The House at Sandalwood

by Virginia Coffman

  The air outside was damp and curiously enervating. The perfume of flowers in warm tropic shade, and the greenery everywhere below surrounded us in waves. I found my nervousness and anxiety fading under the double onslaught of air and plants. Then Deirdre looked at me, a sidelong, furtive glance entirely unlike her usual appearance of frankness.

  “Did he talk very long?”

  “No. But he asked me about you, of course.”

  “I’m not sick! He doesn’t have to hire spies to watch me.”

  “Deirdre!” I felt particularly awful because, in part, what she’d said was very perceptive.

  She twisted her lower lip petulantly for a few seconds before sneaking a hand out to cover mine on the rail.

  “I didn’t mean you. What else did Stephen want?”

  “He was worried about a little present for you. I suppose he wasn’t sure. He didn’t say what it was, but it will prove he was thinking about you.”

  Her doubts seemed to vanish. “Judy, it’s true. He does things like that. He sometimes asks Ilima when she is here. Or Mrs. Mitsushima. But can’t you give me a hint about my present?”

  “I wouldn’t if I could. It would spoil his little surprise.”

  Her fingers tightened convulsively on my hand as she looked away toward the steep path down to the landing. I wondered if her husband could have arrived so rapidly, and if she had perhaps seen him from the house.

  “What is it?”

  “That creepy man. The one who came this morning with Mr. Berringer.”

  So William Pelhitt was tired of hiding behind flame trees and had come out in the open! His presence also gave me a handy excuse to leave her. I said, “He has no business hanging around here when Mr. Giles isn’t around. I’ll go and shoo him off. Meanwhile, you can be ready and looking your prettiest when your husband comes.”

  She panicked at once.

  “I’ve got to change. I want to look my best. I must, you know.”

  “Right. He’ll be here in less than an hour.”

  “Half an hour,” she corrected me.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot—half an hour.”

  She went into the house on the run. I leaned over the west rail and watched William Pelhitt. He seemed to be exploring the area, looking down at the gulch into the tangled thicket that bordered the path on the west. He didn’t like that view at all, and turned and walked up toward the clearing. I called to him. He jumped like a terrified fugitive from justice. He was behaving very mysteriously.

  I waved to him and there was nothing for him to do but stop and acknowledge me with no real enthusiasm. I went in to the back staircase and down to catch him. He had reached the emu and was examining that hole in the ground when I caught up with him. He may have thought I was crazy, or that I had a mad, unrequited passion for him.

  “Do they really cook food in that hole?” he asked with distaste, and a clear attempt to get me onto some safe topic. “Don’t you eat grit and dust with it?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. Were you on your way to the house, Mr. Pelhitt?”

  He smiled vaguely, asking me to understand.

  “I couldn’t put up with it any longer, being constantly under the gun.”

  “The gun. Meaning Victor Berringer.”

  “Right on! And to be honest, I was hanging around here trying to figure out what might have been done with Ingrid.”

  I was rigidly on guard at once. “What makes you think anything was done with Miss Berringer? And even if there were a remote possibility that she had been murdered, it is far more logical that she was killed in Honolulu. That’s a big city, full of foot-loose tourists looking for—” I caught myself, ashamed of the insinuation. “I beg your pardon. I have no knowledge of Miss Berringer whatever. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No. You may be right about her. It’s the not knowing that’s so bad.”

  I moved back from the pit. I had to be on my way to meet Stephen Giles, but I didn’t want to start in that direction until William Pelhitt was gone. I started to stroll along the trail that wound over to the Hawaiians’ village. He stared at the grove, then, to my relief, joined me on the trail. His eyes were nervous, unsure. His face with its suggestion of flabbiness was weak. I wondered why I didn’t dislike him as I disliked Victor Berringer. But there was a terribly human vulnerability about him.

  “I was going to stop by and see Stephen Giles, but I just didn’t have the nerve. That man knows something.”

