“I’m so delighted to see you again, Mei-san.” She bowed to me and I bowed back, a little self-conscious with all the people turning to eye me. “I can’t wait to hear what you think of Yasahiro-san’s cooking. He’s been developing menus and testing out dishes on us all week long.” She closed her eyes and hummed. “It was delicious. I wish you could challenge him every week.”
Yikes. I’d had no idea he would take the challenge so seriously. I tucked my hair behind my ears and straightened out my shirt, nervous butterflies — no, nervous small birds — taking flight in my stomach and threatening to fly me straight to the bathroom. Whenever I got nervous, I wanted to puke. It wasn’t pretty.
“Well, I hope I didn’t cause him too much trouble!” I faked a smile and bowed again, hoping to calm the birds. “I’ve been looking forward to today since I was here last.”
Ana crooked her finger in my direction. “Follow me.”
We wove through the tables, most occupied, and she sat me next to the kitchen, plucking the “RESERVED” sign off the table and slipping it into the pocket of her apron. “I’ll let Yasahiro-san know you’re here. Enjoy the meal. Stop by on your way out and let me know what you think. I’m dying to hear all the details.”
She winked at me as I sat, and I suddenly felt self-conscious about everything. How was my hair? Was it behaving? It was a little humid out this morning and my hair had this wavy kink to it that fluffed out in weather like this. I straightened my button-down shirt, annoyed that my whole wardrobe was meant for working in an office and not for a farmer’s daughter out for lunch at a high-end restaurant. At least my flats were in good shape. I had a thing for shoes. It was quite possible that if I did not have a “thing” for shoes, I may have had an apartment in Tokyo still, but let’s not dwell on that.
I had no one to talk to, so I took my phone out of my purse and checked for text messages. Akiko wrote, “I’m jealous of your lunch plans. Please take photos and send them to me. House arrest is no fun.”
I frowned down at the screen. Why was she still being watched? She had attended to patients the entire day her father died. She wanted to go back to her job, but the police needed to leave her alone for that to happen. Were they watching Tama as diligently as they were watching her? He had as much motive as she did, though I didn’t believe either of them would kill their father. Tama had a job, his own place, and a fiancée. Akiko was doing well as a nurse and had had a roof over her head as long as her father was alive. It made no sense that either of them would commit the crime.
It must’ve been someone on the outside, and currently, my only picks were Tajima and Takahara. Both didn’t strike me as killers. I glanced around the busy restaurant, and an image of Yasahiro wielding a knife popped into my head. Maybe he was the killer? Oh no. What if I’m having lunch with a murderer?
Think, Mei! Motive and opportunity. What reason would Yasahiro have to kill Kano? And would he have the opportunity? If I suspected him at all, I’d have to find out if he ever took time off work, though he seemed like a workaholic. No one with a Michelin star works part time. He was at the funeral and said he only knew Kano from late night drinks. I’d have to look into it.
So far, my detective life proved to be a complete failure. Why was I not surprised? I’d been plagued with bad luck my entire life, and I didn’t see it stopping anytime soon.
“I haven’t even served lunch to you yet and you’re already frowning?” Yasahiro stood over the table, a plate in each hand, and a smile on his face.
He’s kidding, Mei. Kidding. Remember? Akiko said he had a sense of humor, unlike most people around here.
I returned his smile and took a deep breath through my nose, smelling something of toasted sesame. “I’m definitely not frowning over food,” I replied, careful to make eye contact. “Is this lunch?” I sat up to see the plates, but he glided them down to the table.
Yasahiro cleared his throat and raised his chin. “To start, we have a fresh green beans and lotus root salad. Crisp and tangy with toasted sesame seeds, rice vinegar, and ginger.” He pointed to the plate in front of me, greens and thin slices of lotus root arranged in a neat pile. “And these are my pork and scallion dumplings with Sriracha, ginger, and lemongrass dipping sauce.” Four plump dumplings sat on the other plate, and my mouth began to water.
“I hope you enjoy them,” he said, bowing and turning to go.
