Chapter Twenty-two

“Frank Carswell,” McCall said in a nasal snarl, standing at the front door at a quarter after eight next morning.

Max was still in pajamas and slippers, and here was McCall all vitriol and spitting-cat mad telling him they had another murder. But the words hit. A moment of clenched-fist exhilaration—the bastard deserved to die. But this was tempered by the realization of how another death further complicated the investigation.

“That makes four in less than two weeks. We’ve got a goddamn crime spree going on in this county where there wasn’t a murder in ten years. Not counting old Mrs. Banks, but she was killed by her drunk husband who turned himself in the next day anyway. Then you come to town.”

It had turned chilly; overcast with a stiff breeze out of the south and Max was cold standing at the front door.

“Either come in or come back later when I’m dressed and had my coffee,” Max said irritably. “And I hope to hell you aren’t thinking of charging me just because I’m new to town.”

McCall ignored this. “Carswell’s body was found at the bottom of the cliffs pretty near where they found Tadeo Suzuki.”

Max felt his stomach tighten but refused to let anything show on his face. That would make three murders apparently connected. Aleotto’s death was still the outlier.

“You coming in or what?” Max said.

“Yeah. I’ve got a visitor with me, too.” He thumbed over his shoulder to his patrol car.

Max saw a heavyset guy in black suit, black fedora, and black tie sitting in the passenger seat. FBI. Might as well be wearing those initials tattooed on his forehead.

“Well, bring him along, then. I’ll get some clothes on. What the hell happened with Carswell?”

“Thought you might be able to tell me.”

“Very funny, McCall.”

“Fell. Or was pushed. Just like Tadeo.”

“So maybe Carswell is a spy, too?”

He left before McCall had a chance for a reply, leaving it to Elizabeth to get the two men settled in the kitchen. She was none too happy about it, still angry with the sheriff for arresting Max.

“I hope he chokes on his coffee,” she muttered as Max went to get dressed.

Passing Philip’s room, his son called out, “What’s up, Dad?”

“Another body.” He looked in; Philip was still in bed.

“Not another Suzuki, I hope.”

“Carswell. The cretin hater of all Japanese.”

Max felt no joy at the man’s death. He had wished to put him behind bars, yes. But for someone to play self-appointed executioner made him mad as hell.

Philip took it in stride, nodding. “I could see that one coming. Guy had to have lots of enemies. Who’s here?”

“Sheriff McCall and a visitor. By the looks of his clothes he must be Aleotto’s replacement. Get dressed. We’re having a pow-wow.”

“I don’t think that’s a great idea. If he is the FBI replacement, I don’t want him to get too familiar with my face. I’ll just keep an ear open from here.”

“Suit yourself.”

Max quickly changed into old chinos and a flannel shirt and went back to the kitchen where he smelled fresh coffee brewing.

“Never figured out why you bothered coming back here, Lizzy,” McCall was saying as Max arrived.

“Because it is such a warm and welcoming community,” Max said. “With a homicide rate to compete with Manhattan’s.”

“You’ll have to pardon Mr. Byrns,” McCall said to his companion seated next to him. “He thinks he’s a comedian.”

“I’ll just let you gentlemen talk in peace,” Elizabeth said, raising an eyebrow at Max. She departed the kitchen with the alacrity of a schoolboy sneaking off for recess.

McCall waited a beat before beginning. “This is Agent Henshaw. He’s here to help out with things.”

Max nodded at the sullen man who held meaty hands around his cup of coffee as if protecting it. He’d taken off his fedora to reveal a crew cut. Max joined them at the table.

“Agent?” Max said “That wouldn’t mean the FBI, would it?”

Henshaw didn’t bother with words, just nodded.

“Seems these murders are a little local for the FBI,” Max added.

When Henshaw finally spoke, his voice was a smooth, low, menacing monotone that expressed far more threat than any histrionics might have.

