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to have little plastic ID cards around their necks to show that

they were bona fide conference participants. Presenters like me

had a little red star on their card. After my performance I was

wondering whether they’d yank the star off.

I glanced at my watch. It was too early to call Sarah. I fig-

ured I’d get changed and visit the health center at the hotel.

Traveling always makes my leg and back muscles tight and,

after all this time, you get addicted to the regularity of some

sort of training.

I noticed some people moving down the hallway. They

didn’t look like conference members. For one thing, they

were missing their little plastic ID cards. And they were better

dressed. The man was young and professional looking and was

wearing a blue blazer with the hotel crest on it.

The woman with him was a little older, but still on the

young side of middle age. Frosted blonde hair. Blue eyes. She

wore some sort of linen suit that fell around her in a way that

made you think it was expensive. The guy with the blazer was

gesturing toward me.
Uh-oh. There goes my star.

The woman walked right up to me and extended a hand.

She moved with a smooth, controlled quality that betrayed

toned muscle. She was good-looking, and you got the impres-

sion that she knew it and had practiced moving so that you

would know it, too. It was a little too studied for my taste, but

it didn’t make her any less attractive.

“Dr. Burke?” It was a rhetorical question and she didn’t even

wait for a reply. “I’m Lori Westmann, the general manager.”

I shook her hand and smiled. She didn’t even bother to

introduce the guy in the hotel blazer. His nametag identified

him as “Roy.” As far as Westmann was concerned, Roy was

invisible. Being in charge means you get to pretty much treat

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John Donohue

people any way you want. Or at least that’s what I hear. Roy

didn’t seem offended by the omission and just stood respect-

fully at a slight distance from us, ready to serve.

Lori Westmann smiled back at me with even white teeth. It

was a practiced smile that didn’t really communicate much—

just a standard visual cue in the conversational sequence.

“What can I do for you?” I said.

She glanced about her at the guests. “I have a business

proposition for you. Perhaps you’d care to join me for an early

lunch?” She leaned in slightly toward me, cocking her head as if

listening for my silent agreement. Then she moved off without

waiting to see whether I was following or not.

We were seated with a bit of understated hysteria by the

restaurant staff. It was clear that they were all pretty intimi-

dated by their hotel manager. It suggested to me that her looks

were probably deceiving. The blue-eyed blond with the long

legs who was sitting across from me was easy on the eye in the

same way a statue was: hard and cold.

The restaurant was hacienda themed; fake adobe partitions

with rounded timbers jutting from little tile roof sections that

were meant to create a pattern of cozy little nooks for custom-

ers. The focus of the place was inward, to the table and the

meal, but you could look out through the tinted windows that

ran across one end of the restaurant. Inside it was cool and dim,

but out there you could see the hard light pounding down on

the sere landscape in the distance.

The restaurant manager materialized to take our drink

orders. He was almost quivering with attention. Lori West-

mann ordered a chardonnay. I quickly perused the beer list and

ordered a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. I’m on a personal mission to

try every beer ever made. Some varieties merit multiple tastings.

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The drinks arrived. “Are you enjoying the conference?’ she

asked. “The accommodations appropriate?” She was running

down a mental checklist. Ms. Westmann didn’t look like some-

one deeply concerned about other people’s enjoyment. She did

seem focused on efficiency, however.

“It’s fine,” I assured her.

She smiled. A flash of white teeth and a tight motion of the

lips. Then back to business.

“I was surprised to see someone like you at this type of con-

ference, Dr. Burke.”

I wondered whether this woman would ever get to the

point and why she was so obviously engaging in small talk. She

didn’t seem the type. But I was in no rush. I shrugged at her

statement and took a sip of the Sierra Nevada. Looked out the

window into the shimmering hills and wondered idly how hot

it was out there. “The accommodations are nice. The beer is

even better,” I said.

She frowned slightly at that—a small crease at the bridge of

her nose. Lori Westmann probably was not exposed to a great

deal of levity from underlings. She gave her head a little shake

as if dislodging a troublesome fly. “I would expect someone like

you at a conference of academics, not mystery writers.”

She was overestimating my place in the scholarly commu-

nity, but I let it go, and explained how I got here.

“And how are you enjoying this group?” she asked when I

had finished.

“Not a question of how I’m enjoying them,” I replied.

“Mostly, I don’t think I’m what they expected.”

She eyed me over the rim of her wine glass. “How so?”

I thought for a minute. “I’m too… reality based.”

She sat up a little straighter. “Excellent. So am I.” The

39

John Donohue

waiter came and we contemplated lunch. Westmann didn’t

even look at the menu when she ordered. I had a chicken sand-

wich. Burke, culinary adventurer. When the help had gone,

Westmann got back to business.

“I’m looking for someone with your research expertise to

assist me,” she began. I raised my eyebrows questioningly to

encourage her to continue. Lori Westmann took a deep breath

as if preparing herself for something unpleasant. “A month ago,

my father was found dead at home.”

“I’m sorry.”

She waved the sympathy away as irrelevant. “The cause of

death was listed as an accidental fall. I disagree.”

I thought I saw where this was going. “Ms. Westmann, I’m

sorry for your loss,” I started, “but this is probably something

you need to take to the police. I’m not a trained investigator.”

This point was, in fact, a huge understatement. I’ve blundered

around a few crime scenes to help my brother Micky, but, as he

reminds me, my major talent is that I know obscure things that

most people don’t care about. I also have a knack for getting in

way over my head and clawing my way back out again.

