The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11)

by Sujata Massey

  “Some things had fallen, but I didn’t look closely because Hachiko was so excited to get outside,” he explained. “I had similar problems in my shop, but crumbled crackers are not as much of a loss as broken porcelain. Are you calling because you’d like some help cleaning it up?”

  “No, I can take care of that easily myself.” I would do what I could, but leave all the broken goods in boxes for Mr. Ishida, as he’d surely be filing insurance claims.

  Mr. Okada’s directions led me to Animal House, a modern veterinary office near the train station. Animal House had a bright exterior sign featuring cheerful cartoon dogs, cats, and fish. The electricity was working here, although the overhead lights in the waiting room appeared to have been purposely dimmed. Mr. Sato, the front desk receptionist, had colored his hair straw-blond and styled it into a rooster-style crest reminiscent of Tintin. When I said that I’d come to see Hachiko, he clapped his hands in excitement.

  “Yes, she is here! Since you’re not her owner, I won’t ask you to fill out paperwork—but Dr. Kubo certainly wants to speak with you. Please come this way,” he urged, jumping up to lead me down a hallway decorated with pictures of people and their pets. “Our Good Owners Wall is for people who rescue animals in need of shelter. The picture in the far left lower end is Hachiko-chan and Ishida-san. We took this shot last spring, when she was a tiny puppy.”

  Mr. Ishida had raved about Hachiko, but he’d never mentioned that she’d been a rescue. How small the dog had been: a caramel-and-cream ball of fluff. This photo of the beautiful puppy in the lap of a smiling octogenarian owner seemed to radiate the hopeful emotions of a new attachment. In a way, it reminded me of my own wedding pictures.

  We continued to a small examination room decorated with animal anatomy charts, and Mr. Sato showed me the plastic chair where I should sit until Dr. Kubo arrived. A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman wearing surgical scrubs decorated with prancing poodles joined me.

  “I’m Dr. Kubo,” she said, bowing. “I hear you’ve come for Hachiko?”

  I gave my name and explained that I’d traveled from Hawaii to help Mr. Ishida come home from a shelter in Tohoku.

  “Oh!” the doctor exclaimed. “I’d heard from Okada-san that Ishida-san was away on business, but he did not know the location was Tohoku. Is he all right?”

  “Ishida-san and I only spoke once briefly by phone, and he said something about a head injury. He will be allowed to travel home once he’s got a companion helping him.”

  “You must be very close to Ishida-san to have traveled to help him. Do you also know Hachiko well?” She’d picked up a clipboard and begun writing notes.

  “No. Ishida-san got Hachiko after I moved to Hawaii. But he spoke of her very fondly, so I have a positive picture.”

  “Of course,” Dr. Kubo said, writing away. “She is his best friend. Now look who’s here!”

  Mr. Sato arrived with a frisky, midsize dog in tow. He dropped the leash and Hachiko trotted toward Dr. Kubo who cooed and produced a biscuit from the pocket of her scrub shirt. Chewing happily away, Hachiko looked at me, and then came forward to say hello.

  I was cautious with dogs I didn’t know, but Hachiko seemed gentle and friendly. Within seconds I was off the chair I’d been sitting on and on the floor with the dog half on my lap.

  “We’re making friends,” I said.

  “If she were a cat, she would be purring,” Dr. Kubo agreed. “I’m glad the two of you are becoming close. Don’t worry about the bill—Mr. Ishida will take care of things when he returns. I will give you printed instructions on her daily diet.”

  “I don’t know why I’d need diet instructions,” I said, wondering if I’d misunderstood something.

  “Because you are taking her, neh?”

  “Um—I’m sorry, but I can’t take Hachiko right now.”

  “Heh?” Dr. Kubo stopped writing. “If you’re not here to take her, why did you come today?”

  “She’s been here for five or six days, right? I wanted to visit, so I could tell Ishida-san how she’s doing.” The doctor’s assumption made me feel awkward.

  As if she’d sensed my stress, Hachiko gave a little shake that jingled her collar, stood up, and left my lap.

