Treachery times two, p.17
Treachery Times Two, page 17
“I don’t know. I never saw her body.”
“Why didn’t you or Wingate go to the police?” Zeke asked.
“Wingate wouldn’t allow it.”
“And that’s your story?” Zeke asked incredulously.
“Yeah, and then the next morning, Wingate tells me to sell her car and empty her apartment. Then he gives me this thumb drive and tells me to trash her personnel records and replace them with the ones he gave me. I wasn’t sure exactly how, so I got Kimberly Ward to do it for me.”
“When did you fabricate the phony emails?” Koa asked.
“After he showed up at the office.” Snelling pointed to Koa. “Wingate told me I’d better cover my tracks.”
“Where’s Baldwin’s computer?” Zeke asked.
“Wingate told me to get it from her apartment. He’s got it.”
“The things you trashed at the waste transfer station,” Koa asked. “They were from Baldwin’s desk in her office at X-CO?”
“Yeah.”
“Why trash her stuff?”
“Wingate told me to.”
It was, Koa thought, a strange story, but no matter how they questioned him, Snelling didn’t deviate, so they took a break to confer with Goodling and Moreno, leaving Snelling and Tripi in the interrogation room.
“You believe him?” Zeke asked.
“Not a fuckin’ word,” Moreno said. “He fabricated evidence and lied to the police. I’m guessing he’d wouldn’t know the truth if it strangled him.”
“I don’t know,” Koa responded. “His story’s weird, but the real question is whether he murdered Baldwin. Zeke got us a search warrant, and last night Makanui and I searched his apartment. We found his Glock and had it test-fired. It’s not the murder weapon. He could have another weapon, but we’ve found no trace of it.”
“So, where do we go from here?” Zeke asked.
“Think you can get him to wear a wire?” Goodling asked.
“Don’t know,” Zeke responded. “Have to break his loyalty to Wingate first.”
“How are you going to do that?” Moreno asked sarcastically.
“Well,” Zeke responded, “if you don’t ask … for sure you won’t get.”
Zeke, Koa, and Makanui returned to the interrogation room where Snelling and Tripi waited while Goodling and Moreno again watched through the interrogation room’s one-way mirror.
“You think Wingate’s gonna admit killing Baldwin?” Zeke asked Snelling when they were once again seated.
“No,” Snelling responded. “I told you he said it was an accident.”
“Two bullet holes at close range … that’s no accident.” Zeke let his words sink in before continuing. “Wingate’s going to finger you. And he’s the boss. You don’t question what he says.” Zeke quoted Snelling’s words back to him. “A jury won’t question what he says. He’s going to be drinkin’ martinis while you’re doing life.”
Koa saw the change in Snelling. His tough cookie exterior seemed to crack as Zeke’s prognosis sank in. Much of the self-assured cockiness he’d shown earlier vanished. He didn’t tremble but became subdued as he saw his future playing out precisely the way Zeke described.
“You ever been in a cell?” Zeke asked. “A ten-by-ten space with bars on one side?”
“N … no,” Snelling replied with a slight hesitation.
“They let you out for an hour a day … if you behave.”
Zeke paused before speaking slowly in a soft, menacing voice. “Years go by … you don’t walk on the beach … you don’t get much sunshine … you don’t have many visitors … you don’t eat steak … you don’t drink martinis … you don’t drive your Tesla Model S … it’s just you and the walls … for the rest of your life.” Zeke’s tone hardened with his emphasis on the last four words.
“That ain’t right. I didn’t kill her.”
“You’re going to have to prove it,” Zeke said.
“How? How can I prove it?” Snelling asked, a hint of desperation in his voice. He looked to Tripi, but his lawyer had nothing to say.
“You’re going to wear a wire, meet with Wingate, and get him to spill everything on tape.”
* * *
The following day, Koa, Zeke, and Makanui spent hours preparing Snelling for his meeting with Wingate. Koa had worked with a lot of informants over the years. Some were motivated by money. Others by fear of going to jail. Anger propelled a limited group. A few acted out of remorse or shame for their past deeds. And some for their ideological beliefs. Figuring out an informant’s motive offered clues to his or her reliability.
