“May I keep this for a few days?” Mr. Ishida interrupted my daydreaming. “I have a colleague at the Tokyo National Museum with an interest in the aristocracy.”
“Of course,” I murmured before wondering what Miyo would want. I closed my eyes, feeling the uncanny connection again. Only it wasn’t just a little girl in an exquisite kimono enjoying a way of life soon coming to an end, it was myself in the first grade, panicked over what crayon to use when drawing my skin color. It was young Setsuko huddled in a cardboard box, and Mariko shunned at the swimming pool. We four, a number considered bad luck because it was pronounced shi, the homonym for death.
21
I’d almost forgotten Monday was nonburnable garbage day, so after I’d gotten my backpack and lunch together and walked out the door I had to double back to get the bag of bottles and cans. The phone was ringing inside the apartment. I ran past Mariko, who was cuddled deep in her futon.
“Hey, Rei. What’s new?” It was Hugh Glendinning.
“What happened with Yamamoto?” It bothered me that he hadn’t reported in the day before.
“I drove him home yesterday, where he met his mother and father. Tearful reunion and all that.”
“Has he talked to the police yet?” When Hugh didn’t answer, I exploded. “You’re killing yourself, do you know that? You could very well be charged as the accomplice in his trumped-up death!”
“Accessory,” he corrected. “But I’m fairly certain he’s innocent. Remember the disc, the one he said contained the battery formula? Hikari can’t find it in the office. Just like Yamamoto thought, Nakamura must have gotten nervous and taken it home.”
“Unless Yamamoto is lying about everything.” I glanced at Mariko, whose ponytail was peeping a bit higher out of the blankets. She was listening.
“Wait to sling your arrows until I find the disc,” Hugh told me.
“Until you find it? What are you going to do, break into his house?”
“Technically, it won’t be a forced entry. You’ll see.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I need you, Rei.” Hugh’s voice was silky. “You know how to get to the house. And as far as physical searching goes—crawling under tables and such—I’m still incapacitated.”
“Why not hire a professional detective to help you?” I cast about for a logical alternative.
“Impossible. If Ota got wind of the business, he’d drop me.”
“Because you’d be breaking and entering,” I pointed out.
“No, what we’re doing is more akin to gaining access to the house through a ruse. We’ll be cleaning the house in lieu of the regular maid.”
“Gee, you really know how to get me excited.” First the Nakamura bathroom, now the whole house. I was upwardly mobile.
“I’ve already asked the girl who cleans my flat to bring a spare maid’s uniform for you. We’ll go over there tomorrow, and if it makes things more attractive, I’ll pay you out of my government account.”
“Having you pay for dinner and taxis is humiliating enough, and the only reason I’ve let you do that is I simply can’t afford it. Talking to me about your spy fund is insulting beyond belief. Even if I wanted to go, I have a midday tutoring session!”
“Couldn’t you come down with cramps or one of those mysterious girls’ things bosses are loathe to explore?”
“Don’t be sexist.” I said, all the while thinking that if I got into Setsuko’s house to look around, I might find some real evidence of the American father. I could perhaps prove to Hugh that Setsuko’s death had less to do with high-tech thievery than dysfunctional family relations.
“Richard could fill in for me, I suppose. But if I do go—”
“I know.” He was laughing. “You’ll do the driving.”
I would feel safer in a car than a train, I thought as I walked to Minami-Senju station to catch my ride to work. These days, I couldn’t stop brooding about how Mrs. Yogetsu had died at my station. It gave me the chills to pace the platform from where she’d been pushed, but none of the commuters who regularly waited there had talked about the incident.
For me, the train station had become a sinister place. When I was alone, I imagined a stalker in the shadows, and when hordes surrounded me, I imagined an anonymous knife in my back or shove onto the tracks. Some people believed there was safety in numbers, but for me, there was only paranoia.
I made it to work in one piece to find Richard awaiting me with a telephone message slip in hand.