Salvation of a Saint

ELEVEN

It was just past eight o’clock when Utsumi drove Hiromi Wakayama home. Hiromi had been in the interrogation room for only two hours, far less than Mamiya had anticipated.

Ayane Mashiba’s call was the main reason he’d cut off the questioning. The widow was very clear about her husband’s instructions: the dead man had insisted that bottled water be used exclusively for all coffee making. If that was true, then all the killer had to do was poison one of the bottles ahead of time – which meant Hiromi Wakayama was no longer the only suspect.

In any case, Mamiya had been unable to press her into making a confession. After two hours of the young woman’s tearful professions of innocence, he nodded with reluctant resignation when Utsumi suggested sending Ms Wakayama home for the time being.

Now she sat in the passenger seat, emphatically silent. She’s probably exhausted, Utsumi thought. She had seen strong men wilt under the heat of the hard-faced detective’s interrogations. It would take a while for the tears to fade from Hiromi’s eyes. Utsumi settled in for a quiet ride. Her passenger was too worked up to say anything. And why would she, anyhow, when she knew that she was now a suspect?

Hiromi’s mobile phone rang. She pulled it out of her handbag.

‘Yes?’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘We just finished. I’m getting a ride back now … No, the lady detective … No, not the station in Meguro, the Metropolitan Police Department. It might take a little longer to get home … Yes, thank you.’

She ended the call.

Utsumi took a few steady breaths, then asked, ‘Was that Mrs Mashiba?’

She could feel Hiromi tense in her seat. ‘Yes. Is there a problem?’

‘She called Kusanagi while you were being questioned. She seems very worried about you.’

‘She is.’

‘You talked about your relationship with Mr Mashiba?’

‘Where did you hear that?’

‘Mrs Mashiba told Kusanagi when he came to bring you down to the department.’

Hiromi fell silent, and Utsumi stole a glance at her. Her eyes were downcast, lips curled into a thin frown.

‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ Utsumi went on, ‘but it’s very strange to me that the two of you remain so close, when most people in your situation would be at each other’s throats.’

‘Well, he is dead.’

‘Still, it’s strange.’

There was a pause before Hiromi nodded. ‘I guess it is.’

She doesn’t understand it herself, Utsumi realized. She waited several seconds before she spoke again. ‘Actually, there are two or three things I wanted to ask, if you don’t mind.’

Hiromi sighed. ‘What else could you possibly need to know?’

‘I know you’re tired, and I’m sorry, but these are very simple questions. And the last thing I want to do is cause you any pain.’

‘It’s a little late for that. What did you want to ask?’

‘On Sunday morning, you and Mr Mashiba drank coffee, correct? And you made the coffee?’

‘That again?’ Hiromi asked, tears in her voice. ‘I didn’t do anything. I don’t know anything about any poison.’

‘I’m not asking about that, just about how you made the coffee. Do you remember what water you used?’

Hiromi blinked. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Did you use water from one of the plastic bottles in the fridge, or water from the tap?’

‘From the tap.’ Hiromi sighed again.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Why does it matter?’

‘Why did you use water from the tap?’

‘I didn’t have any deep reason, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I just thought using hot water would make it boil quicker.’

‘Was Mr Mashiba there when you made the coffee that time?’

‘He was. Didn’t I already say this a few times? I taught him how to make coffee.’ There was an echo of irritation through the tears in her voice.

‘Try to recall the moment as clearly as you can. I don’t mean when you were making the coffee, I mean when you were pouring water into the kettle. Was Mr Mashiba standing there?’

Hiromi fell silent, and Utsumi knew that this wasn’t one of the questions Mamiya had asked her.

‘Oh,’ she whispered after a few moments had passed. ‘You’re right. He wasn’t in the room yet when I put the kettle on. I’d just turned up the burner when he came in to the kitchen and asked me to show him how it was done.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes, very sure.’

Utsumi pulled over and stopped the car. She put on the hazard lights and turned to face Hiromi directly.

‘What is it?’ she asked, shrinking away from the detective.

‘Ayane taught you how to make coffee at her house, yes?’

Hiromi nodded.

