The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) (6 page)

"I'm sorry to disturb you. I was just calling back about tomorrow morning. You want to cancel, I assume."

"Tomorrow morning? Goodness, that call I made to you. I almost forgot." Lila paused. "I don't want to cancel."

"But you said that you were wiped out from the police—"

"I like to have lots of things going on! It keeps life from being dreary."

She was too lively for me. "Sorry, but Roppongi is hard for me to get to. Could we meet elsewhere?"

"The Kayama School is in Roppongi. You were there yesterday and today," she reminded me.

"Yes, but, well, the circumstances are a bit difficult. ..." I was making a typically Japanese excuse. It worked well in the original language, but sounded pretty phony in English.

"I need to talk to you," Lila insisted. "Not about antiques. About the Kayama School."

Why talk to me instead of Lieutenant Hata? I thought of how Lila had seen Aunt Norie break down crying in front of the police. Maybe Lila was afraid that things would be worse for a foreigner such as herself.

"All right," l said, compassion rising. "Can we meet somewhere besides your apartment?"

"Oh, I can't leave. I have three small children, and my nanny doesn't arrive until eleven. Then I have aerobics class, and after that it's a women's club luncheon. Every second after eleven is completely booked." Lila sounded desperate.

I buckled under.

* * *

"You look so different, Miss Shimura!" Mr. Oi, the Roppongi Hills concierge, greeted me with a startled expression when I walked into the sun-filled marble and glass lobby.

"It's my hair," I said gloomily. My hair had once been short and chic, but I was letting it grow. The ends had crept over my ears, and it would probably take another year for all the different layers to match up. For now, I used gel and bobby pins and slicked everything back behind my ears. Richard Randall said the style looked like a low-budget Isabella Rossellini, but I didn't believe him.

"No, not the hair. It is your eyes. You look tired and almost sad."

I had good reason to feel sad. But I didn't want to tell the concierge about the murder at the Kayama School six blocks away. No, he could find out on television or through a tabloid.

"I'm here to see Lila Braithwaite," I told him. "In Apartment seven-oh-two."

"She is expecting you? Feel free to go ahead. I trust you in the building." He sighed heavily. "Is Mr. Glendinning returning to Tokyo?"

"No," I said flatly, realizing that was the reason Mr. Oi thought I was so blue. The death of someone was worse than losing a bad ex, but I didn't want to get into it. I just said good-bye and went to the seventh floor.

Lila's door, unlike the others, was decorated with a few hand-painted children's works of art. I knocked carefully so that I wouldn't disengage the taped pictures, and Lila opened the door. She was dressed in her aerobics gear, turquoise leggings topped with a short Tokyo American Club T-shirt. A three-year- old girl was clinging to her slim thigh. I could hear the sound of Doraemon, an animated cat video, blaring from a nearby room, and two children were screeching somewhere else.

"What are the proper words of welcome?" Lila asked wearily. "Irrasshai? The maid hasn't come in yet, so I apologize for the clutter."

"Mummy, I want crackers now," her daughter demanded, and as Lila went to get them, I spent a moment looking around the apartment, which had a similar layout to the one I'd lived in, but felt so different. An army of plastic dinosaurs lay scattered across a Chinese rug, and sippy cups and brightly colored plastic bowls were ringed around an arrangement of cherry blossoms on the glossy paulownia tea table. A handsome Meiji-period tansu chest stood in the dining alcove, a protective plastic sheet draped over the top. Hugh had said he wanted marriage and children. I felt a slight pang, remembering.

Lila stuck a cracker in her daughter's mouth and carried her into the room where the television was blaring. She then shut the door and came back to me.

"It's too chaotic here. Let's go in the kitchen."

I cleared a few cereal pieces off a chair and sat down at a scrubbed wooden table decorated with a pitcher of pink and white roses. They probably had been bought at My Magic Forest, which was only two blocks away.

Lila buzzed around microwaving us two cups of tea. She put milk in both our cups without asking, but I had to ask her for sugar. She put it in for me herself, as if I were one of her children, while prattling about Richard Randall and how glad she was he had a suitable girlfriend, because his parents worried endlessly about him, and she'd not been able to introduce him to any girls who worked out. I rolled my eyes at that but figured now was not the time to tell her we weren't romantic partners.

