“No.”
“Then stop this. I love you too, and I help the people I love. I don’t just drop them and abandon them when times are tough. And quite frankly, I’m annoyed that you’re doing that to me.”
He gasped. “Mei-chan, I would never…”
“It’s what you just did, so don’t tell me you would never.”
I waited for him to respond, my leg bouncing with pent up energy and anger.
“You’re right. Of course, you’re right.” He let out a long breath. “If this were happening to you, I’d do the same. I’d help you.”
“Why is it so hard for you to let me help you?”
He paused, and I heard a door click in the background. Perhaps he was finding more privacy. “I don’t know.”
But he did know. I could hear it in his voice. He had been the stronger person in relationships, always helping out his girlfriends, until Amanda came along. He wasn’t used to this role, and it hurt his ego.
I didn’t want to hurt him.
I took a deep breath and tempered my voice. “You are a strong and talented person,” I said, stressing all the right words. “You’re kind and helpful, and together, we’re the best kind of team. So let me help now too.”
I wished I was there to see his face. Was he angry? Sad?
“Okay.” It was a meek okay, like it was caught in his throat, but it was what I needed.
“Now, I need to ask you about Giselle and Robert and Amanda.”
I told him about what I found in Amanda’s text messages, and he had the good sense not to ask me where I got the messages from. He probably figured Goro gave them to me, and I didn’t want to tell him how much I paid for the data, anyway.
“So, Robert and Amanda are still sleeping together? Huh.” I heard him humming under his breath while he considered this new information. “I didn’t see that coming, especially with a different boyfriend since she was with me.”
“I know. I found it surprising too. What do you think Giselle would do if she found out?”
“Well, she did once tell Robert she’d kill him if Amanda ever came between them again.”
I could imagine that. When lovers fought, and tensions were high, there was always someone in a relationship willing to commit violence to subdue the other person.
“And Robert did once say he would be better off if Giselle were dead. They have no prenup.”
I stared at the open text files on my computer. Giselle’s correspondence with Amanda was right next to her husband’s. I saw a triangle of egotistical and conniving people.
“So either one of them could have done it?”
“Could have killed Amanda? No. Well, I don’t know. I could believe either of them would kill the other, not Amanda.” He sounded frustrated. “You think you know a person, right? You go out to dinner with them, vacation with them, go into business with them. But then something like this happens, and it makes you question everything.”
I bit my lip, remembering how I questioned him when the police first held him. I didn’t believe he would kill her, and talking to him, I believed it even less. What could Amanda’s parents possibly have to say about Yasahiro to keep him in the list of suspects?
“Well, I guess I’ll have to consider them both as suspects.”
Yasahiro laughed. “Mei-chan, how long is your list so far?”
I smiled, comforted by the change in his tone. “Let’s see, so far, I had Giselle, Robert, and Shōta Kimura, her ex-boyfriend.”
“And me?”
“Nope. I know you didn’t do it.”
“At least someone believes in me.”
I scrolled through more of the data Akai gave me as I sat with Yasahiro silent on the other end of the phone. I wanted to keep him there because it felt like he was sitting with me, next to me, like we were just hanging out on his couch.
Then I found another text message that didn’t line up with a contact in Amanda’s address book.
“Shōta wants to know when you’ll be done with your book signing. He’d like to see you.”
Amanda texted, “Who is this?”
“It’s Hiroshi.”
“I told you to stop contacting me. It’s weird. Just have Shōta text me himself.”
“He’s busy. That’s why he has me.” “Time?”
“I’m busy after the book signing. Tell him. He’ll have to see me some other time.”
I stared at Amanda’s texts. She told Hiroshi to stop contacting her? Why?
“Yasa-kun, I have to go. Lots of reading and searching to do.”
“Of course. I…”
“What?”
“I was going to say that I hope to see you soon, but I have no idea what to expect from the next few days.”
“Me neither. But I will see you soon.”
We said goodbye to each other, and I set my phone aside.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember every detail of my brief chat with Hiroshi while Shōta spoke with Kayo in the food tent. He was nervous and upset about Shōta’s privacy, something I felt was a little out of the ordinary for a colleague or assistant.
I returned to the root of the thumb drive and found the download of Amanda’s camera roll from her phone. I dragged the folder to the image viewer app on my computer and paged backwards through her photos. The very last photo she took was the night of her book signing, one of her, Giselle, and Robert together at a rooftop beer garden in Tokyo. They were all dressed in coats and scarves because it’d been chilly that night, and portable heaters surrounded the tables. Amanda had held up the phone and snapped about a dozen photos of them all together.
Before that photo, there were more from her book launch party — piles of her books set up in Kinokuniya, Amanda with her fans? Maybe? I didn’t know any of these people. Someone had grabbed her phone at some point and taken photos of her signing books and other people gathered around drinking and laughing.
I scrolled back even further, before the book signing, and found photos of her with Shōta. They were all self-portrait photos taken at arms’ length, both of them looking happy together. It could have all been for show, though. How was I supposed to know?
Her photos stopped around the six-month mark. She may have deleted earlier ones or archived them off her phone and computer because I couldn’t find any more.
