The Daydreamer Detective Opens a Tea Shop

by S. J. Pajonas

  From: Amanda

  To: Yasahiro

  Subject: “Did you change your phone number?”

  “I can’t get ahold of you, and all of my texts show up as non-delivered. Did you change your phone number? Look, I’ve said I’m sorry about a million times. I know I can’t fix what happened, but I don’t think it’s over between us. Is there some way we can move on from this? It’s over with Robert, and I know what I did was wrong, but I had to think of my career. I really thought you’d understand. Call me and let’s work this out.”

  It took Yasahiro two weeks to form a reply.

  “What you did was beyond wrong. It’s bad enough that you cheated on me, when I was giving you the space you needed to focus on your career. But we were engaged! We were supposed to make decisions of that magnitude together. But all you thought of was yourself. I never want to see you again.”

  My forehead broke into a sweat, and I took the glass of water Akiko gave me and drank it all in five big gulps. What decision was so great? Their break-up was more complicated than I could have guessed. It wasn’t just that Amanda had cheated on Yasahiro. Something else had happened too.

  Mom’s voice popped into my head. “How could you do this to him, after all he’s been through already with Amanda?”

  I scrolled on, looking for more emails between them and one more appeared in a new thread.

  From: Amanda

  To: Yasahiro

  Subject: “One more chance.”

  “I’ve lost so much sleep these past few weeks that I had to turn down a modeling job. I could barely stand up straight. I miss you terribly. When we parted, you said you didn’t know if we could get back together again. I hate doing this, but I’m begging you to give me another chance. Please. I didn’t even know if it was yours. I felt like I was making the best decision for me and our relationship. It was a pivotal moment for me, to go in for the surgery and start over fresh with you afterward. I never thought you’d get that upset. Please forgive me.”

  A tear crawled from my eye and rolled down my cheek. He never wrote her back after that, and scrolling through her email, I can’t even be sure if he got it. The email she sent hadn’t bounced, so who knows?

  I can read between the lines here, and even though they both did their best not to write the words in email, I knew what had happened. I was ninety-nine percent certain Amanda had cheated on Yasahiro with Robert, got pregnant, and aborted the baby without consulting with him. The paternity of the baby must have been in doubt. Knowing Yasahiro, he would have been so affronted and hurt by this, that it had been impossible for them to get back together.

  For me, abortion was my absolute last resort. I’d much rather things worked out and we started our family together, happy and in love. For Amanda, it was her first choice. She thought about herself and her career first, Yasahiro last.

  I set the computer aside, and I stared at the room around me as the pieces of the puzzle clicked in place. Finally, this whole situation made sense. I closed my eyes and pictured their breakup, Yasahiro fuming mad at Amanda, and Amanda fighting back, saying nasty and condescending things. I could see them almost at each other’s throats because that’s the kind of animosity Amanda inspired in people. Perhaps Yasahiro even said things in the heat of the moment to make her think he was dangerous, things she told her parents about, and they told the police. I’ve been that mad before. I know what it’s like.

  But he wasn’t that person anymore. He’d found peace here in Chikata. He’d held back when she goaded him. He’d tried to avoid her, and I stupidly brought her into his life again.

  I wiped the tears from my face with my hands. Unfortunately, I didn’t believe these three emails would exonerate him. They would only give the police more motive to doubt him.

  What more could I find to clear him?

  I took a deep breath and brought my laptop back to my lap. I searched for more emails or mentions of him, but found nothing until a series of emails between Amanda, Giselle, and Robert.

  From: Amanda

  To: Giselle Girard, Robert Girard

  Subject: “Business”

  “I’m all set to meet with you in Paris on Thursday morning. My lawyer sent documents to your lawyer yesterday. I’m looking forward to finishing off this business. Yasahiro will be surprised in the spring when I bring this to him!”

  Giselle responded first to everyone.

  “Surprised will be an understatement, though I’m not sure he’s going to be pleased. Do remember that you will have to sign the contract we’ve drawn up or there’s no deal.”

