Chapter 41: 41

Chapter 41: A restless house

Ayano walked out the front door while wondering who had pushed Shun off the roof and who was the murderer that killed Hisami. She remembered that when Hisami came into her dream, she didn’t say a word about her murder at all. Hmm… Maybe she didn’t know or didn’t remember.

The town newsletter was normally delivered at around this time of the day. Ayano planned to retrieve the papers for the housekeepers because they liked to check the food corner advertised in the papers.

When she went out the door, she saw Shimizu standing in the courtyard on the east side of the mansion. He was staring fixedly at the small pond located a bit further inside the garden. It seemed he was watching a woman who was standing still near the mossy rocks surrounding the pond.

The smell of rain lingered in the garden where the woman stood beneath her white parasol in the twilight. Her pale skin indicated that she rarely went out under the sun, radiating her ageless beauty.

The woman bowed her head when she noticed Shimizu was looking at her. Shimizu slightly bowed back at her.

Ayano: “Shimizu-san.”

Shimizu: “!”

Shimizu was startled when Ayano called his name after the woman left.

Ayano: “Uncle Toru and Uncle Jiro said something about you having a history with this family. Can you tell me what it is?”

“It is not like this is related to these cases,” Shimizu said with a sour face.

Looking at his reaction, Ayano realized it was a sensitive matter for him. “Never mind then,” she said before turning to leave.

“Hold on.” Shimizu grabbed her collar to stop her. “Hmm. I think you might know something. You can speak to the living spirits and the dead people in this mansion, right? Oh, and the nando baba too.”

I wish the thing inside the storeroom is really nando baba and not something else, Ayano thought to herself. Then she said, “That is not true. I have never seen a nando baba before.”

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Shimizu took Ayano into the mansion and walked down the narrow hallway to the east side. The air inside the hall was always damp no matter how much they ventilate the area.

Usually, they could see Toru walking back and forth on this hallway, but at this moment he was nowhere to be seen. Although he hadn’t recalled his memory clearly, it seemed that he was curious about the room with white sofa where he died so he always wandered around the area.

“Years ago,” Shimizu said as he led Ayano through the hallway, “when the double suicide case happened in this mansion, I was only a patrol officer and mostly was running errands for my seniors. Matsu—”

Shimizu suddenly stopped talking right when they were about to enter the room with the white sofa.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ayano. She leaned forward to take a peek from behind Shimizu and saw a dead man on the sofa.

The man was clutching his chest and from his face expression it seemed he had died in agony. He had a very defined facial features with a well-proportioned look. He was a relative of Sudo family and his name was Onoda Shigeru.

Ayano recalled that this man was in his fifties and was single. He was always well dressed and had neat appearance. Based on her memories, this man was not a resident of the Rainy Mansion. Perhaps he had stayed here for a few nights to attend the wake and funeral ceremony held for Yamamura Tatsuo.

“For a moment there I thought he is a ghost. It turns out he is a human,” Ayano muttered to herself.

Shimizu hastily tried to check for a pulse and pressed his ear on the man’s chest to check for a heartbeat. Then he said, “It is not a ghost, but not a living person either.”

He saw Nobuko and the other housekeepers rushing over after hearing the commotion and instructed them to call for an ambulance.

“Damn it! Why is this house so restless? I was about to reminisce about my past,” Shimizu grumbled. When he looked around, he saw a cup lying on the floor under the sofa.

Then, he turned his gaze towards Matsuko, who was lying on the floor behind the sofa, and his face turned grimace. Despite the commotion, Matsuko didn’t move at all. Shimizu wondered if her soul was no longer here.

Ayano looked at Matsuko-san and thought that maybe she was at peace when she laid down on the floor here. After all, regardless if it was a living person or a dead spirit, everyone had their own definition of happiness.

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