BROKEN BOARDS, CHAPTER 10
BROKEN BOARDS, CHAPTER 10
A Jake Jansen Mystery.
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CHAPTER TEN - FAMILY FRIENDS
The late morning hours brought a small glimmer of hope. Jake continued to have no luck chasing down leads online about the missing surfboard, but Jack had heard back from his contact at the morgue. With Jake anxious to find out every possible piece of information, he pushed his dad to arrange to meet with his contact as soon as they were available.
“Mary said she can meet us at 1, over at The Grill.”
“Why can’t we just meet her at the morgue?” Jake asked.
“Jake, she’s sticking her neck out here, getting us this information. She didn’t want to discuss it on the phone. She’s got a couple of things she wants to go over with us and felt it was better to discuss in person but out of sight of potentially prying eyes. Keep in mind, Jake, we don’t know what’s going on here. We have no idea who’s responsible or what this leads to, so when you go digging around, you have to be as low profile as possible, ok?”
Jake nodded in understanding.
“And one more thing here, nobody will see us going in or out of the morgue. Almost like we’d never been there,” he paused. “Because we haven’t been. Now, let’s get going.”
***
Ken Mitchell, a man in his early 40s with short brown hair and tattoos, dressed in board shorts and a brightly colored surf tee-shirt, stood on the balcony of his high-rise condo overlooking Waikiki. Deep in thought, he wore a look of heavy concern as if he was trying to solve a puzzle in his brain. His phone on the patio table chimed a tune as he picked it up and glanced at the text from Jose – 10:00 AM TOMORROW. HAVE BOARDS READY. WE ALREADY HAVE ONE MIXUP, NOT HAVE ANOTHER. SEE YOU, FRIEND.
***
Jack pulled his car into the parking lot at The Grill, a small diner not far from the coroner’s office. Father and son climbed out of the car and made their way into the diner. They passed through the slightly crowded and well-lit restaurant brightly decorated in Hawai’ian and found Mary seated at a booth in the corner.
Jack acknowledged the hostess and pointed towards the back, letting her know their party had already been seated, and they made their way to the back booth. Mary smiled as Jack approached. Mary was a beautiful, darkly tanned Hawai’ian woman in her early 40s. Her long black hair wrapped around her shoulder over her bright yellow dress.
“Aloha, old friend, it’s been a long time. I wish we were meeting under different circumstances. And who’s this handsome young man?”
“Mary, this is my son, Jake. Jake, this is Mary Kanaiaupuni, a longtime friend who has helped on many cases over the years. She is a master of her craft,” Jack said.
Jake reached across from behind his father, extending a warm handshake.
“Aloha, Ma’am.”
“Please, Jake, call me Mary. Or at least MK. Anything but ma’am,” she said through a laugh.
As Jack and Jake both slid into the opposite side of the booth, Mary broached the topic that neither Jack nor Jake wanted to discuss.
“Jack, I was heartbroken to hear about Anne. She was an amazing woman and one of my favorite people to work with. You know that,” she said before glancing over at Jake. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
“She always thought very highly of you, Mare. She appreciated how you could make such a difficult job enjoyable. That you brought energy and light to such a dark atmosphere. Anne always referred to you as gifted.”
“That might be a bit of a stretch, Jack,” she said, laughing. She paused for a moment, glanced around, and reached into her purse, pulling out an envelope. She slid the envelope to Jack, who opened it and read through the documents.
“You think he was stabbed?” Jack asked while continuing to read the documents.
“Without question. I just don’t know with what. Note that there was bone damage to a couple of the ribs. Grooves that appear to have been made by a sharp blade of some sort. At least twice. However, COD appears to have been suffocation. They missed vital organs. Nor was there a lot of blood loss.”
“So, death was not due to drowning despite being pulled from the harbor. So that means they were merely looking to dispose of the body. That was an attempt to cover up the murder. But why was the murder committed to begin with? That’s the bigger question here.”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“No signs of alcohol or drugs?” Jack asked.