  Robert responded just to Amanda.

  “Giselle is adamant you sign the contract to stay away from us. Are you sure you want to do that? It could mean losing your apartment and a chance at further VISAs if you violate it. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

  Amanda wrote back to him.

  “The contract is not a problem because I can be sneaky if I need to be. Anyway, I thought we were done, no? You told me to go back to Yasahiro, and that’s what I’m trying to do. It’s more important that I get the shares of his businesses. This way I can show him I care about his work. It’s an olive branch. I’ll sign it all over to him if he’ll give me a second chance. I know he’ll do it. He always cared more about money than anything else.”

  I gasped and covered my mouth. The depths this woman would go to boggled my mind. Now I know why the police arrested him so quickly after getting the data from her computer and phone. With Amanda’s parents talking about everything that happened between the two of them, the abortion and the fighting, then Amanda’s play to buy up Yasahiro’s business and use it to blackmail him, he had a lot of reasons to want to kill her.

  I slammed the computer shut and rolled over on my side. If anything, I had less confidence in my ability to clear Yasahiro. He’d been set up, right and proper. His “friends” had backed him into a corner.

  Though I believed in my heart he was innocent, I couldn’t prove it. And I still had no idea why he withdrew so much money from his account. It was too much money and too late to be used for the tea shop.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. If he had talked about it over email or phone or text, the police would know more about the money soon enough. I dropped off to sleep before I even had the chance to turn off the light.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I rolled over to blinding light in a bed I didn’t recognize, my head pounding and my stomach upside down.

  “Oh no,” I groaned. Retching, I threw myself from the bed, sprinted from the guest bedroom, past Akiko reading at the kotatsu and eating breakfast, and into the bathroom. I made it to the toilet just in time.

  They weren’t joking about morning sickness. The nausea was ten times worse in the morning.

  “Just a second,” Akiko said, stepping up behind me and pulling my hair out of the way. “Get it all out.”

  I moaned and lost everything into the toilet, finally stopping to wipe my face with toilet paper. Akiko grabbed a clean washcloth from the closet, wet it with water, and pressed the cool cloth to my forehead as I sank away from the toilet against the tub.

  “Sorry. Do smells bother you? I thought about opening the windows while I cooked and then forgot about it.”

  I kept my eyes closed for a few more seconds before wiping my face. “Yes. They do. But I’m not sure this was because of anything I smelled.” I burst into hot tears. “I went through Amanda’s old emails last night. Yasa-kun’s been through this before.” I pressed the washcloth against my face. “Amanda got pregnant when she cheated on him, and she aborted the baby, while they were still engaged.”

  Akiko gasped and covered her mouth. “No.”

  I nodded, swallowing against my stomach’s rebellious nature. “It’s what ended them. I can’t even think about what to do with this baby until I know exactly, exactly, what he wants. I won’t do that to him again.”

  “But…” Akiko stopped and sat next to me. “But what if h
e killed her and he goes to jail?”

  I pressed my fist to my chest. “I know, in my heart, he didn’t kill her. There’s no way.” I coughed and swiped the washcloth over my face. “But if he ends up in jail, I’ll still give him the choice.”

  “That’s risky, Mei-chan.” Akiko drew air in between her teeth, a long hiss. “You can’t screw your life up over this.”

  I held my tongue. I wasn’t going to speak in absolutes now. Everything was too shaky.

  “Are you going to work today?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Yeah. My first appointment is at 9:30. Do you want to stay here today?”

  I stood up, using the tub to steady me. “No. Can you drive me to the police station?” I tested my legs and knees. They would hold me.

  “Are you sure you want to do that? It’s crawling with reporters. I’ve been getting caught up on the news while eating breakfast.”

  “Yeah.” I leaned on the sink and looked at myself in the mirror. I had makeup that would fix my weary face, and if I stopped puking, I looked normal. “I’m sure. I think I’ll take a shower and then get ready.”

