The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) (31 page)

David ran straight for the powder room, and I hoped that he wouldn't need my assistance there. I stepped into the apartment, which was as jumbled with child paraphernalia as I'd seen it before. There was a splendid flower arrangement on the coffee table, cherry blossoms stretching upward and draped artistically with gauze. It looked very Kayama. I passed into the kitchen looking for Lila. I saw a bottle of Cristal champagne and two goblets standing nearby: probably she was planning to welcome home her husband. I peered in the children's bedrooms and the master bedroom, where the bed was unmade. Mr. Oi had guessed she might have been resting; maybe she had only recently awakened. But where was she?

David flushed the toilet and was skipping through the apartment. "You and me can play all day," he chortled.

"We need to find Mummy, and she's not here. I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you back to Mr. Oi. You like him, don't you?"

"Lolly man?"

As David mulled over the suggestion, I said, "Why don't we take your favorite toy downstairs? Who is it?"

"My Doraemon. He was playing in there." David led me back to his mother's bedroom and pointed toward the closet.

"Okay, let's get him." I flung open the door to the walk-in closet, looking for the toy that matched the cartoon show.

I didn't know who screamed first, but suddenly the apartment was filled with sound. Instead of finding a stuffed animal in the closet, I'd found two: Lila Braithwaite, cowering in a black lace teddy, and Masanobu Kayama, the iemoto of the Kayama School, wearing nothing more than a towel.

"Mummy shouldn't play in the closet with Doraemon," David said with satisfaction, grabbing a big blue stuffed cat from behind the iemoto's ankles. "He belongs to me."

I escaped, but it was a disaster. Lila was sobbing about invasion of privacy while Masanobu Kayama shouted that if I breathed a word of foul gossip to anyone, I'd never get a teaching certificate. Through it all, David sang the Doraemon theme.

I was shaking as I rode the elevator back down and could barely acknowledge Mr. Oi when he called out good-bye to me. I got into the van and sat still for a few minutes trying to get a handle on things.

Lila was sleeping with the iemoto. Now I understood why she knew the way to the Kayamas' private floor—and why she had scratches on her midriff. They were marks of passion. Had Sakura known? Most certainly, especially if the headmaster had made a habit over the years of seducing selected students. Lila was in her mid- thirties and extremely attractive—in the teddy, her aerobicized body had looked fit and fabulous. Poor Mr. Braithwaite, away in Canada. He probably was too busy to suspect his wife was involved with someone else. Richard might have known. I imagined that he baby-sat when Lila needed time for her lover. How the woman had energy for a love affair when she had three small children around, I didn't understand. Although she had once said to me, "I like to have lots of things going on. It keeps life from being dreary."

I put the van in gear and headed toward Richard's apartment in Shibuya. The police had told me they would call him there with the news that I'd found David. After finding a rare free parking place in a side street, I locked the van and walked around the corner to Moonbeam Villa. The building was more expensive than mine and housed many foreigners as well as Japanese tenants. I couldn't have afforded it with my unstable income, but that was all right with me. I liked Yanaka better.

A young man in a red baseball jacket was sitting on a fussy-looking faux Victorian chair in the lobby reading a Spanish-language newspaper. I hung back until I was sure that the person was not Che. It was Enrique, Richard's former boyfriend.

"Aren't you Enrique?" I asked in Spanish, and he looked up in surprise.

"Oh, Rei-san! " He smiled up at me. "I'm taking my siesta while Ricardo takes care of the children. They're too lively for me."

Remembering how energetically Enrique had danced, I rather doubted that. I sat down next to him and said, "So Richard kept the other two here with him? I wonder why the police told me to take David on his own to Roppongi Hills. What a mistake!"

"Yes, Richard was upset when the cops called him. What happened there?" From Enrique's expression, it was clear that he knew about Lila.

"I walked in on them," I said. "Now I feel like the biggest fool in the world."

"Che told us that the flower-arranging boss was a man of bad moral character. Its true, isn't it?"

"Well, he is a widower, so I suppose that his actions aren't hurting a spouse. But Lila is married."

"That is not the way love should be," Enrique said with vigor.

