The city prosecutor, Paul Tanabe, picks up one of the germinated seedlings, a couple little leaves breaking through the soil of the small black plastic pot.
“So this is what it looks like,” he says, his voice all wonder and innocence. Which we know is blowing smoke, because if anyone of the group here grew pot when he was younger and even now, it would be him, the sleepy-eyed stoner-looking head city prosecutor.
“Paul,” says the lieutenant, “this is what we found at his house.”
Tanabe holds the pot up at eye level and rotates it. “A dozen pots doesn’t make him a dealer, does it?” That naïve wide-eyed mask again.
“Well, no,” says Kauhane, “but where there’s smoke, there’s fire don’t you think? Especially with Moron Boy.”
This is Del’s term of affection for Steven Souza, the person we believe to be one of the major growers and dealers in the islands.
“Lieutenant,” says Tanabe, “I think you’re jumping the gun here. This is simply not enough to ask for a warrant. It doesn’t matter if you knew him when he was a teenager.”
“I busted him multiple times,” Kama says. “I tell you he was a dealer in training then.”
Tanabe shakes his head. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I simply can’t act on this.”
“Don’t you have some judge in your pocket who can do you the favor of authorizing a warrant?” the Lieutenant asks.
Tanabe shakes his head. “I know judges who would do me the favor, Lieutenant, but I’m not going to throw a favor away on evidence this slim.”
“All right, sir.”
I can hear the barely disguised anger in Del’s voice. He scoops up the tray of little seedling pots. Sticking out his hand, he reaches for the one in Tanabe’s hand.
“Would you mind if I hold on to this?” asks Tanabe.
I watch the expression on Del’s face. It’s not pleasant.
“That’s evidence, sir.”
“Evidence of what, Lieutenant? I told you, we have no case here.”
We both can tell by the sound of his voice that Del’s not getting that pot back.
The two of us head out of Tanabe’s office.
“You think he’s going to take that home and grow it?” I ask.
Del shakes his head and says disgustedly, “If he is, it’s to add to his crop, I’m betting. It’s not his first plant, for sure.”
Back at the station, the two of us carry the tray of eleven little plants into Captain Freeman’s office.
“So any luck with this one, guys?” Freeman asks.
“Nope,” says Del. “How the hell did that guy ever make it to city prosecutor? He’s got no guts, and I swear he might be one of the biggest potheads around for all we know.”
“And if it isn’t pot,” I say, “there’s something he’s into.”
“Now now, guys,” says the captain, “let’s not jump all over Paul Tanabe just because he’s a bit, well, maybe not as effective as we’d like.”
Del says, “No, not because he’s weak and a stoner, Milton. I want to jump all over him because along with everything else that’s wrong with him, he’s breaking laws himself right now. I know it. That buggah is the picture in the dictionary of corrupt.”
The two of us don’t say anything. We know how Del gets when he’s like this.
Changing the subject, the captain says, “We just have to get better evidence, guys. Let’s go out there and nail Souza. Go dig up something substantial.”
“Like his farm,” says Del. “These seedlings are just the tip of the iceberg. We all know it. Yeah, we gotta locate his farm.”
“Yes,” I say, “let’s go find it.”
“For all we know,” says the captain, “it could be on another island. Or on several of them.”
“Right,” says Del. “The more the frickin’ merrier.”
“And the more,” I add, “the easier to locate.”
“I got a feeling,” says Del, “that people are going to die because Paul Tanabe lost his balls on the way to his office.”
“Let’s hope it isn’t us,” I say.
Freeman says, “How did you get ahold of this tray?”
“It was sitting on the side of the sidewalk outside his home.”
“Just sitting there?”
“Yeah.”
“So how do you know they’re his plants?”
“We don’t,” I say, “which is the problem.”
The boss asks, “Only an idiot would do that.”
Del says, “Moron Boy is an idiot from way back in idiot land.”
Freeman shakes his head. “So you were what? Staking out his home?”
I say, “Actually not. We were going to see him about another matter. He’s racked up a lot of parking violations he hasn’t paid. We thought it was a good way to pry into his business.”
“What did he say when you talked to him.”
Del says, “He wasn’t home. When we went back to the car, we spotted the tray.”
Freeman says, “Yeah, really, that is pretty slim. The first thing Souza’s lawyer would say is that the tray of seedlings being there would be a coincidence at best. Like for instance someone saw you drive up, and when you were at Souza’s door, that person planted the evidence. No pun intended.”
“We know that, Boss. And that’s why we wanted the search warrant.”
“Which is why we can’t get it,” I say, “because Souza says it’s not enough.”
“It’s a real Catch-22,” says Del.
We’ve all read the book, and we’ve noticed that it applies to police work all the time. It could have been written about us. We can’t do this because we don’t have that. And we can’t get that because we don’t have this. And around and around we go. It’s enough to make you want to toss in the towel some days.
“Well, guys, just get out there, find him, and press Souza into a corner. Let’s squeeze him hard.”
“Like a tube of toothpaste,” Del says. “Trust me, Captain, we are aiming to bust Souza for anything we can. He’s got so many irons in the fire he’s about to burn his own house down.”
The Captain says, “By the way, there are rumblings at the legislature about legalizing marijuana. You know that, right?
“Yeah,” says Del. “Just to make our job even harder. We legalize it and Hawai’i’ll become the stoner capital of the Pacific. The day they pass that law is the day I quit the force.”
Lanning Lee 