“I’m sorry about all of this, really, I am,” he heard Uncle Shigehiro say.
“It’s not me you need to apologize to,” the familiar voice said. Now Kyohei was almost entirely sure who it was. He opened the sliding door.
Shigehiro and Setsuko were sitting down side by side, both of them looking surprised. The man standing facing them turned around. It was Kyohei’s father. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and his travel bag was on the floor next to him.
“Kyohei! How long have you been there?”
“I just came in. Why are you here, Dad?”
“Why? I’m here to come get you.”
“Already? You’re all done in Osaka? Where’s Mom?”
“No, the work’s not done. Your mom is still down there. We’re going to go join her.”
“What? I’m going to Osaka too?” Kyohei asked, confused.
“Yeah. We’re not so busy anymore, so it’s not like you’ll be stuck in a hotel all day. And it’s about that time when you start getting serious about your summer homework, isn’t it? I can help you if you’re down there with me.”
Kyohei stared at his father’s face. Something was wrong. There must have been some reason he came to pick him up early. Kyohei wondered what it was but didn’t ask. He was scared to hear the answer.
“Are we going to Osaka right away?”
“Well, no.” His father looked back toward Shigehiro and Setsuko, before returning his gaze to Kyohei. “Not right away. We won’t be leaving until tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yeah, there’s a few things we need to settle here first. Anyway, I’ve got you a room at a different hotel, so you can move there for the night.”
“Why? I can’t stay here?”
“Sorry, Kyohei,” Aunt Setsuko said, smiling. “It’s probably better for you to go. We’re a little busy here tonight.”
“Sorry,” his uncle echoed.
Kyohei grunted and shut the door. He walked down the hallway out into the lobby, where his eyes rested on a train schedule posted on the wall, and he stopped short.
When would you have to get on a train from Osaka to make it to Hari Cove by this time of day? He didn’t know for sure, but it must’ve been a really early bullet train, like the very first one of the morning. Why was Dad in such a rush to get here, and why are they kicking me out?
FORTY-SIX
Utsumi drove a dark red Mitsubishi Pajero. They’d been told to avoid using personal vehicles for investigations, but this was one regulation the usually straight-laced junior detective didn’t seem to mind ignoring. Kusanagi frequently ignored it himself, which was why he never said anything to her. In fact, today, she was giving him a ride.
They got off the freeway at the Chofu exit and drove to the hospital. There were two buildings: a square cream-colored one and a longer gray one. Utsumi told him the gray one was the hospice center.
She parked in the lot out front and they went in through the main entrance to the hospital. The air conditioners were running, and the inside of the building was cool. There were about a dozen people sitting on the long benches in the waiting room, though it was difficult to tell how many were patients and how many were just visitors.
Utsumi walked up to the information counter. She’d called ahead to confirm that the hospital director was in today.
The woman at the desk made a phone call, spoke a moment, and handed the receiver to Utsumi. She took it and turned around to face Kusanagi while she talked, a curious look on her face. Finally, she hung up, and after exchanging a few words with the woman at the front desk, Utsumi walked back over, looking relieved.
“The director says he’ll meet with us. He’s up on the second floor.”
“Was there a problem? You were on the phone for a while.”
“He said he was busy, and we should come back if it wasn’t an emergency.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I wanted to talk to him about Masatsugu Tsukahara. He knew immediately who I was talking about and asked if anything happened to him.”
“So he doesn’t know about the murder.”
“Apparently not. When I told him Tsukahara had passed away, he said he wanted to hear everything, and we should come up right away. He sounded shocked.”
“I’d imagine so,” Kusanagi said. “Let’s get up there.”
They took the stairs up and walked down the hall until they found the director’s office. Kusanagi knocked on the door, and a man’s voice from inside said, “Come in.”
The director was an older man wearing glasses and a white doctor’s coat. He had a large build, with white streaks running through his short-cropped hair. Kusanagi showed his police badge, and they exchanged cards. The hospital director’s name was Ikuo Shibamoto.
