The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11) Page 14

  I crouched down so we were eye-to-eye. “Sorry. I forgot to tell you that she stayed in the dormitory last night with Ishida-san, and then the two of them went out today. I promise you they’ll be back.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Oh, just driving. Looking around.” I didn’t want her to know about the morgues.

  “But why is her bed with my daddy’s coat gone from outside?” Miki’s voice didn’t sound reassured. “That’s her afternoon nap place.”

  “If she’s with Ishida-san, he’ll make sure she naps—just like you make sure of your younger sisters. And I must give back your father’s coat to your mother—I brought it upstairs to the volunteers’ sleeping area yesterday because Hachiko really likes it.”

  “Okay.” Miki wiped her tears away with two chubby fists. “I know she likes to snuggle in it, but I should brush off the dog hair today so it’s clean for when Otoochan comes.”

  Biting my lip, I turned back to stir the pot. I couldn’t bear facing her when my thoughts about the likelihood of her father’s arrival were so different. It might only be a few more days until Miki would hear bad news about her father not coming back. Until then, she should have some good times. I promised her that later in the afternoon, I’d ask her to take Hachiko and me on a walk to wherever she wanted.

  The count for people wanting lunch was 20 percent lower than the day we’d arrived. Yano-san explained that many of the residents had dispersed to their relatives’ or friends’ homes in undamaged cities and towns. Also, people whose homes were remotely habitable preferred to stay in them and continue cleaning up. Many of the worst obstacles in the streets had been removed, and traffic was beginning to flow.

  After lunch, I decided to hang the used dishcloths outdoors. It was cold, but any wind would help dry them. As I draped the cloths over a bicycle rack, the sound of tires crunching over rubble made me turn. The Tanuki Carpentry truck stopped at the front of the building. Akira emerged from the side of the truck closest to me, while a tall man in his fifties with similar features stepped out of the driver’s side.

  I pinned up the last cloth quickly and went back into the kitchen, my heart thudding. So Akira and his father had come. They’d caught me off guard, and I needed to think before speaking to them. But what would I say? The opportunity to find out came quickly when Akira appeared in the kitchen doorway a few minutes later.

  “Sorry to disturb you.” His voice had a rasp to it, as if he’d caught a cold. “My father came to get some instructions from the mayor. How are things with you and the volunteers?”

  “I’m fine.” I tried to smile at him normally, but it was tough. “As you saw yesterday, I’ve found my old friend, who survived the tsunami without serious injury.”

  “When we met on the bus, I didn’t understand that your friend was actually someone I knew. There are so many people named Ishida, neh?”

  “Actually,” I said, repeating his word with emphasis, “you did know whom I was talking about. Especially after you recognized Hachiko.”

  “It took me a little bit of time.” Now he sounded apologetic. “Since the dog was without the person who usually walked her, I didn’t make the connection.”

  “That person is Mayumi Kimura, right?”

  “Yes.” His voice cracked as it rose higher. “Have you heard where Mayumi-san has gone?”

  “Before we get into that, I have a question.” I was striving to keep a neutral tone, despite the agitation I felt. “Why did you take the volunteer bus to Sugihama on the same night as me?”

  “It was the only way to reach this area. I heard about Helping Hands on the television news. When I e-mailed Yano-san, I wrote that I come from Sugihama and wanted to return to my family for the funeral and so on. Yano-san was kind enough to give me the last seat. Now, please tell me where Mayumi is.”

  “When we were chatting on the bus, I remember you saying you didn’t know what had happened to your girlfriend. You weren’t even sure that she was alive. Why wouldn’t you know what had happened to her, a full eight days after the earthquake?”

  A pink flush spread across his cheeks. “The last time we saw each other was March tenth, when she was walking Hachiko near the shop around five o’clock—the dog’s dinnertime,” he added. “If Mr. Ishida was working with a customer then, she’d take Hachiko out for a little walk.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So what happened next?”

