Kaga fixed his eyes on Tamiko. “So... any idea who it could be?”
“No, I don’t. Besides, what does it matter?”
“We think it highly likely that the person who mislaid their cell phone is the murderer. The crime scene strongly suggests that Ms. Mitsui knew the murderer and thus let the murderer into her apartment. It is likely that the murderer contacted her to let her know they were coming. Your original appointment with Ms. Mitsui was set for seven o’clock. If that appointment hadn’t changed, Ms. Mitsui might have told the murderer not to come over that evening. That’s not what she did: she let the murderer into her apartment. She must have done so only after you pushed your appointment back one hour.”
Having delivered this speech in a single, rapid burst, Kaga waved his hand in a deprecating gesture when he saw Tamiko’s reaction to it. “I’m in no way criticizing you. Please don’t get the wrong idea.”
“I’m all too aware of the role that my postponing our appointment played in her murder.” Tamiko could feel the muscles of her face stiffening. “Go on.”
Kaga cleared his throat.
“That means that the murderer telephoned Ms. Mitsui after you called her. When we examined the record of incoming calls, the only call after yours was the one from the pay phone.”
Tamiko finally saw where Kaga was going with this.
“I understand your theory, but I can’t think of anyone.”
“Think very carefully. We have grounds for believing that this person was very close to Ms. Mitsui. There’s a good chance that she mentioned his or her name to you on multiple occasions.”
Kaga’s tone was forceful.
“How can you be so sure?” said Tamiko, looking at the detective. “Sometimes I don’t use the proper forms of polite Japanese, even when I’m talking to someone I hardly know.”
“We’ve got more evidence than just Ms. Mitsui’s tone on the telephone,” countered Kaga. “As I said, the call was made at six forty-five p.m. Let’s assume that the person who made the call — the owner of the mislaid cell phone — asked Ms. Mitsui if they could drop in on her that evening. Given that Ms. Mitsui was due to meet you at eight, you’d expect her to turn them down due to lack of time. But she didn’t. Why do you think that was?”
Tamiko cocked her head and exhaled through her teeth.
“I can think of one possibility: that the person who made that call did so from somewhere very close to Ms. Mitsui’s building. You can probably guess where I’m going with this?”
Kaga’s habit of throwing out sudden questions kept Tamiko off balance, but it was clear enough what he was hinting at.
“The owner of the cell phone knew where she lived?”
“Precisely,” Kaga agreed, with a satisfied look on his face. “Not even Ms. Mitsui’s ex-husband or son knew where she lived. You yourself told me that you didn’t know why she’d moved to Kodenmacho.”
“She didn’t tell me. Just said something vague about ‘inspiration.’”
“So Ms. Mitsui had no special connection with the Kodenmacho area. It’s difficult to believe that the murderer just happened to be in the neighborhood. No, we’re justified in assuming that the murderer knew that she lived there. That leaves us with a person who knows the address of Ms. Mitsui’s apartment and whom she is happy to have drop in on extremely short notice. Surely that suggests that victim and murderer knew each other very well indeed?”
The detective’s argument made good sense.
“I understand your theory and why you should want to talk to me. Off the top of my head, though, I can’t think of anyone. Can you give me some time to think about it?”
“Of course I can. Take all the time you need. Do you still have my card?”
Noticing the uncomfortable expression on Tamiko’s face, Kaga pulled out another card and placed it on the coffee table.
“Give me a call if you think of anything,” he said, getting to his feet.
Tamiko saw Kaga to the front door. He had his hand on the doorknob, when he turned to face her.
“As I said, you mustn’t blame yourself for what happened. It’s thanks to you that the crime was discovered so soon and that we’re already developing a time line for the murder.”
Tamiko knew that Kaga was being sincere and wasn’t just trying to be nice. Nonetheless, she struggled to take his comments at face value. Averting her eyes, she gently shook her head.
“Thanks for all your help,” said the detective and went on his way.
2
Mineko Mitsui was one of a small band of friends from Tamiko’s college days. There used to be more of them, but whenever one of them got married or had children, they tended to drift away. Tamiko sometimes wondered if her married friends stayed in touch with one another while excluding her because she was single.
Mineko was one of the first to get married. She and Tamiko fell out of touch when Mineko’s every waking minute was taken up with caring for her son, but the fact that she’d become a mother at such a young age meant that she was over and done with child-rearing that much earlier. By the time her son was in the final years of elementary school, Tamiko was the recipient of frequent phone calls from Mineko. Mostly she just wanted to grumble about how her life wasn’t much fun. Once, when Tamiko told Mineko she had it easy compared to most people, Mineko flew off the handle. “You can’t begin to know how I feel,” she’d protested. On another occasion, she burst into tears, complaining that life didn’t seem worth living anymore. Her husband was indifferent to his family, apparently, and the two of them had fallen thoroughly out of love.
Mineko was deeply jealous of Tamiko. Not only did she have a job, but she was a translator. At college Mineko had dreamed of working as a translator of folktales and fairy stories.
Tamiko suggested to Mineko that she give it a whirl. She had explained that translation was the sort of job you could fit around your housework, whenever you had a minute or two to spare.
Mineko was convinced that it wasn’t that simple. Her husband didn’t like the idea of his wife working, and she was afraid that he wouldn’t let her even do the occasional odd job.
Tamiko knew better than to get in the middle of a dispute between a married couple. The best she could do, she decided, was give Mineko a shoulder to cry on.
Recently, though, circumstances had changed. When her only son left home, Mineko had started thinking seriously about leaving her husband. The only problem was how to support herself.
“How about you helping me out?” Tamiko had proposed spontaneously. She needed someone to help out after her excellent assistant quit.
Mineko lacked self-confidence but acquitted herself well on the translations that Tamiko gave her as a test.
Armed with a newfound belief in her ability to earn a living, Mineko made up her mind and asked her husband for a divorce. Somewhat to her surprise, he readily agreed. The settlement he offered Mineko was very modest, in light of his high net worth. Tamiko told her to stick to her guns and demand more, but Mineko only laughed. “I don’t care,” she said. “Getting my freedom is way more important than getting his money.”
Tamiko started sending translation jobs to Mineko almost as soon as she moved out. Tamiko planned to keep an eye on her friend until she was capable of standing on her own two feet as a translator, something that would take some time. For her part, Tamiko was very happy to be working with a friend.