The Best American Mystery Stories 2015 (37 page)

Turns out the cops, Liam Walker and Cooper Riley, had gone to school with Shinju and me, and were the same ones who’d been first on the scene at the Mangrove. In those days they’d been Shinju and Tom’s friends, not mine.

“Damn shame about your sister,” Walker said. It had to be the tenth time he’d said it, and I wondered if he’d slept with her in school.

Riley nodded. “She was a beauty, all right.” They exchanged a look, and I was sure they were remembering fonder days.

“Yeah,” I said. “She made sure she was the beauty of the family.”

They became flustered after that. Everyone knew the story, or at least thought they did. How Shinju “accidentally” sliced my face open with an oyster knife. Trying to protect me and Mum during one of Pop’s drunken rages was the story Shinju gave.

Walker coughed. “You have any idea who would break in and steal the photo off your fridge?”

“Maybe one of the blokes Shinju slept with in secondary school?”

Riley stole another look at Walker. “Miss Nakagawa, you don’t seem too broken up over your sister’s death. Any reason for that?”

I had to laugh. “How much time do you have? But if you think I had anything to do with my sister’s murder, I’ve got twenty BSSP divers who’ll swear I’ve been harvesting oysters on the
Adelaide
for the past three weeks.”

Riley raised an eyebrow. “I don’t recall saying your sister was murdered.”

“I’ve been to the morgue,” I said. “I know about the pearl. The bruises on her neck. Just because Shinju and I fought like the devil doesn’t mean I don’t want justice.”

Walker handed me his card. “Call me if you think of anything else.”

I would have slammed the door after them if it’d been possible. I called Mum and Pop and told them I’d be over after I cleaned up the mess. Mum said she’d come and help me, but she never showed up. No surprise there.

I remembered my neighbors had renovated their bungalow a few months before, so I asked to have their old front door. I nailed the jamb in place and hung the door as best I could. When I finished, I grabbed my keys and stepped out the back. Locking up, I stared through the kitchenette window. What kind of person would steal a photo of a couple of thirteen-year-old girls? Possibilities raced through my mind, and despite my bravado with the cops, fear seeped deeper into my spine.

Two detectives were sipping tea at the kitchen table when I got to Mum and Pop’s. Both were middle-aged, pudgy above the beltline. Gray Suit Number One spoke first.

“The autopsy revealed your daughter didn’t drown. She suffocated.” He held up a copy of the eight-by-ten glossy like the one I’d snitched. “This pearl was lodged in her throat, Mr. Nakagawa. Ever seen it before?”

My father is a second-generation Australian pearler. His father emigrated from Japan in the thirties, eventually buying a used but seaworthy lugger. He hired Aborigine women as pearl divers instead of immigrant Japanese women because they had larger lung capacities for free diving. My grandfather made steady money, and wasn’t a drinker. Can’t say the same for Pop. He lost everything—the shop, the equipment, the lugger—by the time I was fifteen. The same year Shinju sliced my face open.

Taking the photo, Pop clicked his tongue in appreciation. Everyone in my family knew a prize when we saw it. “Back in ’eighty-seven, I held a cultured pearl harvested out of Kuri Bay,” he said. “It measured sixteen point five millimeters, was light gray in color, and had a nacre depth of point eight millimeters. I thought I was holding a ray of moonbeam.”

I leaned against the kitchen counter, nursing a glass of lemon squash. Pop could be poetic when he felt like it. I smelled the faint tang of whiskey spiraling up from the sink drain. Mum or Pop? I wondered. Probably both off the wagon now.

“But no,” Pop continued. “I’ve never seen this pearl before.”

Gray Suit Number Two leaned back in our kitchen chair. “Material recovered from under your daughter’s fingernails is not from the mudflats in Roebuck Bay. The sand grains are more coarse. Perhaps from one of the islands along the coast. Do you have any idea why she would have been there? Maybe on a photo shoot for BSSP?”

Mum spoke up, her voice shaky. “I don’t think so. She spent an hour here, after her business in town. She said she had a flight back to Sydney later that evening.”

As always, this was news to me. Shinju would sometimes visit Mum and Pop after a meeting with BSSP. Drop off an ambrosia dessert from the pastry shop, along with a bit of cash. I’d usually find out about it after she’d gone. My parents had given up trying to piece the family back together.