“I’m well aware of your background and qualifications,”

Westmann commented. “I have a number of people working

on this from the forensic angle.”

“And?”

“You know as well as I do that if a murder isn’t solved within

forty-eight hours it’s probably not going to happen.” She waved

a hand. “The police are overworked. They feel the evidence for

a crime is shaky at best and that I’m a typical grieving child

incapable of accepting the sudden death of a parent.”

She didn’t look all that broken up to me, but she did seem

like someone who didn’t take no for an answer. Our lunches

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Kage

came and I ordered another beer. Lori Westmann had been

sipping at her wine since it arrived, but the glass seemed as full

as ever.

“And are the cops right?” I asked. “About you, I mean.”

She looked at me directly. I didn’t think the cops were right.

Her eyes had a hard glint to them. “I have very good reasons

to think that my father’s death was not accidental, Dr. Burke.”

“Such as?”

I had picked up my glass to take a drink. Lori Westmann

leaned across the table toward me. “Dr Burke,” she said

intensely, “my father was Eliot Westmann.”

I put down my beer.

Eliot Westmann was a lunatic of the first order. He was

notorious in Asian Studies circles for writing a series of books

about his alleged adventures studying with a mysterious sect

in Hokkaido, far to the north in Japan. Westmann and his

publisher maintained that the books were true accounts; most

scholars considered them a blend of personal fantasy and faulty

scholarship.

Westmann had been awarded a doctoral degree by an

obscure little Midwestern university. As an undergraduate he

had a double major in marketing and theater. Everyone should

have seen it coming. His book,
Inari-sama: Tales of a Warrior

Mystic
, hit the stands in the late sixties and made him a cult

favorite. I had looked at it years ago. It seemed a weird first-

person journey through a confusing mix of Tantric Buddhism,

recycled Asian stereotypes, and fragments of martial arts sto-

ries about
ninja
and
samurai
masters. He eventually published

another five or so books on the same subject. Specialists scoffed

and the public devoured them.

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John Donohue

Westmann had always maintained that by writing about the

secret community of
Inari-sama
, the Fox Lord, he had put his

life at risk. He claimed that the members of the sect vowed

a horrible revenge on anyone who revealed their secrets. Spe-

cial assassins, marked with a mystic diamond tattoo at the base

of the neck, would be dispatched from the cold mountains of

Japan’s remote north country to hunt him down.

The only people who hunted him down, it turned out, were

fans. Nothing annoys scholars like popularity, but, Westmann,

true to his theatrical penchant, reveled in the spotlight. He

eventually dropped any pretense of connection to the academic

establishment. He and his considerable royalty payments sim-

ply moved on. The last I had heard, he was dabbling in Native

American mysticism, ostensibly still vigilant against assassins,

still reclusive and as controversial as ever.

Westmann’s daughter Lori watched me as I reacted to the

mention of her father.

“So,” I finally said trying to tone down my disbelief, “you

think Inari-sama’s people got him?”

Her mouth tightened with displeasure. “It’s not a joke, Dr.

Burke. We’re talking about a man’s life here.”

I took a breath. She had a point. “OK. What do you want

from me?”

“I never knew my father as a child. My late mother was

his first wife. In the last five years we had reconnected and he

told me about his experiences in Japan.” She saw my skeptical

look. “Never at any time did I get the sense that he was being

anything but truthful.” She tapped the table for emphasis. Her

nails were short but manicured, professional. “I’m in a business

where I have to read people constantly, Dr. Burke. My father

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Kage

was not lying.”

“OK,” I said. I wasn’t going to argue. “How do I fit in?”

“My father was killed. I’m sure of it. I’ve got investigators

looking into the crime. What I need is someone to do an objec-

tive assessment of his works.” Her words came more quickly,

fueled by an unexpected emotion. “Someone,” she continued,

“with a background as a scholar who can vouch for his integrity

and rehabilitate his reputation after all these years…”

Oh boy.
“And,” I concluded, “someone to provide a motive

for his killing.”

Lori Westmann sat back in her chair, eyes bright. “Exactly.”

I took a sip of beer. “Ms. Westmann, I’ve got to be honest

with you. I read some of your father’s stuff years ago. I thought

it was entertaining, but I never took it seriously. All I could pro-

vide you would be an honest assessment of your father’s work

from a scholarly perspective…”

“That’s exactly what I want.”

“You’ll want it unless it comes back with an unfavorable

conclusion,” I pointed out.

“I’m convinced an objective evaluation will clear his rep-

utation and lead the authorities to his killer. And you’re just

the type of well-credentialed skeptic I need,” she concluded

briskly. She looked at me with a firm, almost clenched-jaw

expression: woman of action brooking no resistance. Then

she looked around into the dim recesses of the restaurant and

made a motion with her hand. Roy appeared almost magically

and placed a leather portfolio on the table. She opened it and

pulled out a slim golden Montblanc. “I’m proposing that you

spend approximately a month going through my father’s notes

and manuscripts, evaluating his work, and providing me with a

confidential written report. Shall we talk about compensation?”

43

John Donohue

I have an obscure research specialty and a genius for alien-

ating potential academic employers. I spend most of my time

and energy training with Yamashita. As a result, I cobble a liv-

ing together in the most unlikely of ways. I looked at the lady