Kyoko nervously tapped her fingers on the smooth surface of the table. She looked around the dimly lit lounge, constantly searching for the woman she was supposed to meet tonight. The bar in Umeda was fairly upscale and reminded Kyoko a bit of Sho’s, but a few steps higher. It was a decent size, with a number of tables and chairs and a great view of the city center.
After a few more moments of waiting, Kyoko noticed someone enter. She was tall, and wearing dark slacks and a red blouse. As she approached, the light illuminated her face and Kyoko recognized her instantly.
In her fifties now and with a few more lines on her face, Mai Hoshide nonetheless was still a objectively beautiful woman. She flashed Kyoko a warm smile as she approached and Kyoko rose from her seat, bowing to her.
“Thank you for meeting me, Ms. Hoshide. My name is Kyoko Nakamura.” Kyoko stood up straight and took out her business card. She passed it to Mai with both hands while bowing a second time. “Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.”
“It’s my pleasure, Ms. Nakamura,” she said. “Please, let’s sit.”
Kyoko sat first and Mai right after her, waving over a waiter. Within seconds, a young man in dark slacks and a dress shirt with vest and black bowtie appeared.
“I’ll have a dry martini,” said Mai.
“Johnnie Walker Black, on the rocks,” said Kyoko.
The waiter nodded and excused himself to put in the order.
“I have to say, I’m a little nervous,” said Kyoko, trying to suppress the smile on her face. “My father took me to hear you sing on my twentieth.”
Mai chuckled. “That’s very sweet, thank you.”
“But you don’t perform anymore?”
Mai shook her head. “No. These days, I only teach. Try to help the next generation improve their talents.”
“The music scene suffers without you.”
The waiter returned with a tray holding their drinks. He set each respective glass in front of the women, then excused himself a second time. Kyoko picked up her scotch and took a few sips of it.
“Very kind of you to say. But I just tired of long nights and being on the road,” said Mai. “Now, I work out of my home. It’s far more convenient.”
“I can imagine.”
“Speaking of students…” Mai took a sip of her martini. “On the phone, you said this was about Ayano Kuroki?”
“That’s correct.” She took out her phone and set it on the table. “Would you mind if I record this conversation?”
“Not at all.”
Kyoko opened up the recording app and pushed the red button. She slid the phone to the center of the table so it would pick up both voices as clear as possible. “I’m sure you’ve read the papers lately? About the death of Akane Suzuki?”
Mai gave a solemn nod. “Yes, quite unfortunate. I saw that they arrested someone for the crime? But I thought she killed herself?”
“That was the prevailing theory, but new evidence came to light.”
“You said you were a private investigator?”
Kyoko nodded after sipping the scotch. “That’s correct. I was hired by Akane’s parents to look into her death, discover if it really was a suicide.”
“And your evidence prompted the police to reconsider?”
“Not quite. They apparently received an anonymous tip naming the boyfriend as the culprit.” Kyoko set the glass down on the napkin. “But I don’t think he did it. The image just doesn’t add up for my tastes.”
Mai swirled her drink with the speared olive, staring into the eddies that formed. “I’m sorry, Ms. Nakamura. But I don’t see what this has to do with me.”
“Like I said, it’s about Ayano Kuroki. Or more specifically, her bodyguard.”
“Oh?”
“Ayano gave me your information, said she was at a lesson with you the night of Akane’s death.”
“Yes, that’s true.” Mai sipped the drink. “From eight to ten we had a lesson.”
“Could you describe the average lesson to me?”
“Well, the bodyguard—”
“And that would be Haruo Terada?”
Mai nodded. “Yes, I think that’s his name. He would drop her off at my place around quarter to eight. The lesson finishes at ten and he’s already waiting outside my building in his car.”
“Is that what happened on the night in question?”
“Actually, no,” said Mai. “Ayano said that Terada was going to be late that night. She asked if I wanted to have a drink with her. So I brought her to this very bar.”
“About how late were you out with her?”
“She didn’t receive a phone call until well after midnight…possibly around one?” Mai took another drink from her glass. “We paid our bill and I walked her back to my place where Terada was waiting in the car.”
“Was there anything strange about that night?” asked Kyoko. “Anything you felt was unusual about Terada?”
Mai paused, drumming her fingers on the table as she sipped her drink and stared off into the distance. After a few seconds, she looked at Kyoko and shook her head. “Other than being late, nothing I can recall. I didn’t really interact with him. Never really have.”
“Thank you, I think that’s everything I need.” Kyoko hit the stop button and put the phone back in her pocket.
“Ms. Nakamura, is it hard? Doing what you do?”
Kyoko raised her glass to her lips, the ice cubes clinking against the side as she sipped the scotch. “Sometimes.”
“But you still do it.”
Kyoko set the glass down. “Even when things are difficult, at the end of the day, this job lets me get to the truth. Sometimes those truths aren’t pretty. But sometimes, they can mean justice for someone like Akane Suzuki.”
“Then I hope you find who did it.”
With her drink finished, Kyoko set the glass on the table. “Thank you again for your time.” She reached for her wallet, but Mai held out her hand.
“Please, it’s my treat.”
“No, that’s all right, I—”
“Please.” Mai’s eyes looked like they were almost pleading. “It’s the least I can do. Just find out who killed that girl, Ms. Nakamura.”
Kyoko relaxed and offered a half-smile. “I will, you have my word. Thank you, Ms. Hoshide.”
