Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1991. Debuted in 2012 with the Tetsuya Ayukawa Award-winning Murder in the Gymnasium. In 2014, he won the Honkaku Mystery Award (Novel Category), the Mystery Writers of Japan Award (Full-Length and Short Story Collection Category), and the Shugoro Yamamoto Award for Glico with Landmines. His other works include the Knockin' on Locked Door series, the Undead Girl Murder Farce series, Blue Box Briefing, 11 Letter Cage: Yugo Aosaki's Collection of Short Stories, and Gaslight Stray Dog Detectives.
1
I woke up late, finished a draft of a short essay, and read the complimentary copy of my publisher's latest book. It was looking like I had a lazy day ahead of me. Then I got a call from my friend.
When I parked my car on the side of the road and got out, the first thing I noticed was the seaside smell unique to waterfront areas. On one side of the road, a greenway ran all the way to the ocean. On the other side was a residential area. Nishiki 4th District, Kaizuka City, Osaka Prefecture. It was a new town built on reclaimed land, close to Nishikinohama Beach Park, a beach famous for swimming. The building I'd been told about on the phone, Alpha Line Nishiki, was a four story apartment building with a brick exterior.
A group of uniformed schoolchildren was gathered in front of the police tape, trying to get a look at the building. They'd probably been on their way back from playing baseball when they saw. Considering my position, I couldn't criticize them for being disrespectful. For all I knew, one of them might grow up to be a fellow mystery writer. Or a clinical criminologist who visited crime scenes and called it fieldwork...
No. There will only ever be one of those.
The man with that rare title was standing next to an old Benz. His prematurely graying hair stood out. Under his coat was visible a loosely tied tie and a white jacket.
I called out to Himura.
“Is it okay for you to be sneaking away from the university? It's a busy time, what with all those entrance exams and graduate theses to grade.”
“I think you're the one who's been busy lately, Mr. Author.”
“...Do I have bags under my eyes?”
“I didn't even need to look at your face. Tax returns have gotten a lot more complicated this year.”
To my chagrin, his deduction was correct. I had been planning to spend that evening organizing my receipts.
A passenger plane crossed the western sky, trailing a thin cloud behind. It was probably heading for Kansai International Airport, about 5 km away. Most of the Osaka Bay area is taken up by industrial areas and tourist facilities, so this quiet residential area was rather out of place. Like the CEO of an oil company wearing a green brand, it looked like the city itself was making excuses. A miniature garden surrounded by sea, city sounds, and the smell of oil.
But even in this walled garden, there were crimes.
“So, what sort of case is it today?”
“A robbery murder, and disposing of the body. I'll hear the details later, but it sounds like they've already narrowed down the suspect pool somewhat.”
“It doesn't look like you'll have to be involved then, Mr. Associate Professor.”
“While I'd like that... it looks like a troublesome problem has come up.”
A man emerged from the apartment building and bowed his bald head at us. It was Inspector Funabiki of the Osaka Prefectural Police. Even in this weather, he wasn't wearing a jacket, and his suspenders tightly gripped his prominent pot belly.
Since we already knew each other, Himura saw no need for proper greetings. He started straight away.
“Is this apartment building where the robbery murder happened?”
“Yes. But the body was found over there.”
He guided us through the trees along the road and down the greenway. A tiled path ran parallel to the road, and next to it lay a low fence, immediately beyond which was the sea. However, it wasn't the vast ocean that continued into the horizon. About 100 meters away was another area of reclaimed land, where I could see a shipping company's warehouse.
“The report came in today at about 11:00 A.M. An employee at the warehouse on the opposite bank saw a woman's body stuck in the wave-dissipating blocks under the greenway.”
The inspector indicated a spot directly across from Alpha Line Nishiki. The apartment building was about 15 meters away, on the other side of the road. I leaned over the fence and saw a row of wave-dissipating blocks laid out two meters below us.
“The estimated time of death is around 1:00 A.M. today. There was a large bruise on her forehead, and the cause of death was a cerebral contusion caused by that wound. She was dressed in a casual sweatshirt, underneath which were long, thin abrasions running around her wrists and waist. They were about 4 cm wide. We think they were left when she was tied up with rope.”
The inspector returned us to the apartment building, unlocked the electronic lock on the front door, and led us inside. The building's insides were taken up almost entirely by a single corridor.
“We asked the neighbors to identify the body. Her name is Nodoka Yasumi, age 26. She worked at a design firm near here. She lived alone in room 108 of the apartment building... This room here. Forensics is already done with it, so you can go in. All her personal belongings have been temporarily returned to where we found them.”
Room 108 was in the far back of the first floor corridor, right next to the building's rear entrance. A folding bicycle and a potted banyan tree sat on either side of the door. We followed the inspector inside.
The one bedroom-separate kitchen apartment had been ransacked in several places. Small items that had probably been on the shelves were scattered on the floor, and the sideboard drawers had been left half open. The bay window at the back of the living room was open, through which we could see the apartment's garden.
Himura reached down and picked up a fallen picture frame. Before a background of the Nagai Botanical Gardens, two women were making symmetrical peace sign poses. They looked close.
“The one on the left is Ms. Yasumi.”
She was a serious looking woman with short hair and glasses.
On the carpet, close to the living room door, were a bloodstain with a radius of about 20 cm and a pair of glasses with crooked frames. At the foot of the sideboard lay a ceramic moai, perhaps a souvenir from overseas.
“Please don't touch anything. The door has an autolock, but the bay window was unlocked and all her valuables are gone. The cash in her wallet and about twenty rare cards from a game called 'Monster Knights' were taken.”
“Cards?”
I couldn't help but ask.
“Fans call it 'MonKnight' for short. You see a lot of commercials for it on TV, you know? It’s popular overseas, and I hear rare cards can go for huge sums of money. Several of her friends told us that Ms. Yasumi had a collection of rare cards she'd been building up since she was a child and kept it in this room. At current market rates, they'd be worth about 50,000 yen each.”
“So twenty cards would be a million yen... I remember hearing about card shops being robbed on the news recently.”
“There's been an increase in cases like that in the prefecture. Personally, I have a hard time understanding how a card from a children's card game could be worth 50,000 yen. If the culprit sold the cards right away, we could track them, but it's likely they're hiding and waiting. Word is that early rare cards like that are expected to rise in value even further.”
The inspector apologized for the digression and went back to explaining the scene.
“We found fibers from wool gloves sold by a mass retailer all over the living room. We think the culprit was wearing them. Combining that with how we found the victim, the most likely sequence of events is this: a robber broke into the apartment in the middle of the night. They tied up Ms. Yasumi with a rope and began searching for her valuables, but while they were at it, Ms. Yasumi put up a fight and tried to escape. The robber hit her with a nearby ornament and killed her...”
“How many injuries did the victim have?”
Himura asked while staring at the carpet.
“Only the one on her forehead that killed her. To be precise, there were multiple abrasions on the lower half of the body, but since they showed no vital reactions, they were probably caused when her body was tossed off the greenway.”
“So there was only one wound on her head, then?”
