The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) (18 page)

"I have a problem like that," I said, and told him about the plates.

"I am sorry, but I couldn't buy them from you," Mr. Ishida said. "I've got a set of nine dishes like that, and they've been around for five months. This market is terrible."

"That's what I'm learning." I was going to have to find storage for all the brilliant consignments I'd taken on. I held up a shallow pink ikebana dish and asked, "Can you tell me about this?"

"That is a suiban made to order at a kiln on the island of Kyushu for the Kayama School. So much was made in the early part of the century that it was known widely as Kayama ware. I have a lot of them right now. I'd say the piece you're looking at was made in the thirties."

Mr. Ishida didn't seem to catch on to the irony of the fact that he was selling china from the death-marred flower school, but then again my guru did not own a television or read anything except antiques journals. A murderer could be running around Kamiyacho Station, but unless the killer committed his acts with a vintage samurai sword, my friend would be oblivious.

I examined the suiban again, thinking the pink color would not set off every flower to advantage. I held the dish up and asked, "This isn't as old as your usual merchandise. Why did you take it?"

"I took it all because I realized that I would be the only dealer in Tokyo, perhaps Japan, with such a large collection. I hope that a Kayama enthusiast will come and buy the whole lot."

"I've been taking classes at the school. Unfortunately, I'm not an enthusiast." I smiled wryly.

"Nevertheless, you will meet very cultivated people through the world of ikebana." He paused. "I don't suppose you know the Kayama who sold me all the dishes?"

"One of the family came here?" I was stunned. Well, the shop was only a few blocks from the headquarters. I supposed it was convenient.

"The seller was a mature woman. Well-dressed, slim and tall."

"There don't think there are any older Kayama women," I mused. "Just Natsumi, who is my age."

"This lady was in her fifties, and I only say that because Japanese women have more luxuries to help keep their skin looking young these days," Mr. Ishida opined. "She was pretty, but not too…friendly. I expect that she found it hard to part with her collection. These days, with the financial instability, I am receiving many more consignments from private people, and I imagine the tension of the situation added to her manner."

But the Kayamas weren't in financial trouble. Or were they? Intrigued, I asked, "What did the woman do that made her seem cold?"

"She demanded an immediate answer about whether I wanted a collection of two hundred pieces or she was going to leave. And then, when it came to the terms of our arrangement, she wanted to keep eighty percent of the sale price and give me twenty!"

Consignment agreements were usually sixty-forty in the consignor's favor, so this was an outrageous request. I asked, "What did you do?"

"I told her I would offer her sixty-five percent of the sale price, but no more than that. And if the goods were not sold within two months, she would need to take them all back. She agreed to that; no doubt she had been to other antique dealers and had her terms rejected. But the pieces she'd brought were special." He ran a finger over the smooth glaze of the suiban that I'd placed on the table between us. "Somehow I felt that I should take them."

He'd fallen victim to antiques lust. It was the reason I'd taken Mrs. Morita's dishes: a hunch, a desire to have something with me for a little while. I'd thought that I took the plates in order to sell them for a profit, but now I was beginning to wonder. Maybe I just wanted to give a dinner party.

"I understand," I told him.

"Oh, I was very stupid. I must have been distracted during our conversation, because I took the details of her telephone number, and that number is disconnected. And even more unfortunate is the fact that the woman has not called me back. It has been almost three months since she came in and I have sold nine containers. Yet I cannot give her any payment."

I made up my mind. "I'll be happy to do what you asked me to do: that is, I'll find out whether there's a middle-aged aunt or somebody like that."

"But you just told me you are not enthusiastic about ikebana." Mr. Ishida sounded skeptical.

I sighed. "It's just that I want to know who the lady is, too. For a personal reason."

He nodded as if this made sense. "It would be helpful if you could uncover her new telephone number."

"I'll try. But unless some distant relative has come into Tokyo to pawn family wares, I suspect an impostor visited your shop."

"That sounds—unlikely." But there was a hint of uncertainty in Mr. Ishida's voice that told me he was worried. He needed my help.

