Cold Case

by Stephen White

Taro Hamamoto had not arrived but he had made advance arrangements for me at the desk of the Air Canada lounge. The facility was small by U.S. standards but its comfort and amenities more than made up for its dimensions. Wonderful local beer on tap, plentiful snacks, fresh fruit, friendly people. I helped myself to something to eat and drink and settled into the small conference room where I had been instructed to wait for Mr. Hamamoto's arrival.

  He stood in the doorway about ten minutes later.

  I expected a man of typical Asian stature. But Taro Hamamoto was almost as tall as I was, nearly six-two. I expected a man graciously creeping from middle age into gentility. But Taro Hamamoto appeared to be no older than his late forties and had the lean, fit look of a distance runner. I expected to see a man wearing the Japanese version of Brooks Brothers. But when I stood to greet Taro Hamamoto as he walked into the conference room, he was Polo and Timberland.

  We shook hands and he bowed almost imperceptibly as he introduced himself.

  Immediately he offered me a business card. With barely a glance at his, I fumbled in my wallet for one of my own.

  "Dr. Gregory," he said.

  "I'm pleased to meet you."

  "The pleasure is mine, Mr. Hamamoto. I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk with you."

  "I hope I wasn't late."

  "Not at all. My flight was early. Immigration was a breeze."

  He glanced down at the conference table and saw the empty plate and the bottle of water in front of me. He said, "May I offer you anything before we begin?"

  "No. I'm great. I helped myself. May I get you something?"

  "Indeed not," he said.

  "Please, let's get started, shall we. I'm… anxious to hear more from you.

  It's not often I get the opportunity to speak about my daughter." His eyes saddened noticeably.

  "My wife, she… well, she would rather forget than remember. Does that make sense?"

  "Of course."

  He held the tip of his tongue between his teeth for a moment and sat straight, his shoulders squared. He achieved the posture without effort or strain. The polo shirt he wore under a white cotton sweater was the exact same hue as the tip of his tongue.

  "I have resources-contacts, if you will-in the United States. At my request these individuals have been kind enough to provide me with some research and background into the organization you represent, Dr. Gregory."

  He smiled the slightest bit.

  "Locard. It's a fascinating group with an impressive record."

  "Yes" My business card lay on the table in front of him. He lowered his eyes to it before he spoke.

  "And you… are not a permanent member."

  Hamamoto's words were not posed as a question. I tried not to sound defensive as I replied.

  "No. As you can see from my card, I'm a practicing clinical psychologist in Boulder, Colorado. I am not a permanent member of Locard. They consider me 'a guest specialist," which is a fancy way of saying that I'm an invited volunteer. I was asked to participate only in the current investigation.

  The one involving the murder of your daughter, Mariko, and her friend, Tamara Franklin."

  "And-please excuse my ignorance-why does Locard feel it needs the assistance of a clinical psychologist in Boulder, Colorado?"

  My speech about the necessity of getting to know the two dead girls was beginning to feel rehearsed, even polished. I gave it again with some confidence.

  As I finished, Hamamoto's face softened and his lips parted.

  "You have completed your words, Dr. Gregory. In your eyes, though, I see that you are not done with your explanation of your involvement with me and my family."

  Prevaricating with this man felt as though it would be counterproductive.

  "All right," I said.

  "Let me share the other reason for my involvement. Sometime shortly before her death your daughter, Mr. Hamamoto, was in psychotherapy in Steamboat Springs with a clinical psychologist like myself. It is an episode in her young life that Locard feels is worthy of more investigation. I concur with that assessment.

  The forensic psychologist and psychiatrist on Locard thought that I would be the correct person to explore the issues related to that therapy."

  "Dr. Welle," he said.

  "The now famous Dr. Welle." Taro Hamamoto touched the collar of his shirt and swallowed. I expected him to launch into criticism of Raymond Welle. Instead, Hamamoto said, "He helped her. I want you to know that.

