Malice (7 page)

 

2

SUSPICION

KYOICHIRO KAGA'S NOTES

 

One of the things I took particular note of was the use of a paperweight as the murder weapon. I need hardly mention that the paperweight belonged to the late author and thus was in the office prior to the killing. This suggests that the killer didn't come to the house with the intent of killing Kunihiko Hidaka.

Had the murder been planned from the beginning, the murderer would have come prepared with a weapon. It's possible that such preparations had been made, but then unforeseen circumstances necessitated a change in plans, making a blow to the back of the head with the paperweight the next-best option. However, that seems rather poorly premeditated. It makes most sense that the murder was an impulsive act, done in the heat of the moment, with whatever implement was at hand.

This makes me wonder about the locked doors. According to the statements of the two who discovered the body, both the front door to the house and Kunihiko Hidaka's home office door were locked.

Rie Hidaka had this to say:

“When I left the house just after five o'clock, I locked the front door. I was worried that, since he was in his office, my husband might not hear it if somebody walked in. Of course, I never imagined anyone actually would.”

According to forensics, only the Hidakas' fingerprints were found on the front doorknob. There were no signs of gloves having been used, or fingerprints being wiped off. I think it's safe to assume that the door was locked by Rie Hidaka when she left and it remained so until she opened it upon her return.

However, there's a high probability that the murderer locked the door to Mr. Hidaka's home office from the inside. Unlike the front door, the office-door handle showed clear signs of having been wiped clean.

This leads me to believe that the murderer did, in fact, come in through the office window. However, this would seem to create a contradiction. If the murder wasn't premeditated, why come in through the window? It's highly unlikely that the intruder intended to steal anything. Even a thief seeing the house for the first time would soon realize there was nothing left worth stealing.

However, one line of conjecture resolves this contradiction. What if we assume that the killer visited the Hidaka household twice in the same day? The first time, the killer came in the front door as a guest. Then, after leaving the house (or, rather, pretending to leave), the killer returned, this time entering through the window with a single purpose in mind. That purpose, I need hardly say, was to kill Kunihiko Hidaka. It makes the most sense to assume that this impulse to murder stemmed from something that happened during the killer's first visit.

Now we must consider who visited the Hidaka household on the day of the murder. At present, we know of two people: Miyako Fujio and Osamu Nonoguchi.

At the beginning of our investigation, we focused on these two as the prime suspects. We were somewhat astonished to find that both of them had alibis.

Miyako Fujio had returned to her home by six o'clock the evening of the day in question. We have two witnesses corroborating this: her fiancé, Tadao Nakazuka, and a man who was going to assist with their wedding, Kikuo Ueda. They were meeting to discuss the couple's nuptials, to be held next month. Ueda is Nakazuka's boss at work, with no direct personal connection to Miyako Fujio. It is difficult to imagine that he would falsify his account to cover for his subordinate's fiancée. Furthermore, according to Rie Hidaka, Miyako Fujio left the Hidaka household a little after five o'clock, which, considering the transportation routes and distance between the Hidaka and Fujio houses means an arrival time of six o'clock makes perfect sense. We have to conclude that her alibi is sound.

Now, for Osamu Nonoguchi.

I can't deny that I have some personal feelings concerning this individual. He was a colleague at my former position, and as such he knew me during those less-than-happy days.

Were our personal connection to cast a shadow on my investigation in any way, I'd be obliged to remove myself from the case. However, I'm determined to view our shared history as objectively as possible while continuing to pursue this case. Note that I don't intend to forget said history. For I believe that history could prove an important weapon going forward.

The following is Mr. Nonoguchi's alibi for the day in question:

Having been visiting at the Hidakas', he left around four thirty in the afternoon shortly after Miyako Fujio arrived. He went straight home and worked until around six o'clock. At that time, his editor from Dojisha Publishing, a Mr. Yukio Oshima, arrived and they began their meeting. Soon after, a call came from Kunihiko Hidaka, saying he wanted to talk about something, and asking Mr. Nonoguchi to come to his house at eight o'clock.