  Akiko leaned over and turned on the faucet for me. “You get cleaned up, and I’ll make you some breakfast.”

  I shook my head. “I doubt I’ll be able to eat.”

  “You have to. Eat carbs in the morning and throughout the day. That’ll help with the nausea. And if you really can’t stop the sickness, I’ll find drugs for you that can.” She patted my shoulder, then reached into the linen closet for a towel.

  After getting cleaned up, I ate what she gave me, and I felt better. Not one-hundred percent but enough to walk, talk, and feel like a whole human being.

  I didn’t like this at all, being compromised in my health again. I’d fought so hard in the late winter to get my weight back to a stable level after going so long without enough to eat.

  Sitting next to Akiko, who’d always had enough to eat and a good job, I slowed down my chewing and thought about all I had to lose. My boyfriend was in prison, I was pregnant with his baby, and my mom had kicked me out of the house. And as of that moment, I also did not have a job. The only good thing happening was that Goro was on Hiroshi’s trail. We were hours, maybe a day or two, away from solving Amanda’s murder.

  I hoped.

  “Keep eating,” Akiko said, poking me in the shoulder. She sounded like a mom, like the kind of mom I would have to be.

  My phone buzzed on the table next to my plate. Speaking of moms…

  I hesitated to answer it, my hand hovering over the phone. Should I give her the cold shoulder? I waited too long, and the phone silenced.

  “You’ll have to talk to her sometime.” Akiko sipped at her coffee as she glanced away from reading something on her tablet.

  The phone rang again, and this time I picked it up, bracing myself for the onslaught of disappointment from Mom.

  “Mei-chan, where are you? I need you to come home now.”

  I gritted my teeth and counted to five in my head. “I’m across the street at Akiko-chan’s, and I’m eating breakfast. Can it wait?”

  She sighed. “Don’t give me a hard time.”

  If this were a manga, my head would spew steam from the top. “Me? Give you a hard time? I’m sick, and pregnant, and my boyfriend is in jail, and you kicked me out of the house!” Akiko leaned away from me, got up, and scurried away with her coffee cup. “Don’t call here unless you’re going to apologize!”

  I hung up on her and slammed my phone down on the table. My heart beat like a drum, and I smashed the last of my toast in my mouth and chewed furiously.

  My phone sat silent for another few minutes, and I thought I was in the clear… until someone knocked on the front door.

  I stalked across the room and swung open the front door to my mom bent at the waist. “Mei-chan, I’m” — she stopped to swallow — “sorry I kicked you out of the house. I’m angry with you for throwing your life away.”

  I opened my mouth to interject, but she plowed on.

  “But I’m your mother, and I should still take care of you, even if you are almost thirty and you’re making very poor decisions.”

  This was a truly crappy apology. I knew it. She knew it.

  But she was right. I had made bad decisions. If only I hadn’t brought Amanda back to Yasahiro’s with me, we wouldn’t be in this situation. I’d wanted to prove to her that Yasahiro and I had a great life. My ego got in the way, and I ended up destroying everything.

  My jaw hurt from how hard I clenched my teeth together. “Mom, let’s move on.”

  Better to forget it happened and hope she’d take me back. Akiko was a good host, but I didn’t want to intrude on her and Kirin-chan forever. The dog was already giving me the stink-eye for sitting in his spot at the kotatsu.

  “Why do you need me to come home?”

  She straightened up but wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “It appears that I, too, make poor decisions.”

  I put on my shoes and coat and crossed the street to her house, Akiko following behind us.

  “Aya and Ichiro are gone,” she said, waving at the house. “I woke this morning at 5:30 to begin the day, and the house was empty.” She opened her car door and got in. “The cash in my wallet and several other things are gone as well. The gas cans in the shed are missing. And my car won’t start.”

  My stomach sank as Mom put her key in the ignition, turned it, and nothing happened. Nothing. All the panels were off, which could only mean one thing.

