SACRAMENTO, Calif. — For decades, Beverly Pond searched for her friend Marianne Rikimaru, the Japanese American girl she had walked to Fruitridge Elementary School with most every day in the years before World War II.

Beverly wanted to return a set of ancient Japanese figurines belonging to Marianne’s family, who left suddenly in April 1942.

For 70 years, Beverly had no idea what became of her friend after the Rikimarus were sent to a remote detention camp for Americans of Japanese ancestry along with thousands of others.

The family never returned to Sacramento, but the heirloom figurines they left behind haunted Beverly, who eventually married and became Beverly Thornton. As she got older, her sense of urgency to find their rightful owner grew.

In a magical moment Saturday at Beverly’s home, her long-lost friend reappeared. A smiling figure in a red sweater carrying a blue orchid — Beverly’s favorite color — blew in out of the rain and appeared at the door.

“Come in, please!” said Beverly.

“You look so good,” exclaimed Marianne, her married name now Breakfield.

“You do, too, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Beverly declared as the two friends, now 80 and widows with great-grandchildren, fell into each other’s arms.

“It’s a miracle,” said Beverly’s daughter, Patt Ladd, who had helped her mother solve the mystery with the help of the Florin Japanese American Citizen’s League.

The story of the dolls begins just before the Rikimarus left for the Elk Grove train station headed for the Tule Lake detention camp in the high desert near Oregon.

Marianne’s mother brought over the figurines and left them with Beverly’s mom for safekeeping. They were intricate dioramas — one of an ox-drawn cart, another of a traditional Japanese farmer and his wife, and the third of an aristocratic couple.

“She was crying, and said, ‘I’m so ashamed of my people,’” because of Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Beverly said.

The Rikimarus left the dolls with the Pond family because they were allowed just one suitcase.

“It was a very sad day,” Beverly said. “I didn’t think it was right, I knew they hadn’t done anything.”

Marianne’s mom inherited the figurines, and would display them for a week at New Year’s or on Japanese Girls’ Day, celebrated March 3. “We weren’t allowed to play with them,” Marianne said.

After the war, the family resettled with other Japanese Americans in eastern Oregon. “Then I got married, raised a family, lived in Seattle, got divorced, got remarried.”

And Beverly, after inheriting the dolls, became obsessed with returning them to her childhood friend. She said she would stop Asian Americans and ask “if they were Japanese, and had heard anything about the Rikimarus.”

“I’d pretty much roll my eyes and say, ‘Not that story again,’” her daughter said.

Then a few weeks ago, Ladd said, their mail was stolen. “These two neighbor ladies came by to tell us our mail was at the Catholic church on Florin Road.”

The women were Japanese American, and when they heard about the figurines, they referred Ladd and her mom to the Florin JACL.

Andy Noguchi, the Florin JACL’s civil rights chair, combed through Tule Lake records until he found a family that matched Beverly’s description of the Rikimarus. He tracked down Marianne’s brother in Oregon, who confirmed they were indeed the Rikimarus of Fruitridge and that Marianne was living in Manteca.

Beverly and her daughter burst into tears when they heard the news. “It’s such a huge weight off me,” Beverly said.