Inspector Imanishi Investigates

by Seichō Matsumoto

“Miyata-san, I think you know the reason behind Naruse-san’s death.”

  “What do you mean?” Miyata looked up.

  “Do you wear a beret when you go out?” Imanishi asked, looking steadily at the face of the long-haired man across from him.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “A while ago you went to a sushi shop near Naruse-san’s apartment, didn’t you?”

  The actor was startled again.

  “At that sushi shop you obliged a fan who wanted your autograph, didn’t you? That’s not all. You tried to call Naruse-san out from her apartment by whistling, didn’t you?”

  The actor grew pale. “No, that wasn’t me. I never called her out.”

  “But you were whistling beneath her apartment window to try to get her to come out. Miyata-san, I saw you there. I heard you whistling that night as I passed by.”

  When Imanishi said he had seen Miyata near the apartment, Miyata’s face lost all color. The actor was silent for a while. His face was full of pain.

  “How about it, Miyata-san,” Imanishi pressed. “I’d like you to tell me everything you know. That doesn’t mean that I intend to do anything to you. Naruse Rieko’s death was a suicide. The police don’t act unless it’s a murder. But we are interested in Naruse-san in connection with another case.”

  Miyata looked afraid, but he still didn’t answer.

  “This is just my personal opinion, but I think the reason for Naruse-san’s death is connected to what we wanted to question her about. How about it, Miyata-san. Can’t you tell me the truth? Why would she commit suicide?”

  The actor kept silent.

  Imanishi leaned on his elbows across the table. “You must know. You seem to have known her very well. That is neither here nor there. All I want you to do is to tell me frankly what you think caused Naruse-san to commit suicide.”

  Imanishi continued to stare at Miyata. Imanishi had a look that seemed to pierce to the depths of one’s soul. Miyata began to fidget.

  Imanishi observed this and said, “Miyata-san, how about it? Will you cooperate?”

  “Yes.” Miyata took out a handkerchief and wiped the perspiration off his brow. “I’ll tell you what I know. But I can’t talk to you now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Nothing is clear to me right now. As you say, I know something that might be of help in terms of Naruse-san’s suicide. But that’s not all. I’d like to tell you about something else, but… I can’t do that right now.”

  Imanishi nodded, never taking his eyes off Miyata. It seemed clear that Miyata knew a lot about Rieko, that he knew secrets she kept from others, that Miyata felt something more than friendship for her. Now was not the time to insist on answers. He was so upset that it was unlikely he would say anything if pressed. His instinctive reaction to his suffering would be complete silence. Imanishi knew, if he was to learn more, he would have to give Miyata time.

  “I understand. Then when can we talk?” Imanishi asked.

  “Please give me two or three days,” Miyata said.

  “Two or three days? Couldn’t you make it sooner? I need to hear what you have to say about Naruse-san as soon as possible.”

  “Inspector,” Miyata asked, “are you sure Naruse-san had something to do with your case?”

  “We’re not sure yet, but we hope that there’s some tie-in.” Miyata stared intently at Imanishi. He said, “It’s very likely that I can help your investigation. I’ll tell you everything I know about Naruse-san tomorrow.”

  Grateful, Imanishi said, “Where shall we meet?”

  “I’ll wait for you at the Company S Tearoom in Ginza at eight o’clock. I’ll have my thoughts straight by then,” Miyata said.

  EIGHT A Mishap

  Imanishi entered the Ginza tearoom the next evening promptly at eight o’clock. It was crowded with customers, but he did not see the actor. He took a seat along the wall, ordered a cup of coffee, and took a weekly magazine out of his pocket. Each time the door opened he looked up. He sipped his coffee as slowly as he could, but the actor hadn’t shown up by the time he had finished.

  Imanishi grew impatient but realized the actor might have been delayed. He would give it another twenty minutes.

