Hawaiian Crosswinds Page 26

  “So you took the manifesto and passed it to Dr. Jerome on the back lanai.”

  “How could you know that?”

  “Only a guess; I saw someone back there during the meeting. The question that’s riling me is why would Jerome cooperate. I have my idea, but I hope it’s wrong.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that one.”

  Rafe remained silent. He thought of Eden and took no satisfaction in the confirmation of his suspicions. Then Rafe remembered his meeting with Zachary and suddenly turned toward Silas. “Zach came to my hotel room the night he was bashed in the garden. Do you know if someone else used that walking stick on him?”

  “Oliver whacked him.”

  Rafe tilted his head. “How do you know?”

  “I saw it all. Oliver was behind the gate wall, crouching. When footsteps neared the entry he reached down and scooped up one of those garden rocks Hunnewell has all over his yard. Zach happened to show up at the wrong time. I saw Oliver clobber him. He pulled him over behind some bush trees by the wall. Then he swiftly came through the garden to catch Keno, who was coming in the through the servants’ side gate. I witnessed the whole debacle. I didn’t like Oliver Hunnewell before this incident, but even less now. It gave me great satisfaction to lift the manifesto before he could take it from his own father and give it to the English. I’m just relieved Eden didn’t come through that gate before Zach, though Oliver might have caught himself in time.”

  “You’re right; it’s a good thing she didn’t,” Rafe said too quietly. “Because if he’d ‘whacked’ her as you say—well, we’d best not get into that.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Oliver might have known Zach would meet up with Keno in the garden and that would spoil things. The two of them together walking along to bring you the message about Townsend would have foiled Oliver’s game plan. He wanted to make a big uproar with Keno to cover his own tracks when he stole the papers.”

  “Did he suspect you as his archrival for the manifesto?”

  “Oh, he suspected me all right. He must have learned about me from the English. They’re aware of the gambling cartel and what they’re trying to accomplish in the Hawaiian Islands. They hope to turn it into a tropical Monte Carlo of the Pacific, or another New Orleans. They see people coming here from all over the world to enjoy themselves. Fancy hotels, island food—add the casinos, the chandeliers, the rich folks—and well, they can scoop in as much money as Monte Carlo. So they’re doing everything they can to influence Liliuokalani.”

  Rafe was aware of the plans to turn Hawaii into a gambling paradise for the world. Moreover, the queen was amenable, since she’d been told that such business would bring untold amounts of money into the nearly empty coffers of the Honolulu government. Thanks to the European elite lifestyle of boastful indulgence, King Kalakaua, Walter Murray Gibson, and others who had observed firsthand the royal elite in London and Paris wanted the same extravagance for the royal line of Hawaiian kings and queens.

  “Oliver came to me the other night suggesting a financial payoff if I’d hand over the manifesto his father had written for President Harrison.”

  Rafe gave him a measuring glance, wondering what his answer had been. Silas gave a twisted smile. “I held him off by telling him I didn’t know what he was talking about.”

  “Did he seem convinced?”

  “No. But he had to accept it because Candace happened to come out on her bedroom lanai and looked down in the backyard and saw us.”

  The tide was washing in, and one large wave threatened to overtake them. They dashed for the leaning palms and held on until the wave receded, then ran toward some lava rock above the beach. Rafe looked at the time. Dr. Jerome would still be at Kalihi. Tomorrow afternoon he would meet with Liliuokalani at Iolani.

  “I’ll be boarding the steamer the day after tomorrow. I’ve a last word for you, Silas. The gambling cartel will continue to use extortion to keep you a slave to whatever their wishes may be. As time goes by their demands are likely to grow more risky for you. They’ll find ways to take advantage of your position as a Derrington. Get out now. Break away before the chains are too tight. The price will be higher the longer you wait. Tell Ambrose everything you’ve told me. Ask for his counsel. He can interface on your behalf with Ainsworth. If you’re honest about wanting to change your life, there’s a way to do it. The Lord can lift you up out of the miry clay and set your feet on solid rock. Now you know what you need to do. Go see Ambrose.”

  Rafe held out a hand to Silas. Silas looked shocked. He stared at the offered handshake and then slowly he reached and grasped it in a tight, grateful shake.

