A Midsummer's Equation

FORTY-SEVEN

Nishiguchi paced like a caged animal at the zoo. He glanced down at his watch. Only two minutes had passed since he’d last looked at it. He scratched his head and pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He had already loosened his tie, and his jacket was sitting back in the lobby of the Green Rock Inn.

It was a little after one thirty in the afternoon, and the sun was nearly at its zenith, blazing down from the nearly cloudless sky, baking the pavement beneath. He wanted to go back inside, where the air-conditioning would at least keep him cool, but then he’d have to be with the Kawahatas, and that was even more uncomfortable than this heat.

Soon he heard the sound of engines coming from up the hill, and several police cruisers arrived, followed by a van. They all had their lights blinking, but no sirens were on.

The lead cruiser pulled in while the rest remained parked alongside the road.

Isobe and two of his men got out. Nishiguchi bowed to them.

“Where’s the suspect?” Isobe asked.

“Inside.”

“He’s saying he did it?”

“Not quite. He is saying it was his fault, though.”

Isobe frowned at that. “Any accomplices?”

“The wife helped get rid of the body.”

“And the daughter?”

“She … it seems like the daughter didn’t know anything.”

Isobe snorted to indicate he wasn’t buying any of it. He barked an order to his men, and the three of them headed for the door. Nishiguchi followed along behind.

The call had come from Narumi about an hour earlier. Nishiguchi had been eating lunch at a small police station to the east of East Hari. He’d spent the entire morning walking around, looking for people who’d seen Senba or Tsukahara, only to end up with empty hands and an emptier stomach. It was clear they were just making him walk around to prove there were no gaps in their questioning dragnet—busywork for a young officer.

Still, his heart had leapt a little when he saw the call from Narumi. The way his day had been going, an opportunity to talk to her was like a ray of sunshine through the clouds. But her voice was far darker than he had anticipated. She said she wanted him to come to the inn. She had something to tell him, but it didn’t sound like good news. He told her he’d be there right away and hung up. When he arrived at the Green Rock Inn, Narumi was waiting for him with her parents, all of their faces long.

When he asked them what had happened, Shigehiro Kawahata stepped forward and announced he was turning himself in for allowing Masatsugu Tsukahara to die, and trying to hide that fact by abandoning the body.

Nishiguchi had been taken aback. He hurriedly pulled out his notebook to write the words down, but his hand was shaking so badly he couldn’t write straight. It was hard enough to write the date.

Shigehiro spoke in a calm, orderly manner, and through his confusion, Nishiguchi slowly understood what the man was telling him. He immediately called his supervising officer, Motoyama, and was told to wait there.

When Isobe and his men walked in, the Kawahatas stood up from their bench in the lobby. Shigehiro bowed his head deeply. “I’m sorry for causing everyone so much trouble.”

“It’s okay, you can all sit down,” Isobe said, taking off his shoes and stepping up into the lobby. His men followed suit.

Nishiguchi paused, unsure whether he should follow, and ultimately remained standing by the entryway. He looked up with a start to realize that Motoyama and Hashigami had arrived and were standing next to him.

“We’ll get the story in more detail down at the station,” Isobe said, looking down at the family, “but if you just give me a general idea?” Next to him, Nonogaki took out a notepad and prepared to take notes.

Shigehiro looked up. “It was my fault, all of it. I was lazy, and Mr. Tsukahara paid a horrible price for it.”

“Sorry?” Isobe asked. “Lazy?”

“I knew the boiler and the building were getting old, but I did nothing about it. I was wrong. That’s why this … accident happened.”

“You’re saying it was an accident?”

“Yes, an accident. I should’ve told the police right away, but then I … I’m so sorry.” He bowed his head deeply once more.

A perplexed look passed across Isobe’s face, and he scratched his head. “I think you should start by explaining exactly what happened.”

“Right, of course. Well, like I said in an earlier statement, that night I was outside in the backyard with my nephew setting off some fireworks.

“A little while before that, Tsukahara came down to the kitchen and asked if we had any good strong drink. When I asked him why, he said that he always had trouble sleeping on trips. I know I shouldn’t have, but I gave him a sleeping pill I’d gotten from a doctor friend years ago. It was only one, I swear. Anyway, Tsukahara thanked me and went back to his room. Right after that, I called Kyohei and told him to come on downstairs so we could set off some fireworks in the backyard.”

