Even more than physical appearance, the warmth of this womans personality soon struck home. This is someone whod be impossible not to like, Kay thought, wondering what strange chemistry accounted for this spontaneous attraction.
“Im so pleased to meet you,” Sigrid said. “Im still not sure why Nick wants you to represent me, but Ill do anything I can to help.”
Nick excused himself, asking Kay to drop by his office after the interview. Before he left, Kay noticed the look in his eyes, a look clearly indicating his long exposure to this fascinating woman had not left him unaffected.
As he disappeared into the hotel corridor, Kay caught a glimpse of two familiar figures. One was light and graceful, the other ponderous. Both fell in step behind the executive assistant. Kays mind came back to the matter at hand when Sigrid spoke.
“The pool area is much too public for interviews. Shall we go up to my apartment?”
Kay appraised her companion more closely as the elevator worked its way up to the top of the hotel. The white shorts were custom tailored, and Kay knew the long-sleeved blouse was equally expensive. Button down cuffs in Hawaii! Even her clothes are strange, she thought.
Sigrid smiled at her companion. “I got into some of your crab spiders and broke out in bumps.” (My God! She reads minds too, Kay thought.) “The doctor gave me some tetracycline and told me to stay out of the sun, but I never can resist. When the bumps became blisters, I settled for covering them up.”
At the sixth floor, the highest in the building, the elevator stopped and Sigrid took a piece of plastic from her pocket, pushing it into a slot next to the top button on the control panel. The doors slipped back into their pockets.
Kicking off their shoes, Kay and Sigrid entered an apartment almost as plain in appearance as the dead mans office had been. Here, however, nineteenth century Japanese prints, which Kay knew had to be originals, relieved the stark simplicity of the pale walls. Ornate screens marked off sections of the large room. Plush, oversized cushions were scattered around a long, low, narrow teak table in the center of the living area.
Several books, printed in a script which Kay did not recognize, lay open on the table, along with a box of audiocassettes labeled in the same language.
“Would you care for something? Iced tea perhaps? Or coffee?” Sigrid suggested.
When Kay declined, Sigrid went to a wall cabinet, opened the doors, pressed a button and twisted a dial. As the two women sat down on a pair of cushions, the sound of baroque music filled the room. No speakers were visible. Wherever they are, they sure make you feel like youre in a small music hall, Kay thought.
“It never seems right knowing I could have music in the background and not making use of it. I generally leave it on all night.”
“It sounds great. Do you mind if I tape this interview?” Kay uncovered the recorder as she spoke.
“Not at all. The music wont interfere, will it?”
Kay shook her head, then placed the plastic box on the plush carpet, pressed the record button, and turned to her hostess, who was smiling enigmatically at her guest. The eyebrows, lightly darkened with brown pencil, moved up the broad forehead. “Where shall we begin?”
Kay returned the smile. “Why not with you? Lets start at the beginning.”
“I was born and raised in Uppsala, Sweden.” Sigrid had pulled up tanned legs and was hugging them to her body.
Kay, who had intended to allow the narrative to flow without interruption, said, “Your English is excellent. I would never have guessed you were anything but a native American.”
The smile broadened. “Languages have always come easily for me. According to my mother, I was talking a blue streak before I was a year old. So you can probably guess how surprised she was when I reached school age and couldnt meet the requirements for going to regular school. I was given all sorts of tests, and the counselors found out numbers were beyond me. I still cant even balance a check book.”
“Thats not so strange,” laughed Kay. “Neither can I.”
A look of concern erased the smile which had greeted Kays laughter. “Its not quite the same with me. I really cant do anything with numbers. If it werent for calculators, I wouldnt even be able to figure out change. As it is, if I buy something, I just take the clerks word for it that the amount I get back is correct.” She grinned.“Mostly I use credit cards.
