The Salaryman's Wife (12 page)

“It could be that because she was lying down, her blood flowed to the back of her head and caused the marking.”

“The bath contained some special kind of mineral water,” I mused. “Why didn’t they test it? Then they could tell it wasn’t snow—”

“It looked clear to them, I assume.” Tom looked at me. “Now are you going to tell me why you even have a copy of this document?”

I hesitated before saying, I can’t tell you. It’s confidential.”

“But this is Setsuko Nakamura, the woman who’s been in all the newspapers for the last three days. How did you get hold of her autopsy?”

“I’m helping a friend of hers. We have a theory that she was drowned by her husband. What you told me about the autopsy shows that he certainly had the time to do it.”

“
Maybe
had the time. Nothing about the autopsy’s firm, Rei.”

“What do you mean?”

Tom chucked me under the chin. “Forensics cannot offer firm answers.”

“Then what’s the point?” I let my exasperation show.

“Listen, cousin. This woman died between four and six hours after eating dinner—no one can say for
certain. The water might have been snow, or it could have been from the bath. And she may or may not have had a head injury.”

“Okay,” I said, standing up to go. Maybe was not as good as certainly, but it was a step in the right direction. And now I knew she’d had a child.

“I’m really grateful, Tom,” I began. “I owe you.”

“That’s all right.” He gestured at the papers I was tucking away. “What are you going to do with it?”

“I’ll return the autopsy to my friend. Case closed,” I said, wishing I could believe it.

I carried three curved plum branches home and arranged them in a chipped Satsuma vase I’d rescued from the neighborhood’s oversized trash pickup a month ago. Even with the addition of flowers, I found myself thinking my small apartment was a dump compared to Aunt Norie’s house. Kimono and wood-block prints couldn’t hide the electrical cords draping the walls like an ugly spider web, and nothing could be done to camouflage the ancient linoleum floor. What finished the disaster off were my cardboard boxes overflowing with books and shrine sale miscellany, and my sorry wardrobe hanging on a rod that spanned the length of one short wall. No wonder my mother refused to stay with me.

I slid the
kotatsu
table on its side against the wall so I’d have room for to unroll my futon. I laid across it with the autopsy notes in front of me. I wished I’d studied Setsuko more closely when I found her. All I really had was a memory of her snow-shrouded figure and her
long, black hair frozen stiff like a piece of bark. Her hair. I thought about it and suddenly had another question.

Aunt Norie said Tom had gone to the hospital. The St. Luke’s operator told me he was unavailable. I tapped a pen restlessly against the table, thinking. Tomorrow I had to go back to work. I needed to put this problem away.

Thirty minutes later I was outside St. Luke’s, the sleek, sand-colored building which was perhaps the most luxurious hospital in Japan. St. Luke’s had been founded in 1900 by an American doctor, a fact that protected it from U.S. bombs during World War II. The hospital was haven again following the 1995 subway gas attack by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Five cult members punctured bags containing nerve gas on several commuter trains; when the fumes began to escape, people began pouring off the trains, half-blinded and ill.

Eleven died and approximately 3,800 people were injured, many of them going to St. Luke’s. Tom had over-seen the emergency room that morning. He told me the most amazing thing had been the stoic calm of the victims. Nobody cried, just waited patiently for their turn.

Unlike me. I walked straight into the emergency room, presented my card to the head nurse and demanded to see Dr. Shimura immediately. Shortly thereafter my cousin emerged from a curtained-off area wearing a white coat and look of irritation.

“Just five minutes,” I said. “I want to ask you more about bruises.”

“If I don’t come with you, I suppose you’ll never leave.” Tom sighed and showed me into the hospital café, a cheerful blue and yellow room decorated with faux Grecian columns. A table full of nurses stared at my cousin with undisguised longing. He didn’t seem to notice.

“So you want to know about bruises.” Tom swirled cream into a small cup of coffee. “On a most basic level, they form when some kind of trauma breaks the blood vessels and allows blood to seep through tissue.”

“And blood always flows downward, according to gravity?”

“Sure.” Tom twisted his watch around so he could look at it without being obvious.

