Naomi Hirahara - Gasa-Gasa Girl

Mas sat with Anna in silence for a few minutes. The display case was busted open, glass shards everywhere, and the journal and clothing were gone. They watched as police officers went from place to place-door, light switch, telephone-collecting evidence.

“That’s all they took,” Anna finally said, gesturing to the display case. “Seiko’s mother’s things. They left my jewelry. Seiko’s money-she had at least a thousand dollars in cash in her closet. All of that, untouched.”

“Book.” Mas kept staring at the destroyed display case.

“Yes, the journal’s gone. Do you think that’s what they were after?”

Mas recalled the detailed questioning by the bail bondsman. “What happen, exactly?”

Anna crossed her legs. “I was out with a friend. We went out to a concert in the city. When I came back, the police were already here, and Seiko’s body-” Anna covered her face with her hands. Her fingernails were filed and painted a funny tan shade the color of garden snails.

“Sorry, so sorry.” Mas wished that he could leave. He could barely stand it when any woman cried. He didn’t know what was worse-when it was a stranger or your wife.

“They say that she was thrown off the balcony. Why would anyone do that to Seiko?” She dabbed the corner of her eyes with her fingers and took a deep breath, making the top of her dress move up and down. “I asked for you and your daughter to come, because she had asked me about the note I sent Kazzy.”

She then leaned over to Mas, so close that he could feel the softness of her chichi s. “I’ll tell you what happened as long as you tell no one,” she whispered. “Especially Becca.”

Becca? What did she have to do with Anna Grady?

She placed a folded-up note in Mas’s hand. “Read this later,” she whispered. “Kazzy wrote me back. He messengered it to me the same day. Thursday. The day he died.”

Mas stuffed the note in his jacket pocket.

“With Kazzy dead and now Seiko, what am I going to do?” She leaned her head against Mas’s arm, and Mas could feel her soft hair on his chin.

“Mr. Arai, what the hell are you doing here?” Mas pulled away from Anna to see Detective Ghigo standing in the middle of the noisy living room.

Mas felt the blood drain from his face. Was Ghigo, the crow, ever present?

“We can ask you the same question, Detective,” Anna said. Kazzy’s ex-girlfriend knew Ghigo? “Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction?”

“Like I told you before, Mrs. Grady, the New Jersey police is working with us on the murder investigation of Kazzy Ouchi. Since we were just here interviewing you, we were called in. Just to see if there’s some kind of connection.”

“Well, there’s no connection; I can tell you that.”

“We’ll see.” Ghigo turned his attention back to Mas. “So how do you know Mr. Arai?”

“He’s a friend. Old friend.” Anna put her hand on Mas’s shoulder, snail-colored fingernails in full view.

“That’s interesting,” said Ghigo, “especially since he just arrived in New York last week.”

Before the detective could say more, his bald-headed partner called him over to the balcony. “Don’t go anywhere, Mrs. Grady,” he said.

While Ghigo’s back was turned to them, Mas rose. “I betta go.”

Anna followed Mas to the hallway, picking up her cat, Tama, on the way. “Oh, Tama- san,” she cooed in the cat’s ear. “You must be so afraid.”

“Tama, thatsu Japanese,” said Mas, who was feeling a pang of jealousy. Baka, he told himself, who would be jealous of a cat?

“Yes, I like the Japanese people. They were my first friends in this country. I trust the Japanese.”

“You ’Stonian?” Mas asked without thinking.

“Yes, I’m from Estonia. My family moved to New Jersey after World War Two. Why do you ask?”

Estonia had been taken over by a couple countries, by one twice over, isn’t that what Tug had said at the Seabrook museum? Anyone who had gone through that would be suspicious of people in power, especially those in uniform. It would make sense that Anna Grady would feel more comfortable with the people who had befriended her first. There were plenty of untrustworthy Japanese people, Mas knew that firsthand, but Anna didn’t need to know that right now.

Mas remembered the question that had brought him and Mari to Anna Grady’s apartment in the first place. “So whyzu you send him a gardenia dat night?”

“He had been coming over here regularly, wanting to talk with Seiko. She just didn’t like him at first. She said he was-what was the word she had used?-too high-tone. But we ended up getting to know each other better each time he came around. And then one day in January, it was snowing so hard, he just appeared at the apartment, his felt hat in his hands. I told him that Seiko was gone to see a friend, but he told me that he was actually here to see me.

“Then he brought out this gardenia. It was so beautiful-huge, with a wonderful smell. I told him that it looked like hope in the middle of winter. That was our first night together.”

Mas averted his eyes, as if he was watching an intimacy that he had no part of.

“I even saved the gardenia,” said Anna. “All brown and shriveled up, but I don’t care.” She went on to describe how wonderful Kazzy had been on all their dates. Mas didn’t have the stomach for such nonsense, but he knew that he had to hang in there like a dentist wiggling a rotten tooth. “We had gotten so close in a short amount of time. Kazzy even talked about marriage.”

Mas didn’t doubt it. If Kazzy had married three times, what was one more?

“But then that terrible daughter of his-”

Mas became more alert. What was that? She was talking about Becca.

“She was the one who poisoned Kazzy’s mind. She was so jealous; she couldn’t stand for another woman to be involved in her father’s life.”

Becca had just seemed like a silly female to Mas, not someone capable of any kind of poisoning, whether physical or emotional.

“You don’t believe me, do you? Well, she threatened me. Yes, she did. She even hired a private investigator to look into my past. Not only in New Jersey, but even in Estonia.”

Mas waited to see if Anna would divulge the private investigator’s findings.

“I told her that I didn’t care what she found, I wouldn’t break it off. But then Kazzy calls me. Tells me that he cares about me, but he has to end it.” Her mouth had become small and puckered. “So I sent him a gardenia last Thursday. I wanted him to remember the sweetness of our first time. But now I’m thinking that he probably used me.”

Mas pulled at one of his earlobes.

“He just wanted to see that damn journal so much.” Anna’s voice was powerful, an uppercut punch. “If he couldn’t get it through Seiko, he was going to get it through me. I was the one who Xeroxed it for him, a few pages at a time. I had to go behind Seiko’s back to do it. I felt awful, but she had already sent off a whole copy to the Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles. But if they could see it, why couldn’t Kazzy? I didn’t understand.”

“You knowsu whatsu in it?”

Anna shook her head. “That journal’s cursed. You don’t want to know what’s in it.”

When Mas got home, Lloyd was still awake, his stocking feet on the coffee table. He had the television on, but he wasn’t watching it. He had been doing some heavy thinking, and wanted to hear what Mas had learned in Fort Lee.

Mas told him the whole story and then pulled out the note, folded into a small square. Lloyd unfolded the paper and read the typed message aloud:

DEAR ANNA,

UNFORTUNATELY I CANNOT MEET YOU TONIGHT.

I THINK IT’S BEST IF WE DO NOT KEEP IN TOUCH.