Inspector Imanishi Investigates

by Seichō Matsumoto

  “How many deliveries were there?”

  “It seemed like the van made two trips.”

  This agreed with what the employees at Yamashiro Moving Company had said. The times also matched.

  “Did she move in the same day she signed the contract?”

  “Yes, she did. She came to sign the lease in the morning. And then her things were delivered that night.”

  “Did you hear the voices of anyone helping with the move?”

  “Well, there’s a garden between this main house and the cottage. When the night shutters are closed, we can’t hear anything from the back house. So I’m afraid I didn’t notice whether there was anyone else helping other than the mover.”

  Imanishi asked to see the cottage. The body had already been removed.

  “Actually, I was relieved that the police took the body away,” the landlord said, as he guided Imanishi to the house. “I was worried that it might have to be left here since no one came to claim it.”

  Imanishi studied the belongings that Emiko had left. A chest of drawers, wardrobe, mirror stand, desk, suitcase, a wicker trunk still sealed up… He checked each item, opening doors and drawers, except for the wicker trunk. He didn’t discover anything new. Almost nothing had been unpacked.

  “Her futon was covered with blood, so I wrapped it up in a straw mat and stuck it in the storage shed out back. I’d like to get rid of that as soon as possible, too.” The landlord was upset. “What will happen after the autopsy?” he asked Imanishi.

  “I suppose that unless someone comes to claim the body, her remains will be buried in a communal grave.”

  “What about her things?”

  “There should be some instruction from the police. Please bear with us for a little while longer.”

  Imanishi put on his shoes.

  It was about a twenty-minute walk from the Kubota residence to the Uesugi Clinic, which was set back inside an impressive gate. It looked like a recently renovated mansion. The approach to the entrance was flanked by a garden landscaped with rocks and plants.

  Dr. Uesugi came out of his office to talk to Imanishi. “It was a real surprise. When I got there the situation was already beyond help. There was nothing I could do for her.”

  “What was the cause of death?”

  “She fell and hit her abdominal area very hard, resulting in a sudden miscarriage. The fetus, however, was dead before she miscarried. The direct cause of her death was loss of blood due to excessive internal hemorrhaging.”

  “When you saw her, Doctor, was she unconscious?”

  “She was unconscious when I arrived. But she regained consciousness just before she died and said something strange.”

  “What? Something strange?”

  “She wasn’t completely conscious, she was speaking deliriously. Her words were something like ‘Stop it, please. Oh, no, no. I’m afraid something will happen to me. Stop it, please, stop, stop.’ ”

  “Wait a minute.” Imanishi hurriedly took out his notebook. “Please say that again.”

  Dr. Uesugi repeated the words. Imanishi carefully wrote them down in his notebook.

  “Doctor, why did you decide to report this to the local police station right away?”

  “She wasn’t my patient. So it wouldn’t be proper for me to write out a death certificate. I didn’t want to encounter any problems later. That’s why I reported it to the police and requested an official autopsy.”

  “That was a good way to deal with the situation,” Imanishi commented. Imanishi certainly wouldn’t have wanted the body taken directly to the crematorium, leaving nothing for the investigation but ashes. “By the way, Doctor, I understand that it was not the landlord who called you about the patient.”

  “That’s right. I was summoned by a telephone call as I was about to go to bed. I was finishing a nightcap just after eleven when the nurse came and told me about the telephone call. She asked me whether I was willing to make a house call.”

  “Was the caller a man or a woman?”

  “Just a minute. I’ll call the nurse in.”

  The nurse looked tired and washed out.

  Instructed to by the doctor, the nurse answered Imanishi’s query, “It sounded like a young man’s voice. I refused to bother the doctor at first, but he pleaded for a house call because she had collapsed suddenly and was bleeding heavily.”

  “Did he say he was the patient’s husband?” Imanishi asked.

  “No, he didn’t say that, but I assumed he was her husband. I asked if it could wait until morning, and he said ‘she may die before then.’ ”

  “She may die.” Imanishi thought for a while about those words.

  “The patient’s heart stopped beating at twelve thirty-four a.m. I took care of a few things after the death and went home. Early the next morning I called the police. So I think the body must have been taken to the police medical examination center.”

  “Thank you so much for your help.” Imanishi bowed and left the clinic.

  At Soshigaya Okura he boarded a train for Shinjuku. He planned to head directly for the police medical examination center in Otsuka. The train left the station, and he could see the woodlands passing by outside the window. In between the woods were open fields. As he was staring at the woods, Imanishi suddenly remembered that he had been in this area only last month. The place where Miyata Kunio had died was not far from here.

  When he realized this, Imanishi took out his notebook and leafed through it. Miyata’s body had been found at Number xx, Kasuya-cho, Setagaya Ward. It was very close to the Soshigaya house he had just left. No wonder the scenery looked familiar.

  “I see you’re back again,” the coroner said when Imanishi arrived at the medical examination center. “What is it this time?” he asked.

  “Doctor, I know it’s not a homicide, but I’ve come about Miura Emiko who was sent over here for an official autopsy.”

  “Oh, that one?” The doctor looked at him with surprise. “Is there something the matter with that case?”

