"Is that why you invited me here?" Max asked. "To convince me not to be afraid? You've got several million Americans to go."
"Just like I said this morning, to help us both gain a little insight." As the minister eased his grip, he looked curiously at Max's palm. "What's that, Captain, an old tattoo?"
Chapter 21
Tulenar Internment Camp
Sunset. Third Quarter Moon.
Sitting in her living room, gazing at the old newspapers, Doris wondered if she were beginning to slip into an early dementia. No, she comforted herself, it was just the lack of sleep. If she could just get more than a few hours in at night...
Beside the clippings was the telephone, the late day sun spotlighting it through the window. She was going to do it. As if logic and common sense were being beaten into submission by stress and fatigue, she was keenly aware that she was going to do it. Still gazing down at the old front pages, she lifted the receiver and placed the call to Bellingham, Washington.
A gentle, aged woman's voice came on the line. "Good evening, Spinners'."
"Mim?" Doris wondered if her voice sounded strained in its pleasantness. "This is Doris Tebbe..."
"Doris?" The thin voice gained some volume. "Why, good heavens, Doris! How are you, sweetheart?"
"Dazed and confused," Doris replied with a laugh. The old, joking reply brought a relief of nostalgia to her as Mim chortled back.
"It's good to hear your voice, sweetheart. What ever have you been doing with yourself, we thought you'd been swallowed up."
It wasn't like Mim not to read the papers. She let it pass. "I have been swallowed up. I'm working for the War Relocation Authority. I oversee the Tulenar camp."
Mim gave a little gasp, the way she always did just before doling out judgment or approval. "A center administrator?"
"Yep --"
"Doris, how impressive! Oh! I am speechless!" But apparently Doris's dear old friend wasn't, because she gushed on. "Oh! Thank the Lord for my years with the Women's Suffrage, the strides we've made! Oh, you do your gender proud, sweetheart."
"Well. The jury's still out on that, Mim." It was difficult, warm as the conversation was, to go on as if this were simply a social call. But Doris managed to ask casually, "So how are you? And Al?"
"Wrinkled, gray and shrinking. But you know, once you get used to it, it's not so bad, this shrinking away from the world. You're allowed to be eccentric and Al and I abuse the privilege. Even -of course, I could only say this to someone like you, Doris- even this horrible war and its consequences can't seem to pain us like the Great One did. We have the perspective of the ancients, sweetheart. We're on our way out of the cycle. We'll leave this one to the young people."
"I can believe that of you, Mim, but that doesn't sound like Al."
"Oh, you'd be surprised. He's in the greenhouse, contemplating his petunias. Hold on..."
Doris let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding. She didn't even have to ask to speak to Al, Mim was delivering him to her. Dear, dear friend, it wouldn't have surprised Doris at all if Mim were intuiting Doris's need. How old would the Spinners be now? In their early eighties. Unbelievable. In the midst of her angst, Doris realized this may be the last time she would ever speak to them. She and Abel, Albert and Mim. They had exchanged favors, both political and personal, since Doris's wedding.
Al's calm, mannered voice, perhaps a little more hoarse than Doris last recalled, came to her ear. "Madame Administrator, I presume."
Doris actually blushed, like a daughter being teased by her father. "Al, please..."
"No, no, give me my moment. I knew Roosevelt would pull something like this, hiring a woman to handle a man's job. That's why I didn't vote for him."
"Roosevelt didn't appoint me, Milton Eisenhower did."
"Now I'm really worried." She couldn't hear him laugh, but Albert Spinner had never laughed aloud in all the time she had known him. He always kept it snug behind his lips, so that its only release was to bounce his body or, when the humor was too intense, leak from his eyes. "How are you, Doris?"
"Holding on, Al. Yourself?"
"Just the opposite. Letting go. This isn't a social call, is it?"
Bless the old surgeon-turned-congressman, he hadn't changed all that much. "I wish it were, Al, I swear to God I do."
"Don't do that, it's blasphemy." She knew he was half-serious. "You sound good, Doris, but you also sound tired."
Talking with Mim and Al was just like the old days. Her defenses were down, and for once it felt good. "It's tough, running a prison camp and pretending it isn't."
Al was quiet a moment, then said simply, "The Iron Lady of Tulenar."
"So you do still read the papers. Mim was just being polite."
"Californian Japanese murders only rate page four in northern Washington. She made a pact with herself two years ago to trim her habit to the Bellingham paper, front page. I thought she'd just fret if she knew about you in the middle of the mire. Guess I better tell her now. So. What's up?"
"I need a favor."
"I'm falling back into my youth, I must be senile. Or did you actually say that?"
"I did."
"Marvelous. I don't remember the last time somebody asked me for a favor."
"It was probably Abel or me. We asked an awful lot from you."
"No, no. I have the records right here. Abel was up on favors owed to him by three when he passed on. Make it a big one, Doris, you may not get lucky again."