“None,” Mary replied, shaking her head. “Not even the smallest trace.”
Jake became more uncomfortable as he listened to her as she continued. Jack looked over at Jake.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, Dad. I’ll be fine.”
Jack looked at Mary, motioning for her to continue.
“There was a cloth in his mouth, but it appears that they shut off his airflow through strangulation. It would appear to have probably been with a chokehold. No finger marks or bruising on the neck, no fingernail marks or scratches, though there were some signs of a struggle, bruising in other various areas of the arms, hands, marks on the legs. His fingernails had threads underneath, but nothing useful.”
Jake closed his eyes as he listened. He tried to focus and not be angry or sad but rather sit quietly and listen for details that might provide some small piece of evidence to point him toward anything that might benefit their search.
“Has HPD said anything to you about this case at all? Leads? Suspects? Anything? Even rumors?”
Mary shook her head.
“Not a word. Which does seem odd, maybe just a coincidence. Normally, I would have heard about at least some of the specifics, whether the scene, suspected cause, etc. But nothing. The body was brought in, and that was it. Why?”
“It was Jake’s best friend,” Jack replied. “We have no real leads at this point. Maybe some far-reaching suspicions, but nothing more. Even this doesn’t tell us much. But it’s helping to piece some things together.”
“Oh, Jake, no. I’m sorry that I was the bearer of such terrible news. Please do forgive me.”
Jake forced a small smile and nodded.
“All we know at this point is that Jake dropped off Rabbit at Kahala Mall to go to the surf shop. That was the last Jake saw of him. He did send texts later in the evening, pictures of surfboards, etc. So, we have a final contact timestamp. But he never made it home that night. Then the next thing we hear is that his body has been found in the harbor. That’s nowhere near where he was staying. And now, with your information, we know it wasn’t an accident. But we are missing a lot of pieces to the puzzle.”
“Well, I’ll help any way I can. If I hear anything, even potential rumors, I will let you know as soon as possible.” Mary paused for a moment before looking over at Jake. “Jake, I’ve known your parents a long, long time. I consider them good friends. I will do anything I can to help you find the information you need to get closure on this. Again, I’m terribly sorry.”
Jake’s phone buzzed, startling him for a moment. He reached into his pocket to pull out his phone and opened it to find a text from Kona – CALL ME. Motioning to his dad to let him out of the booth, Jake slid out as his dad stood up but continued his conversation with Mary. Jake made his way outside before making his call.
“Kona, what’s up? Yeah, okay, sure. But before you do, are you sure it’s safe? You won’t get in trouble? Untraceable? I mean, I trust you, but my dad will go ballistic. What about tracing the purchases from the surf shop? Maybe connect Rabbit’s to the bank and give us a detailed time, if possible? Yeah, okay.”
There was a pause as Jake listened to Kona describe his intentions and the effort and amount of time as he explained in greater detail the steps he would take to assist.
“Well, okay. How long do you think?” Jake asked. He listened to Kona for a moment or two.
“Okay, yeah, that works. We’re at The Grill right now, talking to the coroner.” Jake paused as he listened to Kona, then took a deep breath before replying.
“Rabbit was stabbed, and it sounds like he was smothered or something to that effect. I don’t know. I still can’t believe any of this is happening. All right, yeah, sure, where? University lab? Okay, see you in a while.”
Jake closed up his phone and slipped it into his pocket. He stood outside thinking about some of the information that had started coming to light. How close were they to uncovering the truth? How far away? “This might be fun if it wasn’t someone I knew,” he said out loud to no one in particular. He looked up at the sky, watching the clouds playing hide and seek with the sun as he continued to walk through the series of events in his head, putting the timeline in order, knowing that he was still missing many pieces of critical information. What kind of timeline were we working with? Are the suspects even still on the island? What do we do if they’ve already fled? Many unanswered questions were running through his head.
By this time, Jack and Mary had made their way out of the restaurant and were approaching Jake.