What now?
I took a deep breath and moved onto the email folder, even though my eyes hurt and my head was beginning to pound, making me feel sick. I didn’t want to go in search of food, though, because my appearance would only lead to questions about what I was doing.
I paused, my grip on my computer tightening as I heard gravel crunch in the driveway. Somebody was driving up to the house. What I was doing wasn’t strictly legal, so I closed my open applications and shut the computer, jumping off the bed and shoving my computer underneath. The doorbell rang, and Mom spoke to someone in the other room, someone with a low voice. Was that Goro?
“She’s in her room,” Mom said, her voice loud enough so I could hear. I began to panic, my heart leaping into my throat and my eyes darting about the room, wondering if I needed to hide anything else.
“Mei-chan? Can I come in?” It was Goro.
I sighed, relaxing a little. He was a police officer, but he was also my friend. And I hadn’t done anything to get myself arrested… Again.
I slid open the door for him, and I was surprised to find he wore regular clothes.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, taking in his weary expression.
“Not exactly. I’m off the case.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Goro barreled into my room before pausing to look around. It was the first time he’d ever been in my personal space. Before this, we’d always met out and about in town or at Yasahiro’s place.
“Uh, sorry. I should’ve asked before coming in.”
I smiled at him and gestured to the chair at the desk. “Please sit. You’re welcome here.”
“I’m too
annoyed to sit,” he said, sighing and glancing at the photo of Yasahiro on my dresser. “Is this from when the two of you went to that onsen over the holidays?”
“Yeah,” I said, picking up my empty teacup from the floor and setting it on the desk behind him. Thankfully, my room was not in its usual shabby state.
“I remember when you came back from that vacation. Something had changed with Yasa-kun. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he was different. He talked about you more often and said things that made me feel like he would stick around here for the rest of his life. This whole situation is such a mess.”
My scalp crawled with tingles. Goro’s face was ashen, his eyes rimmed in red.
“What happened?”
I tensed my body, preparing for the worst.
“I’m off the case because I just don’t believe Yasa-kun would kill Amanda. He was done with her. He was moving on.” Goro laughed and shook his head. “He had moved so far on that he might as well have been on Mars. Even Amanda coming back and threatening to take everything away from him wouldn’t have been enough for him to kill her.”
He pulled out the chair at the desk and sat down.
“The forensics team spent all day going through his email. They must’ve found something because they kicked me and Kayo off the case and sent an officer to his apartment to get him.”
“But…” I sank to my knees on my bed. “I just spoke to him thirty minutes ago.” I imagined him hanging up the phone and the officers arriving to arrest him not long after. My heart broke into a thousand pieces. I told him I’d stand by him and help him, and he was probably in jail. “You don’t know anything?”
“Well…” He glanced away, not making eye contact.
“What?” I growled at him.
“They found missing money.”
“Missing money? What kind of missing money?” What was really missing was my complete understanding of this situation. I’d never been so cut off from everyone and everything. Without Goro here, I’d be clueless.
“About two months ago, Yasa-kun withdrew about $15,000US and the forensic accountants have no idea where it went. His lawyer knows nothing either.”
“What does Yasa-kun say about it?” I swallowed, my stomach wanting to refuse all its contents. Missing money? How, what? My brain tripped over the information.
“I have no idea. They hadn’t questioned him again about it, but you know how it goes.” He waved his hand in a circle. “The wheels started turning and everyone was coming up with reasons for the missing money. Like he hired someone to kill Amanda, or he laundered the money or owed it to the mob, or…” He rubbed his face, his eyes tired and sad. “I couldn’t believe the things they said about him, and he’s my friend, too!”
If the earth had opened right then and swallowed me whole, I would not have been surprised. I was incapable of surprise anymore. My life had plummeted straight into a deep, bottomless canyon.
“And they let Robert go as well.”
“What?” My voice squeaked. “He’s a suspect! And a plausible suspect, too.”
Goro squeezed both of my shoulders. “Mei-chan, don’t get hysterical on me.”
“I’m not hysterical!” My voice rose and cracked, and I stepped away from my own body to take a look at myself. I was sure my face was pale and wan. I hadn’t been feeling well, and eating was the last thing I always wanted to do. I’d lost sleep the past few days too, tossing and turning in my bed and waking up with sore hips and shoulders.
I shut my eyes and sucked in a shaky breath.
“I’m only a little hysterical.” My hand shook as I dragged my fingers through my hair. This couldn’t be happening.
Goro released my shoulders and glanced around my room again before returning to the chair.
“We believe Robert was in Tokyo when she was killed. Several witnesses saw him in the morning at that restaurant you went to, the one that just opened. We’re doublechecking it because the times are off. Kayo spoke to the owner, Morinaga, and he said he wasn’t there for most of the day, so he couldn’t vouch for Robert. Anyway, the Tokyo Police confiscated his passport and have someone watching him back in Shinjuku. The chief doesn’t believe he killed Amanda, but maybe his wife, Giselle, did. They’re hoping that if he’s free, Giselle will try to contact him. It’s a plan, just not a very good one.”
