Return from the Shadows-Ivan Dunn the Final Chapter

by Frank A. Perdue

  “Yes.”

  “Good. We don’t want you to use the weapon if you can help it. The police cruiser will be right outside in your driveway if he somehow gets into the house without our knowledge.”

  I didn’t think that was such a good idea, and I told him so. “Do you really want to be that obvious? I thought the idea was to catch this guy.”

  “Okay. How about we use an unmarked vehicle, and park it out on the street?”

  “I think that would be better.”

  He continued, “Another thing, let us know when you’re leaving, and maybe give us an itinerary too, so we don’t lose you.”

  “Let’s wrap this up in a hurry, okay? This is going to be a hell of an inconvenience.” I could just picture letting the cop on the street know we were going to Piggly Wiggly to shop for forty minutes, then we were going to the gas station, and, oh yeah, Rachel has a hair appointment too.

  Paulsen seemed to be satisfied when he left clutching two more cookies in his huge paw.

  He passed Joe in the driveway. With a cursory wave he kept on going to his car. Joe had come in the other side of the circular drive, so he wasn’t blocking the cop’s car.

  I looked out toward the street, and a strange vehicle I’d never seen before was parked only a few feet from one of the two entrances. I remember thinking at the timethat was fast work on the detective’s part.

  As Joe came into the house, brushing me aside, he said, “Congratulate me. I found an apartment for us, and not only that, we can move in right away.” He added, “Where’s my beautiful bride? I want to tell her the good news.”

  “She’s upstairs with Rachel, trying on clothes I think.” I continued, “I wondered if I’d ever get rid of you,” I said it grinning, though I was a little miffed at the way he’d almost pushed me aside coming in.

  “But I’m taking your extra cook and dishwasher with me. You’ll have to learn to eat Rachel’s cooking again.”

  “But there’ll be less chance of food poisoning.”

  He laughed. I would miss him. At least he’d still be in town, and we could sneak away for a beer once in a while. That is, if they caught that psycho.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  By the time the 1950s rolled around Yasmin Shigehara’s man was becoming restless. She knew it would happen. There wasn’t enough for him to do on the farm outside of Hiroshima. She was gone five days a week nursing, and sometimes even more than five days. There had been much sickness and many deaths since the big bomb fell in the fall of 1945.

  One of the men Yasmin had cared for was a high-up in the Yakuza, the Mafia-style gangsters of Japan. He was very grateful, showering gifts on the diminutive nurse. She thought, and rightly so, she might be able to help Jeb. If he could move about the country more easily, perhaps even leave Japan once in a while, he might be happier. She considered the fact that, were he more autonomous she might lose him, but boredom could do the job even more quickly.

  She approached the gangster, who felt she had saved him from death, with her idea. She wasn’t sure he could help, but it turned out he could, and would.

  Soon Jeb was furnished with fake credentials, even a passport, in the name of Alan Shepard Harrington. He had successfully been transformed again (for the third time) into an innocent man who would be untraceable..

  It might have been hard for him to obtain a job in most areas of Japan, being a foreigner and an American at that, but around Hiroshima there was a shortage of males to do jobs that were becoming available. He was hired by a trucking firm as a driver. The work would require him to be gone for days at a time, and he didn’t like that he would not see Yasmin for that long, but he was glad to get away from the farm and to feel useful once more.

  As Jeb Lee he could never marry Yasmin or any other woman for that matter, because he was already married. As Alan Harrington there was no such restriction, and the two lovers made plans to become legally bound to each other for eternity.

  They were married in June of 1951. Their honeymoon consisted of one day in Tokyo, where they had gone in Jeb’s work truck. It was one of his regular stops, and they combined business with pleasure.

  Yasmin wanted children. Jeb wasn’t against the idea, but for some reason she didn’t become with child. They would lie in each other’s arms night after night thinking maybe that would be the magic night she would become pregnant. Her husband’s resolve to give her the gift of a boy or girl seemed strongest when he would return from a trip of more than a day or two, but still she remained sterile. It would be 1955 before the reason presented itself.

