The Bride's Kimono Read online

  “I can’t believe this,” I said to them both as I stepped back and regarded the improbable sight of my East-West boyfriends standing together. “Because you talked to each other, you wound up saving my life. After I was so hard on both of you—”

  “You were never awful,” Hugh said as I slid in next to Takeo in the backseat of the Lexus. It seemed the right place to be.

  “You were torn between two men and two countries,” Takeo said softly. “I see it now.”

  As Hugh drove, the two of them described how things had played out. Hugh had retrieved the phone message I left at his apartment, and gone to the museum, only to find it shut with an irate Takeo pacing in front of its door, convinced that I was still inside. It had been Takeo who had gotten on Hugh’s shoulders and thrown the rock that broke a museum window, setting off the alarm; and Takeo who had been standing close to Hugh’s cell phone, taking in the brutal words that Mr. Shima was whispering in Japanese. By the end of the short, disjointed communication, both men knew that Mr. Shima was with me, and I was in serious trouble. So Hugh did what he did best: organize. In the space of a few minutes he’d gotten the 911 dispatcher to put him in touch with a SWAT team.

  At the police station, I was questioned separately from Mr. Shima, and the name Dick Jemshaw must have come out in both conversations, because the police roared off to his house in Bethesda. And two hours later, when I was going over my statement for the umpteenth time, I heard the good news that the bride’s kimono had been found at Dick Jemshaw’s home—along with a collection of fifteen netsuke that had been sewn into the hem.

  Takeo, sticking to his word, left Washington the next day for Tokyo. It was the same flight that Kyoko and Yoshi were taking, so he and I saw them at the gate at Dulles. Kyoko and Yoshi were very social and talkative at first—so giddy, almost, that I was beginning to think they might finally be comfortable with the idea that the two of them belonged together. When they saw the way that Takeo and I were looking at each other, though, they quietly made their way off to Starbucks for a few final purchases.

  “I know that saying I’m sorry can’t make up for what I did to you,” Takeo said as we stood side by side, watching out the window at the runway. Two baggage carts had just arrived at the plane. “What I said yesterday in the restaurant was unforgivable. Then I led you to a place where you almost lost your life.”

  “What you said to me in the hotel represents a bad five minutes. It doesn’t replace all that happened in the last year, since I met you.”

  “I’m glad you had a good last year,” Takeo said.

  I didn’t answer immediately because I was watching through the window some action on the runway. Four baggage handlers were transferring a long black box covered with a thick layer of plastic tarp into the plane’s hold. Hana. I was seeing her again at last.

  “Why do you look so sad?” Takeo asked.

  “It’s Hana. I think her coffin just went into the plane. I’ll always choose to believe that she went into my room to try on makeup…not to steal the kimono. Anyway, if she’d truly stolen the kimono and gotten away, she’d still be alive. A human life is worth so much more than cloth. Or netsuke.”

  “Dick Jemshaw was the one who was going to sell the netsuke, you said to the police last night. Do you know whether he confessed to being involved in the murder, too?”

  “The police told me that Dick Jemshaw admitted asking Mr. Shima to smuggle the stolen netsuke for him in exchange for fifty percent of the profits. Then Mr. Shima had his—complication—with Hana, and he told Dick. Dick told him to get rid of the body…so he did know. So he’s an accessory.” I thought of how Hana had talked to me about accessories while we were on the plane—what a weird, alternate meaning of the word applied to Dick Jemshaw. At the same time I knew that it was very lucky for Jamie that the police had found the netsuke at Dick’s house, and not her apartment—where I had worried they might be. The only mystery I hadn’t figured out was who had slashed Hugh’s car tires. Mr. Shima swore he’d lost our trail and not gone into Georgetown, and Kyoko hadn’t done it—at least, according to the Café Milano staff who’d seen her go into the rest room and then straight back to her table. My final conclusion was that the vandalism on the Lexus had been done by the parking intimidation expert in the Bob Marley T-shirt. There would never be a way to prove it, of course. And even I had to admit that this kind of crime was small potatoes compared with what had happened to Hana.

  I shook myself and went back to the topic that interested Takeo. “Dick Jemshaw will probably serve five to ten years in prison—at least, that’s what Hugh thinks.”

