Dismissed With Prejudice (9780061760631) (5 page)

She was wearing an old-fashioned blue cotton dress with a zipper down the front that reminded me of the everyday dresses my mother used to wear, housedresses she called them, that were good enough for working inside the house but not for going to the grocery store or for entertaining even unexpected guests. Machiko seemed to share my mother's housedress philosophy. She self-consciously brushed crumbs from her lap and checked the zipper as she walked toward us.

She was older than I had thought at first, older and frailer. Coming closer, she leaned heavily on her daughter's arm with one hand and on a twisted
wooden cane with the other. When she reached the wooden archway, she stopped and looked questioningly at each of us in turn, her eyes enormous behind the beveled lenses of her gold-framed glasses. When her glance reached George Yamamoto, it stopped, freezing into a hard glitter.

Machiko Kurobashi's transformation was sudden and complete. She seemed to grow younger, stiffer, and inches taller all at the same time. Letting go of her daughter's arm, she raised one trembling hand and pointed an accusing finger at the head of the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab.

“You,” she hissed. “Out!”

A dark flush swept out from under George Yamamoto's collar and up his neck, leaving his ears a vivid shade of crimson. “I'm so sorry, Machiko…” he began.

She shook her head stubbornly, cutting him off. “Out,” she repeated, glaring at him. “Go!”

He started to object and then thought better of it. He went, retreating dispiritedly past the trailer and Suburban until he disappeared around the corner of the house while Machiko Kurobashi stared after him as if concerned that he might change his mind and come back.

Surprised, I looked down at the bird-boned old woman who had ordered George Yamamoto away, who had managed to treat a more than sixty-year-old bureaucrat the same way a hard-nosed teacher might treat a misbehaving kindergartener. Obviously, the rancor between George Yamamoto and
Machiko Kurobashi was deep-rooted and inarguably mutual.

Once George was out of sight, Machiko turned toward me. “I sorry to be rude. That man not welcome here.” Her English was broken and heavily accented, but quite understandable. Once again I fumbled my identification out of my pocket and handed it to her. She didn't bother to look at it.

“You are police?”

I nodded. “I'm Detective Beaumont, and that's my partner, Detective Lindstrom. We came to tell you about your husband.”

“Kimi told me,” she said. “Come.”

Instead of going toward the house, she turned and headed back into the garden. The rest of us followed. She resumed her place on the bench, patting it to indicate that I should sit beside her. Big Al and Kimi sat on another bench a few feet away.

“Sorry,” she said. “Furniture all gone. Nowhere to sit inside.”

“That's fine,” I said. “This is very beautiful.”

“Tadeo make it for me. Like home, so I not be homesick.” The aching hurt in her simple words put a lump in my throat. My heart went out to this fragile old woman who seemed to be losing everything at once—husband, home, security. Somehow she didn't seem defeated.

“Homesick for Japan?” I asked, wanting to be clear about what she was saying.

She nodded.

“Didn't you ever go back?”

She shook her head.

“Not even for a visit?”

“No.”

From the look of the surroundings, the kind of home they lived in, the kind of business her husband had run, they surely could have afforded the price of an airplane ticket.

“My home in Nagasaki,” she said simply.

Nagasaki. Hiroshima's sister in devastation, the one you seldom heard about. For the second time that day the specter of World War II rose up before me, its horror and destruction made personal in a way it had never touched me before. Looking at Machiko Kurobashi, I wondered what tricks of fate had placed her home and family in the path of exploding atomic bombs.

“There's nothing left?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No one. Nothing. Only this, that Tadeo made for me. Now it gone too.”

Tears sprang once more to her eyes. For several long seconds no one spoke. The brilliantly colored fish alternately lazed in and darted through the shallow water.

“Tell me about my husband,” she said.

And so, as gently as I could, I told her everything, including how George Yamamoto had been called in to help determine whether or not Tadeo's death had involved the ancient practice of
hara-kiri
or
seppuku
. I noted what seemed to be a sharp intake of breath when I mentioned the sword, but
she said nothing and I continued. Finished finally, I waited to hear what she would say.

