The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11) Read online

  “I used to live in the city,” I said.

  “It’s gay-friendly,” Glock said. “By the way, you look different today from yesterday. Now you are cute.”

  “You were with your boss, Ishida-san, yesterday,” Eri said. “Maybe that’s why you dressed down.”

  “Ishida-san is not my current boss,” I corrected her.

  “Then why did you two come yesterday?” Eri asked.

  “He’s my friend—and he really loved Mayumi like a granddaughter. As he mentioned to you, he thinks she may have had something with her—some little pieces of lacquerware. Now that she’s passed away, he believes she would have wanted it returned to her parents.” I paused. “How are you both doing today? I’m so sorry I had to give you terrible news. You knew her very well.”

  Glock swallowed down the remainder of her third glass of wine. “I will never forget her.”

  “So, you wanted to tell me something?” I asked.

  “We might know about what you’re looking for,” Eri answered in a voice considerably more controlled than Glock’s.

  “The lacquer collection?”

  “Yes. We didn’t tell the whole story because he was there,” Glock interjected. “We can’t have police coming around.”

  “Thank you for trusting me,” I said, although my inner radar had snapped on. How bad was their confession going to be?

  “It started like this,” Eri said. “I was going to go out on a date with a guy I know. Glock said she told you about what I do for extra cash.”

  “Yes.” I smiled, trying not to look judgmental.

  “It’s no big deal to me,” Eri said. “Well, Asao-kun—he’s kind of a weirdo, but I’ve seen him for a while—had a business associate with him one night. He asked me to find another girl to come to dinner. Mayumi was keen to do it. You see, Asao and his friend—a guy called Daigo—sometimes sell things. And Mayumi had been trying to figure out what to do with her lacquer.”

  “Was she thinking of selling it?”

  “Yes,” Glock said. “I didn’t want to say so in front of Ishida-san, because he had already put it in a safe for her and had mentioned to her several times he would pay for insured postage if she wanted to mail it to her parents. But she didn’t want to give it up. You see, she couldn’t save everything she earned at that shop job… it all was used up on housing, food, and so on. She still needed money to pay for art school, which costs hundreds of thousands of yen.”

  “School is expensive,” I agreed. “But getting back to the night with the gentlemen Eri knows…”

  “I did Mayumi’s makeup for her and lent her a long black pageboy wig, because I didn’t think the blue hair would suit Daigo—Asao warned me that he was quite a bit older, almost a grandpa age. So with that hair, and in a mini skirt and heels, she looked quite different. Prettier,” Eri added.

  “In your opinion,” Glock huffed. From the grumpy expression on her face, I could see she hadn’t liked the idea of Mayumi having a date with a man.

  Eri continued, “We went to Tony Roma’s to eat. Asao and Daigo asked Mayumi about herself, and she said that she worked part time in antiques. Daigo bragged that he made way more money than any dealer in town and didn’t have to pay a wholesale price, rent for a storefront, or any of the usual stuff. Mayumi asked him more about it, and he said he worked closely with a dealer out of town. Mayumi got even more interested because she realized—”

  Glock interrupted, “If she could sell the lacquer to someone outside Tokyo, Mr. Ishida wouldn’t know! And she might make 24 million yen! She could go to school and buy an apartment with an art studio. I would go there, too.”

  Two-hundred-forty-thousand dollars was an out-of-this-world estimate for twenty pieces of lacquer. “Did Mr. Ishida quote that figure?”

  “No,” Glock answered. “He said it was worth more. But she figured that since both Daigo and the retailer would get a cut, she’d take away about that amount.”

  “Wow. This is really something. Do you know if Daigo went into Ishida Antiques and removed the lacquer from the safe?”

  “No. Mayumi took it herself, a month before the earthquake, because she knew the combination. She met Daigo at another restaurant and gave him everything. Ooh, he paid her nicely for it—with more to come, after the lacquer sold.”

  “I’m confused,” I said with a sinking feeling. “Did the lacquer already sell?”