  “Hugh’s a good thinker,” Takeo said softly. “He’s perfect for you.”

  “I wouldn’t say perfect.” I felt as awkward about the situation as when I’d first walked out of the museum.

  “We had time to talk when we were sitting in his car and you were trapped inside. We both were going crazy knowing that you could die. We talked about nothing but you. And I realized that I want you, but I do not have the same kind of attachment that he does. I’m just so different—I can never live your way. Or his. All the people you want to see, the places you want to go. You have so much heart, so much energy.”

  “It sounds as if you’ve given up,” I said, feeling sad again.

  “It’s not giving up—it’s facing reality. In my own irresponsible way I do love you, but I never felt like saying it, because I wasn’t sure. After my behavior yesterday—well, I think you understand how hellish I would be to live with. But I’ll be around in Japan, if you ever change your mind and come back.”

  “Of course I’m coming back. I’m going to get my passport straightened out this week—”

  “Take your time deciding. You should explore some business possibilities here, and see what it’s like to be with someone who loves you enough to want to marry.” The last few words Takeo seemed to choke on. I knew how hard this was for him.

  I took Takeo’s hands in mine. “I’ll never forget this.”

  “I know. But would you do me a favor and please leave? I want to compose myself before I get on the plane. The longer you look at me, the closer I come to breaking down.”

  I left the gate in a haze of tears, understanding that there could be no happy ending for Takeo, just as there hadn’t been for Hana, or Yoshi, or Kyoko. Americans had been affected by the kimono scandal, too. Jamie, I knew, was quietly miserable, even though I had reassured her privately, during a quick phone conversation earlier that morning, that I didn’t bear her any grudge. I remembered how my reputation had almost collapsed because of a stupid, reckless moment on a Metro train. Jamie was twenty-three and deserved to go on with her life, to make better choices.

  Allison Powell had taken a sudden leave of absence from the museum, which meant that Jamie would temporarily assume her responsibilities. I suspected Allison’s leave might become permanent, because it was now widely known that she’d been warned of a risk to the kimono exhibition but hadn’t beefed up security. Jamie had said to me that Marina Billings considered me the one who had saved the museum’s collection from a devastating crime while all of them had been too distracted to notice what had been going on. The museum’s director would go on to repeat her flattering quote for reporters from The Washington Post, Washington Times, and USA Today, not to mention the various television networks.

  Marina wanted me to deliver my kimono lecture again on Wednesday, the date that a harried editorial assistant at the Post had mistakenly typed in as that of my speaking engagement. Given the avalanche of publicity the exhibition had received, and the extra speaking fee I’d receive, I said yes. After all, I still needed to do some souvenir shopping—a Versace belt for Richard Randall was high on my list.

  I was relieved that the two men who had been distrustful of me at the Japanese embassy had sent flowers and a note congratulating me on great personal bravery. And then, from Japan, the Morioka Museum’s director, Mr. Ito, faxed a letter of thanks for saving the museum�
��s collection. He and Mr. Nishio and the Japanese police were beginning a full-scale investigation of their holdings in case Mr. Shima had been pilfering museum storage for a while. Mr. Ito added that he wanted to have a talk about my doing more work for his museum, after I’d returned to Japan and had a chance to think things through.

  I wasn’t sure when I’d go home, because I still hadn’t made any effort to replace my passport. In the meantime I was living like an exhausted young woman who had too few pennies in her pocket. It would take another twenty-four hours for the museum to come through with a check for me, so, from the airport where I’d dropped off Takeo, I decided to take the Washington Suites’ free shuttle bus back to the hotel. There, I packed up my goods and said good-bye. Brian Hunter took a Polaroid snapshot of me in the lobby and asked me to autograph it.

  On the outside, I was solvent, but inside, I was a wreck. I’d been close to death before, but the extended time with Mr. Shima had been more disturbing than anything I’d experienced. He’d cut the back of my neck with a bride’s knife; the cut had been fairly deep, it turned out, deep enough for the female plastic surgeon to warn me that I might have a scar—not that a scar on the back of the neck was any kind of problem, she’d hastened to add. I wouldn’t go through the trauma that women did who’d had their faces, or breasts, disfigured.