  “It is unhealthy for a dog to stay in a place where she can’t really exercise.” Dr. Kubo watched the dog strolling the small room, as if she were seeking escape. “Our office doesn’t have a dogs’ playroom. Our kennels are intended for invalids needing a few nights’ care.”

  I went to pat Hachiko, whose rounded tail wagged in circles that shook her entire bottom. I felt like she was forgiving me. “Like I was saying earlier, I’m leaving Tokyo as quickly as I can to bring home Mr. Ishida. But until he’s here, there’s no place Hachiko could stay and get personal attention.”

  “You speak Japanese so well yet have no friends or family?” Dr. Kubo sounded skeptical.

  I thought about the Shimuras’ house in Yokohama. They didn’t have any pets. Maybe they’d welcome Hachiko, if I asked. I didn’t think Richard was a good option because of Mutsu, but I’d ask him as well.

  “I will check around, but it’s not likely the people I know would take her,” I said.

  “You might consider bringing Hachiko with you to Tohoku. Ishida-san always said she was a good traveler.”

  The vet was acting as if I knew how to handle dogs. I imagined Michael laughing about it. At the door, Hachiko nuzzled my hand, as if saying, of course you’ll take me.

  I gave Hachiko one last neck scratch and turned back to the doctor. “I will try my very best to get Hachiko out soon. But it seems to me that she needs a place where she’ll be allowed to stay indoors for her safety.”

  “I’m sure you’ll make arrangements.” The doctor’s smile was serene. “You are a very good person to do this!”

  I caught a Tokaido Line train to the Yokohama suburbs; they were running one an hour, instead of one every ten minutes, so the car I stood in was jammed. I breathed a sigh of relief thirty-five minutes later when the doors parted and I was released into the cool Yokohama air. It was a fifteen-minute walk to my aunt’s house in a hilly suburban neighborhood near the station. The streets around her home seemed unusually full of parked cars, probably because of the government restrictions on nonessential gas usage.

  When Aunt Norie opened the door, I found the power was off and the house lit only by candles. This created a lovely atmosphere. I embraced my aunt, who was in her late fifties but, because of her glossy black pageboy, unlined face, and trim figure, looked about fifteen years younger.

  “I must apologize for supper,” my aunt said. “I only had three hours to use my stove.”

  “But it smells so good.” Indeed, I rarely spent more than an hour making an evening meal. Tonight, my aunt had prepared miso soup flavored with dried mushrooms and shelf-stable tofu. She’d also set out saucers of tiny dried fish, pickled radishes and carrots from her garden, and a green salad with mayonnaise-yuzu dressing. The main course was oyako-donburi: rice topped with a soy-mirin-onion flavored omelette. Oyako-don meant mother-and-child, so there should have been diced chicken cooked with the omelette, but not tonight, either for lack of chicken or her mindfulness about my vegetarian habits. The eggs were extremely local, because she now had two hens in a backyard coop that Uncle Hiroshi had built for her with a Tokyu Hands kit.

  Uncle Hiroshi, a banking consultant, was at the table, his usually grave expression lightening as my aunt praised his carpentry skills. Shaking his head at all the flattery was my thirty-five-year-old cousin, Tom.

  “This is really a great meal,” I complimented my aunt. “I thought you were suffering from food shortages.”

  “Fortunately, my kitchen cupboard and garden provide. It must be different in Tokyo. I doubt Richard-san has a vegetable garden or hens.”

  “You’re right. He lives in a small apartment high over a noisy street, and his giant cat, Mutsu, would make short work of any hens.” Talking about animals reminded me of H
achiko. “Actually, I met a special animal today.”

  Everyone listened as I spoke about Hachiko and what the doctor had said about wanting her to leave the veterinary kennel as soon as possible.

  “I’m sorry, but we can’t help.” Aunt Norie’s voice had an anxious pitch. “We have chickens freely moving throughout the garden, and your uncle is highly allergic to dogs and cats.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know.”

  “That’s why Chika and I never got a pet.” Tom gave me a wistful look.

  “Do you know the legend of Hachiko, Japan’s most famous dog?” Uncle Hiroshi asked. “Back in the 1920s, a male Akita would walk his master, a college professor, to Shibuya Station every morning. He’d return for evening pickup at exactly the right time. Of course, he could not understand when the professor passed away. He loyally waited at the station for many years, until he finally died of cancer.”

