I

The report on the pink button was as Steve expected. There were no fingerprints on it except for Barbara Heiland's thumb print, indicating she pulled it off her attacker during the struggle. It was manufactured by a company on the mainland, Che noted, and sold to several clothing manufacturers. Che got a list of seven companies that use that kind of button for women and girls' clothing, dolls' dresses, stuffed animals, pillow cases, and handicrafts. The buttons are also sold in packets to discount stores like Woolworth's, arts and crafts stores, and fabric stores. All thirteen Woolworth stores in Hawaii sell that button, and clothing made by two of the companies who bought it from the manufacturer are sold in two department store chains in Hawaii, one of each in Honolulu.

"That narrows it down considerably, Che," Steve said, leaning against a counter and resting his chin on his fist. "I don't suppose you can narrow it further?"

Che smiled that enthusiastic smile reserved for when he came up with the specific answers for which Steve was looking. "I certainly can," he replied. "The May Company sells two types of dresses made with that pink button, and Liberty House sells three different types from the Mat Company ones …" he showed Steve the pictures that the stores sent over.

One dress was a sleeveless, knee-length sheath in salmon pink, where the buttons were ornamental, three on each shoulder. The second dress was a long-sleeved in baby pink chiffon with a v-neck. The bodice and skirt were pleated, and the buttons ran from the point of the v-neck to the waist. There were four buttons in all. Of the three dresses from Liberty House, one was a magenta cotton skirt suit where the buttons were on the jacket, the second was a long-sleeved pink tweed sheath with buttons extending from the collar to the hem, and the third was a baby pink jersey shirt dress with three buttons lining the length from the collar to the waist. The stores even provided a list of purchases for all these dresses by credit and debit card. Cash transactions would be untraceable.

"It's all yours now, Steve," Che said. "The killer might be whoever bought one of those dresses."

Steve smiled. "Are you sure you're not Irish, Che?" he asked.

"Not a chance," Che laughed, "And that's no blarney!"

II

The Pogue Manufacturing Company stood on a block of nondescript, box-shaped buildings off the Kamehameha Highway in Pearl City. It stood on an open space sectioned off from the road by a long wire fence, with coiled barbed wire lining the top to keep intruders from climbing over. It looked like a maximum security prison to anyone who didn't know it was a factory for military equipment.

It was not the kind of place where Sheila Vansaun wanted to spend her entire life, but it paid her bills for the time being. Benjamin Palmer was a stereotypical businessman – a middle-aged male with thinning chestnut hair and a matching mustache. His eyes were gray and deep set, appearing as thin slits from far away, peering out from a triangular face covered in pale skin. He stood around five-foot-eight and his slight frame was clad in a dusky brown suit and dark blue tie. He didn't appeal to young Sheila at all, but that didn't stop Palmer was trying to make his advances on her. She was always able to fend him off, but she wondered how long she would succeed, since he could easily use his authority to take advantage. That he hadn't done so indicated he was hoping for Sheila to accept his affection on her own.

Palmer positioned himself on the corner of her desk, parking his posterior on the desktop and turning his upper body around to where his shadow cast over the typewriter. Sheila looked up from her typing, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Is there something you need?" asked.

"No, nothing at all," Palmer replied. "I was wondering if you would like to do me the honor of having dinner with me tonight. I thought … what happened to Barbara … you might not want to be alone."

Sheila was about to revert to habit and tell him, "No," but remembered what Ethan said yesterday: "You'll need to put on that act for Palmer when you go back to work. He may let his guard down, and we can get into his office and into that safe."

She breathed in, and let out heavy exhale. "Okay, Mr. Palmer. Tonight, but I have a lot of work to finish right now."

Palmer smiled delightedly. "Wonderful!" He rubbed his palms together. "We'll leave at six." He hopped off the desk. "See you then." He turned to go back into his office. Sheila turned away before he could say more and went back to her typing.

III

Jayna Berringer held out the list of credit and debit card purchases to Steve.

"A baby pink chiffon was purchased by Margaret Brandin at the May Company two months ago," she read aloud, "and a pink tweed sheath was purchased at Macy's six months ago by Sheila Vansaun."

Steve's mouth wrinkled at the corners. "I'm not surprised, but it gives us a reason to get a search warrant for the Brandins' house and for Sheila's apartment." Steve leaned in and smiled at his young assistant. "Good job, honey."

"Anytime, Steve," Jayna replied.

