Unknown Victim by Kay Hadashi (classic books for 11 year olds .TXT) 📕

“Why did you let it go forward?” she asked.

“I didn’t. The ADA took it and ran with it. She needed a conviction of anything big.”

“Oh, I get it. Somehow it became political?” Gina asked.

“In a way. She’d been losing too many cases and needed a conviction to keep her out of the doghouse.”

“We have a couple like that back home in Cleveland.”

Kona shuffled papers again. “Tell me what’s going on with your diagrams.”

“Probably a mess. Ever since you told me how you use them to organize evidence, I thought I’d give them a try. That one you’re looking at is today’s.”

“Bottle cap, windbreaker, Rolex. Looks good. What’s with the cat with a mouse?”

“On the day the dead man was found, the cat had a rat. Ever since, I’ve been trying to make sense of that, of how the dead rat might have something to do with a dead body. Other than both of them being dead, I can’t find any connection.”

“I still doubt there’s anything to the rat. What’s this circle labeled as grass clippings?” Detective Kona asked.

“This might be the part of my investigation that irritates you the most.” She tried smiling, but it didn’t seem to matter to him. He was waiting for an answer. “One blade of grass might’ve come loose from the sole of a shoe when no one was looking.”

“And you might’ve saved it?”

“It might be in a ziplock bag in the kitchen.”

“You don’t consider that tampering with evidence?” he asked.

“Maybe according to the letter of the law, it might in a way be considered not entirely honest. But in my defense, there were at least a dozen other blades of grass still stuck to his shoes for your CSI techs to look at.”

“Fortunately for you, they were all the same type of grass. Did you determine the location of the lawn he’d walked on?”

“I collected more lawn clippings from Kapalama Park this morning while I was there. They match. But I looked at the grass at a couple of other municipal parks, and those are a match, also.”

“That’s what my CSI guys determined.”

“But there’s more. I found out from interviewing…talking to one of the guys at the park this morning that the city mows Kapalama Park once a week, on Fridays. But because these last two weekends were holidays, they mowed on Sunday.”

“Big deal,” Kona said. “I mow on Sundays, also.”

“Except that the body was discovered early on a Monday morning, and the clippings stuck to his shoes were still fresh and supple. They hadn’t dried out yet. That means to me that he would’ve had to walk through lawn grass that had been mown only a few hours before, and at a city park that was on a Friday mow schedule, but was actually mowed on a Sunday. Kapalama Park is one of them.”

“There are quite a few parks in Honolulu, along with planting strips along streets, that need mowing. Kapalama can’t be the only one that got mown last Sunday.”

“It’s the only one within walking distance of Bunzo’s.”

“And because Bunzo’s serves Tuyo beer, you’re connecting those circles on your diagram?”

“Right. I have more.” She watched as Kona tore a sheet from her pad to write on. “After I left the park this morning, I went back to Bunzo’s.”

“Find anything?” he asked.

“Yeah. They make crappy virgin margaritas.”

Kona snickered. “Anything useful to the investigation?”

“I talked to the daytime bartender when he was outside getting rid of trash. At one point, he pushed his sleeves up. On his right forearm was a long scab, kind of crusty as though it was healing and starting to peel off.”

“What was his name?”

“Hughes. He gets off at five. He wants me to join him when he does.”

“I’m sure he does,” Detective Kona said.

“I have more. When I first started talking to him, he was using a box cutter to flatten cardboard boxes, but after I showed him the picture of the victim, his demeanor changed.”

“How?”

“He quit cutting them apart and began stomping them flat, even the larger ones. The more I talked to him about the vic, the harder he stomped.”

“That might’ve been a good time for you to leave, but I get the idea you didn’t?”

Gina shook her head. “When he finished sweeping the area around the dumpsters, he asked if there was anything else I wanted. I took him up on the offer and had him make me a margarita.”

“That wasn’t a good idea, to go inside with him, Miss Santoro. Were there any other customers there at the time?”

“Completely empty. Once he started making the drink, I was regretting it. He was still kinda angry, his hands shaking, that sort of thing. But I did notice something else that might be interesting. Might not be evidence of anything, but interesting.”

“A cat with lawn clippings on its paws while wearing a windbreaker and Rolex watch with a rat in its mouth came in and asked for a Tuyo?”

Gina started to flick her fingers under her chin, but thought better of it. “He used an ice pick to break up ice in the bar’s ice tub to put into the blender.”

“And that means?”

“Didn’t you say the murder weapon was something similar to an ice pick?”

“By any chance, did you see any blood smears on it?” he asked.

“No, but it was fairly long and seemed to have a square cross section. At least it looked that way from where I was sitting on the other side of the bar.”

“Pretty circumstantial, Miss Santoro. Every bar will have an ice pick next to its ice tub. Every supermarket with a fish counter, every fishing boat, anyone who deals with ice on a daily basis will have an ice pick somewhere nearby.”

“What about the healing scab on his forearm?”

“Again, circumstantial. He could’ve scratched himself a few days before with the box cutter you said you saw him use.”

“A nervous bartender with a scratch on his arm using an ice pick at a bar that serves Tuyo beer near a