You're gonna owe me for this.
Sorry.
Somebody stole her life
and nobody has the right to take that away from her.
- I didn't kill her. - Convince me.
You want us to set up a drug buy. Thomas.
It's the only way I'm gonna find him.
- Freeze! - Hi, guys.
- Who are you talking to? - Hey, Hey!
Get him out of here.
Hi.
Can I borrow your towel?
- Yeah, sure. - Thank you.
Hi, Magnum.
Hi, Kacy.
See you at the surf meet.
You got it.
Hmm. Thank you.
May I?
Sure.
Kacy.
So, how have you been?
I'm fine, how are you?
Same.
Can I get you another drink?
Sure.
- White wine? - Okay.
Look how those waves are setting up.
Yeah, they're settin' up real nice.
I'd rather look at you.
Hawaii is one of those places that keeps topping itself.
Just when you think you'll never see another sunset as beautiful,
there comes a sunrise that even Gauguin could only imagine.
It kind of makes unemployment easier to take.
Magnum.
Oh, Magnum.
Hi, Higgins.
Guys.
I, uh,
I have a proposition for you, Magnum.
- I'm sure that... - Now wait a minute,
just wait a second, Higgins.
I mean this is really getting depressing, this constant deal-making.
"I'll give you this if you give me that." It's so unnecessary.
I mean, here we are, living in paradise.
I'm talkin' paradise, Higgins.
We have everything we could ever possibly want out of life right here.
So, why?
Why can't we just do things for one another
simply because we want to?
Simply because we're friends?
Simply because we feel like helping one another?
Magnum, I want you to know, I'm quite touched.
I never thought you were capable of those admirable sentiments.
I really mean that.
Thank you.
I came down here this morning to,
just as you so aptly describe it,
make a deal.
You see, the Audi's a bit under the weather,
and I need to pick up some paperwork from the club.
I was going to ask you to fetch it for me.
In return, I was going to give you use of the tennis courts
for one week.
But now, I'm just asking you
as a friend.
Two weeks.
So far, not a bad morning.
I figured after breakfast at Rick's
and picking up Higgins' papers,
I'd go get my tennis racquet re-strung.
Hi, Rick.
Hi, Thomas.
I thought you were going to have my breakfast ready.
Oh, I'm sorry.
What's the matter?
Did you see all those cops on the way down here?
Who is it?
Kacy.
The death of a friend is never an easy thing to take.
Not in a rice paddy or on a pretty beach in Oahu.
Either way, when they are young,
it never makes sense.
Kacy was quite a surfer in the early '70s,
a champ.
The biggest thing in her life, outside of never wanting to grow up
and having a good time, was gonna be her comeback.
- Excuse me. - Yeah?
My name is Thomas Magnum. I'm a private investigator.
Private investigator?
Terrific. Who hired you?
Nobody, I was a friend of hers.
Seems like she had a lot of friends.
Can I help you, sir?
Yeah, just tell me what happened.
Oh, what happened is that your friend met some guy at the Surfrider,
picked him up, took a stroll on the beach, and got wasted.
Lousy way to go,
but it goes with the lifestyle, you know what I'm sayin'?
Who found her?
A couple of joggers.
How was she killed?
You're gonna have to ask the coroner that.
Now if you're though questioning us,
we'd like to get ourselves some chow.
You see, we've been on a 12-hour graveyard shift.
And this isn't the most appetizing way to start a breakfast.
Ask the coroner.
Let's go.
Break it up here.
Come on, everybody, it's all over. Break it up.
Hey.
It has been a long shift.
Yeah.
One of the clichés of my profession
is that to get information from a bartender,
you have to slip him some bills of various denominations.
Bills that you can't afford, with pictures of unfamiliar presidents.
And usually for information that isn't worth it.
However, this was a special case.
I wasn't in the mood for games.
Who did she leave with?
I already told the cops everything I know.
- Give me a break. - Tell me!
Kacy left with a different guy every night.
- What's the difference? - The difference is she's dead.
Well, you know how it is.
Kacy liked to have a good time.
Liked to get high, fool around.
Get to the point, friend.
Yeah, okay.
She had a couple of drinks with this guy,
name's Gary something.
Got a beard, deals a little grass,
a little snow, nothing too heavy.
Where does he live?
Got an old shack at the beach,
at Haleiwa, hasn't got an address.
You'll never find him.
Told the cops the same thing.
Something like this happens,
even if he's not involved, he's gone.
You know...
Thank you.
