The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) (36 page)

"Good, we'll speak to you directly then." Takeo was using the icy delivery he employed with underlings, which worried me. If Eriko became very angry, she was liable to slash through me.

"Move in the direction I'm pointing you, please." Eriko continued speaking to me in formal Japanese, but her polite words were belied by the sword, which made a tearing sound as it sliced through my kimono and the silk under-robe."The sword is going to be sold along with all the other Kayama things," Eriko said. "You would be surprised to know that your work finding unappreciated treasures and selling them for high profits has been my inspiration."

"Really," I said. "Don't you think you'll get caught?"

"Not at all!" Eriko sounded cheerful. "You will die from the small fire that is just smoldering now. A lantern that was hanging in the trees was knocked over by accident by Takeo and Rei when they came inside to enjoy a covert romance and were interrupted by Norie."

"I've been trying to tell you," Takeo coughed, "that among the weeds you used as kindling, is poison ivy. You pulled it from the back wall of the kura, didn't you? Your hands will be covered with a rash. You can walk back to the party, but within a few hours the evidence will be visible."

"Eriko, put the fire out at least," I begged. "The ivy releases dangerous fumes. It will kill you, too."

"We'd better hurry then," Eriko said. "Rei-san, you must walk up the tansu to the loft so that I may arrange everything."

"That's how it was with Sakura, wasn't it?" I asked, stumbling in the dark as Eriko's sword tore a new hole in my kimono. "You poisoned Sakura first. Then, when she was dying, you used the shears to cut into her neck. You made a very... "— I searched for an appropriate word—". . . dramatic arrangement."

"I succeeded in reminding people of Norie's guilt in Reiko Kayama's death. She killed her, and nobody punished her!" Eriko cried.

"It was an accidental fall," I said as my foot knocked into the first step of the tansu staircase. "My aunt feels terrible because Takeo's mother fell while bringing her some scissors. But it's not her fault."

"Your aunt was telling me the facts before she lost consciousness," Takeo said. "For years I refused to believe it was an accident, but now I do. Too late."

"Someone needs to remember," Eriko said. "I reminded Norie every year of the crime she committed. And I reminded you with letters, Takeo-san, when you were not following the correct path of your father. But you did not listen."

"What about me?" I asked. "Why did you poison me first and then start sending those notes? I had nothing to do with Reiko Kayama's death."

"You were too close to the truth. Just as she was." Eriko's voice softened. "Rei-san, please be careful climbing the stairs. Your body must be placed on the second floor with Takeo-san and your aunt. You must not fall down. That kind of accident would ruin my arrangement."

I lifted my skirts and stepped slowly up the staircase, which creaked ominously. Eriko's and my weight on the steps at once might be too much for the old wood to bear.

"Don't tell me that you killed Sakura because you were jealous of Norie!" Takeo's voice was weakened, probably because he was so close to the poisonous fumes. If he got out of this alive, I bet he'd never pick up a cigarette again.

"Save your breath," I said to Takeo. As I made my way up the steep steps, I was formulating a new idea. It was risky, but what else could I do? In the meantime, I talked. "Eriko-san, I think Sakura discovered that you had worn Reiko's kimono and were selling off the Kayama treasures. Then Sakura confronted you, and you decided you might as well kill her and implicate Norie for the crime."

"There's a danger in being too clever, Rei-san," Eriko's voice said from behind me.

"Ah so desu ka—Is that so?" I asked while making a giant stretch up two steps instead of one. As my left leg moved to join my right, I sensed Eriko's surprise at my departure. In the split second the sword slipped off my back, I whirled around and aimed my camera at her face. I pressed the picture-taking button, and the flash went off with an explosion of glare.

Faced with the blinding white light, Eriko's mouth gaped in surprise and then horror as she tripped backward away from the light and into nothingness. Almost immediately I heard a body hit the cement floor with a sickening thud. The sword made a jangling sound as it fell on the other side of the steps.

Eriko's whimpers turned into sobs. She begged me to help her, first in Japanese and then in English. But I had other priorities. I needed to put out a fire, stop my aunt's bleeding, and untie Takeo. I had no time for Eriko's troubles. Instead, I put my hands on the edge of the loft and pulled myself up.

