"I have no reason to suspect he has direct knowledge," I replied.
"But he may know something that might help us reconstruct-with the benefit of hindsight and modern forensics-the circumstances that brought your daughter in contact with her killer."
I didn't know how Hamamoto was going to reply. He said, "My wife is not available. She is… living in Japan." These words were clipped, almost unfriendly.
I didn't comment on the tone.
"Your signature alone is sufficient, Mr. Hamamoto."
My carry-on bag was a slender satchel that contained a notebook and a case file. I removed the file and from it and withdrew a single sheet of paper that I had prepared on my computer the previous evening. I slid it toward him.
"This is all you want from me?" His voice betrayed his disappointment. Was there also contempt?
"This paper is all you want from me?"
I softened my voice and leaned closer to him, just an inch or two.
"No, Mr. Hamamoto. I need this paper for the next step in my work. But this step"-I touched the table in front of me-"what will happen between us today, must precede it. I want you to help me know Mariko. I want to know your daughter through your eyes. I want to begin to appreciate her the way you did."
He raised the index finger of his left hand to his mouth and pressed gently on his upper lip until it separated from the lower one.
Symbolically, I thought, he was unsealing them.
"When my company acquired the ski area in Steamboat Springs I was honored to be selected to serve as general manager. My family joined me in Colorado after I was in Steamboat Springs for four months and two weeks. My family then was my wife, Eri, and my two daughters, Mariko and Satoshi. Mariko was sixteen, Satoshi fourteen, then, I think. Yes."
Taro had allowed his posture to soften enough that I no longer felt that I had to impersonate a marine to sit comfortably with him.
"We had, of course, lived abroad before. As a family. The children spoke English well. My wife, not so well. She has always found the language and the culture to be… difficult. She often mused to herself while she knew I was close enough to overhear that she hoped our exile in Colorado would be a brief one. It was one of her favorite words." He said something in Japanese. In English, he said, "Exile."
His eyes grew heavy as though he were suddenly too tired to continue.
"My wife, it seems, she was granted her wish." His eyes closed for a few moments as he composed himself.
"My children loved living in Colorado. Are you familiar with Steamboat Springs, Dr. Gregory?" I said, "Yes, as a matter of fact I was there last weekend with my wife. It's a lovely town."
"The Mountain Village was small then. The town quiet. Everything was much less congested than it is now. The hillside-it reminded us of the place in Japan where my parents lived-a small village near Nagano. You know Nagano? From the Olympics? I felt safe in Steamboat. So did the girls. There is some irony there, yes? They walked places on their own. Visited with other children, went to school, had a normal life. We were outsiders yes, but we were accustomed to that. The girls were… happy.
"Both girls were skiers, of course. Excellent skiers. That helped them-what do you say?-fit in with the local kids in Steamboat. At my urging my wife permitted Mariko and Satoshi freedoms similar to those enjoyed by their new friends. My wife argued against the permissiveness. She felt that it would not serve them well when we returned to Japan."
With apparent sorrow, he said, "My wife… it seems… has always been someone who is concerned mostly with the past… but also some with the future. She worries little about the present… except that she worries as to how it will change the future. And how it will be viewed-appraised?-once it has become the past. I am a businessman, the one in the family who concerns himself with the present. A flaw of mine? Perhaps. If it is a defect it is one that Dr. Welle supported. But… that came later."
I didn't ask permission to take notes, but simply removed the notepad from my satchel and a pen from my pocket and started keeping a chronology of dates and people as Taro Hamamoto sketched in every minute detail of his family's acculturation in Colorado. If he objected to my keeping a journal of the specifics I couldn't discern it from his demeanor.
We were halfway through the time alotted for our meeting when he mentioned Tamara Franklin for the first time. We both laughed as he said, "I met her father and mother, of course. Her father called Tamara'a little pistol." When I got to know her better I thought she was more like a whole big gun." The memories were affectionate, not cross.
He turned serious again immediately.
"But she was kind, so kind to my Mariko. I forgave her the impetuousness. I forgave her the occasional disrespect. I forgave it all because she was so kind and generous to my daughter. Tamara was a very good friend to Mariko. I had good friends growing up, so I know about friendship. And Tamara Franklin was a good friend."
I perceived a natural break in his narrative and opened my mouth to ask a question about Tami and Miko. But he continued before I had a chance.
"I was here, right here, when I learned she was missing."
Confused, I asked, "In Vancouver?"
"Yes. In Canada. In Vancouver. In this airport. I'd just completed a business trip to Whistler Mountain. I wasn't there with my family when she disappeared.
My wife, she is silent, but she blames me I think. For not being there to help."
He shrugged.
"What could I have done? But at the time…"
I felt a familiarity with Hamamoto right then. It calmed me. It was as if our interview had become psychotherapy. I did what I do best. I said nothing and tried not to get in his way.
"Work. I was here for work. The company? We were negotiating then to buy Whistler Mountain. You know Whistler? The ski resort?"
I shrugged. Whether or not I knew Whistler Mountain wasn't the point. He knew that, too.
"A beautiful resort. It is my assignment, now. Whistler. For a different company, though, not Japanese. The economy in Japan in the late nineties was… so fragile. So much of what was gained in the eighties was lost in the nineties.
It has seemed to me that whenever Japan begins to feel strong that is when Japan is most weak. That is our history. Are you a student of history, Dr. Gregory?"
"Personal history."
"Ah." He appraised me warmly.
"My Mariko? Her personal history? Yes, I think I see. From her confidence, too, perhaps came her vulnerability. But she was never arrogant, like Japan. Even like Tamara. Mariko was young, had the self-assurance of the young."
"Her vulnerability?"
"To influence."
"From friends?"
"Yes. From friends."
"Including Tami Franklin?"
"Of course."
He stared at me in a manner that I found disarming. He said, "You know, of course, that my daughter was arrested?"
I did my best to try to not act surprised. I thought I did a pretty good job.
But not good enough.
"You didn't know?" Hamamoto said.
"I'm disappointed."
"I've read the investigative reports thoroughly, Mr. Hamamoto. That information is not there."
"No?" He shrugged.
"Her record was eventually cleared. And now, it doesn't really matter. It is not relevant to finding who killed her. Only to knowing her and her-what did you say?-personal history. It is because of the arrest we came to know Dr. Raymond Welle." Marijuana," he explained.
"In case you are wondering." I waited for him to go on. He seemed embarrassed by his admission and was content to allow the word to hang in the air for as long as possible, as though it were a cloud that would dissipate with the wind.
Finally, I asked, "Possession or sale?" I immediately regretted my bluntness; I needed to encourage Hamamoto, not assault him.
As I feared, my question appeared to offend him.
"Possession. Mariko and Tamara and two boys… men, really. Tourists, skiers.