The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11) (23 page)

“Died.” Glock sat down on a worn
tatami
mat and put her head in her hands.

Something about the clumsy way Glock moved made me think she might be drunk or high. And the other girl was strange, too. She had turned away from us and resumed painting the urinal.

“Her parents are holding a private funeral today, followed by cremation. You would have been invited, I’m sure, if they’d known about you. But they didn’t know much about her Tokyo life,” Mr. Ishida said.

“I can’t believe it. I cared about her, and she was such a talented artist.” Glock sniffed, as if she’d started to cry. “Did you know about her talent, Ishida-san? I know she just sold things in your shop.”

“I understood she had tremendous artistic gifts,” Mr. Ishida said. “Artists need enough for food and shelter in order to work. That is why I hired her.”

“Did Mayumi seem frightened of anyone?” I asked. “Did anything strange happen in the weeks or days before she left?”

“Not really. Although she had a boyfriend from a year ago who followed her here and was always nagging her to return home to the countryside—as if she’d ever go.” Glock rolled her red eyes upward.

“That sounds like someone we’ve met. What else do you know about him?” I asked, feeling uneasy.

“He was a carpenter and worked jobs around the city. He used to wait around on the street and often called and sent her texts. Before she blocked his calls, I saw some of these texts. He kept saying he loved her and thought if she stayed here terrible things would happen. And then he stopped coming around, although she sometimes saw him in the neighborhood where she worked.”

This pretty much lined up with what Mr. Ishida had noticed. I asked, “Did Mayumi tell you what kind of terrible things he predicted would happen?”

“She never told me anything specific,” Glock answered after a pause. “Mayumi was just annoyed. She wanted to cut herself off from everyone in her past.”

“She didn’t really cut herself off, did she?” Eri interjected. “It was her mother’s birthday a few weeks ago, and she was anxious about whether to call or not. She did call her and was crying in the bathroom afterward.”

“Did she tell you about their conversation?” Mr. Ishida asked.

“Yes. Apparently her father got on the line and shouted that she needed to bring something back to them. He’s a mean bastard.” Eri’s voice was cold.

“How mean?” I asked.

Eri shrugged.

“Her father wanted her to work like a dog in his studio learning lacquer his way,” Glock said fiercely. “He didn’t appreciate that she wanted to make modern art with lacquer. And she was really talented.”

“How long was she living here with you?”

“Nine months,” Eri said. “So we’ll have to find a new roommate. Get rid of all her stuff. That will be hard.”

“Perhaps we can help,” I said. “Will you show me where she kept her things?”

The second room was no tidier than the first. Glock and Eri slept on narrow futons that they’d unsurprisingly left out for the day. Mayumi’s was rolled up and put in the sliding-door closet that ran along one wall. I opened one door and peered in to see plenty of boxes, suitcases, and a box fan. Mayumi’s worktable was also in this room. It was a basic melamine model covered with newspaper and an array of jars, a cup of brushes, and endless tiny containers of various pigments. There were also a few pairs of work gloves and an artist’s sketchbook of drawings, many of them filled in with colored pencils.

“It’s hard to do lacquerwork in a bedroom. There can be strong smells,” I said.

“True. We didn’t want to inhale those odors while we were doing our work in the other room, so Mayumi worked in here and kept the windows open and used the fan. She only made art a few hours each week, because she was at your shop a lot.” Glock looked reproachfully at Mr. Ishida.

On the table, thirty buttons were laid out, all with different raised designs that were all exquisitely tiny and detailed. And what images: faces, flowers, geometric shapes, and swimming fish. I’d dreamed about lacquered fish; here they were.

Mr. Ishida gently picked up a button. “Not finished, but already so beautiful.”

“What do you think?” Glock asked me.

“I’ve never seen any buttons as beautiful. A high-end fashion designer would swoop on them. You could take a very simple, monotone garment and make it spectacular with these buttons.”

“Yes, she was really ready to go into the big time. But her father wanted her to work for years doing little jobs—dropping rice husks to make patterns and other old-fashioned techniques. He said she needed five more years of practice before she would be allowed to paint the smallest flower on any lacquer piece that he’d sell.”

“Lacquer apprenticeships can last ten years,” Mr. Ishida said. “It seems tedious, but that is the way of most skilled artisans. But Mayumi did not want to be told what to do.”

“How do
you
know what Mayumi wanted?” Glock shot back.

Glock probably didn’t believe that Mr. Ishida could know because he was old and the opposite gender. I thought about telling her what a great friend he’d been to both Mayumi and me, but that would have embarrassed my mentor.