  “Impossible,” I insisted. “Mr. Giles and I know only that Deirdre couldn’t have anything to do with your friend’s disappearance. Mr. Berringer became convinced today, I am sure.”

  He looked at me in his troubled way. “Certainly not. I’d put my money on Giles himself. He’s the one.”

  That shook me. I let him walk on and turned back. He stopped but I said, “Good afternoon,” and he went on. I waited until he was out of sight, swallowed up in the shimmering foliage that had caught the afternoon sunlight. I came back and looked for another way to get down to the little dock without passing Sandalwood. At the western border of the clearing I walked close to the first tangled gray roots, mentally kissing my best white thong sandals good-bye as they became encrusted with fresh mud.

  But among those tangled roots I made out a bridge over the drainoff area from the west fork of the Ili-Ahi River. It was quite a charming little rustic bridge with rickety-looking rails made of the grayish wood that appeared to have been young when these were the Sandwich Islands. The bridge was barely two planks wide, but it served my purpose to avoid being seen from Sandalwood House. The path to and beyond the bridge was in complete shade, like a tunnel carved from ancient thickets and jungle vegetation, the sort of rich, water-retaining vegetation rapidly being replaced on the other islands by stone monoliths and freeways for an ever-expanding population.

  Small as the island was, I suspected a newcomer like myself could easily get lost by wandering off this little footpath into side paths. By the time I had crossed the bridge which shook underfoot, I could see an opening in the thicket ahead and hear the pleasant roll of breakers nearing the narrow strand of beach. This took my mind off the constant expectation of finding spiders and other insects in the thicket. Wherever they were, they certainly did not appear to my eyes, or perhaps it was simply that the atmosphere was so dark and thick with humidity that I didn’t see what was all around me. I pushed aside the last fern and the giant leaves, the biggest I had ever seen, and watched a motorboat put in at the copper light with two men. Stephen Giles and my longtime friend Dr. Ito Nagata got out. They looked around, obviously not expecting to see me.

  I must have seemed to materialize out of the thicket behind them, because they had their backs to me and were staring along the path by which Ito had first brought me to Sandalwood. Stephen started in surprise and turned around as I called. Ito, with his Oriental self-control, pretended he had not been startled.

  “Judith,” Stephen began, taking my hand to shake it and then holding it, possibly forgetting he had it, he said “I’ve asked Ito to tell me as much as he knows about my wife. I think I should know in order to protect her. But whenever we talk about Deirdre’s past, we seem to arrive at you. I don’t want to pry into your own affairs, but they concern Deirdre.”

  Ito and I exchanged glances, and mine was quite furtive. I didn’t want Stephen to think we shared some terrible secret about Deirdre. Ito said, “I felt certain things should be discussed. We can’t expect Steve to be in the dark, if he is going to protect his wife from fellows like Berringer.”

  “He has moved onto the island,” I told Stephen who didn’t like this at all. He tightened his grip on my hand.

  “Impossible! To all intents and purposes this is private property. We pay enough taxes, God knows! And no one else owns a foot of Ili-Ahi except the native Hawaiians who have always lived here.”

  “Yes. And they’ve taken him in. Rented a house to him, I suppose.”

  “But why? They would resent him as m
uch as we do. A malahini and a haole to boot!”

  Ito had looked up quickly as I mentioned Berringer’s push to remain on the island. In his quiet voice he managed to make Stephen and me suddenly aware that Berringer was not to be removed so easily.

  “I’m afraid Victor Berringer has found a way around their objections. If I read the Hawaiians correctly, they want him as a wedge to cause you trouble.”

  “I’ve always gotten along well with the village. Moku and his family are among my best friends. Why do they need a wedge against me?”

  Dr. Nagata kept his gaze on his own fingernails as he explained what I was beginning to understand. “To get you to stop working on that resort project in the sacred grove.”

  “Oh, God! That again! I wouldn’t put it past them to have caused poor Sam Tiji’s death today.” He saw Nagata’s expression and after an awkward moment he said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Judith, do you agree with Ito?”

