By two o’clock Thursday we had gathered as much evidence as we could from the house. When the technicians went back to headquarters to check fingerprint records, they dropped Mike at the fire department lab with all the incendiary materials. We didn’t find the small Smith and Wesson we believed had been used to kill Charlie Stahl and Hiroshi Mura, but it was obvious from the empty gun drawers that many weapons of various sizes were missing.
I told Lieutenant Sampson I wanted to stop by Uncle Chin’s house for the wake, promising I’d keep my cell phone turned on and handy, and he let me go. The narrow, curving streets of St. Louis Heights were chock-a-block with cars as I navigated my way there. Fortunately, a neighbor, Mr. Rodriguez, was out in his yard as I passed and he let me park in his driveway. As I walked down the hill toward the house, I saw a familiar face in one of the parked cars.
“Hey, brah,” I said, walking up to the passenger side of the car. “You checking out all the dangerous characters going into my uncle’s house?”
Akoni turned to me, a sheepish look on his face. “We’re just looking at tong members.”
“You got a problem with that, Kanapa’aka?” the man behind the wheel said.
I leaned down to look in at him. His name was Tony Lee, and all I knew about him was that he worked in Organized Crime. “Not at all,” I said. “You see anybody you don’t know, you can just ask me. I’ve got a couple of great-aunts you might not recognize.”
“Blow me,” Tony said.
“Hey, be careful what you say. I might just take you up on that someday.”
I saw Akoni trying to stifle a smile and stood up. Uncle Chin’s house and yard were full of people and it took me a while to say hello to everyone. There are very prescribed rites that take place when a person of Chinese descent dies, and even though he had a long criminal past, Uncle Chin was very traditional, and he was getting everything he was due.
When I saw the group of old men playing cards in the front courtyard, I realized that Aunt Mei-Mei had gone totally old school, and that Uncle Chin’s body had to be in the house, waiting for the funeral. The card players were there because the corpse had to be “guarded” while it was in the house, and gambling helped the “guards” pass the time. It was also said to make the mourners feel better-which I guessed was only true if you were winning.
A white cloth was across the doorway of the house, and a gong had been placed to the left. The wake had been going on since early that morning, and I figured that my family had been busy helping Aunt Mei-Mei prepare everything. A monk stood in the corner, his head shaved, wearing saffron robes and chanting Buddhist scriptures. The Chinese believe that the souls of the dead face many obstacles, torments, and even torture for the sins they have committed in life before they are allowed to take their place in the afterlife. The monk’s prayers, chanting and rituals were aimed to help smooth the passage of Uncle Chin’s soul into heaven. From what I knew of his life, he needed all the help he could get.
A trio of musicians played gong, flute and trumpet in one corner of the living room. Next to them, Uncle Chin’s coffin sat about two feet above the ground, with his head of the deceased facing the inside of the house. The area around the head of the coffin was filled with wreaths, gifts and a big color photo of Uncle Chin as a young man.
He was quite handsome then, though there was a deadliness about his eyes that was creepy, even knowing that he was beyond harming anyone. The coffin was open, with plates of food placed in front of it, to feed Uncle Chin on his journey.
A comb, broken in half, was placed in the coffin next to him, and I knew that Aunt Mei-Mei would keep the other half. At the foot of the coffin sat an altar, with burning incense and a lit white candle. Joss paper and prayer money (to provide the deceased with sufficient income in the afterlife) are burned continuously throughout the wake. I stepped up to the altar, bowed to Uncle Chin, and lit a stick of sandalwood incense. I folded a twenty-dollar bill and slipped it into the donation box.
Aunt Mei-Mei would not keep the money there, though often families did use that money to help defray funeral expenses. Rather, it would go to some charity in Chinatown, to further honor Uncle Chin’s memory.
I looked around. The statues of Kwan Yin and other deities in the house had been covered with red paper, to protect them from the body and the coffin, and the big mirror by the front door was gone, because the Chinese believe that if you see the reflection of a coffin in a mirror you will shortly have a death in your family.
The house was crowded, most people in formal aloha attire. I felt a little out of place, a little disrespectful, in my casual aloha shirt and khakis, but at least I’d made it there. Once I’d paid my respects to Uncle Chin, I sought out my parents, hugging them both. “I’m sorry, Dad,” I said. “I know you’ll miss Uncle Chin.”
He smiled. “I will see him again in the next life. It’s good that you came today.”
“Uncle Chin was always good to me.”
On the far side of the room, talking to my sister-in-law Liliha, was Aunt Mei-Mei’s daughter-in-law, Genevieve Pang, widow of Uncle Chin’s illegitimate son and mother of his only grandson, who was unable to attend the funeral due to his incarceration at Halawa Prison.
I made up two big plates of food and recruited Jeffrey and Ashley, my niece and nephew, to take them out to Akoni and Tony Lee. “Make sure you give this one to the thin Chinese guy,” I said to Jeffrey. I leaned down and whispered, “That’s the one I spit in.”
They were both wise to me, though. “Uncle Kimo,” he said. Then he and Ashley took off.
I found Aunt Mei-Mei in the kitchen, frying wontons. “You shouldn’t be doing this, Aunt,” I said, leaning down to kiss her. She wore a flowered apron over her black skirt and white blouse. The matching black jacket was draped over one of the kitchen chairs.
“I need keep busy,” she said. “No want think about Uncle Chin.”
“He was a good man.” I felt the tears I had been fighting for so long start to well up again. “I loved him.”
“Oh, Kimo, he love you, too. He love you, your brothers like his own sons.” She started to cry. “Now what I do? How I live without him?”
I reached over and got a paper towel, and used it to dry her eyes. “Come on, now, you don’t want the wontons to burn, do you?”
I stayed there and helped her for a few minutes. Then my cell phone rang and I walked outside to a quiet corner of the yard to answer it. “We may have a lead,” Lieutenant Sampson said. “A sightseeing helicopter going over Wa’ahila State Park saw a small fire, and swooped in for a closer look. He saw a car and a truck there, and though he couldn’t see plate numbers on either vehicle, they match the description of the ones registered to the Whites.”
“He see anybody around it?”
“Not in the immediate vicinity. But he did see two people who looked like they were running away from the fire. A girl who matches Kitty’s description and a skinny boy with yellow hair.”
My heart started to race. “Did he describe the hair at all? Was it gelled up to a point?”
“You know who it might be?” I told him what I knew about Jimmy Ah Wong. “What the hell’s he doing up there with Kitty?” Sampson asked. He didn’t even wait for an answer. “We’ve got to get some men into that park.”
“I’m looking at it now,” I said. “My uncle’s house butts right up against it. You can set up a command post here.”
“Give me the address.” I gave it to him, and told him there were already two officers from Organized Crime stationed out in the street. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Twenty, if too many asshole drivers get in my way.”