Salvation of a Saint

THREE

Elegant houses lined the gently sloping curve of the road. Even in the thin light from the streetlights it was obvious that no expense had been spared in their upkeep. The sort of people who lived in this neighbourhood never had to save to afford a down payment.

Several police cars were parked along the street. Kus anagi tapped the taxi driver on the shoulder. ‘Right here’s good.’

He got out, checking his watch as he headed towards the scene. It was already past ten. Guess I’m not seeing that movie. He had missed it at the cinema, then held off on renting the DVD when he heard it would be on television. When the call came that evening, he left the house in such a hurry that he’d forgotten to set his recorder.

Due to the late hour, there didn’t seem to be any onlookers. Not even the news crews had arrived. Just give me a cut-and-dried case, and the movie can wait, he thought without much hope.

A police officer, his face set in an appropriately stern expression, was standing guard in front of the house. Kus -anagi flashed his badge, and the officer wished him a good evening.

He paused before going up to the door. It looked like all the lights in the place were on. There were faintly audible voices inside.

He glanced across the front lawn and saw someone standing by a hedgerow. It was too dark to make out her features, but from her stature and the length of her hair, Kusanagi had a pretty good idea who it was. He walked over.

‘What are you doing here?’

Kaoru Utsumi turned around slowly, utterly unsurprised to see him. ‘Good evening, Detective.’

‘What are you doing outside?’ he asked.

‘Nothing much. Just checking out the hedge and the flowers in the garden here. There’re some up on the balcony, too.’

‘Some what?’

She pointed upward. ‘Flowers.’

Kusanagi looked up and saw that there was, indeed, a second-storey balcony on this side of the house, with flowers and bushy leaves sticking out through the railings. Nothing about it seemed particularly noteworthy.

He returned his gaze to the young detective. ‘Let’s try this again,’ he said. ‘Why aren’t you inside?’

‘Population density. There’s already a crowd in there.’

‘Not big on mingling, are you?’

‘I just don’t think there’s much point in looking at something everyone else has already seen. I didn’t want to get in Forensics’ way, so I took it upon myself to examine the exterior of the house.’

‘But you’re not examining anything. You’re looking at flowers.’

‘I’ve already completed a circuit of the premises.’

‘Fine. Did you at least check out the scene of the crime?’

‘I haven’t checked out anything in there. I turned around at the entrance,’ Utsumi replied.

Kusanagi shot her a quizzical look. In his experience, a detective’s natural instinct was to want to examine the scene of the crime first – an instinct that apparently wasn’t shared by the department’s new recruit.

‘I appreciate that you’ve given this a lot of thought, but you’re still coming in there with me. There’s a lot of things you need to see with your own eyes if you want to do this job right.’

Kusanagi turned and walked back towards the door. Utsumi quietly followed.

Inside, the house was packed. Kusanagi saw officers from the local precinct milling about as well as people from his own department.

Junior Detective Kishitani spotted him and came over. With a wry smile on his lips he said, ‘Sorry to call you into work this early, sir.’

‘You got a problem with the hours I keep?’ Kusanagi grumbled. Then: ‘Is this even a homicide?’

‘Not sure yet. But it looks likely.’

‘Explain it to me. And use small words.’

‘Well, the gist of it is, a man, the owner of the house, died. In the living room. Alone.’

‘We’re sure he was alone?’

‘Come over here.’

Kishitani led Kusanagi into the living room, with Utsumi trailing behind. It was a big room – over five hundred square feet, he guessed. There were two green leather sofas and a low marble table in the middle.

An outline of the body had been drawn in white tape on the floor next to the table. The body itself was already gone. Kishitani stood looking down at it for a moment before turning back to Kusanagi. ‘The deceased’s name is Yoshitaka Mashiba, married, no kids.’

‘I heard that before coming over,’ Kusanagi said. ‘He was the president of some company, right?’