Mum didn’t look so good. Worse than usual. She hadn’t dyed her hair pitch-black to cover the gray. Her housecoat was rumpled with what looked like gooseberry jam dried on the breast, and her face was puffy. I walked over and sat down next to her. I can’t tell you why, but I put my arm around her.

I turned to the first detective. “Any idea of the time of death?”

“Hard to say for certain, but the medical examiner estimates the time to be approximately forty-eight hours ago, give or take eight hours.”

I realized two nights ago at 10:42 in the evening would fall in that range.

A familiar but more gentle than usual rap sounded on the back door, and Thomas Lafroy, Sr., stepped in. The Lafroys had lived across the street from us for ten years. When Mrs. Lafroy died from colon cancer last year, Captain Lafroy sold the house. Everything reminded him of her, he said. Her cornflower-blue hydrangea bushes the size of Volkswagen Beetles had definitely suffered at the hands of the new neighbors. The captain hadn’t maintained his rugged good looks since his wife died, but it was still easy to see why Shinju had wrapped herself around Tom Jr. from the start. Father and son both had a crooked smile and a confidence that drew women like bottlenose flies to crocs on the barbie.

“Fierce hard time for ye,” he said. “So sorry.” Unlike his son’s slight Irish lilt, Captain Lafroy’s brogue was heavy and thick.

Pop got up and fell into Lafroy’s arms, wailing like a baby. When Mum joined the group hug, I began to fidget. We were not huggers.

“We’re the detectives on the case,” said Gray Suit Number Two. “Did you know the deceased, Mister—?”

Captain Lafroy introduced himself and sat down. “I know Kashiko better than I knew Shinju.” His thick accent caused
I
to be
oi
and
than
to be
dan.
“I captain BSSP pearling ships, and Kashiko here is one of our best divers. One of only two female divers in the fleet.” He tugged on a lock of my hair, something that had always annoyed me but I’d never complained about.

“The captain was the only one who’d give me a chance,” I said, and pulled my head away.

“And the other captains are kicking themselves over it.” He clasped his hands together and leaned forward. “But about Shinju, detective. She and my son Tom were sweethearts. They talked about getting married, but things didn’t work out. Broke up several years back. Upset both the Nakagawas and my wife and me. It was a hard time.”

“Whose decision was it to break up, your son’s or the deceased’s?” the detective asked.

Lafroy stared at his hands, then stole a look at Pop. “Shinju called off the engagement.”

“How did your son take the news, Captain Lafroy?”

Tom’s father looked at me, and I shook my head, trying to warn him.

“Not well, I’m afraid,” he said.

“Captain, did he ever threaten her, harm her in any way?”

Lafroy rubbed his forehead. “Just remember that Shinju dropped the charges.”

“And what charges were those, Captain Lafroy?”

“Assault,” I said. “Shinju said Tom threatened to strangle her.”

The morning of the funeral I woke before sunrise, slid onto the Ducati, and headed for the Japanese Pearl Divers Cemetery on Port Drive. The tombstones, hewn of beach stone and inscribed with various Japanese dialects, are surrounded by a sea of packed dirt and scattered gray pebbles. In better times, Grandfather drove Shinju and me to the cemetery to sweep and weed the graves. Although he hadn’t known any of the ancient residents, he said it was a matter of honor to keep their graves presentable. My sister and I couldn’t wait for those peaceful Saturday afternoons when we escaped Mum and Pop’s clashes and the stench of cigarette butts drowned in whiskey.

I squatted under a gum tree and fingered Shinju’s pearls. That peace I longed for didn’t come. Instead anxiety spread like a rising tide. I hadn’t seen Tom since the morning my bungalow was broken into, but I needed to talk to him. For several days I’d shown up at the police station and asked the suits if they had any information on Shinju or the pearl. I couldn’t decide if they were lying to me or just plain inept. Either way, I got nothing from them and called Tom. There was no answer, so I left a message for him to meet me in the morning at the Japanese cemetery at seven-thirty.

When he didn’t show by eight, I stood and brushed the dirt from my leathers. Mum had asked me for breakfast. Probably just tea and toast, but I knew she needed me that day. I took a step in the direction of my bike and Tom Lafroy slithered out from behind a six-foot tombstone.

“I got your message.” He lifted his face to the breeze and his shoulders visibly relaxed.

I faltered, but only for a moment. “You said Shinju was in over her head. What did you mean?”