  “I went home. The next day, I was at work when the earthquake hit. Some of the guys working on the building fell, so after the ones who needed to get the hospital got in ambulances, the boss closed down the site for the day and we all went home. The construction project stayed closed down for the next couple of days, so I had time to check if Mayumi was okay. I didn’t see her going in or out of her apartment, and when I went to the door to ask, her roommates wouldn’t answer it. So I went to Yanaka a couple of times during the hours that Ishida Antiques is usually open. But it was locked up. Did Ishida-san close the shop because of the power shortages or interior damage or something like that?”

  “No, he didn’t. Let’s sit down for a minute, Rikyo-san.” I indicated the scrubbed steel table in the center of the room.

  He looked relieved by the offer. “Great. I really appreciate it. And wouldn’t you rather call me Akira? People our age are more casual.”

  “Okay, Akira-kun—call me Rei, if you like. Getting back to Mayumi: you were on the right track when you thought she wasn’t in Tokyo.”

  “Really?” He began to smile. “Did she go home to her parents’ house?”

  “Mr. Ishida made a call to them, and they said they didn’t know where she was. I’m sure they’re extremely worried, too. All Mr. Ishida and I know is that Mayumi left Tokyo early in the morning of March eleventh. She took a bullet train to Sendai, transferred to a bus, and arrived at the Takara Auction House around one thirty.”

  “You mean—the auction house here in Sugihama?” His eyes bugged out at me, as if all the implications hit him. “Was she here when…”

  “Yes. When the tsunami came. Since Ishida-san was released from the injured persons’ shelter, we’ve started a search.”

  “Oh, no. I can’t believe it.” For a moment, he sat with his head bowed. Then he looked up. “I must speak to Ishida-san. I’ve got a truck, so I can drive all over looking for her.”

  “Right now, Mr. Ishida’s seeing if she’s among the dead who’ve been laid out in various school gyms around Tohoku.”

  He stood up, tears filling his eyes. “I must join him.”

  I felt guilty for all of my suspicions, because his emotion seemed very real. “I’m sorry, Akira. I think Ishida-san might prefer to do that job by himself. And he’s quite capable. He saw Mayumi that day. He knows what she was wearing.”

  Akira’s mouth settled into a tight line, revealing a similarity between his face and that of the older man who’d come out of the truck. “Yesterday he would not accept the ride I offered.”

  “That’s because you’ve done some things that made him anxious about Mayumi’s safety.”

  “Like what?” Akira’s voice was defensive.

  “You were often hanging around the shop area, watching for her. The times you went in, she asked you to leave.”

  “She didn’t know what she was doing,” Akira said roughly. “I love her—and I kept going back because she needed to know that, and also about her family’s change of heart.”

  “What about her family?” I was suddenly on high alert.

  “A few months ago Mayumi’s mother telephoned my parents to ask them to tell me something. It was that if Mayumi returned the lacquer, they would forgive her and she could return home. This was really good news, because I know Mayumi felt rotten about what she did. But I couldn’t reach Mayumi by phone or text—she blocked my calls. So I came to the store each week or so, just to see if I could break through, but she wouldn’t even let me near.”

  “So what happened next? Did you return the lacquer to t
he Kimuras?” I asked, thinking about the empty safe.

  “But how? I couldn’t visit her apartment—the roommates would never let me in. And I don’t know if she kept the lacquer there, anyway. I know she was thinking about selling it.”

  He sounded as if he didn’t know the lacquer had been in the safe; although that could be a ploy. “All right, let’s return to Mayumi’s situation on the day of the tsunami. Since Sugihama is your hometown, do you think she might have phoned your family or anyone else she met through you for help evacuating?”

  “No. Mayumi and my mother don’t get along. She must have been alone when she vanished.” Akira’s voice broke, and when he continued, he was sobbing. “If only I’d been here. I wasn’t able to help my sister and nieces. Not Mayumi, when she needed me most.”

  Akira stumbled to his feet, and his chair tipped and fell, startling Miki. She shrank against the wall as he rushed past her into the hallway.

  “Who’s that?” Miki asked. “Why is he crying?”

  “He can’t find someone he loves.” I felt my throat close up, a precursor to a sob.