‘Yeah, an IT place. He wasn’t at work today, though, it being Sunday and all. We’re not even sure yet if he left the house at all.’

‘The floor was wet?’ Kusanagi asked, noting a slight stain on the flooring.

‘Coffee. They found it spilled next to the body. One of the guys in Forensics got it with a syringe. There was a coffee cup, too, on its side.’

‘Who found the body?’

‘Er …’ Kishitani opened his memo pad. ‘Woman by the name of Hiromi Wakayama. One of the wife’s pupils. Actually, more like her apprentice.’

‘Apprentice what?’

‘The wife is a famous patchwork quilter.’

‘There are famous quilters?’

‘Apparently. It was my first time hearing about it, too. Maybe a woman would know?’ Kishitani looked over at Utsumi. ‘You ever heard of an “Ayane Mita”?’ He showed her his memo pad where he had written down the characters for her name.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘And why would you expect a woman to know?’

‘It was just a thought,’ Kishitani said, giving his head a scratch.

Kusanagi suppressed a smile as he looked at his two subordinates. Poor Kishitani had finally got a new recruit of his own to push around – and it was a woman. He has no idea how to handle her.

‘Tell me about how the body was found,’ Kusanagi asked.

‘Well, his wife had gone to her parents’ house up in Sapporo yesterday. Before heading out, she left her house key with Ms Wakayama. I guess she didn’t know when she’d be getting back, so she wanted someone else to have a key in case anything came up. Ms Wakayama says that she was worried how Mr Mashiba was getting along by himself and called him, but he wasn’t answering his mobile or the landline. So she got all worked up, and came over to the house. She says she first called a little after seven, and it was almost eight when she got here.’

‘Which is when she found the body?’

‘Correct. She used her own phone to call nine-nine-nine. The ambulance got here right away and determined he was dead. They got a nearby doctor to come and check him out. That’s when they decided there was something suspicious about it and called the precinct … and here we are.’

‘Hmph.’ Kusanagi grunted and glanced at Utsumi, who had wandered away, over towards the cupboard. ‘So where’s this … whoever it was who found the body?’

‘Ms Wakayama is resting in one of the cars. The chief is with her.’

‘What, the old man’s here already? I didn’t notice him on the way in,’ Kusanagi said with a frown. ‘They got a cause of death yet?’

‘It’s looking a lot like poison. Suicide’s always a possi -bility … but we wouldn’t be here if there weren’t a good chance of it being homicide, would we?’

‘Hmph,’ Kusanagi grunted again, his eyes following Junior Detective Utsumi as she walked into the kitchen. ‘So when this Ms Wakayama got to the house, was the door locked?’

‘She says it was.’

‘The windows and sliding glass doors, too?’

‘Everything except the bathroom window on the second floor was locked when the officers from the precinct got here.’

‘And is that window big enough for a person to go in and out of?’

‘I haven’t actually tried, but I don’t think so, no.’

‘Okay, why does the precinct think there’s a chance it’s homicide, not suicide?’ Kusanagi sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs. ‘Why do they think someone poisoned his coffee? If they did, how did they get out of the house? It doesn’t add up.’

‘Well … based just on the crime scene evidence, I agree. It’s hard to imagine.’

‘Something here that I’m missing?’

‘Well, when the guys from the precinct were examining the scene, Mr Mashiba’s – the deceased’s – mobile phone rang. The call was from a restaurant in Ebisu. Apparently, he had made reservations for two at eight o’clock tonight. They were calling because no one had shown. According to the restaurant, he made the reservation an hour and a half before, at six thirty. And, like I said, Ms Wakayama called Mr Mashiba a little after seven, by which time he wasn’t answering. You see what the problem is. It doesn’t make sense for someone who calls and makes reservations at a restaurant at six thirty to go and commit suicide at seven.’

‘Yeah,’ Kusanagi said with a frown, crooking one finger to scratch the edge of his eyebrow. ‘It also doesn’t make sense for you not to tell me this right away.’