“We’re not interested in what you’re thinking, Mr. Byrns.” He stared levelly at Max, unblinking. “I checked you out. Had a pretty decent career in New York before you got in the way of a bullet. A bullet intended for a Japanese thug of a kid. And now here you are trying to defend some more Japs. You a sympathizer, Byrns? You know there’s a war going on? From what I understand, you’ve even got a son in the air corps. Fighting the same Japanese you’re trying to protect.”

Max tapped a forefinger on the table, slowly, methodically. Trying to still himself. Trying to keep himself from grabbing the fat bastard Henshaw by his stupid black tie and throttling him. Finally slowing the adrenaline rush, he spoke: “We’re talking about different Japanese, Agent Henshaw. These are decent people, fellow Americans, the ones born here. And their parents and grandparents who weren’t allowed to become citizens. But they’re every bit as loyal as you.”

“Christ, Byrns,” McCall said. “You always have to make things so difficult? I just came to pay a polite call and ask your whereabouts last night.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Talk was, Carswell was the one killed your dog. And you two had a run-in at that Jap rally last Tuesday. So, no, I’m not joking.”

“You’re wearing the badge, McCall, so okay. I was home last night. All night. With my wife.”

“Not much of an alibi,” Henshaw muttered.

McCall smiled at this. “Don’t take it so personal, Byrns. We’re checking on others, too. Sam Norton’s been making noises around town about getting even with Carswell for giving him a concussion at that same rally.”

“Sam’s a lawyer, not a killer,” Max said. “And have you seen him? He’s still walking on eggshells after that whack on the head.”

“Maybe,” McCall allowed.

Henshaw squinted hard. “I got a question for you, Byrns. Sheriff McCall here tells me it was you brought a fellow named Joe Aleotto, aka Joe Allen, to his attention. Something about him planting a flashlight at the scene of the crime.”

Max took a moment before responding, considering his options. “Don’t know anything about an Aleotto, but Allen, yeah, he admitted to me that he planted the flashlight to make the victim, Tadeo Suzuki, look guilty of espionage. Of sending coded messages with the light.”

“And why would he want to do that?”

“To take the heat off the Italian Americans. To make it look like the Japanese Americans are the ones you can’t trust.”

Henshaw pouted his lips. “What put you on to him?”

Max shrugged. “Instinct.”

“Voodoo criminology,” Henshaw said, which brought a sycophantic laugh from McCall.

“So what’s your interest in Mr. Allen, Agent Henshaw?”

“Just another victim in this little crime spree you folks got going here. Sheriff McCall’s medical examiner tells me you borrowed the prints from that flashlight for a time.”

Max took a breath. “Right.”

“Find anything interesting?”

Max was ready for this one. No way was he going let this get tracked back to Herb Teller. “I used it as a bluff with Allen. Told him I traced his prints to the flashlight and he pretty much crumbled like stale cake. Gave me chapter and verse.”

Henshaw sucked on his lower lip. “Interesting… . I don’t think you need to be messing around in this case anymore, Byrns. We got plenty of help now.”

There was silence for a time. Then Max said, “Thanks for the message. Now unless you two gentlemen have a warrant, I guess it’s time you leave. From what I understand, the Fourth Amendment is still in effect.”

McCall and Henshaw exchanged smirks.

Max couldn’t hold it back any longer. He stood suddenly, hands turned into fists at his side. “Now.”

“See what I mean?” McCall said to Henshaw, and the FBI man shrugged. Then Henshaw stood facing Max.

“By the way,” he said, “these ‘fellow Americans’ of yours are on short time, Byrns. New directives just came in from Washington. They’ll be rounded up in two weeks and sent to a holding camp before transport to the permanent camps.”

It wasn’t so much this information but the FBI man’s obvious glee at it that made Max’s stomach churn, made him want to wipe the smirk off the bastard’s face.

“I’m sure you get the message, Byrns,” Henshaw added. “We don’t need any hobbyists messing around in this case.”

“What case would that be, Agent Henshaw? Exactly which death are you talking about? And where the hell is your jurisdiction here?”

“You’ve got a nerve, Byrns.”

Henshaw’s voice had lost its measured menace now, increased in amplitude. A small victory for Max. He stood his ground as McCall and Henshaw shuffled out of the kitchen.

