The Samurai's Daughter (16 page)

 

I put away thoughts about how my relationship might be changing with Tom as Hugh and I rode the Toyoko Line back to Tokyo. Hugh was intent on figuring out a way to get to talk to Ramon Espinosa without making the old man feel threatened. In the end, we bought him a box of beautiful tangerines from a vendor outside the Kanda train station, having decided to present it as a small token for the New Year. We also decided that I should be the one to make the initial contact.

I rang the buzzer, but unlike the day before, he didn't immediately respond.

“Espinosa-san?” I called out.

Now I heard something: a huge bang, as if something had fallen down—and then silence. Hugh and I looked at each other nervously.

“Are you all right? It's Rei Shimura and a friend,” I called out.

“We'll wait and give him time to answer,” Hugh whispered to me.

But as long as we waited, nobody came. Five minutes passed, and I grew antsy.

“I wonder if he's all right,” I said.

“Maybe the door's unlocked. Most Japanese don't worry about those things, do they?” Hugh asked. He wiggled the doorknob, which was locked. Still, it was a flimsy Japanese lock, not a dead bolt. I remembered something my college roommate Lily had done when one of our friends had passed out drunk in a dormitory bathroom with the door locked. She'd used a flexible plastic card—in that case, it had been a cafeteria meal card—and fished it into the doorjamb, then wiggled it a few times until the lock popped.

“What are you thinking?” Hugh looked at me as if he had read my mind.

“Don't worry, you're not responsible. I'm doing it on my own,” I muttered. Then, quite loudly, for the benefit of the neighbors as
well as the man inside, I called, “Espinosa-san? I'm going to come in to help you. If you don't want me to do that, please say so!”

Silence.

“I'll do my best to get in then, okay?” I searched through my wallet, rejecting my credit cards as too hard, then finally coming up with an old plastic library card that bent nicely. I slid it neatly into the narrow space between door and frame, and gave a gentle shove. The lock popped with a satisfying click, and I turned the knob and stepped into Mr. Espinosa's apartment.

“You're unbelievable,” Hugh said. “But I really shouldn't be here, seeing this rather, um, illegal procedure—”

“Don't worry, if I'm arrested you won't have to defend me.” I cracked a smile at him, feeling triumphant over my accomplishment, and eager to go in.

Before, the overwhelming aura of Ramon Espinosa's apartment had been of tidiness; despite the many boxes and utensils, everything was in its place. Now, I saw the heavy metal boxes strewn across the room and short, thin steel needles showered across the green carpet like dandelion seeds in early summer. The long acupuncture table was on its side, and the kettle lay next to it, a small river of water flowing from its opening and onto the floor.

Could he have suffered an epileptic seizure and wreaked all this damage? My heart was hammering as I continued my walk. “Espinosa-san?” I headed toward the back room, which I hadn't seen during my visit. He had to be in this room, or in the bathroom.

The bedroom was set off from the main room by sliding paper
fusuma
doors, cracked slightly open. I peered through, with Hugh right behind me.

I had expected to see Mr. Espinosa sleeping, or dressing, or doing anything that might cause us both to be embarrassed. What I wasn't expecting was the sight of him on the floor, lying on his side with his eyes closed.

He had to be hurt. Hugh and I exchanged glances for a split second. I threw the door all the way open so that we could get to the fallen man.

I picked up his wrist and felt that his skin was cooler than mine. I searched for a pulse, and felt something very, very slight.

“He's alive!” And thank God we'd broken in.

“Damn it, I must have left my mobile at your aunt's,” Hugh said. “Telephone, where is it—”

“Here.” I'd already darted off to the phone lying by the bedside table. I picked it up, but there was just static.

A new fear gripped me. There had been no storm, no earthquake, no good reason power should be out. The moment after I thought about this, my eyes went to the open window. That's why the room was so cold. Someone had broken in through it to attack Ramon Espinosa. Probably the banging sound I'd heard was the intruder going out the window once I'd surprised him by calling Ramon from the front door.

I looked out the window, and saw that Ramon's balcony was next to the balcony of another apartment and that just a few feet beyond that was the external staircase. If the intruder was even slightly physically fit, he could have made it to the staircase within a few seconds—an easy getaway.

Hugh's voice, sharp and frantic, brought me back. “Rei, what the hell are you doing looking out the window?”

“Looking to see if—” I cut myself off, the enormity of the situation sinking in. “What are we going to do?”

“I'm going to try CPR.” Hugh knelt over Ramon. “Call an ambulance.”

Without saying anything more, I ran out and banged on the next apartment's door, the one that said “Moriuchi.” A gentle-looking woman of about fifty opened the door to me. In the small space behind her, ten people were sitting around a low table upon which rested plates of tangerines and sinbei crackers. Everyone stared at us. “I'm very sorry to bother you, but your neighbor, Espinosa-san, is unconscious. May I use your phone to call an ambulance?”

