“Not really. I was only here through high school, and besides, no one in the family was a fisherman.”
“Mom says you went to college in Tokyo and became an elite businessman.”
Shigehiro laughed. “She’s just pulling your leg,” he said. “No, your uncle was just a regular old employee. Now get changed and let’s go.”
“Right,” Kyohei said, picking up the plastic bag with his clothes and towel in it. When he got back from the changing rooms, Shigehiro pulled out his cell phone, pressed a few buttons, and put it to his ear.
“It’s me. Yep, he’s all done. See you at the same place as before.”
He hung up and closed the beach umbrella. It and the chair were rentals. Only the cooler was theirs. Kyohei picked it up and started to walk. His uncle followed behind him, having a little difficulty because his cane kept sinking into the sand.
Today was the first day the police hadn’t come up to the inn, which meant it was finally Kyohei’s chance to get that ride to the beach he’d been promised. His uncle wasn’t much interested in swimming, so he’d sat on the beach watching their stuff and chatting with Kyohei whenever he took a break from the waves.
They got back to the road and waited in front of a small convenience store until Setsuko arrived in the white van with “Green Rock Inn” written across the side. Shigehiro got into the backseat, struggling a bit to lift himself up. Kyohei took the passenger seat, like he had on the way down.
“Well? You have fun?” his aunt Setsuko asked.
“Yeah. And now I won’t have to put up with any crap.”
“Oh? From who?”
“The kids at school. If you don’t go swimming over summer break, the ones that did won’t let you forget it. It’s so lame. I mean, I guess I could just lie, but it’s better if I actually go.”
“That’s why you wanted to go? Whatever happened to swimming for the sake of swimming?” his uncle asked.
“Oh, I wanted to go swimming, sure. But it’s also important where you go swimming. I mean, if you just go to the local pool, that doesn’t count.”
His uncle grunted at that, and his aunt laughed.
They passed by Hari Cove Harbor. The big DESMEC survey boat he had seen there this morning was still at the dock. When he turned to look back at the road ahead, he spotted someone walking by the side of the road.
“Hey, it’s the professor,” he said, and pointed out the window.
Yukawa was walking with a light-colored jacket slung over his shoulder, a briefcase in one hand.
“Oh, you’re right,” Setsuko said, slowing down as they got near. She opened her window. The physicist didn’t seem to even notice them. He was looking down at the road beneath his feet, a preoccupied frown on his face.
“Mr. Yukawa?” Setsuko called out.
He smiled and stopped, and Setsuko stopped the car next to him. “All finished with work?”
“For today,” Yukawa said, his eyes going to the passenger seat.
Kyohei took off his seatbelt and leaned over toward the window on the driver’s side. “I went down to the beach with my uncle today!”
“Ah, finally made it, did you? Good.”
“If you’re heading back to the inn, would you like a ride?” Setsuko asked. “We’re on our way back ourselves.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all.”
Yukawa hesitated just a moment, then went around to the side of the van, opened up the sliding door, and got in the backseat next to Shigehiro, nodding in greeting as he sat down.
“Those guys from DESMEC give you more trouble today?” Kyohei asked, twisting around to see him.
“Only the usual annoyances. That organization is too complicated for its own good. Too many captains and no one’s holding the steering wheel.”
“That doesn’t sound good with a big boat like that,” Kyohei said, his eyes going a little wider.
“It’s a metaphor,” Yukawa explained. “I mean that there’re so many people giving directions no one knows which way to turn. Not to change subject, but does this van belong to the inn? I saw the lettering on the side.”
“Yeah,” Shigehiro said. “We used to use it to pick up guests at the station, but they rarely ask these days. So we mostly just use it when I need a ride someplace.”
“You don’t drive?”
“Well, used to, but not anymore, not with this leg. Too hard to step on the brake.”
“Right, of course,” Yukawa said, looking around the inside of the van. “I was just wondering if the police gave you any trouble about the van.”
“Why would they?”
