The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11) by Sujata Massey Page A
Authors: Sujata Massey
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featuring old woodblock prints was a taped-up paper that looked like a printed reproduction of an Internet web page. This was the same picture I’d found online of Mr. Ishida and a teenage girl with hair dyed as brilliantly blue as an anime character’s. Close by this weird picture was another shot of the blue-haired teenager posing with Hachiko. The girl was sticking up a couple of fingers to make rabbit ears over Hachiko’s head: a classic move employed by young Japanese posing in photographs. Belatedly, I realized that the young, punk-looking girl could be Mayumi Kimura.
I felt shocked that Mr. Ishida had hired someone who looked like this to help sell his high-end antiques. I conceded that she was pretty, with sleepy-looking eyes and a full, pouty mouth. But she was about as far from me as he could get. And Mayumi’s juvenile appearance was perhaps the reason he called her “Little Mayumi” and not “Miss Kimura.”
I returned my attention to the Tokyo National Museum calendar. There, written on March 10, was the town name Sendai. On the eleventh was another Japanese word I could guess at, because it was in
kanji
characters that had multiple readings.
The Internet browser was down, so I couldn’t use the
kanji
decoding website. I took out my cell phone and snapped a close-up picture to show my relatives at dinner. Aunt Norie and I had already confirmed via texts that I would arrive by seven.
As I put the phone in my pocket, my gaze fell on a familiar red lacquer box sitting on the desk’s blotter. This cashbox was typically locked and kept in the bottom desk drawer. Touching the edge of the lid, it flipped up.
No money inside: not even a hundred-yen coin. This didn’t make sense, because Mr. Ishida always kept a variety of bills and coins for making change. Perhaps he had deposited everything before his auction trip, although Mayumi would have needed cash on hand to make change if she’d stayed back to keep the shop open for business.
Perhaps a burglary had occurred. But then, more than money should have been missing. I’d not been inside the shop for over a year, so I didn’t know the stock; although I recognized some very expensive pieces that apparently still hadn’t found the right buyer. But then I remembered the shop’s inventory list.
Mr. Ishida listed all his goods by hand inside ordinary lined notebooks. Dozens of these notebooks, going back for decades, filled a shelf above his desk. Inside the notebooks, each item in his inventory was described along with its date of acquisition, original price paid, and if applicable, the buyer, date of purchase, and sales price. He wrote the items’ names in both Japanese and English because he wanted to be able to quickly present a precise description for foreign clients who might telephone or contact him by mail.
I opened the most recent notebook marked 2010 and recognized Mr. Ishida’s handwriting on most of the pages. Over the last six months’ dates, though, a new, tinier script had recorded most of the inventory information. Mayumi’s entries were like a handful of sand in my eyes. She’d written in Japanese, not English.
But I would always know where the most valuable things were kept.
In a clear, locked glass case, I saw the shop’s exceptional collection of
inro
and
netsuke
, the ancient snuff containers and coordinating fasteners that wealthy gentlemen of past centuries wore on silken cords attached to their
obi
belts. And in a tall rosewood chest, all the long boxes that should have held calligraphy scrolls were still full. Finally, I went to the heavy old safe in the kitchen. The combination was still the same: 060721, the date Mr. Ishida’s father founded the shop. Inside the safe, I was relieved to open up some small silk pouches and find some small pieces of jade and elaborate gold-and-pearl jewelry. But there was also a three-foot-square black lacquer box that was empty. It was impossible to guess what might have been stored
I felt shocked that Mr. Ishida had hired someone who looked like this to help sell his high-end antiques. I conceded that she was pretty, with sleepy-looking eyes and a full, pouty mouth. But she was about as far from me as he could get. And Mayumi’s juvenile appearance was perhaps the reason he called her “Little Mayumi” and not “Miss Kimura.”
I returned my attention to the Tokyo National Museum calendar. There, written on March 10, was the town name Sendai. On the eleventh was another Japanese word I could guess at, because it was in
kanji
characters that had multiple readings.
The Internet browser was down, so I couldn’t use the
kanji
decoding website. I took out my cell phone and snapped a close-up picture to show my relatives at dinner. Aunt Norie and I had already confirmed via texts that I would arrive by seven.
As I put the phone in my pocket, my gaze fell on a familiar red lacquer box sitting on the desk’s blotter. This cashbox was typically locked and kept in the bottom desk drawer. Touching the edge of the lid, it flipped up.
No money inside: not even a hundred-yen coin. This didn’t make sense, because Mr. Ishida always kept a variety of bills and coins for making change. Perhaps he had deposited everything before his auction trip, although Mayumi would have needed cash on hand to make change if she’d stayed back to keep the shop open for business.
Perhaps a burglary had occurred. But then, more than money should have been missing. I’d not been inside the shop for over a year, so I didn’t know the stock; although I recognized some very expensive pieces that apparently still hadn’t found the right buyer. But then I remembered the shop’s inventory list.
Mr. Ishida listed all his goods by hand inside ordinary lined notebooks. Dozens of these notebooks, going back for decades, filled a shelf above his desk. Inside the notebooks, each item in his inventory was described along with its date of acquisition, original price paid, and if applicable, the buyer, date of purchase, and sales price. He wrote the items’ names in both Japanese and English because he wanted to be able to quickly present a precise description for foreign clients who might telephone or contact him by mail.
I opened the most recent notebook marked 2010 and recognized Mr. Ishida’s handwriting on most of the pages. Over the last six months’ dates, though, a new, tinier script had recorded most of the inventory information. Mayumi’s entries were like a handful of sand in my eyes. She’d written in Japanese, not English.
But I would always know where the most valuable things were kept.
In a clear, locked glass case, I saw the shop’s exceptional collection of
inro
and
netsuke
, the ancient snuff containers and coordinating fasteners that wealthy gentlemen of past centuries wore on silken cords attached to their
obi
belts. And in a tall rosewood chest, all the long boxes that should have held calligraphy scrolls were still full. Finally, I went to the heavy old safe in the kitchen. The combination was still the same: 060721, the date Mr. Ishida’s father founded the shop. Inside the safe, I was relieved to open up some small silk pouches and find some small pieces of jade and elaborate gold-and-pearl jewelry. But there was also a three-foot-square black lacquer box that was empty. It was impossible to guess what might have been stored
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