The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11) by Sujata Massey

haven’t seen her since March tenth.”
    “Maybe she’ll be at the shop today,” I said, though I doubted it. “I heard her voice on the phone several times over the last few months, but we’ve never met. What’s her name?”
    “Mayumi-chan was what he called her; her full name is Kimura Mayumi. Ishida-san said the Kimuras are a well-known lacquer family originally from the Aizu section of Fukushima. They relocated to a small town in Tohoku Prefecture when Mayumi was very young.”
    Kimura meant tree village: a fitting place to come from if one was involved in the lacquer arts. The name carried a more peaceful association than my family name, which meant warriors’ village. The two last names, Shimura and Kimura, sounded very similar. Maybe Ishida-san used Mayumi’s first name to avoid tripping over old memories—or because he considered her a granddaughter.
    I stifled this strange, swift flicker of jealousy and thanked Mr. Okada for helping Hachiko. I told him I planned to go into Ishida Antiques to look for more clues to Mr. Ishida and Mayumi’s whereabouts and then stop at the veterinarian to see how Hachiko had fared.
    “Won’t you take some freshly roasted crackers as a small welcome back?” Okada-san offered. “I also can lend the key I have to Ishida-san’s front door. It’s quite simple to get into the place, I’m afraid. I think he should have an alarm system, but he doesn’t like wires.”
    Mr. Ishida believed that a guard dog was a greater deterrent than any alarm. He had once told me that Hachiko could sense if certain people were trouble. The dog once stalked a customer who turned out to be a shoplifter. Mr. Ishida had said, “When Hachiko put her paws and nose on the fellow, he quickly took a jade figure right out of his pocket and handed it to me!”
    Mr. Okada placed three packages of seaweed-sesame crackers in a crisp navy shopping bag with a striped-ribbon handle. I thanked him for the kind gift and wrote my Japanese cell number on my business card and handed it to him. “Just in case I don’t see Mayumi-chan at the shop, and you do happen to see her after I’ve gone to Tohoku.”
    “I will keep your card right by my
reji
,” Mr. Okada said, gesturing toward the old-fashioned cash register. “And when you find Ishida-san, do call in case there’s anything I can do here to make his return.”

    The fact that I didn’t have to pick Mr. Ishida’s lock was almost disappointing. Michael’s little black case containing fifteen picks and four tension wrenches designed for narrow Japanese locks would remain inside my jacket pocket.
    I walked around the building’s stucco exterior, relieved to see no parts of it had crumbled. Fitting Mr. Okada’s spare key into the old brass lockplate, the knob turned, and I stepped into the shop.
    It didn’t smell quite right. I was used to the scent of wax and green tea, but today I smelled some kind of spoiled food. A few more steps until I spotted two moldy oranges lying on the floor. They’d fallen, along with a square porcelain dish, from an ornately carved miniature Buddhist altar.
    Unfolding a tissue from a promotional packet somebody had thrust at me by Sendagi Station, I gathered up the oranges and broken pottery and deposited them in a small trash basket near Mr. Ishida’s fifty-year-old desk. Now, as I looked around, I saw more evidence of the earthquake. Several pieces of porcelain had fallen off display tables and lay broken on the shop’s worn pine floor. Several drawers were hanging open on a step
tansu
, and some folders of shop receipts and records were scattered across the floor.
    How surprising that Mayumi had not cleaned up. Uneasily, I looked on the desk for a note or other evidence of her last time in the shop. But there was nothing, and the store telephone had no blinking lights promising messages, because the power was off.
    Next I moved on to scrutinize the aged plaster walls near the desk. Beside a museum calendar