Eagle & Crane

by Suzanne Rindell

  But then they hear an even more alarming noise. The engine sputters and coughs, and for one long, horrendous second shudders loudly, until finally it goes silent. It is a sequence of sounds Louis has never heard the airplane make before, a noise ever so slightly different from the stalling noise it makes if you pull up too hard . . . and yet, the second he hears it, Louis recognizes the sound with a sick feeling in his gut: It is the engine running out of gas.

  What happens next is baffling. The biplane falls from the sky, a flying thing no longer, like Icarus and his melted wings. No one pulls up on the nose or raises the wing flaps. Instead it drops like a stone, or—even swifter—like a bird diving on purpose. But a bird can recover from such a dive. A small biplane cannot—that is, not without an expert pilot intent on maneuvering the contraption for all it was worth.

  The men standing on the porch hold their breath as the biplane plummets. Then all four of them reactively wince, steeling themselves as it makes impact, nose-first, directly into the makeshift hangar. A small fireball leaps into the air, then transforms into a sea of black smoke.

  The smoke adds to the thick haze in the air, completely blotting out the September sun.

  “Well . . . shoot,” Whitcomb mutters. He spits onto the porch and turns now to Louis Thorn. “You care to revise your statement, son?”

  2

  The crash site belches black, oily smoke while the local fire engine nearly pumps the well on the Yamada ranch dry. When the color of the thick smoke finally changes from black to white, the firemen begin to breathe more easily behind their homemade masks of wetted cloth, knowing they have turned the tide on the fire. Now it is only a matter of time until the entirety of the charred mass quiets down to a steamy hiss. The air for miles around smells strange, laced with ash, the sickly scent of burning rubber, and the queer metallic odor that usually precedes a large thunderstorm.

  Of the two bodies found in the wreckage, one is clearly that of the elderly Jap, Kenichi Yamada. The other is presumed to be the body of his son, Haruto Yamada. The body itself is badly charred, but a singed, tattered version of the U.S. Army uniform that had been issued to Haruto Yamada shortly before he went A.W.O.L. still clings to the remains as they pull the body from the burning mess.

  Despite the chaos at the crash site, Bonner takes care never to lose track of Louis Thorn. In particular, he studies Louis’s expression carefully when the two bodies are covered with sheets and lifted away on stretchers. Maybe you’ve gotten accustomed to being a property owner . . . Sheriff Whitcomb had said to Louis earlier on the porch. Maybe if the Yamadas came back here they wouldn’t exactly be welcome. Bonner had wondered if Louis was helping to hide the escaped evacuees. Now Bonner must consider the possibility that Louis is, in fact, involved in a much darker crime.

  When the commotion begins to die down, Bonner sidles up to Louis.

  “I think we ought to continue our conversation, Mr. Thorn,” Bonner suggests in a firm but gentle voice.

  Louis turns to stare at Bonner with a dazed expression. He is still half-dressed and half-shaven. Smudges of black grease and specks of tar from the crash complement the few smears of shaving lather still clinging to his cheek.

  “How about we go back up to the house and sit down?” Bonner presses.

  Louis’s dazed expression melts, then sharpens, as though coming back into focus. He looks down at the ground. His brow furrows.

  “All right,” he agrees.

  * * *

  Several minutes later, the two men sit down to talk in the front parlor of the old Yamada house. They are perched across from each other on a pair of matching pink silk settees. In fact, the entire room is a study in symmetry. Two silk settees. Two small square glass coffee tables between them. Two bookshelves made of bamboo. Four beautiful silk scrolls hanging on the walls, all of them displaying inky watercolors of cranes and fish and far-off mountains. It is a curious blend of East and West: a series of treasured heirlooms presumably brought over from Japan, intermingled with the bulky pink settees and Western-style coffee tables.

  With the other half of his shave yet to be completed, Louis managed to splash some water on his face once they got up to the house, wiping away the crust of dried lather and smudges of black grease. Despite the fact that half his face is still covered in thin, fair stubble, he’d put on fresh clothes and quickly wetted and combed his hair, too, and now, sitting across from Bonner, Louis seems cleaner, more collected. Bonner takes a closer look at Louis, assessing the details.

