“Go around to this guy’s place and question him,” the captain said, handing Uesugi the name and address of Yosaku Kishida.
“Kishida? I’ve seen that name somewhere before.”
“He’s an accountant. His company handles the finances of Naohiro Kiyose’s firm. He’s known Kiyose for thirty years, apparently. Whenever anyone asked Kiyose’s employees about Yuri Miyamoto, they all said the same thing: ‘If you want the low-down on the boss’s private life, Mr. Kishida’s your man.’”
“I remember where I came across the name. His company was on the list of incoming calls to Mineko Mitsui’s cell phone, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right. Kishida says she had some questions for him about her tax return.”
“Think that’s all it was?”
“Search me. Ask him that along with everything else.”
“Got you.”
Uesugi slipped the piece of paper into his back pocket.
“Shall I assign one of the young guys to go with you?”
“I’m fine. Something like this, I can handle on my own.”
Uesugi had just walked out of the police station, when someone called after him. When he turned around, Detective Kaga was hurrying toward him.
“Would it be all right for me to come along?”
“You know where I’m heading?”
“To Kishida Tax Accountancy’s offices. I heard you discussing it with the chief,” Kaga replied nonchalantly.
“Why so keen to go along? Think you’ll get an arrest out of it?”
Kaga smiled. “If it comes to that, you’re welcome to the credit. I’ve reasons of my own for being interested in Kishida Accountancy.”
“Your own reasons? Meaning?”
“Tell you later. You’re cool with me tagging along?”
Uesugi snorted. “I won’t stop you, if that’s what you mean.”
Kishida’s office was on the second floor of a six-story building. Behind the glass doors at the entrance was a reception desk. Behind the receptionist was a scrawny man in his late fifties, busily typing on a laptop.
Uesugi went in, introduced himself, and asked for Yosaku Kishida.
The man inside the office got to his feet. It was Kishida. Looking slightly rattled, he steered the two detectives over to a meeting area with armchairs.
Kishida presented them with his business card. As he examined the card, Uesugi got things going by asking Kishida about his relationship with Naohiro Kiyose. Kishida hemmed and hawed, but confirmed that the two men had known each other for a very long time.
“What about Kiyose’s family? Were you friends with the late Mineko Mitsui?”
Kishida cocked his head ambivalently.
“Kiyose’s wife and I were not that close. I almost never went to their house.”
“You received a phone call from Ms. Mitsui on June the second. What was it about?”
“I believe I’ve already told you.”
“I’m sorry to ask you to repeat yourself, but kindly talk us through it again. In detail.” Uesugi took out his notebook.
Kishida sighed softly.
“She wanted to know how much we would charge for doing her tax return. Since I knew nothing about the scale of her income or her expenses, I couldn’t give her a quote off the cuff. All I could do was promise that if she brought the job to us, we’d take care of it as reasonably as possible.”
“Did you talk about anything else?”
“No, that was it. We didn’t talk long.”
“What do you know about the reasons behind the Kiyoses’ divorce?”
Kishida thought for a moment.
“I know that Mineko was the one who wanted it. And that’s about it. It’s something that the two of them thrashed out between them; it wasn’t my place to stick my nose in.”
“You don’t think that Mr. Kiyose had reasons of his own? Another woman on the side, something like that?”
Kishida’s eyes widened. He shook his head vehemently from side to side.
“I really don’t think so. President Kiyose’s not smooth enough to pull something like that off.”
Uesugi decided to get to the point.
“He recently hired a new personal secretary, a woman by the name of Yuri Miyamoto. What do you know about her? Were strings pulled to get her the job?”
“No... uhm... that,” Kishida spluttered, his face the picture of dismay. “I’m just the accountant. As an outsider, I really don’t know much about HR issues at my clients’ companies. I heard that President Kiyose was acquainted with Ms. Miyamoto prior to giving her the job, but that’s all I know.”
“They were ‘acquainted’? What exactly was the nature of this ‘acquaintance’?”
“I really don’t know. That’s what I’ve been trying to say,” Kishida said, with obvious irritation.
The man’s frightened Naohiro Kiyose will put him through the wringer if he shoots his mouth off, thought Uesugi.
Uesugi decided to ease off. The guy didn’t look like he could give them much more. Uesugi snapped his notebook shut.
“You’re a busy man, Mr. Kishida. Thanks for your time.”
“Could I just ask one thing?” broke in Kaga, as Uesugi was getting to his feet. “Mr. Kishida, where were you on the evening of June tenth?”
Kishida stared at Kaga with a look of incredulity. Uesugi, too, was taken aback. While it was standard practice to check the alibis of everyone closely associated with the victim, there was no reason to treat Kishida as a suspect. If Kaga pressed Kishida too hard for an alibi now, it might backfire and gum up the investigation later.
“What? Am I a suspect?” Sure enough, Kishida’s face was taut with anger.
“You must understand that this is purely a matter of procedure. We ask everyone the same thing,” replied Kaga serenely.
When Kishida shot an anxious, searching look at Uesugi, he smiled and gave him an encouraging nod.
“I’m sorry, sir. Red tape. You know how it is.”
Kishida’s expression relaxed a little. He retreated to the back of the office, muttering peevishly to himself. When he returned, he was carrying a diary.
“On June the tenth, I went around to my son’s place after work,” Kishida announced, as he leafed through the diary.
“About what time did you leave here?”
“Sometime after six thirty. I can’t be more precise than that, I’m afraid.”
Kishida went on to explain that, after leaving the office, he spent a while in a bookstore and reached the apartment of his son and daughter-in-law around eight. Sometime after nine he set off from there to a Shinbashi bar that was a regular hangout of his, before finally making it home sometime after midnight.
Kaga asked Kishida to provide him with the addresses for his son and daughter-in-law, and for the bar in Shinbashi. “That’s everything from my side,” he announced, bringing the interview to a close.
Uesugi laid into Kaga the minute they were back out on the street.
“That wasn’t the time and place to start pressuring the man about his alibi. Stop playing the loose cannon. I don’t like it.”
“You can’t deny I was right to ask, though. Kishida has no alibi for the time between seven and eight o’clock.”
“What’s the big deal about that? There are always more people without alibis than with alibis. Besides, we’ve got no reason to suspect Kishida.”
Kaga stopped and turned to look at the traffic whizzing up and down the boulevard.
“Have you met Koki Kiyose?” he eventually asked, his eyes fixed on the road. “The victim’s only son?”
“Yeah, I went to see him the day after the murder,” Uesugi replied. “The kid’s a spoiled brat. Wet behind the ears.”
Kaga shrugged. “That’s rather harsh.”