Salvation of a Saint

FIVE

Ayane stepped away from Hiromi. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured, wiping at her eyes. ‘I thought I could hold it back, but when I saw you … I’m fine now. Sorry.’

Kusanagi felt his stomach knotting as he watched the widow attempt a smile. She needs to be alone.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ Hiromi asked.

Ayane shook her head. ‘Just being here is enough. And honestly, I’m having trouble thinking of anything at all right now. Please, come in. I’d like to hear about what happened.’

‘Actually, Mrs Mashiba,’ Kusanagi broke in, flustered. ‘We’d also like to speak with Ms Wakayama. Things were a little rushed last night, and there are some gaps that need filling.’

Hiromi looked confused.

‘You’d be welcome to join us,’ Ayane said.

The detective cursed inwardly. She’s missed the point entirely. ‘Actually, we’ll need to speak with her first, if you don’t mind.’

Ayane blinked. ‘But I want to hear what happened, too. That’s why I asked her here.’

‘Mrs Mashiba?’ Mamiya joined in. Kusanagi wasn’t sure how long the chief had been standing behind him. ‘I’m sorry, but there are certain police procedures that need to be followed. If you could let Detective Kusanagi speak with her first …? This is really all just about filling in the blanks, taking care of paperwork, but if we don’t do things in the proper manner, we might run into trouble later on.’

Classic passive-aggressive cop, Kusanagi thought amusedly.

Ayane frowned. ‘All right. So, where should I be?’

‘You can stay here, Mrs Mashiba. We’d also like to speak with you.’ Mamiya turned to Kusanagi and Utsumi. ‘Maybe you can find somewhere quiet to talk with Ms Wakayama?’

‘I’ll get the car.’ Utsumi strode purposefully out of the door.

Twenty minutes later, Kusanagi was sitting beside Utsumi in a quiet corner of a twenty-four-hour restaurant. Across the table from them, Hiromi Wakayama looked tense.

‘Did you get some sleep last night?’ the senior detective asked after a sip of coffee.

‘Not much.’

‘I understand. You must have been in shock.’ And in tears, if Utsumi called it right. ‘It’s not every day you see a dead body.’ Especially your lover’s.

Hiromi was looking down at the table, chewing her lip.

‘I was hoping we could ask a few questions we didn’t get around to yesterday, if you don’t mind?’

Hiromi took a deep breath. ‘I really don’t know anything more than what I’ve already said. I can’t imagine how I’d be able to answer any more questions.’

‘You might be surprised. The questions aren’t that difficult. That is, as long as you’re willing to answer them honestly.’

Hiromi looked up, her gaze almost a glare. ‘I haven’t lied.’

‘Then we’ll be just fine. So, I was wondering: you’ve told us that you discovered Yoshitaka Mashiba’s body at eight o’clock last night, and the last time you were in the Mashibas’ house before that was the party on Friday. Is this correct?’

‘It is.’

‘Are you sure? Ms Wakayama, the shock of seeing someone dead can play with our memories in strange ways. Try relaxing and thinking about it a little harder. Are you sure you didn’t visit the Mashiba household from the moment you left on Friday night until yesterday evening?’ Kusanagi watched Hiromi’s face.

Her long eyelashes fluttered. After a few moments of silence, her lips parted. ‘Why are you asking me this? Why do you keep asking me when I’ve told you the truth?’

Kusanagi smiled slightly. ‘Let’s keep it to just me asking questions, if we could. Do you have an answer?’

‘But—’

‘Think of it as a simple confirmation. I’m asking you again because I want you to very carefully consider your answer. If it turned out later that there was an inaccuracy or omission in what you’ve told us, well, then it would be a bit of a difficult situation for both of us.’

Hiromi’s mouth snapped shut. Kusanagi could almost hear the cogs whirling in her head, as she ran the calculations. She’s considering the possibility that her lie will be uncovered, wondering whether it might be better to admit everything here and now.

