by John Lutz
“I spoke to someone this morning who had a theory,” he said, and related Joe Kalapalea’s tale of a doomed romance with an officer.
The captain snorted. “And was your informant by any chance a man?”
“Yes. Do you have an alternative theory?”
“By summer 1941, everybody knew war with Japan was inevitable. Hawaii would be on the front line. Maybe instead of retreating to the mainland, Tillie chose to stand and fight.”
“As a clerk typist in Commissary Supply?”
“That was about all the Navy would allow a woman to do.” Her fingers, which had been flicking steadily through the labels of files, stopped. “Ah. Brigham, Matilda [none].”
She pulled a folder and handed it to Laker, It was disappointingly thin. He opened it, and found only one piece of paper. The captain peered at it and frowned.
“That’s just her initial placement form from BuPers. I’m sorry, Mr. Laker. I’ve never seen a personnel file that had only the one form in it. I suppose it doesn’t tell you anything?”
Laker closed the file and handed it back. “Thank you, Captain.”
He rose, dusted off his pants, offered her a hand. She didn’t take it. The gray eyes were boring into his. “You’re not disappointed. The file did tell you something, didn’t it? Like that Tillie needed a job title to get on the payroll. But she never sat at a desk in Commissary supply.”
Laker smiled but didn’t answer.
“You’re thinking the Navy had a different use for her. Maybe she was in the same line of work as yourself. What did you call it? ‘Research’?”
“Research will do.”
11
Ava drove out of town on a wide road that looped up a mountainside. The views were exhilarating. When the road curved left, she looked down on the skyscrapers of Honolulu and beyond them to limitless blue sea and sunny sky. When it curved right, she looked up a lush green slope to the mountaintops. Dark clouds seemed to have snagged on them. It was raining up there.
She was looking for 3217 West Manoa Road. According to the map spread on the passenger seat, she was on Manoa, but it was hard to read addresses. Buildings were far back from the road, obscured by palm trees, Norfolk Island pines, brilliantly blooming hibiscus bushes. Most of them were large, and no doubt expensive, houses of coral stone and redwood. They didn’t look very old. She had the feeling she was in for another disappointment. She wouldn’t be able to find the address her grandmother had written down seven decades ago, or if she did it would be a different building.
But this time it turned out to be easy. She came around a curve and saw a driveway entrance ahead, with a sign beside it: Kapa’a Kauii Inn, 3217 W. Manoa Rd.
She took the turn. The drive was lined with tall mango trees. When the building came into view, Ava was excited to see that it looked old. Beautiful, too: a large wooden house with porches—lanai, she corrected herself—running all the way around the first and second floors and a steep tiled roof. Guests were sitting in wicker chairs on the ground-floor lanai. An elderly couple was descending the steps to a waiting taxi. Several cars were parked along the drive. She stopped behind the last one and walked to the building.
The lobby wasn’t air-conditioned, but slowly revolving fans far up on its high ceiling kept it cool. There were reed mats on the polished, broad-planked wood floor. Hawaiian calabashes filled with ginger flowers stood on Chinese lacquered tables. On the walls were large, framed black-and-white photos. They seemed to be of the building itself.
She was approaching one for a closer look when a young man in white shirt and black tie came around the registration desk toward her. His features looked Japanese; his voice sounded American. “Welcome to the Kapa’a Kauii Inn. Do you have a reservation, ma’am?”
“No—um—I’m not checking in. The hotel looks like it’s been here a long time?”
He nodded. “My family has been operating it since the 1970s.”
“The building looks much older.”
“Oh, yes. It was built in 1928 as a private house. By the time my folks bought it, it was in pretty bad shape. They had to put a lot of work into it.”
“Really? Do you happen to know if it was a private house in the 1940s?”
“No. The army requisitioned it. Used it as a rest home for wounded officers. Here, you can see.”
He led her over to one of the photos on the wall, which showed the house with Jeeps parked in front and a flagpole flying the stars and stripes. Pajama-clad men in wheelchairs were being pushed past an enormous tree. It was a banyan, the tree that sent out long branches that grew their own trunks until it constituted a grove in itself. “They were here from ’42 to ’46. Left the place in quite a mess, apparently.”