From the door, McCall made a parting shot. “Just stay out of it, Byrns. We got this handled.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. Got it all wrapped up like a Christmas package.”

The front door closed and both Elizabeth and Philip soon appeared.

“Well, that was a productive conversation, Dad.”

“Got my appetite up, though.” He grinned, unclenching his fists. “Let’s have breakfast.”

He’d had a big day planned already before learning of Carswell’s death. First off, he wanted to examine the scene of Jimmy’s death, a parking lot at a lake in south county. Wasn’t expecting squat with that, but he wanted to be thorough. And now came this fourth body. Shit. Better make it a three-egg breakfast. No telling where he’d catch lunch

Before he drove out to Hanson’s Lake, Max checked under the car. It had become a habit by now. Amazing what we get used to, he thought. Just a quick check for a cut break line, a bomb set to ignite. A parting gift from Joe Aleotto.

The Olds started up sweet as usual and he got to the lake in fifteen minutes. The working stiffs of Franklinburg and their families went on picnics to Hanson’s Lake, about the size of a postage stamp compared to real lakes like the ones where Max had spent his youthful summers in upstate New York. Still, even on a windy and blustery day like today, the shore was packed with hopeful fishermen; you could hear a smorgasbord of languages at lakeside.

But Max was not interested in the lake or fishing. This was where Jimmy’s body had been found, according to the crime report. He’d driven his grandfather’s old Ford jalopy here, just as Tadeo had earlier driven it to his death at the Bluff. That was the obvious theory, anyway. The Ford had still been parked in the lot near the entrance to the lake last Wednesday when Jimmy’s body was discovered. So, clearly the rendezvous with the mystery man, Basho, was set for Hanson’s Lake. And according to Sherry’s autopsy report, the meeting must have been set sometime between nine and eleven at night, the approximate time of Jimmy’s death.

Stupid damn kid, Max thought again, parking by the roped-off crime scene and getting out of the Olds. You’d think he would have been more suspicious if some stranger wanted to meet him at a secluded spot after dark. Youthful bravado, that’s what really got Jimmy Suzuki killed, Max thought. The hubris of the young who feel immortal, with decades of life ahead of them.

A yapping dog brought Max out of his dark thoughts. He could see it far up on a grassy hillside overlooking the lake, straining against its lead, lurching forward and being continually tugged back by the fixed leash around its neck; the tug and jerk back were followed by the sound of the bark, divorced from motion of the dog’s jaws, like a movie out of synch. Behind the dog was a two-story farm house badly in need of a paint job. A young woman appeared from the house, clapped her hands at the dog and then noticed Max far below in the parking lot and quickly went inside.

He turned his attention back to the crime scene, hoping to find some trace of the other vehicle that Basho came in. A county employee who’d come to Hanson’s Lake early Wednesday morning to pick up trash from the bins had discovered Jimmy’s body. Since then, McCall and his men had had several days to investigate, but if the sheriff’s visit this morning told him anything it was that McCall was no closer to the truth than he had been when he’d arrested James Suzuki with no physical evidence for the deed. Max doubted if McCall’s men had even bothered to check the crime scene other than to rope it off.

But after ten minutes of searching, Max had to admit there wasn’t much to be discovered here. A dark stain on the tarmac could be dried blood. No tire marks or bits of damaged car. Max walked around the roped area to the verge by the tarmac. Tall grass grew in profusion after the big rain last Monday, the day before Jimmy’s death. He was hoping that whoever Basho was, he was careless at the wheel and that he might have veered off the paved area onto the soft grass and left a tire print in the dirt.

Max redoubled his efforts, scouting the edge of the paving twenty yards on both sides of the crime scene with no luck. Finally he told himself nothing to be learned here.

So much for the crime scene.

The dog began barking again. Max looked uphill and then in all directions around the lake. It was the only house he could see. He pursed his lips, squinting now as the sun came out from in back of a cloud. So there’s nothing of interest here at the crime scene. But how about that house?

