The Bride's Kimono (10 page)

I
said a quick good-bye to Kyoko. As I emerged from her room, I caught sight of Hugh standing thirty feet down the hall, knocking loudly on my door.

Kyoko saw him, too, and tugged me back into the room.

“What is it?” I asked her.

“That man! He could be the thief. I saw him here earlier. He said he was your friend, so I told him your room number. I’m very, very sorry—”

“It’s all right. Actually, he’s my lawyer. He’s going to help with the kimono problem.”

We parted again, and I hurried down the hall to Hugh, shushing him. It was late, and I didn’t want to wake the whole hallway of sleeping office ladies.

“Thank God you showed up, Rei. I was beginning to think
you’d
been stolen.”

“No, I’d just taken your suggestion and gotten some quick help with a translation from my friend Kyoko. I think you might have met her when she gave you directions to my room earlier this evening.”

“Whoever it was seemed very timid, and rather sad—”

“Yes, for a good reason. Her friend is missing, as I mentioned earlier.” I opened my door with the key card and sat down cross-legged on my bed, working out a
quick written translation of the Japanese sentences Kyoko had told me. I handed it to Hugh to read, and when he was through, he shook his head.

“There’s no mention of insurance here. Do you have any document mentioning insurance?”

“Just the loan receipt, and as I told you before, the bride’s kimono isn’t listed on it.”

“Who knew you had the kimono in your room?”

“Allison and Jamie at the museum knew. I don’t know whether they told anyone else. Although when we saw each other at Pan Asia, I almost forgot about the bag holding the kimono. It could be that Dick Jemshaw looked in the bag and got interested.”

“I don’t think so,” Hugh said. “I was the one who picked up the bag and gave it to the maître d’. I watched him take it straight to you. Besides, I can’t imagine why you think a chairman of the advisory committee would want to nick a kimono. A hotel employee is more likely, I’d think.”

“Perhaps,” I said slowly. “There was a young female manager at the front desk who knew that I needed a safety-deposit box. When she brought the box out, I asked if she had anything larger available. She didn’t, so I went away. I guess I was pretty stupid to leave such a big gaping clue.”

“Don’t blame yourself.” Hugh came over to the bed and sat down next to me. He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “If anything, it’s my fault. I’m the one who lured you from your room. If the theft happened when we were talking downstairs, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“It could also have happened when I was at the mall a few hours ago,” I said. “I just learned that the girl I was looking for there—Hana Matsura—had told her roommate, Kyoko, that I had something of value in the boxes.”

“What? How would she know?”

“Hana figured it out because we’d sat together on the plane and she saw the way I handled the boxes. I guess I just was not an experienced enough courier to be properly subtle. Anyway, who knows how many people Hana told about me and my mysterious boxes, or if she decided to hunt for the boxes herself? Supposedly she’s out tonight looking for a one-night stand. I wonder if that’s really true.”

Hugh shook his head. “I can’t even get you to drink tea with me. And you say a nice Japanese girl would want to find a one-night stand in a place where she knows no one?”

“She told me that she wanted to find a quote-unquote playboy. She planned to have a wild fling in another country, and then she’d go back to a regular life. I’m sure it’s a concept you can understand—”

“You were no more a fling for me than I was for you,” Hugh said tightly. “At least, that’s what I hope.”

I wouldn’t give Hugh the gratification of a true confession. Instead, I said, “Well, back to the point of Hana. I think she could have gotten in my room to snoop around if she were able to get her room’s key card recoded to enter mine. To get the key card working, all she would really have to do was say that she was me.”

“But would the hotel believe it?”

“Sure. Hana is just a bit taller than I, and her hair is dyed close to my color. She’s a friendly, well-spoken girl. Why would they suspect anything bad of her?”

“You do,” Hugh said.

“I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t rule it out. I’ve got to call the security officer to come back. Tell me if there’s anything I shouldn’t say, all right?” By now, I was feeling pretty grumpy.