  He helped all of us. Dr. Welle did. Dr. Raymond Welle." His hands clenched into fists before he released the pressure and spread his fingers.

  "Back then, Mariko was skiing too fast. She was in danger of catching an edge.

  Dr. Welle helped her get back under control. It was a great service to us."

  The skiing metaphor surprised me almost as much as the praise. I said, "I'm glad to hear that he was so helpful to your family."

  "Yes"

  "It turns out that I am scheduled to meet with Dr. Welle in two days. In Colorado. His office has been gracious enough to set up a meeting to discuss the resumption of the old investigation."

  Hamamoto nodded.

  "For that meeting to be of any benefit to me I will need to provide Dr. Welle with written authorization from you-or your wife-that he has your permission to speak with me about your daughter's psychotherapy. Without that permission the records of her treatment remain confidential and he is not allowed to share with me any details of his work with Mariko."

  "Are you suggesting that Dr. Welle has information that would help identify my daughter's killer?" His jaws tightened as he finished speaking.

  "I have no reason to suspect he has direct knowledge," I replied.

  "But he may know something that might help us reconstruct-with the benefit of hindsight and modern forensics-the circumstances that brought your daughter in contact with her killer."

  I didn't know how Hamamoto was going to reply. He said, "My wife is not available. She is… living in Japan." These words were clipped, almost unfriendly.

  I didn't comment on the tone.

  "Your signature alone is sufficient, Mr. Hamamoto."

  My carry-on bag was a slender satchel that contained a notebook and a case file. I removed the file and from it and withdrew a single sheet of paper that I had prepared on my computer the previous evening. I slid it toward him.

  "This is all you want from me?" His voice betrayed his disappointment. Was there also contempt?

  "This paper is all you want from me?"

  I softened my voice and leaned closer to him, just an inch or two.

  "No, Mr. Hamamoto. I need this paper for the next step in my work. But this step"-I touched the table in front of me-"what will happen between us today, must precede it. I want you to help me know Mariko. I want to know your daughter through your eyes. I want to begin to appreciate her the way you did."

  He raised the index finger of his left hand to his mouth and pressed gently on his upper lip until it separated from the lower one.

  Symbolically, I thought, he was unsealing them.

  "When my company acquired the ski area in Steamboat Springs I was honored to be selected to serve as general manager. My family joined me in Colorado after I was in Steamboat Springs for four months and two weeks. My family then was my wife, Eri, and my two daughters, Mariko and Satoshi. Mariko was sixteen, Satoshi fourteen, then, I think. Yes."

  Taro had allowed his posture to soften enough that I no longer felt that I had to impersonate a marine to sit comfortably with him.

  "We had, of course, lived abroad before. As a family. The children spoke English well. My wife, not so well. She has always found the language and the culture to be… difficult. She often mused to herself while she knew I was close enough to overhear that she hoped our exile in Colorado would be a brief one. It was one of her favorite words." He said something in Japanese. In English, he said, "Exile."

  His eyes grew heavy as though he were suddenly too tired to continue.


  "My wife, it seems, she was granted her wish." His eyes closed for a few moments as he composed himself.

  "My children loved living in Colorado. Are you familiar with Steamboat Springs, Dr. Gregory?" I said, "Yes, as a matter of fact I was there last weekend with my wife. It's a lovely town."

  "The Mountain Village was small then. The town quiet. Everything was much less congested than it is now. The hillside-it reminded us of the place in Japan where my parents lived-a small village near Nagano. You know Nagano? From the Olympics? I felt safe in Steamboat. So did the girls. There is some irony there, yes? They walked places on their own. Visited with other children, went to school, had a normal life. We were outsiders yes, but we were accustomed to that. The girls were… happy.

  "Both girls were skiers, of course. Excellent skiers. That helped them-what do you say?-fit in with the local kids in Steamboat. At my urging my wife permitted Mariko and Satoshi freedoms similar to those enjoyed by their new friends. My wife argued against the permissiveness. She felt that it would not serve them well when we returned to Japan."

