The White Ghost (13 page)

“Did he have a lot of visitors?”

“Lieutenant Boyle, the Chinese have large families,” Schwartz said. “They're in and out of here all day long.”

“White men? Melanesians? Anyone other than family?” I asked.

“No,” Schwartz said. “Not that I know of, but we don't really keep track of visitors, especially when we don't speak the same language.”

“Didn't Sam Chang speak English? It seems he did business with lots of islanders; he must have known the lingo,” I said.

“He did. But still, this is a naval hospital. We treat civilians as needed and then get them out. Chang was here mainly because his injury was sustained while disembarking a naval vessel.”

“So no one else besides his family came to visit him?”

“No, not exactly,” Schwartz said, rubbing his chin absentmindedly.

“What?” I asked.

“Lieutenant Kennedy—you know that guy who got his PT boat rammed?—I saw him in the hallway last night, late. He stopped and looked in the Chinese ward. But then he left.”

“What time?” I asked.

“It was a little after two o'clock. I was headed to the mess for some coffee when I saw him. I asked if he needed any help, and he said he was looking in on a friend, then heading for his hut.”

“You watched him leave?”

“Sure,” Schwartz said. “I didn't follow him, if that's what you mean. But he went in that direction, down the main corridor.” He hitched his thumb in the general direction of the long hallway leading to the rear of the hospital and the grass and bamboo huts for the walking wounded of the officer class.

“Hang on a sec, Doc,” I said, brushing past Schwartz.

“That's Captain,” he said, without much enthusiasm.

“Miss Chang,” I said, noticing for the first time that she was accompanied by two large guys standing on each side of her. Their eyes focused on me as I drew closer, and one stepped in front of Rui while the other intercepted me. Classic bodyguard moves. She spoke sharply, and they eased back into position.

“Are you done, Lieutenant Boyle?” she asked.

“Almost, Miss Chang. Could you or one of your associates ask the other patients if they saw anyone enter the ward during the night?”

“Such an obvious question, Lieutenant. We asked hours ago. No, none of them saw anything. Two patients, including the man opposite my brother, had been given sedatives. My brother as well was given a sleeping pill. The assailant could have easily entered in silence and done his work.”

“Forgive me saying so, but the men with you appear to be bodyguards. Is that because of the murder of your brother, or is it how you usually travel?”

“My sister and I always go out with one escort,” she said. “Due to the perilous times in which we live. The second man is because of my brother.” She spoke very precise English, each syllable clipped and exact. Her posture was equally as exact. She stood erect, completely still, not a wasted movement, even in her hands, which were demurely clasped in front of her. Her eyes were dark, her lips red, and her cheekbones finely sculpted. Jack always did go for the finer things in life.

“I see. Is it possible he was killed as the result of business dealings? In these perilous times?”

“No, Lieutenant Boyle, it is not,” she said with the ghost of a smile. “My brother had been trapped on Vella Lavella for months. He had no opportunity to engage in a dispute that would have resulted in such an attack. In any case, very few people knew he got out and was on Tulagi, and most of those were American navy or Coastwatchers. I am afraid you must look to your own people for the killer.”

“I understand Lieutenant Kennedy visited you last night,” I said, watching for a reaction.

“You saw us leave the party together, so you know that,” she said.

“I don't mean to pry, but did you mention your brother's presence here to Jack? Ask him to stop and visit?”

“Yes, I did,” Rui said. “I gave him a bamboo plant and asked him to leave it on Shan's bed table. Or Sam, as you call him. I saw it there when I looked in earlier. It is a symbol of good luck, and I thought it would cheer Shan up when he awoke.” Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she kept them in check.

“Did your brother know a Melanesian named Daniel Tamana? He's also a Coastwatcher.”

“Not that I know of,” Rui said. “Is that not the man who was recently murdered?”

“Yes. I understand Daniel was looking for your brother the day before he was killed.”

“As you know, Lieutenant,” she said, “if he found him, it would have been in this room. Shan was hardly in a position to attack and kill him, if that is what you are alluding to.”

“No, not at all. I simply thought it might shed some light on Daniel's activities the day of his death.”

“If I hear of anything, I will inform you,” Rui said. “Shan may have known him on Vella Lavella, but I would have no knowledge of that.”

“One last question, I promise. What time did Jack leave you?”

“Perhaps one thirty, a little later.”

“Thank you, Miss Chang. I am very sorry about your brother's death. I will do everything I can to find the killer.”

“Do so, Lieutenant Boyle,” she said, and left. A woman used to getting her way. I watched the bodyguards flanking her, and thought that even from a hospital bed, a Chang family member would have no trouble getting their dirty work done for them.

