The Daydreamer Detective Braves the Winter

by S. J. Pajonas

  “Or English with Amanda? It’s okay. You can say her name now. I may only be jealous fifty percent of the time.”

  “I wish you weren’t jealous at all.”

  “Hey, remember that time you and Amanda went to Ibiza and danced all night in the clubs?” The truth came galloping out of my mouth at breakneck speed. He often forgot his past followed me around on the internet. And seeing them on vacation together was one of my obsessive searches I was glad were at a standstill now with no WiFi at home.

  I glanced over at him, his lips pressed together and eyes trained on the roads. He pulled into the parking spot at his apartment, sighed, and shifted the car into park.

  “Would you like to go to Ibiza? I promise that place is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  I tossed my hair gently, nothing too dramatic because this could easily devolve. “Please, Yasa-kun. I’m sure Ibiza’s a blast. I’ve never left Japan, never even been as far as Okinawa. Trust me. If I went to Ibiza, I’d be in the clubs till dawn.”

  He laughed. “I’d like to see that. And then you’d be sunbathing topless on the beach afterward?”

  My nose flared as I inhaled sharply. Amanda had done that (thankfully the images were blurred for me), but…

  “No,” I whispered. “Never.”

  His face paled and the humor died a swift death. I opened the door and jumped out of the car.

  “Mei-chan, I’m sorry.” He jerked forward and grabbed my hand before I could go any further. We were only a few blocks from Izakaya Jūshi and I was sure I could make it there faster than him, but this was supposed to be a date. I let my feet halt. “I forgot.” He brushed his lips across my knuckles and inhaled. “That was a stupid thing to say.”

  “You would never forget, will never forget, once you see my back for yourself. Shall we go upstairs now and get it over with? I’ll strip and you can witness why I get kicked out of onsens by ignorant people.”

  Fire had ruined my life so many times, I’d lost count.

  “No. Not like this.” He pulled me to him and wrapped his arms around me. “Take a deep breath and let it out.”

  My face was buried in his shoulder so I inhaled deeply into his coat, the scents of cinnamon and sandalwood wrapping around my anger and crushing it to death.

  “Come on. Let’s go get some drinks and snacks.”

  He angled me away from his apartment, the apartment I hadn’t been to yet, and towards Izakaya Jūshi. I was looking forward to seeing Etsuko, even though this was an “alone” date. I wanted to hear how her day with Hisashi was before he left for Chiba.

  Inside, the place was subdued for a Sunday night, a big difference from the packed house and ebullient fishermen of last night. Yasahiro wove through many of the open tables to secure a quiet corner near the back. The air was not too smokey, just a hint of the chicken being grilled at the yakitori bar and no one smoking.

  “I’m glad it’s not too smokey this time. The doctor warned me that I may have trouble breathing in places with a lot of cigarette smoke.” I sat down next to Yasahiro at the table and we placed our coats across from us in the empty chairs.

  “Let me know if we need to leave then,” he said, taking my hands and rubbing them absent-mindedly. Once we broke the wall between us earlier today, he couldn’t keep his hands off of me. It was comforting. “I almost don’t want to buy beer. It’s too cold outside.”

  “It’s supposed to be even colder later in the week, in the negatives.”

  Yasahiro frowned. “It’s so strange that it hasn’t snowed yet either. I heard this was a Siberian cold front. We should blame the Russians.”

  “Da!” I raised my fist and laughed. “That’s literally the only Russian I know.”

  Hideo, Etsuko’s brother, approached the table and clasped hands with Yasahiro. “Yasahiro-san, Mei-san. Good to see you. Two nights in a row is unprecedented.”

  “I wanted Mei-chan all to myself tonight,” Yasahiro said, taking my hand and lacing his fingers with mine.

  “Ah, young love,” Hideo said, laughing. “What can I get you tonight? Etsuko should be here soon.” He leaned back to look at the clock on the wall over the grill. “She should have been here thirty minutes ago, but she probably overslept her alarm. She said she was going to nap after Hisashi left.”

