"During the night duty, there were no intruders from the outside. That means it's an inside job, doesn't it?"
"Probably,” Masukawa stated readily.
"Who do you think it was?"
"Army Sergeant would be the most likely. Because he was the one who opened and closed the storage safe."
That was most logical. However...
"Does Police Sergeant —Owada have a motive to steal the notebooks?"
"Right. That is where we hit a dead end."
"If not him, then who is suspicious?"
Masukawa rolled his neck around in a circle. “I guess it would be me. Since the storage-safe key was hanging right in front of my eyes."
There was a breath-long pause. Kaise looked into his eyes.
"Do you have a motive?"
"I certainly do. I've wanted to quash this crappy system of collective storage."
"What do you mean by crappy system ...?"
It was Masukawa who first showed his anger.
"Isn't that enough? Now, you listen to what I have to say. Aren't you playing dirty, barging in on Totsuka when he was asleep?"
Was that the issue? Now that he realized what Masukawa really felt, Kaise's tension relaxed.
"I don't think it was dirty. I just want to get the stolen documents back."
"You mean, Totsuka and I did it. That's what you want to say?"
"You have motive. You said so yourself, didn't you?"
"Hey, keep it within limits, why don't you? If detectives who catch thieves become thieves, it's the end."
"You were alone with Totsuka from midnight, weren't you?"
"Don't bother. Forget about lording it over and playing at interrogating when you're an inexperienced Police Affairs guy."
"What are you calling me ...?"
"I don't have any interest in a castrated management type. Go back to Headquarters and kiss the ass of the career executives."
Anger shot through the core of Kaise's body. He charged at Masukawa and grabbed his shirt. “Say that again!"
"You want to fight?"
Masukawa grabbed Kaise's shirt with twice the strength. He throttled him with his powerful grip. The two of them shot out to the side of the desk, still grabbing on to each other.
"Take it back!"
"You take it back! Totsuka is turning in the cold air about now!"
"This is work for me, too!"
"Well then..."
Charged by Masukawa's massive body, Kaise was smashed against the wall. He couldn't move.
"Don't make it sound like you know what you were asking! What kind of work do you guys do, anyway? We're putting our lives on the line here. We're protecting the town. What the hell are you guys protecting? The Headquarters Department Head? Yourself? Just give me an answer!"
"Idiot! It's my family that I'm protecting, of course!"
Masukawa's grip slackened a bit. Kaise took advantage of this opening and desperately moved his hips aside. Their balance crumbled. They fell against the steel desk.
Hearing the ruckus, several detectives burst into the room.
"Let go!” Kaise yelled, but his arms and hips were pinned down, as he and Masukawa glared at each other. They were both breathing heavily.
"It's nothing. We were just playing.” Masukawa shook off the hands of the detectives and turned his face toward Kaise. He had lost his will to fight.
"Are we finished, Superintendent?"
"..."
Leaving the interrogation room, Masukawa stopped in his tracks, and after a while turned back. “It's the same for me, too. When all is said and done, I'm protecting my family."
This guy is innocent. Kaise realized this when he heard the quiet seriousness in Masukawa's voice.
* * * *
8.
Headquarters, Police Affairs Section. Eight p.m.
The only light was at Kaise's desk. His writing paper was still blank. Kaise didn't even attempt to take out his pen.
His brain repeatedly checked the facts of the case.
Masukawa is innocent.
His conviction was unwavering. Masukawa had been facing the key on the wall all night. That meant that the other night-duty officers were also innocent. It appeared that way.
Masukawa would have left his seat to go to the toilet. There might be a culprit who had a copy of the key. There might be an outside person who could succeed in committing the crime in a million-in-one chance of timing. But Kaise did not turn his eyes toward such farfetched possibilities. It was because he had forcibly set Masukawa up as a “convenient culprit” that he had lost sight of the true nature of the case and had strayed off course. He was through with choosing a side path and getting lost in a forest with no exit.
He would follow the main branch. If he got rid of the possibilities of the night-duty staff and an outside culprit, what was left was the Police Affairs Section. That was where the perpetrator was.
That evening, he had got hold of Yamazaki Tomoyo and talked with her at a coffee shop. Did anyone in the section have a grudge against —Owada? Tomoyo laughed off the question. “He is disliked, for sure, but it's overstating it to say he's hated.” He cast out the name of Officer Kamiya, but she said he was on daytime duty the day of the incident and was not at the station that night. “Besides, young Kamiya isn't the kind of kid who goes around hating people. He's never even complained about Police Sergeant —Owada.” Perhaps fed up with Kaise, who continued to persist, Tomoyo said in the end, “You won't get anywhere suspecting people in the Police Affairs Section. After all, it's Mr. —Owada who has the key to the storage safe."
Ultimately, that was what he came back to.
—Owada T—oru.
He was in charge of the first-floor storage safe. He alone took care of the key to the storage safe, and on the day of the incident, he had collected the IDs. Circumstantially, he satisfied all the conditions for being a suspect.
