Dismissed With Prejudice (9780061760631) (6 page)

“So you knew that your father was in some financial difficulty?”

She shrugged. “Vaguely, but I didn't have any idea how bad it was. And even if I had known, I wouldn't have been able to help. From what I've gleaned from my mother, he must have personally guaranteed a line of credit and put second and third mortgages on the house in order to meet payroll and keep the company afloat during the lawsuit. When he lost the case in court, the bank pulled the note.”

She paused and shook her head. “My father and I didn't get along, but I always thought he was brilliant. I
believed
he was brilliant. I still don't understand how he could do such a stupid thing.”

“What did he do that was so stupid?”

“He bet everything on winning that case—this house, their personal possessions, their chance of a comfortable retirement—everything. And he lost it all.”

“He must have thought he was betting on a sure thing,” I suggested.

“He was a fool!” Kimiko Kurobashi's dark eyes flashed with anger as she spoke. Her contempt for her father was absolutely unforgiving. Despite the years of hostility, the child in her was now being stripped of all lingering illusions. She was getting an adult look at her father's feet of clay, and she didn't like what she was seeing. Kimiko regarded her father's failure as a personal betrayal of her mother's simple trust, and seeing it for what it was tore her to pieces.

“Nobody but a fool bets on a sure thing!”

Machiko appeared at the corner of the house, limping slowly around the Suburban and the horse trailer.

“You know, she packed the entire house by herself,” Kimi said, watching her mother's slow progress toward us. “Every bit of it. The boxes are there in all the rooms, carefully labeled in her own handwriting, waiting for the movers. It's like he forced her to dismantle her own life, piece by piece.”

“Are they labeled in English or Japanese?” I asked.

“Japanese. I've spent all morning relabeling them. That's another thing. How is she going to get along? She never learned to speak English very well, and she doesn't write it at all.”

Kimi didn't add, “My father wouldn't let her.” She didn't have to. From the way she said it and from the look of disgust on her face, I knew this was yet another unpardonable sin laid at her father's door without Tadeo Kurobashi having a chance to defend himself.

Just as I suspected, the warfare between them was continuing unabated. If the message on Tadeo's computer screen was truly intended for his daughter, if Kimi was supposed to be the child that still offered hope, then Tadeo had screwed up again. Royally. He had bet big on yet another losing horse.

Falling silent as her mother approached within earshot, Kimi hurried forward to help Machiko cross over the bridge, where she sank gratefully onto a bench.

“Two hours,” she said. “Done in two hours.”

Kimi shook her head. “Two hours to move a lifetime.”

Machiko looked at her daughter. “Things are nothing. When they finish, we go.”

“Go?” Kimi echoed in surprise. “Go where?”

“Home with you. Like your father say.”

Kimiko Kurobashi looked shocked, dumbfounded. “But we can't,” she objected. “There'll be all kinds of arrangements to make—the funeral, the auction.”

Machiko was adamant. “No. We go today. Soon. In two hours.”

While she had been off supervising the movers, Machiko Kurobashi had uncovered a daunting reserve of inner strength.

Kimi turned to me, pleading for help. “We can't leave, can we, Detective Beaumont? Shouldn't we stay here or in Seattle in a motel for a day or two until things get settled?”

“It would probably be better…” I began.

Machiko didn't give me a chance to finish my answer. Ignoring me, she slipped out of English and into Japanese, speaking quickly, urgently. Words flew back and forth between the two women in short, rapid bursts. The argument lasted for several minutes. I couldn't translate a word of it into English, but the outcome was obvious. Kimiko made zero progress. Machiko's mind was made up and she wasn't changing it.

Defeated, Kimi turned to me, shaking her head.
“Mother insists that there'll be no service of any kind, no funeral. She wants the body cremated and the remains sent over to us later. She says that I should go with you now while the movers are here and sign whatever papers are necessary so we can leave as soon as they finish loading the truck.”

I could think of no good reason why they shouldn't leave Kirkland as planned. There was no reason to think they were in any danger. From an investigative standpoint, neither was currently under any suspicion. Besides, they were only going east of the mountains, not out of state. They would be returning to Kimi's home and horse and job. It's not easy to go on the lam and take a thoroughbred Appaloosa with you. In other words, having them leave town would be a little inconvenient, but under the circumstances, it wasn't out of the question.

“Let's go now, then,” I said. “Dr. Baker, the medical examiner, won't be able to release the body until after the autopsy, but you can sign the paperwork and designate where you want it sent.”

Kimi nodded. “All right. Wait here while I go change.”

