The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11) (18 page)

He looked from me to his crackling walkie-talkie. “Excuse me, but I must answer this.”

“Of course, but I just want to know—were pictures taken at the scene?”

“None are attached to this report. Hello, hello!” The cop spoke into his walkie-talkie. A brief conversation about moving someone’s car transpired. When the call finished, he patted Hachiko, who seemed to smile up at him. “What a nice dog. I’m sorry you are so upset about this death. Would you like to sit down? I can bring a social worker.”

“No, thank you. We’re out for a walk. I’m perfectly fine. By the way, how can I reach a coroner?” I knew my question was abrupt, but it was clear I would have to go elsewhere to raise the alarm.

“I’m afraid the coroner died. He was in Yamagawa when the wave struck.” His expression had darkened, and I realized the coroner must have been someone he knew, perhaps even a friend.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, unable to imagine all the losses of friends and colleagues this man must have gone through.

“The deaths are so widespread that right now our concern is trying to save any remaining lives.” He spoke quickly, as if fearful of crying. “Unfortunately, there is little time to evaluate how each person died.”

When I told the policeman that I understood, I meant it. I thanked him for his time and walked on, thinking,
that damned wave
.

Before I’d left for the walk, I’d consulted with Mayor Hamasaki. He said that a gas station was the landmark for the turnoff to the mountain road leading to the Rikyos’ home. When a long tanker truck passed me along the way, it confirmed that I was headed the right direction.

When I reached the gas station, the tanker was parked and in the process of fueling the various gas pumps. A short line of cars waited, the owners standing outside their vehicles and watching the process with hopeful expressions. The station’s shop’s window sign glowed “open.”

“Irrasshaimase,”
a young lady with a green kerchief over her hair called as I stepped inside.

“It’s so nice that you’re open.” I smiled back at her, all the while quickly scanning the shelves that were half stocked with breads, cookies, noodle packs, and candy. I imagined a lot of local people had reached the shelves before me; but there was still enough that could be carried away for Mr. Ishida’s and my next day’s breakfast. Or several breakfasts.

“Last night we had our first delivery since the tsunami,” the salesclerk confided, coming up to offer me one of the shopping baskets I’d bypassed in my excitement to inspect the edibles. “It’s just great! I really hope there will be enough for all the shoppers who’ll visit today. Good thing you came right now.”

The shop’s owner could have taken advantage and raised prices, but the shrimp chips and Pocky sticks and sweet bean cakes were selling at typical convenience store prices. I gathered up an assortment of crackers and cookies and
inari-zushi
, the sweet tofu-skin pockets that were stuffed with vinegary rice. I was buying enough to buy some of her time. “Excuse me, were you here the day of the tsunami?”

“Yes, I was. I haven’t met you before. Are you a volunteer?”

“I came from Hawaii.” I watched her smile grow wider. “Actually, I’m trying to trace the path of someone else who came from outside the area who vanished during the tsunami. She was a nineteen-year-old woman with shoulder-length blue hair. I know it sounds unusual.”

“Blue hair? I would remember seeing that—but maybe not. Things were very busy the day of tsunami, as we were trying to close down everything except the gas pumps,” the girl said. “Did she fill up with gas here?”

“No. I was thinking she might have passed through in someone’s car, trying to evacuate. This young lady had been at Takara Auction House when the quake struck and was looking for a ride to safety.”

“I’ve heard of that auction house.” The clerk stopped smiling. “Nobody really knows the owner. He didn’t participate in our town’s summer festival last year—or the year before. He did tell one of the other girls working here that she talked with an accent. How weird.” She sighed. “Anyway, I don’t remember seeing a blue-haired girl the day of the tsunami.”

“She knew the Rikyo family, just up the hill.”

“Akira Rikyo?” Her face transformed to sunshine. “I know him—he’s so nice, but he was away all last year. But he’s back. Akira-kun and his father came in to say hello earlier today.”

“I’m going to visit them at their house,” I said. “I was so sorry to hear about the family they lost in the tsunami.”

“Yes, the father keeps so busy with work, but the mother has not come down here once. I worry that she is too sad to leave her place. Will you please tell her the milk delivery will come later today? I’d really like to see her.”

“Yes, I promise.”