"I promise you that I'll be discreet. Let me buy the suiban, and that will make my interest in the issue seem more natural," I really did want to buy the container. I thought that I could give it as a thank-you to Aunt Norie. In fact, presenting her with it would help communicate that her job taking care of me was complete and that she should return to Yokohama and continue her flower-arranging classes there in peace.

As I walked into Roppongi I bought a copy of the
Japan Times
. At least the English-language press had lost interest in the Kayama School murder. All the news was about the banking crisis. Japan's stock exchange had sunk to number three, behind the United States and England, although government officials remained optimistic. So what else was new?

After finishing the depressing news, I stuck the newspaper in my backpack, which was already bulky thanks to the suiban I was carrying. When the whole thing was mounted on my back, I caught sight of myself in the reflection of a window and decided that I looked like the youngest woman on earth suffering from osteoporosis. Turning onto Gaien Higashi-dori, I was glad to find My Magic Forest did not have any protesters outside. I was determined to buy a large bouquet of flowers to use as a prop at my next destination.

Stepping through Grecian pillars, I entered the shop, which smelled of earth, moss, and exotic blooms. I walked through the lavish international garden displays that I'd seen with Aunt Norie and toward a sale bucket of long-stemmed pink roses. I noticed the petals' dryness.

"These roses. Where are they from?" I asked a shop girl who was fussing with some jasmine nearby.

"Latin America. I'm not sure which country, but I assure you that our supplier says that nobody who picked them was the victim of any pesticide poisoning!" She looked as nervous as she sounded.

"Actually, the roses look a little brown around the edges."

"They arrived two days ago. They did not sell, so we have dropped the price. If madam does not like the roses we have today, why not consider some Dutch tulips? Or Thai orchids?"

"Do you have any locally grown flowers?"

"Oh, yes, but they're very expensive." She glanced at my overstuffed backpack, which must have given the aura of a budget shopper. I slid the backpack off my shoulder and shook out my Burberry so that the clerk could see the plaid lining. Even though my coat was from my mother's chic 1980s wardrobe, it was a major status brand in Japan.

"Cost is no object," I said, madness kicking in. "Not when it comes to ikebana."

"Oh, is madam a teacher?" she asked in a friendlier manner, leading me through a mini-park of cherry and white-plum blossoms. Entire trees, with their roots protected in earth and burlap, were available for sixty thousand yen and up. I vetoed cherry due to my blossoming hatred of the tree, and in the end chose branches of mock orange that had pretty white flowers. I added some lotus leaves and a few sweet little purple cosmos. I handed over five thousand yen—about thirty-five dollars—without too much pain.

"We offer a choice of wrapping in either recycled newspaper or our signature silver paper. What would madam prefer?"

I debated the choice and decided to stick with My Magic Forest's silver paper. With luck, it would make me look like a regular student at my next stop, the Kayama Kaikan.

To avoid having the doorman recognize me as the harbinger of illness and death, I shielded my face with the bundle of flowers as I entered the Kayama Kaikan. I needn't have worried. He was occupied holding open the door for a German tour group. I squeezed in behind them and stayed with the group until they got to the elevators. At that point, I melted up the stairwell marked EMERGENCY ONLY.

I knew from the Kayama School schedule that on Tuesday afternoons the administrative office was closed so that the employees could engage in continuing ikebana education or free activities of their choosing. The time was perfect for what I wanted to do.

At the second-floor landing, I stepped out into the gray-carpeted hallway that led to the administrative office. As was typical for a Japanese office, it was a large, open space filled with desks, each completely void of clutter or personal artifacts, but emblazoned with an employee nameplate.

Fortunately, I knew how to read the names Koda and Sato. I located Mrs. Koda's desk next to one of the long window-walls. At first I hung back from the window, but then I remembered that it was the kind of glass that couldn't be seen into from the outside during the daytime. I surveyed the sweeping view of office buildings and trees, thinking that although the desk seemed to be in a good position, it actually reflected Mrs. Koda's declining role in the school. If she really were functioning as the head administrator, her desk would have been in the center of the room so that she could call out orders to the minions around her. Sakura's desk was squarely in the center of the room; she had been the queen bee.