  Yasahiro glanced at me, but I waved to him to order. “You know what’s good…”

  “It’s all good,” he said, smiling at me and stroking my hand with his thumb. “I think we’ll have some chicken pieces, skin, asparagus…” He leaned forward to look at the menu behind the grill.

  “The shrimp is delicious. They’re big when the water is this cold,” Hideo said, glancing at the menu. “And the grilled scallions.”

  “Okay. Plus rice and saké.”

  Hideo left us to our hot towels.

  “So back to the subject of languages, you know Japanese and English?” Yasahiro asked, and I thought, wow, he was brave to come back to a subject that nearly killed our date fifteen minutes ago.

  “Yes, both. I’ve never learned anything else. My English is good, though I never get to use it.”

  Hideo returned to our table and deposited a bottle and two small cups. Yasahiro poured and we drank.

  “Do you want to learn French?” he asked, resting his chin in his hand.

  “I could, I suppose. I have plenty of time on my hands, being unemployed and all. But I hoped to be spending the time looking for a new job, hopefully some place local.”

  “You know, I could—”

  “Yasa-kun,” I said, warning in my voice. “I will not work at the restaurant.”

  He pulled away, mock shock on his face. “How did you know I was going to offer?”

  I raised my eyebrows at him.

  “Okay. I was going to.”

  I squeezed his hand. “It’s sweet of you to try and help me out so much. I really appreciate every little thing you do. But I can’t work at Sawayaka. I’m a disaster in the kitchen, and I’m not going to take hours from any of your servers or Ana. That just wouldn’t be right. I’ll find work somehow. Maybe I need to find something part time for a while until spring.”

  “I’ll keep my ears open for you. You should consider submitting your resume to those companies that hire out part time people for jobs they’re skilled to do.”

  I nodded as our meal was delivered to the table. “I will. I just need internet access again.”

  “Hmmm,” Yasahiro said, leaning over his food. “Yes, you do. Oh.” He reached for his coat and pulled a bag from the inside pocket. “Here. It’s a prepaid SIM card. Swap it out for yours and you should be good to go.”

  I hesitated as he handed it to me but took the bag from him before he started dividing out food.

  “Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say besides trying to hand it back to him and deny his help, so I slipped the bag into my purse and tried to relax.

  We had an easy dinner together, which was nice and normal, just the way I liked it. We talked about his time at school in Paris, and I asked him to speak in French to me. It was juvenile, I knew, but something about hearing the words come out of his mouth made me melt. I told him more about the five jobs I’d had since I graduated college and the two guys I dated since then.

  He was quiet and a good listener, but I could tell there were other things going on in his head in our conversational lulls. He may have been thinking about work the next day or how his life differed from mine. For a moment, a wave of jealousy rose up in me and I believed he was thinking of Amanda, but the fear dissipated quickly. He never gave me any indication he ever thought of her unless I brought her up. When I was talking to him, I had his attention at one hundred percent. He said once that Tama used to look straight through people like they didn’t exist, which was probably why he went psycho and tried to kill me by kidnapping me, tying me up, and setting the barn on fire around me. But Yasahiro paid attention to all the little things about me. He looked straight in my eyes when I talked, brush
ed his hand against mine, or straightened out a piece of my loose hair.

  At the end of dinner, Hideo came over again, his face plastered with worry.

  “Etsuko never made it in tonight, and we’re too busy to go find out if she just overslept her alarm or if she’s sick or what.”

  It was late, almost midnight, and the place was pretty busy for a Sunday night. Looked like people came out to have a late night snack and drink before the work week started.

  “Want us to go check on her?” Yasahiro asked and nodded to me. “We’re done, and I still have to drive Mei-chan home.”

  Where had the evening gone? We hadn’t been on a solo date in so long that the evening flew right by. I wished I could invite myself over to Yasahiro’s place and spend more time with him, but we weren’t there yet.

  “She lives around the corner, right?” I grabbed my coat and scarf, bundling up against the impending cold.

  “Yeah. Etsuko lives on the opposite side of the block from me. Her apartment building’s back door shares the alley with mine.” Yasahiro wrapped his scarf around his neck several times and pulled cash from his wallet.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, Mom and Dad would appreciate it. They’re busy and I’m handling all the tables. Go knock on her door and see if she’s asleep. Have her call us if you manage to wake her.”