  “That’s what we’re not sure about,” Glock said. “Daigo gave her a receipt, just like it was a regular business. He said she’d get all the cash after everything sold.”

  “How much do you trust Daigo?”

  “I don’t know him well at all. But my boyfriend would break his legs if he didn’t come through.” Eri moved a finger quickly from the outside edge of her eye to her lips.

  She’d made the symbol that meant yakuza.

  “Daigo didn’t tell Mayumi where the stuff was going to be sold,” Glock said. “But about two weeks after she’d given it to him, a catalog about an upcoming antiques auction came by mail to Ishida Antiques. There weren’t any pictures, but she saw a listing with information about her stuff going up for sale at an auction house somewhere. We didn’t know it was Tohoku, so that’s why we were so surprised yesterday.”

  “Did you ever hear the auction house name, though? Was it Takara?”

  “She never showed me the catalog—she threw it in the trash at a train station, so Mr. Ishida wouldn’t see it,” Glock said. “But she was worried because if it was in a catalog, her parents might hear about the sale. She also knew Ishida-san was planning a spring buying trip that would include auctions.”

  “Ishida-san told me Mayumi tried to talk him out of the whole trip to Tohoku,” I remembered. “But I don’t know how anyone could keep him from an annual business trip he really enjoys.”

  “A few days before the trip, she lied and said an important client had phoned and wanted to see him on March eleventh. But that didn’t change his mind. She was desperate, so she removed his inkan from his satchel, reasoning that he’d have to come back to Tokyo because he couldn’t purchase goods without having it.”

  “But that wasn’t really true, because he’s well known,” I said.

  “I don’t know. But she took a trip to deliver it to him. She thought if she was there, she might be able to distract him during the time at the auction the items were going to be sold.”

  “And we know she also contacted her parents and tried to get them to meet her there.” I paused. “It’s so strange. Why would she expose herself like this to both of them?”

  “She didn’t tell me she contacted her parents.” Glock looked surprised.

  “She might have wanted one of them to vouch it was their property to the auction-house owner,” I mused. “But her parents would of course ask how the items reached the auction in the first place.”

  “Ishida-san was there. He would have told them everything had been in the safe, waiting to go back to them,” Glock said. “It could have all turned out okay.”

  This was a very childlike way of looking at the situation. I shook my head. “Well, excepting for the fact Daigo’s business deal would have been shot. And he would not have liked that at all.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Glock said. “That’s why we think she might not have died in a tsunami—but for a different reason.”

  Chapter 30

  By the time I paid for lunch and said goodbye to Glock and Eri, it was one thirty. The three of us had turned possible situations around in our heads so many times that we were thoroughly confused. But the upshot was Mayumi had created a situation far more dangerous than I’d realized. Now there were leads on where the lacquer might be—but the chance of regaining it would be next to impossible if gangster intermediaries were involved.

  I had seen Michael, Enrique, and Richard leave the restaurant, still in high spirits, a while back. A text from Michael revealed he’d gone to his second meeting. Tell all at 5, he’d texted, suggesting as a meeting point the
Hachiko statue outside Shibuya Station. He also mentioned that he had custody of my bag that Richard had kept safe for me the previous evening.

  I still had some spare afternoon hours. I could stop in to see Mr. Ishida. If I told him what I’d learned at lunch, many of the beliefs he held about the helplessness of his apprentice would be shattered. Still, there was a chance that the receipt for the lacquer was among the papers we’d taken. I didn’t know what we could do with such a receipt, if the go-between was a gangster. But Mr. Ishida had been in the business for a long time and might have an idea.

  Mr. Ishida was reviewing his accounts when I stepped over his threshold. Hachiko trotted to the door to greet me with many circular tail wags. I baby talked to her, allowing her to come close enough to my face to smell the mushroom-sun-dried tomato-goat-cheese pizza I’d had for lunch. No meat or fish but she still seemed approving.

