair when we were young, if you must know, and remain friends."

"Your husband too?"

"They were childhood friends."

"By any chance do you know your husband's whereabouts?"

"Uhm ... no. He disappeared?"

"Considering Roger West called him a kidnapper before he ... uh ... changed his mind, we very much would like him to reappear. Since Roger had a problem figuring out his predicament, we can't hold you for that, nor can we hold your husband. The problem is you keep being in the vicinity of mayhem. Can you explain that?"


"Bad luck?" said Ginny.

"Right." Despite the uncooperative response he joined our smiles. "How exactly did Mr ... uh ... Forough introduce you two?"

"What do you mean?" asked Ginny.

"Did he say, 'I'd like you to meet Detective Solomon'?"

"No. Joe..."

"The case worked best if I went undercover," I explained.

"Undercover hunh," said the Chief with double entendre intact along with his dislike of my profession.

"I replaced Roger West in the film. I went by Barry Jones."

"Easy name to remember," said the Chief as a slight.

"I guess so. The name and the role had been arranged by my client who..."

"I won't go there."

"Thanks. I noticed Ginny seemed upset. We talked it out and she improved."

"And it helped your investigation."

"Uhm ... It didn't help when she realized my true purpose."

"How did she do that?"

"I've met the type," said Ginny.

"Why's that?"

"My husband's a successful businessman. He also ... well he used to produce adult movies."

"Pornography."

"I guess so. But because of its tarnished character and some of the tarnished people involved in acting and so forth, I've encountered more than a few people in Joe's line of work. He's as good as anyone, but you see the clues."

"Like what?"

"Overabundant curiosity."

"About... ?"

"Marnie and Roger and their disappearance."

"So he knew where they went."

"I guess so."

"Speaking of the cabin, we found some peculiar objects there."

"Really? What?"

"Movie equipment smashed up, their interiors seemingly hollowed out. Any idea why?"

"I don't know anything about movie equipment," Ginny lied. She lied well.

"Isn't your stepson involved with the movie?"

"He's the sound man."

"Helpful in getting mostly sound equipment used for smuggling."

"I told you..."

"And that charming boat of yours, the Gingerly, I noticed it's visited a Marina in Waikiki a few times. Seems like a suspicious place for the sound man to be found shot."

"I love that boat, Chief. Sailing's my favorite thing to do."

"Even more than..."

"Excuse me Chief, but fuck you."

"Duly noted. So you've sailed the boat everytime?"

"No. We hired a crew here and let them have fun with it as long as they keep it in shape. Its possible Harvey used it, maybe my husband without me knowing. Harvey and I..."

"Sailed together," the Chief finished.

"We spent time alone on it. Not for awhile. A couple months at least. Since we sailed her here. In fact our relationship ended after we got here at least for me."

"I guess not for Harvey."

"We talked about getting together, but he and I lived on different islands and he had the shoot. But he kept saying I could come visit, but I didn't. I figured he'd find someone more his age. He's a good looking kid."

No one said it, but the kid's prodigious dick seemed to leap into everyone's minds.

"When you went to visit Mr. Forough, how did you travel?"

"By yacht. I told the crewmen not to wait on me. I wasn't sure how long I'd be. Bern and I had a lot to talk about and my head was kind of a mess what with Marnie ... I suggested them not mentioning my presence on Oahu to Harvey in case he noticed the yacht. Maybe he transported the equipment then."

"Maybe he wanted to visit you."

"Maybe. I couldn't say."

"Not unless you wished to ... Never mind." He looked us over. "I've had enough of you two. Please avoid further mayhem." We got up and readied to leave. "And don't think about visiting your stepson. When he wakes, we want an unbiased interview, okay?"

"How is he?" Ginny asked believably concerned. After all, she planned on running off with him and Cal's money.

"We think he'll be fine. Have Officer Atta take you two to the Sheriff's. I'm sure you're interested in Marnie's alleged murderers."

"Thank you Chief," I said. Ginny nodded.