  “It looks like an electrical problem. Pop the hood.”

  When I opened the hood, the gaping blank space stood out.

  “Well, they took your battery too.”

  I sighed because the whole situation made sense — take advantage of our hospitality with a sob story, a dead car with no gas, and help themselves to things they’d need to get on the road again. I was more surprised that Ichiro didn’t say anything. Kids tended to be honest. I guess not in this case. But then I checked myself. Aya looked worried last night with Goro around. She probably thought she was going to end up in jail, and this was her only way to not lose her life and her son.

  “Did you call the police?” Akiko asked, rubbing her arms under her thin sweater. The morning air was crisp, and the sun wasn’t high enough to be warm.

  “Do you think I should?” Mom’s eyes were wide with despair.

  “Yes! What kind of question is that? Did you go see what they left behind in the woods?” Probably nothing, but it was worth checking out.

  “No.” Mom worried her apron between her fingers. “You’re right. I should have called the police right away. They could be half way across the country by now.” She gazed off toward the rising sun. “I trusted them.”

  “Yeah, well, I trusted you. Look where that got me.” I regretted saying this as soon as the bitter words left my lips. “Sorry,” I mumbled, hating myself and my quick tongue.

  Mom’s eyes met mine, and I looked away before she did, pulling my phone from my jacket pocket and dialing up the police.

  Kayo arrived not long after, and we told her what happened.

  “I’ll put the information into the system and see if we can’t track them down. Don’t worry, Yamagawa-san. I’m sure we’ll find them.” Kayo tapped away at her phone, making her report, and retreated to her car to call into the station.

  “I hate to see the two of you fighting,” Akiko said to us. “You’ve always been on each other’s side. I don’t see why this situation should be any different.”

  Akiko, the voice of reason.

  Mom’s eyes flooded with tears. “I just wanted you to be happy. I wanted the tea shop to open, Yasahiro-san to propose, and you two to live happily ever after.”

  I stepped to her and hugged her tight. “No one wants that more than me,” I whispered to her. “But we’ll have to make the most of what we have.”

  Mom pulled away and wiped the tears from her face. “You’re so strong, Mei-chan.
I’m sorry about last night.”

  “Me too.” I looked at the house. “Can I come home now?” My voice broke, and I tried not to cry too.

  “Of course.”

  Kayo’s car door slammed, and she approached us again, warily.

  “We’re putting out a call to all the local police and there’s a nationwide alert. Hopefully we’ll find them soon.”

  Mom nodded, and suddenly, I saw my life stretching out before me, just me, Mom, and my new child working on the farm for the rest of our lives. It wouldn’t be awful, but it wasn’t what I wanted.

  “Kayo, can I come back to the station with you?”

  As we approached the police station, I surveyed the front entrance, and the crowds had thinned from the other day. The investigation was churning on, and Amanda was already losing newsworthy status. Only the main news networks were parked outside the barricade the police had set up. Kayo drew up to the curb, slowing the car to a crawl, before pulling into the lot, through the barricades, and into the back.

  Kayo was quiet the whole way in, talking on her headset or looking at the computer in the car while sitting at red lights.

  “Where’s Goro-san this morning?” I asked, remembering not to call him -chan in front of his subordinate.

  “Stakeout at the ryokan in Nikko with a bunch of other people, the one Hiroshi Ota and Shōta Kimura had been staying at. No one has seen either of them since yesterday. So I’m not really sure why you wanted to come in.”

  “Why didn’t you go with him?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Late start today. I was on duty until after one last night.”

  I winced. “That’s a long day. So… I wanted to come plead Yasahiro-san’s case to the chief.” This was my last shot. Maybe if I just explained what had happened with everyone, he would understand Yasahiro’s situation.

  Kayo sighed as she sat back in her seat. “Mei-san, you should leave this alone. I believe Yasahiro-san would be upset if you came in here pleading for leniency. We’ve already sent away his parents, twice.”