A Cop's Eyes (18 page)

Why, after she'd almost recovered—

Her truancy aside, Kumiko wanted to at least stop her cutting and continued counseling her, but it hadn't produced any promising signs so far.

It wasn't that Kumiko had no clue what might be driving Yuka's self-harm. A short time before Yuka had started cutting, she'd been involved in an ordeal. But was that really the cause?

Not feeling quite satisfied, Kumiko felt lost over how to proceed.

“Vice principal, this is serious—” an admin person came into the staff room and said in a loud voice while Kumiko was talking to Machida about Yuka.

Wondering what was happening, she turned toward the staffer, who headed toward the VP's desk and started talking to him. At the word “police,” there was a commotion among the teachers
around Kumiko.

“What business could the police have?” Machida uttered in his seat in front of her.

She could only tilt her head in puzzlement. “Who knows?”

The staffer left the VP's side and exited the room for a moment. It seemed the police were in the hallway outside.

With everyone's eyes on him, the staffer urged, “Please, come in,” and a man in a suit entered.

When Kumiko saw the man, she was shocked. Nobuhito Natsume—

Still in disbelief, she looked at him for some time, but it was him without a doubt.

She couldn't take her eyes off of Natsume as he headed to the vice principal's desk. For his part, the man seemed to have noticed Kumiko as well, to judge from the slightly surprised look on his face.

Natsume showed the vice principal a police badge and started talking about something. Then, he and the vice principal left the room together.

Kumiko watched Natsume's back in a daze.

When she left the lounge to return to the counseling room, the door to the principal's office opened, and out came Natsume. He bowed to the principal and vice principal and then started walking toward the front entrance.

She couldn't help but follow after him.

“Natsume!” she called out from behind.

He stopped and turned around.

“So you were working here.” Smiling, Natsume walked back toward her.

When was the last time—

The last time they'd seen each other might have been after they all finished graduate school and went out drinking. That was almost fifteen years ago.

His trim figure, his clean ungreasy hair, and those gentle eyes which seemed to engulf a person whole—Natsume seemed not to have changed much. Only the police badge he'd flashed earlier was at odds with her past impression of him.

“Why …” Kumiko murmured.

“There was a case near here yesterday, and I came to ask about it.”

“It's not that! Why do you have a police badge?” she pressed, quite seriously.

Natsume laughed. “It's not fake. I'm on the police force these days.”

“You quit being a judiciary technical officer?”

Natsume nodded.

Even so, she couldn't believe
that
Natsume had become a cop. What was going on? “Why …”

“It's a long story. I have work to do, and I need to get back to the station as soon as possible.”

“To investigate the case you just mentioned?”

“Right.”

“Is it connected to my school?” she asked, concerned.

“To be honest, I'm not sure if there's a connection or not. Yesterday, around noon, a man was found dead of unnatural causes in a condo in South Ikebukuro. We canvassed for eyewitnesses in the vicinity, and a girl wearing this school's uniform had been seen near the condos. So I was a little curious …”

“Are you saying that a student at this school is connected to the case?”

“No, I'm not sure about that yet. Maybe she was just passing through. Even then, she may have witnessed the culprit, so I at least want to hear what she has to say. I wanted to know which students hadn't been at school yesterday around that time.”

She seemed fine when she left home this morning
—

Keiko recalled what Yuka's mother had said and felt a sinking
sensation in her chest.

“I have to go. Sometime soon, let's all go out drinking again,” Natsume said, then raised his hand and headed to the exit.

While they'd been in the same entering class at the same university, Kumiko hadn't met Natsume until they were both in the graduate program. Their departments had differed: Natsume had studied educational psychology in the school of education, Kumiko social psychology in the school of arts.

They became fast friends, and she immediately came to appreciate Natsume's warm personality.

Whoever named him, she thought Nobuhito—written with the characters for “believe” and “person”—was right on the dot.

Natsume loved children. Apparently, he'd gone into educational psychology wanting to become a schoolteacher and proceeded to grad school hoping to improve his ability to instruct and guide children.

Natsume hadn't become a teacher upon completing the program, however. He passed the A-level reform officer employment screening test and entered the Ministry of Justice. Kumiko thought she knew why Natsume had stopped trying to become a teacher and chosen instead to serve as a judiciary technical officer.

For a training visit during graduate school, they'd gone to a children's home in Saitama. It took in children who had no guardians, who faced abuse, or whose family had some hardship raising them.

There too, the kids immediately grew fond of the cheerful and gentle Natsume. Amongst them was a seventeen-year-old boy named Yoshio Hashimoto.

Yoshio had entered the home after suffering horrible abuse from his parents for a long time. He took a construction-related job when he was eighteen and left the home. Natsume was ecstatic about Yoshio as if he, himself, were becoming independent and
making a new start. Apparently, he'd been taking the boy out for meals and lending an ear to his struggles. Half a year after leaving the home, however, Yoshio was arrested for manslaughter by the police. Not taking well to his boss's incessant bullying, Yoshio had struck the man. By some misfortune, he hit his head hard against a table as he fell and succumbed to internal bleeding.

If only he'd been closer to Yoshio and listened to his troubles more, it might not have happened, Natsume cried in frustration when he learned about Yoshio's arrest.

That case must have reoriented Natsume toward a career as a judiciary technical officer, who faced offending juveniles.

Kumiko was being inspired by Natsume before she knew. Up until then, she hadn't had much interest in children, but after finishing graduate school, she acquired qualifications as a clinical psychologist and decided to become a school counselor so she could be with kids and side with their hearts.

Hence her great shock that Natsume had entered the police force. That he'd become a detective, whose vocation was to doubt people, felt like a betrayal.