  He’d been driving for four years and he was not unhappy, though the long nights away from his wife were just something he had to put up with. Homecomings were always spectacular as they renewed their love in the bedroom.

  On one of the times when he returned home he found Yasmin in the bathroom leaning over the toilet bowl and throwing up. The sight was bittersweet to the husband. He felt bad that she was in such discomfort, but on the other hand he was excited that this might be what they had striven for all those months that had stretched into years.

  She went to a doctor, one she had actually worked with from time to time. After many tests it was determined she was not pregnant after all. She had contracted radiation sickness from her contact with all the stricken people who had lived through the initial blast in Hiroshima. There was no certainty she would survive.

  Three months later a beautiful still young woman named Yasmin Harrington passed away in her sleep, her grieving husband beside her. He was told she felt no pain, though he couldn’t verify it, and that did nothing to alleviate his grief.

  She was given a somewhat traditional Japanese funeral with cremation. She was dressed in a white Kimono, and given a wake before she was transported to the crematorium. It was all very proper. Jeb did not accompany the body of his dead wife to where her body would be burned. It was just too painful.

  For days afterward he would sit in a rocking chair on the porch of the farm she was so proud of, just staring out into space, his eyes vacant.

  He’d been gone from work for over a month when his supervisor called to beg him to return. The man was well aware of what his employee had gone through. He had met Alan’s wife and liked her. However, life must go on and deliveries must be made-obligations honored.

  Alan Harrington did return to work, though he performed as if sleepwalking. That isn’t to say he was a reckless driver, he just didn’t remember driving. Then he discovered the bottle.

  He drank his breakfast, and his lunch. He might eat a salad for dinner, and then top it off with sake. Even as hard up as the trucking company was, he was fired.

  He lost thirty pounds, and ended up in the hospital. The doctor told him if he’d waited another week to seek help, he would have died.

  Actually he didn’t turn himself in. The postman had come by one day, needing a signature for a certified letter from the government. He discovered the man he knew as Alan Harrington on the linoleum floor unconscious. Though he reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke, the letter carrier knew something was wrong, and summoned an ambulance. It had saved his life.

  He spent three weeks confined to a bed in a ward with twenty of them. For the first week he was medicated so much he remembered nothing. He was intravenously fed the entire time. During the second week he silently cursed God and Buddha for taking such a perfect human being. It was in the third week, with his strength slowly returning that he decided to go home to the United States.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  We were just lounging around the living room the two of us, Rachel and I, when she jumped up saying, “I need to check the mail. I forgot to yesterday.”

  “Why don’t you wait till this afternoon,” I said. “Then you won’t have to make two trips in one day.” I had a great analytical mind.

  “I just have a feeling it’s important.”

  “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’m not going to the post office, just the mail
box.”

  “I’ll still miss you.”

  She stooped over, kissing me on the lips. “That will have to hold you,” she said as she moved toward the door.

  When she returned there was a huge smile on her face. “See, it was important.” She waved an envelope over her head.

  “Another bill, right?”

  “It’s a letter from Thomas, smarty britches.” We had all kinds of pet phrases for each other.

  “Read it to me.”

  She had this thing about neatness, so even though she was anxious to read the letter, she went into the kitchen, retrieved a dinner knife, and carefully opened the letter. I, in my impatience, would have just ripped the thing open.

  Hi Mom and Ivan,

  I have good news. In fact I have two good newses (trying to be funny). We are having a baby. Kim found out yesterday she’s three weeks along. I have convinced her we should move back to the States for the baby’s sake. I made reservations with the airline, and we will be arriving in San Diego Thursday of next week, the fourteenth. It would be great if you could meet us at Lindbergh Field. We get in at ten a.m., if the flight is on time. Don’t worry though if you can’t make it, we’ll just take a cab. I told her she’ll love the weather in Southern California, and it will be a great place to raise a child. She says if I’m wrong we have to move back to Tokyo. Ha Ha. I should be able to get my old job back with the police, either in Chula Vista or some other local town, don’t you think?” Anyway I love you, and we’ll see you soon.

