the Pallbearers (2010) (24 page)

Sabas walked over to the board and tapped his knuckles on the nose. It sounded hollow. Empty.

"Kinda hate to bust it open," he said. "It seems kinda special. The last board Pop ever worked on."

"We can come back to it if we don't find anything," I suggested. "I could probably arrange for somebody at CSI to get it x-rayed."

I wanted to get them off the idea that Walts suicide note contained a message. What I really wanted was to do a thorough search of this place, looking for anomalies, some small piece of evidence that had been missed by Kovacevich and Cole but would make sense to the five of us.

I finally got that organized, and we began to look through the rest of the workshop. Then we searched the yard. After that we went back inside and searched the small two-bedroom house. We worked for an hour, and before long, failure to turn up anything was causing a pronounced loss of energy.

We took a break, and everyone gathered on the back porch. Vargas and I leaned on the railing, Diamond sat on the wooden chair, Vicki and Seriana on the big porch swing.

We were all quiet, gazing out at the backyard and remembering those times when we came here as kids. As I looked out across the dying lawn, it just seemed so damned much smaller than it had when I was nine.

Vicki went inside to use the bathroom, and Sabas spoke to what all of us were feeling. "It's hard to believe Pop died right here on this porch," he said softly. "Maybe even in that very chair."

Everyone looked down at the wooden chair Diamond was sitting on. She got up quickly, abandoning it and moving over to the porch rail.

"I just never thought Pop would check out that way," Seriana said. "Never thought somebody so mellow could die so badly."

As we sat there, I began to feel a little lost. Looking out over the yard I had a sudden overpowering feeling that I had failed Pop again, that I had let him down now, just as I had during all those years when I'd rejected him. I looked at the faces of the other pallbearers and saw the same defeat reflected in their eyes.

"Hey, you guys. Come in here for a minute," Vicki called out from inside the house.

We trooped into the living room and saw that she had pulled a large Hawaiian kahuna tiki statue away from the wall where it had always stood. Kahunas were usually little shelf-sized figurines sold in surf shops. You could also buy replica good-luck kahunas that were inch-high wood carvings, often worn around a surfers neck on a leather cord.

This one was much larger and stood almost three feet high. It was hand carved out of pinewood, with a big nose, oversized lips, and bushy hair made of dried straw.

"Something back there?" I asked, and moved over to look at the wall behind where the kahuna had always stood.

Sabas said, "I don't remember him from when I used to come over, but that was almost forty years ago."

"He was always here when I was a kid," I said. "It's a kahuna, the Hawaiian god of the surf."

"Isn't that what Pop always called the source?" Vicki asked.

I nodded. "Pop said Kahuna is the source of good waves. He lives in the middle of the ocean and makes the big double-overhead tube rides. He told me that when he was a kid, all the surfers on the North Shore would sit on the beach at night, smoking blunts, praying to this little guy for big rhino waves to ride."

"He said if we want the answers, we should tap the source," Vicki said. "That's how Walt signed his note, right? 'Tap the Source, Walt.'"

I shook my head. "I think all he meant was. . ."

"You don't know what the fuck he meant, Shane," she snapped. "Let's get this little asshole's head off and see what's inside."

Before anybody could stop her, she had leaned over the kahuna and was pulling and yanking on the statue's head, rocking it back and forth. Suddenly, it popped off and flew out of her hands and landed across the room next to the sofa.

There was a carved wooden peg that fit into the statue's torso to hold the head in place. Seriana removed the peg, revealing a hole.

We could all now see that the carved headless torso was hollow inside. Vicki stuck her small hand down through the opening, reaching deep into the body of the kahuna god, and began rummaging around.

When she pulled her slender hand out, she was holding a fat manila envelope.

I'll be damned, I thought.

Chapter
43

It never happens like this in law enforcement--the whole resolution to a case hiding inside a vase or a statue.

Still, I couldn't keep myself from grinning.

But despite my elation, there was some part of me that distrusted it. On the other hand, why not? Why couldn't this have been Walt's plan all along? He'd picked the six of us because we were the nonconformist kids he had never given up on. And he know we wouldn't give up on him.

Maybe.

Vicki opened the manila envelope. Inside was what looked like a handwritten note on a piece of paper. It was in Pop's scrawling cursivc.

1. Never enough money to run home . . . Why?

3. Rick O'Shea only receives $200.00 a month from H. H. How can he afford new Cadillac Escalade and huge new house? Where does $ come from? MMA fights?

4. O'Shea's checkbook and stubs. Gym bag? /

5. Review accounts payable. /

6. Review last 2 year's H. H. tax returns. /

7. Correlate H. H. expenditures with R. O.'s personal deposits. /

8. Why were we hilled for the roof on Sharon Cross Hall when it never got repaired?

The list was backed by a sheaf of papers, including photocopies of Rick O'Shea's personal-check stubs and his bank-deposit slips. Pop must have stolen the checkbook from O'Shea's gym bag and copied them. Certain numbers on O'Shea's bank deposits had been highlighted by Walt.

Vicki began sorting the photocopied pages, separating those that showed estimates or contracts for work projects to be done at Huntington House from bank withdrawals on Huntington House checks that bore Pop's signature.

"Look at this," she said.

She showed us what looked like a bogus roofing contract with a cheap letterhead that looked like it had been made up at Kinko's.

The contract was to redo the roof on Sharon Cross Hall for $10,280.00. With it was a canceled check made out to cash from Huntington House for the contracted amount signed by Pop. Presumably payment for the job. Then she showed us a deposit slip to Rick O'Shea's personal bank account for the exact same amount.

"You know anything about this?" I asked Diamond.

