Volume Four: Burrow Written by Kashiwae Masato Illustrated by Chayamachi Suguro Summary by Amparo Bertram October, 1996

Henry and Kate had postponed their wedding several months due to the murder of Kate's brother, but now they are finally tying the knot. Sidney watches the happy couple, telling Nobuyuki he heard from his mother that Ada is marrying a classmate from school. Nobuyuki remembers Ada catching the bouquet, but he had attended a special school for Japanese children so he wasn't acquainted with the groom. Just then, Sidney gets a cell phone call from his mother informing him that Ada found her fiancé murdered. Kaplan doesn't want to order Henry to leave his wedding to investigate, though he is willing to give Sidney and Nobuyuki permission to visit the crime scene while another pair of detectives does the official work.

As soon as they arrive on the scene, they are given the job of consoling Ada. Once she realizes who Nobuyuki is, she clings to him and cries on his shoulder. All he can do is pat her on the back awkwardly. Ada had discovered her fiancé, Victor, when she brought him a snack at his home office. His head had been crushed with a golf club. After the investigation of the crime scene wraps up, Sidney and Nobuyuki start home.

Nobuyuki is concerned that Sidney is in an unusually foul mood, kicking stones in anger, grumbling that he shouldn't have dragged Nobuyuki to a crime scene on his mother's word. Nobuyuki brings up that he only remembers Ada from the wedding; he can't recall having played with her to the extent that she would be so glad to see him. This makes Sidney burst out laughing, realizing that although Ada often played baseball with them, she hid her hair under a baseball cap, leading Nobuyuki to believe she was a boy. Nobuyuki is further stunned to hear that, conversely, Ada had identified strongly with him because she thought he was a tomboy like her.

The following day, the business tour group from Yasuyuki's company arrives. Takada is exasperated that Nobuyuki hasn't bothered to tidy up his appearance--not even for Henry's wedding. Nobuyuki shoots back that he's just a part-time employee anyway, so it shouldn't matter. Kiyomi tells him Takada wants to make him full-time and is working at persuading his superiors in Tokyo to that effect, but Nobuyuki just gets annoyed. He's down on himself for being 25 yet not having a real job, but at the same time he doesn't want to work full-time. He wants to remain a "kid."

Sidney calls for Nobuyuki and arranges to pick him up after he drops the businessmen off at their hotel. Henry is back to work already, though it is the day after his wedding. He has postponed his honeymoon until later, mainly due to Kate's busy schedule at her job. Nobuyuki rides with the two detectives to pay a visit to Ada. Sidney acts irritated at having to return to his old neighborhood.

Nobuyuki feels nostalgic at seeing the place again. He can't understand why Sidney is so grumpy. They arrive at Ada's house and are welcomed by her mother. The atmosphere lightens somewhat when they clear up the confusion about Nobuyuki's sex, but the mood is dampened by a mention of Ada's mother's first husband. Then Ada's brother Norman shows up and insults Sidney, for being inconsiderate of Ada's trauma, and Victor, for being likely to fail, and in a roundabout way Rod, for his line of work.

In the car on the way back, Sidney explains what he knows about Ada and Victor. Over a decade earlier, their fathers had been fishing buddies. When Victor's father died, Ada's father consoled the widow, eventually leading to the two having an affair. Ada's parents divorced, and Ada's father married Victor's mother, making the two step-siblings. Ada's mother later got remarried to Norman's father. However, that didn't seem likely as a motive for murder since it had happened so long ago, and the injured party is now happy with her new husband.

The problem Sidney is having in determining the cause of the murder is that Victor worked almost entirely out of his home, contacting his co-workers and clients via email, and he rarely discussed his job with Ada. That makes it difficult to determine whether he was killed for something job-related or something personal. All Ada could say was that, after college, he did a good job as an investment broker in grain futures in Chicago and was hired by a New York company two years earlier. That was when the two had started dating. Nobuyuki wonders whether the murder was somehow related to a recent stock market crash in Asia that might have caused a chain reaction affecting Victor's job.

