Part 3 (2/2)

The dog that charged the door, yapping fiercely, was a wire-haired Jack Russell terrier, white with brown spots and a good deal of att.i.tude.

Lei squatted down, lowering her voice and extending her closed fist for him to sniff. ”Hey, boy. You hungry?”

The dog tentatively sniffed at her hand, and his tail wagged. She slowly stood up and advanced into the kitchen, spotting his bowls (both empty) against the wall. She picked up the water bowl first, turning on the sink and letting her eyes roam around the room, looking for anything out of place.

It was spotless and pristine except for a corner near the trash bin where the dog had succ.u.mbed to biology and defecated. She refilled the bowl and located a lidded trash bin filled with dry food. She refilled that too as the dog frantically lapped water.

Ken came up into the doorway. ”We should search the house.”

”I know. Got a lot of detail work ahead, but I want to figure out something for this little guy.”

”Strange that s.h.i.+maoka didn't give him away before he died. People planning their suicide usually do that. Another oddity.”

”Maybe he didn't have time. Maybe it came up suddenly,” Lei said, frowning thoughtfully as she set the dog's bowl down. The little terrier chomped down the food as fast as he could. ”Did Ching find out the dog's name from the neighbor?”

”Ask me yourself.” Ching approached across the garage with his clipboard.

”Hey, Detective. Did the lady who found the body say what the dog was called?” Lei ignored his att.i.tude.

”His name's Sam.” They all looked at the little dog with his nose in the bowl. ”She said s.h.i.+maoka usually took good care of the dog.”

”I wonder if she'd be willing to take care of him until a relative or something can be located.”

Ching leafed through the papers on his clipboard, removed one and handed it to her. ”Here's her contact information.” He was clearly not volunteering for dog care duty. ”She seemed attached to s.h.i.+maoka. Cried a lot over the discovery. Said she knew about the cancer.”

Sam finished eating and darted out the open doorway and through the garage, past the open door of the SUV, where his master's body was being awkwardly wrestled into a body bag by Dr. f.u.kus.h.i.+ma and her a.s.sistant. Ching and Ken hurried to help while Lei ran after the dog. Sam trotted into the immaculate little front yard and did his business. Lei scanned the neighbors still cl.u.s.tered on the other side of the tape Ching had put up at the end of the driveway.

One woman, dressed in purple sweats and a T-s.h.i.+rt with a lei hand painted across the front, was crying into a dish towel. Lei approached her, glancing at the paper Ching had handed her. ”Hi there. You wouldn't be Sherry Thompson, would you?”

”Yes.” The woman looked up, brown eyes streaming. She had the kind of complexion that didn't age well in Hawaii, tissue-like freckled skin patched with red. ”I was a good friend of Alfred. I can't believe he did this to himself.”

”Tell me what happened, please.”

She listened to a recap of what Ching had already told them, with embellishments of shock and grief. Finally, when Sherry was winding down, Lei gestured to the little dog doing a patrol lap of the front yard. ”Any chance you could take care of Sam? I'd hate to see Animal Control have to come take him to the Humane Society.”

Sherry squatted and opened her arms in reply. ”Sam! Come here, boy! I'm happy to take him and at least try to find a home for him.” The terrier ran to her, and she scooped him up. ”Can I get his leash and food?”

”Just a moment,” Lei said, trying to physically turn the woman away from the sight of f.u.kus.h.i.+ma and her a.s.sistant loading the black body bag and gurney into the ME van, but she was unsuccessful. Sherry watched with her mouth ajar, color draining from her highly colored face. As if sensing her distress, Sam licked her chin until she looked back down at him.

”I can't believe he didn't do something for Sam,” Sherry said. ”He loved this dog. Took such good care of him.”

”You seem like you're surprised Mr. s.h.i.+maoka took his own life, but Detective Ching said you knew he had cancer.”

”I knew he had cancer, but not what kind. He was in pain, and he didn't like to take medication. We'd talked about that several times. I guess if I'd known it was pancreatic cancer-which is painful and terminal-I wouldn't have been so shocked.” She stroked the little dog's fur. ”I better get his things.”

Lei led Sherry and another helpful neighbor into the kitchen to pick up the dog's food, leash, bed, and toys. ”Thank you, Agent Texeira. You're very kind,” Sherry Thompson said.

”Just want to find him a good home.” Lei couldn't remember anyone calling her kind before-she must be mellowing with age. She kept the women from going any farther into the house and rejoined Ken at the SUV as the ladies walked off with the dog and his accoutrements.

”Whew. Got that taken care of. Got a little more information on our victim too.”

”Good.” Ken handed her the handheld vacuum with its special trap for fibers. ”Back to work. Let's get this car done.”