Why would Natsume have thought to become a cop? She was certain that a career doubting people was about the most unsuitable life for him.

The only reason that she could think of was that case.

About ten years ago, there had been a serial assailant in Nerima Ward whose victims were young girls. Natsume had appeared on TV as the father of one of the victims and made a tearful appeal to the criminal.

Please stop doing this, hurry and turn yourself in, he'd begged.

Natsume's daughter, who'd been attacked, fell into a coma—but Kumiko didn't know what had happened after that.

She'd known, from the time they'd all gone out drinking after completing graduate school, that Natsume had married and been blessed with a daughter. Looking at the TV screen, she'd recalled
how proudly, and dotingly, he'd shown the photos of his family, and her heart had ached.

Did Natsume become a cop because of that? Did that case change him?

When Kumiko got home, she immediately looked through the morning paper.

Something had stuck in her mind when Natsume told her about the investigation.

The article was tucked deep in a corner of the local news section. The afternoon of the day before, a man had been found dead in a condominium in the third district of South Ikebukuro. The room showed signs of a struggle, and the corpse's head a traumatic injury. The victim was a twenty year old named Koji Sawamura.

It's all my fault! It doesn't matter what happens to me anymore!

When Kumiko recalled Yuka's words from the day before, goose bumps stood on her skin.

There was no way there was a connection. She shook the scenario from her head.

Hearing a knock, Kumiko raised her head. “Come in,” she said.

The counseling room door opened and Natsume came in. “Sorry for bothering you at a busy time,” he excused himself.

The anxiety that she'd suppressed the day before rapidly filled her when she saw his face. “I didn't think you'd invite me so soon to have that drink,” she joked nevertheless.

“Sadly, until I solve the case we spoke about yesterday, that won't be possible,” Natsume responded seriously to her forced attempt at humor. “I want to ask you about a student named Yuka Nakamura.”

Her premonition had come true. She wanted to avert her gaze from Natsume but checked herself with great effort. At school,
Natsume had shown keen powers of perception. It wouldn't do for her body language to make him suspicious.

“When I asked her homeroom teacher Mr. Machida, he said you would know more …”

“What in the world do you want to ask?”

“What kind of girl she is … among other things. I need more information before I meet her.”

“Why? Are you saying she's related to the case you talked about yesterday?”

“Unfortunately, I can't divulge any details about the investigation.”

“It's confidential, you mean. Well, a counselor can't go around jabbering about things to do with clients, either. I'll get in trouble because it's a confidential relationship.”

“You're quite right. Then let's talk a bit about the case. You'll see why I want to know more about her.”

“Don't be standing around then, sit down so we can talk.”

Kumiko offered him a seat on the room's sofa. She stood up and made herbal tea for the two of them. She wanted to calm down a bit before talking to Natsume. She placed a cup of tea in front of Natsume and sat across from him.

“Thank you,” he said courteously and sipped the tea.

Kumiko also drank the tea slowly to quench her dry throat.

“First, let me briefly summarize the case. Yesterday afternoon, at around one thirty, the body of someone who'd died from unnatural causes was discovered in a condo room. The victim, a twenty-year-old man named Koji Sawamura, was found by a friend who came to visit him. There were signs of a violent struggle in the room. There were traces of the victim's blood on a table corner, so we believe that the cause of death was him hitting his head hard on the table. The estimated time of death is between nine in the morning to around noon day before yesterday.”

Hearing that, she recalled Yoshio's case. It sounded like
manslaughter. That the victim hadn't been stabbed or strangled to death was a minimal relief.

“What kind of person was the victim?” asked Kumiko.

“I'm hesitant to say this about a person who's passed away, but frankly, he didn't have a good reputation.”

“Didn't, how?”

“He has priors for assault. He appears not to have been gainfully employed lately, but was living in a nice condo. It seems that he was making money through various illegal means.”

“Illegal means?”

“We're not sure what he'd been up to recently, but when he was last arrested, he had women he knew make date calls to men. He then blackmailed the ones who came. It's what's commonly called the badger game.”

“So a lot of people have grudges against him.”

“That might be so. The victim's wallet was left behind, so it doesn't seem to be a robbery, but his cellphone was gone.”

“His cellphone?”

“Yes … the culprit must not want the victim's personal relationships to come to light, and so took his cellphone.”

“So it might be one of the victim's acquaintances.”

“I can't be certain, but the chances are pretty high. But even without the phone, we can look up the victim's call records and find out about his personal relationships. Within those records, we found Yuka Nakamura's number.”

Natsume's words plunged Kumiko into a gloomy mood.

“Additionally, the rest of the students the school listed up for me yesterday had alibis.”

Natsume uttering the word “alibi” felt almost surreal.

“With that, you probably understand why I want to ask about her.”

“Yuka is a very insecure girl,” Kumiko said, unsure how to explain things to him.

“Insecure?” Natsume leaned forward. His gaze indicated that he was quite interested.

“Over a year ago, she refused to come to school and started cutting herself. Day before yesterday, she even slit her wrists with a box cutter and was admitted to a hospital,” Kumiko said, at which Natsume folded his arms in thought.

If a detective visited Yuka in that insecure state, what would happen to her? Kumiko couldn't help but feel extremely anxious.

Natsume lifted his face, looked at her, and said, “Would it be possible for you to come with me?”

Kumiko got into Natsume's car and headed to the hospital.

Having Natsume and Yuka meet now didn't sit well with her, but if Kumiko refused to accompany him, he'd no doubt meet the girl by himself. That was a detective's job. Kumiko thought it'd be better if she were there if the alternative was to leave Yuka alone with a detective.

“Could you wait a moment,” she told Natsume in front of Yuka's room.

Natsume nodded that he understood.