“Defense against what?”
“Life,” he said, looking around as they went into a fussy formal sitting room that was lined with dark wood bookcases crowded with leather-bound tomes and framed family photos.
“These aren’t the best circumstances, but he seems pretty uptight for a twenty-four-year-old kid.”
“You would be, too, if Lucien were your father,” Sato said. “Charlie always tried to be the peacemaker. Given the personalities involved, that’s a stressful role. He’s a sensitive kid.”
“He’s very protective of his sister.”
Sato didn’t comment. He stood in the center of the room with his hands on his hips and looked around. “It’s strange to be in here knowing Lucien and Sondra are gone.”
“Did you come here often?” Kovac asked.
He laughed. “No. Lucien invited me once a year to their annual Chinese New Year party, so I could see what a successful life he had.”
“And you don’t have a successful life? You’re a professor, too. You’re in line for the same promotion.”
“I’m not married to money.”
“You could be,” Kovac said, watching him carefully. “Now you could get the girl, get the job, get the money. It’s clear sailing. You’d probably end up with the collection, too. Half of it, anyway.”
Sato’s expression hardened. “You brought me here to accuse me of murder?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. Just pointing out the obvious.”
“Am I seriously a person of interest?”
“Did you seriously think you wouldn’t be?” Kovac asked, giving him a look like Come on. “Everyone connected to the Chamberlains is a person of interest until I’m satisfied they’re not.”
“What about this manhunt for some drug addict carpenter I heard about on the news?”
“He’s someone we need to have a conversation with,” Kovac answered, peeved that the media was running away with that story. Dan Franken would probably threaten to sue the department before the day was out. The fact that his illegal employee was being hunted in connection with a murder investigation would be bad for business. “We have to consider all possibilities.”
“The fact that this guy is on the run says enough to me,” Sato said. “Innocent people don’t flee the police.”
“He could be guilty of something. That doesn’t make him guilty of this,” Kovac said. “Anyway, why don’t you enlighten me about some of this stuff?”
Sato gestured to the painting over the fireplace, a fearsome-looking elaborately dressed warrior of some kind, sword drawn. The colors were bold and solid—black, dark blue, bright white. The matting and frame probably cost a week’s pay.
“It’s a late-nineteenth-century ukiyo-e—a Japanese woodblock print.”
“Is it valuable?”
“No, not very. It’s in pristine condition, and it’s a beautiful example of the art, but they’re not rare. After Japan opened up during the Meiji Restoration in 1868, tons of these came west. Japan and all things Japanese were all the rage in Europe and in the States.”
“So this collection of Chamberlain’s is just a bunch of tourist trinkets from back when?”
“Oh no. We haven’t gotten to the good stuff yet.”
“How about any of the stuff on these shelves?” Kovac asked, more interested himself in the family photos: a wedding picture of the professor and his bride; photographs of Lucien Chamberlain receiving various awards, of him traveling in far-flung corners of the world. Photos of the professor outnumbered the rest of the family three to one.
“I don’t know that much about the art objects,” Sato said. “That’s not my area of expertise.”
“I guess Stuart Kaufman would have been the one to help us with that,” Kovac remarked.
From the corner of his eye he could see Sato bristle.
“Do you think I killed him, too?”
“I don’t know that anybody killed him. But it would make me a little nervous if the candidates for the job I wanted were dropping like flies.”
“Stuart got sick and died. People do. I don’t see that one death has anything to do with the other. It’s an unfortunate coincidence.”
Kovac bobbed his eyebrows and made a noncommittal humming sound as he looked at a photograph of the Chamberlain children dressed up in their white karate outfits, standing ramrod straight, bare feet wide apart, arms crossed, their expressions grave. They must have been around eight and ten, he thought. Even then Diana towered over her brother.
“Did you know Diana when she was in and out of rehab?” he asked.
“She put that behind her several years ago.”
“Has she ever talked about any of the rehabs she went to?”
“No. You don’t think she could be connected to this handyman suspect, do you? He came out of a drug rehab, right?”
Kovac didn’t answer.
“She doesn’t hang with any of those people.”