The Scent of Gardenias in the Early Summer Rain...

Late the next afternoon, after the second night laying low at Bayle's mansion, the two approached the widow's mansion. Today, the sun was bright overhead. When Guy rang the doorbell, once again, the door cracked open slightly, the maid appearing in the doorway.

This time, she stared for a full ten seconds. "Come in..." Then, she disappeared again.

"Ah... What is it with her?" mumbled Guy uncomfortably, following Bayle inside, where they found the widow in the pantry organizing perfumes.

" Hello," Bayle greeted the woman. " Seems like you're having a productive day." she said nodding to the perfumes.

"Ah, yes. Nice to see you again. I'm just doing a little rearranging. Li-kun got finished with my library today, and it's making everything else look so disorganized... So, what news are you bringing me today?"

" Ah yes, it's still definitely a contrast to Mrs. Toshiko's house." Bayle was hoping the woman would incriminate herself by going off about the current state of the place.

The widow became quiet, and she stopped organizing the perfumes. She turned to Bayle with a serious look on her face. "So, you went to her mansion? What did you find?"

" A cat, actually, but not the one we were hoping for, sorry to say.." she replied shaking her head.

"I see... You found Toshiko too, didn't you? I heard the police report over the news yesterday."

Bayle laughed. "Why did you even have to ask then? Oh well, the good news is, she couldn't possibly have stolen your cat, being dead and all. Perhaps Li took it to have for supper and is simply returning to the scene of the crime?" she didn't know if the Japanese had the same joke about Chinese people eating pets. She hoped it wasn't lost on the two.

Guy seemed shocked, but the widow couldn't help but stifle a small laugh. "That's quite harsh. Oh well, I'm glad you tried, at least. I'm guessing you haven't had any other luck in finding Mi-chan, have you?"

"No, but we are definitely still looking. Another matter I'd like to address, we received a report saying that someone matching your description was sighted entering Toshiko's house about six months ago. If you visited her, can you tell me anything about your visit?"

She got even more serious. "I heard that her house was filling up with garbage. So, I decided to go over there and see for myself. It was where Yuzuki grew up, and I couldn't forgive her for ruining it. It was a lot worse than I thought when I got there, so I decided to speak to her about it. That's when I found her body." She stared straight at Bayle. "I didn't kill her, let's get that straight. I was... I was just scared. No one found her body after all this time, and I didn't know what was happening inside the house. I didn't want to call the police, because...

She started to tremble, something inside visibly shaking her. "Yuzuki loved the smell of her body. When I started my relationship with Yuzuki, Toshiko came to me and said that she wanted to wash her hands of Yuzuki. I noticed she wasn't wearing perfume. Yuzuki always made me wear perfume because of my body odor. That means he loved her smell and he hated mine! It made me so angry... So I thought I would leave her body there and let it become a stench for a while."

" That's...pretty fucked up." Bayle remarked blandly. "Even I have the common decency to bury the dead, or at least get them reported in some way...and I kill people all the time." she stepped closer to the woman to drive home her point. "And of course you didn't kill her. Aside from the fact that she's been dead for about a year, a weak woman like you couldn't possible pull off that kind of thing. Someone who would let a person's soul remain in unrest, just because of jealousy." with that, Bayle turned and left. "I hope Li did eat your cat you despicable creature." she commented on her way out the door.

"Ah... how ridiculous," Guy agreed as he followed Bayle towards the door. Behind them, the widow was left in stunned silence, a mixture of regret and anger forming on her face. Before, she could say anything, though, they had gone.

When they stepped outside, clouds were rolling in to blot out the sun. It appeared as if rain was coming after all.

"Ahh, I forgot my umbrella today," Guy commented, before changing the subject. "I never would have thought that she was hiding something sick like that. But, I think you really showed your good side in there, Bayle." He grinned at her.

Just then, the door opened behind him, and the maid crept out once again. With a quickness to her step, she made her way out to Guy, shoving a frilly pink umbrella into his hands.

"Ah, what--?" The maid had reached the door again, a faint blush on her cheeks as she disappeared into the mansion.

Bayle was about ready to berate him for that comment, to tell him that she didn't have a good side, and burying people and making sure that they were taken care of in an afterlife that probably didn't exist didn't make up for killing them in the first place, but the combination of his grin and the maid's behaviour made her currently stony visage crack into a smirk. "Matsu-san...I think she likes you."

