Red Tea

by Meg Mezeske

  “For the time being,” Jordan said, and Toshihiko raised his eyebrows. “Well, a little scuffle isn’t quite as bad as stealing school property, is it?”

  “You really suspect Ms. Nakamura?” He sounded almost amused, and Jordan felt her face heat. She hadn’t expected him to agree, but she had hoped. Toshihiko continued more sedately. “All right. Let’s assume they were murdered as punishment for their misdeeds. Who besides Emi and her friend even knew she was pregnant?”

  “Well—” Jordan stopped short and thought for a moment. “The murderer must have found out somehow.”

  “Have you read any Sherlock Holmes stories?” Toshihiko said, and Jordan shook her head. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts,” he quoted.

  “I don’t intend to stop looking for facts,” she said but felt a little embarrassed.

  “I truly wish you would.” He sighed, sounding more concerned than annoyed, and leveled a serious look at her. “Now, if you don’t mind…”

  So he wasn’t in the mood to lob theories. Jordan raised her hands in silent surrender and once again turned toward the window, to demonstrate that she would leave Toshihiko alone.

  Outside, the sun was bright and warm, creating a fissure between days of frigid, bitter cold. Jordan watched some crows pick at bugs in an empty rice field, which was spotted with strawy weeds gilt by the afternoon sun. The pleasant warmth soon made Jordan drowsy, quieting and slowing her rampant thoughts. She closed her eyes as she rested her forehead against the cool glass.

  It wasn’t until the rolling thrum of the train stopped that she dragged herself back to alertness and saw she was in Yamagata Station, the last stop on the line. Toshihiko glanced at her with a soft smile, already rising from his seat.

  “I thought I’d have to wake you,” he said gently.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t very good company.” She hid a yawn behind her hand. “Though you probably prefer my snoring over my questions.”

  “Not at all,” he said with questionable conviction. “And I’m the one who should be apologizing—first, that paperwork, and now, I have to be at the police station.” Toshihiko looked at his watch to confirm and took a step toward the door. “I’ll be in touch. Until then, goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.” She gave a small wave, which he returned before striding off the train. Jordan was sorry to see him go but also relieved that he had not asked how she planned to spend the day in the city. She would have felt guilty evading the question, since she certainly wasn’t going to tell him the truth.

  The station was busier than Jordan had seen it for a while, but she seldom came on weekdays. The high school had been closed due to an in-service day, and she had decided to take advantage of the opportunity to go to Yamagata City.

  Many salarymen, housewives, and grandmothers flowed through the platforms and up to the station’s main floor, moving in orderly channels. Jordan bobbed to the surface just outside one of the station’s two main entrances and continued on foot, headed east toward one of the city’s larger thoroughfares.

  She crossed the street in front of a roiling mass of yellow taxis buzzing outside the station like a swarm of hornets. They systematically advanced in their separate columns, picking up and speeding away with passengers, the drivers’ white gloves flashing across the steering wheels.

  Despite the hectic appearance of the pedestrians rushing by, Jordan never felt jostled or rushed, as though everyone had been placed on separate, non-intersecting rails. She wished she had the leisure to shop as she walked between the rows of stores that lined the road, but first things first. A few salesmen hovered outside the entrances to their stores, shouting and waving fans that boasted sales on shoes, briefcases, housewares, bras, cell phones, snacks, and souvenirs.

  The thoroughfare was noisy and choked, but it was also the best way to reach the prefectural government buildings without having to pay for the subway or a taxi. After about ten minutes of walking, Jordan reached the end of the road, where the stores petered out to reveal a small park and rising buildings. Jordan spotted the building she was seeking—the main prefectural office. It had a dark grey facade pocked with a grid of square, recessed windows, like a huge waffle iron.

  She proceeded to the front desk, where a young woman no older than Jordan tapped away at her keyboard. Jordan introduced herself and explained that she was the assistant language instructor for Sagae City—a minor untruth, but at least she wasn’t posing as an internet reporter.

