Hideki Takiyama was nowhere to be found. At least, he wasn’t at any of the obvious places. He wasn’t at the Country Kitchen, he wasn’t in the Wicker Basket, he wasn’t hanging out at Cushman’s Bakeshop. If he was at the shopping mall the odds of finding him weren’t that great, since they didn’t know what his car looked like. They drove out anyway, checked the Starbucks, and cruised the parking lot scanning the stores to no avail.
“Why don’t you have his phone number?” Sherry griped.
“You weren’t calling him, he was calling you.”
“Which was pretty stupid.”
“What’s stupid about it?”
“That’s where it all went wrong. If
I
was calling
him
, I’d
get
him. If he’s calling me, how do I know who I’m speaking to?”
“Oh,” Cora said defensively. “So now I’m supposed to have
anticipated
a second Japanese publisher trying to ace the other Japanese publisher out?”
“Well, you should have given me his name.”
“I didn’t remember his name.”
“Oh? I thought it was some Yankee pitcher you couldn’t forget.”
“Yankee outfielder.”
“Exactly. So how could you forget?”
“I didn’t forget. I just didn’t think it was important.”
“You said you forgot.”
“It’s a figure of speech.”
“It’s
not
a figure of speech. It’s a
lie
.”
“Well, a lie is a figure of speech.”
“Cora—”
“You must be really upset to try to hold me to what I said.”
“I
am
really upset. It doesn’t help when your statements are all over the map.”
“You’d have made a good lawyer, you know it?”
“Are you comparing me with Becky Baldwin?”
“No, but I can see where your head’s at. Look, you and Aaron had a fight. That’s normal. Aaron has an ex-girlfriend. That’s normal. He’s not off boffin’ her in the back of his Honda Civic.”
Sherry’s mouth fell open. “I never thought he was!” she said angrily.
“Atta girl!” Cora said. “That’s what I want to hear. Now, take that positive attitude and build on it.”
“Damn it, Cora—”
“Uh-uh.” Cora waggled her finger. “Positive. Positive. Your love life is fine. We’ve just hit a small business snafu.”
“Yeah. Because you couldn’t be bothered to get his phone number.”
Cora snapped her fingers. “I
did
get his phone number. He gave me his card.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to Chief Harper.”
“You what?”
“To trace the guy. To see if he was someone we should be doing business with. Turns out he is.”
“Gee,” Sherry said. “Too bad we’re not.”
“No problem. We’ll go get the card from the chief.”
Still bickering, Cora and Sherry drove into town, parked in front of the police station.
“You coming in?” Cora said as Sherry got out of the car.
“Yes, I’m coming in.”
“Then try not to act like I drowned your puppy.”
“Are you telling me not to be a bitch?”
“I thought I phrased it better. But you’re the linguist.”
Dan Finley was manning the desk.
“Harper here?” Cora asked the young officer.
Dan shook his head. “Got a robbery. I wanted to go, but the chief took it himself. I think he’s bored. But you didn’t hear it from me.”
“What got robbed?”
“Antique shop.”
“Wilber’s?”
“No. Meachem’s. Out on Oak Lane. You know it?”
“They all sort of blend together.” Cora hadn’t been antiquing since her third husband, Frank, dragged her all over creation looking for Queen Anne chairs. She’d divorced him shortly thereafter. “Chief been out there long?”
“He just left. Something I can help you with?”
“Need to see him. We’ll take a run out.”
“You know where it is?”
“Past the old mill?”
“That’s it.”
“We could have called,” Sherry said, as they drove out of town.
“Huh?”
“We could have called him from the station.”
“I hate to call a guy at a crime scene. That’s rude.”
“But it’s okay to barge in on him?”
“We’re not barging. We’re dropping by.”
“Yeah, sure. You just want to see the crime scene.”
“Don’t you?”
“An antique-store robbery?” Sherry said. “Not likely.”
“What’s the matter? You afraid Aaron may be covering it?”
“I never thought any such thing.”
“Well, you should have. If you want to be manipulative and controlling, you got to stay on top of your game.”
