Now it was Kelley’s turn to stand before Kahahawai’s parents. “Mr. Darrow speaks of mother love. He singled out ‘the mother’ in this courtroom. Well, there’s another mother in this courtroom. Has Mrs. Fortescue lost her daughter? Has Massie lost his wife? They’re both here in the single person of Thalia Massie. But where is Joseph Kahahawai?”
Kelley wandered over to the defense table and panned a cold gaze across Lord, Jones, Massie.
“These men are military men, trained to kill…but they are also trained in the ways of first aid. When Kahahawai was shot, what attempt did they make to save his life? None! They let him bleed to death while they began trying to save their own skins. And where was the dying statement of a man about to meet his Maker with such a burden? I expected that in their defense by this high-powered attorney we would learn that as Kahahawai lay dying, he told what had happened.”
Now Kelley fixed his gaze on Darrow, who sat with bowed head. “In the Loeb and Leopold case…”
Darrow looked sharply up.
“…Darrow said he hated killing, regardless of how it was done, by men or by the state. But now he comes before you and says a killing is justified. That it is not murder.”
Darrow bowed his head again.
“Well,” Kelley continued, “if Lt. Massie had taken his gun and mowed these men down in the hospital the night his wife identified them, he’d at least have had the understanding of the community however unlawful that act might be. But instead he waited months, and dragged in these enlisted men…though they too are free and voluntary parties to the act, and are fully responsible. A killing is a killing, Mr. Darrow, and under these circumstances, it is clearly murder!”
Kelley moved quickly to the jury box and pounded a fist on the rail. “Hawaii is on trial, gentlemen! Is there to be one law for strangers and another for us? Are strangers to come here and take the law in their own hands? Are you going to give Lt. Massie leave to walk out and into the loving arms of the Navy? They’ll give him a medal! They’ll make him an admiral. Chief of Staff! He and Admiral Stirling are of the same mind—they both believe in lynch law.”
Kelley pointed at the flag behind the bench.
“As long as the American flag flies on these shores—without an admiral’s pennant over it—you must regard the constitution and the law. You have taken an oath to uphold it, gentlemen. Do your duty uninfluenced by either sympathy or the influence of admirals. As General Smedley Butler, the pride of the Marines, has said: ‘To hell with the admirals!’”
I couldn’t resist turning to get a glimpse at Stirling in the audience; his face was white with rage.
On this bold note, Kelley took his seat, and the judge began his instructions to the jury, pointing out the distinctions between the possible verdicts of murder in the second degree and manslaughter.
The defendants were to be held in the Young Hotel until the verdict came down; there was a palpable sense of relief among them as Chang Apana accompanied them out of court. Isabel, who hadn’t spoken to me since our moonlight swim, smiled at me as she accompanied Thalia and Tommie out; what was that about? Ruby was waiting in the aisle as Darrow pulled me off to one side.
“That was a fine summation, C.D.”
“Mine or Kelley’s?”
“Both, actually.”
“You need to get back to work.”
“Why in hell? The case is over. It’s time to go back to Chicago.”
He shook his head, no, and the unruly hair bounced. “Not at all. We’ve just begun the battle.” He smiled slyly. “Now, I’m going to howl indignantly when it happens and cry twenty kinds of injustice and bluster like a schoolyard bully, acting as surprised as hell my clients weren’t found not guilty…but Nate, we’re going to be lucky to pull manslaughter out of this.”
“You think so? Your closing was brilliant—”
Looking around to make sure no one—not even Ruby—could hear, he laid a hand on my shoulder and whispered: “I’ll be going after pardons from the governor, and the mainland press and politicians will put the pressure on, and that’ll help me…but once and for all, I need to know the truth about that goddamn rape.”
“C.D., how can you be sure your clients won’t get off?”
He chuckled. “I knew they wouldn’t the minute I saw those dark faces on that jury. I’ve been pleading this case to the press ever since. That’s the only place this case can be won. Now, you come have some supper with us over at the Young—but then get your ass back on the job, son!”
Who was I to argue with Clarence Darrow?
17
Chang Apana had offered to open doors, and he’d already done that for me with the local cops, in spades. Now I asked him to accompany me into the part of town where tourists seldom ventured, particularly white ones.
He was reluctant, but I pressed.
“This rumor about a second gang of boys,” I said, “there must be somebody out there who can pin names on ’em. And I’m not going to find the answer on the beach in front of the Royal Hawaiian.”
“Okay, but day only,” he cautioned. “Chang not as young as he used to be. And dark night on waterfront not always friendly to white face.”
“Fine. Lead on.”
On River Street, facing the docks along the Nuanuu Stream, sat shabby storefronts—pawnshops, saimin cafes, and, predominantly, herb dens whose shelves overflowed with glass jars and reed baskets of such exotic commodities as dried seaweed, ginger root, shark fins, and seahorse skeletons.
The conversations between Chang and the shopkeepers were in Cantonese, and I understood nothing—except how feared and respected this wizened little man with the scarred skull face was in the toughest section of town.
“Fu Manchu in there was three times your size and a third your age,” I said, jerking a thumb back toward the musty-smelling hole we’d just exited.
“If strength were all,” Chang said, “tiger would not fear scorpion.”
“What stinger do you have in your tail?”
He walked quickly; I had much longer legs, but keeping up with him was a trick.
“They remember Chang from years ago. I make name running down gamblers, raiding opium dens. They not see me ’round here in long time, now I show up when they know police looking to remove black eye of Massie case.”
“And they’re not anxious to be the brunt of a new crackdown designed to restore the department’s reputation.”
“Correct. So I would think they would be anxious to help Chang Apana.”
“Then why aren’t we getting anything?”
He shrugged as he walked. “Nothing to get. Everyone hears rumor about second gang. Nobody hears name.”
We spent the better part of two days prowling a maze of dark alleyways, crooked paths, and narrow lanes, street after unpaved street where if I were to outstretch my arms I could touch a wall on either side. I never quite got used to the sickly-sweet stench of the nearby pineapple canneries that merged here with the salty odor of the marshlands below the city. And the sagging balconies and rickety wooden stairs of tenements made the Maxwell Street ghetto of my childhood seem like Hyde Park.
Chang questioned various whores, pimps, and assorted hardcases, sometimes in Hawaiian, sometimes in Cantonese, occasionally in Japanese, in neighborhoods with names that were a little too vivid for comfort: Blood Town, Tin Can Alley, Hell’s Half Acre. In Aala Park, Chang questioned rummies and hip-pocket bootleggers; but in Mosquito Flats, a disturbingly pretty, disturbingly young-looking prostitute in a red silk slit-up-the-sides dress told him something that made his eyes flash.
He grabbed her by the arm, tight, and spat Cantonese at her. Scared as hell, she squealed a stream of Cantonese back at him—but she seemed only to be repeating what she’d said before, louder.