He stood up from his computer and grabbed his coat. “I’ll drive out there today and have a look around. Ask the neighbors about the business, that sort of thing. Kayo!” He called out, and Kayo poked her head out of a conference room. “Keep an eye on Hisashi-san while I’m gone. I’m heading to Kokubunji to nail down a possible suspect.”
She nodded and returned to the conference room. I grabbed Goro’s arm. “How is Hisashi-san?” I jerked my head in the direction of the hallway. The police station had only one jail cell, and saying it was a jail cell was an overstatement. It was basically a room with a couch, bed, and its own bathroom. They only used it for people they didn’t consider dangerous. Really dangerous people got shipped off to Tokyo.
“He’s fine. He’s been questioned every day for the last five days and hasn’t confessed. He doesn’t seem to know anything. And our coroner’s report says it’s possible Etsuko died after he boarded his train back to Tokyo. We have him on video at the station, so…” He shrugged his shoulders. “But his work place said that he’d been taking days off and acting suspiciously.”
“How so?”
“They couldn’t put their finger on it, just lots of strange absences. What if he had been planning her death all along and had been socking away money to flee?”
My mind raced through this scenario. I couldn’t imagine him with his hands around her neck, crushing her to the point of death. But then, I could imagine him working a second job to make more money. In my head, I saw him leave work every day and work a night shift someplace. It wasn’t like he had to come home to Etsuko every night. She had said they talked on the phone all the time, but he could have been talking from anywhere.
“Mei-chan?” Goro waved his hand in front of my face. “Hello, daydreamer!”
“Sorry,” I said, refocusing on him. “Even if he was making extra money on the side, I still don’t think he would do anything to Etsuko. Maybe he would break up with her, but kill her? No. If anything, he was keeping a secret second job to pay for the move here. They were talking about his move on our last group date, remember?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know.” He rubbed his chin. “After what happened with Tama, I would think you’d be more suspicious.”
In that case, I had been the only one suspicious of Tama, and everyone else had him pegged as the golden child.
“It’s interesting that I’m not suspicious.” I shrugged my shoulders. “But I’m not a detective.”
Goro pulled open the door to the lobby, and we each bundled up in our coats. “You should consider becoming one. There’s no time like the present to make a career change.”
As fun as it might have been to be a real detective, I didn’t have it in me to go back to school. I wanted to help out the community, but I could find another, less tiresome and costly way to do it.
“Maybe. I have another idea of what I can do, though.”
I followed Goro outside, and he approached his police car. “Need a ride?”
“No, thank you. I’m going to Sawayaka, and it’s only a few blocks from here.”
Goro waved as he got into his car and drove off. I headed in the direction of Sawayaka, a six block walk (five in one direction and then one over) along the town’s outer road. The sun dipped low near the horizon, and in another hour, twilight would begin to fall. I glanced over my shoulder at the sky in the opposite direction and a young man was walking behind me a block back. He ducked his head and walked into a store, so I proceeded on to Sawayaka.
I sped up, unsure of my instincts. With everything going on, it was only natural for me to feel paranoid, right? I passed a gift store, a place that sold local knickknacks and sweets, and abruptly halted to look in the window.
From the corner of my eye, I caught the young man less than a block behind me again. He couldn’t be more than twenty-five, his long bangs and shaggy hair, dyed blonde at the tips, fell over his face. He clutched a messenger bag, thrown across his chest and over one shoulder in his gloved hands. This time, he made eye contact with me, panic washing over his features. We both stood in our spots, staring each other down.
Who was going to move first?
He did. He whirled around and sprinted for the end of the block.