“No.”

She spoke the word so softly that I almost missed it. “No what?” I asked.

When her eyes met mine, they were blazing with a new intensity, a desperate defiance. “My Tadeo not kill himself. This I know.”

And that was all she said, her only response. They may have disagreed on everything else, but on that score, George Yamamoto and Machiko Kurobashi were in full and total agreement. Neither one of them believed for one moment that Tadeo Kurobashi had committed suicide.

Their insistent belief led me to agree with them.

T
HE DEEP-THROATED HONK OF A SEMI'S
horn sounded three short bursts out in front of the house. Kimi glanced at her watch then jumped up and started out of the garden. “The movers,” she explained. “I'll go tell them what's happened, that they'll have to come back later.”

“No,” Machiko said. She didn't say much, but what she did say was definitive.

Frowning, Kimi stopped and turned to her mother. “What do you mean, no?”

“Your father say today. He give his word. We go today.”

“But—”

Machiko held out her hand, a gesture which both stifled protest and asked for help. Kimi pulled Machiko to her feet. “You stay,” the older woman ordered. “I go.”

It was more a command than a request, and Kimiko unwillingly assented to it. She stood watching with furrowed brows as her mother, leaning on the gnarled cane, hobbled slowly across the bridge and out of sight around the
house while the truck's horn honked impatiently once more.

This time when Kimiko turned back to us, tears were streaming down her face. She made no effort to wipe them away. “How could he do this to her?”

“Do what?”

“Bail out. Leave her like this with next to nothing. Worse than nothing. The house is gone, along with everything else.”

“But your mother seems to think he was murd—”

Kimi interrupted with an angry snort. “She'd defend him no matter what, right or wrong. It's always been that way.”

She paused long enough to blow her nose. Kimiko Kurobashi's bitterly hostile words didn't sound like those of someone grieving for a dead father, at least not yet. It was still too soon. She was still too angry with him for dying. It's a common enough reaction, and I didn't fault her for it.

The time had come to begin the inevitable questioning process. Big Al picked up the ball and ran with it, speaking directly to Kimiko for the first time. “You said you talked to your father last night at his office?”

Kimi nodded.

“What time was that?”

“About eight-thirty, I guess. He called around eleven yesterday morning while I was working. It took me several hours to get squared away at work, to make arrangements to have someone fill in for me both at school and on the farm.”

“The farm?” I asked, suddenly remembering the words printed on the side of the horse trailer. “Would that be Honeydale Farm?”

People don't expect you to pay attention to the little telltale clues they leave scattered around them. If you ask someone wearing a Yellowstone T-shirt how they liked Old Faithful, they'll be mystified as to how you knew. They react as though you have some secret, black magic way of knowing things about them when it's actually nothing more than using basic powers of observation. Kimi Kurobashi was no exception. She had long since stopped seeing the Honeydale Farm lettering on the horse trailer.

“I live there,” she said, giving me an uncertain look. “I help out around the place for board and room both for me and Sadie.”

“Who's Sadie?”

“My horse. Teaching assistants don't earn enough to support horses.”

“Your parents haven't been helping you then?”

“Are you kidding? My father threw me out when I was nineteen years old. I've earned my own way ever since, every penny of it. When he called me yesterday, it was the first time I had spoken to him in almost nine years.”

“That's a long time,” I said.

“He was a stubborn man,” she said, adding thoughtfully after a moment, “I must take after him.”

“Getting back to yesterday,” I prompted.

“As I said, it took me a while to get things lined up. It was after one before I was able to get away. It takes a full five hours to get across the mountain pass, a little longer pulling the trailer, especially in weekend traffic, and it was windy coming across the Columbia. I didn't get here until almost six-thirty.

“Mother must have spent weeks packing. She had been here working by herself all day long and was so tired she could barely stand. There wasn't a crumb of food left in the house—everything was packed. I took her into Kirkland to have something to eat. She doesn't drive. I dropped her off after dinner, and then I went to see my father.”

