“But what if it turns out that Hoshi’s involved in a more serious crime than breaking into cars? Doesn’t it worry you that he’s lying to the police?”
“There’s no way Hoshi killed Cherry,” Shinya said. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but he’s planning to open his own club, maybe next year. Nobody can know anything about it until his investors have said yes, or he’ll lose his job. But Cherry’s the last person he’d want dead, because he was going to ask her to be his partner. He was her shimeisha, but they were more like old friends than anything else. They’d known each other since they were just starting out. Now that she’s dead, he’s going to have to ask someone else, someone he trusts a lot less.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“Could you talk to Detective Nakamura? You’re his friend; he’ll listen to you. Tell him Hoshi-sempai didn’t kill Cherry-san.”
“Before I do that, I need to convince myself.” She looked at Shinya. “I need to talk to him. Where does he live?”
“In Mejiro. But he’s not there. After Detective Nakamura was through with me, I called him and warned him not to come into work and not to go home, either.”
“Can you call him? Tell him to meet me?”
Shinya pulled out his mobile and scrolled through his contact list. He held the phone to his ear, then lowered it. “Voicemail.”
“Any idea where he could be?”
He was silent for a long moment, then sighed. “Yesterday afternoon he asked me to pick up some stuff at the dry cleaner for him. When I got there, a sign on the door said they’d had a family emergency and were closed for the day. I was nearly back to the club when I saw him run out, dashing toward the train station. I almost didn’t recognize him—he’d changed into a suit I’d never seen before. Conservative, like a salaryman. And a black wig.”
“A wig?”
“Yeah. A sort of short, black wig. It was shocking—he looked like a guy who worked in a bank or something. Why would he disguise himself like that? He’s been worried lately, but won’t tell me why. So I followed him. At Shinjuku Station he got on the Chuo Line, then got off at Koenji. I almost lost him because he stepped off the train really fast and ran for the exit. At first I thought he’d noticed he was being followed and was trying to ditch me, but he never looked back. About five minutes from the station, he stopped at an apartment building, ran up a flight of outside stairs to a door on the second floor, and went in. He had a key.”
“It wasn’t his apartment?”
“No. Like I said, he lives in Mejiro. So, I sort of hung around across the street, trying to decide what to do. I was about to go check the name on the mailbox when a big black car pulled up. A driver got out and opened the door on the far side. A man got out. He went up the stairs and rang the bell at the same apartment.”
“What kind of man?”
“I only saw his back. Big. Balding. Cashmere overcoat.”
“Did Hoshi answer the door?”
“I couldn’t see. I just saw the guy push the bell, then the door opened and he went in. I watched the apartment for over an hour, but then I had to leave so I could get my hair done before work.” He shifted and dug in his pants pocket, pulling out a crumpled Family Mart receipt. “I wrote the address on the back of this.” He handed it to her.
Yumi smoothed it out. “Amano?”
“That was the name on the mailbox.”
“Why would Hoshi disguise himself to look like a banker? You think the guy who came to meet him wanted to invest in his club?”
Shinya thought about it. “Hoshi knows rich women, not their husbands.”
“Could he have been a gangster?”
“I don’t think so. Wrong car, wrong clothes.”
Yumi looked at her watch. 1:42 A.M. “I can’t take a cab out to Koenji tonight. You think he’ll still be there tomorrow?”
Chapter 47
Friday, November 15
11:00 A.M.
Yumi
Yumi stopped at the corner outside the Koenji Cleaners and opened the map app on her phone. Tapping the GPS so it swung around to match the intersection before her, she marched up the narrow street that angled off past the town square. Two blocks, then right again, then left, heading for the address Shinya had given her. There it was, ahead on the right: a stucco building with outside stairs leading to the second-floor apartments.
Her steps slowed. What exactly would she do when she got there? All the way from her translating job in Mitaka, she’d been thinking about how to convince Hoshi to tell her what really happened the night Cherry died. She crossed to the mailboxes. There it was—“Amano” printed neatly on a crisp white card next to the box for apartment 202. She looked up the stairs and hoped he was still there.
