"You should. Because his time is up, with you or without you. Has he even been here to see you once in all this time? Some friend. Some leader."
"Shut up..."
"While you've been here wasting away, he's been very, very busy. All too glad to let you take the heat in here, isn't he?" Max changed his tone. "Andrew. How could Mrs. Tamura have deserved this? She was a woman of compassion, she was a nurse. What are those two little boys going to do without their mother?"
Andrew stopped fidgeting with the puzzle, but still wouldn't look at Max. "I don't even have to talk to you."
"So don't. Talk to the court when you're asked how you could stand by and let him rip out an old man's brain, tear out a young mother's beating heart ..."
Andrew looked at Max then, his eyes wide, his face suddenly bloodless. Did it only now occur to the boy what Max was talking about? Only now did he understand why he was being held so long? Had his attorney, had his mother never warned him? Of course not. A legal connection between Andrew Takei and the murders couldn't be dared without something stronger than Max's speculation. The boy's protectors wouldn't alarm him until then.
But Max would.
"We didn't do that," Andrew said, his voice a stricken whisper. "I swear to God we didn't do any of that!"
"I don't believe you, Andrew. You bragged to at least two people about what you did to Ataki."
"No, we didn't! No!" The boy almost choked on his own voice. His eyes moistened. He rushed the cell bars. "That was just jive, you know? We were just slinging words. I swear to God, we didn't know Mr. Ataki was dead! We thought he just scat..."
Pity threatened to well in Max's chest, but he forced it down. He didn't dare let up. "Come on, Andrew! Are you trying to tell me you didn't think he was capable of killing?"
Andrew was clinging to the bars now, tears streaking his smooth, bloodless cheeks. "There's no 'he'! I mean, it's just us and nobody's done anything. Nobody's like that! None of us are, we just want to scare some sense into those stooges...!"
"But it's gotten out of hand, is that it?"
"No! Shit! Please! Listen!" The boy's voice was shaking so badly he could barely get the words out. "I swear to God, I swear to God...!"
"Andrew, you listen. I don't think you killed Mr. Ataki and Mrs. Tamura. But you know he did. And you know he's going to do it again."
A sob welled out of Andrew and he sank to his knees, head bowed. Damn it! Max let his head drop into his hands, knowing he couldn't bear to torture the boy any longer. Why won't the kid say the man's name? Just say the damn name! Max lifted his head and gazed down at the boy. If I just had a little more killer instinct.
He looked at his watch. Max had told the jailer to give him twenty minutes. The man would be back soon. Max reached a hand through the bars and laid it on Andrew's shoulder.
"Get up, son. I want you to think on what we've talked about. This whole camp needs your help. There's a monster on the loose. We've got to stop him."
Chapter 19
Tulenar Internment Camp
Mid-morning. Waxing Gibbous Moon.
As soon as Captain Pierce left the office, Doris crossed her arms over the desk and rested her head. For Heaven's sake, what is wrong with me? Lack of sleep, long hours. Milton Eisenhower. Publicly, he professed the WRA's steadfast belief in Doris. He recited her credentials to the press like a charm against the Evil Eye, but privately he was bearing down on her. Not that she blamed him. If she were the head of the WRA, she'd be doing the same.
Pressure or no pressure, where did she think she was going with these wild, idiotic thoughts? She raised her head, glanced at the folder that held the transcript of the Tamura twins' statement, then tossed it irritably into the file holder. She jabbed at the intercom button.
"Harriet, I'm taking thirty minutes. Anything comes up, I'll be out back."
/ / / /
Doris couldn't hit the mark to save her soul. The only satisfaction she got was when she took the bow and drove three arrows straight into the ground at her feet.
A voice came from behind her. "You missed the target."
Doris looked up Arthur Satsugai as he approached. "Don't push your luck. I was thinking of you when I did this."
Arthur stopped next to her and looked at the cluster of arrows, their shafts buried by a third. "Just like Cupid."
She was tired. She couldn't pull her gaze from him when he lifted his almond eyes, creased so amiably at the corners, toward her. But she could say, "What are you doing here? I thought you were mad at me."
"I am. This isn't a social call."
She stiffened and tugged off her arm brace and half-vest. "Well, then, Mr. Satsugai. Let's go in."
He stood between Doris and her sheltering office. She moved to walk toward it, but Arthur didn't step from her path.
"I don't want to go in," he said. "That place is armor for you. When you're forced away from it you're so much more--"
"I thought you said you were mad at me," Doris snapped.
"Royally," he said into her ear. His fingers came up to touch her arm.
Doris squeezed her eyes shut. "Don't do this."
"Why?"
"You know why." She looked at the building and wondered if anyone could see.
"I want you to tell me."
Doris's throat tightened and her eyes began to burn. No! I'm not so tired I'm going to start crying. Struggling to keep her voice steady, she said, "Jesus, Arthur. The timing's lousy."