Jayna shrugged. "I heard stories about the Brandins, some not so nice."

"Do tell." Steve was all ears. He didn't normally listen to gossip but he made exceptions when it came to suspects in a crime because within the layers of gossip, some facts might be found.

"Judge Brandin had a thing for women. He didn't go from one mistress to the other. There were several at once." Jayna's peach-painted fingernails tapped against the armrest of the white leather chair on which she sat. "He got nervous when you questioned him, not only because he knew Barbara Heiland, but because he was afraid you'd find out about all of them."

"How do you know this?" Steve asked, incredulously. He wasn't just asking out of curiosity. The accusations Jayna made were almost slanderous and he knew she would not make them unless she had proof.

"I know one of those girls," was Jayna's blunt answer. "You remember my friend Dorothy Blake?"

"You went to school with her at Manoa," Steve acknowledged. "She was a legal secretary for a while – for Margaret Brandin."

"That's it – for a while – till she had to leave town for undisclosed reasons, but I knew what it was all about … Brandin got her pregnant and she went to have an abortion …" Jayna stopped when she saw the shocked look on Steve's face. She didn't mean to alarm him with such a scandalous story – especially when he had no idea what she was going to say, but there was no other way to phrase it.

"When did all this happen?" Steve asked, his voice softening.

"Four years ago," Jayna replied. "Dorothy was working for Margaret. She met Judge Brandin at one of their parties and she started seeing him afterwards. A few months into the relationship, she finds out she's pregnant and came to me."

Steve kept his true feelings bottled up. The topic of abortion was a touchy one for Steve, given how he was raised and the staunch Catholicism that his parents followed and tried to pass onto him. Tried was the key word. He was not very religious, but abortion was not something he could grapple. He still had mixed feelings about it, given the previous case on which he and Jayna and worked and what he found out about her past, but he forgave her and was willing to move on, and hoped those memories would not get dredged up again.

As though she sensed what he was thinking, Jayna said, "She couldn't keep the child, and carrying it to term would have been too much for her, Steve. I took her to Dr. Chang …"

Steve closed his eyes, swallowed, and opened his eyes again, nodding. "I understand, honey. It's all right … go on."

"Dr. Chang took care of everything, and Dorothy went back to work for Margaret Brandin, but not for long …" Jayna started to scrape the undersides of her fingernails. "She got a job as a secretary for a publisher and never looked back. She hasn't talked about Brandin all these years."

"Did he know about the pregnancy?" Steve asked.

Jayna shook her head. "Dorothy said she never told him. She was afraid he'd …" Jayna's eyes took on a look of fear, "… kill her."

Steve was stunned. He knew Brandin was a powerful man, but powerful enough to have a girl killed just because she was having his baby? "Would he really have done that?" he asked

"I don't know, but we knew how powerful he was, and it was a possibility. Dorothy didn't want to take any chances, and she didn't want the child to begin with. There was no question she was going to get rid of it, so I took her to Dr. Chang … Steve …" Jayna put her hand on this. "It was the only way … it was illegal back then and it still is but we had no other choice. You can't throw us in jail for that …"

"No, I can't, Jayna, but if it ever got out that you helped anyone get an abortion, it'll be damaging for us all, so try to keep it confidential," Steve replied, keeping his distress in check.

"This won't come out in the investigation, Steve. I promise," Jayna assured him. "It was four years ago. Dorothy's moved on but there may be other girls. Maybe Barbara knew and was holding it over Brandin, somehow."

Steve pondered Jayna's theory for a moment. His dark ocean blue eyes were composed, lost in thought. Jayna knew not to interrupt him.

"We can't ignore any angle, so go ahead," he allowed, "but be careful. If Dr. Chang was helping to cover up for Judge Brandin's indiscretions, he might also be on the hit list."

"Dorothy would be the place so start," Jayna said. "She'll talk if I ask her, but I want to come along, if that's all right with you."

Steve's eyes softened. Though Jayna was an officer and he treated her with the same professionalism he did his male counterparts, he couldn't help but feel differently towards her at times. Like a doting father, he would indulge Jayna in investigating her theories, no matter how far-fetched they sounded, and he often never regretted it.

IV

"Judge Brandin was just so charming, so gentlemanly," Dorothy Blake said as she handed a cup of coffee to Steve. Jayna dropped a sugar cube from a blue china bowl into her cup and stirred it with a tiny spoon. They were sitting in Dorothy's living room – her on a rocking chair with a dark blue velvet cushion and Steve and Jayna on a large, stuffed sofa across from her.

