Primitive Secrets

by Deborah Turrell Atkinson

  In the kitchenette, she ran the tap and waited for the water to get hot. Suddenly, she turned the faucet off with a slap. Wait, if the other cups were clean, then this was probably the mug Uncle Miles had been gripping when he’d died.

  But—he didn’t drink coffee. She stuck her nose in the cup. Definitely a coffee smell.

  Hamasaki drank his strong Oolong or Keemun tea with cream and sugar, or honey if it was around. A tingling started at her fingertips and passed up her arms to the back of her neck and scalp. When she’d gathered the mugs from his recently unlocked office a couple of days after Hamasaki’s death, the used one was on his desk and three clean ones were in his lavatory. Except for one that she’d used, she’d piled them into a box and shoved them under the counter, out of sight.

  Of course they were all mixed up now, but this was the only dirty mug, so it had to be the one he was holding. Fujita had mentioned coffee, come to think of it. At the time, she thought he had mistaken what was left in the cup for tea. With cream in it, they were practically the same color. You’d have to be looking for tea to notice the difference.

  Fujita was right; it was coffee in the mug. So why had Hamasaki been holding a mug of coffee? Storm put a kettle of water on the small stove to boil and wandered back to her office with the dirty mug. Maybe he needed a picker-upper and his guest was drinking coffee, so he decided to have some.

  But he’d never done that in the past, and he knew where she kept their communal stash of loose tea, in glass jars in the back of a beat-up filing cabinet in her office.

  They started that practice a couple of years ago when someone kept dipping into the tea in the kitchenette and leaving the jars open. The flavor dissipated when the tea was continuously left exposed to air and light, so they ordered a new batch and hid it.

  No, he wouldn’t have drunk coffee. She was sure of it.

  Storm carefully put the cup back in the box and re-checked the others. Except for some dust, they were clean. She sat still, then got up to check the tea supply in the file cabinet. There was plenty of both Oolong and Keemun tea. Storm filled an infuser with Keemun, went back to the kitchenette and finished making the pot. She poured some in one of the clean cups and stood by the narrow window in the small room, sipping while she thought.

  In a few minutes, she rummaged through a drawer for a plastic food storage bag and took one back to her office. She sealed the dirty mug in it, placed it back in the box, and stowed it under the dusty files and the countertop.

  Meanwhile, she had about twenty minutes to finish her questions on Wo’s and Wang’s project. She’d have to think about Hamasaki’s mug later.

  Meredith met Storm in the conference room and Wang’s secretary, Diane, brought in a fresh pot of coffee. Cunningham came in a few minutes later.

  “Mr. Wang called from his car to say he’s running fifteen minutes late. The nurse was late this morning and his mother is agitated, so he couldn’t leave her alone,” Diane said.

  Meredith sipped noisily from her coffee mug. “Poor Ed. The cost for all that home care is more than a nursing home.” Her eyes were bloodshot. But then, Storm thought, mine probably are, too. Everyone in the firm had to be distressed about Lorraine.

  Cunningham took a phone call and carried on a quiet conversation in the corner. Wo seemed to be more interested in the coffeepot than in exchanging pleasantries. Ten minutes later, Wang bustled into the room.

  “Thank you for waiting.” Wang sat down at the table, let Diane serve him a mug of coffee, then dismissed her.

  All three of the partners seemed subdued. Wang, who usually directed the office staff, asked what time Lorraine’s funeral was that afternoon.

  Meredith glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes. “Five o’clock. We’ll dismiss everyone at four, if you think that’s all right.” Meredith’s voice had a grim note that drew Storm’s attention, though Wang didn’t even look up from his notes.

  “Sure,” he said. “You have any questions on what information you need to take to the Department of Health, Storm?”

  “I’ll look through the file and see what data I need, then call Unimed for their statistics.” Storm’s pulse picked up. This would give her a great opportunity to see if Sherwood Overton had visited Hamasaki the afternoon of his death.

  “Good, let’s get going on this.” Wang closed his file and stood up. Storm left for her own office.