Evening bloomed a salmon glow over clouds above Punchbowl when Lei was finally able to drive out from the Bureau headquarters into her grandfather's neighborhood near where Alfred s.h.i.+maoka had lived. She'd told Ken about the likely connection to the name in the note, but it had taken hours to go over s.h.i.+maoka's car inch by inch and then to search his house. They'd then taken samples, fibers, prints, and photos back to headquarters and spent more hours processing the evidence in Workroom One. Finally Ken had dismissed her, saying, ”I want you to interview your grandfather. He's the only person mentioned by name in the note.”

Lei drove through the quiet neighborhood with its neat lawns and monkeypod shade trees, pa.s.sing s.h.i.+maoka's house and going on to Soga Matsumoto's. She'd made a photocopy of the suicide note after they'd a.n.a.lyzed it-no prints but s.h.i.+maoka's were on it.

Lei continued to wonder how Corby's prints could be on the duct tape off the tailpipe, indicating an a.s.sist with the suicide apparatus. Yet important areas where other fingerprints would have been, like the suicide note and the keys, were marked by none but s.h.i.+maoka, indicating the death was by his own hand.

How could two such different people ever even meet, let alone join in executing s.h.i.+maoka's death? And then someone had a.s.sisted in Corby's too.

There were still too many missing pieces in both cases.

Lei pulled her silver Tacoma up to the curb in front of her grandfather's low, modest ranch home. The gra.s.s of the front yard was a beautiful, putting-green quality Bermuda, decorated with a small cement temple and a single, clipped bonsai juniper.

Lei usually met her grandfather for lunch at his favorite noodle house. She'd been over to his home only one other time, at the holidays, when her grandfather had invited her and her visiting aunt and father over for tea. It had been a tense hour for Lei, full of awkward pauses, but an important gesture on Soga's part as her parents' marriage hadn't been supported by the Matsumotos. They'd never tried to find or contact Lei after their daughter Maylene died, and without her aunty Rosario's intervention, Lei would have ended up in foster care.

Aunty Rosario had brought her famous poi rolls, a Tupperware of the Portuguese bean soup her restaurant was known for, and a mouth tight with disapproval-until she'd had several cups of warm sake and Soga had patted Lei's hand. ”Having Lei in my life has made me so happy. I wasn't able to see her before my wife died.”

The delicate inflection confirmed what Wayne Texeira had told Lei and Rosario-Yumi Matsumoto, Lei's grandmother, was the author of the separation between the Matsumotos and the Texeiras. Now she was gone, dead of a heart attack more than a year ago.

Lei had witnessed the visible relaxation of adults affected by a powerful presence she had never been able to know. The tension was also eased for Lei. The remaining members of her family were willing to find common ground with one another for her sake.

Lei walked up the cement path to the s.h.i.+ny black-lacquered front door with its geometric knocker. She had to knock hard, several times, before she heard her grandfather's footsteps-deliberate but not shuffling. He opened the door and smiled at the sight of her, his stern face lighting up. ”Lei!”

”Hi, Grandfather.” She'd decided on that slightly formal appellation a while ago-it suited him best. ”Can I come in? I have to talk with you about something.”

”Of course. Let me put on some tea.” The door opened into a dining area, with a sunken table flush with the floor, preserving the j.a.panese seating tradition. The colors of the room were quiet grays, muted in dim lighting. A black leather couch against the far wall set off a framed watercolor of Mount Fuji.

Lei followed him through the room into the kitchen, an immaculate s.p.a.ce filled with golden evening and s.h.i.+ny surfaces. She seated herself at the round table for two beneath the window while he filled an electric kettle with water. She took a moment to look into the backyard with its tiered rows of orchid shelves and open workshop, a dangling bulb lighting a workbench covered with materials for making lanterns.

The Floating Lantern Ceremony was a huge event organized annually by the s.h.i.+nnyo Buddhist Temple to honor the fallen and lost on Memorial Day. Her grandfather had invited her to partic.i.p.ate last year, and they'd lit three lanterns at the ceremony: one for her mother, one for her grandmother Yumi, and one for her friend from the Big Island, Mary Gomes. Lei would never forget the sight of the lanterns in the Ca.n.a.l in Waikiki, the magical way the yellow candles had glowed by the thousands reflected in the water.

Her grandfather and Alfred s.h.i.+maoka were among the many volunteers who retrieved, repaired, and built new lanterns each year for the event. She reached into the backpack that doubled as her purse and took out the photocopied suicide note, placing it facedown on the table as her grandfather returned with a bamboo tray set with small ceramic cups and a teapot.

”It is good to see you.” The evening light shone on his silver hair as he set the tea tray on the table. ”The water will be a few more minutes.”

”Okay. I see you've got a lot going in the workshop.” Lei pointed out the window to his lit workbench.

”I have many lanterns to get ready by the end of May.” It was mid-March. He opened a canister of loose tea leaves and scooped some into an empty hand-thrown ceramic pot.

”Well, that's in part what I'm here about. Did you know Alfred s.h.i.+maoka?”

”I know him, yes.” Soga looked at her. Dark eyes, shadowed by the fold of his eyelids, revealed worry in the creases. ”He is my friend.”

”I'm very sorry to tell you-but he's died.”

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