Back in the car, he drove out of the lake entrance and turned right, looking for a driveway to the house on the hill. He finally saw a metal mail box about a quarter mile up the road on the right and this also marked a narrow drive that climbed steeply up the hill. As he approached the house, the sound of the dog’s barking grew louder and more insistent.

Good watchdog, he figured. And very annoying.

Max parked the car well out of reach of the dog’s leash. It was a hound of some sort; he wasn’t good at dog breeds. But its head looked big enough to swallow a lap dog. There was a dog house, Max noticed. Good. Meant it was an outside dog. It would be barking day or night at any activity in the parking lot below.

He had no chance to even knock at the door. His hand was ready to tap when the door opened and he was greeted by a short, rather thick woman whom he immediately recognized.

“Everybody in San Ignacio knows Betty Waller,” he said, mimicking what she’d said when they first met at her desk outside of Sheriff McCall’s office.

This momentarily replaced her suspicious squint with a grin. “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Byrns. What brings you out here?”

There was false cheer in Betty’s voice, he thought.

“I suppose you know I’m helping out on the James Suzuki case.”

“Helping out Suzuki,” she said. “Yeah, I heard. Pretty hard for me not to hear about it where I work.”

“Right.”

Her eyes squinted again. “So, what can I do you for?”

She was standing full in the doorway, clearly not wanting to invite him in.

“I was just down at the lake, checking out the crime scene. Then I heard your dog barking.”

“That’d be Fluffy. He’s got a healthy set of lungs on him, alright,” she said.

“Fluffy?”

“Well, that’s what my daughter calls him. She was only seven when we got him as a pup. He was sort of fluffy then.”

Max re-arranged his previous assessment of Betty Waller, seeing her empty ring finger and figuring never married. Widowed? Divorced?

“He’s a powerful looking animal now,” Max said with a smile. “But anyway, hearing him way down the hill like that it got me thinking. I bet Fluffy’s a pretty good watch dog. Doesn’t seem to miss much and it looks to me like he’s an outside dog. I was just wondering if he might have started barking up a storm last Tuesday night when a couple of cars showed up in the lot below here?”

He could see her body tense at the question, though he had to hand it to Betty—she controlled her facial expression.

“Tuesday night?”

“As in the night Jimmy Suzuki was killed down by the lake.”

“That was a pity. I work for the sheriff and I’ve been around crime, but still it gives you the creeps to live so near where someone was killed. And I didn’t hear a thing.”

“So Fluffy wasn’t making a fuss?”

“He might have been, but after a while you just don’t pay him attention anymore.”

“Seems like your daughter does, though. I assume that was her shushing Fluffy a while ago.”

“I can’t say she did.”

The young woman—a teenager—he’d seen from below now came up behind Betty at the door. Unlike her mother, Max noted, she had fine features, and a smile that made you look twice.

“Mom, I told you so.”

Betty turned quickly. “Ruth, you don’t have to get involved in this. None of us do.”

“But they’re our neighbors. Yuki Suzuki was always kind to me at school, like an older sister. It’s not right.”

“What’s not right?” Max asked.

“Look Byrns,” Betty said, her tone turning stern. She stood between him and her daughter. “It’s easy for you to come waltzing in here, stirring up trouble. You’ve got the Schuyler money to fall back on. Me? I’ve got a job at the sheriff’s department that puts food on our table, keeps the roof over our heads. That deadbeat ex of mine…”

“Mom.” Ruth put a consoling hand on her mother’s shoulder. “We need to help. We need to do what’s right.”

He didn’t interrupt. Ruth was doing just fine.

Betty threw her hands in the air. “Do-gooders, the pair of you.” Then to Max, “There’s nothing really to tell. I just figured it was easiest to keep mum. Sheriff McCall doesn’t much care to have his boat rocked. But then I guess you already know that.”

Max nodded at this. “So why not just tell me what you did or didn’t see and let me be the judge of it?”

Ruth spoke up now. “Like Mom said, there really wasn’t much. I heard Fluffy yapping like the house was on fire and I went out to quiet him and then I saw headlights below. Two pairs of them. The cars stopped and the lights went out. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard like a car door open and then shut. Pretty soon then the other car starts again and gets into gear and goes forward and then reverses. I feel terrible now, ‘cause I might even have heard Jimmy call out or grunt when he got hit. But I had no idea what was going on, maybe some locals getting set to have a race or something. All I know is one of the cars went forward, braked, and backed up a couple of times.”