"What is your ideal?" I asked. It felt strange to be having this conversation. I was jealous when Richard had put Enrique ahead of me, but now I was determined to give him a chance.

"I believe that love is forever. You do not fall in love with one person and the next week or year with another! Love is difficult for Ricardo," Enrique said. "He falls madly, madly, and then he cools off. It is like being in a heat wave followed by snow. The only one he keeps a strong, consistent feeling for, is you."

"Not really. He blew up at me, did you hear that? He's switched over to Che's world. He won't tell me what he 's going to do later on today."

"Maybe he doesn't quite know himself," Enrique said. "If there's one thing I've learned about that boy, it's that he is more show than go."

I smiled at his use of the Western expression and asked, "Do you know what's going to happen later today?"

Enrique shook his head. "I'm not in the important circle. Richard, with his ability to speak to foreign journalists, is closer. But still not entirely there."

"It's such a shame. Such a waste of a good person. Well, I'm going upstairs. I need to talk to him about Lila."

"In front of the children?" Enrique sounded horrified.

"I'll be discreet."

Richard had always kept an immaculate apartment, with gleaming wooden floors, black leather furniture, and the only splash of color coming from bookcases lined with the bright covers of animation videos. I was worried that the Braithwaite children might have trashed the place. Donald and Darcy, however, were parked in front of his television set watching Pocket Monsters, the cartoon that achieved notoriety in the late 1990s when thousands of children in Japan went into epileptic seizures triggered by a cartoon character's flashing eyes. From the way Donald glanced away from the set, gave me a bored look of recognition, and stuck his finger inside his nose. Darcy, the baby, was placid, alternating her attention between her sippy cup and a chocolate biscotti.

"You really know how to take care of children," I complimented Richard.

"No, you're the one! The police called, and I owe you everything for finding David. But where is he?"

"Long story. I'll get to that when we have some privacy. How did you ever lose him in the first place?"

"He slipped away when we were looking at vintage Levis. I searched for half an hour before getting scared that somebody might have snatched him. That's when I made the police report." Richard crooked his finger, indicating that I should follow him into his bedroom in order to talk more freely. We kept the door open so that we could see what the children were doing.

"I left David at Roppongi Hills. Lila was home, and she had company." I raised my eyebrows, so he caught my meaning.

"You know." Richard sighed heavily. "In the beginning, I had no idea why she wanted me to baby-sit on weekends. When the children started talking about a flower man, I thought they meant a cute young delivery boy. Che and the rest of them in Stop Killing Flowers told me the headmaster had a secret friend."

"Are they in love?" I mouthed the last couple of words, because I too wanted to shelter the children. They had a father. For all I knew, Lila's marriage would survive and her relationship with the iemoto would wilt like picked violets.

"I don't think so. It's all about power. She gets to be president of the foreign students' association and has already got three certificates under her belt. Garter belt, I should say. I'm sure she has great lingerie."

"Yes," I agreed. "La Perla."

"You didn't catch them in flagrante delicto? Wow!"

"Uncle Richard, I want another biscotti!" Donald whined.

"The jar is on the table, my sweet. Help yourself," Richard called back. To me, he said, "I'm trying to teach him to be more self-reliant."

"The situation with the iemoto sounds like a potential case of sexual harassment. If he drops Lila, she might sue. But who knows?" I was trying to give Richard's cousin the benefit of the doubt.

"How many members does the school have nationwide?" Richard asked.

"Twenty thousand. And twelve thousand of those have teacher credentials."

"He'd have to be busier than a hooker in Bangkok to sexually harass everybody up for a teacher's certificate."

"And if he was that type, my aunt and all her friends would not be part of the school," I said. "I doubt it's a situation where a woman has to sleep with him to get ahead."

"Sakura might have known!" Richard said. "Lila told me that she was freaked out once when Sakura secretly followed her from the Kaikan all the way to Roppongi Hills. Lila thought that Sakura wanted to check out how fancy the building was, whether she was worthy enough to become the foreign students' president. In hindsight, I bet that Sakura was interested in knowing where the iemoto was dropping in for a matinee."

