A Cop's Eyes (15 page)

Keiko examined the sink. A plate of rice omelet that she'd
cooked for dinner that day was still there. Yuma and Hideaki usually finished all her dishes, but oddly some of it had been left over.

The sight awakened bitter thoughts in her, so she turned her eyes toward the Japanese-style room behind the kitchen.

The room had burned down almost entirely. She took a firm step onto the charred floor mats and entered it.

A stack of paper on the veranda outside had been set on fire, and Hideaki had been caught in the flames as he slept in this room.

Keiko quietly closed her eyes and put her hands together.

“Good afternoon—”

Hearing the voice, she snapped back to reality and looked toward the entrance. Right outside the front door, which she'd left open, bowed a man.

It was the detective, Natsume, whom she'd met at the vigil. Why was he here?

“Would it be okay if I came in?” he asked in a reserved tone.

“Go ahead,” Keiko answered.

Natsume stepped into the alcove but looked at his feet and seemed to hesitate a little.

“Please, as you are.”

“In that case,” he said with a light bow and entered the kitchen with his shoes on.

“Earlier, too, I came here to inspect the site. It's in a terrible state.”

Keiko turned toward him across the dining table. “Yes …”

“How are you faring? Is your current residence …” he asked, choosing his words carefully.

“A friend has taken us in and we're okay for now … But we need to find a new place to live asap.”

“With most of your things wrecked, it must be very difficult.”

“As you can see, we had a simple life. I don't care about what
happened to our furniture. A person's life, though, won't come back.”

“That's true …” Natsume agreed. “I heard you were there during his final moments.”

“Yes, because he was brought to the hospital I work at.”

“There's something I need to ask you … What exactly was your relationship with him?”

Keiko couldn't blame Natsume for wondering. “He was my husband. We just hadn't formalized it yet, it was a common law relationship.”

“I see.”

“My son is still at a sensitive age, so I wanted to deal with that after things settled down.”

“Then Hideaki was an adoptive father for your son. He must be quite shocked by what happened.”

That wasn't true, Keiko thought, but she replied, “Yes …”

“At least, his wife was with him when he passed away.”

Keiko's eyes welled up with unfeigned tears at Natsume's words.

“Are you the chef in your family?” the detective changed the topic as though to lighten the mood.

“Yes.”

“It can't be easy when you work, too.”

“I just make easy meals.”

“A rice omelet that day,” Natsume said looking at the sink. “Usually kids love that.”

“It's Yuma's … my son's favorite, so I always cook it when I can't make up my mind,” she answered, and finding all this funny, couldn't stifle a laugh.

Natsume gave her a blank look.

“No, it's just that seeing you, I can't believe you're a detective … You're too different from my image of one.”

“What kind of image is that?”

“A scary person who's kind of stern and has a piercing gaze.”

“Many are like that. I haven't been one for long, so it might just be that I don't give off the proper vibes yet.”

That was surprising. Although his fresh bearing made him appear young, Keiko had assumed that they were about the same age.

“I switched jobs,” Natsume said, picking up on her puzzlement.

“Switched … What were you before?” she couldn't help but ask.

“Do you know what a judiciary technical officer is? I worked at a juvenile detention center for kids who had committed crimes. I evaluated their psychology, et cetera. I was thirty when I joined the force.”

Hearing this, she understood why Natsume's eyes, seemingly so kind, had made her nervous.

The detective before her had dealt with many offenders in the past and peered into their hearts. She absolutely couldn't show this man a chink in her armor—

The goodwill she'd held for Natsume vanished in an instant.

“Yesterday, I visited the hospital, but it seemed you hadn't come back to work yet, so I was planning to visit again after this. Meeting you here was good timing. There are a number of things I need to ask you.”

Keiko braced herself, hoping Natsume didn't notice. “What might they be?”

“Was Hideaki taking anything like sleeping medications?”

“Sleeping medications?”

“Yes, the forensics autopsy detected traces of sleeping medications in his remains.”