Sidney himself, although he was in the same graduating class as Victor when in high school, knows very little about him. Since Victor was headed to an Ivy League school and Sidney was going into the military, they were on different tracks and took different classes. This actually caused Sidney a bit of trouble, because when his mother heard about Victor's accomplishments at her volunteer group meetings, she lectured Sidney that he should be an honor roll student and go to an Ivy League school just like Victor. Sidney wondered if it ever bothered Victor to be under so much pressure to live up to his mother's expectations and be a model student.

Nobuyuki hears from his boss that he has been assigned to be the driver for the business tour the whole week. The upside of this is that he gets evenings off. From the fact that Sidney had some issue so important that he called Nobuyuki at work, Takada has guessed that Nobuyuki is helping the police with another case. Nobuyuki then overhears Sidney speaking in a frighteningly angry voice on the phone to his mother. He shouts an apology for being an embarrassment to her and throws the phone at the wall, breaking it. Nobuyuki doesn't know what to say, but his presence alone calms Sidney down.

Sidney complains about how messy Nobuyuki's hair is, but he can't resist tugging on the end of Nobuyuki's ponytail.

The following day, while shuttling the business tour members, Nobuyuki meets a young man named Serizawa who is their guide. Although he appears Middle Eastern, his Japanese is flawless. He recognizes Nobuyuki from a picture of him and his mother, which comes as a surprise, and invites Nobuyuki out to dinner. Nobuyuki suspects that Serizawa might have the ulterior motive of getting into Yasuyuki's good graces by befriending his son, so he turns the offer down.

Ada shows up at the Sky Travel office and takes Nobuyuki out to lunch. She asks about Nobuyuki's past girlfriends in Japan. He admits he had one in middle school, who broke up with him when they went to different high schools, and one in high school, who broke up with him when they went to different colleges. Ada explains that she feels she wasn't really in love with Victor, she just got carried away at meeting him again. She's starting to think that she may actually be relieved that he's gone.

Ada goes on to say that she suspected Victor had another girlfriend, possibly from his time in Chicago. She didn't have any firm evidence, but he would sometimes tell her to make a certain dish again that she had never cooked before, and once on a walk in the park he suggested they visit the Palm House she liked. There isn't a Palm House in New York, though she later looked up that there was one in Lincoln Park in Chicago. She thinks that he was mistaking her for a different woman.

When Nobuyuki relates all of this to Sidney, he is astonished to hear that the information makes Ada more suspect. Discovering that Victor had another girlfriend could be considered a motive for murder. They won't know anything for certain until they can get information from where Victor worked in Chicago.

Nobuyuki starts to get depressed again that he has no goals in his life. Everyone around him seems to be working purposefully and taking pride in what they do, but he's just barely doing enough to support himself. Sidney worries that he's thinking of going back to Japan and is relieved to be assured otherwise. However, Nobuyuki ponders that as soon as Sidney either gets back together with Rod or finds a new boyfriend he will have to move out of the apartment. The thought makes his chest tighten with lonliness.

While Nobuyuki is making supper for the two of them, he gets a call from his father in Japan asking if he's racist. He doesn't have a clue what his father is talking about until Serizawa is brought up. Serizawa's biological mother and father were both Iranian, but his mother married a Japanese man who raised the boy as his own son. Even though he is a Japanese citizen, he has had problems due to his non-Japanese appearance. Once he was out for a walk and was picked up by a police officer demanding to see his passport--which, of course, he had no reason to be carrying around with him. He wound up having to spend the night in jail under suspicion of being an illegal immigrant until Yasuyuki could vouch for him in the morning. Incidents like that made Yasuyuki wonder whether his son had turned down Serizawa's dinner invitation due to his appearance.

Nobuyuki hadn't even thought about that at the time, but when the phone call ends, he still feels disgusted with himself. Serizawa, who is a Japanese citizen despite appearing Iranian, felt a kind of kinship with Nobuyuki, who is an American citizen though he was born Japanese. Nobuyuki had imagined ulterior motives for the invitation that hadn't been there. He makes up his mind to call Serizawa back and agree to go out to eat with him.

While Nobuyuki is on the phone, Sidney makes corn soup for dinner. He's quite proud of the way he efficiently used the water from the pasta to make it. He eats all of his, but Nobuyuki knows how much salt he put in the pasta water and can't bring himself to taste it.

