The Pearl Harbor Murders

on the boy. Nothing I can do about it now.'

Burroughs studied his friend. 'Pearl Harada came to see me, not long before she was killed-to ask if I'd arrange a meeting between the two of you.'

Fielder gave Burroughs a sharp look. 'Really? Whatever for?'

'Same thing, I suppose-make a case for the marriage. You didn't talk to her?'

'I never met the young woman. I'm sorry she's dead.' The colonel shrugged. 'That's the end of it.'

'Jesus, Wooch-that's a little cold, isn't it?'

He exhaled smoke. 'All I care about is the best for my boy-and marrying that girl would've been a tragedy.'

'Her death's the tragedy, Wooch.'

Fielder said nothing; he was watching the game.

Burroughs applauded as the Rainbows made another first down. 'That fellow Morimura, that so-called diplomat, he was seen bawling out the Harada girl, a few hours before she was killed.'

Another sharp, interested look. 'Is that right? I wonder …'

'What, Wooch?'

'Well, possibly that little Jap was one of her lovers. She was something of a tart, I understood.'

Burroughs blinked. 'I wouldn't refer to her that way, to your son, if I were you.'

Fielder turned toward the writer and some of the hardness seemed to melt. 'Ed… I don't mean to be a bastard. I'm not unfeeling. But the very fact that this girl attracted a murderer… that some suitor of hers felt compelled to kill her, in some crime of passion … that makes my case, doesn't it? That Bill is better off without her.'

Suddenly six-two Adam Sterling was pushing in next to Burroughs, finally taking his seat. 'Sony I'm a little late.'

'A little late?' Burroughs said. 'It's the third quarter and your guys are behind fourteen and haven't made a dent on the Scoreboard.'

Sterling shrugged. 'I'm afraid it is a lost cause for the Bearcats.'

The FBI agent was in a white linen suit with a dark blue tie; he looked as if he'd just come from the office- which Burroughs figured was probably the case.

The score climbed to twenty to nothing, and Sterling didn't even appear to care; he, too, seemed distracted, terribly so. The game he'd been looking forward to, so eagerly, suddenly seemed to mean nothing.

Finally Sterling leaned across Burroughs and whispered to Fielder, 'What are your plans, after the game?'

'My wife and I are going to a party tonight, at Scho-field Barracks-with General Short and his wife.'

'Something's come up I need to fill you in on, Colonel-really need to see what you make of it.'

Sterling clearly meant business, his handsome, bronzed features fist-tight, his voice knife-edged. And Fielder, after all, was chief of Army intelligence on Oahu.

Fielder, eyes narrowed, obviously reading this, said, 'I don't think your team's going to come back-shall we go somewhere and talk?'

'You going to leave me here?' Burroughs asked. 'To endure this one-sided contest alone?'

Sterling looked at Burroughs, then at Fielder. 'I think Ed can hear this.'

Fielder shrugged. 'It's your call.'

Within twenty minutes, the trio was seated in a thatched-roof pergola on the stretch of beach that belonged to the Waikiki Tavern, which despite its saloon-style name was perhaps Honolulu's most cosmopolitan restaurant. The beachfront arbor was theirs alone, giving the three men both privacy and a breathtaking view of Diamond Head, that distinctive extinct crater whose green slopes danced with sunlight and shadows.

Fielder and Sterling had ordered mm punches and Burroughs was drinking iced tea. The FBI agent had explained to Fielder that Burroughs was doing a little informal surveillance work at the Niumalu and that Burroughs (revealing a fact of which the writer was previously unaware) had been given a security clearance by J. Edgar Hoover himself, for that very purpose.

Sterling got a notebook out of the inside pocket of his white linen jacket, saying, 'I went in to the office this morning because of several disturbing events. One was the murder of Pearl Harada.'

Fielder frowned skeptically. 'How would a girl singer's murder have an impact on intelligence?'

'I can't imagine,' Sterling admitted. 'But the supposed eyewitness to her murder, Otto Kuhn, is believed to be a 'sleeper' agent for Japan. Kuhn lives at the Niumalu, you know-he's the character Ed is helping keep an eye on.'

Fielder nodded, lighting up a cigarette. 'You said 'several' disturbing events-what else?'

The colonel did not seem keen to discuss the Pearl Harada killing.

The FBI agent leaned forward. 'We've learned that the Japanese Consulate has spent much of the week disposing of-burning-its papers. Considering the present situation, that would seem goddamn significant-a definite indication that the end of peaceful relations between our two nations is close at hand.'

'Everyone knows we're heading for war with Japan,' Fielder said, sighing smoke, not seeming terribly impressed. 'It doesn't surprise me that they're cleaning house! What else?'

'Well, as you know,' Steriing said, shifting in his wicker chair, 'we record every radiophone call made between here and Tokyo.'

'That's been a matter of routine for months,' Fielder said, apparently for Burroughs's benefit.

'When I came in to the office this morning, with these other matters on my mind, I was presented with a transcript translation of a radiophone conversation. Seems yesterday afternoon, a reporter at a Tokyo newspaper placed a call to Honolulu.' Sterling referred to the little notebook. 'His name is Ogawa, and his paper is the Yomiuri Shinbun.' Fielder sipped his rum punch. 'The call was to Mrs. Ishiko Mori,' Sterling elaborated, 'a Japanese citizen living here, married to a prominent nisei dentist.'

'Why is a Tokyo paper interviewing a dentist's wife?' Fielder asked.

'Mrs. Mori is a journalist-a stringer for the paper. She'd been asked to round up prominent members of the Japanese-American community for interviews-some kind of feature on everyday life in Honolulu. But Mrs. Mori reported to Ogawa that no one wanted to participate; possibly with the current state of relations between Japan and America, the idea made them… nervous. So Mrs. Mori answered the questions herself.'

'What sort of questions?'

'Whether airplanes were flying daily, and were they 'big' planes … the latter could be significant, because that would indicate long-range recon missions. Most of the questions Ogawa asked had to do with Oahu's defenses.'

'Such as?'

'Such as whether the fleet was in… were there searchlights on the planes flying at night… that kind of thing.'

Fielder said, 'That's information available to any-, body in the city.'

'Legal spying?' Burroughs asked. 'Like the snooping that Morimura character's been up to?'

Sterling seemed a bit surprised at Burroughs knowing this, and though the writer had intended his words for Fielder, the FBI agent answered: 'Exactly like that. But one exchange between the reporter and the dentist's wife really caught my attention.'

Again Sterling referred to the notebook.

' 'What kind of flowers are in bloom in Hawaii at present?' Ogawa asked her,' the FBI agent reported. 'And Mrs. Mori said, 'The hibiscus and poinsettias are in bloom now.''

Fielder seemed almost amused. 'And, what? You believe this to be code?'

'I believe she may have been reporting on the movement of specific battleships, yes.'

Burroughs, knowing he was out of his element, had largely kept mum; but now he couldn't resist, saying, 'Wooch, if somebody in Tokyo did invent this flower code, and was willing to spend upwards of two hundred bucks for a fifteen-minute transpacific call… could Frank Teske have been right? Are we in imminent danger of air attack?'

Fielder ignored Burroughs, saying to Sterling, 'Do you have the full transcript with you?'

Sterling said, 'Yes,' eagerly withdrawing the several folded sheets from his jacket pocket. He handed them to