Suitable for Framing, Part 2
Duke Lukela's black brogans made a hollow sound as he strode through the concrete corridors of the Oahu County Jail. All of the jailers knew Duke. He was at the jailhouse almost every day, to book a suspect, to collect a perp for questioning, or to escort an inmate to or from court. It was all in a day's work for Sergeant Duke Lukela of the HPD.
On an ordinary day, Duke might have stopped to chat a little with the jailer, shooting the breeze about sports or kids or movies. Today, Duke was deadly serious. The jailer just unlocked the door as soon as he saw Duke coming.
"Call the guard when you're ready to leave, Duke," he said. Then he shut the door to the lockup and turned the key.
Well, we've come full circle, Duke thought. The first time he had ever met Julian Kala'oka, it had been in a place like this. Juvenile hall, a slow, rainy Saturday fourteen years ago. He hadn't been Sergeant Lukela then, just a young rookie cop—and an idealist. Duke had stopped by to talk to the desk officer about a vandalism case he was running down. While he was waiting, he struck up a conversation with a scrawny teenager being booked for breaking into a pinball machine.
"Hey there," Duke said.
The youth glanced his way, grimacing when he saw the uniform, frowning a little when he saw the face. Duke got that look almost every day from somebody: Hula cop, whose side are you on? He looked lost, and Duke felt sorry for him. He wondered if the kid was tough enough to make it in juvenile hall. If he wasn't now, he soon would be. Duke noticed his tattered jersey shirt, and asked:
"You like football?"
The boy's face lit up a little, and they chatted a few minutes about local teams. He spoke an irritating mixture of pidgin English and Hawaiian. Still, it was plain to see that he was bright.
"Where's your parents?"
"Make," the kid said sullenly. Dead.
"Julian Kala'oka?" the desk sergeant interrupted. The boy looked over to the desk. "I called your foster parents. They said we could keep ya, they don't want you back this time." He laughed. "How about that, troublemaker?"
The boy feigned indifference. He even laughed a little too. "Ey! No big t'ing!" he said, then slumped back in his chair.
Standing in front of a grimy cell, Duke looked at JuJu lying on a thin bunk far too small for his strapping frame, with his arms draped across his eyes to block out the harsh light from the bulb overhead. Duke prided himself on always keeping his emotions under control. Still, he felt a treadmill of worry in his gut.
JuJu uncovered his eyes as Duke wrapped his fingers around the cell bars. He jumped up and came to the front of the cell, and tried to hug Duke through the bars. Neither of them could get their arms through the narrow spaces between the iron rods.
"Are you all right?" Duke whispered.
"I guess so." JuJu touched his hand to his head. "Somebody gave me a pretty good whack on the head."
"JuJu, what in the world happened last night? How'd you get mixed up with Betty?" Duke asked.
"Duke, I honestly don't know." JuJu told him. "One minute I'm getting out of my car at my apartment, and then all of a sudden I'm waking up on the beach with a knife in my hand, and Betty's dead."
Duke lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level. "JuJu, Betty called the house last night."
JuJu looked surprised. "She did? What time? What'd she want?"
"About eleven," Duke said. "Mama and I were just about to turn out the light. Betty said she was looking all over for you, that she had something really important to talk to you about. I just told her I didn't know where you were." Duke grimaced and looked at the floor. "She didn't say what it was about, and I didn't ask. You know how I felt about Betty. I guess I shouldn't say that, now."
JuJu paced to the rear of the holding cell, then back to the front. He curled his hands around the bars again. "I've got to get out of here, Duke! I can't begin to find out what happened while I'm stuck in here. Betty deserves that much."
"There's a whole lot of reporters outside the courthouse," Duke said. "This is a big thing, JuJu. Some people are already screaming for your head. Maybe you're better off in here until we can get this mess straightened out. Lloyd Deford will work around the clock to find out what happened. We all will—Five-O and HPD."
JuJu sat down on the bunk and looked up at Duke glumly. "Lloyd's the one who threw me in here, man. At best he thinks I'm an idiot. And the way he was acting—I don' know, he might think I'm guilty!"
Duke interrupted, lowering his voice to a whisper against eavesdroppers. "Julian, you talked straight with Lloyd, didn't you?"
JuJu jumped up, sprung to the front of the cage again. Standing so close, he towered over Duke. Somehow it still surprised Duke to have to look up. "Duke, shut up!" he whispered urgently. "You know I can't say anything about last night, even to Lloyd Deford!" Duke guessed his expression must reveal his feelings after all, for JuJu added, "And neither can you, and you know it, better than I do!"
"Don't be so damn hard-headed!" Duke blurted. "We're talking about a murder rap!"
JuJu grabbed Duke's forearm. "Duke, this is more important than any murder rap! It's a frame-up anyway, anybody can see that. But I can't let my personal problem compromise what I believe in. What we both believe in." JuJu let go of Duke's arm. "Duke, you are the one who taught me to stand up for my principles. Promise me—promise me—you won't go to Deford about this."