"What is it about the Kayamas?" I put down my overly sweet cup of tea. "I mean,, that's why you wanted to talk to me, isn't it?"

"I was wondering . . ." She trailed off, looking uncomfortable. "How is it that you already knew one of the policemen at the scene?"

"Lieutenant Hata gets around," I said, adding, "There was a burglary in Roppongi Hills last summer."

"A burglary in Roppongi Hills? My God!" She glanced toward the closed door of the TV room, as if to make sure her children were still safe.

"The break-in was an extremely rare, isolated event." I reassured her. "Did Lieutenant Hata interview you yesterday? His English is good, isn't it?"

"I don't think I understood him, and I might have misstated the facts." Lila grimaced. "I'm afraid I left a wrong impression."

"Did you tell him about the argument Norie and Sakura had in class?" I asked. That was what had worried me.

"No. He just wanted to know our movements in the school that day, and I guess I told him that I was somewhere that I wasn't. Now I realize that he's probably going to find out the truth, and I'm a bit scared."

As Lila spoke, she lifted clean glasses from the dishwasher up into the kitchen cabinet. Her cropped T-shirt rode up, exposing her slim back, which was marred by a few scratches. She must have gotten them roughhousing with the kids. Motherhood really was a formidable task.

"Don't be scared of Lieutenant Hata. He's a very kind person, and he's young, like us, without the formality of the older generation. You can tell him what you've told me."

"Couldn't you do it?" Again, she made the same slight grimace. "You understand both cultures, and your Aunt Norie is very influential in the school. By the way, I don't want to forget about the antique dishes you have for sale."

The transition, and its implications, wereas rather crude. As much as I wanted someone to buy Mrs. Morita's unlucky plates, I wouldn't tell the lieutenant stories that might not be true. In a cool voice I told Lila, "I'm afraid I already have a buyer for the plates. And as far as my aunt being influential, she certainly wasn't told about the Kayama students' private meeting yesterday."

Lila looked away. "It wasn't our idea to meet alone. You and your aunt left the Kaikan early yesterday. After you were gone, Sakura said we had to come back the next day to go over the final layout for the flower exhibition at Mitsutan. We assumed Mrs. Koda or another staff member would call Norie with the details. I'm surprised that it didn't work out that way."

I could accept that, but I still watched Lila, waiting for more.

"I told your lieutenant that I arrived at the school at four o'clock, and went upstairs with my friend Nadine to the classroom. Sakura talked to us for about half an hour, and then a group of us decided to stop in the school's restaurant for tea. When we were leaving for home, we took the elevator down to the main floor and ran into the police." She took a deep breath. "What really happened is that I didn't join the others for tea until the last five minutes. I went looking for Mrs. Koda."

"Mrs. Koda wasn't around," I said. "My aunt and Natsumi and Miss Okada all couldn't find her."

"Oh, could that help me? That nobody could find her?" Lila asked eagerly. "Lila, I'm sure that if you walked around the administrative office on the second floor, a dozen secretarial workers would have seen you. There's your alibi." I looked at my watch, thinking I'd wasted my morning.

"But nobody saw me! I didn't go to the second floor. I went up to the Kayama family's penthouse." Her face flushed. "I know where it is because I'm president of the foreign students' association and was invited to dinner."

Until the day before, I had not known the Kayamas lived in the school building. Norie had mentioned they had a lovely country residence. I asked, "How does one reach the penthouse level? The elevator doesn't list any floor above nine."

"You ride the elevator to nine and go into a small hallway just off the main one. There's a private staircase leading up."

"Why did you think Mrs. Koda would be in the personal apartment? She's an employee, not a family member," I asked as a piercing screech came from beyond the kitchen.

Lila bolted, and I followed. The daughter who had wanted crackers was lying on the floor. A little boy of about four was sitting on top of her. He was flexing a pair of scissors in his sister's wispy blond hair.

The scene of Sakura lying dead with scissors in her throat came back to me. I gasped, and Lila's third child, a seven-year-old boy, looked up from the television to my face.

"Mummy, you said no more Japanese babysitters!" he cried.

"I'm not from Japan," I said, trying to gain composure. "I speak English, just like you do. We're from the same continent but not the same country. Can you think of where that is?"

"You're…you're from a weird place!"

