The Salaryman's Wife

by Sujata Massey

  “And blood always flows downward, according to gravity?”

  “Sure.” Tom twisted his watch around so he could look at it without being obvious.

  “She couldn’t have died naturally, then.” My voice rose and the nurses swiveled around to look at us again. “When I found her, she was lying face down. I’m sure of it because her hair had fallen over her face.”

  Tom’s beeper went off. He unclipped it from his waist and studied the number blinking on it.

  “Bruises wouldn’t have formed on the back of her head if she fell face down. Don’t you get it?” I beseeched him.

  “I have to answer this page.” Tom walked over to a telephone on the wall and lifted the receiver. He spoke animatedly and gave a slight bow at conversation’s end, but I was too wound up to find it amusing.

  “I’ve bought myself ten more minutes,” Tom said when he came back. “Did you bring the autopsy?”

  “Of course.” I chewed on my thumbnail as Tom read it again.

  “Yes, you’re right,” he said at last. “Given the circumstances, this is very likely the Battle sign.”

  “You mean she fought somebody?”

  “No, cousin. Battle is the name of the physician who identified a special type of bruise. He studied head injuries and found that when someone is hit hard on the back of the head, it fractures the cranium and also bursts the capillaries so blood seeps through tissue and pools behind the ears. This creates dark bruises now known as the Battle sign.”

  “But didn’t you tell me the X ray showed no fractures?”

  “Often fractures don’t show up. Even having been in medicine for ten years, I can tell you it’s extremely difficult to look at a film and discern a hairline fracture from a vein or even a normal joining of the skull bones.”

  “So, you’re telling me you believe she was hit on the back of the head?”

  “Yes,” Tom said, after a second’s pause. “Looking at the time the coroner did the exam—10 A.M. on January 2—there was a very reasonable amount of time for the sign to appear, even allowing that she was packed in snow for a night.”

  “We’ve got to do something.”

  “Well, the ideal situation would be to have the coroner revise his findings. But it’s not likely that he will admit to any mistake.”

  “So no one will ever find out.” I didn’t hide my disgust. “She’ll have died and been written off all because of some mighty oisha-san’s incompetence. Or maybe, because the company involved is Sendai, they had everything smoothed over.”

  “If you want to put your mind at ease, call the police,” Tom said. “Tell them you talked to me and I suggested they take the autopsy to a different coroner for a second opinion.”

  “The captain won’t listen to me. He hates foreigners.”

  “Try. Your Japanese is good enough.”

  “But it’s not medical! If I call him, could I give him your number, too? So you could explain everything?” I hated myself for being so dependent, but I knew how much weight Tom’s words would carry.

  “If you insist.” Tom didn’t look happy. “Cousin, I’m going to just say this once. After you speak to the police, this mission of yours should end. This friend who asked you to do things should realize you’re an English teacher, not a crime fighter.”

  “Crime fighter?” I raised my eyebrows. “You’ve been reading too many comic books.”

  Tom didn’t smile. Instead, he changed languages. “In Japan, young people listen to their elders. So I’m telling you as an older cousin to younger, that whoever struck this woman thinks he got away with it. You’re not the one to tell him otherwise.”

  Nobody could possibly know why I’d gone to St. Luke’s, but I was on hyper alert as I edged my way into the train station. I watched the people who boarded the train, but seats were plentiful at this hour and no one came near me.

  I was the only one to get off at Minami-Senju, my subway stop. I walked fast over the steel pedestrian overpass and down its steps to the sidewalk, passing Family Mart and the liquor store. A large group of bszoku, young motorcycle hoodlums, roared past me. They had lately taken to congregating outside the liquor store, revving their engines for the fun of it. Nobody dared complain because bszoku were rumored to be junior workers for the yakuza, organized crime gangs similar to the American Mafia.

  Compared to them, my homeless neighbors were absolute gentlemen. Tonight they had a bottle of beer between them and were pouring it out into small glasses. One of them called out an invitation that I pretended not to hear.

