The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11) (6 page)

I opened the most recent notebook marked 2010 and recognized Mr. Ishida’s handwriting on most of the pages. Over the last six months’ dates, though, a new, tinier script had recorded most of the inventory information. Mayumi’s entries were like a handful of sand in my eyes. She’d written in Japanese, not English.

But I would always know where the most valuable things were kept.

In a clear, locked glass case, I saw the shop’s exceptional collection of
inro
and
netsuke
, the ancient snuff containers and coordinating fasteners that wealthy gentlemen of past centuries wore on silken cords attached to their
obi
belts. And in a tall rosewood chest, all the long boxes that should have held calligraphy scrolls were still full. Finally, I went to the heavy old safe in the kitchen. The combination was still the same: 060721, the date Mr. Ishida’s father founded the shop. Inside the safe, I was relieved to open up some small silk pouches and find some small pieces of jade and elaborate gold-and-pearl jewelry. But there was also a three-foot-square black lacquer box that was empty. It was impossible to guess what might have been stored inside.

Clearly, some goods had been removed from the safe. I wondered if it had happened before or after Mr. Okada came in to get Hachiko.

I thought again about how I’d entered the shop. The door had been locked. Would a thief have bothered to lock the shop again after getting in? That could only have happened if the thief had found the store’s spare key.

I went back to the desk’s top drawer. The spare key rested inside an old cigar box, just as it had in my day. I also saw the sheet of important phone numbers. These were for Mr. Okada, Dr. Nakajima, Mr. Ishida’s personal physician; the Japan Post Bank, Federal Express, and me. At the very bottom were two new numbers: one for Animal House Veterinarian and the other for Mayumi.

Perhaps there wasn’t a burglary. I could be sending myself on a private trip to new, paranoid heights. Just because there was an empty lacquer box in the safe didn’t mean anything was missing from it. Maybe Mr. Ishida just kept the box there. I could call Mayumi to ask her about it, now that I had her number. I pressed this number into my phone and waited, tight with anticipation.

Four rings, and then a high-pitched, cheerful woman’s voice came on.
Mayumi here. Leave it at the beep! Arigato gozaimashita!

As I struggled to think of what I should say, the phone vibrated, and Michael’s number flashed on the screen. I hung up on Mayumi’s voice mail to answer.

“Great timing!” I let out a gusty breath. “You’ve caught me inside Mr. Ishida’s shop.”

“That’s right, you took the lock-picking set. How hard was it to get inside?”

“Too easy. I was offered a spare key from Mr. Okada, who owns the
senbei
shop next door. But now that I’m inside, I’m a bit worried something might have happened here.”

“Like what?”

“Well, the earthquake threw some objects on the ground, but that doesn’t explain why the cashbox is sitting empty on top of the business desk, and there’s another lacquer box inside his safe that’s empty.”

“Think there was a break-in?”

I heard a sipping sound, and imagined that Michael was drinking his customary glass of ice water, having arrived from canoeing home.

“Very possibly. I suppose the police could figure it out—”

Michael interrupted, “Tell me more. What exactly do you see?”

“Okay,” I said, looking around again. “A number of things are lying on the shop floor, mostly pottery, but I saw folders, too. Right away I noticed that a plate of fruit had fallen from Mr. Ishida’s Buddhist altar. The oranges had rotted on the floor, and the plate was completely smashed. ”

“Sounds like an earthquake. Can you tell if anything’s missing? Sorry. You’ve not been in the shop for over a year, right?”

“There’s an inventory list, but Mayumi’s chosen to list the acquisitions only in Japanese. I really need the English to be able to understand what’s what. It also seems that plenty of valuable pieces are still around. If a burglar came in and left behind the
inro
and
netsuke
collection, he was pretty clueless.” I paused, not sure I wanted to give voice to my darkest thought. “Unless someone threw everything around to look like a burglary.”

“Who’s Mayumi?”

“She’s the hip apprentice Mr. Ishida hired last year. I telephoned a number Mr. Ishida had for her in his desk, but there wasn’t an answer.”

“What’s hip about her?”

“Well, she has blue hair. It’s utterly ludicrous for someone working in a shop like Mr. Ishida’s, you know?”

“Excuse me, sweetheart, but you had a navel ring the first six months we were together.” There was laughter in Michael’s voice. “I didn’t ask you to get rid of it, either.”

Hastily, I said, “I’m not going to judge her taste. But it’s kind of teenagery to color one’s hair like that. And if she’s anywhere near Tokyo and hasn’t come by, it seems irresponsible.”

“Call her again,” Michael advised. “Public transportation is still erratic, so perhaps she hasn’t been able to get into the neighborhood. And you’ve no idea what her character is.”