  “I know that story well,” I said. “So many times I’ve met up with friends by his statue at the station.”

  “Ah, but that is the second Hachiko statue,” Uncle Hiroshi corrected. “The first was erected after his death in 1929, but during wartime, the statue was melted down for munitions. Only in the postwar years was the dog’s honor restored with a new bronze statue.”

  His expression “melted down” reminded me of the current state of Fukushima, but nobody else seemed to have noticed.

  “I’m very sorry we cannot take the dog,” my uncle continued. “I like the happy nature of dogs, but they make me itch and sneeze terribly. It would be ideal if Mr. Ishida’s apprentice could be found and she could make arrangements.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll find her.” Even though I’d left a phone message for Mayumi, I wasn’t sure I could trust someone who’d left Hachiko alone so long in the first place.

  “You said earlier that you had photographed some word written on Mr. Ishida’s calendar?” Aunt Norie asked.

  “Thanks for reminding me,” I said, getting my phone out of my pocket. My uncle, aunt, and cousin leaned in to look at the image that I zoomed so it was readable.

  “Sugihama.” Aunt Norie said. “Cedar tree shore. It sounds like a town name, but where is it?”

  “In Tohoku,” Tom said.

  “When the tsunami hit, Sugihama was on CNN! But was Ishida-san actually there? He phoned me from somewhere called Yamagawa.”

  “Maybe he was carried some distance by a wave,” Tom suggested. “That was the plight of many people.”

  “Or it could be that his shelter is in Sugihama, not Yamagawa, but he was confused,” I remembered. “He does have a head injury.”

  As I thought about the various possibilities, the Shimuras’ electricity returned with a cheerful snap. The pendant lamp above the table glowed warmly, and Uncle Hiroshi hurried off to rummage around his study. He returned with a deeply creased 1990 Japan Tourist Board map of the Tohoku coast.

  “Sugihama is small—just a tiny dot—a few miles north of a place where an eight-meter wave hit. And it’s below Yamagawa, where the wave was seven meters,” my uncle said, examining the map he’d spread out on the table.

  “Twenty-four feet tall,” I translated and shuddered.

  “How can you get to any of these towns?” Uncle Hiroshi shook his head. “It will take many more days or weeks before the train lines are restored.”

  “I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “I was told it’s pretty unlikely I could rent a car.”

  “Some nongovernmental organizations are finding ways to go,” Tom said. “One of our nurses is going to Sugihama on a chartered bus with the Helping Hands organization this Friday evening.”

  “You mean, tomorrow?” As Tom nodded, I exclaimed, “That’s perfect! Can you put me in touch with this nurse?”

  “Certainly. I have her number in my phone.”

  After Tom spoke, I saw he was blushing. Uncle Hiroshi didn’t seem to notice, but Aunt Norie, who’d been hoping for a daughter-in-law, pounced. “You have taken this girl’s number? Who is she?”

  “Nurse Tanaka.” Tom sounded irritable. “And it’s very normal for staff to have each other’s phone numbers, for professional reasons.”

  “Nurse Tanaka who?” Aunt Norie would not be brushed off. “How old is this nurse?”

  I had a distant memory of a pretty nurse who had chatted with Tom about things other than medication during my stay at St. Luke’s for a smashed knee. I asked, “Is Tanaka-san the one who worked on the trauma ward?”

  “Yes. She’s still there.” Turning to Aunt Norie, Tom added, “Tanaka Michiko is two years younger than I am. And to answer any other questions you probably have, she has not married yet and seems to be a responsible, respectable person.”

  “Oh, Tsutomu.” Aunt Norie beamed. “You must certainly call this nurse on Rei-chan’s behalf. And if you can’t reach her tonight, give me the number, please.”

  I could not reach Michiko Tanaka by phone, but that evening, I found an English-language website for Helping Hands. After a few exchanged e-mails with its director, Hiroshi Yano, I learned he was seeking volunteers who could commit to a minimum of three days of assistance in Sugihama. I expressed my willingness to help, but added that I hoped to also visit Yamagawa. Mr. Yano wrote back that this would be fine, and that he would reserve a seat for me on the free Friday evening bus. Thank you so much! I typed back before remembering that I still had a dog to worry about.