  The JET Program, which employed Jordan and all the other assistant language instructors throughout Japan, was partially funded by the Japanese government, and Jordan had been to this very building to attend meetings for JET instructors working in the prefecture. The receptionist didn’t bat an eye at her presence, likely used to foreign teachers frequenting the building. Jordan took a breath and continued.

  “I’d like to see the faculty assignment and rotation roster for Sagae’s school district for the last five years,” she said hurriedly. “My supervisor at Sagae’s Board of Education requested it.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” the woman chirped. “Please fill out this Open Record Request Form, and then you’ll follow me.”

  A few minutes later, Jordan found herself in a small room with a single chair and desk. On the desktop, the receptionist plopped two large binders that looked liable to snap her thin arms had she held them for a moment longer. She gave an exaggerated sigh of relief and smiled as she spoke.

  “Take your time. The information you need should be contained in these binders, but please let me know if you need any assistance. You can’t leave with those, but I’m happy to make photocopies if you’d like.”

  Jordan thanked her and pulled a folded-up paper from her purse as soon as she was alone. On it, she had written the name of the boy Junichi’s mother had mentioned. A student who had attended Sagae High School and died by apparent suicide four years earlier: Haruka Hidaka.

  Further searching on the internet had produced two more names: Hajime Abe and Sadako Kudo. Hajime had also been a student of Sagae High School and had perished three weeks prior to Haruka. His death had been classified as a suicide.

  Perhaps most interesting, however, was Sadako Kudo. Though Sadako fortunately did not die, she had been stricken seriously ill by what was determined to be cyanide poisoning. The community had been in a fervor about the possibility of contaminated water, though no one else had shown signs of poisoning, not even the girl’s family. This incident had occurred a few months before the first death, Hajime Abe’s.

  The binders in front of Jordan were organized by year, further broken down by school and semester. Jordan flipped to spring of the same year and let her gaze skip over the list of Sagae High School’s teachers’ names, looking for Ms. Nakamura. She didn’t know whether Ms. Nakamura had lived or taught in Sagae at the time, but that was precisely her purpose behind pulling these records—searching for a connection. Minutes passed and Jordan’s frown deepened. Ms. Nakamura was nowhere to be seen. Not in the following term when students began to die, either.

  As she flipped to the next page, the sharp corners of the naka character that began the vice principal’s last name caught her eye. Ms. Umiko Nakamura, principal of Sagae Middle School. Jordan’s heart beat a little faster, seeming to climb its way up her throat.

  She had suspected that Ms. Nakamura had been employed at the high school, not the middle school, but the dates began to slide together and interlock: Ms. Nakamura had first started at the middle school a term before the cyanide poisoning and had remained in the district until just a year ago, when she transferred to Ogawa. Granted, Sagae hadn’t seen any student suicides in the years between Haruka’s and Junichi’s deaths, but Ms. Nakamura had definitely been present.

  Pleased with her findings, Jordan asked the young woman at the front desk to make copies and offered to pay when the other woman hesitated over the t
hick section of papers Jordan indicated. But the receptionist politely acquiesced, and Jordan was soon walking back to the train station with a thumb-thick stack of photocopies tucked in her messenger bag.

  She slowed as she passed restaurants in the train station’s lower levels, mulling over displays that held plastic recreations of their signature dishes: synthetic noodles vibrant and shining as though suspended in broth. Another’s rows of parfaits glistened with plastic droplets that could have easily passed for condensation.

  Jordan checked the schedule on the wall and regretfully ascended the stairs to the waiting platform to catch the next train. In the island between two tracks was a cramped convenience store, hedged in by bins of newspapers. Suntory juices, shrimp-flavored chips, potato straws, Hi-Chew candies, and all sorts of energy elixirs in small glass bottles burst from the shop’s packed shelves. Jordan bought a sour plum onigiri and a cold bottle of Pocari Sweat before taking a seat alongside the tracks. She felt the weight of the papers hanging off her shoulder, smiled, and waited.