“If you need directions, I can give them. You see, Akira and I were in high school together. He didn’t really know I existed because he had some out-of-town girlfriend, but…”

Eventually, she gave the directions.

T
wenty minutes later, I rang the Rikyos’ doorbell, which was elegantly installed in a pillar beside the gate to their attractive, cedar-shingled home. There was no trace of physical destruction here, but I was concerned about Mrs. Rikyo’s condition. She’d lost her only daughter and two granddaughters about a week and a half ago. It was a terrible time for a stranger to intrude.

I rang again, and nobody came. I glanced around, thinking. A Toyota Camry in the driveway made it seem that someone could be home. There was an intercom microphone close to the doorbell, but that hadn’t been answered. Looking at the intercom again, I saw no light.

How stupid! If the electricity was out, so too was the doorbell. I opened the gate and went straight up to the sliding-door entrance and knocked.

“Hai, hai!”

I heard a female voice calling from within, and in short order, the door slid open, and I faced a woman about fifteen years older and just a bit shorter and rounder than I. Her complexion was unlined and youthful, but she was dressed in a conventional, middle-aged style: a scarlet wool sweater with a chicken embroidered in the center, and knife-pleated khaki pants accented by a crazy patchwork apron. She looked 100 percent motherly and appeared as cozy as Otafuku, the folk goddess of hearth and home. I’d been worried about meeting a thin wraith dressed in black, so this was a relief.

“Excuse me for bothering you.” I made a quick, polite introduction, giving my name before asking if she was Mrs. Rikyo.

“Yes, but we’ve given our information on damage and loss already. Thank you for checking.” She’d summed me up, just as I’d evaluated her. The door was sliding closed.

“I’m sorry not to have explained straightaway. I’m not here about damage. I came to see your son. We met on the volunteer bus?”

“Oh, the Helping Hands who were so kind to give him passage.” She smiled at me with real warmth. “He’s out on a job with his father but will return for lunch. Please come in—it probably won’t be long.” She glanced at Hachiko, who was standing nicely at my side. “The dog’s okay, too. I like dogs, but my husband never wanted one.”

“If I’m really not bothering you—”

Mrs. Rikyo waved me into the house’s
genkan
, a stone-floored entryway where an assortment of boots and shoes were lined up in a burled walnut shoe case that looked handmade. The case was topped by five handmade
kimekomi
dolls clad in tiny, intricate kimonos, all with slightly different facial expressions and classical hairstyles.

“Will the dog mind staying in the
genkan
?” Mrs. Rikyo asked, looking at Hachiko.

“She won’t mind at all. I will give her something to enjoy,” I said, taking a rawhide bone out of my pocket. I signaled she should lie down, using the sweeping, palm-down motion I’d seen Mr. Ishida use. Hachiko lay down and began working on the rawhide. She was so pleased to be indoors with a treat that she didn’t mind us moving on.

“You know, my son also wanted us to have a dog. But I was so busy with him and his sister, I never saw how.” Mrs. Rikyo ushered me into the main room that was warmed by a glowing kerosene heater. The
zabuton
seat cushions around the maple
kotatsu
table were hand-embroidered cotton.

“What gorgeous cushions. I love the embroidery,” I said.

“Really? I made them from old fabric and did the embroidery, too. I like all kinds of sewing. Best of all is making dolls.”

“
Kimekomi
dolls like the ones in the
genkan
?” I asked. “They are absolutely stunning. What gentle expressions on their faces. So lifelike; and the costumes are charming.”

“Those dolls are early practice ones, not good enough to sell.” She deflected my praise, but from her skin’s flush, I could tell she’d appreciated my noticing them. “Shimura-san, I beg you to overlook the disorder here. We’ve moved a lot of things around because of the tsunami. We have friends staying in my sewing room, which means the sewing materials had to come to the living room.”

The living room was cluttered, not just with sewing materials. I saw stacks of carpentry magazines and a few suitcases that probably contained some of their friends’ possessions. Only one spot was almost completely clear: the
kotatsu
table I’d noticed earlier. Two framed photographs sat in the center: one of a young teenager dressed in the fashions of about ten years earlier; the other of a toddler in a strawberry-patterned sunsuit.