Duke felt sick. "Julian, this is a nightmare!" He hesitated. With all his heart, he longed to go and tell Deford everything. Not for the first time in his life, Duke felt the burden of Julian Kala'oka's expectations. Even in his twenties, JuJu still seemed to see him as some kind of Hawaiian Father-Knows-Best: principled, disciplined, and wise—a man who always did the right thing. But what if he didn't know what the right thing was? How could he stand silent when he had information that could end this trouble for JuJu right now?
"Promise me, makua hanai kane," JuJu said softly. Promise me, my adoptive father.
Their dark eyes met. Duke's mouth went dry. "All right," he heard himself reply.
* * *
Steve McGarrett ran up the stairs of the Iolani Palace, taking them two at a time. He had worked in this job two years, but never had he had to book a fellow cop. Much less Julian Kala'oka! Well, Deford was going to hear what he thought about that!
Rage, energizing and invigorating, suffused his body. He roved down the hall, threw open the doors to the Five-O offices, and stalked into Deford's office without even knocking, without even pausing to acknowledge Ted Hada jumping up from his desk and falling in behind him.
Deford was on the phone. Without missing a beat, he took in their belligerent faces, and said calmly to his caller, "Pardon me, I'll call you back shortly." Deford returned the phone to its cradle.
Steve and Ted started in on him immediately. "Well, I did what you asked!" McGarrett snapped. "But I don't like it, Lloyd! You saw that crime scene. No blood anywhere—except on the girl! She couldn't have been killed there, no way! And that's just for openers! The whole thing stinks!"
"You stuck by me when they tried to hang that police brutality rap on me—remember?" Hada reminded the boss. "You went to the wall for me. So why are you so quick to hang Kala'oka out to dry?"
Deford fixed them both with a steady stare. "Are you done?" he asked.
"Not by a long shot," McGarrett replied.
"No, I think you're done," Deford said quietly. He got up from the desk and looked out the window. "Steve, you've got a good mind. Why don't you use it sometimes, instead of your damn temper?"
Still outraged, McGarrett and Hada broke in at once, a babble of back talk, until Deford interrupted. "See those buildings out there?" Deford gestured across King Street at the familiar series of low-slung buildings with their red Spanish roofs and white-washed tropical archways gleaming under the late morning sun. "Pretty soon, they'll be torn down to build the governor's new state capitol. It'll be his pride and joy." Deford turned around to face them. "Just like Five-O is his pride and joy. We serve at the pleasure of the governor, boys, and he serves at the pleasure of the people. Five-O has to be protected politically, whether you like it or not. That's part of my job, too."
"Politics?" McGarrett barked. "That's not what you sold me on when I left the Navy! Sure, the same treatment for JuJu as anybody else, I can see that. That's fair. And he is hiding something." As he let his mind start to pick at the puzzle, McGarrett realized Deford was right. He could feel the anger dissipate, to be replaced by something colder but more compelling. He wanted to know the truth—even if it hurt like hell.
Hada said, "The governor can take a little heat, Lloyd, and you know we can. Five-O doesn't run scared from anything! Turn us loose, we'll get to the bottom of it, no matter where it leads."
"You know what really gets to me?" Deford said slowly. "I've known Julian Kala'oka—" Deford paused, lowering his eyes for a moment. He was remembering something. Suddenly, he clenched his fist and slammed it down on the big koa wood desk. "Since he was a snot-nosed kid in juvenile hall! He's not capable of killing Betty Akino!"
Ted spoke for them all. "The question then is, who did?"
McGarrett felt relieved. They were all on the same side again. "And who hates JuJu enough to want to put him in a frame?"
Deford said, "That's what we're going to find out. Ted, get over to the Akinos' house. Talk to her parents. Find out who her friends were, her associates, anybody who might have had a reason to want the girl dead. Steve, I've got a phone call to make. Then, you're coming with me."
* * *
JuJu sat on the edge of the bunk, restlessly drumming his hands on his knees. Six hours since he had woken up on the beach. Three hours since he had been locked up in this place. He was already stir-crazy. JuJu had a feeling he wasn't going to make a very good prisoner.
He felt crazy to know what was going on with the Five-O boys. Had they found any witnesses? What had Betty been up to in her last hours? What about the crime scene? Was there anything in the car? Had Doc started the autopsy? Duke had promised to come back and tell him anything that he heard. But that wasn't quite the same as working the case with the rest of the Five-O squad, was it? Well, there were those who had predicted he'd end up a criminal.
A row of bunk beds in a long room at juvy. He was sitting on a top bunk, swinging his legs, drumming his fingers. The social worker appeared and walked toward him. JuJu rolled his eyes. More counseling? She'd already told him he was probably going to reform school. What else could they do to him?
"Julian?" she said hopefully. "Come downstairs with me."
"For why?" JuJu asked.
"You're very lucky," she told him. "A couple volunteered to be your new foster parents."
JuJu felt surprised. Volunteered? He'd already gone through six foster families in four years. In his experience, they fell into two camps—those who thought they were going to save him and ended up thinking he was worthless, and those who thought he was worthless from the beginning. Consequently, it was hard to get too excited about number seven. It would end up like the others. "Yippee," JuJu said, and slid down from the bunk.
