There had been a number of question marks left over after the Kawahatas gave their first testimony, but after Sawamura turned himself in, the remaining contradictions had disappeared. That only left the question of why Tsukahara had come out to Hari Cove in the first place, but from what Nonogaki said, it sounded like they had an answer for that now, too. Maybe the case really was closed.
But what Yukawa had said as he was leaving the bar stuck in Nishiguchi’s mind.
While they were questioning the Kawahatas down at the police department, forensics had indeed been up at the Green Rock Inn, trying to reproduce what had happened the night Tsukahara died. The first report to the task force had confirmed the cracks in the wall of the Ocean Room and the presence of exhaust from the boiler pipe. Next, all they would have to do would be to make the boiler malfunction and see if it pumped enough carbon monoxide into the room.
But it had been hours, and the only word from the team was, “We don’t know what happened.”
FIFTY-THREE
Narumi opened the window and felt a warm breeze blow in, carrying the scent of the sea. Outside, the seawall and the road floated in the light of the streetlamps overhead. Everything else, including the ocean beyond, was lost in inky blackness.
She pulled out her phone and checked the time. It was almost 9:00 p.m.
She heard someone running up the steps, and the door opened. Wakana Nagayama came in, carrying a bag from the convenience store in one hand and a cooler in the other.
“Hey, thanks for waiting. Well, they had absolutely nothing down there. I got some sandwiches and some rice balls, and, yeah, that’s about it. Oh, and some instant miso soup and a few snacks to go with the beer.” She laughed, emptying the contents of the bag on the table.
“Thanks and sorry for the trouble,” Narumi said.
“Don’t mention it,” Wakana said, dismissing her with a wave of a deeply tanned hand in front of a deeply tanned face. “That’s what friends are for, right? Helping each other out. And I’m honored you chose me to mooch off of, really, I am. I know the place isn’t much, but you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need, babe.”
“Thanks.”
“So, what’ll it be? If you want some of the miso, I’ll go downstairs and get some water on,” she said, picking up a cup of instant soup.
“No, I’m fine for now. Got anything to drink?”
“Oh ho ho, if it’s drinks you’re after, you’ve come to the right place,” Wakana said, opening the cooler. “We’ve got beer, we’ve got wine coolers, we’ve got everything. What’ll it be?”
“Any tea?”
“Coming up,” Wakana said, pulling out a plastic bottle of green tea.
Narumi took a sip, feeling the cool liquid trickle down her throat as she looked out the window. She reflected back on the events of the day. None of it felt real.
They had released her from the police station a little after eight o’clock. Sawamura’s confession had cleared her of any suspicion, but that hadn’t stopped them from asking her a million more questions and making her wait around for no reason whatsoever. In the end, she’d spent most of the day there. By the time she walked out, she was so exhausted she wanted to collapse in the parking lot and take a nap right there on the asphalt.
She couldn’t even go home and crash, because the Green Rock Inn was off-limits. Worse, the detectives had practically ordered her to call them once she knew where she was going to be staying, so that was hanging over her the whole time. They wouldn’t tell her anything about her parents, either.
After agonizing over it for a while, she’d finally called her friend who worked a part-time job at a marine sports shop. Wakana was studying at a university in Tokyo and came back to Hari to work during the summer. Narumi had taught her when she tested for her scuba instructor’s license two years ago.
She’d told Wakana over the phone what had happened, and Wakana had come to pick her up right away. On the way back to her place, Wakana hadn’t asked any questions. She’d just wanted to be sure that Narumi was okay, confirming Narumi’s suspicion that she’d made an excellent choice of friend to turn to.
She looked up and noticed that Wakana was drinking tea too.
“You can have a beer, you know,” she said. In addition to her skills as a diver, Wakana was an accomplished drinker.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“Don’t go dry on my account. I won’t last a day if I have to deal with a grumpy Wakana!”
