“You said that they were a contrasting pair.”
“Shingo did have some ambition even as a company employee. When he got laid off, it manifested in a negative direction. He hoped to become the CEO of his own venture, but when that fell through at the business plan stage, he abandoned his dream to launch his own company and tried to get rich quick through day trading. Whether it’s founding a venture or becoming a day trader, you usually put aside time for preparations and some sort of tutelage. But uninterested in any of that, he seemed to think that his innate talent was all he needed.”
“… It does rankle to have a stranger put it so baldly, but you said it.”
“When his day trading earnings dwindled, he deepened his wound by taking out a securities investment loan. Even then, he blamed his failed investments on market conditions and took no measures, and when a debt-collector drone began to visit his home, he just shut his eyes and made his daughter deal with it. I can go on and on, but in short he had a manifest tendency to be dependent on others.”
Yozo didn’t attempt to refute this and fell silent. What Mikoshiba said was all true and irrefutable.
“Have you heard of ‘co-dependence’?” asked the lawyer.
“No.”
“Let’s say you have a caregiver and a care receiver. The receiver naturally depends on the giver, but when the giver’s sense of self-worth is bound up with providing the care, you have co-dependence. I sense something of that nature from Shingo and Akiko’s relationship.”
“You mean Shingo withdrawing into himself and neglecting his family, and protecting it becoming Akiko’s purpose. Putting my daughter-in-law aside, it hurts to hear that Shingo was dependent on his family and others because that nails it. If you were to tell me that my own failings had a hand in his ‘character formation’—to borrow your term—I could only plead guilty.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t limited to his childhood years?”
“… What are you saying?”
“Actually, I had his trading history for the securities investment loan where he had his account disclosed to me yesterday.”
“His trading history. But an employee called Aoyagi already testified to the outline of Shingo’s debts in court, didn’t he?”
“On its own, the testimony merely exposed Shingo’s irresponsibility, but when you take a close look at his trading history, you notice a factor that enabled his irresponsible behavior.” Mikoshiba explained how additional collateral worth about 100,000 yen in cash terms had been deposited four times over the two months before the incident. “By then, Shingo had used up almost all of his savings to make interest payments and, moreover, had no income. So how did he come up with that 400,000 yen? He doesn’t seem to have had significant assets outside of his bank account. Akiko, who was barely making ends meet, couldn’t afford it, either. The most likely possibility is funding from a third party. Sir, was it you by any chance?”
Mikoshiba paused there; Yozo cast down his eyes and emitted a low groan.
“That’s right, sensei,” he admitted. “I was indeed the one who gave money to that good-for-nothing.”
“Why did you keep silent about it?”
“Because it was an embarrassment, not only for Shingo but for me.” The elder Tsuda sounded fairly disgusted with himself. “He might have been over forty, but he was still my son. I’m past seventy but was still his parent. No matter how foolish, unreliable, or incompetent, if he stood on the brink of ruin, I wanted to help him. Does that also count as the ‘co-dependence’ you mentioned earlier?”
“I wouldn’t go so far, but token acts of sympathy can just drag out a problem.”
“Token? It came out of my pension, and I felt like I was paying an arm and leg.”
“Pardon me. But against Shingo’s total debts, it was a drop in a bucket.”
“You’re as frank as ever.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. But if you had pushed him away, Tokyo Mortgage would have gotten fed up and sold his securities. Real estate, though, can’t be hawked off as easily, so the family wouldn’t have been forced out on the spot. As a result, the enormous loan would have remained, with the creditors having to cry themselves to sleep as long as the debtor lacked the means to repay. It wouldn’t have been impossible for Shingo to seek court protection under the Civil Rehabilitation Law. With personal bankruptcy, at least real estate doesn’t need to be sold.”
“I had thought about that, too.”
“I believe you, since district welfare officers are often asked for advice on debt. Why didn’t you recommend that course to your son?”
“That idiot … Shingo … wouldn’t listen, saying bankruptcies and civil rehabilitations were for losers.”
In other words, he had conceded to his fool son’s vanity. Akiko must have made the same suggestion as Yozo and been likewise turned down. Really, both wife and father had been busy accommodating the man and exacerbating the situation.
“Because my younger, Takahiro, is such a good son, Shingo seemed all the more helpless. But it’s hard to push away precisely such a child. You probably wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
This was intended as neither sarcasm nor a rebuke. Many parents made similar remarks. It wasn’t that such children were hard to push away, though. Rather, the distance that it would create scared people.
Yozo let out a deep sigh drawn from the bottom of his lungs. “I can tell what you’re thinking, sensei. I don’t care if I’m called a doting parent or if I’m berated as a coward. But I do want Akiko and my granddaughters to get back to having a peaceful life together. Please believe me when I say that.”
Mikoshiba merely gazed down on Yozo’s humbly bowed head.
“Actually, sensei … I have another thing that I must tell you.”
“What might it be?”
“For the final session tomorrow, I’ve been summoned as a witness for the prosecution.”
“And the nature of your testimony?”
“They said it concerns my financial assistance to Shingo.”
