The House at Sandalwood

by Virginia Coffman

  It went with her green as dull earth goes with a spring-bright leaf, but I was ashamed of my first reaction and agreed. The plain beige sheath was one I had owned for ten years, but it looked surprisingly undated with its new hemline.

  Ito Nagata was ready shortly after but Stephen had gone out to examine the grove and to see what had to be done to assure the safety of the next work crew. He explained this briefly to us when we met him at the boat landing. I am fairly sure Ito and I were both of the opinion he ought to give up the entire Sandalwood heiau project, but I did wonder at Deirdre’s reason for opposing it. During the boat ride while I was shaking off the channel spray, Deirdre brought up the subject of the ancient goddess Pele again, and I felt greatly relieved when Stephen kept his temper. He asked calmly, “Have you yourself seen her, darling?”

  I was certain she would make a flat assertion, as children often do, either yes or no. To my surprise, she tilted her head and ignored the channel breeze whipping the long strands of hair across the lower half of her face.

  “I think I have seen her. Honestly, darling. I really ... think I have.”

  With his free hand Stephen reached for her fingers which curled up in his. I wrenched my attention away only to find Ito watching me. I wonder if I changed color or revealed any of my inner conflicts. Ito had always understood me too well. He and my brother Wayne grew up together, while I tagged along, the little sister whose red hair existed only to be pulled. But I knew I had them to protect me and sometimes even to understand me. Perhaps now Ito understood me too well.

  I had to raise my voice to make myself heard, for we were now in mid-channel and a warmish, blustery wind lashed hard to support us as we moved with the current in a southeasterly direction.

  “Has anyone thought the troubles in the grove could be sabotage?”

  Stephen smiled a trifle grimly. “I’m afraid that was our first idea. But it’s no use. It would have been easy if we could lay the business on someone connected with the dock negotiations, someone from the mainland who wanted to give us trouble. It would have been less easy if our own people on Ili-Ahi were responsible. But we’ve even investigated that. No dice. It’s just coincidence.”

  Ito and I looked at each other. I think we shared some sort of notion that there was a “curse” on the area, just as some ground is tainted and there are some places where nothing will grow. Deirdre examined her fingernails with an insouciant, cocksure manner which told us plainer than speech that she could explain the whole thing if she set her mind to it. I wondered.

  We barely reached Kaiana Airport in time to catch the interisland plane. Michiko Nagata was waiting for us, but being her usual wise and prompt self, she had already gone on board and was motioning to us from the open doorway. She was stunning and immaculate as ever, with her black hair piled high in a pompadour but the ends curled on the nape of her neck, a style that gave all the wide planes of her face a perfect frame. She was not beautiful, but her friends and the admirers of her professional work regarded her looks as far more interesting than those of any beauty. She knew how to make the very best of every feature—something most of us spend a lifetime trying to achieve and never succeed in doing. She was very modern, which often surprised strangers, and there was none of the old-fashioned, prewar “shyness” that often seemed to be part and parcel of the attractive young Japanese woman.

  Ito hurried ahead and was the first to board. Ito was a very clever person in his own field and outside his home, but within the marriage itself, I had always suspected Michiko was the wise one. I was even more glad to see her than I had expected to be and rushed after Ito. Michiko and I hugged each other as the Gileses followed us inside. I wondered if Michiko remembered, as I did, our last meeting in that desert institution not far from Bakersfield, California.

  We took off almost immediately after Michiko and I were in our seats.

  I said, “You are incredible, Michiko. You never change or get older, not so much as a hair, or a wrinkle. Or one pound.”

  Michiko laughed. “Three pounds, at least, since we last saw you. But you are marvelous. Let me look at you when we aren’t strapped into our little barber chairs. You really look better all the time. Even in that place you had a kind of calm I never inherited from my so-called distinguished ancestors.” Michiko never evaded anything, and she was frank. I felt I always knew how I stood with her.

  Feeling much better, I said, “We can’t both be liars, so let’s assume it’s true of both of us. But I do wish I knew how you keep so young.”