‘Well, Ayane told Kusanagi that her husband was very health conscious, and never drank water directly from the tap. Mr Mashiba had insisted that she always use bottled purified water, even for making coffee. Were you aware of that?’

Hiromi’s eyes went wide and she blinked. ‘She did tell me about that. But she said not to worry about it too much.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. She didn’t think it was very economical to use so much bottled water, and besides it takes longer to boil that way. But she told me if Mr Mashiba ever asked, I was to tell him I had been using bottled water.’ Hiromi put a hand to her cheek. ‘I completely forgot about all that!’

‘So Ayane was using tap water, too?’

‘Probably.’ Hiromi looked into Utsumi’s eyes. ‘It didn’t even occur to me to mention it when I was talking to the other detectives.’

Utsumi nodded, smiling. ‘It’s okay. Thank you.’ She turned off the hazard lights and released the brake.

‘Could you tell me why it matters?’ Hiromi asked. ‘Was there a problem with me using water from the tap?’

‘Not a problem. But, since there’s reason to suspect that Yoshitaka Mashiba was poisoned, we need to make sure we know every detail about what he ate on the day he died.’

‘I see …’ Hiromi lowered her gaze, then looked back up at the detective. ‘Ms Utsumi, you have to believe me. I really didn’t do anything.’

Utsumi swallowed, her eyes on the road. She was about to say I believe you, but instead she told her, ‘You’re not the only suspect in this case. In fact, at this point, we have to suspect everyone in the world. If anyone ever told you police work was fun, they lied.’

Hiromi fell silent.

Not the answer she was expecting.

Utsumi stopped her car by Gakugei Daigaku station, not far from Hiromi’s apartment. She watched as Hiromi got out and walked towards the apartment building. Then Utsumi glanced at the building itself, quickly turned off the engine, and got out of the car. Ayane Mashiba was waiting just inside the glass front door of Hiromi’s apartment building.

Hiromi looked surprised to see her. As surprised as Utsumi was. Ayane gave her apprentice a consoling look; then she noticed Utsumi running over and her face hardened. Hiromi turned around and frowned.

‘Is there something else?’ she asked the detective as Ayane came out to join them.

‘I just saw Mrs Mashiba there and thought I should say hello,’ Utsumi said. ‘I’m sorry to have kept Hiromi at the station for so long.’ She bowed apologetically.

‘I take it Hiromi is no longer a suspect?’

‘She was very forthcoming with details. And I hear you provided very valuable information to Detective Kusanagi as well. Thank you.’

‘I hope it was helpful,’ Ayane said. ‘But I should think you have enough to go on without questioning her any further. Hiromi is innocent.’

‘I’m afraid that’s a decision for us to make, Mrs Mashiba. I hope we can count on your continued cooperation.’

‘I’ll be happy to cooperate, but please leave the poor girl out of this.’

Utsumi looked up, flustered by the harsh tone in the older woman’s voice. This was not the Mrs Mashiba she had seen first after her husband’s body was discovered.

Ayane turned to Hiromi. ‘You have to tell them the truth. You know that, right? If you keep things to yourself, no one will be able to protect you. You understand what I’m saying? It’s not good for you to be holed up in that interrogation room for so long.’

Utsumi noticed Hiromi’s face tense at those words. That hit a sore spot. Suddenly, a light went on in her head. She stared at the younger woman. ‘Wait, you’re not—’

‘You might as well come clean now,’ Ayane broke in. ‘It looks like the lady detective has figured it out anyway, and if even I know—’

‘Did … Mr Mashiba tell you?’ Hiromi asked.

‘Not a word. But I am a woman, and I’m not blind.’

The situation was now clear to all three, but Utsumi still had to hear it in words.

‘Ms Wakayama, are you pregnant?’

There was a pause, then Hiromi gave a slight nod. ‘Two months.’

At the edge of Utsumi’s vision, she saw Ayane twitch. She really is hearing this for the first time. I guess woman’s intuition does count for something.

A moment later Ayane turned to Utsumi with an implacable look on her face. ‘I hope you’re satisfied? Hiromi has to take care of herself. She can’t be hanging out at the Police Station for hours on end. You’re a woman. You understand.’

