“When this is over today, we need to talk,” he whispered, and I lost a liter of blood from my head. My mouth grew dry and my heart raced into a panic. “We need to talk,” are words I never wanted to hear.
He walked away from me, and I pushed down the fear that threatened to break out as tears. Hadn’t I been trusting? Hadn’t I been supportive and kind and…
I sniffed up and took a deep breath. I couldn’t let my doubts carry me away now. I had a job to do.
Letting my anger and frustration propel me through Amanda’s apartment, I focused my attention on various items as I walked through the living space. A crew was dusting down the kitchen, so I stayed away from there. I opened a few cardboard boxes to the right of the leather sofa, and inside were stacks of her new book, the reason she was in Japan in the first place. This was some kind of memoir she wrote about her time growing up outside of New York City, the pressure her mother put her under to be successful, and how she channeled everything into her drive for fame.
I pulled one book from the stack and turned it over to read the text on the back before shuffling through the books and finding the Japanese version instead. Reading English was still difficult for me. It was harder than speaking it. I opened the second box that held copies in Chinese as well. Wow. Most publishers waited to print books in different languages, yet hers had them done at the same time. But when I remembered the websites that followed Amanda and her career, they were all American, French, Chinese, and Japanese, for obvious reasons. I glanced at Yasahiro hovering in the kitchen, but he either wasn’t paying attention to me or he was purposely ignoring me because he didn’t make eye contact.
I decided to get out of sight and headed to the bedroom. Goro was rifling through Amanda’s wardrobe, clothes strewn on every surface from the dresser to the bed to the doors of the closet.
“Wow. You really tore this place apart.” I rested my hands on my hips.
Goro snorted. “Not me. It was like this when I walked in. The woman lived like a pig.”
“No,” I said, disbelief evident in the way I cocked my head. “She struck me as being buttoned-up and rigid.”
“Yeah, well, maybe on the outside.” He gestured to the main room where everything was tidy and neat. She could easily hide the bedroom away from prying eyes. Maybe this was her refuge from the strictness of her life.
“Do me a favor and search the bathroom, okay? There’s someone in there dusting for prints right now.”
The bathroom was big enough for half a dozen people to sit and have dinner in. A woman raised her hand to me as I came in.
“Wait, please, Yamagawa-san.” I stepped back out, and she took a few more pictures before beckoning me in. “Okay. I’m going to sweep in this area for semen and other bodily fluids. You can look through the items on the counter.”
I was too fascinated by her work to search right away. She sprayed down areas with a chemical in a bottle and then shined a black light on it until she found spots that glowed. Then she took out specimen containers and collected samples with cotton swabs. This was the forensic work I had missed on Etsuko’s apartment when I helped search there.
While she examined the stone tile with a magnifying glass, I picked through Amanda’s personal bath items. She, of course, loved all the expensive creams and makeups. The face wash alone was worth 10,000 yen. I took everything out of her zippered bags and lined them up on the counter so they could be photographed.
In another zippered bag, I found her stash of medications. One thing Americans had over the Japanese was their fondness for pharmaceuticals. I had heard from other people who lived in America for a time that TV commercials were absolutely filled with pharmaceutical ads, that people in America took pills for everything. I didn’t believe the exaggeration until I saw what Amanda had. I dumped them out and found eight prescription bottles and a packet of birth control pills.
The names of the medicines confounded me but I recognized two: Ambien and Xanax, or the generic version of those because both names were printed on the bottles. I opened each, and she had a decent supply, enough to last her trip to Asia. The birth control packet had hormone pills to last her another week. She had been due for her period soon.
I set down the packet and closed my eyes, aware that, once again, I’d forgotten to eat lunch, and a headache was closing in. Wasn’t I due for my period soon? My face heated as I skipped back through the weeks in my head. I wasn’t on birth control because, quite frankly, I never had had the need for them before now. Yasahiro and I used condoms.