  “I’m afraid so. They wouldn’t go near the grove. Not even today when Deirdre and I offered them coffee and saki.”

  Stephen grinned suddenly, a single ray of light and charm in that hard face of his. “Saki! Whose idea was that? Yours, I’ll bet.” Then, before I had time to answer, he said, “Never mind. Nothing is wrong with Deirdre. You see that, don’t you? You do see that?”

  “Nothing is wrong.” A little bewildered by this plea for assurance so soon after our discussion of the accident in the grove, I began to feel more secure. Maybe he was talking of Deirdre’s physical health, after all. “She is perfectly all right. I just left her a few minutes ago, dressing to look her best for you when you arrive... Stephen, you did bring a little present of some kind?”

  Whatever inner doubts and fears crowded up to threaten his belief in his wife’s normality, he managed to subdue them with an effort. In a much quieter voice he said to Ito, “It’s these little things that pile up and raise—questions.” Ito said nothing and Stephen turned to me, unaware that his grip on my hand revealed the panic he tried to hide.

  “I need you, Judith, as I’ve never needed anyone. You are the only one who can help me with that poor child. And Ito agrees with me.”

  Nine

  Dr. Nagata said, “Steve, you are hurting Judith.”

  Stephen looked down, frowning, troubled at his own unconscious gesture. His fingers, one by one, released mine. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize.” He had to clear his throat. It was proof to me that his emotions were not secretive. He cared very much about things and people, and he could not help revealing this.

  My hand was hot and numb, but it didn’t matter. I understood his terrible concern.

  “I’m sure Dr. Nagata has told you the truth about my niece. She is not insane or ‘sick’ or any other euphemism you may use to describe a maniacal killer.” I added with biting emphasis. “As I am sure you must be fearing.”

  “Judith, I didn’t mean that. I never for a second believed Berringer’s preposterous suspicions.” I could see what he was suffering even in this passionate denial, and I was the more drawn to him because I knew so well this awful little prick of doubt that kept returning relentlessly.

  Ito walked away from us, toward the beginnings of that solid, well-defined path up to Sandalwood. He said without turning around, “I think Ilima Moku is interested. I see her starting down the trail. I’ll keep her occupied.”

  I was anxious to leave here. I felt like a conspirator, as indeed I was.

  “Please ask me whatever it is you want to know. I don’t like to be here long enough to disturb Deirdre. She is very sensitive, and sensitive people are sometimes jealous.”

  “Come over to the keawe thicket.” I went with him. This was close to the sea exit of the little tunnel path and the bridge I had crossed to reach this spot. “First of all, Deirdre was nowhere near the grove when Sammy fell?”

  Annoyed because the answer to this was obvious, I said quickly, “Of course not. You must have asked the workmen with Mr. Tiji.”

  He nodded. “What you really want to know,” I went on, “is whether anything in Deirdre’s past would make Victor Berringer suspicious of her. The answer is no. Unequivocally.”

  He looked at me. I returned that steady gaze without blinking. I was used to it. The judge had looked at me like that several times. And worse, my two attorneys had looked at me with that doubt eating away at them. There was always the notion that I was hiding something. The jury, at least, was not a pitying one. And they had been definitely prejudiced against my own story by the calm I had forced upon myself—an almost total absence of emotion. I said to Stephen Giles, “Deirdre did not poison her mother.”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  “How nice to be so omniscient! I congratulate you.”

  “No. I knew that ten minutes after I met you. And Ito, who knows you better, backs up my belief. Then how do you account for the death of Deirdre’s mother?”

  I took a deep breath of the salty air with its pleasant, bitter tang from the woods around us. I didn’t want to be angry when I answered him.

  “If you had read the details of my trial, you would know that we claimed Claire Cameron committed suicide. She merely chose my bedroom and her daughter’s birthday party as the setting.”

  “Who found her?”

  “I did.”

  “Was she alone?”

  “Certainly she was. It would have been rather stupid for someone to poison her and then stay to watch her die.” I started back to join Dr. Nagata.

