Daughter of the Sword: A Novel of the Fated Blades

by Steve Bein

  In good American fashion, it was the suit against the TPC plant in Teutopolis that finally broke the story. Takemata Plastec had moved a number of its Tokyo engineers over there, Mariko’s dad included, and one of them had gone native enough to file a lawsuit. It was his case that revealed the connections between the ’89 earthquake, the microfractures, the vinyl chloride monomer leak, and the angiosarcoma of the liver that cropped up like the plague among TPC employees over the years to follow.

  The engineer who had sued paid the price for it. The Americans had a saying for stories like his: The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The Takemata Plastec Corporation subscribed to the Japanese counterpart to that saying: The nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Once TPC showed it was the Tokyo plant, not the Teutopolis plant, that suffered the leak, the lawsuit in Illinois yielded nothing. Those employees who stayed silent were rewarded for their loyalty. They lived with just as much pain and died just as miserably, but TPC took good care of their families. Mariko’s mother would never have to work again, provided she never raised a fuss.

  As a budding journalist, Mariko scooped none of those stories. Everything came out through the American lawsuit, and Mariko had made it all of three months beyond graduation before her editor told her she just wasn’t a writer. It was a crushing blow at the time, but now Mariko understood she had a greater taste for justice than discovery. She had a talent for research and investigation but was only interested in exercising it in order to nail somebody. Even the best reporter couldn’t uncover corporate scandals on a weekly basis, nor even on a yearly basis. But police investigators spent every day unearthing scandal and betrayal and wrongdoing, and better yet, they actually got to do something about it.

  “Mom,” Mariko said, “come to think of it, weren’t you the one who said I was destined to become a detective?”

  “I never said that.”

  “You did. As soon as I graduated the academy. You said, ‘What does a reporter need with all that cardio training you do? They don’t chase anybody.’ You said a detective is really an investigative journalist with a badge.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes. I said I felt like my whole life had been leading up to this, and you said it was my destiny.”

  “No, no. I said it was your fate. Or karma, maybe.”

  “I stand corrected,” Mariko said. Her mother observed Buddhist and Christian and Shinto holidays with equal fervor, and she invoked fate, destiny, God’s will, and karmic repercussions interchangeably. Mariko didn’t believe in any of those things. She believed in evidence, and in making the most of opportunity when it presented itself. She was more like her father that way.

  The elevator opened onto a dim and warmly lit hallway, and right away Mariko caught the scent of potatoes au gratin wafting from her mother’s door. She knew the smell came from her mother’s kitchen, because her mother always cooked potatoes au gratin on this day. It had been her father’s favorite, and today marked nine years since he lost his battle with cancer. Mariko wished she had been there, to know for certain whether he’d suffered to the end as she feared, or whether he’d passed in peace as her mother had always told her. She had no appetite for sugarcoated truths, no patience for pretending a hard fact was something other than what it was. There too she was more like her father than her mother.

  “I’m trying something new with the potatoes,” her mother said as she opened the apartment door. Clapping her hands and grinning, she said, “Fennel.”

  “Yum.” Mariko couldn’t help but smile; her mom announced new recipes with the same fervor with which other women her age announced new grandchildren. “Sounds great, Mom. I can’t wait to—Oh! Saori.”

  Her sister was leaning against the oven, the bones of her arms almost as skinny as the oven’s door handle. “Hey,” she said, not looking up from whatever she was texting.

  “I thought you’d be at your meeting,” Mariko said.

  Saori shrugged, still not looking up. “I went to the three o’clock over in Meguro instead. There’s a cute guy there.”

  “Well, good. I’m glad you went. How are they going? Your meetings, I mean.”

  Saori always called it a meeting, never naming the organization. That was all right. She didn’t need to broadcast it. Mariko just found it interesting that Saori, and indeed everyone she’d ever met in the program, referred only to meetings. And when they said it, all of them knew what kind of meeting it was. Mariko wondered what word they’d use for meetings at work, or a board meeting, or a shareholders’ meeting.