When he touched his forehead against her hair and she could almost feel his acquiescing smile. "I know," he said.
He let go of her arm and Doris hurried them both toward the building. When they entered her office, he said, "At least I'm back to Arthur."
Doris tossed a warning glance his way as she settled behind her desk. "So," she said, glad to be Center Administrator again. "What's up?"
"I'm here to protest this morning's interrogation."
"What interrogation?"
"I just left the jail, where I learned that the Assembly Center C.O. did some unauthorized grilling this morning. As Police Liaison, I'm lodging a formal compliant. It's ridiculous, Doris, there was no call for you to allow that. Young Takei was so distraught afterward, his mother couldn't calm him. You'll be hearing from their attorney soon, no doubt."
"Pierce was at the jail earlier?"
"He asked the jailer to leave, which the old fellow took as an order -intimidated as he was by the uniform. The captain had Andrew all to himself for quite some time. Are you saying you didn't sanction this?"
"Sanction? I didn't even know about it."
"Honestly?"
"Arthur, come on!"
"Well...on a personal level, that makes me feel better. But professionally, Madame Administrator, you've really dropped the ball."
"Well, I've got an awful lot of them to juggle, don't I?"
Arthur remained unruffled. "What's the captain up to, do you suppose?"
Doris, of course, knew exactly what Pierce was up to. When she didn't reply, Arthur's eyes lost some of their feisty spark.
"So it's back to business as usual."
"You're here in an official capacity..."
"I don't want to be your adversary, Doris."
"Asking me to reveal classified information out of me, leaves us little choice."
Surprisingly, rather than offer an argument, Authur just sighed. Then he stood suddenly, but without rancor. "I'm going to see Mrs. Haku for the appropriate paper work and file my complaint. And that will end our official business."
/ / / /
How had Arthur talked her into this: sitting on the porch swing of her little house, so far from her duties, eating a light lunch together? She hadn't had the energy to argue. Tulenar was quivering behind veils of heat, given up by the red earth. But the breeze from the foothills was kept the air comfortable. So it was the friction of inner conflict chafing Doris, not the weather. She didn't know how to even begin to reconcile with Arthur Satsugai.
> She owed him some sort of explanation for the way she was, some avenue into her mind set. She found herself saying, "I didn't love my husband, so much as respect him."
Arthur was obviously jolted by the sudden confession, but he said nothing. He took a long drink of lemonade and waited.
"He was a good man," she said, "a very good man, and to somebody like me...I was young and ambitious. I was looking for an alliance."
"Were you ever in love?"
"No. As I said, I admired him and respected him..."
"I mean, ever in your life. Have you ever been in love with anyone?"
His question caught her off guard. She had expected to talk about Abel. But now Arthur was asking about Michael. Good Lord. Michael. She hadn't thought of him in years. She was surprised to find that his memory still stung a little.
"I...it's hard to say," Doris replied, trying to trivialize the romance. To, in effect, lie. "Maybe. There was this student from a nearby college. We met when I was a freshman and broke up before I was a junior."
"What happened?"
"Oh...restrictions, one thing. Sarah Lawrence is a women's college. But, really, it was just youth. Somebody'd already hurt him in his senior year of high school. He told me his steady had gotten in 'trouble.' But not with him." She leaned back in the swing. "That had to be a jolt to deal with so young. For both of them. By the time he and I met, he was too skittish, too bitter. A pity, to be that way at that age. It ended badly."
"Was that why you married the senator?"
Doris smiled at his assumption. "No, good Heavens, no. I didn't meet Abel until a year after graduation. By the time I met my husband, the break up with Michael wasn't much more to me than a lesson about avoiding career distractions."
"You think so?"
"What is this, are you Freud now? I didn't fool myself into thinking I was in love with Abel. I knew it and he knew it. It was a good marriage, Arthur. We had our ups and downs, but we did have a love of sorts. Yes, we did."
"So you're certain that, because you didn't fool yourself into thinking you loved your husband, you acted consciously."
"Is it my imagination or, when I say yes to that, you're going to disagree?" Doris crossed her arms, but settled in attentively. She was enjoying this debate much better than dredging up memories, long silted over. "Of course I acted consciously," she replied, trying to goad Arthur with his own word choice. "I knew exactly what I was doing."
"So, it made sense. It was logical."
"I know where you're going with this. Sure, it would have been nice to fall in love with someone and marry him. I know it happens to people, probably quite a bit. I'm not really the Iron Lady of Tulenar everyone's reading about."
"I know you're not. Maybe better than you."
Doris's face flushed. She looked back at the camp and its veil of heat. She looked at the Administration Building and finished her lemonade. "I better get back."
Arthur rose with her. The deep brown of his eyes nearly glowed with warmth, the corner creases deepening, drawing her own eyes toward that warmth.