“Cora—”
“Take it from a pro.”
“Keep your hands on the wheel.”
The antique shop was white with black shutters, which differed from the other antique shops in town in no way whatsoever, which was one of the reasons Cora had trouble telling them apart. The sign, MEACHEM’S ANTIQUES, hanging from wooden posts, was discreetly tucked back from the sidewalk so as not to offend the eye. Or attract it. The sign blended in with the building, and hugged the ground. In deep snow it probably couldn’t be seen at all.
Chief Harper’s patrol car was parked out front. There was no sign of the chief, and the door of the shop was closed. Cora tried it, found it locked.
“Hmm. After the horse was out,” she muttered.
“Huh?” Sherry said.
“Come on.”
Cora led the way around the building, was immediately rewarded by the sight of a broken window.
“Chief! You in there?” Cora called.
There came the sound of stomping, then Chief Harper stuck his head through the glass.
“Hey, don’t cut yourself, Chief. What’s going on here?”
“Funny you should ask.”
“Oh?”
“You found me, so you must have stopped by the station. If you did that, Dan Finley must have told you I was out at a robbery. You’re looking through a broken window. I gotta figure you’re pretty much up to date.”
“Are you saying that I know as much as you do?”
His face might have reddened. With him bent over, peering out the window it was hard to tell. “I’ll be right there.”
Cora and Sherry went around to the front of the house in time to meet Chief Harper and a man, presumably Mr. Meachem, coming out the door. Cora had seen the antiquer around town. It was hard not to. The man was plump, gave the impression the antique business was good.
Except today.
“Cora. Sherry. You know Mr. Meachem.”
“Guess you had a little break-in,” Cora said.
“A little break-in? That’s one way to put it. They smashed my window with a rock.”
“You didn’t hear it?”
“I wasn’t here.”
“When did it happen?”
“Last night. I was at the movies.”
“You discovered it when you got home?”
“No, not till today. But I didn’t hear it. And I’m a light sleeper.”
Cora doubted that. “So you found it this morning?”
“This afternoon. First time I went in the room.”
“Anything missing?”
“I haven’t taken inventory.”
“But anything you noticed?”
Chief Harper elbowed his way in. “Actually,
I
was asking the questions. Some of these we’ve already covered.”
“It never hurts to go over it again,” Cora said. “You’d be surprised what people remember the second time around.”
Meachem smiled. “Not this time. We’ve been over the same ground twice.”
“Did you check the display windows?”
Chief Harper frowned.
Meachem said irritably, “Didn’t you hear? The display windows weren’t broken. It was the room over there. I’ve been going through it, but so far nothing’s missing.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything would be,” Cora said. “The crook didn’t break in to steal anything in the side room. He doesn’t
know
what’s in the side room. He sees something he wants in the display window. He doesn’t want to break a huge sheet of plate glass, so he breaks a small window on the side. That’s what I’d do if I were robbing the place. Not that I would. But if did, I’d make a good job of it.”
“Well, is there anything missing from the display windows?” Chief Harper said.
“Absolutely not. The gold necklace is there. The Venetian glass vase. The buffalo nickel collection. Not that it’s for sale, they’re just samples of what I have on hand. The Confederate army cap. You don’t see that in many Yankee shops. How could a robber not take that?”
“How, indeed?” Cora said.
“And the silver tea set. And the ruby earrings. And the—”
He broke off, gawking.
“What is it?” Chief Harper said.
“The sword! I had it for years, nobody gave a damn. The price nearly tripled since the movie.”
“What movie?”
“The Quentin Tarantino thing. With Uma Thurman and Daryl Hannah. And David Carradine.”
“Kill Bill?”
Cora said.
“That’s right.”
Cora’s eyes widened. “You mean … ?”
“That’s right. Just like in the movie. A priceless, handcrafted, samurai sword.”
“This is very bad,” Chief Harper said.
They were back in the police station. Chief Harper had dispatched Dan Finley to put out an APB on the missing sword. What exactly that entailed, Cora had no idea, but it sounded impressive, even if it only meant putting up a flier in the post office.