  Again Saori shrugged. “More my business than yours, neh? Anonymous and all that.”

  “I just wanted to know how you’re doing, Saori.”

  “Yeah. Always being the big sister. Always taking care of the poor little baby.”

  “Now girls,” their mother said, and that was that.

  Dinner was superficially pleasant. It never had a shot at being joyous, given the occasion, and given the circumstances of the most recent drug bust Mariko supposed superficial pleasantry was the best they could have hoped for. As always, the food was delicious—better than their father had ever eaten with them, Mariko thought ruefully; their mother watched cooking shows religiously, and the cooking fad hadn’t really been a presence on cable when Mariko and Saori’s father was still alive.

  Mariko didn’t care to speculate on whether exceptional food made up for the constant efforts at steering conversation away from the uncomfortable. Their mother missed no opportunity to comment on the absence of men at family dinners. Of all the things to be worried about in Saori’s life, Mariko found it stupefying that their mother should focus on Saori’s lack of a boyfriend. So Mariko tried to talk about the batty old guy out in Machida, and somehow the conversation boomeranged back to men, and how Mariko might get one if only she’d let her hair grow out a bit, or at least stop cutting her fingernails down to the nub, and would it be so bad to lighten up a bit on all the running and biking and scaring off all the men at the gym? She told her daughters how men liked a bit of softness in a woman, sharing this information as if she’d won it dearly after scaling the mountain of wisdom.

  That was enough for Saori. Resorting to English—always the favorite language for cursing—she said, “I’m in fucking rehab, mom. You think I want to be this skinny?”

  “Saori—”

  “No, fuck this. I’m going to have a smoke.”

  Mariko quickly excused herself, promising to talk Saori down. “I’ll take her down the street to the Lawson,” she said. “Maybe get us a pint of ice cream for dessert.”

  She caught up to Saori halfway to the elevator. They walked down the dimly lit corridor side by side, the Oshiro girls together again. Mariko wondered how much of her life she’d spent that way, the two of them side by side. Twelve years, Mariko thought. For twelve years they were all but joined at the hip, from the day Saori was born until Mariko reached her seventeenth birthday. Then their father’s illness finally came to an end, and the two sisters reacted so differently to his passing—differently, and yet so much the same. Mariko hid from the pain by submerging herself in college entrance exams. Saori hid by submerging herself in booze. Then came college for Mariko, then police academy, and high school and hard drugs for Saori. Mariko had told herself it was just Saori’s way of grieving. She would outgrow it, get past it, but they’d already started to drift apart, and even then Mariko could no longer get the truth from her as she once could.

  Sometimes Mariko wondered why she’d thrown herself headlong into the academy. She knew it was for Saori; she just didn’t know why. Was it a warning, a way of telling Saori to straighten up before a cop was a permanent presence in her life? Or was it to be a better role model for her little sister? Or—and Mariko feared this was most likely—was her heedless dedication really an escape, healthier but otherwise not so different from Saori’s? Whichever it was, it didn’t work. By the time Mariko got her badge, she was the good daughter, the successful daughter, and there was nothing
she could do for Saori without being seen that way. The fuckup daughter just couldn’t hear what the good daughter had to say, and afterward they’d never been able to rebuild their sisterhood as it once was.

  “Christ,” Saori said, still in English, “can you believe her?” She lit up a Mild Seven before they even made it to the elevator.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to smoke in here.”

  “So arrest me. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, Miko, what’s her deal?”

  “That’s Mom for you.”

  “Such a fucking hypocrite. She’s not married and she’s fifty-two. What the hell is she riding our asses for?”

  “Probably not the best day to tell her to find another husband,” Mariko said.

  Saori laughed. “Can you imagine? I know I can be a little shit sometimes, but that would be bad even for me.”

  At least she was speaking Japanese again. That meant she was feeling calmer. And feeling pensive too, Mariko thought. Knowing it was risky, she said, “How’s everything going? With the rehab, I mean.”