Lila and Masanobu Kayama had a definite motive to kill Sakura, but for them to be falsely accused of such a crime would result in terrible things: disgrace to the Kayama School, and perhaps Lila's losing custody of her children in a divorce. The idea that the headmaster and Lila could be killers made me feel suddenly anxious about David.

"I shouldn't have let David stay there. It was irresponsible of me." I leaned against Richard's wall.

"Look, you found him at the shrine; that was pretty damn lucky. Come over here and sit down. The longer you slouch against my Mapplethorpe print, the more glass cleaner I'll have to use to get off the smudges. You look like hell, babe."

"Well, I was at the shrine sale. Why were you there, anyway?"

"Don't you remember the good old days when I helped you carry things? I thought it might be a way to make up. Of course, I stopped looking for you after I lost David."

"You don't keep track of the shrine schedule. And I didn't tell you that I'd be at the Togo Shrine." I was disturbed by Richard's facile answer. It just didn't ring true.

Richard was silent for a minute. "I heard you might be there from Che."

"What is he doing, tapping my telephone?"

"Oh, no. What do you think we are, the government?" Richard bristled. "There's a lookout in your neighborhood, though. Stop Killing Flowers wanted to see if you really worked at Mr. Waka's Family Mart, as I told Che you did—"

"Oh, no!"

"Relax, Mr. Waka told them that you're his apprentice."

I was too worried to appreciate the irony in Mr. Waka's defense. "Has Che been slipping notes under my door?"

"No, but it's interesting that you mention that. Richard paused. "I really shouldn't be telling you this, but the Stop Killing Flowers lookout person saw a lady slip a letter under your door two days ago."

"Was there a physical description?" I asked, feeling excited.

"A middle-aged woman with flowers under one arm—a typical flower lover. I told them it was probably your aunt dropping something by, but they said no. They remember your aunt well from the protest outside My Magic Forest."

"If only they could just forget about the Shimuras—"

"If only
you
could forget about SKF. Seriously." Richard glanced at his oversized Swatch. "It's two-thirty. Lila asked me to have the kids back to her by three. Do you think you could drop us off in Roppongi Hills in Mr. Ishida's van?"

"There is no child safety seat. You'd be better off on the subway."

"What are you, a cop?" he asked grumpily.

"I have enough involvement with them already, so I'm not risking anything else. But I hope this doesn't impact your, um, plans for today," I said with significance.

"You said you wouldn't ask me about SKF!" Richard reminded me.

"Right! Let's just hope we both live through the next twenty-four hours." I kissed the top of my friend's spiked head and gave each of the young Braithwaites a biscotti before departing.

The art of kimono dressing is like preparing for war.

First comes the planning: selecting an underskirt and a full-length, long-sleeved under-robe of the right color. I had one in blue that contrasted well with the pink and green kimono, but it took a long time to iron. Once it was on, I secured a silk collar around my neck, and I also tucked a rectangle of folded washi paper (in case I needed a napkin while drinking tea) and an ironed cotton handkerchief between my bra and the neckline of the under-robe. At last I slipped on my silk crepe kimono, and then the real battle began: tying a ten-foot-long obi, a silk brocade sash that was surely invented to confound anyone who ever had trouble folding an origami crane.

It felt like a week had passed, but it actually took an hour to get dressed, and then twenty minutes to powder my face and to figure out which of my lipsticks was subtle enough to work with the kimono. Finally, I picked a frost called Frenzy, which was pretty much the way I felt. I longed to sink down on my futon for a brief rest, but the huge, stiff bow I'd tied over my hips made that impossible. How could I ride in this condition to Izu? I was pondering this question when a car honked outside.

Aunt Norie slipped out of the Honda Accord's front seat, revealing her splendid purple silk kimono patterned with lacy plum blossoms. Her red obi was embroidered with gold. Norie shifted to sitting in the backseat with Tom. I tried to convince her to regain her rightful position next to Uncle Hiroshi, but she refused.

"Your stomach, Rei-san. It will be easier for you up front."

"Okay, thanks." I guessed that she remembered all my carsick trips to Lake Biwa when I was younger. "How long is the trip going to take?"