The Samurai's Daughter

by Sujata Massey

  I heard the sound of soft female voices in the hallway. The maids. I knew I couldn’t linger much longer, but I’d gone through the whole room anyway. I zipped up the tweed suitcase and replaced it atop the Samsonite so it looked just the way I’d found it. I was closing the closet door and about to exit when the phone rang, making me jump. I knew then that I couldn’t leave without hearing the message left by whoever had telephoned Eric. After ten rings, the phone was silent. A few seconds later, the “message waiting” light began blinking, just the way it had in Charles’s room.

  I picked up the telephone receiver and punched the code for voice mail.

  “Eric, Hugh here calling from downstairs. Sorry to drag you back from your nap, but Charles wants to clarify some of the Japanese language you used for the last paragraph. Can you ring me right away? I think we can sort it out without your needing to come back.”

  If Hugh was calling Eric’s room, and Eric had said he was going to take a midday nap, it meant that Eric was a minute or two from discovering me. I slammed down the phone, sending the eyeglasses placed next to it flying.

  Glasses. I caught my breath and picked them up. Mrs. Moriuchi had described the nephew as having worn glasses. Eric had never worn them when we were kids. Maybe he wore contacts now; I had no idea.

  I picked up the glasses and peered through them.

  I squinted, and looked again. They were clear glass. These weren’t glasses meant for reading or seeing at a distance. The only reason Eric would wear them would be to look like someone else.

  I squeezed the pair of small glasses in my hand, thinking about whether I dared to take them with me to show Mrs. Moriuchi. Something Hugh had said to me about the law years ago came back to me: If I removed them, it would be a crime.

  I put the glasses down, and saw that I’d held them so tightly that I’d smudged the lenses. I quickly pulled a tissue out of the box next to the bed and rubbed them clear. Then I set them down again and zoomed out of the room, not even bothering to listen for people in the hall. Fortunately, the maids turned out to be cleaning rooms—the only other company I had in the hall was a large cart heaped with dirty sheets.

  Instead of going for the elevator, I went for the hall stairway. I’d escaped unnoticed. I wanted to celebrate, but the fact was I needed to call the police. I reached in my pocket for my wallet, but it wasn’t there. I had the keycards to both rooms, and a MAC lipstick, but nothing else.

  Then I remembered. I’d stashed my wallet in the Isetan shopping bag I’d brought with me. I’d left the shopping bag in Charles’s room, right next to the bedside table when I’d picked up the phone to eavesdrop on his messages. And it contained my foreigner identity card, an expired California driver’s license, and my at-the-limit Visa card.

  How could I be so stupid? I mourned as I scurried back up the steps and peered into the hall. Nobody was there. I scurried to room 1014 and slapped the keycard in the door. My nervousness made me fumble, and it wasn’t until my third attempt that I was able to get inside. I scanned Charles’s room and saw the bag where I thought it would be.

  The room wasn’t terribly large—I fairly flew the twelve steps to the bag. But just as I grasped its handle in my palm, I heard the click.

  The room’s door was opening. I opened my eyes very wide and readied myself to pretend for the maids that I was Mrs. Charles Sharp. At least, I hoped it would be the maids, instead of Charles Sharp.

  But it wasn’t a couple of ladies at the door. There were two men instead: Charles and Hugh—both of them looking as stunned as I.

  28

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. At the moment, I couldn’t think of anything I could say to alter the fact that I’d been caught smack in the middle of Charles’s room. I stood there clutching my Isetan shopping bag to me like a life preserver.

  But it couldn’t protect me from Charles, whose face had gone from its normal pale color to a bright, angry pink.

  Hugh spoke quickly, interrupting our frozen tableau.

  “So, you made it in for lunch after all, darling! I guess the front desk people must have confused the room we’re using as our office on the fourth floor with this one, which actually is for Charles’s personal use.”

  What a perfect opener. Hugh, as always, had come through to save me. I was ready to continue the happy fable, but then Charles spoke.

