Hawaiian Crosswinds Page 12

  “But you know what Liliuokalani would say,” Eden said quietly. “The native Hawaiians want their monarchy. They don’t want annexation to the United States.”

  “I’m sure a good many of them would vote against annexation if it were put to them today, especially with Wilcox haranguing them as he does, and the queen promising a return to the old chiefdom and the rule of the alii. But fortunately we don’t have to face that vote now. There’s time to show them it’s the best thing for Hawaii as a whole. Times have changed. A few rulers from the noble alii can’t protect Hawaii from the growing bullies coming of age in the Pacific. I’m confident the Hawaiians can eventually be persuaded and vote to be aligned with America if we can explain the reasons why it’s so crucial for the future. In fact, Thaddeus Hunnewell was writing a manifesto on this very topic to present in Washington when the group from the Reform Party meet with the leaders there. Unfortunately,” he said with a scowl, “it was stolen last night from his desk in the library.”

  “Stolen,” she said softly. “Oh Rafe, what if it ends up in the hands of Queen Liliuokalani?”

  His riveting gaze searched hers as if to ascertain whether her surprise and alarm were genuine. She felt a warm flush begin to brighten her cheeks. So that’s what he thinks. That Dr. Jerome may have taken it?

  “If it ends up in the hands of the queen,” he said smoothly, “she may soon be telling an executioner to sharpen the ax.”

  As the coach neared Hawaiiana Eden saw many Chinese workers in the fields. She knew life for them in China was no better, perhaps worse. Of their own will they’d boarded the contractors’ ships for Hawaii. Some, bringing their families, signed contracts to work for a certain wage and a certain period of time on Hawaiian plantations. Many came for the benefit of wages to send back to large families in China. When their contracts expired, the majority remained. They signed new contracts or began their own agriculture, and some set up shops in the Iwilei area of Honolulu. A familiar sight in the Islands, especially Honolulu, was the sellers of vegetables and fruits. They were seen trotting along the narrow streets busily calling out their wares, carried in baskets on the ends of a long pole draped over their shoulders. Many of those who were financially able imported goods from their ancestral countries to sell to their fellow Chinese: precious silks—loved by many haole women too—and also classic chinaware, a certain mixture of tobacco weeds, and herbal medicines considered strange to the haole mind-set.

  They also smuggled in opium. The drug cartel within China sent their “kingpins,” the leaders, to the Islands, some posing as workers for easier dispersal of opium among the Chinese on plantations. King David Kalakaua had signed over the sole right of opium dispersion to one particular kingpin from China who had paid him more than seventy thousand dollars.

  Along with opium came its enslaving twin, the addictive game of gambling. A cartel was working secretly to bring casinos into the Islands from the mainland to hook even more unwise Hawaiians and haoles into risking their money while spinning wheels and shuffling cards. Many Chinese highly esteemed “luck and fortune,” and gambling of all sorts went on privately among the workers, both on and off the plantations, every day of the week. Chinese money lenders prospered through usury, while the Christians in the Reform Party fought against the legalization of drugs, gambling, and prostitution, many of the cartels run by secret kingpins.

  The palms and ferns rustled alongside the road. At last, the Royal Hawaiian hotel coach turned from the dirt road toward the plantation house in the distance. Across the sun-drenched acreage that reached far back toward the Koolau Mountain range Eden scanned the distant hills of green foliage contrasting with dark boulders and streaked with garnet and mauve. Mauna Loa was robed with a mist today after last night’s downpour, but the variegated shades of green, purple, charcoal, and blue remained visible.

  The house stood a princely structure of white surrounded by sage-green coconut palms and a wide lanai. The driver stopped under the shade of several large crape myrtle trees in lush magenta bloom.

  Rafe opened the coach door and assisted Eden from the coach to step into the mottled sunlight. She looked up at the lanai, wondering if Keno were home for lunch, and if Noelani was at work in the cook room.