Following my gaze, she said, “I am making dolls in honor of my late daughter, Hanako, and granddaughters Noriko and Sachiko. I made the clothes they wore in those photographs, and because I have some of the cloth left, the dolls will resemble them quite a bit. Well, as much as dolls can. They are not alive.”

She bent her head, trying to hide her emotion.

“Akira said they died in the tsunami. I’m so sorry for your tragic loss.”

“You’re kind to care. It was quite terrible. You see, my daughter felt the quake and heard the sirens, but she could not get my granddaughters packed up quickly. When she began driving toward our house, she telephoned me because they were stuck in traffic. I kept talking to her, talking, talking… and there was a rushing sound. The wave caught them.” She looked down for a long moment. “Soldiers found them the next day in their car. She was holding both of them.”

“Oh.” I bent my head and got out a tissue. She’d probably told the story enough times that she didn’t cry anymore, but I couldn’t stop myself from wiping my eyes.

“At least we don’t have to live with worry and false hopes. And I know we’re lucky to still have Akira. He’s a good boy to have come back from Tokyo to help.”

“Yes. Why did he go to Tokyo in the first place?” I asked, putting my tissue away.

“Well, he worked some construction jobs and the pay there is higher than what he could get working for my husband. And he followed a girl—such a silly thing. But now that’s over.”

“Is the girl you mentioned called Mayumi Kimura?”

“Yes. She perished in the tsunami. This is a real shame, and I must say, quite a sad surprise, because she doesn’t live in our town. Her home is inland; it escaped the wave.”

“It’s incredible that you heard already.” It made our conversation easier, but also made me wonder how she knew.

“Akira was at the volunteer center yesterday and recognized Mayumi’s parents. They told him the news. When he came home, he told us. He cried so hard, he made us cry, too. I warned him years ago that the girl would only break his heart.”

“I heard Mayumi was from Kinugasa. That’s not quite the village next door. How did they happen to meet?”

“Well—even though I’m a rather unskilled needleworker—I have been requested often to bring my dolls and embroidered pieces to festivals and sales all over Tohoku. One time, I brought Akira to help me at a sale in Sendai. Mayumi was on the other side of the hall, selling lacquer at her family’s table. The two made eyes at each other and exchanged telephone numbers. I wasn’t happy because she was just fifteen—and he was seventeen. In those years, it’s a big age difference.”

To a parent, but not to a kid.

“She was too young: a mischief-maker and also disobedient to her parents, I later learned. Not like our daughter.” Mrs. Rikyo shot a wistful glance at the photograph of the deceased Hanako. “Akira took the train after school to some area to meet her. But more often she came downtown. Sometimes he didn’t even come home for supper, he was so busy with her. His grades dropped, and he became a completely different son. This went on for three years.”

“That’s a long time for a high-school relationship.”

“I hoped very much that he would outgrow this interest, but after she finished school, she ran away to Tokyo and convinced Akira to follow her. This was very hard on my husband, who had always expected Akira to continue our carpentry business. He was working then as his apprentice. Just as Mayumi’s family expected her to finish high school and then work with them at their shop selling lacquer. It’s the way we do things here, isn’t it?”

I made an apologetic expression. “Sorry, I’m confused. I thought Akira went to Tokyo to encourage Mayumi to return home to her parents?”

“He never said that to us. He just said he found a job and apartment and not to worry about him. But I am his mother. Of course I did worry. Wouldn’t you?”

“What was your husband’s feeling about their relationship?”

“Oh, he thought boys will be boys. We should not interfere, he said, because he always believed Akira would come back to work with us. I suppose he’s been proven right. I only wish Akira had come when the whole family was still alive, instead of after losing three members.”

The front door slid open with a grating sound. 
“Tadaima!”

I recognized Akira’s confident voice announcing his arrival home. But anything else he might have said was quickly drowned out by sharp, wild barking.

“I’m so sorry. Hachiko’s being awful.” I got to my feet and rushed to the
genkan
, calling, “Hachiko,
dame desu!
No!”

Akira had escaped the home and was now peering through the sliding front door at Hachiko and me. I grabbed the leash and pulled Hachiko next to me, apologizing all the while.

“How did
she
get in here?” he asked as he reentered, keeping a careful distance from the two of us. “Did she bite my mother?”

