The Devotion of Suspect X

TEN

A little after six P.M., a green Mercedes pulled into the underground parking lot. Kusanagi had confirmed it was Kuniaki Kudo’s car earlier that day. The detective stood up from his seat at the coffee shop across the street from the lot and fished a few yen out of his wallet to cover the two coffees he’d bought. The second cup was still on the table, almost full.

Kusanagi jogged across the street and into the apartment block’s parking complex. The building had entrances on the first floor and the basement floor, both fitted with an autolock system. People who parked their cars here always used the more-convenient basement entrance. Kusanagi wanted to catch Kudo before he disappeared inside the block of apartments. The detective wanted to avoid having to call up to Kudo’s apartment via the intercom system. That would give Kudo time to prepare himself.

Luckily, Kusanagi got to the entrance first. He was standing off to the side, with one hand against the wall, catching his breath, when Kudo came up. Kudo, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, walked past him without a pause.

Kudo had his key out and was just putting it into the door when Kusanagi called out from behind. “Excuse me, Mr. Kudo?”

Kudo straightened up and pulled out the key. He turned around and took in the detective with a glance, sizing him up. A frown spread across Kudo’s face. “Yes?”

Kusanagi flashed his badge at him. “Sorry to bother you like this. I’m with the police. I was wondering if you could help me.”

“The police … you’re a detective?” Kudo lowered his voice, his eyes narrowing.

Kusanagi nodded. “Yes. I was hoping I could talk to you about Ms. Yasuko Hanaoka?”

Kusanagi was watching closely to see how Kudo would react when he heard Yasuko’s name. Kudo should know about the case, and if he looked unduly surprised or startled, then Kusanagi would know something was fishy. Kudo frowned and nodded grimly. “Very well. Do you want to come up to my place? Or is a café better?”

“Your apartment would be just fine, thanks.”

“Sure thing. It’s a little messy…”

Not so much messy as desolate, Kusanagi thought when they got up to the apartment. There was hardly any furniture. Just two plush chairs, one of them large enough to seat two. Kudo waved Kusanagi toward it.

“Can I get you something to drink? Tea?” Kudo asked without taking off his suit jacket.

“No thank you. I won’t be long.”

“All right,” Kudo said, but he went into the kitchen anyway and brought out two glasses and a plastic bottle of cold oolong tea.

“Do you have any family?” Kusanagi asked suddenly.

“My wife passed away last year. I have a son, but, for various reasons, my parents are taking care of him at their house,” Kudo explained, speaking evenly.

“I see. So you live alone?”

“Pretty much, yes,” Kudo said, his expression softening. He poured the tea into the two glasses and placed one in front of Kusanagi. “Is … this about Mr. Togashi?”

Kusanagi had been reaching for the glass, but now he pulled his hand back. If Kudo wanted to get to the heart of the matter, there was no point wasting time on pleasantries.

“That’s right. As you know, Yasuko Hanaoka’s ex-husband was murdered.”

“She had nothing to do with it.”

“That so?”

“Of course. They broke up a while ago, and they never saw each other. Why would she kill him?”

“As it happens, I’m inclined to agree with you, for the most part.”

“For the most part?”

“There are many couples in the world, and a lot of divorces, and none of them fall apart exactly the same way. If every unhappy couple could just break it off cleanly, become total strangers in the space of a day and never see each other again, well, then we wouldn’t have stalkers. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Often one party breaks off a relationship, but the other party doesn’t. Even after the divorce papers have been filed.”

“Well, she told me she hadn’t seen Mr. Togashi at all,” Kudo stated, a look of defiance growing in his eyes.

“Have you talked to her about the murder?”

“I have. I mean, after all, that’s why I went to see her.”

Which fits with Yasuko Hanaoka’s testimony.

“So you had Ms. Hanaoka on your mind, even before the incident?”