“Well, it’s just that I heard from the DESMEC folks that the police were asking everyone about cars parked in the area on the night Mr. Tsukahara went missing. They were checking vehicle owners, and even searching inside cars. It was quite the ordeal.”
“Oh, that,” Shigehiro said. “Yeah, the other night when those fellows from forensics came up to the inn, I’m pretty sure they checked the car then. Not sure what they were looking for, though.”
“Probably anything that could be a source of carbon monoxide,” Yukawa replied. “When those detectives from the prefectural police came to the inn the other day, asking after my alibi, I asked one of them whether they had found the source, and he became noticeably flustered. I’m guessing they found something that indicated Mr. Tsukahara died of carbon monoxide poisoning. But they didn’t know where, or how, thus the car-searching business.”
“What’s carbon monoxide?” Kyohei asked. “Is that like carbon dioxide?”
Yukawa looked a little surprised at the question, but then he nodded and glanced toward Shigehiro. “Actually, your uncle might be able to give you a better explanation of that than I can.” He looked toward Shigehiro. “Narumi tells me you used to work at Arima Engines?”
Shigehiro chuckled. “A long time ago, yes.” He looked at Kyohei. “Well, what do you know about carbon dioxide?”
“I know it’s causing global warming, right?”
“That’s right. It’s the gas generated when something burns. But when something burns badly, it produces a different kind of gas—that’s carbon monoxide.”
“And you die if you breathe it in?”
“If you breathe enough of it, sure.”
“That’s pretty scary. But what’s that got to do with cars?”
“Well,” Shigehiro said, wetting his lips before continuing. “Cars have tailpipes for exhaust, right? There’s carbon monoxide in the exhaust from cars.”
“Really?” Kyohei looked at Yukawa.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Yukawa said, nodding to Shigehiro.
The old man chuckled and shook his head. “I haven’t forgotten everything—not yet, at least.”
“However, I might’ve added one thing,” Yukawa said, looking back toward Kyohei. “That is, I think there was another reason, besides the exhaust, that the police were interested in cars.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, like your uncle said, carbon monoxide is generated when something burns badly. What’s meant by ‘badly’ here is something burning without sufficient oxygen. You’ve heard about not using gas heaters in a room for a long time without opening the doors every once in a while? Well, picture burning something like charcoal in an even smaller space, like the inside of the car. That would generate a lot of carbon monoxide. I think the police suspect that that’s how Mr. Tsukahara was poisoned.”
Kyohei nodded, but immediately another question popped into his head. “Wait, but if that’s how he died, how did he end up on the rocks?”
Yukawa’s eyes narrowed, but then he smiled and shrugged, giving Kyohei’s uncle a glance before saying, “That, unfortunately, I can’t explain.”
Shigehiro was silent, looking out the window. Kyohei looked over at him, but his uncle must’ve been grumpy about something, because he was frowning. He glanced over at his aunt and was surprised to see a deep frown crossing her face as well.
THIRTY-THREE
A pretty girl with a deep brown tan carrying a bowl filled with tropical fruit smiled out of the poster. She was framed by palm trees, and behind her, a pure blue sea stretched out to the horizon. Below her, a printed note read, “We will be closing for the season on August 31. Thanks, The Management.”
It said “closing for the season,” but everyone knew Hari Cove Pizza would never be opening its doors again.
Narumi and the rest of the group had come here after their tour of the DESMEC survey boat. Someone had suggested they get tea, but there really wasn’t any place in town like that, so they ended up here. Narumi remembered when the pizza shop first opened—a garishly painted new arrival in a sleepy town that hadn’t quite woken up to the tourist industry and the money it could bring. There were tables inside with views through plate-glass windows and more tables outside on a large deck where you could sit and enjoy your pizza and your beer while feeling the sea breeze on your face. When they first opened, the season ran from the day the beach opened in the early summer all the way through September. The operating season had gotten shorter every year since.