"My, my," sighed Guy, grasping the frilly pink umbrella, which contrasted violently with his appearance. "What a day this is... I just don't feel like I know what to do anymore!" He let out a belly laugh to make himself feel better.

The woman let out a small chuckle. " Well, I do. Let's get back to my house and see if anything interesting happens. If not, I'll have my people work on that project tomorrow." Bayle plopped onto a bench and waited for her chauffer. She needed to drink, heavily.

"Sounds good to me. I could use another day off before things get really serious..."

Bayle hated to leave poor Guy to his own devices once again, but he knew where everything was and she was generally certain he wasn't quite bored with the mansion yet. As soon as she got home she descended into her basement to plan, and then mix alcohol, illegal drugs, and guns in a dangerous but extremely fun fasion.

***

The next day her workers got started. Her construction company started setting up the net around nine a.m., while one hundred members of her security force, plus fifty personal body guards on loan from an Arab friend of hers began to case the area within a five mile radius. They needed to know every nook and cranny before midnight. The construction company also had been secretly burying guns around the property. Neither her, Guy, or any of the security force would be carrying a gun on their person that night, but they would have these set up for emergencies. There were ten guns total, all of them AK 47s, and all of them buried at varying areas around the construction site that were pre-selected by Bayle. At about seven a.m. that morning, Guy awoke to being pounced on by a heavily coked up Bayle in her underwear. "Wake up Matsu-san! We have a big day ahead of us!" she screamed far to exhuberantly.

"Ahh!" Guy screamed, awoken by surprise. "Already? Ah, I was up far too late again!"

" Well that's you're own fault silly!" she giggled poking him in the nose. "She leaned over him and retrieved a map of the construction site, smacking it down on his chest between them. "Look! Here's what we're gonna do!" She had screamed the last sentence in english. "Sorry!" she began again switching back. "Here is what we're gonna do! The net will be going up in two hours!" she punctuated the statement by shoving two fingers about a centimeter from his face. "I already have my guys checking out the area, so we're gonna have a really bitchin' perimeter! They'll all be plain clothes and they'll get organized in their positions like, way before we show up! Probably at around eight. At five, you and me are gonna go get dinner at wherever you had lunch at and mixed up the jackets. I'm gonna wear the jacket though, okay? Okay!" she shouted throwing up her arms. " Right. So after that, we will go see a movie, and then we will part ways. I will walk to the construction site taking a route opposite yours. Either way, he'll see one of us, but probably go after me since I have his jacket. Hopefully, if he possesses me before I get to the site, he take me there, if not...well then I die! HA! What a way for a weapons dealer to go! It doesn't even have bullets! That's not the point though. Now, assuming we are at the construction site, and he drops me off of the scaffolding, he will then go to his original body, probably. My men will be on the look out for any suspicious activity, or non-suspicious activity, really just any activity in case he decides to just book it from there, but it's likely he'll have to come and get the vials, or throw them in a certain direction, and that is where you come in! Once you see where he went you will have a headset and you can tell all the security personel which way he went! They will capture him, knocking him out with chloroform if they can sneak up on him, or bullets if they can't! And then they will bring him here and we will put him in a completely dark room and talk to him with a speaker and a camera and figure out what to do from there! Sound good?!" she leaned in about an inch from his face, grinning like a madwoman.

"Oh my god," said Guy, shocked and confused. "Yes, everything is perfectly clear. Umm..."

"Are you sure? I know this is pretty sudden but I've been up all night working on it! Really I only spent two hours working on it but anyway! The reason I woke you so early is to show you were the guns are in case something goes horribly horribly wrong!" she said laughing a little too much at the prospect. "I have them all marked on this map, and you're gonna have to memorize it or we might be in biiiiiig trouble!~" she sang. " Can you get up now? If you can't I think I have something that could help!" she said grabbing his shoulders and pressing him down into the bed, still grinning maniacally.

"No, I'm feeling very awake right now! However, it seems like you're preventing me from getting off the bed right now. But, if you let me, I'll get right on the memorization right now!"

" Definitely! You get right on that Matsukichi!" she frenched him quickly before leaping off of him and bounding down the hallway, leaving the map behind. He could hear several banging noises coming from the room next to his. Bayle had decided it was time to rearrange her house.

"My goodness what's gotten into her..." Guy wondered as he got to work. It was somewhat hard to concentrate at this point, but he had had enough police training to be able to memorize the locations within half an hour.