“Well, you have nothing to offer in English that could show him that the bride’s kimono exists. You’ll have to convince him, somehow, that you lost it, and offer to have the museum people back up your story tomorrow with a phone call. I think the important thing is to get them moving on figuring out who of the hotel staff were around tonight and any unusual goings-on, during the times you were out of your room. I don’t suggest you say
anything
about your idea that Hana Matsura committed theft. She could call your assumptions libelous, if she comes back tomorrow morning and gets hassled by hotel security or the cops. If she doesn’t come back, well, that’s a different story.” Hugh paused. “How much talking do you want me to do?”

“None,” I said. “I mean, if I need your help, I’ll ask. But this is my loss. I think I should describe it to them myself.”

When Mark Leese arrived, he wasn’t alone—he’d brought the hotel’s young night manager, Brian Hunter, and Mrs. Chiyoda, who was wearing a terrycloth bathrobe and a very annoyed expression. It softened slightly when she looked at Hugh—apparently, she liked a good-looking man, and Hugh obliged with a faint ducking of his head.

“I was woken with the story you’re missing an item. My tourists have never before reported such a problem,” Mrs. Chiyoda said, her eyes moving between us—as if she trusted neither.

“My lawyer, Mr. Hugh Glendinning, came to assist me because this is such a serious problem.” I switched to Japanese and outlined to Mrs. Chiyoda the loss of the kimono, and the fact that some people had knowledge of the valuables I was carrying.

“Well, I knew, too!” Mrs. Chiyoda said. “You reserved a seat for some boxes. Spending extra money
that way is a sign that the items carried on the plane are valuable.”

Nobody else in the room could understand what we were talking about, and I felt my pulse race. Mrs. Chiyoda. Would she risk her successful career as a tour operator to steal from a guest?

“Where were you tonight?” I asked.

She glared. “At the hotel all evening, resting. If you don’t believe me, ask the waiters in the restaurant who served me!”

“What are you all talking about? I need to take my incident report,” Brian Hunter said.

The things the young night manager asked were all straightforward—when was I in the room, when was I not, when had I last seen the kimono? Brian asked me for a receipt to show the kimono’s value, which of course I didn’t have—just the short note, handwritten in Japanese, that Mr. Shima had written.

“I can translate,” Mrs. Chiyoda said grandly, and she read it. She shook her head when she was done reading it.

“It describes a very old robe belonging to a museum, but it doesn’t say exact age or value. I cannot begin to guess value—that is not my expertise—but I can think that nobody should have given such valuables to a young person to carry. Antique kimono are irreplaceable cultural treasures.”

“Right,” I said coldly to her. “Can’t we move on and get in touch with the police?”

“What I’d like to do first is interview the maid and the maintenance superintendent to your floor—they’d be the only ones with master key cards to your room,” Mark Leese said.

“As Mrs. Chiyoda pointed out, this is a very valuable item,” I said. “We can’t let time pass and for it to slip farther away. Starting immediately, I’d like the police to
conduct intensive searches of luggage at all the airports—Dulles as well as Reagan National and that one closer to Baltimore.”

“Miss Shimura, I know you’re from a different country,” Mark Leese said. “Unfortunately, in the U.S. of A., the police wouldn’t put out an APB on a missing bathrobe.”

I saw Brian Hunter’s mouth quiver, and then it came—the laugh. He thought the whole idea of an all-points bulletin for a young woman’s bathrobe was hilarious.

“I keep telling you that a kimono is not a bathrobe,” I said between gritted teeth. “Now, I’ve got a question for you. There were two times today that the entry code to my room didn’t work. Each time I had the key card recoded to work. Once it was recoded by a woman called Julie, and then, most recently by you, Brian.”

Brian nodded. “I remember that.”

“At the time you said something that I remember very clearly. You told me that there were a number of guests having problems with their key cards. I want to know their names.”

“Ma’am, we prize confidentiality for our guests—”

“Let me put it another way, then. Exactly how many requests did you have about entry problems with Room 410?”

