Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance 4)

Nashima continued, "The company I'm referring to is Kodoku Ogawa Limited. The Japanese words mean 'Solitude Creek.'" He fell silent momentarily. "Curious about the word for solitude, though. In Japanese, it also means isolation, desolation, detachment. Solitude in English suggests something healthy, regenerative." He turned to them with a searing gaze. "Have you figured out the purpose of Kodoku Ogawa Limited yet?"

No one responded. Stemple was gazing out over the grassy expanse, arms crossed.

Nashima walked to an ancient fence post topped with rusted barbed wire. He touched it gingerly. "In nineteen forty-two, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order Ninety Sixty-six, which gave military officers the right to exclude any person they saw fit from, quote, 'designated military areas.' You know what those military areas were? All of the state of California and much of Oregon, Washington and Arizona. And who got excluded? People of Japanese ancestry."

"The internment," Dance said.

Nashima muttered, "A nice word for pogrom." He continued, "Nearly one hundred and twenty thousand people were forced out of their homes and into camps. Over sixty percent were U.S. citizens. Children, the elderly, the mentally handicapped, among them." He laughed harshly. "Spies? Saboteurs? They were as loyal as German Americans or Italian Americans. Or any Americans, for that matter. If there was such a risk, then why in Hawaii, where only a small minority of Japanese were rounded up, was there no espionage or sabotage among the tens of thousands who remained free?"

"And this was one of those camps?"

"The Solitude Creek Relocation Center. It extended from that crest there all the way to the highway. It was a charming place," he said bitterly. "People lived in large barracks, divided into twenty-foot apartments, with walls that didn't go up all the way to the ceiling. There were only communal latrines, not separated by gender. There was virtually no privacy at all. The camp was surrounded by barbed wire, five strand, and there were machine-gun towers every few hundred feet.

"There was never enough food--diet was rice and vegetables and if the prisoners wanted anything more than that, they had to grow it themselves. But, of course, they couldn't just stroll down the road and buy a couple of chickens, could they? And they couldn't fish in the creek because they might swim away and slit the throats of Americans nearby or radio the longitude and latitude of Fort Ord to the hundreds of Japanese submarines in Monterey Bay just waiting for that information." He scoffed.

He strode to a reedy plot of sand. "I've reconstructed about where my relatives were incarcerated." He looked the spot over. "It's here that my grandfather died. He had a heart attack. The doctor wasn't in the camp that day. They had to call one from Fort Ord. But it took a while because, of course, the yellow menace would feign a heart attack to escape, so they had to find some armed soldiers to guard the medical workers. He was dead before help arrived."

"I'm sorry," O'Neil muttered.

"He, like my grandmother, was a nisei--second generation, born here. My father was a sansei, third generation. They were citizens of the United States." He looked at them with still, cool eyes. "We need to keep the memory of what happened here alive. I've always planned to build a museum to do that. On this very site, where my relatives were so badly treated.

"The sign at the entrance will read, Solitude Creek Kyoseishuyosho Museum and Memorial. That means 'concentration camp.' Not 'relocation center.' That's not what it was."

Almost as an afterthought he said, "Before you go to a judge to get warrants to arrest me, look up the corporate documents for Kodoku. It's a nonprofit. I won't make a penny on it. Oh, and about murdering people to buy some property cheap? You'll see from the plans we'll be filing for permits, I don't need the roadhouse. If Sam Cohen sells we'd just doze the club down for an extension of the parking lot. If not, we'll buy some of the property closer to Highway One. Or if Sam would like to keep the land, he could tear down the building and put up a restaurant." The congressman cocked his head. "I can guarantee him a good supply of clientele if he put sushi and sashimi on the menu." His eyes strayed to the waving grasses, the ripples on gray Solitude Creek.

"I know what you're thinking: I could have told you this in my office, yes. But I don't think we can ever miss an opportunity to remind ourselves that hate persists. What happened here happened only seventy years ago." A nod at the concrete boarders along Solitude Creek. "That's a drop in the bucket of time. And look now, on the

Peninsula. Those terrible hate crimes over the past month. Synagogues, black churches."

He shook his head and turned back toward the parking lot. "We haven't learned a thing. I sometimes doubt we ever will."

Chapter 77

That didn't go well," Dance muttered.

She and O'Neil were in her office.

"Better than it could have gone. I don't think there'll be any lawsuits for... Well, I don't know what Nashima would sue for."

"Wrongful accusation?" she suggested, only half joking. She looked over the case material spread out on her desk and pinned to the whiteboard nearby. Evidence, reference to statements, details of the crimes. And photos, those terrible photos.

Dance's phone rang. But it wasn't Barrett Stone, Esq., asking where he could serve the papers. TJ sounded sheepish as he said, "Well, okay, boss, I guess I will admit that I didn't exactly look over all those facts and figures. I mean, longitude and latitude of the deeds and the plots or plats, whatever they are and--"

"Is Nashima innocent, TJ? That's all I want to know."

"As the driven snow. Which is an expression I don't get any more than 'When it rains, it pours.' The Nevada company's construction plans have nothing to do with the roadhouse; it's all the site of the old relocation camp and an area toward Highway One. And he was telling the truth: All the companies involved are nonprofits. Any earnings have to be spent on education and support of the museum and other human rights organizations."

Nail in the coffin, Dance thought. Reflecting that that was one expression leaving little doubt as to meaning.

Another: back to the drawing board.

O'Neil's phone buzzed. He glanced at caller ID. "My boss."

The Monterey County sheriff.

"Hell." He answered. "Ted. Did Nashima call to complain? The congressman?... No. Well, he might. I thought that's what you were calling about."

Then she noted O'Neil stiffen. Shoulders up, head down. "Really?... Are they sure? I'm here with Kathryn now. We can be there in twenty minutes. What's the URL?"