“I know a little of her feelings because we talked about it,” Mr. Ishida said quietly. “But I didn’t know she’d called her mother. I would have supported her traveling home anytime. Then she wouldn’t have gone to Sugihama when she did.”

I was still for a moment, feeling everyone’s sorrow, but then recalled the visit’s purpose. “Would you mind if we packed Mayumi’s things to bring to her family?”

“I suppose that’s okay. I couldn’t do it myself.” Glock shook her head, making a single crucifix earring shake.

Mayumi had kept all her clothes in three small plastic bins. I felt sad folding up her tiny wardrobe of jeans, T-shirts, and sweaters. Her socks and underwear were plain cotton and appeared worn from many washings. She possessed what seemed more like two weeks’ worth of clothing than the wardrobe of someone who’d lived in the city for almost a year. Clearly, she hadn’t gone shopping for any new or fashionable clothes since her arrival.

From the futon closet, Glock dragged out Mayumi’s Samsonite hard-shell suitcase. I packed it up with the clothing, toiletries, and the sketchbook and asked for a plastic bag to hold the lacquer buttons. Whether or not we found the antique lacquer, we still had Mayumi’s own lacquer to give her parents.

“What about any other lacquerware? Maybe pieces she owned, but hadn’t made?” Mr. Ishida asked Glock.

“I don’t think so, but she’s got some dishes in the kitchen area. You could look there.”

Mr. Ishida headed into a small galley section of the room and began opening and closing cupboards. I followed him, noting dead insects and a pathetic assortment of plastic bowls and leftover take-out food containers. After that search was finished, he said to me, “Well, this must be it. I will bring the first bags we’ve assembled downstairs.”

“Is there a place where she kept valuables she was worried about being stolen?” I asked, knowing this was the only chance to find anything in the apartment.

“What are you getting at?” snapped Eri, who was still painting away. “Are you really looking out for her—or are you here to take advantage?”

“I’m looking for some of her family’s property—and if you don’t believe me, you could certainly call them,” I answered. “Here’s my card, with my number. And I’ll put their information on it, too.”

“What property?” Glock asked as I scribbled.

“Did Mayumi ever talk to you about antique family lacquerware—or show you anything fine? Specifically,
inro
and
netsuke
?”

The girls exchanged glances and were silent.

“You did hear something—”

“Yeah, he took it from her.” Eri looked accusingly at Mr. Ishida.

Mr. Ishida’s face flushed red. “I was keeping it safe!”

“Well, whatever the situation, it wasn’t here,” Glock said. “You saw what she had in her closet. Almost nothing.”

Despite the harsh words delivered against Mr. Ishida, I felt grateful to both girls for having let us in to search, so I told them that. Eri sniffed and turned back to her painting, but Glock helped me move the heavy suitcase downstairs and out to the street, where Mr. Ishida was trying to hail a cab.

“I hope it’s not too hard for you to make the April rent payment with Mayumi gone,” I said as we reached the ground floor.

“Not really.” Glock’s voice was hard. “Eri could easily pay that whole portion because of her side job.”

“What’s the side job?” I asked.

“
Enjo-kousai
. I think it’s disgusting.”

The slang term she’d used meant “compensated dating,” a contemporary custom in which older men gave money or gifts to younger women—especially teenaged girls—in exchange for their company. One could look at it as a very downscale, modern version of the geisha-patron relationship.

“But you two don’t seem to—” I wanted to finish by saying they didn’t appear to like men, but I realized that was unfair. They might have just been reacting to Mr. Ishida, since they’d believed he’d taken Mayumi’s lacquer.

“Eri meets a lot of men in hotels and restaurants and clubs. She puts up with them because she needs the money.” Glock shrugged. “If someone’s really awful, she gets revenge by painting his likeness at the bottom of one of her urinals.”

“Do the guys ever show up to the apartment?”

“Yes, if they have cars.”

If Akira had been watching, and seen a number of men going to Mayumi’s apartment door, he might have been upset. Especially if Mayumi ever went along.

“What about Mayumi? Did she have to do a little
enjo-kousai
as well to make the rent payment and save for art school?”

“No!” Glock’s red eyes blazed behind the round Lennon glasses she wore. “I mean, she had to talk to them every now and then if they came by—I did, too—but she didn’t date.”

