Villain

by Shuichi Yoshida

  An hour before, Fusae had called Yuichi, the local patrolman and the plainclothes detective standing in front of her as she did. She could barely follow their directions to call him. Before she called, they warned her not to let him know they were there, but she’d blurted it out. When he heard this, Yuichi hung up.

  It was all so unexpected. They’d all thought the Fukuoka college student was the murderer, but he wasn’t. Even so, she still couldn’t understand why the police had come here again.

  “Yuichi has nothing to do with this,” she insisted, her voice trembling, but the police wouldn’t relent. “Just call his cell phone,” they told her. The instant she let slip that the police were there, they couldn’t hide their anger and disappointment. This is one worthless old lady, they must have thought, and their expressions were exactly like those of the men who had forced her to buy the Chinese herbal medicine. The irritated men who told her just to Sign it already!

  She took her hand from the curtain. Usually the only sound she heard in this neighborhood was the waves, but now, with several strangers hanging around outside, she could sense their presence, even with the windows closed.

  She closed the curtains and crouched down next to the wall. It seemed as though the wall were shaking, but she knew it was her. If she stayed still, the shaking would only get worse; she was about to faint. The Fukuoka college student they’d arrested apparently hadn’t murdered that young woman. He’d taken her to the pass—that much was certain—but what he said about events after that didn’t make sense. He said that before he gave her a ride she’d been at Higashi Park, in another man’s car, a car with Nagasaki plates. Apparently the other man looked like Yuichi.

  In the dark kitchen, Fusae lowered the phone from its shelf and cradled it. She lifted the receiver and, still trembling, dialed Norio’s house. The phone rang for a long time, and finally Norio came on, sounding sleepy.

  “Hello? It’s me, Fusae. Were you asleep?” Norio sounded out of sorts and Fusae spoke quickly.

  When Norio realized who it was, he grew tense. “Did something happen to Katsuji?”

  “No, that’s not it,” Fusae said. But the next words wouldn’t come. She realized she was sobbing.

  “What is it? What’s the matter?” Norio asked. His wife sleeping next to him must have woken up, for Fusae heard him explain to her, “It’s Auntie Fusae. I don’t know.… No, it isn’t Katsuji.”

  “Yuichi isn’t coming back.…” That was as much as she could get out between sobs.

  “Yuichi? What do you mean he isn’t coming back? Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. The police are here and I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “The police? Was he in an accident?”

  “No. But I just don’t understand.…”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “I called him and told him the police were here and he hung right up.… If he wasn’t involved in the murder he wouldn’t hang up like that.”

  As he listened to Fusae’s tearful voice, Norio crawled out of his futon, slipped on a cardigan, and looked over at his wife, Michiyo.

  “I’ll come over,” he said. “I can’t follow what you’re saying over the phone. Just stay put. I’ll be right over.”

  Norio hung up and muttered to Michiyo, who looked extremely worried, “Yuichi seems to have gotten himself in some sort of trouble.”

  “Something happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he got in a fight or something. Fusae’s crying so much I can’t figure out what’s going on.”

  Norio stood up and turned on the fluorescent light. The clock showed eleven-thirty. He took off his pajamas and tossed them on top of the rumpled futon, then reached for the neatly folded work clothes beside his pillow. They’d had the stove on until a short while ago but now, as he stood there in his undershirt, he shivered in the cold.

  “I have no idea what happened, but whatever you do, don’t hit Yuichi, okay?” Michiyo said as she helped Norio change his clothes. “We’re supposed to be looking out for him, so you have to be on his side, you hear?”

  “Okay! I get it!” Norio growled. Was it a fight? A car accident? Without buttoning his jacket, Norio leaped out of the house. He climbed into his work van and headed for Yuichi’s house. The road was empty of cars at this hour and the lights were green the whole way. Norio felt uneasy. He knew that Katsuji hadn’t died, but the dull agitation he’d felt still had hold of him.

  Whether Yuichi had been in a fight or an accident, if he was injured he’d have to take time off from work. I don’t know the details yet, Norio thought, but I’d better get in touch with Yoshioka or Kurami as soon as I can. Tomorrow they’ll have to get to the work site on their own, and I can call them on their cell phones and tell them what they need to do.

  As these worries ran through his mind, Norio arrived at the fishing village where Yuichi lived. The moonlit harbor was calm, the fishing boats still. But there were three or four cars he didn’t recognize on the normally deserted pier and a few people milling about, talking. Norio slowed down and drove onto the pier. His headlights shone on the fishing boats and he spotted some uniformed police and residents who had come out to see what was going on.

  Norio parked and switched off his lights. He saw a group of locals milling about like the sea bugs that slither over rocks near the ocean. A shiver went through him and he jumped out of his van.

  “Hey, Norio!” The residents’ association head was the first to recognize Norio. “What’s up? Something happen with Yuichi?” he asked as he approached, hunching his neck down against the cold.

  Someone else behind him spoke to a policeman, saying, “That’s Yuichi’s uncle there!” and as soon as he heard this the young policeman hurried over. “Didn’t the police just come to your place?” he asked, flustered.