“Two cars, you say?” He needed to get that right.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“The headlights were on when you first heard them, right?” Max asked.

She nodded.

“So maybe you actually could see the cars,” Max suggested. “What types they were.”

“I don’ think—wait. You’re right. I could sort of make out the cars. This old square-like kind of car…”

“That could have been Jimmy’s. Well his grandfather’s really. But he borrowed it that night.”

Betty Waller looked from Max to her daughter with concern, but said nothing.

“And the other one?” Max asked, a tingle of expectancy working up his spine.

“It was different. More curvy, I guess.”

“But definitely a car. A sedan?”

“Yes, of course.”

Got you, McCall, he thought.

“Happy now, Byrns?” Betty said.

“You know why it’s important, don’t you?” he asked.

Betty nodded. “Everybody knows James Suzuki only drives the company truck. He doesn’t even own a regular car. And that’s also why it’s an open secret and everybody knows he sometimes spends the night in Monterey.” She sighed, then looked at her daughter. “Sorry, hon. I didn’t even bother to ask what you saw. Let him fire me, what the hell. With the war on, there’s going to be plenty of work for women.”

“You want to tell him?” Max said, hoping she’d say yes.

She shrugged, then nodded. “Better coming from me than you.”

Elizabeth hung up the phone and thought about what Duncan Overly at the Met had just told her.

She knew he’d be working on Saturday; knew this was the best time to catch him, even though it was already six o’clock in New York. Overly was married to his job as head of art restoration at the Met.

Overly was as chatty as usual and quite blithely supplied Elizabeth with the names of the original owners of the Moroko Takanubo woodcuts, Autumn and Winter.

The Met had picked those up in 1910 from an agent representing a family by the name of Yumamato from Yokohama. It seemed the Yumamato family, a prominent military clan, had fallen on hard times with the death of its head of family.

“Peterson,” Overly had told her. “You remember old Peterson. ‘Watery-eyes’ Peterson we called him. Not very funny now, though, as one gets older and experiences such epiphora oneself. Well, Peterson was a top-notch authenticator and he remembered everything about the purchase. He was a young chappy of a lad in 1910, just turned fifty. Our dear Mr. Peterson took great interest in the story this representative shared. The pater familias of the Yumamato clan was a colonel in the occupation force in Korea and died when a disgruntled Korean stuck a pick axe in his back as he was touring a model farm. The Yumamato family, it turns out, was barren of any future generation, its soul heir having up and run off to America a couple years after the turn of the century rather than join the family business of soldiering. Thus, the surviving widow was in need of some readies, as our British cousins are fond of saying. And the Met was able to buy the two prints for a paltry thirty thousand. Which may have seemed like a king’s ransom at the time, but the value has increased many times since then. If it’s real, the Spring impression you’ve found could actually ransom a king.”

Yumamato. Yokohama. A son who immigrated to America around 1902. The owner of two of the Seasons quadriptych by Takanubo.

Put them all together, Elizabeth now thought after hanging up, and you come up with the fact that Tadeo Suzuki was very likely Tadeo Yumamato. Had the family settled the art works on him to give him a new start in life? It surely did not sound like that from the way Overly described it. Sounded more like the young man might have run off in the middle of the night, and that he had also made off with the two woodcuts to finance his immigration.

But there was something else that was bothering her. No, not bothering. That was too strong. Niggling, buzzing in her ear, a thought that would not go away but that would not surface completely, either. Something about Yokohama.

Let it rest. It will bubble to the surface when it has to.

Philip was out for the evening. He was being very secretive: either he was on the trail of the Fort Ord spy or on a date with Suzy. Max figured the latter. Hoped for it, in fact, as every time his son went out the door he thought of Aleotto. If that agent’s death was, as Max suspected, the result of him getting too close to unmasking the spy, then Philip was up against a very dangerous adversary.

