Nocturne of Remembrance

by Shichiri Nakayama

  “Please share with me the sequence of events when you found the body.”

  “I explained almost all of that in my disposition. That day, I received a call from the Saitos, their neighbor, saying that there was loud quarrelling from Shingo’s place again. If the quarrel didn’t let up, I intended to at least take the grandchildren back to my house. I did not see anyone when I entered. Walking through the hallway, I found that the dressing-room door was open, and there was a blue tarp with Shingo’s body on it. And in the bathroom, Akiko was doggedly washing off the blood that had spattered on the walls.”

  “It was apparent that she was trying to hide the crime, right?”

  “Even if that’s wrong, wouldn’t most people? If a large sum of money sat somewhere and no one was watching, who wouldn’t pick it up? But the moment that Akiko noticed me, she snapped out of it. She was the one who asked me to call the police. She’s good at heart, you see.”

  Speaking directly to the involved parties made it clear that depositions were, in the end, evidence for the prosecution. If the jury had heard Yozo’s testimony, the sentence probably would have been lighter. The problem was that the spotlight had been cast exclusively on the points he’d been reluctant to reveal.

  “I will probably be troubling you again.”

  It was just as Mikoshiba returned to the front door that Rinko came flying out from the back.

  “You’re leaving already?” she complained.

  “I asked everything I wanted.”

  “See you again, then!”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Meanie,” Rinko pouted, but Mikoshiba ignored her and left Yozo’s home.

  Mikoshiba’s next stop was Akiko’s workplace. Driving north along a thoroughfare, he made a left past Setagaya Elementary and continued on until a group of multi-tenant buildings appeared. The office he was headed for was amongst them.

  He found the building he was looking for and confirmed it by the tenant board on the first floor. The Midorikawa Accounting Firm was on the eighth.

  The man whom Akiko supposedly fancied, Kenichi Yoshiwaki, was tall and slender. He looked more like an athlete than a CPA with his sharp jaw line.

  “I understand that you are here regarding Ms. Tsuda. I think I’ve already said everything that I have to say …”

  Yoshiwaki didn’t try to hide his annoyance. Mikoshiba had made sure to schedule an appointment, but the frenzy was palpable even amidst the tranquility that prevailed on the floor. Everyone was concentrating on the work in front of them, and no one said a word. The small meeting area he was led to was separated from the rest of the floor only by an acrylic partition. Their conversation would be overheard, a fact that no doubt contributed to Yoshiwaki’s annoyance.

  “Having taken over this case as an attorney, I can’t rest until I’ve confirmed some things with you in person. If here is not convenient, would you like a change of venue?”

  “No, this will do. I can’t make the time to step out.”

  Yoshiwaki’s best effort at sarcasm had no effect on Mikoshiba, who said, “Thank you for allowing me this opportunity.”

  He bowed his head for the sake of formality and sat down. He had readily surmised from their initial exchange that the title of “attorney” cowed Yoshiwaki. People who gauged their counterparts based on the title on a business card at their first meeting were the easiest sort to deal with or to dupe. Mikoshiba was going to help himself.

  “Regarding your testimony, Mr. Yoshiwaki, I have read the deposition. I understand that Akiko Tsuda was merely your co-worker, no more.”

  “No more and no less. First of all, although I treated her a number of times, it was never more than lunch at a nearby restaurant. It was nothing romantic.”

  This was the first time Mikoshiba had heard that the invitations had been to lunch. The implication changed drastically between repasts during office hours and after hours.

  “To begin with, my girlfriend always makes my dinner and brings it to the office. If I had dinner with another woman, there’d be bloodshed.”

  “I see. Then there was no more of a relationship than having lunch together sometimes.”

  “Exactly as I have told the police. This is not nice to say, but do you really think I’d ask a woman like Ms. Tsuda out on a date?”

  Mikoshiba lined up Akiko with the man who sat before him. True, the plain-looking Akiko, worn down by life, hardly seemed a good match for Yoshiwaki, who cut a fairly manly and dashing figure.