Another cliché about getting information from bartenders
is that no matter how sincere they sound,
you know as soon as you're out the door,
they're on the phone warning the guy you're trying to see
and this guy didn't particularly strike me as being any different.
Hi, guy.
Actually, Ralph turned out to be surprisingly cooperative.
Gave me real explicit directions
to Gary's last known whereabouts,
which I'm sure is a whole lot more than he did for the cops.
That's one of the advantages of being independent.
Of course, you never can tell when somebody might be lying to you,
even a friendly guy like Ralph.
Freeze!
Okay. Assume the position.
Hi, guys.
He's clean.
What are you doin' here, Magnum?
- Well, I just came... - That's him. Hold it.
Down.
Hold it.
Police.
I said hold it.
All right, no problem.
What's the matter?
Somebody mind tellin' me what's going on here?
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used in evidence against you in court.
Are you still going to enter that surf-ski meet next week?
Oh. Haven't given it much thought.
Think you should.
I don't know.
Do it, man. It will do you some good.
Do me some good, too.
I needs me some good laughs.
What, are you sick?
See what he's trying to do? Pay his own check?
Hey, I'm glad he's in the mood. I got a list of bills here.
Sorry, put it on my tab.
Uh, hold it a minute.
I just heard from a buddy of mine that they released Gary last night.
Insufficient evidence.
They didn't have enough to justify an indictment on the murder rap.
Gary got out on bail
on the drug charges.
Word on the street is, Thomas, that he's the guy.
You mean they just let him go?
Yeah.
You got it, Magnum.
Why?
Well, I'm sorry, but I didn't realize
we needed your permission to release the suspect.
Come on. Don't get cute with me, sergeant.
If you didn't have anything on the guy, why did you arrest him in the first place?
For the newspapers? "Case solved."
Then two days later you let him out the door.
We have a narcotics rap on him.
Oh, that's great.
That's just great, if he ever shows.
Tell me one thing, will you?
Do you think he did it?
No.
Then where do you go from here?
We'll be following it up.
Oh, yeah?
Will you forgive me, sergeant, if this sounds a little cynical,
but you're not going to get anything
sitting on your butt waiting for it to come to you.
Now, somehow I'd think that you'd have the whole 7th Cavalry out here
if Kacy was also a sophomore at University of Hawaii.
Good family in Kahala. Nice girl.
You trying to tell me that I don't care?
No, I'm just trying to find out how much.
You better remember one thing, Magnum.
I could've booked you yesterday on an obstruction charge.
It can still be arranged, you got that?
Magnum.
Come on, you gotta understand where he's comin' from.
He's a good guy.
He just doesn't like private eyes doing what he thinks is his job.
All I want is for him to do his job.
We're trying.
Well, I'm sorry.
Look, the next time you wanna know something, why don't you call me?
It might make it easier for everyone.
You will fill me in?
As long as it's a two-way street.
You got a deal.
Okay.
You want us to set up a drug buy. Thomas.
But it's the only way I'm gonna find him.
You mess around with a guy like that,
you're gonna walk out with a two-inch neck.
- Yeah. If you walk out. - Guys, it's not for me, honest.
Did you have something going with Kacy?
Yes,
she was a friend.
Okay, I'm in. At least until the shooting starts.
Friendship doesn't go that far, not once-removed, anyway.
Yeah, ditto.
Thanks guys, I'll make it up to you, I promise. Now...
Whoa... whoa... whoa... whoa, T.M.
Don't make any promises, in the heat of the moment, that you can't keep.
T.C.
Rick, phone.
Hey, if that's my answering service
with a lesser paying job, you can count me out.
Yes. Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, okay.
That was Higgins.
He says don't forget to bring the paperwork that you promised.
He's still waiting.
- Paperwork? - Mmm-hmm.
About two dozen cardboard boxes that are sitting in my storeroom.
It's the guest lists for the past 32 years.
Higgins wants to take them and run them through Robin Masters' new computer
to separate the stiffs from the members in good standing.
Look, I don't have time for that.
Besides, four boxes won't fit in my Ferrari.
- They'll fit in my van. - What?
You know, no real drug dealer would be caught dead in a van.
He would want something with class, something bad.
Something like a...
Ferrari.
Right.
Oh, uh,
scotch, rocks.
Uh, give me the same, make it a double.
Comin' up.
Remember, let me do the talkin'.
You are the muscle. I'm the brains.
Don't stretch things too far.
$4.25, slick.
Keep it.
Hey, Jake, I got a little problem.
I think maybe you can help me out.
I doubt it.
Well, I hear you can.
You see, I'm looking to score.
Someone told me to ask for Gary.