The police had been through Sakura's desk already. I noticed a thick black powder on its stainless steel surface and the drawer handles: a powder I guessed had something to do with dusting for fingerprints.

I turned back toward the windows, seeing Mrs. Koda's desk from a different angle. A slight shadow caught my attention. There was a gap between the top drawer's edge and the desk. The drawer was open.

Temptation bit me as sharply as one of the tiny bugs that live in old tatami mats. Couldn't I just slide the drawer a bit farther open? I wouldn't be breaking into her desk, just checking it. I would simply look for any address book that she might have, go straight to the Ks, and see if I could find anything on the mysterious Mrs. Kayama.

The drawer slid open soundlessly, revealing a few slim notebooks, a case of pens, a case of pencils, and a tissue box. No address book. I flipped open both notebooks and found them unreadable, except for a few flower names and locations in Tokyo. A roster of teacher names and addresses was printed in both English and kanji. Deciding that the teacher list might be nice to examine later, I went to the photocopy machine. It had been turned off, and when I pressed the on button, it groaned to life with a frighteningly loud noise. I hoped nobody else was on the second floor to hear it.

The machine was very slow. By the time I was finished copying the list, the clock on the wall showed ten minutes to two, the time when the staff flower- arranging session would be over.

I returned to Mrs. Koda's desk with the master list. As I slid it into the drawer, I noticed that I'd gotten black powder on the drawer handle. I must have brushed against Sakura's desk. I reached into Mrs. Koda's tissue box for something to clean the handle, and my hand knocked against a small plastic container. With the tissue around my hand, I pulled out a small bottle made from orange plastic, the kind that protects medications from light. The label was typed in English and said MOTRIN 800 MG. How ironic it was, that the medication I used to tame occasional cramps was something that could help an older woman with arthritis.

The lid was half off—in Japan, childproof lids are not mandatory on medicine bottles—and a tablet fell into my hand. It was small and white, with a cameo of a woman's head carved into its surface. There could be a chance that Motrin had a different design here, but the woman's head seemed an unusual feature. I turned the tablet over and saw that it was inscribed NOLVADEX 600.

Mrs. Koda was taking something stronger than Motrin but was using a Motrin bottle to hold it. It was either for her own use—or for somebody else's.

Like me, Sakura had been poisoned. Lieutenant Hata had told me that it was arsenic. As I stared at the little tablet with the woman 's profile on it, I felt the same nausea that had hit me at the Mitsutan ikebana exhibition. What did Nolvadex contain? Could it be something that could cause a fatal overdose?

I wrapped the tablet in a fresh tissue and stuck the ball in my raincoat pocket. I closed the desk drawer, wiping off the remaining traces of black powder, and turned off the photocopier. Before I left, I threw both tissues into a covered bin that said, in English, LET'S ENJOY RECYCLE. Takeo's project? If so, he should have corrected the English. I thought about that while I walked down the stairwell. Then I heard a set of footsteps a few flights behind me. Someone else was using the stairs.

I hurried all the faster, taking a corner so sharply that a few stalks of patrinia caught against the railing. I was dropping flowers, but there was no time to clean up. With a burst of speed I made it out to the building lobby. I hefted the flowers protectively in front of my face again and proceeded to the door.

"Excuse me, madam, but we need to check your bags."

The doorman's command forced me to stop. From behind the flowers I murmured, "You mean my flowers? I never unwrapped them. You see, I had a mix-up about there being a class this afternoon."

"No, just your backpack. I apologize for the inconvenience, but we are conducting examinations of all visitors as part of our new security system."

I laid down my backpack and the wrapped flowers on a polished walnut table.

"Shimura-san! How is your health?" Miss Okada left the reception desk to greet me.

"Fine. As you can see, I'm up and around, and I made the silliest mistake about class time." I kept my eyes on the doorman, who was slowly proceeding through my backpack. I hoped that he wouldn't notice the roster of teachers, its pages still warm from the copier, tucked between the pages of the
Japan Times
.