‘Sorry. You were asking so many questions, I hadn’t got around to it.’

‘Right,’ Kusanagi said, giving his own knees a slap as he stood. Utsumi had come out of the kitchen and returned to her spot in front of the cupboard. ‘Hey,’ he called to her. ‘Kishi’s giving us the lowdown. What are you doing wandering around?’

‘I was listening to everything. Thank you, Detective Kishitani.’

‘Er, you’re welcome,’ Kishitani managed.

‘Anything I should know about that cupboard?’

‘Look here,’ she said, pointing with her finger inside the open cupboard. ‘Doesn’t this part of the shelf look a little lonely compared to the rest?’

There was a space in the spot she indicated, large enough for a plate to fit.

‘I guess.’

‘I checked in the kitchen and found five champagne glasses in the drying rack.’

‘So that’s probably what went there.’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘And? Why do we care about champagne glasses?’

Utsumi looked up at the detective, her lips slightly parting. Then she shook her head, as though she had changed her mind about whatever it was she was going to say. ‘It’s not important,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking, they must’ve had a party recently. When else would you use champagne glasses?’

‘Sounds like a reasonable assumption. And a well-to-do couple like this with no kids probably hosts their share of parties. Still, it doesn’t have much bearing on whether this guy committed suicide or not.’ Kusanagi looked back towards Kishitani before continuing. ‘People are complicated creatures, who sometimes do seemingly contradictory things. I don’t care if they just held a party or made reservations for dinner, when someone wants to die, they die.’

Kishitani sighed and gave a noncommittal nod.

‘What about the woman?’ Kusanagi asked.

‘Sorry, woman?’

‘The victim … er, I mean deceased’s wife. Has anyone called her yet?’

‘Oh, right. No, they can’t get hold of her. She’s all the way up in Sapporo, and a distance outside the city, besides. Even if they do get through, she probably won’t be able to get back until tomorrow at the earliest.’

‘No, I guess not, not from the middle of Hokkaido,’ Kusanagi said, inwardly relieved. If the wife were on her way, someone would have to wait around for her, and knowing Division Chief Mamiya, that someone would almost definitely be Kusanagi. It was late enough at this point that going around asking the neighbours questions would probably have to wait until tomorrow. Kusanagi had just begun to dream that he might be able to go home when Mamiya’s square face appeared in the doorway.

‘There you are, Kusanagi. Glad you decided to show up.’

‘I got here ages ago. Kishitani filled me in.’

Mamiya nodded, then turned to look back outside. ‘Please, come right in,’ he said, ushering into the living room a slender woman in her mid-twenties. Her hair, just above shoulder length, was natural black – unusual for a woman her age these days, Kusanagi thought. The colour set off the whiteness of her skin. Although, given the circumstances, it might’ve been more appropriate to say she looked pale. Either way, she was definitely attractive and knew how to use her make-up.

Hiromi Wakayama, I presume.

‘You were saying that you discovered the body as soon as you walked into the room, correct?’ Mamiya was asking her. ‘So you would have been standing right about where you are now?’

The woman stopped looking at the floor long enough to glance in the direction of the sofa, remembering the moment of the discovery.

‘Yes,’ she answered in a thin voice. ‘Right around here.’

Maybe it was the fact that she was skinny, or the paleness of her face, but to Kusanagi it looked as though the woman was having trouble just standing. She’s still in shock, he thought, and no wonder.

‘And the last time you were in this room before then was the night before last?’ Mamiya asked, for confirmation.

Hiromi nodded.

‘Is anything different about the room now from how you saw it then? Anything at all? Even little details are fine.’

She looked almost fearfully around the room for a moment, then quickly shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. There were a lot of other people here the night before, and we’d just eaten dinner …’ Her voice was trembling.

Mamiya nodded, his eyebrows drawing sympathetically closer together as if to say, It’s all right, of course you don’t remember.

