The Case of the Sharaku Murders (33 page)

“Hmm… Well, if it wasn't a tape, maybe someone else placed that call from Hachinohe—that announcement in the background giving away his location is just too good to be true,” insisted Ryohei.

“But who?” asked Onodera. “We're talking about murder, remember. They'd be taking a big risk bringing in another accomplice—three's about the limit, I'd say.”

“How about Mizuno? After all, he's close in age and would sound a bit like Mr. Saga.”

“Well, I suppose he
could
have been in Hachinohe at that time, but like I said before, he was in Tokyo when Saga died.”

“How can the coroner be so certain about the time of death? Wasn't Mr. Saga's body only found days later?” asked Ryohei.

“When he reached his cottage Saga ate a box lunch from the Ko'uta Sushi store in Hachinohe Station—we found the empty tray on the table in the cottage with a label confirming the date of manufacture,” explained Onodera. “The coroner calculated how long he'd been dead based on the state of digestion of his stomach contents. Now if he was in Hachinohe Station at 10:30 a.m. and caught a train from there to Kitayama, he couldn't have gotten to his cottage until past two o'clock. Since he ate his lunch at the cottage, he must have eaten sometime after that. According the autopsy Saga died within three hours of his last meal—in other words, sometime around five in the evening. Plus we found a copy of that day's
Eastern Tohoku News
in his bag. So whether or not it was murder one thing's for sure: he didn't die anywhere else. Even the water in his lungs matches the seawater off Cape Kitayama. In short,” the detective concluded, practically spitting out the words, “even if Mizuno somehow faked the telephone call from Hachinohe, there's no way we can get him for murder.”

“Why not?” asked Ryohei.

“Why? Because… of the sushi tray and the newspaper, which place Saga at the cottage—”

“But wait—that doesn't make sense,” interrupted Ryohei. “Surely if Mizuno faked the telephone call he could also have bought the newspaper and the sushi!”

Inspector Onodera said nothing.

“Aren't you just
assuming
Mr. Saga died at Cape Kitayama because that's where the body was found?” asked Ryohei. “Admittedly,
I'm
suspicious because I think Mizuno is guilty…”

“Okay. But then how do you explain the newspaper and the sushi tray?”

“Simple. Mizuno drove to the cottage later with Yosuke, right? He could have planted them there when Yosuke wasn't looking.”

“Hmm…” Onodera lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. His cheeks were becoming flushed.

“I see… Mizuno places the call to the library in Tokyo from Hachinohe in the morning, buys the newspaper and the sushi, and returns straight to Tokyo; then he kills Saga after getting him to eat the sushi… It's possible. Let's see, Mizuno went to the library in Tokyo at…” Onodera consulted his notebook, “…about four p.m. After leaving the library with Yosuke he returned home alone, having arranged to meet up again with Yosuke later. So he has no alibi for around five p.m., the estimated time of death. The question is whether there's some way he could actually have left Hachinohe at ten in the morning and still gotten back to Tokyo by about three in the afternoon.” Onodera paused. “Rest assured, I'll get to the bottom of it,” he said, his eyes flashing. “Now then… next he killed Saga—I'm guessing at the apartment he uses as an office—then stuffed the body into the trunk of his car and went off to meet Yosuke. Then he left Tokyo in his car with Yosuke somewhere around six and drove up to Iwate.”

“So you're saying Yosuke was in the car with Mr. Saga's body the whole time?” asked Ryohei.

“Must've been. Mizuno didn't leave Kitayama from the time he reached the cottage until the body was discovered. There was no time to return to Tokyo to collect it.”

Looking pleased with himself, Onodera snapped his notebook shut and mumbled something about starting his investigation over from scratch. Then, pursing his lips, he fell silent.

DESPITE this breakthrough in the case, the two were still no closer to finding out what had happened to Yosuke. Still harboring a sense of unease, Ryohei said goodbye to Inspector Onodera and returned home.

But he did not have to wait very long. News of Yosuke's whereabouts came that very night. As Ryohei was heading back to his room after his evening bath, Onodera called again. As he gripped the receiver, Ryohei felt the room begin to spin.

Yosuke had been taken to Sendai Municipal Hospital, having been hit by a car, and was in critical condition.

“What about Saeko?”

“We've contacted her,” said the detective. “She's already at the hospital.”

“What happened?” cried Ryohei.

“A hit-and-run. We have witnesses. Someone got the license plate number and we've traced the owner—the car belongs to Fujimura Genzo.”

“So it was Fujimura! Where is he now?”

“He reported the car stolen this afternoon. He must have thought he could get away with it thinking we weren't onto him. What a fool! Now we've got them.”

“And Yosuke?”

“I don't know yet. I'm about to head over to Sendai now and check on him.”

“Take me with you,” said Ryohei.

“That's why I called,” replied Onodera, sounding tense.

“Even monkeys fall from trees,” said Onodera from behind the wheel as they drove to Sendai. Ryohei, who was seated in the passenger seat, smoked a cigarette but said nothing. “It just goes to show Fujimura and Mizuno were starting to panic,” the detective continued. “Of course, we should have been more vigilant—if we'd been keeping closer tabs on Fujimura this probably wouldn't have happened.”

“But how did you hear about Yosuke's accident?” asked Ryohei.

“The day before yesterday I rang up the Sendai police to make some inquiries about Fujimura, so when the accident happened one of their men contacted me, thinking it might have something to do with the case. That was after they'd learned the car was registered to Fujimura. I tell you, my heart nearly stopped when I heard Yosuke was the victim.”

“So Yosuke was on to Fujimura then?”