“Okay, Captain Schwartz,” I said, returning to the room and noting the glass vase with sprouted bamboo. “How long would it take to strangle him?”

“Hard to say. He could have struggled, fought back,” Schwartz said.

“Don't worry, Doc, I won't ask for a second opinion,” I said. “And remember, he'd been given a sleeping pill.”

“Right,” Schwartz said, consulting the chart still hanging at the end of the bed. “Supposing his assailant could get into position without waking him, it would take about ten seconds of firm, steady pressure to render him unconscious. Then another minute and it's all over. The sedative would have made the job easier.”

I hefted the glass vase with the bamboo plant set in among smooth, rounded pebbles. It would have made a decent cosh, but there had been no need. I checked the drawer on the nightstand, but it was empty. Not surprising since Chang probably came in with nothing but the clothes on his back. Or if there had been anything valuable, his sisters would have taken it for safekeeping. I rolled his body, looking for anything hidden in the bed. Nothing.

“I don't see any other marks or bruises, do you?”

“No,” Schwartz said, unbuttoning Chang's pajama top and getting a good look at the marks left by the killer's hands. “Strong hands, I'd say.”

“Why?”

“Even with the sedative, he would have woken up,” Schwartz said. “The natural response is to thrash about, and if he moved that leg at all, it would have been painful. A sharp, sudden pain that would make anyone gasp or scream, sedated or not.”

“But he was being choked,” I said.

“Right, but some sort of sound would have come out, unless the grip was very tight, which also would have rendered him unconscious more quickly. My conjecture is that his assailant was very strong and determined, otherwise Chang would have made more than enough noise to wake someone in this room.”

“Strong, determined, and with big hands,” I said, placing my own around Chang's throat. “Bigger than mine.”

“Right,” Schwartz said. “The killer might be right-handed, as well. See how the right thumbprint shows? People usually grasp things first with their dominant hand.”

“You know your way around dead bodies, Doc.”

“You do your residency at County General in Chicago, you see a lot of violent injuries in the ER,” Schwartz said. “Couldn't help learning a few things from the questions cops asked.”

“Thanks, Captain, you've been a big help. Okay to move him out.” I arranged Chang's hands on his chest, closed his eyes, and drew the sheet up over his face as Schwartz loosened the wires holding Chang's leg in traction. I left, wishing Sam Chang a quick trip to the next life and hopes that it'd be a peaceful one.

As for Jack, my mind wasn't made up. I knew he had a temper, and it wasn't impossible to think of him taking a whack at a guy in a rage; I could see him killing Daniel in an unguarded moment. But could he throttle a man to death? It wouldn't have been his style in Boston, but in the South Pacific, surrounded by blood, decay, and death, who knew
?

I didn't.

Chapter Fifteen

“Jack?” I said,
announcing m
yself as I entered his hut. The place was empty, his bed unmade and clothes heaped in piles on the floor. Neatness was never a big consideration for Jack, as far as I remembered. I sat at the table, strewn with yellowed newspapers, a
couple of old
Life
magazines, and some correspondence in progress. I sat to wait and flipped through
Life
, reading about the army training women pilots in Texas to ferry aircraft overseas from the States. Not a bad idea. Another article was about General Charles de Gaulle, which wasn't even a close second in the not-a-bad-idea department. I tossed the magazine aside and let my gaze wander over to Jack's letters.

One envelope had a return address from Charlotte McDonnell. The letter next to it was in Jack's handwriting, with a note from Charlotte scrawled across the top in large letters:
Can't keep all the girls straight?
Jack's letter to
Dearest Darlyne
had gone in the wrong envelope and was obviously not appreciated. Especially the part about looking forward to a return engagement, not of the matrimonial kind.

No, Charlotte, I thought, Jack can't keep all the girls straight.

I craned my neck to spy on the letter Jack was obviously in the midst of writing.
Dear Lem
, it began. Lem Billings, Jack's best friend from his private school days. I'd met Lem—it was hard to know Jack and not meet Lem—and liked him. A decent guy. We'd stayed in touch off and on, mostly through Christmas cards and the occasional postcard from distant lands. He had bad eyes and couldn't get into the service, but had volunteered for the American Ambulance Field Service, and probably saw more action in North Africa than a lot of guys in the army.

Jack's letter started off by informing Lem he was about to be discharged from the hospital, and was well enough
to have sampled the delights of the Orient, if you know what I mean. Last night was my first excursion into the Far East, and I did my nation proud.
And so on. Now I'm no prude, but something in Jack's bragging about his conquests didn't sit well with me. It seemed like he needed to announce his every escapade, and I wondered if the telling was more important for Jack than the act itself. I'd heard plenty of rumors about his old man stepping out with the ladies, so maybe he was trying to live up to his father's reputation.