She got up and strode off to the Suburban, where she took a small suitcase out of the back and disappeared into the house with it. Machiko watched her daughter go, her head bobbing up and down in approval.

“Kimiko good girl. Smart, too,” Machiko said.

“You're lucky to have her,” I said.

Machiko nodded again.

“May we ask you some questions?”

“I try to answer. Do my best.”

“When was the last time you saw your husband?”

“Yesterday morning. He leave home early to catch ferry.”

“Where was he going?”

She shrugged. “Do not know.”

“Which ferry, did he say? Winslow? Bremerton?”

She shook her head.

“Did he call you?” I asked.

Machiko nodded gravely. “Yes. On phone.”

“What time?”

“Noon.”

“And what did he say?”

“He say, wait one more while. Things be better.”

“When he didn't come home last night, did you think to try calling him at the office?”

Machiko shook her head.

“Did you send someone back down to MicroBridge to check on him?”

“My husband grown man. Come and go as he please.”

Big Al Lindstrom had been watching this entire exchange with his head swiveling back and forth like an observer at a tennis match.

“If you don't believe that your husband committed suicide,” he said, “then you must think he was murdered. Do you know of anyone who would want to see him dead?”

Machiko Kurobashi's eyes, enormous behind the beveled glass, turned full on Detective Lindstrom. “No,” she answered.

“Did he have any enemies?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Do you know who those enemies might be?”

“No.”

“Did it have anything to do with this lawsuit your daughter was telling us about?”

She frowned. “My English not too good. I do not understand.”

“Was it about the lawsuit, the patent infringement?”

Machiko shrugged helplessly and shook her head.

Big Al tried again, louder, as though turning up the volume would somehow batter down the language barrier between them. It didn't. Machiko simply looked at him sadly and shrugged her shoulders once more.

I suspected that Machiko understood far more English than she was willing to let on, but we had reached a point in the questioning process where, for some reason, it was important for her to pretend otherwise.

I'll admit that I found Machiko amazing and puzzling both. For a woman who had just learned that her husband was dead, she was showing remarkable resilience, fortitude, and restraint. To say nothing of stubbornness.

Kimiko Kurobashi had hinted to us earlier that
she thought she had inherited her stubborn streak from her father's side of the family, but I had news for her. Based on what I had observed, I suspected she had been given a hefty double dose of it. On both sides of her genetic heritage.

I
WAS SHOCKED WHEN
K
IMI
K
UROBASHI
opened the door and stepped back outside the house ten minutes later. I hardly recognized her. The threadbare Levi's, Western shirt, and down-at-the-heel boots had disappeared. She was wearing a well-tailored gray suit with a high-necked, pleated white blouse, and a pair of black, high-heeled pumps. The ponytail had been replaced by a complicated knot of hair, held in place on the back of her head by an oversized pearl-handled comb. She looked like a model fresh from the pages of Nordstrom's latest dress-for-success catalog.

I'm always dazzled when women pull off wizard changes like that, and I'm equally sure that dazzled is just what women want men to be. It's like they all have Fairy Godmothers stashed away that they can pull out at a moment's notice. Men are pretty much stuck with being the way we are, warts and all. Big Al Lindstrom, caught pushing the lawnmower in his yard on a Saturday afternoon, is still the same guy I work with every day.

Kimiko, emerging from her mother's house, was
so transformed as to be almost unrecognizable. She bore little resemblance to the grungy ranch hand who had gone inside a few minutes earlier. I found myself gazing at her appreciatively. A sophisticated butterfly had been concealed in the faded work shirt and the grubby Tony Lama boots.

“Should I take the Suburban?” she asked as she came up to where Al and I were waiting with her mother. “It'll only take a few minutes to unhitch it.”

I did my best to camouflage the lecherous stare. You can't hang a man for looking.

“No,” I answered quickly. “We'll take you over and bring you back when we finish. It'll go a lot faster and give us a chance to talk to you on the way.”

She nodded, spoke briefly to her mother in Japanese, and then started toward the car. Out front we found that George Yamamoto's car was gone and in its place sat a huge North American Van Lines truck with a crew of three loading boxes into it as fast as they could. Kimi walked past them with her eyes downcast, not acknowledging their existence.

Wincing at the pain in my fingers, I helped her into the backseat of the Reliant. It might have been more gentlemanly to put her in front, but I needed the extra legroom a whole lot more than she did.

It was silent in the car as we started back toward the freeway. I was hung over and half sick. It felt
as though my pores were sweating pure champagne, and I reminded myself never to drink the stuff again.