“Hey!” I unstuck my feet and ran after him. I hadn’t properly exercised in weeks (sex didn’t count) and my legs tired after a short dash to the corner. Oh no. I was going to lose him! “Hey!” I yelled again after him. He didn’t stop. His legs pumped at a breakneck speed, and my legs slowed down, burning from unaccustomed exertion. I sucked in a deep breath and began to cough. The doctors had told me not to run because of the smoke inhalation, and now I knew why. The young man, dressed in a dark charcoal gray coat with a red and black scarf waving in the wind, rounded another corner, startling a few young women walking the opposite direction. In a blink, he was out of eyesight.
Great. Either I had scared off a random person by yelling at him or someone really was following me.
Chapter Eighteen
“Come on. Let’s go on a road trip,” Yasahiro said, grasping my hand and pulling me off the couch. After breakfast, we had spent the whole of Sunday morning on the couch, drinking coffee and reading. I loved this about our relationship so far. We were quiet and easy with each other, no rushing to go out and be active, just spending the time together.
“A road trip? Where?” I carried my coffee cup into the kitchen and placed it in the dishwasher. It only took one day for Yasahiro and me to settle into a housekeeping routine. He cooked, and I cleaned, which was a lot like my routine with Mom, but I was trying not to dwell on that. I rolled up my sleeves and grabbed the soapy sponge, ready to take care of the morning’s dishes.
“Leave that. We should head out soon since I need to be at the restaurant later.” He tugged on my arm again, a playful smile dancing about his scruffy face. I had the urge to drag the back of my fingers along the beard growth because it’d be gone in an hour, but my hands were already wet.
“Are you sure?” I held up the sponge and waved to the pile of dishes in the sink. “I hate leaving these here.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Forty-five minutes later, we were on the road, heading west. Yasahiro had the heat blasting and the music playing, his GPS turned off.
“Are you going to tell me where were going?”
He glanced at me as we merged onto the highway. “I figured it was best to spring this on you. We’re going to visit my parents.”
I sighed and flipped down the mirror so I could check my makeup. “I had a feeling you would do this. It would have been fine to warn me, you know. I’m ready to meet them. You and my mom are the best of friends now, and I’d like to make friends with your mom.” I evened up the makeup around my eyes and patted down my hair. “I’m glad we got some sleep last night.” I smiled over at him. Some sleep? I could honestly say I’d never been so happily sleep deprived in all my life. At least the sleep I had at his place was warm, deep, and comfortable.
“We’ve been dating for almost three months. It’s time. And I wanted to go visit before the holidays, before things get crazy around town.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “And there’s something else…”
The way he avoided looking at me made my brain flood with worry.
“Out with it, Yasa-kun.” I folded my arms across my chest. He’d been on the phone a lot the last two days, speaking in French, and shrugging off my questions whenever he hung up.
“I was waiting for the final confirmation, but I have to fly to France for three days to teach a class. This is my old school, so I feel obligated. They’ll pay me a high fee, and they’ll pay for my airfare, too. I’m glad I can finally do these things, now that the restaurant can function without me for several days in a row.” He glanced my way, to the road and back several times. “Do you want to come with me?”
I concentrated on the scenery out the window, watching the world speed by. “I wish circumstances were different, and I had
the money to come with you.”
“I’ll pay,” he insisted, running his hand through his hair. “I’d really like for you to come. I want to show you Paris at Christmastime. It’s nothing short of magical.”
I laughed, a short huff of a breath. This was just my luck, wasn’t it? “I don’t even know if my passport is current.” I tried to think of where I had seen it last. Possibly in a box in my room. “I got it when I was sixteen and it only lasts five years.”
“I thought you said you’ve never left Japan.”
“I haven’t. I wanted to go to Australia for a foreign exchange program so I got the passport, but then Mom said we couldn’t afford it. Anyway…” I returned to looking out the window. “I just got these new clients this past week, and I would hate to abandon them after offering to help. When do you leave?”
“Tonight. 00:30 flight out of Haneda. It was the best they could do.” He kept his eyes locked straight forward on the road. “I’m nervous about this trip, and I was hesitant about what you would think of it. I want you to come. I, um, suspect Amanda will be there. Last I heard, she was still living in Paris. And we share some same friends…” His voice wavered as he changed lanes.