“Oh, no!” Mrs. Moriuchi looked horrified. “Dear Mr. Espinosa. Let me bring the phone to you.” She hurried into the kitchen and came back with a cordless phone. I dialed 119 and made my explanations, asking for both police and medical help.

After I'd clicked off, I caught my breath and explained that I thought someone might have been in the apartment and hurt him, then used the balconies and the outside staircase as an escape route. I asked if they'd seen anyone pass by on the outside of the building. Nobody had, but their New Year's table faced a family altar—not the window.

I hurried back to the apartment to see how Ramon was faring, with Mrs. Moriuchi and her husband following. I hadn't performed CPR since I had taken a baby-sitting course back in the early ‘80s, so watching Hugh, I wondered if he was doing things right. With his mouth on the old man's, he was exhaling twice and then, after catching his breath, pushing down on Ramon's chest a number of times.

“Two breaths, ten compressions,” I said. “Are you doing fifteen?”

When he came up to do the compressions, he gasped, “Ten for children, fifteen for adults. And you can help me with the compressions.”

I kneeled over Ramon Espinosa, trying to press the life back into him; my knees felt as if they were going to shatter, they ached so much. But I kept pushing. My pain was nothing compared with what he'd gone through, what Rosa had gone through. They'd lived through so much, only to die like this, after I'd seen them.

After I'd seen them
. A shudder ran through me as I kept working. Rosa had died after Hugh and I visited her; again I'd made a visit to a war survivor, and now he was at death's door.

I pushed and cried silently to myself. So unlucky. Had this come to pass because I hadn't prayed at the shrine? The people from next door had come in and were standing at the door behind me, clucking with worry. I couldn't hear what they were saying over the pounding in my ears. If Mr. Espinosa turned out to have heart failure, he'd have died of the same thing as Rosa: a coincidence that some might think made sense, given their ages—but one that I couldn't believe.

Ten minutes later—I knew because I'd checked my watch when I'd called 119—the paramedics arrived. They strapped an oxygen mask on Mr. Espinosa's face and slid a stretcher underneath him,
then strapped him tightly onto it. As they carried him down the staircase at a rapid clip, the police came storming up. They gaped at Hugh and me, and then, apparently deciding we couldn't have been the ones in charge, turned to the Moriuchis.

“Did you find him?” one of the policemen gravely asked the couple.

“No,” Mrs. Moriuchi said, “it was due to the concern of the young visiting couple that we learned.”

“My name is Rei Shimura,” I said. “I'm the one who called. And my friend tried to give him CPR, but we're worried it might not have been enough.”

“What's happened to him is not so clear. They will make all necessary examinations at the hospital. By the way, are you the gentleman's daughter? If so, you can ride along to the hospital.”

I was confused by the police assumption, but after a minute understood. It was New Year's Day, a day of family celebration in Japan. And I probably looked somewhat foreign to the cop, too. Though I wanted to ride in the ambulance, I knew that if I were found out to have lied about my identity, it would haunt me later on.

“I'm a new friend of Espinosa-san's. I had come to pay him a New Year's visit.” I went on to explain about the locked door and how I'd used a library card to gain entrance. The cop's eyebrows went up at that, so I hastened to add that the sounds I'd heard inside made me think that the old man had fallen down.

“Then, when I saw the mess on the floor, and the overturned table, I knew he was in trouble.” I walked back to the bedroom, illustrating my theory. “You can see from the open window how the person probably got inside and back out again.”

“We will run print tests on those places, and also of you and your friend.”

“I understand,” I said. I shot a glance at Hugh, who was looking nervous—as if he'd gotten the gist of the conversation. The problem was that he had his fingerprints on record with the Japanese police. Although he'd never been technically charged with a crime, the fact this fingerprint record existed would raise red flags.

While the police swept the apartment for evidence, Hugh and I walked over to the police station in Kanda. We were fingerprinted,
then let go without incident. Maybe the old fingerprint record wasn't an issue. We walked the half-mile to the hospital to wait for news of Ramon.

“If only we'd gone to see him in the morning, as you wanted,” I said to Hugh as we sat in small vinyl-covered seats in the waiting room. “I was so wrong to put it off.”

“I don't think so,” Hugh said. “Because we came when we did, we interrupted someone who very well might have killed him. The timing was right…”

But this January 1 had been stamped with violence, and perhaps death—the worst way to begin a New Year.

When Dr. Nigawa, the cardiologist in charge of Ramon's care, came to see us in the waiting room five hours later, I was the one who did all the communication. Hugh had warned me that he wanted to keep a low profile. The less his legal interest in Ramon was exposed, the better for everyone.