Trying to take my mind off both my headache and my throbbing fingers, I began a mental review of what we had learned since arriving at Tadeo Kurobashi's office early that morning. Reflexively I reached for my notebook, wanting to consult my notes, but of course I hadn't taken any.

“Let me look at your notebook, Al.”

He did, handing it to me carefully enough that it didn't fly out of my hand. Big Al's handwriting, a haphazard combination of printing and cursive, was difficult to make out. Remembering what Kimi had said about relabeling her mother's boxes, I thumbed through the pages until I reached the place where Al had laboriously copied down the Japanese words from the computer screen.

“Can you read Japanese?” I asked. When she didn't answer, I turned around and looked at her. Lost in thought, she was staring blankly at the back of Big Al's muscular neck. She jumped when she realized I had spoken to her.

“Excuse me?”

“Can you read Japanese?” I repeated.

“Yes.”

“What about this?” I passed her the notebook.

Looking at the words, she held it in front of her for a long moment, long enough that I began to wonder if she had been mistaken and wouldn't be
able to translate it after all. Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the seat, letting the notebook drop into her lap.

“Well?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I can read it.”

“What does it say?”

She recited the verse in a leaden voice without opening her eyes, without once having to glance at the text:

“You recognize it then?”

“Yes. It's a verse from my father's favorite poem, “A Child,” written by a man named Shuntaro Tanikawa. How do you know about it? Where did you get it?”

“It was on his computer screen this morning when they found him. Detective Lindstrom here copied it down. We thought it might be important.”

She seemed more visibly shaken by this than by anything else that had happened. “On his computer screen? He had typed it there?”

“Over and over,” I replied. “Why, does it mean something to you?”

She still didn't open her eyes. “I was that child,” she answered softly. “I was
supposed
to be that child. I heard that poem a million times while I was growing up.”

Ten points for George Yamamoto. He had called
that shot. Tadeo Kurobashi's message had indeed been meant for his daughter, not for his wife.

“Have you ever heard of the too precious child?” Kimi asked finally, her voice heavy, devoid of all animation.

Big Al shook his head. So did I. “Not that I know of,” I said.

“It's the latest psychological buzzword,” Kimi said, “but I think I am one. Or was.”

“Too precious? What does that mean?” I asked.

The events of the morning and of the last two days had taken their toll. Her voice was barely audible above the road noise of the freeway.

“I was a change-of-life baby,” she said. “My mother was forty-four when I was born, and she had long before given up on the idea of ever having children. When I was born, both she and my father thought it was a miracle. They gave me everything, pampered me, wanted me to be smart, have fun, do it all.”

“That sounds like a lot of pressure.”

She nodded. “It was. For everyone. Since my mother didn't drive, my father was the one who had to make arrangements for rides and car pools to get me to music lessons and riding lessons and soccer. He did too much, invested too much.”

Kimi fell silent. I wanted to reach around, grab her by the shoulders, and shake her until her teeth rattled. What did she mean, her father did too much! He sounded like a helluva guy to me. Aren't parents ever right? They either do too goddamned
much or too goddamned little, but they're never right, at least not as far as their kids are concerned. Count on it.

Not trusting myself to be civil on that particular subject, I took the notebook from her and went back to reviewing it, eventually reaching the part where we had been questioning Machiko outside her daughter's presence.

“Did you know that your father talked to your mother by phone yesterday morning?”

Kimiko shook her head.

“It must have been close to the same time he talked to you,” I continued. “He didn't happen to mention to you where he was calling from, did he?”

There was no immediate response. I glanced back to see if Kimi was listening and found her frowning in concentration. “He said something, but I can't recall exactly what. I remember asking him if I could check with the people at work and call him back. He said no, that he was out of his office and wherever he was, he wouldn't be there long. Port something. Port Townsend, maybe. Port Angeles. Something like that.”

“And he didn't give you any idea what he was doing there?”

“None whatsoever.”

We made good time crossing Lake Washington. Big Al wheeled the car into a police vehicle parking place outside the medical examiner's office at the south end of Harborview Hospital. I got out, held the door open for Kimiko, and
reached inside to help her out of the car. Once upright, she still clung to my hand. Her whole body was shaking.

“Am I going to have to identify him?” she asked, her voice small and tremulous.

“No,” I said. “George Yamamoto already gave us a positive ID. That won't be necessary. All you'll need to do is sign the papers.”

She sighed with obvious relief. I thanked George Yamamoto for sparing her that. After nine years of not speaking, it would have been a tough way to see her father again.

Doc Baker's receptionist ushered us straight into the medical examiner's messy private office. His chipped blue vase, half filled with paper clips, sat in the window, but for once he didn't spend the entire interview trying to make baskets. He was solicitous and concerned as he shoved one piece of paper after another across his desk for Kimiko Kurobashi to sign.