Nonoguchi and Oshima went to a nearby restaurant and ate, after which Nonoguchi left for the Hidaka household. He arrived just around eight o'clock to find the house apparently empty. Growing suspicious, he phoned Rie Hidaka. He then waited in the Lamp, a nearby café. He returned to the Hidaka household at around eight forty, just as Rie Hidaka was arriving. Together they went inside and discovered the body in Hidaka's home office, accessible via a hallway from the living room.

Taking all of this at face value, Osamu Nonoguchi's alibi seems nearly perfect. Mr. Oshima from Dojisha Publishing and the owner of the Lamp both corroborate his story.

However, it's not entirely ironclad. Even assuming his account is mostly accurate, he would have had an opportunity to kill Kunihiko Hidaka before phoning Rie. To do this, he would have had to go straight from dinner with Mr. Oshima to the Hidaka household, immediately kill Mr. Hidaka, then, after covering his tracks, blithely phone the victim's wife as though nothing had happened.

However, according to the autopsy, this scenario doesn't work. For lunch that day, while out shopping with his wife, Kunihiko Hidaka had eaten a hamburger, and from the state of digestion, we can say that the time of death was between five and six in the afternoon, and certainly no later than seven.

Osamu Nonoguchi's alibi holds.

However, I still suspect he is the murderer. My reason for this is something he said on the night of the murder. Something that, from the moment I heard it, made me consider the possibility that he was the killer. Though I understand it is extremely inefficient to operate on a gut feeling, I decided to give intuition the reins, if only this once.

That Osamu Nonoguchi was keeping a record of the case came as a great surprise to me. Were he the killer, it would be against his best interest to make known any details about the case. However, when I read his account, I realized he had exactly the opposite goal in mind.

The account is written in an orderly fashion, and this very orderliness gives it persuasive power. As you read it, you forget that the events it portrays might not necessarily be the truth. Therein lies Nonoguchi's aim: to create a fictional account of the events in order to divert suspicion from himself.

He must have realized it was only a matter of time before he became a suspect. He was looking for a way out when who should appear before him but someone he knew—a man who used to be a teacher at the same school. He decided to use this man by writing a false account and giving it to him to read. Nonoguchi probably reasoned that since the man hadn't been much of a teacher, he probably wasn't much of a detective either and would easily be taken in by his trick.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into this. Perhaps I am trying so hard to keep my personal feelings out of the investigation that I am blinding myself to the truth. Still, in his written account, I discovered several traps carefully laid for the unwary reader. Then, ironically, I found vital evidence in that very account proving that he, and only he, could be the killer.

I carefully went back over my own line of conjecture and, when I was satisfied, made my report. My superior in Homicide is meticulous and cautious, but he agreed with my line of reasoning. In fact, from the very first time they'd met, he, too, had suspected Osamu Nonoguchi. Though Nonoguchi's account doesn't mention this, the night of the murder he seemed excited and unusually talkative. Both my superior and I recognized this as one of the classic indications of guilt.

“The problem,” my superior said, “is evidence.”

I couldn't agree more. Though I was confident that my scenario was correct, it was based entirely on circumstantial evidence.

There was another problem: motive. Though I gathered no small amount of information on both Kunihiko Hidaka and Osamu Nonoguchi, I couldn't find any reason, none whatsoever, for Nonoguchi to bear him any malice. To the contrary, if anything, Nonoguchi should have been grateful, considering how Hidaka had helped him advance his career as a writer.

