Hawaiian Crosswinds Page 14

  There was no turning back now, so Eden continued.

  “Dr. Jerome stood there in the darkness on the lanai. There was a bamboo curtain between where he stood and the lighted room. I could hear voices coming from within. An argument was under way, or so it sounded. I think it was Mr. Hunnewell speaking. You know how his voice booms in that kingly sort of way? Well, if he was trying to be secretive, one wouldn’t have thought so. My father just stood there on the lanai listening—” She turned from Rafe and walked across to a window to look out, to calm her emotions. The clouds were still rolling by toward the higher mountains, and gusts of strong wind still blew.

  Rafe didn’t hurry her, and she went on again, “However, I didn’t stay to see what he did, or whether he met with anyone. I was disappointed, upset—so I hurried off toward the front gate intending to return to Kalihi.”

  After a perceptible pause, when it was clear she had no more to divulge, Rafe walked up behind her. Her heart beat faster with the feel of strong but tender hands on her arms.

  “I don’t know why your father stood on the back lanai like that, listening. He could have walked in the front door with Ainsworth and been received with more credibility than Silas. Jerome is a Hawaiian, even if he’s been gone these many years, while Silas, in my opinion, has almost no believability when it comes to zeal for the Islands. He only arrived from the mainland in April.”

  Rafe waited a moment. “Eden, you’re certain you’ve no idea why Jerome went there?”

  She shook her head. “No. What you said about his attending the meeting with Grandfather is correct. He could have. I’ve heard Grandfather try to discuss politics with him on many occasions and my father rarely becomes involved in the discussion.” She turned, her eyes anxiously searching his, and finding restraint. “So why did he go up there? Why was he so distraught? Why stand in the shadows and—and eavesdrop!”

  He looked at her steadily. “Perhaps it was necessary not to be seen by anyone. His disinterest in Hawaiian politics could possibly serve as a cover.”

  Eden tensed. At first her emotions balked. “I don’t believe it of him.”

  “I say it, darling, as a possible scenario, not as a fact, not even something I necessarily believe. What we do know is that he was there on the lanai.”

  Yes, and she was the reluctant witness.

  Rafe went over to the table and poured coffee into his cup. “While he stood there he must have heard Hunnewell and Ainsworth both calling for the overthrow of the Hawaiian throne. There was even the mention of the American Navy. Of Captain Wiltse of the USS Boston lending assistance if necessary, if bloodshed broke out. From the beginning I’d thought it reckless to be meeting the way we did. With so little caution taken.”

  Eden watched him. Did he believe her father guilty?

  “Why did you come out to the garden?” she inquired suddenly. “The meeting was underway.”

  “I believed there was someone standing behind the bamboo curtain. I’d intended to go around the back way and surprise whoever it was, but that’s when I met you hiding on the porch.”

  “I wasn’t hiding—exactly,” she said, embarrassed. “I’d gone there for help, but the door was locked. Then I heard your footsteps approaching. So I stepped back in the shadows so as not to be seen.”

  He smiled faintly, a brow inching up. “No matter. Well, you’re right about Thaddeus Hunnewell. He might as well have used a bullhorn to warn the queen a meeting was happening. Though he’s a smart and talented lawyer, he lacks insight into human character. I told you he was working on an important paper for the Reform Party. It was stolen last night. Far as I know he did nothing to safeguard his work during the meeting.”

  “And when you saw me in the garden, you thought it was me behind that bamboo curtain.”

  He leaned his shoulder to the wall, watching her. “The perfect spy, a medical nurse, always at the scene when needed, limpid green eyes and all.”

  Eden lowered her lashes.

  “I could see you playing the role of a spy for Dr. Jerome, or even for your Great-aunt Nora,” he continued, growing more serious. “Nora could bring the information you provided to the queen to win favor for Dr. Jerome’s clinic, or your father might bring it himself.”

  Would she spy to gain the clinic on Molokai? After all, she was a supporter of the Hawaiian throne. She wasn’t ashamed of her allegiance to the Hawaiian monarchy. Could she spy then? To a certain extent perhaps—but … she didn’t think she could betray other honorable men that she respected like Sanford Dole, and least of all her grandfather. And Rafe? Never.