I considered going back into the apartment to ask Eri more about this, but she was a lot less friendly than Glock. I decided to play it cool. “Well, if you ever think of anything more—maybe one of Eri’s friends who paid a little too much attention to Mayumi—would you let me know?”

“Okay. You gave Eri your name card, right?”

I reached into my purse, got out another card, and pressed it into her hand. Mr. Ishida had flagged down a white Mercedes taxi and was beckoning with one hand for me to join him. I said goodbye to Glock and made it down with the remaining luggage.

As I approached the taxi, its trunk lid floated upward. I readied myself to put the suitcase in, but the driver came around to take it from my work-chapped hands into his white-gloved ones.

“Thank you very much.” I was still flustered by the niceties of a functioning city. As I settled onto the seat next to Mr. Ishida, I felt my mobile phone vibrate against my hip. I reached for it eagerly; this time I wouldn’t miss Michael.

It wasn’t a call, but a text from a blocked number.
Hiragana
characters, with the exception of the
kanji
character for “water.” Putting it all together, I read:

Water washes the past away. Stop asking questions or you’ll pay for it!

This was a rather infamous proverb. Politicians liked to use it in place of apologizing for atrocities. But with the tsunami, the mention of water seemed especially pointed. Not to mention the bold threat that came right after. What did it mean, that I’d pay for it?

A
bruptly I turned to look out the taxi’s rear window. Immediately behind was a TEPCO utility truck. A Nissan Tilda moved slowly in the lane along the taxi’s right side; its driver was a young mother shouting at her two young children strapped into booster seats. Another car was behind the Tilda, but I couldn’t discern anything about its occupants.

“Did you forget something at the apartment?” Mr. Ishida asked, watching my movements.

My first thought was that Eri or Glock had sent the warning. But I didn’t want to say anything until I’d figured out who sent it for sure. So I improvised. “I don’t know this area. I’m curious to look around.”

“Yes, whenever we ride the subway, it’s convenient—but we miss seeing the world. You have probably never traveled by taxi to my shop. It’s a very interesting journey.” Softly, he let out his breath. “It’s almost like old times, having you here. I feel a good five years younger.”

“My aunt packed a nice lunch for us,” I said, relieved to have steered the conversation back to safer ground. “I left it in the shop refrigerator, so we can eat it when we return. Then we could reopen the shop for business.”

“A good plan,” he agreed. “And you being there will also give me the chance to take Hachiko for her walk.”

Hachiko was waiting for us, nose pressed to the shop’s glass window, when we came back. She barked joyfully and let herself be petted by Mr. Ishida while I unpacked the lunch. Fortunately, it wasn’t the type of food that would attract a dog. Aunt Norie had filled a bento box with containers full of delicious vegetarian items. There was steamed chard with soy and sesame seeds, vegetable-fried rice, and spicy fermented daikon root. She’d included
mikan
oranges and two packages of almond wafer cookies that we savored at the end, along with cups of Mr. Ishida’s best green tea.

After we’d rinsed off the dishes, I turned on the lights in the front and hung the blue
noren
curtain outside, signifying Ishida Antiques was open for business. A few hours passed without anyone stopping in. I realized that a two-week closing might have convinced people the shop was permanently shut.

As I dusted and rearranged the shop’s contents, I thought about whether Mr. Ishida should run an advertisement for a sale tied to cherry-blossom season to reinvigorate business. At the very least, he could put all his antique baskets on discount, because they’d look stunning with cherry blossoms inside.

Just before closing time, the door opened with a gentle ring of the old temple bells strung up by its top. Mr. Okada from the nearby
senbei
shop walked in with two bags of freshly roasted crackers—seaweed flavor for Mr. Ishida and the other—bonito fish flavor—for Hachiko.

“I would have brought your favorite flavor, Shimura-san, if I’d known you were coming back to Tokyo,” Mr. Okada said apologetically. “Come to the store later for a complimentary bag. I want to thank you for your good work in bringing my friend home.”

“If Shimura-san hadn’t made her trip to Tohoku, I would still be sitting in the injured persons’ shelter playing mah-jongg,” Mr. Ishida said.

“You always said that Shimura-san’s specialty is locating rare, old things,” Mr. Okada joked.

“Yes, it is.” Mr. Ishida’s smile faded. “However, we took a while returning because we stayed to search for Mayumi-chan.”

“Your Mayumi-chan who works here?” Mr. Okada asked. “I didn’t know she was in Tohoku. You did find her, didn’t you?”

“We did find her. Unfortunately, Mayumi perished.”