He raised an eyebrow. “And g’day to you too.” He was unshaven, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. I knew he was planning on being at the funeral, but it wasn’t scheduled until ten o’clock. He’d be dressed to the nines by then.

“Sorry.” I attempted a smile. We both knew it wasn’t genuine.

He plucked a pack of Dunhills from his pocket, tapped it against his forefinger twice, then gripped the cigarette with his lips. He was about to pull it from the pack when he saw my face. He spit the ciggy back into the pack and pushed it out of sight with a fingertip. “Sorry. Forgot you can’t handle the smoke. Trying to quit anyway.”

I pulled the eight-by-ten from my jacket pocket and handed it to him. “The pearl’s one in a million, Tom. Something like that can’t be kept a secret—unless it came from a stray.”

Occasionally currents caused oysters to cut loose from their basket moorings. When BSSP divers found a stray, they were awarded a finder’s fee. Any diver caught not returning a stray was fired on the spot. But that wasn’t always a deterrent.

Breath from his low whistle grazed my ear as he marveled at the pearl. “Maybe it was a stray. Maybe BSSP produced it. Who knows?”

I frowned. “You’re just like those detectives. Holding out on me.”

He grabbed my shoulders with both hands, startling me. Then he put a bead on me that caused me to take in a sharp breath of cold air. “What I’m about to say, you have to promise to keep it quiet. At least until we know more.”

I wanted to shrug his hands loose and step back to safety, but I needed the information. “Right-o,” I said.

He searched my eyes, uncertain, I suppose, whether he could trust me. “The
Indian Princess
,” he said finally. “Part of the BSSP fleet. I was having a pint at Jack’s about six months ago and heard a rumor about a stray that produced a pearl like that. But it was never returned to BSSP. The diver kept it. I didn’t believe it, figured someone was just blowing smoke . . . until I saw the photo of the pearl in the paper. Word was, the diver was working on the
Indian Princess
at the time.”

“Who was he, Tom? Between you and me, we know almost every diver in the fleet. Twenty boats, twenty divers per boat. We can find him.”

His hands were still on my shoulders. I felt them tremble, which I found strange. Tom’s hands had always felt so strong, so sure. Then his touch disappeared and he straightened my jacket collar.

“Right-o,” he said with a forced smile. “I’ll get the ship’s log from the
Indian Princess
for the last two years. We’ll find him.”

I returned his smile. Mine, at least, was heartfelt. “Working together again,” I said. “Just like old times.”

Pain wrinkled his brow, and his smile faded.

That little show of disappointment sent my spirits spiraling downward. “See you at the funeral,” I said quickly and backed away.

But his face turned brooding as he pulled out his Dunhills. The ciggy lit, he inhaled deeply. He turned his head sideways to blow the smoke over his shoulder. When he turned back, I thought he was going to say something. Instead he swung his lanky body in the direction of the tombstone and disappeared.

For the next six weeks I spent my time badgering the suits for updates on Shinju’s murder investigation and upending bottles of Famous Grouse Scotch into Mum’s kitchen sink. But nothing I said or did seemed to make much difference at the police station, or at home. I finally wised up and remembered I couldn’t solve Mum and Pop’s problems. But maybe I could do something to help find my sister’s killer. The pearl was unique. Only a few companies could have produced it. I figured a BSSP pearling ship was a good place to start. I was headed back out to sea and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Broome was closing in on me.

Tom and I hadn’t crewed together for several seasons, so I was surprised to find him stowing his gear onto the
Adelaide
three cabins down from mine late one afternoon at the end of February.

“Hey, stranger,” I said.

He gave me his crooked smile and a quick nod, but that was all I got. After checking my wetsuit, mask, and regulator for signs of wear and damage, I stowed the gear in my locker and headed for the galley. I kept an eye out for Tom, but he never showed. I guessed he ate in the captain’s cabin with his father. The cook served grilled saltwater barramundi and fresh veggies. My favorite. Afterward I turned in early. Being the only female diver on the
Adelaide
, I never had to share a cabin. Not unless I wanted to, of course. But one-nighters in sandy sheets were not my thing. To the blokes on the ship, I was just another mate.

The ship arrived at our destination sometime during the night. Oyster bed locations are guarded secrets, so except for Captain Lafroy and his first mate, the rest of us hadn’t a clue about the
Adelaide
’s exact coordinates.