  “Well, conversely, was there ever any sort of approach from her side?”

  “That’s the thing, I can’t recall anything of the sort, either. Since I don’t remember being on the giving or receiving end of an amorous glance, I was really flabbergasted when the police summoned me as a person of interest.”

  Yoshiwaki continued to look straight at Mikoshiba. Unless you were either a compulsive fabricator or an extremely good actor, there was always some telltale sign when you fibbed. Mikoshiba, who by then had met an unlimited number of liars, didn’t think that Yoshiwaki was being untruthful.

  “Um, no matter how you look at her, Ms. Tsuda is more ‘Mom’ than woman. You get my nuance, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes. Sort of.”

  “During break, our conversation once turned to our private lives. All she talked about was her two daughters. The older one was prone to illness, but the younger one made up for that by being a handful. Since that’s all that came out of her mouth, I could only see her as a mother. Really, she never once said anything that sounded like a come-on or like she was angling for a date. Under those circumstances, it’s improbable for me to have invited her to a hotel bar or further.”

  “And yet, Ms. Tsuda testified that she knew from your little gestures that you had feelings for her. Does it not ring any bells with you?”

  “Absolutely none,” denied Yoshiwaki, his inflection containing some anger, too. “I’ve been greatly inconvenienced by this baseless talk. It’s like I’ve been made the motive for a murder. My girlfriend even started suspecting that I was having an affair. Look, I know that I can be a bit insensitive, but if she had liked me enough to want to kill her husband, I would have noticed.”

  “Why would she drag in a totally unrelated party, though?”

  “How should I know? Maybe she took out life insurance on him and killed him, but it would make such a bad impression that she threw out my name.”

  Yoshiwaki’s point was plausible, but it wasn’t as if the police hadn’t looked into insurance possibilities. In the documents transferred from Horai, too, the monthly payments were clearly listed as Shingo’s loan obligations. However, the amount to be received was only twenty million yen, well within the normal range, and the policy had been taken out while he’d been employed.

  When Mikoshiba explained that, Yoshiwaki twisted his lips and retorted, “There are wives who’d kill their husbands for twenty million. It’s just a matter of whether he’s worth that much or not.”

  Well, Mikoshiba thought, that’s another way of looking at it. Did people who deal with numbers all day, every day, put a monetary value on people’s lives as well? Or was it just Yoshiwaki? In either case, this testimony was very important.

  According to Mikoshiba’s recollection, the balance due on the Tsudas’ mortgage was slightly under twenty million yen. Even if they collected on his life insurance, the money would all be gone once it was paid off. Getting rid of an eyesore husband and a mortgage at the same time, however, could be a matter for celebration. It offered a valid move for the prosecution. Put another way, Mikoshiba needed to be ready to defend against it.

  “You said that you discussed private things over break. At that time, did Ms. Tsuda ever mention her husband?”

  “Her husband? Nope. It was all about her two daughters when she brought up her family.”

  A middle-aged guy had shut himself in and cut himself off even from his family. Though it certainly wasn’t a pleasant subject that was fit to discuss
with coworkers, it was a card that the defense could use.

  “As you know, Ms. Tsuda has appealed her sentence. I might ask you to testify in court.”

  Yoshiwaki opened his mouth, apparently to protest, but Mikoshiba didn’t forget to warn him.

  “It’s the responsibility of all dutiful citizens. Surely a CPA isn’t an undutiful one?”

  — 2 —

  When Misaki visited the Setagaya Police Station, the chief, the deputy chief, and Hatsuda, who handled the violent crimes, were at the entrance to greet him.

  Misaki wanted to tell them it was embarrassing and to stop, but he recalled that he’d told them just that before, clearly to no avail, and his spirits sagged. Lecturing people who believed wholeheartedly that bowing their heads proved fealty was a sad waste of time.