  “Too bad,” Miki said. “I wanted to tell you that Ishida-san’s back. It’s time to walk Hachiko.”

  The carpentry truck was gone by the time Miki, her sister Chieko, and I had caught up with Mr. Ishida and Hachiko. I longed to discuss the details of Akira’s conversation with Mr. Ishida, but felt tongue-tied because of the two little girls running alongside us, pointing out what they recognized of their devastated town. Chieko kept trying to pick up stray toys that were scattered across the landscape, while Miki held fast to Hachiko’s leash, preventing her from eating anything.

  “I hope the smell doesn’t bother them too much,” Ishida-san said, observing that only Chieko had kept the gauze face mask in place.

  “It must have smelled pretty bad where you went.”

  “They’re using many chemicals there—it was all right. And I was relieved not to find Mayumi.”

  “Were you able to find out about any unknown people who might have been cremated?”

  “Yes, I did talk to some people who’d released bodies of victims to be burned. Nobody remembered a victim with blue hair.”

  “I should tell you that Akira stopped by the shelter.”

  “For what reason?” Mr. Ishida stopped walking.

  “He thought we might know where Mayumi was. Apparently, he had no idea she’d come to Sugihama.” I explained how I’d asked a number of pointed questions to find out what he might know about her disappearance or the missing lacquer. “He sounded very clueless about everything—for instance, he was genuinely shocked that she’d been in Sugihama during the quake.”

  “He appeared shocked.”

  “Maybe. It’s hard to know what’s true. He told me he’d been following her only because he loved her so much, and he wanted her to return the lacquer to her parents.”

  “It was more than that.” Mr. Ishida shook his head. “I know it.”

  About thirty feet ahead of us, Miki was turning off from the main road toward the ravaged waterfront. The little sister followed dutifully. I thought ahead quickly. The sea wall was gone—this was a dangerous place.

  “Just a minute, please. You are moving too quickly. Wait for us!” I yelled.

  “It’s pretty by the water,” Miki called back. “Butter used to like playing here.”

  But the waterfront wasn’t pretty anymore. It was a junkyard of buildings and cars and toppled trees. Hachiko buried her nose near some overturned vending machines, halting the girls’ progress and giving Mr. Ishida and me time to catch up to them.

  “Hachiko, that’s enough,” Miki said, trying to tug the dog’s head upward. I saw that the group of vending machines had fallen into each other, creating a collapsed metal-and-plastic sort of teepee. Hachiko had her nose in the gap between two of the machines and was whining. Judging from an unpleasant, sweet odor, I imagined that crushed cans of soup and sweet beverages were underneath.

  “No, Hachiko. People’s food and drink is not good for dogs,” Miki scolded.

  “Let me help,” Mr. Ishida said and clapped his hands hard. “No!”

  Hachiko looked at her owner and sniffed, as if she dismissing him. Then her tapered beagle snout returned to the crack between the machines.

  “She rarely disobeys me.” Mr. Ishida crouched beside her and peered into the dark. “Shimura-san, please look.”

  It was a command he’d given me numerous times when we scouted antiques. I squatted next to him and squinted in the darkness. I first thought he was pointing out a couple of small, thin sausages. But then I saw fingernails.

  “Yes,” Mr. Ishida said in a very low voice.

  Ever since entering Sugihama, I knew I’d see some corpses. Now these fingers appeared to be the start of something awful that I didn’t want to see. I couldn’t believe Mr. Ishida was putting me through this.

  Then I thought suddenly of the girls. They shouldn’t have any idea what was going on. Obviously, the military or police needed to address the body under the vending machines—but I’d have to get the children away.

  “Miki-chan, let’s walk Hachiko a little closer to the water,” I suggested. But Hachiko would not go. She pushed her nose in the opening, lowered her ears, and groaned. And then to my horror, she reached out her tongue and licked.

  “Hachiko!” Cringing at the dog’s crude brazenness, I grabbed hard at her leash and finally got her away.

  “Don’t eat from the street, Hachiko,” Miki chided.