“I’m sure just the ones you made—”

“How can you be sure? I mean, how can you be sure that the person asking for entry to Room 410 was always really me?”

“We don’t give out key cards without asking for ID. It’s hotel policy.”

“You forgot to ask for my ID—”

“No, I didn’t!” Brian was tugging at his goatee as if he’d become extremely nervous. He knew that I knew. But he wouldn’t admit it in front of the security officer.

A cellular phone hanging in a case attached to Mark Leese’s belt sounded a high, shrill beep. “Yeah. No kidding. We’re in 410. See you.” He hung up and grinned at me.

“Well, I have good news. Your passport’s been found in the area where we recycle scrap paper. I guess you must have dropped it in your room and it was accidentally thrown away.”

“I’d never drop something as valuable as a passport,” I protested, shutting up when Hugh put a restraining hand on my arm.

A moment later there was a knock on the door. Mark Leese opened the door to a maintenance worker in a horribly stained uniform who handed him a small red booklet with a flourish.

“Found it in the recycling Dumpster. It was pretty close to the top,” the man said.

“What amazing work!” I said. “Were you also looking for the kimono?”

“Sure. They told me to look for a robe, but I didn’t find one. Anyway, why would it be in paper recycling? Something made of cloth would have gotten mixed up in laundry.”

I watched Mark Leese turn over the pages of the passport with a frown.

I said what I’d been thinking since I first saw the passport in the maintenance worker’s hand. “It’s not my passport.”

“How’d you know?” The security officer shot me a suspicious glance.

“Japanese passports are red. American ones are blue.”

Mark Leese nodded. “Yes, unfortunately this isn’t yours. But it’s good we found it.”

“Why? It’s not as if you can give it back to the owner.”

“What are you saying?” Mrs. Chiyoda interrupted. “Of course he will give the passport to me, and I will give it to the correct member of my tour group!”

“You can’t give it to Hana if she’s not here,” I snapped.

“How did you know the name on the passport?” Mark Leese demanded. Every face in the room turned to me.

I looked at Hugh, and he shook his head ever so slightly. I remembered belatedly that he’d urged me to keep Hana’s name quiet for the time being. I’d spoken without thinking because I wanted to confirm my suspicion.

“Hana is a friend of mine,” I said, making a slight exaggeration. “She was supposed to meet me earlier today and she never showed up. Her roommate and I are a little worried about her whereabouts. In fact, we searched the mall for her between seven and eight-thirty this evening.”

“It’s just midnight! Don’t worry,” Mrs. Chiyoda said, giving me a phony smile. “Some of our ladies like to stay out quite late.”

“You’re
sure
you never saw this passport before?” Mark Leese asked. “You’re
sure
you didn’t have this Japanese woman’s passport and accidentally drop it in the recycling?”

So he suspected me, all because I’d known the name on the passport. If he thought I was dishonest, he might think there had never really been a bride’s kimono in my luggage—he could think I was concocting a theft in order to make money from an insurance company.

“I’d not seen the passport before,” I said, my voice cracking. “I just sensed that since Hana Matsura’s missing, she might be in trouble—”

“Please don’t worry,” Mrs. Chiyoda repeated to me. “Our girls occasionally stay out so late that they don’t
come back till morning. It is the excitement of travel in America. I’m sure that Matsura-san will be very glad that her lost passport was found so quickly. My thanks to the excellent work of your hotel staff.” Mrs. Chiyoda nodded to Mark Leese and Brian Hunter. Then she turned to me. “Please get some sleep, Shimura-san. It will be a long day tomorrow at Potomac Mills.”

“I’m not going. I’ve got to work.” Though I would have gone in a flash if that mall had a boutique that could replace the kimono I’d lost. But this was the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth, and the fabric of the day was polyester, not Japanese silk. And I was no longer in Japan but America, where things moved more quickly and dangerously than I’d remembered.