  Louis is twenty-three, but looking at him now, Bonner notices he is distinctly boyish. With his dark blond hair, freckled nose, and blue eyes, Louis embodies the popular image of an all-American boy. Now Bonner wonders if that wholesome impression is part of a façade.

  Louis can’t know it, but he is the reason Bonner requested the Yamada case. In recent months, Bonner had developed an aversion to fieldwork and specifically requested desk duty. His fellow agents said he was nuts to volunteer for such drudgery, but Bonner was relieved to work in an office, away from the Japanese segregation centers, away from the manhunts for Japanese Americans considered uncooperative with the order to evacuate. Bonner didn’t care that his peers predicted he would get bored. Boredom was a better feeling than some of the other feelings he’d had since his job began to revolve around the enforcement of Executive Order 9066.

  However, when reports of two escaped evacuees from Tule Lake meant the F.B.I. was going to send an agent to Newcastle, California, and interview the young man living on the Yamadas’ old property—a fellow by the last name of Thorn— Bonner asked to be put on the case, back in the field, because the name and location held a special significance for him.

  I figured you’d come to your senses sooner or later, his boss, Reed, said in an approving tone, oblivious to Bonner’s ulterior motive. Reed approved his request and assigned Bonner to the case, which was how Bonner now found himself sitting across from Louis Thorn.

  Louis is visibly nervous; it would be natural for the crash to set him on edge, but perhaps it is something more than that, Bonner thinks. Perhaps he senses Bonner’s special interest in him. Or perhaps Louis had something to do with the crash and has something to hide. Louis turns his head as though he hears a sound outside, and the unshaved stubble on one half of his face catches in the light from the window, the hair gleaming with slight traces of red and gold. It is Louis’s complexion that draws the agent’s attention now, and not because of Louis’s comical shave. Bonner is surprised he didn’t notice before: Bruises bloom over both cheekbones, and Louis sports a fresh cut under one eye.

  “Looks like somebody roughed you up pretty good,” Bonner comments.

  Louis touches a self-conscious hand to one cheek—the more naked, clean-shaven one.

  “I went to get a drink at the saloon in town the other night,” Louis says. “Got into a little scuffle.”

  “How many nights ago?”

  “Three.”

  The bruises and the cut look more recent than that, but Bonner nods with brisk affability.

  “I hope you don’t mind if I verify that.”

  “Sure,” Louis replies. “I’ll give you the name of the bartender down that way—will that help?”

  Bonner thinks to himself, Louis Thorn is either telling the truth, or else is a clever, cool customer. He has an earnest air, but something doesn’t sit right. Aloud, Bonner says, “I’d be much obliged.”

  Sensing Louis’s distracted mind-set, Bonner clears his throat. A broadcast squawks loudly from a Zenith radio perched on the mantel—one of the few objects in the room without a symmetrical twin. War updates, turned up to top volume.

  “That yours?” Bonner asks idly.

  “Course,” Louis replies. “The Yamadas turned theirs in.”

  Louis means the Yamadas obeyed the order to turn the radio they owned over to the U.S. authorities as an item of contraband t
hat those of Japanese ancestry were not allowed to retain after Pearl Harbor.

  “They complied and never did anything fishy,” Louis adds. He pauses. “Till now, I suppose.” He shifts on the settee and changes tack. “Anyway, some weeks back I bought a new radio so I could follow—” His voice breaks off. “Well, so I could follow all the news about the war, I guess,” he finally finishes.

  The kid must’ve been listening to it while he was shaving—maybe for the company, Bonner thinks. Bonner does that himself from time to time; it is a lonely thing to live alone, probably even more so in a strange house. But now it feels as though the radio is a disturbance, a small but terrible shrieking emanating from the corner of the room, intruding upon any real shot at conversation. Bonner rises from the settee and points.

  “May I?”