“Who was on the phone, son?”
“Kona might have a way to help us. We’re supposed to meet him at the university lab in a couple of hours. He might have something for us, but he isn’t certain.”
“Jake, what did I say about coming to me first? You agreed to the condition tha….”
“Dad, it wasn’t me; it was Kona. He did this on his own. All I did was let him know what we were working on. I didn’t ask him to do anything, I swear it.”
Jack looked at Jake and nodded. Jake was reticent at that moment and attempted to control his body language around his dad who knew how to read people.
“Okay, I can tell you’re telling the truth. But there better not be any funny business going on.” Jake nodded again and gave his dad a look of affirmation.
“Life with a criminal investigator,” Jake replied with a smirk, shaking his head.
Mary covered her mouth and tried not to laugh while looking up at Jack.
“I need to get back to the office, and you two need to get going. Again, Jack, if I can help, I will. You know how to reach me. Jake, it was very nice to meet you, though I wish it were under different circumstances,” she said with a wave as she walked toward her car.
“Come on, kid, let’s run by the house and then over to the university lab.”
***
Rodrigo watched as Jose organized some of their belongings.
“I’ve made contact and arrangement for tomorrow, yes,” Jose said as he restacked and organized the backpack. “Once we have boards tomorrow, we get final delivery and then arrangements to meet payment man, yes.”
Rodrigo nodded.
“We are almost home free,” Jose said before adding, “with a lot of money, Rodrigo, yes. I do not like leaving the backpack here. We take with us and keep at all times until ready for delivery.”
“That makes good sense, Jose. Good, good sense. Hopefully, no more mix-ups with Mitchell.”
***
The afternoon weather had turned cloudy, with a light mist.
“This isn’t really how I wanted to be introduced to the world of criminal investigation,” Jake said without turning to his dad.
“I imagine it’s difficult, Jake. I wish there were something more I could do beyond what is already being done.”
Jake glanced over at Dad.
“Just promise me that we’ll get the ones who did this. Just promise me that much.”
Jack nodded solemnly.
Jake turned his attention back out the window as Jack steered toward home. A brightly colored rainbow was peeking out over the housing developments in the area. Jake smiled and looked over at his dad.
“Remember what mom used to say about rainbows?”
They simultaneously repeated Anne’s statement about rainbows as if in stereo.
“God’s smile bringing color to the sky!”
Jack smiled.
“I think of her every time it rains, every time I see a rainbow, every time someone calls me Buzzy,” Jake said. “It isn’t often that I don’t think of her, Dad.”
“Jake, I think of her hourly,” he replied before pausing to look over at Jake, who had turned his attention out the window.
“She’d be so proud of you. You know that, right? Dean’s list. All-Conference football. Smart, kind, polite, well-spoken. You’re everything she wanted you to be, Jake.”
Jake looked at his dad and smiled before returning his attention out the window with his eyes fixed on the rainbow. A tear rolled down his cheek as he smiled.
A quick stop at the house allowed Jake to grab an energy drink from the fridge and to take Laird out for a quick walk while Jack took the opportunity to check emails for any possible information that had come through, but there wasn’t anything new to go on.
“Unfortunately, no emails and no new phone calls either,” Jack said with dejection.
Jake texted Liz and let her know, minus any gruesome details, what information they had found and that he would keep her posted with anything new. He let them know that he and his dad would use the smallest pieces of evidence they currently had and see if they could chase those leads to something substantial. Liz replied with a simple heart emoji and Xs and Os.
With no success on the home front, the two were off to the university lab to meet Kona.
***
An agitated Ken Mitchell stood looking out over the balcony, drinking coffee, before picking up his phone and dialing. He waited impatiently for an answer.
“What happened with that last delivery!?” He asked angrily. “You delivered it to the shop without me being there, and it was sold to the wrong person! We’ve got a slight problem we’re sorting out. Make sure the same thing doesn’t happen tomorrow. Those boards are delivered to me and only me. There’s a reason I pay you a lot of money. This type of mistake will not be tolerated again. Now don’t screw this up! Do you understand me?!?” he yelled into the phone.