“At his office?”

“Yes.”

“Was there anybody else there?”

“One person that I saw. A young guy who was moving files.”

“Moving them where?”

“I don't know. I met him coming out of my father's office carrying a full file drawer. He brought the empty drawer back later and got another full one. I assumed he must be packing them into boxes somewhere.”

“Doesn't that strike you as an odd way to move files?”

“Odd? Maybe, especially on a Sunday night, but I didn't question it, if that's what you mean. I still don't think you understand about my father, Detective…”

“Beaumont,” I supplied.

“Detective Beaumont. His word was law both at work and at home. Questioning wasn't allowed. Period.”

“So what happened when you got to his office?”

“As I said, in the doorway I met this young man in overalls who was carrying the file drawer. I waited long enough for him to come out and then I went in.”

“And your father was there?”

She nodded. “Sitting at his desk, polishing that damn sword.”

“Had you ever seen it before?”

“No. Never.”

“Do you have any idea where it came from?”

“No.”

“And what did he say to you?”

For the first time in her narration, Kimiko faltered, pausing to swallow before she answered. “Thank you,” she said.

“Thank you for what?”

“He said thank you for coming home to take care of Mother.”

“And you took that to mean?”

“That he was going to kill himself,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“Why?”

“I'm a Japanese-American, Detective Beaumont. I grew up on samurai stories, cut my teeth on them while my friends at school were reading the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. It looked like a samurai
short sword to me. I know all about
seppuku
, about choosing death over disgrace. It's a time-honored Japanese custom.”

“But he didn't
say
outright that he was going to do it, did he?”

“No. In fact, when I asked him, he denied it. I told him he had no right to leave my mother. She's always been totally dependent on him. Far too dependent. He kept her here in this house, waiting on him hand and foot, but she never said a word against him, never objected to the way he treated her.”

“And how was that?”

“Like he was lord and master and she was his servant. His slave. Around the house things were done his way and that was it.”

“What about you?” I asked quietly. “Did you always do things his way?”

“Up to a point.” She gave me a shrewd, appraising glance. “You're a smart man, aren't you?”

“I try.”

“Things were fine when I was younger. Kids think that whatever they're used to at home, that however they live, is the way life is supposed to be. They don't question it. He treated me like the son he never had, took me places, taught me things.”

“Is that why you're studying engineering?”

She shrugged. “Probably,” she said. “I'm good at it, but he made sure I was exposed to engineering at a very early age.”

Lost in thought, she stopped and seemed to drift away. “Go on,” I said.

“Back then I didn't worry about my mother, didn't even think about her very much. She was always there but almost invisible, always hovering in the background, always doing things, never complaining. But eventually I grew up and went away to school. I got my consciousness raised in a Women's Studies program over at Central. When I came home from Ellensburg, I tried to talk to my father about it, tried to get him to see that what he was doing to her was wrong, how he'd made her too helpless, too dependent on him, kept her isolated and cut off from everyone but us. We had a major battle over it, and he threw me out.”

“What did your mother say?”

“What do you think? She sided with him, as always. She said that I was wrong, that I was too young to understand. That's the last time I spoke to my father until he called me on the phone yesterday morning.”

“But you stayed in touch with your mother.”

“Yes. Other than him, I was all she had. My father had his work, his company. Without me, she had nothing.”

“So what happened last night in your father's office?”

“We quarreled again. Except for that pitiful little stack of household goods out in the trailer, all my mother's things were packed up, ready to go to the auction to satisfy his debts, and there he sat holding that damn sword. I don't know where he got it or how long he's had it, but I told him that if
she had to give up all her things, so did he. He told me about it then, bragged that it was made by a student of Masamune. He claimed that it had been in the family for hundreds of years, that it was priceless.”

“But you had never seen it before?” That seemed strange to me. Priceless family heirlooms aren't usually hidden under bushels. People talk about them, brag about them, show them off.

