On the kitchen table were several scrapbooks and a notebook. “I wonder what Dad's working on,” Moonbeam said. “He didn't mention any research project to me.” She opened the top scrapbook and looked at the first few pages. “This is wonderful. I've never seen these before. It's family stuff,” she said. “Maybe he's going to write a family memoir. Just look here, these are Ken's grandparents. See how distinguished they look. I'm so glad somebody took the time to write names under the pictures, otherwise I wouldn't know who they were if…”
“He's going to be all right,” I reassured her.
She smiled bravely and stared for a long time at the stiff portrait of a solemn-looking young woman in a formal kimono and a distinguished gentleman in a morning suit. She turned the page, revealing a family group, mother, father, and two children. “Ken's mother and father. The baby is Ken. The older boy's name is Masao. I wonder who he was?”
“A brother?”
“I don't think so. Dad's never mentioned a brother.”
“Maybe a cousin, then. Or a friend. You can ask him when he's feeling better.” Please let there be the opportunity, I prayed.
She picked up the notebook and opened it. “It's all in Japanese. Dad said you speak the language. Can you read it?”
“I never learned how,” I admitted. Learning to read Japanese had been on my list of things to do longer than starting a diet.
She put the notebook down and picked up another scrapbook. The black pages were covered with the kind of black-and-white snapshots found in almost any family scrapbook, children playing on a lawn, a fishing boat at a dock with its small crew waving from the deck, school photos, backyard barbecues, unnamed adults smiling at the unseen photographer. Then she turned a page to reveal a yellowed piece of folded newspaper. She unfolded it carefully and laid it on the table. It was page 1 of a Long Beach, California, newspaper, dated December 7, 1941. The headline read JAPANESE ATTACK PEARL HARBOR.
I turned the next page of the scrapbook and found another clipping, this one dated December 9, 1941, which reported that President Roosevelt had declared the attack on Pearl Harbor a “day of infamy.” The headline simply said WAR.
Glued to the following pages were more articles about the early days of the war in the Pacific, all from Los Angeles area newspapers. I read through them with some interest, remembering that my grandfather had served with the navy in the Pacific during WWII. I stopped when I came to a folded piece of paper, which had been inserted between two pages but was not glued in. I carefully unfolded it, noticing that it was already torn in several places and had holes in it as if it had been thumbtacked to something. It was a poster, I realized, carrying the notice ALL PERSONS OF JAPANESE ANCESTRY, BOTH ALIEN AND NONALIEN, WILL BE EVACUATED FROM THE ABOVE DESIGNATED AREA BY 12:00 NOON. Penciled on the bottom was a date: 04/07/42. I had a funny feeling I knew what was coming. There were no more family photos, no more fishing boats, no more happy faces. There was nothing more in the album.
“Did your father-in-law ever tell you he was interned during the war?” I asked.
“What do you mean by interned?” Moonbeam stared blankly at the poster, uncomprehending. “I don't understand. What does this mean?”
“It means all Japanese Americans on the West Coast were put into camps for the duration of World War II.”
She gasped. “Dad's never said anything about it. I never heard of such a thing.”
“It's a shameful part of American history that isn't taught in schools, Moonbeam. “It's not something the ‘land of the free’ acknowledges with pride.”
“How come you know about it, then?”
“I didn't go to American schools.”
“Tell me what happened,” she begged.
“I don't know the details, Moonbeam. You should ask your father-in-law about it. I do know that more than a hundred thousand people were imprisoned, including small children, even babies.”
“But not if they were American citizens, right?”
“It didn't matter if they were American citizens or not. If they had even one drop of Japanese blood, the government looked at them as security risks.”
“I am shocked. I wish he'd talked to me about this. It's part of my daughter's heritage.”
I patted her hand gently. “I'm sure he was going to, Moonbeam. That's probably why the books are on the table.”
I stayed with Moonbeam until Gloria and Tamsin arrived. They were prepared to console her by holding a drumming session, so I quickly said good-bye and left.
CHAPTER 12
SATURDAY EVENING, AS I WAS WATCHING A FINE performance by Vincent Price in The Masque of the Red Death on television, Doctor God-love called to thank me for my work in looking into Mack Macmillan's death. “I'm quite satisfied with the results of the investigation. Luscious Miller told me you persuaded him to press manslaughter charges against Woody Woodruff. I'm very glad that nobody connected with the college or from Lickin Creek was associated with the unfortunate incident.”
I sputtered a couple of times before I got my voice under control. “But I never suggested Woody was responsible. I merely reminded Luscious that the guns didn't load themselves. He assumed I meant…”
Godlove interrupted me. “Of course, the college would like to express its appreciation for your efforts. We'll be sending a small check as a thank-you.”
“I don't want your check. And I'm not satisfied that Woody was to blame. I'm going to keep asking questions.”
There was a long pause. Then the college president said, “Please don't do any more investigating. That's an order.”
I hung up and counted to ten twice to let myself cool off. He had no business giving me orders. And in my mind and in my heart I was sure Woody would not have made such a terrible mistake. Not at something he took such pride in. Somehow, someone had gotten hold of the keys to that storeroom. And I was determined to find out who that someone was.
Every TV cop show and every movie I'd seen recently had a scene set in a strip joint. I'd always thought the scenes were superfluous, added only for viewer titil-lation, and yet that's exactly where my investigation was taking me-a porno shop called the Brick Shed House, which advertised nude dancers.
The sign over the door said OPEN 24 HOURS. There were no cars in the parking lot behind the stockade fence, only a disreputable pickup truck parked by the side door marked STAFF ONLY. That was good. There would be nobody here to recognize me. Even better, there would be nobody there for me to recognize. I knew I'd have a difficult time facing a man at a church social if I'd once come face-to-face with him in a porno shop.
To disguise myself, I'd stopped by Garnet's house on the way out of town and borrowed some of his old clothes from Greta. In them, I looked the way I thought most Lickin Creek men looked-country macho. A pair of Garnet's khakis were rolled up at the bottom, a very large red-plaid shirt concealed my too ample bosom, and a John Deere tractor hat covered my unruly curls. I'd even padded my feet with two pairs of wool socks and I wore his oldest hunting boots. With a pair of sunglasses on, I thought I could fool almost anybody into thinking I was a man, especially if the place was dark.
The sign on the door said CUM IN. I overcame my disgust, pulled the sleeve of my shirt down over my hand so my bare skin wouldn't come in contact with the door, and gingerly pushed it open. The interior of the Brick Shed House was lit by only one small red light bulb, hanging from the ceiling, and an EXIT sign over the side door. I blinked, and the room I was in slowly began to reveal itself. A glass counter to my right, shelves of videos straight ahead, magazine racks on my left, and a few plastic chairs were all I saw. An unfamiliar, unpleasant odor made me feel terribly unclean.