My back was killing me as I bent forward and shoved a spade into yet another square of Aunt Norie's lawn. I'd never realized how hard gardening was.

"Be sure that you are reaching below the roots, Rei. Look how nicely Takeo-san is doing it. Just follow his example," Norie called from the chaise longue on the stone patio where she was supervising.

Takeo and I had been digging up the lawn for what seemed like hours, under the strong May sun. Aunt Norie thought the storm that raged the night of our near tragedy at the Kayamas was a harbinger of the rainy season, and the second she had regained consciousness at the hospital, she had begged me to make sure her garden was planted in time to take advantage of the rain.

I was so grateful that Norie was alive that I would have done anything she asked. The lasting damage from Norie's struggle with Eriko was a large number of deep cuts on her forearms and hands. Over three hundred stitches had been needed to close her wounds, which meant that for the time being, Norie couldn't arrange flowers, cook, and certainly not put in the native plants that Takeo had given her. Fortunately, the poison ivy fumes hadn't hurt any of us.

I resettled the triangular-shaped straw hat on my damp head, imagining that I looked like a stereotyped Asian rice farmer. Takeo looked gorgeous under his hat, but then again, he looked that way in everything, his Greenpeace T-shirt notwithstanding. That T-shirt covered with Norie's blood, had been seized by the late-arriving police as evidence for Eriko's murder trial. The police had also taken my torn kimono off my back and Norie's camera, which turned out to have taken a very good picture of Eriko holding the sword in front of her in the second before she fell and broke her back. The poison ivy rash that developed on Eriko's hands matched with the small burned pile of poison ivy plants in the loft—even more evidence against her, because she obstinately refused to confess.

Looking at the bittersweet bushes lined up against the stone wall, I thought about how sad it was that Takeo had lost his last hope that his mother might be alive. Aunt Norie had lost the woman she thought was a close friend. Tom and I could talk to her about the loss, but Uncle Hiroshi was not around much, since he'd started a new job with Sendai Limited, a company I knew a little about because Hugh Glendinning had worked there.

I could guess what would happen. Hiroshi would regain his sense of self but lose his chance to spend significant time with Norie. But at least he would spend his nights at home, not in Osaka.

"You're so lucky to live the way you do," I grunted to Takeo as I began turning the earth once again. "You have the ability to spend your days playing in dirt while retaining the title of flower master. After you're through redesigning Norie's garden, it may very well become a Yokohama landmark."

"I'm afraid not." He didn't look at me, but just kept digging. "I should tell you that my father decided that it would be better if Natsumi becomes the next master."

"That's not fair." I still thought that one of the problems with ikebana is that there weren't enough women as headmasters. But Takeo would have been a visionary, modern headmaster. And even though the iemoto had broken off his relations with Lila, word about the ill-fated liaison had gotten around, and many of the students were demoralized. The school needed fresh leadership.

"Natsumi didn't get in trouble at the party," Takeo told me. "She fell asleep upstairs instead of getting covered with blood. But don't cry for me, Rei. I've always had mixed feelings about whether I wanted to be the iemoto. After what we went through, I understand that life is too precious to waste. I talked to my father about my commitment to the environment. He and the board of directors thought I'd ruin their relationship with the entire floral industry. So I'm out."

"You're completely out of the Kayama School?"

"That's right. You won't be able to call me the billion-yen boy anymore. Right now I'm an unemployed gardener."

"You could go full steam ahead with Stop Killing Flowers," I suggested. "You know Mrs. Koda is doing that." The day after the disastrous party at the Garden of Stones, Mrs. Koda had thanked me for saving the Kayama School's treasures and reputation. In return she would do something to help all women who loved flowers. She wanted to chair a campaign to raise funds for the study of the effects of floral pesticides on people.