I walked outside, putting some distance between me and evidence of my snooping. Just in time, too. Jack approached, wearing shorts and tennis shoes, a towel slung around his neck.

“Billy, what's new? Did you have a good time last night?”

“It was okay,” I said as I followed him into the hut. “How about you?”

“Terrific. Rui took me home to Chinatown,” Jack said, grinning as he flopped into a chair and tossed the towel on the floor. “Did you meet her?”

“Yeah, a little while ago,” I said. Jack sounded like he hadn't heard about Sam. “As I was checking her brother's body for evidence.”

“What?” Jack said, his eyes wide with surprise, or a reasonable imitation.

“Sam Chang was murdered early this morning,” I said. “A few hours after you were seen in his room.”

“Oh Jesus, that's all I need,” Jack said.

“Yeah, I imagine he felt the same way when he was being strangled,” I said, pulling up a chair next to Jack and leaning in close. “Tell me why you were there.”

“Rui asked me to drop off a bamboo plant,” he said. “It's for luck.”

“Yeah, all of it bad. What time was that?”

“I'm not sure, around two o'clock, I think,” Jack said. “I went in and put the plant on the table; Rui told me which bed Sam was in. He was asleep, and so was everyone else in the room.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“A few people in the corridor, maybe a doctor and a few orderlies,” he said. “I really wasn't paying attention, I just wanted to hit the sack. Strangled, huh? Poor bastard.”

“Did Rui talk about her brother? Did she mention anyone who had a beef with him?”

“Other than her? No,” Jack said, and began shuffling through the letters on the table. He looked at the returned letter from Charlotte and laughed as he ran it under his nose. “I can smell her perfume, but I don't think I'll ever get close to it again.”

“Wait,” I interrupted, amazed by the nonchalance with which Jack dropped that tidbit of news. “Rui Chang and her brother Sam had problems? What was that all about?”

“Money,” Jack shrugged, indifferent to a commodity he found so readily available. “The Chang family runs a lot of business ventures, but the two sisters are based here on Tulagi and Sam up on Vella Lavella. Or at least he was. Rui said he borrowed from them to expand his stores and his shipping right before the war broke out. Bad timing.”

“So he owed his sisters money?”

“Apparently,” Jack said. “I got the impression the bamboo plant was a bit of a joke. Like saying he'd need good luck to get out of the mess he found himself in. It actually reminded me of my own brother. Joe would pull a prank like that.”

“Would your family commit murder over money?” I asked, knowing that some of Joe Senior's more questionable associates might.

“You don't think Rui had him killed?” Jack asked. “It's her brother for Chrissake. And how would she ever collect what he owed?”

“Inheritance?”

“Her timing would be off for that,” Jack said. “She mentioned a lot of planters had been running a tab with Sam when the war began. He'd have to collect on that first. Like I said, his timing was terrible. Anyway, I don't believe she had anything to do with it. I got the impression it's a hard-nosed family when it comes to business, but murder is a different story.”

“Probably so,” I said. “Now tell me why you said ‘that's all I need' when I told you about Sam's death.”

“Listen, Billy, I need you to keep quiet about Sam and my late-night visit. Al Cluster is coming by later today. He's my commanding officer and he's the one who can send me home or give me another boat. I don't want him to start thinking I'm a problem child he'd be better off without.”

“How are your injuries?” I asked. “Bad enough for a ticket home?”

“No, my feet are healing up fine,” he said. “There's a navy tradition that says a captain who's had his boat sunk gets sent stateside. If Al wants me gone, he can use that. If he doesn't, he'll ignore it. So do me a favor, Billy, and forget about this Chang thing.”

“How's your back?” I asked, without commenting on the favor. There'd been a few too many favors done between the Kennedys and the Boyles, and I didn't want to start another round. “You must've gotten banged up pretty bad when that destroyer hit you.”

“It's the same,” he said. Which meant not so great. “Here's the deal, Billy. I can't go home now. I haven't really done anything worthwhile out here. The truth is, these PT boats are next to worthless. Our torpedoes are a joke. Half the boats don't have radar, and the brass thinks we're a bunch of Ivy League pansy yachtsmen who don't give a damn about the real navy.”

“That last part sounds true,” I said.

“Yeah,” Jack laughed. “Guilty as charged. Al Cluster is one of the few Annapolis men who went into PT boats. He's a good officer and I don't want to disappoint him. Or myself for that matter. I got two men killed, Billy. Harold Marney and Andrew Kirksey. I need to do right by them.”

“You saved the rest,” I said. “Ten men survived, that should count for something.”