  Rafe turned and climbed, taking the path back toward Kea Lani. His horse waited. He wanted to slip away unseen by Eden and meet with Dr. Jerome. He couldn’t tell her the facts as they now were.

  He must confront Dr. Jerome before the meeting at Iolani Palace in the afternoon.

  Below on the lava rock Silas looked after Rafe Easton until he was out of view, and then he turned and looked toward the beach where the waves were reaching high tide. They’d just barely made it up here to the rock. Silas stared down at the foaming waves as they rushed in, then sucked back to sea again, dragging anything without roots out to deeper water.

  “The Lord can lift you up out of the miry clay and set your feet on solid rock. You know what you need to do.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  A Meeting of Minds

  Rafe arrived at Kakaako detention center near the entrance to Honolulu’s harbor and located Dr. Jerome’s improvised research laboratory. The bungalow reminded him of a military hut. Just as Rafe neared, the door opened and a man wearing a white medical coat emerged.

  Herald Hartley?

  It was Dr. Clifford Bolton. Without noticing Rafe, Bolton, unsmiling and haggard looking, came down the rough wood stairs with unusually slow and precise steps. His left foot appeared to weaken, and he grappled for the handrail, but even then went down to one knee.

  Rafe bounded to his side and helped him to his feet.

  “Ah, Rafe Easton, thank you. … I lost my balance there, for a moment.”

  “Hope you didn’t injure your foot. Careful,” he said as Bolton began to take a step down. “Your trouser cuff’s stuck on that nail head—” He reached down to unloose the doctor’s cuff from a protruding nail.

  “No!”

  Rafe drew his hand back. Bolton’s tired face then flushed with embarrassment. Rafe smiled and pretended he hadn’t noticed the unusual reaction.

  “Er, thank you, Rafe, I’ll loosen it.” Clifford Bolton bent and tugged at the thick linen cuff, but it wouldn’t come free. He refused to pull up the trouser cuff that would bare his ankle as Rafe had begun to do. Rafe saw his hand shake.

  Dr. Bolton turned a ruddy color. “Well, if you could just loosen the cuff—”

  Rafe reached down and unhooked the caught fabric, careful to not lift the trouser. He straightened and smiled. “You’re free at last,” he said, adding at once to ease the strange tension, “Is Dr. Jerome in his lab?”

  “Er, yes, inside,” Dr. Bolton said quietly.

  Rafe stepped aside and allowed him to come down the steps. Dr. Bolton thanked him again and walked across the mud flats with yellowing grass tufts, toward one of the holding huts built on stilts.

  Rafe looked after him sober-faced. The doctor’s tread lacked its usual energy. Rafe experienced a moment of darkening depression, an easy emotion to pick up in an environment so lacking in hope. It didn’t take much discernment to guess from Dr. Bolton’s strange behavior what might be wrong, and why he’d been alarmed at showing the flesh around his ankle.

  Rafe entered the bungalow and glanced toward the front desk, where he expected to see Hartley. The bungalow, however, was quiet and appeared empty. Bolton had said Jerome was here. Rafe walked toward the open doorway of a small room and saw Dr. Jerome bent over some test tubes on a long table. Behind him there were rodents in cages, and a few rabbits and three chick
ens.

  Dr. Jerome looked up at the sound of Rafe’s footsteps. An expression of surprise crossed his face, then dissipated … one of the few times Rafe could recall when they’d met without tension in Jerome’s manner. A smile showed on the lean, craggy face, tanned and leathery from years of traversing the tropics of the world.

  “Why hello, Rafe. Come in.” His deep-set eyes told of a determination to achieve his goals, a single-minded spirit. They looked past him toward the front of the bungalow. “Is Eden with you, back from the gathering at Kea Lani?”

  Rafe sighed to himself. The one time when a relationship with his future father-in-law looked possible, there was Hunnewell’s garden and the manifesto to talk about.

  “No, she stayed on with the family.”

  Dr. Jerome’s hair remained dark for the most part, but his long sideburns curving inward at the jawline were partially colored by the gray of age.

  Despite the unusually genial welcome from Dr. Jerome, Rafe noticed that a look of stress hovered around him.

  “How did the meeting go with Ainsworth?” Jerome asked, eyeing him thoughtfully.

