Chapter Two #3
Kit looked at Akiko. “Do you want me to ask the questions?”
Akiko’s nod was shaky. “Please. I can’t breathe. Can’t think.”
Harlan was on his feet immediately, helping both Akiko and Betsy to chairs.
I should have thought of that. But Kit would cut herself a little slack. It had been a difficult day.
“What do you think her real name was, Dr. Sherman?”
“Mari,” he said, pronouncing it like the last part of calamari.
“I heard her talking to a man a long time ago, before we were married. I was jealous at first. He was Japanese and they seemed to know each other. He called her ‘Mari,’ and she hissed at him, like an angry cat. She spoke to him in Japanese. Something about him knowing better and that wasn’t who she was anymore.
There was more, but that’s all I caught.
I studied for a year in Japan as an undergrad, so I was only conversationally fluent. ”
“What happened then?” Sam asked.
Sherman shrugged. “He begged her pardon and called her Mary after that.”
“When and where was this?” Kit asked.
“A few months before our wedding, so twenty-four years ago. We’d just finished dinner and were coming out of a restaurant when this man called her name.
Mari. I don’t think I’ll ever forget her expression when she saw him.
Angry, but also afraid. So afraid. I thought he was going to hurt her.
I was ready to hit him, but then she talked to him, like I said, and then they calmed down and spoke like old friends.
Well, maybe not friends. Acquaintances.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?” Akiko asked.
“I do. As I said, he was Japanese, like my Mary. He was older than she was, by at least twenty-five or thirty years. Once he’d walked away, I asked if he was a relative, and she said ‘no’ in a way that told me not to ask again.
I drove her home and, when we got there, she apologized.
She said the man had been her mother’s friend, but not hers.
I trusted her, but I watched for him for years.
I never saw him again. I don’t know his name. She never introduced us.”
“Did you tell this to the police?” Kit asked.
She wanted to believe him. She really did. But his story was just a little too…good. His memory a little too clear. On the other hand, surgeons typically had a good memory.
But until she knew differently, she wasn’t going to trust Leo Sherman.
“No,” Sherman said. “I didn’t tell them because I didn’t even think of that night. Not until I saw your sister.” He turned to Akiko. “I apologize. You’ve brought back a lot of memories.”
“No need,” Akiko said. “I’m so sorry that your wife is gone. I wish I knew more to tell you.”
“I wish you did, too. I have to go. I left my daughters with my sister at her house. They’re distraught, as you can imagine. And our home is a crime scene.”
Kit started to ask Sam to drive the man home because Sherman didn’t look like he was capable of driving, but Sam, as usual, was a step ahead.
“I’ll drive you back, sir,” he said. “I don’t think you should be behind the wheel.”
Sherman closed his eyes. “I hate to admit it, but you’re right. Thank you, Dr. Reeves. You’re very kind.”
“He is,” Kit said, letting the man hear the sharp edge of her voice. “He’s very kind. I would hate to have something happen to him.”
Sherman met Kit’s gaze squarely. “He’s safe with me. Even if I wanted to hurt anyone—which I do not—I’m too tired right now.”
“I’ll follow you, Sam,” Harlan said. “So I can drive you back here. I assume you’re staying here tonight.”
Sam nodded. “I planned to, yes. I have to go home and get my dog, but I can sleep on the sofa. I know you have a full house. Every bed is taken. Dr. Sherman? Are you ready?”
“I am.”
“Wait,” Kit said. “Can you sit with a sketch artist? Since you remember what this man looked like, I mean.”
“Of course.” He pulled a card from his wallet and wrote on the back. “My cell. Call me when you’re ready for me to sit with the sketch artist. I’ll make the time.”
“Thank you,” Kit said. “And we really are sorry. All of us have lost someone to violence. We know the pain.”
Sherman swallowed hard. “Thank you for speaking with me.”
Akiko rose to her feet. “Sir? I…hate to ask you this, but it could be important. Can we have a DNA test done? To see who I am to your wife?”
Kit could have told her that it didn’t matter what Leo Sherman wanted.
Until he was formally cleared, he was still a suspect in his wife’s murder, and Detectives Marshall and Ashton would be doing that DNA test as part of their investigation.
But she held her tongue, wondering what Sherman would answer.
“I think that would be wise,” he said quietly. “But I want to talk to my daughters first. Finding that they might have a sibling is going to be a shock, on top of this tragedy. They may not want to know.”
Too bad, Kit thought, because we’re going to find out.
“I understand.” Akiko inclined her head. “Please give them my condolences.”
Sherman nodded, then stood and gave his car keys to Sam. They left, with Harlan following behind them.
The room was quiet for several long minutes after the front door closed.
Then Rita and the other girls came into the room and surrounded Akiko in a group hug.
Of the six teenagers, Rita had been with them the longest—nearly a year now.
Emma and Tiffany had joined McKittrick House in November after Sam had found them homeless on the streets of downtown San Diego, and the newest three—Dawn, Amy, and Stephie—they’d discovered just last month through New Horizons, a local shelter for homeless teens. They were good kids, all of them.
Watching them made Kit remember her own early days with Harlan and Betsy.
She remembered finally feeling safe, like she could finally breathe.
It was a debt she could never repay, but Harlan and Betsy would never expect her to even try.
She knew Akiko felt the same. So the two of them spent a lot of their spare time here, paying it forward to these six girls and to any others who entered this wonderful place.
The group hug must have shaken something loose in Akiko, because she began to cry, sucking in great gasping breaths. “She’s gone. I came so close to meeting her, but she’s gone.”
Rita met Kit’s eyes. What do I do? she mouthed.
Love her, Kit mouthed back.
Rita laid her cheek on Akiko’s head. “We’re here. We love you.”
“But she’s dead,” Akiko cried.
“I know,” Rita whispered. “And you found her body. I know how that feels, too.”
Because Rita had been the one to find her own mother’s body after her murder. She’d been only eleven years old at the time.
“But I at least got to know my mom,” Rita said sadly. “You didn’t get that and I’m so sorry. But we’re here. It’s not the same, I know. But we’re your sisters, and we’re here.”
“We’re here,” the others echoed. “We’re here.”
“Oh my goodness,” Betsy whispered, pressing her hand to her heart. Tears slipped down her cheeks.
“We’re raising them right, Mom,” Kit whispered back, pride for Rita and the other girls mixing with her grief on Akiko’s behalf.
And with the nagging feeling that Leo Sherman hadn’t told them everything.