  “Ah, good timing. Five minutes later, and Hachiko would have taken me on our evening walk. Say—you look a bit different today. What is it?”

  I took off the newsboy cap, expecting him to comment on my short hair. But instead he said, “Aha! It’s a new hat, but just like the ones from the 1950s. I quite like it. By the way, are you finished looking through Mayumi’s sketchbook?”

  “I think so. You can look at it, too, although some of the art within is a little—unorthodox.”

  “Ah, that’s what makes it art. So, what have you been doing?”

  “I visited a few places between yesterday evening and this morning. There are some things that I’ve learned. It would be better if I could tell the whole story.”

  Mr. Ishida listened carefully as I showed him the record of subtly threatening texts I’d been receiving since going to Glock and Eri’s apartment. I explained that Michael had figured out my e-mails had been sent on to another address, and that my voice mails and texts also had gone to the same anonymous individual.

  “We removed all the tracking and forwarding from the phone, and that seems to have stopped the text messages,” I continued. “But then Glock contacted me about information she and Eri had about Mayumi that they were afraid to share yesterday.”

  Mr. Ishida’s expression seemed to close as I narrated how Mayumi had accompanied Eri on an enjo-kousai evening and decided to put the lacquer in the hands of a gangster who told her he could fence it outside of Tokyo. He shook his head when I said that she’d figured out his safe’s combination and passed the lacquer onto Daigo, taking a receipt and trusting the sale would go through. And then she saw her family’s lacquerware listed in a catalog for an auction on March 11.

  “When she couldn’t draw you away from your planned business trip during that time, she decided she had to go. The girls don’t know the name of which auction house it was, but I’m guessing Takara. Perhaps she went out there to explain to Mr. Morioka about the goods coming from gangsters or belonging to her parents.”

  He was silent for several minutes. “When I reached the auction house, of course I picked up a catalog. The Kimura lacquer was not listed.”

  “Maybe she reached out to Morioka-san ahead of time. If so, he should have told us.”

  “He surely would have told us after we described the lacquer to him. No—it could be a different auction house. Or perhaps the roommates’ story is wrong.”

  “Maybe. But they seemed quite honest.”

  “Why would they tell you this, anyway?” Mr. Ishida sounded impatient.

  “Because they think Mayumi might have been killed. And if gangsters are involved, it’s a threat to them if the police know. It’s all a big mess—”

  “What did they say about Akira? He could have killed Mayumi.”

  “They didn’t talk about Akira. But I have confirmed with him that he followed Mayumi and Glock to a gay bar, although he didn’t really understand those implications.” I stopped, realizing this probably was the first time Mr. Ishida had heard anything about Mayumi’s private life.

  “That she preferred women?” Mr. Ishida said into the silence. “I’m not shocked, Shimura-san. This kind of thing has quietly gone for all of recorded history. Look at some of those old shoujo manga prints that fetch high prices. There are even a few in this shop.”

  “Back to Akira,” I said quickly. “I made a quick call this afternoon to the construction company where he worked, and the human resources department verified he was an employee. I chose to check on him that way, instead of using the superintendent’s direct line, but the superintendent checked out with HR, too.”

  “They must have been very curious why you were so nosy about their employees,” Mr. Ishida said.

  “I just told them I was from the government.” I sighed. “We were talking about Mayumi’s transfer of the lacquer to Daigo, who brought it to an auction house. Apparently he gave her a receipt. If we can find that within her possessions, do you think it could be useful?”

  “I hardly think her parents would want to present it to anyone.” Mr. Ishida shook his head. “This is very bad stuff. We must warn Morioka-san.”

  “It’s a conversation that should be face to face,” I said. “I want to go back to Sugihama and find out whether he knows more about the lacquer than he let on to Ishida-san and me.”

  “How long would this trip be?”

  “Train service is back in operation to quite a number of towns in Tohoku. I wouldn’t have to wait for a volunteer bus. It could possibly be a one-day trip, or just an overnight.”

  “I am concerned about your travel. Now that we are thinking about gangsters, the situation seems more dangerous.”