  Out on the sidewalk, Yasahiro and I walked shoulder to shoulder against the bitterly cold wind, leaning into the swirls of frost and bits of tree that pelted our outer coats.

  “Ugh, it’s so cold! I hate winter,” I mumbled into my scarf.

  “Where’s your hat?” He smiled at me from under his black knit cap. “It’s December! Time to bundle up.”

  “I’ll remember tomorrow. Hey, does Etsuko do this often? Not show up for work? It doesn’t seem like her at all.” Except, unless she was having an extra lie-in with Hisashi, which I could see happening. They didn’t get to see each other often enough and they both seemed really in love with each other. I couldn’t help but think about how amazing Hisashi was to always visit her, once a month like clockwork. And he doted on her too. I hadn’t known her that long, less time than I’d known Yasahiro, but I felt it in my bones when they looked at each other. That was love.

  “I’m not sure. She has complained about oversleeping or running a lot of errands to me.”

  “Me too. She was talking about how busy she was last night. Do you know which apartment she lives in?”

  “I’ve been to her apartment once when she was sick and her mom sent me there with a liter of soup.” He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Once a chef, always a chef. You can’t shrug off the restaurant industry once you’re in it. It’s like a cult.”

  We rounded the corner behind Yasahiro’s building and came upon a three-story apartment building, well-maintained and joyful looking, with Christmas lights strung along balconies, and a light or two on in other apartments. The whole building would be dead quiet in an hour, so this was a good time.

  Yasahiro stopped and looked up at the building. “That’s her place,” he said, pointing to the dark apartment on the third floor, left of the center stairs.

  The vestibule door was open so we let ourselves in and climbed the stairs. Yasahiro warmed up his hands by breathing into them and knocked on the apartment door. “Etsuko!” he called out, though not too loud because other people in the building may have been asleep. “Etsuko! It’s Yasahiro!”

  Nothing. I tapped my feet and looked around at the other apartment doors. No lights from either of them leaked into the hallway, but there was a weak light from Etsuko’s apartment. I crouched down and picked up a sliver of wood from the floor, dread washing down my spine.

  “Do you think…?” I showed it to Yasahiro. He took the sliver in his hand and examined it on all sides, looking between it and the door.

  I reached past him and tried the doorknob, certain it must be locked, but the knob turned and the door swung inward to the genkan. Shock colored everything a brilliant purple as I registered the deadbolt still out and engaged, but the door on the inside was shredded to pieces, slivers of wood on the floor and shooting from odd angles out of the doorjamb.

  “Etsuko?” Yasahiro pushed past me, his hand on my chest, keeping me away from the body on the tatami mat. A small lamp to the right of Etsuko’s TV shone down on her body, prone on the floor.

  “Call 119,” Yasahiro told me, but he wasn’t rushing to her because she couldn’t be saved. Her lips were white and body stiff, positioned where she was left.

  Tears started and I couldn’t stop them. “Oh my god,” I bumbled out, tears flying from my lips. “Is she dead? She’s dead.” I’d never seen a dead body before, and I was paralyzed, needing to tell my hands to work, to get the phone from my purse — reach in, grab it, turn it on. I swiped and dropped it as Yasahiro crouched over her body and pressed his fingers to her neck.

  “M-m-m-m-my phone? I… I can’t.”

  I had no service. I had completely forgotten. And my hands shook too much to swap out the SIM card.

  Yasahiro looked up at me, his face frozen in a frown and eyebrows drawn in. “Right.” He straightened up and came to me, turning me away from Etsuko, and pulling his phone from his pocket. “This is why your phone is so important,” he whispered into my hair. Circling his arms around me, he dialed and lifted the phone to his face.

  Chapter Five

  “Why am I not surprised to find you here?” Goro asked as he climbed the stairs. The paramedics and another police officer were inside the apartment, taking photos and evidence, while Etsuko lay dead on the floor. Goro straightened the front of his officer uniform and sighed, sadness washing over him. He knew her just as well as Kumi had. They were all life-long friends.

