George Yamamoto had seen Tadeo's total absorption in Machiko, had watched it draw Tadeo's affections away from his sister Tomi. He had tried to understand it, finally explaining it to himself as some kind of sexual entrapment, a web of eroticism only a street wise prostitute could weave.
Now I felt certain that Machiko's fascination for Tadeo had been far less complicated than that, far less sinister. I saw it as the simple magnetism that often draws the strong to the weak, the powerful to the helpless. Tadeo had literally wrested Machiko from certain death at the hands of her brutal husband. That act had bound the two of them together in such a symbiotic, mutually dependent relationship that even Kimiko, their well-loved child, had not been able to penetrate it, much less understand it.
What Kimiko had seen as a prison, Machiko had viewed as a haven, a refuge. The father, the villain Kimiko regarded as her mother's ruthless jailer and dictator, had chosen to alienate his daughter, to go without speaking to his only child for nine long years, rather than reveal his own terrible secret, a secret he and his wife had shared and lived with and carried together for more than forty years.
So what had changed? What event had, in a single day, triggered such a fundamental change in Tadeo Kurobashi's life? What had made so great a difference that he had been willing, after all those years, to sell the sword? He must have known that Machiko's sword was indeed two-edged, that it held the promise of bringing them much needed financial relief, but that it also carried the threat of bringing with it questions and an investigation that might reopen that forty-year-old nightmare.
That weekend, something had made such a profound impression on Tadeo Kurobashi that he had been willing to risk revealing the desperate act he and Machiko had kept hidden for so long.
There was only one thing I knew for sure about that Friday. It was the day Clay Woodruff had called and left a message for Tadeo Kurobashi with Bernice Oliver. Was that call the catalyst? Was that what had sparked Tadeo's sudden change of heart, or was it something that happened later at the meeting in Port Angeles on Sunday?
I had no way of knowing, and no way of telling which side Woodruff was on, to say nothing of which way he might have pushed Tadeo. Woodruff had claimed that he was doing something for a friend, a final favor. Maybe that had been a lie, something Woodruff threw in to keep me off guard. If so, it had worked like a charm. Clay Woodruff had outfoxed me six ways to Sunday. He had gotten away clean without my having any idea where to look for him.
Frustrated with thinking about how stupid I was, I went back to thinking about Tadeo Kurobashi, struggling to come to grips with this changed vision of him, to understand how this newly revised and heroic version was tied in with a gangster named Aldo Pappinzino in Chicago, Illinois. No matter how I shoved the pieces around on the board, I couldn't see a connection.
The ride from Winslow is a relatively short one. I stayed in the car, watching as Seattle's nighttime cityscape slowly crystallized and emerged from the ghostly glow of cloud-shrouded lights in the distance. In thirty time-warping minutes, I traveled from sleepy rural backwoods to the heart of a metropolis still alive with its late-night diversions, from towering, darkened forests to nighttime skyscrapers whose lights beckoned like so many burning candles.
That ride and that view always have a soothing effect on me, and this time was no exception. As I drove off the ferry, I was no longer nearly as pissed with Ames and Winter as I had been when I had boarded the boat in Winslow. Driving up the hill toward the Medical Examiner's Office, I felt a sudden burst of energy, a second wind. If "Aimless Ames and his buddy wanted to muck around in forty-year-old murders, let 'em. My job was to deal with the murders in the here and now. Specifically with the murder of Tadeo Kurobashi. Tadeo and, secondarily, that of David Lions. He was mine too. By proxy. Because I said so.
In trying to talk to Dana Lions, I would be in direct competition with other cops from other jurisdictions. Detectives from the King County Police would be there. I was sure they would want me to take a number and get in line.
I had news for them. They were coming into this case from way behind go. They were just beginning to wonder who had killed David Lions. I already knew. All I needed was one tiny smidgen of evidence to prove it.
With any kind of luck, Lorenzo Tabone would have made a slip, one seemingly insignificant mistake, that would give me something to remember him by, something that would buy him a one-way ticket to the gallows, Washington State's still extant but rarely used form of capital punishment.
CHAPTER 18
When I got to the medical examiner's office, three people were grouped and talking in low voices in the small reception area outside Doc Baker's door. Two were women, one about my age and the other much younger, no more than twenty-five. All three looked up at me questioningly as I came through the door.
"Detective Beaumont, I announced.
As soon as I said that, the younger woman leaped from her chair and hurled herself toward me. She was a tiny woman, only about five feet, but when she crashed into me, I almost lost my balance. I grabbed at a chair to keep from sprawling on the floor.
"Detective Beaumont, thank God you've come. She threw her arms around me and buried her head in my chest as though I were some long-lost relation. "I told them you were coming, she sobbed, clinging to me like a burr.
The man stepped forward with a puzzled frown on his face. "I'm Detective Hal Forbes, he said, "and this is my partner, JoAnne Reece. We're with the King County Police. Miss Lions here was telling us that you're already involved in this case. Is that true?
I nodded. "Sort of. I'm working the Tadeo Kurobashi case, I said as I pried Dana Lions' arms loose from around my waist, walked her over to a chair, and helped her sit back down.
For the first time, I got a good look at her. She was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit with the words ST. HELEN'S FLYING SERVICE emblazoned in blue embroidery on the breast pocket. Her hair, so red that it almost matched her uniform, was short and curly. Her vivid green eyes were swollen from weeping.
I took one of her small hands in mine. "Is it your father?
She swallowed hard, nodded, and said nothing.
"Wait a minute, Forbes said. "Isn't Kurobashi the man who was found dead in his office on Fourth Avenue South sometime this week?
"That's the one, I replied.
"I remember now, Forbes continued. "And there was something later on about his wife and daughter being attacked over in eastern Washington?
"You got it. I glanced down at Dana before I spoke again. She wasn't going to like hearing what I had to say, but I went ahead with it anyway.
"I've been working with Detective Halvorsen from the Whitman County Sheriff's Department over in Colfax. He's in charge of the assault case. We believe that Mr. Lions' aircraft was used to create a diversion to cover up the attack on the Kurobashi women.
"No! Dana exclaimed. She pulled her hands free from mine and covered her face. "My father wouldn't do that. It isn't true. This is all a mistake.
"There's no mistake, Dana, I said gently. "He may not have had a choice, he may have been forced into participating, but he was there, and so was the helicopter.
"Didn't have a choice? Dana asked. "What do you mean?
Detective Forbes looked at Dana, but he spoke to me. "Sounds like we're all over the map on this one. Somebody dead here, somebody attacked in Colfax, the body found by Lake Kachess.
I didn't bother to tell him that I had just come back from Port Angeles, where Clay Woodruff had left me in the dust. Why make things more complicated than they already were?
Dana's eyes, bright as emeralds, pierced into mine. "You still haven't said what you meant.