Utsumi had no choice but to nod. The list of required precautions detectives had to observe when interrogating a pregnant suspect was long and detailed.

‘I’ll let my superiors know. I’m sure they’ll be able to arrange something.’

‘I certainly hope so,’ Ayane said. She turned to Hiromi. ‘This is all for the best. If you had kept it hidden, you wouldn’t even be able to go to the hospital.’

Hiromi leaned towards Ayane, her lips trembling as though she were about to cry. Utsumi couldn’t clearly make out what she said, but it sounded like ‘Thank you.’

‘There’s another thing worth mentioning.’ Ayane squared off against the detective again. ‘The child’s father is Yoshitaka Mashiba. There’s no question of that. That was why he decided to separate from me and go to her. Now, let me ask you: what possible reason could she have to kill the father of her own child?’

Utsumi agreed, but she held her tongue. She wondered how the woman would take her lack of response.

Ayane shook her head. ‘It’s a complete mystery to me what you detectives are thinking. She has no motive. If anyone has a motive here, it’s me.’

Utsumi returned to headquarters to find Kusanagi and Mamiya still there, sipping vending-machine coffee, frowns on their faces.

‘What did Ms Wakayama have to say about the water she used when she made the coffee?’ Kusanagi asked Utsumi when he saw her. ‘You asked her, right?’

‘She said she used tap water.’

Utsumi related everything Hiromi had told her about that morning in the kitchen.

‘Which is why nothing happened when they drank their morning coffee together,’ Mamiya concluded. ‘The poison still could’ve been in one of the bottles in the fridge.’

‘We can’t know for sure she’s telling the truth,’ Kusanagi put in.

‘True, but as long as there aren’t any glaring contradictions in what she’s told us, we don’t have much to follow up on. We’ll just have to wait for Forensics to give us a little more dirt.’

‘Did you ask Forensics about the plastic bottles?’ Utsumi asked.

Kusanagi picked up a report from his desk and scanned it. ‘They found only one bottle of water in the Mashibas’ fridge. The seal on the cap was broken. The water inside was clean.’

‘Okay,’ Utsumi said. ‘What did you mean about waiting for more dirt?’

‘The situation isn’t quite so simple.’ Mamiya’s lips curled into a frown.

‘Oh?’

‘They found a one-litre bottle in the fridge,’ Kusanagi continued with a glance at the papers in his hand. ‘But there were nine hundred millilitres of water left in it – only one hundred millilitres were gone. That’s not enough to make even one cup of coffee, and there were enough grounds in the dripper for two.’

‘So there was another bottle of water in the fridge that’s gone missing?’ Utsumi asked.

Kusanagi nodded. ‘That’s what it looks like.’

‘And it might’ve been poisoned?’

‘Seems likely,’ Mamiya said. ‘Here’s the scenario: The killer opens the refrigerator. They find two bottles – one open, one sealed. If they put poison in the brand-new one, they’d have to break the seal, which might alert the victim. So they poison the one that’s already open. Now, when Mashiba goes to make his coffee, he takes the open bottle, uses it up, and tosses it. But that’s not enough water for two cups of coffee, so he opens the other bottle and adds a little to the dripper, then puts it back in the fridge.’

‘So we need to look in the rubbish – check the empties.’

‘Forensics did,’ Kusanagi said, shaking the report in his hand. ‘You’d think that’d be enough.’

‘It wasn’t?’

‘They went over every empty bottle they could find. No poison anywhere. But, they also couldn’t prove that any of the bottles weren’t used in the crime.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘What it means is we’re not really sure about anything yet,’ Mamiya said. ‘The trace amounts of water they got from the bottles didn’t give them enough to test properly. Which I guess makes sense; they were empties, after all. They’ve sent them all to a different lab for further testing.’

Utsumi nodded, finally understanding the frowns she’d seen when she walked into the room.

‘Not that finding poison in one of the bottles would change our case much at this point,’ Kusanagi said, replacing the papers on his desk.

‘It would widen the range of possible suspects,’ Utsumi said.

