I asked if she thought he’d sent the albums back to the family out of respect for her.
Rie frowned. “Perhaps he was doing it for my sake, but I honestly didn’t mind having her things there. After all, they were married a long time. I thought it would be only natural if he’d wanted to have some keepsakes of her around. But he didn’t keep anything and he never once spoke about her to me. Maybe it was too painful for him? For my part, I never brought it up. It wasn’t out of jealousy or anything, there just never was a need.”
It seemed to me that Rie was going out of her way not to sound too emotional, though nothing in what she said struck me as unusual or suspicious. Incidentally, she did appear curious as to why we had a photo of her husband’s late wife. She asked whether it had anything to do with the case.
“We’re not sure yet,” I told her, then added vaguely, “The photo came from a rather unexpected place, so we thought we should look into it.”
“What do you mean an ‘unexpected place’?”
I regretted saying it immediately. “I’m sorry, but I can’t say any more at this time.”
However, her intuition was already working overtime. A shocked look came over her face. “You know, I think it was at my husband’s wake, but Mr. Nonoguchi recently asked me a strange question.”
“What’s that?”
“He wanted to know where our videotapes were.”
“Videotapes?”
“I thought he was talking about the movies my husband had been collecting. Except it wasn’t that. He was asking about the videos Hidaka took for research.”
“You mean, your husband took videos when he was doing research for a novel?”
“Yes, particularly when the subject he was researching was something living, or moving, he would bring a video camera along with him on his research trips.”
“What did you tell Mr. Nonoguchi?”
“I told him I thought the tapes had been sent on to Canada. When we were having the house packed up, my husband handled all of his work-related things, so I honestly wasn’t sure.”
“What did Nonoguchi say to that?”
“He asked me to tell him when our things were returned from Canada. He said he’d loaned some tapes that he’d used in his own work to Hidaka, and they were probably mixed in with Hidaka’s.”
“He didn’t say what the tapes contained?”
Rie shook her head, then looked back at me. “You think maybe she’s on one of the tapes?”
She meant Hatsumi Hidaka. I didn’t comment on that, but I did ask her to let us know when the tapes arrived back from Canada.
Then I asked a final question, not really expecting an answer. “Did Mr. Nonoguchi say anything else to you that struck you as odd?”
She hesitated at first, but then said, “It wasn’t at the funeral, it was a few months ago. Mr. Nonoguchi mentioned Hatsumi just once.”
“In what context?”
“It was about the accident.”
“Oh? What did he say about it?”
Rie hesitated again, then it seemed she’d made up her mind. “He said he didn’t think it was just an accident.”
That was quite a statement. I asked her to elaborate.
“That’s the thing, he didn’t say any more than that. This happened when he was over at our house and my husband had left the room for a moment. I don’t even remember how it came up, but I couldn’t forget those words.”
I didn’t blame her. It was quite the thing to say to a man’s fiancée.
“If it wasn’t ‘just an accident,’ what was it? What did you say to him?”
“Well, I asked what he meant. Then he looked like he regretted having said anything and told me to forget about it and not mention it to my husband.”
“And did you talk to your husband about it?”
“Actually, I didn’t. Like I said, we didn’t talk about his late wife in the first place, and that certainly wasn’t the kind of thing one could lightly mention.”
On this point, I had to agree.
* * *
Just to be sure, we showed the photograph to other people who knew Hatsumi Hidaka well: editors that used to visit Hidaka’s house, and people in the neighborhood. Everyone confirmed that she was the woman in the photograph.
The only question remaining was, why did Osamu Nonoguchi keep a photograph of Hatsumi Hidaka hidden on his desk?
There didn’t seem to be much room for interpretation here. The woman who owned the apron found in his apartment, the intended recipient of the necklace, the would-be traveling companion to Okinawa, had been Hidaka’s late wife. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine that Hatsuko was an alias for Hatsumi. She had been married to Hidaka, which meant that her relationship with Nonoguchi was an extramarital affair. If this was true, the relationship had to have developed during the two years between Osamu Nonoguchi’s reunion with Kunihiko Hidaka seven years ago and Hatsumi Hidaka’s death.
I grew increasingly convinced that this relationship was related to Nonoguchi’s motive for killing Hidaka. Let me return to my theory that Osamu Nonoguchi was working as Kunihiko Hidaka’s ghostwriter. All the evidence clearly points to this except, once again, Nonoguchi’s motive is unclear. There was no sign of any monetary arrangement—no paperwork or evidence of money changing hands. Furthermore, after speaking with several editors on the topic, it appeared that writers just aren’t inclined to sell off their work without any recognition—especially not work that might earn them critical acclaim.
But what if Nonoguchi owed Hidaka some immense debt?
This is where, I believe, Hatsumi Hidaka comes into the picture. It’s not a big stretch to think that Kunihiko Hidaka had caught on to the relationship and was forcing Nonoguchi to write for him in exchange for his silence. But that wouldn’t explain why Nonoguchi continued to write for Hidaka even after Hatsumi’s death.