She maintained her silence, the scales in her head refusing to settle to one side or the other. Kusanagi was growing impatient.

‘When we arrived at the scene yesterday, in the sink there was a single coffee cup and two saucers. When we asked you if you knew why, you said you didn’t know. Yet, your fingerprints were found on the coffee cup. So naturally I wondered, when did you touch the cup?’

Hiromi’s shoulders slowly rose and fell with her breathing.

‘You saw Yoshitaka Mashiba over the weekend, didn’t you …? When he was still alive.’

Hiromi put her hand to her forehead, her elbow on the table. Trying to find a way out of this one? Kusanagi was confident that she wouldn’t be able to slip free, no matter how much she squirmed.

She nodded, eyes following her hand down to the table. ‘Yes. I did. I’m sorry.’

‘You saw Mr Mashiba?’

A pause, then: ‘Yes.’

‘When?’

Her reply didn’t come immediately. She’s a sore loser, Kusanagi thought, growing irritated.

‘Do I have to answer that?’ Hiromi looked up again at the two detectives. ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened. Isn’t this an invasion of privacy?’

She looked ready to cry, but there was also growing anger in her eyes, a sharpness to her words. Kusanagi remembered something another detective once told him: no matter how soft she may look, never underestimate the power of a cheating woman.

They didn’t have time to do this carefully. Kusanagi played his next card.

‘We know the cause of death,’ he said slowly. ‘Mr Mashiba was poisoned.’

Hiromi flinched. ‘What?’

‘Traces of poison were found in the coffee he was drinking when he died.’

Her eyes opened wide. ‘I don’t – that’s impossible!’

Kusanagi leaned slightly forward, staring her directly in the eye. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because …’

‘Because when you drank coffee with him earlier, nothing was wrong?’

She blinked, then, after a moment’s hesitation, slowly nodded.

‘You see our problem, Ms Wakayama. If Mr Mashiba put the poison in the cup himself, that’s one thing – it would either be suicide or an accident. But the possibility of either of those things is extremely low. We’re forced to consider a scenario in which someone intentionally poisoned Mr Mashiba’s coffee. Traces of the poison were also found in a used paper coffee filter. Our best guess at present is that someone mixed poison in with the ground coffee beans.’

Now considerably flustered, Hiromi shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’

‘Surely you can at least answer some of our questions? It is extremely important that we know exactly when you drank that coffee at the Mashiba household if we are going to be able to determine the time at which the coffee was poisoned. Well?’

Kusanagi straightened in his chair, staring evenly at the woman across the table, perfectly ready to sit there in silence as long as was necessary.

Hiromi covered her mouth with both hands. Her eyes wandered, unfocused. Then, abruptly, she said: ‘It wasn’t me.’

‘Huh?’

‘It wasn’t me.’ Her voice was pleading. She shook her head. ‘I didn’t poison the coffee. Really. You have to believe me.’

Kusanagi and Utsumi exchanged glances.

Hiromi Wakayama was a suspect, of course, and their most likely suspect at that. She’d had plenty of opportunities to poison the coffee. If she was having an affair with Yoshitaka Mashiba, then it was fairly easy to imagine some rift between lovers providing the motivation. Poisoning him, then ‘discovering’ the body, could have been merely an attempt to camouflage her role.

At this stage, however, Kusanagi intended to avoid any preconceived notions, in order to get as unfiltered a story from her as possible. He had deliberately chosen not to say anything that might sound accusatory. All he had asked was when she had drunk that coffee with Yoshitaka Mashiba. So why was she claiming innocence all of a sudden? Was she, in fact, the guilty party? Had she just skipped ahead, anticipating where all this was leading?

‘We are not accusing you of poisoning him,’ Kusanagi said, with a gentle smile. ‘As I said, all we’re trying to do is establish the timing. If you met with Mr Mashiba and drank coffee, then can you tell us when that was, who made the coffee, and exactly how?’

A pained expression rose on Hiromi’s pale face. Kusanagi still couldn’t tell whether she was simply hesitant because she was unwilling to admit she was having an affair or whether it was something more than that.

