Hawaiian Crosswinds Page 16

  “I had some curiosity about him from the beginning,” Keno admitted. “I knew he didn’t belong to any of the Bible groups I was involved with. I asked him if he were a Christian, and he said yes. Well, I thought, I don’t believe he is. But that’s what the meetings are all about, bringing sinners to the Savior. So let him get close and feel the holy fire! Well, he did. He came to me a few days later. He was afraid of being seen, and while he didn’t tell me who he was afraid of, I thought I could guess. He asked me to bring him secretly to Ambrose and Dr. Jerome. I did, and Ambrose took us in. Sen asked that Dr. Jerome be there, so I went gallivanting off to locate him. It happened to be his night away from Kalihi, so I was able to find him at Kea Lani. It took some doing to get one of the house servants up and moving. But at last, Dr. Jerome came downstairs. He came with me here to the church, and he and Ambrose must have talked with Sen for over an hour. I fell asleep in the back.”

  “Three hours,” Ambrose corrected. “I’ve not seen such a case before. Sen paced the floor like a caged hyena. Questions, questions, questions. In the end he was praying with me and trusting in Christ. He was truly repentant, but besides that he was convicted about his work and vowed not to have anything more to do with dispensing opium.

  “He was in grave danger from that very moment,” Ambrose said.

  “He knew too much,” Keno added.

  “The main kingpin viewed him as a threat,” Rafe ventured. “Sen would know all of their routes, opium stashes, middlemen, and the top kingpin in the cartel. So he had him killed by an assassin’s knife.”

  “After he was baptized, his public confession of his faith made him a martyr in the making,” Ambrose said.

  Rafe smacked the pew in front of him and stood. “If I’d been around I may have been able to get him out of Oahu.”

  “And be shanghaied to work on the Great Wall of China,” Keno cracked. “It’s bound to need repairs by now.”

  “It would have been worth the risk.”

  “Well, truth is, I did send you a message,” Keno said unhappily. “I was going to have him meet us at Hawaiiana. When you didn’t respond, I figured—”

  “I didn’t get the message,” Rafe said. “Where did you send it?”

  “Hanalei.”

  “I’ve been at the hotel the last two weeks.”

  “Don’t, lads, don’t,” Ambrose said, holding his palm outward, a pleading look on his rugged face. “God is in control of these mysteries of life. The missed appointments, the lost opportunity, the shipwreck, the heart attack … that’s where our faith in Him is tested. How strong is it? Having rescued Sen Fong from a lost eternity, for a reason known only to God, Sen’s violent death was allowed. Even so, I assure you, evil has no permanent triumph. That’s our confidence through this life of trials. All things work together for good to those who love God. So don’t blame yourselves for a message gone awry.”

  Rafe walked over to the window and opened it. He needed fresh air. A rush of fragrance from flowers Noelani had planted came to him on a breeze that carried birdsong.

  “I remember now that Sen had mentioned that he’d warned Dr. Jerome the kingpin didn’t want him intervening in their work.”

  Rafe turned from the window. “Sen told you that, when?”

  “Just yesterday.”

  The very day Sen brought Dr. Jerome from Kalihi to meet with the Chinese man in silk.

  Rafe shot an inquiring look at Ambrose. “Why was Dr. Jerome singled out? You do most of the preaching.”

  “Sen thought it was because they’d heard Jerome founded the mission church. He’s also been more vocal in using the Board of Health to try and defeat the opium bill in the Legislature.”

  Sen Fong’s visit to Kalihi was beginning to make sense to Rafe now. Sen must have been sent to tell Jerome a kingpin wished to speak with him at Hunnewell’s. Perhaps it was the top man himself who had opted to meet with Jerome. What was the message given? Both Eden and Zach had suggested the kingpin grew angry, but the anger may have come only after Jerome declined to cooperate. Did he then tell Jerome to end his vocal campaign against them? He may have been asked to encourage the queen to pressure her Legislature to pass the opium bill when he met with her tomorrow. Had there been an incentive? A large bribe? Or a warning with a promised scorpion’s sting!

