Hasunuma had been found at five thirty. If he had already been dead between half an hour and two hours, that put the time of death somewhere between 3:30 and 5:00 P.M.
“By the occupant, you mean Hasunuma’s colleague, don’t you? Let’s see...” Kusanagi reached for his notebook.
“His name’s Masumura.”
“Could I speak to this Mr. Masumura?”
“He’s currently being interviewed at the police station. They’ve arranged for him to spend the night at a business hotel near the railway station. If you want to speak to him directly, though, I can set that up.”
“Please do. I’d really appreciate it.”
“No problem, sir.”
Muto pulled out his phone and made a call.
Kusanagi ran his eye around the small former storeroom again. What sort of schemes had Hasunuma been cooking up in this cramped little space? One of the first things he’d done was go back to Namiki-ya. Why was he so keen to provoke the victim’s family?
The room had a sliding door with a hasp for a padlock on the outside. Kusanagi guessed it was there for security purposes, back when it was a storeroom.
Muto ended his call.
“They’ve already finished interviewing Masumura. I’ve asked them to bring him here on the way to the hotel.”
“That’s very helpful. It’ll be easier to get him to explain things here.”
“You don’t mind if I sit in?”
“Not at all,” Kusanagi replied.
They heard a noise at the door of the hut and they both turned around. Detective Kaoru Utsumi was peering in.
“Is it all right if I come in?”
“Come on in,” said Muto. He turned to Kusanagi. “I assume that Detective Utsumi is here because the Tokyo Metropolitan Police think this might be a murder?”
“What’s the view of the Kikuno precinct?”
“Murder is definitely a possibility. There’s no lack of reasons why someone would want to kill him. Our investigators have already gone to make inquiries” — Muto paused a moment — “at Namiki-ya.”
Kusanagi nodded wordlessly. Anyone who had worked on the Saori Namiki case would have thought the same.
“Can I go and join them? Would that be okay?” Utsumi asked.
“Better not,” Kusanagi replied. “Kikuno precinct hasn’t yet officially contacted the TMPD to ask for help. Don’t be pushy.”
Utsumi squared her shoulders and looked momentarily disgruntled. “Understood, sir,” she replied.
“You said there were no noticeable abnormalities on the body. What about the rest of the crime scene? Did Forensics have anything interesting to say?” Kusanagi asked Muto.
“Nothing stood out. Nothing obviously disturbed, no sign of anyone having wiped away fingerprints, or anything like that.”
“Okay.”
Kusanagi sighed. Right now, there was no reason to designate this a murder. They would have to wait for the results of the autopsy. If it was murder, the absence of external injuries made it likely that poison had been used.
There hadn’t been a cup or mug anywhere near Hasunuma in the photo Muto had shown him. If that was how the killer got Hasunuma to ingest poison, then he must have taken it with him when he left.
In his mind’s eye, Kusanagi saw Yutaro Namiki. If this was murder, then Namiki would be the prime suspect. He had a motive in spades.
But...
Kusanagi ran his eyes around the little room. He found it difficult to imagine Namiki and Hasunuma facing off within this confined space. Had Namiki forced his way in, Hasunuma would have been on his guard. The idea that he would willingly have drunk anything laced with poison made no sense.
Muto pulled out his phone to take an incoming call.
“We’re inside. Come on in.” He ended the call and looked over at Kusanagi and Utsumi. “Masumura has arrived.”
There were voices outside and Kusanagi’s eyes went to the door.
A uniformed policeman ushered a small man in a windbreaker into the room.
16
The precinct detectives arrived at Namiki-ya just as it was about to close, waited for the last customers to leave, and then interviewed the members of the family separately.
Natsumi was questioned in a patrol car parked outside the restaurant. Most of the questions were about what she had been doing all day: Where had she been? What had she been doing between such and such time and such and such time? Who had she been with? Had she received any calls; if so, when and from whom? Had she made any calls? If so, when, to whom, and what were they about?
Natsumi answered all the questions with absolute honesty. She didn’t find the experience particularly pleasant; it was clear that the detective was checking to see if she had an alibi.
After the detectives had left, Natsumi talked to her parents. They, too, were questioned with equal persistence.
“Did they tell you how Hasunuma died?” Yutaro looked first at Machiko, then at Natsumi.
Machiko tilted her head to one side and said nothing.
“They didn’t tell me, either,” Natsumi replied. “They just kept asking me an endless series of questions. I never got the chance to ask them anything. What about you, Daddy?”
“I asked them, but they wouldn’t tell me. No, that’s not quite right. My impression was that the detective didn’t actually know. Still, the fact they were asking us about where we were at various times suggests they think he was killed.”
“After all, if Hasunuma was murdered, we’d be logical suspects,” Machiko said.
“I think they could tell we were telling the truth,” said Natsumi.
Her mother and father exchanged a look.
“I suppose so,” said Yutaro, scratching the back of one ear.
A cell phone started to ring. Yutaro walked over to the counter and picked up his phone.
“It’s from Shusaku,” he said, swiping to answer the call.
“Yeah, hi, it’s me... Yeah, they left literally one minute ago. Yeah, Machiko and Natsumi as well. Detectives questioned them both separately... To make sure we weren’t coordinating our stories, I suppose... That’s what it was about.” Yutaro went into the kitchen, still talking on the phone.
“Natsumi, I’m going to turn off the light.” Machiko flicked the wall switch.
“Okay.” Natsumi took off her shoes and went upstairs.
Alone in her room, she checked her phone. She had a text from Tomoya. He wanted to know what was going on.
She decided to call him. It was faster and he was probably still awake.
He picked up immediately. “Yes? Is that you, Natsumi?”
“Hi, Tomoya. Can you talk?”
“Sure. What happened after I left?”
Bedlam had broken out at Namiki-ya after Maya Miyazawa announced Hasunuma’s death. The customers were regulars and they all knew who Hasunuma was. They were all talking over one another, wondering how he had died.
After a while, the hubbub died down and they all fell silent. With no information, they must have realized that speculation was a waste of time.
That was when Yutaro came out of the kitchen. “We’ll get to hear the details soon enough. In the meantime, let’s keep calm, wait, and see how things play out,” he said. His remarks were met with silent nods of agreement.
When Maya Miyazawa and her companions headed out for their cast revel, that triggered a mass exodus. Before he left, Tomoya had whispered to Natsumi, “If anything happens, let me know.”
Natsumi told Tomoya about the detectives who had come and questioned her and her parents.
“I’m not surprised. You and your family are the prime suspects.”
“That’s what my mother said. I mean, we hated the guy.” Natsumi was being brutally honest. “Still, all three of us told them in great detail what we were doing all day. I don’t think they can suspect us anymore.”