“They didn’t do it the right way,” Sawamura said, sitting down across from Narumi. He was looking up at the poster, too. “You can’t just build some fancy place in the middle of nowhere and expect people to come. If you want to get customers—regulars, I mean—you have to get the town involved.” He shook his head. “All this town has, the only thing that’ll last, is the ocean. The people at town hall don’t get that. If they’ve got time to court DESMEC’s business, you’d hope they’d spend a little more energy trying to develop our tourism industry.”
“With what?” asked one of the men, a social studies teacher at the local middle school. “I totally agree that the ocean here is a fantastic resource, but we can talk about it all we want and people still won’t come. There are too many other places just like this.”
“I don’t think other places are like Hari Cove,” Narumi said.
“Oh, I agree, but people who aren’t from here don’t understand that. And to someone from the city, one beautiful ocean view is the same as any other. What’s important is name value. Everyone goes to Okinawa because everyone wants to say they’ve been to Okinawa. No one gets jealous when you tell them you went to Hari Cove. It just doesn’t feel like a fabulous vacation without the name.”
Narumi frowned. “You’re awfully hard on your own hometown,” she said.
“I’m just trying to be analytical. When I came back to Hari Cove after spending a couple years away, I was surprised, and not in a good way. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t look like a tourist destination. Everything’s falling apart. The hotels look run down. Go to Okinawa, you’re treated to luxury. Here, you blame yourself for wasting your precious vacation time.”
“Hey—” Sawamura stood from his chair and grabbed the high school teacher by the collar of his shirt. “That’s enough of that.”
The teacher blanched but said, “I’m just telling the truth. What’s wrong with that?” His voice was a little high-pitched.
“Stop it,” Narumi said, standing up and putting a hand on Sawamura’s arm. “Calm down, Sawamura. You’ll get us kicked out.”
Sawamura shook his head and looked around the room. They were the only customers. The waitress was standing behind the counter, a worried look on her face.
Sawamura let go of the teacher’s collar and sat back down. The teacher gingerly drank his water. His face was pale.
“It’s good to talk about these things, but let’s keep our tempers down,” Narumi said.
The two men nodded.
“Sorry,” the teacher apologized first. “I could’ve chosen my words a little better.”
“No, I’m sorry.” Sawamura lowered his head. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that.”
An audible sigh of relief passed over the table, and the waitress, who had been standing frozen the whole time, went back to her cleaning.
“I understand what you’re saying,” Sawamura continued. “It’s true, the shops and the hotels are worse for wear. But nobody here thinks that’s okay. We want to rebuild, to renovate. We just don’t have the money. It’s hard enough making it day-to-day. Even up at Narumi’s place—”
The social studies teacher blinked and looked toward Narumi. “Oh, that’s right, your parents run a hotel. Sorry, I forgot. I didn’t mean any offense.”
“It’s okay. In fact, we’ve been talking about closing shop ourselves,” Narumi admitted.
The tension had gone out of the air, replaced now by a kind of sullen silence.
“Time to head out,” Sawamura said after a while, and everyone nodded.
Outside, Narumi got into Sawamura’s car—he was driving a hatchback today instead of his usual pickup.
“Sorry about that,” Sawamura said, pulling out of the parking lot. “I was out of line.”
“I’ve never seen you lose your temper like that,” Narumi said with a smile.
“I just didn’t like the way he was talking, to be honest. You know deep down he wants this undersea resource development deal to go through. His family owns a lot of land in town. But you saw the equipment on that survey boat. Let them loose on the ocean with that stuff, and you can kiss your pristine environment good-bye. And if they go on and build a refinery too, well, there’s your freshwater pollution. Makes me sick just thinking about it.”
“Yeah,” Narumi agreed, but inside, she was having a kind of awakening. Ever since talking with Yukawa, she’d been starting to see the value in a more neutral stance. If they could redirect the energy they’d spent on trying to find fault with the other side and put it toward finding a new direction that worked for everyone, they could all benefit.