“I would never expect—how terrible. I’m so sorry—she was such a nice girl.” Mr. Okada bowed his head and was quiet for a moment. Then he looked up. “But I thought she would care for Hachiko and keep the shop open?”

“That’s what I thought, too. Mayumi-chan asked if she could come up just for the day, and I’m very sorry that I agreed. It seems unjust that an old man like myself survived”—Mr. Ishida touched his own chest—“and a young person with so much promise lost her life.”

“Be glad for good health in old age,” Mr. Okada chided. “We all must. But I also wonder, if she went to meet you in that town, how was it that she drowned and you did not?”

“We were separated,” Mr. Ishida said. “I stayed in the auction house and she was outside.” Somberly, he explained we’d come upon her body during Hachiko’s brief rescue training—and that the two of us did not believe she’d drowned. “The police are not interested, nor is her family. But we wonder if someone meant her harm. Okada-san, think carefully about whether you noticed anyone suspicious on our street. Your eyes are better than mine.”

Mr. Okada sighed. “This street is always full of strangers: so many tourists coming to look for old-fashioned Tokyo. Because my shop is in the
Lonely Planet
guide, many of them are foreigners. A T-shirt with a marijuana design here, a tattoo there—all of it mixes in my mind.”

“But did you ever see a specific person watching Mayumi-chan?” Mr. Ishida queried. “Perhaps a tall, strong, young Japanese man?”

Mr. Okada thought for a while and then nodded. “I’ve seen someone with a strange hairstyle who would often come around in the evening and buy a few
senbei
. Since he was becoming a regular, I asked whether he lived or worked nearby, and he said, no. He did not explain any more.”

“What time in the evenings did he arrive?” Mr. Ishida pressed.

“Around seven. I was usually getting ready to close and sold him the last warm crackers I had.”

“I typically sent Mayumi home between six thirty and seven,” Mr. Ishida said. “To reach the train station for Chiba City—one usually walks along this street. That boy could have hung around in order to watch for Mayumi leaving.”

“Once I saw them together when Mayumi-san walked Hachiko.”

Mr. Ishida and I exchanged glances. I put my hand on Hachiko’s back, wishing the dog could tell us what had been said on that walk. But she remained as inscrutably furry as ever.

Mr. Okada looked at the old Seiko grandfather clock, then made a regretful face. “I’d better leave. My wife likes my help pulling down the shop’s door.”

After Mr. Okada’s departure, Mr. Ishida made phone calls to the six customers who’d left messages on his answering machine. I went through the whole store again, looking for the Kimura lacquerware, in case Mayumi had hidden it somewhere else on the premises. But no luck.

“I’d really hoped we would find the lacquerware in Mayumi’s apartment.” As he saw me out the door, Mr. Ishida sounded discouraged. “But chances are, it was lost in Tohoku.”

Not necessarily
, I thought. If someone was trying to derail our search in Tokyo, it probably meant the lacquer was nearby—or that person had it and didn’t want to be discovered. I wondered about the things we’d taken from Mayumi’s apartment.

“Do you mind if I take Mayumi’s sketchbook with me for the evening?” I asked. “I’m interested to look at everything before we send it back to her parents.”

“Of course. I’ve just unpacked it,” Mr. Ishida said, walking back to his desk.

Taking the cardboard-bound sketchbook into my hands, I said, “Do you need help getting Mayumi’s possessions upstairs? It might be wise to keep them away from public view.”

“Yes, we certainly don’t want anyone asking to buy those buttons. Let’s take up the big suitcase together. I can manage the little bags by myself.”

With two hours left until my appointment with Toshi, I decided to visit Richard to explain the delay in returning his down jacket. My aunt had texted that she was putting it through another cycle and hoping for the best. But when I called the men’s apartment, Enrique was on the way out the door to teach his capoeira class and said Richard would work through early evening.

“Richie read me your text about coming back,” Enrique said. “He was very pleased. You could say hi to him at Blond Apparition, if you have time.”

Blond Apparition was located near Harajuku’s most famous crepe stand. Looking at the giant, flat pancakes slowly turning golden on the round skillet reminded me that I needed to eat more to make up for my week of food deprivation. With anticipation, I ordered the crepe with strawberries with cream. It had been my favorite years ago.

The crepe-maker seemed flustered. “My apologies, but strawberries aren’t available today.”

“What? It’s your best-selling crepe!”

“The thing is, we get our strawberries from Fukushima. And there’s no produce coming out of there these days. So sorry. How about Nutella-banana?”