  “I don’t believe that the hotel staff would have sent her to a private room—let alone given her a keycard like the one she’s holding in her hand. After all, she isn’t a guest.”

  “Actually, there’s an explanation.” I was ready to begin with the tale of what I’d found out about Eric and his disguise.

  “Yes, I’m sure there’s an explanation!” Hugh clapped his hands together and motioned for me to sit down at the chair next to the desk.

  “I’d like to hear Rei speak for the record in front of some witnesses from hotel security,” Charles said coldly.

  “Is that really necessary? I’m sure we can work it out ourselves,” Hugh said.

  Charles laughed coldly. “Well, she’s got a shopping bag there full of something that she might like to show them.”

  So he thought I’d come in the room to steal from him. How embarrassing. “It’s just my wallet and some tissue paper,” I said, spilling it out on the carpet. “See?”

  But as I put on my show, Charles was dialing down to the front desk. He asked that the hotel’s manager and its chief of security come to his room. When he hung up, he turned to Hugh. “I’m going to telephone for Eric to help us as well. We’ll need to use his interpretation services so I can make sure I understand how to prosecute this devious young woman to the fullest extent of Japanese law.”

  “‘Prosecute’?” Hugh repeated the word with horror in his voice. “But there’s been no theft—”

  “Not Eric,” I interrupted. “Please, Mr. Sharp. Use any interpreter besides Eric. Eric’s dirty. He’s the one who attacked Ramon Espinosa!”

  “And how do you know that? Was it because you broke into his room as well?” Charles snorted and said into the phone, “Eric? Please come to my room. I discovered Rei Shimura attempting to burgle my room, and I believe she may have been up to the same thing in yours. Come right away. I’ll need you to interpret between me and the hotel administration.”

  He slammed down the phone and turned to Hugh. “I can’t believe this. The question is whether you’re in this game as well.”

  “He’s not,” I said. “And believe me, Mr. Sharp, after seeing this room I have no suspicions against you, just apologies. Like I’ve been trying to tell you, in Eric’s room I found a pair of eyeglasses with lenses that had no power. Someone fitting Eric’s physical description, but wearing eyeglasses, went into Ramon Espinosa’s apartment. And I also found a suitcase that I think belonged to Ramon in Eric’s closet. All we need is one witness from Ramon’s apartment building to corroborate this, and then we’ll know for sure.”

  “But that’s incredible,” Hugh said. “Charles, if what she’s saying pans out to be true, we absolutely shouldn’t be alerting Eric to any of this!”

  “Whom do you work for, me or her?” Charles blazed. “What the hell are you doing protecting someone who committed a crime against our interests?”

  My eyes moved from Charles back to Hugh. Our interests. Was there something Hugh was doing that he hadn’t told me about?

  But Hugh didn’t flinch. In fact, the color of his face had returned to normal, and there was a steeliness in his gaze that I recognized from serious situations in the past.

  “I don’t work for you,” Hugh said evenly. “And I’ll thank you not to insult the woman I love. Yes, her actions at the moment appear a bit…unconventional, but she’s already started a logical explanation. I’m sure there’s more to it, if you would just take hold of your emotions and listen.”

  The doorbell sounded, and Charles moved briskly to open it. The hotel manager, Mr. Noguchi, and a security officer and Eric all arrived at the sam
e time. Eric was looking at me with an almost gleeful expression. It reminded me of the times he used to throw spitballs at me in class and I’d return fire—because my aim was poor, somehow I was the only one who ever got noticed and in trouble.

  But this was a hell of a lot more than spitballs, I reminded myself as Charles gave Mr. Noguchi a rundown of the situation—that I, a non–hotel guest, had managed to secure a keycard and enter both his and his colleague’s rooms.

  “Sharp-san, I believe I have some answers already to this problem,” Mr. Noguchi said, speaking in slow but good English. “After close examination of the front desk log yesterday evening, our staff realized that two women may have obtained keys without proper identification. They claimed to be wives of guests—of you, Mr. Sharp, and you, Mr. Gan.”

