The Pearl Harbor Murders

even apparel like kimonos and getta; they were burying samurai swords and family heirlooms in their backyards-doing their frantic best to nullify any signs of Japanese influence and culture in Honolulu.

Burroughs found in Japanese-dominated Chinatown nothing to confirm the long-held local apprehension that- in the case of war with Nippon-Oahu's Japanese would come charging into haole neighborhoods brandishing guns or even samurai swords. Nor was there any sign of them skulking off to plant dynamite satchels and mines under bridges and piers or at military installations and electric lines. And predictions that your own maid, your neighbor's houseboy, the cop on the beat, the farmer down the road, the nisei Hawaii Territorial Guard members, would band together against 'Americans' (which they of course were themselves) hardly seemed to be materializing.

The distant echo of explosions provided a thunderous backdrop as Ed Burroughs and his son walked by the sampan dock, where the blue boats bobbed, unattended.

'So much for a fifth column,' Burroughs said to Hully, looking around at the desolation, as they approached the small grocery near the Aala Market.

'I'd feel better about this,' Hully said, clearly a little nervous, 'if Agent Sterling were at our side.'

Burroughs held up his palm, where the tiny German automatic nestled. 'We'll be fine. Sterling has his own job to do.'

'Well, the door's open, anyway,' Hully said, and brushed aside the hanging black beads and gestured, politely, for his father to go in first.

The writer stepped inside, Hully right behind him. The wooden storefront was unattended; the place had a curious fragrance, similar to incense-though to Burroughs the unfamiliar scent suggested decay. His son had told him about the shop, but Burroughs was not prepared for how little the 'grocery' had to do wife his American preconceptions. He glanced around at the walls of shelves lined with jars and baskets of strange herbs, roots, dried seaweed, and other exotica.

'I guess he's out of Ovaltine,' Burroughs said dryly.

With his left hand, Burroughs slapped the 'Please Ring' bell on the counter, which stretched along the left of the shop.

A door, opposite the beaded one they'd come in, cracked open, apparently from a rear storage area.

'Shop is closed,' Yoshio Harada said. Then he recognized them, and the grocer stepped into the storefront, closing the storeroom door behind him. He half bowed. 'Burroughs-san … Burroughs- san,' he said, acknowledging them both.

'The door was open,' Burroughs said, nodding toward the beaded entry. 'Sorry to drop by unannounced, but this is an extraordinary morning, wouldn't you say, Mr. Harada?'

Nodding again, the diminutive, trimly mustached man-in a white shirt, grocer's apron, blue trousers, and sandals-shuffled behind the counter at the left; the shelves rising behind him provided a bizarre backdrop of gnarled roots, shark fins and seahorse skeletons.

'A terrible day.' Harada was hanging his head. 'I am ashamed to be Japanese on this day.'

'No kidding?' Burroughs leaned a hand against the counter; his other hand, with the little gun, was behind his back. 'I heard you used to have the emperor's picture on display.'

Head still bowed, he gestured with both hands, as if disgusted. 'I threw it away, many weeks ago. We work so hard to be accepted-to be good American. In one morning, all is undone. I am angry at Japan.'

A faraway explosion seemed to punctuate his sentence.

The little grocer shook a fist at the sky. 'Dirty Japs!'

'Not bad,' Burroughs said, chuckling. 'If Weiss-muller was as good an actor as you are, Harada, I'd be a happy man.'

Harada looked up at the writer, blinking. 'Who? What?'

Moving closer to the counter, Hully went into their prepared spiel. 'We've just come from the Japanese Consulate, Mr. Harada. General Consul Kita says you and Morimura are buddies.'

Harada frowned in apparent confusion. 'I know no one named Morimura.'

'How about Yoshikawa?' Burroughs asked, innocently. 'A rose by any other name… You see, I thought, what with bombs dropping and all, you might be just the guy to help get the vice consul out of the limelight.'

The grocer shook his head. 'I know nothing of what you speak.'

'Well,' Burroughs said, 'to tell you the truth, we were bluffing. Kita didn't mention your name. Matter of fact, I doubt Kita even knows your name, unless the Consulate buys seafood and vegetables from you.'

'They do not.'

'After all, Kita's not the espionage agent-he'd likely be kept out of the know, for security reasons. It's Morimura-that is, Yoshikawa-who's the spy in the woodpile.'

Harada's frown no longer seemed confused, though his words continued down the path of denial: 'I understand none of what you say.'

'There's no fifth column in Oahu,' Burroughs said with a grin, which quickly vanished. 'But there is a tiny network of real spies. That radiophone call was a signal that this Sunday would make a fine morning for a surprise party. Your niece knew something was up- more importantly, she knew you were an agent, just like Otto Kuhn, and Morimura.'

Now the mask dropped and a tiny, but very nasty smile, etched itself on the bland features. 'Are these things you can prove?'

Burroughs shrugged. 'Hell, I'll leave that to the FBI.' He jerked a thumb at Hully. 'My son, here, is the one who really put it together.'

Hully said, 'I couldn't stop thinking about Morimura bawling Pearl out-she wasn't one of his conquests; he wasn't her type. Why would she even know him? Then it came to me: through you….'

'As the grocer making deliveries to the Niumalu,' Burroughs said, 'you could easily maintain contact with your German 'sleeper' agent. And Pearl was aware of your relationship with both Kuhn and Morimura. After all, she lived with you, up above your shop, before she moved to the Niumalu, so she knew you and Morimura were in league-and she knew or figured out that he was an espionage agent; she even knew his real name. She got wind of something big coming up, and she was going to turn you, and Morimura, in to military intelligence… to show her loyalty to America.'

“To prove herself,' Hully said softly, sadly, 'to her boyfriend's father.'

Harada held out both empty palms and shook his head, smiling as if this was all too far-fetched, too absurd. 'And you think this … Morimura… killed my niece?'

'No.' Burroughs twitched a smile, nodding right at the grocer. 'I think you killed her. I know you killed her. You confronted her about what you considered her disloyalty, to her family, to Japan, and she told you she was going to Colonel Fielder, to tell him everything. You struck her down, with a goddamn rock, crushed

her skull-then Morimura helped cover it up, by calling Kuhn and having him finger the wrong man.'

Now the grocer folded his arms and his chin raised; his tone was quietly defiant, now. 'I would take offense at these accusations, but they are … foolish.'

'Oh, there's more. You got to thinking about your niece's close friend, that homosexual musician, and got worried that she may have talked to him, shared what she knew. Or perhaps she bragged to you that she had told Terry Mizuha what she knew, thinking it would protect her, would keep you from harming her. Either way, she was too naive, or maybe too nice a kid, to understand that this is war: that one more casualty, more or less, is nothing to a soldier… even if it is his own niece.'

Harada said nothing; however, a faint sneer could be detected under the trim mustache.

A slight tremor in his voice, Hully said, 'You made an unscheduled, unexpected delivery of seafood to the Niumalu-the day after your niece was murdered! If you had any human compassion or decency, you'd know how suspicious, how wrong that would seem to a normal person.'

'You murdered Terry Mizuha at the hotel, probably in his room,' Burroughs said, 'tossed him in your pickup truck, like another swordfish, and hauled him to the beach.'

Hully added, 'Though you probably picked up your pal Morimura to help you carry him down that rocky slope to the beach.'