  Ten minutes later, Storm walked down the hall on her way to the washroom. She heard Meredith’s voice in Wang’s office. “You all right, Ed?” Wo sounded concerned.

  “It’s just too much,” Wang mumbled. “Both her and Hamasaki.”

  “Hang tough, old man,” Cunningham’s voice responded. “We’ll make it through.”

  Diane was standing outside the door with a sugar bowl, but she caught Storm’s eye and shook her head sadly. Both women, without a sound, moved down the corridor.

  Storm went back to her office and was gathering what she needed for a trip to the law library when the phone rang.

  “Hi, are you all right?” Martin asked.

  “I’ve been better. Martin, when do you have to go back to Chicago?”

  “I get a week off for Dad’s death. But I’ve been thinking about some things. You free for lunch Wednesday?”

  “I’ve got a meeting. How about tomorrow?”

  “David and I are going over some things. How’s tonight?”

  “No can do.”

  “Busy social life.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Well, maybe I can cheer you up. Remember that financial data Dad and I were looking over? I got to thinking. Maybe between you, me, and David, we could scrape together enough to buy a hundred shares. We’ve got to get right on it, though. Do you have sixty-five, sixty-six hundred bucks?”

  “Sure, my purse is stuffed with it,” Storm snorted. “You gotta be nuts, Martin. I’d be lucky if I had half that in my entire savings. I’m still paying back student loans. Didn’t you just tell me I need a new car?”

  “Storm, in a year you could pay back the whole debt and buy a Mercedes. The company went up nine points since we had lunch four days ago.” Martin’s voice rose with frustration. “You sound like Dad.”

  “Martin, I just can’t afford to make a risky investment.”

  He let go of an audible sigh. “Storm, I make my living advising very rich people how to make more money. Don’t you think I can do my job as well as you? Or Dad? This company got picked up last week by one of the biggest mutual funds in the business. At least let me show you the data I was going to show Dad.”

  “I’d love to see it,” Storm said. “And I do trust you, I’m just poor.”

  “Look, why don’t you meet David and me tomorrow? Meet at David’s restaurant at twelve thirty. I’ll tell him you’re coming.”

  Storm hung up the phone slowly. She hadn’t seen David since the reading of the will. Given the circumstances of their last meeting, he wasn’t going to be turning cartwheels when she joined the brothers for a discussion of finances. Including her had sounded like a last resort on Martin’s part, but he’d done it.

  Storm sunk her chin in her hand and pondered the last two exchanges she’d had with Martin. Since high school, he had struggled for credibility and acceptance in his parents’ eyes, and for years she’d striven with him. In fact, she had always been the black sheep. In the two years after college, she had, to Hamasaki’s distress, lived with her boyfriend and worked the evening shift at a Waikiki bar. In those days, Martin worked at a graphic design office. He and Storm had shared some rollicking good times. When the design office lost its downtown lease and went out of business, Martin moved to the higher-profile financial business. And as she got more secure in her profession, he seemed to withdraw.

  Lorraine had hinted at the Hamasaki children’s envy. It had never entered Storm’s mind that she would be a threat to any of them. She had always assum
ed none of them had wanted anything to do with the legal profession and that their own careers gave them security and satisfaction.

  Not all of this discomfort could be due to her, though. If she thought about it, there had been strife about Hamasaki’s patriarchal role for a while. That’s what Aunt Bitsy’s phone call had apparently been about, David and his father’s purse strings. These problems had been festering over time. She didn’t know all of them, or how long it had been going on, either. She just knew, now, that she’d been excluded.

  Still, she had a hunch that a more recent ripple of unease was underfoot. It seemed odd that Martin was pushing a stock purchase so soon after his father’s funeral. Was a few days, a week even, really that important? Maybe. This was Martin’s realm, not hers.

  Storm looked at Hamasaki’s cheerful mug, which still sat on her desk. She was on the outside looking in at the family with whom she’d grown to adulthood. She thought about how she’d often shared an afternoon cup of tea with Uncle Miles. He’d related stories about early days in the firm, they’d told jokes and imparted confidences. She would miss him terribly. The days when she’d found support in the company of siblings and under the tutelage of a wise and powerful man had ended. Her throat constricted with the thought.