Zeke hammered Snelling with the prospect of spending the rest of his life in jail, but Koa sensed no genuine fear in the man. Resignation maybe, but no fear. They weren’t paying him, and he exhibited not the slightest sign of remorse. Snelling was in many ways inscrutable, and that gnawed at Koa.
Snelling began by playing dumb. “What am I supposed to say?”
“Draw Wingate out. Get him to talk about what happened to Baldwin,” Koa responded.
“What if he knows I’m wired?”
“He won’t, as long as you act naturally, the way you normally do,” Koa promised.
“You don’t know him. If he says it was an accident, then it was an accident. You don’t cross him. He’s ruthless, and he’ll fire me.” Snelling pleaded loyalty and fear at the same time, but Koa saw none of the telltale signs of fear. Snelling didn’t sweat, his breathing remained even, his hands stayed steady, his facial expressions unchanged. He sat still as a stone monolith. Snelling, Koa decided, was a cold fish, but whether Snelling was an ono, a flaky white fish, or a manō, a shark, Koa couldn’t tell.
“We’ll be listening. We won’t let it get out of hand,” Koa responded.
“Do I have to do this?” Snelling asked.
“The evidence points to you as Baldwin’s killer,” Zeke said. “You’ll go down for murder unless you produce evidence that someone else killed her.”
“It’s not fair. I didn’t kill her,” Snelling rebutted.
Zeke stared hard at the security guard. “I don’t believe you, and neither will a jury.”
They worked with Snelling for another two hours. He vacillated between claims of innocence and assertions of loyalty to Wingate. Koa couldn’t tell which, if either, really mattered to Snelling. In the end, they wired him up and sent him back to X-CO the following morning, less than confident in his ability to pull off a successful deception.
They figured Wingate would be suspicious if Snelling initiated a conversation about Baldwin, so they’d instructed him to go about his usual routine, hoping Wingate would contact him. They’d set up a command post in the warehouse across the street from X-CO and took turns listening throughout the remainder of the day. Nothing happened until the end of Snelling’s shift when Wingate finally summoned him into the executive’s office. Koa listened intently while a machine recorded the conversation.
“I hear the police picked you up,” Wingate began.
“Yeah, they think I faked the emails about Baldwin’s car and furniture, but they can’t prove it. I showed them the deposit slip, showing I put the money in her account. Really helped me.”
Wingate paused unnaturally long before responding, and then his words came out slowly, carefully, and with some hesitation. “I’m glad it worked out for you.”
Koa was encouraged. Wingate was talking. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, Snelling might pull it off.
“Yes, sir,” Snelling responded. “Remember the morning you called me into your office.”
Wingate remained silent, and Koa held his breath, wondering if Snelling had gone too far too fast. Maybe Snelling had spooked his boss. The silence stretched, and the longer the quiet extended, the more certain Koa became that Snelling had blown it.
Wingate finally spoke. “Yeah.”
“It’s a shame your plan didn’t work. No one was ever supposed to know,” Snelling said.
Koa let out a long, slow breath, not saying a word even though Snelling and Wingate couldn’t hear him. They were talking and getting closer to the jugular, but so far only in vagaries. The “plan” could be killing Baldwin and hiding her body, or something else entirely. Nothing yet tied the conversation to Baldwin’s murder.
“Nobody could predict a thing like that,” Wingate responded.
Koa supposed they were talking about the earthquake that exposed Baldwin’s body, but their words could have many meanings, and he couldn’t be sure.
“That’s for sure,” Snelling said.
“Yeah,” Wingate responded. “But, it created a big problem for us.”
Koa waited for details. It looked like Snelling might get Wingate to talk about Baldwin.
“Couldn’t be helped, not after you caught her accessing the Deimos program,” Snelling said.
Koa was taken aback. Snelling had previously fingered Wingate, as confessing that he alone had confronted Baldwin. Snelling had denied knowing more, but now he was changing his story, asserting that Baldwin had been accessing the Deimos program, whatever that meant. Snelling, it seemed, thought Baldwin guilty of wrongdoing.