  “Let’s drop the formal greetings. As I said on the phone, I am here regarding the Akiko Tsuda case. I want to speak to the person in charge of taking her disposition.”

  “That would be me,” Hatsuda spoke up fearfully.

  It was uncommon for the deputy chief prosecutor to drop in on a precinct that had conducted the investigation. The chief and the others’ apprehension about his visit was painfully obvious to Misaki, but he could not care less.

  “Was the questioning of Akiko Tsuda recorded?”

  “Yes, sir. Given that this was a quasi-jury trial case, the entire process was filmed and recorded.”

  “Good. I want to see it immediately.”

  Having said so, Misaki promptly entered the station. Proceeding without waiting for an answer got them started on the matter at hand without any further greetings or formalities. For those on the receiving end, it was probably quite distressing, but there was no faster way of getting things done. Misaki realized that it would probably generate negative talk about him, but he wasn’t the type to mind. If it helped improve work efficiency, he had no hesitation whatsoever about using tangible and intangible authority.

  Preliminary attempts to introduce transparency into interrogations had been made some time ago, and by now the proceedings were recorded not only for quasi-jury trials but for over ninety percent of cases that the prosecution would investigate independently. The practice assured that the testimony hadn’t been coerced by the interrogators and thus played a positive role in proving guilt. Of course, awareness that everything was being recorded made the accused less talkative, and sometimes silent when it came to accomplices, so it wasn’t all hunky-dory. Confessions becoming harder to obtain was a negative, but reducing the possibility of false charges was salubrious.

  While Misaki was all for getting the accused convicted, he was also very strict about cases sent to the prosecutor’s office by the police. The first step to false charges was prejudiced investigations and coerced confessions. If the prosecution didn’t assiduously perform its double-checking function from the get-go, the accused would have to bear the prejudice and coercion as a cross. That was something that an administrator of justice had to avoid.

  This time, however, Misaki was going up against that Reiji Mikoshiba, on whose account he’d eaten crow, and he couldn’t scrutinize carefully enough each piece of evidence that the prosecution would be offering.

  Misaki was led to a separate room, where he watched the recording of the interrogation. It spanned several hours, but by speeding it up to where he could still decipher what they were saying, he got through it much quicker than he’d feared.

  Hatsuda nervously inquired, “Were there any improprieties?”

  There was no coercion or leading questions in the interrogation itself, which began and ended with Akiko Tsuda’s confession. Indeed, it bore nary a whiff of a wrongful accusation and was evidentiary material worthy of submitting even to the Supreme Court.

  Yet Misaki wasn’t completely relieved of his anxiety. “There doesn’t seem to be any problems. Were you, yourself, actually present during the questioning?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How did Akiko Tsuda appear to you? Did you speak more roughly than was necessary, or coerce her with your bearing if not verbally?”

  “This was a case where all the evidentiary material was gathered by the investigators the moment they arrived at the crime scene, so she could repudiate nothing. As shown in the video, the testimony went smoothly and we experienced no difficulties.”

  That was apparent from what he’d seen on-screen. Misaki felt, however, that Hatsuda’s confidence was precarious. One of Mikoshiba’s tactics was precisely to bore a hole in a wall that you imagined to be perfect and to use that gap to sunder your robust logic. Nothing in this world was perfect. If it seemed to be, that simply betrayed your bias.

  With that, Misaki hit on something. “A husband that was an eyesore, a dreamed-up affair—in short, it seems like a blind-love entanglement through and through, but wasn’t there anything fishy relating to money?”

  “Money, sir?”

  “Cash, any loans, inheritance, insurance money, etc., etc. Wasn’t there any way that Akiko Tsuda would profit from Shingo Tsuda’s death? Her disposition doesn’t seem to cover that point.”

  “Uh-Uhm, the murder wasn’t motivated by money …”

  “So you didn’t bother to touch on that in the deposition? That’s carelessness. If there was any financial gain to be had from his death, it’s supporting evidence regarding her motive. I want you to immediately look into Akiko and Shingo’s assets and loans and debts.”