  The first thing I did when I got into my apartment was lock and chain the door. Then I telephoned Minshuku Yogetsu. My relief that Mr. Yogetsu answered instead of his wife was short-lived.

  “Miss Shimura! Such luck you called. My wife wants to talk to you. May I put her on?”

  She had probably decided to charge me for the broken shji screen. I did not want to talk to her about it. “Actually, I can’t stay on the phone. I just wanted to leave a message for Hugh Glendinning.”

  “Oh, he’s out drinking at the Alpenhof. He does that every night, now. I’m surprised he doesn’t move there.” Mr. Yogetsu sounded hurt.

  How interesting. Was he drowning his sorrows or entertaining someone new? I pictured a slim Japanese girl in tight ski pants. I hastily rang off, hoping Mr. Yogetsu would not encourage his wife to call me back. I phoned the Alpenhof, where the bartender answering the phone sounded like he was in the middle of a brawl. When I asked him to check for a white man, he shouted “No gaijin!” and hung up.

  I would have to contact Captain Okuhara first and then relay the message to Hugh. I dialed the number on the business card the police chief had given me. A desk sergeant answered, and I identified myself as the Japanese-American woman who had found Setsuko Nakamura’s body at Minshuku Yogetsu. There was a series of clicking noises, and I thought I’d been disconnected until I heard a new voice.

  “Okuhara here.”

  “This is Rei Shimura. Do you remember me?” I asked hesitantly.

  “The amateur translator. I recognize your accent.”

  “I have some more information about your case.”

  “The Nakamura accident?” He sounded bored.

  “I’m telephoning about the autopsy, which is…perhaps not correct after all.” Taking a deep breath, I launched a translation of the high points Tom had told me.

  “Yes, I know what the Battle sign is. The coroner did not mention it.” Captain Okuhara spoke firmly.

  “The thing is, we know the last thing she did that night was take a bath,” I reminded him. “If she had been struck in the head and then held underwater, she could have drowned. Do you remember how she had water in her lungs as well as the bruises behind the ears?”

  “How did you reach this rather astonishing conclusion, Miss Shimura?”

  “A Saint Luke’s physician provided this analysis, so if you don’t believe me, just call him! But please look around before all the evidence is gone—look in the bath at least—”

  “She was found outside. You of all people, should remember that.”

  “Yes, I found her under the bathroom window, with no footprints leading to, or away, from her body. She lay face down, which means there was no reason for her to have bruises behind her ears. No reason except for the fact that somebody hit her in the head. Think about it!” I dropped the formal language I’d started with, had no more patience for honorifics. There was a long silence.

  “How did you get the autopsy?” When he spoke again he sounded friendlier, but I still felt ruled by caution.

  “It was given to me.”

  “The only person who had a copy was Mr. Nakamura.”

  “Mr. Glendinning obtained a photocopy because he was concerned. He knew Mrs. Nakamura had wanted a divorce. There’s every reason to believe her husband was the person who struck her.” There, I’d said it at last.

  Captain Okuhara wanted to know more. Now that I had his complete, uncritical attention,
my words slowed and my grammar fell back into place. I told him about the papers in my door, the gas accident, and the scenario Hugh and I had constructed in the bathroom.

  “You were correct to call, Miss Shimura,” he said at the end of my outpouring. Correct. That was an improvement over the way he’d been treating me. Cheered, I asked him what the next step would be.

  “First, I will call this doctor at St. Luke’s you told me about. Then, if I see fit, I will order the autopsy redone.”

  Feeling giddy I hung up and went to bed, but found I could not sleep. I fixed myself a cup of cocoa, trying to will myself into relaxation. Captain Okuhara had listened. He had thanked me. Vindication would never again feel so sweet.

  12

  The crackers and candy piled up next to the coffee-maker had been thoroughly pawed over, but they still tempted me on my first evening back at work. Everyone had brought a souvenir from their vacation travels. I added a small sampler of Shiroyama’s sweet bean cakes to the display and wondered if there would be time for a cup of tea and a quick bite before I started teaching.