Another seemingly interminable silence ensued before Wingate spoke. “Yeah.”
“I saw her pointing a gun at you, boss. Damn near killed you, too,” Snelling said.
Confused, Koa wondered if he’d heard right. Snelling had previously claimed that Wingate had summoned him to the executive’s office only the morning after Wingate’s confrontation with Baldwin. In this tête-à-tête, Snelling was acknowledging being present during the encounter with Baldwin. Worse, he painted Baldwin as the aggressor, claiming to have seen her holding Wingate at gunpoint.
“It was self-defense. Pure self-defense,” Snelling continued.
Koa swore. Snelling was double-crossing them, setting the stage to exonerate both himself and Wingate. It wasn’t the first time a cooperating witness had pulled such a stunt, and it shouldn’t have surprised Koa, given Snelling’s ambivalence during their prep. Koa kicked himself for being taken in and wondered just how far Snelling would go.
“Absolutely,” Wingate agreed. “Baldwin gave us no choice.”
“All because the stupid bitch pulled a gun,” Snelling said.
“Y-e-a-h,” Wingate responded slowly, drawing out the word.
“A little .38 special, a lady’s piece, for god’s sake,” Snelling said.
Koa shook his head in disgust. Snelling now admitted that he’d witnessed the shooting. He’d previously lied to the police. There could be legal repercussions for that, but nothing like a murder rap.
Koa tried to separate fact from fiction. Wingate had been present during the shooting. He was admitting it. Snelling, too, had also been present, and he now admitted it. Wingate was the shooter, and that seemed consistent with the test ruling out Snelling’s gun. But there were gaping holes in the picture. What had Baldwin really been doing? Why had Wingate shot her? Had she really had a gun? Had Wingate murdered her or acted in self-defense?
“Yeah, the damn gun.” Wingate raised his voice. “Without that damn gun, she wouldn’t have gotten away.”
Koa banged his fist against the wall. Gotten away? They didn’t know the police had the GPS data proving that Baldwin had died at X-CO. They were play-acting … working together to confuse the facts … concocting a fairy tale … establishing a phony defense … and painting Baldwin as a wrongdoer. Wiring up Snelling was turning out to be a disaster, a fucking disaster.
“Maybe we should have gone to the police,” Snelling suggested, “but the government would have shut us down.”
“Yeah. And destroyed the company. No way.” Wingate hesitated. “The government would have shut us down for damn sure if they’d known Baldwin had compromised the program with her friend in California. I’d be out of a job. You’d be out of a job. And Zhou Li would have had our heads.”
“Yeah, you saved the Deimos program and the company.”
“That’s right, but Baldwin’s still a problem,” Wingate added.
“I doubt the cops will be able to prove anything in the end,” Snelling responded.
The conversation ended with the bang of a door closing.
Koa cursed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE CALL TO see the chief came unexpectedly, and Koa wondered what was going down. Things became apparent when he entered the chief’s office. Senator Chao, Kāwika Keahi, and Bobby Hazzard sat around the chief’s conference table. Koa nodded to Bobby, shook hands with the senator, and high-fived his friend Keahi.
“I understand you’ve been helping Bobby,” the senator said. “I do appreciate your assistance.”
Koa didn’t miss the senator’s casual use of Bobby’s first name. It reflected familiarity and, from Koa’s unique perspective, raised the stakes.
“We’re always glad to accommodate you,” the chief responded before turning to Koa. “Mr. Hazzard would like to visit his grandfather’s old cabin, and I thought it would be nice if you accompanied him.”
So, Koa thought, the senator leaned on the chief who was leaning on his chief detective. He caught himself wondering if his boss had some inkling of his involvement in Hazzard’s death but dismissed the idea as paranoia. The chief was simply sucking up, as he always did, to a powerful politician.
Koa knew the way to the cabin. The treacherous ten-hour trek back from Anthony Hazzard’s remote mountain cabin, located deep in one of the nearly inaccessible, steep-walled valleys on the northern coast of the Big Island, had been part of the most traumatic event in his life, and the centerpiece of many a nightmare. He shivered at the thought of going back.
