“ God damnit, do you know how many of these kids with poor grades go shouting sexual harassment these days?”
“ She's told others about the incident,” Tony added.
“ It's her word against mine.”
Tony instantly corrected him. “Was… was her word against yours.”
“ And who's a court to believe, Doctor? You or a poor dead girl whose life was shattered first when her professor put his hands all over her, from where she spiraled down to the street?” asked Parry.
“ What exactly do you fuckin' cowboys want from me?”
Parry and Tony heard the noise of a back door closing. “Go get that person, Tony. Maybe we'll have a talk with her, too… corroboration, maybe.”
Tony started away. Claxton called out. “All right, all right.”
Tony stopped at the foot of the stairs. Parry motioned for him to return.
“ Now, Dr. Claxton, I want you to tell me where you were on the night of the 11th when Linda Kahala disappeared.” Claxton backed from the door and pushed it open for them to step inside, saying, “Look around. Does this look like the house of a maniac?”
Parry stepped in, followed by Gagliano, who said, “You got any coffee?”
Claxton ignored the request.
They went through the necessary questions and as they did so, Parry began to feel that Claxton, while a scum, was no killer. He finally asked Claxton, “Have you any students, particularly male students, that Linda gravitated to in class? Was there anyone she worked with in particular, studied with, say on a class project, anything?”
“ She was dating some guy in my nine o'clock. That's all I know.”
“ We know about the boyfriend, Oniiwah,” replied Tony. “He's clean.”
“ Anyone else she might have shared a book like this with?” pressed Parry.
“ A guy, huh?” He had lit up a cigarette and now he blew out a long stream of smoke. He sat back on his lounge chair in his robe, naked beneath, rolls of fat making a spiral of snakes about his relaxed midriff. “I couldn't say… I don't know… I'm no mind reader… Don't pay that much attention to these kids, you know. Besides, I have a lot of classes and students.”
“ Sounds like the Albert Schweitzer of academia, don't he?” asked Tony.
Parry said, “This would be a guy in her class.”
He shrugged. “I can give you the roster; you take it from there. I didn't notice anything in particular going on with her and another student. Course, I don't pay that much attention to the private lives of my students.”
“ No, I guess you wouldn't. You're just interested in their private parts.”
Claxton started to protest but thought better of it.
“ Let me have the roster. Fact, let me have all your rosters.”
Claxton nervously bit at his inner jaw, but went to a desk and ripped several computer printouts from a book. “Here, take them. I got others.”
“ Jesus,” moaned Tony as he stared over Jim's shoulder at one of the lists which numbered three hundred students.
“ This the way Shakespeare's being taught nowadays?” asked Parry rhetorically as he made for the door, anxious to be rid of Dr. Claxton.
“ It's a fucking introductory level course.” Claxton pursued them, as if it were important for them to understand him better. “It's bottom-line, product-centered, factory mentality in the bloody womb of academia, thanks to the bureaucratic assholes in administration whose primary concern is to suck every cent out of their pockets! Whataya want from me?” Claxton bellowed as the door slammed in his face.
At the car, Gagliano began a coughing and spitting jag. Parry asked him if he was okay, his right hand pounding Tony's back in mock concern. “Come on, it wasn't that bad.”
“ I'd rather deal with the rats on the wharves than a puke like that. Guy turns my stomach.”
“ You carry Rolaids; use 'em. For now we'll split the lists into four evenly divided, Tony. I'm getting additional manpower and if the Trade Winds Killer is on that list, I intend to get to know him up close and personal.”
Parry then took the list from Gagliano and ripped off the first of the four sections.
“ You've got to be dead on your feet, Boss,” offered Tony. “What can you do tonight?”
“ Narrow the list to all Caucasians first. It's a good bet our killer is white; also look for the killer to be older, a good deal older than Oniiwah, upper twenties to middle age marks the kind of organized, controlled killer we're dealing with here, if the statistics mean anything. It's unlikely this guy's a kid. He's too deliberate, too careful to be a kid strung out on drugs, or some hot-tempered punk who'd leave a trail any idiot could follow.”
“ Given the deliberateness of his remaining in the shadows, the fact he's left no crime scene for us to work, yeah, I got to agree on that score.”
“ He seems to know enough to cover his ass, all right. Tomorrow, start with the registrar's office, get every bit of vital information on every male on the list their damned computer has, and have it play kiss-face with our mainframe, got that?”
“ It's called in-your-face, Boss.”
“ You mean innerface.”
“ Who'll you be recruiting?”
“ Haley's expressed an interest and so has Terri Reno.”
“ Kalvin Haley, that big Aussie?”
“ He's had experience with serials, and he was practically born here, part Hawaiian even if he won't admit it. Could really be of help to us.”
Tony remained skeptical. “Yeah, but Reno, a mainlander?”
'Tony, you're going to have to work with her, all right?”
“ Whatever you say, Jim.”
“ She's got to get experience somewhere, and who knows more than you, Tone?”
“ Whatever you say, Jimbo.”
“ I say don't call me Jimbo, okay?”
“ Whatever you say,” he repeated.
“ I say get me back to my unit so I can take myself home. Tomorrow noon, I want to feed the computer the breakdowns on these names-sex, age, height, color of eyes, nationality of each person on the list. Run 'em all through the Honolulu Police I.D. files, our own files… see if we get lucky.”
“ Whatever you say, Jim.”
Tony sensed the foul mood Jim Parry had fallen under, and so he wisely fell silent. The drive back to the street where the Kahala house stood didn't improve either of their moods as they looked past the lifeless, darkened house to where Jim's car stood stripped and smashed. It looked as if there'd been a block party, everyone issued a sledgehammer and given a license to attack Parry's car. But first the more prudent had ripped out the radio, popped the trunk and made off with a pair of expensive Kevlar bullet-proof vests along with several boxes of ammunition for his. 38 and an expensive Remington 12-gauge shotgun; his tires had been punctured, the moon hubcaps gone, every window smashed, the street littered with the raining pellets. The hood and top of the vehicle were destroyed beyond recognition, and beneath the hood expensive necessary parts had been stripped away. A siphon hose extended from out of the gas tank, likely the only reason the car hadn't gone up in flames, as several bullet holes had cut paths through the metal.
Parry was stunned. “That call we heard,” he said, the words tumbling out as hard round marbles, Parry not feeling his throat muscles, tongue or lips moving.
“ You sons of bitches,” Tony bellowed to the night.
Parry cursed the street as well and gained as much response as Tony had. The two FBI men felt eyes on them, imagined the glee in the hearts of those watching, and in a moment began to feel vulnerable. “Where were the city cops when my wagon was being annihilated? It must've taken twenty or thirty minutes at least to do this kind of damage, damn!”
“ We can't do squat about it now, Jim,” said Tony.
“ The hell we can't!”
“ Come on. We'll send a wrecker for it tomorrow.”
“ Gutless bastards!” shouted Parry, shaking his fist.
“ Jim, standing here and shouting at the pavement's not going to get us anywhere.”
“ Where are you now?” Parry continued to shout, venting his anger.