Ken hung up and angrily threw his phone on the patio chair.
***
Jack drove through the lush, green campus, following directions from Jake as they made their way to the university lab.
“This is such a nice campus,” Jack commented as he surveyed the grounds while driving through the university.
Jake laughed to himself, shaking his head.
“What?” Jack questioned, looking at his son.
“When was the last time you saw it? Do you remember?”
“Come on, Jake. Don’t start that now. We both agreed I haven’t been there for you. We’ll work through it. Let’s focus on going forward, son, please?”
“Okay, okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. I guess I’m just emotionally confused over all of this. I still can’t believe what’s happening. I mean, it’s Rabbit, Dad.”
“I know, son. But we’ll get this sorted out. I’ll do everything in my power. I told you that before, and I mean it,” his father replied.
“Thanks,” Jake paused. “It means a lot. I know you’re trying.”
At that moment, Jack wasn’t sure what to do or say and just smiled at Jake.
“Right over there. Park anywhere. School’s out for now. We probably won’t be here long anyway.”
Jack pulled the car up into a spot, and they both climbed out and made their way inside to meet Kona.
Jake walked into the lab with his dad close behind, stopped, and looked around. He pulled out his phone and glanced at the time.
“He said about this time,” as he walked past the cabinets and glanced around the corner. He walked to the back of the room, held his hands up to the tinted glass, and looked inside.
“Nobody in the server room. Maybe he went to grab a bite to eat. Guess we can just wait for him to get back,” Jake said, sitting down on a stool at the counter. Jack glanced around the room.
“Stuff is getting more high-tech by the day. Everything from faster laptops, mobile technology, and better cracking tools. And yet criminals also get more and more high tech by the day, creating a greater need for more technology. A never-ending cycle.”
“I can’t even use half this stuff,” Jake said, laughing. “I guess all the old-school ways of solving crimes must have been passed down genetically,” Jake said, pointing at his dad. “My professors all said I’m a natural at crime-solving concepts, thinking like a detective while also getting in the head of the criminal. But I’m terrible at cracking and hacking. I know just enough to get by. I’m a true student of the Jack Jansen school of crime solving,” Jake said with a laugh.
“Gut instinct!” they both said simultaneously.
“And here, I didn’t think you had been listening to me all this time,” Jack said with a smile.
“What?” Jake replied with a laugh.
The door to the lab opened, and a short, black-haired college kid walked into the room, wearing jeans, a Hawai’ian shirt, sandals, and black-rimmed glasses.
“What’s up, KK? Any luck?” Jake asked as he got to his feet and met his friend with a handshake. Kona held up a silver disc.
“Dare I ask what that is,” Jack asked.
“It’s a DVD of Mall security footage,” Jake replied. “Kona knows a kid working at Kahala Security Systems that handles all monitoring for every store at the mall. So, he was able to burn a copy of the mall footage for us.”
Jack crossed his arms, and a look of frustration crossed his face.
“It was my idea, Mr. Jansen. I had him get the store exterior and interior, as well as all possible exits and the garage. And we didn’t break any protocols. I didn’t even have to hack into their system.”
“Well, that’s very reassuring, Kona,” Jack replied sarcastically.
“Dad, he’s just trying to help. Come on. This is our best shot for now. We have no leads. Has Chief Kalama been any help at all? No. We need to make our own leads.”
“But we have one small problem,” Kona said, as he continued, “their system creates a password-protected file. And Ronny doesn’t know the password. He didn’t want to ask the Sys Admin, but I told him no worries because I can crack it, no problem.”
“This is making me more uncomfortable by the minute, Jake,” Jack grumbled.
“Dad, it’s okay. We’ve already got the disc. Cracking it is the easy part.”
Kona took the disc and moved to the large computer in the back of the room. He slipped the disc into the drive and started typing quickly on the keyboard.
