The Daydreamer Detective Braves the Winter

by S. J. Pajonas

  I pressed my face to the glass of the door and looked around. Every day I wondered if his yakuza mob pals were going to come back and finish the job. Would they burn down the house? Would they kill me, Mom, Akiko? Or would they just leave us alone because they only blamed Tama for owing them money? He had racked up enough debt with them to kill his own father in an effort to inherit the land, sell it, and steal away with Haruka. Only, I got in the way and stoked his jealousy into a murderous rage. At least Haruka was safe, even if I never liked her much. She was so embarrassed by everything that happened, she flew straight out for California the very next week to live with an aunt and find work in the U.S. I couldn’t blame her. Her parents were trying to sell their hair salon. They wanted to retire to Okinawa and be done with the whole mess.

  I took another sip of coffee, vowed to ask Yasahiro for sugar packets, and joined Mom in the living room. Slipping my legs under the kotatsu, I sighed in relief. Heat. Finally.

  “So tell me more about the deli job at Midori Sankaku,” I said, picking up my bowl of egg and rice. Midori Sankaku was the new grocery store in town, and they had bought up abandoned land across the street so they could build a giant greenhouse to supply their stores here and in Tokyo.

  “They need an interim supervisor while their current supervisor is on maternity leave. She lives in Aichi prefecture, and they’re going to move her here in the spring, which is perfect because I hope to be planting the fields in spring. The deli job will be hard, though.” She stopped talking to eat and then massage her fingers. “I’ll be in charge of thirty people, and we’ll make stewed dishes, sushi, pasta, and several other things to sell in the store. I’ll have to leave the house Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday mornings at three in the morning.”

  “Mom, that’s so early!”

  “I know, Mei-chan, but it pays well, and I’ll be home every day by 11:00. I can take a nap and then be ready to do work again in the afternoon. Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I don’t have to be at the school until seven. In a few weeks, we should be fine again.”

  I stabbed at the rice in my bowl, even though I knew it was rude to do so. “I wish I had more marketable skills. Why didn’t I get your gene for cooking?”

  Mom hummed as she set down her bowl and picked up her teacup. “I think, if you hadn’t fallen into that fire as a kid, you would have been braver about cooking. But you saw me flambé cheese once and nearly passed out. And then there was the time you set fire to the wooden spoon…” Mom shook her head, and I rearranged myself in my skin, remembering being burned the first time when I was eight and then a month ago in the barn fire. I acquired a new scar on my arm, new burn marks on my back to go with the old ones, and I was told I can’t run again until spring due to the smoke I inhaled.

  “Anyway, I’ve had an idea, and I want you to hear me out on it.” She cleared her throat, and I shivered in the cold. “I tried to get you a job at Midori Sankaku, but all the positions had been filled months ago. I’m sorry. It was a lucky break the deli manager got pregnant and had to take leave otherwise she would have moved here during the summer. So, I want you to go to Akiko-chan and ask her to help you.”

  Mom practically growled out Akiko’s name, and I couldn’t blame her. Ever since Akiko had confessed that she knew Tama was trying to kill their father, and she did nothing about it, I’d avoided her. Mom avoided her. I told Akiko I forgave her while the barn burned around us, but after she got home from the hospital, I kept our communication to a minimum. In my head, I still called her my best friend, but with Kumi in my texts twenty-four hours a day and gossiping with me every time I came to the bathhouse, she was edging Akiko out.

  Besides, I still wanted Akiko to be my best friend. I just needed to put some distance between us until everything healed. That and if the town ever found out Tama burned our barn down, she’d be ruined. It was best if I stayed away. The police kept the circumstances of Tama’s arrest quiet, and I wanted to honor that.

  “What could Akiko-chan possibly help me with? I’m not a nurse.”

  “Maybe she knows of some work you can pick up? She has an eye on the community that we don’t,” Mom said with a definitive head nod, then lowered her voice, “and she’s damned lucky to have that after all that happened.”

