Murder in Honolulu: A Skye Delaney Mystery (26 page)

We left the house essentially back where we
started, although there was still follow-up work to do on Antonio
Ramirez's alibi.

In the meantime, Carter's killer or killers
remained very much at large.

CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE

Edwin Axelrod was the third person connected
to Darlene Delaney, and indirectly to Carter, to end up dead.
Axelrod was found slumped over his desk, a bullet wound to the side
of his head. The possible murder weapon was in plain sight. Right
now, the police were calling it a probable suicide. I was calling
it one damned coincidence too many.

Upon hearing the news, I raced to the scene
of the crime. Axelrod's office building was crawling with police
personnel. I flashed my private detective credential to get
through. Sometimes it worked, other times I was dismissed as a pain
in the ass who was playing a game way out of her league.

Fortunately, the young male officer who
stood guard at the entry was a sucker for a private investigator
with nice legs. Once past him, I was home free. I made my way to
Axelrod's office, careful not to contaminate any possible evidence.
It looked as if it had been hit by a hurricane. More things were
displaced and dispersed than not.

The victim had already been carted off to
the morgue. His desktop was splattered with blood, as was his
chair, and seemingly half the wall behind the desk. Crime scene
investigators were finishing up after the detectives had moved
on.

I wondered about Edwin Axelrod's final
moments of life. Like Carter, he did not seem like a man who was
willing to give up on his life without one hell of a fight. It
certainly seemed very possible that a struggle had taken place.

"Do you have business here?" a voice asked
from behind me.

I turned to see a red-haired, tall female
from the CSI team.

"Used to," I said. After showing my I.D. and
stating my name, I continued the lie. "I did investigative work for
Mr. Axelrod from time to time. So what the hell happened here?"

She shrugged. "Suicide. Murder. Too soon to
tell—"

"Any witnesses?" I asked.

"From what I understand, he was found in
here alone," she said.

I looked around the office and told her: "My
guess is he had company who left in a hurry, but not before
searching and probably finding something worth killing for." If
not, I thought, it was made to look that way.

"I'll have to ask you to leave now," the CSI
said. "Unless, of course, you have something solid to back up your
theories—"

I smiled faintly and said: "Nothing but good
old-fashioned speculation."

She seemed disappointed, but let it pass
while leading me out of the office.

Down on the main floor, I nearly ran into
the reporter Liam Pratt. He seemed just as surprised to see me.

"What the hell are you doing here?" were the
first words to come from my mouth.

He half-grinned, putting his hands in the
pockets of his trousers. "I could ask you the same thing, Private
Detective Delaney."

"You first," I said.

He seemed to think about it, then said
smoothly: "Fair enough. But only if you let me buy you a
drink."

"Not a good idea," I told him. I had a firm
policy against making the same mistake twice.

"Just one drink is all I'm asking," he
pleaded. "No harm in that." He looked me over as if my clothes were
too loose. Or maybe too tight. "What do you say? There's a little
bar just down the street—"

Just how familiar was he with the area? I
wondered.
Did he live around here?

It seemed like a harmless enough outing, I
told myself, even if he reminded me of some of the creeps I dated
after Carter and before Ridge. Not bad looking, but too cocky and
conceited for their own good. Besides, I was curious as to what
business, if any, Liam had in the building where Edwin Axelrod had
bitten the dust. Could he have known Axelrod?

"One drink," I told Liam. "And
one
drink only!"

He chuckled as though merely to placate me.
"Yeah. I hear you."

We walked to the bar on Bishop Street called
NiteSpot. I can't say it was a place I could get used to. There was
a creepy element about it and a musty scent in the air. Cheesy
Hawaiian music was playing in the background as we sat at a table
against the back wall.

We both made beer our drink of choice.

"So why were you there?" I got right to the
point, having no desire to socialize with the man merely for the
sake of it.

"I heard an attorney was found dead in his
office under suspicious circumstances," Liam said evenly. "It's my
job to follow the news—"

If that was all, and I had no basis to
believe otherwise, I was not about to fan the flames. I tasted the
beer and leaned back in my chair.