  With apparent sorrow, he said, "My wife… it seems… has always been someone who is concerned mostly with the past… but also some with the future. She worries little about the present… except that she worries as to how it will change the future. And how it will be viewed-appraised?-once it has become the past. I am a businessman, the one in the family who concerns himself with the present. A flaw of mine? Perhaps. If it is a defect it is one that Dr. Welle supported. But… that came later."

  I didn't ask permission to take notes, but simply removed the notepad from my satchel and a pen from my pocket and started keeping a chronology of dates and people as Taro Hamamoto sketched in every minute detail of his family's acculturation in Colorado. If he objected to my keeping a journal of the specifics I couldn't discern it from his demeanor.

  We were halfway through the time alotted for our meeting when he mentioned Tamara Franklin for the first time. We both laughed as he said, "I met her father and mother, of course. Her father called Tamara'a little pistol." When I got to know her better I thought she was more like a whole big gun." The memories were affectionate, not cross.

  He turned serious again immediately.

  "But she was kind, so kind to my Mariko. I forgave her the impetuousness. I forgave her the occasional disrespect. I forgave it all because she was so kind and generous to my daughter. Tamara was a very good friend to Mariko. I had good friends growing up, so I know about friendship. And Tamara Franklin was a good friend."

  I perceived a natural break in his narrative and opened my mouth to ask a question about Tami and Miko. But he continued before I had a chance.

  "I was here, right here, when I learned she was missing."

  Confused, I asked, "In Vancouver?"

  "Yes. In Canada. In Vancouver. In this airport. I'd just completed a business trip to Whistler Mountain. I wasn't there with my family when she disappeared.

  My wife, she is silent, but she blames me I think. For not being there to help."

  He shrugged.

  "What could I have done? But at the time…"

  I felt a familiarity with Hamamoto right then. It calmed me. It was as if our interview had become psychotherapy. I did what I do best. I said nothing and tried not to get in his way.

  "Work. I was here for work. The company? We were negotiating then to buy Whistler Mountain. You know Whistler? The ski resort?"

  I shrugged. Whether or not I knew Whistler Mountain wasn't the point. He knew that, too.

  "A beautiful resort. It is my assignment, now. Whistler. For a different company, though, not Japanese. The economy in Japan in the late nineties was… so fragile. So much of what was gained in the eighties was lost in the nineties.

  It has seemed to me that whenever Japan begins to feel strong that is when Japan is most weak. That is our history. Are you a student of history, Dr. Gregory?"

  "Personal history."

  "Ah." He appraised me warmly.

  "My Mariko? Her personal history? Yes, I think I see. From her confidence, too, perhaps came her vulnerability. But she was never arrogant, like Japan. Even like Tamara. Mariko was young, had the self-assurance of the young."

  "Her vulnerability?"

  "To influence."

  "From friends?"

  "Yes. From friends."

  "Including Tami Franklin?"

  "Of course."

  He stared at me in a manner that I found disarming. He said, "You know, of course, that my daughter was arrested?"

  I did my best to try to not act surprised. I thought I did a pretty good job.

  But not good enough.

  "You didn't know?" Hamamoto said.

  "I'm disappointed."

  "I've read the investigative reports thoroughly, Mr. Hamamoto. That information is not there."

  "No?" He shrugged.

  "Her record was eventually cleared. And now, it doesn't really matter. It is not relevant to finding who killed her. Only to knowing her and her-what did you say?-personal history. It is because of the arrest we came to know Dr. Raymond Welle." Marijuana," he explained.

  "In case you are wondering." I waited for him to go on. He seemed embarrassed by his admission and was content to allow the word to hang in the air for as long as possible, as though it were a cloud that would dissipate with the wind.

  Finally, I asked, "Possession or sale?" I immediately regretted my bluntness; I needed to encourage Hamamoto, not assault him.

  As I feared, my question appeared to offend him.

  "Possession. Mariko and Tamara and two boys… men, really. Tourists, skiers.

