She held up a hand to stop him. “I do notsuspect. Iknowit to be true.”
“Then you know who. . .?”
Steers’s hands curled to fists and her chest heaved with emotion. She closed her eyes and the tears drained out from them. She shook her head sharply once, and then again, fiercely, as though to throw something repulsive off her.
“We have to call the police,” said Nash.
She opened her watery eyes and stared up at him. “No police.”
“But—”
“Dillon-san, I will say this only one more time. And though my respect for you is great, in my current state of mind I am capable of anything.Nopolice. Do you understand me?”
He started to say something, but then stepped back and nodded. “I understand.”
Steers knelt next to Hiroko’s body and gently took the woman’s hand in one of hers. With her other hand Steers stroked the lovely white hair, moving it out of the woman’s face.
“Hiroko-san, you have served me faithfully and well. You deserved many, many more years of spirit and living and goodness. I am deeply ashamed to have failed you in allowing this to happen. You, above all others that I know, did not deserve this fate.”
She then reached up and closed the woman’s eyes.
“What do we do with. . .her?” asked Nash.
Steers rose. “I am not Buddhist as my upbringing in Japan would normally dictate, or a Shinto. Nor am I Protestant as was my father. And my mother is an atheist, so I am not bound by any of these traditions. But we must give her a proper pathway to eternity.”
“I understand, but I meant, what do we do with the body?”
“I own land not far from here. It is completely undeveloped and will remain that way. I. . .I had intended to make it into a private park where I could walk. . .and think. We will bury Hiroko there. We will return her body and her spirit to the earth where they will reunite and form something truly special.”
“Hiroko told me she was Chinese.”
“She was. But while the government there preaches atheism, many Chinese practice an assortment of religions, Buddhism, Taoism, and even Catholicism. I learned that Hiroko-san became a Buddhist while living in Japan. And Hiroko-san believed, as Buddhists do, in reincarnation. The cycle of rebirth and death. But the ultimate goal isnirvana, where this cycle is broken and eternal peace is achieved.”
“You certainly sound like a person knowledgeable about religion even though you don’t practice one,” noted Nash.
“One can have faith without a church attached,” she replied tersely.
“So we do this now?”
She nodded. “We need to ensure that no one sees, not even Thura, and certainly not the other guards.”
“The staff are all in their quarters, outside the main house. I can carry her to the garage and put her in the Suburban. And get some. . .shovels. But how will we explain her being gone?”
“Besides the attendants no one sees her except you, me, and my mother. I will explain to the attendants. Now go and get what you need and then come back here. I want to spend a few minutes alone with my Hiroko-san and I also need to. . .prepare her.”
Nash hurried off to get the materials he needed. When he came back, Steers had positioned Hiroko on the floor, naked, with a sheet beneath her.
He averted his gaze, but Steers, observing this, said sharply, “Hiroko-san cannot see you, so she cannot be embarrassed. And I need your help.”
They washed the body, including the hair, and then Steers carefully combed it.
“The nokanshi normally performs the preparation of the body, but that is not possible here. And in Japan everyone is cremated because there is no space for cemeteries. But that is also not possible for my Hiroko-san.”
Steers left and came back with a white kimono.
“The kyokatabira,” she explained. “It was what Japanese people wore when they went on their final pilgrimages. It will clothe Hiroko-san on her journey.”
“Why do you have one of those?”