W
hen I peered at the clock radio the next morning and saw it was seven-thirty, my first smug reaction was that I’d adjusted to the U.S. time difference. A half minute later the events of the previous evening came back. It was around one
A.M
. when our tense gathering had broken up and I’d walked Hugh Glendinning to the hotel lobby to say good night. He had looked at me for a long moment and asked, “Do you want me to stay?”

“Of course not! You know how I feel about you—I mean, how I
don’t
feel about you.” I was blushing, giving myself away.

“Forget it, then. I just thought you might be nervous about security. Do you think you’ll move out tomorrow?”

I shook my head. “I’m not particularly afraid for myself. And I know I’ve got nothing left to steal—not unless the thief is into vintage clothes, which I doubt, because my own wardrobe was left untouched.”

Hugh cracked a smile. “Every cloud has a silver lining. I’ll go off now, as my day tomorrow is quite demanding. I could meet you for dinner, though. Call me, if you’d like that.”

He’d put the ball in my court, but before I had a chance to volley back, I had to deal with meeting Alli
son to discuss my outlines and then figuring out whether to tell her, as well as the Northern Virginia police, about the stolen kimono. The more I thought about getting police help, the warier I felt. I knew that the police in my mother’s hometown of Baltimore—just forty miles north of where I was—couldn’t even solve 50 percent of the city’s homicides. I could only imagine how little energy would be devoted to a hunt for a kimono that belonged to a Japanese institution. If I reported the theft to the police, the only certainty I could count on was that Mr. Shima and his cohorts would hear that I’d fallen down in my courier duties within my first twenty-four hours of service. Furthermore, the kimono exhibition hadn’t yet opened at the Museum of Asian Arts. The Morioka Museum might decide to remove all their kimono because of the theft of the one that the Museum of Asian Arts hadn’t been willing to protect. Then I’d have Allison Powell furious with me, too.

No, I decided, it wasn’t time for the police yet. If there was a chance that I could quietly get back the kimono from Hana, or whoever else had taken it, I’d be saved. The Morioka and the Museum of Asian Arts would never know. At least, that was my theory.

I couldn’t dial my parents for advice because it was only four-thirty
A.M
. in California, so I decided to damn my budget and call Takeo Kayama in Japan. In Tokyo it was early evening. I called the country house first.

Japanese phones ring differently: they have a soft, fast, and high-pitched trill. I was overcome with homesickness as I heard the sound of the ring. If I’d stayed home I wouldn’t have lost the museum’s kimono. I would be starting off my morning with a nice long run, followed by a morning of shopping in antiques galleries or reading some of my trade magazines. How peaceful my old life had been.

When nobody picked up, I decided to try the city apartment where Takeo occasionally stayed during the week. Again, the phone rang with the same trill, and I felt as homesick as before.

“Yes?” Takeo said briskly, picking up the phone after the sixth ring.

“I’m so glad that you’re there, I’ve got a big problem—”

“Rei?”

Didn’t he recognize my voice? I answered crossly, “Yes, I’m calling from my hotel.”

“Oh. I was just about to go out.”

“Out? You never go out!” Was it my imagination, or was there the sound of someone else’s voice in the background? A woman’s voice. Well, it was probably his sister. Her apartment was next door to his.

“Natsumi and I are going to the engagement party for a family friend. But you can tell me quickly what’s going on.”

“Okay. I really just have one question. If you were responsible for something precious that belonged to another person, and that precious item disappeared, would you tell the person immediately or try your best to find it before confessing about the loss?”

“Is the person in question Japanese?”

“Yes.”

“You lost my safety charm, didn’t you?” There was accusation in his tone.

“No, no, it’s still in my carry-on bag.” I was irritated that Takeo was so wound up about his silly amulet. “One of the Morioka kimono that I brought was stolen from my room. I reported it to hotel security, but I haven’t done anything about the police yet because I think there might be a chance I can get it back. That is, if the person I suspect of taking it actually took it.”

“Oh, no. That sounds complicated—”

“It’s a complete disaster. It turns out that because this kimono was never listed on the Museum of Asian Art’s loan receipt, it might not be insured against loss. It’s worth fifty thousand dollars at least—not to mention that it’s a one-of-a-kind piece that can’t be replaced.”