“Fortunately, Sweden has all sortsof provisions for children who dont belong in regular schools. If Id been born in America, teachers would have expected me to be a wellrounded person. They would have been terribly disappointed, because it isnt only arithmetic; I cant even draw a stick man. I never could.
“In Sweden, on the other hand, they just encouraged me to do what I could do and liked to do. I was fluent in English long before I was ten. Thats not too unusual in Sweden, especially in urban schools, where English is almost a second language. What was unusual was I was a natural-born simultaneous translator.
“My first love was English, because I wanted to understand everything being said in those marvelous Hollywood movies we get on TV. I studied a lot of other languages as well. By the time I graduated, I was offered a half-dozen good jobs involving translation or interpreting. But Im sure you know what its like at sixteen. I was all wrapped up with a special boy. We moved to Stockholm, and I taught English in high school.”
Sigrid paused, lowered her chin onto her knee and stared unseeing at the floor. “I was terribly unhappy when we broke up. The situation was quite unpleasant, and I dread unpleasantness.”
She paused and smiled at Kay. “Maybe thats because Im naturally a happy person. A friend suggested I go to New York as a translator with a Swedish trading company she was working for, and she introduced me to her employer.”
The memory of the interview brought out Sigrids infectious laugh. “Swedish businessmen are even more stodgy than their American counterparts. You should have seen the way her employer reacted to the idea of hiring a translator who wasnt yet eighteen. He got over it quickly enough when he heard me translate from Swedish to English and back again.
“The upshot of it was I left for America the next week. At first, when I arrived there, I felt as though Id walked into paradise. I loved New York, and I still do, but it wasnt long before I began to have problems.”
Sigrids smile faded in a sigh. “I suppose youre really more interested in my personality than my history.” She paused.“There are some things which are difficult to talk about.”Again she paused. Kay remained silent.
“Im…Im not too sure how to say this. Im attractive to men. Im sure you know what thats like. Im not beautiful. Not like you. Im not even pretty. So when I became really aware of this quality in myself, I didnt know how to deal with it. I just seemed to be getting myself involved in even more unpleasantness than I had in Sweden.
“I guess thats why I was so grateful to my first husband. He rescued me from all that. I soon became aware Id discovered an exceptional person and, best of all, we were in loveterribly in love. His name was Yoshiri Watanabe.”
Kay often got hunches about casesshe worked on. Sid couldnt resist teasing her about what he called her“female intuition,” and insisted as many of her hunches were wrong as right. Maybe so, Kay decided, as she watched Sigrid looking back at the love in her past, but I think Yoshiri Watanabe is going to figure somewhere in this case. Hes probably the divorced and resentful husband hovering in the background.
Sigrids next words drove the hunch back to wherever hunches come from. There was no Yoshiri hovering in the background. Eyes moist with tears, she said, “My God, how I wish he were still alive.”
Daubing at her eyes with a tissue she had pulled out of a pocket in her shorts, she continued. “We met at a trade conference. He was an interpreter for a Japanese firm. We went to lunch and, from the first, I was attracted by his gentleness and understanding. I know these arent traits Japanese men are noted for, but hes the only man in whom Ive encountered them…and it wasnt long before I w
as overwhelmed by them…by him.
“We dated, and one day soon afterwards, even before we went to bed together, he asked me to marry him. I accepted the moment he asked. To be sure we could stay together, we decided to both apply for work at the United Nations. They are always in need of simultaneous translators.
“We knew prospective employees had a better chance if they were fluent in a third language. Yoshi was already a Russian translator, so we checked around to see what other language was in most demand. It turned out to be Portuguese, so I went to work on it, and in six months we had new jobs.”
“You mean you became fluent in Portuguese in just six months?” Kay did not try to suppress her skepticism.
Sigrid broke into her contagious laugh.“It really is easy for me, and not so very unusual. Many of the UN translators know five or six languages. Besides, I already had a good grounding in Romance languages. The only reason it even took me as long as it did was because I was learning Japanese at the same time…naturally.”