  “Ancestors again. You must choose them carefully. Wrinkles are inherited or they aren’t. We are trapped by the rash marriages of our ancestors.”

  How true that was!

  When we stopped talking I sat there thinking over past good times with the Nagatas and from that reverted to our more recent meetings when I was still a prisoner. I shivered. Remembrances seemed to linger behind me, just a breath away from my neck. I started nervously when someone tapped on my shoulder. For a brief time after I got over my fright, I believed it was Stephen behind me, and that furiously annoyed me. I had no business thinking of him at all in any way. And worse, I was disappointed when I looked around and saw William Pelhitt.

  He was looking happy for the first time since I had known him, and these good spirits did surprising things for his appearance.

  “Got away from my keeper, the lord and master,” he confided.

  Michiko looked around and smiled. I wondered if she too had met the all-powerful Victor Berringer. I asked if Mr. Pelhitt was going to have his fling in Honolulu.

  “Sort of. After I check out a couple of leads. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to go with me, Miss Cameron.”

  I had the feeling that I might discover more than William Pelhitt would about Ingrid Berringer’s life in Honolulu, and I hesitated, with a glance at Stephen. He had overheard Pelhitt’s tentative offer and frowned. We were both startled when Deirdre cut in with bright, uncomplicated laughter, “Judy! Why don’t you go along with nice Mr. Pullet? Michiko and I can do our shopping. Don’t worry. And then, we can all meet at the Kaiulani Terrace and go on to the apartment together. Isn’t that a clever idea, Stephen? Then we’ll be paired up right. Not two pairs and an extra.”

  Stephen said hurriedly, “Very clever, darling, but I think Michiko and Judith had been counting on lunching together, anyway.”

  “They can always do that. And I think we shouldn’t take up all poor Judy’s time while she’s here. We’re lucky to have her at all.”

  “Lucky, indeed!” Stephen agreed and looked at me, questioning. “But you do—”

  William Pelhitt added eagerly, “I wish you would consider it, Miss Cameron.”

  “Maybe it would be better,” Michiko murmured. “We can get together later.” But I knew she was curious. Nor could I blame her.

  By the time we reached the Honolulu airport it had been worked out among the group that Bill Pelhitt and I would follow up two of the addresses where Ingrid Berringer had stayed in Honolulu and which, as far as Pelhitt knew, Berringer had not investigated. We would lunch somewhere in our wanderings and then meet the other four at the Kaiulani out in Waikiki and go to Stephen’s company apartment for dinner.

  As we were about to take separate cabs, Stephen found a moment to exchange a word or two with me.

  “I know you are doing this to take the pressure off my wife. But I don’t like it. Can you trust him? We know nothing about him whatever.”

  I smiled. “He knows nothing about me. And I’m afraid my record is worse than his.”

  “Don’t!”

  I realized suddenly that my flippant remark had hurt him in some way. It was strange that we should react so strongly to each other when we had been acquainted less than a week. Strange and potentially troublesome.

  “I’m sorry. That was just a touch of humor thrown in to—to liven the conversation.”

  “Well, don’t! You must not. Not with me.”

  “Here come t
he girls,” I said. “Good luck with your dock strike or whatever.”

  Michiko and Deirdre came back from the restroom just as Ito and William Pelhitt joined us. The girls and I embraced and they got into a waiting taxi. Before leaving with Stephen, Ito advised me in his usual discreetly low voice. “Don’t play James Bond, Judy.”

  I was almost relieved to be rid of Ito and Stephen. They made me keenly aware of the fact that a young woman had disappeared, that this was not an ordinary afternoon’s date, and that William Pelhitt might still be a mere stooge for the ruthless Victor Berringer.

  Pelhitt had hired a car and explained as we drove off toward downtown Honolulu, “The first place is near the museum here.”

  “The Bishop Museum?”

  “Whatever it is. I was told the street is in that quarter. It seems Ingrid lived there for a while. Of course, it was a long time ago, considering. Judith—may I call you Judith?”