At first reluctant, the sheriff allowed Ginny to confront her daughter's killers. She told him she had felt threatened by the men before they had gone through with it with Marnie and wanted to give a statement to that fact, but needed to make sure the three men in jail were the ones who threatened.

The younger, more handsome man, the slightest build of the three large Samoan/Haoli's, related but not brothers, had his own cell. Shaken to the core by guilt, both the act of destroying a woman's life and ratting out his family, he defined despair as he slumped in a corner. Looking up, he cringed. "I'm sorry," he said to Ginny. "I ... didn't kill your daughter."

"You knew it was my daughter?" asked Ginny. Anger fought with her own guilt in stirring up this horror.

"She looks like your daughter and she said she was," said the young man.

"You raped her!"

"I ... had to."

"Sorry piece of shit."

"Hey whore," said one of the other men. He held a false front, trying for a vestige of the bully, but fear won out.

"Got your wish didn't you prick. Look what it got you. Was it worth it? Fucking pig. Let's go Joe."

The man she addressed had been the most threatening of the three during their threats in the bar which she made clear to the sheriff.

"The other two agree," said the sheriff.

"They don't deserve any less than him," said Ginny.

"The young one's probably getting a lighter sentence since he instigated their capture and confessed every moment of the crime. Don't worry. He'll be a long time absent from society."

"They ought to fry," said Ginny.

The sheriff shrugged. "If it was up to me..."

Ginny completed her statement and we left. "Could you take us to a car rental place?" I asked Officer Atta.

"Chief wanted me to drop you off at the airport."

"Out of town by sunset, hunh?" I said, shaking my head. "Nothing he can say about what we do as long as we're being legal. But why don't you drop us at the airport."

I rented a car at the airport and we headed to Volcano.

"Finally," Ginny sighed when we began the drive. "No more cops."

"You still got me babe."

"I feel comfortable with you."

"I just shot your stepson and lover, the guy you planned to run away with."

"What a fool."

"Who?"

"Harvey. And me I guess thinking..."

"So what's the alias? What name did Cal use checking into the hotel?"

"Bret Sader," said Ginny.

"Spelled?"

"Not like the mythical beast, but..."

"Yeah and the initials: BS."

"I never thought of that." Ginny laughed. "He's full of it."

"There's a lot of that going around."

The conversation ended. We silently enjoyed the awesome beauty of Hilo's tropical forest and then the awesome contrast of the volcano's black landscape.

Showing my badge brought me the information I needed at the Inn.

"I hope there'll be no problem," worried the hotel manager.

"She's his wife," I explained. "Could we get a room?"

I registered and we began to walk away from the desk. Ginny stopped and turned back. "Is there a Matthew Francis registered? He'd have come about a week ago." Another room number was found.

We stopped at a souvenir shop to buy some change of clothes and headed to our room.

"I'm taking a shower," said Ginny stripping her clothes. Naked, her posterior swung until the bathroom door blocked my view. I picked up the phone.

"Who's this?" asked Bern rudely.

"I take it more shit's happening," I said.

"Who's this?" Bern reiterated.

"Barry," I said.

"Yeah. Seems our sound man took a hike with half our equipment," said Bern.

"It'll be the last snafu," I predicted.

"Why's that?" Bern asked, interested.

Taking a long breath to fill my lungs for the long monologue, I began. "First of all, my name's not Barry Jones..."

Talking it out helped. It helped gel the case. It helped my confidence in understanding most of the intrigue.

Occasionally Bern interjected a comment. "You know I loved Marnie," he said for example. The sadness appeared subtly in the quietness and the touch of vibrato through a tightened voice box.

"I always underestimated Ginny," he said at another point. "She's so ... purely sexual. But I never knew how much she'd been involved in Cal's success and his scheming."

When I found an endpoint to my narrative I asked him my most important question. "So am I out of the picture boss?"

"Like I said, you make a great corpse. Sid said you'd be fine..."

"But Roger..."

"That cocksucker..." I laughed and he joined me before finishing. "I figured him for another of my successes. Fuck him. You probably won't make the impression he would have, but..."