This was the moment that I knew he belonged to me. Any other guy would have gone and not told me about the ex-girlfriend being there. Any other guy would have done the deed and cheated, or hoped to avoid the drama entirely by not saying anything to anyone. That he cared enough to be honest with me before he left was crucial.
“Don’t worry about it.” I slipped my hand across the seat and rested it on his knee. “I understand. I’m sure she’s going to be hard to avoid if you share the same friends. I’ll have to grin and bear it.” I popped a small smile at him and turned to look out the window.
“I’ll be busy the whole time. There are classes, and meetings, and dinners to attend. If I’m lucky, she’s out of town for the holidays.”
“If you’re lucky?”
“Of course.” He blew out a long breath. “I’ve done a good job of avoiding her since we broke up. I really don’t want to see her again. And if I do see her again, I want you right there next to me.”
“Okay.” In a way, I was ready to encourage him to meet up with her. It might have been good for him to get the closure he needed. But I was selfish and I wanted him to never see her again. Since I rarely got what I wanted, I was sure she wasn’t gone from our lives.
Yasahiro pulled off the road into a small farming town, mostly homes in smaller subdivisions surrounded by fields. Kilometers worth of farmland zipped past the window as he wove through the back roads. I’d never been to Chichibu before, so I soaked in the surroundings and cataloged them away in case we ever came here again. Yasahiro slowed the car and pulled into a dirt road that led to a farm house.
My stomach shrank to the size of a soybean, and I swallowed to stop a wave of nausea. I was suddenly so nervous my hands were shaking. What if they didn’t like me? What if this was so awkward Yasahiro got discouraged? But there was no time to gather myself and prepare because as we came to a stop, the front door opened and a woman walked out, her hair streaked with gray and tucked behind her ears, wearing jeans, a sweater, and an apron over them.
“You’re here early,” she said, opening her arms to her son, and Yasahiro walked right into them. I could tell how much he loved her by the way his guard was so fully down.
“Hi, Mom.” He hugged her, and I was surprised to notice they were both tall. I came up to Yasahiro’s shoulder, but his mom was taller than me.
I stood next to the car and tried not to intrude on their moment, though my ears were ringing and sweat pooled on my lower back. This, coupled with the knowledge he’d be gone and within striking distance of Amanda, made me feel sick. I gripped the car door handle and squeezed, trying to ground myself.
“Mom.” He stepped away from her. “This is who I wanted to surprise you with. Mei-chan, this is my mom.” He grabbed my hand and held on tight, smiling at me, but I watched her reaction. It was exactly what I thought was going to happen. Her face was a riot of confusion before settling into a frown.
“When you said you had a surprise visitor coming, I assumed it would be somebody different.”
Yasahiro’s face fell, as he realized at the same time I did, his parents were expecting Amanda. Not me.
“This is what I get for trying to surprise people,” Yasahiro whispered to me inside his parents’ house while sitting at the kotatsu. I was so angry, the sound of his voice irritated me to the point of snapping.
“Don’t talk to me,” I growled at him and he dipped his head, shamed for a moment. I sifted through the last ten awkward minutes and tried to find something to make it better. Yasahiro’s mom had been so surprised she couldn’t even speak to me. If I were a gambling woman, I’d bet Yasahiro never mentioned me to them prior to this day. But I didn’t believe he was a liar, so I couldn’t take that bet.
I was surrounded by Amanda. Up on a cork board on the wall, printouts of online articles about Yasahiro and Amanda filled every square centimeter of available space. All the images I had seen on Google were right there, taunting me. I’d been good and stayed away from my search history the last two weeks, but now I wanted to stare at them again, remind myself I’d never be as pretty, smart, or talented as her. When my life was uncertain or in upheaval, I had this masochistic desire to hate on my own life, and Amanda was my go-to weapon of choice. I had been so proud of myself for staying away. Now, I felt the pull again. To my right, along with framed photos of Yasahiro’s family, a large print of Yasahiro and Amanda at the Cannes Film Festival stared down at me. If I walked into the other room, I wouldn’t have been surprised if her photo was up in a shrine.
