Chapter Nine

A rare treat awaited them when they returned home: a letter from Philip. Max drew it reverently out of the mailbox and then Elizabeth ripped it out of his hand. They sat in the car as she read it aloud, loving each word, from his descriptions of everyday hardships in the Pacific—“cockroaches big enough to walk off with your boots”—to joking mentions of the food that made him miss his French onion soup, tales of friends among the other pilots, and praise especially for the daring-do of one named Chet. Best of all, Philip indicated that he might get leave soon. Max felt warmth pooling in his stomach.

He watched as Elizabeth put the letter to her cheek, closing her eyes as if to channel her son.

Later, in the kitchen, they pored over Jimmy’s list. Max read three names: ‘Father’ Lawrence Hicks, Babs Martindale, and Arthur Pinkus.

Jimmy had added a handwritten note, that Max read aloud:

“I’m not saying any of these people killed grandfather, just that each one wanted the property. Hicks started this Kingdom Come religion. It’s a weird group, you’ve probably heard of it. He wants to set up his commune on the farm land. He was pretty aggressive when talking with grandfather.

“Martindale is the famous lady golfer. She wants the land to build her dream golf course, making it a rival to Pebble Beach. She brags about this great micro-climate in the Foster Valley and how it is perfect for a premier golf course. Grandfather told her that growing food was more important than providing a playground for the wealthy. Grandfather was not always the most diplomatic person.

Then there is Pinkus. He and grandfather were once partners in PurGro Strawberries. Grandfather said Pinkus was not very pleased when we went on our own, buying property through Uncle James. He’s been fighting us ever since, trying to make shipping our product more difficult or hiring our field workers away from us at harvest time. Petty stuff like that. Plus, his son, Arthur, Jr., a naval officer, was killed last month in the Philippines. He must be in pain now. Who knows who he blames for that death? And he’s offered to buy our land more than once.”

There was more, but Max stopped. Pretty much the same information he’d gotten from Tadeo. But Pinkus losing his son was new and added a deeper level of motive.

Finally, Elizabeth said, “Go on. What else.”

“There’s a couple others, too,” Max continued. “A guy about grandfather’s age, Kito Watanabe. There’s some kind of feud between them. Nobody knows what it’s about. And there was also someone from grandfather’s past, someone he knew in Japan and who he felt he had badly wronged and he was trying to make up for it. I’m not sure, maybe it had something to do with that incident that made him give up alcohol forever. Maybe it’s even Kito Watanabe. Sorry to ramble on, but I want you to have all the information I can think of. Thanks again for your help.

Jimmy”

After Max read the note aloud, then a second time silently. The last mention brought to mind Tadeo’s story about his friend Basho and their drunken fight.

But he put this thought on hold when Elizabeth said, “These three people who want the property. That doesn’t make sense. I mean, how would killing Tadeo help someone get his property?”

“Well, Jimmy told me that Tadeo would never sell, but that James has had some talks with those folks. Guess he’s tired of being a farmer.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Okay. You get rid of Tadeo and James might be amenable to a sale, right?”

“That’s one way I can see it.”

“Okay. Second question, and sorry to bore you as you are probably already there…”

“Don’t be silly.”

“With internment coming up, why bother killing Tadeo in order to deal with James? Why not just wait for the whole family to be rounded up and then the property would most likely come up for auction?”

“Another good question.”

“And you’ve got the answer, right, Captain Byrns.?”

He nodded. “No auction. Farm land like the Suzuki’s is going to be confiscated by the government for ten cents on the dollar of its true value. Some in the Japanese community are signing over their property to lawyers they can trust. So getting rid of Tadeo to be able to deal with James is a matter of urgency. Any sale has to go through before the internment begins in March or April.”

Saying this, Max now realized he had to face a ticking clock for his investigation. No leisurely search for clues but a pressure cooker ready to explode. Catch the killer before internment.

“You’ve already been looking at Tadeo’s death from this angle, I assume.”

He heard humor in Elizabeth’s voice, the same tone she used when complaining about his old Barbour jacket, but Max knew she wasn’t entirely joking. He’d learned to be close-mouthed about investigations but sometimes they spilled over into their private affairs. The strong, silent male drove her crazy. He just wished that strong, silent male was still around.

Max now caught her contented cat smile.

“What?” he said.

“I think I can share something you don’t know.”

“Please do.”