  “Um …”

  “There’s something else, too. The actual interrogators of the accused and persons of interest: Lieutenant Kamiyama, Sergeant Takagi, and Sergeant Kuroda. Bring them here. I want some details about the questioning straight from them.”

  This, as one might expect, ruffled Hatsuda, who had presided over the investigation, and he showed it by glaring at Misaki as he said, “Excuse me, but why are you being so insistent about this case? We scored a complete victory in the first trial, and we even have the accused’s confession.”

  “The defense attorney for the appeal trial is a guy named Reiji Mikoshiba. Do you know him?”

  Hatsuda scowled right away when he heard the name. “Him? Of course I know his name. But isn’t he still in the hospital?”

  “Following his discharge the other day, it seems he was assigned immediately to this case. It was a sleight of hand, perpetrated at lightning speed.”

  “Was this change of attorneys at the request of Akiko Tsuda? Ah, I bet she got his name in jail from some nasty character.”

  “No, he offered himself via her previous attorney. The switch was all Mikoshiba’s doing from the start.”

  Hatsuda thought about it with a puzzled look on his face. “That really is strange,” he admitted. “Akiko Tsuda is nothing like Mikoshiba’s other clients. He couldn’t demand exorbitant fees from her.”

  “That’s exactly why you have to look into the Tsuda family’s assets again. Who’s to say there aren’t any that our side overlooked? Although the chances are probably slim.”

  “Why is that, sir?”

  “If she were aiming for financial gain from the outset, the deed wouldn’t have been so clumsy. She would’ve planned and gone about it in a way that would deflect suspicion from her, at least.”

  “In that case, Mikoshiba has some other goal in mind …”

  “Which isn’t clear to me, which is why I’m here.”

  This alone seemed to have convinced Hatsuda, and he nodded. The name Reiji Mikoshiba elicited the same impression across disparate standpoints and institutions. “I’ve been burnt more than once by that lawyer, too. We arrested a gang boss for violating the Swords and Firearms Control Law, and before we knew it he was out on probation. It felt like a big catch we’d finally reeled in had been snatched from us and released. I can’t tell you how much that lowered the team’s morale.”

  “And Mikoshiba’s compensation? He defended a gang. In any case, it would not be modest.”

  “It’s unconfirmed, but reportedly the boss looked pretty p
ale when they let him go. He must have been billed a king’s ransom.”

  “With clients like that, he’s lucky not to get garroted.”

  “If you’re the type who would hate to live behind bars and need reinforcements, I guess no one is more dependable. For the other side, though, there’s no worse nemesis. Whoever stabbed him was probably one of them.”

  “So he’s an avaricious daredevil, which makes it all the more perplexing that he’d stick his nose into this case.”

  “I wonder whether he has some grudge against the force or the prosecution.”

  “You mean he’s venting his anger by embarrassing us? No. I remember his expression when he won a decision against me. He didn’t even throw a glance our way. If he really wanted to get back at us, a guy like him would make a show of it.”

  Looking at Hatsuda, who sank into silence, once again Misaki had misgivings. A simple incident with a simple motive, an uncomplicated first trial—rereading the court records hadn’t revealed any flaws in the prosecution’s claims. What on earth about this case was enticing Mikoshiba, and where had he found a hole?

  Misaki shook his head. Since thinking about it yielded no conclusions, he could only attend to whatever he could think of. Fill the inner and outer moats, and post troops at every gate. Then wait for the other side’s next move.

  “When he took over, the only thing he asked for was the court record. I’m in the midst of reviewing it, but I want to be ready to rebut any additional evidence that he might produce. It might be a hassle for the precinct, but given who we are up against, there is no such thing as being too cautious.”

  “I will go get the three interrogators right away.”

  “It goes without saying, but you might want to mention Mikoshiba by name. I think that will make it easier to secure the investigators’ full cooperation.