tone.
“For two reasons,” Darrow said. “First, I want to keep our investigator away from reporters, keep him off the firing line. They’ll only bother him about the Lindbergh business, for one thing, and I want him someplace where he can invite various witnesses and others involved in the case, for a friendly conversation over lunch or fruit punch, without the prying eyes of the press.”
Leisure was nodding; jealous or not, it made sense.
“It won’t hurt,” Darrow continued, “to have an opulent setting to entice the cooperation of these individuals. Also, I can sneak off there myself, if I need to confer with someone, away from journalistic meddlers.”
“Despite all the lawyerly bypaths you just took,” I said, “that’s just one reason. You said two.”
“Oh. Well, the other reason is, I was offered a free suite at the Royal Hawaiian, and this was a way to take advantage of that invitation.”
And he beamed at me, proud of himself.
“So the taxpayers of Chicago pay for my services,” I said, “and the Royal Hawaiian provides my lodging. You couldn’t afford
“Not hardly. Mind if I smoke, dear?”
“No,” Isabel said. “But where are we going?”
“I was just wondering that myself,” Leisure said. He still wasn’t used to Darrow’s offhand way of doing things.
“Why, taking you to your lodgings, child,” Darrow said grandly to the girl, as his steady old hands emptied tobacco from a pouch into a curl of cigarette paper.
“I’m staying with my cousin Thalia,” she said.
“Yes,” Darrow said. “She’s expecting us.”
4
The Navy limousine slipped into the stream of leisurely traffic on King Street; the Oriental and Polynesian drivers of Oahu, and even the Caucasians for that matter, seemed more cautious, less hurried than mainlanders. Or maybe the seductive warm climate with its constant cool breeze encouraged a tempo that to a contemporary Chicagoan seemed more appropriate for horse carts and carriages.
Nonetheless, Honolulu remained resolutely modern. There were trolley cars, not rickshaws, and on side streets, frame houses were in evidence, not a native hut in sight. The stark modern lines of white office buildings were softened by the soothing greenery of palms and exotic flora, and once we’d left the clustered heart of the business district, the urban landscape was calmed by occasional stretches of park or by a school or a church or some official- looking building resplendent on verdant manicured grounds.
Coca-Cola signs, Standard Oil pumps, drugstore window posters advertising Old Gold Cigarettes were a reminder that this was America, all right, despite the coconut trees and foreign faces.
Soon we were climbing into an area that Leisure labeled Manoa Valley, and that our youthful Navy chauffeur further identified as “The Valley of Sunshine and Tears.”
“There’s a legend,” the driver said in a husky voice, turning his head to us but keeping an eye on the road, “that in olden days, a maiden who lived in this valley met with tragedy. Lies were told about her virtue, and it made her man jealous, and all involved came to a bad end.”
“Such stories often turn out thus,” Darrow said gravely.
Right now we were moving through a silk-stocking district, spacious near-mansions with beautifully maintained gardens and spacious golf-course-perfect lawns. We were on the incline that was well-shaded Punahou Street, and the college of that name was off to our right, up-to-date buildings on lavish royal palm-flung grounds.
“Somebody has money,” I said.
Leisure nodded toward a stately mansion that might well have been an estate outside London. “This is old white money—they call them
“Isn’t that a college football conference?”
Leisure’s narrow lips pursed a smile. “Hawaii’s Big Five are the plantation, shipping, and merchandising companies that own these islands. Matson Lines money, Liberty House, which is the local version of Sears…”
“The white man came to Hawaii,” Darrow intoned suddenly, as if from a pulpit, “and urged the simple natives to turn their eyes upward to God…but when the natives looked down to earth again, their goddamn
We rose into the upper portion of Manoa Valley, where the estates gave way to a network of shady lanes and a concentration of cottages and bungalows. Though we were on a steep gradient, the boundaries of the valley were steeper still—mountainous slopes providing a dark blue backdrop; it was as if this were a stadium scooped from the earth by nature, and we were down on the Big Five’s playing field.
I posed a question to the driver. “How far are we from Pearl Harbor?”
“A good half an hour, sir.”
“Is it common for a Navy officer to live this far from the base?”
“Yes, sir,” the driver said. “In fact, quite a few Navy officers live in Manoa Valley—Army as well. Lt. Massie and a number of other younger officers live within close proximity of one another, sir.”
“Oh. That’s nice. Then they can get together, socialize…”
“I wouldn’t know about that, sir,” the driver said, strangely curt.
Had I touched a nerve?
Number 2850 on the narrow slope of Kahawai Street was a precious white Tudor-style bungalow, its gabled