Shibamoto motioned for the detectives to sit down on a sofa and took a seat across from them. “I was very surprised to hear that Mr. Tsukahara passed away. When did this happen?”
“The body was found roughly five days ago in a place called Hari Cove.”
“Hari? What was he doing out there?”
“He was discovered having fallen on some rocks by the ocean. The exact details are still unclear.”
“I see,” Shibamoto said, looking down for a moment. “What is it you wanted to ask?”
Kusanagi straightened a little in his seat and looked the director straight in the eye. “We understand that you have a Mr. Hidetoshi Senba in your facility. And that it was Mr. Tsukahara who checked him in and paid for his treatment. Is this correct?”
Shibamoto looked a little bewildered, but when he spoke, his voice was steady. “That’s right.”
“When did he check Mr. Senba in?”
“Around the end of April.”
Kusanagi nodded. That fit with Tsukahara’s absence at the soup kitchen in Ueno from May onward.
“Pardon the intrusion, but what was your connection to Mr. Tsukahara, Director?”
Shibamoto was silent for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “About twenty years ago, we had a bit of difficulty concerning malpractice at the hospital. Someone on the staff leaked word that one of our doctors had made a mistake, a patient had died, and that there had been a hospital-wide effort to conceal what happened. Typically, it’s very difficult to prove malpractice, but in this case, every new piece of evidence that came to light was stacked heavily against the hospital. The doctor tried to assert his innocence, but the defense was a mess, losing critical pieces of evidence and the like, until the hospital was pushed into a corner. The director of the hospital at the time was my father, and the investigation took a toll on him.
“Masatsugu Tsukahara came to their rescue. He did the rounds, questioning everyone at the hospital until he found the informant, a nurse who’d been present at the surgery. It turns out that she’d fabricated the malpractice claim, trying to get back at the hospital for years of poor treatment.
“Her motives were infantile, yet her actions put the entire hospital in a very precarious position. If the truth of the matter hadn’t come to light, even if we’d been found not guilty of malpractice, the stain on our image would’ve been difficult to remove,” Shibamoto explained calmly.
“So when Mr. Tsukahara came to you with an ill homeless man with no residential card, you felt obligated to take him in?”
Shibamoto frowned for moment, but it soon faded. “If it hadn’t been Mr. Tsukahara who brought him, it would’ve been difficult to convince us to make the exception, yes.”
“How did Mr. Tsukahara explain the request to you? Did he mention his connection to Senba at all?”
“Not in much detail, no. He only said Senba was someone he had known for a long time.”
“And Mr. Tsukahara covered all of his hospital expenses?”
“The patient was penniless.”
“How is Mr. Senba’s condition? I’ve heard he’s in hospice care?”
A wrinkle formed between Shibamoto’s eyebrows, and he frowne
d. “We’re generally not supposed to talk about the condition of patients in our care, but I’ll make an exception, given the circumstances. As you said, he’s in our terminal care ward. Mr. Senba has a brain tumor.”
That was a surprise. Kusanagi had been expecting some other kind of cancer.
“Malignant, I assume?” Utsumi asked.
Shibamoto nodded, his face hard. “At the time when Mr. Tsukahara brought him here, he’d already deteriorated quite a bit. He could still walk, though he required a cane. His health was in bad shape, and he was emaciated. Mr. Tsukahara said that one of his friends, another homeless man, had been taking care of him, but if he’d found him even a week after he did, it might have been too late.”
“And there’s no hope for recovery?”
Shibamoto shrugged. “If there were, he wouldn’t be in hospice care. Surgery isn’t an option. His disease is so far progressed that there would be no point.”
Kusanagi sighed and leaned forward. “Is he conscious?”
“It depends. Would you like to see him?”
“If possible, yes.”
