“My name is Miranda Quin!”
Her lips cracked open and bled as she spoke, and her throat seized so that she clutched it with her hands, pressing hard against the pain until she could breathe. She edged her way along the wall between the bed and the door. Stopping, she pressed the fingertips of her right hand against the rough concrete.
In violent movements she ripped skin from her fingers until she felt warm blood flow back over her wrist. She turned and shuffled slowly across to the far wall, which she knew was already streaked with her blood. Steadying herself against the wall with her extended left hand, she began to inscribe with fresh blood, using her right hand. Her message was simple: “I am Miranda Quin.”
Her fingers had lost all feeling when she finished, and she felt a strange sense of ease as she sank to the stone floor. After unmeasurable time, she crawled to the bed, hauled herself up onto it, and stretched herself out, reconciled now to her imminent death.
14
Kohaku
Another bright autumn day greeted Morgan as he hurried down the steps of his Victorian postmodern condo. It was cool, almost crisp, anticipating the onset of the interminable stretch from the end of October through early December before winter set in. He resisted calling Miranda at home. When he checked in with headquarters, he only asked as an incidental question if she had been around. On his way to Robert Griffin’s house, he picked up two coffees at the Robber Barons.
There was no sign of her. The doors were locked. He sat on the edge of the pool and drank his coffee. He was just finishing hers, as well, when Eugene Nishimura strode down the steps through the walkway and into the dappled sunlight like a man entirely at home in his setting.
“Good morning, Mr. Nishimura.”
“Good morning, Detective Morgan. How are my koi doing today?”
“Fine. Our koi are doing just fine.”
“Fed them yet?”
“No.”
Nishimura walked over and scooped out a small canister of feed from the bin by the door. He sprayed it out across the closest end of the pool, then sat beside Morgan on the retaining wall to watch the flurry of colour as the koi crowded the surface to eat.
“I’ve heard from my people in Japan. It’s Wednesday there now. They’ve been making discreet inquiries, Mr. Morgan. We weren’t sure what we were getting involved in, and I thought it best not to make it seem like a police matter.”
“No, of course. And?”
“And there’s no report that the Champion of Champions is missing. The breeder was approached. He said, ‘Oh, yes, she was in the big pond, the soil was just right —’”
“The soil?”
“That’s what they call the combination of clay, natural waters, and the micro-climate that determines the worth of the fish.”
“Like Chateau Margaux is valued higher than its neighbour, Chateau D’Issan, and D’Issan is valued higher than the chateau next to that.”
“Just so, Detective Morgan,” said Nishimura. Drawing the conversation back to the matter at hand, he continued. “Only their skill in choosing what’s best from tens of thousands of fingerlings is more important. The owner of this breathtaking Kohaku whose simplicity is infinitely complex, who has the shape of perfection —”
“Mr. Nishimura,” said Morgan, “the name of the breeder?”
“His entire business is based on this fish. She is thriving, he assured my informant, in the opaque waters of his largest pond, high in the hills of Niigata. He can’t afford to acknowledge otherwise.”
“Do you think he knows she’s in Toronto?”
“Yes, he does. Otherwise he would have claimed insurance, either that or a national outpouring of sympathy. He knows exactly what’s in his ponds. But he doesn’t need her anymore.”
“He doesn’t?”
“Likely the breeder has a fix on her line. With a few generations of her offspring selected, she was no longer essential for his breeding program, so he sold her to someone with no need to broadcast his divine acquisition.”
“An ignominious outcome for the Champion of Champions.”
“I doubt she cares.”
“And you think Robert Griffin bought her legally?”
“More or less. It would be preferable for the breed-er’s reputation if the koi world assumed she was still in Niigata. Mr. Griffin was the ideal customer because he was discreet to the point of obsession.”
Morgan was fascinated by the contradictory notion of keeping a treasure concealed. He tried to connect the compulsive hoarding of beauty with the psyche of a rapacious voyeur.
“I doubt very much that he declared her true worth when she was processed through customs,” Nishimura continued. “I would say she came in with some of the lesser Kohaku. He probably brought some of these other prizewinners in the same way.”
Humility made Morgan uneasy: these were the Kohaku he and Miranda had proclaimed the best of the lot. “Do you think he was wheeling and dealing?”
“Selling for a profit? No. An unequivocal no. Otherwise I would have heard about him. I know the koi world. I would have known if he had sold even one really good fish. This man had money, so why bother with crime? He was an obsessive, reclusive collector. I mean, this guy was clinical. He was pathological.”
“I think you’re right, though I’m not sure we’ll ever know the full extent of his pathology.”
Morgan realized Nishimura had no idea about Griffin’s deviant behavior. He knew him only as a dead recluse found floating among fish of astonishing worth. The Japanese koi expert shrugged and asked to be let into the house.
“My partner has the keys,” Morgan felt compelled to explain. The house was open. Then he asked as they walked through the French doors, “Have you heard from her, Eugene? I haven’t been able to track her down for a couple of days.”
“She should be here right now. I told her I’d report back on my clandestine, um, inquiry.”
Now that wasn’t a word people used in real life, Morgan thought. He realized Nishimura was enjoying his part in a police investigation, especially one that combined murder with koi. Clandestine implied furtive. Appropriate perhaps, but it also suggested treachery. He should have said covert if he wanted to raise the level of intrigue.
“When did you talk to her?” Morgan asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe Saturday morning. I’ve got to clean out the vortex filters. I’ll let you know if she calls. I have my cell phone.”
Nishimura walked off toward the cellars, and Morgan settled into in his wingback chair. Why wasn’t Miranda carrying her cell phone? The green Jaguar was parked in the garage. Perhaps her phone was in the car.
He walked through the stone passageway past the wine cellar door to the garage. The car was locked. He peered through the windows. From the passenger side he could see a small corner of her handbag protruding from under the driver’s seat. The convertible top must have been lowered and then raised again, or she would have stashed it in the well behind her.
Even though he had been looking for the bag, he was disconcerted to find it. She suddenly seemed more vulnerable. He hoped she had her semi-automatic Glock with her, that she hadn’t turned it in while on leave, that it wasn’t locked in this car. With her wallet and phone! The bag had been there at least since Saturday. Reason struggled against panic, asserting that this was a spare and she was carrying another bag wherever she was.
It