Masquerade and the Nameless Women

by Eiji Mikage

  “You said, ‘Yes, I’m going to pin it on her father.’”

  Dr. Higano looked at me with curiosity in his blue eyes.

  “I don’t know if you were serious or joking. But at any rate, when you said that, I started to rethink everything Koichiro had said and done.”

  My mouth was getting parched. Now I could’ve used some coffee, but I’d left the coffee Erika had made for me in the waiting room.

  “Before Koichiro confessed, he went into that rage against Ken. He thought Ken had been irresponsible as a fiancé. He yelled at both of them and asked which one had impregnated his daughter. That felt a little strange to me. If her pregnancy was his motive as he later confessed, then that incredibly real anger would all have had to be an act.”

  Dr. Higano nodded, encouraging me to continue.

  “And there was absolutely no need at all for him to lie like that. On the contrary, he was just tightening his own noose…So I started thinking about that contradiction, and here’s how I explained it.”

  I readied myself to deliver.

  “Koichiro didn’t actually know that Reina was carrying his child.”

  Dr. Higano nodded deeply. “Yes, he first learned it was his child only as he heard my theory.”

  I was relieved my hunch was correct.

  “But I’m lost after that,” I admitted. “I don’t know how you figured out it was him and then cornered him. I have no idea why Koichiro accepted a false theory and then confessed to being the killer.”

  What’s more, he even had the definitive piece of evidence—the BMW key. The circumstances seemed all just a little too convenient for the case Dr. Higano was making.

  “Hmm.” Dr. Higano put a hand to his jaw in thought. “I see. To make this explanation simpler, let me ask you a question: Who do you think is the real killer?”

  “Umm.” I thought hard. There were a few people I suspected. But the name that came to mind was a little off base.

  “I think it’s Masquerade.”

  I immediately regretted saying it.

  And it should be obvious why. Since the crime, there had been absolutely no evidence suggesting Masquerade was the killer. Even I knew that my theory required some intense leaps in logic.

  Nevertheless, even after all that had happened, I still couldn’t shake my initial impression of the criminal profile.

  I knew Dr. Higano would probably sneer at me for continuing to insist that it was Masquerade so obsessively, without any factual basis.

  “So I see,” he said, “you haven’t changed your stance at all.”

  But when I dared to glance up, his face didn’t hold even a trace of disappointment.

  Instead he looked at me intently, with great interest in his eyes.

  Then his gaze moved to my right hand and lifted the edge of his mouth for the slightest instant.

  “There was a trick to getting Koichiro to make that false confession.”

  “A trick?” I asked.

  “Yes. The trick was to indirectly communicate the identity and motive of the real killer to Koichiro. Once he knew that, he had no choice but to identify himself as the killer.”

  I was stunned. I never would have guessed. “So if you know who the real killer is, his reasoning makes more sense?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Dr. Higano, please, tell me the truth!” I raised my voice.

  In response, Dr. Higano drew his lips together and became silent. After a moment, he slowly stood from his Aeron chair and took something from his black shelves.

  It was the remains of the glass cube puzzle he had destroyed.

  “I’ve been involved in many different cases as a detective. And thanks to that experience, there’s a conclusion I’ve come to. It’s one that you’ve heard me say a number of times now.” Dr. Higano seemed to be enjoying the feeling of the broken cubes as he played with them in his hands. “The truth has very little value.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “The truth is sometimes cruel. When it’s cruel, it’s best to cover it up with white lies. It’s best to manufacture something beautiful. That’s what I believe.”

  “I disagree,” I said, in clear opposition to him.

  I respected Dr. Higano, but I just could not accept this.

  But Dr. Higano didn’t budge. “Reina risked her life in pursuit of the truth,” he said. “Do you still feel that way even after all her great work came to nothing?”

  “What?”

  He lowered his eyes to the glass blocks.

  “Once you destroy the fiction, it’s like this broken puzzle. You can never put it back together again. It’s all for nothing. It’s just a shell without a fragment of beauty. Yet you still want to expose the truth? Are you really prepared for that?”

  I opened my eyes wide.

  Because Dr. Higano wouldn’t have made up a killer without any reason. He must’ve had a reason why he thought he had to. And that reason was something important enough to choose to falsely charge Koichiro.

  Once I heard the truth, I could never go back. Once I knew the real killer, I wouldn’t be able to feign ignorance. This was my only chance to retreat.

  “Tell me,” I said, without any hesitation.

  Dr. Higano closed his eyes and nodded deeply.

  Then he opened them and told the truth:

  * * *

  —

  “The real killer is Reina Myoko herself. Her death was a suicide.”

  * * *

  —

  My breath caught.

  I felt dizzy.

  I hadn’t even considered that. Well, not really. I’d always suspected that Reina was somehow involved with the case. I had considered the possibility of her suicide, although only vaguely.

  However, having someone say it out loud like this surprised me. It made me want to scratch my head in disbelief.

  “I…don’t understand. Why did she have to commit suicide?”