“That's right. Well, if you get hit like that, one'd be enough for anyone.”
The inspector picked up the ceramic moai. There was blood on its head, which was as bald as his own.
“When they unexpectedly found themself with a dead body on their hands, the culprit must have panicked and dragged it out the window. There was soil matching that in the apartment's garden on the back of Ms. Yasumi's head. The culprit went out the window and into the garden with the body, then left the premises, crossed the road, and threw it off the greenway into the ocean... But it got caught in the wave-dissipating blocks, and their plan was ruined. The body wasn't washed out to sea, but remained with its top half sticking up out of the ocean. There aren't many streetlights on that greenway and it was pretty dark that night, so they probably didn't even realize their mistake.”
I imagined the moment it had happened. A man – or maybe it was a woman – throwing the woman's body over that low fence into the inky black sea. Since the body was submerged from the chest down, it must have made a splash. The wave-dissipating blocks would have made it hard to see the water's surface. It wasn't surprising that the culprit had mistakenly thought that the body was completely submerged.
“When you called, you said you'd already narrowed down the suspects.”
Himura pointed it out, and the inspector frowned.
“That's the problem. At first glance, it looks like Ms. Yasumi forgot to lock her window, and that's how the culprit got in and out. But... there was a spare key to the room on top of the shoe cupboard. And we found wool fibers on that spare key.”
“So then the culprit touched it?”
“That's right. There was a potted plant in front of the door, right? Apparently, Ms. Yasumi always kept her spare key underneath it. Everyone close to her must have known about it, and even if they didn't, it's an obvious enough hiding place, so anyone could have found it.”
The inspector sighed, as if to admonish the victim for her carelessness.
“If they'd gone in through the window, they wouldn't have had a chance to bring the spare key into the room. Which means... the culprit used that spare key to enter through the door, then unlocked the window to make it look like an outsider committed the crime?”
“That's right, Mr. Arisugawa. And it looks like they were so distracted by their unplanned murder that they forgot to put it back.”
The inspector gestured towards the door.
“Obviously, to get in through the door, the culprit first had to get inside the building. This apartment has two entrances, the front door and the back door, both of which have electronic keypad locks. There's no record of the doors being opened or closed between 11:00 P.M. last night and 5:00 A.M. this morning. Therefore, the crime can only have been committed by someone who was inside the building at the time. None of the residents had guests over last night. There were 29 people in the apartment.”
“Compared to the 8.8 million people who live in the prefecture, that's a major reduction. But it's still a bit too many.”
“Don't worry, we can lower it further,” the inspector responded to Himura's aside. “We searched for the rope used to restrain her. Because her clothes were soaked in seawater, we couldn't detect any fibers, and it was difficult to determine how thick it was. But there's no doubt that she was tied up. The coroner was certain about that. There was nothing in this room that could be used as the rope, and it wasn't found anywhere on the greenway. We think the culprit took it.”
Himura agreed.
“If they were planning to rob her, they would have at least brought a rope. If it was the culprit's personal property, it could have given away their identity, so they retrieved it.”
“If we can get a hold of that rope, will that confirm the culprit's identity?”
The inspector nodded at my words.
“We got lucky. The culprit must have assumed that the body would be washed out to sea and not recovered for a long time. And today is collection day for burnable trash. They might have thrown the evidence away without much caution... Thinking that, we checked out the apartment's garbage.”
He led us away again. We were shown to the manager's office next to the front entrance. A female detective, Takayanagi, and a middle-aged man with a shaved head sat at a steel table. Before we could introduce ourselves, the man stood up and looked at us, anxiety written across his face.
“I am Yamaguchi, the manager of Alpha Line Nishiki. I live in room 101 with my wife.”
“Mr. Yamaguchi, I want you to show us the security camera footage again.”
“Yes, yes, as many times as you wish.”
Takayanagi opened the laptop. On the screen appeared a lidded dumpster. Next to it was a large, open-topped plastic box. The door visible at the edge of the screen was probably the back door of the apartment building we'd seen from the inside earlier.
Takayanagi explained.
“This is the building's garbage collection point. It's the only place on the premises with a security camera installed. Apparently, it was installed at the request of Kaizuka Police Station after a series of small fires in a nearby garbage dump three years ago. Like in most apartment buildings, it's located in the space directly outside the back door, but what's unique about this one is how the trash is organized. Bulky items or items that are difficult to separate aren't placed in garbage bags, but are instead placed into the box next to the garbage can, where Mr. Yamaguchi sorts them himself.”
“I call it the 'Leave It Box',” Yamaguchi said bashfully. “As in, 'Sorting things is a pain, so just leave it to me'. I hate arguing over sorting the garbage properly, you understand. The apartment isn't very large, so there isn't that much garbage at once, and I enjoy organizing things. I've been using this system for, oh, five or six years now.”
We stared at the video. Indeed, residents came out and threw garbage bags in the dumpster, and while they were out, they'd throw things like children's toys and plastic umbrellas into the Leave It Box. The camera was filming at an angle from above, so we could clearly make out the inside of the box and the residents' faces.
From how he'd talked, I could guess what the inspector wanted to show us. I asked, excited.
“Was there anyone? A resident who threw something that could be the rope into the box?”
“Yes, there were. Three people.”
Three. What an... average number. Himura asked quietly.
“What about the items themselves?”
“The crime wasn't discovered until 11:00 A.M., so we weren't able to secure them in time. They've already been collected and taken to the incinerator.”
The inspector gave us a pleading half smile.
“Professor Himura... is there any way to identify which of the three was used in the crime?”
2
We took a walk to Kaizuka Station to cool our heads, and Himura and I went to a coffee shop called “Cafe Windmill”. We didn't chose the shop because we thought its retro look was appealing... it just wasn't non-smoking.
It was the middle of the afternoon, and neither of us felt that hungry. We decided to order two coffees and split a plate of the cafe's self-declared “specialty” fruit sandwiches.
Himura started the conversation as he pulled out a pack of Camels.
“Let's call it 'Evidence R'.”
“What's that?”
“The thing used to tie up the victim. It's a rope or rope-like, so 'R'. There are three candidates, so it'll make it easier to discuss if we give them each a different name.”
“That's fine, there are plenty of names for it. How about 'rope, cable, cord', in that order?”
“Alright, let's go with that.”
The middle-aged woman who owned the cafe began grinding our coffee. As the smell of beans and Camel smoke began to drift through the air, we recalled the conversation we'd heard in the manager's office.
“Let's start with this man.”
Takayanagi fast-forwarded the security footage.
When the timestamp read 6:00 A.M., a few residents came out and dumped their trash, then the monotonous view of the empty trash dump reappeared. Just after 7:00 A.M., the footage returned to normal speed.
A young man appeared from the back door and threw a translucent bag of tissues and food waste into the dumpster. Then he threw an alarm clock and what looked like a bundle of hemp rope into the Leave It Box.
He wore a striped long-sleeved shirt and sandals. His eyes were downcast and sleepy looking, and his hair was a mess. As soon as he was done taking out the trash, he went straight back inside through the back door. I guessed he was going back to sleep.