“You wondered about how Tadeo was able to make his first land purchase. Where he could get that kind of money.”

Max nodded again.

Another smile from Elizabeth; she was enjoying this, Max knew.

“And…” Max said impatiently.

“Did you notice the art on the wall of the Suzuki house?”

“The woodcut print? I did and I told myself you would know who the artist was.”

“Moroko Takanubo. Mid-eighteenth century.”

“There you go,” Max said.

“One thing, though. Not a ‘print’ in the way you’re thinking. It’s an original woodblock impression. And there was only one impression. The blocks were destroyed thereafter. And the one on the Suzuki’s wall is an original. Part of the two missing pieces of the Seasons quadriptych. Hanging on that wall is Spring. The Met owns Autumn and Winter. So I assume—”

“—That the darker square on the wall next to the woodcut was where Summer was hanging until Tadeo cashed it out for the money to buy his land.” Piece of the puzzle, he wondered, or just flotsam? “How valuable are those woodcuts?”

“For some collectors, invaluable, but I imagine you could buy a good deal of acreage, even twenty years ago, with one of those.”

“There’s no record of Summer being sold?” Max asked.

“No. But not surprising. A lot of art sales go unrecorded. Collectors buy it to hang in their private collections and they’re the only ones to ever lay eyes on it. They can be a strange breed, art collectors.”

“What the hell was a farmer like Tadeo doing with such valuable art work?”

Max began to wonder how much he really knew about Tadeo Suzuki.

That evening they received a call from Jimmy Suzuki.

“Mr. Byrns, I just wanted to let you know that there will be a service for grandfather tomorrow evening at St. Matthews in Franklinburg. You’re welcome to come.”

“We most definitely will come, and thank you,” Max said. “I didn’t know Tadeo was a Catholic.”

“He wasn’t. In fact he wasn’t anything. The local Buddhist temple wouldn’t have the ceremony because he never attended, and he and the Buddhist priest here did not get along. So, Uncle James talked Father Logan into letting us use his church on Saturday evening. It’s going to be a wake and funeral ceremony all in one. Uncle James is very economical minded. Anyway, it begins at six.”

Then an awkward silence.

“Your Uncle James is still on the warpath, huh?”

“You could say that.”

“Alright, Jimmy. How about we sit in the back? And if he asks, I’ll say I heard about it from some guys downtown.”

“Thanks for understanding, Mr. Byrns. I just don’t want any arguments. Not on Grandfather Tadeo’s day.”

But they kept running into arguments, and not from James Suzuki.

When Max and Elizabeth arrived Saturday evening, they could see that Japanese-hating Frank Carswell and a contingent of his racist friends had already set up a picket line around the church. The sun had just set, but Max could still read the signs they carried: “No heathen funerals in our church.” “Keep the Japs out of St. Matthews.”

They were a dozen or so and they were effectively blocking the entrance to the church as well as to its parking lot. As he idled by, Max noticed the Suzuki family members standing meekly as James talked with Carswell. Jimmy stood apart, pacing up and down.

About fifty of the Japanese community were gathered across the street and among them were a score of men balling their fists, shifting weight from foot to foot, looking to Max as though they’d had enough of being pushed around.

“We need to do something,” Elizabeth said.

Max found a parking spot up the street. “You stay here,” he said, getting out of the car.

“No. I’m coming with you.”

He knew it was pointless to argue, but he didn’t want to let her into a potentially dangerous situation. “They might be armed.”

“All the more reason for me to come. Someone’s got to watch out for you.”

“Very funny.” But he relented. Focus, he told himself. One step in front of another. His mantra since the shooting.

They crossed to the church and as they approached, he could hear Carswell, a weaselly looking bloated man, telling James, “I say for the last time, ain’t no goddam Jap getting a ceremony here. This is a white man’s church. Use your own.”

“Be reasonable, Mr. Carswell,” James replied. “My father—”

“Hell with being reasonable. Reasonable is what got us into this war with you.”

“I am not the enemy. I am an American citizen, Mr. Carswell. Just like you.”

Max noticed Jimmy now moving toward them and it was clear he was not in a talking mood. Things were going to get out of hand, and by the bulges Max saw in the coats of Carswell’s men, they’d come armed. He felt a panic, a deep resonance with the shooting in New York and suddenly realized that Jimmy reminded him of David, the young man being arrested at that time. Philip’s childhood friend.