  Still, she was more fortunate than many. She had Aunt Maile and Uncle Keone. That might be more comfort than Martin had right now. Insecurity had shown in his voice, almost a tinge of desperation. Perhaps in his mind, this stock deal was proof of his professional competence. Though he struggled to prove himself to a ghost.

  Storm knew emotions such as these were rarely ruled by logic. She still had to show she wasn’t like her mother, didn’t she?

  If Martin was hurting, he needed her. After all, he had stuck by her through some very rough stretches in their teen years and she wanted to help him through his hard times, too. Losing a parent was bad. Losing one during a period of discord or alienation was worse.

  Chapter 21

  Storm sat in the back of the Buddhist temple at Lorraine’s funeral and tried to swallow the constriction in her throat. Ben Tanabe looked like a lost child; Storm could swear that his hair was thinner and grayer since she’d seen him in the hospital. Two women, one with a toddler on her arm and one following close behind, supported him. Storm remembered that Lorraine had daughters and was glad to see the family together.

  After the ceremony, Storm drove home to change out of the clothes she’d been wearing all day. She didn’t want to visit the Sakai family wearing a funeral suit. Something brightly colored and appropriate for playing with children would go a long way toward shaking the sorrow that sat on her chest.

  Fang pranced along the path to the cottage and Storm was glad she’d made the trip home. While the cat told her all about how hungry she was, Storm pulled on jeans and a striped tee-shirt. Each meow was lasting longer and longer. The animal could do La Boheme if she kept practicing.

  “All right, all right,” Storm said. She went to the kitchen, placed a full cat dish on the floor and the caterwauling came to a dead stop. A purr rumbled noisily. “Sheesh. What would you have said if I’d come home after the Sakais?” Storm asked the cat. Fang ignored her.

  Storm picked up the phone and called Robbie’s favorite Chinese restaurant. She requested two orders of minute chicken with cake noodles (Robbie could eat two by himself, so Storm figured this dish was a good bet), shrimp with caramelized walnuts, won bok with tofu, opakapaka in black bean sauce, and an order of fried rice. She hoped that she had covered the kids’ and the adults’ tastes and headed out the door. Her own stomach was already gurgling in anticipation. This was looking like a better and better idea.

  The restaurant was on the way to the South King Street address Lani had given her. The food was waiting, neatly boxed and bagged, and Storm was back in her car in a matter of minutes. Ala Moana Boulevard was still fairly busy with people escaping the downtown office buildings, but Storm escaped the bottleneck going to Pearl City and the airport by turning up Alakea Street to the heart of downtown Honolulu.

  South King Street was a one-way street going the opposite direction, so she had to guess at the street numbers by traveling along a parallel street. The business area of the city wasn’t very big, just five or six blocks, and by the time the street numbers were in the vicinity of the one Lani had given her, she was in the middle of Chinatown.

  Chinatown had always appealed to her. She watched with interest while last-minute workers scurried across the streets, locking the doors of travel agencies, acupuncture and herbal specialty shops, and lei-makers. The food markets were already closed up tightly, the bright red chickens’ and pigs’ feet taken from their hooks to be stir-fried with red pepper and ginger and consumed that evening.

  The night population, which transformed the neighborhood, was just beginning to stretch its gaunt arms and peek from behind dark curtains. Korean bars and strip joint proprietors flicked on their neon signs, one by one. A whippet-thin creature in a clingy white dress leaned against a dark storefront and smoked a long cigarette, her sloe eyes following certain men’s progress along the sidewalk. Storm, at a stoplight, noticed that she didn’t bother watching shop-owner types or the white-shirted fellows who scurried home to their families.

  Storm searched for a street sign to confirm whether she was in the right area. There weren’t going to be any nice condominium parking lots around here. Bebe hadn’t told her that the Sakais were poor. To Storm’s knowledge, only immigrants and the penniless lived above the garlic or liquor-infused shops in Chinatown.