  Imanishi continued to skim the magazine. The tearoom became more and more crowded; newcomers left when they saw that the shop was full. Imanishi could tell from the look on her face that the waitress wanted him to leave. Reluctantly, he ordered again, this time a cup of tea. He took his time sipping this as well. At eight-forty Imanishi became concerned. The telephone rang, and a customer was paged, but it was not for Imanishi. His teacup was empty. Next, Imanishi ordered a fruit punch. He couldn’t even finish half of it.

  An hour passed. Imanishi waited, determined to hear Miyata’s story about the girl who had cooperated with the murderer, the girl who had cut up and scattered the bloodstained shirt.

  Imanishi became annoyed. Finally, he left the tearoom and went on waiting outside, sure that as soon as he left for home Miyata would arrive. Imanishi called the theater, but there was no answer. He had to give up.

  Imanishi woke up at six o’clock the next morning. For some reason, no matter how late he had gotten to sleep, or how occupied he had been on a case, he woke up at six o’clock. Yoshiko and Taro were still asleep.

  He smoked a cigarette and crawled out of the futon to go to the front door. The morning newspaper had been slipped between the lattice work of the door. He returned to his bed, taking the newspaper with him.

  One of the pleasures in his life was to lie in bed and read the newspaper as he smoked. He turned first to the city page out of professional interest. Articles on unimportant cases filled the page. Imanishi stopped suddenly at a small headline: “Modern Drama Actor Dies at Roadside-Heart Attack on Way Home from Rehearsal.”

  Imanishi looked at the photograph next to the headline. It was Miyata Kunio. He read:

  At approximately eleven p.m. on August 31, Sugimura Isaku, 42, a company executive, discovered a dead body as he drove to his home near Number xx, Kasuya-cho, Setagaya-ku. He reported his discovery immediately to the Seijo police station. As a result of an inspection of the man’s belongings, the deceased was identified as Miyata Kunio, 30, an actor with the Avant-Garde Theater. The cause of death was tentatively given as a heart attack. Today there will be an autopsy at the Tokyo police medical center.

  Miyata had finished rehearsals at the Avant-Garde Theater at approximately 6:30 p.m., and had left the building at that time. According to Sugiura Akiko of the Avant-Garde Theater, Miyata was an actor with a bright future. Recently, he had become quite popular.

  Imanishi was shocked. Kicking off his bedding, he got up again. He hurried Yoshiko to prepare breakfast and ate quickly.

  “Is something the matter?” Yoshiko wondered.

  “Nothing, nothing.”

  Imanishi dressed in a rush, like a firefighter called to a fire. He left the house at 8:30.

  Miyata’s body would no longer be at the Seijo police station. The Tokyo police medical center in Otsuka started its workday at nine a.m. It would be quicker to go there.

  It was slightly after nine when he reached the medical center located only a ten-minute walk from Otsuka Station. In front of the medical center was an attractive garden, but inside the building it was dingy and dark. Two men, someone’s next of kin, sat uncertainly in the waiting room. Imanishi went directly to the medical center chief’s office.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you,” the medical center chief greeted him.

  “Doctor, I’ll get right to the point. Has the body from Seijo station been delivered here yet?”

  “Yes, it came in late last night.”

  “When do you plan to open it up?”

  “We’re in a bit of a crunch, so I expect it will be this afternoon.”

  “Doctor, could you manage to do it earlier?”

  “That’s a death from illness, isn’t it? We’re just doing a routine autopsy. Is there something suspicious?
”

  “I have a strange feeling about it.”

  “You mean, the death may not have been natural?”

  The medical examiner knew Imanishi’s skill as a detective. He agreed to do this autopsy first.

  Imanishi looked through the file sent over from Seijo while he waited for the coroner to get ready. A young examiner came out to guide Imanishi to the autopsy room. They went down a narrow hallway and a flight of stairs. At the entrance to the autopsy room, they put slippers over their shoes. The autopsy room could be seen from the waiting room through a set of glass doors. Five medical examiners wearing white laboratory coats were already gathered inside.

  In the center of the concrete-floored room stood the dissecting table on which a man’s naked body was laid out. The body was pasty white; long, tangled hair lay spread out on the table. The eyes were open, the mouth was slightly ajar. There was a look of pain on the face. Imanishi pressed his palms together in prayer as he faced the body.