Now, instead of fearing the worst for his son in the Pacific theater, Max could do so here at home. Wonderful.

Most frustrating was that Philip would not let him accompany him, not let him be there to take a bullet for his son.

Elizabeth looked up from the book she was reading. “Don’t worry. Suzy called earlier and asked about his favorite food. I think she’s cooking him dinner.”

“Well thanks for not telling me earlier.”

“Relax, Max. He may be only twenty chronologically, but our son is a mature man in many ways.”

“You’re not worried about him?”

“Every time he goes out that door. But—”

A knock at the front door cut her off. Max got up from his armchair to get it, turning on the porch light first and checking the side window to see who was there. The young man at the door saw him and gave a friendly little wave.

He opened the door. “Can I help you?”

“Mr. Byrns?” the young man said.

“Yes. And you?”

The young man held out a hand. “Jerry Johnson. Yuki Suzuki’s friend?”

Max shook his hand, confused at first, then remembered Hiro mentioning this young man the other day. The one Tadeo did not approve of.

Max now felt like a fool for having automatically assumed that Jerry was a white kid when here stood the hopeful suitor in front of him, a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered young man with intense eyes. Jimmy had mentioned only that Tadeo was against the match because Johnson was not Japanese, not because he was black.

He tried to cover his surprise. “Come in, come in.”

Elizabeth was standing, having heard the exchange. “Mr. Johnson,” she said, trying to hide her own surprise, Max noticed, for he’d told her about Yuki’s would-be suitor. “It’s good to finally meet you. Yuki speaks highly of you.”

“Have a seat,” Max said. “Coffee?”

Jerry waved it off. “No, no. I just came to thank you for all you’re doing for the Suzuki family. If there’s any way I can help out, let me know. I feel sick about them being taken off their property and sent away to a camp. It’s not right. We’d get married if we could.”

“Please, sit down, Jerry,” Max said. “I can see you are a serious young man. You’re at Berkeley?”

“Right,” the young man said, sitting in the armchair offered him. “Studying electrical engineering. It’s the coming thing, but it seems a waste of time now.”

“Stay at Berkeley as long as you can,” Max told him. “We need scientists now more than ever. A couple of home truths?”

“Sure.” Jerry smiled brightly. “My dad used to love giving me free advice.”

“Well, you’re right about getting married. You can’t, not now in the United States anyway. But times are changing with mixed marriages. Responsible folks in the legal community argue that bans on such interracial marriages go against the constitution. But it takes people time to adjust to change. Plus, as I read Roosevelt’s executive order, there are no exceptions for mixed marriages. Yuki would still have to go, married or not.”

Jerry was silent, shaking his head.

“Look to the future,” Elizabeth said. “You’re both young. This war won’t last forever and when it’s finished there are going to be changes in this country. War shakes things up on the home front, rattles the status quo.”

“I appreciate you saying that, Mrs. Byrns. It does give me hope. Now,” he said, rising from the chair, “I’ll get going and stop bothering you folks. I just wanted to pay my respects and say thanks.”

“No bother, Jerry,” Max said, walking with him to the door. “It’s good to meet you. And remember what I said. We’re going to need some scientists when this is over.”

After Jerry left, they were silent for a moment, and then Elizabeth said, “Well so much for an open mind. I had him pictured as the freckle-faced boy next door.”

Max shook his head. “Me too.”

And then the penny finally dropped for her. “That’s it. That’s what’s been bothering me about Yokohama. About the Bluff.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“That’s where Tadeo went to have dinner with his friend’s parents, right? The night of the fight.”

“That’s the story he told.”

“But the Bluff in Yokohama was for Westerners. Like the Peak in Hong Kong. Jerry made me think of this, expecting him to be white. We were assuming Tadeo’s old friend was Japanese. But in fact, he might be a Westerner.”

This sent a chill through Max’s body. He then thought back to that day with Tadeo when he was telling him about his friend, and how he, Max, reminded him of Basho. Had he meant that literally—that Basho was indeed a Westerner and not Japanese?

He could feel the quickening of pulse at this new revelation.