Clearly, the answer was to be found by looking deeper into what had happened between Osamu Nonoguchi and the Hidakas. This would be a lot easier to do if two of the three people involved weren’t already dead.
And then there was what Rie said about Nonoguchi’s confiding to her that Hatsumi’s death hadn’t been a simple accident. Why say that to her? And if it wasn’t an accident, what was it?
I decided to look more closely at the events surrounding Hatsumi’s death. A check of the database showed that Hatsumi Hidaka had died in March, five years ago. She had been on her way to buy something at a nearby convenience store at eleven o’clock at night when she was hit by a truck. The accident occurred where the road had a sharp curve with poor visibility, it was raining, and there was no crosswalk.
The opinion of the judge who heard the case was that the truck driver was guilty of negligence for not paying enough attention to the road, a typical judgment in accidents involving a car and a pedestrian. Yet according to the record, the driver never admitted wrongdoing. He said that she jumped out into the road suddenly. With traffic accidents when drivers hit pedestrians, the drivers nearly always blame it on the pedestrian. Traffic cops hear that same story time and time again. In this case, if it was true, then unfortunately for the driver there were no other witnesses.
I decided to pretend that what the driver had said was accurate. If, as Osamu Nonoguchi had hinted, it wasn’t a simple accident, that left two other possibilities: murder or suicide.
Murder would have to mean someone pushed her, which would place her killer at the scene. Yet someone in a position to push her far enough into the road to be hit would surely have been visible to the driver, making it unlikely that he hadn’t mentioned that person in his testimony.
The logical assumption was that Osamu Nonoguchi thought Hatsumi Hidaka had committed suicide by throwing herself in front of that truck.
Why would he think that? Was there any physical evidence? Had she sent him a farewell letter? Or did Osamu Nonoguchi know of a reason Hatsumi Hidaka would have wanted to kill herself? Perhaps their affair was such a reason.
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Possibly her husband had discovered her infidelity. Had she decided to kill herself because he was going to abandon her? If that was the case, then what she’d had with Nonoguchi was nothing more than a passing dalliance.
Either way, I needed to know more about Hatsumi Hidaka.
With the chief’s permission, I took Detective Makimura with me to visit her family. The Shinodas lived in Yokohama’s Kanazawa Ward, in a traditional house with a well-kept garden, high up on a hillside.
I’d heard both of her parents were alive and well, but her father was out that day, so we met with her mother, Yumie Shinoda, a diminutive, well-dressed lady.
She didn’t seem terribly surprised by our visit. To the contrary, she wondered why we hadn’t come earlier. Apparently, she’d been expecting us ever since she’d heard Kunihiko Hidaka had been killed.
We asked her for her impression of her son-in-law.
“Oh, he had a difficult temperament, like anyone else in his profession. Hatsumi told me once that he could get on your nerves when he was having trouble with his work. Yet I think he was a good husband most of the time. A very thoughtful man.”
It was difficult for me to tell whether she was being honest or just saying something safe. It’s always hardest to tell what older people, particularly women, are really thinking.
According to her, Kunihiko Hidaka and her daughter had met when they were both working at a small ad agency. While they were dating, Hidaka had moved to a job at a publishing company, and they had gotten married shortly thereafter. Not long after that he won the new-author award and left his job in publishing to become a full-time writer.
“My husband and I were a little worried about giving our daughter away to someone who changed professions so frequently, yet they never seemed to have money trouble. Of course once Kunihiko became a bestselling author, we were very happy and knew we wouldn’t have to worry about our daughter being provided for. Then the accident … I’m afraid all the money in the world can’t help you after something like that.”
Though Mrs. Shinoda’s eyes teared up, she didn’t cry in front of us. I believe she’d had time in the intervening five years to make peace with what had happened.
“I understand that the accident occurred while she was on the way to the store?” I asked.
“That’s what Kunihiko said. She’d gone to buy bread to make a midnight sandwich.”
“The truck driver claims that she jumped suddenly out onto the road.”
“So I heard. But she wasn’t the kind to do anything so reckless! That spot she tried to cross, that’s a bad spot. The visibility is poor and she was probably hurrying too.”
“Do you know how the Hidakas were doing as a couple prior to the accident?”
Mrs. Shinoda seemed surprised by the question. “They were fine. Why do you ask?”
“No reason in particular. Just that many people who get into accidents have worries on their mind and aren’t paying attention to their surroundings,” I explained quickly.
“As far as I remember, everything was going well. Kunihiko had just started a new novel, so she was a little lonely.”
“She told you this?” I wondered if that loneliness might not be the key. “Did you see her much before the accident?”
“No. Her husband was busy with his work, and she didn’t come back here very often. We would talk on the phone now and then, though.”
“Did you sense anything different about her voice, anything at all?”
The old woman shook her head, then hesitated before saying, “Is there some connection between my daughter and what happened to Kunihiko?”
I told her no, probably not, and explained that when there’s been a murder, it is a detective’s duty to look into everyone the victim or the perpetrator knew, even those who’d passed away. I’m not sure she entirely bought my explanation.