  A cop car from the Chinatown substation crawled toward her and she felt the gaze of the two uniforms inspect her old car and, she hoped, clean and honest face. The narrow streets were lined with “No Parking” signs. She was going to have to head a couple of blocks maaka, or toward the mountains, to the municipal lot.

  Ten days ago, she wouldn’t have thought twice about walking the streets in the rosy sunset. Who would bother an athletic-looking woman in jeans and tennis shoes? Especially one carrying a stack of aromatic take-out boxes. Storm pulled into the parking lot and looked into the back of her car. Now she wasn’t as confident about safety. She’d tuck her tennis racquet under her arm for extra protection.

  Except for the beery vapors left in the wakes of a few people on the sidewalk, Storm passed mostly working folks. She walked two blocks down Mauna Kea Street, past the tuberose-scented air that surrounded the lei-makers, and rounded the corner to South King Street. The Sakais lived above a travel agency, their door a neatly varnished, barely noticeable passageway adjacent to a plate glass window covered with posters of Beijing.

  Storm rang the bell on the street and was buzzed in. When she got to the top of the stairs, two beautiful hapa haole, or half Asian, half Caucasian, children greeted her with smiles. “Aunt Bebe told us about you. Your aunt is a healer, too.” Their eyes followed the boxes in her arms.

  Lani Sakai, a petite blonde, appeared behind them and guided Storm into the apartment. “Thanks for coming over. I left the office about an hour ago and picked up the kids on the way home, so it’s hard to make dinner and get everyone organized. Tom is looking forward to meeting you.”

  She gestured for Storm to set the boxes on a hardwood dining table that looked like a family heirloom. She shouted toward the older child, who looked about eight. “Brandon, do you have homework? If you want to eat with the rest of us, you’d better get busy.”

  Storm put the boxes down and looked around at a noise behind her. She was standing in the living-dining room area. From across the room, a very thin man with a few wisps of black hair that sprouted haphazardly from his scalp pushed an afghan from his lap and stood up from a lazy-boy recliner. His black, almond-shaped eyes, huge in a drawn face, crinkled and warmed the air between them. Strong white teeth shone in a grin against his yellow-gray skin. He steadied himself for a moment by taking the hand of the little girl who had greeted Storm at the top o
f the stairs. “I think you’ve met Stephanie,” he said. Tom offered Storm his hand. His grip was cool and firm, his skin dry as a flannel nightgown. The little girl, who looked about six, hugged her father round the hips, then led him to a dining room chair.

  “Nice of you to come by and bring dinner. Takes a burden off Lani.” He smiled in the direction of his wife, who had headed toward the kitchen and the noise of a fussing baby.

  Lani came back out a minute later with a tray of water glasses and two milks. She glanced toward her husband and Storm saw her blue eyes darken momentarily.

  Storm helped her set the drinks out, then rummaged in the bags and set out the dishes in the middle of the table, to be eaten family-style. The older children laid out place settings.

  Lani put the baby in a high chair at the table, then sat down with the rest of the group and joined the chatter. Brandon wolfed his meal, then asked his sister for her last morsel of chicken. When she covered it with both hands, he went instead for the container and, with a swift glance at his mother, dumped the remainder of the cake noodles on his plate. Storm stifled a grin.

  Lani, also, ate everything on her plate, but Tom picked walnuts from around his shrimp, ate a few chunks of tofu, then pushed food around on his plate to leave bare spots. Storm would have bet her favorite tennis shoes that Lani noticed it, too, though she couldn’t catch her watching him with anything but pleasure. For a few moments, the knot in Storm’s throat wouldn’t let her swallow.

  She looked around the apartment, surprisingly comfortable in its incongruous neighborhood. An air conditioner in the living room window insulated the home from the downtown noise. Wood floors gleamed and though the area rugs were far from new, they were Chinese wool, and lovely. The furniture was comfortable and clean, books and family photos covered the shelves on which perched a small color television.

  It was a home where people loved each other. Storm blinked hard a few times and looked at Tom, who was speaking.

  “I met your uncle, you know,” he said. “A real nice guy. Dr. O’Toole sent me to talk to him.”