“It’s irrational, but I have a weird feeling about her. I found out that Mr. Ishida’s dog, Hachiko, was left alone in the shop during the earthquake. Fortunately, Mr. Okada went in the morning after with his spare key, found her, and brought her to a kennel. But you’d think Mayumi would have come to save the dog.”

“At least you know Mr. Ishida’s okay; he’s got to be the person to untangle what happened.” In the long pause, I could practically hear Michael thinking. “If I were you, I wouldn’t call the police yet. It would be upsetting all around if you sicced them on an innocent person, whether it’s Mayumi or this Okada guy, who seems to have just as much access. And don’t forget that
you
could be detained. The fact you came in when the store was locked automatically makes you suspicious, should it turn out any valuables really are gone.”

“You’ve convinced me. I won’t call the police. But I’m really worried what Mr. Ishida will deal with when he returns.”

“There’s not much you can do until you see him. And he’s probably more worried about his dog than anything else.”

“Okay, the veterinarian is my next stop.”

“Good idea. What kind of dog is a Hachiko?”

“Hachiko’s her name, silly. She’s really cute in the picture I saw that’s posted near Mr. Ishida’s desk. She has an Akita’s thick fur and curling tail, but also a beagle’s facial structure with the long nose.”

Michael whistled. “What a mix. Akitas are loyal working dogs, and beagles have great temperaments and noses. My hunch is, once you see her, you’ll want to be with her 24/7.”

“The last thing I need is a dog.” I shuddered. “Not with this possible burglary, an apprentice who’s gone AWOL, and no ride yet to the tsunami zone.”

My husband sighed. “Sometimes the little things are all we can pull off. But that doesn’t mean they don’t matter.”

A
fter we’d said goodbye, I realized I hadn’t asked Michael about his work or the renovation progress at Ewa Landing. I made calls to the general contractor and the plumber, but they didn’t answer. I’d have to hope for the best. I also rang the
senbei
shop to ask Mr. Okada if he’d noticed the same disarray on March 12 that I’d just seen.

“Some things had fallen, but I didn’t look closely because Hachiko was so excited to get outside,” he explained. “I had similar problems in my shop, but crumbled crackers are not as much of a loss as broken porcelain. Are you calling because you’d like some help cleaning it up?”

“No, I can take care of that easily myself.” I would do what I could, but leave all the broken goods in boxes for Mr. Ishida, as he’d surely be filing insurance claims.

Mr. Okada’s directions led me to Animal House, a modern veterinary office near the train station. Animal House had a bright exterior sign featuring cheerful cartoon dogs, cats, and fish. The electricity was working here, although the overhead lights in the waiting room appeared to have been purposely dimmed. Mr. Sato, the front desk receptionist, had colored his hair straw-blond and styled it into a rooster-style crest reminiscent of Tintin. When I said that I’d come to see Hachiko, he clapped his hands in excitement.

“Yes, she is here! Since you’re not her owner, I won’t ask you to fill out paperwork—but Dr. Kubo certainly wants to speak with you. Please come this way,” he urged, jumping up to lead me down a hallway decorated with pictures of people and their pets. “Our Good Owners Wall is for people who rescue animals in need of shelter. The picture in the far left lower end is Hachiko-chan and Ishida-san. We took this shot last spring, when she was a tiny puppy.”

Mr. Ishida had raved about Hachiko, but he’d never mentioned that she’d been a rescue. How small the dog had been: a caramel-and-cream ball of fluff. This photo of the beautiful puppy in the lap of a smiling octogenarian owner seemed to radiate the hopeful emotions of a new attachment. In a way, it reminded me of my own wedding pictures.

We continued to a small examination room decorated with animal anatomy charts, and Mr. Sato showed me the plastic chair where I should sit until Dr. Kubo arrived. A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman wearing surgical scrubs decorated with prancing poodles joined me.

“I’m Dr. Kubo,” she said, bowing. “I hear you’ve come for Hachiko?”

I gave my name and explained that I’d traveled from Hawaii to help Mr. Ishida come home from a shelter in Tohoku.

“Oh!” the doctor exclaimed. “I’d heard from Okada-san that Ishida-san was away on business, but he did not know the location was Tohoku. Is he all right?”

“Ishida-san and I only spoke once briefly by phone, and he said something about a head injury. He will be allowed to travel home once he’s got a companion helping him.”

“You must be very close to Ishida-san to have traveled to help him. Do you also know Hachiko well?” She’d picked up a clipboard and begun writing notes.

“No. Ishida-san got Hachiko after I moved to Hawaii. But he spoke of her very fondly, so I have a positive picture.”

“Of course,” Dr. Kubo said, writing away. “She is his best friend. Now look who’s here!”

Mr. Sato arrived with a frisky, midsize dog in tow. He dropped the leash and Hachiko trotted toward Dr. Kubo who cooed and produced a biscuit from the pocket of her scrub shirt. Chewing happily away, Hachiko looked at me, and then came forward to say hello.