  “He wasn’t pleased that I’d wired Parker Judson to go ahead and hire a Pinkerton detective. He would rather I had waited until we were in San Francisco.”

  Jerome gave a nod and scrutinized his test tube, then looked over at his “patients” in their cages. “I think you did the wise thing. The matter is an ugly one, and dangerous. The sooner it’s resolved, the better for everyone, including my brother.”

  Sometimes it was difficult for Rafe to remember that Jerome and Townsend were brothers. They were nothing alike in temperament or appearance.

  “By the way, Rafe, the news of your loan to build the clinic is deeply appreciated. I can’t tell you how thankful I am. I’m certainly in your debt.”

  “Sir, I’d rather you didn’t feel the least indebted. I’m pleased I can be of some assistance. I know what it means to you and Eden. What I came to talk about has nothing to do with Molokai. I’m afraid the subject is apt to heighten tensions between us again.”

  “Oh? Now why would that be? If it’s about Eden—”

  “It isn’t, sir, not this time.”

  “Well, that is interesting. Let me put this tube away, then we can talk.” He smiled and went to secure the test tube and close the door where the critters were kept.

  A minute later Jerome returned, drying his hands on a white cloth. He eyed Rafe, and must have decided he indeed looked grave. Jerome motioned Rafe to a chair, while he sat behind his cluttered desk, pushing things aside.

  “No wonder I can never remember where I put things,” he said casually. “Unfortunately, the mind can become as cluttered … and the heart.” Something seemed to pass through his thoughts of a sober nature, for he drew his brows together. Then he looked at Rafe. The frown left his face and a bit of smile showed.

  “Well, let’s see if we can keep this on friendly terms this time.”

  “This time” was a reference to the last severe disagreement they’d had over Eden going with him to work at the Kalawao leper camp on Molokai, and previous to that it was over the adoption of Kip.

  Rafe had no intention of discussing Kip now. He’d been wondering, even worrying to some extent about how Dr. Jerome would respond to Rafe’s gaining the legal right to adopt the boy.

  Some months ago Jerome had insisted that Kip was to be turned over to his jurisdiction, but Rafe had refused. Jerome had threatened some kind of punitive action but had never followed through. In fact, neither of them had brought up Kip again. There seemed to be an unspoken understanding either that Rafe had won or that Jerome had decided to relent. Rafe hoped it would remain that way.

  Rafe hadn’t accepted the chair. He could rarely sit when he was restless or concerned.

  He paused in front of Dr. Jerome’s desk and looked at him. He dreaded this confrontation. For a brief moment he wanted to turn and walk out, but he couldn’t.

  “Suppose you tell me what this is about, Rafe. I can see you’re disturbed.”

  Rafe placed his hands on the corners of the desk and leaned forward. He met Jerome’s gaze with calm intensity. “Yes, sir, I am disturbed. I board the steamer in forty-eight hours. That doesn’t leave much time to retrieve some important papers taken from Mr. Hunnewell’s desk the other evening.”

  Dr. Jerome stared at him.

  “I just left Silas at Kea Lani,” Rafe said quietly. “He told me he passed the Hunnewell manifesto to you on the back lanai. Don’t blame Silas for talking. I’d already guessed most of what happened. I knew Sen Fong brought you to Hunnewell’s gate to meet the Chinese opium kingpin. He probably threatened you and told you to stop preaching to the Chinese, and not to warn them about opium addiction.”

  Dr. Jerome sighed. “Yes, that is correct.”

  Rafe studied him a moment. “You undoubtedly told him you would do no such thing. Ambrose, too, will keep holding Bible meetings on the plantations with the sugar workers. The kingpin must have known he wasn’t dealing with a man who would turn tail and run. Your travels, your work and dedication to leprosy is well known. He would also know that my uncle, as minister of the mission church, would stand like Joshua against a throng of invaders before he stops preaching Christ to those who need Him, just as Sen Fong stood firm.”

  “Yes, I believe you’re quite right so far.”

  “You were seen in Hunnewell’s garden, sir. You were upset, and struggling with a decision that was painful for you. The kingpin had to have threatened you with something other than burning the mission church down, or even sending one of his assassins. Anything of that nature you would have stood up against and refused to cooperate.”

