I put the container on a little table between the chairs and said, “What can I bring you to drink? I still can’t make good tea.”
He smiled and nodded to indicate that the lack of tea didn’t disappoint him. “I have as well acquired an appreciation for Coca-Cola, if you should have any.”
I brought two bottles of Coke, two glasses of ice, and a few paper napkins on a tray, and we sat side by side, the table between us. When I broke the Scotch tape and opened the lid of the makeshift container, the aroma of the cookies made my mouth water. “These smell amazing.”
“I found the instructions in a magazine that I have been told is well regarded. After baking two batches that were inadequate, I made some changes to the recipe.”
The cookies tasted even better than they smelled. “These are so great. You should open a cookie store or something.”
“I am only a tailor, though I have considered writing to the magazine and sending them my corrected recipe. I am afraid, however, that they will not receive it with appreciation. It is good to see you again, Jonah.”
“It’s good to see you, too. It really is.”
“This is a nice house and a pretty street with all the trees. I wish very much that you are happy here.”
“I am,” I said and didn’t burden him with my concerns. In truth, I couldn’t share my latest worries unless I revealed the final secret that I’d been keeping from him—Miss Pearl. I continued to feel that I wasn’t meant to speak of her to anyone, that her visitations with me were in some way hallowed.
We spoke of everyday things for a few minutes, and then he told me about how Mr. Tamazaki of the Daily News had approached the Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles and how, through them, he had found Setsuko Nozawa in Charleston, Illinois. The previous day, Thursday, Mr. Tamazaki had given a detailed report of Mrs. Nozawa’s discoveries to Mr. Yoshioka and then had set out with enthusiasm on a three-day holiday to Asbury Park, New Jersey.
Mr. Yoshioka confided that he found Asbury Park an unlikely vacation site for Mr. Tamazaki, who was shy, neither a swimmer nor a sunbather, and had no interest in the usually frivolous pursuits offered by seaside resort communities. Because Mr. Tamazaki had gone all the way to Asbury Park five times in the past year, however, and regardless of the weather, perhaps it was reasonable to surmise that what attracted him was not the town but romance.
“At mid-life,” Mr. Yoshioka said, “I believe he has developed a great affection for a woman who, unfortunately for both of them, resides at a distance from him. But that inconvenience is a small matter if he has found love in a world with so little of it.”
Mr. Yoshioka shared with me all that Setsuko Nozawa had learned. Of course, he didn’t know that she had tried to reach Yabu Tamazaki one more time, that she had phoned repeatedly during the past twenty-four hours, after the curator of the morgue had set out for Asbury Park. She hadn’t been able to pass along the news about Dr. Mace-Maskil’s colorful visit to her shop or the circumstantial evidence suggesting that he’d conspired with Lucas Drackman to have Mrs. Mace-Maskil murdered. All of that we would learn only in time, because we didn’t then live in an age of cell phones and text messaging.
“I have passed all this along to Mr. Nakama Otani, who is once more involved. He will coordinate the facts from Mrs. Nozawa with other information that he has recently found and is still finding, and when he believes that he has put together a convincing case, he will go to his superiors and seek to open an active file.”
Half dizzy from listening to all these developments, I said, “Who are his superiors, where does he work?”
“Mr. Otani is a homicide detective.”
“But you didn’t want to go to the police.”
After taking a sip of Coca-Cola, Mr. Yoshioka said, “I did not go to the police, Jonah. I went to Mr. Otani not in his capacity as an officer of the law, but as a fellow inmate of Manzanar.”
“Oh.”
“My journey through the relocation camp left me distrustful of the law. However, Mr. Otani learned a much different lesson from the experience. Because the same legal system that abused us within a few years restored to us our rights as citizens, Mr. Otani developed much respect for it and chose to become a police officer and eventually a detective. I have thought about this for quite a long time, and I must acknowledge that he is a better man than I am.”
I didn’t like to hear him say that. In fact, I couldn’t abide hearing it. “He’s not a better man than you. You just … well, you lost more there than he did.”
He stared at me in silence for a moment and then looked out at the maples trembling and so green in the faint breeze. Finally he said, “You often surprise me, Jonah.”