  “But Rei would never do this!” Hugh cried.

  “Unfortunately, I did,” I said in a low voice. “But I did go to the desk to get the keycards. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t think of any other way to find out the truth.”

  “If you knew someone had a keycard to my room, why didn’t you alert me?” Charles demanded of Mr. Noguchi.

  “Well, sir, we actually had a front desk employee telephone you to ask if your room was all right, and you said yes. We considered the matter closed—”

  “It shouldn’t have been! If I knew someone had access to my room and my possessions, I would have asked to change rooms. Then this terrible invasion of privacy would never have happened!” Given how upset Charles seemed, it almost appeared he really did have something to hide, I thought. Now he was turning to Eric, and jabbing a finger in his face. “Eric, the gentleman here seems a bit slow on the uptake. Tell him in Japanese that I want the police here so I can press charges.”

  It all happened so fast. As Hugh stood by my side, unable to do more than mutter to me not to say anything until he’d gotten a good lawyer for me, the men in blue came. There were three of them, and they were about my age or younger, but their faces were hard, hard as soldiers’ faces. They surrounded me and took me down the elevator and out to the car. Hugh had implored them to let him accompany, but they didn’t seem to understand. Though Eric had translated Hugh’s wishes to them, he’d done it with such harsh choices of words that it sounded as if Hugh was trying to undermine their authority. So of course he hadn’t been allowed to go.

  The charge against me was serious, the station’s police chief informed me, once I’d told my story to him and the other officers in a private room at the Hibiya Ward headquarters. I’d unlawfully entered a domicile rented by another person, which was tantamount to housebreaking. Furthermore, I’d misrepresented my identity to the hotel staff.

  “I agree it was a very serious risk that I took,” I said. “But I’d like to explain what I did in more detail to some of your colleagues as well—officers from the Kanda Ward, where Ramon Espinosa was recently attacked. And in a few hours, you might want to consult with the homicide detectives in San Francisco.”

  “This is our business,” the police chief said. “It doesn’t matter if you have friends in those places. We will make the decision on whether to prosecute.”

  “But my—entry to the hotel rooms—was undertaken solely because I knew that one of the two hotel guests had to be connected with a murder in San Francisco and with the assault that happened in Kanda. What I did today was examine—but not remove—the personal effects of the men I suspected. And I learned that the man who found me—Charles Sharp—is not the one to worry about. It’s the other man—the young translator, Eric Gan, whom you saw in the room—who is the culprit!”

  At least the tape recorder was running, I thought as I talked on, explaining the whole story. I told them everything except for the name of the Japanese company that Hugh and his colleagues were planning to sue. But they weren’t interested in that. There were enough fantastical elements that I brought up—Eric Gan’s cell phone use; the phantom nephew who’d taken Ramon’s suitcase, yet not visited him in the hospital; and finally, the plain-lens eyeglasses that I’d found in the room of a man with perfect eyesight.

  “You have worked quite seriously to find these details,” the chief said at last. “It is quite a story.”

  “It sounds as if you don’t believe me,” I said sadly. “I guess we just have to wait for another person to be killed, and then another. Maybe he’ll be caught in the act someday. One can always hope.”

  “Nobody here wants loss of life,” the officer said. “Unfortunately, there’s very little we can do with this man. We arrest people in Japan when we are certain there is good reason to do that. We cannot pull people off the street based on circumstantial evidence.”

  “Why don’t you call Mrs. Moriuchi,” I suggested. “Just take her to the hotel to see Eric and then you’ll know if it’s the same man. And then go to his room and see for yourself the glasses and the suitcase and the maps of the Philippines.”

  “That could be considered a violation of privacy,” the chief said.

  “Just go back and speak to Eric Gan,” I begged. “Ask if he’ll voluntarily show you the contents of his closet. Or show you the entry stamp on his passport. If he doesn’t, that should tell you something.”