  Whatever was said or threatened had distressed Jerome. Eden saw him in the garden pacing and upset. Then he had gone up to the back lanai, but why? Only Dr. Jerome could explain that, and why it was Sen Fong had disappeared in the garden, since Eden hadn’t seen him again.

  Had Sen Fong then gone after the kingpin, following him to the gambling den? It was only a guess on Rafe’s part, but Sen may have thought it his new Christian duty to confront the top opium leader over the way he’d treated Dr. Jerome, a decent man who was trying to help the Chinese people. He may have tried to explain to the kingpin why Jerome refused to cooperate with the cartel. Whatever was said or done, Sen was murdered the next day.

  Rafe turned to Ambrose. “I believe Dr. Jerome was warned last night at Hunnewell’s to cease his crusade against the opium bill. The warning’s likely to extend to you as well. It could prove risky for both of you, though they usually avoid moves against a haole—but where money’s concerned, who knows.”

  “Hold on there a moment, lad, what did you say about Jerome being warned at Hunnewell’s?”

  Rafe told him about Sen Fong and Jerome outside Kalihi Hospital, and Zachary being knocked unconscious as he came through the gate, but he did not mention Eden, or Jerome up on the back lanai.

  Keno gave a low whistle. “Now who would have clobbered Zach, and why?”

  Ambrose too looked worried for the first time. “Did you look at Zachary and actually see where he was hit?”

  Rafe knew why Ambrose would ask such a question. He did not put it beyond Zachary to work himself up into such an emotional storm that he would end up somehow laying the blame on his arch competitor, Silas.

  “I examined him. There was a cut all right, and it fit with his explanation of what happened. He was groggy when I found him in my hotel room.” He turned to Keno. “When you left Hunnewell’s after meeting Oliver, did you see anyone around the garden or outside the gate?”

  Keno stood frowning, staring down at the floor. “I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure?” Rafe’s interest quickened.

  “I thought there may have been somebody. Possibly a movement of someone nearby when I first entered but … well, it was dark, and windy. The bushes and palm fronds were moving. After leaving Oliver my mind was in turmoil, it all happened so quickly. I’d hate to suggest someone was sneaking around when I first arrived. I can’t be sure.”

  If there had been someone nearby after the fiasco it might have been Silas. Despite Zachary’s obsession with Silas, it did look as if Silas or even Oliver may have been near the gate when Zachary entered. Rafe had little choice but to put the matter aside for the present.

  “I’d like to stay and look into all of this,” Rafe said, trying to keep his frustration under control. “But the steamer leaves Honolulu on Sunday morning for the mainland.”

  Rafe looked at Ambrose evenly. “Have you been warned the way Dr. Jerome was?”

  Ambrose looked undisturbed. “No. Not a peep. It wouldn’t do them any good anyway. I think they know that. I don’t want you worrying about me, lad. If the Lord’s not finished with me yet in the work we’re doing here, they’re wasting their time.”

  “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.” Rafe quoted the words of Christ.

  Ambrose nodded soberly. “That, too. And so I shall.”

  Rafe thought of Hiram Bingham, the first missionary to Hawaii. Most of the whalers hated him for hindering their sexual conquests in Hawaii. One night several had gotten drunk and followed Hiram when he left the king’s house. They’d planned to kill him. But a Hawaiian Christian had learned about it and also followed Hiram. When the time came for the drunken w
halers to jump the missionary, the Hawaiian had beaten them off. The whalers had also tried to burn Hiram’s bungalow down, and a church. The opium and gambling cartel reminded Rafe of these whalers. They didn’t want Ambrose and Dr. Jerome reaping spiritual fruit among the Chinese sugarcane workers from the teaching of Christ.

  Rafe snatched up his hat. “The marshal’s been notified by now of Sen Fong’s murder. I’ll need to go back to the house and give him my report.”

  “He’ll want to talk to me about this, and to Jerome as well,” Ambrose said.

  Ambrose was right. The marshal wouldn’t ignore the fact Dr. Jerome was with Sen Fong last night. “If Dr. Jerome can identify the kingpin, the marshal will need to go to the gambling house in Rat Alley,” Rafe added.

  Keno looked at him. “Why Rat Alley? There are gambling dens all over Honolulu.”