  Love, Tom

  “That’s great news,” I said, knowing it would make my wife very happy. She never said anything but I could tell she missed her son a lot. There’s much to be said for being a grandmother from up close too, rather than across a huge ocean.

  She came to me and hugged me, saying, “Now we can have our party.”

  Over the next few days before the kids arrived she was rushing around cleaning and dusting everything in sight. When she wasn’t doing that she was off to the store, buying things on the long list she’d written. This was going to be some party.

  Meanwhile Joe and Ariel and their kids moved out and were becoming settled in their new apartment in Pacific Beach, not too far away. Ariel found a teaching position at an elementary school there that Juan and Jessica attended. She wouldn’t need a baby sitter the way it worked out.

  Joe had decided to look for work on the docks, as a stevedore or longshoreman. He couldn’t get right on, but he was told that if he shipped out as a merchant seaman he’d have a foot in the door to be accepted into the union, and find something on the docks. Ariel didn’t like the idea, him being away so long, but the money would be good, and they could certainly use it. He would still be in town for the party.

  Ted Springstone was also a busy man. He was one of the three Sheriff’s deputies assigned to keep surveillance on Rachel Dunn. It seemed like she was buying out the town, making three or more trips a day to the La Jolla shops. He dutifully followed her every time, taking pains not to be seen as per his instructions. No one had told her of the danger, or that Harold Lambright had been spotted nearby.

  The officers had a system. If either Mrs. Dunn or her husband left the premises they were guarding, the officer on duty at the time outside the residence would call for backup, and then follow the Dunn car. There would only be a five minute or so lapse, when no one was outside the mansion.

  Springstone was lucky. At least he had the day shift. He could spend the evenings with his wife Emily and their two boys, who were still in grade school. He had been told though, that he would have to double up on Saturday, working in the evening too. Then he would have Sunday off. It wasn’t a bad trade-off. He planned to go to bed early Friday night to compensate.

  He’d been with the force for five years, most of that on graveyard shift, so he felt blessed to finally be on regular-man hours. Emily was happier too.

  Everett Paulsen stopped by the mansion a couple days after it became obvious the Dunn woman wasn’t staying put, thereby making it harder to keep track of her.

  Rachel came to the door. “Hello detective, what can I do for you?”

  Tact was not one of the man’s strong points. He got to the heart of the matter right away, not even bothering to come inside first. “We need you to stop making so many trips Mrs. Dunn. It’s making it harder for us to keep track of you, and protect you from the guy who killed your neighbor Mister Summers.”

  “Do you really think he’s after us? I thought maybe it was drug related. We certainly aren’t involved with narcotics. You should know us well enough to know that.”

  “I do Ma’am, but we’re taking no chances. Until we prove it’s not you or your husband he was after, you will be kept under surveillance.”

  He didn’t know what Dunn had told his wife, so he hesitated to alarm her further.

  “I’m sorry Detective, but I’m planning a party for my son and his wife who are coming back from Japan. I have to be ready.”

  “Okay. Then can you maybe cut your trips in half? We just don’t have the manpower to keep an eye on the two of you separately.”

  “I’ll try to do that. Thank you for your concern.” As an afterthought she added, “Oh by the way, you are invited to our get together Detective. It’s a week from this Saturday.” Not waiting for an answer,she cut the interview short by moving out on the porch, and extending her hand to Paulsen. He got the message. When he left, Rachel thought to herself,I need to make a list of all the people I’ve invited, and those I haven’t gotten around to yet.

  She loved to make lists.

