“No. I went to high school in Kawagoe, but my best friend at the time went to your high school. Maybe you remember her? Ria Fukuda?”
I fumbled and dropped the teacup I was washing and blew out a relieved breath that it was undamaged. “Do I remember her? I think the whole town remembers her.”
Ria Fukuda was Chikata’s biggest mystery. Forget the deaths of Akiko’s father or Etsuko or Amanda. The disappearance of Ria plagued our town for many years. One day, she had been laughing and playing with her friends at a town festival. The next morning she was gone. No note. No indication that she was unhappy and had run away. Nothing. The search went on for weeks, and her parents pleaded with town residents endlessly for help. They never gave up on her, even when all her friends had moved on to college and their adult lives. Even when their younger sisters and brothers had done the same.
“She was my best friend from birth. We were inseparable until senior high school when we went different ways.” Akai’s eyes were unfocused and distant, her memories diving back to over a decade ago. “After her mother died, I started visiting two, sometimes three, days a week with her father. You know, helping him with everyday stuff like this.” She lifted her dry teacup and placed it on the shelf. “He never recovered from her disappearance, always waiting at the window, looking outside, hopeful she would return. It broke my heart, but there was nothing I could do for him besides making his home life more comfortable.”
“That’s so sad. I remember her being such a fun girl.” I soaped up another dish as I traveled back in time, to the fields behind Akiko’s house, where we played with her brother, Tama, and his friends, including Ria. Akiko and I had both looked up to her. Ria was pretty and smart, and she had both male and female friends. Her personality was open and welcoming, which was why so many people were affected by her disappearance. “But I haven’t thought about her in years. I always figured she had run away.”
“Yeah, everyone suspected the same. But I knew her well enough to believe differently. She loved her parents, and she wanted to make them proud. She was excited to go to college. Wanted to be a teacher.” Akai chuckled, shaking her head. “She loved kids.”
I smiled as I remembered how Ria had always spent time with us even though the older kids found the little kids annoying.
“Anyway, her father got lung cancer a few years ago. He’d picked up chain-smoking after Ria went missing, and it burned him from the inside out.” Akai grimaced, her lip curled in an angry S. “Ria had no brothers or sisters, and her parents had no family left, so her dad left everything to me in his will.”
I raised my eyebrows at her as I washed the last teacup.
Akai sighed, her shoulders dropping. “It’s not as great as you think. The man was a hoarder, and now I have a fire hazard of a house on my hands, and contracts for network security work are piling up on my desk. I want to get the place cleaned out and on the market before the end of the year, but I don’t think I can do it myself.” Her voice quavered, and my heart constricted. Akai wasn’t one to show emotion, and here she was talking to me about them.
I snapped off my dishwashing gloves and placed a hand on her upper arm. “It sounds really stressful.”
My security system beeped, and I tore my attention from Akai to look at the computer monitor. I could only see the top of his head, but I knew Yasahiro anywhere. He had a bag in his hand, and his other was unlocking the front door.
Akai sniffed up and dabbed at her eyes with the wet dishtowel. “It looks like your man is here.”
I guffawed a snorting laugh. “Yes, my man.” I wiggled my ring finger at her and rolled my eyes. “Is that how we’re referring to husbands nowadays?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, maybe not everyone.”
“Fuji-ko! I brought dinner!” Yasahiro called from the front room.
“Fuji-ko?” Akai whispered, but I waved her off.
“It’s a long story,” I whispered back. “We’re in the kitchen,” I said, raising my voice.
“Oh, hello, Akai-san,” he said, ducking under the curtains over the door and smiling at us both with a bow. “I didn’t know anyone was here.”
“It’s all right.” Akai bowed and put away the dish towel. “I was just leaving.”
“No. Stay. I brought more than enough food for all of us. And if Mei-chan is still hungry later, I’ll be hoofing it to the convenience store for ice cream, anyway.” He chuckled while I narrowed my eyes at him.
