"You were in the barracks?"
"Yeah."
Jardine was jotting this down in his little notebook. Hully realized these assertions would be easily
checked: the cab could be tracked; and whether or not Stanton had been in the barracks at the time of the girl's death. Pearl had been alive at twelve-fifteen, when she'd taken her leave of Hully's father, at their bungalow. And Hickam Field was twenty minutes from Waikiki.
If he was telling the truth, Stanton couldn't have been Pearl Harada's murderer.
"I want you at Central Police Station at ten o'clock Monday morning," Jardine said to the corporal. "For a formal statement. If you need to have your commanding officer call me, I work out of the Prosecutor's Office at City Hall."
And Jardine handed Stanton a business card. Stanton held it between thumb and middle finger and stared at it like a chimp trying to figure out a math problem.
Stanton's expression was one of astonishment. "You don't really think I… listen, I didn't… Do I need an attorney?"
"That's up to you, Corporal. If you were a prime suspect in my mind, I'd be taking you in right now."
He was shaking his head, his eyes as intense as they were red. "I wouldn't have hurt her. I would never have hurt her. I'd sooner kill myself. Do you have any idea what I'm going through? What it feels like inside my head right now? Inside my gut? My heart?"
"Monday. Ten o'clock."
"I thought Harry Kamana did it. Didn't you arrest him?"
“Ten o'clock. Monday."
Jardine rose and Hully followed suit.
"What about Fielder?" Stanton asked, still seated. "Where was he when Pearl was …?"
"We're going to find that out," Jardine said. He touched the brim of his fedora, in a tip-of-the-hat manner, and headed for the door, Hully trailing after.
Just as they were going out, Hully saw Stanton heading back out to the dance floor with the Japanese girl, the combo playing, "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good."
The Black Cat was a long, open-faced cafE that benefited from its proximity to the YMCA across the street, where buses and cabs had brought-and would later pick up-sailors and soldiers … anyway, those who weren't sleeping it off in a room in the big, rambling, palm-surrounded Y.
Sam Fujimoto was at a table right on the street with two sailors-one of whom was Bill Fielder. The other was Dan Pressman. The Black Cat served liquor, but all three were drinking coffee.
"Nice work," Jardine said to Sam, pulling up a chair, Hully doing the same.
Bill sat slumped in his chair, his expression dour, his handsome features puffy, his dark hair uncombed. Blond, blue-eyed Dan Pressman seemed more alert, and was watching Bill the way a parent watches a child. Hully's hunch was that Bill had been tying one on, and Dan had laid off the booze, to keep an eye on his friend's safety and welfare.
"Found Bill and Dan down at the Tradewinds," Sam said.
"Rough joint," Jardine said, and showed his badge to the two sailors. "I'm Detective Jardine. How are you doing, Bill?"
"My fiancee was murdered," he said, just slightly slurring his words. "How the hell you think I am?"
"When did you see Pearl Harada last, Ensign?"
Dan said, "Detective, if you want to question Bill, don't you think it'd be more appropriate if you waited till he's-"
"I'll talk to him now," Bill said sharply. "Right now. I'm sober-sober enough. And I don't have a goddamn thing to hide."
"You should have a lawyer," Dan said. "This is a murder case."
Bill batted the air. "They already caught the guy. Didn't you catch the guy?"
"Harry Kamana is in custody," Jardine said. "When did you see Pearl last, Ensign?"
"At the Niumalu. I left about a quarter to midnight. … The Harbor Lights were still playing."
Jardine gazed out from under the shadow of the fedora brim. "She was your girl, wasn't she? Why didn't you hang around to spend some time with her, after?"
"I wanted to talk to my father. I was spending the weekend with my folks-and I knew I'd have the chance to talk to Dad about… about Pearl and me. About us getting married."
"Did you talk to him?"
"Yes." He shook his head, rolled his eyes. "Oh yes indeed."
"It did not go well?"
He grunted a humorless laugh. "It did not go well."
"What happened?"
Bill leaned forward, weaving slightly; his words remained slurred but coherent. "Just a shouting match. My mother tried to calm both of us down, but… I went to the guest room, slammed the door. That was the end of it."
