Minnie, at first, didn’t believe Mas. “Jimi Jabami? But he’s an old man.”
They all were old, but it was true. Jimi was even older than them.
“But how?”
“Poison. Rhubarb pie.”
“I remember when Ats made that pie, long time ago. But none of us died.”
“Dis time heavy duty,” Mas said. It was the perfect crime, actually. He didn’t know if the report Minnie was waiting for would be able to spot rhubarb poisoning.
“But why did Jimi want to kill Shug?”
“Jealousy. Jealousy ova new strawberry. Jealousy ova everytin’.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. After all these years, all these years of practically living side by side, going to temple together, Jimi secretly hated us? And what about Ats? She was like a sister to me, way back when.”
“When Ats getsu sick, everytin’ changed.”
Minnie was quiet for a while. “I know Shug and I didn’t go over there much. Is that why Jimi was mad? Because he thought we abandoned Ats?”
Mas shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t make no sense. Heezu mad.” And maybe if he were in Jimi’s shoes, he’d be the same way. “Heezu want you to kuro.”
“Their family suffer, so Arais should, too.”
“We’re all going through hard times, Mas. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”
Mas had a hard time accepting this as well. But Jimi had not only poisoned Shug, but he’d also destroyed the Ford in an attempt to destroy Mas. What Mas needed to figure out was what Jimi was going to do next.
Minnie peered into her half-empty coffee mug. Her shoulders drooped, just like her husband’s once did. Perhaps she’d secretly hoped the killer was a stranger or maybe a business associate, a competitor. Not a fellow Nisei whom they had known for more than fifty years.
Jimi never really understood women like Minnie Arai, whom he knew as Minnie Nakamura before and in camp. They were the ones who always smiled, despite the dust blowing through the holes in their barracks or the coffin in front of them at a funeral.
His own mother released her list of discontents freely, so they flew out and formed a buttress, a wall between her and the outside world. He realized later that this was atypical for a Japanese woman of his mother’s generation. Most of them buried their hurts and losses so deeply that sometimes their faces were sucked of all expressions of joy or even sadness.
But to mask that all with a smile? Wasn’t that a bit demented? Jimi was afraid of those women. He did not trust them. He was convinced that they were quite dangerous, but how could he defend himself from them? He didn’t own a gun, even a hunting gun. Ats had insisted that he get rid of all his weapons after they got married. When she was a girl, a seven-year-old neighbor boy was playing with his father’s pistol while alone in the house. He accidentally discharged the gun, and Ats was the one who had found the boy’s body, soaked in blood. That would not happen to any of her children, she said. No matter how much Jimi argued with her, the image of the boy could not be erased from her mind.
So there were no guns in the house. But there were plenty of kitchen knives, sharpened so meticulously that they could instantaneously slice a piece of paper. If that Mas Arai had opened his mouth—and he probably had—then the smiling widow would be coming after Jimi soon.
The closing of the front door woke Mas up. Then the sound of a deadbolt being slid into place and the running of a car engine. The digital clock on the dresser read two a.m. Mas put on a pair of Shug’s pants and pulled down the blinds. Minnie’s car was missing from the driveway. What was she up to? There weren’t too many businesses in Watsonville that were open at that hour.
“Minnie,” he called out, just to make sure. No response.
Walking in his stocking feet, he tried the front door. Wouldn’t budge. He needed the key for the double lock, and when he went to the kitchen where the keys were hooked on the wall, he discovered that all of them were missing. Shug’s Lexus key, Minnie’s Camry key, the extra house keys he was borrowing.
Mas shook his head clear of the nighttime cobwebs. No, no, it couldn’t be. He rushed to the back door, but found the same thing—the deadbolt lock held him prisoner.
Why was Minnie keeping Mas captive in the house? It could only be one reason. He went into Shug’s study and opened his desk drawer, the drawer that had held the gun. Of course, it was gone, too.
Mas considered calling Jimi. But why? That would only pave the way for Jimi to hurt Minnie with cause. Robin? He had her business card somewhere, but again, would he want to involve the police? Wouldn’t that make it more difficult for Minnie?
Sonofagun. Mas circled the house, looking for somewhere to break out of the house. The double-pane windows made it difficult, plus it would leave such a mess, but he couldn’t worry about that now.
He’d seen some golf clubs stored in a corner of Shug’s study. He grabbed a nine-iron and went to the back, where a pretty window box displayed a row of violets. Not even bothering to remove the plants, Mas took a clean swing. The window shattered immediately, sending the pots of violets outside onto the ground. Grabbing some towels, Mas brushed away large pieces of glass and ducked his way outside.
Running around to the front, he surveyed his transportation options. He couldn’t make it on foot. And then he remembered what the neighbor boy, Victor, had said—whenever you need a car. Mas went to find out if the offer was any good.
He saw her before she saw him. He was sitting at the kitchen table when he saw the glow of her car’s headlights. The fog was thick that morning, so the beam had soft edges, like that of a distant star’s, and then it shut off. She was coming.
Her hair was disheveled, and she wore a man’s hunting jacket, maybe Shug’s. He waited for her to ring the doorbell. Three times.
“Jiiimii,” he heard Ats murmur down the hallway. Ats, we will almost be there. Together, in nirvana.
When Minnie drew out a gun in the open doorway, Jimi was not surprised. He had hoped for this.
He raised his hands instinctively, like they did in the television shows.
“Why? Just tell me why?” Jimi had always thought that Minnie was an attractive enough woman, but now he could see every line, crease, wrinkle. Not even Minnie was immune to the ravages of time. At least she wasn’t smiling any more.