  Steadying her voice with an effort, she said, “Rafe, I assure you, I was not working with Dr. Jerome last night as a spy.”

  Rafe looked at her a long moment. His vibrant gaze softened and warmed. “Your words are well spoken,” he said gently, “and accepted. I rushed to that conclusion too quickly, didn’t I?”

  She stared at him, surprised and mollified.

  “You admit it?” she said quietly. “You believe me?”

  “I do. You’ve denied it and I take you at your word. We’re in for some rough traveling, if we can’t trust one another when we’re married.”

  Her heart was warmly moved.

  “Still, though,” he tapped his chin thoughtfully, his brisk gaze scanning her with interest. “You’d make a very good one.”

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Easton. Such compliments, coming from you, will soon have me in a swoon.”

  “I thought only my kisses would have that effect.”

  Eden wisely kept silent.

  “Rafe, seriously, I can’t see Dr. Jerome spying for the queen. Unlike Grandfather Ainsworth and Nora, he’s not involved in politics. Without Nora to arrange an audience with the queen he’d never be able to see her. He has no open door into the Blue Room.”

  He folded his arms, leaning there, and watching her. “Your point is well taken.

  “Then again, if he’d been there to aid the monarchists, it wouldn’t be out of personal zeal for a political belief, but to win approval for his clinic.”

  Eden sighed and sank onto the settee again. “Yes,” she said wearily.

  “Then, again,” he said, “even if the clinic does come closest to his motivations, I can’t see him holding the annexationists’ feet to the fire with his father Ainsworth heartily involved in the political movement, and Candace prepared to marry a Hunnewell. Could he betray his family to gain approval of the clinic?” He gave a brief shake of his head. “I don’t believe it’s in him. He’s dedicated to his cause, and if you’ll pardon my saying this, darling, a trifle obsessed over it.”

  She lifted her chin slightly, but was too relieved by his words to be offended. If the truth were known, she too, believed her father a “trifle” obsessed over the clinic, and sadly, over an impossible cure for Rebecca. She had been inclined to overlook these weaknesses because she had her own reason for going to Molokai to meet Rebecca from afar, and to serve.

  “Even so,” Rafe continued, “Jerome’s far too decent a Christian to think the end justifies the means. Ambrose told me your father was meeting with him several times a week now to pray for God’s provision for the clinic. He’s obviously looking to the spiritual and not the political to provide.”

  A giant millstone was lifted from Eden’s shoulders as she realized Rafe had come logically to the end of his suspicions and did not believe Jerome guilty of spying to fulfill a personal cause. Eden stood, feeling stronger and more hopeful than she had at any time since last evening.

  “There’s more involved than the politics of annexation versus the Hawaiian Chiefdom.” He straightened from the wall. He gazed out the window. “I doubt if all those involved are playing the same game. We may be on the wrong track trying to tie all the events and the individuals together into a singular cause.”

  “Meaning,” she said, “that annexation or its counterpart is one cause for some of the actions last night, but that opium and gambling were quite another, and tha
t they both somehow merged?”

  “Exactly. There may be a third reason for some of what happened, too. The Chinese man in silk sounds to me like what Ling has called a ‘kingpin,’ a ruler. After speaking with Dr. Jerome in a manner that can only be described as clandestine, the kingpin departs in his fancy hackney. Who is he and what did he want with Dr. Jerome? Most likely the kingpin is a ruler in the cartels.”

  It was making sense to Eden, but she continued to struggle over why Dr. Jerome would be connected.

  “Zach insists he trailed Silas to one of the Chinese gambling dives in Rat Alley. There, Silas met with the kingpin. Then Silas went to Kalihi to meet Dr. Jerome and bring him to Hunnewell’s to meet the kingpin. Now, as far as the details go Zach probably has it right. But I rather think the man he claims was Silas was our unwanted guest outside under the gardenia bush. In what way was he involved earlier? Surely not in the annexation question! So why did he show up at Kalihi last night to bring Dr. Jerome to Hunnewell’s? Certainly not to introduce him to Hunnewell! But to bring him to speak with the silk-clad kingpin. Was there a message from the opium trader to Jerome? You seem to think the kingpin was angry. If so, why? What was the message? Anyway, with that said, darling, you can see why I no longer think Jerome was spying for the monarchy to gain the clinic’s approval or otherwise.”