“All I did was get my boat sunk,” Jack said, scratching his damp hair. “I swam around for a while looking for help, hoping the rest of the squadron would return to search for us. All that did was get my feet cut up on the coral. It was a Coastwatcher who sent the two natives out to look for us. If it weren't for them, we would have died out on the little island. Or been captured by the Japs, which amounts to the same thing.”

“It was a pretty long swim from what I heard,” I said. “Didn't you tow a guy who was badly burned?”

“Yeah, Pappy. He was in the engine room. I guess he was lucky to get out alive. The doctors said he'll be okay. Even though his hands were burned, he kept flexing them all the time. They said that saved them, kept scar tissue from forming and tightening his hands into claws.” He closed his eyes, turning his head away. Finally, something had gotten to Jack Kennedy.

“Jack, it could have been a whole lot worse,” I said, sensing the depth of his emotion. It was the first time I'd ever seen him even close to feeling guilty over something he'd done.

“It could have been avoided,” he said, slamming his hand down on the table. “It's criminal that none of the radar boats told us they were leaving the strait. It's criminal that no one came looking for us. They gave us up for dead. I can't forget that, not ever.”

“What do you mean about the radar boats, Jack?”

“I told you, half the boats don't have radar, including the 109. The boats that had radar saw the Jap destroyers barreling down Blackett Strait. They fired their torpedoes and got the hell out of there. They didn't score one hit or bother to radio that they were leaving, much less that we had company headed our way. When that destroyer sliced the 109 in two and our fuel exploded, the other boats hightailed it for home.”

“Sounds like a FUBAR nightmare,” I said.

“The sea is dark and huge, Billy. More so when you're abandoned and left to die. Cotter lied. He claimed he searched the area, but we never saw anyone. With all the burning fuel on the water, it would have been a cinch to find us. He ought to be court-martialed. Or worse.”

“Jack, threats aren't going to help you get another boat,” I said. “Calm down, okay? You and your men got a raw deal, but you're mixed up in two murders already.”

“Jesus, Billy, I'd never laid eyes on Sam Chang until last night. I had no reason on earth to murder him or Daniel Tamana. Give me a break, alright?” That was more like the old Jack, asking for a favor, special treatment, for me to be a pal. I'd been down that one-way street before.

“You told me that you'd met Daniel the day before he was killed, at Hugh Sexton's place,” I said. “Who else was there?”

“Besides Hugh and Daniel, there was Fred Archer and Gordon Brockman,” Jack said. “Along with John Kari. Deanna Pendleton, too.”

“Why were you there?”

“I wanted to ask about Reg Evans, the Coastwatcher who sent the natives out to find us. Hugh told me he was still out on Kolombangara, so I asked him to pass on my thanks. And besides, I'd heard about Deanna and hoped she'd be there as well. I got lucky.”

“What can you tell me about Daniel?” I asked, more interested in the murder victim than Jack's luck with the ladies. “Did he seem upset about anything? Get in an argument with anyone?”

“No,” Jack said slowly, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “Not that I can remember. There was a lot of talk about the new radios and getting back out on station before the next big offensive.”

“Any mention of Sam Chang?”

“Never came up,” Jack said. “It was business as usual; they talked radio frequencies, supply drops, that sort of thing. Silas Porter showed up too, but that was after Daniel had left.”

“What was Daniel like?” I asked. I knew I was grasping at straws, but Jack was a shrewd judge of character and a keen observer.

“Smart. That was the first thing you noticed about him,” Jack said. “Well, after the dark skin and fuzzy hair. He was sharp, didn't waste a lot of words. And when he asked a question, it was straight to the point. Observant and intelligent.”

“What are relations like between the white islanders and the Melanesians?”

“It varies, from what I've seen,” Jack said. “It's not like Negroes and whites back home. The natives here are so different; it's like some of them are still living in the Stone Age. To no great disadvantage, either, for many. Daniel was raised near a mission and learned English from an early age. It seemed that Sexton and the other Coastwatchers accepted him as one of their own. I don't get the sense that whites here have a problem with a native adopting Western ways.”

“So no resentment about an uppity native taking on airs, that sort of thing?”

“No, not that I saw,” Jack said. “In general I think the English treat the natives as nothing more than a convenient labor pool for their plantations. On an individual basis, there are some genuine friendships. Whatever the relations, it's going to be hard after the war to get the natives to go back to the old ways. They've been fighting the Japs alongside us and earning good money unloading ships for the navy. They're not going to fancy returning to plantation work for cheap wages.”

“That's fascinating, Jack, but it still doesn't tell me why Daniel got his head bashed in.” As usual, Jack looked at the big picture. I needed a cop's take on things, not a politician's.