“He might have taken mine. I keep irregular hours and it's hard for me to sleep, so I got a prescription. I stored it in that cupboard drawer, but sometimes there would be less …”

“Then he might have not been able to sleep that day and taken your medication. How unfortunate. He might have noticed the fire earlier if he hadn't taken any.”

“If I'd properly kept track of my medication, Hideaki …”

“I may have said something ignorant. It's not your fault that he passed away. It's the fault of the culprit who started the fire.” Natsume's gaze seemed to sharpen from the anger he felt toward the perp.

“You're right … Excuse me, but I need to go to work soon …” Increasingly discomfited by Natsume's presence, Keiko looked at her watch.

“Yes, I almost forgot, I need to return this to you.” He took something out of his pocket and gave it to Keiko. It was an evidence bag containing a cellphone that seemed to have warped from the heat. “Hideaki's. We kept it for a bit.”

“I see.”

“It seems he'd promised to meet with someone that day. The night before, he had sent a text message. It was to a woman named Shizuka Okamoto. Do you know her?”

“I don't.”

It was a lie. Shizuka Okamoto worked at a hostess club in Ikebukuro, and Hideaki had become an ardent fan of hers. He'd spent liberally there several times a week, using either the money Koichi had left her or the savings she'd worked so hard for. Then, after closing time, he'd gone to hotels to hold that woman in his arms until morning.

Keiko had pressed him about his relationship with Shizuka many times, but Hideaki would spout that he could do as he pleased since they weren't married. Then, complaining that he'd sacrificed his old life to marry her and be with them, he'd turn the tables on her and blame her for failing to persuade Yuma to let them marry.

Hearing him say so always made her feel that Hideaki was
sincere about getting married, at least. If he did stray, if he did raise his hand against them, it was simply due to his frustration over not having tied the knot yet.

What a vicious circle. If only he'd continued being the kind man that he'd been toward her, Yuma might have come to trust him, too, in time.

Then it wouldn't have come to this—

She couldn't stand having Hideaki stolen from her.

“Mind telling me where you live now?” Natsume requested, handing her a memo pad.

Keiko shut out all of her feelings and wrote out her friend's address.

“Are you sure you're fine?” Morita, the head nurse, called out to her as she entered the nurse station.

“Yes, sorry for worrying you. I'm fine now.”

“Well, don't push yourself too hard.”

Like Morita, most of her coworkers offered her words of condolence and encouragement.

During her shift, she tried her best not to think about the case. She couldn't let it slow her down. From now on, just like in the past, she and Yuma were going to weather life together. She wanted to work hard at her job and save up money to send him to a good college.

Since meeting Hideaki, she hadn't been a good mother. No, she'd been the worst of mothers. From now on, more than anything, she would treasure her life with her son. From now on, she would devote all of her life to making him happy. She intended to be reborn.

Yet, a dark shadow slipped into her chest as soon as she recalled Natsume's antics.

According to Morita and the others, the detective had come to the hospital the day before asking many questions about Keiko
and her family.

Perhaps Natsume didn't believe the case was the handiwork of the serial arsonist.

When she looked at the clock, it was almost time for her to replace the IV drip for the patient in Room 312. Keiko left the nurse station, prepared the drip, and headed onward. The private Room 312 was at the very end of the hallway, beyond which lay the emergency stairs.

When she entered, Yoshio Yasuoka smiled at her from his bed and said, “Are you okay now?”

Faced with his gentle smile, she relaxed a little, but he seemed to have lost some weight while she'd been away. Yasuoka, the director of an accounting office in Ikebukuro, had been admitted two months ago with an ailing stomach.

No matter how tired from work or how vexed she'd been by Hideaki's selfishness, nursing Yasuoka had been her oasis. Gentle, considerate, he was the opposite of Hideaki.

Widowed by his spouse and lacking children, he had to be lonely in his hospital room. He seemed to have gradually come to hold special feelings for Keiko, who attended to him every day.