  Eden gazed at Rafe for a long moment as she weighed in silence the possible validity of his scenario. So, then! Rafe had come to the conclusion that Dr. Jerome, the Chinese kingpin, and the murdered man were isolated from the doings at the Annexation Club! Great relief winged its way through her soul. Her respect for Rafe leaped forward as she understood more fully that his motivation for trying to discover the truth had never been to undermine her father’s credibility.

  She rebuked herself. How could I have possibly thought I needed to be cautious with Rafe!

  “The Oriental opium trade here in the Islands reaches even into San Francisco’s Chinatown,” Rafe said. “I know this through Ling Li. He’s mentioned it to me several times. San Francisco may well be the cause of our third motivation for some of what happened last night.” He looked at her for a moment as if deciding something. Then, “It’s most likely the trail to and from San Francisco that’s connected with Herald Hartley and Dr. Jerome.”

  She stared at him. “You don’t think Dr. Jerome is in any way involved in opium,” she said, horrified.

  “No, darling. I’m convinced Hartley is chin-deep in the suspicious goings-on with Dr. Chen and the medical journal he brought to your father some months ago. Was Dr. Jerome involved? Maybe not, but if what I think is correct, he may know about it now after last night’s meeting with the Chinese in silk.”

  Eden was at a loss for words. The mere mention of San Francisco’s Chinatown awakened an unpleasant memory in her mind. Dr. Chen, an associate of her father in medical research into leprosy, seemed to step from the fog, and with him there emerged something unpleasant. Something she did not care to think about, that had seemed not quite honest. It was her father’s assistant Herald Hartley’s explanation of Dr. Chen’s sudden death in Chinatown, and of his medical journal arriving in Honolulu inside Herald’s satchel, a gift from Dr. Chen to Dr. Jerome. An old fear half-buried lifted its gaunt face once more and demanded to be heard. Dr. Chen and the journal. Dr. Chen who had died unexpectedly, having made an error in consuming one of his own poisonous herbs for his various avenues of research.

  “Rafe, are—are you going to say anything about all this, and what I’ve told you?”

  He lifted a brow. “To Dr. Jerome?”

  “Well, to Jerome, or to Grandfather Ainsworth—Mr. Hunnewell, any of them.”

  He folded his arms. “No.”

  “No?!” She stared at him. As she did, a faint smile loitered around his mouth. “But … I thought—” she said, and stopped.

  “I know what you thought, my sweet. That I said all this to build a case against him, and now that I have, that I’m going to follow through to humiliate my future father-in-law. You don’t know me yet, do you, Eden?”

  She searched his face, taken aback.

  “I may ask Ambrose to talk to Dr. Jerome, or I may have the opportunity myself if it seems wise, but I don’t want you present. He’d never forgive me for dragging out anything unpleasant that may reflect on his character, not with his daughter beholding it all.”

  Again, he was acting with wisdom, she thought. Maybe Rafe was right, and she didn’t know him quite as well as she had thought? She looked at him, handsome and often enigmatic, and wondered.

  “Let’s go on,” he said quietly. “You turned and left your father on the back lanai. You hurried away and came upon—? Keno and Oliver.”

  “Yes. I ducked behind some shrubs. They were talking. Oliver was rude, even obnoxious to Keno.” She let out a breath. “Keno hit him. Oliver landed in the bushes. Keno was upset and turned and left, going toward the gate.”

  Rafe gave her a moment, then pushed on.

  “This is important. After Keno left, how long until Silas showed up?”

  “Maybe a minute or so.”

  “He spotted Oliver in the bushes, then what?”

  “Well,” she reluctantly admitted, “he gave a chuckle, as though amused. I stepped out and he must have heard my footsteps. He quickly stooped to have a look at Oliver. If I hadn’t made my presence known there’s no telling what he would have done. I’ve a feeling he would have left Oliver in the bushes and went on about his own business. I don’t think he likes Oliver Hunnewell. But by then Oliver was already stirring. I walked forward and asked Silas if Oliver was hurt.”

  “Was he surprised to see you?”