“No. I had no idea he owned such a thing.”

“Can you spell that?” Big Al was still glumly taking notes.

“What?”

“The name. It started with an M.”

“M-A-S-A-M-U-N-E.” Kimi spelled it out slowly before she continued. “He's the Leonardo of Japanese sword makers. Swords done by him or by one of his students are considered national treasures in Japan. I'm sure it can't be genuine. How could it? How would he have gotten it?”

If Kimiko Kurobashi didn't have an answer to that question, I certainly didn't.

“Did he say anything else about the sword?”

“Only that he had finally thought of a way of putting it to use, that it would fix everything but that it would take time. In the meantime he wanted my mother out of harm's way.”

“That's what he said?”

“Not exactly. He implied that all the disruption of selling the house and everything in it was upsetting to her and that he wouldn't be able to do
whatever it was with the sword in time to stop the foreclosure or the auction, but he insisted that there would be plenty of money later.”

Big Al's scratching pencil was suddenly quiet. Raising one eyebrow, he glanced meaningfully in my direction. “Insurance?” he asked.

I nodded. “Maybe. If the policy has been in effect long enough, suicide is usually covered.”

“I thought about insurance, too,” Kimiko said. “And when he told me about the money, I asked him again.”

“And what did he say?”

“He laughed.” She stopped abruptly. I could tell from her expression that Kimiko was reliving that painful scene, that she was still hurt and puzzled by his reaction. Considering subsequent events, her question didn't seem the least bit out of order. Laughter did.

“What about the office when you got there?” Big Al put in. “Was there anything unusual that you noticed? Anything out of place? For instance, what did you see on his desk?”

“Not much. His computer, the ashtray, a wooden box. I guess it's the box he kept the sword in. There was a piece of cloth, black silk maybe, that he was using for polishing. And then…” She stopped, unable to continue.

“And what else?”

“My trophy,” she whispered.

“The rodeo trophy?”

“Yes. And a picture of me, too. An old one,
hanging on the wall behind his desk. He was so angry with me that I was surprised to see those things there, surprised that he bothered to keep reminders of me anywhere in his life.”

“Did you see any kind of a bill?”

“A bill?”

“An invoice.”

“No. There were no papers of any kind.”

I had to doff my hat to Al Lindstrom. He was asking good questions. If Kimiko Kurobashi was telling the truth, and we had no reason to think otherwise, then she may not have been the last person to see her father alive. The fellow in the overalls, presumably the guy from DataDump, had been.

“What about the door to the safe? Was it opened or closed?”

“What safe? I don't remember seeing a safe anywhere in the room.”

“And where was the picture?”

“On the wall, right behind his desk.”

That struck me as an important piece of information and another bingo for Detective Allen Lindstrom. The door to the safe had been closed and concealed behind the picture when Kimiko was in her father's office, when she last saw him alive, but it had been found open that morning, open and empty both, when our investigators had arrived at the crime scene.

“Do you have any idea what might have been important enough for him to keep in the safe?”

“I didn't even know he had a safe. How would I possibly know what he kept in it?”

“What about the computer?”

“What about it?”

“Was it on or off?”

“Off,” she answered decisively, without the slightest hesitation. “Most definitely off. I already told you, he wasn't working. He was sitting there rubbing the sword with that piece of silk like he didn't have a care in the world while my mother was home working like a dog to get packed and out of there.”

“What did you know about your father's business?” I asked.

“Not much. Only what everyone else knows, what I read in the papers. Until it was settled, the patent infringement lawsuit between MicroBridge and RFLink, Ltd., was hot news in newspaper business sections for months.”

“What was it all about?”

“My father used to work for a man named Blakeslee. His job, as engineering manager, was to develop a system of local area networks. There were evidently hard feelings when he left, and Blakeslee claimed that when my father started MicroBridge a few months later, that he did it using technology and patents that rightfully belonged to Blakeslee's company. Blakeslee took him to court and won. Blakeslee was in the process of putting my father out of business.”