Mikoshiba snorted. If he had noticed the angle, it was a given that Misaki would, too. The idea was probably to underscore Akiko’s murderous intent with supplementary evidence of the victim’s failures as a provider.
“Sensei, how should I answer the prosecutor?”
“Just be honest. Trying to conceal something from him will only come back to bite you. Well, then.”
When Mikoshiba stood up, Yozo asked with an imploring look, “Are the odds … in our favor?”
“I don’t base my work on odds.”
Leaving Yozo behind, Mikoshiba headed to the front door, where Rinko awaited him.
“What now?” he demanded.
The girl uncharacteristically avoided eye contact. “It’s tomorrow, isn’t?”
“Are you coming too, or what? Thank you, but you’d just be a bother.”
“Rinko will wait outside. Grandma is also coming tomorrow.”
“Grandma?”
“Mommy’s mommy.”
So it was going to be a family get-together of sorts. But in a murder case where the victim shared the same blood, hardly anyone would be cheering, whatever the outcome.
Hardly anyone but Mikoshiba.
— 2 —
The final arguments of the appeal trial.
Five minutes before opening, Mikoshiba got out of an elevator and headed to Courtroom #822.
Glancing at the waiting room on the way, he saw Rinko but hurried past. She didn’t seem to notice him.
In the courtroom, Prosecutor Misaki and the visitors had already taken their seats. Today, Misaki had a rather calm look on his face compared to the last two sessions. He glanced at Mikoshiba and retracted his gaze just as quickly. He wasn’t pretending to be composed to hide his anxiety. He seemed confident that the final arguments would proceed with the prosecution sustaining its advantage. The advice that Mikoshiba had dispensed at the end in the basement cafeteria
must not have gotten through, then.
Fine. The enemy isn’t Misaki.
Towards the back of the gallery was a figure that looked quite out of place in the courtroom. A lean-faced old woman with well-coiffed silver hair was looking down silently, waiting for the session to begin. She was probably Akiko’s mother.
Led by a detention officer, the defendant entered, her gait as trudging as ever. Though she had wanted her sentence reduced, she seemed to have concluded that she didn’t stand much of a chance.
Looking back, it was to delve into the past hidden under her lifeless expression that Mikoshiba had journeyed to western Japan. He’d pursued a ray of hope that he’d glimpsed, but the result was a process of verifying what the woman had lost—and now wanted to protect.
It struck Mikoshiba then that he, too, was trying to protect something in lieu of what he’d lost. Maybe such a notion lurked somewhere beneath his conscious decision to defend Akiko.
The usual solemn quietude reigned in the courtroom. Hushed voices sometimes came from the gallery but dissipated just as soon.
Before long, the three judges entered. Everybody stood up.
The final round—the bell rang in Mikoshiba’s mind.
In the presiding judge’s seat, Sanjo looked his typical mild-mannered self. Would he continue to wear that gentle expression until the end, or would it change into dejection? It all depended on how Mikoshiba argued his case.
“The court is now in session. At the previous session, the defense said that it would submit new evidence … Defense attorney, it seems not to have been submitted beforehand this time, either.”
“I am very sorry, your honor. It took a while to prepare. I was planning to present it to the court today.”
“In that case, the prosecution has already submitted a request to call a new witness. May we proceed with that first?”
“By all means.”
“Then, the witness for the prosecution, please.”
As expected, it was Yozo that a court attendant ushered to the witness stand. Misaki coughed once and stood up.
“Witness, please state your name and vocation.”
“Yozo Tsuda. I am a district welfare worker.”
“You are the father of the victim, Shingo Tsuda, and also testified previously, yes?”
“Yes.”
“First, please look at Evidence B-23 in front of you: the debt-receivables management table in the name of the victim submitted by Tokyo Mortgage. What we should pay attention to are the entries during the two months before the incident, from March 8th on.”
This “Evidence B-23” indicated by Misaki was identical to what Aoyagi had showed Mikoshiba the other day.
“March 8th and 18th, April 11th and 28th. Each time, a thousand shares of Sekiwa Ceramics were pledged as additional collateral. Sekiwa Ceramics, a low-price stock, cost about a hundred yen at the time. In other words, including the fees, the value of each additional collateral pledge was about 100,000 yen.”
Mikoshiba was already familiar with the brand’s summary info as well. Though Sekiwa Ceramics shares had depreciated after a series of scandals, this was still a firm listed in the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. If its performance recovered, or if there were other positive factors, the price might rise sharply. It was precisely the kind of long shot that Shingo went for.
“Now, I would like to ask the witness. At the time, the victim had no income, so it is hard to imagine that he could purchase new shares with his own funds. Regarding the four additional collateral pledges, was it you who provided the money?”
“I did provide cash to him at around the dates you mentioned—”
“Your honor,” Mikoshiba intervened without a moment’s delay. “The prosecution is prompting the witness in a misleading way. Nobody but the victim knows how the money that the witness provided was spent.”
“The uses for a sum on the order of 100,000 yen were quite limited for the victim, who tended to shut himself up in his room,” Misaki went on as if he had fully expected the interruption. “Moreover, the prosecution will be calling upon another witness to this point.”