  “Eight days sober. But it feels different this time, you know? Like maybe I’ve finally found the right path.”

  It was exactly what Mariko wanted to hear, and for that reason it sounded suspicious. She hated mistrusting her sister that way, but by now Mariko knew more than she’d ever wanted to about addicts and deception. Saori had been her teacher and had taught her well.

  They crossed the lobby; the revolving door cut a cloud of cigarette smoke in half as they escaped onto the street. Mariko nodded toward the blue-and-white Lawson sign on the corner. “Ice cream?”

  “Sure. But that’s not why you followed me down here.”

  Mariko swallowed. Saori met her gaze and studied her as carefully as Mariko would study the scene of a homicide. “Come on, Miko, you’ve been counting the days just like I have. So, seriously, what’s up?”

  A breeze swept the street, cool now that the sun had all but set. There were street noises: a distant train, the electric buzz from the floodlights warming up in the hedgerow surrounding their mother’s building, the wind whistling as it cut between buildings. On every side the high-rises towered over the Oshiro sisters, each building so close to the next that it seemed they huddled together for warmth against the biting wind.

  “What do you know about cocaine?” Mariko asked.

  Saori shrugged. “Tony Montana does a lot of it in Scarface.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I am. Nobody around here does that stuff. I mean, I know a few who have, but the yakuzas beat the hell out of anyone who tries to sell it. You pick it up on vacations in Hawai‘i, stuff like that. In Japan it’s too hard to come by.”

  “That’s about to change,” Mariko said. “Someone’s going to try to change it, anyway, and my lieutenant won’t let me take the case. He won’t put anyone on it, actually, and I’m worried about you.”

  Saori took a step back, her shoulders stiff, her head cocked. “Why? You think I’m going to start snorting coke?”

  “No. It’s just that…well, you and stimulants have a bit of a history.”

  “Yeah,” Saori said, glaring now. “A history. As in past. As in mind your own business.”

  “Saori—”

  “No. For the first time in my life I feel like I have this thing under control, and now you come here to undermine me? No, Miko. I’m not the baby sister anymore.”

  “Fine,” Mariko shot back. She felt the steam rising in her. Saori’s jaw was set, her breath coming audibly through her nose. No point in talking to her when she’s like this, Mariko thought. And here I thought she’d get less moody when she got sober.

  “Thanks so much for taking a little walk with your little baby sister,” Saori said. Good, Mariko thought, add sarcasm to the mix. That always helps. As soon as she thought it, she convicted herself of the same crime, but it was too late to try a different approach. Saori flicked her cigarette hard against the plate glass storefront of the Lawson, turned on her heel, and stormed back toward their mother’s building.

  Mariko’s eyes were on the cigarette, not her sister. It flared red in flight, sparked on impact, and trailed a looping ribbon of smoke as it fell to the sidewalk. Mariko ground it under her toe.

  Her hand found the cell in her purse and dialed automatically. “Mom? Sorry, dessert’s off. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  She closed a fist around the phone, crushing it more than folding it, still squeezing it even after it was closed. Not for the first time, she wished she was back at academy. She wanted a target to beat on and a baton to beat it with. Damn Saori, damn her cynicism and her selfishness, and damn her ability to wheedle her way under Mariko’s skin. It made Mariko’s blood boil just to think of her. This wasn’t the kind of frustration she could just run out of her system. She wanted to break something.

  Behind the Lawson, on her way toward the train station, she found two banks of vending machines. The first were typical fare: coffee, soft drinks, snacks. The second bank included one machine selling porn manga and another selling used high school girls’ panties.

  She kicked the disgusting machine. The glass didn’t even crack, but Mariko damn near sprained her ankle. She wanted to rip the thing down, slam it on its face, kick it while it was down. Even that wouldn’t have been enough. She thought of that sword in the old man’s house out in Machida, remembered the heft of it, imagined stabbing the goddamn panty machine through the heart. Chopping it into little pieces. Now that would have set her mind at ease.

