The White Ghost

by James R Benn

  “A few people in the corridor, maybe a doctor and a few orderlies,” he said. “I really wasn’t paying attention, I just wanted to hit the sack. Strangled, huh? Poor bastard.”

  “Did Rui talk about her brother? Did she mention anyone who had a beef with him?”

  “Other than her? No,” Jack said, and began shuffling through the letters on the table. He looked at the returned letter from Charlotte and laughed as he ran it under his nose. “I can smell her perfume, but I don’t think I’ll ever get close to it again.”

  “Wait,” I interrupted, amazed by the nonchalance with which Jack dropped that tidbit of news. “Rui Chang and her brother Sam had problems? What was that all about?”

  “Money,” Jack shrugged, indifferent to a commodity he found so readily available. “The Chang family runs a lot of business ventures, but the two sisters are based here on Tulagi and Sam up on Vella Lavella. Or at least he was. Rui said he borrowed from them to expand his stores and his shipping right before the war broke out. Bad timing.”

  “So he owed his sisters money?”

  “Apparently,” Jack said. “I got the impression the bamboo plant was a bit of a joke. Like saying he’d need good luck to get out of the mess he found himself in. It actually reminded me of my own brother. Joe would pull a prank like that.”

  “Would your family commit murder over money?” I asked, knowing that some of Joe Senior’s more questionable associates might.

  “You don’t think Rui had him killed?” Jack asked. “It’s her brother for Chrissake. And how would she ever collect what he owed?”

  “Inheritance?”

  “Her timing would be off for that,” Jack said. “She mentioned a lot of planters had been running a tab with Sam when the war began. He’d have to collect on that first. Like I said, his timing was terrible. Anyway, I don’t believe she had anything to do with it. I got the impression it’s a hard-nosed family when it comes to business, but murder is a different story.”

  “Probably so,” I said. “Now tell me why you said ‘that’s all I need’ when I told you about Sam’s death.”

  “Listen, Billy, I need you to keep quiet about Sam and my late-night visit. Al Cluster is coming by later today. He’s my commanding officer and he’s the one who can send me home or give me another boat. I don’t want him to start thinking I’m a problem child he’d be better off without.”

  “How are your injuries?” I asked. “Bad enough for a ticket home?”

  “No, my feet are healing up fine,” he said. “There’s a navy tradition that says a captain who’s had his boat sunk gets sent stateside. If Al wants me gone, he can use that. If he doesn’t, he’ll ignore it. So do me a favor, Billy, and forget about this Chang thing.”

  “How’s your back?” I asked, without commenting on the favor. There’d been a few too many favors done between the Kennedys and the Boyles, and I didn’t want to start another round. “You must’ve gotten banged up pretty bad when that destroyer hit you.”

  “It’s the same,” he said. Which meant not so great. “Here’s the deal, Billy. I can’t go home now. I haven’t really done anything worthwhile out here. The truth is, these PT boats are next to worthless. Our torpedoes are a joke. Half the boats don’t have radar, and the brass thinks we’re a bunch of Ivy League pansy yachtsmen who don’t give a damn about the real navy.”

  “That last part sounds true,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Jack laughed. “Guilty as charged. Al Cluster is one of the few Annapolis men who went into PT boats. He’s a good officer and I don’t want to disappoint him. Or myself for that matter. I got two men killed, Billy. Harold Marney and Andrew Kirksey. I need to do right by them.”

  “You saved the rest,” I said. “Ten men survived, that should count for something.”

  “All I did was get my boat sunk,” Jack said, scratching his damp hair. “I swam around for a while looking for help, hoping the rest of the squadron would return to search for us. All that did was get my feet cut up on the coral. It was a Coastwatcher who sent the two natives out to look for us. If it weren’t for them, we would have died out on the little island. Or been captured by the Japs, which amounts to the same thing.”

  “It was a pretty long swim from what I heard,” I said. “Didn’t you tow a guy who was badly burned?”