‘Well, we won’t keep you here any longer tonight. You should go home and get some rest. We’ll most likely need to talk with you again tomorrow, if that’s all right?’

‘That’s fine,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid there’s really not much I can tell you.’

‘I know, but we have to be sure we have as much information as possible. I hope you will be able to help us.’

‘Okay,’ Hiromi said, without looking up.

‘I’ll have one of my men take you home,’ Mamiya said, looking over at Kusanagi. ‘How’d you get here tonight? Did you bring your car?’

‘Taxi, sorry.’

‘Figures you would choose today to leave your car behind.’

‘I haven’t been driving much recently.’

Mamiya was clucking his tongue in disapproval when Utsumi said, ‘I brought mine.’

Kusanagi turned. ‘You drive? In Tokyo? On your salary?’

‘I was out at a restaurant when the call came in. Sorry.’

‘No need to apologize,’ Mamiya said. ‘Maybe you can drive Ms Wakayama home?’

‘Certainly. If I might ask her a question first, though?’

‘What question?’ Mamiya asked, shocked at the abrupt request from the new recruit.

Hiromi visibly tensed.

‘I understand Mr Mashiba was drinking coffee when he fell, and I was wondering if he was in the habit of not using a saucer with his cup?’

Hiromi’s eyes widened slightly and her gaze wandered off to one side. ‘Well, I suppose he wouldn’t, maybe, if he was drinking alone.’

‘That would mean that he had a visitor either yesterday or today,’ Utsumi said with confidence. ‘Any idea who that might have been?’

Kusanagi looked up at her. ‘How do you know he had a visitor?’

‘There’s an unwashed coffee cup and two saucers still in the kitchen sink. If Mr Mashiba had been drinking coffee alone, it doesn’t make sense that there would be one saucer out, let alone two.’

Kishitani went into the kitchen and came right back out. ‘She’s right. One cup, and two saucers.’

Kusanagi exchanged glances with Mamiya before turning again to the young Hiromi Wakayama.

‘Any ideas?’ he asked her.

She shook her head. ‘I … I don’t know.’ There was anxiety in her voice. ‘I mean, I haven’t been here since the party the other night. How would I know if he’d had any visitors?’

Kusanagi glanced at the chief again. Mamiya nodded, a troubled look on his face. ‘Right, well, we’ve kept you here long enough. You’ll see her home, Utsumi? Kusanagi, you can go with them.’

‘Yes sir,’ Kusanagi said, understanding instinctively what Mamiya wanted. The young Ms Wakayama was clearly hiding something, and it would be his job to get her to spill the beans.

The three left the house together, and Utsumi asked them to wait while she went to get the car, which she had left in a nearby car park.

While they were waiting, Kusanagi kept an eye on the woman next to him. She looked crushed – and he didn’t think her shock at finding a body was entirely to blame.

‘Are you cold?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

‘Were you planning on going out anywhere tonight?’

‘Tonight? Are you kidding?’

‘I was just wondering if you might’ve had any prior engagements.’

Hiromi’s lips moved slightly. She looked hesitant, uncertain.

Kusanagi said: ‘Sorry if you’ve already heard this a hundred times, but if you don’t mind me asking …’

‘Yes?’

‘What exactly made you call Mr Mashiba tonight?’

‘Oh, well, since Mrs Mashiba left her key with me, I thought she wanted me to check in now and then. I think she was worried about leaving her husband all by himself, so if there was anything I could do to help …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘So when you couldn’t reach him, you came to the house?’

‘Yes,’ she said with a little nod.

Kusanagi raised an eyebrow. ‘But surely people don’t always answer their phone – mobile or landline. Maybe he was out and couldn’t pick up for some reason? Didn’t you consider that possibility?’

After a moment’s silence, Hiromi shook her head. ‘I guess I didn’t.’

‘Why not? Were you worried about something in particular?’