“Any idea who owned the house before them?” She was hoping there was another photograph.
“It belonged to Tadashi Kurita. In fact we’ve restored it to look the way it did when the Kurita family was here.” The man’s expression had changed as he spoke. The mouth was set, the eyes narrowed to slits.
“I’m sorry—have I offended you in some way?”
“No, ma’am. Nothing like that. But it’s a sad story. The government took over the house when they sent the whole Kurita family to an internment camp.”
“There were internment camps here, like there were in California? I didn’t know that.”
“It was forgotten, or hushed up, until recently. But there were. People of Japanese ancestry made up a third of the population of the islands. Many had been here for generations. But after Pearl Harbor everybody was scared of invasion. Martial law was imposed. Thousands of Japanese-Hawaiians were rounded up and interrogated. An unlucky few got locked up in a camp.”
“Including the Kuritas. Why?”
“Probably because they entertained members of the Japanese diplomatic community here. Which was hardly a crime prewar. In fact it was hard to avoid if you were Mr. Kurita. He owned a sugarcane company that did a lot of business with Japan. But the haoles suspected he was a spy. He was eventually exonerated and released, but he never recovered. Excuse me, ma’am.”
An Asian couple was approaching the registration desk, laden with luggage and small children. The young man went to assist them. From the set of his shoulders he was relieved. Ava’s questions had depressed him.
She walked to the front door and looked out. The vast, labyrinthine banyan tree was gone without trace. She opened her purse and pulled out the sheaf of photocopies, found the relevant entry:
6/27/41
3217 W. Manoa
Don’t have it anymore
must have lost it under the banyan
It’s time we
the banyan
lizard so still so quick lizard
It didn’t make any more sense than the first time she’d read it. But it was confirmation Tillie had been here. And now she knew the name of someone who had known her. Tadashi Kurita. The races had not mixed much in old Honolulu. Why had Tillie made the acquaintance of a Japanese-Hawaiian sugarcane magnate? She had no idea, but she was looking forward to the expression on Laker’s face when she told him what she’d found out.
She walked back to her Honda, pressing the unlock button on the key fob. The lights didn’t flash. She must have forgotten to lock it. She got in behind the wheel, consulting the list of addresses she’d made. There was another, farther up Manoa, if she remembered right. In fact it wasn’t an address but a crossroads, Manoa and Route 51. Seventy years ago, Honolulu had been much smaller, and buildings that far out didn’t have street numbers. She wondered what she’d find there. Now that she was on a roll.
She laughed as she fastened the seat belt. Noticing the glove compartment lid had fallen open, she shut it before starting the engine.
Above the Kapa’a Kauii Inn, the grade was steeper and the road took a series of tight switchbacks. Her ears popped. The road straightened out, and she realized she was atop a ridge. The sky was darker and tropical-size raindrops were plopping on the windshield.
She turned on the lights and wipers. The road was lined with an unbroken wall of foliage. She had left buildings behind, too.
She passed a sign that said JCT 51 and coasted to a stop at the crossroads. No buildings here, but there was a cleared space on the other side of the road. A Realtor’s sign was facing away from her. The lot was for sale. Maybe the Realtors would be able to tell her what had been there.
She pulled the car onto the shoulder and got out. The wind was strong. She crossed the road blinking as warm raindrops smacked her in the face. The sign wasn’t for a Realtor. It was an advertisement for a gas station two miles ahead. Disappointed, she turned to head back to her car.
Another car was approaching. It pulled onto the shoulder behind the Honda. It was a white Subaru, missing its left front hubcap.
Ava froze. Realized she’d been preoccupied and careless. She had only noticed this car twice, but it must have been following her all day. The glove compartment door had been open because the Subaru’s driver had searched her car while she was in the Kapa’a Kauii Inn.
The driver’s door was opening. She spun and ran into the rain forest. After only a few seconds of blundering through the dense, wet foliage she was soaked. A root yanked her foot out from under her, and she pitched onto her face in fallen leaves and mud. Now that she’d stopped making noise, she could hear her pursuer crashing through the forest. He wasn’t far away.