Especially after seeing a bruise that Hideaki had left on her, he'd grown sincerely concerned about her wellbeing and lent her a sympathetic ear.

After I'm discharged, why don't you break up with Hideaki and marry me, I'll take good care of you and your son
.

She'd been elated to hear him say that. Why couldn't she have come across a man like him before running into Hideaki? But regret as she might, it was already too late.

“That reminds me, yesterday a detective visited me.”

Her hand, which had been inserting the needle for the drip, froze. “You?”

“Yes … The police seem to think that the apartment caught fire around ten past midnight. They heard that you hadn't been at
the nursing station at the time and came to talk to me.”

“What was the detective like?”

“Tall, young … I think he said his name was Natsume.”

Hearing that, Keiko fell into a gloom.

“There isn't anything for you to worry about,” Yasuoka said, sensing her anguish. “I told them that you were giving me my drip the whole time. We heard the sirens and wondered if it was a fire.”

Keiko looked at Yasuoka's thinning arms and at the numerous needle marks. Her heart ached to think of it. She'd been such a burden—but it was all over now. She wanted to think it was.

She inserted the drip needle into a vein.

“As usual, it doesn't hurt when you do it,” Yasuoka smiled.

It was already totally dark when her shift ended and she left the hospital.

She needed to hurry home and make Yuma dinner. Crossing through the parking lot with brisk steps, she pondered what to put on the menu.

Tired as she was from getting back to work, today she'd cook an elaborate meal for Yuma. Her body seemed to shake off some of its fatigue at the idea.

The door opened on a car parked in front of her, and someone stepped out.

“Good evening.”

The exhaustion that had lifted just a moment ago came swooping back when she saw who it was that had greeted her. “Do you have some business with me?” she returned brusquely.

“I apologize for inconveniencing you, but I wanted to ask if I could talk to Yuma a little.”

She showily looked at her watch. “It's already nine o'clock.”

“Just a little. I could have gone straight to him, but I thought it might be better if his mother were present.”

Even if she refused now, there was no mistaking that he'd eventually seek out Yuma. In that case, it would be better, indeed, if she were there too. Keiko reluctantly agreed and got into the passenger's seat of Natsume's car.

The road to the condo felt interminable.

“What kind of kid is Yuma?” Natsume spoke out of the blue.

“What kind … He's that difficult age, but I think he's a good son. You're asking his mother, though.”

“No, when I met him at the vigil, I thought he was a tough kid, too. I mean, he's had to bear losing his father, and now his adoptive father.”

“He's been through a lot of hardship. Even though Hideaki wasn't legally his father, I think my son feels shaken in his own way …” Keiko told the detective, implying that he should go easy on Yuma.

“I will exercise discretion.”

Her friend was still out working, so Keiko had Natsume ask his questions in the living room.

“Sorry to impose on you at this late hour. I just wanted to ask you some things regarding the night of the fire,” Natsume began, facing Yuma, who sat on the sofa.

Keiko, who was sitting side by side with her son, studied her son's profile. Yuma seemed to be nervous and had his eyes cast down as he listened to Natsume.

“That night, did you have a fight with Hideaki? The next-door neighbor heard voices like someone was arguing,” Natsume inquired in a calm, deliberate manner, looking straight at Yuma.

“Not really … When I got home, I had an argument with him about nothing. Like always.”

Natsume showed no impatience at Yuma's muttered and vague reply.

Seeing Natsume confront her son, Keiko remembered that
the detective had once worked at a juvenile detention center. The man was used to talking to boys like Yuma who were at an impressionable age. Never domineering, he seemed to excel at unspooling his interviewee's mind.

“Yuma, you left the house after that, right? Do you remember around what time?”

“Ten thirty or so …”

Why had Natsume quit his previous job and become a detective? The point elicited her interest and suspicion, but she wasn't about to ask. She could do without becoming better acquainted with a cop.