The flash of annoyance dissolved quickly though. I couldn’t be mad at him. The summer had gone well for Yasahiro. Sawayaka, his slow-food, traditional Japanese cuisine restaurant, was booked until the New Year, the tea shop usually sold out of his bento boxes, and now his kitchen could run itself. Of course, he was still there all the time because so many people came to see him, not the restaurant. He probably posed for a hundred pictures and selfies a day.
I watched him as he stood in the cool breeze from the air conditioning, remembering that we were married now, still newlyweds in the eyes of everyone around us. His hair had grown longer, and he was wearing his glasses more often. Contacts weren’t comfortable in dry, tired eyes, unfortunately. Nights were difficult for me. I had to use the bathroom pretty much every hour and stretch my aching hips, so he wasn’t getting a lot of sleep either.
“If you’re sure…?” Akai interrupted my train of thought that had left the station and was cruising towards dreamland.
“I’m sure,” Yasahiro said. He lifted the bag and jerked his head toward the front room. “I’ll go set up for dinner.”
Akai and I grabbed clean chopsticks, plates, and glasses of water and joined him at one of the tables.
“Would you mind pulling down the shutters?” I asked Yasahiro before he sat down. “I don’t want people to think we’re open.”
I opened the plastic containers and laid out dinner across the table. Rice, seaweed, pickles, grilled salmon, shredded chicken with spicy cabbage (Yasahiro was into Korean cuisine lately), sweet potato and shrimp tempura… the selection went on and on.
“Wow. You guys do it up when it’s just the two of you,” Akai said, her eyes widening as more food appeared from the bottom of the bag. “Do you always eat like this?”
Yasahiro handed out bowls and sat across from us. “We try to, but now that Mei-chan is pregnant, she’s reverted to some of her old ways. Ramen from the convenience store has usurped my own cooking some days.”
He handed a bowl of rice to Akai and invited her to help herself to anything on the table. My mouth watered, thinking of salty, oily ramen noodles. Ever since the nausea of the first trimester had passed, I craved all types of food I hadn’t thought about in forever, mostly, to Yasahiro’s dismay, total junk food. But whatever. The doctor had said I was in perfect health. For once, I received the good news I felt I had deserved after going through hell right before.
“We all know it’s a miracle I like any of this food.”
We said the ritual prayer before the meal and dug into Yasahiro’s amazing cooking. Akai hummed her agreement after eating a few pickles and rice.
“So what brings you to Oshabe-cha, Akai-san?” Yasahiro asked, and I jumped as I realized he had no idea what we had been talking about before he showed up.
I quickly filled him in on Akai’s situation. “And now she has this house to care for.”
“Well, that’s not the real problem,” Akai said, through a mouthful of salmon. I dipped my tempura in sauce and popped it in my mouth. I’d have to stop eating soon. Once the baby started to grow and overtake my body, my stomach shrank to half its size. I had to eat smaller meals more frequently.
“They never found your friend?” Yasahiro asked, setting his chopsticks down and sipping on water.
“No. She never returned, never showed up dead, nothing.” Akai shrugged. “Just perpetually missing.”
Yasahiro nodded. “So what’s your plan then?”
“Well, I came here hoping to get Mei-san to help me out.” Sh
e turned to me, and I could see the favor coming. I owed her for her help with Yasahiro’s case. She gave me a steep discount on her services, and she delivered the data to me overnight. That was costly, or should’ve been. “I need someone with keen eyes to oversee the clean-out, and I believe Mei-san’s the right person for the job.”
“I think it’s a great idea.” Yasahiro made eye contact with me, and I knew he was thinking the same thing. We wouldn’t have even been there, been together or married, if it hadn’t been for Akai’s help.
I looked at them both, and Akai elbowed me in the ribs. “You married a smart man.”
“Well, of course I did,” I said, hiding my apprehension behind sarcasm and a wink. “What exactly do you need?”
Akai set aside her food to explain. “I could hire someone to clean out the house. In fact, I have hired a company, but I don’t trust them to throw away possible evidence — evidence that could point to why Ria went missing. What if they dispose of a note or a receipt or something that could tell us what happened to her?”
