Newcastle, California * September 17, 1943
I reckon I’m under obligation to keep you informed,” Sheriff Whitcomb says, by way of greeting. He gives a disdainful grunt for good measure.
Agent Bonner comes in from the bright sunshine and pulls the door shut behind him. The same hospital-green walls greet him. The fan whirs with an exhausted, overworked air, as though aggrieved by the dent it is unable to make in the oppressive heat.
“Keep me informed of what?” Bonner asks.
“Plenty of that biplane’s parts burned up in the crash, but the local firemen collected all the ones that didn’t. The fire chief telephoned this morning. He’s no expert, but there’s a part he thinks is likely the fuel line, and it looks to him like someone cut it.”
Bonner freezes, his brow furrowed.
“Well, I suppose ‘punctured’ is how the fire chief put it,” the sheriff adds. “It looked to be cut, but not through and through. Just a small vertical slice. Looked to be man-made.”
“Meaning . . . someone tampered with it on purpose?”
The sheriff holds up a hand and shakes his head.
“I figure that’s up to you to see about. But I’ll caution you . . . I wouldn’t go jumping to any conclusions,” Whitcomb says. He pauses and fixes Bonner with a meaningful stare. “And I certainly wouldn’t go pointing any fingers—not just yet.”
It is clear they are both talking about Louis Thorn without either of them needing to mention his name.
“Of course,” Bonner replies. “I only intend to follow procedure. I’d like to make some calls, see if I can find an airplane mechanic to come up here and verify what the fire chief is looking at.”
Sheriff Whitcomb grunts.
“I assume the F.B.I. will be footin’ the bill for that?”
Bonner’s jaw clenches, remembering Reed’s admonishments about the Bureau’s budget. He coughs and nods.
“Spoke with my boss about it this morning, as a matter of fact,” Bonner says.
Whitcomb grunts again. “Needless to say, until we all decide different, this information is just between us fellas,” he says, casting a meaningful look at Deputy Henderson.
“Of course,” Bonner repeats.
Henderson doesn’t speak. His eyes move between the two of them with a sheepish, vaguely guilty air.
Hat still in hand, Bonner glances around the room. “May I?” he asks, pointing to the receptionist’s desk, where he sat the day before to use the telephone.
Whitcomb frowns, but tips his head in a brief nod, giving permission.
“Irene gets into work ’round three,” he warns.
“Appreciate it,” Bonner says, and slides into the desk chair, preoccupied with the sheriff’s news about the fuel line. He’s already itching to talk to Louis Thorn about that. But Bonner knows he has to be patient, have an expert verify the sabotage, make sure no piece of the case has been overlooked, however small. He reaches into his attaché case, extracting a file folder. In it is every bit of information the F.B.I. possesses about the Yamada family.
Bonner flips open the manila folder and extracts the contents. He clears the desktop before him and begins to lay out each paper and photograph in a deliberate, meditative manner, like a mosaic artist laying tiles. He switches on a desk lamp and peers more closely into the constellation of documents as though he were trying to read tea leaves.
Bonner knows he must eliminate the Yamadas as suspects, even if the notion strikes him now as increasingly unlikely. If Harry Yamada and his father had a death wish, it was simple enough to crash an airplane without having to tamper with the fuel line. Why would they take such a useless additional step? Suicide is a question of will. Sabotage is the sort of action taken by someone with something to gain from hurting others.
Bonner’s mind circles back around to Louis Thorn, the man living in the Yamadas’ former home, the official owner of the former Yamada property. Bonner hadn’t expected any of this when he requested the case. He simply recognized the Thorn name and found himself curious. His curiosity was an idle sort, perhaps a touch narcissistic, but benign overall. It wasn’t until Deputy Henderson began telling him about the land dispute between the Thorns and the Yamadas that Bonner got the inkling that his grandmother really hadn’t ever told him very much, and that the situation was far more complicated than he had anticipated. He thought he’d get a passing look at Louis Thorn—at most, he might discover Thorn was hiding two escaped evacuees and turn a blind eye.
He never expected to meet Louis Thorn and suspect the young man of murder not more than ten minutes after shaking his hand.
Now Bonner doesn’t know what to think. In the wake of the crash, Louis didn’t appear shocked or saddened, so much as . . . distracted. The cut fuel line did not bode well, either. As far as Bonner can tell, the Thorns were poor and begrudged their neighbors’ prized piece of land—land they believed had once belonged to their own family long ago. So many questions swirled around the case, but most of them kept orbiting back to one big question in particular: Did Louis Thorn ever intend to give the Yamadas back their land? The Yamadas trusted him with it, but should they have?
Bonner knows the case is becoming an obsession; he can feel the fishhook sliding deeper and deeper under his skin. He knows, too, there comes a point in every obsession where a person stops caring that he’s obsessed, a point where a person wants the answers so badly, he doesn’t stop to contemplate whether or not he should be asking the questions. Plenty of people—Whitcomb not least of all—would rather Bonner leave well enough alone.
But Bonner has his heart set on digging up more information. He thinks again of those mysterious cuts and bruises on Louis Thorn’s face, and looks across the room to where Deputy Henderson is bent over his own desk. Perhaps, Bonner decides, it’s time to have Henderson show him the way to Murphy’s Saloon and get that beer they discussed.