  I had been calling him Bill for several minutes, and I said, “Certainly,” trying not to sound impatient. “But as you say, if that was almost a year ago, why is it important now?”

  We were driving through an area of Honolulu that I had never associated with the high-rise apartments and hotels of Waikiki or Fort and King and other downtown streets. The area was crowded with bungalows of the style sprawling over southern California in the 1920s and still there. The big difference was in the palm trees which punctuated these bungalows. Los Angeles and its desert environs had been thick and dusty with huge, shedding date palms. On these streets populated with predominantly Oriental faces, the trees were coco palms, which had their own lean, willowy grace.

  Bill Pelhitt said suddenly, “You must think I’m pretty much of a cypher, letting my girl go off around the world when I loved her—I really do, you know!—enough so that I’ve never looked at anyone. Not since Ingrid was sixteen.”

  I softened a little. I didn’t want to pity him. Pity wouldn’t help him in the least. But somehow, William Pelhitt always inspired that emotion. It was unfortunate, because he was unquestionably sincere and decent about his feelings, a man caught in a vise by his affection for a girl who didn’t love him and by her father, a man of great force and magnetism.

  “I do understand. But I think you must face the fact that Miss Berringer is not in love with you. It seems likely that she has found someone she cares for and they have simply not bothered to let her father know about it.”

  “Until they need money,” he remarked with an old, weary cynicism that surprised me. “You won’t believe it, Judith, but I was—I am—the only man she could live with. The others will come and go ... if she’s still alive. But you see, I know Ingrid for what she is. And I—care for her that way. Does that sound crazy?”

  “Not at all. I think Ingrid Berringer was a lucky girl, if she had only known it. Now, she may be very sorry.” I turned to him, realizing I might be more encouraging. “That’s probably your greatest card to play. That she will be tired of this life, tired of—whatever makes her roam around like this, with no roots.”

  He sighed. “I wish you were—I hope you are right. You’ve been wonderful for me. From the first minute when Vic thought you were Giles’s wife, I thought—lucky Giles.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I felt uncomfortable and would like to have changed the subject, but that seemed unkind.

  I tried again to bolster him up. “I just wonder if Miss Berringer might come to appreciate you pretty soon. Don’t forget, the action you’ve taken now is very romantic. The dashing man of the world crossing half the earth to see her. Quite different from some casual love—I beg your pardon—casual relationship here in the Islands. Or wherever she has gone. If you will just be patient, I have a feeling that by the time you find her, she will fall into your arms in relief.”

  He thought this over. I suspect it was an effort to smile, but he did so. As we drove along the quiet residential street, I was pleasantly surprised again to see the profusion of tropical and semitropical blooms everywhere. I still couldn’t get over seeing those lovely little flowers called “Vanda orchids” in the shops, growing almost wild on gracefully bending stalks. My companion ventured hesitantly, spoiling my romantic, flowery dream.

  “Do I strike you as a dashing man of the world?” Fortunately, he grinned and made a joke of it before I could reply. He looked around for a parking place. I was still not used to so many of the compact little foreign cars. They were everywhere, but Bill Pelhitt managed to squeeze between a Mazda and a Toyota and as I started to get out by myself, I found my companion rushing around to open the door for me. His gallantry touched me. He looked much younger, alive and eager, and I tried to convince myself that a girl like Ingrid Berringer would prefer this nice, red-cheeked, blue-eyed fellow to the sophisticated characters with whom she was probably involved.

  She was involved...

  Even now, looking back on that time, I remember how firmly I assured myself that Ingrid Berringer was very much in the present tense, very much alive. And the truth was, I had no way of knowing—it was mere wishful thinking. But still, I never once allowed myself to question this firm assumption.

  Bill rang the little doorbell, which buzzed raucously somewhere in the house. A slight, pretty, young Oriental woman came to the door. Her figure was slim as a boy’s in jeans and a brightly printed halter top, and she flashed a welcoming smile. The gleam of excitement in her dark eyes made me suspect the welcome was influenced by strong curiosity.