  They were from Chicago. They attended Northwestern University. The sheriff arrested them all. This was in March. We were… devastated. My wife, she…" Hamamoto bowed his head.

  The hair on his crown was thinning.

  "There was much shame. It was my fault. Mariko should not have been granted the. the… oh, oh…" He snapped his fingers twice. "… the license… the the… freedom. That was my fault. Mariko should not have been free to be there then with those… men who we did not know. That was my doing. My responsibility. My error in judgment. As her father, I failed."

  He looked up and examined my face, wary. I assumed he was trying to assess whether my infelicitous frankness was likely to continue.

  "But my daughter was smoking the marijuana. She admitted that to me honestly.

  And that was Mariko's responsibility. That was her error." He closed his right hand into a fist and struck his chest lightly with the side where his index finger and thumb united.

  I was wondering what was so grave about what I had heard. A sixteen-year-old girl experimenting with dope, hanging out with college boys? Not exactly earth-shattering behavior.

  "They were at one of the hot springs. You know about the hot springs in Steamboat? At Strawberry Park?"

  "Yes. It's where Tami told her parents that she and Mariko were going the night they disappeared. It's become overrun by tourists. They charge admission now."

  "Really? I suppose that I am not surprised that the tourists have discovered it.

  Your other statement is true as well. Mariko did not tell her mother that she and Tamara were going to the hot springs. Mariko knew she was prohibited from returning there."

  "You are concerned that Mariko lied to her mother?"

  Taro Hamamoto's face flushed.

  "When the sheriff" arrested my daughter, she was. " He averted his eyes.

  "She was… naked." He corrected his posture and touched his collar with the fingers of both hands.

  "Mariko was in the hot springs without clothing. She was with two young men she had just met that afternoon on the gondola. She was smoking marijuana. And you think that she would not lie to her mother about a plan to return there? The shame."

  I considered the facts I was hearing. When I was sixteen I hadn't done what Mariko had been caught doing. But I'd done it when I was a little older.

/>   Different hot springs, in the Sangre de Cristo Range above Buena Vista. Older girls, graduate students at Arizona State.

  The memory warmed me now as the experience had then.

  But the difference was, I hadn't been caught.

  "I was at a meeting that night at the resort. I came right home. My wife, Eri, she was in shock, and was not sure how to proceed. I went to the police station and retrieved Mariko. She was released to me without…" He snapped his long fingers.

  "Bond? Is that the right word?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. At the police station I saw Mrs. Franklin, Cathy Franklin. Tami's mother.

  I was upset, more upset than she. I told her I was afraid that Mariko would now need to go home to Japan. The influences, I explained. We, her parents, were failing. We couldn't control her.

  "Cathy tried to calm me down. She explained that the kids were just being kids.

  Experimenting, she said. Spreading their wings, she said.

  We argued a little about that. We discussed grounding. She said maybe we should keep the girls apart for a while but she thought sending Mariko to Japan was… rash? Is that the right word? She gave me a name of someone who could help settle Mariko down." I said, "Dr. Raymond Welle."

  "Yes. That is when I heard for the first time of Dr. Welle."

  I remembered Lauren telling me that Cathy Franklin wasn't fond of Mariko.

  Tami's mother thought the friendship wouldn't last. That she referred to Mariko as one of Tami's projects.

  Taro Hamamoto stood and excused himself to the rest room.

  The pieces didn't fit together with any grace.

  Our time together was running out. I felt it burning away like the wax in a candle. I decided I needed to be more assertive with the remaining minutes available to me. I doubted that I would ever be face-to-face with Taro Hamamoto again.

  "You went to see Dr. Welle together? As a family?"

  "Not right away, no. Eri, my wife-the shame was too much of a burden for her right after the arrest. She felt that everyone in the town was judging her because of what Mariko had done. She begged me-she wanted to take the girls and leave Colorado. Return to Japan. It was, for me, a difficult time."

  Taro was silent long enough that I felt it necessary to prod him.