  “If the mission church is burned to the ground we’ll rebuild,” Jerome said crisply. He pushed himself up from the chair and began to pace.

  Rafe was satisfied. Now it would come out.

  “And if he threatened me or Ambrose with a knife in our ribs, we’d have them arrested and sent back to mainland China!”

  “Right. Something caused you to do as the kingpin asked.”

  Dr. Jerome cast him a frown.

  “Sir, from the beginning I’ve been suspicious of Hartley. From the moment he arrived from San Francisco with Dr. Chen’s medical journal and the unexpected news that he was dead. The kingpin, I believe, has claimed to be a relative of Dr. Chen. He threatened you with Hartley’s theft of the journal and maybe even Chen’s death.”

  Dr. Jerome froze; a look of horror crossed his beleaguered face. He returned to his desk and sank into the chair. He groaned. With an elbow on his desk he rested his forehead against his palm. “Yes, a horrible situation. I couldn’t deal with the far-reaching implications of such a dreadful scandal permeating Honolulu. And the Board of Health—I’ve received little assistance from them since I arrived, at best only sympathetic silence. I couldn’t bear the thought of becoming the object of ridicule, or worse. A scandal over Dr. Chen’s lifetime medical journal—stolen. His sudden death by rare drugs from Tibet! And Herald accused. If Herald is accused, or guilty, that incriminates me as well. Then what? The clinic will be lost! By the time the newspapers get hold of that story and blow it all out of proportion—followed by the older story of Rebecca being sent to the leper camp—” He groaned again and shook his head. “The Chinese had me dangling over a snake pit.”

  “Then he did ask you to take the manifesto from Silas and bring it to Liliuokalani when you meet with her tomorrow.”

  He sighed. “Yes. I went secretly to the back lanai. Silas came after the meeting broke up and gave me the papers. I took them, and during the fracas over Oliver and Keno I was able to slip away quietly and return to Kalihi.”

  Rafe was thoughtful for some time. He wasn’t surprised by any of it. He went over to the small window and looked out, but the scene was so bleak and grim that he turned and came back to the desk where Dr. Jerome sat.

  “The Chinese cousin of Dr. Chen, the man you call a kingpin,” Jerome
said, “has threatened to make all of this known to the papers. He may even seek legal action over the theft of the journal, and he’s gone as far as to claim Herald may have poisoned Dr. Chen. I was so overwhelmed that I did what he asked. I’ve been agonizing ever since because I haven’t made any decision what to do about the terrible situation of the journal and Herald’s actions.”

  “What is your opinion on Herald’s actions?”

  He shook his head doubtfully. “I believe he did take property he had no right to remove from Dr. Chen’s house in Chinatown, but murder him? I cannot bear the thought. I’ve been telling myself he couldn’t have.”

  Rafe looked at him grimly. “You don’t sound fully convinced.”

  “Maybe I’m not. Rafe! This is a hellish experience!”

  “Yes, I agree. And I don’t want Hartley anywhere near Eden at Kalawao. I haven’t liked her working with him in close confines nearly every day here at Kalihi.”

  Dr. Jerome nodded weakly. “Yes, I intend to dismiss him. I decided on that two days ago, but have been reluctant to carry it through. If I dismiss him now, and he knows why, he may slip out of Honolulu. I thought it best to say nothing yet, though I believe he’s very suspicious. He’s walking around me on eggshells.”

  Rafe was relieved that Jerome had come to a crucial decision.

  “Where is he now, do you know?”

  “Oh he’s here. He’s in back helping Dr. DuPont.”

  “We need to confront Hartley. Get his confession. Once he admits he deceived you, there’s little the opium kingpin can do to your reputation. It’s obvious to me, sir, you knew nothing of Hartley’s actions beforehand. What he did, he did on his own. That leaves you in the clear. Even if the newspapers pick it up, they’ll have nothing on you if Hartley confesses.”

  Dr. Jerome looked at him. A glimmer of expectation came to his eyes. “Yes, if he confesses.”

  “I’ve a notion he will. There’s always the San Francisco authorities to hold over his head if he doesn’t come out with the truth—not to mention Dr. Chen’s cousin, the opium kingpin.”