  She spent the whole train ride home torn between berating herself for her loss of self-control and wondering where she could get a great big sword like that, what it would cost her, and where she could buy a few lengths of bamboo to hack up until there was nothing left.

  23

  When the newest details on the Kurihara murder came out in the morning’s briefing, the first person Mariko thought of was Yamada Yasuo.

  Like everyone else in her precinct, Mariko couldn’t stop thinking about the case. One of their own had been killed. She wasn’t TMPD, and it was hard to even call a meter maid a real cop, but Kurihara Yuko had worn the uniform and taken a department paycheck the same as everyone else, and that made her one of the family. So far the husband had been unequivocally dismissed as a suspect and no other suspects were forthcoming. The investigators on her case were no closer to establishing a motive than they were on day one, but the newest forensic report prompted Mariko to take another trip to see Dr. Yamada.

  It was a busy day, though—Mariko had old paperwork to file, hours’ and hours’ worth, all of it pertaining to the drug cases she actually cared about—and it was easy to put off Yamada and his magic sword nonsense until later. So the sky was dark by the time she got out to Machida, the moon not yet risen, the stars far more plentiful than Mariko had ever seen from her apartment window downtown. The houses here were so cute, like little cottages, each one snuggled behind its high garden wall. She realized that was the American side of her brain talking; even the smallest of these places was five times the size of her tiny apartment, yet even the biggest would have been too small to sell back in Illinois.

  Lights were turning off here and there in Yamada’s neighborhood. She smelled the cool breeze coming to her from his chrysanthemums. There was a shuffling within the house; then the heavy wooden door creaked open.

  “You’re back,” Yamada said. The air from inside his house smelled like tea. “I trust you haven’t found anything about my would-be thief.”

  Mariko wondered what made him say that—his tone bespoke more familiarity with the case than any civilian had a right to—but she had more pressing things on her mind. “I need your input,” she said. “That is, I’d very much like to have your input, if you’re willing, sir. Yokohama PD’s investigating the murder of a woman who worked in their parking patrol. The victim’s name was Kurihara Yuko.”

  “Oh my.”

  His response gave Mariko pause. There was sincere sympathy
in his voice, almost as if he’d known the victim. Once again he seemed too familiar with the case. Or was he just a sweet old man who would have reacted that way to anyone’s murder? Mariko couldn’t be sure.

  Those questions could wait; she had more pressing mysteries to solve. “Dr. Yamada, I think our medical examiner has us looking for the wrong murder weapon. I think you can help me prove it.”

  “How? What do I know about murder weapons?”

  “This one cut through a steel door chain, probably without even leaving a nick on the blade. Forensics was only able to recover a few tiny filaments from the weapon. Only the first of their test results is in, but their best guess so far is that the weapon is between five hundred and a thousand years old.”

  “Aha. Like the sword I showed you last week.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mariko said. “I’m not going to charge an eighty-seven-year-old with taking the train across town to murder a policewoman during her dinner. But I think the ME’s initial report was wrong. The murder weapon wasn’t a large knife. Sounds more like a sword, neh?”

  “It certainly does.”

  “If so, this is the second ancient sword I’ve run across in the space of a week. What’s going on here?”

  “Sounds like fate to me. Do come in, Inspector.”

  She followed him into the house, closing the heavy oak door behind her. “I’m afraid I’ve just finished my evening tea,” Yamada said, “but I can brew more if you’d like.”

  Mariko slipped out of her shoes. “Thank you, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to put you out.”

  He filled his teapot anyway and put it on the stove. His kitchen floor was hardwood, not tatami, his sock-clad feet susurrous as they crossed it. “Now then,” he said, “what makes you come to me?”

  “I did some research on you,” she said. He took her by the elbow in an avuncular way, and she allowed him to escort her into the sitting room. “Doctorate in medieval history,” she said. “Professor emeritus from Tōdai. Ninth dan in kendō, ninth dan in kenjutsu, eighth dan in iaidō, with a few more black belts here and there. Your biographer called you ‘Japan’s elder statesman of swordsmanship.’”