Don't know any Gary.
Come on, Juan. I'm talking about Gary.
That Gary.
Why don't you drink up and get your face out of my bar, huh?
Okay, okay, but you just lost 5 points, Bruce.
You see Gary, you tell him Rick was lookin' for him.
Rick who?
The Rick that used to own the Snow Palace.
Let's hit it, Clarence.
No, wait a sec.
I didn't know you were still in circulation.
Do I look dead?
Make the call, Paul.
Clarence?
Yeah.
Yeah, little guy with a big mouth. It's legit.
You make this one deal and you could split.
Yeah, I know where it is,
and don't forget my points.
Yeah.
You're on, swan.
I don't like this.
Me neither.
Let's go.
Wait... wait... wait... wait.
I heard something.
What?
A click.
You're absolutely right.
Oh, my goodness.
This is why I don't like this.
Now, get your hands up nice and high, where I can see 'em.
- What's that? - What?
I heard somethin'.
What?
Another click.
You're right again.
Stand very still, please.
Would you give him your gun, please?
Thanks, guys.
Can you wait outside? I don't want any witnesses.
I got you.
What you gonna do? Rip me off?
No, gonna talk.
About that girl you were with the other night.
Hey, man, the cops already cleared me on that.
Who the hell are you, a boyfriend?
Just a friend.
So was I, I didn't kill her.
Convince me.
Look, man, I... I was with her on the beach that night.
But I split and that's the last I see of her.
And Kacy?
Asleep, totally zonked.
- On the beach? - Yeah.
- And you left her there? - Oh, come on, man!
Where did you go from the beach?
I went back to the club. I had business.
Yeah, and I'll bet you've got about 16 witnesses that can place you there.
I do.
Tell you what, Gary,
I'm gonna make a deal with you.
You see, even if you didn't kill her, I hate dealers.
Now, you come up with something that maybe can help me,
then just maybe I'll let you walk out of here.
Man, it's really dark out there at night.
There was nobody there, maybe a bum.
All right. Look,
if I give you a name, maybe that will help and then we'll be square, right?
- Give me the name. - Nick.
He's a juicehead, lives down on the beach,
somewhere near that... that banana grove.
I seen him later that night after I split the club.
He was feeling no pain.
Did you tell that to the cops?
They didn't ask me, man.
Look, wait, look, let me tell you something.
I think that that guy Nick is your guy.
You know, he...
he's a real loser, man, he... he... he paddles with one oar.
Yeah, sure.
Don't go on any vacations.
There are some things you never forget.
I know you're thinking I've gotta be crazy,
but walking through this place was...
Well, it brought back feelings.
And there was only one place I ever felt like this.
Nick?
Nick, put the gun down.
Come on, Nick, take a good look at me.
I'm sorry.
I know you.
I-I've seen you before, right?
In my company...
You're in my company, right?
No. No, I'm Thomas Magnum.
But I-I've seen you before.
Hey, you want some?
No, thanks.
How long have you been living here?
I, uh,
I came over here in 1967, sir, I've been here ever since.
Nick, this is Hawaii.
Yeah.
Yeah, Hawaii, I... I know.
I just, uh, forget sometimes.
That ever happen to you?
Yeah.
Nick.
Why don't you come back with me? I know some guys who can help.
They know what you're going through.
No, no. I-I've been there.
Man, I have been in your hospitals,
so you forget it.
Don't you even think about taking me back, do you understand?
Okay,
I'm not going to pressure.
That's good.
You know, I... I like...
I like living alone here,
so maybe, I was thinking, you can just stop.
Just go away.
I... I will in a minute, Nick.
There... There was a friend of mine
who was killed on the beach near here the other night.
Maybe you saw it.
Well, I see a lot of killing.
Especially when I... when I close my eyes.
And sometimes, when I open them
it's still there.
Was it there the other night?
Did you see anything the other night?
Yeah, maybe.
Maybe... Maybe I've seen her killed,
maybe I just...
Any--Anyhow the guy was NVA, wasn't VC, I know that.
Oh, Nick.
What?
I know.
I know I'm nuts.
Funny, isn't it?
I... I really know it.
But it doesn't help.
Nick, come with me.
No, I can't.
Out there I'm just, uh...
I'm gonna kill somebody, man. I... I... I...
I'm gonna waste them, just like I did before.
But here I...
I ain't gonna hurt nobody here.
Unless, of course, uh,
they try to take me back.
Kelly?
Magnum?
Where's Sergeant Jordan?
He's inside.
Does he always start his shift with a drink?
I think he's questioning the bartender.