Tomoyo's face concurred. Masukawa had also clearly stated this. The conclusion that a seasoned detective had reasonably come to was ——Owada.
Yet, no one could fathom his motive.
Kaise leaned back in his chair.
Motive...
Nothing came to mind. ——Owada stole the notebooks. That “Army Sergeant” whose beliefs were based on strict obedience to rules and regulations.
If he had a motive, it could only be the “season of the devil” so immediately prior to his retirement; that a storm unable to be detected from his outward appearance was raging in ——Owada's heart.
Or might there be an unavoidable circumstance? Some circumstance making him steal the IDs.... Kaise couldn't think there was one. A circumstance that would make him throw away the convictions he had held for forty years and steal his fellow officers’ documents.
Circumstance...
What? Kaise was beset by a strange thought.
I know that circumstance. I've heard it somewhere. He had that sense.
Not a circumstance, but a setup. That might be it. He felt he knew something.
He searched inside himself. As if he were following the afterimage of a shooting star. In his heart. Where his memory was lodged. Desperately.
It disappeared. It disappeared and scattered away. Where did it go? What was that strange sensation?
"Excuse me.” The section room's door opened, and the beam of a flashlight swept across the wall. It was the Headquarters night-duty officer making his rounds.
"Superintendent, is everything all right?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Your face is pale white."
* * * *
9.
"Yumiko said she was praised by her teacher today."
"Oh, for what?"
"For being able to write her name in characters even though she's only in second grade. She had practiced a lot."
"Yes, she had."
Kaise looked at Aiko's profile as she peeled a tangerine. She's gotten older, he thought.
"Aiko..."
&nbs
p; "Yes, what is it?"
"How about building a house soon?"
In general, transfers meant the entire family moved. But if one had a house, one's superiors gave tacit approval for a posting unaccompanied by family. Aiko looked intently at Kaise.
"A house...? But you're not expecting to be transferred for a while. So it doesn't make sense to build now."
"But I may be, in the spring."
"Really?"
"Yeah. So let's at least be prepared."
He stood up and went to the toilet as if to escape.
The time limit is near.
A sense of resigning himself to the inevitable spread over him. Two days was just too short a time. Tonight, after Aiko went to bed, he had to write up what would be quoted in the newspapers and on television. With this he would be ousted from his position in his section.
Is this also one of my punishments?
—Owada's face kept flitting across his mind. He might be the culprit. Even so, there was nothing Kaise could do now. He had no proof. He couldn't figure out a motive. Kaise didn't have a strong enough sense of intuition to insist that he was the perpetrator.
It's over. It's all...
When he left the washroom, he heard a dry cough. It was worse than the night before.
Kaoichi's really caught a cold now.
He went into the children's room and placed the covers over them. Noiselessly he turned his body around. It was then.
Ah.
Kaise stood stock-still.
It came.
The sensation he'd had. Again.
It was last night. Yes, he had heard it last night. He had definitely heard something. Something important....
Kaise rushed back to the living room.
"Aiko, what was it?'
"What?"
"You were saying something yesterday..."
"Well, Mr. Fuwatari sent some apples..."
"No. That's not it."
"Oh, about Kao-chan's class? There was a kid who spilled some paint..."
That was it.
In order to cover up the fact that he had spilled paint, he had doused it with a bucket of water.
That was the setup.
In order to hide the fact that one ID had disappeared, twenty-nine others were stolen.
Say ——Owada lost his ID. Though it was not obvious from his outward appearance, there was some disturbance in ——Owada's mind as he faced imminent retirement. He was absent-minded. He was careless. He lost his ID, the very soul of a police officer. Take that as an assumption.
He couldn't report that he had lost his ID. Even if his lips were pried open, ——Owada couldn't admit this. This man who had lived strictly according to rules and regulations would be fully disgraced. His forty years of life as a police officer would burst like a bubble. That was his motive. That was the sole thing that could be the motive that pushed ——Owada to commit this crime. His retirement date was soon. ——Owada valued his “Army Sergeant” moniker. Wasn't that what was at the root of this incident?
Kaise looked at the clock. Ten-fifteen.
He saw the motive. But he had no proof.
What should I do?
If ——Owada was the culprit, the IDs were no doubt safe. Kaise couldn't fathom him throwing them away. He would return them after he retired. He must be thinking along those lines.
They were hidden somewhere. His house. His garden. A park. A coin locker....
Should Kaise contact Internal Investigations? Or should he collaborate with the Criminal Investigation Department to deal with this?
That would be useless. His idea would be laughed off. Even if the higher-ups moved on this, what if the culprit wasn't ——Owada? It would be accusing a police officer who had lived strictly by the book of being a burglar. Kaise's word would smear mud on the last moment of ——Owada's life as a police officer.
I'll have to make him admit it myself. Kaise made up his mind.
But his opponent was “Army Sergeant.” If he approached him directly, he would probably be rebuffed. If ——Owada was guilty, he must have committed the crime under duress. He would hardly admit at this point that he was the one.
No...