“Ah. You need someone there you can trust.”
“Not just anyone, Mei-san. It has to be you. You knew her. You knew the people she knew. And you have a background in evidence and a relationship with the police. You’d know what to look for.”
I pressed my lips together, considering my situation. I was almost twenty weeks pregnant and running a business by myself. How would I fit this in too?
“I have a great idea,” Yasahiro said, spooning more rice into his bowl. “This job won’t take longer than two weeks, no?” He glanced across the table at me and raised his eyebrows. I remembered how, a few months ago, I’d wondered when in our relationship we’d know each other well enough to read our thoughts without speaking. That time had come. This was a favor we couldn’t refuse, and I didn’t want to. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders at him. If he was on board, he’d have a plan.
“Probably less.” Akai folded her arms over her chest. “The company I hired is amazing. They clean out houses like this in two to three days. They’re willing to go slower for me because of the nature of the situation.”
“Perfect.” Yasahiro nodded and handed me more food. I sat silently while the two of them negotiated. “I’ll take a week off from the restaurant and cover Mei-chan’s morning clients and Oshabe-cha. I can look in on Sawayaka in the evenings without having to do much there. Mei-chan would then be available to help you.” He reached across the table and grabbed my hand, squeezing it. “We’re so grateful for all your help, Akai-san, during Amanda’s murder investigation. Just as long as Mei-chan doesn’t overdo it, we’d be happy to help you with this.”
Akai turned to me, and I was grateful she looked for my acceptance.
“I’d be happy to help. I would never give up the chance to help with a mystery.”
Deep inside, my belly flipped, and the baby gave it a swift kick. I loved my tea shop, and it made me so happy and content to be there every day helping those I cared about. But a good mystery thrilled me to my core. As long as I didn’t get involved with apprehending a murderer, all would be well.
I could at least avoid that, right?
Chapter Three
Monday morning dawned bright and hot, another scorcher in Japan. Earlier in the year, I’d spent my mornings with Murata, but my whole schedule changed once I opened Oshabe-cha. I shifted a lot of my clients who just needed companionship to the tea shop and sandwiched things like trips to the physical therapist, doctors for my clients or even for me, and other errands into Thursday and Friday mornings. The rest of the week was meant for Mom, and I took Sundays off from everything.
I peeled my sweaty body off the bed in Yasahiro’s apartment, changed and ate breakfast, and he drove me out to the family house and farm. I found it funny that even after being married to him for two months, I still thought of the apartment as “his” and not “ours.” I supposed that mindset took time to shift.
From my passenger’s seat, I watched the town go by, everyone slowed in the late summer heat, fanning themselves and hobbling along in the shade of the buildings. The road out to the house was desolate, shimmering in the early morning sun. Akiko’s car was gone from the driveway, and Daichi Senahara, the man who helped save me from burning to death in the barn, waved from his front porch as he directed a battery-powered fan at himself. I waved back and made a mental note to bring him something cool later.
Yasahiro pulled into the driveway, parked, and I lingered inside the car, letting the air conditioning keep me cool for an extra few minutes.
“I hope you can handle all of these chores in the coming weeks. If you get too tired or the pregnancy is bothering you, you have to let me know, okay?”
Yasahiro reached over and squeezed my hand, tugging me to him. My chest fluttered with happiness as I looked across the car at my husband. My husband. I still occasionally called him my boyfriend and then laughed.
I leaned over the center divider and let my lips meet his, enjoying this moment of peace. He drew in a sharp breath, bringing a hand to my cheek and sighing through our kiss. I never grew tired of this, how our love strengthened through every difficult situation of the past year. In the beginning, our love was dependent on so many things. I had insecurities to get past and murders to solve. Yasahiro had his own success to foster, and Amanda’s constant interference was a drain on his creative energy. I felt it in our kiss that we had conquered the mountains between us, and it was sweet, sweet victory.
I pulled away gently, resting my forehead on his chin. “Don’t worry,” I said, feeling confident about our situation. “The doctors all say I’m in great health, and I shouldn’t change a thing. I love summer, and I love being outside. I’ll be careful.”