“What did you find in here?” Goro asked, coming up behind me and scaring me enough to make me jump and drop Amanda’s birth control pills packet into the sink.
“Oops, sorry. Here. I feel guilty even looking at her stuff.” I handed him all her pills, and he made notes of each. “Looks like she has anxiety and sleeping problems.”
“Hmmm, yes, and this one is for depression, too.” He pointed to a bottle I didn’t recognize. “Interesting.”
“Could be she was depressed about work or her love life or a million other things? Then maybe she lost sleep because of the anti-depressants?”
Goro nodded as he opened her makeup bag and dumped out the contents on the sink top. I cringed as the brushes and eye liners rolled off and hit the floor. No respect.
He didn’t find anything there worth noting, but then reached across me for Amanda’s birth control and held it up between two fingers.
“Right. So either she used it to fix hormonal problems, or she had a steady boyfriend.”
“I’m thinking steady boyfriend, Mister Pretty-Pants from the photos at the precinct.”
“Mister Pretty-Pants? He has a name, you know.”
“Of course he has a name, Mei-chan,” he said, scoffing at me. “I just don’t have it memorized yet.” He reached for the last unopened bag on the sink top and pulled out a bunch of small amber-colored bottles. “What are these?” He sounded out the English, “Fu-ra-nu-ken-ssss.”
“Frankincense.” These were words I knew too. “Peppermint.” I read another bottle. “Lavender.”
“Lemon. Some sort of oils?”
“Essential oils. I had a workmate who was into them.” I opened the lavender one and took a deep breath. “I like them, but the few I had ran out when I was broke, so I never bought another one.”
“Did you know she’s into reiki and alternative medicine? Yoga?” Goro waved me back into the bedroom and next to the bed on the floor was an e-ink tablet like mine for reading books. He picked it up and powered it on, and in the library were several books on essential oils, reiki massage, yoga, meditation, healthy eating and dieting, exercise. Her collection was a self-help reader’s dream.
“Huh.” Amanda had been so cut-throat with me, I figured she lived on meals of raw meat. I imagined her sitting down to a steak that was still moving on the plate and felt a little sick. Sometimes my daydreams did not agree with me.
“What did you find?” Yasahiro asked, entering the bedroom. He frowned at the state of the room. I guessed that, in his head, he was calculating how much it would cost to fix the whole place up and sell. A lot, by my measure. I wanted to slip my arm around him and hug him, but he jammed his hands in his pockets and kept his distance.
Crap. I’m about to get dumped.
I sucked in a quick breath through my nose to quell my rising anger, headache, and numerous other things that occurred in my body. The whole situation made me want to throw up my hands and walk out. But the sooner this mess was over, the sooner I could get back my life. Yasahiro would have no reason to break up with me if we solved this mystery.
“Seems she was into alternative medicine and lots of pharmaceuticals too.” Goro gestured to the pill bottles in the bathroom and handed the e-reader to Yasahiro. He paged through the library and shook his head.
“Well, she liked yoga and macrobiotic food when we were together, but…” He waved to the bathroom, and we all focused on the bottles. “That? No.” He
grunted and deflated, his shoulders sinking. “This is such a mess,” he mumbled. “I’m going to wait out on the couch.”
He left before either of us could respond.
“Okay then,” Goro said, rubbing his face. He looked tired, and I wondered how many hours of sleep he had last night.
Kayo passed Yasahiro in the doorway and handed a Prada briefcase to Goro.
“Here’s her computer, but I already checked, and it’s locked.”
“Of course it is. Because nothing would be that simple.”
I stepped back to give Goro space as he tapped his pen against his front teeth and hummed.
“Fine.” He slung the briefcase strap over his shoulder and stuffed his notepad back in his pocket. Opening his phone, he tapped on the screen a few times, while pointing to Kayo and me. “We’re heading back to Chikata. There’s someone I can see. She owes me a favor.”
Chapter Eighteen
We ate sandwiches from a local convenience store and headed back to Chikata.