Dorothy's golden brown hair looked like rivers of velvet falling over her shoulders. She had green eyes that looked like drops of jade amidst an alabaster heart of a face. Steve was easily captivated by her on first sight, but then remembered he was a cop and got down to business.

"How long did this affair go on?" Steve asked.

"Only four months," Dorothy replied. "I ended it after I had the … operation. I didn't want things to get worse. I told the judge it wasn't right for us to keep seeing each other. It could jeopardize my job. I didn't think it would go as far as it did." She took another sip of coffee.

"What the judge say when you told him you wanted to end it?" Jayna asked.

Dorothy thought for a moment, twirling a golden brown strand of hair. "He was upset. 'I want to keep seeing you,' he told me. 'You can't just throw it all away.' I was thinking of telling him about the baby then, but I would have had to admit to getting rid of it, and then who knew where that would lead, so I told him it would not work out. He was still married and was not going to leave his wife, and I had my future to think of, so he agreed to end it. That was the last I saw of him. I continued working for Mrs. Brandin, then left as soon as I got a new job."

"Did Mrs. Brandin suspect anything?" Steve asked.

Dorothy shook her head slowly. "Not that I know of. She was always so friendly to me, and it didn't look like she was suspicious."

"Do you know if there were other girls?" Steve asked, setting down his cup and saucer. "Judge Brandin supposedly had many girlfriends. Did he ever mention any to you or did know of any?"

Dorothy hesitated for a moment, then said, "I heard there were other girls – another girl at the law firm … a receptionist I know. Her name was Laura. Other than that, I don't know who they are."

"Where were you on Tuesday night?" Jayna asked.

"Right here." Dorothy gestured to her surroundings. "The landlord came by to fix the kitchen sink. He was here from seven-thirty till sometime after nine."

"Do you own a pink dress?" Jayna asked.

Dorothy made a face. "Jayna, you know I hate pink!"

V

The little brown sports car zoomed down the highway as fast as the speed limit allowed. Ethan Kline looked in the rearview mirror as was his habit. He could never be sure he wasn't being followed. He got off the highway and made it all the way to the Brandins' home. He didn't dare hang around that neighborhood too long, lest one of the neighbors see his car and get the license number down and report a suspicious car in the area to the police. He had to go in, do his job, and get out. They would not be home, he knew from his contacts watching them for the past month. How they were able to come and go unnoticed, Ethan did not know, but they as long they got the information he needed, he didn't question their methods.

There was a road that led to the back of the house, with enough room to park the car. He was able to get over the fence easily. The maid and cook were also not home, and he made it to the back door without stopping. A piece of celluloid pried open the back door with ease and Ethan remembered the floor plan of the house, so he knew exactly where Judge Brandin's workroom was located. There was a safe. Carefully turning the dial, he opened the door, and stared at the all the papers and ledgers inside. The green leather-bound notebook was what he wanted. He photographed the contents with a spy camera, then put the notebook back inside and closed the safe door. He made it out the back door and over the fence and drove away.

VI

The search warrant was issued and Steve and Jayna went to the Brandin's home to execute it. It was already evening and Margaret had just gotten back. The judge was at a lodge meeting and would not be back until late. Margaret was unnerved at seeing the search warrant, but knew it was better to cooperate. She led them to her bedroom and opened the closet door. There was a wide array of dresses and skirt suits. A pink sleeveless chiffon dress hung smashed in between several others. Jayna spotted it from the color and gently pulled it out. Examining it, she showed it to Steve, who nodded.

"When was the last time you wore this dress, Margaret?" Steve asked.

"Last month, at a luncheon for Honolulu Women's Club," she answered, still confused. "What is this all about?"

"Did you loan this dress to anyone else since then?" Steve asked.

"No," Margaret replied.

"Was it dry cleaned recently?" Jayna asked.

"Yes, but that was two months ago," Margaret answered.

Steve pointed to the bodice. "We found a pink button in the victim's hand," he said, "and we identified the type of button. That button was used on certain dresses sold at the May Company and Liberty House. Where did you buy this dress?"

"At the May Company," Margaret replied, tiredly.

"One of the pink buttons is missing," Jayna said. She pointed the spot on the bodice, right at the point of the v-neck, where a pink button used to be, but where the ripped rosy pink threads that once held it in place remained.