‘Ms Wakayama?’ Utsumi put in abruptly.

Hiromi looked back up, startled.

‘We’ve already made certain assumptions about your relationship with Yoshitaka Mashiba,’ the younger detective continued, with all the indifference of a government official explaining how to fill out a form. ‘You can deny it if you like. At which point, we will have to start asking more questions in order to determine the truth. When we set our minds to it, we can usually bring the truth to light … but as part of that process, we have to talk to a lot of people. You understand?

‘I’d like you to give what I just said some thought. If you can be completely honest with us now, we may be able to be a bit more circumspect with our investigation. Say, for instance, if you wanted to tell us something that you’d rather we didn’t repeat to anyone else outside of our office.’

Utsumi glanced towards Kusanagi, nodding her head slightly.

Was that her idea of an apology for speaking out of turn? Kusanagi wondered.

Her advice seemed to have a remarkable effect on Hir -omi, however. Perhaps it was easier hearing it from a woman. She hung her head for a moment, then looked up again, blinked slowly, and took a breath. ‘You promise to keep it a secret?’

‘As long as it isn’t directly related to the case, we keep all personal information private. It’s standard procedure,’ Kusanagi explained.

Hiromi nodded. ‘Then … as you suspect, Mr Mashiba and I did have a … special relationship. That, and I visited him earlier over the weekend.’

‘Exactly when was this?’

‘Saturday night. A little after nine o’clock, I think.’

A rendezvous while the wife was away, then.

‘Had this been arranged in advance?’

‘No. He called me at work – I was teaching a patchwork class. He called right about when the class was finishing. He invited me over.’

‘So you went, and what happened next?’

Hiromi thought for a moment, then with growing determination, she looked back at Kusanagi. ‘I spent the night and left the next morning.’

Utsumi had begun taking notes. Kusanagi glanced at her but couldn’t read anything from her expression. She’s on to something, he thought, resolving to ask her about it later.

‘When did you drink coffee together?’

‘In the morning. I made it. Oh, but we also had coffee the night before.’

‘On Saturday night? So you had coffee twice?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you make the coffee the night before as well?’

‘No. Mr Mashiba had already made it when I arrived. He poured a cup for both of us,’ Hiromi continued, looking down at the table. ‘It was the first time I’d ever seen him make his own coffee. “It’s been a while,” he said.’

‘But you didn’t use saucers that evening?’ Utsumi asked, looking up from her notebook.

‘No,’ Hiromi confirmed.

‘But you made the coffee the next morning – yesterday morning?’ Kusanagi asked.

‘Mr Mashiba’s coffee was a little too strong, so he asked me to make it in the morning. He stood there watching me while I did it.’ She looked up at Utsumi. ‘We used saucers with our cups that time. Those were the ones in the sink.’

Kusanagi nodded. So far, her story was checking out. ‘Just to be certain, I should ask whether the coffee you drank on Saturday night and Sunday morning was made from the ground beans at his house?’

‘I think so. At least when I made it, I used the coffee in the refrigerator. I don’t know about the coffee Mr Mashiba drank on Saturday night. But I don’t see why he would’ve used anything different. There was plenty left.’

‘Have you ever made coffee at the Mashibas’ before this weekend?’

‘Only rarely, when Ayane asked me to. She was the one who showed me how to make it without a coffeemaker. That’s how I knew what to do yesterday.’

‘Did you notice anything different when you were making the coffee? Was the bag in a different place than usual? Was it the same brand?’

Hiromi let her eyelids fall closed and gave her head a shake. ‘I don’t remember anything different. It was the same as always.’ When she opened her eyes again they had a gleam of curiosity in them. ‘But I don’t see why it should matter how anything was when I made the coffee.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Well, because …’ She lowered her face, eyes looking up at them. ‘There wasn’t any poison in the coffee when I made it, right? If someone poisoned the coffee, it would’ve had to have been after I used it.’