  She left Rafe speaking with the driver, whom he told to return the coach to the hotel since he had decided to stay in his house tonight. House servants kept up the cleaning, but with Celestine gone and Rafe mainly at Hanalei, the cleaning help only came on the weekends. On arriving, Eden was surprised to find the front door open several inches. Keno must have been in a dreadful hurry earlier this morning.

  Eden entered the wide hall ahead of Rafe, and was greeted by the sounds of near silence: shrubs rustling in the wind, and a creak or a snap of wood responding to changing weather. She became conscious of a disturbing and inexplicable sense of unease. There were no cooking sounds from the back of the house where Noelani would have been working if she were here. So, then, no lunch? Both Keno and Rafe would be more disappointed than she, since she rarely bothered eating at noontime. Her appetite was small, one of the reasons for her willowy figure that made her the envy of many.

  Eden swept across the hall toward the parlor, her favorite room in the house, because Rafe had it designed with her in mind.

  The room was walled on three sides, while the fourth had an archway with intricate wrought-iron scrollwork on the screen doors. The last of the sunlight had faded from the room, but the curtains were still closed against the lanai and the room seemed airless. Eden tucked her brows together. Odd, the front door being left open, and yet Keno hadn’t bothered to open the screen doors to allow fresh, cooling air into the room.

  Eden walked there and drew open the curtains, allowing the gusts to sweep in with welcome relief. The screen side accessed the lanai that faced an enclosed garden of delicate ferns and flowers. Her favorite tree was the poinciana, with blossoms in lush crimson, and an aged hau tree with a plethora of sunny yellow blossoms.

  Odd, she thought again, scanning the garden area below the lanai steps. She had an impression that someone should be around somewhere. Perhaps Keno was here after all, or even Noelani, gathering some flowers for the lunch table.

  But—Eden narrowed her lashes, straining to see where a shadow fell near the white gardenia blossoms. Something else white stretched out from behind the leafy, waxy leaves—no, it couldn’t be—but it was. A man’s leg in a white trouser, with his foot thrust outward.

  Alarm shot a burst of energy through her. It’s Keno! She surged forward onto the lanai, lifted her skirt, and rushed down the steps and across the garden walk to the gardenias.

  The man lay facedown on recently dug garden loam. He wore a white jacket and trousers, one arm folded beneath him, the other reaching forward, the fingers of the hand claw-like. It was not Keno.

  Eden dropped to her knees beside him and felt the outstretched hand, discovering that it was still limp, the flesh warm. The man was rather stout; he may have only fainted from the heat. She felt for the pulse in his wrist, nothing. She put her finger just behind the top of his ear near the temple, but again nothing. She bent over him again, cautiously turning his head enough to peer at his face. As she did, she drew in a sharp breath.

  She sprang to her feet, staring down at the dead Chinese man.

  The sound of footsteps leisurely crossing the lanai caused her to look up. Rafe came down the steps to the garden and walked toward her. He stopped—

  The next moment he had crossed the garden walkway in several brief strides and his hands were clasping her shoulders.

  “Darling, what’s wrong?”

  Eden turned her head toward the flowering bush, and Rafe’s eyes followed her gaze. In a moment he was stooping beside the body. He lifted the man’s shoulder until he could see beneath him to where his chest had lain on the soil. He released the shoulder to fall back down.

  Eden heard him sigh.

  “That’s him,” she said in a tight whisper.

/>   “What do you mean ‘that’s him’?”

  “The man I saw last night with Dr. Jerome,” she whispered. “The man who came to Kalihi Hospital yesterday evening. The man that brought Jerome to meet another Chinese man in front of Hunnewell’s garden!”

  Rafe looked at her sharply. “He what?”

  She nodded. “Rafe, he hasn’t been dead for more than a half hour. It may have been heart failure.”

  “No,” came his terse voice. “There’s a knife under his left rib.”

  He rose to his feet, frowning, looking down on him. “You say this man brought your father to a Chinese man near Hunnewell’s?”

  Eden’s hand went to her throat. “Yes.” She gazed down at the man on the ground.

  “Interesting, I think, that he’s Chinese as well as the other man.”