  “Trust me. I wish I wasn’t here.” If it were at all proper, I would’ve hugged Goro. It was good to see him. He was the one who helped me figure out Tama killed his own father and then pulled me away from the burning barn before it collapsed. I wouldn’t want anyone else here to investigate Etsuko’s death but him.

  “So, tell me what happened,” he directed, pulling out his notepad.

  “We were having drinks at Izakaya Jūshi when Hideo said she didn’t come into work, so he asked us to come by and check on her,” Yasahiro reported, squeezing my shoulders. I began to cry again, so he set his head on mine for a moment.

  “Are you okay, Mei-chan?” Goro squeezed my shoulder.

  “I’ve never seen a dead person before, outside of a funeral.” I glanced at the door, and I was glad I didn’t have a direct view of Etsuko. “And I really liked her.”

  “You were almost dead yourself once. I suppose that’s enough for one person.” Goro jotted down something in his notepad. “When did you find her?”

  “Only a few moments before we called 119. Her brother thought she was home sleeping, and that we would knock on the door and wake her up. I’m sure Hisashi was here not too long before…” My voice trailed off as I realized what I was saying. What if he had done this? I sniffed up and wiped my nose on my glove. “Are you going to call her parents?”

  “Kayo-san went over to the izakaya to break the news.”

  Goro’s partner, Kayo, a young woman I’d only been introduced to once, was his better half, or so he liked to say. I guessed she was in charge of the bad news.

  “Did you see anyone around when you came in the building? Anything unusual?”

  A harsh clank of metal snapped my attention to the apartment, and Etsuko’s body, now on the stretcher, was covered with a sheet. We stepped to the side as they rolled her down the hall and carried her down the stairs.

  “No,” Yasahiro said, breaking out of a trance, watching the stretcher fade away. “The building was quiet and the front door was unlocked. When we came up the stairs, we knocked on the door, and then Mei-chan saw the splintered wood on the floor. We tried the knob and the door opened, just like it is here now.” He waved at the open door. “The lock had been busted, and we stepped into the apartmen
t. Etsuko was right there, and I called 119.”

  “You called?” He pointed to Yasahiro and he nodded.

  “Mei-chan was in shock.” He squeezed me again, and I was grateful he didn’t say anything about my phone being out of commission, though I figured Kumi would say something to Goro about it. Any news, no matter how trivial, could travel quickly in this town. Chikata was a hub of gossip. It was difficult to keep it hidden how bad off Mom and I were, but I was doing my hardest for Mom’s sake. We both wanted to avoid the shame of everyone knowing we’re living off leftovers and hanging by a thread.

  “What’s going to happen, Goro-chan? How did she die?” My voice cracked, and I sucked in a breath to stop my lip from quivering.

  “I’m not sure. We’ll run the reports and an autopsy, and we’ll figure it out. Her family will probably have a funeral sometime this week.”

  I glanced from him to the apartment, my brain working through all the possibilities. She had been at home and getting ready for work. Maybe she was resting before coming in? Then there was a knock at the door and she didn’t let the person in. He or she (I’m guessing he) kicked in the door, they struggled, and he… killed her somehow.

  I took half a step towards the apartment, and Goro chuckled sadly.

  He jerked his head. “Let’s go in. Don’t touch anything okay?”

  My eyes skipped over the crime scene. “No blood,” I said, pointing to the floor.

  “Yeah. She wasn’t bleeding when we came in,” Yasahiro concurred.

  “So…” I tapped my chin. “She was hit over the head… or possibly strangled?”

  “I’d guess strangled by the looks of the kotatsu and mail on the floor.” He pointed to the evidence lying around us — the overturned kotatsu and a huge collection of bento boxes strewn everywhere. “If they fought, she probably tried to defend herself by kicking.”

  I squatted down and examined the mail. It was a mess of bills, open envelopes, and printed receipts, but I couldn’t see them all because Goro told me not to touch anything. The bento boxes were every different style imaginable: Hello Kitty, Rilakkuma, Miffy, local and foreign mascots. Several of them littered the floor, but there were still stacks of boxes on shelves.