At work the next day, Nobuyuki finds out that his boss had once worked in Chicago. Takada had worked for a large corporation, and he remembers that Chicago had the best center for futures trading in the world. Nobuyuki asks whether it would be possible for someone to mistake Central Park for Lincoln Park. Takada doesn't consider it likely for anyone other than a tourist; Lincoln Park is right on Lake Michigan and smells of the water. Rather than mistaking the two parks, he says, it is more likely that the person in question was so deeply lost in memory that his mind rejected reality and convinced him he was in a different place. This makes Nobuyuki despair that Victor's memory of the woman in Chicago was so strong that it made him reject Ada's presence and convinced him he was with the other woman instead.

Nobuyuki goes out for lunch with Serizawa. He finds the man to be quite easy to talk with, and he is amused at himself for bowing instinctively when they meet, Japanese-style. Serizawa explains that New York is a much more comfortable place for him to work. Back in Japan, a deal could fall through the instant he showed up, just because of his appearance. He was beginning to feel badly about his job when the opportunity to work overseas became available.

Thinking about Serizawa's comments, Nobuyuki muses that he himself "ran away" to New York, using the city as a refuge. That evening when he gets home, he calls a grumpy Sidney at work and explains that he feels Victor probably did the same thing. If Chicago is the world's best place for futures trading, Victor could have gotten a much better job there than in New York. Nobuyuki's intuition tells him that Victor was trying to run away from something in Chicago and chose New York as his refuge.

After he hangs up, Nobuyuki suddenly notices how empty the apartment feels. He's accustomed to working late at night every three days, so keeping regular hours and having evenings free is strange. What strikes him most of all is that he's lonely without Sidney there.

Henry calls him back and informs him that Sidney is in a very bad mood. First of all, he had gone to see Rod that day to ask him as a stock analyst questions about Victor's profession. Just before Nobuyuki's call, Sidney's mother had called him to say that Victor's mother burst into Ada's house and tried to strangle her, accusing her of murdering Victor. Clara and Ada's mother had to hold the woman back. Nobuyuki remembers how uncharacteristically angry Sidney has been getting when speaking to his mother. Henry thinks it would be a good idea for Nobuyuki to show up at Ada's house "coincidentally" as emotional support for Sidney. Nobuyuki dashes out, in the process losing the rubberband from his hair.

When he arrives at Ada's house, Clara greets him exuberantly. However, as Sidney gruffly pushes his mother out the door, the two get into a fight, ending with Clara shrieking that Sidney is shameful and worthless and should have died in Iraq. Sidney's response is, "Unfortunately, I survived." Both Nobuyuki and Henry are left speechless.

Victor's mother is still maintaining that Ada killed her son. When her husband comes in to fetch her, she rails at him that he likes Ada and his first wife better than Victor and herself, and that's why he's siding with them against her. She insists that Ada murdered Victor because she found out he wanted to end their engagement. Her husband finally takes her home. Since no one wants to press charges, the police have nothing to do but leave.

Nobuyuki can't understand why Clara would have said such horrible things. He knows Sidney can't have done anything to deserve it. When he hears Sidney get back, he rushes to the bathroom to see him. Sidney begs him to stay away, but he goes in anyway. Sidney had poured water over his head, presumably to cool himself off, and is sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

Sidney again tells Nobuyuki to leave, because Sidney doesn't know what he might do. Nobuyuki refuses to listen, rushing to his side. He is stunned to hear that Clara would treat her own son that way just because he's gay. Sidney grabs him and seals his mouth with a kiss, but before Nobuyuki even realizes what is happening, Sidney shoves him away and breaks into hysterical laughter. Nobuyuki is terrified by the sound, feeling that it is carrying Sidney far away from him.

He puts his arms around Sidney and holds him tightly. He declares that, gay or not, Sidney is just Sidney. He thinks about how he doesn't care what anyone else might say, Sidney is the most important person in the world to him. Eventually, Sidney recovers his composure, though he protests that having Nobuyuki clinging to him is more torture than comfort. Noticing that the usual rubberband is missing, he runs his fingers through Nobuyuki's long hair.

By the time the two let go of each other and went to bed, it was about two o'clock, so Nobuyuki is red-eyed and sleepy the next morning when he goes to work. He accepts a spare rubberband from Kiyomi, though he vehemently rejects her offer to braid his hair for him. He can't stop thinking about what Sidney's mother had said. Suddenly, he remembers something important. He calls his father, the most objective source he can think of, and asks for more details about Ada's parents' divorce.

