Strawberry Yellow Read Online Free

here in the first place.
    “Was Billy here?”
    Mas now regretted spilling the beans.
    “Did I hear that right? Billy Arai was here last night?” A man as short as Mas interrupted their conversation. He wore the same uniform as hers, except that his narrow nametag read, “Sergeant Arturo Salgado.”
    Mas felt his face grow hot. He could taste the unbrushed crud in the back of his dentures.
    “It’s okay, Sergeant, I have this covered.”
    Someone called Robin over to the greenhouse. She abruptly excused herself, leaving Mas alone with Salgado.
    “I bet you have it covered,” Salgado muttered to himself. “Covering your family’s ass as always.”
    Mas was shocked to hear the insult coming from the police officer’s mouth. Robin and Sergeant Salgado were supposedly on the same team, but obviously that team was divided.
    “So you’re an Arai, too,” Salgado said. His ears looked normally shaped, but he seemed to have the gift of excellent hearing, or perhaps more like eavesdropping. “Why would you come to this place last night?”
    Mas’s eyes inadvertently moved toward the test strawberry plot. The rows of Masaos were missing, quite evident to his gardener’s eyes. What was going on?
    “Sergeant—” Robin called Salgado over to the crime scene.
    “You don’t leave,” he ordered, gesturing at Mas with a stern index finger.
    Mas shuffled his feet and then sneaked a look past the officers toward the open door of the greenhouse. He expected to see the wasted body of a homeless woman. Dirty, maybe even toothless.
    But it was a young woman, maybe thirty years old at most, with a sheet of brilliant blonde hair, the roots soaked with blood.

    Mas dutifully waited as the police officers traveled back and forth from their parked vehicles and the scene of the crime.
    What the hell had happened to Billy, Mas wondered. His truck wasn’t in the motel parking lot, so somehow he’d made it back home.
    But when? And why didn’t he bother to wake Mas up?
    In the light of day, Mas got a clearer picture of his former home. The two greenhouses hadn’t changed much since he’d lived there. A few cracked windows and a haphazard arrangement of seedlings in long wooden boxes—today it looked like pansies, tomatoes, peppers, and maybe some early lettuce. Strawberries didn’t need the heat; they worked better in Watsonville’s mild temperatures. That’s why strawberries had become the main crop for the area.
    Mas ran his hand through his thinning hair. What the hell was he going to tell the police? That he fell asleep and had no idea where Billy had gone in the middle of the night? But why in the world would Billy want to hurt a young hakujin woman? Even if Mas told the truth, Billy would be cleared immediately. Billy would tell them where he had gone and the police could then go on and find the real killer.
    But while the officers went back and forth doing their investigation, Mas noticed Sergeant Salgado’s frequent glances toward him, as if he expected Mas to attempt to escape. I’m not guilty , he said to himself, although for some reason, he was starting to feel that he had done something wrong.
    Mas hoped it would be the Arai in the uniform who would return to his side, but it was Salgado instead.
    “I have some questions for you.” The sergeant removed a thin notebook from his breast pocket. “What time did you come here?”
    That Mas did know. Midnight.
    “Midnight? That’s mighty late to be traipsing around here.”
    “My relative’s funeral. Couldn’t sleep,” Mas lied. He had been sleeping like a baby until Billy had come around.
    “You were with Billy last night.”
    Mas just grunted.
    “How did he seem?”
    Kuru-kuru-pa . Head turned around. Also, not to mention, stinking drunk. “Fine.”
    “Why did you come here to the Stem House? It’s not the Arai family’s any more.”
    “Ole times’ sake.” That much was true.
    “So it was your idea.”
    Mas moistened his lips.
    “Maybe,” was the