"What time was this?"
"I got home just after midnight. We must have argued till one o'clock, one-fifteen."
Jardine glanced at Hully: this would seem to be an alibi for both Bill and his father. . unless one was covering for the other.
"Ensign Fielder," the detective said, "I mean no disrespect … but you were not the only man in Pearl's life."
Bill slapped the metal table and the coffee cups jumped, spilling a little. "You're wrong! I was the only man in her life."
Jardine's voice was a persistent near monotone. "What about Jack Stanton? Harry Kamana?"
Bill gestured with an awkward hand. "They were old boyfriends. I didn't say she was a… a nun. But we were engaged-she wasn't dating anybody else, wasn't seeing anybody else. Just me."
"How would you have felt if you found her in the arms of another man?"
The ensign bobbed forward. "Would it make me want to kill somebody? Is that what you want to know? Sure, Detective …"
Touching his friend's arm, Dan said, "Bill-easy, now … watch what you're saying…."
"I'd have wanted to kill the son of a bitch who was with her… not Pearl. Never Pearl. But that didn't happen, Detective, and it wouldn't happen, couldn't happen. She loved me, I loved her. We were engaged. She was going to be … my wife."
"What if you found her in the arms of Terry Mi-zuha?"
Bill blinked. "Why would she be in that queer's arms? What the hell kind of stupid question is that?"
Jardine handed Bill a business card. "That's my office number at City Hall. But I want you down at Central Police Station at eleven o'clock Monday morning. Can you remember that?"
"Yeah." Bill was looking at the business card, trying to make his eyes focus. "Why do you wanna talk to me again?"
"I want your formal statement. I don't think you did this thing, Ensign Fielder, but you are a suspect. You may wish to bring an attorney along."
Bill's head was rocking, slightly. "I don't understand this-Harry Kamana did it! He had goddamn blood all over himself! Somebody saw him do it, right? Why…"
"We can discuss this Monday. Show up sober, Ensign."
Then Bill was on his feet, raving, ranting. "You let that bastard Kamana out, I'll kill his ass! You understand? You wanna arrest me for a murder, you'll get your chance…."
Dan also got to his feet, latching onto Bill's arm. "Take it easy, Bill. Just stop talking, goddamnit."
A male voice chimed in: "Did you kill her, Fielder? Did you murder my girl?"
As if he'd materialized, Corporal Jack Stanton was standing next to the table. Now Hully and Jardine were getting to their feet, as Stanton grabbed the startled Bill Fielder by his khaki blouse, with both hands.
"Why did you do it, Fielder?" Stanton demanded, his eyes crazed. "Was she throwing you over? Coming back to me?"
Bill threw the first punch. Then the two heartsick, drunken servicemen were slugging away at each other, flailing, stumbling out into the street, mostly missing, occasionally connecting. Within seconds a crowd of sailors and soldiers had formed around them, cheering them on.
Jardine was shaking his head, giving Hully a look. "Oh hell," he said wearily.
It was only a matter of minutes before the crowd turned itself into a brawling mob, sailors belting soldiers, soldiers smacking sailors. Fielder and Stanton were no longer visible, swallowed in the sea of white and khaki, with shouted obsceniti
es mingling with cries of pain.
The gunshot froze them all.
Then their eyes turned to the little Portuguese detective who had fired his.38 revolver into the air. The sailors and soldiers did not have time to process this before the MPs and Shore Patrol descended, blowing whistles, shouting admonitions, arresting a few of them, the bulk scattering.
Hully found Bill Fielder in a pile on the pavement,
barely conscious, fairly battered; Stanton was nowhere to be seen. Hully and Dan Pressman-who had not gotten involved in the fracas-walked Bill to the table and sat him down.
Dan said to Hully, "Listen, I need to catch a liberty ship. You want me to haul him back to the Arizona?"
"No-I'll baby-sit him tonight," Hully said. "Clean him up, and let him sleep it off."
Jardine was talking to the Shore Patrol and the MPs, showing them his badge.
"You guys always have this much fun on Hotel Street?" Hully asked Pressman.
Dan grinned. "Every time."