I reflected back on the Osamu Nonoguchi I knew from our time together as teachers. As a composition teacher in middle school, he'd struck me as a man who kept a cool head and performed his assigned task without much error or deviation. Even when something unexpected happened, such as trouble with a student, he never got ruffled. Instead, he would refer back to the records of any similar events and use them as a guide to the course of action least likely to cause difficulties. He was good at this. To put it less generously, he avoided making decisions on his own and played everything by the book. A former colleague had this to say:

“Mr. Nonoguchi never really wanted to be a teacher, you know. He plays it cool like that because he doesn't want to waste time actually worrying about his students or take on any responsibility beyond his basic duties. That's why he doesn't get involved.”

Her theory was that Nonoguchi wanted to quit as soon as possible and become a full-time writer. He never went to faculty parties and the like because he was at home writing.

Osamu Nonoguchi did indeed quit teaching and become an author; yet it remains unclear what he really thought of being a teacher.

My only insight comes from something he told me once:

“The relationship between teacher and student is based on illusion. The teacher is under the illusion that he is teaching something, and the student is under the illusion that he is being taught. What's important is that this shared illusion makes both teacher and student happy. Nothing good is gained by facing the truth, after all. All we're doing is playing at education.”

One wonders what could have happened to make him think such a thing.

 

3

RESOLUTION

OSAMU NONOGUCHI'S ACCOUNT

 

Detective Kaga has given me special permission to complete the following account before I leave the room I currently occupy. Why I asked to be allowed to do so is, I'm sure, incomprehensible to him. I doubt he'd understand even if I told him that it was a writer's basic instinct to want to finish a piece he'd started, even if it was begun under false pretenses.

Yet I believe that my experiences over the past hour or so are worthy of recording. This, too, I credit to writer's instinct—though what I write is the story of my ruination.

*   *   *

Detective Kaga arrived today, April 21, at precisely ten in the morning. The instant the bell rang, I had a feeling that it was him, a premonition soon confirmed when I looked through the peephole. Still, I made an effort to conceal my agitation as I welcomed him in.

“Sorry to drop in so suddenly,” he said in his customary calm tone. “There was something I wanted to discuss.”

“What is that?” I asked, inviting him in.

I showed him to the sofa and offered him tea. He said not to bother, but I made it anyway.

“So what's this about?” I said, placing the teacup in front of him. I noticed that my hand was trembling. I glanced up to see Detective Kaga looking at my hand.

He didn't touch his tea. “Actually,” he said, staring straight at me, “I've come to say something extremely difficult.”

“Yes?” I was desperately trying to remain calm, when in fact my heart was racing so fast, I thought I might pass out at any moment.

“I'm going to have to ask you to let me search your apartment.”

I tried a look of astonishment, then let it fade into what I hoped was a natural-looking smile. I'm not sure whether the performance worked. To Kaga, I'm afraid it probably just looked like a grimace.

“What's this about? You're not going to find anything here.”

“I wish that were true, but I'm afraid I will.”

“Wait a second. Let me get this straight: You think I killed Hidaka? And you think you're going to find evidence of that here?”

Detective Kaga gave a short nod. “Essentially, yes.”

“Well, this is a surprise,” I lied. I shook my head and attempted a little sigh. This performance was already straining the limits of my abilities. “I'm not sure what to say, this is so unexpected. That is, unless you're joking? But … you're not, are you.”

“No, I'm afraid I'm quite serious. As much as it pains me to have to say that to a former colleague, I have a duty to uncover the truth, wherever it may lie.”

“I understand your job, and I know that any reasonable suspicion, even if it involves a good friend or close relative, has to be investigated. But, to be honest, I'm surprised and more than a little bewildered. It's all so sudden.”

“I've brought a warrant.”

“A search warrant? I'm sure you have. But before you start waving it around, maybe you can tell me why it's come to this? I mean—”

“Why I suspect you?”

“Yes, I guess that's it. Or do you normally just start rooting through someone's stuff without so much as a word of explanation?”

“Sometimes, if necessary.” He looked down at the table, then finally reached for his cup and took a sip of tea. Then he looked back at me. “But I'd be happy to explain it to you.”