  There was another interested party nearby. Harold Lambright noticed the lapse in police coverage. He thought there might be a chance to gain entrance to the home during those five minute periods when no one was on duty there. He had made an interesting discovery before the neighbor intruded and he had to dispose of the threat. There was a doorway at the side of the house that he thought was unprotected. He didn’t realize the deputy on watch made a sweep around the house every two hours. The opening couldn’t be seen from the street, and since no one now lived in the adjacent property, he was sure he could get in without being detected. There was one other thing he wanted to try first though. Maybe he wouldn’t have to get in the house after all.

  Chapter Thirty

  Alan Harrington, Alan Harrington, that’s my name.The man formerly known as Jeb Lee had to keep repeating his name to himself. He’d almost slipped when he made his airline reservation for the States. All his documentation, his paperwork, was made out in the new name.

  He was almost ready to embark on his new life. He would arrive in San Diego on a Friday late, in two weeks. He remembered the town from his time there as a Navy recruit, before he’d been assigned to the destroyer Sims. He and Charlie had pulled liberty in town a couple of times. He didn’t know where La Jolla was though. He tried to remember what the soldier Tom Embreehad told him. He wouldn’t forget that name. Tom Embree.

  The soldier had been really talkative. They’d had a lot to drink. It had been his first trip to the big city as a trucker, and the first time he’d used his new name in public. He remembered Embree told him he was an MP. But he was off duty, and not wearing the telltale armband. He, Jeb, no Alan, had almost fallen off his barstool when he heard the soldier’s mother’s name, Rachel Dunn, previously Rachel Embree.

  So she’d gotten married, the girl who was his first love, way back in Richmond, Virginia. He tried not to react when he heard her name. Now there was a chance he would see her again. He didn’t have any illusion he could do anything about it. After all she was married. And the memory of his dead wife still occupied most of his thoughts. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder who this Ivan Dunn was, and how she met him, and when. It must have been right after he, Phillip, had hopped a freight train out of town, just before he changed his name to Jeb Lee. No, wait a minute,Ivan Dunn was not the soldier’s father. Thomas Embree had said that in the Tokyo bar. He said he didn’t know who his fath
er was. No, that wasn’t it. He said he’d never met his father.

  It wasn’t until that moment, nearly four years later that it struck him, He could be Tom Embree’s father. If it was true it had to have happened that last day he was in Richmond. It was the only time he and Rachel had been lovers, in the physical sense. He wouldn’t have known. She’d had no way to get in touch with him. He only wrote one letter, and he’d left no forwarding address. She might have seen the postmark, Nacogdoches, Texas, but he didn’t stay there long enough for her to track him.

  He tried to remember what the man who could be his son looked like. There had been some resemblance. He’d had blonde hair. He was actually a little taller than Jeb, uh Alan,he’d have to watch that, even in his thoughts. Being taller wasn’t that unusual. Offspring usually outgrew their parents. It probably had something to do with their diets.

  He also remembered Tom had said he met a Korean girl, and he was in love. He’d told Alan her name. What was it? If he could remember, maybe he could track his son through her. Now he was thinking that Thomas was indeed his son. Did they get married? How would he find out? He decided to check at the library in Hiroshima where they might have vital statistics. He doubted he’d find anything, but he had to try. He wanted to see his son once more, maybe even to tell him he was his father.

  There was nothing at the local library, so he went to Tokyo. At the library there he was able to check on weddings. Nothing was listed for a Thomas Embree and Kim Jong. It was funny. Her name came to him at the exact moment he was scanning the list of marriages. The young Japanese woman behind the counter spoke English, though not very well, but she suggested he look for impending nuptials, which were in a different section of the newspapers. He spent the next hour combing through the dates from that day he met Tom in the bar. He found it in a paper from the middle of June. They were being married the last week of the month. That was only two weeks from the date he located the notice. The article went on to state where they would be making their home, and it was a local Tokyo address. He decided then he would take vacation time from the trucking firm which had rehired him, so that he might attend the wedding.