Kudo frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘on my mind.’ Given that you came to me here at my apartment, I’m guessing you already know about my relationship with her. I was a regular at the club where she used to work. I even met her husband once, though that was by accident. That’s when I found out his name was Togashi. When he was killed, I saw his name and photo on the news, so I got worried and went to see how Yasuko was doing.”

“I’ve heard you were a regular at her club, yes. Just, it’s a little hard for me to imagine you going so far out of your way to see her just because of that. You run a business, don’t you? I’d think you’d be rather busy.” Kusanagi knew how his questions sounded—cynical and leading. He didn’t like talking like this, even though his job frequently demanded it.

Admittedly though, the technique worked. Kudo blanched. “I thought you were here to ask about Yasuko Hanaoka. So far, all your questions have been about me. Am I a suspect?”

Kusanagi smiled and waved a hand. “Not at all. I’m sorry to pry. I merely wanted to find out more about you, since it seemed like you were particularly close to Ms. Hanaoka.”

The detective had spoken as gently as he could, but Kudo’s glare only hardened. He took a deep breath, then nodded.

“All right. As I’d prefer to not have you poking around further, I’ll be as frank as I can. I’m fond of Yasuko, romantically. When I heard about the murder, I thought it might be my chance to get closer to her. How’s that? Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

Kusanagi chuckled wryly. It was an honest chuckle—not an act or an interrogation technique. “There’s no need to be defensive.”

“But that’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it?”

“We just need to understand who is connected to Yasuko Hanaoka, and how.”

“That’s what I don’t get. Why do the police suspect her?” Kudo shook his head.

“Togashi was trying to find her just before he was killed. Which means there’s a chance they did meet,” Kusanagi told him, hoping the revelation would do more good than harm.

“What, so that means she killed him? Isn’t that a little simplistic, even for the police?” Kudo snorted and shrugged.

“Sorry we’re not very sophisticated. Of course, we have suspects other than Ms. Hanaoka. It’s just that we can’t afford to remove her from the list at this point. Even if she isn’t the key to solving this murder, someone around her might be.”

“Someone around her?” Kudo raised an eyebrow, then shook his head as though he had just realized something. “Is that so,” he said.

“Is what so?”

“You think she went to someone and asked them to kill her former husband for her, don’t you? That’s why you came here. So now I’m a suspected assassin!”

“We’re certainly not saying anyone is an assassin, yet…” Kusanagi protested, purposely letting his voice trail off. If Kudo had any bright ideas he wanted to share, Kusanagi didn’t want to discourage him.

“If it’s an accomplice you’re looking for, you’ll need to talk to a lot more people. I wasn’t the only customer infatuated with her, that’s for sure. She’s quite a beauty. And I don’t just mean when she was a hostess, either. To hear the Yonazawas tell it, they get customers at the lunch shop who come just to see her. Why don’t you go talk to all of them, too?”

“If you have any names or contact information, I’ll be happy to question them.”

“Sorry, but I don’t. Nor would I wish that on anybody. It’s against my policy to squeal on innocents,” Kudo said, chopping his hand through the air with finality. “And even if you did manage to meet with all of them, I don’t think you’d turn up much. She’s not the kind of person to go looking for someone like that. She’s no black widow, and she’s no fool. In any case, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to kill someone just because a beautiful woman asked me to. So, Detective … Kusanagi, was it? I’m sorry you’ve come so far out of your way only to leave empty-handed.” He then stood abruptly, putting a period at the end of his words.

Kusanagi got up from the sofa, his pen still poised over his notepad. “Were you at work on March tenth?”

Kudo’s eyes went wide with disbelief for a moment, then his face hardened. “What, you want me to provide an alibi, now?”

“Yes, in fact,” Kusanagi replied, seeing no need to beat around the bush. Kudo was already angry, after all.

“Hold on a moment, then,” Kudo said. He went over to his briefcase and pulled out a thick notebook. He flipped through the pages and sighed. “Well, I don’t have anything on my calendar for that day, so I assume I went to work as usual. That means I probably left work around six o’clock. If you need to confirm that, ask one of my employees.”

“And after you left work?”