Kay shook her head in wonder.
“When I look back at those days,” Sigrid said, still smiling at Kays expression of disbelief, “they have to rank among my happiest ones. Unfortunately, Yoshi wasnt equally happy. He really disliked New York. Even though he could speak English as well as any American, he was still Japanesethrough and through.
“When I became aware of how he felt, and since more than anything else I wanted him to be happy too, I insisted we should look for work in Japan. Not long afterwards we applied for positions with Ono Electronics. When the personnel manager saw our resumes, he jumped at the chance to interview us and paid our way to Japan. We were hired on the spot.
“As it turned out, I liked Tokyo almost as well as New York, and Im sure the next years wereYoshis happiest. He rose rapidly in the company and became vice-president in charge of international sales. Some of the other officers in the corporation who were passed over werent exactly pleased to have a newcomer rise so quickly to the top. Fortunately, Yoshi had such a nice way about him, no one could be hostile for long.”
Sigrid stopped, drew a painful breath and closed her eyes. “Then, three years ago, almost to the day, he was scheduled for a business meeting in Kyoto. He went on a company jet. It never got there.”
The sudden blankness veiling the usually so expressive face gave a far greater impression of grief than the earlier tears. “I couldnt believe it. Couldnt accept it. I couldnt eat. I didnt touch food until a week later, and then only after Id been hospitalized.”
Suddenly, something clicked in Kays mind. Damn Nick, she thought. He does specialize in surprises. Aloud, she asked,“Was Masas daughter on the plane?”
“Yes, and he was as devastated as I was. Our mutual unhappiness drove us together. In spite of his own overwhelming grief, he came to see me regularly in the hospital. He couldnt do enough for me. It wasn't as though I needed any financial help. I had already received Yoshis generous pension, along with a large settlement from the insurance company.
“Masa insisted I continue to draw my pay whether I worked or not, and on paying all my expenses too. Yoshi and I both knew him quite well at work, and we sometimes saw him on social occasions. He had always been kind tous, so I wasnt surprised at his reaction. For a long time I thought it was because he felt partly responsible since it had been a company plane.
“So I was caught completely off guard, some months later, when Masa asked me to marry him. I couldnt think of any reason why I shouldnt, but I told him I didnt love him, and insisted I would never be able to love anyone after Yoshi. He said he understood, but all he wanted was for me to be his wife.
“I think what finally decided me was the fact he didnt try to buy me. He could have offered to. He always did buy anything he wanted, but he was different with me. He didnt say hed leave his fortune to me or anything like that. If he had, Im quite sure I would have said no. So I married him, partly out of gratitude, partly because I felt so sorry for him. He loved his daughter so much.”
A dozen possibilities flashed through Kays mind. She knew she could pick up on this interview later. She also knew she wanted to question Nick, right now! Even so she asked Sigrid one last question which was prompted entirely by idle curiosity. “Learning another language?” she asked, pointing to the books and tapes on the teak table, as she rose to leave.
“Yes. I cant resist. Besides, I think Ill move back to New York and may go back into translating or interpreting again.”
“What language is that?”
“Farsi. The language they speak in Iran.”
Chapter 7
There seemed to be little point in trying to suppress her anger. Nick saw it immediately, and raised his eyebrows at her expression. “Didnt the interview go well?”
“It went well, all right, too well. Are you testing me? Trying to find out how many strange creatures I can find under the rocks I turn over?”
Nick smiled. “How about a hint?”
“How about explaining to me why you didnt tell me right off Sigrids first husband and Masas daughter died in the same crash?”
“Im really not sure why I didnt. We covered a lot of ground, and I guess I just missed that.” His smile combined a boyish charm with enough abashedness so Kay found herself relenting in spite of herself.
I would have found out sooner or later, she thought, and he knows I would have. So there really wasnt any reason for his trying to suppress the information. Besides, the case was beginning to fascinate her.
“Will you come on board in spite of my inadequacies?”