"Why would a private eye be at the scene of
a routine murder?" he asked, and then answered himself. "Unless it
had something to do with a case she was working on. Am I
right?"

He seemed to know the answer ahead of time,
making me a little uncomfortable. "Guilty," I pled, but saw no
reason to share any more than that.

Liam stared at me. "Well...did you find what
you were looking for?"

Wouldn't you like to know
, I thought,
wondering if this was idle curiosity or inquisitiveness with a
purpose.

"I found all I needed to—" I said
simply.

"Which was?" he pressed with those
reporter's eyes looking back at me.

"A prominent attorney is dead and the cause
is still under investigation," I responded. "Why don't we just
leave it at that, Liam?"

"If you say so, detective..." He drank more
beer and studied me thoughtfully.

I put the onus back on him. "So what do you
plan to write about regarding Edwin Axelrod's death?"

"I'm not sure yet," Liam said. After a
moment, he said: "How about a headline that reads Crooked Attorney
Edwin Axelrod Dead—Was it Self-Inflicted or Murder?"

I raised a brow. "That's a bit over the top,
don't you think?"

"You tell me," he said with a catch to his
voice. "Is it?"

I put the mug to my mouth and then asked
curiously: "What makes you think Axelrod was crooked?"

"That's easy," Liam said flatly, "because he
was. Everybody knows Axelrod was on the payroll of some of
Honolulu's top crime assholes, making it almost impossible to keep
his own hands clean."

"You mean like Kazuo Pelekai?" I couldn't
help but ask.

"Who's bigger?" he confirmed.

I met Liam's eyes. "Then you do think Edwin
Axelrod was murdered."

"Don't you?" His mouth hung open. "The poor
bastard probably knew way too much—"

Knew too much about what? I wondered. Or
who? Had Edwin Axelrod gotten in so deep that he had become more of
a liability than an asset to Pelekai? I could imagine one of his
muscular cronies doing the honor of snuffing out Axelrod, making
Pelekai's life a little easier.

Suddenly, I could see some scary patterns
emerging. If Edwin Axelrod had been in Pelekai's hip pocket, it
could be connected to Axelrod's affair with Darlene. Maybe Axelrod
had been using her to get information that could help Pelekai in a
criminal proceeding in which Carter's consultant work with the
prosecuting attorney's office could have been compromised. Or, at
the very least, I mused, a mistrial would have been a given, had
the defense shown a conflict of interest on the part of the State's
case, considering that Carter's wife was having an affair with
Kazuo Pelekai's defense attorney. That Carter and Axelrod were now
dead could be all Pelekai needed to walk away scot-free from his
troubles. It was a lot for me to digest.

"Some of my sources tell me Axelrod was a
womanizer," Liam said as he refilled his mug. "You got an opinion
on that?"

"Not really," I said with a straight face.
"I didn't know the man." Which, of course, was only a half-truth.
What I did know left me less than impressed with Axelrod as a
husband and attorney, as far as faithfulness and ethics went.

"I thought private eyes had a sixth sense
for that sort of thing," Liam said, favoring me with steady
eyes.

"Only in the movies," I responded dryly.
"Real detectives aren't psychic."
Was he toying with me?
I
wondered. Or viewing me as a toy he could wind up whenever he
wanted to?

"Well reporters
are
, in a sense," he
declared. "And my vibes tell me that Axelrod was definitely a
ladies' man, except where it concerned his wife—"

"I don't see what any of this has to do
with—" I argued.

"Maybe Axelrod was murdered by a scorned
woman," Liam suggested, "if he was murdered at all. Point is, you
can't rule out anything."

"I suppose not," I responded nonchalantly.
Was he insinuating that Edwin Axelrod's mistress killed him? Could
he know that Axelrod had been involved with Darlene?

I was obviously not bosom buddies with
Carter's widow, but making her out to be a vindictive murderess
seemed like a stretch, especially since I was under the impression
that things had ended between her and Axelrod. But had they? Though
I realized Darlene still had not been officially eliminated as a
suspect in Carter's death, I somehow convinced myself that there
was a distinction between killing one's no good lover and one's
cheating, gambling husband.

