Hiro’s funeral was about as far away from Larry’s crazy service as Neil could imagine. There were no laughs, Mad Libs, me-shirts, or snacks—just a lot of sad family members gathered around a spare altar. Bells rang deep low notes to call the mourners into the temple. A wooden tablet sat where Hiro’s coffin should have been. Incense burned in an urn, filling the temple with a sweet smoky aroma.
Pictures of Hiro fishing, at art school, with his family, and in traditional dress adorned the front of the room. A priest chanted some words and Neil did his best to mimic the actions of Hiro’s family and Nakamura who was kneeling next to him on the temple floor.
“I’m trying to fit in,” he whispered to Nakamura, as they bowed together at the priest’s words.
Nakamura looked at Neil’s gangly body, pale skin, and flaming red hair. “Good luck,” he said.
Neil’s mood didn’t totally match the funeral. He was actually anxious and excited. There had indeed been another clue hidden in the final panel of The Chef. Vegemight’s ship was anchored on a port outside the Chef’s cave. The port didn’t have a name before, but when Neil checked this morning the name “Oshima” was clearly written on a sign in tiny letters. It was yet another detail that a normal reader would certainly miss. But Neil was sure that Larry was leaving more hidden signposts.
“It’s a volcanic island a little ways south of here,” Nakamura said when Neil had shown him the picture. “There are some spas and even a small airport. It’s apparently a good spot for scuba diving.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“If I find out Larry’s been updating his manga from some lounge chair in a Japanese spa, I’ll throw him into the volcano,” Nakamura said.
The image of Larry sitting in shorts and sunglasses with a laptop actually made them both chuckle, but also seemed sadly unlikely.
Neil nodded. “Okay, as a clue, it doesn’t have much meaning yet. But it is another sign that Larry is alive and is trying to tell me something. Maybe I’ll request that one of the Ultimate Battles take place at Oshima. Nori wouldn’t even have to leave his precious yacht.”
But Neil was feeling somber as well. Larry might be alive, but there was no indication that Hiro was. After all, Hiro was the artist—but only Larry knew the significance of replacing avocado with pomegranates. As far as anyone knew, this was a real funeral for a missing young man. Neil had no words of encouragement for Hiro’s family. He was also feeling anxious about the leads he might find there.
Everyone bowed again and Neil spied a young woman at the front, giving her offering of incense. She was, there was no other word for it, cute. Koko Takoyaki, exactly as Larry had described her. She had short hair and dark serious eyes which were presently glued to the wooden tablet. She seemed to be wishing her brother back from the dead. She added her incense to the smoking urn and returned to kneel on the floor.
Now Neil couldn’t take his eyes off her. Somehow Neil needed to ask her some difficult questions, and he needed to ask them without a roomful of people listening.
The funeral ended. Nakamura explained that normally the family would head to the crematorium, but with no body to cremate they mingled around the temple receiving wishes and gifts from the mourners. They’d take these and Hiro’s personal belongings to the crematorium later to burn in his place.
Neil did his best to stay on the fringes of the crowd, waiting for a chance to catch Koko alone. Then he felt a tap on his shoulder and swung around to find himself staring into Koko’s eyes.
“You must be Larry’s cousin, the chef?”
Neil was caught off guard. He’d had a whole speech rehearsed in his head to try to bring up the question of the website and the accident without raising any suspicion. The way she stared at him with those intense deep dark eyes rendered him speechless. Nakamura finally elbowed him in the ribs, and Neil fumbled out a few clumsy words.
“I, uh, I, umm, I’m, uh, very sorry for your loss.”
Koko looked down and Neil felt his face go red. “I know the time is not very . . . good, but I have some questions about . . . about what happened.”
She looked back up and the spell was recast. “Why are you here?” she asked in a voice as enticing as her eyes.
“Um, well . . . I don’t really want to be here at all. I was just in town and heard about the ceremony, so I thought I’d drop in and offer my condolences.”
“Just in town? You just happened to be in Tokyo?” She raised an eyebrow and stared at him. Why was she picking up the sketchiest parts of his story?
“Um, yeah. Well, not really, no. I’m just here for a cooking . . . thing.” He tried to wave his hands nonchalantly.
“A duel.” She nodded. “Your cousin said you did those. And what do you want to know? How they died?”
Neil just nodded. Koko had expertly put herself in the role of the grand inquisitor in this conversation.
“They went out boating. A storm came up. You must have heard that. You don’t believe it?”
Neil started to say he didn’t know, but Koko continued. “Neither do I. They were not going sightseeing at all. They were going out to confront a ship, a whaling ship, an illegal ship. They didn’t tell me this, but I know it is true. I am a marine biologist; did you know that?”
Neil nodded, completely rattled.
She continued. “I hate these fishermen. I think they rammed my brother’s boat. But the police say there was no such ship on the ocean that day.”
“You think the police got it wrong?” Neil said.