“Can you drop me at home, please? I have work to do,” Yasahiro asked as we entered the city limits. He spent the entire ride back staring out the window and answering emails on his phone. Not one word to me, not one gesture, or touch. My insides curled up like a cat in the cold.
“Sure,” Goro replied, turning onto his street and pulling up outside his building. One lone reporter had figured out Yasahiro’s address and had set up camp on the sidewalk outside of Oshabe-cha. Or, where Oshabe-cha would be when I eventually opened. I hoped. Suddenly, I doubted everything.
“Just barrel straight past him and don’t look up,” Goro advised, unlocking the car.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, shooting a quick glance at me. “See you later?”
I swallowed, trying to keep my stomach settled. “Yeah, of course. I’ll come by when I’m done.” I flicked a weak smile onto my face, but it didn’t last.
Yasahiro jumped out of the car, his key at the ready, ran past the reporter, opened the door, and slammed it shut before the reporter could even ask a question. Goro peeled away from the curb and eyed me in the rear-view mirror.
“Trouble in paradise, Mei-chan?”
Kayo hit him in the shoulder. “Mind your own business.”
If even Goro could tell something was wrong, I was doomed. He was adept at reading crime scenes but was horrible with handling his friends and their relationships. He would remark on the situation until I broke down into tears, so it was a good thing we had other matters to attend to. Hopefully, this field trip would distract him from picking on me.
We drove out to the northern edge of Chikata, a place I didn’t visit often. I had no friends or clients out here, and all the shops on this side of town were closed. Maybe someday they’d open, just like in the central business district. One could hope.
Goro pulled up to an ancient house, older than my mom’s farmhouse and not as well kept. A few of the dark brown clay shingles on the roof had fallen off and the front porch was in disrepair, but several surveillance cameras were mounted along the outside, both steady and panning side to side. A fence around the property held in a bull terrier, a dog with dark markings and an even darker bark. He jumped at the gate as Goro dialed his phone.
“We’re outside. Can you come get Buttercup?”
“Buttercup?” I mouthed at Kayo, and she shook her head while holding in a laugh.
A large, lumbering woman in her mid-thirties ambled through the front door, her vast size enclosed in a red and yellow flower-printed housecoat.
“Ay! Buttercup!” The dog stopped and turned to her. “Come here, you good dog.”
Buttercup jumped to attention at the sight of raw meat in his owner’s hands. The woman led the dog to the side of the house and an outdoor metal crate where she threw in the meat and Buttercup dove for it.
“Akai-san! Good to see you!” Goro yelled to her. “Can we come in?”
“Sure, sure,” Akai said, gesturing to the front door. “Let me get him some water, and I’ll meet you inside.” Akai dumped out the water from the crate and refilled the bowl at the side faucet.
I followed Goro and Kayo inside the house and was struck by how clean and organized the space was, even if it was absolutely filled with computer equipment. What I could only guess was a server farm occupied the front living room, fans blowing and two air conditioning units keeping the place cool, even though the outside temperature was brisk. In the dining room, a desk was laden with five monitors and several other computers.
“How… How do you even get this kind of power and internet connectivity out here?” I asked, my jaw dropped.
“You bring it in yourself,” Akai said, strolling into the room and heading to the kitchen to wash her hands. She took out a brand new towel to dry them and threw it into a hamper filled to the brim with mostly clean towels. “Buried the fiber all the way to the NOC myself.”
“Knock?” I asked, and she rolled her eyes.
Goro held out his hand. “Don’t get her started. She has her own connection to the prefecture’s largest internet provider, yada yada yada…” He rolled his hand in the air. “That’s why she’s out here on the edge of town.”
“Yeah, that and to stay away from the crazy people.”
“Again, don’t ask,” Goro interrupted me before I opened my mouth.
