Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“Sakura was pretty sure that Eddie was Mary’s father, but at that point she just wanted to get away. She didn’t want anyone in Joe’s ‘family’ to know that she or the twins existed. She was genuinely terrified they’d take the kids.”
“But Eddie tried to take care of her,” Kit said. “He sent her money every month.”
“I know. Joe made a monthly drive to San Diego to see the kids. I made a monthly drive to LA to empty Sakura’s PO box.
She needed to keep her Sakura Ito persona alive so that Eddie wouldn’t go looking for her under another name.
These days, with the internet, he could have found them easily.
I mean, how many twins are named Minako and Ichiro? ”
“That’s how I found them,” Kit said. “Not a common name combination. Did you send the money back or did Sakura?”
“I did, at her request. She finally found a job that paid enough for her to feed the kids. She sold the expensive jewelry that Joe had given her. Losing the diamonds was penance, she said, for cheating on Eddie. That money helped her buy necessities for the kids. Eventually, she got a two-year degree and became a respiratory therapist. Then things were easier for them. Until she died.”
“Do you think she would have left Eddie for Joe had he not been in the mob?” Kit asked.
“I do. She loved Joe, but she wanted no part of that lifestyle. She asked Eddie if he’d killed, and he was honest with her. He said he had. She asked Joe and he said that he hadn’t. But she knew he was lying. She never mentioned Joe to the kids, to my knowledge.”
“But when she died, Joe came to get the twins?”
“Yeah, he did. I said no. But the kids recognized Joe’s face.
Sakura kept a wedding photo hidden in her important papers, and Minnie had found it when she was going through her mother’s things after the funeral.
When Joe showed up for his monthly drive and no one came out to go to church, he knocked on my door.
The kids were with me. And they recognized him from the picture.
When Joe offered them jobs in LA, I said no.
That Sakura wouldn’t have wanted that. But Ichiro wanted to be the man of the family, wanted to support his sisters, and the money that Joe offered was ten times what he could make as a seventeen-year-old with a high school diploma.
Joe told me privately that if I stopped fighting him about the twins, he’d let me keep Mary.
He was quiet but threatening. I was scared.
So I agreed. And then, about four months later, he brought them back.
Told me that Minnie was pregnant and the baby’s father’s wife was insane and wanted Minnie dead.
This was Sakura’s worst nightmare, that her kids would get caught up in mob violence.
Joe told me to hide them. I told him I would, but that he needed to leave and never come back.
I tried to hide the twins and Mary in my house, but Minnie wanted to have her baby in the house she grew up in.
Said she felt closer to her mother there.
She didn’t leave once during her entire pregnancy.
Ichiro found a job in an all-night diner in Henderson.
He was at work the night the killer came. ”
She slumped back into the pillows, breathing hard, Navarro still at her side. They let the woman catch her breath. “What happened that night, Miss Sayer?” Kit asked.
“I was in my own place next door and Minnie, Mary, and Akiko were in Sakura’s house.”
“Wait,” Kit said. “The house hadn’t been sold? A year later?”
“No. Sakura left it to the kids and the twins wanted to keep it. That’s one reason they agreed to go to LA with Joe. They needed the money to pay taxes on the house.”
“Thank you.” Kit wasan’t sure that she wanted to hear the rest of the story, but she made herself ask. “I interrupted you. I’m sorry. What happened that night?”
“Mary said she was feeding the baby when she and Minnie heard a noise. Minnie made her hide in the closet with Akiko. She said that if anything happened to her, no one could ever know she’d had a child.
Mary said she heard Minnie calling Ichiro at work, begging him to come home.
Then she heard a strange man asking Minnie where the baby was.
At first Minnie didn’t answer, just begged the man not to kill her, but he kept demanding to know about the baby.
So she told him that she’d left the baby on the firehouse steps.
And then Mary said she heard nothing. No sound.
Until Ichiro came home and screamed Minnie’s name.
And then he went silent, too. After a little longer, Mary came out of the closet and saw her brother and sister dead on the floor.
Bullet holes in their foreheads. She was fourteen and freaked out. ”
Kit sighed. “Who could blame her? Did she take the baby to the firehouse?”