“No. I think they are being paid off.” She clenched her fist and slammed it down on the back of a chair. Neil noticed with concern that she had actually split the wood completely in half. “I also know there was no freak storm. But they are both dead. That I do know.” Her eyes fell again.
Neil was about to tell her about Larry’s clue, but something told him to tread cautiously and not give away any information. That something was Nakamura whispering in his ear, “Tread cautiously. Never give away information.”
Neil chose his words carefully. “Can I ask you a question about the manga?”
She stared at him intently. “Yes, what?”
Neil took a deep breath and continued, trying to sound offhand. “Did Larry leave any instructions about the website? Any changes in case he didn’t come back from the trip?” He expected an easy “no.”
“Yes,” Koko said. “He did.”
Neil was dumbfounded. He realized with a jolt that a “no” would have confirmed that his theory was right. Larry was alive and changing the manga. “Yes” meant the opposite. He felt his knees buckle and he watched as Koko reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope.
“After his death, I found this in his room, under his pillow.” She handed it to Neil, who took it with shaking hands. He opened the envelope and slid out a thick sheet of writing paper. It was a note, in Larry’s handwriting, dated the morning of their fishing trip. The note asked Koko to change the avocados to pomegranates and a few days later to change the name of the port to Oshima Island. The room began to spin. Neil took a deep breath and steadied himself on Nakamura’s shoulders.
“I am so sorry,” she said. There was movement at the altar. The priest had returned and was summoning the family to head to the crematorium. “I have to go.” She walked out of the temple, leaving Neil staring at the floor.
Nakamura watched them all leave and then put a hand on Neil’s shoulder, steadying him. “Oh, boy. Darn it. Hey, Nose . . . you knew this was a possibility. I told you back at the restaurant. I’m sorry.”
Neil lifted his head. He was smiling.
“She’s wrong,” Neil said. “He’s alive.”
Nakamura shook his head. “Neil, you’ve got to give it up. We’ve come halfway around the world. He’s gone, okay? Maybe this was just wishful thinking . . .”
“I’m still not nuts, bonehead.” Neil looked around to make sure they were now alone. “I know that this was left after Larry supposedly died.”
“How?” Nakamura said.
Neil lifted the letter to his nose and took a long, slow sniff. “Fish. Larry smeared fish on the paper before he sealed it in the envelope.”
“That’s . . . gross.”
“But also intentional. Any chance Larry, who hates seafood, would actually be near fish by choice?”
Nakamura had seen Larry’s reaction to fish many times. “Not likely, no.”
“So he wanted me to know that he left his note on purpose. But why?” Neil sat down in a chair, thinking.
Nakamura tapped his upper lip and then said. “How do we know Koko didn’t have fish for dinner and rub it on the paper herself?”
Neil sniffed the envelope again. “It’s only on the letter, not the envelope. . . . Well, there’s some on the inside of the envelope, but it’s only residue from the letter. She’s handled both and kept them together. They’d have the same smell if the fish smell were coming from her hands.”
“Nose, your nose is something else. Don’t ever get plastic surgery.”
“Agreed. So the letter is not fishy by accident, which means Larry meant for me to smell it.” Neil took another sniff. “I’ve got it.”
“What?”
Neil stood up and started pacing the floor. “Koko did make the changes to The Chef.”
“So Larry left the note before he went out, sensing he might be killed.”
Neil smiled. “No. He wrote the note after the accident, and left it for Koko to find—but needed her to believe it was written before his boating trip, so she wouldn’t suspect anything, and would make the changes to the manga.”
“Okay, but how do you know it wasn’t before the boating trip?”
“Let’s suppose Larry made a fishy mess of some kind. If that were the case, then the envelope and the letter would smell the same. He made sure to purposely rub fish on the letter.”
“I repeat, gross. Why?”
“He knew that the changes in the manga would lure me here to look for him. He also knew I’d eventually find out Koko had made the changes, so he smeared fish on the note so I’d know he asked for the changes after his trip with Hiro. He left enough scent for Koko to miss it but for me to know he was still alive.”
Nakamura considered this. “Wait a minute. Why go through the ruse of leaving a letter in his room at all?”
Neil thought for a second. “Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s alive, so this was another way to notify me without revealing himself. He knew I’d come to Japan after seeing the pomegranates, so he knew I’d eventually find this note.”
“Why not reveal himself to Koko? Let her tell you he’s alive?”
Neil thought of her eyes. She would have mesmerized Larry, he was sure of that. “To protect her. This way, she’s not implicated because she’s just carrying out his last wishes. As far as Koko knows, Larry is dead, like her brother.”
“Okay. Larry is alive again. The guy has more lives than a cat! So what next?”
Neil checked his watch. “I have a duel to get ready for.”
Nakamura nodded. “I’ll keep looking for clues here in Tokyo.”
Neil nodded and a chilling thought occurred to him. “If Koko thinks they were killed by an illegal whaling boat, then I might be heading for exactly the right place: Nori’s ship.”