A rattle of keys at the front of the cell shook him back to the present. It was the guard.
"What gives?" JuJu asked.
"You're sprung," the guard told him. "Somebody posted your bail."
As much as he wanted to be out of this place, JuJu had a terrible feeling that he knew who it must have been. Auwe! Duke already had a second mortgage on the house. The last thing JuJu wanted to do was put Duke further in debt. He already owed him a lot more than money.
The guard opened the cell door and let JuJu out into the damp corridor. A few of the other prisoners hooted at him as they walked past the cells. The guard unlocked the door to the outside, and the jailer swung it open. He already had the envelope out with JuJu's things in it—shoelaces, necktie, belt, wristwatch, wallet, keys. With a grin, he flourished a pen for JuJu to sign for them.
Instead of Duke, as he expected and dreaded, JuJu saw Lloyd Deford and Steve McGarrett waiting for him. McGarrett was even smiling a little, an expression that always looked somewhat unnatural on his serious face. Deford's face was stern and composed. He seemed to relax a little when he saw JuJu.
"Lloyd?" JuJu said in amazement. "Don't tell me you're the one who bailed me out, man!"
"You better believe it," Deford replied.
"Lloyd put up his own money for the bail," McGarrett grinned.
"That tells you how much faith I have in you," Deford joked. "You know how cheap I am. I would never put up the money if I wasn't sure that I'd get it back."
Sitting down on a bench to lace his shoes, JuJu swallowed a rising lump in his throat. It kept him from saying what he wanted to say. He didn't even trust himself to say thanks. He draped his tie around his neck and tied it loosely. Deford reached over and straightened it for him. He looked JuJu in the eye. "It's nothing," he said with emphasis. "And you're still suspended. You're just a witness in this case, nothing more, you understand that?"
JuJu nodded, mute, and Deford said, "Come on, boys, time to face the music."
Duke hadn't been kidding about the mob of reporters outside the courthouse. If anything, there were even more than JuJu had expected. And they all seemed to have gotten wind of Deford's dramatic gesture.
"Mr. Deford! Mr. Deford!" yelled a man whose badge identified him as a reporter for KGMB. "This morning you arrest Kala'oka, this afternoon, you bail him out using your own money. Why?"
Deford stopped, and flanked by JuJu and Steve, spoke crisply and rapidly. "As most of you know, I have stood for integrity and fairness in law enforcement in this state. I believe that is what Hawaii Five-O stands for, and that is what the Governor stands for," Deford said. "Mr. Kala'oka was involved in an incident this morning that involved the death of a young woman named Betty Akino. There is no trivializing the significance of that fact. Her murder is still under investigation by my office. I expect it to be under investigation for some time. For that reason, Mr. Kala'oka will be suspended until the investigation is complete."
Reporters crowded in closer, shouting more questions. "You say you stand for integrity, but don't you think it's unfair of you to use your personal fortune to bail Kala'oka out of jail?" said the police beat reporter from the Star-Bulletin. "Most people don't have millionaire bosses."
Deford said, "I am fortunate in having access to personal funds." Another clamor erupted, and he waited quietly before continuing. "My statement is this: as head of Five-O, I believe I have acted fairly in charging Mr. Kala'oka based on the evidence now available. As citizen Lloyd Deford, I personally believe in Mr. Kala'oka's innocence. So strongly that I am willing to stake my reputation and my future on it. And I believe Five-O will prove it. That's all."
They began to shove their way through the crush of journalists, photographers, and cameramen, all shouting questions. JuJu could just barely see Deford's Lincoln by the curb. He knew it was the job of the press to probe and provoke, but it was hard to keep cool being jostled by twenty people all screaming their lungs out.
"Mr. Deford! What did the Guv say?"
"Hey, JuJu, how about a statement!"
"Any other suspects, Mr. Deford?"
"JuJu! Why'd you kill her!"
That one got to McGarrett, who reached through the crowd and jerked the man up by his lapels, growling, "You heard the man, that's all!" The little free-lancer responded by popping a flashbulb in McGarrett's face. McGarrett shoved him, hard, stirring the rest of the photographers into a frenzy, crowding in to get a picture. They scuffled and the free-lancer's camera fell to the ground and shattered.
"You broke my camera—storm trooper!" the reporter cried. It was hard to tell whether it was a whine of resentment or a gloat of triumph. "What's next, attack dogs and fire hoses?"
"My heart cries for you, buddy," McGarrett retorted.
Deford grabbed McGarrett by the back of his coat and physically forced him into the front seat of the car, sliding in beside him while JuJu climbed in the back. Slamming the door shut, Deford said, "Drive!" McGarrett ground the engine into life, threw the car into gear, and pulled away from the curb with a squeal of tires, leaving a happy group of reporters sprinting for the pay phones.
Deford leaned over the back seat and looked at JuJu. In spite of everything that had happened that day, JuJu couldn't help but smile. You could always count on McGarrett to start a good fight. Deford just shook his head and said, to no one in particular, "For Christ's sake!"