“I brought her—and your mother’s fine. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think about you coming into the
genkan.
Your mother mentioned you’d be coming back for lunch.”

“Better keep her close to your side on that leash,” Mrs. Rikyo advised, seemingly unfazed by Hachiko’s display of aggression toward her son. “I’m just putting the water to boil for
ramen
. We will have it with a packaged sauce—I hope you don’t mind,” she added to me.

“Please don’t go to trouble on my account,” I said. “Really, I could take the dog out. I did want to speak to Akira-san.”

“Is that so? Why didn’t you tell me about Mayumi?” Akira’s voice was bitter. “You had my mobile number. I learned from
them,
and they even blamed me for it!”

“B-but that’s why I came here this morning,” I stammered. “When the discovery was made yesterday, I couldn’t have called you, because I’ve lost my phone.”

“Here,” Mrs. Rikyo said, handing her son a large pair of shearling slippers. “And don’t forget to put the boots outside.”

“So, do you know where was she found?” Akira asked coldly after he’d come back from disposing his boots. “The Kimuras wouldn’t answer any of my questions.”

“Her body was found in a butcher shop around the corner from Takara Auction House.”

Akira gaped at me. “But that can’t be. In Tokyo, she became a vegetarian—she would never have gone inside a butcher shop. Are the police really sure it was Mayumi?”

“Mr. Ishida recognized her clothing. A white coat with special buttons she’d made. And I guess if her parents came later, they saw her, too.”

“Ishida-san was there?” Akira paused, then said, “And you weren’t?”

I’d blown it. God, this conversation was hard.

“Yes, I was there. Akira-san, I’m really sorry.” I watched the young man as he bent his head and hid his face in his hands.

“You didn’t cry like that for your sister,” his mother sniped. Her voice surprised me; I’d been so focused on Akira I’d forgotten she was behind me.

“How would you know? You told me about them over the phone. You weren’t with me after the line went dead.” Akira shot back. “I miss Hanako. She was my only sister, and she was just great. And I will never forget Sachi-chan and Nori-chan. But at least the three of them were together when they died. Mayumi was alone.”

Alone.
This was my sense of it—although I had no idea about the truth. Why had he said the same word I’d thought about when I reflected on Mayumi’s curled body?

“Akira-san, do you think Mayumi might have seen somebody she knew in Sugihama? I mean, other than Ishida-san at the auction house?”

“That’s almost like what her parents asked.” He looked at me with eyes that glistened with the remnants of tears. “They thought I’d lured her back. I had to explain that I was working in Tokyo when the quake and everything else happened.”

But Mayumi’s death occurred
after
the quake. I thought a moment and then asked, “If you want to put them at ease, could someone you know tell them where you were from the day of the quake through last Friday, when you rode the bus out here with me?”

“Of course. I was working construction on an apartment building in Ebisu. There were about thirty of us and a supervisor who sent us home right after the quake. We talked about it already, remember?”

“You said you walked around looking for Mayumi on those days,” I said.

“You looked for her?” Mrs. Rikyo interjected. “Akira, I thought everything between you two was over.”

“I can’t help caring about someone I’ve known for four years, okay? I just wanted to make sure she was safe. I also wanted her to do the right thing. The lacquer—” he shot a glance at his mother. “Yes, I told Shimura-san about that.”

“Her parents telephoned about her taking their heirlooms. It’s terrible enough, but I can’t believe they tried to involve me in their family business,” Mrs. Rikyo said.

“Ishida-san thinks she might have had the lacquer with her when she came this way.” I paused, thinking about how much further to go. “It seems like Mayumi might not have drowned. She could have died for another reason.”

“Not drowned?” His mother’s eyebrows rose. “But the tsunami—”

“When she was found, her clothing wasn’t muddy.” Telling them this was a risk, but I figured that seeing their reactions was important. Mrs. Rikyo looked hard at me, and Akira gasped outright.

“That sounds improbable. Who told you?” Mrs. Rikyo demanded.

“It’s just my idea, based on her clothing.”

“As I said, Mayumi had no reason to be in a butcher shop—she had to be brought there.” Akira said. “I always worried something bad could happen to her in Tokyo. But now it turns out that the village where I grew up was the real killing field.”