Although Hazzard’s death had indelibly branded its location into his psyche, Koa had no intention of letting on that he’d ever been anywhere near Anthony Hazzard’s old cabin. “Where exactly is this cabin?” Koa asked.
“I’ve got an old map my grandfather sent my parents.” Bobby unfolded a yellowed paper and flattened it on the table.
Koa studied the crude drawing, probably more than fifty years old and out of date, although not much had changed in that part of the island. It showed the series of steep-walled valleys on the island’s northwestern coast. Someone, probably Anthony Hazzard, had marked a rough trail west of the small former sugar town of Honoka‘a through the Waipi‘o Valley, across the Muliwai Trail, into the Waimanu Valley, and finally up the Waimanu River to the old Hazzard cabin.
“You sure this cabin is still standing? I doubt anybody’s lived there since your grandfather died.”
Bobby hesitated. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Only one way to find out,” Keahi said, adding with a grin, “Should be a fun outing. The Waipi‘o Valley is a historic cultural gem, and the views from the Z-Trail up the far side of the valley are stunning. And the waterfalls in the Waimanu Valley are among the tallest in the world.”
“Keahi’s right that the northwest corner of the island has some gorgeous country, but the ground’s rough and the hiking trails are among the toughest in the state. And this map lacks the detail to get us there,” Koa said. “We’ll need a guide to show us the way.”
“I’m sure one of the old trail hands up in Waipi‘o can get you there. You might even go in on horseback,” the chief suggested.
“Couldn’t you use a police helicopter?” the senator asked.
Koa shook his head. “According to this map, the cabin is way up the Waimanu Valley. A chopper would have to land on the beach, and then we’d need horses for the last few miles. Better to pick up horses in the Waipi‘o and go up the Z-Trail to the Muliwai Trail over the ridge into the Waimanu Valley. I’ll find us a guide and some horses.” Turning to Bobby Hazzard, Koa added, “It’ll be a rugged overnight trip through pretty brutal terrain, and you can’t be sure the cabin will still be standing. Sure you want to do this?”
“I’m sure,” Bobby said, but without much enthusiasm.
“Tomorrow morning? We should have good weather. Early start?”
“How early?” Bobby asked sheepishly.
Koa wondered if the kid was planning to sleep late. “About five a.m.,” he responded.
Bobby was not pleased but wasn’t in a position to object. “Okay.”
As the meeting broke up, Senator Chao walked out with Koa. “He’s a good kid. Take care of him,” the senator said. Then, as an apparent afterthought, the senator added, “You created a bit of a stir out at X-CO.”
Koa’s antenna instantly went up. The chief had registered his displeasure with Koa’s initial visit to X-CO based on a complaint by the senator’s aide. The senator had then objected to the search warrant raid. When Zeke had rebuffed that complaint, Keahi had warned Koa that the senator had reached out to the governor and maybe even the president. Now the senator was following up. Koa responded cautiously. “As Zeke Brown said, we’re in the midst of a murder investigation, and the company was uncooperative.” Then hoping to learn more, he added, “I don’t suppose you ever met Baldwin?”
“No, afraid not, but I can tell you that this whole situation has made Zhou Li hopping mad. He’s considering whether to cancel the AI seminar.”
Koa worried that the senator’s last sentence was a threat to retaliate if the police continued investigating. Nothing pissed him off like political interference. He chose his words carefully. “I guess he’s free to cancel the seminar, but that won’t stop the investigation.”
* * *
Koa wasn’t thrilled about a two-day babysitting excursion into one of the most inaccessible places in the entire state, and he didn’t like losing two days he needed to keep pushing the X-CO investigation. Nor did he want to be away from Nālani any more than necessary. Yet, the chief and the senator had left him no alternative. So be it. He assembled his camping gear, adding his D.J. Russell belt knife, Savage Arms Axis, 6.5 mm Creedmore hunting rifle, and binoculars, along with his regular Glock pistol. He knew there would be no cell coverage in the Waimanu Valley, and checked a satellite phone out of the police equipment inventory. He didn’t want to be in the wilderness with no way to communicate if something went awry. They would pick up food and extra water in the morning on their way to the Waipi‘o.