  It wasn’t until after Takeo had kissed me good-bye at the airport that I thought about how the nape of the neck was considered the most erotic part of a Japanese woman. If I wore a kimono again, I’d have to pull the collar snugly against my neck, hiding the ugly marks. I was going to have to call my aunt Norie about it before I went home—I knew she’d cry when she saw my nape.

  Feeling somber, I shuttled my suitcases on the Metro and then trudged from Dupont Circle to Hugh’s apartment, letting myself in with the extra key that he’d given me. Hugh had gone to work for a few hours but would be back by supper. It was good to have a few hours to myself in the late afternoon, in an apartment with old gas-electric fixtures that shone with a cozy glow. I unpacked the beautiful dresses and the suit my mother had helped me buy, and hung them in a small section of Hugh’s closet. I stored everything else in one drawer, so that it wouldn’t seem as if I were moving in.

  I’d stay for a little while, just long enough to have a sense of peace and happiness again. I’d said as much to Hugh the night before, which he’d spent holding me tightly in my old room at the Washington Suites. Hugh had repeated that wherever I wanted to live, he’d follow—but only at my invitation.

  I smiled to myself, thinking that the greatest luxury in the world surely was the gift of unconditional love. The promise of a quiet evening with Hugh slipped around me as softly as the finest rinzu silk.

  Now it was five o’clock, and I lit a fire in the living room and poured myself a small glass of sherry. I was almost completely unpacked. The only things I couldn’t find an obvious place for were the three long rectangular packages that belonged to Aunt Norie—the kimono she’d lent me. Now I opened up the rice-paper covering to examine the last kimono, the one that I’d never worn, made of the green silk that reminded me of Hugh’s eyes. As I looked at it again, I decided that the green was just as close to the color of the moss Takeo cultivated in his garden in Hayama. Green, the color that had proved to be more significant to me than any other.

  I took a shower, taking care to protect the area of my neck that had been taped. Then I began dressing. First came new, shimmering peach-colored lingerie and the half-slip that my mother had bought me. Over that went a gold silk underkimono, which was followed by the various waist ties, and then the green kimono, more sashes around the waist, and finally the obi. I spent the next fifteen minutes in front of the armoire’s full-length mirror tying the black-and-gold obi with a wide and splendid bow. Then I rotated the sash so that the bow rested on the proper place in the middle of my back. I tied orange and gold obi-jime cords over the obi as the final decorative flourish.

  I was almost done. Standing sideways so I could see the back of my neck in the mirrored armoire door, I adjusted the back collar of my kimono. The tape over my injury showed, but I found I didn’t mind it as much as I’d thought. The mark was a symbol of a rite of passage—a passage to a stronger identity. Now I knew that I didn’t need to stand alone to be strong.

  I perked up my ears at the sound of a key opening the vestibule door a flight below. Hugh bounded up the stairs, softly singing “Honey,” a song I’d been getting to know. He sounded better than Moby, but I guess I was biased.

  Hugh was moving quickly, but I wanted to beat him. Before he could reach his front door, I’d unlocked it.

  The World of Sujata Massey

  Look for these riveting mysteries by

  Sujata Massey,

  starring Japanese-American sleuth

  Rei Shimura.

  The Salaryman’s Wife

  Zen Attitude

  The Flower Master

  The Floating Girl

  THE SALARYMAN’S WIFE

  Rei Shimura is a 27-year-old English teacher living in one of Tokyo’s seediest neighborhoods. She doesn’t make much money, but she wouldn’t go back home to California even if she had a free ticket (which, thanks to her wealthy parents, she does). Her independence is threatened, however, when a getaway to an ancient castle town is marred by murder. Rei is the first to find the beautiful wife of a high-powered businessman dead in the snow. Taking charge, as usual, Rei searches for clues by crashing a funeral, posing as a bar-girl, and somehow ending up pursued by police and paparazzi alike. In the meantime, she manages to piece together a strange, ever-changing puzzle—one that is built on lies and held together by years of sex and deception.

  “Sly, sexy and deftly done.”

  People magazine “Page-Turner of the Week”

  ZEN ATTITUDE

  With her own antiques business and live-in Scottish lawyer boyfriend, Rei Shimura finally has a life to be proud of in Tokyo. But when Rei over-pays for a beautiful chest of drawers, she’s in for the worst deal of her life. The con man who sold her the tansu is found dead, and like it or not, Rei’s opened a Pandora’s box of mystery, theft, and murder.

