Chapter Twenty #3
That was definitely something they’d be following up on, because the twins should have sought Ito out.
They’d been three years old at the time of the divorce, old enough to have at least a vague memory of their father.
It made Kit wonder what exactly Sakura had told them about their father.
She’d taken drastic steps to create distance between her and Ito, so maybe the kids didn’t know where their father was. Or maybe even who he was.
She brought the conversation back to Minnie. “Did Kenzo force himself on Minnie?”
“I believe so. I only met her a few times, when I’d go into the office to see Mitch for lunch—we remained friendly after Kenzo married Umeko.
So I didn’t actually know her well, but I could see the signs of an abused woman.
By this time, I was volunteering with the women’s shelter downtown and I knew what to look for.
Minnie wore no bruises, but she was…defeated.
Scared. And pregnant. I could see the signs of that, too.
At the time, I didn’t think that Umeko knew about the pregnancy, and I didn’t tell her my suspicions.
I thought it would only make her hatred worse. ”
Haru went very still. “You must understand that much of this story I heard from my sister shortly before she died. I don’t know how much is true and how much was manufactured in my sister’s mind. She was not well at the end of her life. Decades of drug abuse and regret tend to catch up to you.”
Oh. Kit didn’t like this at all. “Did Umeko kill Minako?”
She thought that Haru might flinch or blink or look surprised. That she’d be offended or even angry. But the woman only held her gaze steadily. “Yes. Not with her own hands, of course. She had someone else do it.”
Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California
Wednesday, February 1, 9:05 p.m.
“Who did she have kill Minnie?” Lennox asked. “Joe?”
Haru laughed bitterly. “Joe? No. Not because he wasn’t a killer.
He was. They all were. Still are. But he was the one who’d brought Ichiro and Minako into the company.
They were seventeen years old, for heaven’s sake.
They’d barely graduated from high school.
But one day they were just there, in the Takahashi offices.
They’d moved here from Nevada, just outside of Vegas, and were living with Joe.
I don’t know how he knew them. I never asked. He never told me.”
Joe had brought Minnie and Ichiro to LA? How and why? But it did make some sense.
Kit thought of the wedding photo. Joe had been Ito’s best man. He’d known Ito’s wife. He’d clearly known Ito’s children.
She once again cursed Ito for keeping his silence. “What happened?”
“Umeko was hysterical when it came to Minnie. She wanted her gone because Kenzo hadn’t had feelings for any of the others.
I caught my sister reading about poisons and I knew she intended to kill Minnie, so I went to Joe.
Told him that Minnie was in danger. The next day both Minnie and Ichiro were gone. Disappeared. Kenzo was beside himself.”
“He was angry?” Sam asked.
“Yes, but he was more grief-stricken,” Haru said thoughtfully.
“Minnie was the only woman he’d ever really cared about.
He became obsessed with finding her. Accused Umeko of bribing her or forcing her to leave.
Umeko became just as obsessed with finding Minnie, so she could ‘finish the job.’ Those were her words.
I don’t know that she was in her right mind.
I tried to get her help, but she refused.
I thought with Minnie out of the picture, she’d calm down, but Kenzo was inconsolable, so Umeko just got angrier.
And then one day we got news that both Minnie and her brother were dead.
Umeko thought that Kenzo would forget about Minnie and that he’d come back to her and they’d finally have a child.
But Kenzo didn’t come back. He got an apartment in the city and left Umeko to wander their house, all alone.
She started drinking and her mood got darker and darker.
I knew she was doing drugs, but there wasn’t anything I could do.
Mitch tried to get her into rehab, but Umeko wouldn’t go.
Now, looking back, I think Umeko was being eaten up by guilt. ”
“Because she’d had Minnie and Ichiro killed,” Sam murmured.
“Yes, although I honestly don’t think she had anything against Ichiro. Joe was sad, too. His grief was harder to see because he’s kind of a robot emotionally. I think Joe just wasn’t cut out to be a killer.”
Like Ito, Kit thought. But Ito got out. Joe had stayed. Joe still stayed.