I finished off my beer and decided I had
better quit while I was ahead or at least on neutral ground.

"Thanks for the drink, Liam."

"Thanks for the company," he said with a
boyish grin. "It's hard to find people to have an intelligent
conversation with these days."

"Maybe you're looking in all the wrong
places," I said sardonically.

"Maybe," he said, eyeing me as though that
was about to change.

Liam insisted on walking me back to my car.
I insisted that it went no further than that.

"See you around," I told him routinely after
starting my car, but not meaning it.

"That a promise?" he asked eagerly. I
couldn't tell if he was serious or not. In fact, there was a lot
about him that left me uncertain and uneasy. Maybe I was making too
much of nothing. Could be he was simply a damned good reporter
given to some harmless flirting. Problem was I found myself buying
into it to some degree.

I hated to burst his bubble, but there was
no interest on my part in engaging in such conversations with him
when there was nothing else on the table. I was more than satisfied
with Ridge where it concerned intelligent conversing and otherwise
spending time together.

I drove off without answering his
question.

* * *

I ran some of Liam's theories and innuendoes
about Edwin Axelrod's life and death by Ridge during dinner that
evening. More specifically, the part about Axelrod being on Kazuo
Pelekai's payroll.

Ridge listened with interest while chewing
on barbecued chicken right off his own grill. "I knew that," he
said as if no big deal.

"How long have you known?" I asked.

"Since you first had me run a check on
Axelrod's license plate," Ridge answered.

I wasn't sure whether to be angry or wait
until I heard his explanation. "Did it ever occur to you that I
might be interested to know that the man Darlene was having an
affair with just happened to be the attorney for Kazuo Pelekai—a
man Carter spent years trying like hell to send to prison?"

Ridge nodded. "Yeah, it occurred to me—"

"And—?" I asked, assuming there had to be
more.

He drank some wine and seemed to consider
his words carefully. "I didn't want to involve you in this case any
more than necessary, Skye. Hell, if I'd told you about the
connection between Axelrod and Pelekai, you might have ended up way
over your head in something that may have had nothing to do with
Carter's death, but everything to do with putting you on someone's
hit list." Ridge sipped more wine, and then said: "As it is, we
haven't been able to tie Delaney's murder to Pelekai or Edwin
Axelrod—"

I nibbled on a dinner roll. My
disappointment was tempered by the fact that Ridge was a cop first
and foremost, bound by cop rules. He also made a judgment call of a
personal nature. I had to respect that, given our personal
relationship and his wanting to protect me from harm.

"So what do you make of Axelrod's death?" I
asked. We were sitting at a picnic table in Ridge's backyard.
"Don't you find it strange that he wound up dead when he may have
known who killed Carter—possibly burying his secret with him
forever?"

Ridge ate more chicken before responding.
"Having an affair with the wife of a former prosecutor doesn't mean
it was part of a greater conspiracy against Carter Delaney," he
said. "More likely, Axelrod took on one crook too many and paid the
ultimate price. That said, I'd say suicide is still a damn good
possibility. I heard the suicide rate is unusually high for
attorneys. Must have something to do with job stress—"

Was he returning to the theory that Carter's
death might have been a suicide, in spite of the evidence to the
contrary? I wondered. Carter had not practiced law in years when he
was killed, which would seem to debunk such a theory where it
concerned him. Yet I could not deny that he was under a great deal
of stress from more than one source. But, in my mind, this still
did not add up to suicide. I was sure that Ridge and I were on the
same page here; whereas the circumstances surrounding Edwin
Axelrod's mysterious death were still very much up for debate.

My thoughts turned to Liam Pratt's
suggestion that Axelrod's death was related to his cheating ways.
It made me wonder if Darlene had, in fact, resumed their affair and
the wife found out. Perhaps it was she who decided to pay her
husband back by putting a bullet in his brain. Admittedly, it
seemed farfetched, but it was totally plausible in this day and age
where murder amongst married intimates occurred much more often
than one might imagine.