I was cautious with dogs I didn’t know, but Hachiko seemed gentle and friendly. Within seconds I was off the chair I’d been sitting on and on the floor with the dog half on my lap.

“We’re making friends,” I said.

“If she were a cat, she would be purring,” Dr. Kubo agreed. “I’m glad the two of you are becoming close. Don’t worry about the bill—Mr. Ishida will take care of things when he returns. I will give you printed instructions on her daily diet.”

“I don’t know why I’d need diet instructions,” I said, wondering if I’d misunderstood something.

“Because you are taking her,
neh
?”

“Um—I’m sorry, but I can’t take Hachiko right now.”

“Heh?” Dr. Kubo stopped writing. “If you’re not here to take her, why did you come today?”

“She’s been here for five or six days, right? I wanted to visit, so I could tell Ishida-san how she’s doing.” The doctor’s assumption made me feel awkward.

As if she’d sensed my stress, Hachiko gave a little shake that jingled her collar, stood up, and left my lap.

“It is unhealthy for a dog to stay in a place where she can’t really exercise.” Dr. Kubo watched the dog strolling the small room, as if she were seeking escape. “Our office doesn’t have a dogs’ playroom. Our kennels are intended for invalids needing a few nights’ care.”

I went to pat Hachiko, whose rounded tail wagged in circles that shook her entire bottom. I felt like she was forgiving me. “Like I was saying earlier, I’m leaving Tokyo as quickly as I can to bring home Mr. Ishida. But until he’s here, there’s no place Hachiko could stay and get personal attention.”

“You speak Japanese so well yet have no friends or family?” Dr. Kubo sounded skeptical.

I thought about the Shimuras’ house in Yokohama. They didn’t have any pets. Maybe they’d welcome Hachiko, if I asked. I didn’t think Richard was a good option because of Mutsu, but I’d ask him as well.

“I will check around, but it’s not likely the people I know would take her,” I said.

“You might consider bringing Hachiko with you to Tohoku. Ishida-san always said she was a good traveler.”

The vet was acting as if I knew how to handle dogs. I imagined Michael laughing about it. At the door, Hachiko nuzzled my hand, as if saying,
of course you’ll take me
.

I gave Hachiko one last neck scratch and turned back to the doctor. “I will try my very best to get Hachiko out soon. But it seems to me that she needs a place where she’ll be allowed to stay indoors for her safety.”

“I’m sure you’ll make arrangements.” The doctor’s smile was serene. “You are a very good person to do this!”

I caught a Tokaido Line train to the Yokohama suburbs; they were running one an hour, instead of one every ten minutes, so the car I stood in was jammed. I breathed a sigh of relief thirty-five minutes later when the doors parted and I was released into the cool Yokohama air. It was a fifteen-minute walk to my aunt’s house in a hilly suburban neighborhood near the station. The streets around her home seemed unusually full of parked cars, probably because of the government restrictions on nonessential gas usage.

When Aunt Norie opened the door, I found the power was off and the house lit only by candles. This created a lovely atmosphere. I embraced my aunt, who was in her late fifties but, because of her glossy black pageboy, unlined face, and trim figure, looked about fifteen years younger.

“I must apologize for supper,” my aunt said. “I only had three hours to use my stove.”

“But it smells so good.” Indeed, I rarely spent more than an hour making an evening meal. Tonight, my aunt had prepared miso soup flavored with dried mushrooms and shelf-stable tofu. She’d also set out saucers of tiny dried fish, pickled radishes and carrots from her garden, and a green salad with mayonnaise-
yuzu
dressing. The main course was
oyako-donburi
: rice topped with a soy-mirin-onion flavored omelette.
Oyako-don
meant mother-and-child, so there should have been diced chicken cooked with the omelette, but not tonight, either for lack of chicken or her mindfulness about my vegetarian habits. The eggs were extremely local, because she now had two hens in a backyard coop that Uncle Hiroshi had built for her with a Tokyu Hands kit.

Uncle Hiroshi, a banking consultant, was at the table, his usually grave expression lightening as my aunt praised his carpentry skills. Shaking his head at all the flattery was my thirty-five-year-old cousin, Tom.

“This is really a great meal,” I complimented my aunt. “I thought you were suffering from food shortages.”

“Fortunately, my kitchen cupboard and garden provide. It must be different in Tokyo. I doubt Richard-san has a vegetable garden or hens.”

“You’re right. He lives in a small apartment high over a noisy street, and his giant cat, Mutsu, would make short work of any hens.” Talking about animals reminded me of Hachiko. “Actually, I met a special animal today.”

