Saving Face: A Julia Rawson Mystery, #2

By Catyana Skory Falsetti

As romance blooms in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, a mysterious skull is found in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The reconstructed face leads forensic artist and investigator, Julia Rawson to an unhappy history of the Japanese American internment camps in the United States in her latest thrilling crime to solve.

 

Secrets from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. shed light on fears from the past and clues to a present murder. Will Julia be able to find the connection between murders that occurred decades and miles apart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: False Cat, Inc
• Release date: Aug 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649990631

Catyana Skory Falsetti

Catyana Skory Falsetti has worked for various law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. During her career, Catyana has held positions including Forensic Artist, Crime Scene Investigator and Death Investigator.  She currently resides in Fairfax, Virginia with her husband and cats.

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By: Catyana Skory Falsetti

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests write to the publisher at [e-mail].

Copyright © 2020 Falsetti Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-64999-063-1 (E-book)

All rights reserved.

Dedication

To my grandmother, Teruko and those who struggled to make the world a better place. To Todd Matthews, who keeps fighting the good fight for justice and always to my love, Tony.

Acknowledgements

A HUGE THANK YOU TO Holly Yasui, who helped tremendously with the historical accuracy of the 1940s storyline. A thank you to those who keep information about the Japanese American history available. Densho and the Japanese American Citizens League.

Gratitude for to those who work to get answers for the nameless, there are so many unknowns out there. To the few forensic artists that are employed nationwide and who support the field. Thank you to Allen Greenspan for his expertise in firearms as well as his gentle nature and just generally bringing humor to everyone. To Dr. Carolyn Revercomb for her forensic knowledge.

To Ken Wersted for his final edits, and Nancy White for inspiration to making the story more riveting and always pushing me to be better, Beta readers Michael Erwin, Lynn Lauro and all others who have supported me through the years. And a final thank you to my readers!

This is a work of fiction, but the history of Japanese American Internment is factual. Although J. Todd Matthews is a real person and allowed his true story and information to be used, the interactions between him and the characters are fiction. Dr. Stan Rhine is also a real scholar and has contributed tremendously to the field.

The names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Thank you for choosing this book to read! I hope you enjoy it!

If you like this book and want to get news from my mailing list, sign up at www.catyanskoryfalsetti.com.

Chapter 1

1941

Portland, Oregon

The terrible news came to us through my father. He entered our house, which he and his brother built with their own hands over twenty years ago.

His head was hanging low, this was unusual since he always emphasized the importance of good posture. I stood from the couch to greet him as he came into the living room.  I was the chonan in the family, the oldest son, and at 17 years of age was the eldest of the children at home. My older, married sister, Mitsuye lived elsewhere.  My younger sister ran to my father but stopped short in front of him motionless, perplexed by his grim demeanor.

His face was wan, and his eyes were shiny. I had never seen him this upset, except when he got the news that his mother had died in Japan.

Father, what has happened? I asked. He extended a newspaper toward me.

'Japanese Bomb Honolulu, Declare War on United States and Britain,' the headline read.

These words made my heart contract. We had already been called names like slant eyes and Jap – now they would call us enemy.

Our parents had come to America a few years before the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act went into effect, which ended all immigration from Asia. Our immigrant parents were called issei or first-generation immigrants and were prohibited from obtaining citizenship.  In the United States, non-citizens were not allowed to own property. To overcome this, my father purchased land in my name; and my uncle bought a storefront building in his son Kenji’s name. My cousin and I were United States citizens by birthright since we were born and raised in Oregon. We were called nisei, or second-generation by our community.

Kenji – or Ken as he liked to be called - and I were the only Japanese Americans in the high school in town. Other nisei kids went to the primary school in the uplands where most of the farms were located.

Kenji went by the name Ken because, as he joked, he loved the USA and thought of himself as 200% American. His mother had died in childbirth, so he was an only child. Ken was more popular than me because he was outgoing, funny, and made people laugh. But there was always an underlying hostility or suspicion on the part of other students and townsfolk towards us because we were not of European descent, like them.