“That's Tomoki Nagata, age 24. He's a bank employee who lives alone in room 106.”
“We've identified the item he threw away based on the video and Mr. Yamaguchi's testimony. Here it is.”
Following the inspector's explanation, Takayanagi placed a photo on the desk.
Wrapped in shrink wrap marked with the sticker from a 100 yen shop was the same type of rope that Nagata had thrown away. It bore the product label “All-Purpose Hemp Rope”. It was 20 meters long and about as thick as a pencil. It was a simple brown rope with a few frayed spots, the sort of old-fashioned rope used for farm work.
“An hour later, the second person...”
The video fast forwarded again.
A little after 8:00 A.M., a middle-aged man dressed in fleece appeared. He wore black-rimmed glasses and his hair was parted in the middle. He threw what looked like a rope tied in a loop in the Leave It Box before leaving the apartment. He had no other trash, carried no bag, and never took his left hand out of his pocket.
“Kenichi Hara, 44 years old. Room 202. A staff member at a video production company. He lives with his wife, but she's currently traveling.”
“The thing he threw out was this. It's manufactured by a construction equipment company.”
A second photo was placed on the desk. The product's name was “Safety Horizontal Lifeline.”
“Horizontal lifeline?”
“It's a fall prevention rope you attach to your body while working in high up places. The ones you attach while moving sideways on things like scaffolding are called horizontal lifelines, and the ones you attach while ascending or descending, like window washers, are called vertical lifelines.”
Himura explained it. I wondered where he learned these things.
I leaned in close to the photo. It was a 15 meter long rope with a striking yellow color. It was shorter than the hemp rope I'd seen earlier, but it was as thick as a person's thumb and looked reliable. It looked so sturdy, the word “cable” came to mind.
“The last person came just after 10:00 A.M.”
The footage skipped ahead another two hours.
When it returned to normal speed, the manager, Mr. Yamaguchi, was standing in front of the dumpster. He appeared to be scolding one of the residents who'd come to take out their trash. I could see through a translucent bag he was holding, revealing crushed paper cartons. “Cardboard isn't burnable trash, it's recycling,” he said from behind me. So he was one of those people who turned into dictators when it came to trash sorting.
After the resident left, the Yamaguchi in the footage turned back to the Leave It Box. With a large plastic bag in hand, he began sorting the items one by one.
At that moment, the back door opened, and a new person appeared. He was a little on the chubby side, wearing a somewhat worn Chinese-style outfit, and had long, dry hair and a thick beard. It wasn't exactly a flattering look on him.
“And that is Ryota Kato, 30, from room 205. Works at a local Chinese restaurant. Single, but last night he invited Yuu Shinada, from room 207, over for a drink.”
“Can they alibi each other?”
“No. They both claim to have fallen asleep just after midnight...”
While Himura and the inspector talked, the video was still playing. Kato handed Yamaguchi several items, apparently at the last moment. In addition to the contents of his burnable garbage bag, there was a windbreaker, a camping chair, and a rough bundle of light blue rope. Yamaguchi moved his mouth as he took them. Kato bowed repeatedly and ran back into the apartment.
“I gave him a light scolding, telling him not to put things out at the last minute.”
The manager added that, looking embarrassed.
“This is what Kato threw away.”
Takayanagi lined up the third photo.
It was a “Reflective Tent Rope” from a famous outdoor manufacturer. It was 10 meters long, with thickness in between the rope and the cable. It was a refreshing shade of light blue and looked like a modern product, strong yet flexible. It was a well-developed length of cord.
“There's one more thing you should know. Ryota Kato has a criminal record. That said, it was only a fight he got into with a delinquent when he was in high school. He was charged with assault and got a suspended sentence.”
I didn't find the inspector's story very surprising. Even on screen, Kato was a man with a somewhat rebellious air around him.
The footage continued. After Kato, no other residents came to take out trash. Yamaguchi sorted the items in the Leave It Box with practiced ease. Anything that could be put out as burnable trash went in a plastic bag, and anything that couldn't stayed in the box. The three items – rope, cable, cord – all went in the bag.
“There were three rope-like objects thrown out this morning. There weren't any others. Mr. Yamaguchi also checked the contents of the trash bags the residents put out.”
“Not for any strange reasons! As the caretaker, it's my duty to look through them and make sure there aren't any suspicious items. Our apartment has many residents who live alone, and our trash bags are small, so if something as bulky as a rope was in one of them, I think I'd remember it. But there wasn't anything like that this morning.”
Himura slowly crossed his arms.
“We can't be sure it was one of those three.”
“Of course. We also confiscated ropes from the other residents' rooms, and we're still searching the area around the apartment. But so far, we haven't found anything that could be used as the rope that had bloodstains, clothing fibers, or any other trace evidence that could be linked to the crime.”
“...Have those three testified that the things they threw away belonged to them? Nobody found something lying in the corridor and threw it away or anything like that?”
“All of them testified that they threw away their own personal belongings.”
“When is burnable trash collected in this area?”
“Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays.”
Yamaguchi, not the inspector, answered that last question. After hearing that, Himura put one hand on the steel desk and muttered to himself.
“Today is Saturday. The victim lived alone... Since it's the weekend, it's unlikely someone would have noticed Ms. Yasumi's absence. If the body had been successfully cast out to sea and not discovered until later, it would have been difficult to narrow down the time of death... But waiting until Tuesday is still risky... Even if they wanted to throw it away somewhere else, the number of trash cans in parks and convenience stores is decreasing these days... Damn it. The more I think, the more sense it makes that they just put it out this morning.”
“Well, I guess it is one of those three, then... Ah!”
I let out a soft gasp. A garbage truck had appeared on the edge of the screen.
The garbageman lifted his hat and exchanged greetings with Yamaguchi. First, Yamaguchi handed the plastic bag – containing the rope, cable, and cord thrown away by the three suspects – to the garbageman. The man threw it into the back of the truck, where it was immediately crushed by the pressing plate and quickly disappeared. Afterwards, one after another, the garbage bags taken out by the residents were handed over and pressed. Perhaps the gloves used in the crime were in one of those bags. Perhaps a balaclava the culprit had worn, or a handkerchief he'd used to wipe up blood was there.
My plea for them to wait went unheard, and the garbage truck drove away.
And thus, those precious pieces of evidence disappeared from this world.
Our order was placed on the table. I took a sip of coffee, and Himura pressed his half-smoked Camel into the ashtray.
“Rope, cable, cord... What do you think, Himura? The cord seems like it'd be the easiest to handle.”
The hemp rope was thin, so it didn't seem very reliable for tying someone up. The cable, on the other hand, was so thick it didn't look very easy to work with. From that perspective, the tent cord looked most suitable for the crime.
“The odds seem to lean that way, but that isn't enough to make an accusation. Let's check another angle.”
“First off, was this the work of one culprit, or several?”
“There was only one culprit.” Himura sounded certain. “There were only traces of one type of glove at the scene. The stolen rare cards were worth a lot of money, but still only about a million yen. If you split that two ways, it would be too small a return to risk committing robbery. I also don't think two accomplices could have met in that small apartment building. No, this was the work of a single culprit.”