“Wait.” I snapped my hand out and grabbed the white fabric of his chef’s coat. “Won’t you be having lunch with me?”
I glanced around at the restaurant, crawling with people. Oh no. I’d honestly believed we’d have lunch together. He’d tell me about the food and his work and…
I blushed. Hard. I thought this was a date, didn’t I? Deep down, way down in the cellar of my brain, I’d daydreamed a date out of this. I was so stupid.
This was the lunch rush hour, and he only did this because I challenged him.
Snap out of it!
“I mean…” I stammered, and letting go of his chef’s coat, he smoothed out the wrinkles with his hand. “I know you can’t have lunch with me. It’s too busy in here. I just thought you might want to, um, explain a little more about the food?”
If only my lie sounded a little more confident.
A small smile grew across his lips, and my entire being died of embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I do have a lot of work to do, including your main course.”
“Oh yes, of course. I completely understand. I’m looking forward to eating everything you bring out today. I’m sure I’ll be won over by Wednesday, and we’ll declare you the winner of this silly challenge.”
Because I was not coming here and eating alone while everyone around me ate together. I was willing to do that once in a while, with a book, but not every day. I’d rather I ate at home with Mom.
“No, no, no. I said I was going to feed you lunch for a whole week, and you can’t capitulate right away. You said this food would be bland, and I’m going to prove it’s not.”
I nodded slowly, resigned. What had I gotten myself into? I’d challenged a chef with a prestigious resume, a student of my mother’s, and the town’s newest darling. I should never have opened my mouth. I was close to making a complete fool of myself, and I regretted it to my bones.
Yasahiro paused for a moment as I took a sip of water.
“But, if you’d like to come and eat lunch a little later tomorrow, maybe after 14:00, I could eat with you. Lunch usually slows down by 13:30 and then we close the kitchen from 14:00 to 16:30 to prepare for dinner.”
“I don’t want to bother you any more than I already have —”
“It’s not a bother,” he interrupted, and this time, he stammered and seemed eager to keep me there. Hmmm. Interesting. The daydream of Yasahiro wandering the streets of Paris popped into my head again, and I stopped to add more details to it: the tiny scar through his right eyebrow, the shape of his ears, his white teeth (he must go to a private dentist). The daydream shifted and I imagined him at the dentist’s office, in the chair. No! Back to Paris. Yes, that was better.
“Mei-san?” he asked, breaking into my daydream. “Is that okay? A later lunch? I wouldn’t want you to be hungry all morning.”
“No, that’s fine.” I cleared my thoughts and returned to the restaurant. “Sure. I’ll come tomorrow at 14:00, and I’ll be sure to eat a big breakfast.”
He smiled and left, heading into the kitchen.
I took out my phone again and snapped a few photos of the meal, posting them to Instagram where I had exactly twenty followers, all of whom were old college friends or coworkers I actually got along with. I tagged the food photos with the appropriate hashtags and included the location. Free advertising for Sawayaka! Then I sent them to Akiko, hoping to brighten her day a bit.
Before I could put my phone away, the screen blinked with a new message. “Hi! It’s Kumi. Mom gave me your number. I was wondering if you could come by after your lunch at Sawayaka today?”
“Sure.” I texted back. “How did you know I was at Sawayaka?”
“The whole town knows you’re there for lunch.” She included a sticker of a fat, grey cat eating ramen.
“Omg, really?”
I glanced around the restaurant, and yeah, dozens of people were eyeing me and nodding in my direction. Damned small towns.
“I’m being watched.” I sent a sticker of a panda bear with large eyes.
“Even if the food is horrible, pretend it’s amazing. Our entire town is following your every move. Before Sawayaka, we’d never had a restaurant with a Michelin star. Save face!”
I laughed at my phone. “I’ll be there when I’m done.”
I set my phone down and picked up a green bean with my chopsticks, popping it in my mouth.
Mmmm, still crisp and sweet, like it was plucked from the vine only hours ago, and the ginger and sesame oil lingered on my tongue, balanced and perfect for each other.
