“No. You were seen talking with Sammy right before you walked out of the Ala Wai into the night—right after you slapped Lt. Stockdale for calling you a…well, for insulting you. You see, Sammy wasn’t discreet, Thalia. He told friends in his crowd about his affair with you…and he told them what he saw.”
“Nobody saw anything,” she snapped, but her eyes weren’t sure.
“Sammy saw Bradford follow you, and he followed along behind Bradford while you two were arguing. Sammy also saw the carload of cruising kanakas pull along the curb and give you the wolf whistle…saw and heard you egg ’em on, too, probably to make Bradford jealous. Well, Bradford took off, and when Sammy saw who these boys were…” I tapped the photos of Lyman and Kaikapu. “…he knew you were in a jam. These were mean, nasty, low-down criminal boys. Sammy rushed up, tried to help you, got shoved away. That’s part of the story you never mentioned, isn’t it, Thalia? Sammy’s presence. You couldn’t include him, could you? Not without your fling with a colored boy getting out. Couldn’t mention Bradford, either—that very night, when the police had arrested him, you assured him that you wouldn’t involve him, told him not to worry.”
Her mouth and chin trembled; her eyes were shining wetly. “I was abducted. I was beaten. I was raped.”
I shrugged. “Maybe you were raped…”
“Maybe!” She lurched toward me, on the couch, flew at me with her fists raised, ready to pummel me, but I clutched her wrists and her face was inches from mine, emotions passing across her face in waves: rage, shame, despair….
I felt the fight go out of her and released her.
She backed away, and said, almost gasped, “I…I…am going to be sick.”
And she ran to the bathroom and slammed the door. The sound of her retching made Darrow shiver. I was having trouble feeling sorry for her.
“You’re too harsh with her,” he whispered, raising a hand. “Try to remember she’s in hell.”
“Joe Kahahawai’s in the ground,” I reminded him. “And you don’t believe in hell, remember?”
“Oh, I believe in hell, Nate. It’s right here on Earth…and she’s in it. Go easy.”
“There’s a good chance the reason she got her jaw broken,” I said, “was she wouldn’t come across for those guys. Because of things Sammy said to ’em when he tried to intervene, Lyman and Kaikapu probably realized they had hold of a Navy wife, not a hooker or some loose lady. So they roughed her up, snatched her purse, and dumped her ass out.”
“Or they may have raped her.”
“They may have,” I granted.
The sound of the toilet flushing announced Thalia’s imminent return.
“We need her as an ally,” Darrow reminded me.
I nodded and drew in a breath as the bathroom door opened and she walked slowly toward us, head down, shoulders stooped, as if shame were weighing her down.
She took her place on the sofa but sat as far away from me as she could.
“I was raped,” she said quietly, both pride and a tremor in her voice. “By Joe Kahahawai and Horace Ida and those others…” She pointed to the pictures on the table. “…not by them.”
“According to Sammy,” I said, “it was Lyman and Kaikapu who dragged you in the ragtop. There was another boy along, but nobody has a name for him; a Filipino kid.”
“Where…where is Sammy?”
“In Los Angeles.”
“But you talked to him?”
“How I got this information isn’t important.”
“What is,” Darrow interjected, “is that if Nate here could dig it out, so could somebody else. There’s been a reorganization among the police, and a second Ala Moana trial would mean a new, full-scale investigation. The governor is talking about bringing in the FBI.”
She frowned, swallowed.
“Thalia,” I said, “it’s not your fault some incompetent cops put the wrong boys on a platter and served ’em up to you. They practically forced you to ID Ida and the rest.”
Her eyes were narrowed; she was thinking. Darrow was smiling at me—I was finally going easier. But I didn’t want to. I knew there was another strong possible reason for Thalia identifying the wrong boys: Sammy may have told her not to ID Lyman and Kaikapu, because it would put both their lives in danger.
But she had to finger somebody to protect her good name, her honor as the wife of a naval officer, her stature as a member of a prominent family. Maybe she figured the Ala Moana boys would never be convicted; but as rumors began to fly, she desperately needed to sacrifice these innocent boys (just “niggers,” after all) at the altar of her reputation and her marriage.
That’s what I wanted to throw in her face.
Instead, I said, “Protect yourself. Leave the Island. The Navy’ll give Tommie stateside duty, you can bet on that. Put this ugly nonsense behind you.”
Darrow leaned forward and patted her folded hands. “He’s right, dear. It’s time…time to go home.”
She began to nod. Then she let out a huge sigh, stood, smoothed out her dress, and said, “All right. If it’s best for Tommie and Mother.”
He stood, nodding sagely, pressing her hands in his. “It is, dear. Why subject yourself to a needless ordeal? Now, I must warn you, there will no doubt be a summons issued for you to appear as complaining witness in a new Ala Moana trial. Prosecutor Kelley needs to do that to save face….”
“He’s an awful man.”
“He’s cooperating with me, dear, and that’s all that matters. I’ll be saying things for appearance sake, too, but it’ll be bluster and show. Understand? What the public hears, and what’s really going on, are two different affairs.”
I’d have to pass that one on to Chang Apana; anyway, it was a concept Thalia Massie, of all people, ought to grasp.
I was on my feet, too. Forcing a smile for her.
She fixed those bulgy eyes on me. “No one knows what you’ve discovered, Mr. Heller? Just you and Mr. Darrow? Not even Mr. Leisure?”
“No one,” I said.
“You won’t tell Isabel…”
“No.”
“I don’t want Tommie to hear these lies.”
“They aren’t…”
Out of her sight, Darrow was waving at me not to finish.
“…anything anybody’s going to hear but you.”
She smiled, drew in a breath, and said, “Well, then—I think I’ll go down and join Isabel and Mrs. Darrow and Mr. Leisure. I could use some tea to settle my stomach.”
Darrow took her arm, showed her to the door, small-talking with her along the way, soothing her, smoothing a wrinkled feather or two, and then she was gone.
Slowly, Darrow turned to me and said, “Thank you, Nate. Now we can do what’s right for our clients.”
“What about doing something for the poor bastards that bitch wrongly accused?”
He came over and settled a hand on my shoulder. “Now, now—don’t judge Thalia too harshly. She was the first victim in this affair, and she’s suffering still.”
“What about the Ala Moana boys?”
He shuffled back to his easy chair, settled back in, putting his feet back up, folding his hands across his ample belly. “We’re going to see to it, with Thalia’s help, that those boys aren’t put through a second trial.”
I sat across from him, where Thalia had been sitting. “Their supporters are demanding complete exoneration. You’ve seen the papers—the colored population here, egged on by Princess What’s-Her-Name, thinks the Ala Moana boys deserve to be freed of this stigma.” I gestured to the pictures of Lyman and Kaikapu. “Sure, the real bad guys are already doing long, hard time, and that’s peachy; but to the public, Horace Ida and his pals’ve been branded rapists.”