“Well, it’s only the truth. What did I say wrong?”
“You said nothing wrong. Yes, it is the truth. Mr. Otani lost no one at the camp, thank God. But that does not excuse my failure to distinguish between an act of fate—the fire—and the acts of men. I blamed men equally for our incarceration and my loss, and that was a mistake that has shaped my life ever since.”
“Mistake? No. Your mom and sister wouldn’t have been there in the first place if the law hadn’t sent them.”
“Which is the way I thought until, so recently, I have seen that I was wrong.”
“Man, you’re so hard on yourself, way too hard.”
He looked at me again and smiled. “If I am not hard on myself, Jonah, who will be? It is not a good thing to be soft on oneself.”
I didn’t know what to say. Usually that didn’t prevent me from chattering away as usual, but this time I sat in silence.
Mr. Yoshioka said, “Police photographers took hundreds of photos during the course of the demonstration at City College on Monday. Mr. Otani quietly reviewed them and found Miss Delvane, your father, Mr. Smaller, Mr. Drackman, and Miss Cassidy.”
“Her there, her, too?”
“Of course, it is their right to protest. Free speech.”
“Then what does it mean that he found them?”
“Mr. Otani believes Lucas Drackman is living in the city under a false identity. The Drackman Family Trust, the vehicle through which the estate was passed from his murdered parents to him, still exists in Illinois. And in fact, the trust owns property here in the city. Mr. Otani is now seeking the address or addresses.”
“You think that’s where he lives?”
“It may be where he and Miss Cassidy live and where your father and Miss Delvane went, too, when they disappeared from their previous apartment. It may also be where Mr. Smaller now resides.”
“But isn’t he at the apartment building?”
“He quit his job Friday of last week, moved out, and left no forwarding address.”
I pressed the cold glass of Coke to my brow. “I feel like my head is gonna explode.”
“That cannot be a good feeling. Speaking of explosions, Mr. Otani has also discovered that Miss Cassidy is a graduate of one of the city’s universities, where she earned a degree in chemistry.”
“Wow.”
“As you say, ‘wow.’ Mr. Otani hopes to show not just that the five of them were at the demonstration but that they also live at the same address, at least one of them under a false name and no doubt in possession of forged ID. That alone would not be enough to persuade his superiors to open a case file, but when combined with the information provided earlier by Mr. Tamazaki and recently by Mrs. Nozawa, it should be, as he put it, ‘a slam dunk,’ which I believe is a football reference.”
“Basketball,” I said.
“Ah. Then I stand corrected. Therefore, if he can get a warrant to search the premises for the stolen jade, whatever other evidence is discovered in the process might put Mr. Drackman and Miss Cassidy in prison not merely for armed robbery and terrorism but also for murder.”
If that were to happen, I could at last stop worrying about all of them, about my father, too, because although Tilton hadn’t killed anyone and wouldn’t get a life sentence for murder, he would have a home behind bars for years.
I supposed Grandpa Teddy and perhaps even my mother would think I should regret my father’s downfall and incarceration rather than celebrate it. Well, good luck with that. The best they could expect was that maybe I wouldn’t gloat so much, they’d feel the need to say extraordinary prayers for my soul.
“How soon can Mr. Otani get his boss to open a case file?”
“He thinks that he will have everything he needs before noon Saturday.”
“Tomorrow.”
“I will keep you informed. I hope that you understand what we must do if Mr. Otani’s superiors agree to proceed as he wishes.”
His stare was direct and his expression one of polite concern, as minimalist as most of his expressions, but I sensed that “what we must do” would prove to be something that I might find unpleasant in the extreme.
When I couldn’t infer what that might be from what he had said, he illuminated the situation for me: “When the case file is opened and the police go to court to obtain a search warrant, I must return here so that you and I may sit down with your mother and reveal to her everything that you withheld and everything that you and I have conspired to do together.”
I thought this must be how men on death row felt. “Everything?”
“Yes, Jonah, there is no other choice.”
“Well, maybe there is.”
“No, there is not.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am quite certain. And so are you.”