While the soup bubbled away on the stove, we sat at the table and tended to our own hobbies. Mom hemmed an old shirt with a needle and thread, and I opened my computer to check my email. I’d been away most of the day, neglecting my inbox when it was finally seeing some traffic. Kumi’s email sat at the top of the list, and I remembered she had drawn a logo for me. I opened the email and smiled at her creation, a sweet illustration of an old lady with a cane and me next to her, guiding her by the elbow. Kumi had even drawn my flyaway hair right. I turned the computer to show Mom, and she laughed and clapped.
“It’s perfect! Are you thinking of expanding your business?” Mom tried to ask nonchalantly, but her smile was too big.
“You’ve been talking to Goro-chan. I’m considering it. Definitely. I’d like a few more daily clients, but I’ve had bigger ideas in mind, too.” I paused while I stood up to stir the soup. “Murata-san had an idea that I thought was genius. She said there was no central location for elderly people to meet up. No place for them to do crafts, eat or spend time together. Perhaps a little, old-fashioned tea shop with extra space for families or gatherings would be perfect. It would need a handicapped-accessible bathroom that was easy to move around in.”
I let my eyes unfocus, imagining such a place, how happy and alive it would be. “I thought I would write a business plan, and I would ask for investors. But I don’t know how someplace like that would work. How would it make enough money to provide me with a salary and pay the rent? I need to talk about this with someone who is better at business than I am.”
“Yasahiro-san is a successful businessman. He’s the person you should be speaking to about this.” Mom set down her sewing. “Because this is a fabulous idea. We need more community spaces for the elderly and their families. Tiny apartments just aren’t enough, especially if they want to do other activities.” I tapped the wooden spoon on the pot, set it on the spoon rest, and sat down across from Mom. Her face was full of mirth.
“We could do sewing classes, origami classes, maybe even tai chi? I have a lot of ideas. I need to write them down… But I don’t want Yasa-kun involved.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to make him feel like he owes me anything. I’m already indebted to him for all of this.” I swept my hands out at his luxury apartment and the wine I was drinking. I immediately felt guilty for opening the bottle.
“That’s a mistake, Mei-chan. I bet he would love the idea, and he has the space right downstairs to make this happen.”
I couldn’t deny that I’d been dreaming about the retail space downstairs and wondering if it would be perfect for my idea, but that was going too far. We had only just started dating, and I was afraid of pushing things too quickly. Everything was going well so far. We’d slept together, he’d seen my scars, and he’d let me stay in his place. I didn’t want my bad luck to spoil it.
Because I was sure Mom was not going to give this up, I said, “We’ll see,” hoping that would placate her.
I turned the computer around to face me and an email had hit my inbox in the last five minutes from Yasahiro. Subject: “Getting on the plane.”
“Fuji-ko, I’m about to board the plane, and I wanted to send you the link to this news story from yesterday’s restaurant opening. Be sure to watch the video. –Y.”
I hesitated, not knowing what he was directing me to. Was it a video of him? The restaurant? If it was on a news site, I was okay to watch it with Mom in the room. While she was at the stove dishing out our dinner, I clicked on the link and was brought to a French news site.
The article appeared to be about the restaurant opening he went to yesterday. I had Google translate the page for me, and I got the basic idea of what his day was like, a lot of photos, food, and celebrities. It was so posh, the restaurant had a red carpet outside the front doors with an area for interviews. I scrolled through the photos, recognized a few movie stars, a famous author, and then Yasahiro standing with some other people, posing for the cameras. His smile was bright and genuine, and he looked like he was having a great time.
My insides squirmed as I leaned in to examine him closer. He was wearing a sharp suit, dark colors accentuated his wide jaw and sparkling smile. His hair was styled, something I hadn’t seen in person, only in photos like these and the ones before I met him when he was with Amanda. I found the swoop of his hair ultra sexy, and I closed my eyes to remember how soft and easy it was when I ran my fingers through it.
I had it really bad for this guy.
