Chapter Nineteen #2
Kit nodded. “True. And now that we know that Ito, Joe, and Kenzo’s father were involved in some kind of organized crime back in the sixties, it’s likely that Kenzo has taken over his father’s businesses.
So what was Danny trying to do? And is Joe a good guy or a bad guy?
Was Mary good or bad? And what about Ricky Nicchi and Ito? ”
“Hanshi is not involved in organized crime,” Akiko said quietly but fiercely. “Not anymore. I won’t believe it.”
Kit wouldn’t force her to. Not unless they found incontrovertible evidence.
“So let’s say that that Mary, Ito, Nicchi, and Joe are good guys,” Sam said. “Let’s say they wanted to protect Akiko from whatever it is that Danny is planning. Who’s controlling Danny? His father? Joe? Someone else?”
Kit wondered that, too. “Like you said, Joe is playing both sides of the fence. He works for Kenzo, but it was probably Joe who posted those photos in Laurette Curry’s bedroom.
” An important clue that they hadn’t followed up on yet.
“Akiko, can you check your passenger files? Specifically passengers who went on your boat after Christmas, but go back to October. That was Mary’s first trip to LA. ”
Akiko reached out her hand. “Give me the laptop and I’ll check right now.”
“Let’s check together.” Because Kit wasn’t sure what they’d see and Akiko was extremely fragile at the moment. “I won’t leave you.”
“Thank you,” Akiko whispered, then logged in to her cloud account. “I’ll look at January’s passengers first. We make copies of all passengers’ driver’s licenses for insurance purposes, so I have photos of their faces.”
The others gathered near, Sam standing behind Kit, his presence like a warm blanket. Harlan sat next to Akiko and Anson looked over Akiko’s shoulder.
Akiko was scrolling through the passengers’ driver’s licenses when she froze, a photo of Joe filling her screen. The name on the photo was Jim Smith.
Kit sighed. She’d expected something like this, but it was still unsettling.
Someone who worked for Kenzo Takahashi had been on her sister’s boat.
The question was, did Joe work with Danny, too?
“It’s a good photo, at least. We should send it to Lennox.
It’ll be better to run through facial recognition than the photo I took in front of the hospital. ”
Akiko squared her shoulders. “I just forwarded it to you, Kit. I don’t have Lennox’s contact info.”
Kit texted the photo to Lennox. Joe was a passenger on Akiko’s boat on Jan 23. “Were you on that charter, Akiko?”
“No. This was after I called Mary back and she said she was going out of town, so we had to wait two weeks to meet. I had a bad feeling about meeting Mary and was too nervous to go on the charters without Paolo or you. He had the flu for a week, and we had to cancel several charters, but he was better by the twenty-second. He ran the trip that Joe went on.”
Kit sent another text to Lennox. Akiko was not onboard that day. Paolo took the boat out.
“So,” she said grimly, “why was Joe on your boat, Akiko? To meet you? To scope it out? To see if Paolo would be a good smuggling partner?”
Sam lightly squeezed her shoulder. “Wait. If Joe was on the boat on the day when Akiko wasn’t, how did he get those pictures of her?”
Kit looked back at him, frowning. “That’s a damn good question.
” She noted it in her phone. “Something more we need to figure out, but right now I’m wondering if that ATF agent—Brewer—knew that Joe had boarded.
” She angled the laptop toward herself and began scrolling through the remaining January photos.
“None of Danny. None of Kenzo.” She stopped again, anger roiling in her gut.
“Here’s Agent Brewer. He boarded on January fourth. ”
“I remember him,” Akiko said. “It didn’t seem like he wanted to fish. Spent a lot of time watching everyone else.”
“Not a good undercover agent if you noticed him scoping out the other passengers,” Sam observed. “Did he go by Brewer?”
Kit huffed. “Joe signed his name as Jim Smith. Brewer signed his as John Smith. So very original.”
Harlan scowled. “An ATF agent was scoping out Akiko’s boat?”
“Probably looking for contraband,” Sam said. “I got the sense he’d been working this case for a while.” He put his hands on Kit’s shoulders and massaged her tense muscles.
She nearly groaned, it felt so good.
She didn’t groan, but she did lean into his touch while she continued scrolling backward from January. None of the faces in December looked familiar. “When did Paolo start doing solo runs?”
“Right after Labor Day,” Akiko said.
Kit continued to search the faces of Akiko’s passengers, then stopped on Saturday, October 22. “Here’s Danny.”
Akiko nodded at the photo of Danny Takahashi. “Said his name was Dai Nakamura. Dai is short for Daisuke.” She exhaled heavily. “Nakamura was my mother’s last name, remember? She was Minako Nakamura after her mother divorced Hanshi. Danny knew. He used her name. Like he was mocking me.”