Thinking about whether I’d ever feel safe enough to eat Fukushima strawberries again, I accepted the substitution and wolfed it down. Then I wiped my mouth with one of my few remaining tissues and went into Richard’s salon, a small building decorated on the outside with a Warholish rendition of Marilyn Monroe.

Inside the pink salon’s main room were half a dozen Japanese women with foil-covered heads, reading magazines or tapping on their smartphones. A Japanese receptionist with a halo of lavender curls and a heavy gold necklace with a pendant reading ‘Yoshiko-Girl’ chirped out the usual
irasshaimase
greeting. Since Yoshiko was only a name for females, the pendant seemed a little overexplanatory.

“You’re Richard-san’s friend,
neh
?” she asked after I’d given my name. “I know all about you! His styling station is just around the corner.”

“Thanks, Yoshiko Girl.” I couldn’t resist.

What a friendly workplace—just the spot for Richard. I turned a corner into the back of the shop, where Richard was teasing a woman’s caramel-colored hair into a whipped tower straight out of the 1950s. When he glanced in the gilded mirror and saw me behind him, he lowered the comb.

“OMG, Rei Shimura!” he trilled. “Your hair looks like it went through its very own tsunami.”

“Thanks,” I said, over the caramel-whip chick’s giggles. “I washed it yesterday evening, by the way. Twice.”

“Well, it looks stripped of moisture and full of frizz. A year of sun damage in Hawaii really shows.” He tut-tutted with his tongue and then said, “I did see your text about finding Ishida-san. Congratulations, babe.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling somewhat put out by his evaluation of my hair. “I would have brought your coat with me today, but I’m washing it. You know, if it doesn’t come out exactly like it was before, I’ll definitely get you another one.”

I expected Richard to jump on what I’d just said but he was studying me with a strange smile.

“What is it?” I asked apprehensively.

“You need more than a blow-out to fix that hair. Sexy gamine is your true look. I have an opening after I finish up with sweet Miya-chan. Then I’m busy again.”

“You should try. He’s very good,” Miya said, beaming at me.

“Richard, I don’t have time for a haircut, but I’d love to talk.”

Miya’s beehive was finished within five minutes. Despite her praise of Richard’s skills, she looked taken aback as Richard put her tiny beaded Anya Hindmarch purse back into her hands and marched her out to the receptionist’s counter. Miya probably expected a few more minutes with her exotic
gaijin
stylist.

When Richard returned, he held his arms out to me. I went into them, thinking that since Mr. Ishida had spilled the story to his good friend, I could do the same. “I don’t know where to start. So much happened. And not much of it good.”

Richard pulled a bottle of sherry out of the stylist’s drawer and motioned for me to take the vacant customer chair. While he massaged my temples, I explained how the search for Mr. Ishida transformed itself into finding Mayumi.

I told Richard how devastated Akira had seemed, while his mother remained critical of Mayumi even after her death. And then I spoke of the potentially abusive relationship between Mayumi’s mother and father, and about Mayumi’s feminist roommates. This was the part of the story that most interested Richard.

“If one of Eri’s
enjo-kousai
guys ever saw Mayumi at the apartment and wanted her, he could have been involved in her death. Forget Akira. You’ve got God knows how many men to investigate.”

“If the police in Tohoku had shown any interest, they might communicate with their Tokyo counterparts. But that’s not happening, and I have no resources to pursue a bunch of unknown men.”

Richard sighed. “I bet you wish you stayed with Michael in Hawaii.”

“Actually, Michael left a message on my phone that he did arrive in Japan. But he’s not in town. He’s doing something in the nuclear zone. Let’s hope it doesn’t involve a hose and a white suit.”

“And you didn’t tell me this
first?
Have another drink.” Richard frowned. “Actually, you’ve barely taken a sip. Don’t you like sherry anymore?”

“It’s more fortified than I feel at the moment,” I said. “I’m surprised they let you openly drink on the job here.”

“We serve drinks because it relaxes the clients; and as you were saying, you’ve been through hell and back. You can hang here twenty more minutes and then shop along the street until eight. After that we’ll go to Night Flower for a drink and somewhere else for dinner.”

Out of all the gay bars in Tokyo, just a few admitted foreigners. Night Flower was the friendliest gay bar, open to men and women. In the old days, I’d had more than a bit of fun inside with Richard, Enrique, and their posse. Regretfully, I said, “That sounds very diverting, but I have an appointment tonight. Akira wants me to meet his roommate, who also worked with him on the construction site.”