“When did you find out what she’d done?” Kit asked.
“It was the day before she took her own life. She was sober for the first time in nearly thirty years—with the exception of the months she was pregnant with Danny. Her pregnancy was the biggest surprise of all. She was finally happy. And, once again, she thought Kenzo would come back to her, but he never did.”
“If they weren’t together, how was she pregnant?” Lennox asked.
“She’d never given up hope for a child of her own, but she was nearing forty.
She asked him to try IVF once more. He said that he’d participate only if she got clean, so she did.
And Kenzo wanted an heir for a couple of reasons.
First, he’d recently taken over the business after Mitch’s death and he wanted a son to carry it on.
But the second reason was greed. Remember the trust for Danny?
Umeko set it up so that she’d be the trustee if they were still married or divorced, but if she died, Kenzo would be the trustee until Danny turned twenty-one.
Honestly, by that point, if she’d divorced Kenzo, no court would have given her custody of Danny.
She was a raging drug addict. By having a child with Umeko, Kenzo was essentially ensuring that most of her money would stay under his control.
And, as long as they stayed married, he was still getting his stipend and that was not an insignificant sum. ”
“Follow the money,” Lennox said quietly.
“Yes.” Haru drew a breath, as if bracing herself. “After Danny was born, Umeko experienced severe postpartum depression and started drinking again.”
“So there was some truth to Kenzo’s story on the suicide prevention website,” Sam said. “She did have PPD.”
“There’s always a grain of truth in what Kenzo says.
It’s what’s kept him out of jail all these years.
Everything came to a head for Umeko when Danny was eight years old and asked her not to be drunk for one night.
He had a school concert coming up and he wanted her to come.
To be a normal mother. He didn’t want her to embarrass him.
She loved him so much. So she quit. Cold turkey.
It was not pretty. But she made it to the concert and she was stone-cold sober.
That made her think about all the things she’d done, though.
And why she’d been drinking so much to start with.
We had dinner together one night soon after the concert.
I hadn’t seen her sober in eight years, not since Danny was born.
I was so happy to have my sister back, you know?
” She sighed heavily. “But then Umeko started talking. Told me that she’d arranged Minako’s murder.
She knew about Minnie’s pregnancy, and it had made her even angrier, so she told her lover to do the deed.
To kill Minnie and the baby. She was afraid that Kenzo would divorce her if he had a child with someone else.
I think he would have. I also think that if he had divorced her, my sister might still be alive today. ”
“Who was her lover?” Kit asked, but she was starting to think she knew.
“Bob Fujioka, Joe’s son. They’d started sleeping together shortly before Minnie’s death.”
Kit had been right about it being Bob, but she was stunned at the length of the affair. “Wait. Minnie was killed thirty-two years ago, because that’s how old Akiko is. Umeko died by suicide nine years ago, when Danny was eight. Your sister and Bob had an affair for twenty-three years?”
“That’s what she said.” She sighed again.
“Bob started in the mail room part time when he was sixteen but two years later got a job in security. That was Joe’s department, and he hired whomever he chose.
Mitch left all the decisions up to Joe. He trusted him implicitly.
They’d been friends since they were kids.
Bob was Joe’s son, and Joe indulged him.
Bob asked to become Umeko’s bodyguard, so that’s what happened.
He was her bodyguard for nearly ten years. ”
“Oh,” Kit said.
“Yes, oh. I thought maybe he saw it as a way to get ahead. He was always ambitious. But it turns out that Bob really hates Kenzo. With good reason. See, Kenzo is a sociopath. You wouldn’t know it just talking to him, but he is a stone-cold killer.
He likes it. He doesn’t do the dirty work himself anymore, but back when he was younger, he liked it.
And one day—now, mind you, all this came from Umeko at the end, but I don’t think she was lying—she told me that Bob’s father worked for Mitch and had done something wrong.
Stolen money from one of the businesses.
Probably one of the illegal gambling dens they ran in those days.
Whatever it was, it was bad, because Bob’s father was targeted for… elimination.”
Sam frowned. “I thought Joe was Bob’s father.”