  “Yeah, Pappy. He was in the engine room. I guess he was lucky to get out alive. The doctors said he’ll be okay. Even though his hands were burned, he kept flexing them all the time. They said that saved them, kept scar tissue from forming and tightening his hands into claws.” He closed his eyes, turning his head away. Finally, something had gotten to Jack Kennedy.

  “Jack, it could have been a whole lot worse,” I said, sensing the depth of his emotion. It was the first time I’d ever seen him even close to feeling guilty over something he’d done.

  “It could have been avoided,” he said, slamming his hand down on the table. “It’s criminal that none of the radar boats told us they were leaving the strait. It’s criminal that no one came looking for us. They gave us up for dead. I can’t forget that, not ever.”

  “What do you mean about the radar boats, Jack?”

  “I told you, half the boats don’t have radar, including the 109. The boats that had radar saw the Jap destroyers barreling down Blackett Strait. They fired their torpedoes and got the hell out of there. They didn’t score one hit or bother to radio that they were leaving, much less that we had company headed our way. When that destroyer sliced the 109 in two and our fuel exploded, the other boats hightailed it for home.”

  “Sounds like a FUBAR nightmare,” I said.

  “The sea is dark and huge, Billy. More so when you’re abandoned and left to die. Cotter lied. He claimed he searched the area, but we never saw anyone. With all the burning fuel on the water, it would have been a cinch to find us. He ought to be court-martialed. Or worse.”

  “Jack, threats aren’t going to help you get another boat,” I said. “Calm down, okay? You and your men got a raw deal, but you’re mixed up in two murders already.”

  “Jesus, Billy, I’d never laid eyes on Sam Chang until last night. I had no reason on earth to murder him or Daniel Tamana. Give me a break, alright?” That was more like the old Jack, asking for a favor, special treatment, for me to be a pal. I’d been down that one-way street before.

  “You told me that you’d met Daniel the day before he was killed, at Hugh Sexton’s place,” I said. “Who else was there?”

  “Besides Hugh and Daniel, there was Fred Archer and Gordon Brockman,” Jack said. “Along with John Kari. Deanna Pendleton, too.”

  “Why were you there?”

  “I wanted to ask about Reg Evans, the Coastwatcher who sent the natives out to find us. Hugh told me he was still out on Kolombangara, so I asked him to pass on my thanks. And besides, I’d heard about Deanna and hoped she’d be there as well. I got lucky.”

  “What can you tell me about Daniel?” I asked, more interested in the murder victim than Jack’s luck with the ladies. “Did he seem upset about anything? Get in an argument with anyone?”

  “No,” Jack said slowly, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “Not that I can remember. There was a lot of talk about the new radios and getting back out on station before the next big offensive.”

  “Any mention of Sam Chang?”

  “Never came up,” Jack said. “It was business as usual; they talked radio frequencies, supply drops, that sort of thing. Silas Porter showed up too, but that was after Daniel had left.”

  “What was Daniel like?” I asked. I knew I was grasping at straws, but Jack was a shrewd judge of character and a keen observer.

  “Smart. That was the first thing you noticed about him,” Jack said. “Well, after the dark skin and fuzzy hair. He was sharp, didn’t waste a lot of words. And when he asked a question, it was straight to the point. Obser
vant and intelligent.”

  “What are relations like between the white islanders and the Melanesians?”

  “It varies, from what I’ve seen,” Jack said. “It’s not like Negroes and whites back home. The natives here are so different; it’s like some of them are still living in the Stone Age. To no great disadvantage, either, for many. Daniel was raised near a mission and learned English from an early age. It seemed that Sexton and the other Coastwatchers accepted him as one of their own. I don’t get the sense that whites here have a problem with a native adopting Western ways.”

  “So no resentment about an uppity native taking on airs, that sort of thing?”

  “No, not that I saw,” Jack said. “In general I think the English treat the natives as nothing more than a convenient labor pool for their plantations. On an individual basis, there are some genuine friendships. Whatever the relations, it’s going to be hard after the war to get the natives to go back to the old ways. They’ve been fighting the Japs alongside us and earning good money unloading ships for the navy. They’re not going to fancy returning to plantation work for cheap wages.”