Wakana grinned. “Well, if you put it that way.” She put her bottle of tea back in the cooler and pulled out a beer, cracked it open, and took a long swig. “Ah, that’s nice,” she sighed.
Narumi smiled at her friend and found herself wondering what Yukawa would say if he saw Wakana—maybe the same thing he had said to Narumi about not seeming like the country type. Thinking of Yukawa made her think of the Green Rock Inn. She wondered what would happen to it now. Her father had talked about selling it, but who would buy a rundown inn where someone had died? It would cost money to tear it down if they just wanted to try to sell the land. And Narumi still had to find a place to live. Wakana had offered her flat for as many days as she needed it, but Narumi knew there was a limit to that. Ultimately, she guessed she would be going back to Tokyo. She looked up. “Can I borrow your van?”
“My van? Sure, but if you want to go someplace, I’m happy to drive you.”
“No, it’s okay, I’m just going home quickly.”
“To the inn?”
“I need a change of clothes and my makeup. And money. The detective said it was okay as long as I told the guard.”
“All right. I guess that makes sense. I don’t think many of my clothes would fit you anyway,” she said, putting down her beer can and standing.
Wakana’s room was on the second floor of the shop. They went down the stairs, through the dark shop interior, and outside. The van was parked right in front. Narumi took the keys from Wakana and got in. Though the make was different from the one that they had at the inn, she was used to driving vans. “Drive safely,” Wakana said as she pulled out.
She drove along the empty coast road and started up the slope past the station. Pretty soon the inn came into view. There were several red flashing lights out front, like the kind they put up at construction sites. The young officer in uniform was sitting on a folding chair out front, but he stood when he saw the van approach.
Narumi stopped the van and explained herself to the guard. He opened the front door, talked to someone inside, then told her she could go in. A middle-aged, overweight officer was standing inside the lobby. He had the TV on, tuned to a show with some comedians talking loudly.
“You mind if I go with you?” the officer asked. “If someone finds out I let you go in by yourself, I’ll get in trouble.”
Narumi nodded and went inside. The police officer turned off the television and followed her in.
In her room, she pulled a large traveling bag out of the closet and started cramming whatever clothes she could find into it.
“So, what’s your plan? Kind of a tough situation, huh,” he said. Narumi shrugged and didn’t say anything.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” he continued. “A long time ago, I was stationed at the police box out by the train station. I was there for twenty-some years. Hari Cove was bustling back then, you know. This place was pretty busy too. But it’s hard these days, with the economy in the tank. Who has the time or the money to fix every little thing that goes wrong in these places? I sympathize with your pops, I really do. Just a stroke of bad luck, that’s what it was. Well, that and throwing out the body. If he hadn’t done that…”
Narumi had stopped listening to him halfway through his monologue, but he didn’t seem to mind. Her bag packed, she left the room. As soon as they were back in the lobby, the policeman turned the TV back on and sat down on the wicker bench without so much as a nod in her direction.
When she opened the front door, she heard voic
es talking outside. It sounded like they were arguing.
“I’m sorry, but those are the rules,” the young officer from before was saying. “No one not associated with the investigation is allowed inside.”
“Like I said, I’m associated. I was staying here until just this morning.”
“That’s not associated enough.”
“How associated do I have to be? Where’s the cutoff? Explain.”
It was Yukawa, staring the young officer down, a scowl across his face.
“Mr. Yukawa?” she called out to him.
“Just the person I wanted to see,” he said. “Can you please ask this fellow to let me inside, just for a little? I’ve tried talking with him myself, but it’s absolutely no use. He speaks in riddles.”
“You’re the one speaking in riddles,” the officer retorted. “And how complicated is ‘no’? Please, go home,” the officer said, stepping inside the inn and shutting the door behind him.
Yukawa put his hands to his hips and sighed. “Well, that’s just great.”
“Why did you want to see inside?”
“Because forensics was in here trying to re-create what happened and I thought I would check and see if I could tell what they were up to. You see, I have a theory that their experiment didn’t go well.”