He said, "The part of you that loved that boy is the part that brought you to Tulenar, Doris. But the part of you sealing off that old pain and failure also seals you off from being who you could really be to the people of this camp. This is our little chunk of the world wide nightmare, Doris, yours and mine. It's up to us to lessen it for others. Let the Takei boy go. You know it's ridiculous to think he had anything to do with Mr. Ataki's murder."
"Damn it, Arthur, I can't. You don't know the whole story and I cannot officially let you in on it, Police Liaison or not."
He stepped closer to her. "Then let me in to you."
How she wanted to, gazing into his oval face. She really did. But, instead, she shook her head, unable to understand how a man so intelligent could blind himself to reality.
"We're in the middle of a snake pit here, Arthur, haven't you noticed? You and I have got to accept the fact that what we...feel...is impossible. I'll say it again. The timing's lousy."
Arthur stiffened. "You're so cock sure you know better than God." He headed toward the steps, but before walking away, he turned back a last time. "Maybe the timing's deliberate, Doris. Maybe it's perfect. It's your perception of it that's lousy."
/ / / /
The day didn't improve much after that. She was on the phone with Milton Eisenhower, again. She officially called off the search for Mrs. Tamura and had to issue a statement to the WRA and the press corps. That, in turn, kept her and poor Harriet busy fending off a barrage of phone calls. And Doris had to clash with Andrew Takei's attorney.
But the clash stopped abruptly when the lawyer said, "Bad enough you people attempt to question young Takei without his mother or me present. But the captain's grisly details of missing brains and a ripped-out heart may cause the boy serious emotional trauma. Serious trauma."
Ripped-out heart. Ripped-out heart. The words wrapped around her brain and squeezed. Pierce must have been bluffing. The captain added that detail, hoping to frighten Andrew into a confession. It had been a bluff on his part, nothing more than a word game. He couldn't know how Mrs. Tamura died. No one knew. Ripped-out heart.
Yet Doris couldn't make herself contact Pierce. She stopped short every time she reached for the telephone. She decided to put it off until the next morning. Yes, wait until then. Wait until she could finally get some sleep, and speak with him rationally.
But, that night, there would be no sleep again. Not after she read the yellowed front pages of four newspapers carefully folded and waiting for her on the floor, just inside her front door.
Chapter 20
Lakeside Assembly Center
Morning. Third Quarter Moon.
Usually, it was Mrs. Tebbe who was ready for a fight. This time it was Max, gripping the telephone receiver like a blunt weapon. As soon as he heard her voice on the other end he snapped, "What the hell do you think you're doing, releasing the Takei boy!"
"Saving the WRA's ass, Captain," Mrs. Tebbe replied. Her voice was brittle. "Don't chew on me, you're the one who put us in the sling. I'm surprised you haven't heard from General DeWitt yet."
"I have, Mrs. Tebbe. Where do you think I got the news? Obviously you weren't going to extend me the courtesy of fair warning."
"The way you courteously informed me that you were going to harass Andrew? I wouldn't have authorized that and you knew it."
"I didn't need your authorization." He let the silence on the phone sizzle a moment. Then he said, "Damn it! A few more days in the stew and he would have given us the man's name. I'm sure of it."
The C.A.'s voice was barely in control now. "We didn't have a few more days. After what you did, Takei's attorney would have had your head and mine served to Roosevelt."
"He would've done no such thing. You honestly think he can take on the United States Government and its Army? Peacetime rules do not apply, Mrs. Tebbe, he knows that. You bought his bluff."
"That's arrogant, Captain. These people still have rights and even if they won't be heard now, they sure as hell will be after the war."
"For chissake. You let the kid go, and he's our only link to the killer."
There was silence over the receiver again, this time, Mrs. Tebbe's doing. "Mrs. Tebbe ... did you hang up on me!"
"I'm here, Captain." Her voice had that brittle edge again.
"I'm coming over."
"I'm busy."
"And, of course, I'm not. I was just sitting on my office floor shooting marbles when I decided to call. I'll be there in twenty."
Goddamn, these civilians!
/ / / /
The drive to Tulenar gave Max time to calm down, though the sight of the press and the pickets, filtered through his fuzzy vision, almost stirred his anger again. But entering Mrs. Tebbe's office, he was jolted out of his dolor and into surprise to see a man sitting in the chair Max himself favored. When Max approached, he could make out Nisei features and a white clerical collar. The minist
er stood and Max offered his hand, albeit haltingly.
Mrs. Tebbe did the introductions. "Captain Maxwell Pierce, this is the Reverend Mr. Arthur Satsugai."
"How do you do," Satsugai said, his voice mannered and neutral. Yet he added, "So it was you."
Max didn't have to ask what he meant. "Are you involved in this somehow, Reverend?"
"Mister will do. Yes, I'm Police Liaison."
"I see." Max looked to Mrs. Tebbe, who seemed all too content to let things unfold. He returned his attention to Mr. Satsugai. "Sir, I need to speak with the Center Administrator privately."
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