Yasuko passed a fried chicken meal across the counter to the last customer in line and glanced up at the clock. Only a few minutes until six. She sighed and took off her white cap.
Kudo had called her on her cell phone at lunchtime. He wanted to meet her after work—“To celebrate,” he’d said, his voice full of energy.
She’d asked what they were celebrating.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he answered. “They caught the murderer! No more investigations. No more being watched. Surely that rates a toast?”
Kudo had sounded so chipper and full of life over the phone. It made sense; he didn’t know what had really happened. Still, Yasuko had been unable to put herself in a celebratory mood. She had told him as much.
“Why?” Kudo had wanted to know. When she didn’t answer, he had mumbled something about understanding. “Oh … I wasn’t thinking about the victim. It’s surprising how deep the connections between people can run, even when they’re apart. I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to suggest a celebration.”
He was completely off the mark, but Yasuko hadn’t enlightened him.
“Actually, though…” he’d continued after a pause. “There was something else I wanted to talk with you about, something very important. I’d very much like to see you tonight. Do you think that would be possible?”
Yasuko had considered refusing. She just wasn’t in the mood. She felt stained by guilt, knowing Ishigami had turned himself in to save her. But she’d been at a loss for a way to turn Kudo down, and she had wondered—was still wondering—what the important thing he had to discuss might be.
In the end, they’d agreed that he would come pick her up at six thirty. Kudo had said something about wanting Misato to join them, but Yasuko had gently objected, and that was that. She didn’t want Kudo seeing her daughter the way she was these days.
Yasuko had left a message on the machine at her apartment, saying she’d be home a little late that evening. It made her heart heavy just imagining what Misato would think about that.
At the stroke of six, Yasuko took off her apron. She poked her head into the kitchen. “Looks like we’re done for the day,” she called to Sayoko.
“My, that time already?” Sayoko looked up from her plate. She was eating an early dinner. “Thanks, then. Don’t worry about closing up, I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks,” Yasuko replied, folding her apron.
“You’re going to meet Mr. Kudo tonight, aren’t you?” Sayoko asked in a quiet voice.
“What?”
“I noticed you got a phone call at lunch. He’s asked you on a date, didn’t he!”
Flustered, Yasuko said nothing. Sayoko took her silence for shyness. “I’m happy for you,” she said with a suggestive wink. “That whole unpleasant business with Togashi’s murder is cleared up now, and look, there’s a nice man like Mr. Kudo just waiting for you in the wings. You know, I think your luck has turned.”
“Maybe…”
“Oh it has, I’m sure of it! You’ve paid your dues, now it’s time for you to find a little happiness for yourself. And for Misato.”
Sayoko’s words triggered an avalanche of conflicting emotions inside Yasuko. Would Sayoko be wishing her happiness if she knew she was a killer?
Yasuko took her leave and slipped out of the kitchen. She couldn’t look Sayoko in the eyes.
She left Benten-tei and walked in the direction opposite her usual route home after work. She was supposed to meet Kudo at the family restaurant on the corner. Until now, she had avoided the place since that day she’d met Togashi there. But Kudo had selected it as an easy place where they could meet. She’d been unable to think of an appropriate excuse to get him to change his mind.
An expressway overpass crossed above the road to the restaurant. She was just making her way beneath it when a man’s voice called out from behind her, “Ms. Hanaoka?”
She stopped and turned to see two familiar men walking toward her. One was Yukawa—the professor who was an old friend of Ishigami’s. The other was the detective, Kusanagi. Yasuko couldn’t imagine why they of all people would be here, walking together.
“You remember me?” Yukawa was the first to speak.
Involuntarily, Yasuko felt her gaze darting back and forth between the two men’s faces. After a moment she nodded.
“I’m sorry, were you on your way somewhere?”
“Well, actually…” She looked down at her watch, though she was too nervous to actually read the time. “I was supposed to meet someone.”
“I see. I was hoping that we could talk. Just for a half hour or so. It’s very important.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have that much time—” She shook her head.
“Then how about fifteen minutes? That’s all we need. Right here, on that bench.” Yukawa pointed toward a nearby strip of green, a tiny public park that had been built beneath the expressway.
Though his tone was gentle, something in his attitude conveyed how serious he was. Yasuko understood immediately that whatever he had to say was extremely important. This university man had talked to her like that before. His tone and words were light, but the weight behind them was almost suffocating.
She felt a powerful urge to run, to flee as fast as her legs would take her. But a strange fascination held her. She was curious to hear what he had to say. Whatever it was, she knew it was about Ishigami.
“Okay, ten minutes.”
“Thank you,” Yukawa said with a smile, leading the way toward the park.
Yasuko hesitated before following, but Kusanagi waved her on. “Go ahead,” he murmured. She nodded and followed after Yukawa. The detective’s dour presence was giving her the creeps.
Yukawa sat down on the bench. It was wide enough for two, and he left space for Yasuko.
“Stand over there, if you would,” the physicist directed Kusanagi with a wave of his hand. “I think we should talk by ourselves.”
Kusanagi looked less than pleased by this, but he stuck out his chin and strolled back to the entrance of the park, where he took out a cigarette and began to smoke.
Yasuko sat next Yukawa, glancing in Kusanagi’s direction. “Isn’t he a detective? Are you sure this is all right?”
“Don’t worry about him. I was originally going to come here by myself. And besides, he’s here more as a friend of mine than as a detective anyway.”
“A friend?”
“Since our college days, yes.” Yukawa smiled again, showing white teeth. “Which makes him a classmate of Ishigami, also. Though the two never met until all this happened.”
Finally Yasuko understood why Professor Yukawa had come to visit Ishigami only after the murder. Though Ishigami hadn’t said anything about it, she suspected that his whole plan had fallen apart because of Yukawa’s involvement. When the math teacher was calculating how to cover up her ex-husband’s murder, he certainly couldn’t have counted on the detective’s being an alumnus of his university or on the two of them even having a mutual friend.
But all that was done now. So what could Yukawa want to talk to her about?
“It’s extremely regrettable that Ishigami decided to turn himself in,” Yukawa said, abruptly getting to the point. “To think of a man with his talent wasting away inside a jail cell makes me, as a scientist, very sad indeed.”
Yasuko wasn’t sure how to respond. She clenched her fingers into fists on her knees.
“To be honest, I’m having trouble believing it. I just can’t believe he would do such a thing. To you. Spying like he says he did.”
Yukawa sensed that Yasuko was watching him out of the corners of her eyes; her body was visibly tensed.
“No, maybe believe isn’t the right word. I’m absolutely certain he wouldn’t. He … when he told us that story … Ishigami’s lying. Which raises the question: why would he lie? What’s the point of lying now that he’s soon to be a convicted murderer? And yet he is lying. I can think of only one reason for it. He’s not lying for himself. He’s lying for someone else, to hide the truth.”