“Because they forgot to return the spare key?”
“Yes, and also because they didn't tie the victim's feet. That's why she was able to resist, which led to the murder. If two people were putting their heads together on this one, they'd both be pretty sloppy.”
“What if the murder was their goal from the start? The theft of the rare cards was just an act to keep the police from realizing their motive.”
That was an idea I'd come up with on the way over. But Himura shook his head.
“The victim was killed by a decorative object kept there in the room. Was that also part of the act?”
“...I guess not.”
If murder was the culprit's goal, they probably would have brought a reliable weapon. If they'd failed there, the whole endeavor would have been pointless.
“Then what if it's a double bluff? The culprit did come in through the window, and they left the spare key inside the room to make us think one of the residents did it...”
“The reason we know the culprit was an apartment resident is because glove fibers were found on the spare key. Those were detected by chance, but they could have just as easily not been left on the key, or the police could have assumed she'd brought it in herself and not checked in the first place. There are too many uncertainties for it to have been a deliberate set-up.”
“Okay, okay, I give up... Come to think of it, if the culprit is an apartment resident, then after abandoning the body, he must have returned from the greenway back to the apartment. Isn't it strange that there's no record of either of the doors being opened?”
“There was a bay window right there at the crime scene, remember? That's how they returned to the apartment. Then they went out into the corridor and returned to their room. The door has an autolock, so it locked behind them automatically.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Just because you're a writer doesn't mean you need to complicate my real cases.”
“I was just trying to give you a seed of inspiration.”
All of my shots had been deflected. But if that was the case, then it was probably safe to say that the crime had occurred just as the police thought it did. A late night robbery. An unplanned murder. And then the dumping of the body.
“Do you have anything to add, Professor Himura?”
“I wonder if the victim was awake when the culprit broke in.”
“...Hmm. It was 1:00 A.M., so maybe he tied her up in her sleep.”
The criminal broke in with the spare key. He tied up the sleeping Nodoka Yasumi and started looking around. However, Nodoka Yasumi woke up to a noise. Shocked and confused, she tried to escape, and the criminal grabbed the first thing at hand and swung it at her... I could picture the scene.
But yesterday was Friday. Would a modern woman in her twenties be in bed at 1:00 A.M. that day? ...It was hard to say. If she was tired, or if she believed in beauty sleep, she might have gone to bed early. As a novelist who regularly pulled all-nighters, I had no idea what was considered common sense on this topic.
Himura finally drank some of his coffee.
“Now that we've been through all that, let's get back to Evidence R. What could the culprit have done with the rope other than throwing it away?”
“Burn it or bury it... But both of those would have been difficult for someone who lives in an apartment. In mystery stories, a common way of destroying evidence is inside your stomach.”
“You mean they slurped down the rope like spaghetti?”
“I mean, you can eat leather shoes if you boil them first.”
Obviously, I wasn't being serious. As another joke, I did some free association.
“If you talk about rope, cable, and cord, there's a short story that comes to mind. Michio Tsuzuki's Suit and Jacket. It's a story about a retired ex-police detective who becomes an armchair detective.”
“I see. What's the story about?”
“A suspect in a murder case pleads his innocence and says he has an alibi. 'At that time, I saw a strange man'. The man was wearing a suit and carrying two jackets under his arm. Then he looked at his watch and said 'I think I can still make it in time'. In addition to the main mystery of the murder, there's also the side mystery of deducing who the man in the suit was. 'The Man In The Suit With The Jackets' also appeared on the cover of the first volume of 'The Retired Detective' from Sogen Mystery Bunko.”
I explained the contents of the story while avoiding spoilers, but Himura lost interest halfway through after guessing the truth about the man in the suit anyway. He even judged me for it, saying “This is of no use to this case.” And he hasn't even retired yet!
“Speaking of ropes... There's always Ranpo's Murder on D. Hill.”
“I read that a long time ago. Come to think of it, wasn't it your copy I borrowed? Are you trying to say that Nodoka Yasumi was like the victim of that story?”
I shrugged. This didn't seem like it would be helpful either. Our rambling, which couldn't even really be called a discussion of the case, came to a temporary end.
We were given four slices of fruit sandwich, leaving two for each of us. The whipped cream wasn't too sweet, and the recipe made the most of the tart flavor of kiwi and mandarins, so we finished it quickly. Maybe we should have ordered two plates. We rambled on about recent happenings in our lives, but honestly, not much had happened to me since I'd last met Himura.
I decided to confide in him a small problem.
“Do you think it's possible for preexisting characters to be written by someone other than their author?”
“Yes,” Himura replied immediately. “If someone writes 'There are a hundred Don Quixotes gathered together', then there are. If someone writes 'Before my eyes, Alice Arisugawa has cream on his cheek', then he does. That's how novels are.”
I wiped my cheek, but there was nothing there.
“It's textual interpretation. It's not about literal facts, but subtleties of the character, what they say and how they act. It's the character's identity.”
“'Identity' is pretty vague. There are several characters in my novels, but are they the same as they were when they first appeared? Or even as they were a year ago? Personalities and behavior change, even in the author's mind.”
Himura exhaled. “What's with you all of a sudden?” he asked.
“I was asked to write an afterword the other day, so I read a sci-fi novel that won a newcomer's award.”
“Sci-fi? Well, aren't you flexible.”
“Apparently they're asking for comments from authors in all sorts of different genres. See, the novel is about the idea of novels. The story is about a future where Earth is ruled by a superintelligent lifeform, and in order to understand the workings of the human heart, it revives great writers from every era of history and forces them to write for it. The idea is that the reader gets to see fictional authors with unique backgrounds and eccentricities all interact with each other. There's a romance writer, a fantasy writer, a horror writer... and a mystery writer.”
That writer was particularly unique.
“He's portrayed as a 'genius pastiche artist'. He's mastered the styles of all his predecessors, and is responsible for bringing Holmes and Poirot back from the dead. In that science fiction setting, the mystery writer is the only one credited with reviving something and not creating something new. I thought it made sense, but it also got me thinking.”
Collect evidence, examine it, and solve the mystery using logic – in the end, the mystery genre does nothing but repeat that formula again and again.
Of course, new tricks and puzzles are invented in every era, and the scopes of stories have expanded, but the basic story structure hasn't changed since the 19th century. For honkaku mystery in particular, directly borrowing from or remixing preexisting works is more common than in any other genre.
“The same goes for detective characters. They're differentiated by their jobs and their personalities, but in the end, there's only one way to correctly explain a mystery. There's also the issue that a honkaku mystery by definition has to feature a mystery that anyone can solve. So really, a detective is nothing but a device to convey the 'model answer' to the reader.”
That's why it's possible to remix and reproduce.
In that case, what does it mean for a mystery to be “original”?
Isn't every story that the mystery writers of the world have worked so hard to create replaceable?
“...I'm worried that some day they'll create an AI that could do my job.”
The coffee I drank was as bitter as Himura's smile.