“Rei, I’m sorry. That’s such bad news—I wish I could help you, but I’ve got to go out right now.”

“Just answer my question first. Do you think the Morioka people would be more disturbed if I don’t go to the police immediately?”

“I don’t know. Theft is quite disturbing to the Japanese psyche, maybe because we have so little of it here, and everyone thinks it’s done by foreigners. It’s really unfortunate that the treasure was stolen in the U.S.”

“Ironically, I think it might have been a Japanese thief.”

“Who would believe you? The Morioka is a conservative Japanese institution. I suspect they’ll describe the crime as something done by the Americans against the Japanese.”

“Oh, my God.” I thought it had been bad when the Japanese media had caught me in a clinch with Takeo, but this would be far worse. It could set back foreign relations between the two nations.

“I’ll call you when I get a chance,” Takeo said. “Try to keep your spirits up.”

He’d hung up before I could reply with similar good wishes. What a strange conversation. Still, he’d confirmed what I thought about not telling the Morioka the bad news too early.

I had a quick room-service breakfast of a bagel and juice, then picked up my note cards relating to kimono and prepared to head down to the hotel’s business center. I still had to work up two lecture outlines for Alli
son. I looked at the clock and saw that it was not yet eight
A.M
.—the scheduled time of departure for the office ladies’ trip to Potomac Mills. There was one last thing I could do before going downstairs.

I called Room 401, and a soft voice answered in Japanese. Kyoko, I thought, judging from the hopeful tone.

“Hi, it’s Rei. Did Hana come back?” I said, sensing the answer.

“No. I’m very worried.” Kyoko’s voice quavered.

“Well, maybe she’s en route. It must have been a really fun night for her,” I said sarcastically, thinking about how hard my own evening had been.

“Rei-san, what about your meeting with the lawyer? Is everything all right now?”

“Not really,” I said. “The kimono’s still missing. By the way, I’d appreciate it if you keep that information private. I would be embarrassed if others knew of my misfortune.”

“Of course,” Kyoko said. “I’m not a gossip like Hana was.”

I felt a sense of foreboding twist in my stomach at her use of the past-tense verb. It was as if Kyoko had decided Hana had died. “About Hana,” I began. “Why don’t you tell Mrs. Chiyoda that she’s missing? You shouldn’t have to go through this misery alone. She might have given Hana some tips on where to look for guys—you never know. She is the tour group leader.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll get a chance to speak to her before we leave for Potomac Mills.”

I hung up with Kyoko and went downstairs to the hotel’s business center, which was a conference room that had a couple of computer terminals, a printer, a fax machine, and Saundra, the hotel’s gum-chewing “business associate.”

“Do you want to check e-mail?” Saundra asked when I checked in at her desk.

Instead of snapping at her that I didn’t believe in e-mail, I said, “I’d like to write something and print it out. Do you have a word processor or electric typewriter?”

“We used to have a word processor, but when it broke, nobody around here could fix it. Most guests know how to keyboard on the computers—we have both a Mac and an IBM compatible. Which do you want?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to use either,” I said, feeling stupid. How had I managed to go so long in my life without using computers? At home in Japan, I still used a word processor that I’d gotten secondhand from the office of the kitchenware company where I once taught English.

Saundra looked sadly at me and said, “With tutorial instruction—that means, me helping you—the fee is fifteen dollars per quarter hour. Once you get started, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

She was right. It didn’t take more than ten minutes for me to learn how to format, save, and print my work. The harder part was bringing in the two specific women and their clothing to illustrate the power that Japanese women had in fostering opulent kimono design in the Edo period—and to show how, with Japan’s increasing wealth during this time, kimono styles, as well as roles for women, became more circumscribed. I’d thought this all through back in Japan, but putting it down on paper for Allison Powell’s inspection was a bit unwieldy.