I didn’t have to pretend because this was delicious. I dug in and continually glanced towards the kitchen door wondering what to expect for my main course. I couldn’t wait.
Chapter Sixteen
“What did you eat for lunch?” Kumi pounced on me as I walked in the sentō. “We’ve been dying to know.”
“We?” I asked, setting my purse on the newly painted front desk and taking in the changes that had been made in the last week. The space was coming together now.
“Me and about twenty of my friends. Twenty of my single friends who are all jealous of you right now.”
Shame poured over me as I imagined the single women in town being edged out by my non-competition. “It wasn’t a date. I swear.” It would have been a date if he had sat with me. Tomorrow, maybe things would be different. Or they might be as pitiful as they were today. One could never tell.
“Sure, it wasn’t.” She winked at me. “Now, tell me about the lunch.”
I retrieved my phone from my purse, showed her the appetizers, and the spectacular Thai curry he made me for lunch. Paired with the sesame oil and ginger appetizers, the combination melted me into a happy puddle.
“Ohhh,” she breathed out. “I haven’t had that there. I didn’t know he cooked Thai food.” She licked her lips. “Was it fusion?”
I paused for a moment, remembering the flavors from lunch, the heat on my tongue and down my throat. “It was mostly Thai with all local vegetables and shrimp. It was delicious. I hadn’t had Thai food in a long time.”
Kumi’s eyes glazed over, a far off dreamy haze softening them. “I’ve heard he can make just about anything — French, Thai, Ethiopian, Mexican. But for some reason he’s here to learn and recreate traditional Japanese dishes.”
I replayed my meal in my head. The menu consisted mainly of Thai with a smattering of Japanese foods, but it was also his “slow food,” all local and fresh. Why didn’t he feed me traditional dishes if he specialized in them?
“Huh,” I said out loud, belatedly realizing I didn’t say anything else aloud. Kumi narrowed her eyes at me. “Anyway, here’s some photos I took.” I swiped through the ones I had on my phone and she sighed.
“That looks lovely. Are you on Instagram? You really should be if you’re not.”
“Of course I am.” I gave her my username and we followed each other. She squealed when she started swiping through my photos, and I looked through hers. Kumi, obviously a prolific photographer, uploaded at least a photo a day. Her photos included those from around town or in Tokyo, self-portraits or Goro and their house, food, photos of her sketches and designs, and the bathhouse as well. I had no idea she was such a fun-loving girl. Goro was her complete opposite. He’d always struck me as by-the-book, never wavering from rules and regulations. Basically, a model police man. He was made for the job.
“So, I was hoping you’d come by today because —” She sighed. “— I’m dying to know how your bet with my husband is coming along.”
I backed away from her. “If you think you’re going to trip me up so that Goro-chan will win —”
“No!” She jumped forward at me and broke into laughter. “No, the opposite.” She rubbed her hands together, glee coating her face like a thick gloss of honey. “I want to see him run that race in his underwear. It would make my year.”
“Really? But…”
“But what?” She laughed. “You don’t think husbands and wives have their own bets? Because, yes, yes we do. I’ve been trying to get him to run a race for the last two years. He runs twice a week but refuses to commit to a race because he says he doesn’t have time, which is crazy. I think he just doesn’t want to lose or be seen as a loser. He has no idea you can run for the fun of it.”
“Well…” I deflated and sat on the bench near the door. “I’m not sure you’re going to get your wish. I thought I’d be a fantastic detective since I have the time to investigate, and I have the connections, but I’m not getting anywhere at all.”
“What have you done so far?” She sat next to me and turned so her leg was tucked up on the bench between us.
“I went to the town meeting on the land buy-up and Midori Sankaku. The information they gave out is pretty thorough, and I got the feeling they will wait, years if they have to, to get the other land they can’t buy right now.”
Kumi nodded her head. “I’ve heard this as well.”
“So I figured Tajima-san would be a suspect, but he was very sincere, and I just couldn’t imagine him killing Kano-san to get his land.”