“We did it together, but we knew we couldn’t leave her in Henderson. The cops would know that Minako had just given birth and would be looking for a newborn Japanese baby.”
“So you went to San Diego,” Kit murmured.
“We did. I had friends there who we could stay with. We drove straight from Henderson to the firehouse in San Diego. I put Akiko in a box and wrapped her in a blanket. It was Mary’s idea to pin the paper with her name to the blanket.”
“Was there a photo of Minnie in the box?” Sam asked.
Nancy blinked. “Why would we do that? We were trying to hide Akiko’s identity.”
“Then that was just a story someone told Akiko to make her feel better,” Kit said. “Who left her on the firehouse steps?”
“I did. Then Mary and I waited across the street until a firefighter found the box. Akiko entered the system.”
Akiko would at least know how brave her mother and Mary had been. Both had given their lives to protect her. “Mary kept track of Akiko.”
“She did, with my help. I knew the firefighter would call Child Services and then I’d be able to keep track of her from there.
It was the only reason I agreed to the plan.
I was a social worker in Nevada, you see.
I was able to get a job with Child Services in San Diego, so I knew where Akiko was at all times.
I came clean with Mary that same night as the firehouse.
Told her that her father hadn’t died. That his name was Edwin Ito.
I didn’t tell her that the twins were Joe’s, though.
I didn’t think that was anything she needed to know.
I just said that Joe was a family friend.
A week later, Mary disappeared. She left me a note saying she was taking the bus to LA to find her father.
That she needed to keep Akiko safe from the mob and she needed help. She came back with Eddie Ito.”
“Eddie opened a dojo in San Diego shortly thereafter,” Kit said, and Nancy nodded.
“He kept tabs on Akiko until she was old enough to get a scholarship to his dojo. He was there for her. Not in the way he wanted to be, but he made sure she was healthy and safe. I wasn’t her caseworker, but I knew the woman who was and together we—she, Eddie, and I—made sure that her foster homes were good ones.
But then Akiko got placed in a bad one. The foster father was a predator.
One night, Akiko had to defend herself from his advances.
Broke the guy’s ribs. I’d heard about your parents, Detective.
I’d heard that Harlan and Betsy McKittrick were good people.
I asked her caseworker to approach your folks, and they took her in. You know the rest of the story.”
“I know the rest of Akiko’s story, yes. Thank you for making sure she stayed safe. That’s going to mean a lot to her. But what about Mary? She told her daughters that she grew up in the foster system. Did she live with you?”
“No. I couldn’t keep her. Whoever killed her brother and sister might come looking for her, and that she’d been living with me was public knowledge.
Himari Nakamura needed to disappear.” Her eyes snapped with fire.
“I was so angry with Joe. I’d told him that Sakura wouldn’t want the twins working with the mob, but he was insistent.
He didn’t tell the twins what kind of business he ran before he took them, and threatened me so I wouldn’t tell them, either.
He was responsible for their deaths. So was I.
I should have told them about the mob, even if Joe would have killed me.
I have to live with the fact that I didn’t.
But afterward, I knew Joe could get Mary a new ID, because he’d done it once already for Sakura.
At first, Joe wanted to adopt Akiko. But I said no.
Hadn’t he caused enough trouble by getting Minako and Ichiro murdered?
I caved the first time, when he came to get the twins after Sakura died, but I kept seeing Minnie’s and Ichiro’s bodies on the floor. ”
She had to stop talking as she was gasping for breath. Navarro gave her some water and they waited until she could speak again.
“So I did not cave again. I wouldn’t tell him where Akiko was and threatened to tell the cops if Joe didn’t stop demanding the baby.
He finally agreed to help Mary. He got her a new identity and she ‘showed up’ at a shelter as a runaway.
I got her placed in a home I’d personally vetted.
I was the executor of Sakura’s will, so I sold her house and mine.
The proceeds from Sakura’s house went into a trust for Mary’s college.
She went to college here in San Diego because she wouldn’t leave Akiko.
She was nineteen when Akiko started at Eddie’s dojo.
Mary would wait outside the dojo for a glimpse of her, but Eddie was our main contact.
He saw her every week and made sure she was okay.
It was a bad situation all around, but Eddie, Mary, and I tried to make the best of it. ”