“Did your daughter ever talk to you about Osamu Nonoguchi?” I said, bringing the discussion around to the key point.
“I heard that he sometimes visited. He was a friend of Kunihiko’s who wanted to be an author?”
“Anything else?”
“Well, it was a long while ago, and I don’t remember things as clearly as I used to. But I don’t think she talked about him that much.”
It occurred to me that, especially if they were having an affair, the last person she would mention him to was her mother.
“I heard that most of her personal belongings were sent back here. Would it be possible for us to have a look?”
Hatsumi’s mother seemed taken aback. “We don’t have much.”
“Anything would be helpful.”
“Well, I don’t see how…”
“Did she keep a diary by any chance?”
“No, nothing of that sort.”
“Any photo albums?”
“Well, yes…”
“Could we see those, please?”
“They are just filled with pictures of Kunihiko and Hatsumi.”
“That’s more than enough. We’ll be able to tell quickly if there’s anything helpful in there.”
She must have wondered what I was talking about. I knew things would go more quickly if I mentioned her daughter’s potential connection to Osamu Nonoguchi, but the chief hadn’t given me permission to mention that yet.
Though she still seemed suspicious, she went into the back and brought out some albums. These simple things, plastic folders with sleeved pages, were all stuffed into a box.
Detective Makimura and I looked through each one. The woman in them was without a doubt the same one in the photo from Osamu Nonoguchi’s apartment.
Since most of the photos had a date stamp, it wasn’t difficult to find ones from the time when she was supposedly in contact with Nonoguchi. I looked at these carefully, trying to find some hint that might suggest a connection.
Again, Makimura found the photo we were looking for. He handed it to me in silence. I understood immediately why he had picked it out.
I asked Yumie Shinoda if we could borrow that album for a while. She gave me a dubious look but agreed.
“Do you have anything else of Hatsumi’s around?”
“Just some jewelry and clothing. I don’t think Kunihiko wanted her things around the house, since he was getting remarried.”
“Nothing written? Letters or postcards?”
“I don’t think so. I can take a closer look.”
“How about videotapes? Small ones, about the size of a cassette tape?” Hidaka had used 8 mm tapes when he did his research.
“I don’t think I saw anything like that, no.”
“Could you tell us the names of anyone who was close to Hatsumi, then?”
“People close to her?” She frowned, thinking for a moment, then excused herself and went into a back room. When she reappeared, she was carrying a thin notebook.
“This is our address book—it has the names of some of her friends.”
She picked three names out of the book. Two were classmates from her school, and one was a colleague from the advertising agency. All three were women. I took down their names and contact information.
* * *
We started contacting Ms. Hidaka’s friends as soon as we got back to the office. The two from school hadn’t seen her much after she got married. However, her friend from work, a woman by the name of Shizuko Nagano, had remained close, even talking to her on the phone only a few days before she died.
She told us, “I don’t think Hatsumi noticed Mr. Hidaka much at first. But he came on to her pretty strong, and eventually she got sucked in—you know how it goes. Mr. Hidaka wasn’t the kind to take no for an answer, either at work or in his personal life, and Hatsumi was always a little shy. She wasn’t someone who wore her emotions on her sleeve. If you ask me, I think she had second thoughts when he proposed, but in the end, Mr. Hidaka won out.
“Not that she wasn’t happy. She seemed like she was doing well, though maybe a little on the tired side after Mr. H
idaka became an author. Having your whole routine tossed in the air can do that. Still, I never heard her complain.”
Regarding the phone call just before the accident: “I was the one who called her, though I didn’t have anything in particular to talk about. She was the same as always, I’d say. I don’t remember the details of our conversation, but I think we talked about restaurants and places to go shopping. That’s pretty much all we ever talked about. I was really surprised when I heard about the accident. I mean, I couldn’t even cry it was such a shock. I was there for the wake and the funeral.”
Regarding Mr. Hidaka’s bearing at the funeral: “Guys like that tend not to show much emotion in public, but it was clear to everyone he was despondent. I can’t believe that was five years ago.”
Regarding Osamu Nonoguchi: “Who? Was that Hidaka’s killer? I don’t remember whether he came to the funeral or not. There were a lot of people there. Why are the police asking about Hatsumi now, anyway? Does it have something to do with the murder?”
* * *
Two days after we visited Hatsumi Hidaka’s family home, Detective Makimura and I went to see Osamu Nonoguchi in the hospital. We spoke first to his doctor.
The doctor was troubled. He was ready to perform the surgery, but the patient wouldn’t give consent. Apparently, Nonoguchi was saying that, if his chances were slim anyway, he might as well skip the operation and live a little longer.
“Would the surgery hasten his death?” I asked the surgeon.
He told me it was certainly possible. However, the potential for a good outcome was enough that he felt strongly they should undertake it anyway.
With that in mind, we went to Nonoguchi’s room, where we found him sitting up in bed, reading a book. He looked thin, but his complexion was good.
“I was wondering what was up. Haven’t seen you around in a while.” Though he sounded well enough, his voice lacked spirit.
Malice: A Mystery Page 10