“He had plenty of reasons to kill her.” I could barely breathe. “For interfering with his marriage, maybe to get her share of Yasa-kun’s businesses, maybe just to hurt her. We have no idea what kind of man he is. Maybe he even proposed to Amanda, saying he was divorcing Giselle for her, and she turned him down!”
I imagined Robert pulling up in a high-end black car to Yasahiro’s apartment, picking up Amanda, and taking her out of town, only to be jilted by her and kill her. In my head, he was either angry with her, desperate to make things right again with his family, Giselle, and perhaps his businesses too, or he was in love with her and she wasn’t with him. Either would’ve fit.
“I argued with my boss and everyone else,” Goro said, shaking his head again. “I shouldn’t have fought with them or I’d still be on the case. I tried to tell them that something that happened in the past would have little impact on what was happening now. Yasahiro has a good life. He didn’t blame Amanda for anything now, even if he did years ago.”
“What? What did he blame her for?”
I could feel a huge shift in the investigation, and my mind shifted with it. He hadn’t broken up with her because she cheated on him. This might’ve been one of the reasons, but it wasn’t the only reason. Something else was lurking below the surface, just out of reach. I needed to continue digging for clues, and I was sitting right on top of the evidence, literally. My computer was right underneath me.
“I don’t know, but I know how we can find out.” Goro pulled his phone from his pocket, quickly dashed off a text message, and set it on my desk. “Kumi says hi, and she’s also telling us to get to work. You have the data from Akai, right? I brought my computer. It’s in the other room.” He waved to the front of the house. “Hey, who are those people in your front room?”
I laughed, breaking the tension in my shoulders. “Remember how I saw a boy yesterday? They were living in the woods, and he was… borrowing our things. We caught them out there cooking.”
“Borrowing? I believe you mean stealing.” He cocked an eyebrow at me, and I waved him off.
“They’re from Kumamoto. They lost their apartment in the earthquake and were trying to drive to Hokkaido. Mom’s going to help them get to an aunt’s house north of here.”
Goro shook his head, but his lips jerked in a smile. “You know what they say about you and your mom in town, right? ‘Those Yamagawas have the purest of hearts.’” He stood up and slapped his knees. “I hope no one ever takes too much advantage of that.”
It was now a race against the clock. Assuming the police had come for Yasahiro and took him into custody, I figured I had a day, maybe less, before they started talking about his involvement to the media. Once they did that, it would be impossible for Yasahiro to regain his good name. He would leave and that would be the end of us. Before then, though, he was just an “person of interest.” He was someone who could help. I had to believe Goro and I would uncover something to set him free.
I gave Goro a digital copy of Amanda’s book and he sat at my desk reading it on his computer. I camped on the bed once again, this time to go through Amanda’s email.
In the email folder was one file from Akai.
“Here’s the URL, username and password for Amanda’s email. I do this for all of my clients. It’s a secure database with a webmail interface that’ll allow you to search all the email I found. It’s not able to send and receive, just an archive.”
Brilliant! This would make it so much easier. Thank you, Akai! I would have to find some way of thanking her for her hard work on this. Maybe some treats for her and Buttercup.
I copied the URL to my brows
er, typed in the username and password, and combed through Amanda’s email. Immediately, several emails jumped right out at me, sent last week, titled “While you’re in town.”
The first was from Hiroshi, Shōta’s “assistant.” I didn’t really know if he was Shōta’s assistant, but I was willing to give him the title until I knew more.
“Mr. Kimura requests you contact him so he can schedule time to see you while you’re in Tokyo next week. Please either respond to this email or text me back. Hiroshi Ota.”
Simple and to the point. I re-read the email and detected no hostility from Hiroshi, but maybe he had been hostile in the past. He must have done something to deserve that text from Amanda, right? She told him to stop contacting her.
I dug deeper, searching the email for more messages from him. When the results came up, my stomach flipped over, a new wave of nausea rolling over me. I saw words like “in love with you” and “we shouldn’t have done it” and “that night in the woods.” I cursed, letting the sound lurch from my lips.
“Goro-chan, you have to see this.”
He clicked on a few things on his computer and came over to sit next to me. I gave him the computer, and he began reading, his eyes widening over several minutes as he went through the email chains.
He blew out a long breath and got up to pace.
“So, let me get this straight. Amanda, Shōta Kimura, and this friend of his, Hiroshi, were all involved in some sexual relationship together, and then it turned out Shōta and Hiroshi preferred each other and left her out?”
I pressed my cold fingers to my blushing cheeks. Hearing it out loud was almost worse than reading it. “It does look that way. And Hiroshi was trying to get Amanda to break things off with Shōta and leave them alone.”
“Well, if he had let her be, she might’ve moved on,” Goro said, pacing to my door and back.
“That’s not really Amanda’s style. Losing Yasa-kun was a hit to her ego. Losing Shōta as well would make her insane with rage. She liked to work someone for everything they were worth. Shōta’s family is wealthy. She may have blackmailed him. He did say she mentioned something in her book about them.”
The Daydreamer Detective Opens a Tea Shop Page 17