She was so isolated that her family hadn’t even known how to reach her. If she hadn’t come back to port to resupply, Patty never would have known until her mother was long buried. She remembered the funeral, the sight of her two younger brothers, virtual strangers to her, held under either of her father’s arms, gazing at her with unquestioning love, in search of reassurance she could not give them. She resolved then to forsake her life on the sea and stay with them, be the sister they never really had now that their mother was gone. The ocean could go on without her, and maybe her brothers could, too. But the issue was one of need.
Her mother’s funeral had brought back sharp memories of how close she had once come to death herself. She had nearly perished with the first Runaway after she and it had been commandeered by a man Patty hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since. Standing there at her mother’s funeral, she had let herself imagine that Blaine McCracken was there by her side, offering comfort.
Of course, he wasn’t; they hadn’t even spoken since he had left her in a naval hospital on Guam six months before her mother’s funeral. Patty had not called her parents during her own two-week-long hospital stay. McCracken did, though, and they flew out, insisting she let them help pay to reoutfit her. Patty stubbornly argued she would rely on grants; only when the folly of this became obvious did she accept what she insisted had to be a loan.
It had been her father who convinced her to return to the sea after her mother’s funeral. They both had to get on with their lives, he told her, and she wouldn’t be doing herself any good lingering where she wouldn’t be happy. Her younger brothers were disappointed, but they understood. Besides, Shimada was there, and she was infinitely more capable of managing the household — as she had effectively done since Patty had been a child.
Shimada.
She had been born during World War II, in one of the Japanese internment camps in California. Touched by her story, Phillip Hunsecker had hired her as housekeeper and governess in 1970, when Patty was six. The relationship between the two of them had been strong from the very start. Shimada immediately christened Patty Hana-shan, which meant Flower. As Patty grew older, Shimada was drawn increasingly into Phillip Hunsecker’s business affairs, eventually becoming his administrative assistant in addition to her continuing duties in the household. When Patty’s mother had died, Shimada had been typically humble, willing even to miss the funeral so she could get the house in order for the many guests who would be coming after it was over.
Patty was in port when news of the accident had reached her, barely a week before. Details were sketchy at that point, and she found a glimmer of hope in that sketchiness. The glimmer was extinguished the instant she reached home. Both her father and Shimada had been killed instantly, their bodies burned beyond recognition. Her brothers were staying with friends. Patty realized how sad it was they were now orphans. With a chill she realized, she was, too.
She brought them back to her favorite of the family’s houses in Laurel Canyon, insisting that was the best way to help them get on with their lives. She was done with the sea. The boys needed her, and here she would stay. Custody problems were inevitable and still forthcoming. The cushion of shock was still delaying matters, and Patty was grateful for that much.
Her arms wrapped about her body, she walked out of her room and into the hallway. Her bare feet rebelled against the coldness of the bare wood floor, and she moved quickly onto the Oriental runner that covered its center. She peered into the rooms of both her brothers and then decided to go down to the kitchen to make some coffee. But the downstairs was cold and dark, and to get there she had to pass her father’s study.
Inside it a single desk lamp burned over her mounting collection of tear sheets and photocopies. She did not remember leaving the lamp on. She did not remember leaving the study in favor of plunging into bed without undressing.
Intending only to switch off the light, she entered the study and walked to the desk. The reading material spread over it clutched at her again, she sank into the chair and began paging through the clutter of papers once more.
What was the connection between these men?
Something had to hold her father and the other victims together. They were being killed for a reason — and at least some hint of that reason had to lie here, in these papers. She had filled half the pages of a yellow legal pad with notes based on her reading. Tonight she would make notes on the notes.
It was like sailing into a head wind. She wasn’t getting anywhere.
What would Blaine McCracken have done?
Her eyes fell on the phone. She’d considered dialing the number he had given her so often these past few days that she could see it embossed on her eyelids every time she tried to sleep. But what was she going to tell him if he answered? What made her think his response would be any different from Banyan’s?
I’ve got to find something to tell him, something that will make him — make all of them — believe, she thought now.
Patty flipped her second pad open to a chart she had been making with the victims’ vital statistics. Nothing there that even suggested a connection. Different hometowns, different birth places, different colleges, different ways each had made his fortune, different birthdays as well, she quipped to herself.
Then something made her go back to that final column. Birth dates…Birth dates…
A chill shook her before she was even halfway down the list, an icy chill just like the one that had awakened her earlier.
Well, I’ll be damned, she thought. I’ll be damned!
“A minor problem has arisen, Kami-san.”
Takahashi looked up from his desk to see Tiguro Nagami standing before him. He hadn’t even heard his subordinate enter the study.
“Speak, Tiguro.”
“The daughter of one of the victims has been to the police. She has apparently caught on to the pattern of deaths.”
“She couldn’t have.”
“The police said as much.”
“Then why must I know this?”
“The possibility that she will make inquiries in other arenas is very real, Kami-san. One of these might provide a more willing ear.”
“Can you monitor the situation?”
Nagami nodded.
“If she persists, Tiguro, order her elimination. But don’t use one of our six specialists.” The vaguest hint of a smile crossed Takahashi’s lips. “No sense throwing off their timetable, is there?”
Chapter 6
McCracken mopped his brow yet again as the black waters of the Amazon slid by beneath him.
“Next year, Indian, remind me to choose Club Med.”
Wareagle was hefting a long, thick log to help steer their boat clear of the shallows. Their pilot, Luis, had warned of the shallows just before finishing his last bottle of whiskey. That had been two hours back, after they had turned down the frighteningly calm trunk river that appeared on no map.
“You sure this is the right way, Johnny?” Blaine had asked.
“According to the directions passed on to me, yes.”
“Wouldn’t happen to have a map, would you?”
“The Tupis speak in terms of landmarks.”
“What happens when we hit the jungle?”