  Rafe considered what to say. “Zach claims he followed Silas there. That’s where he met with the kingpin who was waiting for Dr. Jerome at Hunnewell’s.”

  Keno groaned. “Double trouble. We’re all going to be made into Peking duck before this is over.”

  “Where’s Eden?” Ambrose asked, concern in his eyes.

  “At Hawaiiana.”

  Ambrose searched his face. “How much does she know about all this?”

  “Too much. As usual, she’s in the thick of it. She found the body.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

  When it comes to forgetting what Townsend did, some memories don’t deserve to be buried—not yet.

  Rafe felt the wind tugging at his jacket as he stood on the burial ground at Hanalei by Matt Easton’s gravesite. Raindrops met his face as he looked off toward the beach where dim foaming lines of surf washed ashore. Not far away was another grave, that of his grandfather, Daniel Easton.

  Two men, two legacies, Rafe mused. “My father knew how to multiply the land’s produce. My grandfather knew how to look up at the stars and see the Lord’s footsteps moving silently through eternity. I am the restless heir of both men, and God will hold me responsible for the pathway I’ve taken. I can’t live any way I choose, then expect special treatment to be handed to me from God just because Daniel Easton lived a godly life.”

  Early each morning Eden and Herald Hartley left Kalihi Hospital and walked the short distance to Dr. Jerome’s makeshift laboratory at the Kakaako branch of the hospital, near the entrance to Honolulu’s harbor, where the suspected lepers were held for diagnosis.

  The Kakaako branch stood on a sun-drenched shoreline of mostly mud flats and a few withered tufts of parched, yellowing grass, for when the south wind blew, the sea water was pushed all the way in and left the area soaked with salty brine. Suspected lepers were restrained here for long periods until the doctors could determine whether the sores and blotches that afflicted the patients were due to leprosy or another disease of lesser consequence. As Eden knew, most of the patients held at Kakaako would be diagnosed as lepers. When this decision was reached they would be quickly boarded on the leper ferryboat bound for Molokai—the settlement of no return, where they were outcasts for life.

  Thank God the witness of God’s mercy is there, Eden thought. The leper colony of doomed individuals was a picture of all humanity without the redemption found in the work of Christ on the cross.

  “I’ve thought about the justice of detainment,” Herald Hartley was telling Eden as they left Kalihi Hospital porch and walked toward Honolulu harbor to Kakaako. “Though I understand how your sensitive nature may be easily offended by this facility, what does it really matter if some of these ignorant people here do not have leprosy now?”

  “Well, it matters to them. And it’s unfair to label them as ignorant.”

  “Well, quite so. However, even if some of them are afflicted with other tropical skin diseases, they’re also dangerous to the healthy.”

  “But that’s not fair, Herald.”

  “Regardless, it’s still true that they are dangerous! If not leprosy, they have tropical rash-itch, or tuberculosis of the skin, or a later stage of syphilis. So what happens? We determine they are free of leprosy and they’re released to return home with great relief and tell everyone they are clean. But are they clean? They’re even more dangerous for spreading the diseases they do have! So, again, compassion becomes counterproductive. We must approach these issues with strict adherence to the law.”

  “You sound dreadfully callous. Almost as if you’re not speaking about individuals—each one unique, made in God’s image. Doesn’t that tell you how precious they are to our Creator?”

  “Oh, quite, quite. However, we have little choice but to deal realistically when it comes to disease. So we must keep them contained in cages or—”

  Slowly she had been growing impatient with the young man in recent months. As her father’s secretary, Herald Hartley had been his supporter and vocal defender, but as his medical assistant, he displayed uncaring attitudes that she noticed coming to the forefront. The more comfortable he had begun to feel around her, the more he showed a side to his nature that sometimes sounded almost heartless. She now sighed as she considered working beside him day after day at Molokai.

  This morning, however, despite his usual arguments about the strengths and weaknesses of medicine, Eden noticed that he lacked his usual vigor. His tan face was haggard. His shoulders stooped a little under the white medical apron.