“That's a concern real writers have. Of course, those who create unique, avant-garde works are one thing. But lately, I've been wondering how writers who prefer traditional styles like me can find the will to keep going.”
“I don't think being reproducible is such a bad thing. You're the one who's always saying that a real mystery is a story that depicts the power of logic, right, Alice? Logic is a science. The essence of science is reproducibility. Can someone else reproduce this law or phenomenon via experimentation? If they can, it's recognized as fact. If they can't, it's just pseudoscience. Mysteries are the same, aren't they?”
Himura pointed to a painting hanging on the wall. It was a reproduction of a piece by Botticelli featuring dancing angels.
“How about this? Somewhere up in heaven, the God of Mysteries lives, and he sends his apostles down to the world to save people with the power of logic. Detectives are His missionaries, on a holy mission. That's why they always preach the same messages, no matter the time or place. Because they aren't disparate individuals, but part of a group. Over a long period of time, they've been working hard to spread the good word of logic and reason to humanity. It's a unique approach to education that the scientists can't do.”
“...I'm not sure that makes sense.”
“It probably doesn't. Don't expect good advice from an outsider like me.”
Himura laughed and added that he was an atheist anyway. A smile forced itself to my face. It was a twisted, cynical consolation.
The power of logic...
Alright then. Let's return to the associate professor's field of expertise.
“Rope, cable, cord... there are three options. Can you deduce which is Evidence R using pure logic?”
“I don't know yet. Let's talk to those three tomorrow.”
“I'll stay at your place for a few days,” Himura said, lighting up a second Camel.
3
The next day, Sunday, Himura and I returned to Alpha Line Nishiki and visited the three suspects, starting from the first floor.
First was Tomoki Nagata, the young man living in room 106. He was home and showed us into his living room. He raised an eyebrow when he heard Himura's title. He was wearing the same striped shirt as he had been in the video yesterday.
“I thought after graduation I'd never see another university professor again. I never expected to see one this soon.”
I smiled back at him warmly.
“Did you have a strict teacher?”
“He rejected my thesis, which was rough on me. Though really, it was my fault for spending so much time in mahjong halls and pachinko parlors. Since I started working for the bank, I haven't had any time to play, so I've just been wasting each day away. I've got nothing to hide, so feel free to look around.”
He sounded casual, but it was clear he was exhausted from the police's questioning.
Looking around, that he 'had no time to play' seemed a bit of an exaggeration. There were figurines from a sci-fi movie on the desk, comics and music magazines filling the bookshelf, and paper bags from apparel shops and bookstores scattered on the floor, as though he'd bought their contents and then lost interest in them. It was the room of a man with many hobbies.
Himura started the questioning.
“Why did you buy the hemp rope you threw away yesterday?”
“Why was it…? That's right, two months ago, a friend asked me to help him move, so I bought it because I thought it might be useful. But my friend bought a rope of his own, so I wound up not needing it. I didn't ever find a chance to use it, so I decided to throw it away. If it's just tying up magazine bundles and stuff, plastic string is good enough.”
“Did you know Ms. Yasumi from room 108?”
“I mean, we lived on the same floor, so we passed each other in the hall sometimes. I only moved here six months ago, so she taught me about the trash schedule and all that. But I wouldn't call us close... I've never been in her room, and she's never been in mine.”
“She was a single woman close to you in age. You never thought anything of that?”
I purposely brought up an insensitive topic, but Nagata shook his head without seeming offended.
“I asked casually, but Ms. Yasumi said she'd just gotten a boyfriend. I'm not so desperate that I'd try to steal someone else's girl. Oh, do you two want something to drink?”
Himura said we didn't and continued asking questions.
“I understand you were asleep when the incident occurred in room 108. Did you hear anything? Any noises or screams?”
“There's an empty room between us, and I was dead asleep after an overtime shift. So I didn't notice anything... Sometimes I wonder if the crime could have been prevented if I'd been awake.”
Nagata looked towards the sliding door leading to the bedroom. There were only a few walls between it and room 108, the crime scene.
After a few seconds of sad silence, Himura pointed towards one corner of the living room.
“That red paper bag says 'TCG SHOP' on the side. TCG is short for trading card game, isn't it?”
“...Why do you ask?”
“Several rare Monster Knights cards were stolen from Ms. Yasumi's room.”
It was a startling remark, but Nagata looked like he's expected it. The young man gave a dramatic sigh.
“I guess to the average person, they all look the same, but there are many different types of card games in the world. I play a game called Blend of Magic. I'm not interested in Monster Knights. And scalpers, speculators, and other people who use cards to make money just piss me off. It's a game. It's meant to be played.”
“Thank you for your explanation.”
Himura bowed his head like a student leaving the lecture hall.
Kenichi Hara of room 202 was friendly. Despite our protests that we didn't need anything, he insisted on pouring us green tea and preparing a plate of traditional Japanese sweets.
“Have you ever had noshi ume before? It's surprisingly rare around these parts, isn't it? I've been totally hooked on it lately. I've tried lots of different snacks, but this is especially good. I had it special ordered from Yamagata. Please, try some.”
He wasn't the least bit intimidated by the sudden visit of two strangers, and his smile completely reached the eyes behind his black-rimmed glasses. Most of the furniture and tableware in his apartment was made of cypress wood, filling his space with a homey, natural feeling. He seemed to be a particular and attentive man. Either that, or his wife was into interior decorating.
“I understand you work in media, Mr. Hara.”
“At a video production company. We're a subcontractor for variety shows. You know, traps, bungee jumping, things like that. Our staff is in charge of safety checks during rehearsals. In other words, we put in more work than the comedians. I sprained my finger last week, and it's still like this.”
Hara lifted his left hand. It was only then that I noticed his pinky and ring fingers were bandaged. Maybe I should have offered to help with the serving.
Himura took a sip of steaming green tea.
“May I ask why you threw away the horizontal lifeline?”
“That was also due to work. We were shooting in the Takami mountain range last month, and that was the lifeline used by our cameraman. When we were packing up, it somehow got mixed up in my luggage and taken home. It's too thick for everyday use, and it would be a pain to lug it all the way back to the company warehouse, so I decided to just throw it away.”
Hara scratched his head, realizing that his timing was suspicious.
“I should have thrown it away sooner. It's because I threw it away yesterday that I'm now under suspicion.”
“I saw the security camera's footage, and something bothered me. Even though it was burnable trash day, you didn't throw out any garbage other than that lifeline, Mr. Hara.”
“I didn't have much trash from the past few days, so I thought it would be fine to leave it until Tuesday. My wife is away on a trip right now, so I'm alone here.”
“After you threw away the lifeline, it looks like you went off somewhere.”
“Just for a walk in the park. That's how I usually spend my days off.”
“Where is your wife right now?”
“Arima Onsen. With a female friend from college. She invited me too, but I said no. It'd be awkward to go on a trip with someone I barely know, and I always get bored on hot spring vacations. What is your relationship, Mr. Himura, Mr. Arisugawa?”
“Alice and I went to college together.”
“I see. But if you're both working men, you can't go on trips that often. Being a housewife sure is easy, eh?”
