Read The Flower Master (Rei Shimura #3) for Free Online Page B

elevator floor. There were a few cherry blossoms in a corner that had probably fallen off the bundle of flowers a student was taking home.
    "It will take only a minute, Shimura-san." As we stepped off the elevator, Hata and I took off our shoes, leaving them with a line of footwear that had been taken off by crime personnel already collecting evidence in the room.
    I walked forward in my sheer stockings with the worsening run in them and looked at Sakura's body.
    To my relief, her blood hadn't formed a lake. It had not dripped much further than her collarbone. A police photographer tiptoed around her taking photographs, while three other officers crawled on the floor collecting pieces of dirt for later analysis.
    Sakura looked the same. The scissors were still buried in her neck. But there was something different about the lighting. I said, "The window blinds were open when I walked in and saw my aunt and Sakura. Somebody closed them."
    "We did that for lighting. And to keep people outside from looking in," the photographer said.
    The Kayama Kaikan was covered in mirrored glass; you could see out but not in during daylight hours. I supposed the photographer hadn't thought of that. In fact, the only reason the blinds were ever used was because the midday sun could be blinding. The day before, Sakura had asked for the blinds to be drawn so that she could see her work better.
    "Sir, there is a suspicious package outside the classroom door."
    Another officer came in from the hallway to Hata, and we followed him out to Mrs. Morita's furoshiki. I explained the package contained a box of plates that had been consigned to me.
    "Just in case, may I check inside?" Hata asked me.
    "Sure."
    "Dust for prints," Hata said, and the young officer untied the furoshiki and spread powder over the wooden box, quickly tracing the fingerprints I was sure would prove to be Mrs. Morita's and mine.
    When the box was carefully opened, the other officer became very excited. "Someone must have stolen one of these antique plates. The box with five spaces has only four filled."
    "I was given four," I explained. "That's why I'm trying to sell them."
    From the way he and the photographer exchanged glances, they obviously thought it was a lost cause.
    Lieutenant Hata rode the elevator down to the second floor with me.
    "Do you need assistance getting home?" he asked.
    "You mean you'll let me go free?" I was amazed, given my previous experiences with the Japanese police.
    "You're not going to flee the country, are you?"
    I shook my head. "I'm just going to northeast Tokyo. My new address is on this business card."
    "We will keep you and your aunt informed about everything. This was a terrible thing for you to witness, but I know you will have the strength to get through."
    Lieutenant Hata let me use his pocket phone to call my cousin Tsutomu 'Tom' Shimura at St. Luke's International Hospital. Aunt Norie was too shaken to travel back to Yokohama alone, but she insisted that I not go out of my way to accompany her home. After I told Tom the facts, he said he would get another doctor to cover his shift and come to the Kayama Kaikan to take his mother home.
    True to his word, a half-hour later Tom had arrived, still wearing a white doctor's coat over a nondescript gray suit. A few of the ikebana students looked at him approvingly; he was in his early thirties, handsome, and without a wedding ring, perfect for somebody's daughter.
    "How did this happen, Rei?" Tom's face was red, as if he'd run for miles instead of just stepping out of the taxi I saw waiting outside.
    "We were in the wrong place at the wrong time," I said to him in English, which he understood well. I was tired of all the ladies listening. At first they had been upset at being detained by the police. Now they were fascinated, taking in every word for gossip broadcasts of the future.
    But Tom had turned his attention away from me and was staring hard at Takeo Kayama, who was standing in his glamorous