  “No,” Norio said, shaking his head. “I just got a call from Yuichi’s grandmother and came over as soon as I heard.”

  “I see. Well, I guess you must have just missed them.”

  “My wife’s at home, though.”

  The policeman turned to a patrol car parked some distance off and shouted, “The suspect’s uncle is here!” The door of the patrol car opened and the sound of the static-filled police radio mixed in with the sound of the waves.

  “I need to ask you some questions, okay? I understand that Yuichi works for you?’

  Before he knew it, Norio was surrounded by police and local residents.

  “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to see his grandmother first,” Norio said firmly, cutting them off.

  The next morning Mitsuyo withdrew thirty thousand yen from an ATM at a convenience store next to the road. Since graduating from high school ten years earlier, she’d been steadily saving her money, but most was in a CD and her ordinary account had only what she needed from week to week. So after she withdrew thirty thousand, there wasn’t much left.

  She put the cash into her purse, went to the checkout stand, and bought two cans of hot tea and three rice balls. As she was paying, she glanced outside and saw Yuichi in his car, parked down the road, staring in her direction.

  Mitsuyo left the store and hurried over toward the car, the two cans of hot tea in her hands. Yuichi opened his window and she passed him the tea and then pulled out her cell phone, thinking she had to call her store.

  The store’s manager, Mr. Oshiro, answered. Mitsuyo had been sure that Kazuko would answer and she was flustered for a moment, but then she said, in an intentionally subdued voice, “Ah, hello, this is Miss Magome. My father suddenly became ill, so I’m sorry but I need to take the day off.” She was able to smoothly repeat the lines she’d prepared.

  “Is that right? I’m sorry to hear that,” she heard her manager say curtly. “Actually, that girl who came for an interview, I’m going to have her start work this afternoon, so I was going to have Miss Kirishima move over from the casual corner to suits.”

  She’d called him to ask for a day off
and here he was telling her all about personnel changes he was planning.

  “If his illness lasts a long time, that could be troublesome. And we’re getting into the year-end bargain sales, too.… Anyhow, as soon as you find out any more, be sure to let me know.”

  With that, the manager hung up. She’d felt apologetic at first about making the call, but he’d dealt with her so abruptly she felt as if he was making fun of her.

  She’d only been standing outside for a few minutes, but the freezing wind had chilled her fingers. As soon as she got in the passenger side of the car, Yuichi handed her a can of hot tea.

  “I called work and took the day off,” Mitsuyo said, smiling.

  “Sorry ’bout that” was all Yuichi had to say in response.

  The night before, after he roared off from the apartment, Yuichi drove by the bypass and down the frontage road toward Takeo. The flat road gradually became hilly, and until they entered the hill country, Yuichi didn’t say a word.

  “Where are we going?” They’d been driving for fifteen minutes and Mitsuyo had finally calmed down enough to talk. Still, Yuichi was silent.

  “This car is so spotless. Do you clean it yourself?” She couldn’t stand the silence and said this as she stroked the dashboard. The warmth of the dashboard, warmed by the heater, reminded her of Yuichi’s body when he’d held her a few minutes ago.

  “On days off, I don’t have much else to do.…” They’d been driving for nearly twenty minutes when Yuichi finally spoke. Mitsuyo couldn’t help laughing. He’d been so rough when he forced her to come with him, but now sounded so meek.

  “Sometimes I catch a ride to work with the husband of an older woman I work with,” Mitsuyo said, “and his car is like a garbage dump. He says, Come on, get in! Get in! but it’s like, with all the junk where am I supposed to sit?” Mitsuyo laughed at her own words but when she glanced at Yuichi his expression hadn’t changed.

  Yuichi suddenly brought the car to a halt just past a tiny village, right at the point where they were about to enter a dark mountain road. He slowed and steered toward the shoulder, the tires crunching gravel. At a break in the guardrail just up ahead was an unpaved path, barely wide enough for a compact car, that stretched up into the hills.

  Yuichi kept the engine running but doused the lights. In an instant the world in front of them disappeared. With nothing to be seen outside, Mitsuyo looked over at him. And right then he leaned over and tried to get on top of her.

  “What … what are you …?”

  The emergency brake got in the way when he tried to find a place for his hand, and Mitsuyo could feel his frustration. Her seat fell back and she brought her legs, which had unconsciously spread wide, back together again.

  Yuichi, on top of her, roughly kissed her lips, her chin, her neck. As her body sank back in the seat, it was strange how perfectly it fit her, almost as if she were tied down. Mitsuyo glanced out the window. From her horizontal position she could see the night sky, beyond the black trees. The sky was full of stars.

  As Yuichi continued to cover her with kisses, she slowly pushed back on his chest. He clutched her tighter and she pounded on his chest. For a second his arms went limp.

  “What’s wrong?” Mitsuyo asked, so close her breath went into his mouth. “I don’t know what happened, but you don’t have to worry. I’ll always be with you.”

  She hadn’t rehearsed these words and was surprised at what she’d said. Her words seemed to seep into Yuichi’s skin. On the shoulder of this dark mountain road without a single streetlight, inside their parked car, all that existed were her words, and his skin.