TWELVE
Party Crashers
In the golden Hawaiian moonlight, Schofield Barracks-the largest military base in the United States-looked like a perfecdy idealized American town, right off the cover of The Saturday Evening Post or the back lot of MGM. If it were not for the surrounding fields of sugarcane and pineapple, no one would guess the Hawaiian location; if it were not for the sentry-guarded entry, no one would take this for an Army post. Street after street was lined with stucco and brick houses on well-manicured lawns, ranging from bungalows to near mansions, depending on the ranks of their occupants, of course; and-set off in splendid isolation, like castles of the realm-massive brick structures for various military purposes.
Burroughs pulled up outside the gate, waiting for FBI agent Adam Sterling. He had called the agent at the Niumalu, where Sterling had been brooding in his bungalow, after an unsuccessful meeting with General Short on the lanai of the latter's home, at Fort Shafter, the Army administrative quarters just outside Honolulu.
"Well, get out here to Schofield," Burroughs had told the FBI man, from a phone booth outside a gas station with a magnificent view of Pearl Harbor that rivaled the Shuncho-ro's. "I have new information for the general, and I won't be able to get past the guard without your help."
Burroughs filled Sterling in on what he'd learned from Kuhn and Morimura, and the FBI man, excited, said he was on his way and hung up.
The writer had paused to look at the view, before driving to nearby Schofield. Pearl Harbor was spread out before him, warships moored in pools of yellow luminance, signal lights blinking back and forth, search beams stroking the sky.
A chatty little Japanese man in coveralls-who had introduced himself as Mr. Sumida, the service station's owner, and who had smiled during every moment of gas pumping and windshield cleaning-was also admiring the glittering view, as Burroughs paid for his gas.
"So beautiful," Mr. Sumida said. "Like great big Christmas tree!"
Somehow this observation was less than comforting, and now-as Burroughs waited for Sterling outside the Schofield gate-he wondered how his son and Sam Fujimoto were faring. About now they would be combing Hotel Street for Bill Fielder and Jack Stanton, and the writer was well aware of the potential perils of that sleazy strip of sin.
Sterling pulled up in a black Ford, government issue no doubt, and Burroughs left the Pierce Arrow and hopped in front, on the passenger side. The FBI man showed his ID to the guard and they soon were rolling through the lush, suburban "barracks."
"We're probably on a fool's errand, Ed," the FBI agent said. The rangy, square-jawed Sterling-who still reminded Burroughs of a hero from one of his own books-seemed frazzled at the end of this long day, his white linen suit rumpled, his tie a limp, wrinkled rag.
Sterling proceeded to tell Burroughs that when he'd arrived at Fort Shafter at seven, for a promised ten-minute audience with the general, both Mrs. Short and Mrs. Fielder were already seated in the general's car with its motor running, in the driveway, waiting to go to the party at the Schofield Officers' Club.
Short had been unimpressed with the transcript of the Mori radiophone call. "If this is code," the general had asked skeptically, "why do they talk in the clear about things like planes and searchlights?"
While the wives fretted and fumed in the car, Sterling had tried to make his case to Short and Fielder (who lived next door to the general).
"General Short thought the Mori call was 'quite an ordinary message,' " Steriing said to Burroughs, pulling into the officers'-club parking lot. "Nothing much to get excited about."
"And of course Fielder parroted that view," Burroughs said dryly.
"The worst of it is, the general said he appreciated my 'zeal,' but perhaps I was being 'too intelligence-conscious.' "
Burroughs, shaking his head, said, "Is there such a thing, with war hanging over us?"
"When it comes to matters like these," Sterling said, as he parked his car in the nearly filled lot, "it's easy to be wrong…. Morimura being a case in point, on my part."
Burroughs was getting out of the car. "You might have done better with General Short during working hours. When a man's wife is waiting for him in a car, dressed to the nines ready to go to a party, his judgment is easily impaired."
As they walked up to the entry of the unpretentious brick building, the FBI agent warned Burroughs: "The general was pretty patient with me at his house, all considering, but this interruption may be something else again."
Sterling had already explained that this was not just the club's weekly Saturday-night dance, but an annual cabaret-style benefit show put on by "talented young ladies" who worked on the post. Right now they could hear a small combo-piano, drums, guitar and bass fiddle-accompanying a thin female voice doing Ella Fitzgerald's "A Tisket a Tasket," passably.