“Bad enough someone’s got to steal a samurai sword, but they would have to do it when a Japanese businessman’s in town.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Cora said.
“Huh?”
Cora filled Chief Harper in on the Japanese situation.
Harper was puzzled. “I traced one publisher for you, so you signed with another?”
“Sherry had too much to drink,” Cora explained.
Sherry’s mouth fell open. Before she could bite her aunt’s head off, Cora said, “Relax. If I can’t drink, at least I can rag the people who do. The point is, there’s two Japanese businessmen running around town who don’t seem to like each other.”
“You think they’re competitive enough one of them might want to stab the other with a sword?”
“Publishing’s getting more and more cutthroat,” Cora said. “I blame Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.”
Chief Harper squinted at her. “You’re kidding.”
“Glad you noticed. Much as I like the idea of men killing themselves over me, I can’t see them killing themselves over my book.”
“Nonetheless, we have a sword missing.”
“Yes, we do. Coincidentally, we happen to have a corpse with half a face.”
“But …”
“But what?”
“That was before the robbery.”
“Says who?”
“Mr. Meachem.”
“Yeah,” Cora said. “And he’s basing that on the fact he went to the movies, so that’s when he figures the robber broke in. But what if it happened the day before? He just didn’t have reason to go in that room, so he didn’t see the broken glass.”
“But he’d notice the sword was missing.”
“No, he wouldn’t. The guy must have walked past the window half a dozen times. Until he started listing what was in it, he didn’t know what was gone.”
Chief Harper snatched up the phone, punched in a number. “It’s Harper. Let me talk to him … Barney? … I got a question about the dead man … No, I haven’t solved it yet, thank you very much … Yes, I know I’m always hounding you for the medical report, it’s not quite the same thing. Can I ask you a question without you telling every patient who comes in? … Fine, we’re even. Here’s the thing. The dead man with half a face. Could the part that’s missing have been carved away with a samurai sword? … No, I haven’t been drinking. Could a sword inflict a wound like that. Say it was very sharp. Like a Ginsu knife, that slices and dices … It’s hardly a laughing matter, Barney.”
Harper slammed down the phone. “Son of a bitch! Oh, beg your pardon, Cora.”
“From the extent of Barney’s ridicule, I take it he doesn’t think much of that notion.”
“It’s a tough concept to sell. Anyway, he can’t see a sword being sharp enough to inflict such a wound.”
“Guess he didn’t see Uma Thurman cut the top of Lucy Liu’s head off.”
“That’s a movie. Unless it was some special whoop-de-do sword worth a small fortune …”
“A million bucks. I suppose Mr. Meachem isn’t claiming that?”
“Six hundred fifty. That’s probably inflated for his insurance claim. It’s not apt to be that sharp.”
“Even so. With a weapon like that stolen, you kind of like to see it used in a murder.”
“Cora.”
“Well, you do. The guy’s dead anyway. He won’t be any less dead if the circumstances are bizarre.”
“I hate to rain on your parade, but the guy was hit with something more substantial, like an ax.”
“How can you tell?”
“The murder weapon wasn’t thin or razor-blade sharp. I’ll tell you what Barney just told me. You cut a cantaloupe in half, the knife goes through, makes a perfect cut. You hit a cantaloupe with an ax, not so pretty. You saw the corpse. It was not so pretty.”
“Cantaloupes don’t bleed.”
“So, Barney says it wasn’t a sword. You got a problem with that, take it up with him.”
“I’ll do that. Meanwhile, you got a line on anyone might be interested in a samurai sword?”
“Such as?”
“Well, you got two Japanese men running around town.”
“Are you suggesting I resort to racial profiling?”
“Heaven forbid. Still, you might expect a publisher to be knowledgeable, and solicit his advice.”
“Isn’t that the equivalent of the British police having someone ‘assist them with their enquiries’?”
“I’m not suggesting you put anyone in custody.”
“Well, what are you suggesting I do?”
“Find them.”