  “Somebody murdered him?”

  “As you rightly point out, and probably not more than half an hour ago. Furthermore, in my garden … now what was he doing here?”

  Eden had no answers, not that Rafe expected any. She glanced about the garden, feeling a slow tingle rise along the back of her neck. The shadows among the thick ferns and shrubs grew menacing.

  “He wore rings,” Rafe mused.

  Eden followed his gaze to the dead man’s hand and saw pale circles around two of the fingers. “Was robbery the cause of his death?” Eden asked.

  “Perhaps merely an afterthought. Come inside.” Rafe took hold of her arm and steered her quickly toward the lanai steps. “You better tell me everything you know about last night, darling. We haven’t much time. I’ll need to send for the marshal.”

  “This is dreadful! Why would it have happened?”

  “Why does anything evil happen in this life? Come, I need to know everything.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Wicked Discovery

  Rafe led Eden to a comfortable chair to gather her wits while he went off to the cook room. Eden heard an unearthly racket. He returned soon with coffee and a plate of bread, meat, and fruit.

  “How can you eat with that poor dead man out in the garden?” she protested.

  “Not a dead man, darling. A dead body. The man’s soul has been taken away to where he’ll be for a very long time. Anyway, I’d have thought you’d be accustomed to dead bodies by now. Some that are worse looking than this one.”

  “Well, to some degree,” she said, “but this man—or this body if you must be technical—seems different. He was alive last night with my father. I saw him.”

  He bit into his beef sandwich.

  Her stomach felt queasy. She was exhausted.

  “Hand me the sauce, please,” he said. “Keno should be here shortly. Let’s get to the point, darling. This is going to be a busy day.”

  Eden looked at him coolly and sipped her coffee, but even then her throat was dry and she hardly tasted the flavor.

  “So Dr. Jerome was at Hunnewell’s, prowling about the garden with this man,” he began. “Did you know him at all?”

  “No. I hadn’t met him, but I’d seen him previously, even before last night.”

  “Where was that?”

  She tried to remember. The details remained hazy. “I believe it was right here at Hawaiiana.”

  His gaze showed surprise. “It appears I’m not as informed about what’s taking place on my own plantation as I thought.”

  “Oh!” She looked at him, just now remembering. “The door was open a few inches when we arrived.”

  He paused, interested.

  “I thought Keno and Noelani were here,” she continued. “Since they’re not, maybe Keno left the door open for the man to come in. Perhaps he knew Keno as well as my father.”

  His coolly observant gaze fixed on the garden area. Losing interest in his sandwich, he stood, holding a napkin. “I wonder … if he knew Keno, that would change everything.”

  What did he mean to suggest by that? Doubtfully, she followed his glance outdoors.

  “Meaning, that if he came here with Keno’s knowledge he would have expected to meet with him on some matter of importance.” His forceful gaze came back to Eden. “You think you may have seen him here before? Interesting. I’m acquainted with the men and their families on Hawaiiana, and I don’t remember him. With a white suit and rings on his hand, he’s likely not a field worker. Nor would an assassin usually stop to remove rings unless they’re valuable.”

  “Assassin?” she asked uneasily. “Is that what you think?”

  “That’s my guess. I may be wrong, but it looks to me as if someone trailed him here with a purpose to kill him. Taking the rings was an opportunistic theft.”

  Eden shuddered and glanced uneasily toward the garden again, and then to the outer hall. She moved toward him. “How do we know he’s not still in the house, hiding somewhere? The man hasn’t been dead for very long. The murderer may have been inside when I entered. I had the strangest feeling when I came into this room.” She looked around.

  Rafe caught up her hands, bringing her eyes to his. “Steady your nerves, darling. There’s no one here now. I had a quick look around when I went to the cook room.”

  So that’s why he pretended to be so hungry. He hadn’t said anything because he hadn’t wanted to alarm her.

  “Had the murderer been here when we arrived, he would have slipped away while we were in the garden.”

  Yes, that made sense to her. “An assassin,” she whispered, “but why an assassin?”