"We couldn't afford that new roof," she said. "I told Pop we were going to hold up all the maintenance contracts."

"O'Shea was the embezzler, not Pop," I said. "He set Pop up and somehow got his signature on all this so it would look like Pop was the thief. Alexa found out at the Hayloft that O'Shea only recentl
y s
tarted making big purses on his MMA fights, so that obviously isn't the way he could afford that million-dollar house in Calabasas and the expensive SUV. This is what paid for that stuff."

Vicki said, "I'll have to go through all of this and see what else there is."

She pulled out another photocopy. "Here's another one. A bill for Huntington House employee and child health insurance for last year, totaling eighty-three thousand, nine-hundred-eighteen dollars and twenty-three cents." She found a corresponding canceled check made out to cash in the same amount with Pop's signature and matched it to one of O'Shea's deposit slips for his personal bank account. The amount was exactly the same, down to the penny.

"Since there are no coincidences in police work, these aren't coincidences," Seriana said.

I glanced over at her and saw a big wide smile. This one stayed on her face and made her beautiful.

"How the fuck could Pop be signing checks to cash and giving them to this dirtbag?" Vicki said, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Walt trusted people," Diamond answered. "It was just the way he was."

uThis is why Pop wanted to see me," Sabas said softly, revising his reason for the third time. "He'd found all this. He discovered what O'Shea was doing. He wanted my advice on how to move forward. But I was too damn busy." There was pain and self-loathing on the lawyer's face.

"So here's the motive for the murder," I said. "Rick O'Shea was looking for evidence, not money. Pop had figured it out, had these documents proving O'Shea was guilty of embezzlement. Pop confronted him, told O'Shea he had the proof. O'Shea beat him to get Pop to tell him where this stuff was. When Pop wouldn't, O'Shea killed him."

Far from stealing from Huntington House, Pop had died protecting it. Shouldn't we have known that from the start?

"We need to put this on paper and deliver it to the DA's office," I said. "Then tomorrow we'll bust O'Shea. From there, it's wrap-up."

"Why do we have to wait 'til tomorrow?" Sabas said. "Let's go slam that asshole in cuffs right now."

"We can't do it tonight because we need an arrest warrant. I'll call Alexa. She can pull in some sixth-floor help. Vicki, you get these financial papers in order so they make enough sense for a judge to write us a warrant based on what they say. Tomorrow, it will be over."

CHAPTEII 44

By the time Alexa got home at six that night she had pretty much pulled the case together for me. She'd pestered Chief Filosiani until he finally agreed to throw a net over the FBI, telling the feds that Straw was off-limits until he was through helping us with our high
-
profile murder case. They had no choice but to stand down.

After Alexa finished giving me this news, she added, "Tonv asked me if I had actual, physical custody of Jack."

"And you said, 'Of course I do, Chief. I wouldn't let that dirtbag out of my sight.'"

"Exactly. Flat-out lied to my boss. If this goes bad, I'm gonna get my ass kicked."

She was taking a huge chance for me, putting her own career in jeopardy. I took her hand. "I know you've been letting me run this, and I know it hasn't been my smoothest investigation. I want you to know how much I appreciate what you're doing."

"This is important to you. I can deal with the department fallout if it comes to that."

"I think we need to call a friendly judge and get the paperwork on Rick O'Shea going," I said. "
I
want to pick it up first thing in the morning. We can show the judge what Vicki has and move on O'Shea by ten A
. M
."

She tapped a nail against the kitchen table, deep in thought. "How come my instinct tells me this goes much deeper than Rick O'Shea?" she said. "Like all the way up to E. C. Mesa."

"Because it does. But we start with Rick. Since I've already got a decent prima facie case against him, and he's two pickles short of a full sandwich, we'll lay it on him, he'll get confused and give up everybody else. Cop 101."

Alexa said she knew a judge who would write our warrant for O'Shea and picked up the kitchen phone to call him.

I went outside and settled into my chair in the backyard to rest my aching body and watch the sun go down. I looked out at the still canal and thought about Walt. I wondered if I'd finally evened our debt. If arresting O'Shea made up for my not being there. Deep down, I knew it hadn't. It felt strangely incomplete.

I noticed some movement at the edge of the yard, leaned forward, and spotted our adopted cat, Franco, watching me from under an oleander bush. It was lady-cat season and he'd been away from the house for the last day or so. Now he was back with a smirk on his face, satisfaction burning in his big yellow eyes.

"Been out getting some?" I asked him.

He's not a cuddly cat, but he can read my needs. If I'm feeling bad, he lets me know he cares.

He walked over and wound around my ankles, then jumped up into my lap and plopped down. He sniffed at my cast, turned his head, and gave me a withering look.

"I know, it's disappointing."

Franco put his head down and began to purr.

As I looked down at him, my thoughts started along a new path.

We'd ended up with Franco because I'd failed to move quickly enough to save his original owner, Carol White, and she'd been murdered. Now I'd also failed to save Pop. In the end I'd made Carol's killer pay. Tomorrow I was determined to do the same for Walt.

This memory started a chain of thoughts that led me, once again, back to those early mornings, kneeling in the sand beside Pop on Seal Beach.

I suddenly remembered something that had happened over thirty years ago. We'd been out beyond the surf line just before dawn. It was only my first or second time, and I was still nervous about being in the ocean. I was sitting on my short board in my beavertail wet suit, facing Pop in the water, when I felt something bite my bare leg. I freaked out.

"A fish is biting me!" I yelled. "A shark!"

Of course it wasn't a shark, but I was scared, and I wanted to go back to shore. Pop wouldn't let me.

"That fish didn't bite you, bra. He kissed you. The old Hawaiians say that's a sure sign that you are at one with your aumakua."