“Like I said, I didn’t write anything down, so I assume it was the same as every day. I came home, ate something, and went to bed. Too bad I live alone—no witnesses for you to question.”

“Could you try remembering just a little more about that day for me? You understand, I’m just trying to reduce the list of suspects we need to check.”

Kudo looked almost despondent now, and he opened up his calendar again. “All right. The tenth, huh? Oh right…” he muttered half to himself.

“Did something happen?”

“Yes, I went to a client’s after work. It was in the evening … that’s right, he treated me to yakitori.”

“Do you know around what time that was?”

“Not exactly. I guess we were out drinking until nine or so. I went home straight after that. This is the client,” Kudo said, pulling a business card out of his notebook. The card bore the name of a designer’s office.

“Thank you,” Kusanagi said, declining to take the card. “I won’t need that.” He then put away his pen and turned toward the door.

He was slipping into his shoes when Kudo called after him.

“Detective? How long are you going to be watching her?”

Kusanagi met his glare silently.

“That’s how you knew I went to see her, right? Because you have her under surveillance? And then you tailed me back here.”

Kusanagi scratched his head. “You got me.”

“Then can you please tell me how long you intend to keep following her?”

Kusanagi sighed. He gave up trying to smile and instead stared at Kudo. “We’ll follow her as long as there is a need to, sir.”

Kudo looked like he had something more to say, but Kusanagi turned his back on him, opened the door, and left the apartment.

Back out on the street outside the building, the detective waved down a taxi.

“Imperial University.”

The taxi driver nodded and pulled out. In the back, Kusanagi took out his notepad. Glancing over his own hastily scrawled notes, he reflected on his conversation with Kudo. He would have to check his alibi, but he had already come to a conclusion.

The man’s innocent. He’s telling the truth.

That, and Kudo really was in love with Yasuko Hanaoka. Just as he’d pointed out, there could be any number of other people who might have wanted to help her.

The front gate at Imperial University was closed. There were a few lights here and there, so it wasn’t completely dark, but still the university at night had an eerie feel to it. Kusanagi went in through the student entrance and checked in at the security office. “I’m supposed to meet with Assistant Professor Yukawa in Physics Laboratory 13,” he told the guard, though he didn’t actually have an appointment.

The halls in the science building were deserted. Yet there were some people around—as he could see from the light streaming from beneath several of the laboratory doors. Probably researchers and students working overtime on a project. It reminded Kusanagi that Yukawa had once told him he sometimes spent the night in the lab.

Kusanagi had decided to check in on Yukawa tonight even before he met with Kudo. The university wasn’t far from Kudo’s apartment, and there was something he wanted to ask Yukawa.

Why had he gone to Benten-tei? And what was his connection to his old university classmate, the math teacher? If he had figured out something about the case, Kusanagi wanted to know what it was. Or was he still just catching up with his old friend, and their visit to the lunch shop where their primary suspect worked coincidental?

Kusanagi didn’t think Yukawa would just drop in on a suspect in an unsolved case unless he had something specific in mind. After all, Yukawa’s policy had always been to avoid direct involvement in Kusanagi’s cases—not because they annoyed him, as he claimed, but out of deference to Kusanagi’s position.

There was a status chart on the door to Lab 13, where students working there, graduate students, and professors with access to the lab would indicate whether they were in or out. Yukawa was “OUT.” Kusanagi clicked his tongue. If Yukawa wasn’t in the lab this late in the evening, he had probably headed straight home after finishing whatever he was working on.

Kusanagi tried knocking on the door anyway. If the chart was correct, there should be two grad students in the lab.

“Come in,” said a thick voice. Kusanagi opened the door. A young man wearing glasses and a sweatshirt came out from the back of the lab—a grad student. The detective had seen him here before.

“Yukawa’s gone home already?”

The grad student frowned and nodded. “Yeah, just a little while ago. Did you want his cell phone number?”

“No thanks, I already have it. It’s nothing urgent anyway. I was just in the area and decided to drop in.”