  “Maybe from an opium or gambling cartel, who knows? We’ve got to think before I send for the marshal.” He looked at the time. “Keno should be here soon. I want to hear what he has to say about this.”

  Eden’s mind raced to the man who’d been with Dr. Jerome last night. There’d been two of them. The dead man in the garden who’d met him at Kalihi, and the one in lordly silk waiting with a hackney. Opium … gambling!

  “So the assassin could have trailed the man here.”

  “Right. Then the victim realizes he’s in big trouble and bolts for the garden, fleeing for his life. The assassin overtakes him and kills him.”

  “But what did he do to warrant assassination? If it’s opium—”

  “That’s what the police will want to know. If Keno can identify him we’ll be moving in the right direction. Now, darling, I want you to go over the details leading to what happened last night.”

  Eden moved restlessly about the oblong parlor. She feared to bring her father into the dark dilemma. But the more she tried to cover his tracks, the more muddled it all became. She must trust that her father had done no wrong, but she must trust Rafe even more. She turned quickly and looked across the room at him. Sunlight streamed in touching the rich woods of koa, teak, and mahogany. She was aware that Rafe watched her, looking calm despite everything. She found his eyes disconcertingly observant.

  “How about it, Eden? I think you’d better tell me everything please, right from the beginning and without leaving anything out.”

  She gave a relenting nod of her head. “It’s true, what you suspect about Dr. Jerome. He was at Mr. Hunnewell’s. I followed him there into the garden.”

  While Rafe listened in silence, Eden told him everything that had happened on the evening in question. Rafe listened attentively, but sometimes Eden had the odd notion he already knew most of the facts.

  “Where I’m concerned it all began an hour earlier at Kalihi,” she told him. “I was on a break from working with Aunt Lana and Dr. Bolton in the leper quarantine area. I came into the nurses’ lounge. From the open doorway I could see out into the corridor near the front entrance to the hospital.

  “My father had entered the corridor from another location. Before I could call to him to join me for coffee, I heard his muffled voice speaking to someone else in the corridor. It turned out to be the dead man.”

  “The Chinese fellow now dead?”

  “Yes. Dr. Jerome said something like, “‘Oh, why hello,’ but I can’t recall the name, his voice wasn’t clear.”


  Her words caught his interest. “Are you saying Dr. Jerome was friendly to him? You didn’t recognize any antagonism in your father’s voice or manner?”

  Had he suspected intimidation? She hesitated, wondering how to explain the change in her father’s emotions without giving the wrong impression. “No, there wasn’t any antagonism, not at first.”

  “Not at first, but later?”

  “It might not have been antagonism, Rafe, but worry.”

  “Did you pick up any other exchanges, or even a word?”

  She shook her head. “The voices were too low. I knew he couldn’t be a patient. All our patients are suspected lepers, awaiting diagnosis. They’re not permitted to leave the fenced area. So his presence there seemed unusual to me.”

  “You saw the man’s face, right? Because you just now recognized him.”

  “Not at first. He had his back toward me. He wore—well, you know, what he has on now.” She glanced toward the lanai. “I saw his face as he walked past the lounge to leave with Dr. Jerome a few minutes later.”

  “It’s the same man. You’re certain.”

  “Yes. It’s him.” She rubbed her arm uneasily. “I did catch sight of someone else, a woman, waiting just outside by the front entrance, but I couldn’t say definitely she was with him.”

  “A woman,” he pondered, gazing off. “What was she doing?”

  “Looking in from the outside steps. She didn’t stay in view long. I caught the merest glimpse of her face. She wore black, and something over her hair. A scarf, most likely. It partially covered her face. I do recall strange red designs on the scarf … I couldn’t make them out.”

  His gaze caught hers with interest. “Zodiac signs?”

  Curious, she searched his face, then shook her head. “I don’t know. It happened too quickly.”

  “So Dr. Jerome left the hospital with the Chinese man and the woman?”

  “Not with the woman. And I don’t know whether she was Chinese. I have an impression she was not.”