  Louis nods, and Bonner switches off the radio. A dense quiet floods the room in a cool, relieving wave. Bonner lets the silence settle a little before breaking it again. He clears his throat once more.

  “Earlier you insisted the Yamadas weren’t likely to try to commandeer the biplane,” Bonner says.

  Louis raises a wary eyebrow at the agent but says nothing.

  “Doesn’t look like that turned out to be the case.”

  Louis remains silent.

  “What do you think caused the crash? Do you believe it was an accident? Or do you think there was a target that the two Yamada men had in mind?”

  “I don’t know,” Louis repeats. “I think I made it pretty clear I don’t think they had the inclination to hurt anyone.”

  Agent Bonner pauses. The railroad lines that came up from Sacramento through the big station in Roseville were regularly used by the military to transport ammunitions manufactured in the Bay Area. Such a target would be ideal for a Japanese spy. And yet, that was not where the biplane had ultimately crashed. If they were trying to hurt someone other than themselves, they had failed spectacularly.

  “Seems lucky for us that it crashed directly down on the empty hangar,” Bonner says now.

  Louis grunts. “Easy for you to say. Weren’t your hangar.” He pauses and grunts again. “Or your biplane.”

  “You said Harry was the one who knew how to fly the biplane?” Bonner continues.

  “Yes.”

  “And his father did not?”

  “No.”

  Agent Bonner must admit: The crash hadn’t hurt anyone except the two men in the plane. This means all possibilities must be explored and ruled out in his report. He clears his throat. “Do you have any idea whether Harry or his father may have been . . . well . . . despondent? Ready to give up on the world?”

  Louis looks at Bonner for a moment before answering. “You mean ready to die by his own hand? That don’t sound like Harry to me.” He pauses, then continues: “But I don’t imagine he or Mr. Yamada were too cheerful about the camp they were in.”

  “So you do or you don’t think someone crashed that biplane on purpose?”

  Louis shakes his head, reticent. “I don’t think anything. All I know is what I saw today, same as you.”

  Bonner leans back and sighs. “Well, that’s just it,” he says. “I don’t know much about planes, but I’ve always been under the impression that they don’t just drop like that from the sky—that even if the engine dies, there’s some sort of maneuvering a pilot will try to do.”

  Louis appears to relent. “That’s generally true, I suppose,” he says.

  “And as far as I could tell, Harry didn’t attempt any of that,” Bonner says. “He didn’t try to perform any emergency maneuvers.”

  “No. It didn’t look like it.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “I can’t answer that,” Louis says.

  Suddenly, the men are interrupted. A back door slams, footsteps move swiftly through the house, and a young woman rushes into the front parlor.

  “Oh!” she utters, stopping short when she catches sight of Agent Bonner perched on the settee opposite Louis. The young woman freezes, a deer caught in headlights. Something about her suggests a sense of urgency abruptly put on hold. It is as if she has blown in on a gust of wind; a fresh hint of the day outside—the Indian summer, the crisp leaves, the terrible burning scent of the airplane crash—swirls in the rush of air that arrives with her.

  “I didn’t know you had a guest,” she says to Louis.

  Bonner takes a closer look at the young woman. She is pretty, but in a spritely, tomboyish manner. Her red hair is smartly bobbed, its coppery color as bright as a flame. She is skinny as a whip, and attired in a crisp white shirt and a pair of men’s riding trousers.

  “Did you see the crash?” Louis asks, a note of wary caution in his voice.

  “Yes,” the young woman answers. “Isn’t it awful?”

  “Harry and Mr. Yamada . . .” Louis says.

  “Yes,” the woman replies in a somber tone. “I know.”

  The young woman lowers her eyes to stare down at the rug beneath her feet, and after a second or two Louis follows suit, leaving Agent Bonner to glance back and forth between the two of them as though trying to make up his mind about something. He stands.

  “I’m Agent Bonner,” he introduces himself to the young woman, holding out his hand. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation sent me here to make some inquiries about the Yamadas.”

  “Oh!” the young woman exclaims, accepting Bonner’s hand and shaking it firmly. “Of course. I’m so sorry. My name is Ava Brooks.”