I gave a vague nod. I wondered how Hara would react if I told him that we'd actually gone on countless trips together, and investigated crimes on every one.
“My wife's trip came at a bad time. Even if I say I was alone in my room watching late night television, there's no one to prove it.”
“Did you know Ms. Nodoka Yasumi?”
Himura asked. Hara gave the same answer as Nagata: “We occasionally saw each other in the hall.”
“She was a pleasant woman, kindly enough to talk to an old man like me. Oh come to think of it, we did once have her over for tea, two months ago. My wife was bored, so she asked Ms. Yasumi if she wanted to come over. I worked on the TV drama Audio Stock, which Ms. Yasumi watched as a child, so we had a good time. That's about it. I still can't believe there was a murder in such a peaceful community... Oh, you fold it like this and then stick your fork through it.”
He explained how to eat noshi ume. I wondered if he'd looked over Nodoka Yasumi the same way, and if she'd eaten his Japanese sweets while listening to his stories.
“Audio Stock was a romance drama that aired on Kansai TV. I was surprised to learn it had aired in Kure City, where Ms. Yasumi had lived at the time. The story was so dry that, by the standards of the time, it was almost experimental. The heroine meets one useless man after another, eventually cutting ties with all of them. I remember how Ms. Yasumi laughed and said that now she understood how she'd felt. Are you familiar with the drama, Mr. Himura?”
“I'm from Hokkaido, I've never seen it before.”
“What about you, Mr. Arisugawa?”
“I don't really like romance dramas...”
“I see,” said Hara, taking a sip of green tea. Our tea time in room 202 ended with much less excitement than Nodoka Yasumi's.
Next was room 305. We were moving up one floor at a time, so there was no need to use the elevator. As we made our way towards the stairs, we bumped into a certain person coming up from the first floor.
He had long, unkempt hair and a thick beard encircling his mouth. It was Ryota Kato, the third suspect who'd thrown away the cord.
We briefly introduced ourselves and asked to hear his story. Kato looked at us, suspicious, then lifted a convenience store bag he was carrying. Inside were two cans of chuhai.
“Shinada's in my room right now. If that's not a problem.”
The living room of Kato's apartment, room 305, looked like an exhibition space for outdoor equipment.
The frame of a folding tent and a barbecue grill took up most of the space, and skis and snowboards were leaned against one wall. By the window was a corner dedicated to fishing supplies, with rods, lure cases, and coolers, and a wide shelf was filled with a miscellaneous assortment of ice axes, knives, ropes, bike helmets, boots, and more. All of these outdoor use items were brightly colored, making the whole room look like a mosaic.
After leading Himura and I to the sofa, Kato scratched his ear, clearly uncomfortable.
“It might be better to hold the interrogation in Shinada's room... I'm sorry it's so cluttered in here. Such is the fate of an outdoor lover.”
“Mr. Kato's bad at organizing things. He just buys anything that catches his eye, like a little kid.”
This was muttered by a young man in a chair playing with his smartphone. It was Yuu Shinada, the resident of room 207. He was a skinny man wearing a dark gray shirt and glasses. For some reason, I felt like this wasn't our first meeting. I searched my memory and found him. He was the one who was scolded by the Manager, Yamaguchi, in the security camera footage.
“You're the one who's too organized. Your room is completely empty,” Kato said, nudging Shinada. “And who's childish? You're the one who doesn't eat your vegetables.”
“It's fine, I drink vegetable juice every day... One carton a day is enough.”
“Who would ever believe that?”
While they bantered like siblings, Himura's eyes were taking in the living room. I knew what he was thinking. Rope... There were many things in Kato's room that could have been Evidence R. Of course, the police had already investigated them all and declared them unrelated to the crime.
“Have you two known each other for long?”
Himura turned his gaze back on Kato and Shinada.
“Do we look like old friends? Shinada and I have been living in the same apartment building for four years, but to tell the truth, we only started talking three months ago. Shinada was looking for a part time job and asked if he could work at my company, and that's how it started. We wound up not hiring him because we didn't need the extra hands, but we get along.”
“Do we? ...Mr. Kato's the one who's always forcing himself into my life.”
“Hey, there's no need to be embarrassed.”
They looked to be about five years apart in age. A friendly, gregarious senior and a reserved junior who was easily pushed around. It was a common enough relationship, but there was something off about them. Shinada was clearly depressed, and Kato seemed to be acting overly cheerful to make up for him.
“I understand you two were together on the night of the incident. What time exactly?”
“We started drinking in this room at around 10:00 P.M. We both got pretty drunk, and our memories start getting hazy around midnight... We both woke up after 9:00 A.M.”
“You both slept in this living room?”
“No. Shinada fell asleep on the sofa, and I crawled into the futon in the bedroom.”
In that case, his alibi wasn't solid. But it was also proof that Shinada wasn't working with Kato and giving false testimony. If he was an accomplice, he never would have said they slept separately.
“Did you know Ms. Yasumi?”
When Himura interjected, the cheer vanished from Kato's face.
“I didn't know her at all, but... Shinada was dating her.”
That explained the awkward atmosphere.
I reflexively turned to Shinada. The man who'd lost his lover was silent and looking down as though he no longer had a place in the world. He was a young man with a dark, introverted air. I was surprised to learn he was interested in romance. Though, come to think of it, Nodoka Yasumi had also seemed like a quiet woman, and if Shinada was around 25, that would mean they were close in age.
“He says that, but she was actually my ex. We got in a fight and broke up two weeks ago... We weren't that serious about each other to begin with, either.”
Even as he said that, Shinada's shoulders were trembling.
“But still, I can't believe it. Being tied up, killed, and dumped in the sea... it's just too horrible. She had some trouble with her parents, so she moved all the way to Osaka to try and make it on her own. That's the sort of person she was, just an honest woman. There's no reason she should have had to go through something like that.”
Kato patted Shinada's back. Maybe the real reason he'd invited the young man to his room was to offer his friend a shoulder to cry on.
“My condolences,” Himura added before changing topic. “Mr. Kato, was the rope you threw away on Saturday morning also for outdoor use?”
“...Yes. I used to use it to set up my tent while I was camping.”
“I saw you threw away a windbreaker and a chair as well.”
“As you can see, I have too much stuff already. I thought I'd do a bit of housekeeping.”
“But you didn't need to do it that day. You woke up late after an all-night drinking binge and immediately decided to throw some things away. I'd think you'd want to choose which of your tools to get rid of on a day where you had more time to think. From what I saw on the video, you looked like you had a terrible hangover.”
Kato's glare sharpened and fixed right on the associate professor he'd met for the first time that day. Himura apologized in a flat monotone.
“I'm sorry. I was just curious.”
“When I went to take out the trash, I noticed some things I didn't need and suddenly decided to throw them away. It happens to everyone... Are you doubting me?”
“I just want to solve the case.”
“Please don't lie to me. The detectives told me they suspected me because of my criminal record.”
The reason Kato was a suspect had nothing to do with his criminal record, but Himura didn't argue. Kato became even more heated, yelling so much that spittle went flying.