  “You look like the cat who got the cream. Did the flying Scotsman call back yet?” Richard’s sibilant whisper in my ear made me jump. I shook my head. I’d waited all weekend and was heartily sick of it. Richard opened his mouth, probably on the verge of offering condolences, but I interrupted him.

  “You took that earring out of your mouth!”

  “It’s a tongue stud,” Richard corrected. “This dress code sucks. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”

  It was a minor miracle that Richard managed to squeeze himself four nights a week into the button-down shirt, blazer, and trousers Nichiyu required of him. If he had his way, he’d dress in the black T-shirt, leather jeans, and multiple earrings he wore constantly on his jaunts into Roppongi and Shinjuku. No one at work was aware of his sexual orientation. This made him complain that our living together ruined his image. Still, he needed me as much for close companionship as my share in the rent payment.

  Richard was everything to me. Having grown up an only child, I felt cheated that I’d never had anyone with whom to sing in the car or play secret games. Karen and Simone, who had experience in such things, assured me brothers really weren’t that fun, but I still chose to define my three years with Richard in sibling terms.

  “I hope you remember to remove your stud when you drink hot liquids,” I faux-lectured Richard as the electronic melody chimed over the intercom to tell us the regular workday had officially ended. It hadn’t. Most salarymen spent at least four more unproductive hours at their desks or in Richard’s and my English classes.

  Not only did we have to teach at night, we had to teach groups Nichiyu management insisted on arranging according to work section and not language level. This meant bossy men who couldn’t put together two sentences dominated each class, while better speakers of lower rank were afraid to open their mouths. Today when I asked “What was the best thing about your vacation?” three times at slow speed, it met with dead silence.

  “The best thing was sleep!” Mr. Fukuda bellowed at last, and there was nervous laughter from the group of adults clustered around the U-shaped table.

  “Sleeping! Surely, Mr. Fukuda, you didn’t sleep the whole five days?”

  Yes, he had. So had Mr. Nigawa. The only person who admitted to doing anything was Ms. Mori, who had made a cake for her family.

  “No one went away?” I asked skeptically, remembering all the souvenir sweets.

  “You, Sensei!” someone asked me. “Where did you go? Mr. Randall said you left him alonely in Tokyo.”

  “Alone in Tokyo and no, let’s not talk about me today.” I knew why my students begged me for monologues—it enabled them to glaze over into sleep. “Come on, let’s all ask our neighbor what the best thing about vacation time was, and also what we missed about work. I’ll model this with Ms. Shinchi.” I motioned my best student to her feet. “Hello, Ms. Shinchi!”

  I held out my hand for her to shake. The shy woman pumped it up and down while bowing slightly.

  “Hello, Ms. Shimura.”

  “Did you return from New Year’s vacation?”

  “Yes, I returned from New Year’s vacation,” she parroted back.

  “What was the best thing about your vacation?”

  “The best thing about my vacation was seeing my mother in her house.” She stared at her feet.

  “Can you tell me more about that?”

  “I had not seen her for one year’s time.”

  “Mmm. Is there any reason you’re glad to be back at work?” I prompted.

  “I like returning to work to earn some money.”

  “There! Let’s see how many different answers we can find in ten minutes, and I don’t want to hear any Japanese.”

  We got home late, but Richard persuaded me to stay up to watch a Junzo Itami comedy called Funeral. It was surprisingly hilarious. I was laughing at a greedy priest trying to make off with a mourner’s precious tiled table when Richard hit the VCR’s PAUSE button.

  “Someone’s in the hallway.”

  “Mr. Noguchi’s drunk and searching for his key again,” I guessed. We had another neighbor one landing below, a widower who lived on shrimp chips and Yebisu beer. When he was really badly off, he sometimes stumbled up an extra floor.

  “Nope. He’s knocking on our door,” Richard insisted, so I got up and looked through the peephole. The man standing outside was not Mr. Noguchi, but he wore a business suit and carried a briefcase. A lost salaryman? I opened up.

  “Miss Shimura?” The stranger looked like he wanted to flee. Maybe it was my long underwear, but what did he expect at a quarter past ten? I tugged my yukata more tightly around myself and took the card he handed me. The side printed in English identified him as Junichi Ota, Attorney at Law.