  I picked up my bowl and finished off breakfast. Going to Akiko was the very last thing I wanted to do. Her brother tried to kill me. I nearly died too because of her actions. But she returned to work with no issues because, in the end, she was a victim just like me. Only Mom and I knew the truth. We never told the police about Akiko’s culpability. If anything, Akiko owed me, but it wasn’t a debt I was likely to collect on. That was just not the kind of person I was.

  I was broke, hungry, and unemployed. Someone came out of this deal in great shape, and it wasn’t me. I’d be even worse off if I had to go begging to Akiko to get work because that would be the end of the small amount of pride I had left.

  “Maybe,” I conceded, but I didn’t say anything more. I wanted to save that for the last resort.

  “And another thing.” She reached over and covered my hand with hers. “Please don’t bring Yasahiro-san here. We can’t let him know how bad things are.”

  “Really?” I deflated in disappointment. “I was hoping he’d help us out if I told him. I trust him, Mom. I don’t think he’d gossip about us to anyone.” There was a time when I wasn’t sure if I could trust him, but now I felt much closer to him and able to open up about things.

  “No.” Mom was adamant. “Absolutely not. You can tell him our budget is low for food, but that’s it.”

  “That’s it? I’m not going to be able to cover up not having phone service.”

  “Try, Mei-chan.” Mom’s voice edged on begging, and guilt blanketed me from head to toe. She didn’t want to show how desperate we were. I understood, but I was weak and needed things like heat and food. I frowned and covered it up by sipping on my coffee. “Today’s my last day off until next Sunday, and it’s going to be cold tonight. I was thinking we should heat up the water bottles every night and start sleeping together. It’ll keep us warm until this cold snap has passed.”

  I closed my eyes and held in a sigh. I hadn’t slept with my mom since I was a kid. But I also hadn’t slept without heat since then either. We’d had a few rough winters and slept together as a family, Mom, my brother, Hirata, and me, all curled up against the frost. This was not how I wanted to live.

  “Of course. I’ll bring my pillow and blanket to your room.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart.” She patted my hand. “I’m glad you’re home.”

  But I had to wonder if she really was. If I hadn’t lost my job and come home, Tama would never have targeted me, burned down the barn, and led us into destitution.

  If anything, my being home was a curse.

  I walked into town and caught the bus to Kutsuro Matsu, Chiyo’s bathhouse. I didn’t take the bus often, but with Mom using her car to run errands and go to work, this meant I was on my own. Plus, I knew she was trying to save on gas, and it wasn’t like I had any money to fill up the tank. Gas was a big expense, so I couldn’t drop her off and take the car on my own. I had 2,000 yen on a PASMO card I could use for transportation which I bought before I lost my job and found a month ago when I cleaned my room. I’d almost bought sweets from the convenience store with it. Almost. I was glad I saved it for the bus, though, because the daytime temperature was a balmy two degrees, and I wasn’t going to walk to the bathhouse in this weather.

  Kumi, Chiyo’s daughter-in-law, married to her son, Goro, my local policeman connection, cheered when I walk in the door. She was always so cheerful and eager to hear from me. This was why she’d become my best friend.

  “Mei-chan! Oh good. I was hoping you’d come. That was a great night last night, wasn’t it? I love that we can all hang out together now. How are you?”

  “I’m freezing,” I said, and my teeth chattered to illustrate the point. “I haven’t been warm since sev
en. It took all my willpower to get out of bed.”

  Kumi took my coat and hung it up in the office with hers. “Did you get my text this morning?”

  I pulled my phone from my purse and swiped it on. Nothing. No bars. “No. Mom canceled our phones and internet.” I sighed and switched to WiFi to find the bathhouse’s internal network. It was protected, of course. Not many people at the bathhouse needed internet access. “Can I have access to your WiFi, please?” I steepled my hands in front of my face. “I promise not to stay on too long.”

  “Of course. And stay on as long as you like. Why did your mom cancel the phones and internet? That sounds like suicide to me.” She handed me a slip of paper with a password on it. I typed it in and logged onto the network.

