“Is she dead?” I whispered, panic rising.
Mariko twisted around so I could see her face. Her mouth was taped, but her eyes blazed.
“I’m not dating Joe Roncolotta, I promise,” I said wildly. “Neither is Mariko. None of us mean you any harm—I think we should all sit down and talk calmly.”
“It’s bath-time, but you have no bath in this apartment. I forgot that detail.” She pursed her lips.
The bath. I suddenly realized this visit had nothing to do with Joe Roncolotta.
“Because there’s no bath, I think the two of you will have to jump.”
“Jump?” I repeated dumbly.
“Things have been going pretty bad for you lately, haven’t they?” Mrs. Chapman stepped over my prone body, keeping one foot on each side. “You’re having trouble at work. The gangsters have a contract out on you. Your boyfriend’s going to prison for life.”
“He’s not!”
“Not going to jail? Well, I suppose you could save him if it turns out you did all the killing.”
“Nobody knows about you,” I said, thinking fast. “Why don’t you just leave while you have a chance to get out of the country? No one suspects you.”
“You’re a liar, Rei Shimura.” She drew out my name in an exaggerated accent that must have sounded Japanese to her. “It’s the Japanese half of you.”
“What’s making you act this way? You’re a caring person. You helped me from the beginning.” It was a risk to continue talking. If I irritated her, she might gag me like Mariko. Without a mouth, I would be a little less human, more like a corpse. Easier to kill.
Instead of answering me, Mrs. Chapman went to the answering machine and pressed play. As I struggled to rise, her Reebok connected with my jaw. I curtailed my groan so I could hear the recording.
“Rei, this is Rod Evans. I’m relieved to tell you that handwriting is nowhere near my dad’s. You gave me a hell of a scare.” He paused. “I may have a lead for you, though. The postmark on the envelope made me think of Rob Smith, a guy who served with my dad in Japan. Mr. Smith left a girlfriend and daughter there and always felt bad about it. He tried to provide for them by sending money and all. I know because my dad told me, kind of a warning when I was headed to Nam, but that’s another story. Smith was a Texas rancher, real high profile. He couldn’t acknowledge the Japanese girl and keep the business. The wife he married turned out to be mean as pig shit. He always said—” The machine beeped, cutting the rest of the message off.
Mrs. Chapman pressed erase with a black-gloved finger.
“Your passport said Smith, not Chapman.” I remembered how, at her urging, I’d explained away the glaring discrepancy to Captain Okuhara. I’d saved her, when she could have been caught.
I looked up at her, waiting. A time would come for me to move. My right leg hurt but I was pretty sure it would work for me, given the opportunity.
“For heaven’s sake, I came to talk to that Nakamura woman, to put some sense in her head!” Mrs. Chapman exploded. “I even brought my checkbook.”
“What did you want her to do?” I asked.
“To stop. To get the hell out of our lives, now that Bobby’s dead.” Pain flashed across her face. “The two of them carrying on with post office boxes in different cities, different states—you’d think they were having an affair or something. It wasn’t until after the cancer took him that I figured out what had been happening to Binnie’s money.”
“Whose money?”
“My granddaughter’s. Every dollar Bob spent on Setsuko was one he stole from her inheritance.”
“That must have made you pretty upset,” I said, attempting to soothe her.
“Setsuko found out he died through a detective or lawyer or somebody. She was going to make a claim on the estate. I sent her a note saying we needed to talk things over, just the two of us. She called me on the telephone and told me not until after the holidays. Like she was in control. I asked about her plans and she let it slip where she was headed. With just five hotels to call, she was pretty easy to find.” Mrs. Chapman smiled tightly.
“Why didn’t you just meet her in Tokyo?” I asked.
“I needed to see what kind of a personality I was up against and I got a load of her, all right. At dinner that night, she was whispering about me in that fool language with the innkeeper.”
“They just didn’t like foreigners! I could have told you that it wasn’t personal.” In hindsight, my own worries about how I’d been treated seemed very petty.
