It was one of Swainson's best. Michael Fine suspected his address before the coffin would be collected and then cited long after the Reverend Johnny Lee had gone on to see what was really beyond this life, if anything. There were no condemnations in it, and much about the mercy of Christ. It was not the way of Johnny Lee's Jesus to forever condemn a troubled woman who may have taken her own life.
Of course Michael Fine could see that the passing of Vera Yount might not be an altogether bad thing for the Reverend and his cause. Was he really that connected? Was he really willing to go that far?
No doubt Swainson would speak again at the funeral service Stateside, and on the New Gospel Network. Fine doubted he would do better, since he would be speaking more to his own people rather than to the whole world, and would speak more, adding things he was leaving out of this short service at Kansei Airport. And he wouldn't have the Yount children there, because Ms. Urawa wasn't going to let them go back. This was a temporary armistice, not the end of the war.
But it might not be long before the end. Ms. Urawa had a lot of sympathy in her glances at the widower Yount.
Could he have done it, or helped? Michael Fine didn't need a Psych degree to see that Yount had let himself become an extension of his wife. But how much could he take? Even the most miserable worm could turn; he'd heard stories from his father and grandfather and his uncles, and had seen it himself when he'd done his time as a Public Defender. Still, he would have been the first suspect and he hadn't confessed . . .
Ms. Urawa had motive and the physical strength. She had a temper, too, and she could fight. Moreover, she had been in a youth gang; he hadn't traced all the other members but it was not a stretch to think that one or more of them might have graduated to the Yakuza . . .
One or both of the two doctors might have helped. Yount had been sedated, and the doctors had access to drugs and the skills to use them. Dr. Mizuno wasn't here, but Watanabe was. She was looking from face to face, too. She was here to do more than support her friend.
Or maybe Vera Yount really did drown herself, accidentally or on purpose. But it was certainly convenient for the Reverend Johnny Lee . . .
Fine's thoughts drifted away from the ceremony altogether after the Reverend was finished. He thought about some words he had overheard a long time ago, as a child. And he thought that this was not the first time Death had come at a most convenient time for the Reverend Johnny Lee Swainson.
Captain Wakagi watched the ceremony on TV along with a number of his colleagues, translating occasionally for those whose English wasn't as extensive as his own. Of course there was a translater, but she was not familiar with the idiom and dialect of the foreign holy man. Actually Wakagi had trouble following a lot of it, though he had absorbed some lore about Swainson's sect from Tammy, a bright girl, older, willing to talk sometimes about such things (unlike the boy.)
Soon enough it was over, and the curious who were not finishing up their lunches or catching the last minutes of a popular serial left the lounge. Wakagi was in this larger group. He already had his mind on the business of the afternoon when his phone tingled. It was Sakurada-san, the retired commissioner, his wife's aunt.
"I have looked into that matter."
"Thank you, Sakurada-san. Is there anything you can say to me?"
"Check your email."
The email was doubly encrypted. When Wakagi finally read it, in his tiny private office, it said:
The woman's lungs were full of salt water. Official cause of death will remain accident/possible suicide.
Captain Wakagi immediately erased the message, making sure it was completely excised.
Vera Yount's body had been found in a river. Kyoto is an inland town, far from the dangers of the sea.
"You must know what I am thinking," said Makoto.
Usagi smiled sadly. "You could make him happier than any other woman."
"True," inserted Stephanie Watanabe, "But would it be right for you? Or for him?"
"You cannot join him in that 'holy man's' sect," insisted Michiru.
"Also correct," said Stephanie.
"He joined that sect because of his wife," said Makoto.
"But he has convinced himself he believes in it, or should," said Stephanie. "With his wife gone, he will feel even more obligated to believe in Swainson and his sect."
Makoto showed a facet of herself seldom seen. "Give me an hour with him," she said, "and he will forget all the 'holy man's' lies."
"Or you could destroy him, Auntie," asserted Stephanie Watanabe. "He might even kill himself."
"He might do it anyway," said Rei. "But even if your sacrifice works on him, it will not end our war with the Reverend. Bringing Mr. Yount out of his church will embarrass him."
"You have foreseen this?" asked Michiru.
"For the Reverend, his dispute with us is about more than Tami and Firipu. I see no end to it. And you?"
"I feel . . . I know he will be part of the Crisis."
"So he will be with us a long time indeed," said Stephanie.
Usagi asked, "Stephie-chan, does the holy man suspect that Makoto might--"
"Yes," replied Stephanie Watanabe. "He had not decided what to do about it when he left. Hadn't allowed himself . . . he is already learning to shield his thoughts from us."
After a few quiet moments, Usagi said, "Mako-chan, could you really love this man?"
"I love his children," said Makoto, and added: "Minako, you loved Kevin."
"Kevin-chan's body was crippled," said Minako, "Not his soul."