  “Revenge…I think.”

  “Revenge…Revenge for Koichiro?”

  “The other way around. Taking revenge against Koichiro.”

  I put my hands on my head, unable to process everything. “I thought Reina was still trying to avenge Koichiro. And now suddenly she hates him so much that she reverses her plan?”

  “I think the abortion was the turning point. Reina had a warped love for Koichiro. But when she got pregnant and realized she had to have an abortion, she had to snap out of her denial. The sad reality that she couldn’t have the child of the person she loved—that it had to be killed. Why was that the ultimate result of this love? She must’ve thought deeply about that. And that’s when she realized.” Dr. Higano shook his head regretfully. “What her father expressed toward her wasn’t love but desire.”

  Hearing this, I remembered how Koichiro described Reina during the first questioning: Snow White.

  Yes. Though that Koichiro was Reina’s father, he hadn’t ever seen who she was.

  “It’s not surprising. Warped love is warped, after all, and can easily transform into hatred.”

  He was completely right. Of course, I hadn’t gone through any of this myself, but I could easily imagine that getting pregnant and having an abortion would change your values as a woman.

  However…Was what he was saying really true?

  The image of Reina in the ever-amber classroom twilight flashed into the back of my mind.

  “That’s why I wanted to rip it up.”

  The girl who ripped up a book because the story was beautiful.

  That’s what she meant.

  Ahh…I finally understood.

  “She…realized it…” She had been jealous of that beautiful story. “Yes…Reina knew for a long time,” I said. “She knew the relationship she had with her father was wrong! I
think the abortion was obviously a shock. It makes sense that she hated her father for that.”

  In my mind’s eye, the shredded pages of the book fluttered like flower petals in the twilight.

  “But Reina was sharp. She had to know there wouldn’t be a happy ending. There’s no way she wouldn’t have been prepared for it…So why did she choose such an extreme solution?”

  “So Reina showed this kind of attitude since high school?”

  “Yes.”

  Dr. Higano said, “Hmm,” and crossed his arms, as though surprised by that. He leaned back into his chair for a moment.

  “That woman who claimed she was Otoha Tamachi in the lobby of the business hotel,” he said, putting a hand to his jaw. “She said that since she was a schoolgirl, Reina had dated lots of guys. I deduced she was trying to influence me into thinking it was only natural for Reina to date many men for her—that is, Otoha’s—own convenience. But now that you’re suggesting that Reina realized the relationship with her father was wrong, I think we can safely say that what Otoha told us was clearly the truth. Maybe she was dating so many people to experiment?”

  “Experiment?”

  “Yes, she was experimenting and exploring, to see if she could love someone other than her father. And if she found someone, she planned to end her relationship with her father…However, from what we’ve seen, her experiment seems to have ended in failure.”

  “In the end, Reina could only love her father?”

  “Yes. Shota and Ken were among the failures. However, her feelings of guilt must’ve continued to grow even though she couldn’t love anyone other than him. We can assume that dark thoughts built inside her as the unhealthy relationship with her father continued. The feelings that stagnated inside her became a spark for revenge, and it was only a matter of time until there was an explosion. Then that explosion finally came.”

  “That was the pregnancy and abortion…”

  Dr. Higano nodded silently.

  Just as a newly hatched chick becomes attached to the first thing it sees, Reina loved her father. There was no escaping from what had been imprinted upon you.

  “It’s awful. That terrible man considered children as property. He manipulated Reina and destroyed her life.”

  “Hmm. Let me clear up one misunderstanding—those weren’t Koichiro’s true feelings. He was only saying those awful things to pretend to be a deranged killer.”

  “What?”

  But after I thought about it, it was the obvious course of action. Once he gave the false motive, he was pretending to be the killer.

  Still, I bit my lip and shook my head. “I don’t get it…Why would he do that?!”

  “You don’t? You’re always so clever…You should understand by now.”

  Ah.

  I did understand.

  I wanted Koichiro to be an unforgivable animal.

  Otherwise there’d be no outlet for my emotions in such a brutal case.

  I wanted to run down a wicked enemy to bring him to justice. I wanted—no, we all wanted a neat story like that.

  But that story had fallen apart.

  And it had fallen apart because I alone had sought the truth. Like the broken pieces of the puzzle on the table.

  “Yuri, you must’ve realized the truth about this case by now, haven’t you?”

  It took me a moment, but I said, “Yes.” I clenched my teeth. “Reina took her revenge by committing suicide and making Koichiro look guilty.”

  Dr. Higano nodded.

  “Yes. And when Koichiro learned the truth, he fulfilled his daughter’s request. He confessed and sacrificed his own life so that his daughter’s plan for revenge would go exactly as she had hoped.”

  Koichiro realized the intention behind Reina’s suicide after Dr. Higano’s suggestive phrases:

  * * *

  —

  “Which is exactly why Reina went to such lengths to take her revenge.”

  * * *

  —

  “That love was forbidden.”

  * * *

  —

  And when Ken called him “an animal.”

