FIFTY-NINE
Shinagawa Station came into view. There were a lot of cars, and traffic was moving slowly.
“You can just let me out here,” Yukawa said, gathering his things.
Utsumi pulled over to the side of the road, and Yukawa opened the door. “Thanks for the lift,” he said, getting out.
“Hold on, I’ll see you to the gate,” Kusanagi said, undoing his seatbelt.
“It’s fine, it’s still a bit of a walk to the station.”
“None of that, now.” Kusanagi opened his door. “You go on back without me,” he said to Utsumi as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.
The two men walked past the line of cars toward the station. It was nearing the end of August, but the heat made it feel like midsummer. Yukawa started sweating, the grime of the city clinging to his face.
“It’s still impossible to say what’s true and what’s not,” he said abruptly. “I have my theories, but I would hesitate to even call them conjecture. In the end, it might all just be my imagination. The only reason I think Narumi might have been the one who killed Nobuko is because it answers several questions. I have no concrete evidence. And there are many things I still don’t know. The entire premise that Narumi is Senba’s daughter might be flawed. And if it is true, does Shigehiro Kawahata know? What about Nobuko’s murder, does he know about that? If so, when did he learn of it? It’s all mysteries within mysteries. The only thing that could clear any of it up would be a confession from those involved, but that’s one thing I am absolutely positive we’ll never get.”
“And what about Tsukahara’s murder?”
“You mean Tsukahara’s ‘death due to negligence.’ It’s the same situation. As long as the Nobuko Miyake case is considered closed, there would be no motive for murdering him.”
“But it is possible to connect the Kawahatas with him,” Kusanagi said. “Tsukahara was the one who arrested Senba. And Senba knew Setsuko.”
“True. But how much does a thirty-year-old connection between a barmaid at a restaurant and one of her customers count for, I wonder.”
“It’s hard to write it off as coincidence.”
“Is it?” Yukawa wondered out loud. “I see coincidences like that all the time. Regardless—” The physicist breathed a deep sigh. “Regardless, as long as Senba isn’t telling his story, I don’t see a way for us to get to the bottom of this case. And he won’t talk. He took a long prison sentence to protect the daughter he loved; he won’t throw that away now. He intends to take his secret to his grave, and he won’t have long to wait. No, I’m afraid this is one fight your side isn’t going to win, Kusanagi.”
The physicist’s tone of indifference irked him, but Kusanagi couldn’t think of a retort. Everything he said was true.
They arrived at the station. Yukawa said farewell and started to walk off toward the ticket gate.
“You’re just going to let it go?” Kusanagi asked to his turned back. “You’re okay with the way things turned out? What about that person you were trying to protect?”
Yukawa turned. “Of course it’s not okay,” he said, his voice ringing out over the din of the station. “That’s why I’m going back to Hari Cove.”
“Wait—” Kusanagi said, but Yukawa just slung his jacket over his shoulder and walked through the gates.
SIXTY
Setsuko was sitting across a small table from Detective Isobe. A younger detective sat next to him, taking notes.
“The temperature in here good for you? Not too cold?” Isobe asked. His face was set in a permanent scowl, but there was a look of real concern in his narrow eyes. Setsuko imagined that the scowl was something of a professional affectation, a look he’d had to wear so often it became his default mode. She’d had customers like that back in the day at Haruhi. They weren’t grumpy, they were just too shy to make a kind face.
“It’s fine,” she said, and Isobe nodded, looking back down at his case report.
The room wasn’t bad for an interrogation room. It was well air-conditioned, and the detectives weren’t smoking. She’d always pictured these rooms as stark places with frightening décor, like one-way mirrors, but there was nothing of the sort here. Well, except for the bars on the one window.
“So, right, I need to ask you about a few more details,” Isobe said, before launching into a long list of questions about the upkeep of the inn, boiler maintenance, whether they had ever considered repairs, whether they knew how much repairs would cost, and other things of that nature. There was no need to lie, so Setsuko just told it like it was.
Maybe we’ll get out of this after all, she thought. The police were definitely moving toward wrapping the case up as professional negligence and corpse abandonment. The punishment for that should be relatively light, not that Setsuko feared punishment. She was happy as long as they could keep what happened sixteen years ago under wraps.
“Sounds like things are pretty rough,” Isobe said, scratching his head. “I guess it’s pretty much the same story for most of the hotels around here.”
Setsuko nodded in silence and thought, If only we’d shut the place down last summer.
“What I’m wondering mostly now is why Mr. Tsukahara chose your inn. You hear anything about that from him? You served him dinner, right?”
Setsuko shrugged. “I did, but we didn’t talk. I just explained the dishes, as usual.”
“Right,” Isobe said, shaking his head. He didn’t seem that concerned either way.
He turned and spoke to the other detective, the one taking notes, and the two left the room. Setsuko’s eyes wandered over to the one barred window in the room. There was a blush of red in the sky. Evening was coming.
The sunset had been glorious that night too, sixteen years ago.
It was a Sunday. The day before, Setsuko had met with an old friend and arrived at Ogikubo Station late, a little tipsy. Walking back, she saw a number of police cars near their house but shrugged it off as another car accident. It was nearly midnight when she got home.
She peeked into Narumi’s room. The lights were out, but she could see a shape buried under the covers. Setsuko smiled and shut the door quietly.
When the call from Hidetoshi Senba came the next morning, she’d been a little bewildered to hear from him now so many years later, but the call wasn’t unwelcome. The surprise mingled with regret in her heart, and, she admitted, a bit of longing.
What he had to say drove all such thoughts out of her mind. Nobuko killed, so close to their home, and her knowing the truth of Narumi’s birth.
She hung up and went into Narumi’s room. She was still in bed, curled up in a fetal position. She wasn’t sleeping, and there were streaks down her cheek. Setsuko understood immediately that she’d been up crying all night.
The knife was on the table next to her bed—a kitchen knife Setsuko often used. It was black with blood. Not just the blade, but the handle, too. Setsuko stood, stunned. Her eyes went to the window, where red streaks of dawn lit the clouds in the distance with an eerie light—an ominous sign, she thought at the time.
Half panicking herself, she began to interrogate Narumi. What happened? What’s this knife? Talk to me, Narumi. The girl’s shock was too deep for her to relate the story with any kind of coherence. Gradually, though, Setsuko learned that a strange woman had come to their house the night before and started saying things to Narumi about her father. Then, after she had left, Narumi had gone to the kitchen, grabbed the knife, and presumably chased her down, though Narumi’s account was particularly vague on that point.