  “If you don’t feel like talking about it, I’m okay with that. I’ll just wait until you feel like it.” Mitsuyo slowly pushed him up, away from her, and Yuichi let her have her way.

  “I just don’t … know what to do …” he murmured. “I was planning to go home. But I felt like if I said goodbye to you now, I’d never see you again.”

  “So you came back?”

  “I wanted to be with you. But I didn’t know what I should do to be with you.… I didn’t know what to do.…”

  Mitsuyo pushed her seat up and reached out and touched Yuichi’s ear. They’d been in the warm car for quite a while, but his ear was surprisingly cold to the touch.

  “I was planning to take the highway home. But all of a sudden I remembered something from the past.”

  “From the past?”

  “When I was a kid and my mom took me to see my father. What happened back then.”

  He let her finger his ear as he spoke. She could tell something was troubling him, and she wanted more than anything to know what it was. But she felt as though once she did know, Yuichi would disappear from her.

  “Let’s just be together,” she said, gently stroking his ear.

  Another car drove past, lighting up the dark world outside. The guardrail stretched out far ahead, glaringly white.

  “Why don’t we stay somewhere tonight, forget about work tomorrow, and go for a drive instead?” Mitsuyo said. “I mean, we haven’t gone to Yobuko lighthouse yet. The other day we spent the whole time in a hotel.”

  Under her hands, Yuichi’s ear grew warm.

  Seated on the step that separated the barbershop from their living quarters, bathed in the winter sun, Yoshio Ishibashi stared out at the road. Several days had passed since his daughter’s funeral, but he had yet to reopen his shop. He knew he couldn’t go on like this forever, grieving, and this was the end of the year, besides, usually a busy time for him. But as soon as he thought of reopening, he felt lethargic. If he did reopen, would anybody come? And if they did, he knew they’d talk with him warily, unsure of what to say.

  Yoshio roused himself to stand up. All he had to do was take a few steps, go outside, and plug in his barber’s sign—and ordinary, everyday life would return. But reopening the shop wouldn’t bring Yoshino back.

  He sat back down and was staring at his feet when there came a knock at the glass door. He looked up and saw the detective from the local precinct who had attended the funeral, face pressed against the glass, peering inside.

  Yoshio gave a huge sigh, got to his feet, and trudged over to open the door.

  “I’m sorry to bother you so early,” the detective said, his voice overly loud.

  “It’s all right,” Yoshio said curtly. “I was just sitting here thinking about reopening the shop.”

  “Well, you might have already heard it on the news yesterday, but they found that college student.”

  The detective said it so matter-of-factly that at first Yoshio could only respond with a simple, “Oh, is that right?” But then, when it hit him, he raised his voice. “What? What did you say?”

  “They located that college student in Nagoya.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”

  “The thing is, we had to look into something last night, and we didn’t want to get in touch until we’d got everything straightened out.”

  Yoshio had a bad feeling about this. Arresting that college student should mean they’d caught Yoshino’s killer, but the detective didn’t seem excited by events.

  Yoshio sensed something behind him, and turned and saw his wife, Satoko, on all fours peering out in their direction.

  “Ah, hello, Mrs. Ishibashi. Well, from what the college student has told us, and the facts at the scene, it would appear he is not the perpetrator. Though we are certain that he took your daughter to Mitsuse Pass.” The detective rattled on quickly so he wouldn’t be interrupted.

  Before Yoshio realized it, Satoko had come out to the entrance and was seated formally there, legs tucked neatly beneath her. Yoshio clutched the white barber’s coat in his hands and said, “What—what do you mean the college student isn’t the criminal? You have to tell us everything!” Yoshio looked about ready to grab the detective by the collar, but Satoko reached out and clutched his hand.

  “Well, we’ve established that the college student did drive your dau
ghter to Mitsuse Pass. She ran into him at the park near the building where she lives.”

  “By run into him, you mean she was planning to meet him there?”

  “No. Masuo … I mean the college student … according to him, your daughter was meeting someone else there and just happened to meet up with him.”

  “Who is this other person?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. According to what this college student told us, there was definitely another person involved. He told us what this other man looked like and the type of car he was driving.”

  “So—what happened to Yoshino?” As Yoshio shouted this, Satoko shot the detective a solemn glance and began stroking her husband’s back.

  “They drove to Mitsuse Pass. There they apparently got into an argument and that man …”

  “What? What did he do?” This time it was Satoko, not Yoshio, who fired back.

  “The man forced your daughter to get out of the car.”

  “In the pass, where there’s nobody around? Why would he …” Satoko looked about to cry, and now it was Yoshio who stroked her back.

  “They apparently quarreled, and he pushed your daughter, and then her neck …”

  Unable to bear it any longer, Satoko began to quietly sob.

  “Rest assured, we grilled the college student thoroughly. He ended up blubbering and it was pretty pathetic. But he’s definitely not the one who killed her. The finger marks left on your daughter’s throat were larger than those of the college student’s hands. The difference between a child’s hands and those of an adult …”

  The detective stopped speaking and Yoshio sat there, glaring at him.

  “So who was my daughter meeting, then? Don’t hide anything from me. Was it someone from one of those dating sites or …” He couldn’t go on.