  * * *

  —

  Dr. Higano had probably given him a clue when he spoke with him alone at the business hotel, too. Koichiro transformed, behaved as poorly as he could, and began to show off his faults to help complete Reina’s plan.

  All for his daughter.

  So that his daughter’s desires weren’t for naught.

  Generally speaking, then, Koichiro was an awful person. It was clear that he deceived his daughter and raped her. But he wasn’t all evil. Part of him sympathized with his daughter. It wasn’t all lust; there was love, somewhere.

  Dr. Higano was right. The meticulous plan Reina had so painstakingly built had crumbled apart. It crashed down, a disappointing failure.

  “Yuri.” Dr. Higano picked up a few of the glass blocks and clattered them in front of me. “This is what the pursuit of truth is.”

  I finally realized what he meant.

  “But there’s still time,” he said. “Avert your eyes from the truth, cover your ears, and you can still carry out Reina’s plan. Her true wish can still be fulfilled.”

  That would’ve been best. Leave things as they were and send Koichiro Myoko to jail, a supervillain, all according to Reina’s plan. That would be a fitting end for her story.

  After all, if the world knew the truth, no one would be any better off. If the truth came out, Reina would have killed herself for no reason. Even if Koichiro escaped false charges, he would still be ostracized. Ken’s anger would have no outlet and he’d be left alone with hideous thoughts. On top of that, within the force, Yamaji and I would both be criticized, and I’d likely encounter more obstacles preventing me from capturing Masquerade.

  Not a single good thing would happen if the truth came to light.

  But I…

  “Dr. Higano, you always say ‘The truth has very little value,’” I said. “But I’m not convinced. I used to believe the truth alone would save us. But…I was wrong. The truth is just the truth; it is not kind, nor is it right. That’s what this case made me realize. I’m sure you’ve suffered through the same thing a number of times…But…” I clenched my hands into fists. “But if we don’t seek out the truth…”

  From the beginning I only ever had one goal.

  “…We’ll never take down Masquerade.”

  The murderer who had killed my sister was a seemingly impossible criminal in today’s world. Despite the mountains of evidence he left behind, we could find no traces of him. He’d transcended reality, transcended substance, had turned into an illusory urban legend. And somehow he had managed to charm everyone by combining the malevolence of murder with his beautiful aesthetic.

  Masquerade was a fiction inside a fiction.

  The only way to drag him out from within that fabrication was to follow the truth to its very end. Masquerade was undefeated in a world woven with lies—a stage built for him to dance about freely and madly.

  Only with the truth could we hunt him down.

  I knew this instinctively.

  So despite the fact that Reina had gambled her life with her plan, I resolved to seek the truth no matter what truth of my own awaited me. Without that attitude, I, too, might be swallowed up by Masquerade’s lies.

  I alone refused to dance in his world.

  Also, I was certain of one thing when it came to Reina’s plan for revenge.

  Her decision to use suicide as a means for revenge was absolutely a mistake.

  So I chose to let Reina’s decision to gamble her life for revenge go to waste.

  It would amount to nothing.

  With my own arrogant sense of justice, I destroyed and denied what she had carefully built.

  I knew Dr. Higano was
probably disappointed in my decision, in my naïve sense of justice. Now he’d really hold me completely in contempt.

  But his expression told a different story.

  “I’m impressed,” he said.

  He was speaking honestly, not sarcastically. His blue eyes were wide open and glistening with excitement.

  “You’ll only ever catch Masquerade if you continue your hunt for the truth. Ahh, you are absolutely right.”

  Dr. Higano stood and, incredibly, kneeled before me. He took my right hand as though I was a queen.

  “Your hand is beautiful,” he said reverently. “And the faithfulness of your heart even more so.”

  His sweet words and the way he gently held my hand made me blush.

  “Which is why I’m sure.” Dr. Higano stroked the back of my hand with his fingers. “Masquerade will come for you at some point to take your right hand.”

  A chill ran down my spine.

  I couldn’t escape the feeling that what he said was completely true.

  “And when that happens, I don’t know what the outcome will be. I don’t know whether you will end up a victim—or whether you’ll be able to expose the truth and catch the serial killer. However, I choose to believe that you are the special person who will take down Masquerade.”

  He released my right hand and whispered, in his deep voice, “You are already his archrival.“

  Why?

  For him to encourage me so honestly was the highest of compliments—

  —yet my body was trembling with a fear that had risen from somewhere inside me.

  Dr. Higano left the room and before long, returned with coffee for two.

  I watched Dr. Higano sit in his Aeron chair before I sipped my coffee.

  His pale, well-balanced face now showed no trace of the excitement he’d displayed only a moment ago. I couldn’t detect any emotion behind his usual perfect, mannequin-like smile.

  I took a gulp of coffee.

  I was surprised. The coffee Erika had made was excellent, but Dr. Higano’s was a level above even that. I’d heard the word “fruity” used to describe coffee before, but now I realized for the first time what it signified. The coffee had a fruity drinkability and pleasant acidity.