“Please continue,” ruled Sanjo.
“Now, I will ask the witness again. You said that you provided money to the victim four times, but did you do so on your own initiative?”
“No, uh …” mumbled Yozo. “I know he was a bad son, but please allow me not to go into those details.”
Mikoshiba thought that the phrasing was classic Yozo, but it still assented to the prosecution’s narrative.
Indeed satisfied, Misaki nodded and said, “Then let me ask you instead. Did you hand the money to him directly?”
“No. I had it transmitted to his bank account.”
“Why go through the hassle? You live nearby, so handing it to him would seem faster and easier.”
“He said that his dealings with the securities brokerage occurred via his bank account. A transfer would be more convenient for him.”
“Securities brokerage. So the victim pretty much confessed at that point that he was going to purchase stock with your monetary assistance.”
“That would seem to be the case.”
“Hearing that, why did you still provide money to him? ‘Throwing cash at a fleeing thief’ might be going too far, but it was like pouring it down the drain.”
“Shingo said that without the money he would have to part with his house. I certainly never hated my son, but, more than that, I pitied his wife and daughters.”
Nice, thought Mikoshiba, observing the exchange. Contrary to Misaki’s intentions, Yozo’s testimony was merely worsening the court’s impression of the victim.
“The house where my daughter-in-law and grandchildren lived would change hands, and as a parent—”
But Misaki handled his reins better than that. “Um, witness, that will be enough. I well understand the situation. I have no further questions for you,” he cut off Yozo, who seemed to want to say more. Then, turning to Sanjo, the prosecutor said, “I request that the accused testify upon the matter.”
“Proceed.”
“I ask the defendant. Were you aware of this funding for the victim that was testified to just now?”
Akiko kept her head down and didn’t reply. She seemed like an empty shell.
“Defendant?”
“… I was,” she spoke in an oddly hoarse voice for the first time that day.
“How did you become aware of it?”
“When I looked at the bankbook, I saw a transfer in my father-in-law’s name … I posted our bankbook regularly to confirm auto-payment of utilities.”
“I see. Then, was the next destination of the sum recorded there, too?”
“Yes. On the day the money was transferred, almost the same amount was conveyed to a securities brokerage. Because it was also in my husband’s name, I realized that it was his doing.”
Misaki’s “other witness to the point” had meant this. The wife being on top of the household account was no surprise. And if she had become aware of the cash flow, how things unfolded next wasn’t hard to imagine.
“Did you ever ask Yozo, himself, or the victim about the transfer from Yozo?”
“I asked my father-in-law. He said that he sent the money because my husband had begged that he was in desperate need.”
“Hearing the reason, what did you think about your husband?”
Don’t! Mikoshiba nearly shouted, but it was already too late.
“I felt hatred for him.”
She could not have put it more decisively.
Use your head a little before you open your damn mouth!
Mikoshiba almost mistook who his adversary was at this court. He’d told the woman several times not to offer any testimony that would imply any intention to kill Shingo, and now this.
But no, rather than blame Akiko for being a pushover, he needed to give Misaki’s wiliness its due. Having Yozo testify about the funding first had made Akiko feel guilty and asha
med. Misaki had taken advantage of that to get through her guard.
Next, Misaki uttered just the words that Mikoshiba would have in the prosecution’s position. “Why did you feel hatred for him?”
“He couldn’t have not known how tight our budget had become. If he’d begged Father-in-Law for money to help the family, I would have felt ashamed and sorry, but understood. Yet using the money for his own amusement …”
Describing it not as offsetting debt but “his own amusement” reflected Akiko’s mindset all too well. And it, too, was the result of Misaki priming the pump. Only someone versed in the dark and ugly murmurings of the heart could have pulled it off, and Mikoshiba felt like he was bearing witness to Misaki’s endless manipulations of suspects past.
“In short, you came to feel strong hatred for the victim for not considering his family even under such circumstances?”
He was moving in for the kill.
“Your honor. That is a leading question. Not once during her testimony has the defendant described the intensity of her feelings.”
“Acknowledged. The prosecution should be accurate in citing the defendant’s testimony.”
Misaki bowed toward Sanjo, but it was obviously pro forma. The judge, too, had anticipated Mikoshiba’s objection but not interrupted Misaki. The ship was gliding toward a total victory for the prosecution.
“Then, I will pose a different question. In your previous testimony, you said that you felt anger as a result of repeated demands by a financial firm. Now, you said that you hated the victim for wasting the money that his father kindly handed over to him on his own amusement. Anger and hatred. Had these emotions become constant? Before the incident, in particular?”
“… I’m not sure.”
“Not sure? These were your own feelings.”
“For a whole week before the day we quarreled, I hadn’t spoken a word to him. My struggles to support my daughters and myself occupied me more than my husband … Putting aside specific moments, I mostly cared about my children’s future.”
“This ends my questioning.”
Well done, Mikoshiba felt like praising Akiko a bit the moment he saw the sour look on Misaki’s face. Regardless of how Sanjo had received this, at least she’d avoided giving the worst possible impression. In fact, she’d even set up a counterstrike.
Nocturne of Remembrance Page 22