‘No, nothing like that. I guess I just had a strange feeling …’

‘A “strange” feeling?’

‘Is it wrong to come to somebody’s house because something didn’t feel right?’

‘No, of course not. I was impressed, actually. Not everyone who is given a house key feels so much responsibility. And, as it turned out, your strange feeling was right on the money, so I think you deserve praise for what you did.’

Hiromi looked away, apparently disinclined to take Kusanagi’s words at face value.

A dark red Mitsubishi Pajero SUV stopped in front of the house. The door opened and Kaoru Utsumi stepped out.

‘Four-wheel drive?’ Kusanagi gaped.

‘It’s a smoother ride than you might expect,’ Utsumi said. ‘Ms Wakayama?’ She opened the back door and Hiromi got inside. Kusanagi followed her in.

Utsumi got in the driver’s seat and began setting the GPS – apparently she already knew Ms Wakayama’s ad -dress. It was an apartment near the Gakugei Daigaku train station. Not long after the car had started moving, Hiromi leaned forward. ‘Was what happened to Mr Mashiba not an accident or … or a suicide?’

Kusanagi glanced towards the driver’s seat. His eyes met Utsumi’s in the rearview mirror.

‘We can’t really say,’ he told her. ‘Not without an autopsy report.’

‘But you’re in Homicide, right?’

‘True, but we’re only here because there’s a possibility of murder. I can’t say any more – which is to say, we really don’t know anything more than that.’

‘I see,’ Hiromi said in a small voice.

‘That reminds me,’ Kusanagi said as casually as possible, ‘I wanted to ask you, Ms Wakayama: if this was a homicide, do you have any idea who might have been responsible?’

He thought he sensed her holding her breath. His eyes went to her mouth.

‘No,’ she said, her voice soft and thin in the quiet interior of the car. ‘I really don’t know much more about Mr Mashiba other than that he’s the husband of my quilting teacher.’

‘Of course. Well, if anything does occur to you, I know we can count on you to let us know.’

Hiromi sat in silence, not even nodding.

They dropped her off in front of her apartment building, and Kusanagi moved to the passenger seat.

‘Well,’ he said, looking straight ahead at the road, ‘what do you think?’

‘She’s tough,’ Utsumi replied as she steered the car back into traffic.

‘You think?’

‘She didn’t cry once. At least, not in front of us.’

‘Maybe she just wasn’t that sad.’

‘No, she was crying before we got there. The entire time she was waiting for the ambulance, I’d say.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Her make-up. I could tell that she’d had to fix it in a hurry.’

Kusanagi looked over at the junior detective. ‘Really?’

‘Without a doubt.’

‘I guess women notice different things – I mean that as praise, mind you.’

‘I know,’ she said with a smile. ‘What did you think of her, Detective Kusanagi?’

‘In a word, suspicious. I have my doubts about a young woman visiting a man’s house to “check up on him”, whether or not she was given a key.’

‘I agree. I certainly wouldn’t have.’

‘You think she and the deceased might’ve had something going on? Or am I reading too much into it?’

Utsumi almost snorted. ‘I wouldn’t call that reading too much into it. It’s hard to imagine that they didn’t have a thing. My guess is that they had plans to dine together tonight.’

Kusanagi slapped his knee. ‘The restaurant in Ebisu.’

‘They called because no one showed up, and the reservation was for two. Which means that not only Mr Mashiba but someone he was supposed to be dining with didn’t show up either.’

‘Which would make sense if that someone were Hiromi Wakayama,’ Kusanagi agreed.

‘If there was a deeper connection between them, we’ll have proof shortly.’

‘How’s that?’

‘The coffee cups. The ones in the sink might have been from when they drank coffee together, which means that her fingerprints will be on one of them.’

‘Right, right. But,’ Kusanagi lifted his finger, ‘just because they might’ve been having an affair isn’t sufficient grounds to treat her as a suspect.’