  “It’s social suicide for sure. I’m glad we switched to texting with Line.” Kumi’s last message popped up, “Are you coming today? Mom wants to talk about the new painting.” Another message popped up from Yasahiro, “I hope to see you at lunch today.” He included a stamp of a puppy squeezing a heart. He’d admitted that he hated using the stamps in conversation, so seeing one so sappy attached to a message made me laugh. He was obviously doing it to make me smile.

  I sighed as I slipped my phone back into my bag. “Mom had to cancel the phone and internet because we’re broke. I also have to cut back on the heat and eating.” I wasn’t sure how much less eating I could do, but I’d have to try. Like a car coming to a screeching halt, my brain caught up with my mouth, and I realized I’d just blabbed to Kumi about our situation, even though Mom wanted to keep it quiet. My face paled, all the blood draining from it.

  Kumi gasped, placing her hand over her mouth, and I panicked, my heart beating at a swift pace.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” I whispered, waving my hands at her. “I swear, if Mom finds out I told you, she’ll be so upset. You know her reputation is at stake.”

  Kumi’s eyes darted to the office door. I turned slowly, dreading whom I’d find there.

  “What is this?” Chiyo asked, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Nothing.” I grabbed my bag. “I’m going to get cleaned up.” I tried to brush past both women and make it into the women’s room without another word.

  “Stop, Mei-chan.” Chiyo never raised her voice, but she didn’t have to. I halted and kept the tears in my head where they belonged. If I started crying, my blood sugar would drop, and I wouldn’t last to lunchtime with Yasahiro. And I had to, had to, put on a brave face for him. “Is everything okay with you and your mother?”

  “Everything’s fine.” I glared pointedly at Kumi, and she pressed her lips together. “Mom has a new job, and we’re waiting on the insurance money for the barn. Things will be perfect in a few weeks.”

  More like months, but who was counting?

  Chiyo came forward and placed her warm hands on my freezing arms. She was a small woman, short and compact, with glistening black hair and a warm smile. You would never guess she was in her fifties. She barely looked a day over forty.

  “How are you handling things since the fire?”

  I blinked, momentarily confused. I guessed she didn’t hear what I said about us being broke and needing to cut back.

  “Oh, that.” I huffed a short breath. “That I’m fine with. I still have nightmares about dying in that fire, or Tama coming back to kill me, but that I’m okay with.”

  “Are you sure?” Her earnest behavior softened me.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” I said softly, patting her hand to reassure her.

  “I wanted to talk about the painting for the men’s side of the bathhouse. We had talked about you painting a pine forest?”

  My neck slicked with sweat. I flashed back to being in the barn, tied to the loft’s pole, and listening to Tama destroy my paintings and supplies in the space above me. I’d analyzed that moment a million times since. I knew he hated me and my paintings, so why had he destroyed them before he set fire to the place? I had one kernel of truth, that maybe he had actually believed I was a good painter and was jealous. But I couldn’t believe that. Everyone said my painting style was amateurish and horrible.

  “Chiyo-san, I would love to paint for you. I really would. But everything was destroyed when the barn went up in flames. You know that. I lost thousands of yen worth of art supplies. I would need to buy canvases, new paints, a palette, an easel, brushes…” I waved my hands in the air. “I just don’t have the cash to start up again.”

  She and Kumi exchanged a nod.

  “Well, Kumi-chan, Goro-chan, and I want to help you guys out. We’ve been pooling our money—”

  “No,” I said, stepping away from her. “I can’t take money from you guys. You’re already so generous letting us come here for free, and I know you’ve been treating Mom to dinner.”

  She closed the distance I put between us. “It would be a loan until you get the money from the insurance company. It would be enough to start painting again.”

  It was so tempting. A part of me died when Tama destroyed my studio. I didn’t realize how excited I was to start painting after having been away from my brushes for so long. And between the prodding of Chiyo and Yasahiro, I had been looking forward to reviving this part of my life.

  But it all died in a blaze of condemnation.