“Right, okay,” the student said, his face brightening. The students in the lab were familiar with Kusanagi’s visits.

“I know he works late a lot, so I figured I might be able to catch him here at the lab.”

“Usually, yeah, but he’s been leaving early for the last two or three days. I think today he had somewhere he had to go.”

“You know where?” Maybe the math teacher’s place again? Kusanagi wondered.

“I’m not sure exactly, but he said something about Shinozaki.”

Kusanagi blinked. That was the last thing he had expected to hear. “Shinozaki?”

“Yeah. He asked me the quickest way to get to the station there.”

“But he didn’t tell you why he was going?”

“No. I asked, but he didn’t say much.”

Kusanagi snorted. Then he thanked the student and left. He was beginning to suspect that something was afoot, he just didn’t know what. Shinozaki Station was the closest to the murder scene. Why would Yukawa be going there?

Leaving the university behind, Kusanagi pulled out his cell phone. He started to look up Yukawa’s number, but on the verge of calling, he hesitated, then shut the phone with a snap and slipped it back into his pocket. Now wasn’t the time to press his friend with questions. If Yukawa was on the case without so much as a nod from Kusanagi, he must be onto something.

Besides, he could hear the protest already.

What do you care if I do a little poking around myself?

Ishigami sighed. He was in the middle of grading make-up exams. They were terrible. He had designed the problems so they would be easy enough for everyone to handle—far easier than the ones on the real exam, so everyone taking the make-up test could pass—but he was hard-pressed to find a single decent answer in the pile. The students must not be studying, he decided. They knew that no matter how badly they did on their tests, the school would pass them anyway. After all, the board rarely held anyone back. Even when a student or two just couldn’t make the grade, the administration would find some reason to graduate the entire class.

Why don’t they just remove math from the list of required subjects, then? Ishigami wondered. Only a handful of people really understood mathematics anyway. There was no point in even teaching math at this low level. Wasn’t it enough to let them know there was this incomprehensible thing out there called mathematics, and leave it at that?

When he had finished grading, he looked at the clock. It was already eight P.M.

After checking that the dojo was locked up, Ishigami left the school for the night. He was standing at the crosswalk under the traffic light when a man approached.

“On your way home?” the man asked, smiling. “When you weren’t at your apartment I thought I might find you here.”

Ishigami recognized the man’s face. It was the homicide detective.

“I’m sorry, you are…?”

“Ah, you’ve probably forgotten.”

The man reached for his coat pocket, but Ishigami held up his hand and nodded. “No, I remember you now. You’re Detective Kusanagi.”

The light turned green and Ishigami began to walk. Kusanagi followed.

What’s he doing here? Ishigami thought as he crossed the street. Was it about Yukawa’s visit two days ago? Yukawa had told him that they wanted him to help with their investigation, but he had refused, hadn’t he?

“Do you know a Manabu Yukawa?” Kusanagi asked.

“I do. He came to see me. He said you’d told him about me.”

“Actually, that’s true. I told him that you’d gone to Imperial University—the same department he was in. I’m sorry if it was an imposition.”

“Not at all. I was glad to see him again.”

“What did you two talk about, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Old times, mostly. That was about all we talked about the first time he visited.”

“The first time?” Kusanagi lifted an eyebrow. “Has he been back?”

“He’s come to see me twice. The second time, he told me that you’d sent him.”

“I sent him?” Kusanagi blinked. “Um, what exactly did he say I sent him to do?”

“He said you wanted me to help with your investigation, and that you thought it might be better if the request came from him.”

“Oh, right, help with the investigation.” Kusanagi scratched his head as he walked.

Ishigami noticed his uncertainty at once. The detective seemed confused. Perhaps he didn’t ask Yukawa to come talk to me after all?

Kusanagi grinned sheepishly. “I talk to him about a lot of things, so I get a little confused about exactly which cases he knows about and which he doesn’t. What kind of help did he mention?”

