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watching this entire exchange with his head swiveling back and forth like an observer at a tennis match.
    "If you don't believe that your husband committed suicide, he said, "then you must think he was murdered. Do you know of anyone who would want to see him dead?
    Machiko Kurobashi's eyes, enormous behind the beveled glass, turned full on Detective Lindstrom. "No, she answered.
    "Did he have any enemies?
    "Yes. I think so.
    "Do you know who those enemies might be?
    "No.
    "Did it have anything to do with this lawsuit your daughter was telling us about?
    She frowned. "My English not too good. I do not understand.
    "Was it about the lawsuit, the patent infringement?
    Machiko shrugged helplessly and shook her head.
    Big Al tried again, louder, as though turning up the volume would somehow batter down the language barrier between them. It didn't. Machiko simply looked at him sadly and shrugged her shoulders once more.
    I suspected that Machiko understood far more English than she was willing to let on, but we had reached a point in the questioning process where, for some reason, it was important for her to pretend otherwise.
    I'll admit that I found Machiko amazing and puzzling both. For a woman who had just learned that her husband was dead, she was showing remarkable resilience, fortitude, and restraint. To say nothing of stubbornness.
    Kimiko Kurobashi had hinted to us earlier that she thought she had inherited her stubborn streak from her father's side of the family, but I had news for her. Based on what I had observed, I suspected she had been given a hefty double dose of it. On both sides of her genetic heritage.

CHAPTER 5

    I WAS SHOCKED WHEN KIMI KUROBASHI opened the door and stepped back outside the house ten minutes later. I hardly recognized her. The threadbare Levi's, Western shirt, and down-at-the-heel boots had disappeared. She was wearing a well-tailored gray suit with a high-necked, pleated white blouse, and a pair of black, high-heeled pumps. The ponytail had been replaced by a complicated knot of hair, held in place on the back of her head by an oversized pearl-handled comb. She looked like a model fresh from the pages of Nordstrom's latest dress-for-success catalog.
    I'm always dazzled when women pull off wizard changes like that, and I'm equally sure that dazzled is just what women want men to be. It's like they all have Fairy Godmothers stashed away that they can pull out at a moment's notice. Men are pretty much stuck with being the way we are, warts and all. Big Al Lindstrom, caught pushing the lawnmower in his yard on a Saturday afternoon, is still the same guy I work with every day.
    Kimiko, emerging from her mother's house, was so transformed as to be almost unrecognizable. She bore little resemblance to the grungy ranch hand who had gone inside a few minutes earlier. I found myself gazing at her appreciatively. A sophisticated butterfly had been concealed in the faded work shirt and the grubby Tony Lama boots.
    "Should I take the Suburban? she asked as she came up to where Al and I were waiting with her mother. "It'll only take a few minutes to unhitch it.
    I did my best to camouflage the lecherous stare. You can't hang a man for looking.
    "No, I answered quickly. "We'll take you over and bring you back when we finish. It'll go a lot faster and give us a chance to talk to you on the way.
    She nodded, spoke briefly to her mother in Japanese, and then started toward the car. Out front we found that George Yamamoto's car was gone and in its place sat a huge North American Van Lines truck with a crew of three loading boxes into it as fast as they could. Kimi walked past them with her eyes downcast, not acknowledging their existence.
    Wincing at the pain in my fingers, I helped her into the backseat of the Reliant. It might have been more gentlemanly to put her in front, but I needed the extra legroom a whole lot more than she did.
    It was silent in the car as we started back toward the freeway. I was hung