"When? she asked.
"Last night sometime, George answered slowly, fighting to control the timbre of his voice, trying to keep it from cracking. "We don't know exactly.
"How? Single-word questions seemed to be all she could manage.
"Kimi, I- Unable to go on, George stopped and shook his head helplessly.
"Tell me! Kimiko demanded. She stepped toward him, her voice dropping to a strangled whisper. "Did he do it himself?
George shrugged his shoulders. "We don't know yet.
"Yes you do. You must. Tell me the truth! Did he?
George was not a tall man, and Kimi Kurobashi was smaller still, but she seemed to grow taller as she stood there staring at him while her whole body vibrated with barely controlled fury. George faltered under the weight of her withering gaze. I would have, too.
"Maybe, he answered reluctantly. "Dr. Baker seems to think so, but I don't.
Kimi turned away from him again. She stood hunched over and trembling, her white-knuckled fingers biting deep into the plaid material of the shirt that covered her upper arm.
"That son of a bitch! I heard her mutter. "That no good son of a bitch!
Shocked, George Yamamoto reacted instantly. "Kimi! He was your father. You mustn't talk about him that way.
"I'll talk about him any damned way I please, she blazed back at him. "Don't tell me what I can and can't say.
"But Kimi-
"I asked him straight out, she continued, "and he lied to me. He lied!
While listening to this heated exchange, I was still busily processing her initial reaction. "What did you ask him? I interjected. "And when?
She shuddered and let out a jagged breath. "Last night. I asked him last night, at his office.
"You went there?
"Yes.
"Why?
"To find out what was going on.
"I don't understand.
"I didn't either. He called me yesterday morning at home. They had to call me in from the barn. He told me to come home right away and get my mother. He said it was urgent.
"Did he say why?
"No. I tried to ask him while we were still on the phone, but he said there wasn't time, that he wanted her away from here when it happened. He wanted her to go home with me to eastern Washington. He said she was pretty much packed and that she should stay with me until all this blew over.
"Until what blew over?
"I don't know, not for sure. They were having difficulties evidently. Money difficulties of some kind. He told me that the house had been sold but that he owed more on it than they would get.
"Did he tell you he was filing for bankruptcy?
Although Kimiko Kurobashi had been answering my questions for several minutes, now she looked at me as if my presence had finally registered. "Who are you? she asked.
I fumbled out my ID and showed it to her. "Detective J.P. Beaumont of the Seattle Police Department. This is my partner, Detective Allen Lindstrom. We're investigating your father's death.
She glanced at George Yamamoto, who nodded a verification.
"No, she answered finally. "He didn't tell me that, but I knew anyway. I figured it out.
"How?
"He told me my mother had packed up all the things she wanted to keep. That I should take them home with me along with my mother. Everything else is scheduled to be auctioned off next week. A moving van is due here any minute to pick it up.
She bent down suddenly, picked up a round river rock from the border of the driveway, and heaved it with surprising strength through the stand of alders until it disappeared into a blackberry thicket in the park behind the house. She made a muted noise, a derisive, angry sound that was neither sob nor laughter.
"After all those years of lecturing me on my duty, how could he leave her to face this… She stopped suddenly as if she had just thought of something. She looked from me to George and back to me again. "How?
"How what?
"How did he do it? With the short sword?
There was no sense trying to skirt the issue, especially since she already seemed to know about it. "Yes, I said.
She wavered at first when she heard it, but then she straightened up as though hearing it said aloud had somehow refueled her anger and given her newfound resolve. Turning on her heel, she started back around the house the way she had come.
"Let's go find my mother, she said. "She's out back saying good-bye to the fish.
When we walked around the side of the house, we passed a stable with a tall fenced enclosure built around it. No horse was visible at the moment, and from the look of the compound, there had been no four-footed occupant in the place for some time.
Behind the house, a car and trailer had been backed up to an open door. The faded green-and-white Suburban looked as though it had been picked up at a surplus vehicle auction from either the U.S. Forest Service or Immigration. It was a huge old rig, much the worse for wear. A decaying bumper sticker asked, HAVE YOU HUGGED YOUR HORSE TODAY? Hitched to that hulking wreck, however, was one of the classiest horse trailers I've ever seen. Impeccable black lettering on the cream-colored metal side announced HONEYDALE APPALOOSA
FARM. And on one of the open back doors, in smaller but equally black lettering was the trailer's own pedigree: PHILLIPS TRAILERS, CHICKASHA, OKLAHOMA.
The contrast between the battle-worn Suburban and the pristine trailer was so striking that it almost made me laugh. Clearly, the horses' riding comfort was of more importance than the comfort of any human passengers.
I sidled around to the opened end of the trailer and glanced inside, half expecting to see the rump of a horse. Instead, the interior of the trailer was stacked high with furniture and boxes. I understood as soon as I looked inside. Considering their financial difficulties, it would be far less expensive for the Kurobashis to move their household goods in a borrowed horse trailer instead of a rented van or U-Haul. Once the trailer had been cleaned out, of course.
Kimiko stopped in front of me so abruptly that I almost ran her down. George and Big Al blundered to a stop behind me.
"Wait here, she ordered. "I'll go get her.
Kimi Kurobashi hurried through a wooden arch into a small, peaceful Japanese garden. She crossed a fountain-fed pond on a miniature arched concrete bridge and paused beside a carved stone bench where a woman sat tossing something to several enormous orange-and-white carp that circled lazily in the sun-dappled water.
The woman looked up startled and began to rise as Kimi came forward, speaking in rapid-fire Japanese. I couldn't understand a word that was spoken, but I was sure from Kimi's tone that she wasn't pulling any punches. A look of shocked dismay passed over the older woman's face as she heard the news. Dismay gave way first to denial and then to total anguish as the full meaning of the words finally struck home. Her face crumpled. She faltered backward while Kimi reached out to steady her. Together they sank down onto the bench.
Even from where we were standing, it was apparent that the daughter was very much a younger, fresher version of her mother. There was the same determined set to the chin, the same delicate molding of eye and cheekbone, although the lines on Machiko Kurobashi's face were beginning to blur a little with age. Her hair was steel gray and cut short, but I could imagine that it had been long and black, full and lustrous once. In her day, she must have been a striking beauty, just as her daughter was now.
They sat on the bench for several minutes, while Machiko Kurobashi wept silently. At last the older woman took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. Despite Kimi's objections, the mother rose and started toward us.