Free Zen Attitude by Sujata Massey Page A

slowly past the cheerful bustle of hawkers in the Ameyoko bargain shopping alley selling everything from dried fish to deodorant. I had developed painful shinsplints from running the previous day and was misted with perspiration when I arrived at the police station.
    I went straight to the women’s rest room to freshen up. I could hear something unpleasant going on in a toilet stall, the painful sound of vomiting. Probably a young, pregnant office worker. I was drying my hands and face when the stall door opened and a middle-aged woman went to the sink to rinse her mouth. I glanced at her bent frame and, as she slowly straightened, made the identification: Mrs. Sakai, the woman with the mole.
    She was looking at her sagging face in the mirror, the cheeks mottled by dozens of tiny red pinpricks, capillaries broken by her vomiting. I knew because it always happened to me. Her pageboy hairstyle looked limp and oily, and her lipstick had worn off into a crayoned line around the edges.
    I moved closer to the mirror so she saw my face. At first there was no recognition, but then she turned.
    “ Aa! ” she exclaimed, sounding horrified.
    “You’re feeling ill. I’m sorry.” Despite what she’d done in Hita Fine Arts, I did feel terrible for her. She’d lost her husband.
    “They tried to make me eat. I couldn’t keep it down.” The haughty air she’d assumed in the shop was completely gone. She wiped her mouth with a limp yellow and pink dotted handkerchief she pulled from her pocket.
    I offered her a fresh package of tissues someone had thrust into my hand at the Roppongi subway station that morning, a sales promotion for something or other. She didn’t take it. Sensing my time was limited, I spoke. “About Jun Kuroi—he was only trying to help me. It wasn’t his fault that your husband died.”
    “Helping you?” She sounded distracted.
    “You were at the shop that day. If it wasn’t for you, I would have paid a fair price for the tansu. ”
    Her face flushed. “You think because I was his wife, I was not truly interested in the tansu! Let me tell you, I really wanted it—I had developed a fondness—”
    “Stop it. You and your husband knew the chest was an overpriced fake.”
    “Fake?” She looked incredulous.
    “The metalwork was changed. I didn’t notice, and my mistake was your husband’s gain.”
    “How can you talk about gain? He’s dead, he has gained nothing!” Mrs. Sakai took a brush out of her handbag and began raking it through her hair. “My husband paid a fair price to the consignor who gave him that piece.”
    “If that’s true, why were you running away from Hita?”
    “We were looking for a new place to live,” Mrs. Sakai said, brushing harder. “Anyway, my husband sent the tansu to your home in Tokyo. You have no reason to complain. Now, I must excuse myself—”
    “What condition was the tansu in when it came to your shop? Did your husband make any alterations? Is there a shed or workshop where he kept spare pieces of metalwork?”
    “Of course not. He was a top salesman, not a carpenter!”
    “Where did he get the tansu? ”
    “Why are you bothering me with this now? My husband is dead!” Mrs. Sakai fumbled with her hairbrush, which clattered on the tiled floor.
    I retrieved the brush. Handing it to her, I asked, “Do you think your husband’s stress over his shady business dealings might have triggered the heart attack or stroke or whatever killed him?”
    “I have no idea—”
    “The police may want to question me again. So far, I haven’t mentioned our prior acquaintance.”
    She shut her eyes. I was offering her an obvious deal. At last she said, “The consignor’s name is Ideta. Ideta-san of Denen-Chofu.”
    She was talking about an old-money enclave in southwest Tokyo, an excellent area to solicit antiques. My instinct was to believe her, so I asked for Mr. Ideta’s first name and address.
    “I don’t have that. I’m telling you all that I know.”
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