FIVE
After the luau wound down, Hully Burroughs had been in no mood to join his sailor friends Bill Fielder and Dan Pressman in any Hotel Street excursions. Bill had been rather on the morose side-he'd learned about Colonel Fielder's displeased reaction at seeing his son and the Japanese songstress on the dance floor; and Pearl herself had begged off any after-hours date, pleading fatigue from her night on the bandstand.
This meant Bill would get plastered, while Dan would be on the prowl for dames, and in that part of town, the likely candidates served up love for a fee. Hully was interested in accompanying neither a drunk nor a tomcat, and instead headed to the Royal Hawaiian, where Harry Owens's orchestra was playing. Nobody pulled off that
He'd gotten very lucky-not in the way the sailors on Hotel Street did, either. He danced several slow tunes with a pretty brunette named Marion Thrasher, a local girl in her early twenties out celebrating a friend's birthday. She was down-to-earth and friendly, so different from the girls in California, all of whom seemed to be aspiring actresses (expecting Hully to land them a part in a Tarzan picture!). All he'd 'scored' were a few lovely if tentative smiles, some conversation and a phone number… but he was walking on air.
Or rather driving on air, in his father's Pierce Arrow convertible, one hand on the wheel, elbow resting on the rolled-down window, enjoying the way the stirred-up, sweetly scented breeze raffled his hair. He loved this little low-rise city of Honolulu, which hid shyly under banyans and flowering shrubs, palm trees towering over telephone poles.
Waikiki itself was a bohemian village, increasingly given over to hotels and inns, but still with room for clapboard houses, fisherman's shacks, picket fences and vacant lots. On an evening like this-well, early morning, as it was approaching one a.m.-the sounds were unbelievably romantic, the music of strolling troubadours mingling with the benign roar of surf.
As he pulled into the moonlight-washed Niumalu parking lot, the revelry of the luau was long over, the staff's cleanup accomplished, with a few lights on in the lodge itself, but most of the bungalows-peeking from between palms-dark. He parked, headed down a crashed coral path toward the Burroughs bungalow, whistling 'Sweet Leilani,' jingling change and keys in his khaki pockets.
That was when he heard, coming from the beach, a man's voice-his father's voice, he could have sworn- shouting
The shout conveyed an urgency, and a sense of menace, that sent Hully running down the path, and cutting through the hedges, toward the sandy shore.
By the time he got there, it was over: his father had apprehended (there could be no other word) the individual, who proved to be bandleader Harry Kamana. A bare-chested O. B. was hauling the aloha-shirt-sporting musician-who was blubbering like a baby-toward their bungalow.
Hully slowed and, approaching his father, was about to ask him what had happened when he noticed the twisted form of the girl, down a ways on the beach.
For a moment, he covered his mouth, in shock and horror; then Hully managed, 'Is that…?'
'It's the Japanese girl,' his father affirmed. 'Pearl Harada. Head crashed with a rock-I caught this son of a bitch red-handed.'
Literally: the musician's right hand was damply red with blood.
'I'm going to take Harry here to our bungalow,' O. B. said, holding on to the slumping, bawling musician, 'and call the cops. You go alert Fred at the lodge, and have him post somebody at the crime scene, so that the body isn't disturbed.'
Had the situation not been so loathsome, Hully might have laughed. 'I'll be damned, Dad,' he said. 'You really
Burroughs nodded, and dragged Kamana off.
Hully went to the lodge and woke the manager, filling him in as they walked to the beach, where the younger Burroughs got his first close, grisly look at the beautiful dead woman with the ugly head wound, bathed in gold by an obscenely beautiful Hawaiian moon.
Manager Fred Bivens-who was in his pajama top and some trousers he'd thrown on, a heavyset genial fellow in his forties-turned away, aghast.
The tide sweeping onto the shore had a distant sound, despite its closeness, like the hoarse echo of a scream. The ocean stretched purple to the horizon, glimmering with gold, almost as lovely as this girl had been.
'Are you all right, Fred?' Hully asked, touching the man's arm.
'What a hell of a thing,' Fred whispered. 'What a hell of a thing… She was a sweet kid. Flirty, but sweet-and so talented… What a goddamn shame.'
Hully understood and shared all these sentiments, and was not surprised by the tears in Fred's eyes.
'Can you stay here with her, Fred? Till the police come? Dad's calling them.'
Fred ran a hand through his thinning brown hair, shaking his head, as if saying no, as he said, 'Sure… sure. Poor sweet kid…'
'We need to keep everybody away. Dad says this is a… crime scene, now. So you need to keep your distance, too, Fred-don't touch her or anything.'
'Don't worry.'
Moments later, Hully joined his father in the bungalow. The whimpering musician was seated on O. B.'s typing chair, which had been situated in the middle of the sitting room. Kamana sat there, slumped, chin on his chest, one hand on a knee, the other hand-the bloody one-held out, palm up, as if he were trying to weigh something.
O. B.-who had thrown on an aloha shirt and some chinos but whose feet were bare-stood with his muscular arms folded, staring at the musician like a scornful genie.
'Fred's standing watch,' Hully said.
'Good.'
'When will the police get here?'
'Soon. I got lucky.'
'How so?'
'Have you met my friend Jardine?'
Hully shook his head. 'Don't believe so.'
'He's a Portuguese-the best homicide detective on the island-works out of City Hall, not the police station. Officially he's a detective on the Honolulu PD, but he operates strictly out of the prosecutor's office, principally on murder cases.'
'That's a good thing?'
Burroughs came over to his son, turning his back to the seated, moaning musician, and whispered, 'Local PD is so corrupt, it makes the LAPD look squeaky-clean.'
'Jeez.'
'Jardine's straight as an arrow. Luckily he was in, at this hour.'
'Why was he?'
A tiny half smile crinkled O. B.'s bronzed face. 'When he isn't working a murder case, he makes a habit on weekend nights of standing at the corner of Hotel and Bishop, giving the soldiers and sailors the evil eye. He's known around there as a hard-nosed cop, so standing guard like that, looking at passersby like. they're all suspects, well it's his idea of crime prevention….1 caught him at his desk just before he was heading home.'
Hully figured this Jardine had probably given his friends Fielder and Pressman the 'evil eye' tonight-and many nights.
Hully and his father turned toward the musician, who had finally stopped sobbing and spoken-actually, more
