“I wonder when he’ll get rid of her things,” I said, but Hugh didn’t seem to hear me. He was moving faster through the clothes, checking the labels.
“It’s not here,” he said. “A red Gianni Versace suit I bought for her at Mitsutan. Was she buried in it?”
“The coffin was closed so I don’t know for certain, but I really doubt the funeral people would dress her in red. Too loud.”
“Where could the Versace be, then?” He paced the room.
“She probably returned it,” I told him.
“She wouldn’t! It was fabulous on her. Besides, I had the credit card and receipt.”
“At Japanese department stores you can return things you charged for a cash refund, no questions asked. Setsuko did that a lot. I found out last Sunday.”
“So you’re saying she cheated me?” Hugh sat down on the bed, denting the immaculate coverlet.
“Come on, you were paying for information! Does it matter whether it was in the form of goods or cash?” I explained what Miss Yokoyama had intimated.
“It’s being tricked that bothers me,” Hugh muttered as we made a final clean sweep upstairs. “If I had known she wanted money I would have gladly paid it. But she seemed thrilled about the clothes.”
“Women in Japan aren’t supposed to desire money. That’s reflected in the salaries paid to those of us who do work. You earn five times what I do,” I said, bumping the heavy bag filled with the telephone books downstairs.
“I didn’t know that. Still, aren’t you’re doing what you love?” He began a slower descent behind me.
Ha. A picture of myself riding the bullet train to my horrible new job in Osaka ran through my mind as I walked around turning off lights and heaters. We had a short spat over whether the living room door had been open or not; I threw up my hands at last and allowed him to close it.
“Is the front door locked?”
“Check!” I called back. In the kitchen, I remembered to turn off the water heater and collected my cleaning supplies in the pail. Then Hugh slipped out the back door with his law book and I began the process of waiting. Somehow, those last minutes alone were the worst; what my watch told me was really twelve minutes felt like half an hour. At last I heard the Windom purring down the back alley, and I slipped out of the door with the books and my trash bags.
I had miscalculated. The car that stopped at the gate was a white Mercedes. I darted behind a camellia bush and listened. The car door opened and footsteps clipped the garden path. I caught a glimpse of shiny black wing-tip shoes and dark blue trousers.
I looked further up to Seiji Nakamura’s face.
He paused, looking around. He obviously knew a maid was scheduled, because he’d left an envelope with cash payment in the entry hall. We’d taken it to avoid causing suspicion.
Another thought hit me—what if he had been hoping to rendezvous with the maid? Why else would he be out, driving around, during work hours? I remembered the lace teddy hanging in Setsuko’s closet.
The footsteps came closer. I couldn’t let myself be found. Equally nightmarish was the prospect of Hugh arriving. Nakamura had passed me without seeming to notice and was now creeping along the kitchen wall, looking in the windows. He was suspicious.
Escape would be now or never. I straightened up from my hiding position and started tiptoeing toward the garden gate.
Wind rushed against the garbage bags full of supplies that I was carrying, creating a crinkling sound. I picked up my pace, intent on getting off the property as fast as I could. I heard the scraping of Nakamura’s steps on the cement path, coming back.
The humming sound of an engine approached. Don’t stop here, I thought as I fumbled with the latch and at last pushed through to the alley.
“Who’s that?” Seiji Nakamura’s voice bellowed behind me as Hugh drove into the alley. I sprinted past Nakamura’s Mercedes, counting on Hugh to keep driving at a slow pace, following and picking me up on the main road.
That didn’t happen. Hugh put the Windom in reverse and backed up, smoothly sailing around the corner and vanishing to points unknown.
I kept running, moving like someone had poured super-strength gas in my tank. I heard Mr. Nakamura yelling as I ran past a couple of gawking housewives. Initially, I was only afraid of being nabbed by Nakamura, but now I thought of the police.
I jerked a glance over my shoulder and did not see Nakamura; I slowed to a walk, gasping as much from terror as the exertion. My situation was bad. I was lost without money in a Japanese suburb several miles from a train station. I also had no idea how I’d find Hugh. The creamy houses that had looked so enticing the first time I’d entered the neighborhood now looked alternately mocking and menacing. I was out of my league, they seemed to tell me. I’d failed.