The land my father bought was cheap since it was rocky logged-over mountainside and challenging to farm. He had to dynamite huge stumps and haul away the debris before he could start planting crops. Likewise, my uncle struggled for years to stock and sell dry goods to mostly Japanese immigrant families in the area.

When my older sister Mitsuye – we called her Mitsi- got married, her husband Ichiro became a business partner with my uncle. Ichiro had good connections in Hawaii and Japan, so he could import higher-quality Japanese products for the store. He and Mitsi had a baby girl - the first sansei, or third generation in our family - and they lived in a small apartment above the store.

As more Japanese people moved into the area, the store flourished with families from neighboring communities coming to our town to buy Japanese food, supplies, and gifts. The farm prospered as well since my father was creative and innovative. He pioneered the production of greenhouse tomatoes and tender asparagus in open fields, which were good cash crops. He also utilized the land efficiently, and cultivated strawberries under the fruit trees that required years to mature to produce highly valued cherries, peaches, and apples.

The success of our businesses caused envy and resentment among some of the Anglos who lived here. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, I knew that that resentment would turn into hatred toward all things Japanese.

2003

Albuquerque, New Mexico

I trod the dusty ground, carrying the cardboard box away from the shallow hole in the field. The dry bones inside clinked as they moved against one another. There are a surprising number of bones in the human body, 206 in total. They were mostly small, stone-like bits in the wrists and ankles, which were easily lost after death. I hoped that I got them all; it wouldn’t be right to leave any behind.

I glanced beyond the dry grassy field where a man appeared. He emerged from behind the pumpkin-orange 1979 International Harvester Scout truck parked on the gravel. He wore dark sunglasses and a big smile on his handsome face, capped by a swirl of short, salt-and-pepper hair. He had what I considered a soccer player's body, sculpted pectoral muscles, fit and muscular, long torso, broad shoulders and slim hips.

I lugged the box towards him, and as he reached me, he gently pulled it from my grasp. Thanks for your help, darling. I got everything else packed up. Dr. Michael Cuezze leaned over and planted a quick kiss on my lips. 

My face relaxed into a smile, feeling happy to be with this man for an entire week instead of the usual 2,000 miles away in Virginia, where I lived. I was in New Mexico to attend and help him with the week-long forensic anthropology course he was teaching to law enforcement personnel.

We were standing in the dusty landscape on the outskirts of the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The absence from my job’s regular duties was taken under the guise of professional development, to learn more about how to recover a dead body that was buried or found on the surface. But in large part, I was here to spend time with Michael.

My name is Julia Rawson, a Medico-legal Death Investigator. My home office is at the Chief Medical Examiner in Fairfax Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C. Michael is a forensic anthropologist, currently teaching at the University of New Mexico. He and I met through an investigation last year when we were introduced via telephone. Michael helped me with a case involving an unidentified body in Virginia by using images of skeletal remains sent through the magic of email. He subsequently came out to D.C. for work, and we met in person and immediately hit it off.

The last year had been filled with countless emails, hours on the phone, and visits as frequently as possible. This long-distance romance had blossomed into a more serious relationship, the best that I had ever experienced in my life to my surprise and delight. Now our challenge was to figure out how to live in the same state so we could be together, and both have jobs that we want - which isn’t so easy in the forensic science field. There are fewer than 100 board-certified forensic anthropologists in the country, and job opportunities were limited.

I sighed deeply and admired the terra cotta, and grey painted landscape surrounding us. New Mexico’s air felt lighter and the views more fantastic than Virginia’s - I guess that’s why it’s called the Land of Enchantment. I was raised in rural Brazil and upstate New York, so this terrain felt like a different world than any familiar to me.

Michael made one last check of the area, then hopped into the vehicle and settled into the pre-modern SUV's worn canvas seats. We were on a piece of undeveloped land owned by the University of New Mexico, west of the city near the Rio Grande in the ‘bosque,’ or what was considered a forest here. The trees were low and dark green with thickets of tall, dried grasses waving at their trunks' base. Last week Michael had spent hours digging into the hard-packed soil to bury various anatomical specimens. This was done so the law enforcement trainees could learn how to locate human remains and excavate them properly then demonstrate methods taught earlier in the class. The course wrapped up a few hours ago. The 12 police officers, employed by various law enforcement agencies, departed to return to their home jurisdictions around the Southwest. This left us to clean up and find the bones they missed.