  Only Rei sees the tansu as the key. It will take a quick wit, fast feet, and, above all, a Zen attitude for Rei to discover what a young monk, a judo star, and an ancient scroll have in common and why her own life hangs in the balance.

  “A gifted storyteller.”

  USA Today

  THE FLOWER MASTER

  Life in Japan for a single Californian woman with a fledging antiques business isn’t always fun, but when the flower arranging class Rei Shimura’s aunt cajoles her into taking turns into a stage for murder, Rei finds plenty of the excitement she’s been missing.

  Surprisingly too many people have a reason for committing the crime—including her aunt. While struggling to adjust to the nuances of Japanese propriety, trying to keep her business afloat, and dealing with veiled messages left under her door, Rei sifts the bones of old skeletons to keep her family name clear—and her own life safe from an enemy with a mysterious agenda. If Rei doesn’t want to be crushed like fallen cherry blossoms, she’s going to have to walk a perilous line and uncover a killer with a dramatic flare for deadly arrangements.

  “Sujata Massey is at her masterful best.”

  Lisa Scottoline

  THE FLOATING GIRL

  Rei Shimura is finally beginning to feel as if Tokyo is home. Now a writer on art and antiques at the Gaijin Times, a comic-style magazine aimed at affluent young readers, Rei’s latest assignment is a piece on the history of comic book art. During a weekend of research and relaxation at her boyfriend Takeo’s beachside house, Rei stumbles upon the perfect subject: an exquisite modern comic that reveals the disturbing social milieu of pre-World War II Japan.

  Rei’s story, though, evolves into something much darker. One of the comic’s young creators is found dead—a murder that soon takes the tenacious Rei deep into the heart of Japan’s youth u
nderground. Immersed in the investigation, she finds herself floating through strip clubs, animation shops, and coffeehouses to get the true story—and save her own skin.

  “Rei is one of the most complex female protagonists around…Another must-read.”

  Booklist

  Watch for Sujata Massey’s new hardcover, The Daimyo’s Daughter

  Coming soon

  Antiques dealer Rei Shimura is in San Francisco visiting her parents and researching a personal project tracing the story of 100 years of Japanese decorative arts through her own family’s experience. Her work is interrupted by the arrival of her boyfriend, lawyer Hugh Glendinning, who is involved in a class action lawsuit on behalf of aged Asian nationals forced to engage in slave labor for Japanese companies during World War II. These two projects suddenly intertwine when one of Hugh’s clients is murdered and Rei begins to uncover unsavory facts about her own family’s actions during the War. Rei unravels the truth and finds the killer, and at the same time learns all about family ties and loyalty and the universal desire to avoid blame.

  Acknowledgments

  My heartfelt gratitude goes out to the true cast of characters who helped me sew up The Bride’s Kimono! First, I’m deeply grateful to Claudia Brittenham, assistant curator of the Eastern Hemisphere Collections at the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., who taught me so much about the history of kimono, as well as to her colleague Rachel Shabica, the museum’s assistant registrar. I am similarly thrilled to have had Joan Elisabeth Reid, chief registrar of the Walters Art Museum, teach me so much about the world of fine-art couriers.

  I learned what it feels like to wear kimono from Shizumi Shigeto Manale, the dancer and kimono collector, and Norie Watanuki, a professional kimono dresser. My kimono knowledge was also expanded through the terrific book Kimono: Fashioning Culture, by Liza Dalby, and a Ph.D. thesis by Manami Suga.

  Mr. Shimuzu of the Office of the Japanese Consul was extremely helpful in explaining matters relating to missing persons—thanks for letting me into the embassy, too! Also in Washington, I thank Phyllis Richman, the wonderful mystery author and retired food critic, for her restaurant tips. More gastronomic thank-yous to Evan Reynolds, chief concierge for the Hotel Sofitel, and Janet Staihar, who represents Café Milano in Georgetown. For excellent explanations of police procedure, I’m grateful to Officer Julie Hersey in Fairfax County, Virginia, and Officer Chris Myers in Troy, New York.