“Aren’t you Miss Know-It-All?” Mrs. Chapman kicked me again, this time close to my eye. I held my hand on my throbbing cheekbone and listened to Mariko struggling on the bed, her body rolling against the quilt.
“I decided to talk to her when I had the advantage,” Mrs. Chapman continued. “I went into the bathroom, fixing the door so no one would disturb us. She was shocked to see me. Then she laughed and told me she had a fancy lawyer set up to beat the hell out of me. You can imagine who I thought it was.”
“Hugh,” I said.
“I hung around afterwards to see what he would do. I concluded nothing. It was you who turned out to be the snoop.”
“How did you kill her?”
“I didn’t mean to. She was standing up in the bath, skinny and shameless, like she was going to walk out on our conversation. I hit her with a bath cover. She fell down and I grabbed her feet. Her head stayed under. It just took a minute.”
“The pearls. Did you plant them in Hugh’s room?” I had to know.
“I confused his room with the young Japanese assistant’s, but the necklace wound up in the right place anyway. God moves in mysterious ways.”
“You’re a woman of faith.” I faked a smile at her. “I think it’s time for a prayer. Maybe if we pray together we can see a way through this thing—get some help for you—”
Mariko gave me a scathing look, so I stopped.
“Get up.” Mrs. Chapman kicked at me again, and I pulled myself awkwardly to my knees and stood up. The telephone was near, but I didn’t dare move toward it because she had my chef’s knife in her right hand.
“About Mariko,” I continued, talking loudly in the hopes someone would hear. “You knew she worked at the bank and also at Marimba. It must have been tough because you couldn’t identity her.”
“That’s right. When you dropped the hint she was staying at your apartment, I had to bide my time till you and the little blond boy left her alone.” Mrs. Chapman was behind me now, binding my wrists with the thick tape. Just as she started to tighten the tape, I kicked backwards. Her knee rammed me in the buttocks and I found myself sailing through the air, falling against Mariko and the edge of the futon with a painful thud.
“I can’t stand your Japanese face, you know that? It reminds me of her. Even after she’s dead, you haunt me—”
I rolled over on my back and kicked at Mrs. Chapman, who towered over me once more.
“Who would believe this is a suicide with my hands tied?’” I asked, imagining yakuza would be the first thing Hugh and Tom would think about, that all attention would focus in that direction while Marcia Smith slipped out of the country.
“Good point. I’ll untie them.”
“Why did you kill Mrs. Yogetsu?” Soon I would run out of ways to delay her.
“I used an interpreter to call there earlier in December to make sure the Nakamuras were staying at the inn. Even though my name wasn’t mentioned, I think the innkeeper guessed I was behind the telephone call. When Joe Roncolotta dropped you off after dinner, I saw her. I followed her back to the train station. I saw a train coming, the perfect solution.”
As she talked, I could hear something strange going on in the stairwell, a heavy, irregular rhythm. Someone or something was out there. Yakuza henchmen? I positively longed for them. I shot a glance at Mariko. Her eyes flickered.
“I want you to get up now. Nice and easy,” Mrs. Chapman ordered.
“I’m not doing anythi
ng to Mariko.” My confidence in being saved was waning because the person in the stairwell seemed to have stopped on the second landing.
“I don’t care. Just get up.”
I did and was marched over to my kitchen table, where she brought the knife to my wrists and began sawing at the tape with which she had bound me.
“Time to write a note about how sorry you are to have to do this, but it’s time for you to leave the life.”
“It’s time for me to leave the life? No one would believe I’d write that. It’s so overblown and maudlin!” I didn’t know where the words were coming from, but I had to keep talking.
She stopped unhitching my hands. “I was giving you a few extra minutes. A favor in exchange for what you’ve done for me. If you’d rather just jump, we’ll go straight to the window.”
She pushed me to the side window and slammed it open with one easy move of her left hand. Cold air tinged with gasoline and rotting vegetables blasted my face. The trash heap was ten feet to the right of my window. If I were a magician, I could waft myself toward it and land safely atop the garbage bags. Otherwise it was four stories to concrete.
