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

her. Together they sank down onto the bench.
    Even from where we were standing, it was apparent that the daughter was very much a younger, fresher version of her mother. There was the same determined set to the chin, the same delicate molding of eye and cheekbone, although the lines on Machiko Kurobashi’s face were beginning to blur a little with age. Her hair was steel gray and cut short, but I could imagine that it had been long and black, full and lustrous once. In her day, she must have been a striking beauty, just as her daughter was now.
    They sat on the bench for several minutes, while Machiko Kurobashi wept silently. At last the older woman took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. Despite Kimi’s objections, the mother rose and started toward us.
    She was wearing an old-fashioned blue cotton dress with a zipper down the front that reminded me of the everyday dresses my mother used to wear, housedresses she called them, that were good enough for working inside the house but not for going to the grocery store or for entertaining even unexpected guests. Machiko seemed to share my mother’s housedress philosophy. She self-consciously brushed crumbs from her lap and checked the zipper as she walked toward us.
    She was older than I had thought at first, older and frailer. Coming closer, she leaned heavily on her daughter’s arm with one hand and on a twistedwooden cane with the other. When she reached the wooden archway, she stopped and looked questioningly at each of us in turn, her eyes enormous behind the beveled lenses of her gold-framed glasses. When her glance reached George Yamamoto, it stopped, freezing into a hard glitter.
    Machiko Kurobashi’s transformation was sudden and complete. She seemed to grow younger, stiffer, and inches taller all at the same time. Letting go of her daughter’s arm, she raised one trembling hand and pointed an accusing finger at the head of the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab.
    â€œYou,” she hissed. “Out!”
    A dark flush swept out from under George Yamamoto’s collar and up his neck, leaving his ears a vivid shade of crimson. “I’m so sorry, Machiko…” he began.
    She shook her head stubbornly, cutting him off. “Out,” she repeated, glaring at him. “Go!”
    He started to object and then thought better of it. He went, retreating dispiritedly past the trailer and Suburban until he disappeared around the corner of the house while Machiko Kurobashi stared after him as if concerned that he might change his mind and come back.
    Surprised, I looked down at the bird-boned old woman who had ordered George Yamamoto away, who had managed to treat a more than sixty-year-old bureaucrat the same way a hard-nosed teacher might treat a misbehaving kindergartener. Obviously, the rancor between George Yamamoto andMachiko Kurobashi was deep-rooted and inarguably mutual.
    Once George was out of sight, Machiko turned toward me. “I sorry to be rude. That man not welcome here.” Her English was broken and heavily accented, but quite understandable. Once again I fumbled my identification out of my pocket and handed it to her. She didn’t bother to look at it.
    â€œYou are police?”
    I nodded. “I’m Detective Beaumont, and that’s my partner, Detective Lindstrom. We came to tell you about your husband.”
    â€œKimi told me,” she said. “Come.”
    Instead of going toward the house, she turned and headed back into the garden. The rest of us followed. She resumed her place on the bench, patting it to indicate that I should sit beside her. Big Al and Kimi sat on another bench a few feet away.
    â€œSorry,” she said. “Furniture all gone. Nowhere to sit inside.”
    â€œThat’s fine,” I said. “This is very beautiful.”
    â€œTadeo make it for me. Like home, so I not be homesick.” The aching hurt in her simple words put a lump in my throat. My heart went