Ishigami considered the detective’s question. He hesitated to say Yasuko’s name, but of course, he couldn’t exactly play dumb. Kusanagi would surely cross-check whatever he said with Yukawa.

Ishigami told him about Yukawa’s request that he spy on Yasuko Hanaoka.

Kusanagi’s eyes went wide. “He asked you to do that, did he?” he asked, sounding flustered. “Right, right—ah, I guess I did talk to him about that, yes. About whether you might be able to help us. He must have thought he could help out by asking you, since you two have a connection. Right, that makes sense.”

To Ishigami, the detective’s explanation sounded like a last-minute improvisation. Which meant that Yukawa had come on his own to prod Ishigami about the case. So what had he been after?

Ishigami stopped and turned to face Kusanagi. “And you came out here today to ask me that? Or was there something else?”

“No, sorry, I was just getting to it.” Kusanagi pulled a photograph from his jacket pocket. “Have you seen this man? I’m sorry the picture isn’t very good, I had to take it with a telephoto.”

Ishigami looked at the photograph and swallowed.

The man in the photograph was the person who had been foremost in his thoughts these past few days. He didn’t know his name. He didn’t know who he was. All he knew was that this man was close to Yasuko.

“Mr. Ishigami?”

Ishigami wondered how to respond. He could just say he didn’t know him and leave it at that. But then how would he ever find out who the man really was?

“You know, he looks somewhat familiar,” Ishigami said slowly. “Who is he?”

“Can you think where you might have seen him?”

“Well, I’m not sure. I see a lot of people every day. If you told me his name or where he works, I might be able to come up with something.”

“His name is Kudo. He runs a printing company.”

“Kudo?”

“Yes. Like this—” Kusanagi described the Chinese characters used to write Kudo’s name.

Kudo … Ishigami stared at the photograph. So why were the police checking him out? He must be involved with Yasuko somehow. In other words, the police suspected a connection—a special, maybe even intimate connection—between this Mr. Kudo and Yasuko Hanaoka.

“Well? Do you remember anything?”

“Hmm. Not really. He does look familiar though.” Ishigami shook his head. “I’m sorry I don’t remember more than that. Maybe I’m mistaking him for someone else.”

“Right, no problem,” Kusanagi said, frowning slightly and putting the photo back into his pocket. He pulled out a business card. “If you think of anything, do you mind dropping me a line?”

“Certainly. Um, does he have something to do with the case?”

“I really can’t say at this time. We’re still looking into it.”

“Is he involved with Ms. Hanaoka somehow?”

“They had some contact, yes,” Kusanagi said, being intentionally vague. He didn’t want to divulge any more information than he already had. “By the way, you were at Benten-tei with Yukawa the other day, yes?”

Ishigami looked up at the detective. The question was so unexpected, for a moment he didn’t know how to respond.

“I happened to see the two of you there,” the detective went on. “I was on the job. Sorry I didn’t say hello.”

So they are staking out Benten-tei.

“That’s right. Yukawa said he wanted to buy a lunch box, so I took him there.”

“Why go all that way? Don’t they sell lunches at the convenience store by the school?”

“Well, you’d have to ask Yukawa. Benten-tei was his idea.”

“Did you discuss anything about Ms. Hanaoka or the case?”

“Well, only what I told you before—that you wanted my help with the investigation.”

Kusanagi shook his head. “I mean other than that. As he probably told you, I ask Yukawa for advice on cases. Turns out he’s more than just a physics genius, he’s also a gifted sleuth. I was just hoping he might have said something about his thoughts on the case.”

Ishigami was confused. If they were meeting as often as it sounded like they were, then Yukawa and the detective should have been exchanging information. Why would the detective have to ask him what Yukawa thought?

“No, he didn’t say anything in particular,” Ishigami said.

“I see. Very well. Sorry to bother you on your way home.”

Kusanagi nodded farewell and headed back along the way that they had come. Ishigami watched him go. A feeling rose inside him, making him queasy, as though an elaborate formula he’d thought was perfect was now giving false results because of an unpredictable variable.