She stood from the table and was about to excuse herself, when she remembered something else. “Oh, one more thing.” Kyoko reached into her jacket and took out a card, setting it on the table. “I know you don’t perform anymore. But if you ever feel that itch, my friend runs a jazz bar in Namba. I think you’d fit right in down there.”
Mai picked up the card with the kanji for Shotaro Morita stamped across the front. She looked up at Kyoko with a smile. “I’ll think about it.”
“He would kill me if I didn’t at least mention it,” said Kyoko. “But he’s a good guy. I’m at that bar all the time.” She paused, realizing what she just said made her sound like an alcoholic. “I mean…not all the time. But…you know.”
Mai snickered. “I think I get the picture. Maybe I’ll stop in at some point. It’s been awhile since I’ve heard some live music.”
“Thanks again for your help.” Kyoko gave a parting bow and went for the exit. She climbed down the steps to the street level and made her way to Nishi-Umeda Station and boarded a train on the Yotsubashi line bound for Suminokoen.
Three stops went by as Kyoko stood on the train, staring out the window and watching as the train chugged through the subway tunnels. The fourth stop was Namba and Kyoko filed out the door to the station.
It was a short walk from the station to the office. When Kyoko finally walked through the door, she could smell pizza. She entered the reception area to find Nobu and Saori sitting on the couch and a Pizza Hut box open between them.
“You meet with her?” asked Nobu between chewing his pizza.
“Yeah.” Kyoko helped herself to a slice of the shrimp and mayo pizza and leaned against Saori’s desk as she bit into it. “Terada’s whereabouts are unaccounted for. He dropped Ayano off at Mai’s around eight, didn’t come back until almost one.”
Saori swallowed the pizza she’d been chewing and washed it down with a can of lime chu-hi. “So we think he did it?”
“There’s still a question of motive,” said Kyoko. “What reason would Terada have for killing Akane?”
“Maybe he was seein’ her on the side when she was still working at Star Rise?” asked Nobu. “Then after what happened with Yuki that day, she decided to end things with Terada. He got pissed, took her out.”
“Could be,” said Saori. “I looked up his employment records. He started working there shortly before she was fired.”
Kyoko finished the slice of pizza and went to the kitchen, helping herself to a can of Asahi beer in the refrigerator. She pulled the tab and sipped it as she returned to the reception area. “Does Terada’s hiring date coincide with the leaks about Akane and Yuki’s relationship?”
“Good question.” Saori stood from the couch and walked over to her desk. She placed the can off to the side while she searched through the documents. Finally, she found a print-out from a website of the first article mentioning the relationship complete with a photograph of Akane and Yuki. Saori looked at the date and nodded. “Yup. Not long after Terada started working security.”
“Terada joins Star Rise, falls for Akane, learns she has a boyfriend,” said Nobu. “He gets pissed, so he decides to put an end to their relationship.”
“Right,” said Kyoko. “He takes the photographs, sends them to Star Rise using the name Iso, believing that Miyashita will force Akane to break off the relationship. That doesn’t work, so he tries again and this time, Miyashita fires her.”
“But why would he wait a year before trying to go after her?” asked Saori.
“That’s a good question,” said Kyoko.
“Maybe he was laying low? Afraid that if he moved on her too soon, she or Miyashita might suspect something,” said Nobu.
“True, but a whole year? And he doesn’t even start small. You’d think he would do the same thing Fukui did—visit her at the club, work up to taking her out, and then move onto the sex.” Kyoko sipped the beer. “I don’t know, it doesn’t seem right.”
“He’s the only one who makes any sense,” said Nobu.
“Hold on, Akane died around three, right?” asked Saori. “But you said that Mai told you Terada picked up Ayano around one. So does that mean Terada left Akane to take Ayano home around one, then he went back to Akane’s to push her off the balcony?”
Kyoko shook her head. “No, but I never said anyone pushed Akane over the edge.”
Saori’s eyebrows scrunched together. “What do you mean?”
“The amphetamines,” said Nobu. “They were in her system.”
“Exactly.” Kyoko crossed from the desk and helped herself to another slice of pizza. “Think about it. Yuki said Akane wasn’t using drugs, but the police find that she was pretty high on amphetamines. A dosage that probably would have killed her if she hadn’t fallen over the edge of the balcony. And she was drinking. A lot.”
“The bottle,” said Nobu. “Terada must have dropped enough amphetamines in there to cause her to overdose. Hell, if he crushed it into powder, he could have been feeding them to her all night, even at the club.”
“He would have seen how upset she was the drunker she got, maybe he was even keeping tabs on her. Would have been easy to assume she’d keep drinking. And in a stroke of luck, Akane ends up going over the balcony in a drug-induced stupor,” said Kyoko. “He leaks the story to the tabloids about her history of drug use and they run with it. Everything falls into place, the police believe it’s a clear case of suicide.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Saori.
“Now we go home,” said Kyoko. “I’ve uploaded the audio file of my interview with Mai to our cloud server. Saori, first thing in the morning, you compile everything we’ve figured out so far and you bring it to Hashimoto. At the very least, it should cast enough doubt on Yuki’s guilt to prevent the prosecution from asking a judge for an extended detention.”
“What about us?” asked Nobu.
“We’re going to keep an eye on Terada, make sure we know where he is,” said Kyoko. “I’m not letting him slip away.”