  A soft mist of depression fell on me. “Where would I even paint? We have no room for it in the house, and it’s too cold in there to paint with acrylics. I’d have to switch to oils.”

  Chiyo narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you mean it’s too cold? You can just use space heaters. That’s what you did in the barn.”

  I remembered Tama sidling around the space heater in the loft the day he came to threaten me. He had been planning to kill me days before he actually attempted it. Premeditated. My body chilled a few degrees more.

  I looked to Kumi and pleaded for her intervention.

  “Mom,” she said, and it always surprised me that she called Chiyo “Mom,” but I guessed that was what happened when you married. “Let’s let Mei-chan relax, okay?” She gestured to me. “There are only two other people in the bath right now. You should be fine in there.”

  She was referring to my burn scars, which she understood I liked to keep to myself, if possible.

  I shrugged my shoulders at Chiyo. “I’ll think about it.” I bowed to her to cover up my shame. “Thank you for offering.”

  By putting Chiyo behind me and a wall between us, I hoped to immediately move on from the stress of that conversation. With every moment I spoke, I was dangerously close to revealing the circumstances at home and how rattled I still was from the barn fire. I took a deep breath and crushed myself into the corner of the locker area. One foot in front of the other, Mei.

  It was hard to bathe myself with other people around. I wanted to hide the scars on my back, and the new one on my shoulder, but that meant showing off my breasts instead, so I bathed on the other side of the station’s partition from the ladies that were already lounging in the tubs. They were talking and not paying attention to me anyway, so I was able to slip into the bath without catching their notice. I sat back in the pool and turned my face up to my landscape on the wall. This painting of Mount Fuji took me a few months to paint, and then I hid it away in the barn for years after that. It was one of the last oil paintings I ever did. After that, I wanted my paintings to be edgier, brighter, and crisper, so I switched to acrylics. But I’d never finished anything with acrylics. I had started a million projects that I abandoned not long after.

  Following the lines of Fuji-san, down the slope and into the forest and lake, I remembered how calming it was to paint oil landscapes. Maybe it was a good thing Tama destroyed my studio? Maybe I should switch?

  Regardless, I couldn’t take Chiyo’s money. She had just bought and renovated this bathhouse and taking her money would mean having to admit the situation we were in. I promised Mom I’d keep my mouth shut, and I was going to have to work hard to do that. She was my only lifeline now.

>   Chapter Three

  I managed to leave the bathhouse without running into Chiyo again and took the bus back towards home, stopping at Sawayaka for lunch. By the time I stepped up to the restaurant’s door, my stomach was trying to eat itself. I thought cutting back on food would eventually make me less hungry. Instead, my body was in revolt, and my blood sugar was so low at 14:00, I had a piercing headache behind my right eye.

  I squinted against the pain, coming into Sawayaka and saying hello to Ana, the hostess.

  “It’s good to see you,” Ana said, giving me a hug and squeezing my shoulders. Her eyes focused on my face for a brief moment before she moved on. She was probably noticing my headache. When I got one, I wore the pain all over my face, between my scrunched eyes, sunken cheeks, and flat mouth. “It’s so late! I bet you’re hungry?”

  “I am, and Yasahiro-san likes when I come at the end of lunch, so I was biding my time.”

  “Of course,” she said, ushering me to my usual table near the back. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  I sank into my chair and rested my head in my hands, closing my eyes against the light of midday. I was glad I waited to come in because there was no one here to witness my slow decline. Pressing the heel of my hand into my right eye, I breathed deep into the pain and waited for it to abate. After lunch, I hoped Yasahiro would let me hang out in the main area. I even brought a book. But I had to get through lunch first.

  “Headache?” Yasahiro’s voice interrupted my brain-calming ritual. I pulled away from the dark of my hands and squinted up at him. “Mei-chan, you’ve been getting headaches so often lately. I’m getting worried about you.”

  Concern flattened his features, the tiny scar in his eyebrow straightening as he relaxed his eyes and peered down at me. But I loved it. I loved his concern for me. He’d only known me for a short time, and he could already read me. He genuinely cared.