Dismissed With Prejudice (9780061760631) by Judith A. Jance Read Free Book Online

mother had packed up all the things she wanted to keep. That I should take them home with me along with my mother. Everything else is scheduled to be auctioned off next week. A moving van is due here any minute to pick it up.”
    She bent down suddenly, picked up a round river rock from the border of the driveway, and heaved it with surprising strength through the stand of alders until it disappeared into a blackberry thicket in the park behind the house. She made a muted noise, a derisive, angry sound that was neither sob nor laughter.
    â€œAfter all those years of lecturing me on my duty, how could he leave her to face this…” She stopped suddenly as if she had just thought of something. She looked from me to George and back to me again. “How?”
    â€œHow what?”
    â€œHow did he do it? With the short sword?”
    There was no sense trying to skirt the issue, especially since she already seemed to know about it. “Yes,” I said.
    She wavered at first when she heard it, but then she straightened up as though hearing it said aloudhad somehow refueled her anger and given her newfound resolve. Turning on her heel, she started back around the house the way she had come.
    â€œLet’s go find my mother,” she said. “She’s out back saying good-bye to the fish.”
    When we walked around the side of the house, we passed a stable with a tall fenced enclosure built around it. No horse was visible at the moment, and from the look of the compound, there had been no four-footed occupant in the place for some time.
    Behind the house, a car and trailer had been backed up to an open door. The faded green-and-white Suburban looked as though it had been picked up at a surplus vehicle auction from either the U.S. Forest Service or Immigration. It was a huge old rig, much the worse for wear. A decaying bumper sticker asked, HAVE YOU HUGGED YOUR HORSE TODAY ? Hitched to that hulking wreck, however, was one of the classiest horse trailers I’ve ever seen. Impeccable black lettering on the cream-colored metal side announced H ONEYDALE A PPALOOSA F ARM . And on one of the open back doors, in smaller but equally black lettering was the trailer’s own pedigree: P HILLIPS T RAILERS , C HICKASHA , O KLAHOMA .
    The contrast between the battle-worn Suburban and the pristine trailer was so striking that it almost made me laugh. Clearly, the horses’ riding comfort was of more importance than the comfort of any human passengers.
    I sidled around to the opened end of the trailer and glanced inside, half expecting to see the rump of a horse. Instead, the interior of the trailer was stacked high with furniture and boxes. I understood as soon as I looked inside. Considering their financial difficulties, it would be far less expensive for the Kurobashis to move their household goods in a borrowed horse trailer instead of a rented van or U-Haul. Once the trailer had been cleaned out, of course.
    Kimiko stopped in front of me so abruptly that I almost ran her down. George and Big Al blundered to a stop behind me.
    â€œWait here,” she ordered. “I’ll go get her.”
    Kimi Kurobashi hurried through a wooden arch into a small, peaceful Japanese garden. She crossed a fountain-fed pond on a miniature arched concrete bridge and paused beside a carved stone bench where a woman sat tossing something to several enormous orange-and-white carp that circled lazily in the sun-dappled water.
    The woman looked up startled and began to rise as Kimi came forward, speaking in rapid-fire Japanese. I couldn’t understand a word that was spoken, but I was sure from Kimi’s tone that she wasn’t pulling any punches. A look of shocked dismay passed over the older woman’s face as she heard the news. Dismay gave way first to denial and then to total anguish as the full meaning of the words finally struck home. Her face crumpled. She faltered backward while Kimi reached out tosteady