"Hush, Donald," Lila implored while trying to pull the scissors from her daughter's hair. I saw now that the scissors were child-safe, made of blunt plastic pieces that couldn't cut flesh. I relaxed, but Lila was still upset. "You children are impossible. If you don't behave, I'm going to run away!"

"You already do. Aerobics, shopping . . ." Donald, the television watcher, cataloged nastily. Had Richard really said Lila's children were fun?

"I'm so sorry, Rei." Lila didn't even look up. "We're going to have to finish later. Darcy's hair is so tangled she's going to need a cream rinse. And David, you need a time-out!"

David, the four-year-old who had done the bad deed, started to cry as loudly as his little sister. Donald aimed the remote control at the TV, turning up the volume to rock-concert level.

"When can we finish our talk?" I shouted over the din.

"Oh, I don't know! Come to the exhibit tomorrow at Mitsutan. Maybe I can slip away, get a moment of peace."

Would the Kayama School go on with Friday's exhibition after the death of a star teacher? It seemed callous.

I left Roppongi Hills with my old, troubling memories and a few new ones.

I telephoned Aunt Norie in Yokohama, but she didn't answer me personally.

The machine spoke in her soft voice, requesting me to leave a message. I did that and spent the rest of the afternoon at an auction, wandering past tables laden with old prints, but I was too distracted to make any bids. In mid-afternoon I left the auction house and went out onto the street. A newsstand was loaded with copies of the
Asahi Shinbun
. The front page bore Sakura's face, and right underneath it was a photo of Aunt Norie posing next to a flower arrangement that had won Best in Show at an exhibition in 1996. The story jumped to an inside page, where there was a recent photograph of Takeo and Natsumi Kayama in formal dress and a year-old snap of me with shorter hair than I had now, wearing an equally short evening dress. How could I have dressed like that? The dress was no longer fashionable, and looking at it now made me feel half naked. Since I couldn't read much of the story, I returned to Yanaka and stopped in at the Family Mart. Its owner, my friend Mr. Waka, had enjoyed so much success with his first convenience store in Nihonzutsumi that he'd opened a second one in Yanaka.

"Shimura-san, welcome!" my friend called when I stepped through his spotless glass doors decorated with cheerful green and yellow cartoon figures. No matter where you went in Japan, Family Marts were all the same, bright and sparkling and filled with comic books and good things to eat. The difference in this particular shop was a proprietor who ate half of the candy display when he was bored, giving rise to his gently rounded stomach.

"Oh, the wide worlds ways. Cherry blossoms left unwatched even for three days!" Mr. Waka said when I came up to the counter.

"Is that another cherry blossom proverb?" I asked.

"No, it is a haiku by the poet Ryota. It means that when a cherry tree is not observed for a few days, the blooms will disappear. Just as a person who has been away from one's eyes can also suffer great change. In the short time I have not seen you, you have come close to the face of death."

"You know a lot about poetry," I said.

"My surname, Waka, literally means 'poetry.' Perhaps that's why I have a fondness for the literary form." Mr. Waka beamed.

"Well, I came to ask you about news articles rather than poetry," I confessed, holding out the
Asahi
that I couldn't read.

"You look hungry as well as unhappy," my friend said gently. "Go to the candy shelves and choose something sweet to perk up the afternoon."

I came back with a box of Pocky and chewed the chocolate-covered pretzels slowly as Mr. Waka translated. The Asahi reported that "Sakura Sato, a high-ranking teacher at the Kayama School, had died of knife wounds. Police investigation was proceeding at priority speed. The death had been reported by Norie Shimura, a flower-arranging student, to the police."

"My aunt is a teacher, not a student," I objected.

"Miss Rei Shimura, a civilian homicide investigator, assisted Lieutenant Hata of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police at the crime scene. The niece of Norie Shimura is of mixed Japanese and American blood. She is permitted to live in Japan because she has a cultural work visa. Her antiques-buying business had a gross of two million yen last year."

I didn't know what to be more upset about, the ridiculous labeling of me as a civilian homicide investigator, or the revelation that I'd made less than fifteen thousand dollars in my first year of business. I had thought it was a decent start—at least I wasn't losing money—but the small figure might turn off some of my well-heeled clients. Then I shook myself. What was I doing worrying about business when I was caught up in murder?