I scrolled down the page to stop any further arousal and ran right into the video. I pressed play, and a woman’s voice speaking French narrated the scene of a busy opening night for a famous restaurant. Images of popping champagne and plates of food with people in fancy outfits cut in and out with English subtitles over them.
“The opening of Les Pivonies in 13th arrondissement today was the talk of the town. The line for entry stretched around the block at one point, and Chef Richard had to pull his friends into the place himself…”
I watched for two minutes, impressed by the sheer display of wealth and popularity on hand. Two American and French stars were interviewed and everyone was sure this restaurant would be popular for the next decade.
“What are you watching?” Mom asked, coming around the table behind me. “Is that French? Since when do you speak French?”
I laughed and pointed at the screen. “I don’t, but the subtitles are in English.” I pulled my hand back to my mouth as Yasahiro appeared on camera.
“I love what Richard has done to the building and his kitchen is very impressive. I’m sure this place will be hard to get into for anyone without the proper connections.” He laughed and I sat stunned, listening to him speak French, reading the English subtitles that I translated in my head into Japanese. It was like listening to a stranger I thought I may know, but I wasn’t sure if I did.
“How long are you in town?” the interviewer asked.
“I leave for Japan tomorrow. Back to my home, my girlfriend, my own restaurant.”
“Your girlfriend? Are you and Amanda Cheung back together?” Hearing her name doused me in cold water. Of course, they all assumed they’d be back together. Everyone had.
“No, no. Amanda and I broke up over a year ago. I’m dating someone new in Japan, in the town I call home now. She’s my life.” He placed his hand over his heart, and my eyes welled with tears. “I’m a lucky man.”
I paused the video on his sincere face and wished I could hug him.
“I think I understand what he said,” Mom said, placing her hand on my shoulder. “Though my English is terrible. I’m so happy for you. You couldn’t have picked a more reputable man, and he is lucky to have such a wonderful person like you.”
Mom picked up my hand and squeezed it. “Now we just need to deal with the house and the farm and everything will be back to normal, better than normal.”
But that meant sleeping in my room at home, alone. I looked around Yasahiro’s apartment and immediately felt conflicted and nostalgic for the place. This luxury was only temporary. Soon, I would have to return home.
I rewound the video and played it again.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“It’s not going to be enough,” Goro said, shaking his head and putting his car into gear. I had just finished helping Yamida with her physical therapy and had a few hours before I needed to be at Murata’s apartment, so I decided to join Goro in another excursion into Tokyo. He offered to buy lunch if I came with him out to Takadanobaba, and I relented since I’m low on cash.
I glanced at my phone as Goro sped along on the highway at a breakneck pace. No texts from Kumi or Akiko, and none from Yasahiro, but he wasn’t due to land until close to 15:00. If I timed things right, I’d be done at Murata’s apartment and back to his place in time to heat up the leftover chicken and dumpling soup and make a fresh batch of rice. That way he’d come home to hot food and a warm apartment, probably something he missed on previous trips. The footage from the news s
tory replayed in my head again, coaxing my eyes closed so I could remember the expression on his face. He’d said, “She’s my life.” No one had ever said that about me. What had I done to deserve such high praise from him? How could I keep doing it so I didn’t lose his love and attention?
I opened my eyes and came back to the present, to the sound of Goro honking the horn.
“What’s not going to be enough?”
“The evidence we already have. Most of the staff worked through the night to go over everything brought in from Etsuko’s office and safe deposit box. They found lots of evidence that she had a profitable business, and she laundered money for someone else, no names. Then we have her own confession as to what happened. But it’s her word against his, again. If we confront him with the letter of a dead woman, it will mean nothing, and he’ll laugh in our faces.” Goro swerved in and out of slow-moving cars and flashed his lights to make people move over.
“Are you allowed to do that?” I pointed to the roof of the car, indicating the police lights and the frantic people trying to merge into the next lane.
“Are you going to tell on me? Because if I remember correctly, you took evidence from the crime scene yesterday.”