“Have you scheduled the autopsy?” I asked when she finished.

He nodded, taking the last of the sheaf of papers and straightening the edge by bouncing it sharply several times on the hard surface of the desk. “This afternoon. Four o'clock.”

“You've told George?”

“I've left word for him.”

“Is an autopsy really necessary?” Kimiko asked.

Doc Baker peered at her, dropping his chin so he could see her through the part of his glasses where
the bifocals weren't. “Yes, it's necessary, miss. In cases like this, the law demands it.”

She flushed. “Will we have to pay for it?”

“No.”

She nodded, relieved again. “And my mother wanted me to ask you about the sword. What will happen to that?”

“It's in the crime lab right now, being examined. It will be kept in the property room pending a determination of whether or not it needs to be held as evidence.

“But it will be returned to her?” Kimi insisted.

“Yes,” Baker replied. “Eventually. Assuming she's the rightful owner, of course. And you'll have to handle that through the police department. They're the ones who are in charge of physical evidence. I understand you know Mr. Yamamoto over at the Crime Lab.”

“Yes,” she replied. “He was a friend of my father's.”

“I see. Talk to him about it then. He can help you work your way through the bureaucracy, but you can plan on it taking quite a while. The wheels grind wondrous slow around here at times.” He paused long enough to check through the papers before placing them in a manila file folder.

“This is all in order, then,” he continued. “We'll release the body directly to the mortuary when the time comes. You should stop by and see them too, as long as you're over here. They may require full payment in advance, but I suppose you already knew that.”

Kimi shook her head. “I didn't know, but I'll take care of it,” she said, rising. The muscle in her cheek tightened over her narrow jawline. “Is that all?”

“Yes, Miss Kurobashi.”

“And will we hear from you about what you find—in the autopsy, I mean?”

“The detectives here will keep in touch. You can ask them.”

“All right,” she said. Kimi walked out of the room with Big Al following her. I waited long enough for the door to close behind them.

“Would you mind giving George a message when he shows up here this afternoon? He is still coming, isn't he?”

Doc Baker nodded. “What kind of message?”

“Tell him that I think the sword was made by a student of Masamune.”

“By who?”

I repeated the name Kimiko had given us and spelled it out for him while Baker wrote it down on a notepad.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Baker asked impatiently.

“According to the daughter, it's probably very valuable.”

“That pretty much clinches it, then, doesn't it?” the medical examiner said.

“Clinches what?”

“That it was suicide instead of murder.”

“Why?”

“Because if you had just offed somebody and had a clear shot at stealing a very valuable sword which also happened to be the murder weapon, would you be so stupid as to walk off and leave the damn thing lying there on the floor?”

“No,” I answered. “I suppose not. Unless you wanted it to look like suicide.”

Baker pushed his reading glasses up on his nose and glowered at me. “Get the hell out of here, Beaumont, and let me go back to work.”

When I came out of Baker's office, Kimiko was using the phone at the receptionist's desk. She was speaking in low tones, but two bright red flush marks showed prominently on the otherwise pale skin of her slender cheeks.

Putting the phone down, she turned to me. “I'll need to go to a bank,” she said.

“A bank?”

“I just talked to the mortuary. Since there isn't going to be a service of any kind, I'll have to pay with a cashier's check before they'll agree to do anything, and I'll have to pay for it myself. As far as I know, my mother doesn't have any money or even access to a checkbook. Besides, they told me they won't take an out of town check anyway.”

Big Al drove her to a Seafirst branch on First Hill, and we waited in the car while she went inside.

“That's pretty shitty of the mortuary, if you ask me,” he said as the glass door of the bank closed
behind her. “Making her pay in advance like that. You think there is some insurance?”

“Beats me. That's anybody's guess. If there isn't, those two women are going to be in a world of hurt.”

Grim-faced, Kimiko came back out of the bank a few minutes later, clutching a cashier's check, and we drove her to the mortuary, an old dilapidated one off Jackson. I offered to accompany her inside, thinking she might need an ally in fending off what I figured was the inevitable round of up-selling.

In theaters they try to get patrons to take a larger-sized drink or butter on their popcorn. In mortuaries, the high-priced spread is a snazzy, upscale, satin-lined coffin, and they sell them to grieving relatives when they are at their lowest ebb and most susceptible to high-pressure tactics.

Kimi ignored my offer and went inside by herself. While she was gone, Big Al and I bet lunch that they'd do a job on her even though no service was planned or wanted. Believe me, I've seen it happen often enough.