“Were you onboard that day?” Kit said.
Akiko shook her head. “No, we were all at McKittrick House.”
“That was Rita’s fourteenth birthday party,” Harlan said. “Akiko, would Danny have known that you weren’t going to captain that day?”
“It was on my website,” Akiko said. “We always list who the captain and first mate will be. It gives passengers confidence. So yes, Danny would have known.”
“I wonder if that was when he approached Paolo about the guns,” Kit said. “Because he knew you wouldn’t be there. But that doesn’t make sense. Paolo would have recognized him. They knew each other from the dojo.”
“Maybe Paolo was already compromised,” Akiko said sadly. “Paolo said he was mentoring the kid, but maybe they were already planning to ship the guns. Did they successfully use my boat to smuggle guns?”
“I didn’t think so,” Kit said. “Brewer indicated that they hadn’t completed a sale. But he also didn’t mention that he’d been on your boat.”
“I didn’t trust him,” Sam said.
Kit nodded. “Same. I knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth.”
“I need to call an attorney,” Akiko murmured faintly.
“I texted Georgia earlier,” Kit said. “She’s going to send me the names of some lawyers that she trusts.”
“This is a nightmare,” Akiko whispered. “Danny and Joe and that ATF guy? All on my boat? Watching me? Watching Paolo?”
“Sounds like Paolo needed to be watched,” Sam said gently.
“Why didn’t he ask me for money? I would have given him what I had.”
They might not ever know the answer to that question.
Kit examined the photos of Akiko’s passengers again. “The main players in Takahashi’s circle seem to be Japanese, so let’s focus on those passengers.”
Sam leaned over her shoulder. “That man. He was on the October charter with Danny and Paolo.”
Kit zoomed in on the photo. The man was Japanese, somewhere in his forties or fifties. He wore a huge smile in his photo, like he didn’t have a care in the world. His name filled her with dread. “The name he gave was Akito Jones.”
“I was Akiko Jones before Mom and Pop adopted me,” Akiko said, her voice thin and reedy. “They planned this. From months ago, they were planning to frame me.”
“I’d have to agree,” Kit said grimly. She opened one of the folders in Akiko’s cloud account.
“These are the passenger names. Let’s see if there’s anyone else we recognize.
” She began to scroll, sighing when she saw Dai Nakamura on five different charters.
“Danny was a passenger six times in total, starting in October.”
Akiko checked her calendar. “All days that Paolo went out on his own.”
Kit frowned. “Who was Paolo’s first mate? He didn’t go totally alone, did he?”
“No, he hired the son of one of the other captains at the marina. Kid’s name is Jorge Montoya. He’s eighteen or nineteen.”
“Oh, I know him,” Kit said. “He’s a nice kid. We should talk to him, both for info on Paolo and to warn him. I’ll let Lennox know.” She dialed Lennox’s phone, because she hadn’t gotten a reply from her text with Joe’s photo attached.
Lennox answered, sounding slightly out of breath. “Hey, Kit. I was just about to call you. Thanks for the photo of Joe.”
“You’re welcome. I have you on speaker. My father, Akiko, Anson, and Sam are with me. We have another photo for you to run through facial recognition.”
“Who?”
“Danny Takahashi and one other man were passengers on Akiko’s boat. Neither used their real names. The guy we don’t recognize gave his name as Akito Jones.”
“Almost the same as Akiko’s name before your folks adopted her.”
Kit wasn’t surprised that Lennox knew that. She was a damn fine cop. “Exactly. You should also talk to a kid named Jorge Montoya. He was Paolo’s first mate on all the charters he took out without Akiko.”
Lennox got very quiet. “Did you say Jorge Montoya?”
Oh no. “Yes. What’s happened?”
“Jorge Montoya was found dead in his parents’ house this morning.
They’d gone out of town and found his body when they got home.
He was shot in the head. Been dead for a few days at least. Ballistics is running the slug the ME took out of him.
Navarro just told me thirty minutes ago.
He said I should let you know, just in case it was connected. ”
“They’re snipping off loose ends,” Kit said.
Alarmingly pale, Akiko lurched to her feet and ran for the bathroom.
“They are,” Lennox said. “Nobody knew the connection between the Montoya kid and Paolo until now. I’ll let Navarro know.”
“Thanks.” Kit texted the photo of “Akito Jones” to Lennox. “This guy accompanied Danny Takahashi on Akiko’s boat on October 22.”
“Only one trip?”
“I think so.” Kit searched the spreadsheet containing passenger names and her gut clenched at the result. “Oh shit. Not only one trip. He went on Akiko’s boat five years ago.” Harlan got up to look over her shoulder, his mouth tight, his jaw tense.