“Jake, it’s not okay. What you two amateur sleuths need to understand is that you don’t just take property from a company even if you know an employee on the inside. You need to get proper authorities involved, get a warrant, and so on and so on. Policies and procedures exist for a reason, son. Not only are you both putting yourselves in jeopardy, but that goes for your friend Ronny as well. This is the real world, not practice scenarios in your criminology courses. You need to be cautious, Jake. Need I remind you to stay low profile.”
“Okay, Jack Lord,” Jake laughed.
“I’m serious, Jake,” he paused, “besides, I consider myself more like the Mark Harmon type,” Jack replied with a wink. Jake rolled his eyes and laughed.
“I admit, I haven’t seen this algorithm, but I’ve got about 50 different crackers I can throw at this password. I’ll break it soon enough. It might just take me a while,” Kona said, adjusting his glasses. Kona typed away furiously at the keyboard as the two Jansens awaited the results.
Jake pulled out his phone and shot off a text to Liz – WORKING ON A LEAD WITH MY DAD AT THE UNIVERSITY. HOPEFULLY UNCOVER SOMETHING. KEEP YOU POSTED.
A quick reply from Liz lit up Jake’s phone – YOU’RE THE TALK OF THE NORTH SHORE, JUST SO YOU KNOW. THE LOCAL COMMUNITY, AND ESPECIALLY THE SURFERS, ARE PROUD OF YOU. JUST THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW.
Jake sent off a quick thank you and a heart.
“Man, world travels fast. Nice to know I’ve got support out there and that people know I’m willing to take care of our own,” he thought.
“I GOT IT!” Kona exclaimed, only to follow that up with a disappointed sigh. “Well, this is still going to take a little bit longer.” Kona motioned for them to come and look at the screen. “All of these files are zipped and compressed. Let me see, it looks like there’s one for every store, multiple angles of the food court, and two for each entrance. Looks like about 75 files or more. And they appear to be pretty big. He gave us 24 hours of data for the mall. To make it even worse, they’re not even labeled with meaningful names, just store numbers. This could take a while.”
“Are they timestamped?” Jake asked. “Since we know the rough timeframe when Rabbit was in the surf store.”
“I’ll scan the file names and check the properties and see if they’re broken into increments,” Kona replied.
“Is it possible to uncompress multiple files at once?” Jack asked.
“Not on the same computer, Mr. Jansen. But it just so happens that the computer that is sitting right there can do this as well,” Kona said, pointing to the machine behind him. “Here, put the disc in and use this password. Then copy the files to the main drive. You start on the high-numbered files. And decompress, then unzip.” Jake took the disc, slipped it into the machine, and went to work on the files.
“Dad, maybe you can reach out to Chief Kalama and see if there’s anything new or if he might be willing to help. What do you think?”
Jack pulled out his phone and dialed Chief Kalama’s personal cell phone.
“Mike, hey. Have you heard anything? Jake was wanting to know if you have anything new to go on?” Jack asked. Jake listened intently but couldn’t hear the Chief’s voice very clearly on the other end. He was just able to watch his dad’s facial reactions.
“It’s my son, Mike,” Jack said, emphasizing the obvious. “You and I have been good friends, what, almost 25 years or so? Since before Jake was even born. You knew I would go sticking my nose in,” Jack said with a laugh. “You’re almost family. You should want this for Jake almost as much as I do.” Jack listened, agreeing with the Chief’s statements. “Fair enough, Mike. And thanks, it means a lot.” Jack hung up.
“Well, I have good news and bad news,” Jack said.
“Bad news first,” Jake said, with his face buried in the computer screen, watching it decompress files.
“No new details but he did say he would let me know if something does come through.”
“Well, that’s something, I guess,” Jake replied.
“The good news is that he said he would turn a blind eye to anything that we might be getting into while ignoring proper channels,” Jack said with a playful glare and a raised eyebrow. “It’s like he knew what we were up to.” Jake looked up from his computer and smiled.