  The medical examiners took their respective places around the table. The coroner began with his observations on the exterior condition of the body. An assistant took down the information. When this dictation was over, the coroner inserted a scalpel into the chest cavity and cut downward in a Y-shaped line through the center of the body. He sliced the body open in one swift movement. Blood ran out.

  Imanishi watched without flinching. The stench filled his nostrils, but he was used to it. An assistant had cut open the stomach to inspect its contents. Another assistant was slicing the brownish-tinted liver. Finally the scalp was opened. Miyata’s long hair flopped onto his face.

  Imanishi left the autopsy room. His brow was beaded in perspiration. He could see the green leaves swaying in the breeze outside the corridor window. The sunlight was bright, the air fresh and full of life.

  As he was looking out the window, he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was the coroner.

  “Thank you very much for your efforts, Doctor,” Imanishi said.

  “You’re welcome. Could you come this way, please.”

  The coroner escorted Imanishi to a room.

  “Imanishi-san, I’m sorry to say,” the coroner said, smiling, “the cause of death is unmistakably a heart attack.”

  “Is that so, after all?” Imanishi looked at the doctor.

  “We examined everything with particular care, but there were no external wounds, and no traces of any assault. We also examined the stomach, but there was no indication of a reaction to poisonous substances, no abnormalities in the abdominal organs. There was some enlargement of the heart, leading me to think that this person may have suffered from a mild case of valvular disease. We came to the conclusion that it was a heart attack. In each organ there was coagulated blood, which backs up this finding.”

  “So you would say that it was death from natural causes?” Imanishi became lost in thought. He seemed to be terribly disappointed.

  The doctor asked, “Imanishi-san, what were you suspicious of?”

  When asked point-blank, Imanishi had no suitable answer. He could not say that he was suspicious because the man had died before he could hear his evidence.

  “The man didn’t die at home. His dead body was discovered on the roadside, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, is there something strange in that?”

  “If he had become ill and died at home, I wouldn’t be so suspicious. I’m concerned because he died at the side of the road.”

  “But Imanishi-san, there are occasionally such cases. You can’t choose where you’re going to have a sudden heart attack.”

  Imanishi had no reply. “I’m afraid I’ve got a bad habit of suspecting that every death is related to police work,” Imanishi said.

  He continued to ponder. At eight p.m., Miyata was to have met him at the tearoom in Ginza. Why had he been walking around in the Setagaya district? Imanishi was still convinced that Miyata had intended to meet him. Could he have been lured to Setagaya against his will? Had he visited someone in the Setagaya area and lost track of the time?

  Imanishi decided to view the place where Miyata’s body was found. By bus, it was not far from the Seijo police station. There were very few houses. The area still retained a rural feeling. He walked over to where the actor’s body had been discovered, following the diagram drawn for him by one of the men at the Seijo station. It was in a field, one yard away from the main bus route. Plumes of the pampas grass near the wooded area had already turned to autumn white.

  As he stood there, Imanishi noted that there were many cars but few pedestrians passing by. At night it would be a lonely place. Had Miyata been walking here? If he had meant to keep his appointment with Imanishi, he would have taken a taxi. Suppose he had visited someone nearby and had waited here to hail a taxi. Who would Miyata have come to visit out here?

  Imanishi stopped by the Avant-Garde Theater. When he made it clear that he wanted to ask about Miyata Kunio, a member of the office staff escorted him to Sugiura Akiko’s room. Her name was familiar to Imanishi; he’d seen her photograph in newspapers and magazines. She greeted him pleasantly. The famous actress – the leader of this theater group -smoked a cigarette while she answered.

  “Miyata-san was at the theater rehearsing our new play until six-thirty. He didn’t seem to be in pain. That’s why I couldn’t believe it when I heard that he had died.”

  “Do you know if he had some kind of heart condition?”

  “Now that you mention it, he wasn’t very strong. Sometimes we rehearse all night before an opening, and he did seem to tire easily.”