Without you?
You know, he thinks I'm a bit green.
Sure.
You guys come up with anything yet?
Yeah, we know she was asphyxiated.
And she had sex shortly before she died.
That's about it. How about you?
I'm checking out a local, a guy by the name of Nick. Beach bum.
Yeah? What's his last name?
Wait a while on him.
I'm pretty sure he had nothing to do with any of this.
Let me do more checking.
Hey, wait a minute. This is supposed to be a two-way street, remember.
Now, I could get into a lot of trouble just talking to you.
Come on, just give me 24 hours.
Magnum.
Thomas Magnum.
Didn't anybody ever tell you the big money is in divorce cases?
Let's go.
Kelly was pretty nice about not pressing
the thing with Nick in front of the sarge.
Even so, in 24 hours I was going to have to make some kind of decision.
I just wondered, though,
if I had the right,
the right to mess with Nick's life.
I figured the best thing to do was to try taking another tack with the case.
Nuts and bolts kind of footwork.
Hanging out at the beach, whatever.
Maybe I'd get lucky and spot something.
Turns out I got lucky sitting right where I was.
It's for you.
Thanks.
Magnum.
I don't like it.
Somebody calls you out of the clear blue,
tells you to meet Gary on a clearing on the back side of Maui,
they're gonna give you the scam on Kacy?
I don't like it.
Well, I'm not particularly fond of it, either.
Well, good. Then I'll turn around and we can go home.
There ain't no sense in us...
Come on, T.C., this is our last shot.
I don't want to see Kacy go into the "Unsolved" file at HPD without knowing
I did everything I could, okay?
You see it?
No.
Good.
Don't you know what goes on down there?
Yeah. A whole lot of drug business.
Yeah, but they don't like outsiders pokin' their noses into their homegrown.
They like to keep things quiet.
You don't see them put up signs down there saying "Drug Depot...
Last chance to get high before the mainland."
There it is.
Could you put it down here?
Uh-huh.
Boy, I can see trouble coming.
What?
T.C.
Yeah, I know. Keep the meter running.
You better hold on.
- You're gonna owe me for this. - I'm sorry.
Well, that just changes everything.
Come on, T.C.
"Come on, T.C." Don't T.C. me.
Aw, forget it. Just forget it.
Oh, you've gotta forget it, Thomas.
You just gotta forget it.
Well, you have done everything you can do.
Yeah. Including almost getting us killed.
Well, it's obvious that Kacy was mixed up some pretty heavy-duty people.
So you guys walked right into a delivery.
Well, I've known her a long time.
I guess I just don't want to believe it.
Oh, come on.
You gonna tell me, paddling around a surfboard together
a couple of mornings a week constitutes a meaningful relationship?
No. But picking up three bullet holes in my Plexiglas does.
T.C., I really will pay for that. Honest.
- No, you won't. - Yes, I will.
With what?
The bucks your client's paying you, Thomas?
You don't have a client.
Damn it, Rick, that doesn't matter. Kacy's dead.
Somebody stole her life.
Now, maybe I don't know much about her, what she did to stay alive,
but I do know she enjoyed it, she enjoyed life.
And nobody has the right to take that away from her.
All right, agreed, man.
But you tell me, what's left to do?
I suppose T.C. was right.
I didn't know what was left to do
except let the boys in blue know about that clearing on Maui.
Sergeant Jordan.
Well, well, well. Private investigator.
I was gonna call you.
We got the guy that murdered your friend.
He just walked in and confessed.
We have it, signed, sealed, and delivered.
Who?
Nick Frangakis.
I know, I know,
this time I really should have felt relieved.
Everything was cleanly wrapped up.
Nice neat confession.
Nick would live out the rest of his days in a hospital.
Alone with his demons.
Only thing was,
somehow I felt he wasn't alone with them.
They were mine, too.
How long is he gonna be out there?
Till he gets it out of his system, I guess.
Or he drowns from exhaustion.
He's been out there an hour and a half.
Here he comes.
Guys, I've gotta talk to him.
I gotta see him.
Guess he didn't get it out of his system.
He should.
Cops found the guy who killed her. It's time to move on.
I don't think Nick was the killer.
He confessed.
Come on. You know what he went through.
Some of us can deal with it better than others.
Now, we can close our eyes and forget.
He closes his and remembers.
He didn't kill Kacy.
He just wishes he did.
What are you doing here, Magnum?
Wanna join the force?
No, not exactly. I want to see Nick.
You do, huh?
You his lawyer?
Oh, come on, Jordan. In one hour I can be back down here with a lawyer
and you'll have to let me see him anyway.