  “That’s fascinating, Jack, but it still doesn’t tell me why Daniel got his head bashed in.” As usual, Jack looked at the big picture. I needed a cop’s take on things, not a politician’s.

  “Money or sex, isn’t it always one or the other? That’s what you told me back in Boston.”

  “Yeah,” I said, sighing at how little I had to go on. “Daniel didn’t mention Sam Chang, did he?”

  “No, I wasn’t aware they knew each other.”

  “I’m not sure they did. Thanks, Jack. Good luck with Cluster. I’ll drop by to see how you made out.”

  “I can fill you in on how I make out with Deanna as well,” Jack said with a smirk. “I’m taking her to lunch in Chinatown. There’s a joint on the docks that does great things with fresh fish.”

  “Making up for ignoring her at Sexton’s party, Jack?”

  “Deanna’s a good kid, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “But you can’t blame a guy for enjoying the few other available women in this dump. I don’t mind that she was sore at me; can’t blame her for that either.”

  “Well, enjoy,” I said. Jack may have been a cad, but he was such an easy-going one, it was hard to stay mad at him.

  “Hey, Billy,” Jack said as I rose from the table. “What are you going to do about Sam?”

  “You mean about you being seen in his room?”

  “Yes, that,” Jack said, his easy grin fading as he turned serious. “I really need to get another command, Billy. Give it some thought, okay?”

  “Sure, Jack. See you around.”

  He must have seen it in my eyes. I wasn’t going to give him a free pass. Like I said, Jack could really read people. That’s why he changed tack and asked me to give it some thought. Hard to say no to that.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I was looking for food, Hugh Sexton, and Jacob Vouza. I struck gold on the verandah of Sexton’s place, where the two of them were eating off tin plates. Rice, fish, and breadfruit, which is kind of like a potato. White and starchy, anyway. Hugh went inside to fix me a plate and returned with three cans of beer, kept moderately cool in his ancient refrigerator.

  “What have you found out about Daniel?” Jacob asked around a mouthful of food.

  “I’m afraid not much,” I said. “Did he know Sam Chang?”

  “Poor chap’s dead, we heard,” Sexton said. I gave them what details I had.

  “I don’t know if he knew him,” Jacob said. “Maybe did. Daniel went to Rendova after he finish school. No work there except in the plantation kilns, drying coconut. Not right for educated young man. Then he got a job on a Pavau plantation, keeping the books and overseeing the loading of copra when the Lever ship come. It’s not far from Vella Lavella. He would have heard of Sam Chang for sure.”

  “Right,” Sexton said. “Chang was a prominent merchant, most everyone up in those islands knew his name. Hard not to. Why, is it important?”

  “It seems Daniel went looking for Sam right after he came back from Henderson Field. Did he ask either of you?” Sexton shook his head no.

  “I was with marines on New Georgia when Daniel came to Tulagi,” Jacob said. “Plenty fighting there. Never saw Daniel here. I sent a message, but he was not around when I came by.”

  “Any idea why he’d be looking for Chang?” I asked.

  “No,” Sexton said. “We’d been in radio contact about the pickup for him and Dickie the day before. He didn’t say anything then or here on Tulagi.”

  “But we know he did look for him. Would he have heard Chang’s name in any of the radio transmissions?” I asked.

  “He could have,” Sexton said. “We used Chang’s name several times when arranging the pickup for him and his people.”

  “But Daniel didn’t react to that at the time,” I said. “It seems that it only happened when he came to Tulagi. Odd that he never brought up the connection while you were all together.”

  “Daniel a smart boy,” Vouza said. “If something was not right, he would not speak of it until he knew who his friends were.”

  “Wasn’t he among friends?” I asked.

  “Comrades, to be sure,” Sexton said. “But some of the chaps had never met the others. Remember, these are mostly volunteers who stayed in place after the Japanese occupied the islands. I’ve been in touch with them all, as has the Coastwatchers HQ on Guadalcanal. But other than hearing clipped reports on the radio, lots of the fellows have no idea who’s who. We use call signs for each team, so as not to tip off the Japs. If they learned the names of islanders, they might deduce their location.”