"Come on, Al, you and Mim will live to be a hundred."
"Not if we have anything to do with it. See now, you've got to know I haven't had any clout to speak of for at least ten years, but fire away."
"Okay. I need a coroner's report."
There was a brief, surprised silence. "A coroner's report."
"Yes."
"That's all?"
"Yes."
"A Washington state county, I presume."
"Yeah, but I don't know which one. I can give you a town."
She knew he'd already be scribbling on a note pad. "Got a name?"
Doris' mouth went suddenly dry. She had to work it a moment, gather moisture before she could finish. "Pierce. Missus. Anne or Annie."
/ / / /
The shock of seeing the captaine at her door had to show on Doris's face, but he apparently misunderstood it.
"I can tell you're still relishing the witty conversation we had this morning," he said.
He peered through the screen door, which she couldn't bring herself to open right away. The sun had just set, the dusk was glowing behind him. His eyes were obscured by his glasses and the door's metal mesh, so that he looked like some otherworldly creature pretending to be human. She just stood there, the soup ladle still in her hand, carried with her from the kitchen when she had heard the knocking.
"Captain...what can I do for you?"
"Well...I...may I come in, or are you that mad at me?"
"No. Yes, I mean, of course." The yellowed newspaper front pages were still scattered on the coffee table and she scooped them up as he let himself in. "Sorry about the mess." She was quick with the pretense. "A little work before supper."
"I'm sorry. I won't keep you long."
"Don't worry about it," she said, carrying the papers into her little bedroom, ladle still in hand. She was struck with a mild panic as she stuffed them into her top dresser drawer and didn't know how to best seem normal. She raised her voice so he could hear. "Uh ... have you eaten yet, Captain?"
"No." His voice was so close, she turned with a start. He was standing at the bedroom threshold. "Sorry. You're jumpy tonight, aren't you?"
"Yeah...well. Pressure, I guess. I'm having a sandwich and soup. Will that do?"
"Sure, it's just...I really didn't mean to interrupt your meal but, yes, thanks." Pierce followed Doris into the kitchen. "I would have called, but I was already in the camp --"
"In the camp? Doing what?" She couldn't help sounding defensive, but didn't re
ally want to try, anyway.
"I had tea with the Reverend Mr. Arthur Satsugai."
Doris was pulling an extra Campbell's can from the cupboard. She set it definitively on the counter and turned to look at Pierce. "Now, why would you do that?"
"It was his suggestion," the Captain replied irritably, "so stop right there. I have no idea what he wanted. Started talking about something he called 'conscious living'..."
The reference tugged a smile from her lips. Pierce was looking at his right palm, drawing his left thumb across it thoughtfully. He stopped the gesture and, still seeming irritated, looked
at Doris again.
"I think he just wanted to check me out," he said.
"Is that so surprising after what you did?"
Pierce was tempted to snap at her, that much she could tell, but he stopped short. His face relaxed. "Look, I'm going about this all wrong. Mrs. Tebbe, I came to apologize. Really apologize this time, person-to-person, not Army-to-WRA. I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am that I lost control this morning. But I can promise I won't let it happen again."
Doris drummed her fingers against the counter briefly as she scrutinized Pierce, then looked at the soup can. "Tomato. Okay?"
"Is that an 'I accept your apology?' I can never tell with you."
Doris pointed the soup ladle at him. "I don't know yet, Captain. But I'm willing to wait and see."
She wasn't going to tell him what she was waiting to see, and glad that he seemed to think she was only speaking about his morning outburst. He smiled and removed his Army jacket, draping it over the nearest kitchen chair, then loosened his tie a bit.
Shedding some of his military skin suited him. It was something she had noticed during the Tamura search. In the house instead of her office, her own jacket off and blouse sleeves rolled, Doris could have felt more amenable herself. If only. But those headlines stood out against her mind as starkly as they had against the yellowed paper:
REMAINS OF THIRD VICTIM FOUND!
NAVAJO POLICE ASK FOR COUNTY SHERIFF'S AID
INDIAN KILLER STILL ON SPREE! AUTHORITIES BAFFLED,
NAVAJOS SEE RED!
Doris poured the tomato soup she'd already prepared into a larger pot and added the extra can's contents to it. Pierce sat in the chair he'd staked out with his jacket, watching her.
She said, "I don't have any beer, but there's some Mogen David in the fridge."
"That's fine," the captain replied and got up. "Where're the glasses?"
Doris nodded to her right. "Second cabinet. None for me, though, I still have a meeting later. I'll take a lemonade..."
"Okay."
"Hand me the Velveeta and ham while you're in there, will you?"
Pierce pulled the wine from the refrigerator, then rummaged around until he found what Doris had asked for. As she was taking bread out of the tin box on the counter, she felt the captain's eyes on her.
"You know," he said, "You look really beat."
"I am really beat." She tapped the ladle against the pot before setting it down, then turned to the sandwich making. "Did you see the plates and bowls next to the glasses?"