Fine, you can talk to the captain 'cause I'll be off duty by then.
You're off duty a lot lately, aren't you?
Surfrider?
Don't push me.
Look, you know as well as I do he didn't kill her.
All I know is that we have ourselves a confession.
I want to see him.
Get yourself out of this stationhouse
before you have yourself an accident.
Okay, but I'll be back.
I wanna tell you in the meantime,
I'm holding you personally responsible
for his health and welfare, you understand that?
- Who are you talking to? - Hey, Hey.
Get him out of here.
Get out of here!
- Kelly! - Don't ask.
- I gotta see him. - It would be my badge.
You'll lose more than that if I come back here
and find out he's had an accident like hanging himself in his cell.
You think I'm causing a stink now?
- Magnum! - Damn it, Kelly.
All right.
Five minutes, that's it.
After that, you had just better stay the hell away from here.
Come on.
Hey.
What are you, uh, what are you in for?
To see how you are doin'.
Can you give me a couple of minutes?
They say you killed her, Nick.
Well, I guess that must be true.
Is it?
I signed a confession.
Have you seen a lawyer?
Oh, yeah, yeah. I've seen two.
I don't think you killed her, Nick.
Well, it really don't matter what you think.
You know, it's not going to make up for anything.
It isn't going to change what happened in Nam. Not a thing.
Well, may-maybe it's gonna help.
Nick.
No, may-maybe it's gonna help just
take it away.
Take what away?
Pain.
Confessing to a murder that you didn't commit
isn't gonna change what you did there,
or what you think you did there.
Yeah, but look, it don't matter no more.
Don't you understand, I... I can't... I can't go on living out there by myself
in that grove. I mean, I just...
I-I-I'm starting to see things,
things that... that... that don't make no sense to me.
It's crazy.
The pains...
The... I... I just wanna...
I gotta get away. I gotta get away.
I'm gonna get you out of here,
into a hospital.
I've been there.
So have I.
You?
I... I... I don't know. I mean, what... what am I supposed to do? I just...
Look.
I-I've seen her.
I-I've seen her on the beach.
She... she was, uh,
she was with this dude, you know,
and it was, uh, it was love.
And then he split.
And this other guy came
and killed her
and I see him kill her.
That's all.
I... I don't have...
Look, the... the guy...
The guy was NVA. NVA regular.
Time's up.
See, I could tell because... because he was wearing a uniform.
You know, if Sergeant Jordan sees me here with you...
I appreciate your coming. Why don't we go out on the beach?
It's a lot more quiet down there.
Okay.
I've got to tell you, Magnum.
This has to be the last time I talk to you.
I really think Nick did it.
Yeah, yeah, I know,
just bear with me a minute, because if I'm right...
If I'm right, I think I'm gonna need your help.
See,
I've been thinking about the night Kacy was killed.
It's a lot like tonight.
Warm breeze,
music playing.
And after Gary left,
I bet she went for a swim.
See?
See the way the waves are settin' up?
That's just the way she liked them.
I heard she was a champ.
Yeah,
anyway,
she gets out of the water,
feeling real good,
feeling really good, on top of the world.
About that time, this guy comes up to her,
and maybe she knows him.
And he...
He knows her.
Sees that maybe she's a little loaded.
Figures, "Hey, maybe I can score
a little action. Who's gonna know?"
I mean, after all,
his partner's in the bar having a beer with Ralph.
What are you trying to pull here?
The truth out of you, Kelly.
Nick isn't that crazy. He saw a uniform on the beach that night
but it wasn't NVA.
It was yours.
You're just as nuts as he is.
The telephone call,
sending me into that dope deal, I checked.
You and Jordan were working drugs
in that area until a month ago.
So, you see, Kelly,
it had to be one of you.
And he was in the Surfrider.
I checked that, too.
Prove it.
Just hold it right there.
It was an accident, Magnum.
She just wouldn't stop screaming.
She just had to keep screaming.
You think I'm gonna ruin my life over a tramp like that?
No.
We're gonna take a little walk.
Come on, move it.
Move it!
Kelly!
Drop it.
See you around, Magnum.
You know the words, don't you?
You've said 'em enough.
Now you're gonna hear 'em.
You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used
against you in a court of law.
You have the right to speak with an attorney,
and to have an attorney present...
The surfing competition was as exciting as ever.
With one exception;
Kacy wasn't there.
I went to it as a way of saying goodbye.
Then I realized I really didn't need to do that.
Kacy's life was the water,
something that would always be with us
and I knew that she would, too.