  And now there was a new sound. A whimpering. And it wasn’t Hachiko talking, because it came from the area where the fingers were.

  “Did you hear that? Someone’s underneath,” Miki shouted.

  Mr. Ishida reached into his satchel and took out a small flashlight he always carried for examination purposes. Now he shone it into the gap, unaware that Miki and Chieko were peering, too.

  “Shimura-san—get some help,” Mr. Ishida shouted. “The person trapped under these machines might still be alive.”

  I asked Miki and Chieko to walk with me to find some soldiers or police to help, but Miki insisted on remaining with Mr. Ishida, her eyes glued on the gap. And Chieko wouldn’t go with me, either.

  So I left them in Mr. Ishida’s custody and sprinted off as best I could in the uneven, sticky terrain. My heart was pounding from the exercise and excitement. With thousands still missing on the coast, it probably wasn’t Mayumi who was lying trapped underneath. But it was someone.

  I found soldiers working on the main road, and they ran back with me to the vending machine wreckage. Within minutes, they’d radioed for an ambulance. I’d expected the six men to quickly begin the heavy lifting, but instead, they walked around the perimeter, viewing the toppled vending machines from all angles.

  “As each machine is lifted, the other two might shift position and crush the injured person,” the commanding officer told me. “We do not want to cause more injury or worse. It’s also best to send the children away.”

  “I can’t get them to leave.” I kept a hand on each of the sisters, wishing they would not stare so hard at the operation. As two men counted down to three and heaved up one machine, the others held the remaining machines beneath steady. Mr. Ishida crouched down to help keep a soft-drink machine lifted six inches from the ground, while the one on top was brought up.

  After the first two machines were pulled off, a pair of legs in muddy tan trousers were visible, although the body’s trunk and head remained hidden. A soldier crouched down and tugged down a sock, touching bluish-white skin near the back of one ankle.

  “There’s a pulse!” he said.

  Miki whispered, “Those are Otoochan’s shoes.”

  I agreed with her that the brown loafers we could see were men’s shoes—but it was highly doubtful they were her own father’s shoes, as many men in Japan wore brown loafers. I didn’t say it, though, just looked at Mr. Ishida.

  “Miki-chan,” he said softly, “pleas
e step back a bit.”

  “No,” Miki said, her little voice rising to helium heights. “It’s Otoochan. I know it!”

  As the third vending machine was lifted, the fourth one underneath shifted, and I forgot about the girls and rushed forward to grab it along with two other soldiers. The pain in my shoulders and arms was almost unbearable, but in a half minute, this machine was hauled up and away.

  The man lying on his side in the mud hardly looked human. His face was bruised and covered with cuts. A trickle of fluid ran close to his mouth, and a mountain of empty cans lay nearby. It was clear how he’d survived. For twelve days, this man had managed to feed himself canned coffee and soup and soft drinks.

  “Otoochan!” Miki squealed. “Otoochan, can you see me?”

  Tears pricked the edges of my eyes. Nobody could tell who this man was.

  “Miki.” He groaned her name, and briefly his eyes flickered open. They shone with tears. Then they closed again.

  Could it be? Dimly, I heard the soldiers exclaiming to each other about the situation. Another man found alive! After almost two weeks.

  Mr. Ishida put a hand on my shoulder and whispered, “He knows Miki’s name.”

  “I told you it was Otoochan,” Miki shouted, and then called out to her sister. As both little girls hovered over him, his eyes opened again.

  “Chieko. Did…” The man’s breath came in short gasps. He could not finish.

  I pulled down my face mask because I felt like I was losing all breath. Tears were running down my face; I brushed at them, forgetting about the mud on my hands. I was a physical and emotional mess.

  “Don’t cry, Rei-san,” Miki said. “He’s going to be fine.”

  “Haneda-san, you have been strong for so long,” Mr. Ishida said. “Your whole family is safe. Don’t worry about anything. The terrible time is over.”

  In the midst of the laughing and crying and cheers, I reached down to pet Hachiko, who was sitting just like the model of a good dog. Hachiko thumped her tail on the ground, as if to say: Yes. I told you so.