Suddenly, Goro and I were either locked in a blackmail relationship, or we were best friends. Depended on how you looked at it.
I laughed and rolled my eyes at him. “Nevermind. We’re in this together.” I sipped on the cup of coffee he bought me, and he turned on the lights again to get traffic moving. “So what’s the next step then?”
“We’re going to persuade Jun to come forward —“
“Wait, wait, wait.” I waved my hands in the air. “He was as skittish as a half-blind cat. There’s no way he’ll come forward.”
“You said he was involved, and I’m going to bring him in. If we’re lucky, we’ll convince him and the other guy in the photos to be sworn witnesses. If we’re extremely lucky, we might even find some of the other smurfs that were laundering Takahara’s money.”
I slid my eyes to the side at him. “Smurfs? What do little blue cartoon characters have to do with this?”
Goro laughed, throwing his head back before jerking the car into the next lane. “‘Smurfs’ is a money-laundering term. A smurf is somebody who does the money laundering in small increments for someone else. If an individual or company has a lot of money to launder, sometimes they hire multiple smurfs to do all the laundering. Or they can buy diamonds or other untraceable goods…” He circled his hand in the air. “There are a lot of ways to launder money.”
“Interesting. I had no idea.”
“I handled one other money laundering case about five years ago when I was working in Tokyo. I learned a lot, and now my skills are being put to work.” He smiled over at me. “I may get a raise or maybe a promotion.”
“If anyone deserves it, it’s you.” And I did mean that. Goro loved his job, and he was good at it. If he’d done anything wrong these past few months, it was my fault, and I’d take the blame. But I’d hid my own wrongdoings well, and hopefully, they’d never be found out, especially since the people I lied for appreciated my help. I hoped.
Goro pulled off the highway, and ten minutes later we were in Takadanobaba, an area west of Shinjuku. This was one of the lower rent districts of Tokyo, if that was even a thing. Nothing about the city was even remotely affordable to people like me anymore, but since this was a college area of town, the buildings were more rundown and the rent was cheaper than other wards. When I graduated from high school, I had wanted to go to Waseda University, the university closest to this area, but I didn’t get in. I had ended up going to Tokyo Metropolitan University instead, which was an excellent school, but I was disappointed. For the past eight years, I had viewed my rejection from Waseda as the first of many failures.
When I worked in the city, I used to come to Takadanobaba in the evenings to be close to Waseda students, hang out, and eat cheap food. I would dream and wonder how different my life would have been if I had been one of them, the happy college kids eating dinner at the table next to me. What I should have done was gone out with my coworkers and stopped dreaming, but it was hard to learn that lesson when dreaming was the way I lived my life.
We slowly pulled the car into a quiet neighborhood off Waseda-dori. The place hadn’t changed much in five years, with its tiny back alleys and artistic counter-culture pumping out of every storefront and cheap izakaya. The street we drove down was one-way, and with snow piled up on the corners, Goro had to work hard to drive his car around the bends.
“That’s it, right there,” he said, pointing at a three-story apartment building over a café. He pulled his car all the way over to the side of the road, not bothering to notice that he was parked on the sidewalk. I knew better than to remark on it. He had his own ideas of what constituted parking.
Ignoring the café, we let ourselves into the downstairs vestibule of the apartment building. Goro glanced at the mailboxes and mumbled, “Number three.” I remembered he had other police officers follow the young men who worked for Ne Kitsune.
I followed him up the stairs, and we stopped in front of door number three. Goro knocked hard on the door, in the way that meant, “I’m not here to sell you something, and you better open the door,” but nothing happened.
“What if he’s in class?” I whispered to him. “It is a weekday after all. Or he could be at a client…”
The door behind us opened, and a young woman poked her head out. “Are you looking for Kenichi?”
“No, we’re looking for Jun. Do you know if he’s home?” I asked, smiling and being as pleasant as possible.