“Wait a minute,” Shibamoto said, standing. He walked over to his desk and picked up the phone. After exchanging a few words, he turned to look at the detectives. “The nurse says he’s doing well today. You can meet him now if you’d like.”
“Please,” Kusanagi said, standing.
Shibamoto nodded and spoke a few more words on the phone before putting it down. “We have a visiting room on the third floor of the hospice ward. Please wait there.”
Kusanagi and Utsumi thanked him and left. The hospice center was newer and wrapped in a deeper silence than the hospital. They took the elevator up to the third floor and followed the map they found posted on the wall. A nurse in a pink uniform was standing outside the room.
“You’re from the director’s office?” the nurse asked.
“Yes, thank you for letting us see him.”
Kusanagi went to show his badge, but the nurse smiled and raised her hand to tell him there was no need. “Please wait here. I’ll bring Mr. Senba.”
The nurse walked off, and Kusanagi and Utsumi went inside the visitors’ room. There were two small tables, with folding chairs on either side. No one else was in the room.
Kusanagi sat down on the nearest chair and looked around. The room was devoid of décor and had only a single round clock on the wall. He could hear the sound of the second hand ticking.
“It’s quiet,” he said. “Almost like time moves at a different pace here.”
“I’m guessing that’s on purpose,” Utsumi said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well…” She hesitated for a moment before continuing. “When you consider that everyone here has a limited amount of time left…”
Kusanagi grunted and leaned back in his chair.
They sat in silence until they heard a sound approaching: something rubbing against the floor outside. Eventually, Kusanagi realized it was the sound of wheels rolling across the tiles.
The noise stopped, and the door opened. The nurse reappeared, pushing a wheelchair in front of her. Sitting in the wheelchair was an old, emaciated man. His wrinkled skin clung to his bones, and the shape of his skull was clear beneath his wispy hair. His neck made Kusanagi think of a plucked chicken, and his hands where they emerged from the sleeves of his billowing pajamas looked like withered twigs.
Kusanagi and Utsumi both stood. The nurse pushed the wheelchair in front of them and put on the brake.
The old man remained facing the back wall, unmoving, except for his eyes, which twitched a little in their sunken sockets. Kusanagi knelt down and peered into those eyes. “Hidetoshi Senba?”
The man’s narrow jaw moved. “Yes,” he said. His voice was raspy but firmer than Kusanagi had imagined it would be.
Kusanagi showed the old man his badge. “We’re detectives from Tokyo homicide. I believe you know a Mr. Masatsugu Tsukahara?”
Senba blinked a few times, then said, “Yes.”
Kusanagi kept looking straight at him when he said, “I’m afraid Mr. Tsukahara has passed away.”
Senba’s sunken eyes opened wide, staring out into space. Though his face was pale, the skin around his eyes reddened as his mouth cracked open. “When? Where?”
“Several days ago, in a place called Hari Cove.”
“Hari…” Senba croaked, opening his eyes, then narrowing them. The wrinkles on his face shifted each time he moved. Then he groaned, a low, guttural sound that might’ve been a quiet scream. But he hardly moved. He was still facing the blank wall in front of him.
“The investigation is still ongoing, but there is a possibility that Mr. Tsukahara was murdered. I was hoping you might have some information that could help us.”
Senba’s eyes turned toward Kusanagi, not quite focusing.
“Mr. Senba. Do you know why Mr. Tsukahara went to Hari Cove? That’s near where your wife’s family lives, correct? Do you think there could be a connection?”
Senba’s mouth twitched, as if he was muttering.
Kusanagi was about to repeat his question when Senba turned his head a little and raised his left hand—a signal for the nurse to put her ear by his mouth. She nodded once or twice, then said, “Wait just a moment” to the detectives and left the room.
Senba sat in his chair, his eyelids closed. Kusanagi waited in silence.
When the nurse returned, she was carrying a piece of paper. She exchanged a few words with Senba, then held the paper out to Kusanagi.
It was a clipping from a newspaper article. The date read July 3. It was a call for applications to attend a hearing on undersea development in the Hari Cove area.
