A Midsummer's Equation

FORTY-TWO

By the time he reached Azabu Juban Station, it was a little after nine o’clock. There won’t be too many customers left by now, Kusanagi thought. Flower restaurant closed at ten.

He approached the building and looked up the outside staircase. A young man and woman were just coming down the steps. He waited for them to pass by before climbing the stairs.

Kusanagi opened the door and looked inside. The young man at the cash register looked up, then swallowed whatever he was about to say.

“Sorry, it’s me again,” Kusanagi said.

The young man nodded and looked into the back. Muroi was just coming out, wearing a red apron.

“I’ll be free in just a bit, if you don’t mind waiting,” he said.

“Not a problem,” Kusanagi said, sitting down at the nearest unoccupied table.

There were three groups of customers still seated. They looked mostly like businessmen, sharing the day’s news over beer and whiskey sours.

Kusanagi reflected on his last conversations with Yukawa. He’d spoken to the physicist twice today. The first time, he called in the early evening, using a number Yukawa had given him for the phone of “someone who is the most likely to be with me.” It had rung a few times before Yukawa had answered.

Kusanagi told him that while Shigehiro Kawahata had been posted in Nagoya, his wife and daughter had been living in a house in Ogikubo—the very same town where Senba had murdered Nobuko Miyake.

“Very interesting indeed. That puts the Kawahata family and Senba at the same spatial and temporal coordinates,” Yukawa had mumbled, half to himself.

“That may be,” Kusanagi said, “but I still have no way of finding out what the family was up to back then. You think you have a chance of finding some connection with Senba?”

“Hard to say, but I’ll give it a try,” the physicist had responded. “Given that Senba’s wife and Shigehiro Kawahata are from the same area originally, it might be that they just happened to run into each other at some point. But given that Shigehiro wasn’t in Tokyo at the time of Senba’s crime, it might be that the connection lies not with Shigehiro, but with his wife, Setsuko.”

“That’s a possibility. So, what’s Mrs. Kawahata like?”

“Well, if you’re picturing some old lady in the countryside, you couldn’t be further from the mark. She doesn’t wear much makeup, but she’s no bumpkin. Looks a lot younger than her age, too. I hear she left home young and was living on her own in Tokyo before she got married.”

The description did overwrite the mental image that Kusanagi had of Setsuko Kawahata. He also sensed that the physicist was driving at something. “A young, attractive woman living on her own in Tokyo … you think she might’ve been involved in the sex industry?” Kusanagi asked.

“I don’t get those vibes, but I’d say there’s a high possibility she was involved in some kind of customer service.”

“Okay, well, find out what you can,” he had said and hung up.

Then, about two hours ago, Yukawa had called him back. “It was a restaurant,” he said as soon as Kusanagi picked up.

“What was a restaurant?”

“Setsuko worked at a restaurant in Tokyo before she got married. That’s where she met Shigehiro Kawahata. Also, it specialized in Hari cuisine. Shigehiro probably went there for a taste of home.”

“And walked away with a lot more,” Kusanagi had said, when a light went off in his head, and he gasped out loud.

“What?” Yukawa asked.

Kusanagi licked his lips before saying, “Every once in a while, I get flashes of inspiration too.”

“This sounds interesting.”

“I’ll tell you when I know for sure,” Kusanagi said, giving the physicist a taste of his own medicine for once. He would’ve gone straight to Flower, but knowing it would be crowded, he’d decided to wait until closer to closing time.

Muroi walked over to the table, unfastening his apron. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said.

“Not at all. Sorry to bother you again,” Kusanagi replied. “There was something from our discussion yesterday that I want to check with you.”

“What, exactly? We talked about a couple things, as I recall.”

“You mentioned that the late Ms. Miyake and Senba used to talk about food from back home. You think they might’ve been talking about Hari cuisine, by any chance?”

“Hari?” Muroi put a hand to his forehead and thought for a moment, then he slapped his knee. “Yeah, there was a Hari place in Ginza they talked about going to. That’s where they got the present they brought me! It was dried noodles or something.”

“Seaweed udon, maybe?” Kusanagi asked.

“Yeah, that was it. The noodles were pretty standard, except for the flakes of seaweed in them,” Muroi said, his face brightening.

That was confirmation enough for Kusanagi. Senba had been a regular at the restaurant where Setsuko worked. Not just Senba, but the late Nobuko Miyake, too, which meant Setsuko had probably seen her as well.

Just then, a text came in to Kusanagi’s phone. It was from Utsumi. He pulled up the message, and his eyes widened.

Found out where Senba is being hospitalized. Coming back now.