As if her thoughts had raced ahead of her and knocked, the door opened. Beating a hasty retreat, she crouched behind a car and watched a yawning young man in tortoiseshell glasses clop down the steps in a pair of scarred wooden geta, carrying a folded shopping cart. At the bottom, he flipped it open and it bounced behind him as he headed down the street. A stretchy red headband held his straggling bleached hair off his forehead and he wore a puffy down jacket over a pair of ripped jeans. Hoshi looked more like a student who’d just pulled an all-nighter than a rock star this morning. She hurried after him as he made straight for the Tokyu supermarket next to the station.
Maybe the reason he had a key to that apartment was that he’d moved. Was “Amano” Hoshi’s real name?
Yumi grabbed a shopping basket and shadowed him as he filled his cart. Curry sauce starter, a bunch of carrots, a packet of boned chicken breasts, an onion. Grocery staples, not ready-made snacks. What kind of twenty-something guy cooked curry rice from scratch? She watched as he looped back through the produce section, selecting a bunch of green onions and three long stalks of gobo.
Okay, one mystery solved: “Amano” had to be a woman. No man would ever painstakingly peel, sliver, and twice-cook fresh burdock root. But if she were Hoshi’s girlfriend, she’d be shopping for him, not the other way around, especially if their relationship was established enough for her to give him a key.
Hoshi selected a box of hibiscus tea.
That was an exotic choice. Maybe he was staying with a wealthy, health-conscious patron. But that didn’t add up, either—he’d never let himself be seen looking like a dog’s breakfast by a woman who paid big bucks to indulge in Hoshi-the-glamorous-illusion.
Wedging two cartons of milk into his basket, he finally got in line for the cashier.
Yumi followed him as he slogged home, pulling the loaded cart behind him. Shinya had said that Hoshi and Cherry both came from Ibaraki-ken, so “S. Amano” couldn’t be his mother. Maybe a female relative? Sister? Aunt? Grandmother? That would explain the key, but why the suit and wig?
He ferried the bags up the stairs, returning to fold the cart and tuck it under his arm. Unlocking the mailbox, he retrieved a stack of mail and shuffled through it. Back at the top, he used his key and swung the grocery bags into the entryway. The door closed behind him.
Yumi straightened her jacket and climbed to the second floor. She rang the bell.
“I’ll get it. Don’t get up,” came Hoshi’s muffled voice as he pulled open the door. He stared at Yumi, confused. “Aren’t you…Coco’s friend? What are you doing here?” His voice became alarmed. “How did you find me?”
“Shinya called me,” Yumi explained. “He followed you Thursday afternoon. He’s worried about you. I’m a friend of Detective Nakamura, but I want to—”
With a look of pure panic, Hoshi tried to slam the door. Yumi caught it before it could close all the way and shouted desperately through the crack, “Wait! I’m here as a favor to Shinya, not the police. I don’t want you to be arrested if you didn’t do anything. If you’re innocent, I can help you. Just listen to me.”
The pressure from the other side let up and Hoshi appeared in the narrow gap, his face tense. “Talk,” he said.
; A wizened uncle poked his shiny bald head through the kitchen window next door. “Is everything okay out there?” he asked.
Hoshi peered around the door and pasted on a smile. “Everything’s fine, Mr. Yasuda.”
Reluctantly, he said to Yumi, “I guess you’d better come in. Just a minute.” He closed the door, and she heard him say, “What are you doing? You know you’re supposed to be resting.”
The reply was too soft to hear, but Hoshi’s muffled voice agreed to something, then said, “You go lie down. I’ll hear what she has to say, then get rid of her.”
The door opened and Yumi slipped off her shoes as Hoshi rummaged in a wicker basket, setting out a pair of stiff, plaid slippers. Leading her into the main room, he gestured toward a bold Marimekko-flowered chair, then perched on the edge of a bright orange futon that doubled as a sofa. A folded blanket and pillow were neatly stacked at one end.
