Chapter Twenty-Four #3
“He also turned Danny against Kenzo,” Sam added. “They were working together.”
“I figured that out for myself.” Nicchi once again focused on Kit. “Why did Joe care?”
Kit glanced at Navarro, who nodded. She turned her attention to Akiko, just in case her sister wanted to be the one to break the news, but Akiko shook her head.
“You say it,” Akiko said quietly. “Please.”
So Kit braced herself, just as she did every time she did a death notification to the next of kin. Because sharing this felt like a kind of death. “Sakura cheated, Mr. Ito. The twins weren’t yours. They were Joe’s. Joe was Akiko’s maternal grandfather. Not you.”
At first Ito went completely still and it felt like everyone in the room was holding their collective breath.
And then he closed his eyes, his throat working as he tried to swallow.
“I wondered. Ichiro had a widow’s peak and no one in my family did.
But Joe did. He gave Sakura lavish gifts and spent time with her when I was working.
She denied that there was anything inappropriate between them. But I wondered. How do you know?”
Kit told them about Nancy Sayer and their phone call, adding in the details they’d learned from Haru Carlson. Throughout the tale, Ito held himself still, his eyes remaining closed. When she was finished, he inclined his head.
“Thank you, Detective. You are correct, this was not easy to hear. But I appreciate the information.”
He’d taken it better than she’d expected. “I wish I could have kept it secret, but you deserved to know.”
Nicchi blew out a breath. “A lot of things make more sense now. If Joe was making monthly visits that this Sayer woman noticed, he wasn’t being all that discreet.
I bet Bob followed him. He’d have known that the twins were somehow important.
He might not have known their paternity, but he knew they meant something to Joe.
And then, when they turned up in LA, working for Takahashi, Bob would have been so angry.
That explains why he killed them both and not only Minako, as he’d been tasked to do by Kenzo’s wife.
And he waited to kill her until after the baby was born.
He knew Kenzo had a daughter out there. Maybe he decided then to use Akiko against Kenzo when the time was right. ”
“I thought the same thing,” Kit said. “I think he hated Joe, too. I mean, Joe was there the night his parents were killed, and he brought his ‘real’ kids into his house and gave them the same job opportunities he’d given to Bob.
Last night Joe told Bob that he was his adoptive child, but that Minako was his by blood.
That was right before he shot and killed Bob.
I wonder if taking down Kenzo was also taking Joe down, too.
Danny called Joe his father’s lapdog. I wonder if he heard that from Bob. ”
“All that could be true,” Sam said. “But we still don’t know how Bob knew to board Akiko’s boat on her very first fishing charter.”
Ito’s eyes flew open as he gasped again. “He did?”
“He did,” Kit confirmed. “Bob went on two of Akiko’s charters. He said he went the first time because he could. The second time was because he wanted to see if his gun shipment would fit in her hold. Things escalated before we could find out how he knew about her boat, though.”
Ito sighed. “I might know. Bob was trying to overthrow Kenzo’s business, but how much did he know about Kenzo’s personal affairs?”
“Quite a lot, I imagine,” Kit said. “Bob was sleeping with Kenzo’s wife Umeko for twenty years, off and on, according to Umeko’s sister.
When she offered to leave Kenzo and move in with Bob, he said he’d slept with her to get access to Kenzo’s personal life.
He knew that Kenzo kept a photo of Minnie on his nightstand to this day.
So I think he knew a lot about Kenzo’s personal life. ”
“Kenzo knew I was Minnie’s father—at least on paper,” Ito added with a touch of bitterness.
“He came to my dojo months after Minako had disappeared from LA. I later found out from Mary that Joe had taken the twins to LA, then returned them to Nevada after Minako got pregnant. Kenzo sounded insane that day. I’d never met him before.
I knew he’d been born, that Mitch had a son, but I never saw him.
I hadn’t seen Mitch since I left for Vietnam—Mitch was Kenzo’s father and my friend, the other man in that high school graduation photo you found, Detective.
Mitch said I’d be safer that way, that he could better protect me from his father if I wasn’t in his life.
Because I’d run away from the family. His father considered me a traitor, but I was a low man, and he forgot about me.
Mitch didn’t, but we still never spoke again. ”
“Which is why Joe was in your wedding party, but Mitch wasn’t?” Akiko asked. “You looked like you were three best friends in that graduation picture.”
