A Midsummer's Equation: A Detective Galileo Mystery (Detective Galileo Series) by Keigo Higashino

Author:Keigo Higashino [Higashino, Keigo]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781250027917
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2016-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-THREE

A pretty girl with a deep brown tan carrying a bowl filled with tropical fruit smiled out of the poster. She was framed by palm trees, and behind her, a pure blue sea stretched out to the horizon. Below her, a printed note read, “We will be closing for the season on August 31. Thanks, The Management.”

It said “closing for the season,” but everyone knew Hari Cove Pizza would never be opening its doors again.

Narumi and the rest of the group had come here after their tour of the DESMEC survey boat. Someone had suggested they get tea, but there really wasn’t any place in town like that, so they ended up here. Narumi remembered when the pizza shop first opened—a garishly painted new arrival in a sleepy town that hadn’t quite woken up to the tourist industry and the money it could bring. There were tables inside with views through plate-glass windows and more tables outside on a large deck where you could sit and enjoy your pizza and your beer while feeling the sea breeze on your face. When they first opened, the season ran from the day the beach opened in the early summer all the way through September. The operating season had gotten shorter every year since.

“They didn’t do it the right way,” Sawamura said, sitting down across from Narumi. He was looking up at the poster, too. “You can’t just build some fancy place in the middle of nowhere and expect people to come. If you want to get customers—regulars, I mean—you have to get the town involved.” He shook his head. “All this town has, the only thing that’ll last, is the ocean. The people at town hall don’t get that. If they’ve got time to court DESMEC’s business, you’d hope they’d spend a little more energy trying to develop our tourism industry.”

“With what?” asked one of the men, a social studies teacher at the local middle school. “I totally agree that the ocean here is a fantastic resource, but we can talk about it all we want and people still won’t come. There are too many other places just like this.”

“I don’t think other places are like Hari Cove,” Narumi said.

“Oh, I agree, but people who aren’t from here don’t understand that. And to someone from the city, one beautiful ocean view is the same as any other. What’s important is name value. Everyone goes to Okinawa because everyone wants to say they’ve been to Okinawa. No one gets jealous when you tell them you went to Hari Cove. It just doesn’t feel like a fabulous vacation without the name.”

Narumi frowned. “You’re awfully hard on your own hometown,” she said.

“I’m just trying to be analytical. When I came back to Hari Cove after spending a couple years away, I was surprised, and not in a good way. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t look like a tourist destination. Everything’s falling apart. The hotels look run down. Go to Okinawa, you’re treated to luxury. Here, you blame yourself for wasting your precious vacation time.

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