“I’m sorry to intrude on you like this,” Yumi began. “I’m here because Shinya told me that the police are trying to arrest you. He asked me to talk to Detective Nakamura, tell him you had nothing to do with Cherry’s death.” Yumi explained that she’d known Kenji since third grade. “But he’s got some pretty convincing evidence against you. You know about that, right?”
“Shinya told me.”
“Nakamura-san is going to ask me a lot of questions, so I need to know what really happened the night Cherry died.”
Hoshi dropped his face into his hands.
“I think you should tell her.” A young woman with waist-length black hair tied back with a red silk ribbon appeared, bearing a tray set with a teapot and three cups.
“Amano” definitely wasn’t his grandmother or aunt. With her pale skin and red lips, she looked like a shrine maiden doll from Yumi’s childhood Girls’ Day set—except she was hugely, undeniably, pregnant.
Hoshi leaped up and grabbed the tray. “You shouldn’t be doing this! The doctor said not to lift anything. You’re supposed to be in bed.”
Aha, he’d used the form of “you” that meant the girl was a family member! Younger than Hoshi, so…little sister?
She gave him a wan smile and nudged aside the TV remote on the small glass-topped coffee table, making room for him to set down the tray. “I think you have to trust somebody,” she said, her apron stretching tight across her swollen belly as she seated herself next to him on the futon. She looked at Yumi. “Can you promise nobody at Nova will find out?”
“I’ll do my best.”
The girl poured out the tea. “I hope you don’t mind hibiscus—I’m supposed to drink this instead of o-cha these days. Dōzo,” she said, handing Yumi a cup. “I’m Saki Amano.”
“I’m Yumi Hata.” She asked, “How many months?”
“Eight.”
Yumi smiled and nodded. She took a sip of tea, then fixed her gaze on Hoshi. “So. Are you going to tell me what really happened?”
Hoshi sighed. “I took Shinya home after work and pumped him full of sports drinks before he passed out. Then I took Cherry-san home because she was still upset about what this guy Matsu tried to do to her. I went in with her and made her a pot of tea. Then I got a call…”
“Wait a minute—is Matsu the name of the customer who slapped her around that night? He’s a foreigner?”
“No, I think Matsu is short for his family name. It was Cherry’s nickname for him.”
“He could be the one who killed her, you know. I wonder if Nakamura-san knows about him.”
“He does, but it’s easier to arrest me than some guy who’s rich enough to go to Heaven.”
“So what happened after you went to Cherry’s apartment and made her a pot of tea?”
“Saki called.” He glanced at the girl. “She was afraid she was…”
“I thought I was having a miscarriage,” Saki supplied. “So he got in his car and picked me up and took me to the hospital. We were there until eleven the next morning when the doctors said it was okay to go home.”
Yumi looked at Hoshi, puzzled. “Why didn’t you just tell the police that?”
“In front of Manager-san? You’re kidding, right? I can’t afford to lose my job. Especially now.”
“Why would you lose your job?”
Saki curled a graceful hand around the handle of the teapot. Her gold ring glinted.
“Saki-san isn’t your sister,” Yumi gasped, the pieces falling into place.
“No,” Hoshi admitted. “She’s my wife.”
Chapter 48
Friday, November 15
11:30 A.M.
Yumi
Yumi studied the emergency room intake forms as Hoshi explained that the night Cherry died hadn’t been the only time he’d had to rush Saki to the emergency room with a miscarriage scare. She’d had five since becoming pregnant, one of them on the night Coco had almost been hit by a car.
Yumi looked up in surprise. “Coco was almost hit by a car?” They hadn’t really spoken since their lunch at the Princess Heart.
Hoshi told her about the accident, saying Coco was unharmed, but because he left before the police arrived, Detective Nakamura had been staking out Nova ever since. Kenji claimed he needed to question Hoshi as a witness to Coco’s near-accident, but Shinya and Miho Yamaguchi were both convinced the police were intent on pinning both the attempted hit-and-run and Cherry’s death on him, so he hadn’t been back to work.