Kusanagi raised an eyebrow. ‘Were you listening to what the chief just said? If our killer put the poison in one of the plastic bottles, he or she would have put it in one that was already open. Which means there was an open bottle of water in the fridge that the victim didn’t drink from until he made that final cup of coffee. Which means that not a lot of time passed between the poisoning of the water and the victim’s death.’

‘I don’t see why the victim not drinking from the water should indicate that not much time had passed. There were other things for him to drink besides bottled water if he got thirsty.’

Kusanagi flared his nostrils in a sort of triumphant display. ‘You seem to have forgotten that Mr Mashiba didn’t just make coffee on Sunday night. According to Ms Wakayama, he made his own coffee on Saturday night, too. That coffee was too strong, so she showed him how to make it the next morning, right? So we know that as late as Saturday night, there was no poison in that bottle.’

‘How do we know that Mr Mashiba used water from one of the bottles when he made coffee on Saturday night?’

Kusanagi leaned back in his chair and spread his arms wide. ‘Are you suggesting we throw out our assumption that Mr Mashiba demands bottled water for his coffee? His wife’s statement to that effect is the whole reason we’re talking about this at all.’

‘Not throw it out, exactly,’ Utsumi said, keeping her voice even. ‘I just think it’s dangerous to assume what she told us is an absolute. We don’t know how consistent Mr Mashiba was about only using bottled water. It could’ve been a preference, not something he insisted on or even practised with any kind of regularity. Maybe the whole bottled water thing started with an offhand comment that his wife took more seriously than he intended. Not to mention that it was the first time he had actually made coffee in a long while. I can imagine him using water from the tap without thinking about it. They did have a filtration system on their sink.’

Kusanagi shook his head. ‘Twist reality to fit your guesswork too much and you’ll break something, Detective.’

‘All I’m saying is, we have to judge the case based on objective facts.’ She turned to Mamiya. ‘As long as we don’t know who last drank bottled water from that fridge safely, or when, we won’t be able to determine when the poison was added.’

Mamiya grinned, rubbing his chin. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I like this kind of open discussion. At first I was firmly on Kusanagi’s side, but as I listen to the two of you go on, I find myself slowly leaning towards the challenger’s position.’

‘Chief!’ Kusanagi looked a little wounded.

‘However.’ Mamiya turned a stern gaze towards Utsumi. ‘We’re not completely in the dark about the timing of the poisoning. You recall what took place on Friday night at the Mashiba house?’

‘Of course. A dinner party,’ Utsumi replied. ‘During which several people in the house likely drank bottled water.’

Mamiya raised his index finger. ‘So the water was poisoned after the party – or perhaps during it.’

‘I agree. However, I don’t believe either of the Ikais would have had a chance to poison the bottle. For one thing, they were the guests; it would be difficult for either of them to go into the kitchen at all – let alone do their work in there undisturbed.’

‘Which leaves the two ladies as our suspects.’

‘Now just wait a minute,’ Kusanagi broke in. ‘I understand suspecting Hiromi Wakayama, but Mrs Mashiba? She’s the one who told us the victim used bottled water for his coffee. Why would she go out of her way to give us information that could incriminate her?’

‘Because she knew we’d find out eventually?’ Utsumi said. ‘If she suspected that, given enough time, poison would be found in one of the bottles, she could have told us in advance to deflect suspicion.’

Kusanagi frowned. ‘Talking with you gives me a headache sometimes. Why are you so determined to make the wife the bad guy?’

‘It sounds pretty logical to me,’ Mamiya said. ‘Utsumi’s idea’s as good as any we’ve got going right now. And there are serious problems with the assumption that Ms Wakayama is the killer, most notably the fact that she didn’t dispose of the tainted kettle. As far as motivation goes, Ayane Mashiba is the most logical suspect.’

Kusanagi opened his mouth to protest, but Utsumi headed him off. ‘Speaking of motivation, I have some new information that strengthens the wife’s motive for killing her husband.’

‘From whom?’ Mamiya asked.

‘Hiromi Wakayama.’

Frowns became looks of complete astonishment as Utsumi began to explain.