  “Hello? Is this the Ito residence?” Jordan said into her cell phone. She raised her voice in question, though she already knew the answer. After all, she had called Kenji’s home three times within the last two weeks asking to speak with him.

  “Yes, it is,” a woman’s voice said. Kenji’s mother.

  “May I speak with Kenji, please?” She anticipated the same answer she had received during her previous calls: that he was out of the house or otherwise unavailable. Without any expectation of actually being able to speak with her former student, Jordan busied herself with separating and bagging her recycling. She wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear and began twisting the caps off empty PET bottles as she listened.

  “May I ask who’s calling?” As before, Kenji’s mother spoke in a crisp but not unfriendly manner, revealing little in her tone.

  “This is Eiko Kitagawa. I’m Kenji’s classmate,” Jordan said without hesitating over the pseudonym, having chosen and practiced it before the call. She felt a pinch of embarrassment at posing as a student but was also reluctant to provide her true identity. Teachers didn’t often make house calls, after all, much less temporary, foreign teachers. The less conspicuous and noteworthy the call, the better. Though, concealing her name before had done little to keep Toshihiko off her track.

  Instead of replying right away, Kenji’s mother could be heard speaking to someone in a low and urgent voice. Jordan stopped tossing the plastic bottle caps into their recycling bag and strained to listen.

  The other side of the line plunged into near-silence, but a whisper of static and hushed voices revealed Mrs. Ito had not hung up. Jordan held her breath, wondering if she had stoked some smoldering suspicion in Kenji’s mother. Jordan knew her Japanese was far from perfect, and though she had purposefully kept the previous conversations brief, she felt it likely that her accent had bled into her words. Finally, the other woman spoke up.

  “I’m afraid he’s not available right now. I do apologize. Have a good evening—”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?” Jordan said quickly. “When is a good time to get a hold of him?”

  “Good night.” Mrs. Ito’s words were oddly cheerful, pitched as though she had not heard Jordan, and a close quietness flowed into the empty space their voices had left.

  Jordan pocketed her phone and allowed herself to think. She had purposefully called at different hours of the day each time—quite late that evening, when most teenagers were expected to be home. Still, Kenji had always been unavailable, according to his mother at least. She frowned, discouraged and unsure of what the whispers and silence actually said. Jordan hadn’t anticipated that the call would be her last to the Ito family, but that particular thread of investigation had clearly been snipped.

  Perhaps she could go directly to the Ito home to speak with Kenji, if he were indeed there. Tsuruoka—where the Itos lived—was far off the beaten path from Ogawa, however, and in the opposite direction from Yamagata City. It would be difficult for her to reach Tsuruoka without a car of her own. But she might have to consider it if there was truly no other way to reach Kenji.

  She wrapped a twist tie around the plastic bag in her fist—the bottle caps rattling inside like dry beans in a pod—and wondered what to do next.

  Twenty-Four

  Jordan looked up from her empty coffee cup as the door chimed, welcoming a pair of old women into the cafe—not whom she hoped to see. She checked her phone for the tenth time in as many minutes. Sadako Kudo was half an hour late and hadn’t sent any texts since they had finalized their plans to meet. Just as Jordan placed her phone in her purse and prepared to leave, a young woman bustled into the cafe, sending the doorbell pinging into the wall.

  Flustered and out of breath, she quickly scanned the patrons and perked up when her eyes alighted upon Jordan. The girl was to her table in two hopping steps.

  “Excuse me, are you Howard-san?”

  “Yes. Nice to meet you,” Jordan said as she stood and offered a shallow bow. “Please call me Jordan.”

  “I’m Sadako Kudo. Nice to meet you, too!” She returned the bow swiftly, like pushing it out of the way. Pleasantries dealt with, Sadako directed a beaming smile at Jordan. She had a small gap between her front teeth that somehow made her grin all the more charming. “I’m sorry I’m late! Got a bit lost.”

  They settled themselves at the table, Jordan ordering another coffee as Sadako glanced over the menu, too occupied with analyzing Jordan to give it much attention.