My muscles ached from the physical labor, and I now knew how much effort it takes to bury a corpse. I realized why most bodies are buried only a few inches below the soil’s surface.

The sunset draped the sky in red, yellow, and purple colors and contrasted against the dark mountains’ silhouettes. The temperature dropped quickly without the blanket of the sun as we drove back into central Albuquerque. I pulled the hair tie out and my mass of black hair, which fell around my head, providing a surprising amount of warmth as I nestled in the seat.

We arrived at the brick building on campus and parked near the loading dock. I wanted to help unpack but ambled slowly with the energy drained from my cells as we carried the boxes back to Michael’s laboratory. He moved tirelessly, even though he was more than a decade my senior. I explained his vigor by the fact that my favorite activities were mostly stationary, such as reading and drawing, while his included an array of sports.

As we moved back and forth from the truck to his office, my thoughts strayed to my impending departure. We only had another two days left together – but I stopped myself from dwelling on that.

When we were inside the college's anthropology building, Michael said, Let's just bring in the specimens. I can get the gear later. I’m hungry. He stacked the boxes in the back corner of the teaching laboratory. The shiny black countertops lined the room walls, with windowed wooden cabinets that displayed an array of skeletal animal specimens in them. The gray floor tiles' style and wear looked as if they were laid at least four decades before, older than my own almost 29 years.

A small primate skeleton with immense fangs was perched on a branch in one cubby, and a paper label below it read marmoset. The collection had been curated over decades and ranged from primates to foxes and squirrels. Michael opened the cabinet doors and carefully slid the boxes into the openings, one by one. The skeletons watched us unblinkingly from gaping black orbs.

I need to stop by my office to drop off my notes, Michael said, and I nodded. We made our way down the tiled hall to his office. No one else was in the building, so it was eerily quiet, with long dark hallways and shadowed rooms. His office was set back at the end of the corridor. The door to his cubby was littered with slips of paper; skull-themed comics scotch-taped next to a black plaque that displayed his name: Dr. Michael A. Cuezze.

He pulled out a cluster of ancient-looking keys from his jeans pocket, unlocked the door and moved into the small room. His office was approximately the same size as a prison cell, about 6’x10’, filled with furniture and books, so I stayed in the hallway. On the far wall, there was a small, wavy-textured window above my 5’5" eye level, where the streetlights shone in the distance. His walls were covered with framed academic degrees, plaques, and artwork. The room looked lived in, but not messy. The red voice mail light flashed on his phone, and he reached over to retrieve it.

I’m waiting to hear from my boss about a class assignment for next week, he told me. Next week... I sighed and wondered when he or I would cross the country again to see each other.

As he listened to the message, his thick, dark eyebrows raised and lowered above his chocolate-colored eyes; he pushed buttons on the phone and then listened again. He reached over to grab a pen and pad, scribbled on it. Looks like there was a skeleton found in Santa Fe. Do you want to go and check it out tomorrow?

I grinned. Of course, I’m always up for another dead guy.

Let me call the archaeologist back, he left his cell phone. At least all the excavating gear is in the truck already, he said.

He dialed the number, and the usual professional banter ensued with introductions and conversational pauses, ending with: Okay, sounds good. See you tomorrow. He hung up the phone and faced me. We’ll head up in the morning.

What did the archeologist say about the skeleton? I asked.

Michael stood up. Let's get some dinner, and I'll tell you on the way. He closed up the office, and we headed down the hallway towards the car.

Developers are planning to build apartments near Santa Fe, and the state archaeologist found the skull during Phase II. He smiled and took my hand into his, his grasp warm, firm, and manly. Typical archaeologist – saw human remains and freaked out, called the police and me, he said and chuckled. "At least he knew to call me. I don't think I've met this guy yet. There are a couple of them on staff, and they work throughout the state. Stan probably knows him,