  “You know Silas. He’s almost as unruffled as you are. He asked me to please go for Mr. Hunnewell. He said that the door to the library was open from the side porch. So I went up the steps to enter the house, thinking I’d call for one of the servants to locate Mr. Hunnewell, but Silas was wrong, that door at the porch was locked.”

  His interest sharpened. “He thought the way was open? That’s curious.”

  Eden saw nothing curious about it.

  “Thaddeus Hunnewell uses the desk in the library for his writing,” he said. “The manifesto I told you about would have been sitting on that desk.” He turned toward her. She must have looked tired, for his eyes softened and he looked apologetic.

  “I’m afraid I’m wearing you out. Just a few more questions, darling, I promise. Are you up to it?”

  She smiled. “It isn’t your questions. I was up late last night.”

  He went to the table and poured her some coffee. “You went into the house with Silas and Oliver. Did Dr. Jerome go indoors from the back lanai, say to have a look at Oliver’s injury?”

  She took the cup and walked toward the breezeway, then stopped, remembering what was out there under the gardenia blossoms, and turned back. She looked at him. He stood watching her as if alert to her struggle. Her heart thumped uncomfortably.

  Now it was coming, the personal part that she was involved in, the action she’d taken that now made her flush with embarrassment. She had been unwise in her fears concerning her father and did a foolish thing. She cringed, remembering. She did not want to admit it to Rafe, though she had confessed it as sin to God, but it looked as if she must confess to the man she was going to marry and spend the rest of her life with.

  She began the explanation slowly to work up to the reasons for what she had done.

  She held the cup between her palms and looked into the dark liquid. “If my father did come inside from the back lanai, I never saw him. When Mr. Hunnewell came in to see Oliver, I saw an opportunity to slip away. I went to the parlor where the annexation meeting had taken place. The gentlemen had all either gone home, or were with Mr. Hunnewell who was asking Oliver questions. I stepped out on the back lanai, but Dr. Jerome was no longer there. When I returned to Kalihi later, he was there working, as though he’d never left.”

  “And Oliver?”

&nb
sp; “Oliver continued his tantrum over Keno ‘attacking’ him, as he put it. I knew it was a lie. But how could I say otherwise then? So when he insisted on calling Marshal Harper to come to Hunnewell House I knew I would need to defend Keno, even if it meant giving away my cover. I waited until after the marshal spoke to Mr. Hunnewell and Oliver, and when he left for Ambrose’s bungalow, I slipped away. You know the rest.”

  “When you first went inside the house with Oliver and Silas, who went for Mr. Hunnewell?”

  “Silas.”

  “Did he come back with Hunnewell to see Oliver?”

  She considered. She hadn’t paid much attention. “No, he didn’t come back, come to think of it. Mr. Hunnewell arrived within a few minutes. The men from the annexation meeting came along with him to see what had happened to Oliver. We were all in the library. There was a great commotion, everyone talking at once. I didn’t see Silas there.”

  “Then if Silas had wanted, while the rest of you were taken up with Oliver, he could have gone back to the now empty parlor where the meeting had occurred. He could have stepped behind the bamboo curtain and spoken with Dr. Jerome?”

  Rafe’s voice was deceptively casual. The implication, however, was anything but that.

  “Yes, he could have,” she agreed.

  “Did you go first, or did Silas?”

  She thought. “Silas. I first attended to Oliver.”

  Rafe walked up. His voice was quiet. “And now. Earlier in the garden you had mentioned calling for Dr. Jerome to come and have a look at Oliver.”

  She felt the warmth beginning to rise.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why did you say that when you knew Jerome wasn’t at Kalihi but on the back lanai?”

  She tried to stare calmly back at him but her gaze veered aside. “I wanted to establish an alibi for him in front of you and Silas, and then with Mr. Hunnewell and the other gentlemen—because I repeated the same thing to them. Everyone heard me. I—pretended to send a message to him at Kalihi.” She bit her lip. “Then I told Oliver that Dr. Jerome couldn’t come. He was in the midst of treating a patient, but that I would go to Kalihi, and bring Lana back with me. That much, I did intend to do, but Oliver said he was feeling better. I knew he wasn’t seriously hurt and didn’t need a doctor.”