“I was hanging out with a female friend from my hometown when some kid from another school came and picked a fight with me, so I had to protect her. He was a big guy, so I couldn't risk holding back. I just broke his leg, is all. It's not my fault. If I could have avoided a fight, I would have.”
“And where is your hometown?”
“Kure City, Hiroshima.”
“I thought I detected a bit of an accent.”
Kato continued as though Himura's calm analysis just made him angrier.
“Mr. Himura, you're a professor of criminology, aren't you? Your type are always talking about rates of recidivism, but does that apply to everyone? Is everyone who's ever made a mistake a criminal forever?”
“All I can say is it depends on the person.”
“Even if I apologize, no one believes me.”
“So if no one believes you, will you stop feeling sorry?”
Kato clicked his tongue. His eyes, not knowing where to look, fell on the convenience store bag.
“...I forgot to buy cigarettes. Excuse me.”
With that, he left the living room. Shinada called out “Mr. Kato,” but the only response was the violent slam of the door.
Silence fell over the brightly colored room. Shinada put his smartphone into his shirt's chest pocket and gave an awkward bow and a “Sorry.”
“No, it's my fault for being so blunt... While I'm at it, there's something I want to ask you, Mr. Shinada. You said you were dating Ms. Yasumi. Did you know about her collection of rare Monster Knights cards?”
“I did.”
“Did you ever tell anyone else about it?”
“...I told Mr. Kato about it on Friday night.”
His testimony came in a faint voice.
“I thought it was interesting, to have a hidden fortune in trading cards, so... Mr. Kato seemed really intrigued...”
“And what about the spare key under the potted plant?”
“That also came up while we were talking on Friday night... He asked me if, since we'd broken up, I could no longer see her, but I joked that since I knew where her spare key was I could get in... M-Mr. Himura, Mr. Kato didn't do it, did he? Tell me he didn't. Because if he did, then I might have..”
“I have one more question,” Himura interrupted him. “I know this is a bit of an invasive question, but you've stayed the night in Ms. Yasumi's room before, haven't you?”
“...Well, yes. When we were dating, I did it quite often.”
“Did Ms. Yasumi take off her glasses before going to bed?”
Shinada's face shifted from pained to confused at the unexpected question.
“Yes. I mean, so do I... Most people take them off, don't they?”
Himura thanked him, satisfied with the answer, and got up from the sofa.
As we left the apartment building, I summarized our findings.
“All three of them are kind of suspicious. Nagata seems like the most likely one to have known about the rare cards. Hara's the most innocent seeming one of the three, but the fact that his wife just so happened to be traveling is a bit concerning. Maybe he was waiting for an opportunity to commit the crime. Kato had all the information needed to have carried out the robbery. The reason why he threw away the cord is a bit puzzling, too... And then there's Kure City. Hara said something about Ms. Yasumi being from Kure too, didn't he? They're from the same place. Do you think there might be a motive?”
Himura grunted, and I looked up in thought. A single contrail was running across the western sky again. A single straight white line across the light blue canvas.
“That cloud is like Evidence R.”
“What do you mean?”
“It looks like I could grab it at any moment, but I can't reach. Like a fat white leech swimming in the sky. This is a tricky mystery. You'd think a big leech like that would be easy to catch...”
At that moment...
“Mr. Himura! Mr. Arisugawa!”
A man in an Armani suit ran up to us. It was Keiichi Morishita, a young detective from Funabiki's squad. A boy who looked like a middle school student was clinging to him from behind.
“We found an eyewitness. He lives in room 205. He said he saw a suspicious figure on the premises at around 1:00 A.M. on Friday night.”
At Morishita's prompting, the boy nervously began to speak.
“Well, I just saw it for a moment when I looked out the window. Their face was all black, so I couldn't make anything out... They were walking around outside carrying something big.”
“What do you mean 'something big?”
When Himura asked, the boy shrugged his shoulders and said “It looked like a person.”
“At the time, I assumed it was a futon or something, so I just went back to bed. The middle part of the futon was all tied up, like when you throw it away. But when the detective told me Ms. Yasumi had been tied up, I thought it might have been her.”
It was definitely Nodoka Yasumi's body. If their face was black, the culprit might have been wearing a balaclava.
Heart pounding in my chest, I asked.
“Do you remember what it was tied with? The color, the thickness, anything?”
“I'm sorry... I can't tell you much. I only saw it for a moment, and it was dark. I could only see a bit in the light coming from another room.”
Too bad. I'd thought we could finally identify Evidence R. Although it had confirmed the time of the crime and that there was only a single culprit, the eyewitness testimony hadn't been enough to cut to the heart of the matter.
This was a tricky mystery, I thought to myself as I imagined what the boy had seen, and tried to fit the three suspects into it. Rope, cable, cord...
Hold on a second...
An idea came to me, and a single handhold emerged from the tangled web. I reached out a hand and grabbed it tight.
In shock, I spoke aloud.
“Himura. I know who the culprit is.”
“I see. So do I.”
Morishita went “Huh?” I wasn't surprised. Himura was always the first to solve a mystery. If I had enough information to solve it, it was only natural that he'd also find the correct answer.
But sometimes I wanted to feel it, too. The honor of getting to solve the case, like a great detective on a holy mission. The catharsis of assembling the logic.
“First of all, Hara isn't the culprit. His left hand was sprained, right? With a hand in that state, he couldn't have tied such a thick cable. In other words, he couldn't have tied up Ms. Yasumi.”
One suspect down, two to go.
“Next, the eyewitness testimony. This child saw the culprit in the light of a window, but couldn't tell what color the rope was. If that's the case, R can't be the cord. Because Kato's tent rope was reflective.”
Reflective ropes are used in various places, like parking lots and construction sites. They dramatically reflect light sources even at night, and stand out as conspicuous white shapes in the darkness.
But the boy hadn't seen that.
Therefore.
“The only remaining possibility is the rope. By process of elimination, the culprit must be Tomoki Nagata.”
I declared my answer with confidence. Next to me, Morishita and the boy's mouths hung open in shock.
Himura, who had been listening in silence, smiled and tapped me on the shoulder.
“Sorry. You're wrong.”
4
Leaving the residential area and entering the green space of Nishikinohama Beach Park, crossing the bridge over the Kogi River, we soon arrived at a sandy beach about a kilometer long. In the summer, it's a popular spot where whole families gather, but in the winter, there were few people. We strolled along the beach, turning up the collars of our jackets to avoid the cold ocean breeze. For someone like me who usually stayed indoors, the sea air was refreshing, even out of season.
Himura's smartphone went off. While he answered, I distracted myself looking at the empty cans and seaweed that had washed up on the beach. “What are you looking for?” Himura asked after hanging up the phone.
“I was wondering if a handwritten message in a bottle would turn up somewhere.”
“That's awfully romantic.”
I didn't argue that any true lover of mysteries would look for such things whenever they went to the beach. I was more interested in that phone call. I asked Himura, and he confirmed that it was indeed from Inspector Funabiki.
“Bingo. They found the stolen cards in the ceiling above his bathroom. Apparently the gloves and balaclava were there too.”