Once inside, they peeked in at the wood-paneled dining room, which was decked out with ferns and floral arrangements, and every linen-covered table had fresh-cut flowers; between two lava-rock columns was the stage area, where various amateurs were coming up to sing and dance and do their best. The men in the audience were in dress uniform and the women in their fanciest gowns, and the club was brimming with brass-in addition to Short and Fielder, who were positioned up front (unfortunately), Burroughs spotted Major Durward Wilson of the 24th Infantry Division, Lieutenant Colonel Emil Leard, and Lieutenant Colonel Walter Phillips, Short's chief of staff.
"Wait in the bar," Sterling told Burroughs, who did as he was told, as the FBI man waded gingerly into the sea of high-ranking officers.
With the benefit show in full sway, the bar was empty, but for the bartender himself, and Burroughs ordered a root beer at the counter, and retreated to a booth.
A few minutes later, Sterling returned with both General Short and Colonel Fielder, neither of whom seemed happy. Nor did they did seem inclined to join Burroughs in the booth, and the writer crawled out and stood and apologized for interrupting their evening out.
"I hope there's a good reason for this, Mr. Burroughs," the slim, wiry general said tightly.
Burroughs jumped right in. "You already know about the Mori radiophone call, and the Jap Consulate burning its papers. What you don't know is mat Otto Kuhn, the German 'sleeper' agent, is working with Vice Consul Morimura, in an effort to pin the murder of Pearl Harada on an innocent man."
The general frowned, but with interest. This news perked Fielder's curiosity, as well. Short gestured to the booth, said, "Let's sit down-I'd like to hear this."
Burroughs and Sterling sat across from the general and the colonel. Both men seemed keenly attentive as the writer told them what Kuhn had admitted about the phone call, and that Morimura had flaunted his spying activities, right down to the powerful telescope in his private room at the Shuncho-ro.
Sterling said, "My office has clearly underestimated Morimura-he's put on a good front as a womanizer and buffoon. But it's apparent he's involved heavily in spying, though much of it may be legal."
"This is intriguing information, Mr. Burroughs," the general said, nodding thoughtfully. "But I as yet fail to see a reason for your sense of urgency…."
"Pearl Harada's uncle is on the FBI's list of dangerous Japanese-Americans here in Oahu. She may have been involved in something having to do with espionage, or overheard something." Burroughs turned to Fielder. "Wooch, that girl made a concerted effort to have me arrange a meeting between the two of you."
Fielder shrugged. "Of course-because she and my son wanted to get married…."
This was news to Short, who looked sharply at Fielder, who went on, faintly chagrined.
"My son and that girl knew I would forbid such a union, and she wanted to try to win me over."
"That's right," Burroughs said. "And we've been assuming that she was going to bat her eyes and sweet-talk you and just generally appeal to your basic goodness… but Wooch, what if she was going to prove herself to you by handing you sensitive information?" -
Fielder's eyes narrowed, and so did Short's.
"I spoke to that girl minutes before her murder," Burroughs said. "She was anxious to see you, Wooch, as soon as possible. She had a real sense of urgency about her, let me tell you … and somebody else had enough of a sense of urgency to murder her before she could talk to you."
Fielder seemed stunned, trying to absorb this.
"What do you think she knew?" the general asked.
"I can only guess," Burroughs said. "But if the Japs, through Morimura, are waking their sleeper agent… literally … and murder is being committed, right down to framing some poor fall guy … it must be something important. Something … urgent."
"It would certainly seem that Morimura and Kuhn are worth serious investigation." General Short turned to Fielder, who was after all his top intelligence man. "First thing Monday morning, I want you to meet with Agent Sterling and whoever's handling this murder case."
"That would be Detective John Jardine of the Prosecutor's Office," Burroughs told the general, "but do you really think you should wait until Monday?"
Short raised an eyebrow. "Morimura is a diplomat-with protected status. If he's been involved in illegal espionage, that status dissolves. Kuhn we can simply have arrested. Nevertheless, we need to tread slowly, carefully."
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