Kay smiled, though she tried not to. “Yes, but youre going to pay for it. Get out your note pad again, and prepare for a long list of information and documents Im going to need.”
“Fire away,” he said, removing an electronic notebook from the middle drawer of his desk, taking the stylus from its holder, and waiting with it poised over the pad.
“I want everything you can lay your hands on about the plane crash. Number one are the findings of the review board or whatever they have after a plane crash in Japan. Then all the newspaper accounts, along with translations, photos, descriptions of the crew and passengers, anything and everything connected with it.”
“Yes, mam.”
“For starters, I want you to tell me all you know about it.”
Putting the stylus down and pushing the note pad aside, Nick began, “My information is all secondhand, since I was in Turkey at the time on a business trip. Anyway, here goes. Yoshi was off to Kyoto for a meeting. Masas daughter was going there with her son to visit some relatives she hadnt seen in a long time. They, and the two members of the crew, were the only occupants other than Yoshi.
“The plane crashed at about the halfway point, and there were no survivors. There was no indication of anything wrong, no communication from the pilot. Nothing which might have even hinted at trouble. The board of inquiry found no evidence of foul play, though they never came up with a definitive explanation for what happened.”
The phone rang. Nick reached for the mute button, changed his mind, lifted the receiver and said,“Naoki Yamamoto. Yes, shes right here.” Nick handed the phone across the desk to his puzzled visitor.
Corkys familiar voice came through. “Hank says youre working on this case, and I heard you were on the grounds somewhere. You werent easy to find. Anyhow, Im making the rounds of the suspects. I thought you might like to come along. We can pool our resourcesif you dont mind breaking up that tête-à-tête.”
Kay smiled into the receiver. “I can manage to, somehow. Where you at?”
“Right outside the entrance to the restaurant.”
“Fine. Ill see you there in about five minutes.”
Nick looked a question which he didnt ask. Kay decided it served him right to do time in the dark, and excused herself. Just as she was about to leave, a thought struck her, and she turned to him as he was reaching for the phone.
“Are you married,” she asked.
“As a m
atter of fact, no.”
“Divorced?”
He nodded.
“How long ago?”
There was the slightest hesitation before he answered,
“Close to three years ago.”
***
“Where are you starting?” Kay asked when she found Corky outside the entrance to the restaurant.
“Right here. I want to find out if any of our suspects were at breakfast this morning.”
“Whats does their whereabouts have to do with anything?”
“Oh, hell! You must not have heard. Weve got another body.”
“The kitchen helper! I knew it. Mary Ann something.”
“Mary Ann Cambra. How did you know?”
“I went down to the kitchen to talk to her, and they said she hadnt shown up for work. I had a hunch then that something might have happened to her.”
Corky shook her head. “Well, you can bury your hunch. Mary Ann Cambras alive and kicking. I meant she discovered the body, not that she was the body.”
Kay shook her head in confusion. “Who is it, then?”
“Another hotel employee. Someone who worked in the laundry.”
Still dazed, Kay asked,“Does Hank think the killings are connected?”
“Uhuh. For her death hes already got five suspects, who he figures had nothing to do with Onos murder.”
“What do you think?”
“I think we should go find out who was and who wasnt eating breakfast at eight oclock. Maybe well have both killings solved by lunchtime.”
***
Hank had not been particularly eager to question Mary Ann this time. He knew she and the murdered woman had been friends since early childhood. When Corky brought her in to his office, her eyes were still swollen. Volunteering to get coffee, Corky left them briefly alone.
Mary Ann made an unsuccessful effort to smile. “Back in high school, I sure never thought Id be sitting in your office telling you about finding a body, let alone two in two days.”
Corky caught the tag end of their reminiscences when she came back with three Styrofoam cups of the police stations bitter brew. “Hey!” she said. “I didnt know you two were old high school buddies.”
The Yoshinobu Mysteries: Volume 2 Page 37