Later, at around eight thirty, Shigehiro had gone back inside to call Tsukahara’s room and ask when he wanted his breakfast in the morning, but Tsukahara didn’t pick up. So he went back out to the backyard and resumed the fireworks. They finished a little before nine. He tried phoning Tsukahara again, but there was no answer. He went to check the baths, found them empty, then went up to the Rainbow Room on the fourth floor, where their guest was staying. He found it unlocked, with Tsukahara nowhere in sight. Eventually, Setsuko came back from town in Sawamura’s truck, and he told them about their missing guest. Sawamura said he would help check the area around the inn, so with Shigehiro in the passenger seat, they drove around, but found no sign of Tsukahara—all of this was exactly as Shigehiro had said in his earlier testimony.

What he didn’t say, however, was what had happened next.

After Sawamura went back to town, Setsuko took another look around. It was then that she noticed some light spilling out of the doorway on the fourth floor, the door to the Ocean Room. She opened the door and noticed a faint smell of something burning. When she went inside, she was astonished to find Tsukahara lying there on the floor. He wasn’t breathing. Panicked, she called Shigehiro. Shigehiro took stock of the situation and hurried down to the basement, where he discovered that the boiler had stopped.

The boiler room in the basement was connected by a single pipe to the chimney on the roof of the inn, bringing the exhaust from the boiler up through the walls and outside. The pipe ran past some of the guest rooms, including the Ocean Room, where it passed just behind the main closet. It had never been a problem, except the gradual deterioration of the building and an earthquake several years earlier had resulted in a crack in the back wall of the closet. The pipe itself wasn’t airtight. The Kawahatas had noticed an occasional smell of soot in the room before, and generally avoided using it for that reason.

Tsukahara, sprawled on the floor in his yukata, was dead, except his skin color looked unusually healthy. Having worked many years at an engine manufacturer, Shigehiro realized immediately it was carbon monoxide poisoning.

As to why Tsukahara had been in the Ocean Room in the first place, he could only guess. He thought maybe he had heard the sounds of fireworks going off in the backyard and come to take a look. In order to make things easier when they did cleaning, they rarely locked the unused rooms. To Tsukahara’s misfortune, he’d already taken the sleeping medicine he got from Shigehiro. Shigehiro thought he must’ve fallen asleep while he was watching the fireworks and never noticed the smell of gas in the room.

“I know I should have alerted the police immediately, but I didn’t. I don’t know what came over me,” were the words Shigehiro Kawahata used. He had suggested to Setsuko that they move the body somewhere else. Carbon monoxide poisoning wasn’t something readily apparent, so if Tsukahara were wounded in some other way, Shigehiro figured the police might never look any closer.

“I suggested we throw him over the seawall. My wife resisted. She said we should call the police. But I pressured her.” Shigehiro sat with his head hanging, his hands clenched into fists on his knees.

Setsuko looked like she might say something, but Isobe held up a hand to stop her.

“If you would, ma’am, please hold your testimony until later when we’re all back at the station. I’d like to hear everything your husband has to say first. Mr. Kawahata?”

Shigehiro coughed once before resuming his story. “My wife and I carried the body. It wasn’t easy, with my injury and all, but we got him into the van. Then we took him down to the seawall and, after we were sure no one was looking, we threw him over. I put an overcoat on the body before we dropped him so it would look like he had gone out for a walk. I threw the sandal down too. Then the two of us went back up to the inn. Our daughter and our only other guest, Mr. Yukawa, came back right after that. That’s it. That’s everything.” When he had finished speaking, he lowered his head again slowly.

Isobe nodded, rubbed the back of his neck for a moment, then turned to Nonogaki. “You get all that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Detective,” Shigehiro said, looking up. “I hope you understand, it was all my fault. My wife was just doing what I told her to. Please—”

Isobe held his hand out in front of Shigehiro’s face to silence him. “That’s enough of that,” he said in a low, cold tone. “I think we get the general picture. We’ll speak to both of you individually down at the station. We’d like your daughter to come down too.”

Narumi nodded silently.

“Okay, this hotel is off-limits to anyone not on the task force,” Isobe said in a loud voice. “We’ll take all the keys. And, didn’t you have a relative staying here? A boy?”

“His father came to pick him up this morning.”

“His father?” A cloud passed over Isobe’s face. “So he took the kid back home?”

“No, they’re still in town.”

“Good. Give me the number. We need to talk to the kid, too. Also, where is your other guest, this Yukawa fellow?”

“We had Mr. Yukawa move to a different hotel. We told him something came up and we had to leave town for a few days.”

“You know which hotel he’s staying at, then? We’ll get that number from you too.”

Isobe told his men to take the Kawahatas down to the station. Then he picked a few other detectives to close off the crime scene and had someone give forensics a call.

Nishiguchi stood and watched as the three Kawahatas were shepherded into three separate police cruisers. He wanted to call out to Narumi and tell her not to worry, but she was surrounded by officers, and he couldn’t get close enough to talk to her.