“No. It’s not like him at all. He’s been the best mayor this town has ever had, and Goro says he was in budget meetings that whole day. So unless he hired someone to kill Kano-san, he’s not the murderer.”
I recalled Akiko’s house the morning after her father was found dead. Nothing seemed haphazard or out of place, and the police didn’t suspect murder until the autopsy.
“I don’t think anyone was hired to kill Kano-san. The house wasn’t disturbed, and if a stranger had come into the house to kill him, Kano-san would’ve fought and there would’ve been signs of a struggle. Akiko-chan says her father had been sick but was getting better, but not that he was frail or weak or anything. He would have been able to fight.”
“So it must have been someone he knew.” Kumi nodded as she chewed on the skin around her thumbnail.
“What about Fujita Takahara, the division head of Midori Sankaku? Do you know anything about him?”
She pulled her phone from her pocket. “A few things. He’s supposedly the rising star in the company, expanding their reach and increasing profits.” She turned her phone to me so I could see a recent article on him. In the photo, he wore an expensive suit and smiled at the camera. “He’s another sought-after bachelor in this town.”
My skin crawled. “Ugh. I don’t know. He was creepy the other night.”
“Creepy? How?”
“He followed me home! In the dark! I was walking home after the meeting and he pulled up next to me, got out of his car, and started talking to me. It was weird. I almost called Goro-chan.”
She gasped and covered her mouth. “No!”
“Yes. He gave me his business card.” I opened my purse and dug through the contents until I found it. I handed it over to Kumi and she examined it on both sides. What was she looking for? A clue? It would be nice if murderers had their own business cards so we could identify them easily. I imagined a scene where a man dressed in black bludgeoned someone else over the head, laid down his business card, and then walked out the door. Surely detectives would no longer be needed if the world came to that.
“Mei-san,” Kumi interrupted my daydream, “did you call this number and ask questions about where he was the day of the murder?”
“No.” I blinked my eyes a few times, focusing on the situation. “Is that something I should do?”
“Have you learned nothing from crime TV? I’m brushing up on my English by watching American crime dramas online. Goro thinks I’m crazy, but he watches with me. He wants to b
e a detective someday, but there’s training and an exam and everything.”
“I used to pass a school for private detectives in Tokyo every day. I always wanted to go in and see what the place was like.”
Kumi laughed. “Whatever you do, don’t tell Goro that.”
“Okay. Anyway, what should I do?”
Kumi jumped up from the bench and paced back and forth. “I know. Goro said that Takahara was cleared that day because he was in Tokyo at some restaurant opening.” She took out her phone again and searched. “Yes, here he is.” She showed me a photo of him, dressed up again and flashing his prize-winning smile, shaking hands in a new restaurant. “He’s one of the owners. So this is what you do. You call up his office and pretend you found something that belongs to him, like his wallet, and see if his secretary can confirm he was at this opening.”
My heart began to race, but I was a good liar when I needed to be. I could handle this.
I took out my phone and dialed.
“Good afternoon. This is the office of Takahara at Midori Sankaku. How can I help you?” The polite voice on the other end of the line sounded practiced and curt.
“Good afternoon. I’ve been calling around to a dozen Fujita Takaharas for the last week looking for the owner of a wallet I found in Shinjuku on Friday, October the second. Can you tell me if your boss has lost his wallet?”
“Hmmm, I don’t think so. He hasn’t mentioned it to me.”
“Perhaps I’ve got the wrong Takahara again then. This name seems to be common,” I said, giving a little fake laugh.
“Indeed, it may be,” she replied.
“Was your boss in Shinjuku on the second? It was dropped near the Starbucks at Shinjuku Station.”
“Hmmm,” she said, breathing into the phone. “Let me check.” She paused for a moment. “No, I don’t believe he was. He was in meetings at the corporate headquarters in Yokohama all morning, had lunch in Ginza, and then attended a restaurant opening in the late afternoon in Ueno. He then returned to Saitama prefecture for the evening. None of his stops were anywhere near Shinjuku. I remember this day. He was very busy, and he would have said something if he lost his wallet that day.”
The Daydreamer Detective Page 10