  “I’ll ask Michael to go with me. His work is winding down, anyway.”

  “Very well. I shall spend the rest of today and tomorrow looking through Mayumi’s possessions for a receipt, and also make some calls to learn about the background of Mr. Morioka and the shop he once had in Tokyo.”

  “That would be great,” I said, as his clock chimed on the half hour. “Four thirty already. I need to dash to meet Michael at Shibuya Station.”

  “Be very careful, Shimura-san.”

  “I promise not to jaywalk.” He knew very well that I didn’t always observe Japanese street etiquette.

  “I mean be very careful when you return to Sugihama. Especially now that dangerous men may be involved.”

  The trains were running on time, and the commuter crowd had resumed its normal, gigantic size. Because of this increased human traffic, I had trouble getting to the front of the subway platform so I could get inside a subway car. Then it was moving like quicksand to proceed up the various stairs and out the Shibuya Station’s west exit to the bronze version of Hachiko. When I arrived twenty minutes late, Michael was restlessly pacing.

  “I was worried you might not make it,” he said, taking me in his arms. When the hello kiss ended, I realized at least two groups of teens were peering at us and tittering. They might have been unsure if the person who looked like Oliver Twist from behind was male or female. They might still not know.

  “Sorry to be late,” I said.

  “It’s okay. But after what happened at lunch, I’ve got serious concerns.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “I thought you didn’t understand much of the conversation—but did Richard translate after you went outside?”

  “No, none of us could hear much. But the girl in the black dress made a gesture with her hand that looked like a gang symbol.”

  “Yes. She was talking about someone who wasn’t around.” I lowered my voice. “Sorry to put you off a while longer, but we won’t have the privacy to talk about it until we reach my aunt’s house.”

  The ride was interminable, but at least it was Michael pressed up against my back and buttocks, and not some stranger. I winked at him as we disembarked.

  As we walked uphill in the cool evening, and the crowds faded away, I told him what the girls had said during lunch.

  “Of course I’ll go with you to Sugihama,” Michael said. “But why not just call Morioka?”

/>   “If we can catch Mr. Morioka off guard, we might convince him to give the lacquer back to us, because there’s a huge chance he has it. If it’s over the phone, he could hide things. You know how my phone was missing for so long, and it turned out it was in his shop? I believed he’d only just found it… but maybe he hadn’t.”

  “Which means he’s the likeliest person to be your texting enemy.” Michael sighed. “I don’t know if it’s worse to have the texter be him or someone in the yakuza.”

  “Oh, the yakuza’s much more dangerous, and I don’t think they’re likely to be in Tohoku at the moment,” I added. “There’s also a possibility that Morioka-san is completely innocent of everything, and the Kimura lacquer went to another place holding an auction on the same fateful day.”

  “Mr. Ishida could look into that,” Michael said. “But I still am putting my—our—money on Morioka as being our bad guy.”

  “But he saved Mr. Ishida’s life. That’s got to count for something.” I felt restless. “Why is all this craziness continuing? I need to leave by Tuesday to get back to work.”

  “I don’t think your aunt’s going to like the sound of that.”

  “She never likes me leaving. So what else is new?”

  Aunt Norie was more than annoyed that my limited time in Tokyo and Yokohama would be shortened further by another visit to Tohoku.

  “I’ve been trying to put together a reception for you. A belated wedding reception. How can we have something when you’re not here?”

  “Obasan, you were at our wedding in Hawaii. There was a reception, remember, with wonderful platters of sushi and flowers around everyone’s necks.”

  “But not every Japanese friend could come. And certainly, not my many friends from the world of flower arranging who are fond of you, and Chika, who will return from Osaka, and some of those people who work at Sendai Limited—”

  “You’re not thinking of a certain ex-boyfriend from Sendai Limited,” I said.

  “No, of course not. But I like the chairman of that company very much. For a Japanese wedding, all sorts of important people are invited. It’s not just about young people and their friends.”