She scrambled up onto her knees, then rose to her feet and kept going, pushing limbs away from her face. There was no way of moving quietly. He had only to stop and listen to track her. Maybe she would be better off to stay still, but she was too scared to stop running.
The going was becoming a little easier. Not because the foliage was thinning. She realized she was descending a slope. She picked up her pace, batting frantically at the limbs in her way.
Abruptly the screen of leaves parted. She found herself poised on the edge of a steep bank above a stream. She tried to stop, but her feet slid in the mud and she fell. Grasped at roots but couldn’t hold on. She skidded into the water. It was warm but deep, with a strong current. It caught her and bore her along. Thrashing with both arms she was able to fight her way closer to the bank. Seeing a fallen limb she caught hold of it and pulled herself up and out onto the mud.
She made herself stop gasping and listen. The rushing of the stream, the patter of rain on leaves, the calls of birds that were strange to her . . . that was all she heard. No sound of anybody crashing through the undergrowth. Her pursuer had given up.
She hoped so, anyway.
She crawled up the bank, reached level ground, and stood listening. Heard the engine of a truck laboring uphill. That told her where the road was and she headed for it. She could see nothing around her but green leaves. Her shoulders were hunched. Any second she expected a blow from behind.
She came out by the side of the road. Looked both ways: no vehicles, no one on foot. She walked uphill, and soon the crossroads came in sight. Only her car was there. She ran to it, jumped in, and started the engine. Her nerves were still raw. She made a screeching U-turn and headed back toward the city. Soon she reached the stretch of switchbacks.
“Get a grip, Ava!” she shouted. She was going too fast. For no reason, there was no one behind her. She forced herself to slow down. When the sign for the Kapa’a Kauii Inn came into view, she turned into the driveway and stopped.
Opening the Honda’s door, she stood on trembling legs. Took slow, deep breaths until she calmed down. She was soaked to the skin and covered with mud. A glance in the car’s side mirror showed some scratches on her face. Otherwise she was fine. She hadn’t even lost her shoulder bag. She opened it. The photocopies of Tillie’s journal were a sodden mess.
It was possible that she had panicked for no reason. Maybe that was what Laker was going to say when she told him about it. Her pursuer had just been some guy from Washington. Maybe even a fellow employee of the NSA. He’d known nothing about the journal and meant her no harm. Just wanted to ask her a few questions about why she had chosen to visit her grandmother’s hometown at this particular time.
It was possible. But Ava did not believe it.
Her pursuer was Tillie’s murderer. He knew she had the journal. If he’d caught her, he would have killed her.
She got back in the car and started the engine. But she wasn’t quite ready to get back on the road. For a long moment she sat gazing through the rain-spattered windshield, down the drive lined with tall mango trees.
Then she dropped the transmission into Drive.
12
June 27, 1941
The mango trees are only half as high. The drive is a dirt road.
Night has fallen and white cones of headlamps precede the big cars, one an Oldsmobile, the other a Packard, as they lumber through the dust. When they reach the house, servants in white jackets are waiting to open the doors.
Tadashi Kurita waits on the lanai to welcome his guests. Light from the front door makes his pomaded black hair glisten. He is short but stately in his double-breasted gray suit. He exchanges bows with the owner of the Olds, shakes hands with the couple from the Packard. They go into the living room, where the other guests are sipping drinks. Kurita signals to his butler to announce dinner.
Soon the guests are seated at the long table. The Kurita house is one of the few where Japanese and Americans continue to socialize. These men are owners of sugarcane and pineapple plantations, executives of shipping firms, managers of hotels and restaurants. They come to the Kurita house to talk about how the impending war is hurting their business, to discuss ways of keeping civil order in Honolulu. Though the Japanese-Hawaiians assert their loyalty, ugly incidents in the streets indicate growing American suspicion.
Halfway down the left side of the table sits a pretty girl with golden hair in a French roll and blue eyes. Her crimson lipstick sets off her white teeth as she smiles in response to a remark by the man on her left. Her posture is erect, her expression attentive. She seldom speaks.