“Well, I was able to narrow down some of the files based on times, but it’s still a lot of data,” Kona said.
It was roughly three grueling hours, decompressing and unzipping files. As they decompressed and unzipped individual files, they copied them to a 3rd computer and let Jack watch them for anything that might seem suspicious. He was the most likely person to catch strange behavior. His years of studying body language, interrogating criminals, and identifying criminal tendencies would pay off better than the two amateur sleuths, one of whom knew more about computers than people.
“Here’s the surf shop video, Jake,” Jack stated with strained exhaustion. Jake made his way over and stood behind his dad. Kona came over and stood on the other side.
“The bad thing is that this is black and white footage, but at least they used HD cameras. But man, almost everyone looks the same,” Kona said.
“But we’re watching more than just appearance. Look at the body language. Look at groups. You can ignore people with children and the elderly. You start to narrow things down faster,” Jack replied, glancing up at Kona, “does this system have the ability to enlarge and enhance? That might also help in some cases.”
“It sure does, Mr. Jansen. We would just pause, screengrab, and then I can use the enhancement program to zoom and or clean the image, no problem!” Kona said with excitement and a big smile.
“What are you smiling about, KK?” Jake asked.
“I wrote the enhancement and image-cleaning software we use!”
Jake laughed.
“Well, let’s see what we can see and then go from there,” Jake said. Jack slowly watched through the footage.
“Fast forward to around 6:00 PM, Dad. It should be somewhere around that period of time and then work toward closing hours,” Jake said. They watched the video intently, finally catching up to the point where they could see Rabbit entering and spending time in the store before purchasing the suspicious board.
“Okay, so we see him coming out here. It looks like he turns toward the food court,” Jake said. “So, now let’s just get the food court cameras.”
“I had at least a few of those. Let me look!” Kona said as he hurried back to the computer and started watching videos. He started copying files to the disc and then passed the disc to Jack, “Here you go, Mr. Jansen.”
Jack inserted the disc, copied the files to the computer, and started watching videos.
“There!” Jake said, pointing at the screen. They watched as Rabbit passed through the food court.
“And right there,” Jack said, pausing the video. “These two guys right here. See them watching him, and now watch. They’re going to follow him.” Jack continued to let the video play.
“Wow, Dad, you nailed it. They’re following him out to the garage. That’s going toward the main entrance. Kona, get that video!”
Kona spent some time locating the video and copying the file before giving it to Jack to watch on the other computer. They watched the video as Rabbit Rothman got into one taxi but were unable to see the license plates clearly before it pulled away. As the man followed him and the other cab pulled away, the front of his taxi was exposed with a visible license plate. Jack hit pause on the video and grabbed the image.
“Okay, open that program right there, Mr. Jansen, Image Enhance. You should also be able to colorize if you need to. If you think that might help.”
Jack followed Kona’s directions for using the application, and they were able to get both the taxicab company and plate number. All three of them looked at each other and smiled.
Jack opened up the browser on the computer and entered the cab company’s name, pulled out his phone, and dialed the number.
“Yes, this is Jack Jansen. I’m a private investigator assisting Chief Kalama and the HPD. We have reason to believe that one of your cabs was used in a crime. I have the plate, time, location of pick-up, and I was wondering if you might be able to provide some information in regards to the fare? Okay, could you patch me through to the Dispatch Shift manager, then? Thanks.”
Jack waited a moment for the shift manager to get on the phone. Once on the phone, he reiterated what he needed. He motioned that he needed something to write on and a pen. Kona grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil. He wrote down an address for the final destination.
“Thanks for your help.” Jack hung up the phone. “Paid cash, but here’s the address,” showing it to Jake. Jake’s face and mood changed immediately.
“That’s Rabbit’s aunt’s house,” Jake replied.
“Then that’s our next stop, Jake,” his dad replied. “Kona, you have, in fact, been a great deal of help. Keep up the great work, young man,” he said, reaching out to shake his hand.