  “Judith...”

  I didn’t want to talk about it any more. It was a tragedy I had tried to put behind me for almost nine years. I moved on. He caught up with me in a few strides.

  “Judith, was she alone?”

  “Yes. She was.” As he joined me, I told him sharply, “I’m very tired of that question. You are not the first to ask it.”

  “I beg your pardon. But I do have one more question. I think you owe me the answer.”

  Was he going to keep at the stereotyped questions, the questions that became clichés nine years ago?

  “Well then?”

  At least, he didn’t hesitate or use some mealy-mouthed euphemisms. “Was Deirdre abnormal, was she mentally retarded in any way at the time her mother died?”

  I couldn’t be angry or resent his desperate anxiety to know. His entire life might be bound up in the health of Deirdre.

  “Not that I know of. She behaved exactly the way a girl of thirteen might be expected to behave. She giggled and cried and laughed at nothing. She was sweet and dear and sometimes troublesome. She had a temper and stamped her feet, and then gave in and was her sunny self again. She was a thirteen-year-old!”

  Ito Nagata had retraced his steps and approached us. “Coming, Steve?” He added, motioning toward the path. “Mrs. Moku has gone on her way.”

  Stephen hesitated. Probably, like me, he felt there was nothing more that needed to be said about Deirdre. He offered a hand to assist me over the coral outcropping but I reminded him, “I’ll go back the way I came. It will be better.”

  I don’t know whether he understood my reason, and he was still frowning when I passed him and ducked under the tangled branches of the thicket path. It was sunset by this time, and the bridge was almost dark. Not even the tropical sun seeped into this little area of primeval wilderness, but the bright, burning rays of the sunset on the clearing above gave me an easy goal. My tunnel had a clear entrance up there.

  Shaking off what may have been imaginary insects, I reached the clearing just in time to meet Ilima Moku who was staring at the thicket as if she were waiting for me.

  I said calmly, without excess warmth, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Moku. Did you want to see me about something?”

  But Queen Ilima was not to be put down by the likes of me. “No, indeed, Miss Cameron. I am about to take that path through the keawe. You will admit that though you are slim enough, you and I could hardly pass on that bridge.”

  She certainly had me th
ere. I wondered if I dared to smile, but by that time she was on her way, and presently I heard, deep in the thicket, the ominous crunch of the bridge planks under a weighty load. I followed the edge of the clearing until I was within sight of Sandalwood House. Deirdre came rushing out the back door to meet her husband a few yards from the big, golden shower tree. Stephen lifted her off the ground and swung her around before kissing her on her broad, unlined forehead. Her thick, dark hair flew out around both their heads. When he set her on her feet again, he smoothed her hair in a tender, protective and almost paternal gesture, put his arm around her and motioned to Dr. Nagata who came on, smiling. The three started into the house. Just before they disappeared inside, Stephen, holding the door open for the others, looked back at me. He stared at me for a long minute, expressionless. I could not even imagine his thoughts. Someone called him, and he went inside. I avoided the back door and entered a little later by the front.

  I tried not to think at all. Nelia was in the midst of cleaning my room. I sent her off to meet her boyfriend and was glad to finish the job myself. I only wished I could spend the evening occupied with something that kept me from thinking.

  Somewhat to my surprise, dinner was lively. Everyone tried hard to contribute his share of wit, or at the very least, good humor. I don’t think Deirdre found it necessary to struggle for this as I did. She felt happy and behaved as though she had never been otherwise. There were times when I envied her what appeared to be rapid changes in mood and a complete memory blank on anything that might previously have troubled her.

  I remember that night we talked about ghosts. Or more precisely, about mythology, which we ended by confusing with ghost stories. In Hawaii, I learned, the two were not quite the same thing, and mythology was no laughing matter to the Hawaiian or even to the kamaiana white person. I found it strange that, with this ever-present shadow of trouble in the sacred grove, Stephen Giles should have flouted all the old beliefs. A man who got furious when the subject was brought up must certainly take them seriously!