“Sure has been cold lately, hasn’t it? You use that electric kotatsu there every winter?”
“The kotatsu? I suppose…” Yasuko said, turning around to glance at the heated table, in part to hide her shock from the detective. He couldn’t have mentioned the kotatsu purely by accident.
“How long have you had that kotatsu for?”
“Oh, I don’t know … four, maybe five years. Is there something wrong?”
“No, not at all,” Kishitani said, shaking his head. “By the way, did you go someplace after work today? I noticed you came home late.”
Yasuko blinked, the question taking her by surprise. She realized that the police must have been waiting for her by her apartment. Which meant they had probably seen her getting out of the taxi.
I’d better not lie.
“I went out to dinner with a friend,” she answered, trying to keep her answer as vague as possible, but of course that wasn’t enough to satisfy the detective.
“The man who was with you in the taxi? Right. I was wondering, how do you know him? If you don’t mind me asking,” the detective said, almost bashfully.
“Do I have to tell you where I went to dinner, too?”
“If it’s not a problem, ma’am. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry into your personal affairs, but if I don’t ask about it then my boss will complain when I get back to the office, see?” Kishitani gave a sheepish grin. “Be assured, we wouldn’t think of troubling your friend—the man you were with. If you could just tell me where you went?”
Yasuko sighed deeply. “His name is Kudo. He was a regular at the club where I used to work. He knew I had been married to Togashi and he was worried about me with the case on the news and all. He came to my work to check in on me.”
“What does he do, this Mr. Kudo?”
“I heard he runs a printing company, but I don’t know much more than that.”
“Do you have a number where we could reach him?”
Yasuko furrowed her brow and frowned.
“Please understand,” Kishitani said, nodding apologetically, “we won’t contact him unless there is some dire need—and even if we do, we will be very discreet, I assure you.”
Yasuko took out her cell phone, not bothering to hide her displeasure, and quickly read off the number Kudo had given her. The detective hurriedly scribbled the number down.
Kishitani then asked her to tell him everything she knew about Kudo. All the while that they talked, even as he kept on prying, he maintained his sheepish demeanor. Eventually, Yasuko found herself telling him everything back to the first day when Kudo had appeared at Benten-tei.
After Kishitani left, Yasuko locked the door and sat down in the entranceway. She felt overwrought, her emotions dragged out to exhaustion.
Then she heard the sound of the sliding door as Misato emerged from the back room. “They still suspect something about the movie, don’t they?” the girl said. “Everything’s happening just like Ishigami said it would. It’s pretty incredible, you know.”
“I know.” Yasuko stood and brushed her fallen bangs out of her face.
“Mom. I thought you went out to eat with the people at Benten-tei?”
Yasuko looked up. Misato was frowning.
“You were listening?”
“Of course I was.”
“Oh…” Yasuko slid her legs under the kotatsu, her head hanging. She remembered the detective asking about the kotatsu.
“How could you go out to eat with someone at a time like this?”
“I couldn’t say no. He—the person I went to dinner with–was very good to me in the past. And he came to find me because he was worried about me—about us. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it before.”
“No, Mom, I’m fine. It’s just—”
They heard the door to the next apartment open and shut. Then came the sound of footsteps, heading down the stairs. Yasuko and Misato exchanged glances.
“Mom, your cell.”
“It’s on.”
A few minutes later, Yasuko’s phone began to ring.
Ishigami used the same public phone he always did when he made his third call that evening. The first two times he hadn’t been able to get through to Yasuko’s cell phone. He was worried that something might have happened—he’d always gotten through to her before—but when she answered he realized immediately from her tone that his fears were misplaced.
Ishigami had heard the doorbell at the Hanaokas earlier—and as he’d suspected, it had been the police. Yasuko told him that the detective had asked her for the ticket stubs. Ishigami knew what they were after. They would try to match the stubs to their other halves, presumably in storage at the movie theater. If they found stubs that matched the ones they got from Yasuko, they would check the fingerprints. If Yasuko’s fingerprints were on them, that would prove that she and her daughter had at least been at the movie theater that night—whether they had actually seen the movie or not. If there were no fingerprints, the police suspicion of the Hanaokas would go up a notch.
And the detective had asked about the kotatsu. This, too, Ishigami had predicted.
“I think they’ve determined the murder weapon,” Ishigami said into the receiver.
“The murder weapon?”
“The kotatsu cord. That’s what you used, isn’t it?”
The phone went silent on the other end. Maybe Yasuko was remembering the moment it had happened, when she had strangled Togashi.
“In any strangulation, marks from the murder weapon remain on the skin of the neck,” Ishigami explained. It felt harsh to lay it out so plainly, but this was no time for euphemisms. “Forensics is quite advanced these days. They can usually tell the murder weapon used by looking at the marks it leaves.”
“So that’s why the detective asked about the kotatsu?”
“I’d assume so. But there’s no need to worry. I’ve already made arrangements.”
He had expected the police to identify the murder weapon. Which was why he had exchanged the Hanaokas’ kotatsu with his own. Their old kotatsu—the real murder weapon—was packed away in his closet. As luck would have it, the cord on his old kotatsu was different from the one on theirs. If the detectives came back and examined that cord, they would immediately realize it was a dead end.
“What else did the detective ask you?”
“What else…?” Yasuko’s voice faded into silence.
“Ms. Hanaoka? Hello?”
“Y-Yes?”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing at all. I was just trying to remember what else he said. There wasn’t anything, I don’t think. He mentioned that if they could prove that I went to the movies then I would no longer be a suspect, or something to that effect.”
“Yes, the movie theater alibi is very important to them. That was part of my plan, of course. There’s really nothing to be worried about.”
“Thank you. It’s a great relief to hear you say that.”
Yasuko’s words lit a fire somewhere deep in Ishigami’s chest. For a brief moment, the tension he had been feeling pretty much around the clock eased a little.
It occurred to him then that he might ask about the man. The man who had dropped her off—the customer who had come into Benten-tei when he was there with Yukawa. Ishigami knew that he had given her a ride home tonight, too. He had seen them from his window.
“That’s about all I have to report. What about you, Mr. Ishigami? Is everything all right with you? Is something wrong?” Yasuko asked abruptly. Ishigami realized he hadn’t said anything for some time.
“No, nothing at all. Please, try to live life as normally as possible. I’m sure the police will be back with more questions, but what’s most important is that you don’t panic.”
“Yes, I understand.”