'Did you used to live here? the boy demanded rudely. 'Was this your house?
Machiko reached the safety of her daughter's arms and fell into them. 'We go now? she pleaded.
The children must have seen the look of unreasoning rage on Kimi's face. They stopped short a few feet away from her and backed off warily.
'Oh, come on, Jared, the girl said, grabbing her brother's arm and pulling him backward, away from Kimi and her mother. 'Don't bother with her. She's old. She can't even speak English. The girl stuck out her tongue at Kimi, and the two children raced away toward the barn, splashing wildly through the fishpond as they ran, leaving the formerly placid water roiled and muddy, while frantic carp darted in every direction.
With that, Machiko lost all control. Clutching her daughter, she burst into tears. Except for the distant squeals of those bratty kids, the only sound in the universe was that of her pitiful sobs, and there wasn't a damn thing anybody could do about it.
With a lump in my throat I watched Kimi turn her mother around and gently guide her frail footsteps toward the Suburban. She escorted Machiko to the passenger's side of the vehicle, then left her standing there for a moment, leaning on the cane, while Kimi opened the back door and pulled out a small varnished footstool. Putting that at her mother's feet, she helped Machiko climb up into the van.
Once her mother was settled, Kimi closed the car door and returned the footstool to its place in the backseat. Slamming the second door with a ferocious shove, she came around to the other side of the van. Dry-eyed and tight-lipped, she looked up at me.
'Thank you for your help, she said stiffly.
'You're going?
She nodded.
'We'll need your phone number in Pullman.
'I don't live in Pullman, she said, 'but the number's in the Pullman book. You can get it from information.
Awkwardly, I extracted one of my business cards and illegibly scrawled my home number across the back of it. I pressed the card into her hand. 'My home number's on there, too, in case you need it.
Nodding, she swung herself up into the driver's side and drove away without so much as a backward glance toward the home of her youth. Machiko too, her daughter's older mirror image, stared resolutely ahead. The only good thing about that whole terrible can of worms was that at least they had each other.
Big Al was looking at his watch. 'We'd better get the hell out of here too, Beau. It's already rush hour. We don't want to get stuck on the bridge.
Despite his dire prediction, we got back downtown without being stalled in traffic. Up on the fifth floor of the Public Safety Building we wrote our reports. Al finished up in a hurry and left. Hunting and pecking with my left hand, it took me a whole lot longer. When I finished at last, I took the extra few minutes to look up the number for DataDump in the phone book. Their answering machine said they were closed until 9:00 A.M.
I finally left the department around 5:15. Threatening clouds hung low over the Olympics, promising a storm for later that night while a chill breeze blew in off Puget Sound. Fall was coming. And winter would be coming after that. And I wasn't looking forward to either one of them.
I couldn't shake the disgust I felt about the way those damn brats had acted and at the hurt expression on Machiko's face as she watched those unruly little shits go crashing through her beloved fishpond. Life was not fair, I decided. Life was a crock.
It was nighttime. I wanted to go home and shower. I still reeked from sweating champagne, but I had also gone through the whole day without eating. Although I didn't feel particularly hungry, I knew my body needed fuel. I went to the Doghouse and ducked into the bar, ordering a MacNaughton's first and a chili-burger second.
I was well into the MacNaughton's when Winnie, the hostess, came looking for me. 'You have a phone call, Beau, she said.
Being a creature of habit has its disadvantages-most important of which is that everybody knows where you go and what you do. As I walked to the phone, I did a quick mental rundown of where everybody was. I wondered if something terrible had happened to Peters and Amy on their honeymoon or to the girls or Mrs. Edwards. Or maybe Big Al had crashed and burned on his way home to Ballard.
Having sorted through all the possibilities of who the call might have been from, I was stunned when the person on the phone actually turned out to be George Yamamoto. I had never been in the Doghouse with him, and I had no idea how he knew it was one of my hangouts. Word evidently gets around.
'Thank God I found you, George murmured. 'Wait for me right there. I'm on my way over.
'All right. I'll be in the bar.
I had finished the chili-burger and was having a dessert MacNaughton's when George showed up at the door. For the first time in all the years I've known him he looked agitated, upset. If I had any lingering visions of Japanese-Americans daintily sipping warmed sake from tiny porcelain cups, George Yamamoto dispelled that stereotype in a hurry. He ordered a double Scotch on the rocks and swilled it down like it was water.
'Have you heard from Doc Baker?
'No, not yet. Why? What's going on?
'The autopsy. We finished, just about half an hour ago.
'And?
'I was right. It's murder, not suicide. We couldn't see it until after we moved the body. He died as a result of a blow to the head. A blunt object of some kind.
'The handle of the sword maybe? I asked.
'No. If he tried that, the killer would have cut himself badly.
'You're saying ‘he'?
'Generic, Yamamoto replied. 'He/she.
'But why the rest of it? Why the mutilation?
George shook his head. 'I don't know, unless they thought we'd miss the head injury and fall for the phony suicide bit.
I thought of the bloody carnage in Tadeo Kurobashi's office.
'A real sicko, I said.
George nodded. 'Yes, but that's not all of it.
'What else?
'Remember the message you left with Doc Baker?
'About the sword being done by a student of someone, that Masamune guy?
'It wasn't, he said. He turned and signaled the waitress for more drinks, ordering one for each of us.
'If it wasn't, then what's all the fuss about? I asked, puzzled.
'I said it wasn't done by one of his students. It was done by him, by the master himself. It's an original.
Silence opened up in a deep pool between us as the waitress brought our drinks. I waited until she left.
'Are you sure? I asked.
'It's signed by him, but no, of course I'm not sure. It'll take an expert to ascertain whether or not it's genuine.
'And what does it mean if it is? I asked guardedly.
'It's priceless, he said. 'Absolutely priceless. It shouldn't be in the property room. It should be locked in a vault in a bank or a museum somewhere. We're not equipped to be responsible for something that valuable. I'm worried sick about it, but what can I do? Even if it isn't the actual murder weapon, it's still part of the investigation, no getting around it.
'Fingerprints? I asked.
'Several sets. They'll be running them through the AFIS as soon as they can get the computer time, but that'll only work if the killer is on file.
AFIS is the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a recently purchased computerized program that had taken local law enforcement jurisdictions out of the Dark Ages and into the high-tech era of fingerprint identification.
'We should have results on that by tomorrow, George added.
I tried to assimilate all the information George Yamamoto had given me. Every way I looked at it, none of it made any sense. 'This doesn't add up, I said. 'If the sword was that valuable, why the hell would the murderer go off and leave it lying there on the floor?