"Yeah." Pierce collected two of each, setting the plates next to Doris and putting the bowls on the table.
Damn it all, what could she be thinking? Look at the man, did she really think he could... Doris couldn't even bare to call the word up. She watched him putter around like the kitchen was his own, setting out the mustard and mayonnaise, finding the tin flatware, settling into his chair. She tossed a folded hand towel on the middle of the table, put the soup pot on it, then brought the sandwiches.
"Maybe you should ease up," he said as she sat.
"What?"
"The hours you keep. Maybe you should cut back a little. You're Center Administrator. You control the schedule."
"Think so, do you? The schedule controls me."
Pierce picked up his sandwich. "You're not going to be much good to the schedule if you collapse on the office floor."
"It's not the daily grind, anyway. I'm not getting much sleep, is all."
"Why not?"
Doris stopped the soup spoon midway to her lips. "Why not? Oh, I don't know, Captain, maybe my poor fluttery female heart can't take the Ataki/Tamura strain the way your strong manly heart can."
Pierce's mouth quirked into a smile as he chewed. Swallowing, he said, "If you were any other woman, I'd agree. It's not all on you. In case you didn't notice this morning, the strain's getting to me, too."
"Notice what?" Doris replied.
The captain picked up on her forgiveness. The enlarged image of his eyes crinkled amiably behind his thick lenses, poised over the rim of his drinking glass. But no sooner had Doris made her peace offering when her mood darkened, remembering those headlines. She was obligated to probe. If she didn't, she would be a coward.
"You were holding up pretty well until then," she said, scouting out a segue.
"Same to you. Except for those blue circles under your eyes. I'm serious, Mrs. Tebbe. If you don't take care of yourself, you may lose credibility with the residents."
"So what do you do, to take care of yourself?" Doris looked at her soup bowl as she dipped her spoon, in case her eyes betrayed suspicion. "I'm serious, too, Captain. You seem to be handling this whole thing, by and large, like it doesn't touch you."
It didn't work, keeping her eyes occupied with the meal. Pierce's reply was tinged with resentment.
"Well, it does touch me, Mrs. Tebbe, believe me." Doris looked up to see him jab his own spoon into the soup. "I'm not some sort of monster."
That wasn't resentment, it was pain. She'd hurt his feelings. Guilt pricked at her.
"That's not what I meant, Captain. I'm asking honestly..." and on a certain level, she was... "How do you keep such good mental control? My bailiwick has always been politics. I've never dealt with something like this before." She took a quick bite of sandwich and asked through it, "Have you?"
Pierce looked at her suddenly, as if she were crazy. "When would I have ever run into something like this? Mrs. Tebbe, I've never even seen combat."
Doris wanted to take a deep breath before pushing on, but she didn't dare. "How about Washington state?"
"Huh? I don't follow..."
"That wolf hunt..."
The captain put his attention to his own soup bowl again. "That hardly compares."
"I remember you'd said the wolf made several kills--"
"Mrs. Tebbe, that was an animal. Not a willful, calculating human being." The captain looked up. "Listen, to be honest, that's a time in my life I'm not really keen on talking about."
"Sure, of course. I'm sorry..."
Pierce seemed to want to smile, but he didn't quite make it. He went for his Mogen David. "Don't sweat it, just ... let's try another subject."
Doris's lemonade was nearly gone. She rose with her glass and went to the refrigerator. "What about Arizona?"
"What about it?" There was an affected lightness to the captain's tone.
Her back protecting her, Doris swallowed to loosen her tight throat. She was surprised and pleased with the casualness in her voice. "Any worthy adventures there?"
Quite relaxed, Pierce replied, "Nope."
"Where was your post? I mean, were you in the middle of nowhere or near any towns?"
She came back around to her seat where she could see the captain's face. But there was no betraying hint to read.
"Morriston, you mean. It's just outside the border of Navajo country." He tossed his spoon into the drained soup bowl and pushed away the sandwich plate, empty of all except a few crumbs and a smear of mustard. "But, you know, speaking of adventures, the reservation was in the middle of quite a murder mystery."
The lemonade in Doris's stomach suddenly burned into her. She stopped drinking, couldn't eat, though she knew she should carry on normally.
"Oh?"was all she could pinch from her throat.
Pierce didn't seem to notice. He looked thoughtfu
l. "I wonder what ever happened?"
"They didn't...they didn't find the guy while you were there?"
"No, I don't think so. But I only followed it occasionally through the papers."
"Who'd he kill?" Doris forced herself back to her sandwich.
"Oo, quite a few, actually," he replied, getting up with his own glass now. He filled it only half as much with Mogen David, then sat back down. "Six, I think, was the count when I transferred. In and around a couple of northern 'rez' settlements...Long Walk, Kayenta. The alleged count, I should say. They'd only found four bodies while I stationed. But not before the coyotes got to them."
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