  “No, it’s not a criminal case. I’d like to ask a few questions about the body, that’s all. Who performed the autopsy?”

  “I did.”

  “Oh, good. And what was your opinion after the autopsy?”

  “She died from excessive hemorrhaging. She was pregnant,” the doctor said casually.

  “Ah ha, so it was death from an illness?”

  “Yes. I’d say death from an illness, but she fell carrying a four-month fetus. The fetus died and the fall caused the miscarriage. The fetus was stillborn.”

  “There’s no mistake in that?”

  “Well, that’s the way it looked to me. But does the great detective have some doubts?”

  “I’d have to explain it to you, but there are several strange points about this death.” Imanishi described what he knew about Emiko.

  He explained that the accident took place just after she had suddenly quit her job and moved, that a man had telephoned the doctor, but that this man did not appear even after Emiko’s death.

  “That does sound strange.” For the first time, the genial expression left the coroner’s face and he became serious. “It’s certain that a man called the doctor on the telephone?”

  “Yes. And yet he never showed up.”

  “Hmm.” The doctor thought for a while and said, “Someone was on intimate terms with the woman. He might even be the child’s father. But when she died, as so often happens, he thought about his own reputation and disappeared.”

  “That’s my theory, too.” Imanishi went on to ask, “Are you sure she wasn’t murdered?”

  “No, it wasn’t murder.”

  “Are there many cases in which pregnant women die from falling down?”

  “I can’t say there are none. But she was an extremely unlucky woman.”

  “You said that there was internal hemorrhaging in the abdominal area from a fall. There’s no mistake?”

  “No, there’s no mistake.”

/>   “Can you tell from the injury what she fell on?”

  “It appears that she bumped into something. It must have been something like a rock. Since there were no skin lesions, it must have been a smooth boulder, without sharp corners.”

  “What about the fetus?”

  “When I saw it, it was on the futon bedding. So we brought it over and examined it as well. The fetus had died while it was in utero. I would say it was a miscarriage. In cases where the fetus is stillborn, we check to see if the stillbirth was the result of a shock to the mother, or if the fetus had died and caused the miscarriage. In this woman’s case, she had the double misfortune of having the fetus die and then falling. That’s why there was excessive bleeding.”

  “I’d like to ask you again,” Imanishi persisted. “When you performed the autopsy, you found no special changes in any other internal organs?”

  “Imanishi-san, in your position, I know you have to question everything, but unfortunately, as far as I could tell, there were no symptoms of poison.”

  “I see,” Imanishi said, looking downcast. “What gender was the fetus?”

  “It was a girl,” the doctor answered, his face clouding for a moment.

  Imanishi felt as if an unforeseen shadow had passed before his eyes. “Thank you very much for everything.”

  “If you ever have any doubts, don’t hesitate to come to me.”

  “I may be calling on you again with more questions.”

  “Are you on a case that involves this woman?”

  “Well, it’s not that definite yet. But there are some things that I am not satisfied about concerning the circumstances surrounding her death.”

  “Imanishi-san, do you know when her relatives will come to claim the body?”

  “Hasn’t there been any word from the local police?”

  “No, we haven’t heard anything yet. They said they were making inquiries in her hometown.”

  Imanishi felt his initial sadness return. As he left the medical examination center, he could not put the doctor’s words that the fetus had been a girl out of his mind. Imanishi could picture Emiko as a mother. When he had met her at his sister’s place, he couldn’t picture her as a bar hostess. He had seen only the unsophisticated innocence of a young woman. She had been polite and quiet.

  Why had Emiko moved right after she had met Imanishi? Despite his sister’s protestations, Imanishi thought that it was because Emiko had found out that he was a police detective.

  The way she had moved was not usual. Probably the man with the moving van was the man who had called Dr. Uesugi. No one knew what this man looked like. The employees at the moving company agreed that he was young, and the nurse at Uesugi Clinic also said that the voice on the telephone was young. Why did he phone the doctor about Emiko and then disappear? He acted just like a murderer even if it was clear from the autopsy that Emiko wasn’t murdered.

  It was also a strange coincidence that the distance between the house in Soshigaya where Emiko had died and the lonely field where Miyata had died was not great. If measured in a straight line, these two locations were a little over a mile apart.

  Miyata had died just before he was to meet with Imanishi. Emiko’s death had taken place when Imanishi was searching for her. Imanishi had been trailing both of them and now they were both dead.

  The locations and the circumstances of these two deaths were too similar. But both seemed to have been from natural causes. Imanishi was deep in thought as he swayed with the motion of the streetcar. He took out his notebook. He looked at Emiko’s last words, the words Dr. Uesugi had said she’d spoken in delirium: “Stop it, please. Oh, no, no. I’m afraid something will happen to me. Stop it, please, stop, stop…”

  To whom was she speaking? And what was she crying out to stop?

  Three days later, Imanishi visited Nakamura Toyo, who lived in Nakameguro in a small house at the end of an alley. Her husband had passed away ten years ago, and now she lived with her son and his family. She had been hired by Sekigawa to look after his house during the day. Imanishi went to see her after nine o’clock at night.