As I bluffed my way along, I thought that in a sense, what had happened with kimono design in the past was recurring with modern office ladies’ shopping mania. Because Hana and Kyoko’s fathers were solid providers, the girls were able to spend their own income on travel
and luxuries. They would marry new providers, and if luck was with them, keep shopping. Hana had talked about escaping this routine with an overseas sex fling, but still, she was looking forward to a future as tightly bound in tradition as that of my Japanese aunt or my grandmother.

After two hours, I printed out what I had composed, signed the bill that Saundra prepared for me, and went up to my room to dress for Washington. Then I went down to the front desk, where Julie, the woman who had helped me with my key card the first time around, was checking in some new guests.

“I’m Rei Shimura. Yesterday I had a problem with my key card. I don’t know if you remember,” I began.

“Oh, yes, Miss Shy-myoore.”

“Well, yesterday evening I reported a theft from my room. I don’t know if you heard about it?”

“I saw it on the log that the night manager leaves for the next manager on duty. I’m sorry you’re missing some items, but as you must know from the sign on your door, the hotel cannot be held liable for items guests claim are missing from their rooms.”

“I see. How often does this kind of thing happen here?”

“Not often at all,” Julie said, sounding defensive. “Most of our guests like to use safety-deposit boxes. I know I showed you one yesterday, but you turned it down—”

“The item that I had was too large.”

“The kimono, maybe, but not the passport and plane tickets.”

Brian had written a surprisingly thorough report, but Julie still didn’t seem to care. I looked at the front-desk manager, trying to think how I could coax her into action. She seemed a rather prissy sort. I’d have to play on that.

“Yesterday, you quite properly asked me for identifi
cation when I told you that I needed my key card to be altered to get into my room,” I said.

Julie nodded. “It’s hotel policy.”

“Brian mentioned to me later that there were a few other Japanese ladies having trouble with their key cards. Did you handle more key-card requests than the one from me?”

“Yes, if I remember correctly, I did. There were a couple of Japanese girls needing help, but it turned out their key cards were fine; they were just putting them in upside down.”

“Do you keep a log of the guests who request help with the key cards?”

“No. It’s a small enough matter, plus we know everything’s safe because we check for ID each time we do it.”

I nodded, thinking that Julie would be the last one to let a crook slip by. “Have you heard anything from maintenance or housekeeping about the kimono being found?”

Julie shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s red, isn’t it? That would have shown up easily if it got mixed up in the laundry. But there’s a bulletin in the employee area about it, so everyone’s keeping their eyes peeled.”

I skipped lunch because I was disheartened, choosing to walk the two miles to the West Falls Church Metro Station in my sensible low heels. I passed the length of the mall and thought how odd it was I wasn’t seeing other people. All were enclosed in their automobiles, despite the fact that it was a sunny day in the sixties.

Hana had gone to the mall, and she’d never come back. Had she been kidnapped? I recalled the urban legend that swirls around every American shopping mall. It involves a kidnapper taking a child into a rest room and cutting and dyeing the child’s hair just before an alarm is raised. The kidnapper always vanishes, and the
child is always found. The story is scary enough to be titillating, but not so devastating that it would keep people from shopping at the mall.

I couldn’t imagine that a woman as fit and young as Hana could easily be kidnapped, unless there was a weapon involved. It was easier to believe that she could have gone somewhere willingly with a one-night stand who had wanted more than sex. Something much worse.

I thought about Hana all the way into Washington, and then, as I got out of the Metro and started my trek to Kalorama, I moved on to the problem of how I’d tell Allison and Jamie about the kimono loss. In a way, they deserved to hear about it, because it wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t rejected the
uchikake
for the exhibition.

A dark thought that had flitted through my mind returned. What if Jamie had raised the ruckus about not letting the kimono stay in the museum because she’d
wanted
it to be at risk?

It didn’t seem likely, especially since she hadn’t known that the bride’s kimono was coming. Still, it was possible. By the time I reached the museum entrance, I’d decided to hold off telling Allison and Jamie what had happened. I would nose around them a bit longer and learn whether my suspicions were justified.