‘That’s true, unless there was a trick to it, one that involved doing something to the coffee earlier.’

‘A trick?’ Hiromi didn’t look convinced. ‘Well, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.’

‘You drank coffee that morning. What next?’

‘I left. I teach a patchwork class at an arts school in Ikebukuro.’

‘What time does the class run?’

‘Well, there’s one in the morning, which goes from nine to eleven, and one in the afternoon, which goes from three to six.’

‘What do you do between classes?’

‘Mostly clean up from the first class, eat lunch, and get ready for the next class.’

‘Do you bring a lunch?’

‘Not usually. Yesterday I went out and ate at a noodle place in a department store that’s nearby …’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘I think I was away from the school building for about an hour. I wouldn’t have been able to go to the Mashibas’ and back in that amount of time.’

Kusanagi chuckled, waving a hand. ‘Don’t worry, we’re not checking your alibi. According to what you told us yesterday, you gave Mr Mashiba a call as soon as your class was finished. Would you care to amend that statement in any way?’

Hiromi frowned and looked away. ‘I did call him. That’s true enough. But my reason was a little different from what I said.’

‘I believe you told us that you were worried about how he was getting along without his wife there?’

‘Actually, when I left that morning, he asked me to call him when I was through with class.’

Kusanagi stared at her. ‘He invited you out to dinner, didn’t he?’

‘I think that was the plan, yes.’

‘Well, honestly, that makes a lot more sense. It would take an extremely devoted student to worry that much about her teacher’s husband, and a champion worrier to go to someone’s house just because they didn’t answer the phone.’

Hiromi’s shoulders sagged. ‘I was afraid it sounded suspicious. But I couldn’t think of what else to say.’

‘Mr Mashiba didn’t answer the phone, so you went to his house – any adjustments that need making there?’

‘No. Everything else happened just like I said it did. I’m sorry I lied.’

Next to Kusanagi, Utsumi was furiously taking notes. He glanced over at her before returning to Hiromi. Everything in her story thus far made sense. All of the doubts they’d had the night before had been largely defused. Not that this was reason enough to trust her completely.

‘Like I said, we’re fairly certain that this is a homicide. I believe I asked you last night if you had any suspicions as to who might have been responsible. You told me you didn’t – that you knew nothing about the deceased other than that he was your teacher’s husband. I wonder if you might be able to elaborate now that we know about your connection with him?’

Hiromi raised her eyebrows. ‘I really don’t know who it could have been. I can’t believe anyone would want to kill Yoshitaka.’

Kusanagi mentally noted her shift from ‘Mr Mashiba’ to ‘Yoshitaka.’

‘Try to recall any recent conversations. If this was a homicide, then it was clearly premeditated. That means that there will be a definite motive, and in most cases, the victim is well aware of it. Even if he was trying to keep it from you, he may have said something inadvertently.’

Hiromi rubbed her temples with her fingers and shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Work seemed to be going fine, he didn’t have any big worries, and he never spoke ill of anyone.’

‘Please, take a moment now to think it over again.’

She looked at Kusanagi with sad, defiant eyes. ‘I did think about it. I cried all night thinking about it, wondering how this could’ve happened. I thought about everything we said to each other, everything we did, over and over again. I still have no idea. Detective, I want to know why he was killed, too. More than anything else, I want to know.’

Kusanagi noticed a redness in her eyes, a pink blush in the skin around them.

She really loved him, Kusanagi thought. Or if this is just an act, she’s really good.

‘When did your relationship with Mr Mashiba begin?’

Hiromi opened her reddening eyes wide. ‘Does this have something to do with the case?’

‘It’s not for you to decide whether it does or whether it doesn’t. It’s for us to decide. Again, we won’t mention it to anyone; and, once we’re satisfied it has nothing to do with the case, we won’t pry any further.’

Her lips formed a tight line and she took a deep breath. She reached out and took a sip of her surely-cold-by-now tea.

‘About three months ago.’