  “Did he happen to mention where he was going after the rehearsal ended?”

  “No, I really wouldn’t know,” she said and pushed a buzzer to call in a young actor, a good friend of Miyata’s. “This is Yamagata-san. Did Miyata-san say where he was going after he left here last night?”

  The young actor stood at attention, his hands clasped together in front of him. “Well, yes. He did say that he had to meet someone in Ginza at eight.”

  “At eight in Ginza?” Imanishi interrupted. “Is that really what he said?”

  “Yes, that’s what he told me,” Yamagata turned toward Imanishi and answered. “I invited him out, and that’s the reason he declined.”

  So Miyata Kunio had intended to keep his appointment with Imanishi.

  “Where did he live?”

  “In an apartment in Komagome.”

  “Komagome?” It was in the opposite direction from where his body had been found.

  “How did Miyata-san seem when you parced?”

  “He seemed to be his normal self. Oh, yes, he did say something-that he wasn’t looking forward to the meeting in Ginza.”

  “I’d like to ask you about a different matter,” Imanishi turned toward Sugiura Akiko. “A young woman named Naruse Rieko used to work here, didn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Sugiura Akiko nodded. “She was a quiet, gentle girl. She recently committed suicide.”

  “Do you have any idea why she committed suicide?”

  “No. I didn’t know her well at all, so I asked the office staff, thinking they would have more of an idea about what had gone on. But everyone said they had no idea why she committed suicide.”

  “Could she have been heartbroken?”

  “Well.” Sugiura Akiko smiled. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. If only she had left a suicide note or something.”

  “This may sound strange,” Imanishi said, “but could Naruse Rieko have been on intimate terms with Miyata Kunio?”

  “No, I can’t imagine that they were… Have you heard anything like that?” Sugiura Akiko looked around and asked the young actor standing near her.

  He smiled faintly. “Actually, there were rumors about that.”

  “What?” The actress’s eyes brightened.

  “It wasn’t that the two of them were particularly friendly,” the actor said. “Naruse-san didn’t seem to have special feelings for Miyata, but he was quite serious about her. You coul
d tell by watching him.”

  “I’m amazed,” Sugiura Akiko said.

  This explanation made sense to Imanishi. Rieko had died leaving a journal full of longing. It was clear that the object of her love was not Miyata. Then who was Rieko so in love with that she decided to die for him? Imanishi asked if Rieko had had another boyfriend.

  “No, I don’t think there was anyone special. But I really wouldn’t know,” the actor replied. “Naruse-san was very reserved. If her suicide was from a broken heart, it must be over someone we don’t know.”

  The boyfriend none of the theater members knew about-was he the killer in the Kamata murder case? Imanishi wanted to find him.

  At eight-thirty, Sekigawa Shigeo left the restaurant where he had been attending a meeting sponsored by a literary magazine. A large black car waited for him in the shadows.

  “Sekigawa-sensei,” the magazine editor called out, “will you be going straight home?”

  “No,” Sekigawa smiled. “I have to visit someone.”

  “Then where shall we have the car take you?”

  “If you could drive me to Ikebukuro, that would be fine.”

  At Ikebukuro Station, he changed to a taxi and ordered the driver to go toward Shimura. Sekigawa smoked a cigarette. After a while, the street started to slope uphill. Sekigawa alighted from the taxi and turned the corner, walking away from the streetcar tracks.

  A young woman, standing in the shadows, rushed over to him. It was Emiko.

  “Darling? You’ve finally come. I’m so happy.” She pressed herself against Sekigawa’s side.

  “Have you been waiting long?”

  “Yes, about an hour.”

  “The meeting ran late.”

  “That’s what I thought. I was worried that you might not come.”

  Sekigawa did not answer. Emiko reached out and took his arm.

  “Did you skip work at the bar tonight?” Sekigawa asked in a low voice.

  “Yes, because I was coming to meet you. It’s awful to have a night job.”

  “How is your new apartment?”

  “I like it. The woman below is nice to me. It’s much better than the other place.”