Narumi shook her head, surprised at her own thoughts. It was Yukawa’s fault she’d even started down this path. Then she remembered what he’d said when they met on the boat, about her not looking like the type to choose the ocean over the city. What did he mean by that?
“So, have you given any thought to what I said the other day?” Sawamura said, after they had driven a while in silence.
“Sorry?” Narumi said. She knew what he was talking about but played dumb.
“About you being my assistant at the home office. Did you think about it?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “It’s just been so busy, I haven’t really had time to sit down and mull it over. Could you wait just a little longer?”
“That’s fine by me. It’s not like I’m going to be asking anyone else. I don’t see the point if it’s not you.”
There he goes again, saying things that can be taken two ways, Narumi thought. Sometimes she wished he could be a little more straightforward, like Yukawa.
They crested the hill, and the Green Rock Inn came into sight.
“What are they up to?” Sawamura muttered.
Out in front of the inn, Yukawa and Kyohei were using sticks to draw something in the dirt. Kyohei looked up when he heard the car approach. “Hey, Narumi!” he called out.
Yukawa looked up, his eyes even colder than usual.
Sawamura pulled the car up and stopped right beside them, opening his window. “How’s it going?” he called out.
“Did you see what you wanted to see on the boat?” Yukawa asked.
“And more. Now I’m even more convinced we need to keep a close eye on them.”
“Probably a good idea,” Yukawa agreed. Then he lifted an eyebrow. “New car?” he asked.
“Old one, why?”
“Oh, nothing much, I just thought you drove a truck.”
“Yeah, that belongs to the shop. My folks run an electronics store.”
“I see. That pickup was the truck you used when you went to look for Mr. Tsukahara, wasn’t it?”
“Uh huh,” Sawamura said, his voice low. “What about it?”
“Nothing, I was just wondering what you had planned to do if you found him that night.”
r /> “What do you mean? I planned to take him back to the inn.”
“How?” Yukawa asked. “Only two people can sit in the truck, and Mr. Kawahata was sitting in your passenger seat, wasn’t he?”
“Well, yeah, but what else was I supposed to do?” Sawamura protested. “I had to take him with me or I wouldn’t have known what the guy looked like, and the truck was the only vehicle I had.”
“They have a van at the inn. I just got a ride in it. You could’ve used that,” Yukawa suggested.
“Well, thanks for the advice, buddy. I guess I just didn’t think of it at the time. Okay? I’m sure I could’ve figured out something if we’d found him, which we didn’t. Mr. Kawahata could’ve gotten out and waited while I took them back one at a time, if it came to it.”
Yukawa nodded, though by his expression he wasn’t convinced. “That’s true, I suppose there were options. You could always have put someone in the flatbed, too.”
Sawamura looked up at him through the window. “If you have a point, I suggest you get to it. I haven’t had the best day.”
“No, no, sorry to trouble you,” the physicist said. “Nice chatting. Now I need to get back to teaching my young assistant.” He walked back over to Kyohei. Sawamura glared after him.
“Sawamura?” Narumi said. “What’s wrong?”
“Huh?” He turned back to her. “Oh, nothing. Is he always like that?”
“He’s a little eccentric. I wouldn’t pay him too much mind.”
“Yeah, probably good advice. Anyway, good work today. Let’s get together soon and write up that report.”
“Absolutely. Thanks for the lift,” she said, getting out of the car.
Yukawa and Kyohei were standing around a design Yukawa had drawn in the dirt, deep in discussion. Narumi waited until Sawamura had driven off, then walked over to them. “Mr. Yukawa,” she said, “if there’s something you want to say to Mr. Sawamura, you should just come out and say it.”
“Don’t step on that,” he said.
“What?”
“The diagram. Don’t step on it. I’m showing Kyohei why the area of a circle is the radius times the circumference.” Yukawa pointed at Narumi’s feet. A large circle had been drawn in the dirt, with thin lines that radiated out from the center, dividing it into sections.