After the call, Nobuyuki contacts Sidney and Henry, who come to pick him up with siren blaring. Sidney reports that Victor had been dating a woman in Chicago, but she had been killed by a drunk driver a month before he moved to New York. Nobuyuki can't put into words what he knows, but he can say that Ada didn't kill Victor, and that there's no predicting what the murderer might do next.

On the way, there's a point where Nobuyuki stares intently at Sidney's face. Sidney smiles slyly and asks, "What's the matter? Would you like me to kiss you again?" At that, Henry slams on the brakes. He tosses Sidney a knowing wink, though Nobuyuki as always doesn't understand what's going on. Nobuyuki is busy blushing and wondering why his heart is pounding.

When they arrive at Whitestone, their first stop is Ada's house. They find out from Ada's mother that Norman had taken his step-sister to the hospital to treat her neck wounds. The one question Nobuyuki asks her is whether she is happily married. Next they head toward Victor's parents' house. On the way, they pass Sidney's old yard. His collie, Beth II, notices him and runs at the car barking, but Sidney just looks away and tells Henry to drive faster. [Note: Beth II is introduced as the daughter of Beth I. In a later book, this will be contradicted.] At their destination, Victor's step-father opens the door and confesses to murdering Victor.

Sidney begins to arrest the man, but Nobuyuki declares that someone else is the murderer. Finally the whole story comes out. What Nobuyuki had heard from his father was that Yasuyuki thought the man had resembled himself after his own divorce. Once the divorce was official, he realized that he had lost something irreplaceable and regretted it. No matter how much time passed, he could never stop thinking about his first wife and child. Nobuyuki had noticed that Ada's mother was happily remarried, but her father obviously waffled between the two women.

In the case of Victor's mother, this made her desperate to gain his attention. When Victor and Ada began dating, she felt it was the one thing that would make them a true family so that her husband would love her. She had heard from Victor that he was considering breaking off the engagement because he couldn't stop thinking about the woman who died in Chicago, so she went to talk to him at his home to convince him to go through with the wedding. Victor had always been under a lot of pressure to live up to his mother's expectations, and having her try to force him to marry Ada was the last straw. He grabbed a nearby golf club and threatened his mother with it. In the resulting struggle, she wound up killing him. The shock of being attacked by her own son and then killing him was too much for her; her mind snapped, and she began living in a fantasy world.

Nobuyuki spends so much time helping wrap up the case, he's afraid his boss will fire him. However, Sidney steps in and speaks on his behalf. He knows Nobuyuki doesn't want to use helping the police as an excuse to get him out of trouble, but he explains that Nobuyuki was spending the time helping a person in need. Takada lets Nobuyuki off with just a warning that he'll have to pay for the overseas phone call he made.

Sidney notices that Nobuyuki had borrowed a rubberband from Kiyomi. He asks her where to get more, and--despite Nobuyuki's protests--takes the remaining two she offers.

Nobuyuki can't sleep that night, so he makes some coffee. Sidney asks for some too, and they have a late-night chat. Insisting they can't stay in Nobuyuki's room to drink the coffee because he has his bed out in plain sight, he invites Nobuyuki over to his apartment, where he sits with a blanket around him.

Nobuyuki ignores Sidney's protests and snuggles under the blanket with him. Sidney is troubled at first, but eventually he gives in and puts his arm around Nobuyuki, pulling him close. After a while, Nobuyuki feels so comfortable that he rests against Sidney's shoulder and falls asleep. Sidney frantically tries to stop him, knowing his self-control is stretched thin enough as it is, but his threats are no more than a lullaby and Nobuyuki sinks into a peaceful slumber.

[Note: It is left up to the reader to interpret why Sidney insisted so strongly on getting more rubberbands for Nobuyuki. Does he think Nobuyuki is so attractive with his hair loose that he wants it bound up to prevent him from losing control? Does he not want other people (particularly Kiyomi) to see Nobuyuki that way? Or is it the other way around--does he think Nobuyuki is more attractive with his hair in a ponytail that he can tug on?]

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