  “I am Teresa Asami. You are the malahini gentleman who called. My husband is at his job now but he told me you had found out from the Surfrider that Miss Berringer stayed here a few days.”

  Bill introduced himself and me, explained that he was another of Ingrid Berringer’s “relatives.”

  We were invited inside and in the warm little living room I saw sprays of orchids, a vase of beautiful bird of paradise and exquisite watercolors in the Japanese style on the walls, in addition to family portraits. There was one eight-by-ten black-and-white framed portrait of two delightfully grinning young Japanese boys in U.S. Army uniform, though they looked scarcely old enough to be wearing anything but Boy Scout uniforms.

  “My uncles,” Mrs. Asami explained with pride in her small voice. “They were in the Italian campaigns. That was World War Two. You have heard of their motto: ‘Go For Broke!’ They took it from us in the Islands. It is an old saying. Tommy was killed. He is the boy on the left. But Georgie came home. He is a Toyota dealer out Kahala way.”

  “It is a wonderful picture. So very expressive,” I remarked, but Bill Pelhitt interrupted her nervously, “Was it here that Ingrid stayed? How did she find out about it?”

  Mrs. Asami motioned us to a big red plush couch. “Do you drink tea? Or—saki? Malahinis seem to have taken a fancy to it lately.” We refused politely and she sat down opposite us, with a graceful tucking away of those good-looking legs underneath her.

  “My husband is desk clerk at the hotel and Miss Berringer asked him if there was a small place she could rent. ‘Away from things,’ she said. My husband suggested the bungalow next door. It isn’t ours but we rent it out for the owner who lives in Osaka. Afterward, my husband said he should have guessed what she wanted it for.” She clapped her hand over her mouth in sudden embarrassment. “I beg your pardon. I do not mean to say that she—that is, we have no reason to believe she did anything improper, and except for her one visitor, she was absolutely alone.”

  “Please,” Bill put in anxiously. “Don’t hesitate to tell us everything. We are trying to find her, and any little bits and pieces of information may help us.”

  She nodded. “I understand. It was only a few days, and when she left she took a small case—an overnight case, I think. We imagined she would send for her things from the hotel, but during her stay here that was all she had.”

  I knew Bill was frantically anxious, and curious as I was, and I broke in, ‘The visitor. You say she had a visitor?”

  “Oh, yes. That was in the
early morning. The day before she left. My husband and I were sound asleep. He works nights. And we heard this quarrel. The young lady yelling ‘Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Just a complete moron!’ And several unpleasant things like that. My husband opened the shade but we couldn’t see anything. Our windows were open and so were Miss Berringer’s. It—it was quite unpleasant.”

  Bill Pelhitt’s fingers closed on the glass edge of the cocktail table. He leaned forward, wanting to hear more. I had quite an opposite impulse. I knew exactly what was coming. If only I could shut her up, get this Pelhitt out of here without discovering the rest, or what I thought was the rest!

  “Mrs. Asami,” he said, “When Ingrid’s visitor left did you get a good look at her? Could you describe the young lady? Was she—?”

  “Describe Miss Berringer?” Mrs. Asami asked, obviously confused.

  “No, no. Her visitor. This young lady she was calling an idiot and a moron.”

  Still bewildered, Mrs. Asami waved her hands as if to clear the air.

  “Her visitor? I don’t think you understand, Mr. Pelhitt. Her visitor was a man.”

  Twelve

  I am not especially quick-witted, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before I suspected this visitor to whom Ingrid yelled “Idiot!” was the person most nearly concerned with Deirdre. It was her husband. Ingrid had spoken of her one-time friend as a “moron” and had made other cutting remarks, and I thought she would probably speak in this way about Deirdre only to Deirdre herself or to Stephen Giles. It was likely that she would try to hurt Deirdre in any way she could. But this revelation of her quarrel with the visitor was almost as damaging as a public quarrel with Deirdre herself would have been. Only it gave one other person grounds for harming her. And for killing her? But the woman was not dead! She couldn’t be. I repeated this thought to myself. No one had any evidence that she had been murdered. No one!