  I pondered taking Hachiko from the vet to stay in the shop alone. Perhaps Mr. Okada knew a neighborhood youngster who could feed and walk Hachiko twice daily.

  But was that responsible? I considered the missing money, the empty box in the safe, all the scattered objects. I’d felt an odd atmosphere in the shop that had never been there before. If someone had already entered and stolen without hindrance, there was no reason to think he or she wouldn’t return to properly finish the job.

  No, I decided. Even though Hachiko was technically a guard dog, I didn’t want her there.

  Chapter 9

  “This is your last day of comfort. Please enjoy it, because soon you will enter another life. Just twenty of you are here today, but ten more will be with us tonight on the bus.”

  In a packed Shinjuku conference room, Mr. Yano chose to start volunteer orientation on a gloomy note.

  “I wish I could describe the conditions of the lodging where we will stay, but we are the first group going into Tohoku, so I cannot.” Mr. Yano was a trim fellow about my age, who had a wispy beard that needed trimming—an atypical look for the Japanese. “Expect that sleeping, eating, and toileting to be very rough. There will also be no personal bathing, clothes washing, or wearing of contact lenses, because there is no place to wash hands with water.”

  No hand washing in clean-freak Japan? This was unthinkable, but all around me, serious-looking volunteers—mostly people in their twenties through forties—were nodding as if it was no problem.

  “Do not come if you think you might get cold or tired or overpowered by bad smells. It’s better to change your mind now than later, neh? Once you arrive, there will not be return bus transportation until Sunday.”

  People were raising their hands left, right, and center, full of questions about the length of the bus ride, danger of exposure to radiation on the trip, and so on. There was one question in the back of my mind that had been bugging me since the night before. Could Hachiko come? I was beginning to think it was the best option.

  Soberly, we filed out a few hours later. I hadn’t dared raise the question. Instead I read through Helping Hands’ suggested packing list and decided to focus on obtaining a few items Michael hadn’t thought of when he’d packed my duffel bag. A down jacket and a battery-powered phone charger were the only outstanding issues.

  I rode the subway a few stops to Roppongi and went to Richard and Enrique’s place. I entered through the unlocked apartment door and found Richard huddled on the futon with a blanket wrapped around him. He was drinking wine and reading a Hawaiian travel magazine th
at I’d brought. Glancing at me, he said, “Your island looks better to me all the time.”

  “Then come visit,” I said. “Although we get cyclones a lot, and sometimes earthquakes and tsunamis, too.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “Let me get you a glass of wine. What’s the latest?”

  “I’m definitely cleared for the trip to Tohoku,” I said, accepting a small tumbler of Chilean red. “But I’ve got a couple of last things I need to bring along. Do you have battery-powered phone charger?”

  “Sorry, I’m an all-electric boy. Anyway, I hear you can’t find one of those chargers to save your life in this city. Everyone else wants one, too.”

  “Okay. Then would you lend me your down jacket? I can’t stand the idea of buying a winter coat I really won’t wear again at Tokyo prices.”

  Richard’s face paled. “My North Face coat?”

  “I’ll be careful. Apparently the weather’s really cold there—too cold for my jacket—”

  Richard sighed gustily but stalked over to the closet and handed me the red jacket swathed in the shelter of a garment bag. Obviously, this was a highly prized item.

  I gushed out my thanks and swore to bring it back in good condition.

  “Okay,” he muttered. “But what are you doing about the dog? Not that I’m offering to take her. She’d eat Mutsu within minutes.”

  “Well—I hope to take Hachiko with me to Sugihama.”

  “Is Helping Hands cool with that?”

  “Actually, I’ve been afraid to ask, in case they say no.”

  “You’re leaving tonight.” Richard said. “If they don’t let her on, you won’t get to go at all. Right?”

  “Sometimes you’re just too logical,” I grumbled. “Yes, I know. But I can’t figure out the right move.”