Kit had almost forgotten how much that graduation photo had upset her sister. Her two grandfathers, she’d said. And, even after Joe’s revelation, that was still accurate. She’d thought that Ito and Mitch were her grandfathers but in reality, they were Joe and Mitch.
“Yes,” Ito said, turning to Akiko. “We were once great friends, but I’d never met Kenzo, and I was surprised he knew me.
Kenzo said he’d had one of his security people search for Minako when she disappeared.
His man had found the twins’ original birth certificate, listing me as the father.
Kenzo had known of me. Knew who I was to his father.
I was in a lot of Mitch’s photos from our childhood.
I was alarmed. I wanted to know who in the Takahashi organization had this information—that I was Minako and Ichiro’s father.
He said he’d kept it close, that he’d asked Joe’s son to do the search. ”
“Oh.” Kit sat up straighter. “So Bob believed you were the twins’ father all this time until Joe told him differently last night. But I’m still not following how he knew about Akiko’s boat or even who she grew up to be.”
Ito was still looking at Akiko. “I wasn’t truthful with you about several things, child. You remember when I found someone to loan you the money for your boat?”
Akiko’s expression became carefully blank. “You said it was an elderly woman and her daughter who wanted to invest in a woman-owned business.”
“That wasn’t true. The money came from me.”
“Hanshi,” Akiko breathed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have said no,” Ito said. “I took out a second mortgage on my condo building.”
Kit noticed that Nicchi’s expression had become surly. She wondered if he’d known that Ito believed himself to be Akiko’s grandfather. She also wondered how much Nicchi had resented Ito’s relationship with Akiko.
Still, he’d aided Ito, Mary, and Joe in their plot to bring Kenzo and Bob down. His love for Ito was stronger than his resentment of Akiko.
Akiko sucked in a breath. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have let you do that.”
“It’s done,” Ito said simply. “I hated that I couldn’t adopt you.
I hated that you had to live in foster homes your whole childhood, but if I’d brought home an infant, Kenzo would have known.
He would have figured out who you were, that he was your father.
And he would have taken you. So I had to let you grow up in foster care.
I…owed you better. The boat was my attempt to make it up to you. ”
Akiko’s eyes grew shiny. “Hanshi,” she whispered.
Ito held out his hand, and this time she took it. “I don’t care that Joe was your grandfather by blood. You’ve been my granddaughter since the moment you were born. And…” He cleared his throat. “I love you.”
Akiko blinked, sending tears down her cheeks. “I love you, too.”
Ito turned to Nicchi. “Don’t resent her,” he said quietly. “You’ve been my son since the moment I laid eyes on you. You and Paolo. You were the children I could publicly claim. I’ve given you everything else.”
Nicchi dropped his gaze, but Kit could see that his cheeks had darkened, probably from embarrassment at the gentle admonition. “I know. I’m sorry, Hanshi.”
“You’re my son,” Ito said again. “Don’t believe otherwise.”
“I won’t.” Nicchi lifted his head. “So you think that Bob knew you’d taken out a loan? That he was watching your finances?”
“It makes sense. From what we learned over the past months, he’d been trying to take Kenzo down for a very long time.
He wasn’t successful. Seems like he’d want to know everything that affected Kenzo, and that included me.
” He turned his gaze to Kit. “We thought that Bob had chosen to frame Akiko now because Kenzo’s time was drawing to a close.
He had pancreatic cancer and he wasn’t going to live much longer. ”
“He needed Kenzo to feel the pain while he was still breathing,” Kit said.
Ito nodded. “That would be my guess as well, Detective.”
“I just have one more question,” Kit said. “Why did you two refuse to tell us any of this when we begged you?”
“Because you would have ruined everything,” Nicchi said.
“You kept asking questions that would have exposed what we were doing to bring Kenzo and Bob down. There was still a chance of success until Hanshi ended up in the hospital. Joe said that he’d…
take care of it. But that if we told anyone, the plan would fail and Kenzo would walk away scot-free.
Then he’d be able to claim Akiko as his daughter.
Joe didn’t want that to happen. Neither did Hanshi. ”
“Well, Joe did take care of them,” Kit said. “He killed both Bob and Kenzo without blinking an eye.”
“I’m glad they’re dead,” Ito said fiercely. “Joe included.”
The room went quiet at Ito’s words. Kit wasn’t sorry they were dead, either.
Los Angeles, California
Thursday, February 2, 7:15 p.m.