“The sea in Hari,” Senba suddenly began to speak. “The sea is a treasure to me. I wanted to know … to know what was going to happen to it, so I talked to Mr. Tsukahara.” He spoke slowly, mustering the strength for each word. “Mr. Tsukahara said … that he would go. He said he would hear what they were going to do. That’s why Mr. Tsukahara went to Hari Cove.”
“That’s all? Is there another reason why Mr. Tsukahara would have gone to Hari Cove?”
Senba shook his head, his face quivering. “No other reason.” Then he tilted his head again and raised his right hand. The nurse quickly undid the stopper on the wheelchair with her foot.
“Wait, I have a few more questions—”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Senba is tired now,” the nurse said, pushing the wheelchair out of the room.
Kusanagi exchanged glances with Utsumi and sighed.
They were outside the hospital, heading for the parking lot, when Kusanagi’s phone rang. It was from a public phone. Yukawa. He answered it.
“So, did you find out who did it?” Kusanagi asked.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What manner of speaking?”
“I was just told to leave the Green Rock Inn. It sounds like the Kawahatas are going to be leaving for some time.”
“Wait, they’re not—”
“They’re turning themselves in to the police.”
FORTY-SEVEN
Nishiguchi paced like a caged animal at the zoo. He glanced down at his watch. Only two minutes had passed since he’d last looked at it. He scratched his head and pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He had already loosened his tie, and his jacket was sitting back in the lobby of the Green Rock Inn.
It was a little after one thirty in the afternoon, and the sun was nearly at its zenith, blazing down from the nearly cloudless sky, baking the pavement beneath. He wanted to go back inside, where the air-conditioning would at least keep him cool, but then he’d have to be with the Kawahatas, and that was even more uncomfortable than this heat.
Soon he heard the sound of engines coming from up the hill, and several police cruisers arrived, followed by a van. They all had their lights blinking, but no sirens were on.
The lead cruiser pulled in while the rest remaine
d parked alongside the road.
Isobe and two of his men got out. Nishiguchi bowed to them.
“Where’s the suspect?” Isobe asked.
“Inside.”
“He’s saying he did it?”
“Not quite. He is saying it was his fault, though.”
Isobe frowned at that. “Any accomplices?”
“The wife helped get rid of the body.”
“And the daughter?”
“She … it seems like the daughter didn’t know anything.”
Isobe snorted to indicate he wasn’t buying any of it. He barked an order to his men, and the three of them headed for the door. Nishiguchi followed along behind.
The call had come from Narumi about an hour earlier. Nishiguchi had been eating lunch at a small police station to the east of East Hari. He’d spent the entire morning walking around, looking for people who’d seen Senba or Tsukahara, only to end up with empty hands and an emptier stomach. It was clear they were just making him walk around to prove there were no gaps in their questioning dragnet—busywork for a young officer.
Still, his heart had leapt a little when he saw the call from Narumi. The way his day had been going, an opportunity to talk to her was like a ray of sunshine through the clouds. But her voice was far darker than he had anticipated. She said she wanted him to come to the inn. She had something to tell him, but it didn’t sound like good news. He told her he’d be there right away and hung up. When he arrived at the Green Rock Inn, Narumi was waiting for him with her parents, all of their faces long.
When he asked them what had happened, Shigehiro Kawahata stepped forward and announced he was turning himself in for allowing Masatsugu Tsukahara to die, and trying to hide that fact by abandoning the body.
Nishiguchi had been taken aback. He hurriedly pulled out his notebook to write the words down, but his hand was shaking so badly he couldn’t write straight. It was hard enough to write the date.
Shigehiro spoke in a calm, orderly manner, and through his confusion, Nishiguchi slowly understood what the man was telling him. He immediately called his supervising officer, Motoyama, and was told to wait there.
A Midsummer's Equation: A Detective Galileo Mystery Page 23