  “I’m not looking for any representation, thank you.” I started to close the door.

  “I have been sent by my client, Hugh Glendinning.” As Mr. Ota spoke, my sense of gravity shifted, and I grabbed at the door frame for stability.

  “I did not know you had a husband.” Mr. Ota was looking past my shoulder at Richard sprawled across my futon in his long underwear.

  “He’s nothing. I mean, he’s a colleague, not a husband, and he was getting ready to go to his room.”

  “Goodnight Miss Shimura, my honorable colleague.” Richard slouched off without protest, since he would be able to hear everything through the paper thin door.

  “What happened?” I asked Mr. Ota when we were alone, gesturing for him to sit down with me at the tea table.

  “Mr. Glendinning was arrested yesterday morning in connection with Setsuko Nakamura’s death and Kenji Yamamoto’s disappearance.” There was a rushing in my ears, but faintly in the distance, Mr. Ota continued. “According to Japanese law, a civilian can be arrested and detained without bail for forty-eight hours on the suspicion of having committed a crime. After that a public prosecutor must rule whether there is enough evidence to keep him in custody. Unfortunately, I believe this may happen to my client.”

  Captain Okuhara must have gone crazy with what I told him two days ago. I would call him back, straighten things out.

  “The police chief is obviously refusing to consider Mr. Nakamura because it’s easier to blame a foreigner. I’ll talk to him.” I headed for the telephone.

  “Please do not do that!” Mr. Ota issued as much of a command as was possible in polite Japanese. “Anything you say can be used against Mr. Glendinning. It happened before.”

  “All I told him was that the autopsy should be reevaluated because it showed signs of a head injury! Nothing about Hugh.”

  “You told the captain that Mr. Glendinning stole the autopsy. That made him look very bad,” Mr. Ota said sternly. I wondered if he’d come just to make me feel guilty. Well, it was my fault. My new year’s resolution had been to think before speaking, and I’d failed.

  Mr. Ota’s accusing litany continued. �
�Miss Shimura, you also put forth a theory about a bathroom killing. Based on that, the police found evidence at the bottom of the bath, part of Mrs. Nakamura’s fingernail. And they say Mr. Glendinning’s fingerprints were on the window from where the body was dropped. The deceased lady’s jewelry was in his room, and now Mrs. Yogetsu, the innkeeper, swears that she heard the two of them together in the bathroom that night, arguing.”

  “My fingerprints were there, too. On the window and on the pearls. And I—I was arguing with him in the bath. Why didn’t they hold me for questioning?”

  “Maybe because you called it in. Good scout, neh? Count your blessings.” He looked pained as he spoke. “If things were more ambiguous, we’d have a better chance for my client’s release. But the testimony from the innkeeper’s wife was very bad luck.”

  “Are you a criminal lawyer? Do you have experience?” I looked at Mr. Ota’s suit, a polyester-wool blend that hung limply from his small shoulders. He didn’t give the impression he had won enough cases to afford a decent tailor.

  “If Mr. Glendinning goes to trial, he won’t need a lawyer. Just God.” At my blank expression, he said, “Ninety-nine percent of cases that are brought to trial result in conviction.”

  I couldn’t let myself think of that possibility. I had to stay calm. I said in my coolest voice, “I guess your role is to stop the indictment?”

  “Precisely.” Mr. Ota sounded relieved I was no longer arguing with him. “Even if the decision is made tomorrow to keep him, I’ll have twenty-five days to gather enough evidence to stop the indictment. And Mr. Glendinning has many friends in the legal and business communities who may be able to help. High on our list is Mr. Piers Clancy, an attaché at the British Embassy.”

  “You still need me,” I said. “I’ll go back to Shiroyama. Hugh’s Japanese is terrible. If he’s being abused in some way, I could talk to the police—Captain Okuhara knows me.”

  “That’s a very bad idea! Mr. Glendinning believes there is some danger of you being charged as an accessory to the crime. You must not appear close in the least.”