“No, but we didn’t really talk about that kind of thing. We were friendly, but I wouldn’t say we were friends. Idoknow that she was working to get her citizenship. She was excited to learn about American History, just like she was curious about mine.”
“What do you mean?” Jessie asked.
“She was just very intrigued by Western culture in general,” Alina explained. “In fact, she asked me to help her learn Spanish. I said I would if she taught me Japanese. We would exchange vocabulary words every time I came over. It was a little game we played. She loved languages. I think that’s why she had her job.”
“What did she do?” Jessie asked, realizing that hadn’t come up in the quick and dirty dossier that Jamil had provided on the way over.
“She was a translator,” Alina said. “She worked for the Japanese Consulate General and would help government officials when they came to Los Angeles. That’s how she met Mr. Tanaka, actually.”
“How exactly?” Jessie asked.
"She said they ended up seated next to each other on a flight back to the U.S. from Tokyo. He's a third-generation American and had never been to Japan, so he was there doing a family heritage tour. She said they talked the whole way back and by the time they arrived here, they were basically half in love. I was really happy for him. I worked for him for a couple of years before he met her and he was such a workaholic that I worried about his health. After she came into his life, he reined it in. Henever would have taken the time for things like dinner parties before her.”
“I have an uncomfortable question to ask,” Jessie said. “It’s looking likely that Yuki was killed on Friday night. That leaves all of yesterday for David to have communicated with Yuki but the police never got a call. Wouldn’t he have gotten worried if he couldn’t reach her that whole time?”
"You'd have to ask him," Alina said, "but I wouldn't read too much into it. I said that Mr. Tanaka had reined in his workaholic lifestyle once he met Yuki, but compared to a normal person, he still worked like crazy. He might have just been so focused on his work stuff that he forgot. Also, I was here on Friday until about 4 P.M., and I remember Mrs. Tanaka saying that she was going to a Korean spa for the day on Saturday, yesterday. So he might not have wanted to bother her while she was relaxing. But those are just guesses. As I said, you should talk to him."
“We will,” Sam assured her.
“Alina,” Jessie said, “we’re going to recommend you go to the hospital to get checked out after this, but before that, I have two last questions for you.”
“Okay.”
“First, you told the officers earlier that the front door was unlocked when you arrived. Was that unusual?”
“Yes,” she said. “If they weren’t home, I always had to use a key to get in. And you probably already know this, but there was a home invasion in the neighborhood recently. I specifically mentioned it to Mrs. Tanaka and she thanked me and said they’d be extra careful about locking up.”
“Thank you,” Jessie said. “Lastly, you mentioned that you finished up at four on Friday. Are you sure that the door was locked when you left?”
Alina nodded.
“Mrs. Tanaka walked me to the door, even helped me carry some of my cleaning supplies. I heard the door lock after she closed it.
“Okay, “Jessie said. “Now that was potentially as little as two hours prior to her death. Did she seem normal to you? Any signs of worry?”
She genuinely wanted to know, but was also interested in seeing Alina’s reaction. While her instinct told her the housekeeper wasn’t responsible for this, they had to follow all potential leads, which is why they’d be getting her GPS location data.
“No,” Alina said, shaking her head vigorously as tears came to her eyes. “She seemed fine. Knowing that she was killed just a little while after I left? It’s just too terrible to think about.”
Jessie looked over at the officer sitting beside the housekeeper and indicated that it was okay to go to the hospital now. What she didn’t say to Alina was that there were far more terrible things to think about than the fact that her boss died just hours after they said goodbye.
There was the very real possibility that whoever killed Yuki Tanaka on Friday night and Maria Cain on Saturday night wasn’t done. If the pattern held, that meant there might be another victim tonight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jessie had to give Sam Goodwin credit for the idea.
They were on their way back to Central Station to join the research crew, where they would pore over any potential connections between Yuki Tanaka and Maria Cain besides the manner of their deaths. About halfway there, Sam posed a question.
“Do we think the killer had a bone to pick with these individual immigrants or could they be using these women as examples, part of some deeper hatred against foreigners in general?”
“I’m not sure that it has to be one or the other,” Jessie said. “Can’t whoever did this be motivated by both personal and political hatred?”
Sam went quiet, but Jessie sensed that he wanted to say something more.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Just that our standard investigative techniques are well equipped to deal with the personal motivations for violent crime, but maybe less so when it comes to political motives. I feel like we need to get a more comprehensive sense of the kind of folks who might hate out of more than just personal animus.”