‘Thank you.’ Kusanagi looked down, wondering how to broach the topic of how the affair had started. ‘Does anyone else know?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘But you’d gone out to eat together before? Somebody might’ve seen.’

‘We were very careful. We never ate at the same place together twice. And Yoshitaka often ate with women he’d met through business, or hostesses at bars, so I don’t think anyone would have thought twice, even if they did see us together.’

So Yoshitaka Mashiba had been something of a playboy. Kusanagi considered the possibility that he’d had other lovers in addition to Ms Wakayama. Which, of course, would provide the woman sitting across the table from him with a motive.

Utsumi’s pen stopped on the page and she looked up. ‘Did you ever rendezvous at hotels?’ she asked coolly. Kusanagi gave her a sidelong glance. He’d been meaning to ask the same question, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to be so direct.

Hiromi looked displeased. ‘Is that really necessary for your investigation?’

Utsumi’s expression remained blank. ‘Of course it’s necessary. In order for us to solve this case, we’ll need to know everything about Yoshitaka Mashiba’s daily life. We need to know what he was doing, when, and with whom, in as much detail as possible. If we ask enough people, we may be able to fill most of it in, but there will certainly be blanks remaining. I don’t need to know what you did there, but I do need to know if you went to any hotels.’

Why don’t you go ahead and ask her what they did while you’re at it, Kusanagi wanted to interject, but restrained himself.

Hiromi’s lips curled downward. ‘Yes. But mostly regular hotels. Not those cheap places people use for …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘Did you always go to the same hotel?’

‘We went to three different places. But you won’t be able to find him on the registers. He always used a false name.’

‘Just in case, could you tell me the names of the hotels?’ Utsumi asked, pen held at the ready.

Her face wilting, Hiromi gave the names of three hotels. They were all first-class places in the city, and large hotels at that. Unless the trysting couple had gone there every day, none of the people on staff were likely to remember their faces.

‘Did you meet on predetermined days?’ Utsumi continued.

‘No – we figured out what would work over e-mail.’

‘How often did you meet?’

Hiromi shrugged. ‘Once a week or thereabouts.’

Utsumi finished writing and gave Kusanagi a quick nod.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘thanks for your time. We don’t have any more questions for you today.’

‘I doubt I have anything else I could tell you even if you did,’ Hiromi said gloomily.

Kusanagi smiled at her and picked up the bill.

The three left the restaurant and were headed towards the car park when Hiromi suddenly stopped.

‘Umm …’

‘Something wrong?’ Kusanagi turned to look at her.

‘Can I go home?’

The detective blinked. ‘Didn’t Mrs Mashiba ask you over?’

‘Yes, but I’m really tired, and honestly, I don’t feel very good. Could you tell her that for me?’

‘Sure. It’s fine by us.’

‘Would you like a lift?’ Utsumi asked.

‘No, thanks. I’ll get a cab.’

Hiromi turned and walked away. A taxi rounded the corner; she hailed it and got inside. Kusanagi stood watching as the car rejoined the flow of traffic.

‘Do you think she thought we were going to tell Mrs Mashiba about their affair?’

‘I can’t say,’ Utsumi replied, ‘but after she told us all that, she probably didn’t want to be seen talking to the wife as if nothing had happened.’

‘Hmm. Good point.’

‘Still, I wonder if she really hasn’t noticed.’

‘If who hasn’t noticed?’

‘Mrs Mashiba. Do you really think she doesn’t know what was going on?’

‘I’m guessing no.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘From the way she acted earlier. Practically the first thing she did when she saw Ms Wakayama was burst into tears and hug her.’

‘I guess.’ Utsumi looked down.

‘What? If you’ve got something to say, say it.’

She looked back up, straight at Kusanagi. ‘Something occurred to me when I saw the two of them in front of the house. I thought, what if she wants us to see her crying like that? Crying in front of the last person in the world she wanted to cry with.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Sorry, never mind. I’ll get the car.’

Dumbfounded, Kusanagi watched Utsumi dash off.