Following Himura's advice, the police made a thorough search of a certain apartment in the building. Now that the evidence had been found, there was no way the occupant of that room could escape. The case was closed.
But I still didn't understand.
“How did you know he did it?”
“The first thing about this case that bothered me was that there was only one wound on the victim's head.”
“Is that weird, though? If he hit her hard enough, one blow would be enough to-”
“No, that's not the issue. If there was only the one wound, it creates a whole new problem. The problem of how the culprit managed to tie up Ms. Yasumi.”
Himura tapped his forehead.
“The wound on her forehead was inflicted when she was killed. That means he didn't hit her once and then tie her up while she was stunned. There's also the possibility that an accomplice held her down, but the boy only saw one culprit.”
“The crime was committed in the middle of the night, so maybe he tied her up while she was asleep?”
“That isn't it either. There was a pair of glasses with damaged frames lying in the living room. That means Ms. Yasumi was wearing her glasses when she was killed. People don't wear their glasses to bed.”
Oh, he was right. I didn't even need to think about the lifestyles of young people, the truth was right in front of me. Was that why Himura asked about her glasses?
“He didn't hit her, he didn't have help, and he didn't attack her in her sleep... In that case, I can only think of one possibility. The culprit used the spare key to enter the room and ran into Ms. Yasumi, who was still awake. Immediately afterwards, he frightened her into compliance and tied her up... Even if the victim was a woman, you can't do that with your bare hands. So the culprit must have used a knife.”
“A knife? But she was beaten to death.”
“That's because the culprit was searching for the rare cards. He couldn't have searched the room while holding the knife. Maybe he tucked it into his belt or something. It would have been easier to stop her from escaping by grabbing the nearby ornament. Also, there were no signs that Ms. Yasumi's mouth was covered. That's because the culprit was armed.”
I nodded. In the first place, it was normal for a burglar to at least have a knife. Even if they didn't have a novelist’s imagination, if you asked someone to imagine “a burglar”, a majority of people would picture a man in a balaclava holding a knife.
“He threatened her with a knife and tied her up... I still can't figure it out. What does that have to do with the rope?”
“Everything. The boy saw the body tied up with something. Ms. Yasumi should have been dead when she was carried from the apartment to the greenway, but her body was still tied up. The culprit remembered the existence of Evidence R before tossing her off the greenway, removed it, and took it away. That's how it went.”
“That makes sense.”
“Then let me ask you, Alice... How did the culprit remove Evidence R?”
I was about to open my mouth and say how, when I realized something that left me speechless.
The sound of the waves and Himura's voice filled the void.
“The greenway was dark. So dark that the culprit couldn't even see that he'd failed to dispose of the body. Could he have untied the knot in that darkness, while still wearing wool gloves? It's impossible. It would be a different story if Evidence R was the reflective cord, but as you mentioned in your theory, the boy didn't see any reflection. And the culprit had a knife. In that case, there is one easy way to remove it. Cut it.”
Place the blade over the rope and move it back and forth two or three times. If that was all, they could do it by touch even through gloves.
The tip of the blade may have nicked the victim's clothes and left some scratches. But they were rapidly rendered undetectable. The victim's body was rubbed against the wave-dissipating blocks after she was thrown in the sea.
“If it was cut, then Evidence R couldn't have been the rope, cable, or cord. All three of those were still in one piece.”
The weight on my shoulders lifted. It was so obvious I wanted to demand the past 24 hours I'd spent thinking about those three back.
However, there was something I still didn't understand.
“Even if we follow that logic, all it does is remove all the suspects. How did you figure out that the real culprit was Yuu Shinada?”
“I thought about it from the culprit's perspective. The evidence was long, thin, and cut into pieces. How would they dispose of it? It would be best to cut it into several pieces and toss it in the burnable trash. The individual parts were small, so if he hid them in garbage bags, even that sharp-eyed manager wouldn't notice anything.”
“Like dismembering a corpse for easier disposal?”
“That's a really disturbing way to put it, but sure. My interest shifted to the other residents' garbage bags. Then, I noticed something strange. On Saturday morning, Shinada took out his trash and was scolded by the manager.”
I remembered the scene. Just before Kato threw away the tent rope, the manager, Yamaguchi, pointed at Shinada's garbage bag.
And what was visible in the translucent bag at the time were...
“Crushed paper cartons,” Himura continued. “According to the manager, he warned him that 'cardboard isn't burnable trash, it's recycling'. But that's strange. Shinada had lived in that apartment for over four years, and he drank cartons of vegetable juice every day. And Kato had described him as overly organized. So he should know how to dispose of a carton already. But that day, he broke his routine.” Stopping at the water's edge, Himura concluded his theory.
“Shinada put some of Evidence R in the garbage bag, but there was less garbage that day than he'd expected, so there was a risk that it would be visible from the outside. Maybe he filled the bag with paper cartons that he usually wouldn't have thrown away... That's what I thought.”
And indeed, evidence was found in Shinada's room.
“Did they find the rest of evidence R too?”
“Yes. It was an ordinary multi-purpose rope. It was cut into three pieces, and when they put it together, it was two meters short. He must have thrown away those two meters Saturday morning.”
Shinada would have known where the spare key and the rare cards were. By the inverse property, Kato's lack of alibi meant that Shinada didn't have an alibi either. After Kato went to his bedroom, he could have returned to his own room, gotten his tools, and headed to room 108. He might even have borrowed an outdoor knife from Kato's things.
Shinada knew Nodoka Yasumi's daily routine, so he'd probably predicted she'd be in bed by 1:00 A.M. However, that night, she'd stayed up late...
“Even if it wasn't planned, killing your ex-girlfriend and throwing her body in the ocean is too much...”
“Even if Shinada says he's sorry after he gets out of prison, I don't want to believe him.”
“What was his motive?”
“There may have been some element of revenge on the girl who dumped him, but I think he mostly just needed the money. Ms. Yasumi started dating Shinada six months ago. Three months ago, Shinada was looking for a new part time job, which suggests that he was unemployed. Two months ago, Ms. Yasumi said she understood how a drama heroine who was involved with useless men felt. And two weeks ago, she had a falling out with Shinada. If you put it all together, doesn't it sound like Shinada has been financially dependent on Ms. Yasumi for the past few months?”
“...Yeah, it does. You solved everything.”
“I'd like to say that I did, but it's not that simple,” Himura grinned. “It was actually thanks to you that I realized there was a fourth thing beyond the rope, cable, and cord, and came up with the motive. That thing you said in front of the apartment building was the trigger. Maybe being a Watson is also part of the holy mission.”
I searched my memory, but I couldn't think of anything. I raised both hands in surrender.
Gazing at a contrail in the sky, Himura revealed the answer.
“Rope, cable, cord. They're all long, skinny tools, but Japanese is a language with countless words. There's a fourth word that's more versatile than any of those.”
I finally realized.
I'd said that it was a tricky mystery and then uttered a word.
It's a word that can refer to something long, thin, and flexible, or a person who contributes nothing and is completely dependent on their partner.
In other words...
“He was a leech.”