Tillie Brigham understands that her role is to be decorative, like the centerpiece of breadfruit and green leaves, the sideboard bouquets of yellow hibiscus and calla lilies.
She is the youngest woman here by years. By decades. And the only unmarried one. The wrinkled wives of the businessmen look at her with suspicion. Word has gotten around about the Brigham girl who has turned down a place at Vassar to live alone in a Honolulu apartment and earn her own living. There can be only one explanation: she is a gold digger. Her escort tonight is Herbert Lansdowne, vice president of Dole. Herb is an eligible widower, fifteen years her senior. He has explained to several people that she used to be his secretary before she went to work at Pearl Harbor, and they continue to be friends. No one believes that’s all there is to it.
From time to time, not too often, Tillie glances at Hirochi Ryo. He is the guest of honor, seated on the hostess’s right. He works at the consulate, and for a representative of the Imperial Japanese government, he is surprisingly well-liked by Americans. He is almost as tall as a white man, lean and broad-shouldered. He does not squint through thick spectacles, the way most Japanese do. Or most Americans believe that they do. The black eyes under heavy lids gaze steadily at the man across from him. Tillie thinks he is aware of her look, but he will not return it. He and the man are talking about Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak, speculating how long it will last. His English is fluent and unaccented. He studied at the University of Chicago and was stationed at Washington for several years. He’s also been at the Moscow embassy. In fact he has not lived in his homeland since the military government took power. His public comments about General Tojo’s policies are diplomatic in the extreme.
He looks around, smiling, as the servants enter bearing many small trays of dark wood. Tillie knows he likes Hawaiian food, strongly inflected as it is with Japanese influence. On the trays are pink oval slices of fish on a bed of shredded greens. The guest on Tillie’s right informs her that he is a meat-and-potatoe
s man and says that this fish looks raw. She confirms that it is. He finds the next course, cucumber salad served with a bowl of soy sauce with white radish slices floating in it, equally unappealing. She murmurs sympathetically as she watches Ryo’s long fingers deftly manipulate his chopsticks. When the next course arrives, her neighbor asks hopefully if it is meat. She informs him it is sukiyaki, a platter of beef on a bed of Kikuna leaves, with enoki mushrooms and nana negi onions.
“They’re like leeks,” Tillie says. All the time her head has been turned away from Ryo, she has sensed his gaze on her. But when she glances at him, he is talking to their hostess.
Her boredom and tension increase as the meal goes on. Once the Japanese have had their tea and the Americans their coffee, she hopes that the party will end. But the guests linger over their cigarettes. Conversation shows no sign of flagging. Mr. Meat-and-Potatoes has discovered that the man on her left is a kindred spirit. They have been talking politics across her through dessert, both apologizing that the subject must be boring to a pretty young girl.
Two bald heads get between Tillie and her cup as the men lean close and whisper. “The Nips aren’t going to be satisfied with their gains in China,” says Mr. Meat-and-Potatoes.
He explains that with the European powers at each other’s throats, their Pacific colonies rich in rubber and oil lie open to the Nips. Now that Russia has been invaded by Germany, the only white nation left in the Pacific to counter the Nips is America. The other man opines that FDR was smart to bribe Japan with oil and steel, but Mr. Meat-and-Potatoes vehemently disagrees, saying the steel has gone to build battleships and the oil to fuel them for the inevitable day when they sail to invade Hawaii.
As the argument goes on, Tillie watches the cigarette smoke thicken and stir in the blades of the ceiling fans. Then she looks at the servants in their white jackets, standing against the walls with their hands clasped behind them. They have nothing to do and look as bored as she feels, except for one who is staring intently at the opposite wall. She follows his look. In among Mr. Kurita’s display of Malay weapons is a solitary gecko, as still as if nailed to the wall. Tillie smiles. You never can keep the geckoes out. The servant, unable to stand it anymore, makes a move toward the gecko, and it skitters across the wall out of reach with astonishing speed. You never can catch a gecko, either.