Kyohei lit the sparkler in his hand and watched as multicolored sparks began to fly from the tip. As the sparkler burned, the color of the sparks changed.
“The blue sparks are copper, green is barium. Red sparks are strontium, and yellow are sodium. All metals. As you can see, each metal and metallic compound gives off a distinct color when it burns. This is called a flame reaction,” Yukawa explained, his quiet voice at odds with the noisily burning sparkler. “Fireworks use this effect to—” Yukawa’s voice trailed off as his eyes went upward.
Two forensics officers were coming down the fire escape on the backside of the inn. They looked in Kyohei and Yukawa’s direction and nodded their heads.
“I wonder where they were. I didn’t see them until just now.”
“Probably up on the roof. There’s a chimney up there.”
“Oh?” said Yukawa, raising an eyebrow.
One of the men, the one wearing glasses, walked over to them.
“Sorry to interrupt you. You’re the guest staying here?” he asked Yukawa.
“Yes, I am.”
“I was wondering if I could have a few words,” he said, pulling something out of his breast pocket.
“You don’t need to show me your badge, I know you’re a police officer. How can I help?” Yukawa asked.
“You’ve been staying here for the past two days?”
“That’s correct. I checked in the night before last.”
“Right. Has anything unusual happened during your stay at the inn?”
Yukawa made a face as though he didn’t understand the question. “If you mean what happened with the guest falling on the rocks, I did hear about that.”
“Not that, I meant anything unusual happening in the inn itself. Did you experience any strange physical sensations, smell any odd smells. Anything like that?”
“Sensations? Smells?” Yukawa shook his head. “I can’t say I noticed either of those, sorry.”
“I see. Thanks for your time,” the man said, turning to walk away.
“Aren’t you going to talk to him?” Yukawa said. The men turned and saw Yukawa pointing at Kyohei.
“Er, right,” the man said, looking a little bewildered. He took a step toward Kyohei. “How about you? Did you notice anything strange?”
Kyohei shook his head without saying anything.
The man nodded, bowed curtly to Yukawa, and left.
Yukawa looked back up at the inn for a moment, then turned back to Kyohei. “Where was I?”
“You just told me why fireworks change color.”
“Right. Let’s discuss the physics of the black snake firework, then,” Yukawa said, reaching back into his bag.
TWENTY
It was a little after eight o’clock when Narumi got to the bar. Sawamura was already waiting for her, his laptop on the table in front of him.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, sitting down.
“No worries. The police still there?”
“They only just left.”
“What are they looking for, anyway?” Sawamura asked with a frown.
Narumi gave him the same explanation she had given Yukawa.
Sawamura’s frown deepened. “But why? Didn’t he fall off the seawall and hit his head? Doesn’t seem like that would require a whole lot of investigation.”
All Narumi could do was shrug.
“I’m just as confused as anyone, really,” she said. “Still, I have a feeling things will just blow over.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, it wasn’t meant for my ears, but—”
Narumi had just collected Yukawa’s tray from dinner and was heading back to the kitchen when she overheard several men inside talking. She couldn’t hear everything they said, but the general consensus appeared to be that there was nothing out of order in the inn whatsoever. As the police made to leave, Nishiguchi had whispered in her ear, “Hopefully we’ve put this thing to rest for good.”
Sawamura gave a sigh of relief, even as he shook his head and muttered, “Who knows what the police are thinking? I sure don’t.”
They began going over their notes from the hearing the other day, but neither of them was able to put their heads into the work. Eventually, Sawamura said, “Let’s call it a day,” and closed his computer. “What do you do at your place once the summer is over, anyway?” he asked. “I know a lot of the inns close for the season.”
Narumi told him that her parents were considering shutting down for good, and he didn’t seem surprised.
“Times are tough, huh. Now what are you going to do for work?”
“I’ll find something. I figured I’d have to search for a job come fall at any rate.”
“I have an idea,” Sawamura said, a serious look in his eyes. “How about working as my assistant?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Well, my writing gig keeps me on the road a lot, but my position with Save the Cove means I also need to be near my base of operations to keep in contact with everyone. Basically, I need someone to hold down the fort when I’m out. I’m thinking I’ll convert a part of my house to an office, and if you could come work there, it’d be a big help. I should be able to pay you enough to make it worth your while.”
Narumi’s eyes dropped to the table. She hesitated, uncertain what to say. It wasn’t a bad offer. In fact, she was immensely grateful. She wouldn’t have to leave town, and she could devote herself to protecting the ocean. But she was worried about what might be behind the offer.
“Well? What do you think?” Sawamura asked with a smile. “I know I’ve said this before, but I think you and I could be great partners. An unbeatable duo!”
Narumi smiled but her eyes wandered.
Sawamura had a way of keeping things vague. When he talked about partners, did he really mean just work partners, or was there a more personal agenda as well? It was hard to tell. No, he made it hard to tell.
They’d only been working together for a short while before she had sensed a personal interest from him. She’d pretended not to notice. She respected him as a journalist and an activist, but she just couldn’t see him as a romantic partner.
Time had passed, and Sawamura had begun saying things that, depending on how you interpreted them, could be taken as a kind of confession of his interest in her. Maybe he thought that by dropping little hints, he could get her to start thinking of him not just as a friend, but as a man.
“I’ll have to think about it,” she said.
“Of course, take your time.”
He smiled, but Narumi could feel the added weight in the air.
* * *
Back at the inn, she found Yukawa pacing in the lobby. He was carrying a bottle of red wine in his hand.
“Ah, you’ve come at the perfect time,” he said. “I was hoping I could borrow a bottle opener.”
“Where’d you get the wine?”
“I had it sent from the university. Looks like I’ll be here a bit longer.”
That explained the box with the FRAGILE sticker she had seen in his room.
She returned with a bottle opener from the kitchen and handed it to him.
“Care to join me?” he invited her.
“Sure, why not?”
“Good wine loves good company.”
Narumi went back to the kitchen and took two of the few wineglasses they had down from the shelf.
They sat down at the table in the lobby and toasted each other. She took a sip, detecting an oaky fragrance as the flavor spread through her mouth. She swallowed, leaving only a faint, pleasant sweetness on her tongue that made her want to take another sip.
The label on the bottle read “Sadoya”—a winery in Yamanashi, Yukawa informed her.
“I didn’t think any Japanese wine tasted this good,” Narumi said.
“Japanese people are oddly uninformed about what is good about Japan,” Yukawa said, swishing the wine around in his glass. “There are a lot of people out in the countryside doing their darndest to make amazing things, but no one notices. Tokyoites write off this wine as ‘too local’ without even tasting it. Much like you’ve devoted your life to protecting Hari Cove, when an outsider might say why bother when there are plenty of other beautiful coastlines around?”