“So, what can I help you with?” Akai sat in the chair at her desk, and it creaked under her weight. She straightened her keyboard a millimeter and glanced at the video feeds from her surveillance cameras outside while unwrapping a piece of gum and popping it into her mouth. She then folded up the wrapper six times and threw it in the trash.
“I have a computer and phone that need unlocking. I’d have Tokyo do it, but I need the data soon, and they’ll put me through a ton of paperwork just to even get this in their queue.”
“What kind?” She held out her hands and waited for Goro to deliver both to her.
“Great.” She sighed. “Apples. Well, yeah, I can handle them for you. But if it’s a rush job, it’ll cost extra.”
“How much? Remember, you owe me for handling that neighborly problem of yours.” He jerked his head at the street, folding his arms over his chest.
“Okay, I was going to say fifty percent more than my usual fee, but I’ll knock my fee down to ten percent more. Do you need the data parsed?”
“No. Just unlock them for good, and we’ll handle the rest.”
“Fine.”
I watched the negotiation go down like a thirsty woman drinking at a river. This woman, Akai, was just the kind of person I needed. Goro trusted her. She seemed to have computer skills though I had no way of actually testing this without knowing more about computers myself. And she appeared to work for the police department. Goro and his team would do their investigation, but I wanted to do mine, and for that, I needed more information than Google could give me.
“Are you… a website programmer?” I asked, not sure where to even start.
She almost spit out her gum, her laughter was so forceful.
“No, darling. Wow. That’s cute.” Her cheeks glowed a rosy color as her smile brightened. “Is she taken?” Akai winked at me, and I didn’t know whether to be horrified or flattered. Goro completely lost it and doubled over in laughter. I blushed from my toes straight up to my face.
“Sorry,” she said, waving away the laughter. “I was programming websites in my teens, sure, but now I do computer and network security for companies and hacking for the police.” She raised her hands in surrender. “Only for good, only for good.” She winked at me again, and I tried not to squirm. She was just being playful, which was weird from a woman in a housecoat. It wasn’t even the morning, but perhaps she kept odd hours.
Her coffee pot in the kitchen gurgled and the smell of it wafted towards us. Far from making me want some, the scent was off, too burnt or stale? I breathed through my mouth.
“She works for us on a freelance basis.”
“Freelance?” I l
ooked between them all, and repeated, “Freelance.”
Meaning she could work for anyone, not just the police, not just her usual business clients.
“What other kind of ‘freelance’ business do you do?”
Akai’s eyes fell to slits, and she jerked a half smile at me. “What do you need?”
Goro glanced between us twice. “Hey, Kayo-san, let’s go out to the car and get caught up on our next steps.”
Kayo pursed her lips and made eye contact with me. Go, I mouthed at her.
She sighed. “Fine.”
The two exited through the front door, and Akai left her workstation to get coffee. “Want some?”
“No, thank you,” I said, bowing. She made her cup and lazily stirred it in the kitchen, one hip propped up against the kitchen counter. “I… I need help with something, and I think you’re the right person for the job.”
“What’s that, darling?” She slurped up a mouthful of coffee before taking out a brand new rag, wiping down the counter with it, and throwing it into the hamper with all the others. “I’ve seen you around town. Aren’t you dating that hot chef? The one whose ex-girlfriend is all over the news?”
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“Well, yes. We are dating.” I strengthened my statement. I shouldn’t show weakness now. “And yes, Amanda Cheung was killed in town yesterday. That’s her computer and phone you have.”
“Huh,” was all she said.
“Anyway —” I began again, but she cut me off.
“Earlier this year, in January, didn’t you help an older man who broke his hip?” Her gaze intensified as I thought back to Katsu Iwasaki, a short term client I had for only two weeks before he died of his injuries. He had fallen and broken his hip, and I promised his family I would take care of his house while he was in the hospital. I didn’t do much at all for him — just housekeeping — but his family was grateful all the same.
“Yes. He was a nice man. I was sad to see him go.”
The Daydreamer Detective Opens a Tea Shop Page 12