  “I’ve come from an inquiry agency,” Imanishi said to Nakamura Toyo when she came to the entryway. “I’d like to ask you about Sekigawa-san.”

  “What kind of questions?” Nakamura Toyo looked at him in surprise.

  “I understand that you go to his house every day to do the housekeeping?”

  “Yes, I do. I’ve just now returned.”

  “Actually, it’s about a marriage possibility.”

  “What? A marriage?” Toyo’s face lit up with curiosity. “You mean a marriage for Sekigawa-s^n? What kind of proposal does he have?”

  “I’m not at liberty to tell you. My clients have requested that it be kept strictly confidential. That’s why I’d like to ask you various questions about him.”

  “Well, for a happy reason like that, I’d be glad to tell you everything I know.”

  He could see the figures of her son and daughter-in-law in the sitting room that led off the entryway. “It might be a bit difficult here, so could I trouble you to go somewhere nearby with me? We could talk over a bite to eat.”

  Taking off her apron and wrapping a shawl around her shoulders, Toyo followed Imanishi outside. There was a Chinese noodle shop two or three doors down on the main street.

  “How about some won ton soup here?” Imanishi asked Toyo.

  “That would be fine,” Toyo smiled.

  The two of them opened the glass door to a store, which displayed a red paper lantern hung from its eaves. The shop was steamy inside. They sat at a corner table facing each other.

  “Hey, two won tons.” Imanishi ordered and pulled out his cigarettes. “Please.”

  It seemed Toyo liked to smoke. She nodded her head and took a cigarette. Imanishi lit it for her.

  “It must be quite difficult for you,” Imanishi said, “working at the Sekigawa house from early morning until late at night.”

  Toyo pursed her lips and exhaled. “Actually, it’s a rather carefree job for me. Sekigawa-san is single, as you know. And there’s no sense in me just sitting around at home. It lets me earn some spending money.”

  “You’re lucky to have your health. I guess it’s probably better for our bodies if we work for as long as we can.”

  “I agree. I haven’t been sick at all since I started going to work at Sekigawa-san’s.”

  While chatting in this way, Imanishi was deciding how he would elicit the information he wanted.

  After a while, the two soups were served.

  “Please go ahead.”

  “I won’t stand on ceremony.” Toyo gave a big smile and split a pair of chopsticks. She sipped the soup noisily, making appetizing sounds.

  “Is Sekigawa-san a difficult person to work for?” Imanishi began.

  “No, he’s not very difficult,” she answered as she ate. “Since there aren’t any other family members, it’s quite easy for me.”

  “But don’t they say that most writers have difficult personalities?”

  “Well, when he’s writing an article, he closets himself in his study and doesn’t allow me to enter it. That’s easier for me to deal with.”

  “Does he leave his door closed while he’s working?”

  “Yes. He doesn’t go as far as locking his door, but he closes it tight from the inside.”

  “Is that for very long stretches of time? I mean, that he stays in his study?”

  “It depends on the day. Sometimes he doesn’t come out for five or six hours.”

  “How is the study set up?” Imanishi asked.

  “It’s a Western-style room. It’s about the size of eight tatami mats. There’s a desk at the window that faces north. He also has a bed that he can sleep on, and there are bookcases lining the walls.”

  If it were possible, Imanishi would have liked to see the study. However, his sense of ethics did not allow him to search a person’s house under a false identity. Unless they had a
search warrant police officers were not allowed to enter a house without permission. Imanishi was already feeling somewhat guilty for having lied about being a private inquiry investigator, but this had been unavoidable. If he had told her that he was a police detective at the outset, Toyo would not have told him anything.

  “What are the windows like in the house?” Imanishi asked.

  “There are two windows on the north side and three on the south side. Also two on the west; on the east side is the front door.”

  “I see.” Imanishi drew a mental diagram of the layout.

  Toyo looked at Imanishi’s face quizzically as she chewed her won ton. “Is that kind of information necessary for an inquiry for marriage purposes?”

  Imanishi was taken aback slightly. “Well, actually, um, after all, my client wishes to know how Sekigawa-san lives on a daily basis.”

  “Is that so? I suppose the parents of a young woman would like to know the details about whom their daughter will marry.” Toyo nodded easily. “This what I gather,” she offered. “He’s quite a popular writer now, even though he’s so young. He’s actually quite busy. He once laughed and told me that his income was at about the level of a section chief if he were a regular company employee.”

  “I see. He earns that much?”

  “Yes, and he’s always working. He does a lot of extra jobs, like taking part in panel discussions for magazines and the radio. It’s all too complicated for me to understand, but my son tells me that he is a very popular young critic.”

  “I’ve heard that as well.”

  “So if he were to get married, his livelihood is very well assured.”

  “I understand. My clients will be relieved to hear that. I’d like to have them feel at ease about another thing as well. Does he have girlfriends?”

  “Well.” Toyo gulped down the soup. “He’s still young, and he’s not bad-looking, and he does have a good income and is famous. So it would be strange if he didn’t have a girlfriend, wouldn’t it?” Finishing the last of the soup, Toyo wiped her mouth with her handkerchief.