  “At least we will soon be off for Molokai,” he said. “Dr. Jerome is certainly pleased with the prospects awaiting us tomorrow with Queen Liliuokalani. Miss Nora has provided your father a splendid opportunity. A delightful lady, Miss Nora. Very practical. No emotional nonsense about her.”

  Eden turned her head and looked at him. Would he imply that she was an emotional creature? It was true about Great-aunt Nora, though. She had showed a bright spirit that morning after receiving a message from Iolani Palace confirming Dr. Jerome’s appointment with Liliuokalani tomorrow afternoon. “Not a thing to disturb your confidence, Jerome,” she had said to him at breakfast that morning. “She’s sent a message to me promising she’ll let nothing interfere with the upcoming meeting tomorrow, not even the pesky members of the Reform Party she’s due to meet with before you.”

  Ainsworth, Mr. Hunnewell, and Rafe Easton were included with those “pesky” Reform members that Great-aunt Nora had singled out without realizing she’d done so.

  Dr. Jerome had seemed to have confidence in Nora, and he’d assured her he was leaving the matter of the clinic’s approval tomorrow to “the grace of our Lord’s purpose,” before leaving the plantation house with Eden for Kalihi. He was now at Kakaako at his makeshift research lab, where he was seeing the leper detainees one at a time, carefully watching every blemish and rising.

  Eden, however, noticed that her father, as well as Herald, had been withdrawn and thoughtful recently, especially since the news of Sen Fong’s murder yesterday. Sometimes she would come upon him standing and looking out a window at Kalihi with a frown on his forehead, his hands folded behind his back in a reflective stance. Herald also appeared to her to be tiptoeing about, jumping with a start when her father turned suddenly to speak to him.

  When she asked Dr. Jerome what worried him he merely smiled tiredly and patted her shoulder. “Eden, my dear, you’ve enough on your mind already.”

  “Is it Sen Fong’s murder?” she asked quietly. Almost immediately, Herald had dropped a vial, spilling the contents on the mat flooring, and her father had reacted impatiently.

  Afterward, Dr. Jerome had looked at her, his deep-set eyes grave. “Yes, Sen Fong. His murder is still a terrible situation for the living. He had a family in San Francisco. … I’ve written them to try to bring some comfort and hope. I don’t know whether Sen had time enough to share his conversion with them by letter, but I’ve explained in as much detail as I could what took place in his mind and heart, and why he became a Christian. Let’s pray that when they receive my letter they will seek to know
more and respond as he did.”

  She would have liked to ask him more questions, but he’d obviously wished to avoid the details, and with another pat on her shoulder he was gone, walking briskly back to the research lab to join Dr. Bolton in a laboratory test.

  Now, as Eden walked with Herald down to Kakaako she frowned to herself. Her father knew more than he was disclosing about Sen Fong. What had happened when he met with the Chinese kingpin in front of Hunnewell’s?

  They neared the Kakaako holding station. Herald paused abruptly, his long fingers tugging unconsciously at the linen tie string around his middle. A muscle at the corner of his bottom lip twitched as it often did. Eden followed his gaze toward the section of sparse struggling turf in its sandy location to a certain good-looking young man in a white shirt with wide sleeves and dark trousers. He stood watching them.

  “That’s Easton,” Herald said, nothing in his voice.

  “Yes, I’m expecting him,” Eden said cheerfully. “As a member of the Legislature, Rafe Easton can bring the plight of the detainees before the others. That’s my hope, at least.”

  Herald gave a nod, but his manner lacked any enthusiasm. Instead of offering to lead the way and elaborate the dire needs to Rafe, he skirted the issue.

  “Dr. Bolton said the government can’t afford to grant any more funds to the Board of Health. Well, I’ll be about my business. I’ve much work to do this morning. See you later, Eden,” Herald said and he walked off toward the building.

  She looked after him, holding back her impatience. A moment later Rafe walked up. He looked after Herald.

  “In a bit of a hurry, isn’t he,” he stated.

  “I rather think he’s avoiding you,” she said with a brief smile.

  “I have that effect on some people.” His gaze warmed as it came to rest on her, causing her heart to beat faster. “Just as long as you don’t sprout wings and take off, my dear Miss Derrington.”