  “So, Jordan-san.” Sadako folded her hands under her chin. “You’re a reporter?”

  “More of a blogger, really.” Jordan felt guilty using the same ruse she had employed with Junichi’s mother. But, well, it had worked. “I’m writing some pieces on life in rural Japan, with an environmental angle. Your story stood out to me.”

  “Yeah but I still don’t get why you want to interview me. They never found that Sagae’s water source was contaminated with cyanide. Or our food. Or anything!” she said and stuck out her lower lip in a perplexed pout. “So the whole environmental thing…?”

  “But that’s exactly the point: A teenager is stricken with cyanide poisoning and her rural town doesn’t have the resources to pinpoint its source. What else could it be but an environmental factor? The fact that the cause was never determined may be the story. You see?”

  Sadako nodded, humming a high, thoughtful note in the back of her throat. Jordan could tell she still wasn’t convinced.

  “Besides, I want to put a human face on my stories. The piece will be just as much about you as what happened to you. A profile, I guess you’d call it.” Jordan smiled and hoped her deception would be justified. Sadako considered for a moment longer before straightening and smiling back.

  “All right, then; I’m all yours!” she said and flitted her attention to the waitress. “Oh, and a strawberry crepe and milk tea for me please.”

  By Jordan’s estimations, Sadako was about 21 years old—not much younger than Jordan—yet she was as vivacious and effervescent as a child. She readily answered Jordan’s questions about her illness and spoke at length even without being prompted. Her clothes were stylish, and expensive. She wore a powder-blue blouse with transparent sleeves and tiny polka dots that dusted the garment. A matching blue bow pinned aside her short hair, which was dyed a warm, coppery color.

  Sadako nibbled at her crepe when she wasn’t busy answering Jordan’s queries—the answers to which were joined with expressive gestures and illustrative voices or mannerisms.

  Though it pained her to even think of this girl being poisoned, Jordan was at least pleased to see the incident hadn’t robbed Sadako of an ounce of verve. Jordan also felt bolstered by Sadako’s presence. The girl had nearly died, yet only a lingering trace of the trauma remained. If Sadako could escape the murderer’s reach, so too could Jordan. With particular determination, Jordan pushed aside thoughts of the threat she had received.

  Slo
wly, she turned the conversation in a direction that pointed toward her true motive for the interview.

  “So, did the illness affect your school life?”

  “Well, I was absent for some time and had quite a few doctors’ appointments.” She inspected her nude-painted nails.

  “Of course. I guess what I mean to say is, were you a model student? A sports star? A class officer?”

  “Oh, I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Sadako said but grinned in a sly way that invited Jordan to ask more.

  “A troublemaker, then?” Jordan smiled but felt her heart trip over a beat. If Sadako’s case was like all the others, she must have been selected by the murderer for a reason. Or would-be murderer, in this instance.

  “Something like that.” Sadako lowered her gaze to her cup, hiding her doe eyes behind long eyelashes, but the slant to her lips belied the look of contrition. “I may have helped a friend change some grades. I didn’t do much, really. Just distracted a teacher while he got to the faculty computer.”

  “I see,” Jordan said, furiously taking down notes. “And this was before the cyanide poisoning?”

  “Yes, right before. Oh, but please don’t write about this in your blog! Honestly, I don’t know why I said anything in the first place.” Sadako’s eyes widened imploringly and she grabbed Jordan’s hand with both of hers. “Please. It was Hajime’s idea all along and he took the blame. I really was the perfect student when I returned to school. Cross my heart! Almost dying has a way of setting a person on a straight path, doesn’t it?”

  “Hajime? Was that—” Jordan freed her hand and flipped back in her notebook to the list of Sagae High School students who had died soon after Sadako’s poisoning. “Hajime Abe?”

  “Yes. I mentioned him before, didn’t I? How he committed suicide? He was my best friend…” Even when speaking at length about the cyanide poisoning, Sadako’s liveliness hadn’t faltered, but now, her eyes glazed with tears and her bottom lip quivered.