Narumi stared at the physicist’s face for moment, then blinked. “Didn’t go well? Why not?”
In lieu of an answer, Yukawa pushed his glasses up with one fingertip. “And to think I walked all the way up here for this,” he said, then turned and began walking down the hill.
“Wait, I’ll give you a lift,” Narumi said, running over to the van.
Yukawa got into the passenger seat, and they took off. The resort hotel where he was staying was less than ten minutes away.
They rode in silence. Narumi was still wondering what he meant about forensics, but she had a feeling there was no point in asking him again.
The hotel came into view, but before they reached the front, Yukawa said, “Let me off here.”
“Why? I can drive you up to the door.”
“No,” he said. “Kyohei and his father are staying here too. They might see you.”
“Oh…” Narumi pulled over to the side of the road. “Yeah. Probably a good idea not to get into that now.”
“Also, there were a few things I wanted to ask you,” Yukawa said. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
Narumi looked over at him. Her heart thudded in her chest. “Yes?”
“Do you think Mr. Tsukahara’s death was an accident?”
Narumi tensed. “If it wasn’t an accident, what was it?”
“I’m asking the questions. Here’s another. Did your parents tell you it was an accident?”
“My father did. He explained it to me.”
“And you believed his explanation?”
“Should I not have? Where are you going with this?”
“Just wondering if there was any doubt in your mind, even a little. No, that’s not entirely true. I’m sure there were quite a few things that didn’t fit right. Just like I’m sure you have at least two good reasons why you would have believed your father anyway. The first would be, you trust him. The second is, you want to believe. In fact, both reasons might apply.”
Every word the physicist spoke felt like a physical thing, probing something deep inside her chest. But not too deep, or too painful. These were quick, calculated thrusts.
“Okay, so maybe there were a few strange parts in my father’s story. But maybe he just doesn’t remember what happened, and I don’t think little contradictions necessarily add up to a big problem. You have to remember, he’s turning himself in. He knows he did wrong. Why sweat the details?” Narumi said, a little defensively.
“True. You may be right. So, different subject. How well did you know the very unfortunate Mr. Tsukahara?”
“How well? I barely know anything about him. Except that he used to be a detective in Tokyo.”
“You may recall I have a friend in Tokyo homicide. If I asked him, I could get in touch with Mr. Tsukahara’s widow. If you wanted to write an apology on behalf of your parents, I could make that happen. If you wanted it.”
Narumi felt a shiver run down her spine. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that she owed Tsukahara’s widow an apology. “I think I’d like all the questioning to be finished before I decide what to do,” she said at last.
“Understood. I’ll tell my friend. Thanks for the ride,” Yukawa said, opening the door, but he didn’t get out. Instead, he turned back around and said, “What are you going to do next? Are you going to stay in Hari Cove?”
Narumi hesitated. She couldn’t be sure exactly why he was asking her. “I haven’t thought about it yet. I don’t even know what I’m going to do tomorrow.”
“But the ocean will still need saving, won’t it?”
“Of course.”
“And how long will you be the one saving it?”
She stared back at him. “How long?”
“Are you going to stay here, watching over these waters until the day you die? Are you not going to marry? What if you met someone but he had to go far away? What would you do then?”
“Why are you asking me these things?”
Yukawa stared at Narumi through his glasses. “Because I feel like you’re waiting for someone. I feel like you’re trying to protect Hari Cove until someone specific comes back.”
She could feel the blood drain from her face. She knew she should say something, but the words wouldn’t come. Yukawa pulled a small notepad out of his pocket.
“‘Welcome to My Crystal Sea. The ocean is Hari Cove’s most valuable treasure. For now, I am one of its protectors. Please, come see our beautiful sea. I’m waiting for you’—these words are at the top of your Web site. Am I overthinking it if I said it sounded like you were talking to a specific person?”