It wasn't necessary to make him admit it. What was at stake was the IDs. It was all right as long as twenty-nine IDs were returned. Then, what could be done...
Kaise fell into deep thought. He didn't hear Aiko speaking.
Eleven o'clock. Kaise stood up. “I'm going out for a bit."
* * * *
10.
The two-story house was small for a single-family dwelling.
With no hesitation he rang the doorbell. Three times ... four times ... five times...
"Who's there at this hour?"
He heard the voice first as ——Owada burst out the door.
"Superintendent? ... What is it that you want of me? And at this hour!"
Kaise apologized for his rudeness and said, “I found out who stole the IDs."
——Owada's large eyes opened wider. He tried to say something in response, but his lips only trembled a bit and no words came forth.
Kaise's conviction was confirmed. It is this man after all.
He was led into the living room.
There was a framed photograph of ——Owada's three sons. One worked for an apparel manufacturer. Another was a hair stylist. The third was a video-game software designer. Kaise had heard this from Tomoyo. It appeared that the occupations chosen by the sons were witness to a long history of family discord. A negative role model. No doubt ——Owada had been the “Army Sergeant” at home as well.
"Thank you for waiting.” ——Owada appeared, neatly dressed. He had regained his composure, but he couldn't hide his stiff expression.
They sat formally facing each other.
"Inspector, who is the perpetrator?” ——Owada started off, in the tense atmosphere.
Kaise spoke slowly, “I don't have a name."
"What do you mean? You just said you knew..."
"I had a telephone call from the culprit. Anonymously."
"Yes?” The muscles of ——Owada's face slackened. “But why did you come here?"
"Because it is related to you."
"To me?"
"Yes.” As he gauged ——Owada's response, Kaise continued to read the script he had in his mind. “The culprit didn't give his name. But he did state his motive. He was full of hatred toward you. If he stole the IDs, it would cause hardship for you as the one in charge of the storage. He said that is why he did it."
——Owada sank into silence. He probed Kaise's eyes.
Kaise gave force to his words. “But he has become afraid. He wants to return the documents. That is what he said. However...” his voice became even firmer, “he tore up your ID. So he can only return twenty-nine of them."
"..."
Listen to me carefully, Kaise thought, as he continued in a prayerful way. “I told the culprit to make certain he returns them by noon tomorrow to a place where a police officer can find them."
——Owada nodded. Or Kaise had this illusion.
"That is all. I ask that you keep this matter a secret. I don't intend to report this to my superiors."
"You're not reporting it?"
"No. If it causes a commotion and the culprit is scared off from returning the IDs, all this will be futile. As long as the IDs are returned, the rest doesn't matter. That is the way I feel."
Their gazes locked onto each other.
It's all set, Kaise thought. He believed it.
As ——Owada saw Kaise out, he took a breath and said with deep emotion, “Your father was a fine man, but you've become a fine police officer just like him."
Kaise couldn't fathom ——Owada's intent.
He looked once more into ——Owada's eyes.
Tomorrow. You must.
* * * *
11.
The Headquarters Police Affairs Section was bustling from early morning.
On ord
ers from the Headquarters Department Chief, Police Affairs Department Head Kamoike would be in charge of the press briefing at 1 p.m. Section Chief Kosuga was off the hook, but learning that Kaise had not drafted the briefing text, he flew into a rage. But that was only his way of posturing to those in the section. No doubt thinking that there might be a problem, as usual he had given a second order for the text. The announcement that Subsection Chief Ioka had prepared on the word processor had already been printed out and had received the approval of the Headquarters Department Head.
Kaise sat at his desk without moving. He was fretfully waiting for news of the discovery of the IDs.
I beg of you. All he could do was to pray for the result.
Time passed quickly. All of a sudden it was past 10:30, and when he next looked up it was close to 11:00.
The promise was for morning. Wasn't that it?
The telephone rang. “Yes, Kaise here."
"Hello, dear.” It was Aiko.
"What is it?” His voice was mixed with irritation.
"There was a call from the hospital.... Your father's condition is worse."
Father's condition ... !
"How bad is it?"
"I don't know. They said he suddenly collapsed in the hallway.” Aiko was upset.
"..."
Kaise was distressed. Should he go? But...
"I'll leave right now,” said Aiko.
"..."
"I'll be fine. I'll take a taxi."
"Sorry."
He placed the receiver down as he contained his feelings.
After this the telephone remained silent.
The clock advanced. Both the second hand and the minute hand. They were moving too fast.
Did —Owada intend not to return the IDs? Or did Kaise miss hitting the target?
No, it's —Owada. There's no mistake.
The noon signal rang out. “By morning” was over.
Crap!
Someone turned on the television. The noon news was being broadcast. The next news was at three o'clock. The top story was certain to be the large-scale theft of IDs from J Prefectural Police.
Surely, it can't be.... A new worry rose up.
—Owada may have done his part and placed the IDs somewhere on the station grounds. But they hadn't been found. They might be in a hard place to locate. Perhaps that was it.
"Subsection Chief Ioka, come over here please."
EQMM, May 2008 Page 10
