The phone rang two or three times, but Mrs. Munehara didn't dare get up to answer it. She just stared at the phone like a deer caught in the middle of the road by a car's headlights.
Then the ringing fell silent, plunging the room into silence.
The client's shoulders relaxed, which made me realize that she had been petrified with fear during those few seconds.
The slightest call seemed to terrify her.
"Are you okay?" The detective inquired.
The client nodded. She had regained her composure, although she was still frightened by the slightest noise. She also glanced at both the phone and the window while picking up the cup she had dropped on the floor.
As for me, having nothing to do, I observed everything around me.
The apartment consisted of a main room and a bathroom, with the front door on one side, and a double sliding window on the other, overlooking the courtyard we had walked through earlier. Grey curtains were drawn in front of it, letting in the end of day's light dying on the facades of the surrounding buildings; but preventing prying eyes from perceiving who or what was inside.
A few small potted plants were placed right in front of it, and right next to it, a pile of magazines wrapped with string. Probably to put them in the recycling. But I identified the cover of the issue at the top of the stack as a magazine that had been out for several weeks.
I didn't usually read them, but I often saw the ones Chief Chiba bought lying around the break room. That's why I was so quick to recognize the issue in question.
"Don't you take out the trash?" I asked.
The detective glanced at me again. Perhaps she thought my question was inappropriate, or too blunt. However, the client took no offense.
"N... No. Not for a while..." She replied, a little embarrassed.
"You were too scared to do it?" The detective asked, bouncing off my initial question.
Again, Ms. Munehara responded non-verbally, with a nod. She had meanwhile put the now empty cup back on the table, and sponged the surface of the tatami with paper.
She seemed to be a reserved and quiet person by nature. The numerous books on the small shelves placed against one of the corners of the room showed that she was a thoughtful person and who, perhaps, was more intellectual than physical in her daily life. Hence, perhaps she'd been perceived as a victim of choice by a particular assailant.
"To tell you the truth, I'm afraid to leave my house, but I'm also afraid to stay there..." Ms. Munehara confessed. "Since I had the locks changed, I've been getting strange calls several nights a week..."
"Strange calls?" Repeated the detective, in order to encourage her client to say more on the subject.
"I always receive them just after I get home, at the end of the day..." She explained. "Sometimes there's no sound, or I hear breathing. And sometimes I hear a voice saying a single word..."
"And so? What did the voice say?" Pressed the detective.
The current discussion was making the client really uncomfortable, which manifested itself in wrinkles crinkled between her eyebrows, tight, downward-arched lips, and difficulties for staying still.
"The voice was telling me to 'leave'..." She finally revealed anxiously. "Just... 'Leave'..."
It was really weird to get calls like that. First, she didn't know who the person on the other end of the phone was, ; but on top of that, she was being told to get out of her house. Almost like a provocation.
And even though she was smiling at me, I knew I was always making her feel uncomfortable, just by the way she always had her hands crossed in front of her.
Which made me realize something. Something that the detective had apparently already figured out, because her next question went straight to it.
"Does he scare you?" She asked while pointing at me.
She had done this without even looking at me to capture my reaction. But since I never reacted, she didn't miss much. But I was still a little disappointed that she had asked that question before I did.
Ms. Munehara shook her head negatively.
"In that case, the person calling you... Is a man, right?" guessed the detective.
The client was surprised by this deduction, but had no time to react other than by opening her mouth slightly. For already the detective was explaining her reasoning.
"When you called me, you told me about a problem with a stalker. But at the time I couldn't tell if it was a woman or a man. However, the fact that you were concerned about my assistant," she explained, pointing to me, "makes me think that the voice on the phone was audible enough to recognize that it was a man. Right?"
I was a little annoyed that she kept pointing at me like I was a sale item. Maybe it was annoyance? I wasn't too sure.
But in any case, I was surprised that she guessed, as I did, that Ms. Munehara was afraid of me only because I was a man. And probably not because of my behavior. Well, maybe...
"That's... That's right," the client admitted.
Then, finally looking me in the eye in a straightforward way, she added with a sorry look:
"I'm really sorry I treated you like that."
The detective quickly brushed off her apology with a wave of her hand.
"Don't worry about him. Tell me more about those calls."
Ms. Munehara then told us that the calls always occurred in the evening, when she came home from work. And every time, she felt that she was being watched closely, and it gave her the shivers. That was why she had kept her curtains closed in front of the window; to make sure that she could not be seen completely from outside.
"What makes you say that he is watching you from outside, at the same time that he is calling you?" Then asked the detective.
The client looked quickly at the window nervously, then replied:
"The call happens every time right after I get home and turn on the light...." She explained. "And I don't necessarily get home at the same time..."
"I see... So he waits until the light is on to make sure you're home, then calls you..." thought aloud the detective. "Which means that he must indeed be nearby to observe the moment you arrive home..."
She then proceeded to quickly write a message on her phone - perhaps to the person she was already chatting with earlier - then turned to me.
"Nijima-kun, tonight is the weekend, and I guess you don't have any plans for Saturday or Sunday. Right?" she asked me.
I nodded.
I didn't do much on the days I didn't work. But it wasn't hard to guess either.
But obviously, this news delighted the detective. Because a few seconds later, she was already up and smiling at me with confidence, said:
"Well, let's go on a Stalker hunt!"