“He came home this morning.” She adjusted her glasses and pulled up her pajama pants. Ah, to be in college again. I missed it. Well, I missed the pajamas-all-day lifestyle, not the tests and studying. “I had breakfast downstairs in the café near the window, and I saw him come home and into the building. I came in about thirty minutes later. And he hadn’t left.”
“Who’s Kenichi?” I asked, wanting to get down to the real questions. I was starting to get hungry, and no matter how much caffeine I’d had, it wouldn’t be enough to keep another headache away.
If Jun was home and he wasn’t answering the door, then he was either sick or very asleep because we were loud.
“His roommate, well, one of two roommates. Another guy named Daisuke lives there too, but Kenichi and Daisuke are both in Hokkaido. They left yesterday to visit their families over the holidays.”
With Jun’s roommates gone, he would’ve had the place to himself. Goro knocked hard on the door again, this time turning his fist and pounding enough to make the doorjamb shake. The young woman jumped at the sound.
“You know, if you need to get in there, the man who runs the café downstairs is our landlord. He has keys to all the apartments.”
“Really? Are there no other exits in here?”
“No. Just out the front door.”
“Wait here,” Goro said to me, and he took the stairs down two at a time. Where did he get all his energy?
I smiled weakly at the girl, and she glanced at me before wishing me a good day and closing the door. I strained my ears for any sign of life from Jun’s apartment. Instead, I heard the TV turn on in the girl’s apartment, and I imagined her wrapped up in a blanket, eye-guzzling some new show I’d never heard of while neglecting her school work. Yep, I missed college.
Goro returned a few minutes later with the landlord in tow. I bowed and said hello, but the landlord grunted and opened the door. “Don’t stay too long. I don’t want any trouble. I have customers downstairs, and I can’t be bothered by this around the lunch rush.” The landlord slapped a key into Goro’s hand and walked down the stairs. “Lock up when you leave and bring the key back to me,” he called over his shoulder.
“Pleasant man,” I mumbled.
“They can’t all be winners,” Goro replied, pushing the door open slowly. The apartment was a mess, as I expected i
t to be. The guys had turned the living area into a bedroom with loft and bunk beds over the tatami mats. The rest of the space was dominated by racks of clothing, a sewing machine in one corner, and scraps of cloth draped over every available chair or bed surface. The kitchen was piled high with dirty plates and bowls, and a computer sat to the right of the beds, powered off.
The situation and the apartment itself gave off a creepy vibe. I suppressed a shudder and began searching. I stepped over a mess of clothes on the floor and flipped through the stacks of paper on the desk, invoices for customer dresses and other clothing to Kenichi Giruhan. Sounded like a fake name to me, but what did I know about those things?
Goro searched through the kitchen briefly before stepping towards the only other door in the apartment, the bathroom.
He swore violently, startling me badly enough to trip over the clothing and stumble, knocking over a dressform along the way. When I reached the bathroom, Goro was on his phone.
“I’m at Jun Nomohiro’s apartment in Takadanobaba, and he’s dead. Suicide. In the tub. No pulse. Send someone out now.”
Kayo’s voice on the other end of the line repeated, “Yes, yes. Of course. Yes…” as he hung up.
Thankfully, I closed my eyes as soon as I saw the blood on the floor, a pool of water stained bright red. I turned and pressed my back to the wall, covering my mouth with my hand.
The situation had, indeed, gotten worse.
It took a lot of willpower, deep breaths, and physical anguish to keep myself from crying. The tears were right behind my eyelids, ready to pour forth, but I held them, like stopping a flood from a dam with my bare hands. I hadn’t liked Jun much, but I didn’t want him dead. No one deserved to die for something stupid like this.
“What are we going to do?” I asked Goro as he pulled me away from the bathroom and sat me on a chair in the living space. “Is this our fault?”
It felt like my fault. I had gotten him into this mess by trying to hire him from Ne Kitsune. He pushed me away, told me to leave him alone, and then returned the next day. If only we had never seen each other again after that night.
The Daydreamer Detective Braves the Winter Page 22