Making this connection stilled his panic before it could overwhelm him.

Okay. Time for intervention.

Max pushed himself between James and Carswell.

“Well look who’s here,” Carswell said, eying Max up and down. “If it ain’t the Jap lover.”

The words hit him like a fist and instantly Max knew the identity of who had killed their dog. Though Elizabeth’s gambit of planting a false story of bloody fingerprints on their windshield may not have worked, Carswell’s first-grade vocabulary did the job for him.

Max, making sure to keep Elizabeth behind him, then eyed his opponent. Carswell was about six feet and fifty pounds overweight. Slow moving like a pregnant bear. Max’s training had taught him five ways he could make this piece of shit suffer even before he broke his jaw or nose.

But he could not go that route, not with all these bystanders.

So, he said, “You seem to be a busy man, Mr. Carswell.”

Carswell squinted at Max. “It’s our duty to keep America safe. And we don’t need any meddling Easterner come in here to tell us what to do.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Max said. “I would remind you, however, that this is private property. It belongs to the diocese of St. Matthews.”

“It’s a public sidewalk, idiot.”

Good, Max thought. Fish to the bait.

“Actually, no it isn’t. This is an unincorporated neighborhood and the owners pay for amenities. That means sidewalks, cesspools, that sort of thing.” Which earned him a glare from Carswell.

“So actually, you and your friends are trespassing. The Suzuki family has secured the use of this edifice for this evening and it is of no concern to you or your friends.”

“It’s no damn edifice, it’s a church, by god. And speak regular English, why don’t you?”

“He is, Mr. Carswell.”

Max, intent, had not noticed the approach of two others. He looked and recognized Sam Norton, the lawyer representing many of the Japanese community, a tall, thin, red-haired man who went hatless. Next to him a graying man in a clerical collar, which would make him Father Logan. And looking as if he was ready to pass the last judgment on Carswell.

Nice to have reinforcements, Max thought.

“He is also speaking both the truth and the law,” Father Logan told Carswell. “These people have come to pay respect to a valuable member of this community, a man who supplied jobs for hundreds of our citizens, not just Japanese Americans, but probably also for some of you men or your relatives. This is a night for solemn reflection, not hatred.”

“He was a goddam Jap spy,” Carswell spit out.

Max felt anger coiling in his gut.

“No,” Norton said. “That has been disproved. Whatever brought the unfortunate Mr. Suzuki to the Bluff that night, it was not to aid the enemy.”

“You’re all so damn smart. But sometimes you just got to act, not talk.”

Max felt like taking the bastard’s advice and slamming a fist into his puffy face, but held himself.

Turned out to be a good decision, as Father Logan, when it came to a talk down, was no sissy.

“A fine sentiment saying it is a time for action,” Father Logan said. “And I wish you men the best after you enlist on Monday. I personally will spread the word tomorrow at services of your courage and determination to fight the enemies of this fine country of ours.”

Carswell now shrank, looking from Max to Father Logan and Norton, and then to his men who’d also heard the challenge.

Then silence that stretched out too long and Max feared this was going badly. He reached for Elizabeth’s hand and made sure she was still behind him.

But Carswell blinked first. “Hell, we just come to help out, Father. Didn’t know it was arranged legal and all.”

“It’s all legal, Mr. Carswell, I guarantee you,” Father Logan said.

Another pause. “Okay then. I guess we can go.”

Carswell muttered to his men and they shot evil glances toward Max, Norton, and even Father Logan. But they then ambled to their battered pickups and drove off.

Max breathed a sigh of relief, his heartbeat back to normal.

Once they were gone, James Suzuki said, “Thank you, Father Logan.”

“And to you too, Mr. Byrns and Mr. Norton,” Jimmy added, now joining the group.

Norton and Max exchanged looks. Here was a man Max wanted to get to know. Word was, he even acted on a pro bono basis for the soldiers at nearby Fort Ord, writing wills or dealing with other legal matters before they shipped out.

And Carswell was a man Max vowed he’d get even with. Unfortunately, he had an unshakable alibi for the murder of Tadeo: Captain Wilkins had said Carswell was on Coastal Guard watch that night.

But there’s other ways, Max thought, remembering Elizabeth’s silent tears at the pup’s death.

Jimmy now called out to the others across the street. “Let’s give Tadeo Suzuki the send-off he deserves!”