“Mizuno's alibi was that he was with Yosuke at the time of Saga's death, and Kato was out of the country. So he must have narrowed it down to Fujimura. I had a
feeling
Yosuke was trying to track down Saga's murderer. But I wonder why he chose to do it alone. If only he‘d said something to me…”

Onodera's voice trailed off in a tone of regret.

Finally he said, “We blew it when we checked out Fujimura and concluded he'd had nothing to do with Saga's death. I take full responsibility for that. If something should happen to Yosuke…”

Ryohei made no reply.

Onodera and Ryohei's car pulled up to the hospital a little after one o'clock in the morning. When they entered the lobby they found a man waiting for them.

“Inspector Onodera, Kuji Police,” said Onodera, introducing himself.

The other man did likewise. He was from the Sendai Police Department.

“What's Mr. Kokufu's condition?” asked Onodera.

“He's lost a lot of blood. He's in the intensive care unit right now. By the way, what exactly is going on? Is this connected to a case?”

“How about the owner of the car?” asked Onodera, ignoring the question.

“Mr. Fujimura came by a little while ago to check on the patient. Even though the car was stolen, he apologized to Mr. Kokufu's sister, saying he felt bad about it all the same.”

“That idiot! Does he think he can play us for fools?”

The other policeman was taken aback by anger on Onodera's face.

Ryohei left Onodera and headed for Yosuke's room. Inside it was quiet. Through the door he could hear only the hushed voices of what he took to be nurses. He knocked and was startled at how loudly the sound echoed through the corridor. A nurse opened the door and Ryohei gave her his name. At the sound of his voice, Saeko rushed out into the corridor. Her face appeared to have gotten thinner in the month since he had last seen her. She peered into his face as though making sure it was really him. Then, as though the floodgates had opened, she burst into tears and flung herself on his shoulder. Drawing her tightly to him, Ryohei gently began stroking her back.

“How's Yosuke?” he asked once Saeko had regained her composure.

“As soon as I got here, the doctor told me I'd better call our parents in Okayama and tell them to come…”

Ryohei probed no further.

The muffled sound of footsteps could be heard approaching along the corridor and Onodera appeared.

“Thank you for your phone call,” said Saeko as soon as the detective had introduced himself.

“Ryohei, could you spare a moment?” Onodera said in a low voice.

Ryohei followed the detective down the corridor to a small smoking area set up to one side. Saeko returned to Yosuke's room.

“That damned Fujimura's got an alibi,” said Onodera, taking a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Then, realizing it was empty, he threw it in annoyance into the nearest wastepaper basket. Ryohei took out his own cigarettes. Thanking him, Onodera removed one from the pack and lit it.

“He claims he was playing mahjong with some colleagues. Come to think of it, since he only reported the car stolen this afternoon, he must have planned it all well in advance. No doubt he arranged his alibi ahead of time.”

“So you think Mizuno was driving the car?”

Onodera nodded.

“Kato's out of the country; that much is certain. The accident seems to have occurred just before nine o'clock, so if Mizuno is headed back to Tokyo he won't have gotten home yet. I'm tempted to phone his house to see if he's there—if it were the middle of the day and he answered I could invent a pretext for calling, but at this late hour…” the detective muttered sadly. “I wouldn't want to jump the gun and tip him off to the fact that we're onto him.”

“Good point. And at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if Mizuno—”

“Of course. I'm sure he's got his alibi all prepared. But now things are different; we've got our man. He won't pull the wool over our eyes this time. I'll pick apart his alibi, just you wait. Still, Mizuno probably isn't expecting me to have heard about Yosuke's accident already. I wouldn't have, in fact, if I hadn't thought to check up on Fujimura. Now we'll be able to get one step ahead of him.”

“If they were willing to go
this
far, maybe they were behind the professor's death, too,” said Ryohei.

“I don't know if we can say that just yet,” replied Onodera. “I don't see they had much of a motive for wanting Nishijima dead.”

“But what if their aim wasn't murder but arson?”

“What are you getting at?”

“It only occurred to me just now: if they forged Sato's catalogue then maybe they were trying to destroy the evidence.”

Onodera said nothing.

“They knew,” continued Ryohei, “that the catalogue was going to be photographed sometime after the tenth of January. They were probably worried what might happen once the catalogue was studied carefully.”

Ryohei suddenly remembered how Kato had seemed unusually interested in the fact that the catalogue was going to be photographed. He related this to Onodera.

“I see,” said the detective. “If the catalogue was revealed to be a fake their whole plan would collapse. In other words, it was good enough to fool us and Nishijima—who wasn't a rare book expert after all—but it would have been risky to allow a high-quality reproduction to be subjected to the scrutiny of the whole world. Is that it?”

The detective seemed to find Ryohei's argument convincing.

“It's certainly possible,” Onodera went on. “After all, the professor wasn't physically disabled or anything. If they'd wanted to kill him they could have found a method with a higher probability of success. I agree it makes sense that their real motive was destroying the book. Assuming the professor didn't accidentally start the fire himself, it's seeming more and more likely Mizuno and his pals did. That means they've committed two murders. Say, do you suppose Yosuke knew that?”

“He's a very smart guy,” replied Ryohei. “I imagine he'd figured out a lot of what was going on. But unless he'd found solid evidence the catalogue was an out-and-out forgery, it might not have occurred to him they'd killed the professor.”

“True. If the catalogue were genuine there'd be no need to burn down his house. So it's probably safe to assume Yosuke didn't know. Plus, if he'd realized they'd committed murder, I doubt he'd have risked going after them on his own.”

Ryohei and Onodera nodded in mutual agreement.

“Yosuke was probably pursing Fujimura simply because the postcard had aroused his suspicious,” added Onodera, “without realizing he and Mizuno would have viewed him as a serious threat. And since they'd killed twice already, one more murder would've seemed no big deal to them.”