  “Right,” Vouza said. “I don’t think Daniel knew Silas Porter or John Kari, even though he work on Pavau. Or Fred Archer. We both met Gordie on New Georgia before the war, but Daniel did not know he was a Coastwatcher.”

  “We’ve another group coming in tomorrow,” Sexton said. “Same thing, most will be strangers except for their teleradio call signs.”

  “Jacob, what did you mean when you said Daniel worked on Pavau, but didn’t know Porter and Kari?”

  “Silas is from Pavau,” Vouza said. “He owns plantation on north end of island. He escape when the Japs landed. His assistant manager was not so lucky, or the workers. Japs kill them all when they caught them.”

  “I think you told us someone from Pavau killed a Jap and they retaliated,” I said.

  “Yeah, they kill plenty,” Vouza said. “Daniel work on the south side. Big mountain in between, no roads. But he heard the Japs were landing and got out kwiktaem. Him and a few fellows in canoe. John Kari work on a different plantation, got out on last boat before Japs come. I’m certain Daniel and John did not know each other.”

  “You told me Daniel kept the accounts and managed shipments of copra. Maybe someone he worked with there could help shed light on his murder,” I said.

  “Pavau full of Japs now,” Vouza said. “Two plantations on south side of island where Daniel worked. Both owned by Lever Brothers. Their managers ran off before Japs got close. Left workers behind.”

  “Most native workers are brought in from the bigger islands,” Sexton said. “They contract for a certain number of months and then go home.”

  “What about Rendova then?” I asked. “That’s under our control, isn’t it?”

  “It’s pretty well cleared out,” Sexton said. “But there’s intense fighting on New Georgia, a few miles across Blanche Channel. We’ve taken the airfield at Munda Point, but there are still strong Jap forces on the island.”

  “You go to Rendova easy enough,” Vouza said. “PT boat base there. Ask for the Coburn plantation. Old Scottish fella run it, grow coffee beans. That’s where Daniel worked.”

  “He moved on, though. Why?” I asked.

  “Hard work in the fie
lds,” Vouza said. “Daniel was a smart boy, knew he didn’t want to be a common laborer. He wanted to use his head, not his hands.” That fit with everything I’d learned about Daniel.

  “Josh Coburn returned not long ago, after Rendova was retaken, much to our surprise,” Sexton said. “We thought he was dead. The Japs almost caught him on Bougainville, but somehow he got away to Choiseul. From there he went straightaway to French New Caledonia. Word is he’s now looking for his old crew of workers, most of them from Malaita. You might find someone there who knew Daniel.”

  “So Coburn didn’t abandon his people?”

  “No. There’s a big difference between a man who manages for Lever and a man who owns his own place,” Sexton said.

  “Coburn is tough one,” Vouza said, nodding his agreement. “Story was Japs got him on Bougainville, where he had another coffee plantation. We only find out a few weeks ago that he took a canoe and paddled himself all the way to Choiseul. Pretty good for a seventy-year-old fella.”

  I agreed that few in their right mind would fight for a big business like Lever, and that Josh Coburn sounded like an extraordinary character. But that didn’t have much to do with Daniel, so I decided to dig a little deeper into his last day alive.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out why Daniel went looking for Sam Chang when he did,” I said. “Can either of you tell me more about Daniel’s movements the day he came to Tulagi? In detail, I mean.”

  “Well, he arrived about mid-morning,” Sexton said.

  “Go back further,” I said. “What route did he take to Guadalcanal?”

  “We sent a PT boat to pick them up at Kuku, a small coastal village on Choiseul,” Sexton said. “It was a dangerous spot, but Dickie was so ill we didn’t think he could travel far.”

  “Why dangerous?” I asked.

  “It is an obvious landing area,” Vouza said. “Small cove, no rocks. Easy. Means Japs watch it.”

  “But we had good luck that night,” Sexton said. “They made it back to the PT base on Rendova and then via PBY to Guadalcanal. As I said, Daniel stayed with Dickie at Henderson Field until he got on a C-47 transport bound for Australia.”