‘Of course not,’ Utsumi said. She pulled off the road and stopped the car. ‘Do you mind if I make a phone call? There’s something I’d like to check on.’

‘Who’re you calling?’

‘Why, Hiromi Wakayama, of course.’

Utsumi began pressing the keys on her phone as Detective Kusanagi looked on, open-mouthed. The call went through almost immediately.

‘Ms Wakayama? This is Utsumi from the police department. I’m sorry to bother you again so soon, but it occurred to me that I’ve forgotten to ask you about your schedule tomorrow.’ There was a pause while Hiromi spoke, before Utsumi said, ‘… I see. Thank you. Sorry for the trouble. Good night.’

She ended the call.

‘What did she say?’ Kusanagi asked.

‘She doesn’t have definite plans, but thinks she’ll be at home. She’s going to take the day off from the quilting school.’

‘Hmph.’ Kusanagi snorted.

Utsumi glanced sidelong at the detective. ‘I wasn’t calling to ask about her schedule, you know.’

‘Do tell.’

‘She was trying to hide it, but I could tell from her voice she’d been crying. It was quite obvious. In other words – as soon as she was alone in her room, the emotions she’d been holding back came spilling out.’

Kusanagi sat up in his seat. ‘That’s why you called her? To see if she’d been crying?’

‘My thought was that the shock of finding someone dead would be enough to make some people cry whether or not they knew them well. But to be crying now, hours later …’

‘Means she was feeling something other than shock at the fragility of life,’ Kusanagi finished. He smiled at her. ‘Not bad, Junior Detective Utsumi.’

‘Why thank you, Detective Kusanagi.’ Utsumi smiled and released the hand brake.

The next morning, just past seven A.M., Kusanagi woke to the sound of the phone ringing. It was Chief Mamiya.

‘You’re early,’ Kusanagi grumbled into the receiver.

‘Be thankful you got to sleep at home. There’s a meeting this morning about the investigation, at the Meguro City Police Station. We’ll probably be moving in, so get ready to sleep there tonight.’

‘So you’re calling me at seven in the morning to remind me to bring my toothbrush?’

‘You should be so lucky. No, you’re going to Haneda this morning.’

‘Haneda? What’s in Haneda?’

‘The airport, stupid. Mrs Mashiba will be coming back from Sapporo, and I want you to meet her there and bring her back to the station.’

‘I assume she knows about this already?’

‘She should. I want you to go with Utsumi. She’ll be driving. The flight gets in at eight.’

‘Eight A.M.?’

Kusanagi dropped the phone and jumped out of bed.

As he hurried to get ready, his mobile phone rang. It was Kaoru Utsumi; she was already waiting in front of his apartment building. Kusanagi grabbed his wallet, put on his shoes, and ran out to meet her.

Utsumi was waiting at the kerb. Kusanagi climbed into her Pajero and they headed off towards Haneda airport.

‘Looks like we pulled the short straw again. I’ll never get used to meeting the bereaved family,’ he said, putting on his seat belt.

‘But the chief says you’re the best at handling them.’

‘The old man said that?’

‘He said your face puts them at ease.’

‘Nice.’ Kusanagi snorted. ‘He’s just saying I look like an idiot.’

They arrived at the airport at five minutes to eight and stood in the arrivals lobby, scanning the crowd for Ayane Mashiba while passengers streamed past. She was supposed to be wearing a beige coat and carrying a blue suitcase.

‘Think that could be her?’ Utsumi said, nodding towards an approaching figure.

Kusanagi followed her gaze to find a woman who matched the description. Sorrow hung around her slightly downcast eyes; there was an air of something grave and stark about her – solemnity, perhaps.

‘That’s her all right,’ Kusanagi said, his voice suddenly hoarse.

It was as if his heart had suddenly leapt into his throat. He stared, unable to take his eyes off her, completely at a loss as to why the sight of Ayane Mashiba should affect him so strongly.