“I’m really sorry,” Kusanagi said, bowing his head, “but it’s against the rules.” He stood from the table. “Thank you again for your time and for your help.”
“Was it? A help, I mean.”
“Absolutely.” Kusanagi began to walk toward the door, but stopped halfway and turned around. “Actually, there’s one more thing I’d like to ask you. A favor. I am going to go talk to Ms. Kawahata, eventually, but if you could, please don’t mention this to anyone. Word travels fast, and there’s a chance she might hear about it before I get a chance to sit down with her.”
Reiko nodded, then a mischievous smile came to her face. “I can tell my mom, right? She knows I’m meeting with you, after all.”
“I’d prefer it if you didn’t, honestly.”
“What? You know she’s going to give me a thorough questioning when I get home.”
“Well, you’ll just have to think of something to tell her,” Kusanagi said.
“Something to tell her. Right.” Reiko frowned.
He walked out through the sliding doors onto the street. He was pondering his next move, when a voice from behind called out, “Detective?”
He turned to see Reiko running over to him. “I just remembered something. I went over to her house once in early April. There was a park really nearby, and we all went there to see the cherry trees.”
“A park with cherry trees? Are you sure?”
“Yes—that was the only time we went cherry blossom–viewing in middle school, so I remember it really well.”
Kusanagi give it some thought, then nodded and smiled at her. “Thank you, that’s very—”
“Helpful, I know. You’re sure I can’t talk about it?”
Kusanagi shook his head. “Sorry, no.”
“Right,” she said. She wished him good luck with the investigation, then went back to the showroom. Kusanagi watched her leave, then set off again, taking big strides in his excitement.
Both Ogikubo and a park featured prominently in the crime scene details surrounding Nobuko Miyake’s death. It was looking more and more like the Kawahatas were involved with the Senba case after all.
He was just thinking he should call Yukawa and tell him, when his phone began to buzz. He checked the display. It was Utsumi. She had gone to talk to Tsukahara’s widow to see if she might know where he would’ve taken a homeless man to receive medical care.
“You get anything?” he asked, picking up.
“I can’t say for sure, but what I did hear is very intriguing.”
“The widow told you something?”
“No, not from her, it was from the prefectural detectives.”
“What, you ran into them?”
“They were at the house when I got there. Two guys, both in homicide. They let me observe.”
“What were they there for?”
“They wanted to know if Tsukahara had any connections out in Chofu.”
“Chofu? This is the first time I’ve heard anything about Chofu.”
“Yeah, me too. Apparently he mailed something from the post office by the station.” She explained the attendance voucher and the hearing in Hari Cove.
“What did the widow say?”
“She gave it some thought, but in the end, she said she didn’t know. She thought he might’ve gone there while he was still on duty, but he never talked about work at home.”
He pictured Sanae Tsukahara’s face, that look of determination in her eyes. If she had never asked her husband about his work, it wasn’t due to a lack of interest. It was because she knew there were things she was better off not knowing, just as there were things he was better off not having to share.
“The prefectural guys want to know anything else?”
“Nothing new. They asked again whether she’d thought of any connection to Hari Cove, things like that. Of course she had nothing for them.”
“Did they ask you anything?”
“They wanted to know why I had come to visit the widow.”
“You tell them about the hospital?”
“Should I have?”
Kusanagi grinned. “What’d you say?”
“I told them I came to borrow family albums—that I was looking for a photo that might show Tsukahara in Hari Cove.”
“Did they buy that?”
“It took the wind out of their sails a little. They knew that the Tokyo Police Department was involved, but I don’t think they were very impressed with that particular line of inquiry. Nor with the fact that Tokyo had put a single detective on the case—young and female, at that. Incidentally, there weren’t any photo albums in the house. Someone from the prefectural police took them all the last time they visited.”
Utsumi spoke very matter-of-factly, and Kusanagi had to strain to detect the slight hint of irritation in her voice.
“Don’t let it get to you,” he said. “Besides, you got something out of it.”
“It didn’t get to me. And I’m glad you think the trip was useful.”
“Of course it was. If Tsukahara mailed his application from Chofu, it probably means he was out there meeting someone with a deep connection to Hari Cove.”
“I agree, and I’m already on it. Sorry to tell you after the fact.”
Kusanagi steadied his grip on his phone. “You’re going to Chofu?”
“I went back home and got my car—the plan is to check in with every hospital in the area.”
“Good call. Shizuoka prefectural police will start asking questions around there sooner or later, but you’ve got a leg up on them with the hospital lead. Make it count.”
“Will do. How are things on your end?”
“Well…” He licked his lips. “I’ve got a few leads. I’ll tell you about them when you’re done. I don’t want to distract you while you’re on the beat.”
“Now you’re getting my hopes up.”
“As they should be. Later,” he said, and hung up. Normally, he would’ve told her about the house in Ogikubo by the park—except he didn’t feel ready yet. He was still turning it over in his mind, trying to figure out what it all meant.
FORTY
Yukawa had placed three paper triangles on the table. He’d stacked three sheets of paper and cut them out at the same time, so they would be identical. First, he stuck two of the triangles together to make a parallelogram, then he added the third to form a trapezoid.
“See? Put the three inside angles together, and you get a straight line. In other words, 180 degrees. This is the basis for the rest of our calculations. You can make a square by putting two triangles together, which means that the sum of its inside angles is two times 180, so 360 degrees. Similarly, with a pentagram…”
Yukawa was going out of his way to make everything clear, but to no avail. Kyohei’s mind was off in a different place. Last night, before he went up to bed, he wandered down to check in with his uncle and aunt and heard hushed voices spilling out into the hallway by their apartment. He couldn’t catch everything they said, but one thing he heard crystal clear:
“He knows. That professor knows.”
It was Uncle Shigehiro’s voice.
Kyohei had crouched, frozen in place. Gradually, he forced himself to turn around and walk quietly back down the hallway, straining to step quietly across the old floorboards.
He’d gone straight up to his room and crawled into his futon. A horrible, black premonition pushed down on his chest, and it felt like his heart would never stop racing. He was being kept in the dark, but he wasn’t stupid. Something was happening, something bad. Why else would his uncle talk like that, in a voice that made him sound like a horrible person saying horrible things?
At some point, Yukawa had stopped talking. Kyohei looked up. The physicist was resting his chin on his hands, staring at him as though observing some experimental test subject.