When Richard and Enrique, who had reunited during a date I engineered for them at Salsa Salsa, told Che Fujisawa about the forthcoming cancer study, the Stop Killing Flowers leader begged to be allowed to be included in Mrs. Koda's press conference. Mrs. Koda agreed, in exchange for Che's promise to praise the Kayama School for bringing the serious health issue to the forefront. Mari Kumamori had volunteered to design a celadon suiban as a premium for the campaign's generous donors. After her suiban was featured in the lifestyle section of Asahi Sbinbun, orders for all kinds of pottery to be made by her began flooding the Kayama School reception desk. The only one who didn't have a great job future was Takeo.

"I want to be a simple gardener. Isn't that enough to fill my days?" Takeo had laid down his shovel and was looking at me. Staring in my face, searching for something.

"My aunt will give you a good reference. You could get a lot of nice jobs in the Yokohama suburbs," I said, waving to my aunt as she got up from her lounge and disappeared into the house.

"Those aren't the kind of projects I'm interested in, Rei." He moved closer to me and looked deeply into my eyes. "After finishing this garden, the next one I want to do is in an old Tokyo neighborhood. It's a tough job that would involve blasting through concrete to make room for the smallest camellia seedling. I'm pretty sure the neighborhood association would let me do it, but I'm not sure how the tenant would feel."

"It might take a while to gain her approval," I said lightly. I had meant it teasingly; but when I saw Takeo's face fall, I realized that he hadn't understood. And suddenly I wanted him to know exactly how interested I was. Ignoring the fact that our bodies were flecked with earth and grass, I put my arms around him.

Our gardening hats bumped as our mouths came together. Takeo made an irritated sound and knocked both hats to the ground. We were lost in each other for what felt like hours, but then Aunt Norie's voice returned like a bee buzzing through the garden.

"Gomen nasai. Excuse me for interrupting!" she called out, the tone of her voice belying the words.

Feeling strangely unembarrassed, I turned my head to smile at my aunt. "We'll get back to work in a minute. After we're through getting reacquainted."

Norie clucked her tongue, but when I looked at her, she was smiling. I radiated my happiness back to her, then returned to Takeo and our wonderful work in progress.

It was going to take a while to plant Norie's new garden. But I had the time.

If you enjoyed
The Flower Master
, then read on for a preview of the next book in the Rei Shimura series,
The Floating Girl
.

"Is the pain killing you? Shall I stop?"

I shook my head because the pain had eased temporarily.

Miss Kumiko sighed, and stroked more sticky warmth over my inner thigh—a deceptively pleasant sensation. I knew that six more inches needed to be cleared. The aesthetician pressed a strip of cotton over my thigh, and I sucked in my breath as she began to pull.

"Oh!" I gasped as she yanked dozens of hairs from their follicles.

"Japanese women don't like to cry out," Miss Kumiko said brightly. "Not even when delivering babies. When my niece was born, my sister was silent. At moments of severe pain, she bit a handkerchief. Would you like a handkerchief?"

"No thank you, and this is hardly child birth. It 's a bikini wax!" Damn my American half for making the process necessary. If I'd been fully Japanese, I would have inherited the hairless gene. But I was a hafu or hanbujin or konketsujin or whatever name Miss Kumiko secretly used for mixed race people. And my American vanity that had brought me into Power Princess Spa before the start of the July beach season. I had one final business appointment that afternoon, and then a drive the next day to the beach. But first, I had to get through the pain.

"Madam, it is not that I mind, but the manicurist in the next cubicle has problems," Miss Kumiko whispered. "Surprise screams from customers can cause her to lose rhythm."

"Maybe there's a reason your customers scream," I said.

"Ja, we are all done!" Miss Kumiko made a series of light slaps against my groin. This was kinkier than I'd expected, but then again, this was my first experience with waxing in Tokyo. I would live and learn.

I put on my skirt and limped out to the stylish black-and-white reception area.

"Rei Shimura?" The salon's bleached blond receptionist called me up to her stylish chrome desk.

"Yes?" I continued at my slow pace, thighs sticking together because of a few remnants of wax.

"We have two kinds of bikini wax, large and small," she announced so clearly that some of the other customers in the waiting area looked up from their magazines. "When we spoke on the phone, we thought you were a typical Japanese, so we quoted you the price for a small wax. However, Miss Kumiko reports that you required the large wax. Therefore the fee is a bit higher: six thousand yen. Is that fine?"