  Bonner racks his brain, trying to guess at the relation between Ava Brooks and Louis Thorn. Sweethearts? Neighbors? She certainly entered the room as though she were familiar with the place.

  “Ava has been helping to run the orchards while the Yamadas ain’t here,” Louis offers, as though reading Bonner’s mind.

  “Oh.” Bonner nods and sits back down. “I see. And you . . . live on the property?” While he has no reason to doubt them, Ava doesn’t exactly look like a typical foreman. Bonner wonders if there still isn’t something more between them.

  “I live nearby,” Ava replies. Her tone has shifted and is slightly stiff, brusque. Bonner considers perhaps she was offended by what his question implied. “It’s a lot of work, keeping the orchards running without the Yamadas,” she adds defensively.

  “‘Without the Yamadas’? It sounds as if you knew them.”

  “Of course I knew them.”

  This catches Bonner’s attention. He retrieves his notebook and pencil again from his inside jacket pocket. “If you’re aware of the crash, then I assume you’re also aware of the fact that the two Yamada men left the camp at Tule Lake without permission. I’m investigating their case.” He pauses. “Would you mind telling me how you knew them? Have you always helped out in the orchards?”

  Ava bites her lip. “No. I suppose I first met Harry Yamada when he joined my stepfather’s barnstorming troupe.” She glances at Louis. “Louis and Harry joined at the same time.”

  Bonner takes this in, slightly caught off guard. “I see. You were all members of this . . .” He struggles to recall the details Louis gave him earlier, in order to describe it properly. “. . . flying circus act?”

  “Yes,” says Ava. “More or less. That’s how we met.”

  “Interesting,” Bonner remarks. “Did you also perform daredevil stunts?” Women didn’t ordinarily fly planes—much less dance on the wings—but from the looks of Ava, Bonner wouldn’t put it past her.

  Louis cuts in. “No—Ava doesn’t fly. She’s afraid of heights. Never been up in the air, as a matter of fact.”

  Agent Bonner frowns and raises an eyebrow. “You were employed by a flying circus troupe, but you’re afraid of heights and won’t go up in an airplane?”

  “I sold tickets for airplane rides,” Ava answers. “And to use the word ‘employed,’ Agent Bonner, is to imply that I was pai
d for my work. It was my stepfather’s nutty idea to start a barnstorming act. Back when Earl first started the show I was still a kid, and my mother and I were just along to sell tickets and lemonade.”

  “Traveling with a flying circus . . . Sounds like a rather remarkable childhood,” Bonner says.

  Ava shrugs. “It beat standing on the breadline,” she replies.

  She has a point: The Depression was unbearable for most families. If there is one thing good about this war, Bonner thinks, it’s the effect on the nation’s economy. Not exactly a fair trade-off, but still.

  “Your stepfather—Earl, was it?”

  “Earl Shaw,” Ava says. She nods, but something in her face hardens at the same time.

  “Yes.” Bonner flips a page in his notebook. “Louis mentioned him earlier. He was the founder of the flying circus and originally the owner of the biplane that crashed today?”

  “I reckon that’s the way of it, yes,” Ava replies.

  “Can you arrange for me to speak to him?” Bonner asks.

  “Why?”

  Bonner blinks. “Well, two Japanese detainees broke out of the Tule Lake Relocation Center, stole a biplane, and crashed it. And that biplane just so happens to have belonged to your stepfather at one point—not to mention the fact you just told me Haruto Yamada once worked for your stepfather. That seems as good a reason as any to want to talk to him, doesn’t it?”

  Ava frowns. “All right, sure,” she says. “But the problem is, I haven’t the faintest idea where to find Earl, so I’m not certain I can help you.”

  “No one’s seen Earl in over three years,” Louis supplies.

  Agent Bonner is silent, thinking. During this brief pause, something shifts in Ava’s demeanor. She suddenly becomes bolder. She straightens her spine and takes a breath, all business.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Bonner,” she says, “but if you’re nearly finished with your business here . . . ?”