“Listen here, Yasahiro.” I dropped my voice low, and Yasahiro paled at the use of his whole, proper name. “You have five minutes to go into the kitchen and explain this to your mother before I stand up and walk out of here. Your father will be home soon, and I want to try to make a good first impression on him. I can’t do that if your mother has no idea what’s going on.”
“Yes, Mei-chan.”
“And another thing,” I said as I grabbed his shirt, “if you ever do this to me again, we’re through.” I nodded at him and he nodded back.
I’d never understood this about some people, wanting to surprise others. Surprises usually led to heartbreak.
I sipped on the tea in front of me and strained my ears to listen to their conversation in the kitchen.
“Mom,” Yasahiro’s voice filtered in from the kitchen. “I need for you to give Mei-chan a chance. I told you Amanda and I broke up over a year ago. It’s over and I’ve moved on.”
“I always thought you would get back together.” Something clanged into the sink with such force that I thought it’d been thrown there. “When you told me you were dating, I didn’t think it was serious. How can this be serious enough to bring her here?”
I cringed and stared down into the cup of tea, hoping something was said that I could use to my advantage. Because I denied it all the time, but I was falling hard for this man, and I could tell he was falling for me too. I wanted this to work.
“Because I said it was serious. Did you not believe me?”
“You proposed to Amanda. That was it for me. No one with honor proposes marriage and then breaks up. I did not raise my son to be dishonorable and loose.”
Yasahiro sighed. “It wasn’t me who was dishonorable.”
They fell into silence except for the noise of chopping, a metal knife hitting a wooden butcher block in rhythmic thumps. Honor meant something to this woman? She sounded pretty old-fashioned for someone wearing jeans with a modern haircut. Okay, then. If this was something she valued, I could do that. I chewed on my lip and stared out the window as the sound of a car approached the house. An older man drove up and parked behind Yasahiro’s car. This was the same man in the photos on the wall, so it must have been Yasahiro’s dad. Time for action.
“No one
is more honorable than Mei-chan. If you give her a chance, you’ll see what I see.”
His mom stayed silent for another minute, which gave me the impression she was stern and tough.
“Can I help you with anything?” he asked. Good move.
“Set up the burner, please.”
Yasahiro emerged from the kitchen and set a portable gas burner on the table right before the front door opened and his father entered the house. They smiled and embraced swiftly, one of those manly, fast hugs that involved a swift pat on the back and a laugh. I pulled my feet from under the kotatsu and sat on them, seiza style.
“Dad, I’ve brought Mei-chan today to meet you both.” Yasahiro stepped back from his dad and gestured to me. I put on my sweetest smile and bowed forward in keirei, one of the bows you’re only supposed to pull out of your arsenal for high bosses at work or your in-laws. I inclined forward, my forehead thirty centimeters off the tatami, and placed my hands on the floor, careful to create a triangle between my thumbs and forefingers.
“I’m honored to meet you, Suga-san.” I added a cheerful note to my voice, pausing in the bowed position for a count of four in my head. Then I slowly came up for another count of four. My mom would’ve been so proud. She had taught me the polite ways to bow when I was a kid and we practiced them all the time.
When I lifted my head, all three of them stood aghast with their mouths open, Yasahiro’s mom holding a steaming hot pot in two oven-mittened hands. I doubted anyone had treated them as nicely as I was about to. I knew what it was like to grow up in a low-income household and have people treat you like the dirt you work. I would never do that to anyone else.
I jumped up from my spot. “Can I help bring anything from the kitchen?”
The Daydreamer Detective Braves the Winter Page 14