“She couldn’t have died naturally, then.” My voice rose and the nurses swiveled around to look at us again. “When I found her, she was lying face down. I’m sure of it because her hair had fallen over her face.”

Tom’s beeper went off. He unclipped it from his waist and studied the number blinking on it.

“Bruises wouldn’t have formed on the back of her head if she fell face down. Don’t you get it?” I beseeched him.

“I have to answer this page.” Tom walked over to a telephone on the wall and lifted the receiver. He spoke animatedly and gave a slight bow at conversation’s end, but I was too wound up to find it amusing.

“I’ve bought myself ten more minutes,” Tom said when he came back. “Did you bring the autopsy?”

“Of course.” I chewed on my thumbnail as Tom read it again.

“Yes, you’re right,” he said at last. “Given the circumstances, this is very likely the Battle sign.”

“You mean she fought somebody?”

“No, cousin. Battle is the name of the physician who identified a special type of bruise. He studied head injuries and found that when someone is hit hard on the back of the head, it fractures the cranium and also bursts the capillaries so blood seeps through tissue and pools behind the ears. This creates dark bruises now known as the Battle sign.”

“But didn’t you tell me the X ray showed no fractures?”

“Often fractures don’t show up. Even having been in medicine for ten years, I can tell you it’s extremely difficult to look at a film and discern a hairline fracture from a vein or even a normal joining of the skull bones.”

“So, you’re telling me you believe she was hit on the back of the head?”

“Yes,” Tom said, after a second’s pause. “Looking at the time the coroner did the exam—10
A.M
. on January 2—there was a very reasonable amount of time for the sign to appear, even allowing that she was packed in snow for a night.”

“We’ve got to do something.”

“Well, the ideal situation would be to have the coroner revise his findings. But it’s not likely that he will admit to any mistake.”

“So no one will ever find out.” I didn’t hide my disgust. “She’ll have died and been written off all because of some mighty
oisha-san’s
incompetence.
Or maybe, because the company involved is Sendai, they had everything smoothed over.”

“If you want to put your mind at ease, call the police,” Tom said. “Tell them you talked to me and I suggested they take the autopsy to a different coroner for a second opinion.”

“The captain won’t listen to me. He hates foreigners.”

“Try. Your Japanese is good enough.”

“But it’s not medical! If I call him, could I give him your number, too? So you could explain everything?” I hated myself for being so dependent, but I knew how much weight Tom’s words would carry.

“If you insist.” Tom didn’t look happy. “Cousin, I’m going to just say this once. After you speak to the police, this mission of yours should end. This friend who asked you to do things should realize you’re an English teacher, not a crime fighter.”

“Crime fighter?” I raised my eyebrows. “You’ve been reading too many comic books.”

Tom didn’t smile. Instead, he changed languages. “In Japan, young people listen to their elders. So I’m telling you as an older cousin to younger, that whoever struck this woman thinks he got away with it. You’re not the one to tell him otherwise.”

Nobody could possibly know why I’d gone to St. Luke’s, but I was on hyper alert as I edged my way into the train station. I watched the people who boarded the train, but seats were plentiful at this hour and no one came near me.

I was the only one to get off at Minami-Senju, my subway stop. I walked fast over the steel pedestrian overpass and down its steps to the sidewalk, passing Family Mart and the liquor store. A large group of
b
s
zoku
, young motorcycle hoodlums, roared past me. They had lately taken to congregating outside the liquor store, revving their engines for the fun of it. Nobody dared complain because
b
s
zoku
were rumored to be junior workers for the
yakuza
, organized crime gangs similar to the American Mafia.

Compared to them, my homeless neighbors were absolute gentlemen. Tonight they had a bottle of beer between them and were pouring it out into small glasses. One of them called out an invitation that I pretended not to hear.

The first thing I did when I got into my apartment was lock and chain the door. Then I telephoned Minshuku Yogetsu. My relief that Mr. Yogetsu answered instead of his wife was short-lived.

“Miss Shimura! Such luck you called. My wife wants to talk to you. May I put her on?”

She had probably decided to charge me for the broken
sh
ji
screen. I did not want to talk to her about it. “Actually, I can’t stay on the phone. I just wanted to leave a message for Hugh Glendinning.”