“Be sure to drink lots of water and take plenty of breaks.”
I mock saluted him, and he laughed, which was the reaction I wanted. I didn’t want him to worry, but I also knew how much I meant to him, how much our baby meant to him. I had to be independent, but I also had to be careful.
“Tell your mom I’ll be here tomorrow to take your place.”
Not only was he going to help at Oshabe-cha for the next two weeks, but he would also take my shifts at the farm. His eyes sparkled as he gazed out at the produce surrounding mom’s house, and I suppressed a giggle. He was looking forward to taking my shifts so he could nab the freshest ingredients for Sawayaka. There was no disguising how much he coveted this rare opportunity.
“I’ll see you at lunchtime,” I said, grabbing my bag and leaning to him again for a quick kiss. I’d take as many of those as I could.
“Oh, and don’t forget to talk to her about our plans for next year. The more we talk about it, the more real this will be.”
I sighed as I squeezed the strap on my bag. “You know Mom doesn’t want to give up her freedom. It was hard enough when I lived with her.”
Yasahiro shook his head. “Who would say no to this? We’re offering a lot. Just… Just talk it over with her again.”
“Okay.”
Yasahiro was hell-bent on our newest plan, to take over the farm, renovate the house and live at home as one big happy family. His apartment was too small for us unless we co-slept with the baby, and we would all be much more comfortable at the family house. I was here almost every day anyway, helping Mom with the farm.
But each time I mentioned the idea to her, she told me to wait. “It’s too soon to be making such decisions, Mei-chan. You’ll jinx the pregnancy.” Since when had she been so superstitious about such things?
As I exited Yasahiro’s car, the air was a heat and humidity tsunami. Getting to the front door was like swimming in soup, but I wasn’t going to complain. Anything was better than freezing temperatures and snow. I left my shoes next to Mom’s and found Mimoji-chan stretched out on the cool wood of the dining room table.
“You must be baking in here,” I said, scratching him on his head. He meowed and glanced at the fan on the other side of the room. “Got it. One fan
on high coming up.” I switched on the fan and aimed it straight at him. He lengthened himself into the breeze and promptly fell asleep.
“You spoil him too much, Mei-chan,” Mom said, passing by the room with her arms full of dirty potato sacks. “I can’t believe you’re wasting electricity on keeping him cool.”
“Mom, it’s only fair! He’s wearing a fur coat in thirty-five-degree heat.” I left my bag on Mom’s desk next to the computer. The security system cameras showed on her monitor, the front door, back door, barn, and both fields. The setup had been running since earlier in the year when we caught that family from Kumamoto camping on our land.
Mom’s new employee, Minato Ohno, came into view on the barn camera. He was already on site, gassing up the tractor and attaching the cultivator. With him on staff, Mom spent less time bent over in the fields doing the hard work. It was nice to have the tractor back in operation.
I grabbed my wide-brimmed hat from the hook next to the door and pulled it onto my head before grabbing my elbow-length gloves too. I had to protect my head, shoulders, and arms from the sun exposure. All the extra layers made me feel even hotter, but as long as I wasn’t burning in the sun, I didn’t care.
“So, Mom, Yasa-kun will be here the next couple of mornings instead of me.”
“What’s going on, Mei-chan?” Mom rushed to me, her eyes wide with fear. “Are you sick? Is everything with the pregnancy okay? Do you need to lie down?”
Her questions were frantic and concerned, and honestly, I was pleased things were almost back to normal between us. I remembered how she kicked me out of the house when I was sick during my first trimester, and her behavior had come a long way since then. I knew she was trying to make up for what happened, and I was glad she was acting like my mom again.
“I’m perfectly fine. Really. Everything with the pregnancy is great, and no, I don’t need to lie down.” I finished pulling my gloves up and tucking them under my sleeve. “I’ve taken on another job for the next couple of days, so Yasa-kun will cover for me here and at the tea shop.”
The Daydreamer Detective Returns a Favor Page 2