Dr. Nigawa informed us that Ramon had suffered a stroke and then lapsed into a coma. He had suffered damage to his heart, and the CPR that Hugh had given him had probably saved his life. The brain scan they'd run had shown no evidence of brain damage, which was a positive. Still, his chances of emerging from coma were only 10 to 20 percent.

I explained it all to Hugh in English, and then asked if we could see the patient. But Dr. Nigawa said only family members were allowed.

“He has no family,” I said.

“Oh. Well, then, we'll have to see. But in a few days—not tonight.”

I didn't see how we would disturb a man already in a coma, but I knew there was no point arguing. And Hugh pointed out, as we left the hospital in the dark, that the policy would at least ensure that nobody else could get to see Espinosa—that the person who'd attempted to kill him wouldn't get to finish the job.

 

We made it back to the apartment at 1
A.M
., which meant it was 8
A.M
. in San Francisco. I'd told Hugh I wanted to talk to my parents about what was going on, and he agreed.

“Rei, this is a surprise.” Over the long distance line, my father's voice sounded clear—and cautious.

“Are you in a rush to get off to work?” I asked.

“Goodness no, it's New Year's morning here. A bit early, but I'm awake and available to talk. Your mother's still asleep, though.”

Something about the strain in his voice made me think the call was not welcome. Maybe he was still annoyed with me over the drama of my departure. “Um, Dad, I tried to call you earlier to wish you and Mom well, but I only reached the answering machine.”

“I heard your messages. I'm sorry I didn't call you back. Things have been a bit difficult here.”

“Oh? What's going on?” I flashed a look at Hugh, who was stirring a pan of warm milk on the stove.

“It's Manami. I think she was more depressed than we knew, because she's done something very strange—she's left the pathology program.”

“What? She just quit?” My own story would have to wait, I could tell.

“She left the program, and our house, two days ago. We don't know where she is, and we're quite concerned.”

“What did her supervisors at work say about her?”

“She was fine. Everyone liked her very much. It just doesn't make sense at all. And what's awful is she doesn't know the area. We have no idea where she would go. With the type of visa she's on, she could be thrown out of the country if the university reports her missing.”

“But if she's missing, how can they throw her out?” I was irritated by the limits of his thinking. “Dad, are you—really sure she left voluntarily? Do you think she might have been abducted?”

“Well, she left us a note written in Japanese saying she was sorry but needed a short vacation to regain her spirits for the New Year. She left while she was in the middle of a rotation, which is unheard of. It makes it quite difficult for her colleagues, since they'll have to cover for her.”

“Is there any evidence she left willingly?” I watched Hugh take the warm milk and pour it over a slice of bread in one of my exquisite old blue-and-white bowls. He was making British com
fort food again. He raised his eyebrows toward me, as if to offer to make me a bowl as well, but I shook my head and made the gesture of sipping from a wineglass.

“Well, one of her suitcases is gone from the storage room. We haven't gone into her closet or chest of drawers, because those things are private, but the coat and shoes and backpack that she usually kept downstairs are gone, too.”

“Did you call the police anyway?” I asked, as Hugh brought me a glass of a mediocre Hungarian red—my house wine, now that I was back in Tokyo and paying exorbitant prices.

“Do you think I should? Knowing what I told you about the visa, I'm not sure.” My father sighed. “I keep rereading the note, the words ‘a little time.' In my mind that implies she'll return to me. Does it to you as well?”

“Yes, it does, but, Dad, the way things have been going, I'm starting to think that anyone I meet is marked for death.” I felt as bitter as the wine swirling in my mouth.

“Tell me,” my father said, so I did, in as logical a fashion as I could, given the circumstances. I described how Hugh and I had found Ramon Espinosa on the verge of death, and how I worried that he might have been attacked—which made me paranoid all over again about Rosa's death.

“That's interesting.” My father was silent for a moment. “You know, I didn't tell you about something I did…because I thought you wouldn't approve.”

“Really? That sounds exactly like
my
behavior.”

“Well, the fact is…I had an old friend in the pathology department at the medical school who went over to work in the office of the medical examiner a few years ago. I, uh, made a call to him, to ask for a copy of Rosa Munoz's autopsy. He gave it to me without question. I thought you'd be angry because of all that sensitivity regarding the class action—so I didn't tell you.”

“Why did you want to have the autopsy?” I asked, feeling Hugh's eyes on me.

“I feared for both of you,” my father said. “I thought things could somehow get twisted around and either of you could be held responsible for the death—if not by the police, then by the
community. I felt it would be good for us to know what the medical evidence was. Just in case.”

Ironically, of course, the fact that my father was in possession of a confidential document could have landed us all in trouble. “That's okay, Dad. I'm not angry, I promise you. But I thought the results of the autopsy were common knowledge.”