Narumi sighed. “Yes, you are completely overthinking it.” Her voice was trembling.
“Well, I guess I was wrong then. Good night—oh, except there was one more thing I wanted to ask.”
“What now?”
“It’s nothing much,” Yukawa said, pulling a digital camera out of his pocket. “I’ll be leaving Hari Cove pretty soon myself. I wanted to take a picture of you to remember you by.”
“A picture of me? No thanks.”
“It’s okay, I won’t post it online or anything,” Yukawa said, clicking the shutter. The flash briefly illuminated the inside of the van. He looked at the display on the back of the camera and nodded. “Good shot.” He turned the camera so Narumi could see. She looked startled in the image. Her eyes were wide open.
“Good night,” Yukawa said, getting out. He walked off toward the hotel without turning to look back. Narumi watched him walk away before she slowly pulled away from the curb.
FIFTY-FOUR
It was already past midnight by the time Kusanagi came home to a depressingly muggy apartment. He tossed his jacket on the bed and turned on the air conditioner. Pulling off his necktie, he grabbed a beer out of the fridge and drank, feeling the cool refreshment spread from his throat down through his body all the way out to his fingertips. Breathing out a long sigh, he collapsed onto his low sofa.
He undid a few buttons on the shirt and reached over to pull his jacket off of the bed. Fishing his phone from his jacket pocket, he pulled up the address book until he found the entry for the Hari Cove Resort Hotel.
Yukawa had called Kusanagi to tell him that the Kawahatas were kicking him out because they were going to turn themselves in, and apparently, they had. Kusanagi didn’t hear about it until the evening, when he got a call from Tatara.
“They’re saying it was an accident. The boiler malfunctioned, and then they tried to hide the body, but there are still a lot of things in their story that aren’t adding up.” The alarm in Tatara’s voice was obvious. “They’re supposed to give me a call when they know something, but I’d like to sha
re what we have if it’ll help. How are things going with you?”
Kusanagi told him about meeting with Senba, and Senba having no idea why Tsukahara might’ve been killed.
“Right,” Tatara said. “Well, might as well let Hari PD know.”
“Yes, sir,” Kusanagi replied, still wondering whether he should tell Tatara about the possibility that the Kawahatas had been involved in the Senba case decades before. He had decided not to. All he could do was pray that it didn’t come back to bite him.
Kusanagi called Hari and talked to Detective Motoyama about finding Senba in the hospital. The detective thanked him, but he didn’t sound entirely grateful. The reason why became immediately clear.
“It looks like we’ve finally nailed this one,” Motoyama told him. “We found the guy who helped the Kawahatas move the body—he’s a friend of the daughter. His story checked out, so we’re calling this one a wrap.”
He’d sounded genuinely relieved, a feeling that Kusanagi couldn’t share. Everything he’d seen up until that point indicated that this wasn’t a case they could write off as a simple accident.
He discussed it with Utsumi, and she agreed.
“Sounds like we have to go back to the very beginning,” she had said.
The two of them headed for Ginza to find the restaurant where, thirty years earlier, Shigehiro and Setsuko had first met. They found it, but not before Kusanagi walked enough that his feet were swollen and painful and his shirt was drenched in sweat, sticking to him in all the wrong ways. This might be the key that unlocked the truth about everything—but it felt like failure.
Kusanagi sighed again and called the number for the Hari Cove Resort Hotel. It was a long time before someone picked up, and another minute after he asked the receptionist to connect him to Yukawa before the physicist finally answered the phone.
“It’s me, Kusanagi. Were you asleep?”
“No, I was waiting for you to call. I figured you’d have something to tell me.”
“How are things on your end? It sounds like they’re getting ready to wrap this case up over there.”
“I’d say your assessment is correct. Unless there’s some dramatic change, I doubt the police will take one step further on this case. That is, they can’t. They’re effectively blind.”
A Midsummer's Equation: A Detective Galileo Mystery Page 26