“I won’t jump. You’ll have to throw me out.” I turned to face her, making calculations. Even though she was taller and heavier than me, it was unlikely she was spry enough to lift me. All she’d carried off so far was hitting Setsuko over the head and shoving Mrs. Yogetsu before a train. She’d certainly not be able to pick up a body and throw it. But it turned out she had something else in mind.
“Good-bye, Rei.” Her face was tranquil as she began moving the knife in a straight path toward my throat. I rushed at her, causing her to overshoot her mark, the knife slicing through fine cotton and glancing off my collarbone. I felt the cut but was seized by adrenaline as I slid under her arm and toward the door.
“You fool.” She slammed her body into mine, and we both landed on the floor.
The telephone began ringing. I lunged for the receiver as Mrs. Chapman’s knife nicked my biceps, drawing a beaded line of blood. Then there was a loud cracking sound, and I knew she had gotten me on the head, the place she should have gone for in the beginning.
Things went black for a second. Then, Mrs. Chapman emitted a yowl that told me I was still alive. The telephone continued to beep. I crawled toward it and knocked the receiver down to the floor with my shoulder.
“Who is it?” I said, disoriented because of the bizarre scene unfolding before me. Mrs. Chapman lay on her back like a beached whale, a long sword touching her throat. I squinted and realized the sword was really a metal crutch. The crutch was connected to Hugh Glendinning, looking very much like a Celtic hero on his last breath. He had only one crutch left for support and was leaning dangerously to one side.
“Easy, now,” Hugh said to Mrs. Chapman, and then to me, “That’s blood on my shirt, darling. Something tells me this is the last time I’ll lend you anything good.”
I didn’t reply, concentrating on the faraway voice on the telephone.
“Hallo, this is Winnie Clancy. May I speak to Hugh, please?”
“I think he’s—indisposed.” This was no fantasy world if Winnie was calling, I thought with a catch of joy.
“Fast worker, aren’t you?” Winnie said in her clipped accent.
“Mrs. Clancy, would you do me a favor?”
“What?” She sounded exasperated.
“Call 110,” I said with a bit of swagger and my best American accent. “Tell them to come to three-fourteen-nine Nihonzutsumi, apartment 4B. Come over yourself if you want to see Hugh. But call the cops first, if you want his Scottish ass alive.”
34
Hugh was using soap in the tub, something I had never seen done in Japan. Thin swirls of old soap floated in the water, ghosts of unlawful baths past. I shuddered, thinking of the damage he had done to his bath’s heating mechanism.
“You’ll look like a boxer tomorrow.” Hugh turned on the cold water tap briefly to refresh the wash cloth before returning it to the bruise under my eye. He hadn’t exaggerated about being the king of sports injuries. He’d made sure the nurses gave me an ice pack for my face during the time I’d waited for Tom to come out of surgery, shoot Hugh an accusing look, then take it all back when he heard the story.
“I still haven’t figured out how you knew Mrs. Chapman was the one.” I settled back against Hugh’s chest, resigning myself to the fact I would allow him the soap and anything he wanted that night.
“I broke out of that damn hospital at four A.M. and went home to have my first decent sleep in a half-week,” he said, beginning to massage my shoulders. “When I woke up, Winnie and Piers were there. They made me watch a videotape of news footage showing you leaving my building the morning after you stayed over. Piers was nattering on about the unsuitability of our relationship as I lay there, eating up the vision of you looking so lovely in my shirt. Then I had a nasty shock.”
“That I stole the old man’s taxi?” I leaned forward, enjoying the feel of his fingers on my back.
“No, darling. In the background I spotted somebody tall and foreign. I backed up the tape and recognized our dear old friend. I started quizzing myself about why Mrs. Chapman, who likes you so much, would have watched you without making herself known.” His voice was rueful. “I fell asleep again. I was taking Demerol for my ankle, which thanks to your four flights of stairs, is now even worse.”