Hoshi scrolled through the received calls on his cell phone and silently handed it to Yumi. The night Cherry died, he’d received a call from Saki’s number at 2:04. He explained that the driving time from Kabuki-chō to the Koenji apartment was about twelve minutes, then another five to Nakano Hospital. She glanced at the intake form. It listed Saki’s check-in time as 2:23. It was signed and sealed by her husband, Hiro Amano, Hoshi’s real name. A call from Saki’s number on the night of Coco’s accident aligned in a similar way with the second intake form.
Yumi laid the documents on the coffee table. “What do you want me to do?”
“Do you think Detective Nakamura will believe you if you tell him?” Hoshi asked.
“I’ll make him.” She felt a twinge of anxiety, wondering if Kenji would even talk to her after the way she’d run out on him the other night.
“Will he tell anyone at Nova?”
“I’ll ask him not to. His job is to catch her killer, not make life difficult for innocent people. I’ll explain how telling anyone you have a wife with a baby on the way will get you fired and screw up your chances of getting investors for your club.”
“How did you know about that?”
“Shinya told me. He couldn’t figure out why you were wearing a black wig and a conservative suit yesterday when he followed you out here to Koenji. He saw the man who arrived with a car and driver and guessed he might be a potential backer.”
Hoshi and Saki exchanged glances.
“Was he?”
“He was.” Saki admitted. “But he’s also my father.”
Hoshi said, “I thought if I looked more like the kind of son-in-law he wanted, he might take me more seriously. Saki suggested we ask him to help get my club off the ground. If I become an owner, I won’t have to work nights as much and I could go back to looking like someone he’s not embarrassed about.”
Saki explained. “I moved out when we told my parents I was pregnant and they refused to give us their blessing to get married. I haven’t seen them in over six months. Hiro had been planning to save for at least another year before starting his own club, but with a baby suddenly on the way, we decided to get married and the whole timetable sped up.” She squeezed his hand apologetically.
“So you asked your father.”
Their glum faces told her what his answer had been.
“How soon do you think you could talk to Nakamura-san?” Hoshi asked. “Do you think you could do it today? Before seven? I can’t afford to miss more work, and it would be a disaster if the police turn up at the club tonight and make me look like a criminal in fron
t of everybody.”
“If I can’t get hold of him, can you call in sick or something?”
“I guess I could if I had to,” he said reluctantly. “But I can’t stay away much longer or I’ll lose my customers. Could you try…?”
“I’ll try.” She pulled out her phone and checked the time. “I’ve got to go.” She switched over to camera mode. “Let me see the received call list on your phone again.”
She snapped two pictures, making sure the time and caller ID were visible. Good. Save. Then she positioned her phone above the first emergency room form. Examining the photo, she frowned. The resolution was too low to read the fine print and signatures. “I was hoping I could just e-mail the evidence to Detective Nakamura, but I think I’ll need a photocopier.”
“There’s a copy shop on the way to Koenji station. I’ll walk down with you.”
Chapter 49
Friday, November 15
2:00 P.M.
Kenji
Kenji looked up as Yumi came through the door. Damn, how could she still do this to him? Just watching her scan the coffee shop, looking for him, gave him a jab in the heart. She spotted him and waved. He tried to summon the frustration he’d felt the other night, but the righteous, cutting words he’d carefully crafted while staring up at his dark ceiling were swept away by a little glimmer of hope that the reason she’d asked him to meet her was because she’d chosen him over her fiancé after all.
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice,” she said, pulling out her chair. “I think I’ve got something that’ll help you with that case you’re working on.”
His elation dimmed.
“Thank you,” Yumi said to the waitress, who’d brought her a cup of tea and was waiting to take their order.
“Oh. Sorry.” Kenji fumbled with the menu. “Do you have o-hagi?”
“Yes sir. How many?”
“I can’t stay long,” Yumi said quickly.
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