Everyone listened as I spoke about Hachiko and what the doctor had said about wanting her to leave the veterinary kennel as soon as possible.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t help.” Aunt Norie’s voice had an anxious pitch. “We have chickens freely moving throughout the garden, and your uncle is highly allergic to dogs and cats.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.”

“That’s why Chika and I never got a pet.” Tom gave me a wistful look.

“Do you know the legend of Hachiko, Japan’s most famous dog?” Uncle Hiroshi asked. “Back in the 1920s, a male Akita would walk his master, a college professor, to Shibuya Station every morning. He’d return for evening pickup at exactly the right time. Of course, he could not understand when the professor passed away. He loyally waited at the station for many years, until he finally died of cancer.”

“I know that story well,” I said. “So many times I’ve met up with friends by his statue at the station.”

“Ah, but that is the
second
Hachiko statue,” Uncle Hiroshi corrected. “The first was erected after his death in 1929, but during wartime, the statue was melted down for munitions. Only in the postwar years was the dog’s honor restored with a new bronze statue.”

His expression “melted down” reminded me of the current state of Fukushima, but nobody else seemed to have noticed.

“I’m very sorry we cannot take the dog,” my uncle continued. “I like the happy nature of dogs, but they make me itch and sneeze terribly. It would be ideal if Mr. Ishida’s apprentice could be found and she could make arrangements.”

“I don’t know if I’ll find her.” Even though I’d left a phone message for Mayumi, I wasn’t sure I could trust someone who’d left Hachiko alone so long in the first place.

“You said earlier that you had photographed some word written on Mr. Ishida’s calendar?” Aunt Norie asked.

“Thanks for reminding me,” I said, getting my phone out of my pocket. My uncle, aunt, and cousin leaned in to look at the image that I zoomed so it was readable.

“Sugihama.” Aunt Norie said. “Cedar tree shore. It sounds like a town name, but where is it?”

“In Tohoku,” Tom said.

“When the tsunami hit, Sugihama was on CNN! But was Ishida-san actually there? He phoned me from somewhere called Yamagawa.”

“Maybe he was carried some distance by a wave,” Tom suggested. “That was the plight of many people.”

“Or it could be that his shelter is in Sugihama, not Yamagawa, but he was confused,” I remembered. “He does have a head injury.”

As I thought about the various possibilities, the Shimuras’ electricity returned with a cheerful snap. The pendant lamp above the table glowed warmly, and Uncle Hiroshi hurried off to rummage around his study. He returned with a deeply creased 1990 Japan Tourist Board map of the Tohoku coast.

“Sugihama is small—just a tiny dot—a few miles north of a place where an eight-meter wave hit. And it’s below Yamagawa, where the wave was seven meters,” my uncle said, examining the map he’d spread out on the table.

“Twenty-four feet tall,” I translated and shuddered.

“How can you get to any of these towns?” Uncle Hiroshi shook his head. “It will take many more days or weeks before the train lines are restored.”

“I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “I was told it’s pretty unlikely I could rent a car.”

“Some nongovernmental organizations are finding ways to go,” Tom said. “One of our nurses is going to Sugihama on a chartered bus with the Helping Hands organization this Friday evening.”

“You mean, tomorrow?” As Tom nodded, I exclaimed, “That’s perfect! Can you put me in touch with this nurse?”

“Certainly. I have her number in my phone.”

After Tom spoke, I saw he was blushing. Uncle Hiroshi didn’t seem to notice, but Aunt Norie, who’d been hoping for a daughter-in-law, pounced. “You have taken this girl’s number? Who is she?”

“Nurse Tanaka.” Tom sounded irritable. “And it’s very normal for staff to have each other’s phone numbers, for professional reasons.”

“Nurse Tanaka who?” Aunt Norie would not be brushed off. “How old is this nurse?”

I had a distant memory of a pretty nurse who had chatted with Tom about things other than medication during my stay at St. Luke’s for a smashed knee. I asked, “Is Tanaka-san the one who worked on the trauma ward?”

“Yes. She’s still there.” Turning to Aunt Norie, Tom added, “Tanaka Michiko is two years younger than I am. And to answer any other questions you probably have, she has not married yet and seems to be a responsible, respectable person.”

“Oh, Tsutomu.” Aunt Norie beamed. “You must certainly call this nurse on Rei-chan’s behalf. And if you can’t reach her tonight, give me the number, please.”

I could not reach Michiko Tanaka by phone, but that evening, I found an English-language website for Helping Hands. After a few exchanged e-mails with its director, Hiroshi Yano, I learned he was seeking volunteers who could commit to a minimum of three days of assistance in Sugihama. I expressed my willingness to help, but added that I hoped to also visit Yamagawa. Mr. Yano wrote back that this would be fine, and that he would reserve a seat for me on the free Friday evening bus.
Thank you so much!
I typed back before remembering that I still had a dog to worry about.