“Poor Hugh,” I said, stroking his left thigh. From knee to foot he was encased in a fiberglass cast, carefully elevated along the side of the tub. Getting him in had been a rather complicated maneuver I worried about repeating; we’d have to drain the bath before he could stand up.
“It must have been hours later that the telephone woke me, and I had a chat with Mr. Naruse.”
“Who?” I touched my aching head. Hugh’s crutch had knocked against me in his wild drive to pinion Mrs. Chapman, and although there was no concussion, I had a monster bump.
“Mr. Naruse is the private investigator I put on your street. Richard and Mariko told me about your mishap at the train station, so I decided you needed someone to follow you, given that I couldn’t.”
“There was a man stalking me through the neighborhood last night. If you mean to tell me that was him—”
“You called the cops, he reported. I thought you realized I’d hired him and were enraged. That’s why I asked Winnie to help me leave the hospital.”
“Did you know she re-recorded your answering machine message? She’s moved in and taken over your life!”
“Don’t distract me from the story.” He kissed my wandering hand and folded it into his. “Mr. Naruse called to report the morning’s activity. Various people came and went, but at one o’clock an older gaijin woman entered the building. With his binoculars, he was able to track her entering your apartment. For a variety of boring legal reasons he was unwilling to go inside, so I drove over myself.”
“Mrs. Chapman, I mean Smith, must have waited until Richard and I were gone to ring the doorbell,” I said. Mariko probably figured because she was an older foreign woman, she was safe to let in.”
“I wonder.” Hugh sighed. “I wish I could have been in the room where Marcia Chapman-Smith gave her confession. You could have interpreted for us again.”
“Nope. This is Tokyo, where the police do things professionally.” I stretched against him, thinking about how good it had been to sit together in the police waiting room and give our statements. Captain Okuhara had arrived and bowed deeply to Hugh and me, asking what he could do to atone for his oversight.
“Press conference,” Hugh had ordered with a grin.
Mariko hadn’t been so cheerful about things. Once the tape has been removed from her lips, she had choice words for us, the police, and the pack of press who’d tagged along.
“This woman killed my mother and tried to kill me. I don’t want anything to do with her people and I don’t give a damn about what’s in her husband’s will. I wouldn’t take a dolla
r if they handed it to me on a silver tray,” she shouted, tossing her dreadlocks for the camera.
But there was Setsuko’s secret savings account at the post office—money I was sure she would have wanted her daughter to have. I’d make sure Mariko got it, and if Mr. Nakamura didn’t see my point, Hugh, back in power at Sendai, would help.
Mr. Nakamura had decided to testify against Keiko regarding her blackmail plot, so Sendai would get back the half-million yen that he’d given her. Club Marimba would close, and Mariko would be in the market for a new job.
“You’re too quiet, Rei. I’m not used to it.” Hugh interrupted my thoughts.
“I’m plotting.” I smiled at him.
“So am I. We’d best go to bed early, I think.”
“Very early,” I agreed, heart beating a bit faster.
“Yes, we’ve got one long Sunday to get through,” he said, surprising me with his train of thought. “Up at seven so I can make you a proper Scottish breakfast. Winnie laid in some eggs and sausages—oops, scratch the meat. Eggs and toast okay?”
I nodded, and he continued. “If I’m still ambulatory, I’ll hobble after you to one of those Sunday morning shrine sales you’re always going on about.”
“You’d go shopping with me?” I was touched.
“All the better if you find another bauble worth over a million yen and bring it to the twelve o’clock press conference. Or so Joe Roncolotta suggested. He’s invited us to brunch at TAC after we’re done with the police.”
“So my gaijin escorts are getting along?” I shifted around to face him.
“Let’s say we care deeply about the same investment, albeit for different reasons.”
“I’m going to let that ridiculous comment pass on account of my headache, but watch it,” I warned.
“Relax, it’s just a figure of speech. Continuing with our schedule, we’ll lunch and drive to your flat to pick up the clothes Richard promised to have ready: the few decent things you own, in his words.”
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