He silently backed away from Minnie and the gun, which he could see was shaking in her age-spotted hands. The skeleton hands and fingers with the prominent diamond ring. “Where is she?” she said, and then louder, “Where IS SHE?”
It became obvious to Jimi that Minnie wanted retribution. To avenge the poisoning of her husband, Minnie would shoot Ats. That was fine with Jimi, as long as he was next.
Walking backwards, he led her down the hall to Ats’s bedroom.
The gun began to sag, and Jimi was afraid she would drop it. “Both hands, both hands.”
She looked confused, yet she steadied the gun with both hands, as he suggested.
When they entered the bedroom, Minnie kept the gun on Jimi but turned her attention to Ats, who lay helplessly in her bed. She was awake but didn’t seem to comprehend what was going on.
“Ats, oh, Ats. I haven’t seen you in so long.” The nose of the gun was aimed at the floor.
Just shoot her and then me. The mortgage insurance, while not covering suicides, would be applicable in a double homicide. “Shoot her,” Jimi murmured and then louder, “Shoot her.”
Minnie’s hands shook and the gun with it. Ats’s face turned to Jimi and for a moment, Jimi recognized an old familiar light in her eyes.
“Mmminnie,” she mouthed. Jimi felt a streak of electricity go up his spine.
No, no, no, Jimi thought. This will ruin everything. He needed to think fast and think ugly. Say something that would keep Minnie’s anger simmering and finally boil over enough for her to pull the trigger two times. “Shug used me, he used everyone around him,” he said, meaning every word. “He used you, too. I’m sure I did you a favor.”
She raised and pointed the gun right at him, and he could breathe again.
But he’d underestimated Minnie. “What are you trying to do?” she said. “Do you want me to kill you? Do you want me to destroy your life like you have destroyed mine?”
Too late, our lives are already destroyed, thought Jimi. He wondered how it would feel to enter the other world.
“Ats, shh.” Jimi tried to control his voice. He didn’t want his last words to his wife to be harsh.
“Is this why you killed him? Because you felt that we’d abandoned Ats?” Minnie’s voice cracked as she spoke.
But you had, Jimi thought. When she was young and active, you always had time for her, for us. Coming around for free pies and cakes. Asking for donations, flats of strawberries, for the next temple fundraiser. The doorbell was always ringing for Ats. And she always answered, ready to fulfill any request. But apparently she wasn’t needed anymore. And the quiet was slowly killing her.
“Ats, oh, Ats. What has become of us?” Minnie then slumped down to the floor, dropping the gun. Leaning against the wall, she covered her eyes. She started to make a strange noise, like a cat spitting out a hairball. Jimi finally realized that she was crying.
Ats pulled herself up with the bed railing and stared at Minnie.
“Goddammit,” Jimi cursed. And then he cursed some more. Minnie kept crying and Ats kept watching. “You know, you Arais, you have it all. Money, everyone knows you and respects you. Trips around the world. The Stem House.”
More crying and hiccupping. Tears were also running down Ats’s face. Did she understand what was happening?
Minnie wiped her nose on the cuff of the jacket, which obviously was too large for her. “What are you talking about? We don’t have the Stem House anymore.”
“That’s your son’s stupidity. Finally caught up with him.”
Minnie’s mouth took on an ugly shape. “Shug took all the money. All our retirement money. I have nothing. I may even lose the house we are living in.”
“But how can that be?”
“He put it all into the new strawberry. Every single penny. I curse that new berry.”
Jimi sunk back onto the wall. What? His mind whirled, trying to make sense of Minnie’s revelation.
The screen door screeched open and shut, and a new person entered Ats’s small room. Mas must have been running, because his chest was heaving up and down. Seeing Minnie on the floor next to the gun, he took a fighting stance. “Whatchu do?” he demanded of Jimi.
“You need to take her home.”
“Sonofabitch.” Mas raised his fist to strike the old man.
Minnie stopped him. “No, Mas, no. It wasn’t him. It was me. I was going to kill Ats. Like he killed Shug.”
Mas felt like a top that was losing steam. Outside, the sirens of the police cars sounded louder and louder until their wailing finally ceased a few yards away.
Mas feared that the police would cart away Minnie. If so, it would all be his fault. Because he, after all, was behind the call to the police. It had been the patriarch of the Duran House, the housebound Miguel, who had insisted on informing the police before he’d give up the keys to the Impala.
It looked mighty suspicious, the gun in the middle of the room next to Minnie. They were frozen in place from either fear or shock, all of them except for Ats. She had jumped over her bed rail and scooped up the weapon, slipping it underneath her mattress. Then magically she was back in bed, wrapped back in her sheets, mummified.
The officer who Mas had met at his motel room break-in was first on the scene. “We got a report that there might be possible shooting at this address,” he said, a gun in his hands.
“I did it,” Jimi bleated, shocking both Mas and Minnie. “I’m the one who killed her husband.”
As soon as he said those words, Jimi felt he had found his solution. I killed Shug Arai. Four simple words. The police asked him the same questions forty different ways. The same answer: I killed Shug Arai. They wanted details—how he had done it, when he had started to plan to kill him—but all Jimi could give them was, I killed Shug Arai. They brought in a Japanese interpreter, obviously hoping that a different language would stir a different, more detailed response. But it was the same, I killed Shug Arai. On a yellow lined pad of paper, Jimi carefully held the pen and wrote over and over again, I killed Shug Arai.
He felt the authorities growing frustrated. Some of the experts even raised their voices and threatened him, his family. But Jimi felt like he was floating over the police station, the chimneys, the city, the farmlands. He was up in the night clouds, feeling moisture soak into the wrinkles of his face, caressing his dry, gray hair and the stubble on his chin and underneath his nose. His best defense was the truth, a truth that they could not prove. He was untouchable.