  The officers exchanged glances and went outside the room to talk. I heard the low rumble of their voices, then nothing. I knew better than to try to leave. I thought there was probably a hidden camera in the room, recording my every move. I didn’t want to give the camera the privilege of seeing me cry, so I put my head down on my arms.

  An hour later, I was startled to hear the door opening. The police chief had returned. “Shimura-san? Are you all right?”

  I nodded warily.

  “We spoke with our colleagues in Kanda and also Yanaka, where you live.” He came and sat down across from me. “There are a number of things you didn’t tell us, which they did.”

  “Oh?” I asked with a sinking feeling. What did they have on me now?

  “You didn’t mention that you were present to save the life of that elderly acupuncturist in Kanda.”

  “Well, yes, I was there,” I admitted cautiously.

  He folded his arms across his chest, looking smug. “And you also didn’t mention that a criminal maliciously attacked your home with gas the other day.”

  “I didn’t mention it because it seemed like a very small problem in comparison with my situation now—”

  “And finally, you should know that our National Police English interpreter telephoned the San Francisco Police Department as well. An officer on duty explained that the death of the woman you mentioned to us did occur, and that it was recently ruled a homicide due to potassium chloride poisoning.”

  I nodded. “Have they found the murderer?”

  “No, but they were most interested in speaking with the interpreter, Mr. Eric Gan, whom you mentioned. We would like to telephone the lady in Kanda you mentioned, Mrs. Moriuchi, to see if she recognizes him. And we will also have immigration records checked to find out his exact date of arrival in Japan.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much for believing me—”

  “Well, it is really an inquiry, not an absolution.” The chief studied me a minute, and then his face softened. “You’ve had quite a hard afternoon, I think. If you’d like to make a telephone call to someone, you may do so from the pay phone in the lobby. And you may get something to eat or drink.”

  Of course, the first number I telephoned was the one for Hugh’s mobile phone.

  “Thank God,” Hugh said. “I’ve been so worried about you. Listen, Mr. Harada’s agreed to represent you; in fact, he’s on his way to the station now. I don’t want to depress you too much, but apparently in Japan, entering a person’s space uninvited is equivalent to trespassing…”

  “Don’t worry about that now. The important thing is that they’re coming for Eric.”

  “What on earth—?”

  “As I told you earlier, Eric is the one who tried to kill Ramon. They’re going to bring in M
rs. Moriuchi to identify him. I think I saw Ramon Espinosa’s suitcase in Eric’s hotel room closet. And Eric had left these glasses he probably wore as a disguise on his bedside table. You’ve got to keep Eric in your sights so he doesn’t have time to get rid of these things.”

  “Okay, I understand. But Eric’s been huddled with Charles and the hotel management most of the afternoon. The only time he could have acted would have been in the brief time he was in his room after Charles telephoned him there and inadvertently alerted him.

  “Rei, listen, do you want me to explain anything to Charles? This certainly is a mitigating circumstance that explains your reason for being in his room. I’m sure he wouldn’t want a murderer working as a translator for him, and will be glad you learned what you did—”

  “Don’t say a thing to him,” I said. “He didn’t listen to me before. The only one he’ll believe is the police. And the police won’t prosecute Eric unless they find enough evidence and Mrs. Moriuchi’s identification of him is solid.”

  “Fine. I’ll do my best to be your eyes and ears here. What’s your number at the police HQ?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m calling from a pay phone.”

  “I should have given you a mobile phone for Christmas—not an engagement ring,” Hugh said. “Damn, but I was impractical.”

  “But I wanted the ring,” I said, the tears coming back into my voice. “I wanted you.”

  “Well, you’ve got me without question,” Hugh said, and I could hear the smile over the line. “And before I ring off, will you tell me where the Hibiya police station is? I’ll pick you up when all the drama’s over.”

  29

  After getting off the telephone, I used the small amount of change I had in my pocket to buy a can of Aquarius Water. After drinking the so-called ionization beverage, I still felt dehydrated and spacey, and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. But the only foods available in the police station vending machine were in liquid form—hot soups with flavors like corn, octopus, and kelp. My stomach turned.